congrats on being in love and being proud of who you are,

Wrong. I care, the people who have written on his wall care, and the people who have replied to this thread care. You cared enough to write five paragraphs.

Yes, I'm also quite disappointed with Profcrab's post. I wouldn't have expected this from him. (MrBubbles, on the other hand...)

16 to 26, you might not realize it, but you being taken advantage again. He's an adult and you are a child. There's no but about. I understand how rough it is out there, but you have to be careful.

Welcome to the site.

As a Muslim myself and one who knows a lot about Middle Eastern culture, you're brave for coming out. Either way I don't think the Qur'an expresses any actual punishment for homosexuality and as such I don't care what way a person leans sexually.

Hope it continues to make your life happy and salaam.

EDIT: Also, I do believe you are born gay, or not.

Having a sexual attraction to a 16 year old does not make you a pedophile. Pedophilia is defined as having a sexual attraction toward pre-pubescent youth only.

Depends whether you're talking in the terms of law enforcement or medicine. Since we're debating whether or not this is okay, or possibly illegal, than it would be pedophilia.

First, let me state that I was running off of the initial assumption that he was in a western country (Middle East would have been my 3rd to last bet ahead of Africa or Antarctica, so I will state that it is quite a bit more hazardous to be gay in the Middle East.  I would suggest he keep these little feelings to himself till he can move to a country where people in power don't want you dead for being gay.

Where I am coming from is that in the western world, being gay is not as big of a thing.  People who spill out their life story explaining how they became gay is a pity plea that I have no respect for.  So someone's gay, who cares.  Does being gay mean that the world has to back up a big ol' dump truck of "care" at their door?  It's a sexual preference, get over it people.

Now, in his case he has other problems to worry about.

I stand by what I said about his 26 year old boyfriend.  There is a maturity difference the size of the Pacific Ocean between 16 and 26.  It isn't right here over here and it isn't right over there.

I give that post a 9.4.

I don't believe homosexuality is natural or right, but that doesn't mean I feel the need to persecute you for it. I'm comfortably straight, so I don't need to lash out in "fear of teh gays" but neither am I going to hide my views in shame. I tend to boil things down to the simplest ways of looking at it; if everyone in the world was homosexual, the species wouldn't continue, if everyone in the world was straight, the species would continue, therefor homosexuality is not natural.

I also noticed that you pointed out that you were molested, which does seem to come up a lot in the histories of those who do have homosexual tendencies. I'm not trying to tell you to be straight, but I really don't think you should put quite so much stock in a lot of these psychological studies. The way a lot of them are worded, you'll end up believing that all teh choices we make are predetermined purely by our DNA and what happens to us, and there is nothing we can do to change our fate, etc. Yes, there are likely connections to development and the like, but that doesn't override your own ability to choose, you may be at a severe disadvantage, you may not even be totally successful or happy with your choice at first, but you still can choose.

As far as what you said about a straight guy trying to think of sleeping with another guy, and not being able to. I know I could theoretically think of doing it, but I've never met a guy that I felt I would be able to form the type of relationship in which I would be willing to have sex with him. That becomes a moot point, since I've found my fiance, who I do have that type of relationship with, but I find that much of the sexual enjoyment comes from how completely I trust her and how completely she trusts me. This makes me wonder if many of the people who are homosexual simply gave up too soon on searching for a partner of the opposite sex, or didn't give an honest chance to a partner they did find.

As far as the issue of religion. There's always the option of abstinence. Most religions that I know of place more focus on the homosexual activity than with just simply being homosexual. Love the sinner, hate the sin, etc. Otherwise, even if they are going to take issue with it, they can't really submit any positive proof of homosexuality unless you actually have sex with another guy. (NOTE: None of this assumed middle east, etc. Obviously it's more dangerous there)

You also pointed out that one of your friends, which might be attributed to his voice? Meh, that's just falling into stereotypes.

As for the 10 years older thing. That I've got a few issues with. I look back on my high school years occasionally and think, "damn, I had some seriously awesome fun", but I also didn't know what the fuck I was doing when it comes to relationships or myself as an individual. I ended up tying myself into a relationship I never was serious about, and trying to sever things so that I could move on with my life was probably the hardest thing I've ever done.

Couple pieces of advice for any relationship you're in, whether with a guy or a girl:

Do you respect him? Does he respect you? What do you do for fun together? How much of this is not tied to sex? Do you discuss sex seriously together, such as interests and concerns? How much do you know about each other, in terms of family, history, likes, dislikes, etc? Have you ever argued together? 8 months might be early for arguments to crop up, but they are seriously important aspects to a relationship. the important issue is insuring that the goal of the argument is not just simply to "win" but to work towards finding a solution to whatever it is you are arguing over. Arguments are merely an intense form of communication, which are beneficial to a relationship, but when you are only trying to "win" it just becomes a fight.

hope that helps.