Coming Out: The Thread (Continued)

[Artillery Spam]

And where did you end up?


Why not? It's fucking awesome. It's like being born in god mode. Yeah society sucks and a lot of people will think you're gay and in the closet and a lot of girls won't date you because they think you'll just leave them for a guy. It is not the easiest life to live, but I think if you find a way to balance things without going insane it is perhaps the most rewarding.

Mostly because I've lived a straight life for the past 19 years. I don't really see any point in pursuing any homsexual relationships---especially if these feelings are extremely minor at this point in time. Because of that, the odds of me going after some cute guy or something are slim to none. Although I've pretty much accepted the fact that there's nothing I can do to change these feelings, I'm reluctant to pursue them or really even acknowledge them.

I guess I'm just scared of what people will think of me if they find out.

 

[FenrirDarkWolf]

Well...
Always keep your options open to the slim chance of man love.
Cause that's exactly how I felt before, accepting the fact, but never truly pursuing it.

 

[Yago]

And where did you end up?


Why not? It's fucking awesome. It's like being born in god mode. Yeah society sucks and a lot of people will think you're gay and in the closet and a lot of girls won't date you because they think you'll just leave them for a guy. It is not the easiest life to live, but I think if you find a way to balance things without going insane it is perhaps the most rewarding.

Yay mega-late response.

My sexuality is stupidly ridiculously confusing and conditional. I technically classify under the demi-pansexual multipass rainbow random unicorns category. I usually just go with bisexual, but I lean so far heavily gay it's easier to simply state it that way.

 

[Ricky]

I technically classify under the demi-pansexual multipass rainbow random unicorns category.

Wow, you too? NO WAY!!!

And here I thought I was the only one... :roll:

 

[Ryuu]

I want to curl up in a ball and act like nothing is wrong....

I had to move back home....

 

[FenrirDarkWolf]

I want to curl up in a ball and act like nothing is wrong....

I had to move back home....

Sorry for being a bit insensitive, but, why is that bad?
Do your parents not accept you or something? Does it separate you from your mate?

 

[Saiko]

I want to curl up in a ball and act like nothing is wrong....

I had to move back home....

Yeah, same here. Couldn't get any job good enough to justify an apartment this summer, so I have to head back too... at least I have an internship set up, but I very strongly dislike going home. :/

 

[TheMetalVelocity]

I still wonder why some gay people have to be afraid to come out to their liberal parents when you'd think they are more accepting than conservative parents. I hear people say their parents are not religious and accepting, but then are told not to watch certain tv/cartoon shows, dress a certain way, or get yelled at for being themselves.

 

[Artillery Spam]

I still wonder why some gay people have to be afraid to come out to their liberal parents when you'd think they are more accepting than conservative parents. I hear people say their parents are not religious and accepting, but then are told not to watch certain tv/cartoon shows, dress a certain way, or get yelled at for being themselves.

Some 'accepting' parents do a complete 180 when you out yourself to them.

 

[TheMetalVelocity]

Some 'accepting' parents do a complete 180 when you out yourself to them.

I guess it's human nature. I still find it hard to believe that nobody is perfect, yet they try to preach shit on to others. Most people probably pretend to be accepting to get along with society. If you happen to be a conservative parent that still supports gay rights, you'd still get bashed, as long as you are anything but labeled conservative, you're fine. I guess it's reputation. My republican parents wouldn't flip if I told them I was gay, even though they don't support gay rights. I am not gay, but, I am just saying, my family seems okay with the idea, even if I told them. It could be just the nature of certain parents and families. My parents would simply just pray for me LOL.

 

[FenrirDarkWolf]

So, my grandmother told my dad I was bi, for lack of better terms.
He's perfectly fine with it, cause I'm still his boy and all, and he wants to protect me from the people who just don't accept it.

Though I don't know how he found out about my boyfriend though...
Since I never told my grandmother about him....

 

[Car Fox]

Though I don't know how he found out about my boyfriend though...
Since I never told my grandmother about him....

Chances are, he stumbled upon the info by accident.

 

[Imperial Impact]

I think only posted in the ass thread to make fun of Milo and call everyone in it weird lol.

LINK?

 

[Spatel]

Yay mega-late response.

My sexuality is stupidly ridiculously confusing and conditional. I technically classify under the demi-pansexual multipass rainbow random unicorns category. I usually just go with bisexual, but I lean so far heavily gay it's easier to simply state it that way.

Hmm... if you started out the same as Artillery Spam then this gets very interesting. I'm curious how you went from leaning so far heavily straight like Artillery Spam does to leaning so far heavily gay you might as well just be gay. What were the years in between like?

I suppose it's silly to ask really, when I probably already know the answer--going from 2-4 on the kinsey scale throughout the week. Mostly I guess it's difficult for me to imagine losing attractions I once had. I've only gained things, never lost them. I could see how I could 'gay' myself up to like a 4.5 or a 5 I suppose, if I had no emotional interest in women and just let that side of my attractions languish maybe. By the same token I could see how if I wanted to be straight I could probably shift my average to a 1 or 1.5

It's difficult to tell though if I just have aspergers and this is totally impossible for most people, or if this is actually normal for the human race and most are just totally oblivious to how robust their attractions really are (due to social stigma, or because they internalize the biological essentialist idea that homosexuality is programmed and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because that's what they believe about themselves).

 

[miskey]

I don't think it's impossible to switch the average back to whatever it was. I mean, if you become gay or straight, it would only make sense that you can switch it back.

It might be kind of like, if you're drinking with a friend. You get a little tipsy and you both make out and undress. You have some feelings for each other but decide not to pursue the "relationship". But the next day you see a girl and go after her. Switching back is not that hard...unless that's just what a bisexual does...

 

[Butters Shikkon]

I don't think it's impossible to switch the average back to whatever it was. I mean, if you become gay or straight, it would only make sense that you can switch it back.

It might be kind of like, if you're drinking with a friend. You get a little tipsy and you both make out and undress. You have some feelings for each other but decide not to pursue the "relationship". But the next day you see a girl and go after her. Switching back is not that hard...unless that's just what a bisexual does...

You don't "switch" or "turn" at all. You either are into something are you aren't.

 

[FenrirDarkWolf]

I honestly believe sexuality is a fluid thing, you are neither one nor the other.

 

[Spatel]

You don't "switch" or "turn" at all. You either are into something are you aren't.

I think what you are saying is probably false.

Unless you're a pedophile I would contend that the body types you're attracted to now are a bit different than the ones you were attracted to as, say, a 14 year old. Back then you probably crushed on other 14 year olds, right? The difference between 14-year-olds and mid-20 somethings is pretty significant physically. Your brain must have gradually rewired itself to stay attracted to your age group. So something did 'turn'. For that matter, some people develop fetishes over time which gradually take over their sexuality and override it.

For instance there are women who find giving oral a huge chore, and then gradually it becomes one of their biggest turn-ons. There are men who would never put anything in their ass and find the idea a huge turnoff, but then gradually develop an acquired taste for getting pegged. So in some sense you're quite empirically wrong. It is possible to gain and lose turnons. The human brain is polymorphously perverse and the things that we associate with sexual desire have some aspect to them that is pliant over a long time.

 

[Butters Shikkon]

I think what you are saying is probably false.

Unless you're a pedophile I would contend that the body types you're attracted to now are a bit different than the ones you were attracted to as, say, a 14 year old. Back then you probably crushed on other 14 year olds, right? The difference between 14-year-olds and mid-20 somethings is pretty significant physically. Your brain must have gradually rewired itself to stay attracted to your age group. So something did 'turn'. For that matter, some people develop fetishes over time which gradually take over their sexuality and override it.

For instance there are women who find giving oral a huge chore, and then gradually it becomes one of their biggest turn-ons. There are men who would never put anything in their ass and find the idea a huge turnoff, but then gradually develop an acquired taste for getting pegged. So in some sense you're quite empirically wrong. It is possible to gain and lose turnons. The human brain is polymorphously perverse and the things that we associate with sexual desire have some aspect to them that is pliant over a long time.

Hmmm. That's a very intriguing point. Tastes do change over time...but then I suppose that would make everyone basically bisexual at their core. Afterall, you never know what would set you off in that case.

 

[Fallowfox]

On the subject of sexuality and 'gaying yourself up', the direction of the crown in the whirl of hair at the back of your head, which is beyond manipulation, is anticlockwise in around 8% of men in general, but in 30% of gay men.

So this implies there certainly is a 'programed' bias in sexual orientation. Whether or not belief about oneself can force this bias one way or the other I don't know, certainly sexuality reassignment therapy is viewed as a psuedoscience.

I suppose you would have to interview people on their position on the kinsey scale [by which I mean show them explicit images and measure their genital response] divided into 2 groups, one which had been informed that sexuality was innate, and a control group with no understanding.

If the control group is more likely to respond to images of both sex than the inate group-which you might hypothesise should be more polarised, this would suggest the 'prophecy' you speak of.

 

[Spatel]

On the subject of sexuality and 'gaying yourself up', the direction of the crown in the whirl of hair at the back of your head, which is beyond manipulation, is anticlockwise in around 8% of men in general, but in 30% of gay men.

Incorrect. The study that found that difference was not scientific. Two follow-up studies which were far more rigorous failed to find a correlation between sexual orientation and hair whorl direction:

Klar (2004) surreptitiously recorded the direction of hair whorl at a beach near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware that is popular among gay men. Out of 272 men with single whorls, 29.8 percent had counterclockwise whorls. This was a higher proportion than the 9.1 percent counterclockwise he counted in 328 men from malls, stores, and the beach at Atlantic City, most of whom would be straight. This result got a lot of attention in the popular press (France 2007) and is mentioned on a lot of web pages about "gaydar." However, two more rigorous studies did not find a significant difference between gay and straight men in the proportion of counterclockwise whorls. Rahman et al. (2009) and Schwartz et al. (2010) separated gay and straight men based on a questionnaire, not which beach they went to, and determined their whorl type based on close examination, not from a distance. Rahman et al. (2009) found 18 percent of gay and 14 percent of straight men to have counterclockwise whorls, while Schwartz et al. (2010) found 19.7 percent in gay men and 17.2 percent in straight men. In both studies, the observer determined whether the whorl was clockwise or counterclockwise without knowing whether the subject was gay or straight, which may be an important difference between these studies and that of Klar (2004).

I could go further than that. The finger length ratios which were thought to correspond to sexuality have practically no correlation in men, though they might mean something for transsexuals--which makes perfect sense as 2D:4D is strongly sexually dimorphic. Although the lower the ratio is relative to the average for your gender, it's more likely to mean you simply have asperger's.

Gay vs straight men,[SUP][75][/SUP] but most studies find very little difference in digit ratio between gay and straight men. One study found that gay men with several older brothers tend to have different digit arrangements.[SUP][82][/SUP][SUP][84][/SUP] Some studies correlate male homosexuality and 2D:4D positively,[SUP][85][/SUP] others negatively.[SUP][86][/SUP]

[SUP]

[/SUP]
And when one out of a pair of identical twins is gay, the other only has a 7% chance of also being gay. Practically the same as the general population. The initial study that found a much higher rate was caused by families with two identical gay twins being much, much more likely to volunteer for psychological surveys involving sexuality.

http://iserp.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/working_papers/2001_04.pdf

Discussion
The findings presented in this paper confirm some findings from previous research and stand in
marked contrast to most previous research in a number of respects. First, we find no evidence for
intrauterine transfer of hormone effects on social behavior. Second, we find no support for
genetic influences on same-sex preference net of social structural constraints. Third, we find no
evidence for a speculative evolutionary model of homosexual preference. Finally, we find
substantial indirect evidence in support of a socialization model at the individual level. Here we
consider why our results differ from previous work. Subsequently, we consider the significance
of these results for understanding the etiology of same-sex attraction.


Substantially higher concordance for homosexual orientation has been reported in previous
research. We believe that previous work is largely incorrect as a result of reliance on non-
representative samples, for example, readers of gay publications, and reliance on indirect
evidence. Specifically, while some studies obtained reports on sexual orientation from both
siblings, others relied on one individualís report on his or her siblingís sexual orientation. These
data structures are clearly associated with potential bias on the dependent variable. Kendler et al.
(2000), however, report substantially higher concordance rates for self-reported sexual orientation
among adults in a study that overcomes some of these obvious methodological flaws. In this
instance, the inflation of concordance may be a product of an interaction between small sample
size and subtle selection dynamics. Specifically, their sibling and twin response rates were low.
18

If individuals jointly participate in a study, and self-selection dynamics are present, as they likely
are in this case, then concordance on traits other than willingness to participate in a study is to be
expected. Consequently, we consider their concordance rates for same-sex orientation to be
higher than would be expected under study designs less susceptible to self-selection.

All of that said; I do think there is an epigenetic component (there is a strong link between skewed X-inactivation in mothers of homosexual men), and I think that epigenetic activation is good predictor for where your orientation starts when you first develop an interest in sex, but not necessarily where it ends up, due to the plasticity of the human brain. For instance, someone might be programmed biologically to find one sex beautiful, but gradually their sex drive is redirected to the other sex through fetishistic mechanisms.

 

[Ryuu]

Sorry for being a bit insensitive, but, why is that bad?
Do your parents not accept you or something? Does it separate you from your mate?

I moved from Denver to KC.... and the people around here are not very accepting. Im not going to change and hide it either.

My parents are accepting, sort of. they avoid the subject and dont want to talk about it. its fine when im 1K miles away but living here with them its clear

 

[LogicfromLogic]

I could go further than that. The finger length ratios which were thought to correspond to sexuality have practically no correlation in men, though they might mean something for transsexuals--which makes perfect sense as 2D:4D is strongly sexually dimorphic. Although the lower the ratio is relative to the average for your gender, it's more likely to mean you simply have asperger's.

[SUP]

[/SUP]
And when one out of a pair of identical twins is gay, the other only has a 7% chance of also being gay. Practically the same as the general population. The initial study that found a much higher rate was caused by families with two identical gay twins being much, much more likely to volunteer for psychological surveys involving sexuality.

http://iserp.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/working_papers/2001_04.pdf



All of that said; I do think there is an epigenetic component (there is a strong link between skewed X-inactivation in mothers of homosexual men), and I think that epigenetic activation is good predictor for where your orientation starts when you first develop an interest in sex, but not necessarily where it ends up, due to the plasticity of the human brain. For instance, someone might be programmed biologically to find one sex beautiful, but gradually their sex drive is redirected to the other sex through fetishistic mechanisms.

While I agree with part of that, recently they discovered white matter in a transgender/sexual's brain the same place as their natural born female/males. Example;

Females to males have white matter in the same place in their brain that natural born males do, they have however, estrogen/testosterone (sorry if I misspelled that, not very good with grammar I will admit) still in their bodies because they were born a different sex than what their mental status is.

Maybe I am wrong but at least I put a shot out there to gain knowledge.

 

[Yago]

Hmm... if you started out the same as Artillery Spam then this gets very interesting. I'm curious how you went from leaning so far heavily straight like Artillery Spam does to leaning so far heavily gay you might as well just be gay. What were the years in between like?

I suppose it's silly to ask really, when I probably already know the answer--going from 2-4 on the kinsey scale throughout the week. Mostly I guess it's difficult for me to imagine losing attractions I once had. I've only gained things, never lost them. I could see how I could 'gay' myself up to like a 4.5 or a 5 I suppose, if I had no emotional interest in women and just let that side of my attractions languish maybe. By the same token I could see how if I wanted to be straight I could probably shift my average to a 1 or 1.5

It's difficult to tell though if I just have aspergers and this is totally impossible for most people, or if this is actually normal for the human race and most are just totally oblivious to how robust their attractions really are (due to social stigma, or because they internalize the biological essentialist idea that homosexuality is programmed and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because that's what they believe about themselves).

Well, for years I was rather bigoted (family influence, pretty sure there's quite a few of us here on FAF that started this way). As I got older I ditched prejudices and I eventually started supporting gay rights and marriage. I was basically asexual for the longest time, in the sense that I was really rather indifferent. I was never really the type to check out an attractive woman, I'd just note they were pretty and that was as far as I cared. I kind of attributed that to a low libido and late onset of puberty, rather than anything else. After I did end up developing some sort of sex drive, which was considered "average" albeit on the very low side for average, I was straight oriented. I watched straight or lesbian porn most the time. After awhile I started noticing I couldn't watch certain porn videos, not because of an unattractive woman, but if the man was fugly, /abort mission. I kind of got a little nervous, it was confusing, and eventually it got to the point where I actually watched exclusively gay content. It was fantastic, but really disconcerting and confusing so I avoided it like the black plague and focused more upon lesbian porn or solo videos at this point so I wouldn't have a male to look at. Kind of continued like that for awhile, then I sat in Spanish class one day, looked over, and thought "Damn, Donovan is fucking hot, would tap that." and then I don't remember the rest of the week because I kind of went into a denial based stupor because I realized he's a dude. Once I got over that little bit of identity crisis I started trying to explore my sexuality a little more (I was free of prejudices at that point, at least consciously anyways, not so sure about subconscious), and eventually just got more and more gay oriented. There's still a couple of rare occasions where I find a woman attractive, but honestly, I'm fairly certain it would take either one of my random "straighter" days, or a powerful emotional bond to actually have a successful relationship. So I'm basically gay at this point.

 

[Saiko]

I could go further than that. The finger length ratios which were thought to correspond to sexuality have practically no correlation in men, though they might mean something for transsexuals--which makes perfect sense as 2D:4D is strongly sexually dimorphic. Although the lower the ratio is relative to the average for your gender, it's more likely to mean you simply have asperger's.

*reads, does a little research, and looks at his*
Huh... I always thought a longer 2D was normal.
It looks like mine's around 1.00 - 1.03. >w<