As for understanding that I was gay, it wasn’t really something that I figured out until my late teens, but then looking back at my childhood it all made sense, and I realized that I had actually had crushes on many of my best friends.
However, I had girlfriends throughout high school, felt that I was in love with them, and had a great sex life.Even occasionally after I began dating men, I continued to sleep with women off and on, and while definitely gay, I am someone for whom sex is an expression of affection and love.
I simply fall in love with men most of the time.I was very, very lucky: Coming to terms with my sexuality was a smooth transition for me, and I owe that to the struggle that all of the gay men and women who came before me had to endure.
I was living in New York and my friends were all quite liberal and in the arts, and so I did not actually ever have to “come out,” so to speak, as I was never really in the closet.