Realizing (not coming to terms with) your sexuality in adulthood

Hi,

I will say first off... I doubt human males are "fully" mature until age 25. That is my opinion. I am sure there are others who will peg higher numbers.

I don't consider <25 "later in life". Maybe just me...

 

Brain Maturity Extends Well Beyond Teen Years : NPR

 

I'm totally confused and have been for five years in a state of flux about my identity, I had a nervous breakdown and since then I haven't. Aclue who I am. I want to be attracted to men but know they can see a male eyes now as that's what my last boyfriend said and my gay uncle said I had a pink wall...

So I'm obviously in denial, either was bisexual and now just asexual but gender confused?

I'm 39 this year and don't see any future anymore for me. It's over for me now. I can't except my identity confusion.

 

There's two ways to think about this: not realizing it in your teens and not realizing it in the 1950/60/70s. Lack of visible examples of what homosexuality truly is (beyond cartoonish stereotypes), lack of specific information in sex ed classes, lack of internet, lack of "role-models" (NPH/Ellen/etc...). For example, I realized yesterday that the rainbow flag was created the year I started high school, and I'm sure its use took a while for it to be universally recognized.

 

Hi Taiko,

This is a difficult questions, with several facets to it, as others have already said.

I've just come out at the age of 42, both to myself and to others, including my husband. I've never identified as gay, and had boyfriends throughout high school and college, and have been married once before.

If you ask me, have you known all your life you were gay? My answer would be, "Well, yes and no." Have I ever thought of myself as gay? No, not really. Was I aware of some same-sex attraction? Yes. But it never fit my image of who I thought I should be or of what I thought others thought I should be. It wasn't so much societal pressure as personal pressure. I had absolutely no problem with being gay or with gay people. It just didn't fit the self-image I had created for myself.

So when these feelings would arise, I would squash them down or rationalize them away. I never let myself explore these feelings enough to find out what they meant.

So when I finally came out, it was a real revelation to me, but at the same time, when I looked back, I had known it all along.

I don't know if that helps answer your question or not, but I thought I would share my experience in case it did.

--Zoe

 

My parents told me that being attracted to the same sex was something most adolescents did while exploring their sexuality. It was just a growing phase. I could deny and suppress because I really do like females sexually as well. A good Christian was just not supposed to like the same sex. The feelings never really went away. I just got good at hiding them.

 

Great point to tie this to the impact of social
Changes on bisexual thought.

---------- Post added 6th Jul 2013 at 08:32 AM ----------

i feen that bi women so much more accepting in these areas than bi men?
Anyone have an idea about that?
Love to hear!

 

Part of it was due to society.

You grow up find a girlfriend; or have a few of them then find one to get married too.

For me when I was younger being gay meant that you were different but you also acted different, and I was never like that. I enjoyed playing and watching sport. I chatted to both guys and gals at school, maybe I was different but I was different for other reasons as well.

Then you go through university/college then get a job then you think maybe you should get married, but it was never held much interest for me.

I saw some males I quite liked the look of but it was more that I wanted to look like them.

So about 10 years ago I thought yes it would be nice to find a girlfriend but I never really found one; and then I started meeting different people and a few of them I thought were nice looking, and then it dawned on me that maybe I was gay, and as I met different people then you realized that there were gay people in the world but you wouldn't always realize it and weren't like the gay stereotype.

Being gay felt like a negative stigma so you thought like hell with yourself to convince yourself you were gay.

 

This.

You have so nailed it. All my life, I was told to have a girlfriend, find a wife, etc. Society told me. Church told me. I would find some and date for a time, but it never worked out.

I would see guys I found cute, but never told anyone. After all, the "queers" were evil, perverted, etc. They all sang show tunes, sashayed and wore floral print frocks and so on. Then I met guys who were gay and not like that at all. They were just like me, except they liked men. And then, it hit me why those relationships with women never worked out: I was just like them.

 

I think it's a combination of conditioning from society (both "grow up, get married, have family" and "youre a fag, no you are, homo, queer" conditioning) and portrayal of stereotypical gay people. I was like, "I dont dress like this/act like this/etc, therefore im not gay."

 

The people who buy into the stereotypes are shallow, for sure. They are afraid to know a person who is gay, even though they know quite a few and don't realize it.

 

You said it better than I did. It didn't fit the image of who I thought I was.

 

I was always told that it's time I had a girlfriend, and I can remember when I was about 20 that one of the Christmas presents that my father gave me was a video film with sexy girls in it.
I knew I was gay then but I just couldn't tell my parents about my sexuality, and as the years pasted, I would get the same question about wouldn't I like to find myself a nice young woman.
Deep inside I was saying NO I WANT TO FIND MYSELF A BOYFRIEND, and although everyone knows now I still haven't found someone