Personal mythology

[fpb]

Everything I find written about practicing homosexuals intimates that they were aware of their "difference" from an early age, and certainly from their teens. But in my own experience, the two homosexual men I knew best only turned to their own sex in their mid-twenties, after considerable experience with women. And I would like to be sure that this business of young teens being already gay is not a matter of retrojection and personal mythology. After all, there has hardly ever been a teen-ager who did not feel "different".

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[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

"the two homosexual men I knew best only turned to their own sex in their mid-twenties, after considerable experience with women"

One common reason for that is trying to deny or suppress one's homosexual nature, or even being unaware that being homosexual is a thing. "Men go with women", so one tries, even without much desire, to fit in, or to avoid the social punishment dished out to gays.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I suggest you don't try to apply your cliches to my experience. I have known a lot of gay men, but in this case I am speaking of two people I knew for years, who were intimate friends of mine, and with one of whom I shared a house for four or five years. They were not "trying". In both cases, they turned to their own sex because they could not, one way or another, cope with the implicit demands of a relationship with a woman. But that at least one of them was clearly in love I can tell you for certain. In fact, when he met Debbie (whom I was trying to court at the time), he remarked on how like his former partner she was. (I saw their handwritings, and they were almost identical.) But it is exactly what drew me in - her strength, her immense courage, the way she lived - pushed him out. He frankly admitted to me that he couldn't cope. Both of my friends had serious mother issues, and in the case of this man I am pretty sure that he felt himself being destroyed by his girlfriend's inner strength - although she herself wasn't trying - because he had never got out from under the shadow of his mother's immense and excessive personality. The homosexual relationship in which he eventually settled was, to my eyes, unwholesome, with strong features of domination and submission - his partner was a pretty, petulant and submissive lad, who however slept around behind his back - and a ruinous habit of drink. Oh, and he had been raped by a priest when he was about twelve. All these things form a pattern, but as you start from the nonsensical principle that homosexuality is inborn and unchangeable, you will never accept that they do.

I have known another man who turned from women to men in his mid-twenties, but in his case the thing was simply that he was a sociopath and a swine. After fathering two children on two different women, he consciously decided - he actually told me so - that men were less trouble, and, typically, the first young man he seduced was none other than the brother of the last girl he had impregnated. He was the most selfish human being I have ever met - though superficially charming and extremely handsome - and brought ruin wherever he went.