via RH Reality Check, by Heather Corinna

bobwilkins asks:

I’m a 16 year old boy, and for as long as I can remember I have been attracted to girls and yet rarely able to feel comfortable around them and get to know them. I’ve always been a nice person (the friendly guy) but without that many actual close friends who are girls. Recently I’ve noticed I am turned on (and everything that follows that) with the thought of receiving anal. Yet when I actually tried to see what anal was like through porn (I know this isn’t realistic) I really didn’t like it (to be polite). People have sometimes quietly thought of me as homosexual as I’ve never had a girlfriend and now I’m really not sure about myself? There are so many bad stereotypes and public jokes about gays I don’t think its worth considering? I guess if I could fall in love with a girl and kiss her I would be far more confident…but I shouldn’t need this! Advice please?

Heather Corinna replies:

There are gay or bisexual men who love or like anal sex, it’s true. But there are also gay or bisexual men who don’t like it, or who just aren’t interested in it. There are heterosexual men who don’t like anal sex or aren’t interested in it, either. There are also heterosexual men who like or love it. And for all of these groups, all of that goes for being on either end of anal sex, as it were, and for people with partners of any or every gender. Human sexuality is incredibly diverse, and all someone liking a given kind of sex can usually tell us by itself is that someone likes that kind of sex. That’s it.

Whether or not someone of any gender is curious about, wants, fantasizes about or takes part in anal sex in any way doesn’t tell us a darn thing about their orientation. Now, if and when a guy fantasizes about it, wants or or engages in it with other men, then that is an indication that guy probably is attracted to other men (though maybe not just men: being attracted to other men doesn’t always mean only being attracted to men), but that’s still not about anal sex specifically. That same guy might also feel that way about kissing and who he kisses, but if he told people he was interested in kissing — just kissing, not kissing any given gender of people — you wouldn’t hear anyone suggesting that probably means he’s gay, right?

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