How do YOU know you're gay?

I think the response you already gave to her was spot-on fantastic, and a great analogy. Some people just don't seem to want to understand, I think. My mom is completely accepting and supportive. Beyond, actually. She loves my partner, and calls him her son-in-law. She has friends that just don't understand, though. The other day, she told me, one said to her that she doesn't think I'm really gay, like she just couldn't deal with the concept and maybe was even projecting and thought she was consoling my mom, as well. My mom replied, "Well, for one, he's been in a committed relationship with a great guy over two years now, but if you say so..."

I mean, another way to go is to be more blunt, though perhaps it's more blunt than you're comfortable saying to your mom. Since the "metaphorical" (for lack of a better word) analogy didn't work, you might want to say that simply, when you look at women, you feel no attraction, but you do when you look at men, that that is what is completely natural to you. If you're comfortable being bolder, you can say that when you fantasize sexually, it's about men, not women. Again, it's not about making her or you uncomfortable. it's about clearly explaining how you can tell you're gay. I don't think a lot of people understand that it's not something people do on a whim. That it is who they are.

You may want to reverse the question. Ask her "How do you know you're straight?" And take each of her answers and apply them to yourself. 

--

Rob

http://www.robwillreview.com

when i first came out to people in my family, i was asked the same crap. they asked if i had been with anyone, etc...

I simply said "well, were you with anyone before you knew you liked men/women?" and every question i got, i turned it right back on them.

now, it doesn't work this way for everyone...if your mom still can't understand it, then that's just gonna be the case. All i can say is, whether she understands it or not, it's your life and not hers. if there is something she needs to understand, that is it. you're who you are, no changing and sorry if she doesn't understand.

 

I think this is a great question for many of us to give perspective on!

I discovered I was gay after years of denying it and missing opportunities to just live my life without fear and internal homophobia in my self. That one day in 8th grade when Carter and Joe turned around in class and said "Gay boy" in whispers and mouthed words to me was when I really knew. That exact moment haunted me until I was 25 and more secure in who I am than I was at 14. But inside I knew I was in that 8th grade moment and it shook me to the core.

I had crushes on girls but somehow things never seemed right all the way through high school. I felt a comaraderie and an intimacy with my peers and friends at the time only to find out years later they felt the same way but were scared too. It was only when a dinner guest at a dinner party I attended looked at me and said "When are you going to stop running?" did I really search within and found out it was ok to be who I was. I have never made an apology for that since. Sure I was close to the vest with things but as time and love kindled I let go my inhibitions (not my fears) and never said die.

Now I just laugh at how silly I was to hide so long and admire those that are now the age I was when I truly discovered a part of me that I am proud to be. Being gay is just who you are and that's that. Now my partner and I are waiting for our wedding day to arrive in October and the moment when we plunk down our first payment with an agency with the purpose of adopting a child together. Life can be good when love is right and fear is cast aside huh?

Thank you for all of your great responses--especially yours, Rob. I'm glad you think I've done a good job trying to explain it already, and your suggestions were really helpful, too.

I think my mom does want to understand, though. I think she's just...worried? Confused? I've never been in a relationship before, so that might be part of why she's uncertain: On the one hand, because I've never been with anyone, she might not understand how I know I want to be with a man over a woman, and on the other hand, that also leaves her with only the misconceptions and stereotypes she's seen on TV and in the media to believe, not with what a real relationship between two men can be like. Then again, it's also a double-edged sword for me: As much as I yearn to be in a relationship, I don't want to enter one if I don't know for certain that my mom accepts this.

I finally realised I was gay at sixteen when I fell head over heels for a guy I went to class with (when until then I'd not really been attracted to anyone), but looking back, I can see how it has always been a part of me. I was always drawn to guys on TV, idolising Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Leonardo DaVinci, and a slew of boy bands, even putting posters of them across my bedroom walls. People in Boy Scouts always called me gay--but that was Boy Scouts, they were closed-minded southerners, and I never gave their words any more credence than childish name-calling because I wasn't sporty enough or confident enough to really fit in with them. Plus, my brother was among the teasers, so why would I have given it any consideration at all?

The funniest part is that the only the only thing I ever hid about any of this was my brief foray into looking at porn when I was "curious about my body," as I'd chopped up my interest in naked men at the time. It wasn't until I realised that, yeah, I am gay that I put any effort into hiding that part of me. Sure, I was never an extroverted guy to begin with, but folding myself deeper into shyness because of it certainly wasn't any fun and I wish I was more comfortable with myself than I was able to be at the time.

But to just share all of this with my mom? I don't know if I could do that. I'm not even sure if I'd be able to say any of this in person at all; more than likely, I'd just clam up and forget everything I wanted to say. So maybe I should just start there the next time she asks, just say I don't feel comfortable telling her why I know, and if she insists that I tell her, perhaps I'll explain that it'd be easier for me to write it down than say it out loud....

Anyways, thank you all again for your replies. They've been a great help.

It is not you that needs to lead her, it is her who has to learn at her own pace. My mother has been around me and seen me with 3 serious relationships and she still has her Catholic sensibilities there. My father on the other had has always been supportive and thinks it is all genetic, and he is a economic conservative Republican and a military veteran. It's their journey and not yours. Sure you want approval but you may not get it at the level of gay. When you have a serious relationship to "showcase" and that person ingratiates themselves with your mom, she will understand that it is about love and not sex. But for some it is about seeing to beleive and not a philosophical or scientific discussion. Feelings are feelings and we all have them. Good Luck!

Honestly, I think you've already answered the question the best way you could. It's the same answer that I've given and always works. Something tells me that she's really looking for something else. If it were my mom asking me that question repeatedly, even after having explained it to her, I think I would calmly ask her what she's looking for - what sort of answer she'd like to have. This might force her to elaborate on where her confusion is stemming from. She's likely in denial and looking for some sort of loophole to de-gay you.

You could go into detail about when you first started looking at boys in that way, that it happened around the time that you started to go through puberty. You could mention that you've never, ever had an interest in girls. You know that you are gay like you know that you are right- or left-handed. It's just the way you are, it was beyond your control, and it isn't a big deal.

I hadn't really thought about asking her what she's trying to get instead of trying to make myself clearer, but that does make a lot of sense. I don't think she's tring to "de-gay" me, but perhaps there is something there that I just can't see.

Thanks again for all of the help. I really appreciate it.

...the man who possesses sight will be thought mad.r, something like that anyway.

This is always the hardest concept to convey, because it defies the perception that an individual has of sexuality as experienced by a person of the opposite orientation.

I'm a Kinsey 6. Women just are not sexually attractive to me. While I can appreciate their beauty in an aesthetic sort of way, they don't inspire me to yearnings of romance. When I see or speak to an attractive woman, even a very interesting one, I simply don't feel any desire for anything "more" with her. That impulse to seek some kind of romantic escalation just isn't their. In fact, I find the idea slightly repulsive.

The same is not true of men. I am attracted to men. It is something that I feel at a very basic, instinctual level. I don't have to think about it, or tell myself that I "ought" to find a particular man attractive, I simply do. Usually the simple sight of an attractive man causes me to drift into musings about what he's like, what it would be like to be with him, if it's possible anything could happen.

This is, of course, what makes this so hard to describe. Straight people aren't used to thinking about their sexual orientations, or having to describe them. It's simply there, and being that heterosexuality is still favored by society they don't generally have to explain why they have the feelings that they do.  I know that I'm gay because I don't have to convince myself that I am, or should be, attracted to men. I would have to expend a lot of effort toforce myself to be with a woman.

For gay people it's different, we are often asked to explain what we feel and why, by straight people who have never had to do the same themselves most commonly.

That's what you have to convey to her. Your sexuality is a natural to you as her's is to her. 

I find this question fascinating.

I have never quite understood how anyone knows without question that they are gay or straight.  Or rather it may not be that I do not understand but that the concept is foreign to me. 

Though I did once hear someone say that they did not understand how someone could not know if they are gay or straight.

Personally, I do not know. If I were to have placed a bet on my own sexual orientation at any point in my life I would always bet on bi. But there has always been a varying level of uncertainty. And honestly, it may be due to outside influence and the amount of times I have heard that bisexuality does not exist and other such things. 

I haven't a clue how to assure your mother. My mother is almost the reverse, she keeps on asking me if I am gay with the expectation I know the answer (me thinks she may be under the impression that I am gay). 

The not having been in a relationship thing is a good point. That may be a huge part of why she keeps on asking you how you know. I know it is one of the reasons I keep on questioning myself, I have never been in a relationship. But on the other hand pursuing a relationship sounds (to myself personally) like it would be a much better idea after having established certainty (which does not appear to be a problem for you) and acceptance (parental acceptance being the acceptance mostly at question). 

Like some others have said, you have already given plenty of satisfactory answers.  I had a family member insist for years that I wasn't "really" gay, and then kept asking me if I was sure.  I did what some others have suggested and just turned the questions around on them. 

In this case it seems as if your Mom might just be struggling with accepting it.  Not accepting you, but accepting that things are a little different than she might have thought they were.  It takes some time for some people.  Good luck,