Bi/Poly/Pansexuals: How old were you when you realized you weren't straight?

Interesting. I feel like 14 is plenty young. I think more-than-1-sexuals (not a word) sometimes figure it out later because, since they are attracted to the opposite gender, they might not question themselves. I know at 14, if you'd asked me, I'd have told you I was straight. However, I knew before that that I was attracted to and capable of crushing on girls.

Haven't answered the poll, because I don't really know. I don't feel like I ever had a "Oh my gosh you're not straight" moment. It was just a part of me, it was pretty glaringly obvious and felt natural, and I was never that attached to my straight identity anyway. I do know when I realized I didn't want people to think I was straight, though.

 

So true - I was just the same. I think it's easier for bisexuals to be in denial than monosexuals because they can hide behind their opposite-sex attraction.

 

I was 15, only I thought I was a lesbian. When I look back, there were feelings for girls before that, but it was only when I was around 15 that I actually went "whoa, girls".

 

Realised I wasn't straight at about 13. Came to the conclusion that I was gay at 16. Then at 25, started to question again and at 26 realised that I wasn't gay either.

 

I was aware of it at 14.

~ Adrienne

 

I "knew" as early as 5-6 or so - just didn't realize there was a word for it. Or that there was any stigma associated with it, for that matter.

 

I was 11 or 12 when the crushes began. I had vaguely sexual thoughts from around 6 and definitely by 8 but it was curiosity about what I read. I didn't truly understand/feel them. I was 14 or 15 when I discovered the term bisexuality. I didn't fully accept it until my late teens.

 

I classify as pansexual and started questioning at 18yo knew for sure at 19/20yo

 

For me it was a fairly calm realization at 16 of "huh...I actually find *both* guys and women attractive (sexually yummy even), and could really see myself falling in love with either. I guess that makes me *bisexual*."

I'm still not clear on whether I am pansexual...I could make an argument either way. I'm pretty damned open-minded, and experimental, and I tend to find attractive pretty much anyone I fall in love with. But I'm in no hurry to work that out.

 

I was 7 when I firstly suspected my feelings about girls.
However, I accepted them at 17.

 

I noticed something was off from age 5, and didn't know how to explain it or what it was until it all started to climax around age 12. Then came the denial. It wasn't until I was about 13 or 14 that I looked around and realized I liked some girls more than just friends...

 

Well I realized that I was attracted to girls around 12 years old. But that just confused the hell out of me cause I was attracted to men as well. I only dated men until my mid twenties. I was just so confused! I knew I wasn't "normal" I wasn't like most straight girls and wasn't like lesbians either; like I said, I realized this around age 12. However, I did not know what that meant and did not actually accept my bisexuality until my mid twenties. So happy I finally accepted it and made peace with my sexuality!

 

My first girl and boy crush happened when I was 5. Every other girl crush didn't really get through to me. Like I never thought to myself, "You like girls the way you like boys" until I was around 12 or 13. I was in the 7th grade so I more than likely would've been 12 at the time when it rung a bell in my head. I had feelings for one of my classmates who had gorgeous blue eyes and I couldn't really look away from them. At the time, I didn't really have a name to put on it so I thought that everyone else must've felt that way.

 

Hard to answer this one. I didn't come to terms with it until the past year or so (age 22-23-ish). But I knew way before that that something was off. I always liked guys; I never questioned that. But I was raised in such a strictly homophobic family that I couldn't let myself even think about the possibility of liking anything else (I'm biologically a girl, so in their minds, I'm only a woman and can only like men). However, my first crush (I had crushes even back when I was a 5-year-old kindergarten student lol) was a girl. In second grade there was another crush on a girl, which was so obvious that my dad sat me down and told me in no uncertain terms that girls can't like girls, end of story. From there I repressed it, but by high school, those feelings came up again, and in the past couple of years I've started thinking for myself, and so I was finally able to question my sexuality (and my gender identity, but that's a whole other can of worms that we won't talk about here). And it was only in the past couple of years that I've known that other genders exist, and having met some genderfluid people, I honestly can see myself being attracted to them too, which is how I came to conclusions one my actual sexual orientation, rather than just the one prescribed for me by my parents.

So, long story short (sorry for the long mess of nonsense), came to terms with it between ages 18-25, but it was a long, long process that started back when I was 5 and was full of denial. So I guess there wasn't really a set age for me?

 

I didn't realize till my first year of middle school (aka age 12) that I wasn't straight because I wasn't allowed to think differently and didn't understand the gay community because I was raised in a very religious setting and attended a private christian school until I was eleven because it was too expensive to continue thankfully or I may have realized later on and hated myself for it because of the setting. I found out when I found out about the gay community (through my bisexual friend I met in grade six who was out at ten years old) and realized that what I had been feeling for years was actually okay and was a thing. Still took a few years to accept myself but I knew when I was twelve that I wasn't a heterosexual.

 

I pretty much repressed all my encounters with girls until I was 21. Then it finally hit me that I was also attracted to girls. So I started questioning and exploring my sexuality and I am still in the process of figuring it out.

 

I agree with whoever said that it's probably easy to repress or ignore your same sex attraction when you are also attracted to the opposite sex. It may take a while to actually figure out what that is all about. I know it was confusing as hell for me.

 

Since I am still trying to find the answers and have only recently made the determination that I am not straight.... but that being said I hid those leanings for years - the most concrete thought of "I am sexually or romantically attracted to her" was around 18....