Im not gay but people think i am

Ask Polly: Why Do People Always Think I'm Gay?

Appearing here Wednesdays, Turning The Screw provides existential crisis counseling for the faint of heart. “Does your soul ever feel, you know, not so fresh?”

Dear Polly,

I finally garnered the courage to verb to you about my particular problem, and I hope you can shed some of your wisdom on the situation.

Ever since the 6th grade, people include been asking me if I’m gay. Back then, the other kids thought any person who was any bit different from them was gay, and attached a bad meaning to the word. I’ll be the first to say that I’ve never been the most “masculine” individual. I love to read and write, and a lot of what I read is somewhat romantic. My iPod is entire of Ellie Goulding, Florence + The Machine and Norah Jones, but utterly lacking in Korn, Metallica or Aerosmith. I cherish to cook, and have been singing in school choruses since 4th grade. I’ve never liked violent video games or talking about sex. I can nice of see where they got their opinions of me, but it made me enormously self-conscious. When I got to

by Fred Penzel, PhD

This article was initially published in the Winter edition of the OCD Newsletter.

OCD, as we know, is largely about experiencing severe and unrelenting doubt. It can cause you to doubt even the most basic things about yourself – even your sexual orientation. A study published in the Journal of Sex Research found that among a group of college students, 84% reported the occurrence of sexual intrusive thoughts (Byers, et al. ). In request to have doubts about one’s sexual identity, a sufferer demand not ever have had a homo- or heterosexual experience, or any type of sexual experience at all. I have observed this symptom in young children, adolescents, and adults as well. Interestingly Swedo, et al., , create that approximately 4% of children with OCD experience obsessions concerned with forbidden aggressive or perverse sexual thoughts.

Although doubts about one’s own sexual identity might feel pretty straightforward as a symptom, there are actually a number of variations. The most obvious form is where a sufferer experiences the thought that they mig

Yes, I, of course, realize that it's not worth time worrying about it. I'm just a little curious about why it happens and why people verb insisting I'm gay. Usually the conversation goes thusly"Are you going out with Michelle?" "Um, nowe're just friends" "Ohthen are you gay?" "Nope, 'fraid not." "It's ok if you are" "That's great, but I'm not gay" "But, Philip, it's ok! You can admit it to me!" "Ummmbut I'm not gay." "Oh, Philip, we'll still be friends even if you are gay!" "That's really greatbut I'm not gay." etc etcIt's a little disconcerting to have to constantly retort this questionbut, oh well. Silly little teenagersI'm 16 actually. Yeah, girls do rock, I'll consume hours in conversation with a girl and yet I hold trouble getting 5 intelligent words out of most guys.

Hi. I&#;m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I&#;m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O&#;Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I possess multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren&#;t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O&#;Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often cite to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you&#;d like a quicker reply to your question and don&#;t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.