married guys who identify as gay

Labels, labels...at best they are working titles, elegant shorthand for a plausible hypothesis, a common understanding that approaches but never quite hits the target of what it is that I am versus what it is that I do.

I chose gay over bisexual, because it just feels closer to the truth, or to put it under another concept, the label "gay" is what is most in harmony with how I feel. But it is always a matter of degree, there are no definite or determinate parameters.

For years, it was logical to call myself bisexual, after all, I could have relations with my ex-wife (although this became more and more difficult). It seems strange to me now, but I was actually wondering about finding the right woman once my marriage was to end, until that fateful night when something just...clicked, and out whirred a little label, like from some label dispenser, that had the word GAY written on it.

It happened when the reality of being out of that marriage became imminent; suddenly I could give myself permission to call it what it is...since then, I cannot get one iota of arousal from a woman, it just doesn't do it for me. Did the label affect my orientation? I think it sharpened it, and suddenly I felt free to feel what I wanted to feel, without restraint. It's a curious phenomenon, as if I were handed a different script and a different role to play...fascinating really, how malleable and insubstantial the self can be...

 

I just looove the P-touch label maker from Brother! All my files are labelled with it, so much easier to find what I'm looking for...

Indeed, maybe that's what labels are for; more a key than a chamber, a simple guide or clue to something more complex..

 

Or me, prior to coming out to myself, I had no issues having sex with my ex. Was I attracted to guys, yes. Did this stop me from being intimate with a woman, no. Putting labels aside. The night I had my "catalyst moment" and I began questioning my true sexuality, which lead up six months later to my self identification as being gay and coming out to myself, I was no longer able to nor interested in performing.

It's a debate I have had with myself. I could not be with a woman now, no chance. I did previously although I knew I was attracted to guys. I have concluded that sexuality is dynamic and it evolves.

Today I am Gay. It's a label, but one I am completely comfortable with. I called myself bisexual previously, but not sure that really fit the bill. Back then, I was gay, but able to have intimacy with woman, now I am gay and can no longer do so.

 

I'm not sure if the label gay is causative.

I really believe that adopting the label is more about giving myself permission to no longer pretend that I find women sexually attractive. I played hetero with very little enthusiasm (very few girlfriends or even sexual encounters with women in my late teens and twenties, despite many opportunities). I confused deep friendship with some women as leading to the possibility of romance, but I seldom initiated anything, I was always waiting for the woman to start things. I thought that this was a sign of "respect" for women...in retrospect, it was a singular lack of that oomph that currently drives my encounters with men...hindsight is a remarkable teacher...

 

Yup, I appreciate that sentiment!

 

You go gurl! :icon_bigg

 

Feels weird huh? That slight twinge in the abdomen that surges when one realizes the awesomeness of it all!

Congratulations and welcome to the other side!

 

Because there is also an element of time involved, and an element of identification, and an element of intensity of emotions. It is easy for a young person today, to not understand the different context we functioned in 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. "Gay" did not exist as a sexuality term, only to describe Cary Grant and Kathryn Hepburn in a black & white romantic comedy movie. True homosexuals were totally out of sight and closeted. Everybody were "straight" manly men, like the vets coming back from WW2 or Korea; crew cuts and leather flight jackets or black motorcycle jackets. If there were any "queers" around, I only heard the word but never saw any of them. I was straight too, of course; I just didn't seem to care that much about girls; caring about guys never crossed my mind; nobody did that. I did notice that some of the boys I knew were a lot better looking than me, and better built; I liked hanging around with them and wanted them to like me and ask me to hang around with them. I also had some girls I like to hang around with, but I did not want to date them, and most of them wanted to date the boys I thought were good looking; I could understand why they preferred them to me.

This pattern went on for many years as I buried myself in college, then military service, then my job and starting a business. Wanting to hang out with good looking guys and "be one of them". Stealing glances at them with their shirts off and admiring their muscles and hairy chests, and their athletic skills and daring risk taking. All this time, I never thought of myself as "gay", just as wanting to be like them, and wanting to be accepted by them as an equal. Never had a sexual contact or date or anything like that with another man, just this interest in being an attractive man, which I didn't seem to be.

An unusual set of circumstances lead to meeting my wife, and being told by someone that she was attracted to me. To ME. The unworthy asexual man that didn't feel much interest in chasing women, was attractive to a woman, just like those cool handsome guys I admired. (Jump to the chase) We spent a year working together and living together, building a house, and then got married. I enjoyed having sex with her, and enjoyed her wanting to have sex with me. I was living the straight life, like all those other good looking guys with someone who thought I was sexy and cool. It wasn't an overwhelming overpowering experience, but I figured that this was what it was supposed to feel like, and what all those other guys had been experiencing while I was feeling nothing for "hot babes". SO, I was finally officially a "straight" man. Pregnancy soon followed; a baby was born. Life was lived fairly normally. Then she started having gynecological problems. Sex became painful for her as her internal organs sank into her cervix. We had to stop having sex. This lasted for more than a decade, with no end in sight, while both of us became older. The old feelings of insecurity and inadequacy began to recur. I was "straight" but effectively living a celibate life again.

Meanwhile, the world was changing. People were "coming out" like flowers popping up in the spring. The Internet came into being, and people began talking openly and honestly to each other, in anonymous forums like this one, about their lives and their feelings and emotions. "Queers", now "gays", began telling their life stories and how they felt when they passed through puberty, and started looking at other boys and admiring their bodies and being attracted to them. I read this stuff, and at some point the light went on and I realized, Holy Crap!; this is exactly how I was feeling when I was a teenager, but immediately dismissed the feelings as nothing but admiration for the lucky handsome guys, because no guys felt that way about each other; it was taboo and just wasn't done. Just some strange notions that popped into the head of a guy like me, who was just a little different in some way from most of the other boys. I began to rethink and reconsider some of the many times I saw somebody in a swimsuit or naked in the showers, and how I felt about it at the time and now. How many times I had wanted certain men to want to do things with me, or sit down next to me, or comfort me when I was down, and felt depressed when nothing happened and there seemed no point or purpose to what I was doing.

I finally reached the understanding that my admiration of good looking athletic men, was really sexually based attraction to them, not simply admiration. That I had actually been gay all along. That even though I have an emotional attachment to my wife, and thanks to an operation we were able to have sex again, sex is pleasant and possible, but not highly erotic for me. I have to get my erotic from thinking about men in various ways, and use that to get aroused for vaginal sex, and then the physical stimulation takes over to get the job done. It works for us; she enjoys it a lot, and I enjoy it enough, but I know that this is not the way things work for most straight couples. I might find that some kind of hookup with a man would work for me also, but I am married and that is out of bounds, and at my age is thought of as "the road untaken", rather than something to explore in my soon upcoming 70s.

Getting back to the original question, I think I have described how I reconciled recognizing myself as "gay" (NOW) and having sex with a woman (before coming out as gay, and NOW) when I once thought of myself as "straight". I still think of myself as much more gay than straight, but that does not mean I am "bisexual". To be "bi", I would have to have a strong emotional attraction to many different women and an erotic feeling about having sex with them; that really never happened for me. My emotional connection is to my wife, as my wife and mother of our child, nurtured over 25+ years, through good times and bad. I realize that and will not discard that proactively for something gay and new and highly unlikely in any event. There really isn't even much of a sexual attraction to men left at my age, knowing that there is ZERO chance that anyone I would find attractive would be attracted to me; it never has happened, even when I was younger and prettier, so it isn't going to happen now.

Sometimes, when I embrace one of my friends, I think how great it would feel for him to look me in the eyes and then kiss me, and pull my head down onto his chest and hold me tightly, rub my back, and say "I love you", but that will never happen. Most of my friends are straight, and the ones who are gay are partnered up with someone and happy with their lives. I can dream about how my life might have been lived differently if I had been born 60 years later, but like the guy says in "Southern Baptist Sissies"

"Sometimes, I close my eyes and create a perfect world; a world of acceptance and understanding and love ... but I always wake up." :icon_sad:

 

Very well put! At the end of the day, a label is just a shorthand word to save time explaining an entire concept.

 

Hey Yossarian,

What you wrote above was heartbreaking...yet so beautifully poetic in your acceptance of what can't be changed, and so admirable in your respect for the life you have built with your spouse.

Just know that you have built here, on this anonymous forum, a reservoir of love and admiration that can never be taken away. If this is the vicarious life you need, if this forum is the "perfect world" of your dreams, well, you have done your part to increase its perfection.

 

Yes, my wife. She knows about my "gayness", and still wants to make love with me anyway. How can I turn away from someone who loves me that much? :eusa_danc

I get my male body contact wrestling, and male bonding playing racquetball, while doing one-way eye-contact at the gym. (I eyeball the hot guys, they ignore me. LOL)

PS Thanks for the hug; everyone needs hugs. (*hug*)

 

Well, a big hug from me as well. I really admire how you have put your life all in perspective, and acceptance.