…when you actually acknowledged (personally) that you were homosexual? I don’t mean when you ‘came out’ to family/friends etc, but when you accepted you were gay to yourself.
Oh, in case this post seems discriminatory by its exclusion of lesbians, I am asking for personal reasons that only include male homosexuals. 
I sorta knew when I was a about five years old…no joke. I spent many following years denying it, but when I was about 10, I shoplifted a little paperback book - why? It was a glossary of psychological terms and there were about three paragraphs about “Homosexuality” that seemed to describe me perfectly. I didn’t have any money and was desperate to learn what was “wrong” with me, so I snuck the book out and read that little definition about 300 times over the next few months. Mind you, this was about 1960 when I took the book. There wasn’t exactly a whole lot of info for a little kid to find back then.
Continued to officially deny it, but inside - well, I just never fit in when the other guys would get all excited when we would sneak looks at their fathers’ Playboys or Penthouse magazines. Then one day one of the guys found a real hard core porn with nude men and woman actually having sex. Well, when I finally got a look of a man with an erection, let me tell ya - I was finally able to get just as excited as the guys, although they had no idea where my eyes were wandering. So, like many boys like myself, I psychologically climbed into a rather well stocked closet and remained in there until much later in life. Had no other choice at the time and would wish that hell on no one.
I like to think things are easier now…but I still pity the little kids like myself who sort of know, but also sort of know that it is supposedly wrong and a bad thing.
I had my first crush in kindergarten. I didn’t have a name for knowing that I liked guys till my early teens though. I was homeschooled and raised in a very conservative family and church so the term just hadn’t come up.
Dude, that totally sucks. Kudos on surviving, psychologically. The situation you just described there is a recipe for “serial killer” if I ever heard one.
Well it was about Kindergarten myself that I knew something was definately up. Although I didn’t start to really understand it till about 12. It was around then that I got my first glimpses of pornography and realized I was getting aroused by the guys, not the girls. By thirteen I was definately sure of it, but it wasn’t until about 14 that I was definately OK with it. I never felt that I had any hangups about the acceptability or morality of it. It was more of coming to understanding that I had matured into a sexual creature and what that meant.
I can relate a bit to DMark’s story. I can remember when I was 13 going to the media center and the local university near my parents house to read the Hite Report on Male Sexuality, which was both arousing and informative! 
I was fortunate enough to have been born into a fairly worldly and open-minded family. I’m sure it was that environment and having access to information about being gay that certainly helped me to come to terms with so rapid and easily. Though I shudder to think what a 60’s era psych dictionary would have to say about the matter!
Incidentally, I never really came out. We moved shortly after I turned 14 so as I made new friends this was just something that I introduced about myself. I never did come out to may parents (though they clearly knew well before I did). It only came out when I was 15 during in argument when they, out of the blue, assured me that they weren’t giving me grief because I was gay, but because I was acting like demon spawn!
Like others, I’d say guys occupied my thoughts pretty exclusively by kindergarten & 1st grade. Kirk & Spock… hmmmm.
Can’t remember when my day dreams & fantasies started turning sexual. It was gradual, but men were right there the whole way.
I think by 2nd & 3rd grade, I was somewhat sexually fantasizing, and crushing on some of the other boys. Especially the ones who were one grade older. This caused a great deal of stress, as I already knew I wasn’t supposed to be thinking that way.
Didn’t take me long to learn that there were people known as homosexuals, and a little later, gays.
But I refused to acknowledge that could be what I was. I think it was around 7th grade I was thinking to myself, you know, having one of those inner dialogues, and the thought occurred to me, “you know if things don’t change, sooner or later you may have to acknowledge, and actually say, 'I’m homosexual.” Just as quickly as I had that thought, I clamped down on it and said “nope, there’s still time. It’s a phase. I’ll grow out of it.”
Things are a bit fuzzy after that. Gradually I became certain I was never going to change, but kept refusing to say the words “I’m gay.” Went through college. Joined the military. Probably wasn’t until I was in my late twenties when I was so sick of being lonely & depressed all the time I finally said to myself, “you know you’re going to end up some pathetic old lonely queen if you don’t just get on with things.” So I finally said to myself “I’m gay. Gay, gay, gay. Gay!”
Then I became a total slut for a few years.
Dude yourself, I think your reaction to this situation is a bit over the top. I would venture to say (without any supporting documentation) that thousands of gay boys and men have survived this sort of situation before now without becoming serial killers. Having said that, I echo your sentiment congratulating **Antinor01 ** for coming out of it apparently ok.
Anyway, to answer the OP, I was 7 years old. I remember the day distinctly (and have related it elsewhere on this board). However, I was in deep denial. I remember seeing the word “homosexual” in the dictionary when I was 10 or 11 and having strong feelings of shame about that. I had a “girlfriend” my senior year in high school (poor girl, she probably knew the truth before I ever admitted it to myself - I never so much as kissed her). So I knew all this time, but I don’t think I admitted it at the conscious level until I was in my 20’s.
For a frame of reference, I was born in 1949.
Roddy
Yeah, I was being hyperbolic. I hope neither he nor you took it to be demeaning. My point was that I empathize with growing up and having to deny to your family (and sometimes even yourself) something that’s such an integral aspect of who you are - your sexuality. Sure, thousands of people have had to go through it; having grown up in a conservative Christian culture, I know some. It still sucks.
I was in my early 30s. Here’s the story.
No offence taken, I do thank you for your kind words.
Though having that family background is rough, oddly it never made me question whether something was wrong with me or make me try to deny being gay. Mostly it just saddens me that I can’t have a close relationship with my family or share my life with them. A recent example, as I mentioned in another thread I was not welcome to be a part of my brothers wedding since I’m not a ‘man of God’, though he was gracious enough to invite me to attend.
It’s just in the last few years that my mother quit reminding me at every opportunity that I’m going straight to hell. (and yes, she did used to outright say it.) So, I’m holding out hope that things are getting better and that I might actually have a good relationship with my family.
This is the worst part. All I can offer up is that they (family) usually do come around. From your mom’s side, there are a lot of possible factors at work here. For one, if she’s anything like the conservative Xtian parent’s I’ve known (and had), she may blame herself somehow for your “problem,” or think she’s somehow failed you. That’s a lot harder to come to terms with than just being angry with you for some mistake you made.
As a straight, hope you don’t mind my jumping in here. I find it really sad that so many had to hide, feel shame, and struggle with what obviously is an inherent trait. Especially abhorrent is the inability of parents to accept this and still be loving.
It substantiates everything I have read for some time that it sure as hell is not “taught” or forced upon people as so many would have it. In mid-life I tried to be a Christian, but the prejudice against so many other people, including gays, left me perplexed and disgusted, and I gave up. So many of these self righteous hypocrites that profess to follow the teachings of Jesus obviously don’t get it.
Many years ago in the army I used to run across guys who bragged about beating up gay guys, which left me wondering what the hell was wrong with them. I still wonder.
Several remarks have been made here that things have gotten better, and I hope that’s the case, but as it is with racial, economic and social prejudice, there sure is a long way to go.
Well, think I’ll go see if there is a funny thread somewhere here.
I’ve been thumbing through the mental archive for a couple of years now, and the weird thing is for a long time, I knew, but I didn’t know I knew.
I remember when I was 12 or 13 asking a classmate if he was gay; he said no, and asked me if I was, and I said maybe. At another point another classmate tried to tease me by asking if I were gay, and I retorted, "How do I know until I try both kinds and figure out which I like better?’ I remember also asking various people how they felt about gay rights as a way to “sound them out” between the ages of 14 or 15.
But it’s weird, it would seem logical to presume I had some idea back then, but I honestly didn’t. I was kind of acting on autopilot. Like I said, I knew, but I didn’t know I knew. A lot of queer people report something similar.
Anyway, I started looking at porn (and writing absolutely dreadful erotica) around age 14 or so. My brother found me looking at porn once. I even clumsily came on to one or two other boys. Even that wasn’t enough to get me to tell myself that I was gay. I wasn’t in denial or repressing it or anything, I think I was just too out of it (or too bewildered) to actually connect the two concepts together.
Finally, I came out to myself soon after turning 15, during Christmas break of my last year of high school. After all that, it was a dream I had that revealed it to me: I rescued a classmate from a bully, and he hugged me. I wrote in my journal that “I didn’t mind,” but that was just code for I really liked it, and I had realized I was gay. Two weeks later, I came out to my English teacher just after getting back to school.
I’m bi, so this might not be what you’re looking for, but I was 28 before I came out to myself, and very shortly thereafter, everyone else. It was something I was aware of for a long time before that, but I always ignored it, minimized it, or excused it: “It’s only because I’ve never been with a girl and am desperate,” “Lots of straight guys have homosexual impulses,” “Okay, maybe I’m a little into guys, but not enough for me to ever act on it or tell anyone about it.” It was November two years ago that I realized I was full of shit, and was as interested in being with men as I was with being with women. I came out to my mom about a week later, on Thanksgiving day, and the rest of my friends and family over the next couple of months. Usually, I had to do it twice. People kept thinking I was joking the first time. But, every single person I came out to, friend or family, was completely cool about it, so that worked out well.
Let’s just say it wasn’t exactly celebratory. But at least I had finally found something in print that explained the concept and realized I was not the only one. However, I do believe there were words like “abnormal”, “a mental illness” and other nice little nuggets of encouragement in the body of the text. It was 1960. Stonewall was a few years away. At our local bus station, they still had separate water fountains for Negros.
I don’t mean to lower the tone, but…
[snigger]
Sorry, no disrespect intended, but I couldn’t resist. Carry on :).