Okay...A Better Imagine Question...

[Comicality]

 

Ok...so maybe my idea for last week's question was overly ambitious. And Super THANKS to you guys who answered anyway! I've saved your answers, and I might go back and ask the same question again later on to see if we can, maybe, get some more answers on how to talk to cute boys! Hehehe! It's something that I think folks could really benefit from. Because...loneliness. You know?

 

Anyway, another question for Imagine Magazine, to be posted in a future issue. Anonymous posts are welcome. I just...I want you guys to speak up and be a part of the site. Everybody has a story to tell. So...what are you holding back for? Seriously!

 

"The Shack is boring." Well, what have YOU, personally, added to it? What do YOU wanna talk about, you guys? I'm seriously trying here. ::Taps Mic:: Help us out?

 

K...new question...

 

 

 

When you first found out that you were gay, or bi, or trans...whatever, how did it affect you? How old were you when it happened, and did you reject the feelings inside when you discovered them for the first time? Did you feel bad about your attractions? Were you ashamed? Let us know what your earliest experiences were when it came to finding out that you were...'different'.

 

As always, since this is for Imagine Magazine articles later on...anonymous posts are welcome! So let me know if you don't want your online 'nickname' attached to your post.

 

Share your story! What do you think about this? Let us know!

 

Seezya soon!

 

[JeffsFort]

 Hiya Comet!

 

So, I've been reading these posts and day to day life keeps getting in the way of answering. I really admire the work you've been putting in and have put in for **grumble, grumble** years... Hehehe!

 

My answer to this question is part of the reason I ended out online, and why I surrounded myself with people who felt as I did when I absolutely couldn't do the same in real life for many years to come. There are two layers to my answer though.

 

I was introduced to gay sexual play when I was only 8 years old. What happened originally, I walked in on two older friends looking at a dirty magazine, with their hands down the front of each other's pants. Instinctively, I swore to never tell and tried to leave. That's when one of them suggested that if I looked too, then I couldn't tell on them. Now, one of these boys was as close to me as family and the other his best friend. At 8-years-old, I idolized these boys and since my home life was pretty awful, attention from them meant the world. Besides, I was curious as to what they were doing anyway. So, I looked. It was pictures of naked women with combinations of men and women engaged in doing the nasty. At first, I thought the pictures were stupid (Hey, I was 8) but what got me was what my friends were doing and how much they seemed to like it if someone else touched them. I learned what masturbation was and how to do it, I learned what a blowjob was and how they were given and I got a crash course on what sex was. I got aroused but what excited me most was the fact that my friends, these older boys (10 and 11) included me and liked me enough to let me play too. I didn't know what gay was and I didn't care. I do remember wondering why they even needed the pictures. I rarely looked at them, watching the action right there in the room was way better. Once I offered to mimic some of what we saw on them, it started a trend of us helping each other out. Still, I loved them both and would have done anything they asked. Not once did either force me to do anything and not once did I need to be asked if I wanted in. Sounds great, right?

 

I had really become dependant on these two as an outlet and it sucked when we went for long periods of time without going there. One time not long after my 10th birthday, after being separated from them for a few months, I found an adult family member who I "accidentally" learned liked many of the same things we did and in the one time that it turned into us helping each other out, he cornered and hurt me to get what he wanted. (Like I said, not a great household. I'd never trust an adult male in a position where I was so vulnerable again.) The last time we went out there for a visit (I was almost 16 at this point), the boy who was like family had found a girlfriend and couldn't be bothered anymore. The other boy, now 19 at this point hung out with me at his house for the last time as he planned to go into the Army. Our last time together was the last time I didn't regret how I felt about a teen male. I realized that they were moving on and even though that last day was mind-blowing, it would be the last time for many years that I wouldn't feel like an outcast because of how I felt. They moved on and I expected to do the same. Unlike them, I never grew out of that phase and crush after crush on best friends would hurt deeply because I learned that being gay was something bad in the eyes of others. I had heard the tauntings of children before. "Fag", "Faggot", "Fairy", and "Homo" were insults you never wanted to be applied to you. So, I went from blissfully enjoying myself openly with two boys I loved in every way I knew how. to pretending to be like everyone else just to fit in. It was a horrible time and one that started the downward spiral of self-hatred that would overshadow most of my young adulthood. To this day, I have never found someone I would consider a partner in this life. Family and close friends know the whole story now, the one I hid for almost three decades. But by the time I realized that the term "Gay" actually applied to me, I fought against it as hard as I could for fear that I would become labeled and hated. I would look at it as a cruel joke the universe was playing on me.

 

So, I learned to like sexual contact with older peers in my pre-teen years. As a teen, I would learn that I was the round peg that life was trying to stuff into a square hole, and did what I could to become the square peg. As an adult, I understand why I hated who I was and regret so much lost time trying to be someone who I absolutely was not. Seeing so many younger adults being true to themselves today, I envy them and sometimes even wish I had been born a couple of decades later than I had been.

 

As always, I share this because some may understand already and some may better understand why not too long ago, being yourself really could be something you could be hated for. Today, I care a little less about acceptance and a lot more about finding the things that make me happy. Hope you all are doing the same.

 

*HUGZ*

-JeffsFort-

[Hunter Thomson]

I was around six years old when I realized that I wanted to do things with the other boys. I didn't know what it was we were supposed to do exactly, but I got one of my classmates to sleep over and we did a comparison of things. We got caught, obviously, since the plans of six year olds are not very sophisticated, and we weren't quiet about it at all. I ended up being teased really badly for it, and he didn't stay friends with me in an attempt to protect his reputation. So for a long time I felt pretty bad about my same-sex attractions, and was terrified that he'd tell teachers or other students about what we did.

 

I'm over all that now, and I'm happy to pursue whatever I think is best for me, but that was a seriously big concern way back when I was a small child.

[MrM]

Like, this is a total cop-out, but, unfortunately it's the dead truth.

My response to this question is the entire first book of this thing:

 

 

No, this is not a shameless plug for my story so you'll read it (althought that might be a benefit).

In Brandon Smiling I show you the agony I went through when I was 15-16 trying to fight my Gayness. I TOTALLY rejected the whole idea based mostly on religious reasons. When I was 15 I was a fucking 'saint'. I felt guilty for masturbating even. REAL guilty! It gave me the typical Catholic Guilt complex that I held for DECADES. The very idea of hooking up with another boy was completely horrifying. What was sad was that, secretly, it is ALL I wanted. I wanted my Billy Chase so-ooo bad! My Dark Side would find any R rated movie I could find at Blockbuster Video that had a cute guy doing Sex on somebody! I had a HARD crush on an actor called Christopher Atkins. HARD is the optimal word here. I watched everything I could find him in! Look him up . . . you may see what I mean. He was (and is still even) SEVERELY fuckable!

 

Anyways, So like Brandon is MrM so read on in the chronicle and just think of me when you think of Brandon sans the Billy Chase part. He never showed up for MrM. So Brandon is the dream MrM is having of how different my teenagehood could have been if I hadn't missed the boat.

 

[Former Member]

Fight it? No... I think that's a strong word, but no.... I wasn't really happy about it... The first experience was just before getting together with my boyfriend. Nothing special about it... I just observed the others around and noted to myself that a few of the boys are also way too...umm. cute.

 

I didn't even think about what that means you know... It popped out of my head and it felt "okay".

Then I've found myself in my private time thinking about some of the boys. Yeah. After that I thought it's probably some mental illness. Well as I defined it at the time "crazy" lol

I wasn't sure if it's really normal or that it means I'm some sort of side product. I believe the worst thing about my sexual orientation was, and still is there's nobody to talk about it. Literally nobody except this place. At the time I thought about asking my parents, but that was never a good idea, no matter the topic, I was too shy to ask my grandparents or anyone else for that matter, so I shut it all inside, and lived on in uncertainty for long.  Too long. Well until I saw my boyfriend. That day changed everything. No not immediately, but as I've managed to get closer to him, I was getting closer to losing my troubles.

 

There was no debates in my head, I just did what I do to this day....Throw away the useless complications and get straight to the point without the shtload of headaches and heartbreaks.  So...I like to think I was okay with the fact that I'm some sort of side product of the "normal" even though... nevermind.

 

Yes, that's right. To this day I've never actually settled it inside my head, because there is nothing to settle, it's just plain ol' me, end of story.

Edited September 28, 2017 by Former Member

[Comicality]

<p>
I can remember it starting out as a bit of confusion. Mostly because I've always been a very, ummm...'introspective' kid, I guess. Even when I was five or six years old I knew that I was drawn to certain people above all others. Sometimes girls, sometimes boys. But everything felt natural to me, so I didn't think anything of it. Around the 6th grade, as soon as school started in the fall, I saw this boy 'Brice' in my first period class and wanted him immediately! Hahaha! Of course, back then, I rationalized it out in my head as, "He looks like he'd make a good friend." But looking back, yeah...he was super cute and I got infatuated.

 

It wasn't until <I>other</I> friends and family and stuff started talking about gay people that I suddenly realized that there was supposed to be something wrong and inappropriate about what I was feeling. I honestly didn't understand at the time. I was an 80's kid, so nobody really blinked an eye when people used the word fag, faggot, Gaylord, etc. I just hadn't yet realized that those words were talking about ME. I even used them myself with my friends when we were ribbing one another. When I was about 12 years old, 'Stephen' came along (But you guys might know him as 'Ryan' from "New Kid"), and another boy named Gabe, and then there was another, and another, and another. To the point where I began to panic and didn't want any part of being different and abnormal and hated. I just figured I could hide it forever and not have anybody ever find out.

 

Then...one night there was a show on HBO. I wish I remembered the name, but I don't. It was about gay people. Now, understand, at this point...the only thing that I knew about homo's were they were all sissies and wore tight leather stuff and costumes and had big mustaches. (Hehehe! Give me a break! I was LITTLE!) But I remember watching this show late at night n the living room, sitting right in front of the TV with the volume waaaaay down, in the dark, and keeping my hand on the remote through the whole thing, just in case one of my parents woke up and I had to change the channel in a hurry. I was sooooo scared, but I wanted to know!

 

I had never seen gay guys be 'intimate' before. That blew my mind! I was breathless. Until that point, I thought being gay was just going to a bar and getting fucked on a pool table during an orgy while other people watched. NOT my thing at all. But this was different They were just normal guys. They kissed. And smiled. And cuddled on the couch. I knew that I was definitely bisexual then. I loved girls too...still do. But that one program exposed me to the idea that having a crush on another boy was just as normal and natural as it felt back when I was half that age. It felt good. It felt free.

 

I lost my virginity to the boy next door when I was 13. Hehehe, lost my 'girl' virginity to his older sister shortly after that. But that's another story. And half way through the 8th grade, I had my first boyfriend, Jason. Gay feelings just became a part of my life after that. I still kept it a DEEPLY guarded secret, and still do in most situations...but fighting the actual feeling is no longer an option for me. Especially since the Shack and the stories came along. I can't say that I'm living out loud or anything, but there's no more conflict in my heart over who I am. Like...NONE! I'm proud to say that I know who I am. And despite a few awkward looks and hateful comments, I build myself a virtual paradise online where being myself is ok. I have friends now. Family. Support. I'm not a little boy watching a nearly muted TV special in the dark anymore. I'm 'Comicality'. Heh...how far I've come!