frye@bbncca.ARPA (Roger E. Frye) (08/14/84)
Here's some of what I know about whether people choose to be gay. First some general impressions. Most of the gays I have met have known they were gay since childhood, and many of them since before puberty. Many of them made a choice to be straight, but just couldn't stand living the lie. I know several women who made a political choice to be gay; when I ask them about it now, they tell me always knew they were gay; they just had to go through a stage of choosing to act on it. Now me. I have consciously chosen to nurture the gay side of my nature. I always used to think of myself as heterosexual. My first sexual experience, at age 11, was with a man. I chose to do it because he offered to teach me how to masturbate, and I was eager for any kind of sexual experience and I didn't mind too much that it was with a man. (That's the level at which I experience nonchoice -- the lifelong assumption that sex with men will do in a pinch.) Then there was the kid who always forgot his sleeping bag in boy scouts who I chose to sleep with. Then there was once with another boyfriend. Then there was the night at a bar when I chose to let a man take me home. That's the sum of my genital and orgasmic contacts with other people until I was 21. All this time, though, I was pursuing women like crazy. I was just so eager, and yet so understanding and gentle, that I never got anywhere with the girls I dated and loved. Well, after that drunken night, I went through an identity crisis. It seemed obvious that I must be really be a HOMOSEXUAL! Even though I had never fantasized about men. Even though I constantly dreamed of sex with women. Because I always ended up having sex with men and not having sex with women. I was so scared at the idea that I might not really know myself that the next thing I did was to manipulate a woman into having sex with me. Surprise! I really did like it as much as I thought I would. Saved! I was straight! And when I met a woman I loved who shared sex with me, I got married and had children and had affairs and got divorced and fell in love with another woman and had more sex, and I could have lived happily hetero forever. Except that I have a lot of lesbian and gay friends, and I have gotten into gay politics, and I do volunteer work for a gay newspaper, and I've never had too much sex in my life, so I've chosen to have sex with men again. I still prefer women. I still fantasize about women (even in order to have orgasms with men). It's just that I can't see passing up opportunities for sex just because it's with another man. And surprise, I'm liking it more and more as I do it. Maybe someday I'll get to the stage where I always knew I was gay. In summary, I don't know many people who chose to feel attracted to members of one sex or the other, but I did. I recommend it to you. -Roger Frye