The following are two responses to our two-part Sex and Relationship feature written by Keisha Shakespeare-Blackmore. We thank the two individuals who were kind enough to share their stories in answer to our question: When did you know you were gay, and how did your family deal with it?

HE SAID:

First of all, sexuality and sexual desires are not things that people acquire, develop or catch along the way. They are innate. They are parts of our psychological and emotional make-up. In essence, the homosexual man has absolutely no sexual desire for a woman. We are not turned on by women. Some of us even find the very thought of having sex with women repulsive.

Many of us were raised in homes and communities where there was no sign of it. Nobody introduced it to us. From basic school, we liked boys and not girls. In puberty, we fantasised about the sexy boys in class and not the boring girls. In manhood, we act upon our teenage fantasies, and have sex with men. We love the feel of a man's body, his lips, his rough hands, etc.

Everything about the man is sexy. The same applies to lesbians. They have absolutely no sexual desires for men. He could be the most attractive; he doesn't stand a chance. When we see attractive members of the same sex 'wi kin ketch fire', that's how it is.

Just as how a straight man was born with desires for females, a gay man was born with desires for men. Sexuality can't be learned. Just as hunger, sex is a natural need. Nobody can teach a man to be gay or straight. Ask a straight man if anybody taught him to have an erection for a woman, and he will tell you no. Ask a gay man if anybody taught his penis to jump when he sees a sexy man and he will definitely say, no way Jose!

Personally, from age 10, I started to have urges for the men in my community. I could not let anyone know, based on how, I knew then, they would have reacted. And, I was not taught. I was scared at times, but it was a nice feeling. I had girlfriends along the way, but they did nothing for me. I wanted to be with boys. So after years of pretending, I simply moved on to what I felt for and I have no regret. I have had fun, and I still do.

No turning back

I know at least 200 gay men, and we all have come to the conclusion that there is no turning back. Simply put, we love men! Some gay men got married to please society, the church and family, while they burn in their desires for other men. I know married gay men who live in misery day in, day out, because they can't act upon their gay fantasies. Some are having sex with other men even in their wives' beds.

Nobody but a gay man knows the unspeakable pleasures that two men derive from being entangled in passionate embrace. It is almost heavenly. Only the angels are missing.

Now, to that illiterate commercial sex worker. Just like many of them from the ghettos, he's not gay; he's simply a prostitute, selling sex for money. He's not living a gay lifestyle. He's simply selling his dignity and his pride, understandably because of his unfortunate circumstances.

What he doesn't understand is the difference between being gay and living a whoring life. So, when he speaks about change, it's not change from being gay to straight. It's about a change of lifestyle, that is, stop having sex with men for money. But, if he is truly gay, his desires for men will never change, even though he might not be physically involved with men. It's not the lifestyle that makes him gay, it's the desire. So a man who is gay is still gay, even if he's married, in the church, stays away from men, and decides to stay in the closet.

So, to answer that question, no, there is no cure, because there is no need for one.

Nobody but a gay man knows the unspeakable pleasures that two men derive from being entangled in passionate embrace.

SHE SAID:

I have been asked this question so many times it has become commonplace in my introductions. "When did you know you were, you know, a homosexual." The same moment you knew you were, you know, heterosexual.

This response ever reaches my tongue, because I know it will be met with ignorance. Somehow I feel it's my unearned duty to explain my sexuality which, to me, is as native as my ability to breathe. I grew up in west Kingston, the second of six girls for proud and loving parents, who have been a fixture in my life for all my 33 years. My childhood was typically Jamaican.

At an early age, I adopted my parents' good examples of the way they were with each other. My relationship with God taught me the importance of these attributes to my day-to-day existence.

Different from sisters

I always knew I was different from my sisters. I was always at ease around women as a child. Naturally, I thought it was because we shared gender, but the ease I felt had, much deeper connotation, and I was too na?ve to examine its origin. The more I socialised with my peers and listened to their juvenile giggles about adolescent boys, the more I became haunted by the feelings my body housed.

There was no name or face for how I felt, the language of homosexuality was in its embryonic stages, and miles away from immediate environment. Sexuality was never discussed, a taboo subject spoken in adult places. It was perceived to be 'the know' intrinsically heterosexual, and a rite of passage journeyed by post- pubescent youngsters. I was years away from this grand euphoria, and until then, I hid my urges amid an orderly fa?ade.

School became more brutal, I shared class with prepubescent boys who had finally realised the function of their genitalia, raucously expressing its function without hesitation, while girls looked away bashfully.

As I grew older, my sexuality identified, was far encroached in unsung emotions, my youth had not armed me with the vocabulary to speak of what I felt. I did not have the intellect to explain what I felt to my parents. Years past puberty, and I had allowed myself permission to interact with the males, I had gone on two dates and listened inattentively to countless friends speak of their own dates - all the while noticing a distinct difference in our accounts. They spoke with glee and fondness, contrary to my ill-detailed, nonchalant report, as if it were a meeting.

By my college years homophobia had grown, it was audible, I cringed at the epithets and apathy being chorused by musical idols, and cringed deeper when I heard members of the clergy coupled hate messages with the word of God. Spiritually, I was well into my own to distinguish 'God' from organised religion's agenda, an troubling, the Church's hate for persons like me was dwarfed by the lack o showed towards gays and lesbian by society at large. Coming out, affectionately known to me as coming in - as into one's self.

I have always felt that my family knew and was afraid to address it, maybe they were not armed with the appropriate verbiage, or maybe they had consoled themselves with the idea of never hearing me say "I am a lesbian."

I met my soulmate in college, we were best friends, and again I felt closer to her than similarity in gender had decreed. One summer she left for New York and I bawled my eyes out to romantic ballads of lost loves. Odd, because a friend leaving was not foreign to me, but mourning an absence to tear-jerking songs was new. At the time I had fallen deeply in love without even knowing it. Finally, my actions had caught up with feelings I had suppressed for years. I finally allowed myself to receive who I am.

The following year, we left together for New York. It was July 4, 1996, and we sat in the dark as reflections of fireworks teased the blackness around us. We reminisced about years past, and surprised each other with similar stories of the profound pain we had felt the summer before when we were miles away from each other. Within that moment we both knew that love had finally found us, profound love, thick as the darkness that surrounded us. We have been together since.

I found it easy to come out to friends than family, maybe because it would be easier for me to grieve their loss, should they end the relationship. One friend told me that her pastor would exorcise the demon that had befallen me. She quoted the misinterpreted Leviticus 18:22

I implore those of you who are of a judgemental and murderous persuasion to heed the commandment, "Thou shall not kill".

Easy pick

My older sister was the first in my family to know she was an easy pick, a nonchalant, non- judgemental soul. She encouraged to me tell my parents. My mother was shocked, as was I. I always thought she knew. I remember how soft her voice became after I had told her. I wondered then if the softness was a precursor to tears. I later found out that her tears lasted for two days; my coming out also had a negative effect on her blood pressure level. It was hard for her, having been cultured in a society that victimises homosexuals, to come to grips with the thought that her own child might one day fall prey to this malevolence.

She also grieved the person who was a physical manifestation of her dreams, lesbianism was not a part of the dream she had for me. She, like most mothers, assumes hetero-sexuality would be a given in their child's life. She now had to add and accept 'lesbian' to all she loved about me. And she did.

I told her that I didn't want to lose her, I wanted her to love me like she had the day before, because I had not changed in a day. She made it clear that her love for me was grand enough to cover me in all my dimensions. She said she would tell my father.

He gave me no reason to fear him, but I love my father deeply, my respect and honour for men was choreographed by his mere humanity. If I had seen a flicker of disapproval in his eyes after telling him, it would have broken my heart.

To date I have never had discussions about being gay with my father, he was never a man of many words, but the love and adoration he continues to show me speaks volumes.

My family has adjusted well, my sisters are very protective of my emotions, and immediately admonish homophobic epithets upon hearing them. My mother is concerned about my safety in the wake of atrocities inflicted upon homosexuals in Jamaica.

(In respect of the writer's privacy, her name has been withheld)

When exactly I knew I was gay, and how my family dealt with it