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AMA

I’m a gay man. AMA

258 replies

EcoCleaner · 20/10/2018 23:24

Gay, spent much of my formative years on “the scene”, Irish catholic family on my side and Muslim in-laws.

Ask me anything.

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Anchorsaweigh · 20/10/2018 23:25

Do you think being gay is that special you need an AMA about it?

Gay woman here btw.
Can't imagine many people would be that interested. It's quite the norm now.

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Hubblebubbletripletrouble · 20/10/2018 23:26

Odd?

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EcoCleaner · 20/10/2018 23:38

anchorsaweigh not at all. Quite the opposite infact. So this thread happened after a conversation with a friend. We were talking about homophobia and things that had happened to us over the years and she quite rightly pointed out that people tend to be afraid of things that they don’t understand. When in truth, being gay is actually very boring because people either in overly dramatic support or hatred make a bigger deal out of than it needs to be. So our solution was to take all the mystery out of of it, which prompted this thread. She’s posted something in some Facebook group too so we’re comparing notes :)

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EcoCleaner · 20/10/2018 23:39

But hey if there’s no questions, I guess that’s a good sign :)

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redexpat · 20/10/2018 23:40

Have you heard this week's episode of my dad wrote a porno the footnotes? Do you recognise the types? What type are you?

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EcoCleaner · 20/10/2018 23:41

tedexpat sorry I don’t know what that is?

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Weimaragi · 20/10/2018 23:42

Honestly can think of nothing to ask you just based on your sexuality.....

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EcoCleaner · 20/10/2018 23:44

Weimaragi that’s great. It seems Mumsnet audience are getting it right.

Facebook...not so much 😂

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BeeFarseer · 20/10/2018 23:51

I'm curious about your age. Are you in your twenties? Or older?

About fifteen years ago I met someone who defined himself as an 'ex-gay' man. He was in his fifties and had become friends with my housemate, who was struggling to accept his own sexuality. It was all very sad, and very clear that societal pressures had done a number on him over the years.

I'm wondering if you grew up with that sort of pressure (the days of Section 28, etc) or if you're younger and feel the benefit of those who paved the way, for want of a better phrase?

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Monday55 · 20/10/2018 23:52

how many children do you & your partner want ?

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Chalkhillblu3 · 21/10/2018 00:02

Do you think being camp is passé?

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EcoCleaner · 21/10/2018 00:03

BeeFarseer old enough to have felt the effects of section 28 and the AIDS crisis of the late 80’s. It was still very much around when I started coming out. Though I was very young and when I watch the various films and documentaries or read the stories of what was happening at that time, I’m eternally grateful to those who laid the ground work and paved the way for me to live in a world where I can be who I am. Though some of mine and my fiancé’s family are still stuck in the dark ages slightly.

Monday55 well that’s a discussion we’re having at the moment. Both of us want a family though my partner is ex-social services so has seen the horror stories of adoption over the years, so he is very adamant that he wants to have our own children via surrogacy. Whereas to me it’s more important that we have a family regardless of the source - I’m more open to adoption than he is. Surrogacy in the U.K. is....complicated. So we don’t have a number but definitely more than just one if we can.

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Villanellesproudmum · 21/10/2018 00:05

Was either of the religions an issue ? I’m a single parent, never married and very frowned upon by my Irish Catholic grandmother, only me though, not her unmarried sons who are parents.

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EcoCleaner · 21/10/2018 00:08

Chalkhillblu3 not really. I have some very camp friends and some friends who are not remotely camp. I honestly don’t think they know how to be anything else. It’s just there personal mannerisms. Like some people are very expressive and wave there hands about when they talk and some people don’t. Though I have seen a lot of division in the gay community over it, some people can be very very anti-camp. But honestly I think people who are naturally quite camp and flamboyant are just being themselves.

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1MillionSelfiesTakenByMyKids · 21/10/2018 00:09

Ok. Now i have to ask...

...what on earth are they asking on FB?

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Havalina · 21/10/2018 00:15

I read quite an interesting discussion on reddit, think it was posted in the no stupid questions subreddit. It was basically, is there a "gay voice" in languages other than English, apparently so!

Something I'd never thought about, what are your views on this? A lot of people seemed to think it was a socialisation/signifier thing, others had good points to counter. Obviously I realise not every gay man is camp, it's just interesting to think about.

Also why gay women don't seem to have the same phenomenon.

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EcoCleaner · 21/10/2018 00:17

Villanellesproudmum both of our parents were quite progressive in their own ways. I think my partners parents struggled more so than mine because they're from and still very much part of a world where it's illegal. Whilst they've welcomed me into their family with open arms, we are still expected to lie to the extended family as his Mum would never tell them he's gay and likes to put on a front of what they equate to being "normal" and "perfect" - not out of hatred for us, but out of protection of anybody thinking negatively or being hateful towards us. Personally I'd rather be honest and hated.

My Mum's parents were Irish catholic and again, there's this whole thing about keeping up the appearances and making sure anybody outside of the family perceived them as "normal". This extended to cousins and aunts and uncles that my Mum and her siblings didn't really know - they were brought up to believe everybody else was perfect and these relatives became more of a concept in their minds than actual people. It was until my Grandad's funeral in 2013 that my Mum learned that her cousin has 3 lesbian daughters, most of her similarly aged relatives are divorced (as my Mum is, twice!) and none of them go to church anymore, which was a big relieif for my Mum who felt a little bit like the black sheep.

So whilst there was an immediate pressure from our own parents, certainly there was definitely a sort of unspoken role that we didn't discuss it with extended family.

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FatimaLovesBread · 21/10/2018 00:18

Are you a top or a bottom or do you kind of share that?

What do you think about so called beard PR relationships that apparently occur in closeted celebrities?

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EcoCleaner · 21/10/2018 00:22

1MillionSelfiesTakenByMyKids I don't know what group it's in, but she's getting a lot of stupid questions. Some bloke legit posted a dick pic and asked her why she didn't like it. Face palm.

Havalina that's very interesting. Not something I've really considered to be honest. There's a piece of research done that links sexuality to testorone and estrogen levels in the womb during pregnancy which was a very interesting read. I'll post a link if I can find it. So perhaps the level of effeminacy/masculinity physically and vocally could also be attributed to that? I wonder what the tipping point is? I'll get my other half to get the kitchen scales out and see if we can find it ;)

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justilou1 · 21/10/2018 00:23

Do you ever think that one day it will simply not be a “thing” and people won’t need to “come out” at all? (Hope so!)
*Was having this discussion with my kids who are worried about one of their friends who has very conservative parents.
(Btw- the outcome of this conversation was me thanking my kids for trusting me not to be an a-hole and telling this kid that our house was safe and happy any time if they needed somewhere to land.)

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EcoCleaner · 21/10/2018 00:28

FatimaLovesBread awkwardly we're both tops. Though I'm a little more stubborn about it than he is, so I usually get my way. There's more interesting things you can do than anal mind, it's neither of our immediate preferences. Though I feel we're now at a point in our relationship that all couples get it where we're like "oooh god is it the third Sunday of the month again? Blimey, best crack on then" Grin

As for PR relationships...ahem.."beards"...I can't associate myself with the feelings to be honest. Whilst I get the need to be discrete about sexuality, especially with my family set up, I've never actively lied about anything and to be honest, I don't think I'd be able to bring myself to do so. But the celebrity world is a whole other ball game, especially in say the sports industry. We're getting there, but we're not there yet.

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EcoCleaner · 21/10/2018 00:32

justilou1 dear god I hope so! It's hard to imagine though, isn't it? Having been this way for so long and even now with legalised same sex marriage and more publicised same sex relationships, there's still a hell of a lot of homophobia in the world. Whilst it's refreshing to see us making such great leaps, I'm totally with you that I would love for it not be a thing. A 16 year old girl can just bring her girlfriend home from school and her parents not batting an eyelid. Or some boy at school who has a crush on another boy and just has the same banter as anyone else rather than it being a huge thing and him getting bullied for it. When we get there, we'll have totally got this "being human beings" thing down.

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MyEyesAreNotDeceivingMe · 21/10/2018 00:43

In the light of all the focus on trans at the moment, did you ever struggle with your gender when you were young? Did it ever cross your mind that because you were attracted to the same sex that maybe you could present as feminine or even trans?

The reason I ask is that there is evidence thy suggests that actually a high % of trans identifying young people are actually gay but are transing instead.

I’d love to know what your views are of trans women as a gay man.

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EcoCleaner · 21/10/2018 00:53

MyEyesAreNotDeceivingMe for me, I've never doubted my gender. I am very much male and happy in my body and gender.

Transgender women are women. End of conversation. Infact I almost feel bad referring to them as "transgender women", we should just be referring to them as "women". Equally so for transgender men.

If I'm being completely honest, the gender stuff confuses me slightly sometimes. I understand transgender completely, but the gender fluid stuff I get a bit confused with, but really only because I can't ever relate to feeling like that.

I'm lucky in that I was born with all the right parts in the right places and have never felt the need to identify as anything else. It saddens me to think of all the people out there who for years felt uncomfortable being in their own bodies. I suppose that's like waking up everyday in someone elses house and never being able to leave it and go back to your own. But alas, not a feeling I have ever had to deal with personally.

I used to know someone who was trans female to male...lord he was damn handsome too and way out of my league.

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user8905 · 21/10/2018 01:06

Most gay men I know couldn't really care less about trans people. Personally I think they should be able to use toilets of their destination gender once they've gone through some sort of formal recognition process and are at least dressing full time as that gender. The whole self id thing is too complicated and fraught with emotion at the moment - over time it will settle down once women realise there aren't that many trans men and that they're not a threat.

Good luck with surrogacy - altruistic in the uk is near impossible due to lack of women wishing to do it. So you can either pay £20k/child in third world countries like Cambodia or £100k in the US. I know many m & f gays who've had great success with adoption - this is a wonderful thing to do, especially since there are 3 children waiting for adoption for every available adopter at present. The uk has great financial support for getting counselling/psych treatment for adopted children (if necessary) and their schools also get pupil premium plus. The vast majority of adoptions are very successful - or course it's only the troublesome ones that people get to hear about.

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