Since I'm not from the south, I can't use "y'all" in good conscience.

A few of you responded to a thread I started a few months ago where I introduced myself and stated my interest in going on chemical castration. A few of you (you know who you are) gave me some really good advice.

To save you a trip back through the boards, I mentioned that I thought I was asexual and wanted to bring the physical and mental in line with each other. Basically, I complained that women or thinking of women didn't get me hard, and I haven't really felt much of a sexual attraction toward women.

Well....

The more I paid attention to these things, the more I realized that the issue wasn't whether or not I got turned on, but who and what turned me on. Yep, you can probably guess where I'm going with this. So this guy looked at me while I'm on the bus. I looked back. It moved. IT. MOVED. Then it all began to make sense. Things like this have been happening more and more, not to mention the occasional crush on a guy friend of mine.

Why hadn't this occurred to me before? Well, I'm a guy; I'm naturally a little thick in the head about these things. You all know how it goes. I'd always allowed for the possibility that I might be a little bit attracted to guys some of the time (particularly pretty ones), but my first fantasy as a kid had been about a girl. My first crushes had been on girls. I always emotionally liked the idea of being with a girl, just not so much in the bedroom. But I'd never put 2 and 2 together; I had thought that I was just a bit picky when it came to women. I'm also really conventional and low-key and more than a bit boring, and I've never been with a guy; I've even turned down offers. Basically, the serious thought had never occurred to me that I might be gay. I used to give it at most a 20% chance. Now it's more like 90 to 95% and it might get revised yet upward.

So I'm NOT asexual; it's just that I'm not heterosexual. My testosterone is more or less normal. Things do in fact work down below physically, at least now that I'm a little more comfortable up above. So when I said that I was beginning a journey and had no idea where I'd end up, I didn't know how right I was. I still have a lot to figure out, but I'm sure as hell not a eunuch, at least as now. To those of you who counseled me to hold off, thanks.

I still have a lot to learn. I feel like I'm 28 going on 13; at once it's very exciting and uncomfortable. Much of what I knew about myself was wrong. At least I don't have to go through puberty again or deal with hormonal changes. My problems are trivial compared with those that a lot of others have to deal with.

Since most of you probably don't care about my spilling my guts, I'll end it here. My further journey is not really that relevant to this site. Mostly, I wanted to thank people for giving me some really good advice and taking time out of their busy lives to deal with some random nut on the Internet. You really don't know how thankful this random nut is.

Good night.

You're quite welcome and good example to many others.

The best of wishes to you. Don't let religiouse freaks, jerk you around, Jesus said. "Love your fellow men." It's been said he hung on the cross to forgive our sins. I wonder when some of these preachers are going to convert to christianity and forgive and love.

Not a problem. If religious or political fanatics take that much of an interest in my daily life, it means that they're so boring that I can safely ignore them. We're (mostly) grown-ups here; why should anyone spend the time and effort to get offended at what other people think?

I wonder if the issue is GID? In other words your comform with women - does that mean your more comfortable "as" a woman? It might be worth spending some time to sort all that out with a professional. Just my random two cents worth...

You know, it's amazing how all of these "identity" questions cleared up when I stopped driving myself nuts worrying about them. That allowed me to have the "Oh, maybe I'm just gay, so THAT's why I don't want to have sex with women" lightbulb moment. I've never, ever wanted to be female and I'm comfortable as a guy. Just not as a straight guy. Sometimes the most complicated problems turn out to be the most common and simple.

I'm very happy for you, graylayer. It's so fortunate that you are of such an age and live in a time when one can make this discovery and not have it be devastating as it was to me at 15 in 1945. It was a homophobic time and I lived in a homophobic family. The discovery that I was "one of those" nearly drove me to suicide.

I'm so glad that you can now relax, accept yourself as you are, and be happy. The best of luck to you.

A truly lovely story graylayer - it warms my heart to read stories like yours I've always been very lucky in that all my family supported me while I was coming out and continue to do so now (i'm so close to my mum she is more like my best friend than my mother)

It's not easy coming to terms with the fact you're gay, and I certainly don't wanna put you on a downer - when I was coming to the realisation that I was gay I hated myself for a couple of years... (the whole 'why I can't I be normal' stuff going thru my head), but as I said the support and love of my family helped me thru what could have been a nightmare time, my hopes is that you have as much support as I have, it will make your life so much easier

On a more positive note, you'll probably become the envy of all the str8 lads yer mates with - my younger brother is always telling me how amazed he is that I can talk to / become friends with almost any girl I talk to - my answer? it's because i'm comfortable with being myself around them and unlike a lot of young str8 guys, i'm not scared of talking to them Anyways, I think i've prattled on for long enough - if u fancy a chat sometime, drop me aline - have fun matey! xx