To ask how you knew you were gay?

[Darkling1]

In my early teens I would Google “Am I gay?” quizzes.

I’d also get questioned by my friends who I fancied, but I’d just pick some random guy in my class because I didn’t want them to question me further.

What about you?

Unil I was about 21 it never occurred to me that I was gay, because it just wasn't something that came up in 90s Bolton! I had boyfriends who I was fond of as people, but thought emotional and physical connection was just being massively over-rated by everyone (or maybe I'd just not met the right one yet!) Of course, as a teenager it is a big ego/ self esteem boost to be asked out, so I just sort of went along with it.

Then one day at university, I was walking back from the shop with a friend who was bi-sexual. There was a girl in front of us with a very short skirt on and my friend said something like "gosh, look at her legs...." and it just hit me like a bolt of lightning- I was physically attracted to women not men. I've been happily gay ever since (25 years). Of course, looking back I can't believe ir hadn't occured to me and to be honest a lot of friends and family weren't as surprised as I was!

Some lady with very shapely legs is walking around somewhere in world with no idea how pivotal she has been in my life!

Fancying Jafar is diabolical 😂

(I kind of get it tho)

It’s weird, I used to fancy men but went out with them & became immediately disappointed. So realised it may be the wrong gender eventually 😅

I’m bisexual and have been aware of being attracted to both sexes since my early teens, and never felt any angst about it either!

I probably like women more romantically and men a bit more sexually but honestly am happy with either and have had relationships with both men and women.

I love this! Were matters more clear for you when you dated women?

That's kind of how I feel! I was attracted to women in my teens, but in a sort of protective, romantic way. I find it easier to express sexuality with men though (simple beings that they are). Since my gay best friend died in 2005 when we were in our 20s, I stopped going on 'the scene' and just decided I was straight.

I've never married, and I know it's just not for me, but i do have children. I sometimes get mistaken for being a lesbian, but I've never gone down that route.

Im a bi woman so everyones at risk with me lol😆.

A friend pointed it out as a possibility when my early teen crushes from tv and movies were all female. Then aged 16 or so when the pretty girl I was sat next in a club stopped stroking my face and started kissing me instead, I realised I rather liked it. Turns out I'm bi.

Except it really isn't, for some people when you put repression and denial and anxiety to conform into the mix.

I don't think it even has to be repression. For a lot of people sexuality can be quite fluid in their teens, later firming into one thing or another. I thought I was a lesbian in my teens. I wasn't attracted to men at all. Later in my 20s I thought I was bi and it wasn't until after about 25 I realised I was straight. Now women don't interest me at all sexually.

I grew up in rural Wales in the 70s and 80s, I never saw or knew any gay people at all til I went to uni, and even then it was mainly gay men. I didn't have anyone or anything to identify with, never saw gay women on tv, never read about them, so it didn't occur to me to question why I thought boys were a bit icky, and why I assumed we all liked men despite obviously women being nicer looking. I had relationships with men, but always selected ones with either very low sex drives, or who lived 300 miles away. I did the sex stuff but never liked it much, just saw it as something you had to do to get the emotional closeness of a relationship. It was only in my 40s that I suddenly realised that THIS feeling I had towards a woman (a specific woman, which reminded me clearly of previous feelings for other women) was actually attraction, and what I'd felt for men was me trying to force something that didn't exist for me.
For a long time in my 30s I assumed I must be asexual because I decided I didn't want to do stuff with men any more and would rather be completely single and celibate. My eyes were opened in my 40s though and I realised that actually I'm not asexual I was just doing it wrong.

@Darkling1 yes, once I slept with a woman that was it. The confusion was over and I’ve been lesbian ever since. Even though she was in finance & we had little in common it was still better than a man !!

The same way I knew I was straight, I assume….

It must have been such a relief. Self discovery is not easy!

Wow, Jafar, really?

@GnomeDavid is it the eyebrows? The twirly goatee?

I surpressed it for so long. I always had crushes on girls but I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. My cousin was gay and my parents used to make so many jokes about it that I grew up thinking gay was such an embarrassing thing to be. Despite my crushes on girls, it never occurred to me I might be gay. I dated boys (whilst lusting after girls, and hooked up with girls on my occasions, usually after a few drinks, and wondered why I dramatically preferred it to being with a boy, but decided that all girls probably felt this way). I eventually had two kids with my ex. After my first kid was born my attraction to women got stronger and hit me like a tonne of bricks. After my second child was born it became undeniable. I left my children's father and am now in a relationship with a woman and feel I'm finally myself as an openly gay woman.

@AssassinsEyebrowi think it’s his skinniness and also his lust for power.

I think baddies as a general rule tend to be sexier, don't they? As a kid in the 80s I absolutely loved Alexis in Dynasty, but found Krystle bland and annoying. Baddies always have more fun!

It's really not. My first kiss was at 12 years old with another girl and I can see as an adult that what they call 'compulsory heterosexuality' set in after that and I never really got to explore that side of me properly - maybe if I had gone to uni things might have been different, but I didn't, I lived in a little village, none of my peers came out until way into adulthood and I just kind of coasted along with men, and backed off of most opportunities to explore women beyond friendships. You're also kind of conditioned in two ways - to believe that all women feel the same way you do about other women and that there's something else undefinable that sets the real gays apart. And to accept half-hearted feelings about men.

It took a long time to unpick that messaging and realise that actually, no, not every other woman feels that way about other women and nor do they all feel that way about men. That's not to diminish my prior experiences with men - I have had some great relationships with some men and genuinely loved and fancied some of them, not least the father of my child who is still the best man I've ever known.

Parts of realising I'm bisexual were really difficult to deal with - we're so used to seeing women romantically and sexually through mens eyes that I felt like an absolute creep whenever I acknowledged to myself that I fancied a woman. Thank god for the internet helping me work through that as an actual thing. But it's really not always simple. It's confusing.

Name change because this is far TMI, but I wasn't completely sure until the moment I went down on a woman for the first time. Admitted that afterwards to the person I was dating and she laughed for a very long time - she never had any doubts about my sexuality

1. i tried dating men and i absolutely hated every second of it
2. i had sex with a man and didnt like it
3. i fantasised about women and was sexually attracted to women
4. i thought i was bi for a while

eventually the penny dropped and i realised i wasnt interested in men at all, it took forever though. i didn't "just know" though even though looking back in hindsight it was utterly obvious.

I had schoolgirl crushes on older women. Around the time that other girls started to like boys, I either thought they were revolting or just felt neutral and that persisted. Kissed boys and felt nothing. If there hadn’t been a lot of compulsory heterosexuality growing up, the penny would have dropped more quickly but fell in love with a woman at 18 in university.

Tell that to my STBExH. He's come out after nearly 8 years of marriage and 2 kids. My entire life has been turned upside down and I'm just angry at how uncertain things are right now

Let me speak from experience - it really really isn’t.