Hi. I'm new here, btw.

I knew I was attracted to other boys at a VERY early age. I was fooling around with other boys by the age of 9. All I knew was that I was a boy who liked other boys, therefore I was gay. It wasn't until Junior High or High School that I first started to realize that I was anything other then just plain old gay--that it was boys, not men, that I was exclusively attracted to. Yet I have always (at least for myself) considered BL to be merely a subset of homosexuality. After all, by the strictest definition, if you are male and you are attracted to other males (regardless of their age) you are either gay or at the very least bi.

I find it rather amusing though, how some of you are trying to split hairs, to make a distinction between the terms "homosexual" and "gay" were none exists. A better and more realistic distinction might be whether or not, in addition to your attraction to boys, you exhibit other stereotypically gay attributes (like being effeminate, or having certain mannerisms or interest, etc.). There are many gay men who don't "act" gay at all, while others are absolutely flaming gay, and most are somewhere in between. As for me…well, I'm pretty obviously gay--not flaming, but fairly obvious nonetheless. Therefore, I except the label of "gay" very easily and always have. I am gay; I just happen to be a gay man who only likes boys rather then adult men. I can, however, see how some BL'ers out there might resist the term "gay" if they are in every other way totally masculine and "strait-acting".