YouTube story ... 51 y.o. married with kids

Neat!

 

Everything, and I mean everything he said applied to me, right down to the month during which we came out to ourselves!

 

While I am thrilled to see these videos, and to know that they are spreading across the internet like never before, I can't really relate so much. I knew at a very young age that guys could turn me on in a way women never would.

I don't understand how a guy could see one of those knock-out stunning hunks naked in a locker room, or at school, or anywhere, and not know what they see and exactly what it means?

One would have to be very suppressed to not feel the heat, no?

I can completely understand looking away, and saying to yourself that it is not what you wish to enjoy, or telling one's self that it is wrong, sure. But to tell yourself that it is not really hot at all? That's tough for me to wrap my head around.

But then again, my home life was so broken, and my respect for authority was almost zilch, not a shred of respect for organized religion at all. So maybe that is why I rebelled moral expectations, and found those naked golden boys and guys of sports to be such perfection, and no second thoughts about what I knew I liked.

I knew in the first grade something was up, but of course I did not know what it meant. It was not until about age 13 when it all came into focus, and later still that I came out to even one person.

But I still respect this man, and what he has done.

 

Although I am still in my 30's, and never married... damn, I can relate to a lot of what he talked about.

I'm just feeling really grateful that I found the EC community. :icon_bigg

 

Hi,

Jeff I was going to start a new thread on this but maybe it fits with what you wrote about denial.

I have always been gay. No angst over being gay but I lived a closeted life to protect myself.

My sister complains about my memory. She has all these detailed memories of life and I don't. Business and job stuff I have no problem recalling, but social stuff is a blur.

I think that living in the closet there are a million lies. You cannot remember them all and you learn to say "I don't remember" so you don't get caught in a lie. You then allow others to recall and set a framework for your memories. You wouldn't want to recall the truth and out yourself.

So for me a lot of memory of social stuff where I had to protect the closeted lie is a blur. I went to the darn high school prom and remember NONE of it.

I imagine if somebodies mind amplified that that ability to 10th power their entire gayness could be repressed and they are really unaware.

I bet you a dinner at your fav restaurant there are huge tracts of memory of your life memories missing from your painful life growing up. Yes?

Some people must actually repress their feelings on the fly similar to me having a bad memory. A survival skill.

 

I never realized how strong (what most people here call internalized homophobia) could be until it lifted when I came out to myself.

One's very thoughts are repressed. It's as if there's a family gathering in my head and those feelings for guys are represented by the slightly odd cousin sitting in the corner who is acknowledged but ignored....if that makes any sense.

So, to your point Jeff about finding it inconceivable to be this way for so long; well, now that I am on this side of gay, I know exactly what you mean, it's inconceivable to me too, but it happened for all the reasons Skiff has outlined, and more.

 

Hi,

Greatwhale... So in truth you lived a closeted life. The ultimate closet!

A closet so tightly shut it became a black hole to your gay identity.

Your life and mine are tangential it is only the strength of the closet that varies.

My closet was only strong enough for me to protect myself from society consciously while your closet was so strong it even denied you to be consciously aware you are gay.

I understand you now. Nothing to understand. You are my brother. Easy to under and.

I wonder if there are social triggers that set the depth of the closet, or if it is just biology and individual fluctuating panic levels to the same stimuli?

---------- Post added 13th Apr 2013 at 04:40 AM ----------

In looking at the closet as a "spectrum" more than a choice it runs (applying Kinsey scale to closet);

1) conscious self protection

All the way thru

6) total conscious denial of sexuality

That I can understand.

Musician, this train of thought working for you as to why your sexuality is a revelation at age 27? Something (biological/life event) [nature/nurture] sapped the power of your closet and your sexuality entered into conscious thought?

 

Greatwhale, what an excellent way to describe it!

 

Wow, I can relate to this guy's story!

I love the, "now I just wear the shoes" comment. I just bought a FIAT convertible. No rainbow flag required!

 

Thanks for posting the link, the view counts are not that high, still has a bit more to go to get more widely watched.

A couple of points,
Jeff I think a few we can be all a little different, you grow up with the expectation that you will find a wife get married and have children, so the being gay doesn't even enter your mind, of course hindsight is 20/20 and you should have taken a hard look at yourself to realize it earlier but we don't.

To the others, if you don't think you are gay then there really isn't a closet that is keeping you in, the problem comes about when you think something is wrong but you don't want to believe in it then the internalized homophobia, where you think you could be gay, you don't want to believe it because you don't know anyone else is so you keep the thoughts to yourself.

Skiff on your memory loss, I know a few people at work who suffer memory loss, mainly because their minds are not on the job and I am sure its not because they could be gay. Sometimes people concentrate on different things, but I agree if you are trying to hide something then you memory during both work and social situations can effect you.

 

A very successful strategy that guarantees maximum reproduction.

 

This.

I genuinely didn't realize I was gay, but I had also made a habit of systematically interpreting my gay experiences as innocent.

There was a Thing In The Corner That I Didn't Think About, and I didn't think about the fact that I didn't think about it. Any time I had to do something that might force me to confront it (like the women's locker room), I would come up with ways to avoid it (wearing my gym clothes under my street clothes, changing in the bathroom).

 

Exactly right! I didn't even acknowledge not thinking about it - truly weird!

 

I think it's because i had a set of myths I had created about myself to deflect suspicion. Stuff like, "I can't be friends with other women because of the drama," "I don't like being touched, " "I don't know how to flirt," and, my favorite, "I'm just being a good feminist." Part of coming out meant looking at the things I had believed about myself and deciding how much of it was true.

 

It's funny...after relations with my wife ceased for all intents and purposes, I turned to hookups (of which I am particularly not proud) but it was always with guys. I kept telling myself I would not pursue women with the same degree of energy "because of the drama"!

Other beliefs included: it's easier with guys, no harm done, bang, and it's over (big regret, as I've lost touch with a couple of guys I would really like to get back to, as someone now gay). Another one: I am too exceptional to be going through all that cliché "coming to terms" business; and my favourite: I'm just not married to the right woman (and the partial truth about this reinforced that POV, but the truth, of course, will out!)

 

Haha! Oh man, I forgot about that one. "No, it's okay, I just won't tell anyone and that will be totally fine cause I am all post-modern and stuff! Labels are for soup cans! I am going to forge my own path and be a totally brand-new kind of queer person that nobody has even thought of yet!"

Man, I got lonely fast.

 

It's a gut-wrenching business, this coming out. I've learned here that it's a similar experience for many others and I am grateful for having learned this.

After I came out to myself and others (not my wife and kids yet, I want the divorce to be finalized before that happens, and it will soon, it's just too much to lay on them right now), I felt raw and gnawed down to the truth. But happiness ensued, strangely, a feeling of liberation the likes of which I have not felt in a long time.

I could go on beating myself up for all the stupidity, but to what effect? It happened, I learned something crucial about myself, people close to me got hurt, badly, but surely some good has come of it too.

I have to believe that.

 

Yeah, it is hard. Even if you can't see the good in it yet, I think you will.

My ex-boyfriend's dad came out in his mid-40s, when my ex was still a teenager. My ex says he felt awkward about it and didn't know what to say, but that he didn't think any less of his dad for it. He and his dad are still very close, and his dad's partner is like a loving stepfather to him. He seems glad to have his dad's partner in his life.

When I came out, my ex's dad left a message on my Facebook wall that just said, "Enjoy the next phase of your life. It's going to be more rewarding than you can possibly imagine right now." I was so grateful to him for saying that; I was eating myself up with guilt over the what I done to his son and I was afraid he would hate me. He was right, too-- it was totally worth it.