Do you wish you were straight?

[Guest DuchessIvanaKizznhugg]

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

-- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

[Decatur Guy]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Ultimately, no. But it's clear it's "easier" to be straight, and I like a lot of things straight people have and take for granted. And that's being an American.

 

I'm sure right now, every gay Ugandan wishes he was straight.

[+ g56whiz]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Ultimately, no. But it's clear it's "easier" to be straight, and I like a lot of things straight people have and take for granted. And that's being an American.

 

Yes it's easier being straight and I'm inherently lazy. Moreover I loved my parents dearly (there loving marriage provided the paradigm that has given me 22 wonderful years with my partner) and I deeply regretted not providing them the grandchildren they longed for. They never nagged or pried but I could see the look in their eyes when they heard about their friends grandchildren.

 

Moreover I'd rather do woodwork than house work (although if forced I can cook well). Lastly I lack certain important gay genes: the Streisand gene, the Garland gene, the Cher gene, the Kathy Griffin gene, the home decorating gene etc. Sometimes I feel I'm on the cusp of being straight but then I see my partner or a bit of eye candy at the gym and I'm very happy I'm not.

[dane michaels]

I feel that for some time now, I have wondered about what has made me, me. I struggled in my past with this issue and after a divorce (woman) while stationed in Hawaii, I began to "experiment" after what I thought was a long road, that really was just a few years I found myself in a program, call it de-progamming call it whatever you'd like, I needed to find the "roots" of multiple issues and events that shrouded my childhood. Things stemming from my father on into men in my church (Im sure you can figure what I was trying to understand) After a few day coarse, I found that deeply rooted inside me where sexual issues I had suppressed, that I could not deal with. As a child I could not have been in the wrong or sexually sick. For a long time I thought it was my sick sexual fantasy... Well it wasn't, it was others outside of my control. So, I feel that I was born to love a woman and after an altered coarse, I am where I am. I do not hate those who left standing impressions, nor do I hate myself, but, I do wish for the things you do Leap Year, the home with the white picket fence, the kids and their games to attend, but I will not have those things now, but maybe in the future. I hope the best for you LY. We are all on a journey in this life.... I just hope for happiness with whom ever I choose it to be with.

[Guest Wetnwildbear]

All of That is Possible

 

. . So, I feel that I was born to love a woman and after an altered coarse, I am where I am. I do not hate those who left standing impressions, nor do I hate myself, but, I do wish for the things you do Leap Year, the home with the white picket fence, the kids and their games to attend, but I will not have those things now, but maybe in the future. I hope the best for you LY. We are all on a journey in this life.... I just hope for happiness with whom ever I choose it to be with.

 

All of those things you yearn for are possible as a gay or bisexual man today. And the reason that they are possible

 

is that those who wanted those things 20+ years ago - wouldn't take "NO" for an answer. Today, the majority of

 

states have laws for at least single parent gay adoption and many for dual parent gay adoption. There are willing

 

surrogates and egg donors, and Pickett Fence is ON SALE at Lowes this week and the person who sells it to you may

 

well be a Lesbian Mother or Gay Father. Only you can create the happiness you want and I sincerely hope that you

 

get everything you desire - with the one(s) you desire.

[Toulouse]

For me, It's good to be gay and out in 2011. That wasn't always the case, but I wouldn't want to be straight or go back into the closet now.

[Guest Wetnwildbear]

Judgement . . .

 

Very good points WWB. And I was just re-reading the original post and where Leap Year asked "Please don't make this judgmental. ... So, please keep the discussion civil." I think the forum has come through beautifully on that point. It has been a very interesting discussion and I'd like to thank everyone for that as well. I hope Leap Year is getting what he was looking for.

 

Well Lee - I reread my post, what I found was not passing judgement or lack of civility.

 

Instead I found my personal feelings honestly expressed and my interpretation of current events juxtaposed against

 

an analagous historical event.

[NYTomcat]

I feel that for some time now, I have wondered about what has made me, me. I struggled in my past with this issue and after a divorce (woman) while stationed in Hawaii, I began to "experiment" after what I thought was a long road, that really was just a few years I found imyself in a program, call it de-progamming call it whatever you'd like, I needed to find the "roots" of multiple issues and events that shrouded my childhood. Things stemming from my father on into men in my church (Im sure you can figure what I was trying to understand) After a few day coarse, I found that deeply rooted inside me where sexual issues I had suppressed, that I could not deal with. As a child I could not have been in the wrong or sexually sick. For a long time I thought it was my sick sexual fantasy... Well it wasn't, it was others outside of my control. So, I feel that I was born to love a woman and after an altered coarse, I am where I am. I do not hate those who left standing impressions, nor do I hate myself, but, I do wish for the things you do Leap Year, the home with the white picket fence, the kids and their games to attend, but I will not have those things now, but maybe in the future. I hope the best for you LY. We are all on a journey in this life.... I just hope for happiness with whom ever I choose it to be with.

 

Thank you Dane for an incredibly sensitive and wonderful post. While I have always known I was gay deep down and denied it. ... but I certainly know what you mean about feeling changed by the experience of the past. I was always a very romantic sort but of late well lets just say my desires have been changed by my history. What once scared and fascinated me has truly changed my sexual turn ons. Thank you for sharing.

[Guest RyanCade]

After reading the "gay for pay" thread, I got to thinking... I am a gay guy who loves straight guys. I don't know why, nor do I care why... I just do. In thinking about this, I started thinking, "do I wish I were straight"? The answer is "yes". I know and accept that I am gay, but I do wish I were straight.

 

I know this is controversial, but being truthful, I have always wished I were straight. It is not because I was teased or bullied as a kid, I wasn't. I had a great childhood. I guess, when I think about it, I wish I had the whole straight package, wife, kids, soccer games, house with the white picket fence.

 

So, are there others like me? Do you wish you were straight, or are you totally content with being gay? Please don't make this judgmental. I think everyone should feel comfortable with who and what they are, but that doesn't mean we can't wish we were something else. Hell, I wish I were a billionaire too (a little plug for Travie McCoy!). So, please keep the discussion civil.

 

Thanks

 

Please feel free to visit and read the outcome of my struggle, my thoughts aren't appropriate for this site imho and I would like to continue coming here and do not stand in judgment of anyone, so please please please be nice here. please. big hugs http://www.newcadence.blogspot.com

[josephga]

I didn't have a very good experience coming out that makes me sometimes wish i was str8. I didn't lose friends but lost relationships with family members. Iv also found it easier to have and make str8 friends vrs gay friends.

[Leap Year]

Having read all the wonderful replies to my question, I am overwhelmed by way this thread has been viewed. I asked a serious question and have received very serious answers. I am still wrestling with how I want to convey my straight/gay feelings, but I promise I will in the next day or two.

 

Thanks again to all for treating this topic with such great respect.

[kjun]

And, have to stick my face in that ugly gash? I should say not. Hell no. Never.

[leigh.bess.toad]

Well Lee - I reread my post, what I found was not passing judgement or lack of civility.

 

Instead I found my personal feelings honestly expressed and my interpretation of current events juxtaposed against

 

an analagous historical event.

 

WWB -- I certainly wasn't implying yours was. My was an addendum to your post. Yours was in keeping with the tenor of the entire thread. Please accept an apology if you misconstrued what my intent was.

[Guest greatness]

Thank you for a wonderful topic. It helped me see many other view points. You enriched our life with a simple question and I am amazed how wonderful and capable we are. Thanks for letting me see that. Hugs~~~

 

Having read all the wonderful replies to my question, I am overwhelmed by way this thread has been viewed. I asked a serious question and have received very serious answers. I am still wrestling with how I want to convey my straight/gay feelings, but I promise I will in the next day or two.

 

Thanks again to all for treating this topic with such great respect.

[Zapped]

My journey from gay to straight to gay . . . still healing

 

there's tons of stories on here of those who lived their lives as str8 for years. I wonder how many out there have done a complete opposite and decided they didn't want to be gay any more and decided to live the str8 life. I'm sure there's no one on here because they wouldn't be viewing this site if that was the case. But has anyone here ever known anyone thats done just that. Gay to str8

 

This thread has been amazing to read. As others have said, the honesty, sincerity, and depth have though have been inspiring, as has been the level of mutual respect.

 

I haven't posted here for a long time, but I definitely have something to add to this conversation, especially in response to Joseph's question.

 

I came out to myself, and others, as gay when I was a freshman in college. For a while it was great. But it was a kind of double life, because my friends at school knew, but not my family back home. Once I was outed to them by my sister, it was a nightmare and caused a great rift between my parents and I. They didn't disown me, but there was a horrible cloud hanging over the relationship. My family was not particularly religious, but its homophobia was as strong as any fundamentalist Christian family's. While I was assertively and, at times, aggressively out, and taking full advantage of being a cute college kid living near gay bars in Baltimore, I still hated myself, especially for being gay.

 

When I was 21 and graduating from college, I did the est training, a personal-growth workshop that was popular back in 1980. It enabled me to at least temporarily stop labeling myself as "gay," or anything. And I found myself, all of a sudden, in a sexual relationship with my best friend, a somewhat older (4 or 5 years if that) woman. I enjoyed it, and she certainly knew about my attraction to men. She had suggested est to me, to help overcome the homophobia that was torturing me.

 

Well, this new relationship certainly delighted my parents. Then my girlfriend and I broke up, and I soon became involved with an older man with whom I lived for a while. Things soured again, especially between my father and I. After my partner moved to another state and I stayed behind, with the relationship fading with the distance, I was introduced to the writings of Ayn Rand by a friend. I became taken with the sexual psychology in her essays, including those she wrote with Nathaniel Branden. It was natural, and rational, they claimed, for a man to dominate a woman, and a woman to submit to a man. Those writings connected with my own belief that my attraction to men was caused by a sense of being insufficiently masculine. Having been unathletic and unmuscular as a kid/teenager, I really had contempt for myself as a boy/man.

 

So, convinced that my masculinity issues were the cause of my homosexuality, rather than coincidental to it and coloring my particular sexual fantasies, I set about telling myself how masculine I was. Kind of convinced myself for a while. And I discovered my inner dominant top--started fucking guys, and having fantasies about totally dominating a woman. Got into sex with women in a new way. But instead of understanding that I had discovered I got turned on by power and domination, I thought I was getting "better" and that my gayness was receding. My homosexuality was, I told myself, being healed. (Sounds like the same old ex-gay shit, right? Just no Jesus.)

 

And meanwhile, I longed--more than I had admitted to myself for years--for the life of a married man with children, the thing I'd seen modeled by family and friends. I wanted to be "normal."

 

So I became a non-religious, self-proclaimed, kind of ex-gay. I ended up marrying a woman who knew of my sexual history. We had great sex and cared deeply about each other. All our friends tried to talk us out of it. My family, in particular, rejoiced. And I basked in the approval and reacceptance.

 

It worked fine for a while. Then the whole thing started to fall apart. I realized that I had sold myself bullshit, but I signed back up for it in order to stay married once we had a child. And then another.

 

Eventually, we tried an open relationship. She encouraged me (really) to have nsa fun with guys as long as I stayed safe. So I did--and it worked for me. But she hated it. And we ended up getting divorced, as lovingly as we could, and we are still incredibly close friends. We work very well in coparenting the two kids, now both in college.

 

By the time the marriage fell apart as a marriage, we had moved somewhere where everyone simply assumed we were a "normal" straight couple, so the coming out process was a nightmare. But we got through it, and our circle of friends, associates, and fellow (very liberal Episcopalian) church members came to accept me as a gay man.

 

I'm still healing from it all. Lots of therapy! Antidepressants! Xanax!

 

Every time I have sex with a man, it seems yet one more layer of internalized homophobia peels off (how could there be so many?). I am able to enjoy, for example, sucking a cock without shame. 30 years ago, I'd suck a cock and enjoy it, but imagine my father's horrified face (which was not a sexually stimulating image, I must say). There was such a toxic mixture of pleasure and guilt.

 

Now, at 52, I feel almost like a teenager. And I'm living temporarily in NYC, where it turns out there are a number of young men to whom I'm attracted and who are, in turn, attracted to older guys with a belly. Sometimes things work out.

 

So that's the short version of my journey from out-of-the-closet, gay, slutty 20-year-old-twink to closeted 35-year-old father, and back to being an out-of-the-closet gay man, who is very close to being genuinely and thoroughly self-accepting and self-embracing.

[Guest greatness]

Zapped, thanks for sharing your story. It really helps me to have another perspective on things.

[Guest Wetnwildbear]

Appreciated - But Not Necessary

 

WWB -- I certainly wasn't implying yours was. My was an addendum to your post. Yours was in keeping with the tenor of the entire thread. Please accept an apology if you misconstrued what my intent was.

 

Apology appreciated and accepted - But not necessary - I am a thick-skinned ol' Bear!

 

Perhaps I did misconstrue, but the title of your post was "Judgement . . ."

 

So if I did miscontrue I was arguably lead to that path.

[leigh.bess.toad]

Zapped -- let me also say thank you for sharing. It is stories of guys like you that gives guys like me who are still in the process of feeling our way out of the closet hope that we will make it and emerge as strong gay men. I know that already the inspiration from from some of the stories here and some of the PMs I've received from guys here have touched me deeply. I am already happier than I have ever been in spite of the uncertainty that lies ahead. This really has been a remarkable thread. I hope Leap Year has gotten everything out of it he wanted.

[josephga]

I never was sad or depressed until I came out and in the last 10 years had number of depression episodes. I don't take anything for it. it passes over time. It passed for awhile but in the last few weeks its been really bad again.

[Rick Munroe]

What about the opposite question? I'm sure there are a lot of straight guys who wish they were gay. I happen to know two who tell me that (no, they aren't clients...and I am friends with their wives, too).

[seeker630]

... I'm sure there are a lot of straight guys who wish they were gay. I happen to know two who tell me that (no, they aren't clients...and I am friends with their wives, too).

 

Hmm - I'm skeptical of that first statement. What reasons do your friends give?

[Okliehomo]

Hell... yeah!!!

 

I wish I had been born straight..... and taller.... with a really, really big dick.... maybe blonde, too...with perfect teeth (never mind, I have that)... and in Peoria.... that's it!! That would be justice.... for me.

 

Believe it or not, for whatever unfathomable reason, in spite of coming out of the womb with Barbie in hand, women love me. Seriously, if they hadn't all completely revolted me below the waist (and to be honest, above too... breasts?? Vomit..)... I could have been married with children many times over... like my brothers.... here and in real life.

 

And that no doubt it would have been a much easier road.... here in oh so progressive, oh so faith based, oh so homophobic Oklahoma... but I couldn't seem to put that Barbie down. Nope... Nor Midge.. nor Skipper... nor Barbie's lesser known cousin, Francie... or the entire Johnny West family (complete with horses)... all compliments of my Mother, my accomplice... bought in secret and played with when my Dad was at work.

 

Being a sissy is harder work than one would think.... for sure.

 

But it certainly has had it rewards... in the end... mine, at one time and nowadays, theirs.....

 

Otherwise, I might have gotten married and ended up here anyway... oops... but that's another thread.

 

Okie

[Guest GQ Pro]

I often thought life would be so much easier if I were str8. There were a number of years where I really tried to be str8 and was never really happy. Now I'm fine with being gay, it's part of who I am. If I weren't gay, I wouldn't be me. That would be sad

 

" Secret Escapades of a Gay Gigolo"

http://gqpro.tumblr.com/

[Zapped]

Hmm - I'm skeptical of that first statement. What reasons do your friends give?

 

I don't know about Rick's friends, but I have some straight friends, including at least one woman, who envy the ease with which at least some gay men are able to find partners for recreational sex. This includes being able to go to a bathhouse or sex club. And while I've known gay couples with open relationships that work well, that seems to be quite rare with opposite-sex couples. So while my straight friends may not wish they were gay in the sense of wishing they liked to suck dick, for example, some wish they could enjoy the sexual freedom that still exists in some areas of gay culture. It's possible, as well, that there are times when a straight guy may love a gay so much that he wishes a sexual relationship could work for him--just as many of us have loved a woman very much but had to admit the sex was unfulfillng.

[Zapped]

I often thought life would be so much easier if I were str8. There were a number of years where I really tried to be str8 and was never really happy. Now I'm fine with being gay, it's part of who I am. If I weren't gay, I wouldn't be me. That would be sad

 

That sums it up very well for me. At some point in my years of therapy, I realized I liked being gay--I like being attracted to men, love sex with men, love romantic relationships with men. It was the social stigma, feeling ashamed, being in the closet at times, not being accepted by my family, etc., that I hated and made me want to fit in and accomodate expectations.