Exploring sexuality age six to eight
1978
"I probably realised I
was different at the age of five. A lot of people say ‘How can you know
at that age?’ At that age I didn't understand what gay was but I knew I
was different. However some of the stuff about me was stereotypical but some wasn't. I didn't want to play with my sister's dolls; I
always had Action Men, Star Wars, I always had Lego. At the same time I
wasn't a fighter, I wasn't into football. I was probably exploring my
sexuality around five or six with kids my own age, lying on top of boys
when I was five, six, seven. It was probably of a sexual nature but I
probably didn't realise at that age. When I was about 8 in 1979 my mum
found me doing something with a kid from across the road and she said
it was dirty. The kid I was doing things with said ‘Do you want to do
some stuff?’. I said ‘Yes but I can't because mum says it's dirty’. I
knew from then that it was wrong, you're different and that's bad. A
lot of kids go through that phase; a lot of the kids I did things with
have turned out to be heterosexual, allegedly”.
Contributed by: Derek, 35