Help me understand the gay community please?

Question

I am a straight married Christian girl and I want to understand gay people. Please do not lash out at me as I am attempting to understand. I have several gay friends but of course I am attracted to the opposite sex so I do not understand what makes a person gay. Maybe there is no answer. My gay friends are looking for true love and that I understand...But I went to the gay bar with them and I was totally freaked by what I saw. There were large orgies of men making out with each other all over the place. I then began to think that gayness was a perversion all about sex. Now I am torn and really want to understand is it about sex or monogamous love? Also, most of the gay people I know have had some traumatic experience in their childhood and I wonder if that has something to do with it or if it is a coincidence. Are you born gay or is it a choice? Again, loaded questions I know-I am just trying to understand people who are different than me-that's all.

Here I am trying to connect and understand and I am called a biggot and an idiot?! I think the biggot is someone that does not attempt to understand me and where I am coming from....

Answer 1

It all comes down to a matter of personal preference. It is hard for someone who hates rap music to understand why others love it. It is hard for someone who loves mustard on their hotdogs to understand how someone could prefer ketchup. But that is how personal taste works. Your gay friends can't understand attraction to the opposite sex any more than you can understand their attraction to the same sex.

Most of my gay friends did not have childhoods any more traumatic than my straight friends. And all of them have told me that they knew at a very young age that they were attracted to the same sex and never felt attraction to the opposite sex.

As far as the overtly sexual scenes that you might witness at some gay clubs, I have only a theory. I think it stems from having to hide this part of their personality so intently in their everyday lives... I think that sort of repression leads them to let it all hang out when they are in a situation where they feel completely at ease with their sexuality. Some of my gay friends find this sort of scene to be obnoxious, but others find it fun. That said, I have seen similar behavior in straight nightclubs also.

Answer 2

No you are not a biggot. Gay people are regular people too just like you! The only difference is they were born with a different sexual orientation that most of the population. That is but one aspect of who we are. I've always known I was different. I tried to suppress it through drugs and alcohol which led me down a very bad path to depression. I've accepted who I am and have started telling my friends. No one even cares, some of them already knew. It's no big deal, as long as I'm not hitting on them! As far as the sex thing goes, being gay has nothing to do with the physical sex act any more than being straight. Men in general are promiscuous and horny and raging with hormones, so when you put two of them together who are attracted to each other guess what's probably going to happen? Straight men would be like this too, but women keep them in check =) I am not the type of person who would have random sex with a stranger, I, like many people, feel that sex is an integral part of a relationship and it helps bond and strengthen a relationship with someone you love. I've never had sex outside a relationship...I guess I'm kind of like a woman in the respect - one night stands are just not for me, I don't care how hot the guy is. And no, being gay is not a choice, for most of us. I was never traumatized as a child or never molested. I had both parents who are straight as an arrow so figure that one out? lol Thank you for asking your question in such an understanding way without any prejudice - and just ignore anyone who called you a biggot.

JR

Answer 3

When did you make a conscious decision to be straight?
Was it at 9:00AM on Saturday, July 19th., 1995?

If your answer is "I don't recall, so it must have been borne into me", then that's your answer from the gay community.

I'm over 40....I was born this way....I had a wonderful childhood with loving parents and siblings. No trauma at all. 16 year monogomous relationship.

Going to a gay bar is the worst place to go in trying to understand the gay community. They are just as bad as the straight bars...you know....lap dances and strippers.....

The Metropolital Community Church is a church designed for the gay community. If you have the courage to go to a gay bar, try going to the MCC church. You will find loving people there, just like you'd find in your own church.

Gay people are just people trying to survive like the rest of the world. Sexual orientation is such a small part of the whole of a person.

I applaud your kindness in trying to understand us.
We aren't all a bunch of sex-crazed bar-hoppers any more than straight men are. We're very diverse, like straight people are.

Try going to a strip club. You might be freaked out at what you see there, too. Would that make you think all straight men are sex-crazed? No...because you know better than that.

Again, you've been to a gay bar. Now try a gay church.
Get both ends of the spectrum.
Have a great day.

Answer 4

There's no one reason people turn gay, I believe that a number of factors are involved as to what causes some people to be sexually interested in their own gender. While I have known a few gay males, even having worked with them (retail) they are very nice guys, they never act weird around women the way so many straight men do, but they've also never invited me to gay bars or anything like that. I don't know how much of a shock it was to you when you visited a gay bar. There is very little monogamous real love among gays, probably less so among gay males. Many of them are in search of the "perfect lover" but cannot do so since one party obviously lacks the proper equipment for the job. Gays can only do with what they have, even if it's with artificial means (though this is in the territory with personal preference).

There are books out there on the subject, check your local library.

Answer 5

I had a traumatic childhood but I was attracted to men long before I was raped by the group of straight guys at camp. I was born this way. had the rape not occurred I probably would have accepted my sexuality a long time ago instead because of the rape I questioned my identity and had a lot more problems. It is not about just sex with most homosexuals. The majority of homosexuals are not at the bars so you should not be judging the behavior of all of them by those few.

Answer 6

Ok, most of the answers here are really great and very heartfelt.

I agree with them as I know that in myself I was always gay. I did, however, try to live as if I were straight, thinking that if I did this it would "cure" me.
Reality crept back in and I was faced with having to confront myself and learn to accept myself.
It's just who I am.

But, learning about the "gay community" is a completely different subject.

Yes, a gay bar was probably the WORST example of the "gay community,"

Many have suggested you take the time to visit an MCC church. This is not a bad suggestion, but it really won't teach you much are about the gay community any more than a Gay bar will. It will just show you another side of the community.
If you really want to learn about our community, I strongly suggest you volunteer for a gay rights organization or spend sometime with a health care organization dedicated to treating gays and lesbians.
I don't know where you live, but in Chicago we have a great community center that offers a wide variety of social services to the gay community. Healthcare, youth groups, psychological therapy, community events planning and social organization (movie nights, golf outtings...etc)
We also have a health center dedicated to serving the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered community. Many of us feel very self concious or intimidated by traditional "family" or "general practice" doctors in the everyday world. Many of us feel those doctors don't know what special health concerns we face or that regular doctors will simply discriminate against us because of our sexuality. So, this health care center caters to our emotional needs as well as physical health.

If you want to learn about the gay community, get to know the WHOLE community, not just the bars and nightclubs. Know that we are people with the very same concerns, problems, bills, responcibilities and needs as the Straight community, but with a special bond of "likeness" amongst each other because we've all faced similar difficulties because of who we are.
That's what makes a community, regardless of sexuality.

I'm part of the gay community because I'm gay, but I'm also a Mother, a daughter, a partner, a sibling and a friend. Do these things exclude me from the gay community? No. Do they exclude me from the straight community? No.
Does being gay exclude me from the straight community? Yes.
For one reason only.

Answer 7

Being gay is an orientation; I know I have always been gay, even in childhood I was emotionally attracted to boys. As far as the activity you saw, gay people are as diverse as straight people. Some are monogamous, some are promiscuous. Where I work, the straight people are often telling stories of being with 3 different men in one day! People are people, my dear, and there are all kinds. Everyone deserves to love and be loved.

Answer 8

Hi there dear, it is a valid question indeed. though not all gay man are 'sex-freaks' as you might have thought, i am currently in a two year monogamous relationship with my Irish boyfriend. and we are the happiest ever.
And before that i was with another guy for 5 years. so you see, it is possible, we all need love and care from one another, that it happens to be a man or a woman is not the determining factor, love and emotions are...
hope that helped.

Answer 9

everyone gay is very different...everyone straight is very different...I don't know what kind of a bar that you went to but not all of us go there...My late father-in-law(I'm gay canadian married
) was a great advocate of gay rights...his theory was that gay men behaved so promiscuosly when they first came out because they were so desperately looking for the love and attention that they had stifled for so long...He may have been right ..he was a very wise man....
but really to answer your question....there is no answer...some of us are monogamous...some are not....I never had a traumatic experience in my childhood nor did my partner....there was never any choice in my being gay...I couldn't accept it in myself and even went the suicide route..let me tell you nobody chooses to feel that way.....hope I haven't confused you more..I believe that you are asking a genuine question..
But as with straights...there is a lot of diversity out there.

Answer 10

no longer something is irrelevant that someone THINKS concerns. Homosexuality pertains to lots better than intercourse, actual. it extremely is the intercourse it is the defining function - even though it extremely is barely component to the entire. i'm integrated completely, and that i does no longer prefer to be separated out in any respect - yet i be attentive to a selection of of gay adult males who suffered a selection of of bigotry whilst they have been youthful (I in no way did) and who purely sense secure between their very own - and that i comprehend that. it is likewise without question authentic, to illustrate, that in case you reside in an integrated section some human beings hate you. We had a kinfolk on our block turn very just about violent against us as quickly as we moved in and then, whilst a 2d gay couple moved in around the corner, they fled their abode, forsaking their furniture and not even putting their abode on the marketplace for 6 weeks, simply by fact they have been afraid (as they instructed one amused person interior the community) that "the gays are coming, they are taking over." lots of folk do no longer prefer to handle that. Why do Baptists like issues that purely Baptists do (there's a Baptist relax abode a mile from our abode)? What approximately Catholics? reproduction Bridge gamers? game enthusiasts? All of those communities have drastically much less compelling and quite much less inherent features that bind them at the same time, and yet they have their very own retirement centers, cruises, conferences, even parades (at times) and so on. Gays are not any diverse. The function that binds us at the same time is inherent no longer chosen, even though it extremely is there, and it extremely is rather ordinary to human nature and existence -- extra ordinary than a given faith or pastime. The organic tendency to bind at the same time then is comprehensible. enable me observe something added, in fact. I stated that i'm completely integrated. i'm, yet being gay isn't my dominant sub-community -- being a gamer is. different than artwork, i do no longer spend a selection of of time with a selection of of pals who do no longer game. Why? Our shared interests. I relax.