The “but not sufficient” means that the gay gene must be present, but genetics alone is not enough to explain the wide variety of ways homosexuality expresses itself. That’s where socio-cultural factors come in to play and influences our choices of things like the specific kinds of attractions we have such as younger to older. There is a huge variation in how people experience same sex attractions, and fortunately, we are not all attracted to the same type of person. In particular I think about young, fit, athletic men (whom I find very attractive) but may be attracted to old, unfit and chubby men. Why is that?

When people become a part of a group, either the “In Group” or the “Out Group,” they tend to begin to think alike, and many of the gay political activist people seem to think that all gay people are the same, that we all should express our sexuality in the same way, and that we should all come out in the same way. In other words, the ultimate goal must always be full public disclosure of our sexuality. This isn’t remotely possible for someone living in many of the African countries, or the Islamic countries or in the the Middle East.

I write a lot my book, Finally Out: Unlocking the Closet in Mid-Life and Beyond, about what it means to be gay, but I believe that gay people are only a small part of a much larger group of men who have sex with men. The word “Gay” has taken on a political meaning which puts off some people. That causes some Men who have sex with men (MSM) to feel rejected by the gay community and some in the gay community to think the MSM are not quite “self actualized,” are hypocritical, and are ultimate “less than.” I think this is a significant issue for MSM who are considering coming out in mid-life.

I see we are on the same page to a great extent with how the word “sufficient” is being used, in that there are many other components to our personalities than just a genetic code.

As part of the socio-cultural factors I think we need to add the significance of that chemical mix we float in for the 9 months we float around in our mother’s belly before we are born. I believe there are many factors in our lives that will allow us to handle being homosexual without being aware of the choices we make.

I am reminded of the work of Alison Gopnik and others in their book, The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind (Gopnik et al, 2000), who write of how children acquire the ability to take light signals and transform them into concepts of other things and people? And to this I add temperament as outline by Jerome Kagan in The Long Shadow of Temperament (Kagan and Snidman, 2004). I think the work of Kagan is very important for homosexuals to understand because it is my belief it is our temperament that helps fashion how we choose to express our sexual preferences.

Using “me” as an example, I knew I was different from the earliest age, at least 4 or 5 years old. My temperament was positive and very reflective. As my dad would say, I was a watcher. When I was about 12 or 13, the news was full of the Profumo spy scandal. This, as you may remember, rocked the British government and high levels of society and was headlines for months.

All sorts of sexual activities were going on, and one of the key players was a homosexual, who was said to be the leader of a homosexual ring that had these orgies with members off the Horse Guards. Well, on one of the days when the news seemed to be covered with stories about homosexuals, my older brother and I asked our dad, “What is a homosexual?” He calmly said, “Homosexuals are individuals who are attracted to members of the same sex”.

When I think back what a brilliant answer; there was no emotional baggage attached. That’s the time I found out I am a homosexual. So what if the medical profession thought I was crazy, I was a homosexual.

I think back now that I was so lucky to be living in Germany at the time. So for the next 6 years I developed – unconsciously — strategies of how I would express my homosexuality, how would I define what a homosexual was for me.

Needless to say by the time I would venture out at age 19, I had in my mind what a homosexual was and how it fit me.

When I moved to Toronto I had to reevaluate what it was to be homosexual as I now was hearing the new term “Gay”. At first I had trouble with the term as it was foreign to me, and I felt that I was not gay. How could I give up 6 years of learning how to be homosexual to all of a sudden become “gay.” [LAO: The term "gay" in reference to sexual identity did not come into use until after Stonewall, in the late 1960's when it was adopted by the gay community as a term of affirmation.] It took some time before I felt comfortable now with the new label.

You have raised a very interesting issue attributing gay political activist saying all gay people are the same and that we all should express our sexuality in the same way. This is very new to me. Maybe it’s a cultural thing that is in your state. In the gay media that I read from New York or San Francisco over the 40 years that I have, I have never detected this. In fact, in his wonderful essay on gay language Edmond White predicted that the gay community would become even more fragmented. And from what I experience it has become true. But like I mentioned it could be a cultural thing in your state.

Sorry for going on. To wrap up I am not surprised that many men who come out in midlife have problems with identifying with the word, “Gay.” I had six years of learning about what it was to be a homosexual person, and another six months for me to feel comfortable identifying with being gay.

I can understand that an older male in midlife would have difficulty with the identity of being gay or a variant of gay. They lack the socialization of a gay community experience whether being on the curling or rugby club or just socialize with gay men in a coffee shop. The coming out process is just that, a process, and one’s temperament is crucial in understanding what that process involves.

In the late 70′s to 90′s I had a married bi-sexual friend. When we first met he wanted it be known that he was bi-sexual and not gay. By then I did not care what a person wanted to call themselves, as long as we enjoyed each other’s company. Well, by the time he died in the mid 90′s he was no longer calling himself bi-sexual; he fully accepted the word gay as an identity. I noticed how over the years he moved his identity from bi-sexual to gay. What helped him was the growing influence of his other gay friends around him that accepted him on his terms.

Your book sound like it may address many identity issues confronting a man in coming out in midlife, especially in isolated locations. I think that most of the men who have this midlife “gay” issue will in time understand that being gay has nothing to do with conformity, but being allowed to express their sexuality in anyway they find expression for their needs. For them, it’s the shock of the new, the new “them,” that can be scarey.

To answer your question, “Why is that?” I would add if we analyze what we are attracted to as gay men we may discover what it was in our infancy and youth that stimulated us in some way. Personally I think that my own eclectic mixes of what I find sexually attractive is based on the fact that as a kid I lived in different cultures growing up and I was exposed to many different versions of maleness. To use the term masculinity is too stereotypical to express what it is to be of the male gender.

You book sounds very interesting.

/s/ ttfn Graham