Sorry, this might be a stupid question.... How do you realy know if you are gay without having any "Gay" experiences. I mean, you know.. never being with a man, only with women? I mean.. How do you really know for sure.... Sorry if this is a stupid question.
Thanks
The only stupid questions are those to which the questioner should already know the answer. This is not one of those cases.
But, at the risk of being annoying and answering a question with another question, how does someone who has not yet had
any sexual experiences know that they are straight?
This is not a trick question by the way. The reality is that what people call themselves and what they actually are may be two very different things. It is absolutely true that it may be difficult for someone to answer the question until and unless they have a frame of reference in which to do so.
For background purposes, I am a Kinsey 6. Which is to say I am a full-blown homo. Getting to the realization of this fact was not a short process however. There were essentially no positive depictions of homosexuality or gay life that I was exposed to as a kid. So as I entered adolescence and my sexuality began to kick in I had no way to put into context. Being gay was "bad" and feeling attracted to other guys was not something I was supposed to feel.
It was very clear to me from my surrounding environment that I was
supposed to be interested in girls. Consequently it became more of a symbolic ideal to me. I
wanted to be attracted to girls because to be straight was to be "normal", perhaps even "cool". I would certainly not have admitted to anyone what I was really feeling, and would have vehemently insisted to anyone who asked that I was 100% straight. In addition, I took great pains to avoid doing anything that might suggest otherwise, including even avoiding looking at other guys changing in the locker room.
Eventually it does start to weigh on the soul though. Wanting to be something and actually being it are two different things. The reality was that I wasn't at all attracted to girls. I hung around with many of them, and even went on "dates". But if at all possible I avoided doing anything sexual with them because it didn't feel right to me.
Getting to accept that I was gay took some time. I had to acknowledge to myself that what I really wanted was to be with another guy. Then I had to actually find a guy and put it to the test. I won't go into my misadventures in that phase of my life.
The point of my ramblings is that self-acceptance of bisexuality or homosexuality typically requires a little extra effort. Society enforces heterosexuality as a default standard which everyone is raised to expect themselves to be. If, in fact, one actually is a heterosexual then little to no effort is required. Society's expectation and reality are in alignment and nothing else need be done.
Homosexuals have to come to terms with their reality being opposite the expectation that we were raised to. This often involves coping with conflicts related to notions of gender roles and identity and what relationships are supposed to be.
Bisexuals have it even harder I suspect. Their reality encompasses both sides, which is not easy in our society, which prefers clearly delineated either/or statements of identity in most areas, especially sexual ones.
Now, to some extent this is rather clinical. The entire concept of sexual orientation didn't even exist until the 19th century when the budding new science of psychology was frantically trying to tag a name to every aspect of the human condition. Sexual matters were especially popular and I remember one wag once commenting about this period: "
They were coming up with new sexual disorders faster than people could actually suffer from them!"
Certainly a growing attitude that one sees, especially in Europe these days, is one where an individual doesn't bother to try and define their own sexual orientation. Rather they simply pursue relationships with people to whom they feel an attraction. This is often called a "post-Gay" philosophy but really it's just one of letting the reality answer the question, rather than trying to answer the question first and then align the reality with that answer.
This has more than a little merit. I do think that a lot of people nowadays, especially teenagers, spend altogether too much time worrying about giving it a name. It's perhaps more appropriate to give it a name later on. If a guy feels attracted to other guys, or to a specific guy then maybe they are gay or bi. If they feel like they have to force themselves to experience attraction to women, even if they
want to be attracted to them, then they are very probably not straight, but rather gay. On the other hand, if they do feel attraction to women, but also to men, then they are likely bi. If they feel exclusive attraction to women and no desire towards other men then they are indeed straight.
The
feeling itself is the determinant here. After all, even people who haven't had sex may still have a sexual orientation. A straight guy that hasn't had sex yet isn't sexually ambiguous, just sexually inactive. It's who they feel attracted to that really answers the question.
Is this making any sense, or am I being overly pedantic?
Thank you for such an indepth answer to my question. I underderstand what you are saying... and i won't put a label on myself 
