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When Did You Realize You Were "Different"?

Avalon

By + Avalon
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nycman Grand Master

+ nycman

Posted
Posted

To paraphrase Pansy Division....

 

When I realized what it meant when another boy caused “a lump” in my jeans....

 

 

Around 5 years old...to answer the question.

marylander1940 Grand Master

marylander1940

Posted
Posted
When I was a boy there was a Western tv series "Sugarfoot". It starred Will Hutchins. I looked forward to seeing him. Of course then I didn't know what it all meant but it was my first "crush" and I wasn't even 10yo.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarfoot

 

I've always knew... and it was something not to celebrate and to keep private.

 

I guess by 10ish I suspected yet I didn't know what it was a few years later it was clear.

Bearofdistinction Mentor

Bearofdistinction

Posted
Posted
When I was a boy there was a Western tv series "Sugarfoot". It starred Will Hutchins. I looked forward to seeing him. Of course then I didn't know what it all meant but it was my first "crush" and I wasn't even 10yo.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarfoot

 

 

About 5 years old when my parents sent me to summer Day Camp -- and all the lil boys changed into and out of their swimsuits in one big room along with the Hot Teen/20s Furry Counselors and everybody pissed into a trough . . . when School started I tried and succeeded in teaching some of the boy what I learned at Day Camp!

JayCeeKy Veteran

JayCeeKy

Posted
Posted

About age 5. I loved physical contact with other boys especially wrestling (you may not believe this, but I remember my little weenie pulsating when I was being "topped"/pinned in a wrestling match). And, in Kindergarten I had a crush on cute blond-haired boy. When a new girl showed up one day for class, she made a move for blondie and I was insanely jealous. I didn't have a word for what was going within me, but my feelings were intense - though I never verbalized to myself that I was gay until college.

jjkrkwood Grand Master

jjkrkwood

Posted
Posted

I knew as a young child, when I preferred playing with little girls and their dolls, rather than boys and their trucks.... and I was always attracted to "pretty" things and loved to wear my mothers clothes (in secrecy). Only when I was caught by my parents and punished for wearing her clothes did I realize I was diff than other boys... and once my brother came, I knew I wasnt like HIM.... But my parent did come around many, many years later and allowed me to live my life and be ME !

We really shouldnt use the word "different", because who you ARE is natural for you, and the norms of society are changing. When you are destined for "FABULOUSITY", go with it...

Never succumb to stigma or pressure. Live in your TRUTH.

LADoug1 Mentor

LADoug1

Posted
Posted

Around 7 or 8. Liked to dress up like a woman and play with a girl friend’s dolls and other toys and clothes. Lots of gay guys do this I’m told.

 

Confessed to a psychologist that I was attracted to men. While he indicated that it wasn’t a big deal he suggested I use cream when I masturbated implying it might reverse my preference. What an idiot. It only made me want men more. Lol.

José Soplanucas Grand Master

+ José Soplanucas

Posted
Posted
When I was old enough to go to school and the kids called me a freak and laughed. Or did you mean something else? :rolleyes:

 

I think the OP is implying "something else", to take your euphemism, but you are bringing an interesting point. For many (perhaps most?) of the posters being gay is the nucleus of their being different.

Not for me. I felt awkward and not well adjusted to interact with others since very little. I have memories from kindergarten where I felt as an outcast and consistently chose to play by myself every time the choice was given. I would always choose to hang out with adults rather than with my peers, since very little up to my teen years. Being gay was just a condiment for my early awkwardness.

dixietony Enthusiast

dixietony

Posted
Posted

5th grade. I was 10. That was the first year we changed our clothes for gym. That was the first time I really noticed another guy's body.

 

I even stole a shirt out of another boy's locker because I had a huge crush on him and wanted to smell him.

easygoingpal Grand Master

+ easygoingpal

Posted
Posted

I was 6. A neighbor boy (7 or 8) asked me to go to a secluded place and then asked me to hold it in my hand. I didn't know what to do with it, but I liked it. When considering the question, I always go back to that defining moment where we would not be seen and I knew we were doing something that was different.

Ghadd Enthusiast

Ghadd

Posted
Posted
5th grade. I was 10. That was the first year we changed our clothes for gym. That was the first time I really noticed another guy's body.

 

I even stole a shirt out of another boy's locker because I had a huge crush on him and wanted to smell him.

Very similar for me.

 

4th grade, 9 year old me was very interested to see the other boys change. The two class clown would sometimes wrestle in their underwear, and it made me feel fun things.

 

I knew it wasn't "normal", because of what I had learned with Disney and all that. But I didn't identify what it was until a bit later, when I learned what the word gay meant.

Charlie Grand Master

+ Charlie

Posted
Posted

From the first time I became self-conscious, at about age 5, I had the sense that I was "different" from my peers in some way, but I attributed it to the fact that I was generally considered the "smartest" kid in my class at school. I also entered puberty relatively early, and already had hairy legs at 10, when most of the other boys were still pretty smooth-skinned. Then I got skipped ahead one grade, and suddenly I was the youngest kid in my class, which really made me feel different, but in a negative way. I didn't feel sexually different, in a negative way, until I was 13 and read a Raymond Chandler novel which included a despised character who was threatened with being forced to suck the hero's cock, and I realized that I wouldn't mind being in that situation.

BasketBaller Mentor

BasketBaller

Posted
Posted

I was maybe 8 when, for some reason, I began to be concerned about being thought a "sissy." I don't remember anyone ever calling me one, or even that I heard other boys I knew being called that. And sex hadn't much entered my mind, I preferred playing with other boys but that's typical at that age. But something made me knuckle down and make sure I was not a sissy, so I got very serious about sports and exercise. I played everything and practiced hard and got good. When I got onto an organized youth team I know I enjoyed changing and showering with teammates but still, it didn't seem different. But at 10 or 11, it started feeling dangerous. By now I knew more about sex, and had heard of guys who were gay, without totally understanding it. Being naked in the locker room with my friends began to mean something I didn't want it to, but I was not, not, not different. I learned to control my eyes so well I still barely look up in the changing room at the gym or pool. By now I was pretty much a jock, and I doubt very much anyone thought I was a sissy. As I entered my teens my denial was very strong. I had a couple of teammates I liked too much-- so I avoided them, which I regret. I was the first boy my age to start dating, to have a girlfriend, one of the first to have sex, always cultivating as masculine a demeanor as I could manage, and I think my façade was convincing. But any chink in the armor made me uneasy. At a party, late in high school, someone had a VHS tape with straight porn, and when I saw the first erect dick except my own I'd ever seen, I had to leave, saying I thought the video was gross. And as I've posted before, I got to be a bit of a hound, sleeping around enough that a couple of friends, one a guy and one a girl, told me they were worried.

 

One thing I can say as I look back on that stupid kid, is that I did not embrace an obnoxious, macho point of view, nor did I compensate for my insecurity about my masculinity by teasing or bullying others. The only fist fight I ever had was in high school-- a senior was bullying a younger kid, calling him a fag. The kid was slight and shy, and I have no idea if he was gay. But I told the older guy to lay off, he wouldn't, and I punched him. He punched me back, and we went at it. When we got pulled apart and taken to the office, our parents were called. When my father came, in his uniform, he just said, "What happened?" I told him the guy was calling a boy fag, I told him to stop and he wouldn't, so I hit him. He looked at me, looked at the principal, looked back and said, "Oh, okay. Let's go." And he never mentioned it again. I have long wondered if my reaction wasn't in part compensation for my own self-doubt. Internalized homophobia is a bad thing, but at least it's the only homophobia I ever expressed.

Avalon Grand Master

+ Avalon

Posted
  • Author
Posted
I was maybe 8 when, for some reason, I began to be concerned about being thought a "sissy." I don't remember anyone ever calling me one, or even that I heard other boys I knew being called that. And sex hadn't much entered my mind, I preferred playing with other boys but that's typical at that age. But something made me knuckle down and make sure I was not a sissy, so I got very serious about sports and exercise. I played everything and practiced hard and got good. When I got onto an organized youth team I know I enjoyed changing and showering with teammates but still, it didn't seem different. But at 10 or 11, it started feeling dangerous. By now I knew more about sex, and had heard of guys who were gay, without totally understanding it. Being naked in the locker room with my friends began to mean something I didn't want it to, but I was not, not, not different. I learned to control my eyes so well I still barely look up in the changing room at the gym or pool. By now I was pretty much a jock, and I doubt very much anyone thought I was a sissy. As I entered my teens my denial was very strong. I had a couple of teammates I liked too much-- so I avoided them, which I regret. I was the first boy my age to start dating, to have a girlfriend, one of the first to have sex, always cultivating as masculine a demeanor as I could manage, and I think my façade was convincing. But any chink in the armor made me uneasy. At a party, late in high school, someone had a VHS tape with straight porn, and when I saw the first erect dick except my own I'd ever seen, I had to leave, saying I thought the video was gross. And as I've posted before, I got to be a bit of a hound, sleeping around enough that a couple of friends, one a guy and one a girl, told me they were worried.

 

One thing I can say as I look back on that stupid kid, is that I did not embrace an obnoxious, macho point of view, nor did I compensate for my insecurity about my masculinity by teasing or bullying others. The only fist fight I ever had was in high school-- a senior was bullying a younger kid, calling him a fag. The kid was slight and shy, and I have no idea if he was gay. But I told the older guy to lay off, he wouldn't, and I punched him. He punched me back, and we went at it. When we got pulled apart and taken to the office, our parents were called. When my father came, in his uniform, he just said, "What happened?" I told him the guy was calling a boy fag, I told him to stop and he wouldn't, so I hit him. He looked at me, looked at the principal, looked back and said, "Oh, okay. Let's go." And he never mentioned it again. I have long wondered if my reaction wasn't in part compensation for my own self-doubt. Internalized homophobia is a bad thing, but at least it's the only homophobia I ever expressed.

 

 

I love that you stood up and defended that boy!

poolboy48220 Grand Master

+ poolboy48220

Posted
Posted

When I was 7 and we were rehearsing our First Communion, I had a crush on a guy in the same rehearsal class. Never even knew his name.

 

About 9 or 10 and going through my Dad's stash of Playboys with a neighbor kid, I said "I'm looking for naked men!", not realizing the implications.

sniper Grand Master

+ sniper

Posted
Posted

Around fifth grade. I was surprised because up until then I really thought I liked girls, not knowing that gay was even a thing. But I, while not wanting to play dress-up or with girls dolls, was more into playing with action figures than trucks and really didn't like to get dirty, and as a young kid kind of thought most boys were gross. Had a good female friend who later turned out to be lesbian.

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