I'd gotten into a breif conversation with my best friend about our other friend who has mentioned about very briefly liking another girl in a romantic sense. Now my best friend was rather suprised by this and never expected it in our friend. I'd said to her that everyone questions their sexual orientation at some point, but she swears down that she doesn't think it's a normal occurance in 'growing up' and that she never has questioned her own preferrences.

Personally, I think it's odd to never have questioned such a thing in yourself. I have, I have friends who have and even an ex-boyfriend who had. I just figure it was one of those things that just happens. Secretly, though, I think she has...she just won't admit it.

But then perhaps there are people who haven't really thought about it or questioned themselves or just knew they liked boys or girls without mulling it over?

some do some don't some are some aren't that's just the way it is. each to their own. personally I did but i'm deffinatly more turned on by boys, still don't hurt to have a good snog with a nice gurlie every now and then mind

Not exactly. I never had a moment where I thought "Oh! I'm gay!". I've always been aware of what I found attractive, and I guess the only real "question" has been whether to keep an open mind or not. While I try to, experience has led me to work to the assumption that I like boys rather than girls, and I've yet to meet a woman who's given me any reason to doubt that.

We're told that questioning your sexuality is perfectly normal. Did that mean that not questioning your sexuality is abnormal?

I'm not sure if it's different for gay people...I intuitively feel like it is, since even if you haven't questioned your own sexuality, you've gone against the path of heterosexuality that's been automatically set down for you. To automatically assume heterosexuality in a culture where this preference is the norm is what I find disturbing. I had a phase where I questioned my sexuality, but now I just accept that I don't need to fit into any binary category. I roughly call it bisexuality so as to explain it better, but it isn't, really, because even it includes the prefix "bi" which represents what I'm trying to avoid in the first place.

I don't think many of my friends would admit to questioning their sexualities, perhaps because the teenage phase where everyone makes fun of you for it still hits too close to home and also, they're all very straight (in sexuality & normality terms.) You tend to hear that women are more open about and to this sort of thing, but my experience has been knowing a much higher proportion of gay men than lesbians, or bisexuals of either sex. Well, since going to uni; I didn't know any gay men IRL before that (my school...let's just not talk about that)

Yeah, unfortunately we're kind of stuck with it until they can find a way to show a gay person without them being overtly gay/engaged in gaying about. The word for it is "heteronormative", and it's probably not worth getting worked up about because, due to sheer force of numbers, it's if not inevitable then at least very hard to reverse (kinda impractical too). You get it with race, where a person can be of a different race without it being an issue. I'm not talking about hard-hitting dramas about Asian culture, I'm talking about when you get an example in a maths book where "Tom has 10 apples and he gives 4 to Sharon and the rest to Hardeep; how many apples does Hardeep have?" A big step towards encouraging acceptance is in establishing that it's normal not to be a member of all of the majority, or if not "normal" then at least common.

I kinda ties in with the thread about gay role models. Acceptance relies not so much on showing exceptional or strong characters, but on totally boring and one-dimensional ones. Hardeep isn't in the maths book because the maths book is telling a poignant story about Asian culture. He's in it because he's just as boring as white people are and shouldn't be exempt from being treated as such just because he's Asian.

Re: Hardeep, I'm not too sure about those examples. I feel like the writer's well-intentioned attempt to be inclusive and unbiased actually makes the Asian kid stand out more, in a similar way to those examples in textbooks where you'd want to use the general "he" pronoun (pronoun? I'm rubbish with grammar) but the author uses "she." I suppose it is progressive in terms of the Hardeep example, but maybe the female/male one is slightly different...because instead of differentiating between three kids by giving them three different names, you want consistency in a text & it just gets irritating. It makes want to mock the writers for being so try-hard PC.

But obviously this wouldn't help the cause at all...not really sure what would...

Well orientation has already been programed so theres nothing you can do to chage it. I knew from the time I got hard on I was straght. Over last 10 years I've become much more tollereant of homosexuality, pretty much 180 turn around. I'm pretty sure even IF I have a homosexual experience, it wouldn't make me question my sexuality.

I agree with this, but I don't think it's really that relevant, since you don't come with a genetic code-reader do figure out easily what's actually in your genes. If people did then they'd be saved all this business of "questioning" their sexuality. In a lot of cases people need to question to allow what's innately in them to surface without them feeling guilty or confused about it.

i've known since as long as i can remember that i'm ambiguous, but mostly straight

I haven't really questioned mine but I was at some point confused because there's a difference between being turned on by someone of the same sex and being able to fall in love with someone of the same sex.

I personally have never had a crush on a girl but I can be turned on by a woman's body....and by a man's body. With a nice male body I feel like I want to touch him and would want sex with him.... With a woman's body I think in my case it's just nice to look at...
But I don't believe that makes me "straight with gay tendencies" or sth...
I'm strictly into boys....although my girlfriends and I made out during a very very drunken evening...I can't even remember that night though...

Alright. I'm a lesbian trapped in a mans body then

Do you WANT to chop your peen off?

__________________

Diving for pearls.

I want a lolly.

And get boobies that I can play with all the time? I might consider an exchange however I want a full functioning fanny

Fanny. LOLZ.
Your own boobs are boring
Other peoples are nice.

__________________

Diving for pearls.

I want a lolly.

I've WISHED I was gay, just so I wouldn't have to deal with men anymore. This was when I had a couple of bad romantic experiences back-to-back. However, I've never fantasized about having sex with a woman, or even kissing a woman. For me, wishful thinking isn't the same as desire - I don't want to get it on with a chick, and I never have. So, I guess I'm one of those people who've never questioned their sexual orientation, although I've wished I could be gay for a change.

(Now that I'm older, I realize that being gay does nothing to decrease the stressfulness of romance, and that I was completely ignorant to think that being gay would cure my relationship difficulties.)

I always liked women from a really young age and for a while i thought about men a blah blah blah but they never really amused me very much.

Mummy, am I weird?

__________________

Diving for pearls.

I want a lolly.

I would like to be curious about women. But I'm not.

Based purely on my experience in bars, I'm pretty sure lesbians are a fuck of a lot harder to deal with than dudes. Hell hath no fury squared plus periods, dig?

How would you write your name in the snow?

I think part of the problem is that we're kinda societally "expected" to choose a lot earlier than we should. I don't really think it's possible to be sure about one's sexuality at all until you're out of your teens, certainly not so possible that it's worth trying to make some kind of permenant decision. I'm pretty sure most people would benefit in adulthood from both homo and heterosexual experiences and experimentation, but obviously if the will isn't there to experiment (and I can honestly say I've barely had any sexual or emotional desire for women, certainly not enough to be worth acting upon) then there's no real point in forcing yourself to do so.

All the same, I think it's would be a lot easier for everyone if we could finally get to a stage where a guy or a girl can be attracted to a guy or a girl and not have to think "Ohmigosh, does this mean I'm gay/straight?!". I don't think anyone benefits from feeling the need to label themself gay or straight or even bi when they're still in their formative years sexually, and I kinda wish some of my male friends could be aware that just knowing a man is attractive (as in pretty/handsome/whatever) is not an admittance of cock-thirst. Similarly, I think women are kinda encouraged to act in a sexual fashion upon fairly platonic attraction to other women, and I can't help but feel that's unhealthy. I know that I have, in the past, mistaken friendship for sexual love, and the consequences of that have been hard to deal with (woooo, crypticky).