Hi everyone. Newby here, been looking for a forum like this a while. For many years I've questioned my sexuality. It's a long story but I decided to have counselling over something else that had happened in my life that led me to question if I was gay. After only a few sessions I accepted I was gay and felt great about it. But it seems we are all under pressure to label ourselves as gay or bi, and really I wonder why. After all you don't come out and say your straight. You are what you are. To be fair I only came to this conclusion after telling a few people all who had no issues with it, even my female partner, but someone said to me why do I need to put a tag on myself. She was right and from then on I've stopped announcing my sexuality. It's made no difference to my life, I'm a human who is attracted to both men and women. It's no big deal but understand it is to some. All I'm saying is you don't need to label yourself and make a big issue of it.
I completely agree, nobody should feel pressured to label their sexual orientation at all. Or their gender, if they didn't want to label that either. Personally, I prefer the use of labels because I find comfort in logic and the concept of everything having a name that you can then use to find out more about it. However, whether other people use labels or not should be entirely their choice.
Correct. It's your choice. I longed to be labelled gay, just wanted to be myself. When I told some people it was like yeah, so! It was just my own personal thing to label myself, in other words accepting I was gay. Others simply weren't concerned
I agree. You don't need to label yourself in any way. Sexuality is a personal thing. And I respect anyone's decision to do so or not. But for me I've spent my whole life in the closet. And it's done nothing but consume my entire life. So when I was able to finally able to admit to myself that I was gay it kinda became a pride thing for me. By saying it and using it, I feel that I have truly accepted my self for who I am and I can own it.
That's really good Bluesteel. I must admit I hold my head up higher now, I'm more confident, I'm gay and proud. The biggest difference I've noticed is I feel freer and I'm now more aware of other gay men around me which is wonderful. Taking the need to be labelled away from me has totally opened my mind. I look forward to the day I get chatted up by a man because he recognises me as being gay and not having to hide behind an app.
I really cannot pin down a label that I like but I feel like when coming out people demand one from you. I specifically think my mother would. This is the main thing keeping me from coming out.