What's Your Earliest "I'm Queer" memory?

[Tonyko]

ME: 4th Grade. IDK how old you are in 4th grade 10? I remember because the 4th grade classroom in my school was the only one at street level and faced 1st avenue. Right outside the window were some Con Ed or street worker guys working, and one young guy had his shirt off. He had a long 1980 shag haircut. And I remember CLEAR AS IF YESTERDAY, the Nun stopping the class and saying Mr. Baldini WHAT is so fascinating outside that window??? I had NO idea what I was feeling or why but "something" inside me told me I shouldn't tell the Sister I was looking at this guy. Something told me it was "wrong?" . I can't remember what I said or IF I said anything. BUT I remember the feeling crystal clear!

[TruHart1]

Mine really awoke in the swimming pool locker room the summer I was about 9 years old. I spent more time standing at the piss trough faux-peeing, checking out the other dicks there and wandering in and out of the locker room changing area trying to see naked guys than I did swimming! I usually was dropped off by my mom around 10 am and stayed until almost dark. Don't get me wrong, I loved to swim in those days, but I found all the men on display inside to be absolutely fascinating even though I couldn't have expressed my reasons. I too never shared any of this with any adult because I felt it was somehow wrong!

 

TruHart1

[BabyBoomer]

Mine really awoke in the swimming pool locker room the summer I was about 9 years old. I spent more time standing at the piss trough faux-peeing, checking out the other dicks there and wandering in and out of the locker room changing area trying to see naked guys than I did swimming! I usually was dropped off by my mom around 10 am and stayed until almost dark. Don't get me wrong, I loved to swim in those days, but I found all the men on display inside to be absolutely fascinating even though I couldn't have expressed my reasons. I too never shared any of this with any adult because I felt it was somehow wrong!

 

TruHart1

 

Hey Tru, was that YOU at the next urinal checking me out all those years ago?

 

~ Boomer ~

[TruHart1]

Hey Tru, was that YOU at the next urinal checking me out all those years ago?

 

~ Boomer ~

LOL, Boomer. If it was, you must have been only about 5 years old! I have to admit that I was fascinated at how much bigger adult's dicks were than my puny pre-pubescent penis so I doubt I would have been checking out a younger boy's dick (unless, of course you were blessed with an unusually big one!!! )

 

TruHart1

Edited July 18, 2015 by TruHart1

[+ WilliamM]

In the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades, I always seemed to pick the best looking kid in my class as a friend. True, one student became a real friend, nick named Bimbo (not kidding). But, I did not understand it. And then I saw the film "Tea and Sympathy" on TV, and totally understood from then on.

 

Hey, how many nine-year olds would watch that film for more than 10 minutes?

[sincitymix]

hmm I grew up as a military brat on an af base overseas. I didn't even know what being gay was. no one ever talked about it. I knew I was attracted to men, I wanted GI Joe and He-man to rescue ME

Though I believe I fully understood that I was different when I was at the beach taking a shower to get all the sand off me, it was also the first time my parents let me go into the shower alone. I don't remember how young I was, but pretty young.. 10ish?

I was in heaven. So many Marine, Army and Air Force guys naked. sooooo many fit bodies and HUUUUUGE things dangling everywhere :)

[Tonyko]

And then I saw the film "Tea and Sympathy" on TV, and totally understood from then on.

Hey, how many nine-year olds would watch that film for more than 10 minutes?

Hey! I DID lol. Why?? Because fairly early in he is called "Sister Boy" by his Frathouse brothers AND I had heard some much older guys call another guy that but had no idea what it meant, but somehow I knew it had something to do with me. So the flick caught my attention. (of course by the end I was VERY confused and came away thinking any proper middle aged lady could fix a homo

[Bargara Leatherboy]

I can remember being 7 years old, and the barber was the source of my interest. He was blond and hot. I remember playing with myself in bed and we were in the barber shop, and I was wearing his white coat, that was about as exciting as it got at 7 but you have to start somewhere

[BabyBoomer]

Seeing Robert Conrad with his shirt off in "Hawaiian Eye" circa 1960. He was so fuckin' handsome!

 

~ Boomer ~

[+ Gar1eth]

While I didn't know what gay was, I remember really liking Ellie Mae's boyfriends on The Beverly Hillbillies when I was 4 or 5. I also remember -but it may be a false memory - of being in the boy's bathroom in kindergarten when I was 5. One of my classmates came in. I remember thinking he was cute. Then I remember thinking-but again this might be something I dreamed years later and not a real memory-boys don't think other boys are cute.

 

Finally- this scene from L'il Abner turned it into one of my favorite movies as a 5 or 6 year old. And it wasn't due to Granny Yokum or Daisy Mae.

 

 

 

 

But when did I decide for sure I was gay? It was when I was 24 or so. And I finally came to accept that I was never going develop feelings for women. Unfortunately that acceptance of my non-feeling for women was not accompanied by an acceptance of being gay. Instead I reasoned that I didn't want to be gay, so I made a vow never to act on being gay. And I kept the vow for the most part remaining a total virgin until I had my 1st sexual experience of any type when I was 41. It was with an escort. But even then I still didn't want to be gay. While I would have sex with escorts after that, I never even really tried to meet anyone friends who were gay. I was still closeted. I wasn't brave enough to have my 1st non-escort sex until I was 50. Now it happens occasionally but not often. And today I'm still trying to accept being gay. I'm not totally in the closet. But I'm definitely nowhere near all the way out.

 

Gman

Edited July 18, 2015 by Gar1eth

[+ poolboy48220]

I was 7, and had a crush on a kid who was going through first communion with me.

[Tonyko]

I was 7, and had a crush on a kid who was going through first communion with me.

OMG I was an Altar boy and in 8th grade had such a crush on one of the older altar boys a senior, HS kid, Irish, we all changed together in the ante room off the altar, I was coming IN for the next mass and he was leaving from the earlier one. Plain white T-shirts was as far as we stripped but that was enough for me at that stage lol. I also remember being aware for the first time HOW clue-less str8 bois can be, I must have asked my friend who sort of knew his little brother what his name was a DOZEN times and he NEVER got suspicious. I also mid-heard the name which was DRUMM but I heard JEROME as in a first name. I checked the schedule constantly for that name so I could serve with him or just "show up" in the changing room. Only was in there with him once more because he graduated, and I remember him and another HS guy talking about some "liberal" demonstration going on in The Village, may have even been gay related, and HIM saying lets go over there and bust some heads. (I know awful in retrospect but BACK THEN this super white pink cheeked thick chested boi with gleaming teeth and slicked back hair excited me

[Rudynate]

Getting boners over the pictures of Charles Atlas on the back of comic books at age 6-7.

[whipped guy]

OMG I was an Altar boy and in 8th grade had such a crush on one of the older altar boys a senior, HS kid, Irish, we all changed together in the ante room off the altar, I was coming IN for the next mass and he was leaving from the earlier one. Plain white T-shirts was as far as we stripped but that was enough for me at that stage lol. I also remember being aware for the first time HOW clue-less str8 bois can be, I must have asked my friend who sort of knew his little brother what his name was a DOZEN times and he NEVER got suspicious. I also mid-heard the name which was DRUMM but I heard JEROME as in a first name. I checked the schedule constantly for that name so I could serve with him or just "show up" in the changing room. Only was in there with him once more because he graduated, and I remember him and another HS guy talking about some "liberal" demonstration going on in The Village, may have even been gay related, and HIM saying lets go over there and bust some heads. (I know awful in retrospect but BACK THEN this super white pink cheeked thick chested boi with gleaming teeth and slicked back hair excited me

Fortunately I got kicked out of "alter boy school". Long story! God only knows what would have happened if I made it all the way. Well, probably not much because the freaking nuns had already worked their "magic" and warped my mind!

 

By the way, I started buying bodybuilding mags at a very early age and always would hide them because somehow I knew the feeling was "wrong". That was after seeing Steve Reeves in his first Hercules movie!

 

Getting back to the priests, nuns, and church. The stations of the cross were for some reason my favorite part of the Cathloic experience as a youngin... Yeah, even way back then I knew what I would be getting into........ Sacrilegious for sure, but heck that was my first glimpse of BDSM. Then I recall a whipping scene in the Zorro TV series and then... and then.... Well the rest is history!

[+ Charlie]

I started masturbating regularly when I was about eight years old, but I don't remember what I was thinking about while it happened. However, when I was twelve, I remember thinking about one of my classmates, Ricky Hill, who was more physically mature than the rest of the class, and very cute; I thought about what he looked like when he was naked in the gym locker room. The next summer, I was staying at my grandmother's house, and started reading a crime novel she had in the house, Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, which has a homosexual character in it. When Philip Marlowe makes a crack to him that suggests the possibility that he might be forced to perform oral sex on Marlowe, I suddenly realized that was what I wanted to do!

 

As a footnote, at my 50th high school reunion, I was engaged in conversation by a bald, grey, dumpy old guy whom I didn't recognize until I glanced at his name tag--it was Ricky Hill.

[mike carey]

I don't know when first had a queer moment and recognised it as such, although in retrospect there were a few. I bought those body-building magazines but never for a moment associated what I saw with any form of sexual attraction, and generally managed the same dissociation between thinking about men's bodies and sexual attraction. I find it hard to believe myself now! I knew about poofters but thought of that as something about creepy old men (no, I hadn't met any) rather than something that might relate to 'normal people'. Something about growing up in a small town and being naïve: it's not that the place was homophobic, homosexuality just wasn't a thing to me. Realising that it actually was a thing and that it was part of me came slowly. Looking back I just didn't know what I was missing.

[whipped guy]

One more thought. After seeing the Steve Reeves Hercules movie noted above I had dreams with his body positioned over mine and with his cock in my face. Incredibly I never thought of sucking on it. But what the heck does an eight year old kid know anyway!!! Still, I was heading in the right direction!!!

Edited July 18, 2015 by whipped guy

[Rudynate]

One more thought. After seeing the Steve Reeves Hercules movie noted above I had dreams with his body positioned over mine and with his cock in my face. Incredibly I never thought of sucking on it. But what the heck does an eight year old kid know anyway!!! Still, I was heading in the right direction!!!

 

I had forgotten about Hercules movies. I was so infatuated with Steve Reeves that it was upsetting. I would sit there, in the movie theater, on a Saturday afternoon, at age 7 or 8, and watch him in his loincloth with this incredible longing that I didn't understand - I wanted him to pick me up, to carry me on his shoulders, to be my friend; to admire me, to go places with me, I wanted to be like him, etc. etc. etc.

[+ azdr0710]

at about age 10 in the early 1970s, I took a rafting trip with my family down, I think, the American River in the foothills of the Sierras in California....at the boat-loading area near a bridge over the river, two in-shape guys in their early 20s, I presume, got naked and went skinny-dipping for a bit to cool off.....I think (??) it was the first time I'd seen naked adult guys (except for Dad) and I remember being fairly entranced at how built and good-looking they were.....

 

later, at about age 12, I remember a dude one grade ahead of me in the locker room who had evidently already gone thru puberty....we weren't required to take showers, but he usually did and was possibly proud of the fact he'd already matured a bit: he'd linger naked just a few seconds too long at the shower exit in full view of all....well-hung and good-looking.....

[dcguy20]

Not a vivid memory per se, but I remember as early as first grade that I was different than the other boys in class, but wasn't sure what that was.

[+ Gar1eth]

I don't ever remember getting an erection until I started having wet dreams at about the age of 12 or so. And I didn't masturbate until I was 16. I always loved those Hercules movies with Steve Reeves. Heck, I even loved the biblical movie Samson and Delilah because of how muscular Victor Mature was!!!

 

Anyone ever go to Six Flags Over Texas? They used to have canoe rides. The canoes were propelled and steered by these high school/college-aged guys who were shirtless in buckskin jeans. These guys were all tanned from being out in the sun all day and were all in pretty good shape since they were paddling in a canoe all day. WOW!!!

 

Gman

Edited July 18, 2015 by Gar1eth

[bostonman]

I can think of several times pre-puberty when I realized I was privately taking particular notice of a male celeb or athlete or even classmate, etc, but the earliest thing I can remember was when I was 5 or 6. I had a friend my age, Steven, who had an older brother Chris (he might have been all of 9 or 10, but when you're 5, that seems like SO grown up lol) - and I seem to think I had curious feelings about Chris. (Funny, the one memory I have is that he wore what seemed to me to be a "grown up" watch lol). In some way I must have been looking up to him, even though I didn't recognize this as anything really "romantic" or sexual. And of course Steven and I were just "little kids" to him - I don't know if he ever really took much notice of me. But I would remember going home after being at Steven's house, and somehow I'd always think about Chris.

 

In grade school, when we first started dealing with being naked and showering along with gym class (4th grade, I think), there was one boy named Joe who was uncut - and of course in that awkward time when everyone's curious about looking at everyone else (even as they try not to admit it), he got some stares and some disgusted reactions from some of the boys. I remember Joe pulling the foreskin back to show that it was otherwise the same as the rest of us - maybe he went back and forth a few times - and I was fascinated by it. I do remember hearing one of the boys saying something like "god, don't PLAY with it..." - but oh how I wanted to get up the nerve to ask Joe to show it to me privately lol.

 

As I got closer to puberty and started not only truly realizing I liked other boys but was starting to notice *what* I liked about them, I remember a rather defining incident. I might have been 12 or so - not sure - but my family went to see a local college basketball game. And I found myself not watching the game itself as much as I realized I could get hours of free peeks at college boys' armpit hair every time they raised their arms. I'm not sure I knew what a "fetish" was quite yet, but I knew that I was very drawn to those somewhat private patches of hair. And I still am, lol.

[Irtwo]

I love Charlie's story!

 

Similar to DCguy, around 1st grade I knew something was different. Around 3rd grade, I knew I was attracted to guys, mostly getting turned on by muscle guys in comic books or the Hercules cartoon guy (see my avatar!) I also knew it was "wrong," despite the fact my family wasn't religious at all and were fairly liberal; but I just wanted to be like the other guys so I kept it a secret. And like Gman, I had the idea in my head that as long as I didn't physically act on it with another guy I wouldn't be gay. However, I didn't wait as long as he did, I only held out until I was 22, lol!

[+ Funguy]

Getting back to the priests, nuns, and church. The stations of the cross were for some reason my favorite part of the Cathloic experience as a young in…

 

As in Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet, and Watch?

[+ Gar1eth]

And like Gman, I had the idea in my head that as long as I didn't physically act on it with another guy I wouldn't be gay. However, I didn't wait as long as he did, I only held out until I was 22, lol!

 

A clarification-I knew I was gay for sure at 24. But I didn't want to be gay. I wanted the 'straight' fairy (yes, I realize that might be an oxymoron) to wave her wand and make me straight. And since I knew that wasn't going to happen and that I was always going to be gay, but that I didn't want to be gay, I made the vow to never act on it.

 

My thinking over the years was-I didn't want to be gay. I was afraid my family would disown me. I wasn't entirely sure. But I thought why take the risk when I didn't want to be gay either. Then of course the first known AIDS deaths occurred in 1980 when I was 19. Why should I risk family disownment and death over something I didn't want to be?

 

Unfortunately, I'd still take the straight fairy up on her offer if she ever happened to knock on my door.

 

 

Gman