Am I Gay?

"Am I Gay?" is a question that many, although not all, of us have asked at certain periods of our lives. Based upon what I've found at "Yahoo! Answers," this query occurs most often during adolescence. Of course that is not always the case. Sometimes men well into their thirties and beyond question whether they truly understand their own sexual orientation.

I'm sure a lot of you are asking, "Why label yourself?" However, the question is more fundamental than what is the best word to describe one's sexual orientation. People confronted with the question want to know whether they have accurately identified their own feelings and whether those feelings are more than a phase that lots of other guys encounter.

Two Relevant Features Of Human Sexuality

All except the most dogmatic would agree that most people are somewhat bisexual. Although the Kinsey scale has been largely debunked in the scholarly literature primarily because of his poor sampling techniques, most of us understand that sexual orientation is much more of a continuum than it is a bi-polar designation. It is not Kinsey's overall conclusions that are in doubt; it is merely his allocation of percentages of the population to his various classifications.

In addition, sexual orientation throughout the life cycle is somewhat fluid for many people. Some people were attracted to both sexes (or believed they were) in early adolescence and later discover that they have a strong preference for one sex over the other. Conversely, some other people during adolescence believe that they are only attracted to one sex just to discover later in life that they have fallen in love with someone of their non-preferred sex. Perhaps, though, it is only our degree of self-awareness that is fluid rather than the sexual orientation itself.

Gay, Bisexual, Straight Or Straight But Curious

Most of us, however, if we answer truthfully, can choose one of the useful designations that contemporary English language provides for us: gay, bisexual or straight, recognizing that the term we have chosen to use is not absolute. It seems that among self-described straight men, more are admitting to being bi-curious. I have written elsewhere on 99gay-men.us about this phenomenon.

We'll provide our responses to such questions with examples that fall into several categories: Adolescents, adult men and a self-test about being gay.