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Men are like angels to me. All I want is to spend every minute near them. I love to look at them, touch them, and make love to them. I am, in short, a dedicated homosexual. Always have been, always will be. There's just one glitch. I recently discovered that I also think that some women are kind of hot.

Let me explain just how deep this homosexuality thing runs here. I came out at the age of 13 when I fell in love with a very sexy young fireman. The experience not only inspired me to come out of the closet at that tender age, but I blew the closet door off and left it in splinters.

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ince then I have slept with countless men and enjoyed it almost every time. I love sex with men so much I even wrote a book about how guys can go out and get it. It was in the process of doing researching for Peek: Inside the Private World of Public Sex (Haworth Press, 2008) that I got face to face with the fact that lots of men who have sex with men also enjoy sex with women. And that's when I discovered something truly remarkable -- some burgeoning bisexuality within myself.

The first hint came while I was in the back of a little porno shop watching videos and waiting for some hot guy to come in whom I could have my way with. As I sat there waiting attentively, like a spider in his web, I noticed the sounds coming from the other booths.

I could tell by the voices that many of the guys were watching straight porn: men with women. Even the men who five minutes later were either sucking or fucking with other guys in their booths were into watching girls getting drilled by heterosexual men.

This observation was soon followed by the experience of blowing several guys while they watched such videos. It was a bit distracting, even a little off-putting to compete with some big-breasted woman screaming, "Yeah baby, lick my pussy." The thought of which was almost enough to make me lose interest in the man at hand, but not quite.

I began to wonder what this was all about. Were these guys closet-cases who could only justify what they were doing if they pretended they were doing it with a woman? Were they actually straight men who just wanted a little servicing while they got off in their heads to some chick on the screen? I failed to consider the other possibility -- that they actually liked both the men and women in the videos.

One day I decided I'd try a little experiment. Back at the video shop "researching" my book, I went for something different. I plopped in a handful of tokens and turned the dial to a straight video. It was your typical plot: pretty young girl comes to apply for a job as a secretary and gets gang-banged by the board of directors (who all happened to be hot young studs).

Now I have to admit to a few biases. I tend to see women as controlling, a bit man-hating, and a bit anti-sex, certainly anti-casual sex. But this pretty young woman in the movie was none of those things. She obviously liked men and liked having sex with men. I quickly found that not only did watching the straight men turn me on, but I was also turned on by watching the women have sex.

I had slept with a couple of girls when I was a teenager, but that was so long ago I hardly remember what it was like. I found myself studying the female anatomy closely in the videos. Lo and behold, there were some women whose bodies and genitals I liked, and some I didn't -- just like with men.

The whole experience of getting turned on by these videos (or shall I say, the women) was disconcerting. It didn't fit with my identity. Rather than continue to be distressed, I decided to just put it out of my head.

But then something weird started happening. I began to have these dreams at night where I found myself having sex with women. At first the dreams were just once-in-a-while, and then they became more persistent and kept reoccurring. Next I noticed that I was actually looking at women on the street, checking them out.

What did this all mean? I was actually starting to feel threatened by these sexual thoughts of women. It was disconcerting to say the least. I was so sure I was totally gay, how could this be happening?

Finally, I needed to talk to someone about it. But I was scared to confess my thoughts to my gay friends for fear of being judged. A lot of my gay friends have very negative views of heterosexuality, and of women in particular. I was afraid they'd react negatively and see me as a freak or traitor to the cause. I felt like I was coming out all over again, only in reverse. And it was just as hard and just as confusing as the first time. I didn't want to end up being straight.

One by one I sat down with several friends and told them I needed to talk. I began tentatively, nervous about how things would unfold. Then I just let it all burst out and "confessed" that I had these feelings about women and that I thought I might be "bi-curious," only in a direction opposite to what that term usually implies.

Nobody reacted negatively. In fact, they were all understanding. My one friend quite happily pointed out that he has slept with dozens of straight men who were experimenting with feelings of their own. He thinks that some of them were actually gay, but not all. They were simply curious, like me.

My friend also reminded me what Alfred Kinsey had to say: that there was a continuum of sexual orientations, from entirely heterosexual to totally gay, with much variation in between. He thought that men on either end of the spectrum, either 100 percent straight or gay, were actually quite rare, that most guys fall somewhere in between.

I've found this to be true with straight men. In my experience, almost any man can be had under the right circumstances. The difference between a straight man and a gay man was two beers, I've always said.

My friends told me I should keep an open mind and not to worry too much about rigid categories. It didn't take long before I was confronted with a situation that would challenge me.

From frying pan into class

Not long ago I decided it was time to go back to school and finish that degree in sociology I'd never got around to completing. So now, at the age of 38 I'm back in school surrounded by kids nearly half my age. One of them, a pretty 19-year-old blonde, took both the seat near me and a shine to an older man.

She was quick to make a move, introducing herself to me on the first day and suggesting that we get together and study at her place. I had a pretty good idea that she was husband-shopping and so I thought it would be wise to take things slow with her. I'm not usually so prudent, but this time I was grateful that I was.

We got to know each other over coffees the next couple of weeks and indeed, I found myself physically attracted. I'm sure she was aware of it. But she made the mistake of talking too much. She soon started to tell me stories about her former boyfriends. It became apparent that this young lady was a handful.

She made the mistake of revealing to me how she knows men are completely powerless when they want sex from a woman and how she used it to get what she wanted. If she didn't get her way all the time, or the man didn't show her proper deference, he wasn't getting any. She made it clear that sex was her favorite and most powerful weapon against wimpy men.

She pushed all my buttons when it came to my prejudices about women and I soon decided that not only was I not going to sleep with her, I was going to give her a taste of her own medicine and never let her get what she wanted. I'm a top and I wasn't about to let some bitch pussy whip me into submission whether I wanted her or not.

A couple of months later I met another woman at school. This one was my own age and married with kids. One day when the woman who usually sat beside me was absent, she came and sat down in the seat next to me. At first I was annoyed, but then I noticed that I was staring at her breasts, which were largely exposed by her open blouse. She noticed that I was looking and made of point of starting a conversation.

Our final exam was in two days and she asked me how I was feeling about it. I told her I was confident about all the material except for the two classes that I'd missed. She said she had all the notes and we could go over them together if I wanted a ride home after class. I had the feeling that I was being set up, but I gladly accepted.

We sat on the sofa and I poured us each a glass of red wine. We started with small talk and then the conversation quickly turned to our personal lives. She told me she was happily married; the only thing not entirely perfect was the sex with her husband. He worked a lot and was often tired or more interested in football on TV than sex.

It seemed like the appropriate moment to offer her a tour of my apartment. When we got to the bedroom, we ended up staying there.

I have to say it was all very weird. I liked the sex. Her body was remarkably firm for a woman, which surprised me. Fucking her felt good and I had no problem getting into it, except I couldn't bring myself to kiss her on the mouth.

After it was over she was very clear with me. This was a one-time deal never to be repeated and never to be spoken about. That was fine with me. I never told her that I was a gay man; it would have just made things seem more complicated than they needed. We were just two people having sex, no categories were necessary.

I felt strangely relieved after it was over: Like I'd just scratched a terrible itch. I was curious and had to find something out for myself, and that's what I did. Now I can admit that girls aren't so bad and that my sexuality is more fluid than I'd once imagined. But I also know that I am still a gay man.

It didn't take me long before I was back in the local bathhouse sucking cock. I love it and I'll never stop doing it, I can be certain of that. I'm proud to be gay. But now I'm also proud to say that I have an open mind and can appreciate beauty wherever I find it.

I'm also more understanding when it comes to other people and their sexual identities. I no longer scoff at men or women who say they're bisexual, nor do I judge people who aren't so sure just what they like. "Labels are for soup cans, not people," goes the slogan. Now I can appreciate just what that means.

Author Profile:  Joseph Couture

Joseph Couture is a journalist based on London, Ontario.