Jessica Sutich

Sorry to drop a serious question on you, but it does say “ask a Gay” and I need to ask someone who is homosexual-

I am 16 and i have a gf currently and we do have sex often, and i am atracted to her and other girls, but every now and then with only certain guys i find myself not sexually attracted but “romantically” attracted. I sit and listen to my friend talk while i dream away about cuddling with him, yet its only with two of my close friends. Now i remember when i was younger i experimented with another boy he was like a year older then me i don’t really remember much but it was nothing, and shortly after i found myself attracted to girls. Now here’s the thing i’m not sexually attracted to them but romantically, yet i am sexually attracted to women, but not so much romantically. Does this mean i am gay, or bi or what?

First of all a quick PSA. If you are 16 and sexually active with your girlfriend while questioning your sexuality, definitely use all of the birth control you can get your hands on. No one likes an ironic pregnancy. While we’re at it, watch this. It’s both funny and informative. I hate to sound like your mother, but well, I’m old enough to be your mother (but if I was, we both would remember my high school graduation) (and I couldn’t have afforded fun cereal while you were growing up) (but I probably would have blown your college savings to buy it anyway). OKAY! PSA is all done.

Now, are you gay, bi or what? Good question. It sounds like you might fall into a great category that a friend of mine coined the other day, “at least bisexual”. You may very well be greater than or equal to bisexual. Since you are sixteen though, I am going to guess that you won’t know the exact answer to that for a while and shouldn’t push yourself to pick a label. Choose a liberal college—think Hampshire, Amherst, Berkshire, NYU—and while you’re there keep an open mind. If you aren’t thinking about college, maybe do an internship in a gay friendly city. Basically, put yourself a very open minded atmosphere and try stuff out (safely—lots of latex, no drugs). If you have some sexual experiences with guys then you might be gay, but you might not be. Try a little of both if it feels right. Hell, go have a threesome! Maybe not in high school though. Again, I will sound old and boring, but depending on where you live and how open-minded folks are, you need to be smart and careful. One terrible experience while you are figuring your life out and suddenly you’ll be in the middle of a Lifetime after-school special and who needs the drama?

Which brings me to this: Those two friends that you want to cuddle with might not take that information well. They might. They might be gay themselves and totally cool with being gay. But on average, there are so many factors happening in high school, that even great friends aren’t always predictable. Your girlfriend may also have a hard time with this information. Also, if you start checking out some gay porn, “just to see”, this may lead to a very awkward conversation with your parents that you might not be ready to have. If your parents are super cool, then that’s awesome. Who knows, maybe they are the kind of parents that ask you to recommend a good pot dealer (don’t do drugs). I am going play it safe though, and guess that they aren’t, so don’t get yourself in a stupid situation. Watch some indie films, read some Savage Love by Dan Savage. I think that out of this you’ll get a good sense that most people have no idea what the heck they should label themselves. Also I think you’ll learn this: Although the media sometimes portrays homosexuals as on the sexual fringe we aren’t even close. To make it to the fringe you usually need a lot more creativity and equipment.

SO! Ultimately, the romantic attraction will be really important. You want to find something that gives you both. Sexual attraction can be the easier part. If you rub two things together you can get a positive result. Romantic attraction can be a little more complicated. Sometimes your head and your junk just won’t be in agreement even if you decide you are totally one way or another. Hence the phrases, “I like you, but I don’t LIKE like you.”, “It’s not you it’s me”, and the ever popular, “YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME! HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME!” Finally, here is my cover my ass statement. I’m gay and have been down this road, so I’m just speaking from experience. Most of the time I’m just some comedian talking out of my ass. So, if shit gets really confusing check out your local resources. Here’s one site. And of course there are more. You sound like you are just in the “Huh, what’s that all about?” phase. That’s pretty normal. Also, if your parents aren’t the type to root around your things, keep a journal. You won’t regret that. From my experience though, I was much happier to have had “the talk” with my parents after I was more grounded in who I was, so if they are the type of parents that you tend to find elbow deep in your underwear drawer looking for drug paraphernalia, then keep that in mind.

Good luck!

Over the summer, I had one of those “kind of” relationships with someone of the same sex, who I thought was gay. We didn’t really go much past kissing, but we had an emotional connection and it seemed like we might have gone somewhere else… if you know what I mean. All of a sudden though, he got a girlfriend and sooner or later he broke it to me that we should “stop lying to ourselves” even though we had both proclaimed love for one another, and he stated “I’ve had three girlfriends for over eight months, and not one of them had I said I love. So far you have been the first and only.” I know his parents are large homophobes and I was wondering if he merely obtained her as a “cover-up” seeing how their whole relationship is mostly via text. I’ve even lied for him a couple times in order for him to leave with me to get away from her when she just shows up places. Recently, he also composed the idea of spending the rest of his life with me in Paris… what? Isn’t the whole “There’s no one I’d rather spend the rest of my life with than you” chat for someone you love and well… plan to spend the rest of your life with? My biggest fear is that he ended us because when he did start going out with that girl, he still wanted to kiss me and such, but I felt so embarrassed I said “Maybe it wasn’t you I was in love with, but the thought of being in love” and that may have given him the impression I’m not gay, because we both often evaded the subject. Still, if he felt that way, wouldn’t he have not dated her in the first place? Or did he just pick her out of the bunch for a cover-up since his parents were suspicious of me? I’ve also heard from one of his longer relationships in the past that she offered many forms of sexual pleasure, but he denied it because he thought it was “gross”. Please, I don’t know much about this whole dating business because he was my first and only love, so if you can give me some advice, that would be great! Is this boy merely trying to hide because he’s scared of his parents and thinks I don’t REALLY love him that way, or was I really just a month long fling that he all of a sudden wishes to spend the rest of his life with, even though he has a girlfriend currently? Should I tell him that I realized I really do love him? I still want to be friends, but I’d really like to be something more again, and of course, as most thoughts do, it consumes my life. Thank you in advance and sorry for rambling!

Oh dear. Well, the long and short of this is forget this guy and move on. I will say more on this, but there it is. Actually, forget anyone who dates you for a month, starts dating someone else, and then talks about being game to run away to another country to have a secret life with you devoid of all contact with those troublesome people who might judge your forbidden love. Bad sign.

To get into this a bit more let’s start with him being your first and only love. Here’s some good news: there will be other loves and greater loves. Loves that go way past kissing and leave you a wreck. Some will totally be 100% gay. Some will be more in love with you than you are with them. There are people who marry their first and only love, but they sure as hell have less stories than the rest of us; and they don’t understand romantic comedies. Now let’s talk about you apart from this guy and his cover-girl. Are you comfortable with being gay? Why are you evading the subject? Perhaps it would be a good idea to use this relationship as an exploratory mission that might inspire you to start hanging out at some gay clubs and meeting people who are out and comfortable with being out. Then you can become more grounded in who you are. That is never a bad thing especially if you discover yourself in a relationship with someone who is questioning. So basically, have some more loves and see how those go. Hell, go to Paris without this dude. Have some French flings. Why the hell not! Own it!

Next up. Straight folks who have homosexual encounters. Yes, I am sticking with the phrase homosexual encounters. Like galiens coming down to whisk you out of your pick-up truck, engage in some probing explorations, and then leave you in the midst of unexplained crop circles with “questions”. I am a big fan of the sliding scale of sexuality and everyone who knows me, knows I love the chase of the undecided girl. Beware of this though, it can really mess you up. Mostly because once you do all the work and figure out who you are and you have told all of the people who are important to tell, and you are living up your awesome gay life, it can present problems in getting together with someone who hasn’t done all of that work. It is something like being sent back to the beginning in Candyland. Sure it’s a fun game but wouldn’t it be much more fun to get to the end already and just go have sex? All right, perhaps it’s only a little bit like Candyland. No matter what it can be an emotional choice to make, so if you are going to go that route you definitely need to be grounded in who you are.

Finally, regarding the huge homophobes and this guy. I will start off by saying this about huge homophobe parents. They can surprise you. Really. Watch “For The Bible Tells Me So”. It’s a good flick and shows that people do surprise you in good ways sometimes. As for the guy, his girlfriends, and his suggestion that you run away to Paris he sounds like he needs to get his life in order. (Sidenote to the girl who is dating him: if he runs away every time you show up up at a party unannounced, dump him.) It sounds like even if you told him that you were in love with him that you two probably wouldn’t live happily ever after so I wouldn’t obsess about that. If you need to tell him though, to get it out of your head, then just try to not make it overly dramatic. You will be thankful later on for your cool reserved behavior. That being said, let me take a moment to apologize to everyone I have ever dated for not having cool and reserved behavior. Hopefully this was a fun little fling for you. Now go write some tragic journal entries and then go out and meet some new boys. Oh, and be safe. But that’s enough PSA out of me.

Hey,

I’m 17 years old, and have refereed to myself as bi-sexual since I was about 13. Recently though, I kind of felt that being gay fit better. I don’t call myself lesbian for the same reason I don’t call myself bi – I don’t like the connotations. I prefer “gay woman”.

However, despite the fact that I’m literally afraid of penis, and I’m more attracted to women than men, I am occasionally attracted to boys. I usually see myself dating/being in love with girls, whereas I just hook up with boys when I’m bored. Sorry this is kind of long and rambling, I just want to know, can I still call myself gay, or is that like, offensive? It makes me feel more comfortable, but I don’t want to politically incorrect or something, lol.
Thanks.

First, let me say congratulations on knowing anything at thirteen. I remember thirteen as being a bleak and confusing time during which I pretended to enjoy boy bands. This ended up being a blow to both my dating life and my music collection.

As for whether it is offensive to call yourself gay even though you hook up with boys when you are bored, I am going to go with a no. I still hook up with boys when I’m bored—I guess I should say, men to confirm that I am not some cradle robbing cougar. What can I say, it can be fun. I also like to tell them after we kiss that I am now totally straight again. I figure why not give them the win? In the end though, I have my epic love affairs with women (they are epic, trust me). There are folks out there who have never strayed from straight and others who have never wavered in their gayness. I think that is great. I have a friend who is so straight that although she is very attractive her straightness acts almost as a repellent. Thinking about kissing her seems like kissing a brother. Yuck. For the rest of us, sexuality has a continuum. You sound pretty comfortable as a gay woman so I would say call yourself whatever makes you feel comfortable. It is definitely not offensive that you call yourself gay even if you say it while making out with a dude.

That said, there are some people who will be offended that you call yourself gay. Some people will also wonder “what your deal is” when you hook up with guys. Some guys that you hook up with also might end up thinking that you are “not really gay” or that for some reason sleeping with women is something that you do as a turn-on for them. People will find a bunch of different ways to judge your actions and the language you use and all of that. I have found that as long as I know what my deal is that it doesn’t really matter. I also call myself gay, but I don’t mind being called a lesbian. I try to figure out where people are coming from and if they are working on being understanding and accepting then I’ll give them a pass on some possibly “off” questions. I also am understanding of people who are really adamant about terminology. I am just not as caught up in it.

As a final note, you mentioned that you are “literally scared of the penis”. I am going to say a few things on this. First, here are a few good reasons to be scared of penises. They can get you pregnant which sucks when you are seventeen. Actually, getting pregnant sucks until that point in which you want to get pregnant and can afford the 18-21 (35?) years of financial commitment that goes with the result. Penises also can give you some rather unpleasant STDs, some which can kill you and some which just never go away. Vaginas can too so I guess that is just a general warning against other people’s junk. Valtrex might want you to believe that it’s all kayaking and walks on the beach but it just has so much more to do with oozing than that. Penises can also be attached to people who want to stick them places for all of the wrong reasons and once they get going, they can be real assholes about it. Also, since you consider yourself to be gay, you might not want to get overly involved with a penis because it can really suck to end up with an ironic pregnancy. (“Wait. WHO did you say was pregnant?” “Yup, that gay girl.” “Huh, isn’t it ironic?”) That said I don’t really think they are something to be scared of. They can be attached to some great people, they can get to some hard to reach places, and they do have an endearing eagerness to them. If you start to think about it, there is something sort of ridiculous about everyone’s junk. Watch a naked man jump up and down. It really stops being scary and starts to just be funny. I only mention this because if you fall for someone then you will most likely fall for every ridiculous part of them, so it sounds like you just haven’t ever fallen for a boy. That is definitely fine, but ultimately it’s not penises that are scary it’s brains and the many complicated ways that people find to mess with one another’s hearts. Thus we have the entire works of Journey.

What is the “Q” in LGBTQ?

Good question! It means questioning. By writing you are now Q. Welcome to the club. I also, as is reflected in this post title, often accidentally say LGBTA because I live in Boston and I ride on the MBTA. There is no Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transit Authority though—did he ever bareback, no he never barebacked and his fate is still unlearned.

I originally thought that the “Q” meant “queer” as some folks use that word as opposed to the L, G, B, or T and it can mean that. Actually, the T can also mean transexual, transgender, or two-spirited. So this leads to another question. Is the queer community slowly but surely taking over the alphabet? Yes. Soon the whole alphabet will be queer. And once we own language then we will call things whatever we want. Is it marriage? Well let’s just check. Are all of the letters in the word marriage gay? Yes, they are so I suppose that it is a gay marriage. We are a tricky bunch. While I was writing this I also made the letter “Z” gay. Sorry straight folks, you are going to either going to have to accept the new lexicon or go learn the cyrillic alphabet. I would offer you the greek alphabet but that has been gay for centuries. Greeks have an entire island of lesbians. Much to their chagrin.

Language is difficult to keep track of. I am in my thirties now, so I will officially never be able to use any new slang without immediately making it a little less cool. So now you can define yourself as questioning, whereas back when I was in college (a sentence that just made me even older) you weren’t questioning, you were on anti-depressants and hopelessly in the closet. Then bisexual. Then gay. Questioning sounds much more laid back.