For many of the commenters, their gay awakening was all about that first kiss.

“When I kissed a guy for the first time after having only been with women. That's when I knew it was really true because it felt completely different. I mean, there was a whole bunch of stuff leading up to this, but a lot of it I tried to repress until I couldn't anymore and had to try it out.”

“I was 11 and got crushes on boys at school or on tv, etc.. never girls, only boys.. kinda knew then lol but I knew for 100% sure later on when I was like 12, a girl liked me, and wanted to kiss. I kissed her but imagined she was a boy I liked instead, same as you, in order to be into it I had to pretend she wasn’t a girl lol last and only time I kiss a girl.”

For others, their early celebrity crushes were a dead giveaway.

“Zac Efron in High School Musical. I was in middle school at the time and I remember telling everyone that I just liked the music in the movie. The truth was that I loved to watch him in that. My true gay awakening as a 4th grader.”

“I knew that I liked guys when I was 6 and realized I was jealous whenever my friend went out with someone other than me and even more so when he got a girlfriend. But at 6, I was already interested in butts ... I wouldn’t know the name for what I was until much later in elementary school and I wouldn’t click that it applied to me until I was watching Tom Hanks in Big…for whatever reason. I don’t remember the movie much, but I do remember just sitting there thinking…I’m gay.”

“Jonathan Taylor Thomas age 8. But then pretty much every guy in a teen movie in the 2000s”

And sometimes you just know. 

“When you spend your formative years fantasizing about the same sex, eventually you’ll look at yourself and see a guy staring back at you and realize that the touch and feel you long the most is not with a woman.”

“The Contrapoints video ‘Shame’ where she explains coming to terms with realizing she is a lesbian has a pretty good explanation. She said she can enjoy men's attractiveness but it contrasts with the way she feels with women, she says, 'I've never been in pain over male beauty". I've felt some attraction to women but when I'm attracted to a man, it's like a magnetic pull that's difficult and sometimes even painful to fight against.'

“Playing truth or dare with a friend. Realized I enjoyed it.”

And then of course there is the most simple answer. We’ll call it Occam's erection. 

“See hot guy: pp go hard. See hot girl: pp no go hard”

These answers were lightly edited for grammar and conciseness.