Who was your gay awakening?

[moreofthat]

A few friends and I were having this conversation last week, and it was a lot of fun to reminisce: 

Which male-presenting public figure was the first to make you think you might like boys? These friends of mine happen to be in different age brackets, so the names were all over the place, which was most of the fun. We all pulled up pics on our phones to gush and cringe. Feel free to post pics with your reply! (no pics of anyone under 18 at the time, though I definitely had some teen stars when I was just a wee one that made me tingly in my fruit of the looms). 

A few of mine:

Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day), Jensen Ackles (when he was on Days of Our Lives, my mother's favorite soap opera), and Dean Cain (as Superman in Lois and Clark - yes, I know he's an asshole now)

 

 

[56harrisond]

[Rod Hagen]

Makes me sound much older than I am, but Roddy McDowall.  When I was kid Mom would call into the house, "Roddy's on TV!" and I'd come running (back in the day when even a large farm house had only one television).  She knew I loved him, she just didn't know why.  As the gorilla, no.

Age-appropriate crush was Ricky Schroeder.  Silver Spoons was an awful show and I watched it over and over.  As I young adult when he got fucked, ok, raped actually :-( in a jail cell in I think "Terror on Highway 91", or some other movie around that time, I was...I don't know, weirdly affected.  I don't think I was out to myself yet, he's a bit older than I am.  

Looking him up now I see his IMDB List is MUCH longer than I knew, I never watched NYPD blue.  I should have.  I still find him hot.  And right now gogling him I see that  his views on Trans Rights and Vaccines don't seem to align with the crowd. I think anti-vaxxers are stupid.  And I have no trouble being attracted to and friendly with stupid men.  YUM.  Views shouldn't keep us from getting along.  An opinion is nothing more than that, an opinion.  A thought.  A feeling.  And my thoughts and feelings for Ricky are THANK YOU.  Unless he's really really really a monster (haven't googled him that much) than fuck him.  Anyway, those were two of my first gay awakenings, or at least gay stirrings I'm sure there were others.  Thanks for this thread, fun to think about.

p.s. Damn, I just read a bit more.  There's dumb, which is ok.  And there's mean, which is often ok if it's funny, but not as a guiding principal.  So bye bye beautiful man, thank you for the memories.  

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Rod Hagen

[MscleLovr]

29 minutes ago, Rod Hagen said:

Makes me sound much older than I am, but Roddy McDowall.

Well, @Rod Hagen! Your instinctive ’gaydar’ must have been sophisticated at a VERY young age.

I recall reading a couple of Hollywood memoirs which covered those years. IIRC it was Elizabeth Taylor who was a close friend of Roddy, and she confirmed the rumours that he was gay and possessed an exceptionally large dick.

Edited 3 hours ago by MscleLovr

[Becket]

Chad Everett on Medical Center and David Soul on Starsky and Hutch

[maninsoma]

I know I had a crush on Kent McCord on Adam 12 as a pre-teen, but I couldn't articulate why I was so drawn to him.

The first "real" TV awakening was with Christopher Knight, who played Peter on The Brady Bunch.  There was no confusion what was going on because I had a wet dream about him).  Mike Lookinland as Bobby was closer to my age but "Peter" is the one who caught my eye.