Best Posts in Thread: Father Figures

I have two fathers.I was raised by one man,and I knew my bilogical father my whole life too.I am undeniably my biological father's favorite child,and I was the only kid in the house ,so I got a lot of my (adoptive) father's attention too.So i grew up being doted on and I still was attracted to men.Biology is what it is.You can grow up in an all boys military school and still be a homosexual.

The women in your life can have an influence on how you interact with people,but not your orientation.

 

I have mostly male friends and it has been that way for most of my life. At one point, I had more female friends in middle school but I started to notice how students thought I was "soft" or gay just because I hung out with more females so I made a conscious effort to have more of a balance between gender/sex. I have not had a close female friend EVER.

I had both of my parents in my life and I was around all my African uncles, aunts, cousins, etc so that theory speaking my personal experience is ridiculous. I just knew when I was 4 or 5 years old and wondering why different boys were cute that I was different.

 

If you are asking if it's true that being gay or even bisexual is due to lack of male role models in your life, then the answer is HELL NO! Your sexuality is a predetermined factor, just like race and gender. By the time we all were about or just hit puberty, we knew they we were either gay or bisexual, even if we didn't act on it or were in the closet, especially due to the way you were raised and the environment you grew up in.

I think that homophobic and biphobic people ignorantly and nonchalantly assume by default that when they see stereotypical gay men around or befriending females and see them "act in the manner of/imitate" their gestures and characteristics, that somehow that's the common denominator that contributes to a man "choosing" to be gay, because he has been mentally influenced and somehow poisoned by injection of the "attraction and desire" for the same gender as straight females do. The notion never holds any weight, but somehow those individuals seem to bring that up in a "Can you be born gay?" or "Why is someone gay?" discussion. It's just as weak as the notion that molestation and rape causes someone to be gay. My comeback would be "What about the gay and bisexual males who were molested by someone of the opposite gender who are still gay and the straight males who were molested by someone of the sames gender that are still straight?" and you get no kind of intelligent or common sense answer.

 

The myth that lack of a male role model causes men to be gay is one of the biggest falsehoods promoted by homophobic people. If that were actually true a huge chunk of the black American male population would be gay. That said I did have male role models growing up. My dad when I was young and one of my uncles when I was a teenager. From an early age I knew I was gay even before I knew what being gay actually meant. For me having strong male role models was both a blessing and a curse. Both my dad and uncle taught me how to carry myself like man, how to be emotionally tough, and how to deal with being a black man in a world that is very harsh on black men. The downside is they were both very homophobic so as grew up I learned all of the negative attitudes towards homosexual men from them thus I had a negative attitude and loathing attitude towards myself which caused me some psychological problems which I didn't work out until well into my 30s.

 

I think male role models are very important for young boys. They're the only ones that can teach you how to be a man. However, women teach men how to be good men. Boys need the dynamic of both. I dont think sexuality has anything to do with any of that. You were going to be gay either way.