There was once almost an incident after an international flight and jet lag, too much weed and wine and an eager female neighbor - but things “peter-ed out” rather quickly.
Never have, never will change sides.
Thus I have never understood straight woman who hope to “convert” a Gay guy, or Gay guys who think that straight buddy will eventually jump to the other side.
Not that it never happens, but the odds are against it.
I do, however, often think a woman is attractive - and I don’t just mean celebrity/model types. For instance, currently there is a lesbian at work who actually has a style and knack for dressing down that has impressed the entire office - and trust me, it isn’t often I can sing the praises of Lesbian fashion and style. (Just my humble opinion and not meant as a slur against Lesbians).
I’ve often wondered how gay men who marry women and have kids do it. All couples have the post-honeymoon sexual slowdown, but when there’s no real burning interest there to begin with, how do gay men continue to get-it-on with their wives? I wonder if most such marriages become chaste after a few years.
There are at two professors at the college where I work who are 60ish and make Liberace look like Colin Quinn. Both are married, have been for many years and have multiple children each. Both marriages seem on the exterior to be happy. I’ve always wanted to ask about the mechanics of this when both men are so ooooooobbbbviiiiously gay (I might be profiling just a tad, but let’s face- while not all [or even most] gay men are extremely effeminate, most men I’ve known who are extremely effeminate and have no seeming interest in the opposite sex are usually gay).
The first gay man I spent much time around was also the first Pagan I spent much time around: although I don’t think he really wanted the job, he ended up being something of a spiritual mentor for me when I was in my late teens. We spent hours talking about religion, metaphysics, ceremonial magic, and life in general; he was a great guy. And very, very gay, which mostly only entered our conversation because his boyfriend was dying of AIDS when I met him, and most of his religious work was learning to deal with his death.
Anyway, we knew each other for several years off and on. One of the last times I saw him was when I was picking him up from the airport. I asked him what was going on in his life, and he told me, with a stunned, deer-in-headlights look on his face, that he’d fallen madly in love with a woman. He’d previously hated bisexuals, he told me wryly, thinking they were cowardly fence-straddlers trying to get the best of both worlds, and it utterly gobsmacked him to fall in love with a woman.
They moved in together; last I heard (which was a long time ago), they were getting along beautifully.
I don’t know what the lesson of the story is. I do know that it’s had something of anti-lesson for me: it makes it harder for me to understand the ways that people classify themselves.
My own personal hair-brained theory is that the human immune system (or something like it) is our sixth sense, and there are just certain people you will react to on a what? Biochemically compatible level? It can’t be helped. Sometimes it happens with people you wouldn’t think to be normally attracted to, so you end up really good friends and you can’t even say why, you just are.
I always try to tell straight guys (who are willing to listen) that if they suddenly find themselves a little bit in love with another guy it doesn’t mean they’ve turned gay, or that they have to find guys in general attractive, or they have to pick a new side of the fence to sit on, or they necessarily even have to have sex with the person they’re in love with. The same thing can apply to gay men.
My favorite family member, my grandfather’s first cousin, was as gay as the sparkly outfits his tap-dance students wore to recitals. And yet, very late in life, he found a woman with whom he seriously, deeply connected, and he spent a couple of years living and sleeping with her. He explained this to my wife and me over dinner one night, with a strangely compelling mixture of happiness and confusion all over his face. So yeah, I’d say it’s completely normal, and not worth stressing about.
I will join everyone else in applauding Polycarp’s post. And I’ll say: “don’t sweat it.”
From the other side, when my queer male or het female friends have said to me, “I swear, I’m not into women, but… can I kiss you? Once?” I’ve been intensely flattered. I usually say yes, 'cause I’m a physical contact junkie, but it doesn’t go farther.
Sounds to me like you’re turning on to the entire woman, but the friendship is coming first, which is always the best way to go.
I was married for almost 7 years before coming out and getting divorced. Incidentally she also came out and is now in a relationship with a woman. However, during our marriage we had a lot of sex up until the end. When I was in my 20s, sexually aroused was pretty much my natural state, so it didn’t really matter whether I was with a man or woman. It took some work to get her in the mood, though. I can’t speak to what happens after libido slows down because we got divorced before that.
What you are asking about is normal. There is no clear dividing line or “official” obrder. I’m gay, but I can remember watching the old Wonder Woman show and thinking “damn she’s hot” just like the rest of the viewers. There’s been some real eye catchers since then too. If your lady friend is good looking and smart, that would defintely attract you. Just because you are gay, doesn’t mean you are required to not have feelings of a “non-gay” type. We won’t take away any princess points for it.
Hijacking my own thread, but Linda Carter must be the female equivalent of SNLs Mango in her ability to divert usual sexuality. Whenever I ask a gay friend what woman they found sexiest or the “if you just had to do it with a woman” question, Linda Carter/Wonder Woman is the name that comes up. (Being a little bit older, my main hetero crush was Elizabeth Montgomery/Samantha).
Same here. I’m undoubtedly heterosexual and have had those “Wow, he’s a good-lookin dude” feelings about men.
I would agree with everyone else (including, it seems, yourself) that it’s probably not worth it to get involved considering the situation. I would also agree with matt_mcl that maybe you should move to a more gay-dating-friendly city if you’re in need of a relationship. I don’t know much about what cities are good for homosexual dating, but my LGBT friends in San Diego never had any problem meeting other LGBTs.
Yeah, you’re pretty normal. I did the same thing, back in '97, in a laundromat late one evening. I glanced up from my reading and saw this great pair of tits walking by. I followed 'em with my eyes for a few seconds and then let my perception expand out to the rest of the body: a young hispanic woman was wearing one of those “tube top” thingies.
I was 39 at the time and never had any inclination for male/female sexual relations. It freaked me out for a few moments and I did some serious soul searching over the next few days. I’m me and I like guys, but yeah, I can appreciate the female form every so often.
I’m curious of any of the str8 guys of the Dope have had similar experiences?
Heh, I hate to break it to you, Sampiro, but I don’t think that an attraction to Wonder Woman is a sign of latent heterosexuality. I haven’t seen the actual sales numbers, but I expect that there’s a big target demographic for the DVDs of “Wonder Woman,” Showgirls, and Bring it On, and it’s not horny heterosexual guys.
That reminds me; since I came out I’ve had my straight male friends ask me several times about all the times I’d professed a crush on some celebrity – Beyonce Knowles, Rachael Ray, Maura Tierney, Rachel Harris, and countless others I’ve already forgotten about. Was that just a cover? It’s tough for me to explain, having never had anything to compare it to. I’m 99.99% homo, but I can definitely tell when a woman’s hot and feel something like “attraction” to them. So it’s “genuine” (of course, with celebrities it’s all imaginary anyway). But there’s no sexual attraction.
That’s why I don’t understand it when straight guys say they can’t tell if another guy is “hot.” It’s not that I don’t believe them; it’s just that I can’t imagine it.
And oh yeah – I keep hearing that Atlanta has one of the largest gay populations in the country, more than San Francisco even. Are you way down south, Sampiro? Maybe you just have to stop being so country mouse and head out to the big city?
Of course, I don’t know what would be Atlanta’s equivalent to the Castro or Greenwich Village. Maybe Little Five Points? Or around Lenox or something?
Georgia native- checking back in. The region you are thinking of is called “Midtown” NOT to be confursed with downtown. I is actually a little less gay now than it used to be, but it still has a very high number of les/Bi/Gay/Trans people.
According to the gay-oriented weekly newspaper from there, “the Buckhead,” which I gather is an upscale Midtown area, is more or less the equivalent. (Good paper, by the way – published by the same company as the Washington Blade, and excellent news coverage on most gay-oriented stories, IMO usually doing a better job than the Advocate.)
Reminds me, I knew a girl in college who was LESBIAN. She had come out in high school and dealt with some ugly stuff. She wore little rainbow beaded necklaces. L-E-S-B-I-A-N. And our senior year of college, she started dating…a man. She mentioned this to me one day, quite early in the morning (8 am class) and not being quite awake and given to tactlessness even after I’ve had caffeine, I thoughtlessly said:
“Wow. I thought you were Lesbian Woman!” She sounded confused as she said “Yeah, so did I.”
Well I don’t believe them. Straight guys, like most humans, pick their friends, at least in part, based on their looks. I often see good looking straight guys hanging out with other good looking straight guys and I have to believe that, at least on some level, they are aware of, and appreciate their friends’ “hotness.” They may not say, “he’s hot” to themselves, but that awareness is there.
I see this play out in bars: Guys are sitting around with their girlfriends, an unattractive guy walks in, the guys glance at him and go back to what they were doing. A hot guy walks in and there’s this really subtle ripple that goes through the room, with all the guys nudging just ever so slightly closer to their girlfriends, being just a little more animated & paying more attention to their girlfriends. Some guys even go so far as to nonchalantly put a protective arm around their girlfriend’s shoulder or waist.
Now c’mon, you can’t tell me the guys aren’t checking out other guys & can’t tell whether this new guy is hot or not.
Since I’m rambling this hijack anyway, let’s put it this way:
Me: Do you think this guy is hot?
Str8t dude: I dunno, I can’t tell those things.
Me: How would you feel about your girlfriend going on an overnight business trip with him?
Str8t dude: ::Boing!!:: :eek:
Me: You can tell me a little more about this guy’s hotness now, can’tchya?
I may be wrong, but I’ve always thought of female sexuality as generally a bit more fluid than male sexuality. I know a lot more females who’ve had experiences with both sexes than I do males, and of the “practicing” bisexuals I’ve known (I’m defining bisexual here not in terms of people who happen to have had experiences with both sexes but people who are actively and routinely attracted to good looking members of both genders) all but one have been female. (For guys the old joke “bi now-gay later” seems to be more the rule than not.)
Regarding Atlanta: as said, most of Midtown is the gay section, with Piedmont Park, Piedmont Ave. and Ansley Park probably being the Ramon* of the area. Unfortunately, Georgia is basically Alabama/Mississippi outside of Atlanta, and I live about 100 miles from there. I was offered a position at the U of Alabama yesterday (I asked for the weekend to make the decision) and I am trying to decide if the fact that Tuscaloosa is a city of 85,000 (and less than an hour from B’ham, a city of 1 million with an active gay community) and therefore has a much larger gay scene than the city of 17,000 where I currently live is too frivolous an incentive to add to the pro column- thoughts? (My main considerations of the position are professional in nature, but…)
*I use that term in honor of Fidel’s brother, an “alternate Castro”.
Modern American society is much more forgiving of women who deviate from what’s expected than it is of men who do the same, so that’s got to be a factor there.
And any guy who says he doesn’t know how attractive other guys are is not speaking truly.
Guy: I just don’t understand how a guy can be attracted to another guy like that.
Comic: Oh yeah? Well, when you look at porn, do you only look at girl-girl stuff?
Guy: No, I like to see a girl have sex with a guy.
Comic: Okay, and when you’re watching that kind of porn, do you like it when the guy has a tiny little half-limp dick?
Guy: Hell no! I want a big, hard cock! :eek:
The really surprising part was the comic (whose name escapes me) was opening for Jeff Foxworthy.
