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The statistic that I have always seen thrown about is like 10% but something tells me it is higher. I am in a long-term committed relationship with a woman but fooled around with about five guys between ages 13 and 17 (helped to go to an all male boarding school).
My activity was pretty light (fondling, touching, jerking off, and, once, oral sex). I never really felt the need or desire to take it any further. It never really seemed like a gay thing as much as a way to just release sexual energy in an environment where there were no girls around. It was all just kind of "play" more than anything else and it was definitely happening, though perhaps not widespread, at my school. As I got older and met girls, it was clear my attraction was much greater toward them and my interest in guys faded away.
15 years on I feel lucky to have had these experiences. A few times, my guy friends have kind of suggested they were interested, or just curious in some abstract way, about what it would be like to be with another guy. I realize unrequited sexual interest/curiosity of any sort is an incredibly strong force within us and this would be a pretty powerful/aggravating question to walk around with in your adulthood.
So I'm curious about how common same sex experimentation is. I realize it would be impossible to ever have hard statistics on this sort of thing but I do wonder...
I wentto an all boy high school and never heard of anyone nor did I . I was going to say 10 % because everything is 10% like the homosexual population and Im guessing the number of kids who experiement
No idea what the percent is. I would say though, that if a straight teenage boy had curiosities or a desire to experiment, that watching gay porn or something more discrete would be the norm. At the furthest end of the spectrum, having A same-sex sexual encounter could even be classified as curiosity. But giving BJers to 5 boarding school homies goes a bit further than experimentation I would think. I'm curious as to what skydiving on crystal meth is like, but if I find myself in a plane with a parachute sitting next to Walter White, I ain't jumpin!
BTW Being in a relationship with a member of the opposite sex isn't what classifies one as straight.
Whatever the stats are, I know they are higher than self-reported figures because men are more likely to hide having same-sex attraction because our culture dictates that it's wrong and creates a double standard that men who do it are gay but women who do it are just sexier.
Actually, culture dictates that it's normal and should be a source of pride, identification and celebration. If anyone is ashamed of coming out, it's because of their inner conscience, not society.
Actually, culture dictates that it's normal and should be a source of pride, identification and celebration. If anyone is ashamed of coming out, it's because of their inner conscience, not society.
Culture NOW.
Anyone outside, i'd say their 20's.. They grew up in a culture where you did NOT 'come out'. And it wouldn't surprise me if they continued to live in the closet due to that. The impressions when growing up stick with you for a long time.
Those ingrained behaviors are tough to get out of.. Someone who grew up in the 60's or 70's where anyone openly gay might have problems.. They're likely still to have concerns about coming out now, even though 'It's no big deal' now.
Look at George Takei as an example.. what? He was in his 70's before he came out. Gomer Pyle.. same.
In today's world, you're celebrated for coming out, and technically, almost punished for being suspected of being gay and NOT coming out.. See Tom Cruise, Anderson Cooper and some others.
In the 50's to 80's.. You were celebrated for not coming out and punished if you dared to.. Rock Hudson, Elton John (Who kinda spans things here) or Liberace.
When I was in high school in the late 80's/early 90's.. I can't tell you of a single person who was openly gay in my high school.
Nowadays.. It seems every high school has at least one person who is openly gay or 'transgender' or something. Not that I think it's bad or anything, just how much more acceptable it is. If someone had told me they were gay in high school, I wouldn't have had a problem with it, but I sure wouldn't have advised them to come out to everyone.
I think same sex relations between women are more acceptable than between men though. Because I occasionally have sex with men, I'd be labeled a "*****" and other nasty terms, even though I have more sex with, and prefer, women. Women who occasionally have sex with women but prefer men are objects of fantasy - the reverse much less so.
Actually, culture dictates that it's normal and should be a source of pride, identification and celebration. If anyone is ashamed of coming out, it's because of their inner conscience, not society.
The double standard still exists for men, though. Men who engage in homosexual activities are seen as weaker and less manly. Women who engage in lesbian activities are seen as sexier. Now, these views are mostly held by men, but I have heard it said that gay sex only turns gay men on. It doesn't turn straight men or women on, and I've heard it said that lesbian sex turns on both straight men and women. So I think that men are less likely to admit to homosexual activities because society just sees the female version of it (at least lipstick lesbian) as more appealing.
Why does this double standard exist? I don't know. Only speculating here. Presumably because man on man sex requires one man to submit to another as a "bottom" whereas even if a woman submits to another woman with a strap-on, a woman's role is stereotypically associated with submission. Now, as to the woman who causes the other woman to submit, she would probably be seen only as unattractive if she was butch. If she is feminine, her dominance of another woman is seen as irrelevant since she's still causing a woman, not a man, to submit.
I'm gay, and the majority of my male friends (who all are hetero in adulthood) tried to get me to do sexual things with them in the 13 to 15 age years. Only I was rather grossed out by it because I had no attraction to them, except for one neighbor. We fooled around a lot and I was surprised to find out that he's married with kids as an adult.
I think it's extremely common.
And there was one neighbor girl who kept trying to mess with me sexually in about the 6th grade. I was curious, but not really that interested lol!
I'm gay, and the majority of my male friends (who all are hetero in adulthood) tried to get me to do sexual things with them in the 13 to 15 age years. Only I was rather grossed out by it because I had no attraction to them, except for one neighbor. We fooled around a lot and I was surprised to find out that he's married with kids as an adult.
I think it's extremely common.
And there was one neighbor girl who kept trying to mess with me sexually in about the 6th grade. I was curious, but not really that interested lol!
Huh. I am straight and never had a same sex experience nor did I have men coming on to me. The closest was a guy I went to grade school with who would sing songs about having sex with men and stand behind them and act like he was humping them. He did this with many guys. Very awkward and uncomfortable for everyone.
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