Sexual Labels: Straight, Gay, Bi

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Here's what this blog post is about and whom I'm addressing: suppose that you have always thought of yourself as "straight" in the sense that your attraction is to the opposite sex (a fact that's a given in your life), but then you discover that in some situations you have sexual thoughts about a member of the same sex (or—horror of horrors—actually had a sexual experience with such a person).  Now suddenly you wonder if perhaps you're "gay" or at least "bisexual."  How do you know?  What's the truth?  Should you be lying awake at night thinking about this, with your life now a complicated jumble?
No.  Relax.  Calm yourself.
What's happened to you is both common and commonplace.  You're still the same person you always were, but now you're aware of a new side of your personality.  Most people on the planet have had these feelings, so you're certainly not alone.  Maybe your parents' lecture on the "birds and the bees" left this fact out, but it's true.

Yes, sure, you might be in the early stage of realizing that you are in fact really gay.  If so, then work that new identity through as best you can.  I have all kinds of advice for you, and if you consult the "Related Posts" below you'll discover what I have to say on this topic.

But most likely you're just discovering a new facet of your personality: that you can, in some situations, be attracted to the same sex.  What does it mean?  It means only what it sounds like: in some situations you are definitely attracted to the same sex.  If you want to act on that urge now and again, fine.  Have a good time!  Life is short and we should all have as much fun living it as we can (as long as we don't hurt others in the process).  If your new sexual partner assumes you're gay, well simply disabuse her/her of that with some comment like, "I'm basically straight, but every once in awhile I have a terrific time with someone as interesting as you."  Woody Allen once commented that being bisexual doubles your chance for a date on Saturday nights.
Alfred Kinsey

The only major studies of sexual behavior that hasn't been corrupted by the agenda or sloppy research of those who followed were done by Dr. Alfred Kinsey in the 1940s and 1950s when he interviewed thousands of people about their sexual behavior and thoughts.  This was new territory, and many of his subjects had never thought about these questions before, much less been quizzed, so they said what they thought.  Most people believed that sex was only between a man and a woman, was always accomplished in the missionary position, and was over quickly ("Slam, bam, thank you, ma'am!").  People who made more of it than that were "sinners" or "sluts" or "perverts." 

But Kinsey found out many interesting things.  Only one of the chapters in his first book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948), dealt with homosexuality, but it was that chapter that has caused him to be loved and hated (and much attacked) ever since.  His statistics showed that only about 30% of those surveyed have a fixed "straight" orientation ["zero" homosexual interests], and that others were on a sliding scale from "zero: to "six."  (I have a gay friend, a cop, who told me he's a "six tending to seven," but that's impossible—six is as high as the homosexual scale goes.)  The "fives" and "sixes" on the scale (predominantly to completely homosexual) make up ten percent of the population (which is where that number, widely used in discussions about how many gays there are in the world, comes from). 
So if you've had homosexual thoughts or experiences it only means that you are part of 70% of the human population for which that is true.
It doesn't mean you're gay. 
It simply means you are you, and this discovery is part of who you are.



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Related Posts:
"The Aging Gay Rights Activist," March 24, 2010
"Frightening the Horses," April 4, 2010
“Homosexuality: The Iceberg Theory,” April 25, 2010
“How I Lost a Gay Marriage Debate,” April 29, 2010
“Straight Talk,” May 10, 2010
“Marijuana and Me,” July 11, 2010
“How To Tell if You’re Gay,” August 31, 2010
“The Thunderbolt,”September 3, 2010
“How To Change Gay People Into Straight People,” September 20, 2010
"How Many Homosexuals Are There in the World?" November 8, 2010
"Choose To Be Gay, Choose To Be Straight," January 25, 2011
"The Homosexual Agenda To Conquer the World," February 8, 2011
"Seducing Straight Men," March 3, 2011
"Coming Out: How To Tell People You're Gay," March 27, 2011
"Jumping the Broom: How 'Married' are Married Gay Couples?" July 17, 2011"The Legacy of Homophobia," August 2, 2011
"Going Undercover at an Ex-Gay Meeting," September 19, 2011
"The Presumption of Heterosexuality and the Invisible Homosexual," October 2, 2011
"Gay Bashers, Homophobes, and Me," January 27, 2012
"On Being a Gay Sports Fan," March 9, 2012
"The History of Gay Rights in Columbus, Ohio," June 4, 2012
“I Support the Right of the Boy Scouts To Ban Gays,” July 24, 2012
“Straight People: Thanks From the LGBT Community,” November 20, 2012
“Gay Marriage, DOMA, Proposition 8 and the Mysterious Supreme Court,” January 15, 2013
“A Guide to the Best of My Blog,” April 29, 2013

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