Some of my earliest memories involve playing with girls -- word games and jump rope and so on -- and I never had a phase like most boys have of "hating" girls.  I guess in this respect I was a bit feminine when young, and my dad certainly noticed it.  I also didn't much like sports and other boy things like playing soldier and mechanical things.  Of course much of this was probably because I was nerdy (let's be honest here -- I was an almost intolerable nerd) and I also have always had a strong pacifistic streak.  Even today I know that if it came to it I would rather die than kill, even in self defense.  So, then, the interconnections in my personality between being effeminate and not liking violence and not being competitive and being bookish, and which led to which behaviors, are probably impossible to disentangle.

The understanding that I was gay and that it was best to keep this hidden must have come very early, as I remember no such realization, seemingly having known it all my life.  I know I was very aware long before I learned the derogatory meaning of "queer" and before the word "gay" was widespread (I think about then is when it began to be applied to homosexuals).

In seventh and eighth grades and maybe a little later I was "sis" to all the boys.  Wasn't bullied though -- I think this happening to "sensitive" gay boys is a later thing in our culture -- or maybe I was just lucky.  Part of it may have been that I was bigger than the other boys, and just naturally I would kiss ass out your ear to avoid confrontation -- a counterproductive behavior if ever there was one.

Of course the Jehovah's Witness thing entered into it all quite early and subconsciously.  I believed then that being gay was wrong, and early on decided I had to abstain.  No real problem and in fact I can't think of any bad emotions that accompanied all this -- no guilt or fear or anything -- I just understood that God didn't want me to have sex the way my libido directed me.  (I think about that now and don't know whether to laugh or cry).

And so I didn't have sex, and never had any problems along those lines, except for keeping my orientation to myself.  I sometimes wonder if I hadn't had the religious belief I had back then what might have happened -- more than likely I would have had experiences at a much younger age, but maybe not -- I was heavy and pimply and nerdy and so on so I doubt I would not have had all that many temptations.

It's interesting -- my sexuality seems to have played no role in either my religiosity nor, later, in my realization of the reality of the religious fantasy I was in.  So many gays seem to have no end of problems with their religious beliefs, generating guilt and so on.  Not me.  I understood what was expected, accepted it, and acted accordingly.

Anyway, one thing I did do was become more masculine in my behavior.  Not that I came to like sports or become "one of the boys" or anything, but later my associates became mostly other guys of an intellectual bent and I did fine.  I even had several girl friends in high school, although not from my initiative but from my acceptance of theirs and that, although perhaps I was no football star, I was a school leader and honor student and seemed to have a future.  And, of course, in dealing with my girl friends, I was always the "perfect gentleman."