Thanks for the reply Bob.

Yup. I am familiar with some of the scandals you have mentioned here. I also tend to believe that the scandalous part had more to do with the conservative public personae vs. their somewhat relaxed private lives than the actual nature of the sexual relationships described in pertinent reports. I guess, the scandal was about moral hypocrisy here more than anything else.

The fact that such discoveries are still being branded as scandals even if only for displaying the hypocrisy of their presumed perpetrators probably indicates that the reporters and scandal-prone media want to see married men getting sexually involved with other men as something relatively rare, and hence, being worth called 'a scandal'.

I also agree that we have no means of quantifying the phenomenon in any reliable fashion here.

I was hoping that some of the members who may be married would come up and share some of their personal insights and stories.

KD

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Much of it also has to do with political and cultural seeking to "score points" and rally their followers, I think.

I agree! First-person stories and thoughts from regular people are much more interesting than anything filtered through the media.

I hope members will keep in mind that this is an anonymous forum and that it's possible to post here without compromising your privacy. Please feel free to share here.

Your Profile Page is programmed not to come up in search engines. When this happened years ago I made programming changes for Keith which so far seem to have been effective.

Also, you can keep your contact information private on your Profile Page and reveal as much or as little as you wish. Keith and I always encouraged people to use an email address that is not the same as the one you use for other more public parts of your life.

Also, if you have privacy concerns, please don't post photos of yourself that may possibly identify you. That was how the most recent app-related outings happened.

If you'd like to share your personal story but have privacy concerns I haven't addressed, please send me a Private Message and I'll reply as soon as I can.

~ Bob S.

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My information is totally observational -

Ranging from ABS where you see a lot of wedding rings (far from scientific proof, but...) to the numerous posts here, on CL and other "hook up" sites where you often see "My wife is out of town for 2 days...."

When there have been guys where I got to know them a bit better many of them have talked about how they may have "fooled around" as kids but gave it up when they got a girlfriend because "I am not gay" but now years later still think about those days.

I have also had one guy tell me how if he was growing up today - with the current level of acceptance - he would probably be gay - but when he was young that "was not an option".

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I was having precisely the same conversation couple of months ago with a guy whom I have known purely as a service supplier all these years. Since we have known each other for some 12 years now, we are trying to be sort of 'friends' not because we really are but because we think that this creates a good impression on the others.. I admit, I was taken aback by his informal confession over drinks before a business dinner.

Strange enough, he was perfectly comfortable with openly admitting that he was a conformist, and had really no regrets about it whatsoever. Those were the different times... These days he would be doing it very differently...

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It would be cool to get a a few more first-person stories here for those of us who simply are curious/inquisitive, and would love to know. None of us here is running any scientific study, and all we can hope for are observational findings, as John pointed out.

KD

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It was a different time with different expectations...

My buddy is very much the same. Fooled around with guys all his youth but after college got married, had kids, bought a house - the whole traditional package.

But now he admits that when he looks at porn it is mostly gay porn and told me that if he was growing up today with how much more accepted it is - he would "probably" go gay.

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The vibe I got from the guy I was mentioning in my previous posting was that he saw his life largely as a failure. He married a divorced woman with a kid, never had any kids of his own, had a successful career but now basically admits that he failed because in his day and time lacked the guts to do what he really wanted to do.

I understand the guys who once used to mess around with other dudes, but caved in to the call of conformism and chose the safer way of getting accepted. Now, if they go back to their old underground routine, and you obviously know about him, he ain't really breaking a major news to you.

For a dude who spent all his life being str8 only to blurt it all out to someone who is very disinterested, and hence blow up his cover for apparently no good reason, is what took me by surprise.

KD

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Here's an example from a review on the Escort site. The substance of the review isn't relevant to our discusion, but what the reviewer says about himself is another example of the types of cases we've been talking about.

It's revealing that what he finds might also be a type of companionship that he had "always wanted" and of course, someone to connect with on many levels, not just sexual, as a lonely widower.

A side note, most of the Escort site reviews are pretty much the same, a few are really hot and sexy and go into great detail, and some illuminate something about the psychology of reviewer, the escort, or both.

~ Bob S.

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