I am Adam.

I am sixteen years old in December, male, in my freshman year in high school. My middle name is Ivan and my family is of Russian-Polish-Scotch irish descent. I am dyslexic—I have trouble reading and taking in stuff when its down on paper. I snort when I laugh and I hate it. I have failed grades before, I hate math, and I have been in summer school every year since fifth grade. My hair is brown, dyed black, to my shoulders, my eyes are brownish bluish depending on how they feel, and I want to be a musician when its time to think about career and stuff like that.

I am ordinary on the outside, and despite how surprisingly ordinary I am, it is incredible how much I am bashed and teased and taunted, and misunderstood.

I am sixteen years old, and I am gay.

Yes, gay, as in I am romantically interested in other guys. I don't care if you want to be all clinical and call me a homosexual or if you want to be vulgar and call me a fag. I am gay. I know that I am, and my family does too. My friends are cool with it, and I have dated guys. I've even kissed some guys. And let me tell you that if you're uncomfortable with that, then you shouldn't be reading this.

It started in about seventh, eighth grade, when all my friends started being interested in girls and having girlfriends and starting to be immature about the whole sex thing, and I wasn't. I had a few girlfriends, yeah, they were okay and all, but something didn't click… and as all my friends began saying their first cuss words and prepping for high school, I knew that I was different. For some reason, I was more into hanging out with guys, and that was awkward. You can imagine, I suppose, how it felt. All my friends were changing, voices were cracking, people were snigering at the thought of family life and sex education and calling each other gay and faggot and stuff like that as an insult. "He's such a fag," "She's such a lesbian sometimes," "God, this quiz is effing gay." I winced every time I heard all that crap, and I was confused. I didn't want to tell anybody what was going on—after all everybody was all about the gay marriage and how its not Christian and all that bull, and my friends were calling stuff they didn't like gay.

My older sister is also homosexual, and she was the first one I told. Yeah, I know, it sounds like it was awkward and trust me it was, telling my sister I thought that I might be gay too. But I trust Kaylee, and I know that she knew what she was doing. She told me it was okay, and that she could understand. That made me feel a little better, sure, but I still felt like a sick freak every time somebody said the word gay.

My mom knows that I'm gay, and she accepts that. As a matter of fact, she thinks my boyfriends have been rather cute. She hates hearing bull shit about her having two homosexual kids (me and Kaylee, if you haven't been paying attention.) She is willing to defend us if she needs to, and she's okay with that.

As to looks, If you even think of the stereotypical gay hairdresser in tight pants or the interior designer with half the buttons of his shirt undone, you don't know the half of me. I love heavy metal, I dress in black, chains and all. I'm a rocker to the core and I love Metallica and the Casualties and Slipknot and Nine Inch Nails. I chase mail trucks and love dogs and I hate the mere sound of hairspray. But I am gay, and the same goes for the emo-jacket black-glasses Tim. People can look at me and not even know that I'm gay, even when I talk. I say none of that ohmigod and I don't sound like a stereotypical gay guy. I have a plain old sorta Joisey accent like my mom and Kaylee and my other sister and I like it.

In eighth grade, I kissed a guy. He was gay too, a friend of mine, and we were both sort of nervous with the whole thing. I'd kissed a chick before, but this was different. Frankly, it wasn't.

Yes, beyond that Tim and I have dated and even gone so far as to make out with each other. Call me a freak or a fag, but that's what happened. As Kaylee says, shit happens, and that's how things went.

Rainbow boys.

Yeah, that's how Tim puts it. We're a couple of rainbow boys.

I've been called worse than rainbow boy, I will tell you that much. Fag, gay, sausage addict, faggot, London smoke, gay bitch, rainbow f-cker, you're going to hell, God hates you… it adds up. I have gotten a bloody nose and black eye for being gay, and tim will say almost the same. Kaylee too.

I'm not complaining. I know what people believe. I just get offended when people ask me if I've had sex with guys or tell me that I'm going to burn in hell. I would like to calmly point out, no one's religion in question, that nowhere in the bible does it actually say outright that men can't like men and girls can't like girls. And even if it did, and people say we should follow the bible devoutly, it also says that we should stone men that steal our goats and give our daughters as sex slaves without any question instead of our guests. I see no one following those rules in modern America, and pardon me if someone's religion is offended due to me.

I don't mind if people think that being gay is wrong, just don't walk up to me and inform me that my soul will burn in hell because I have been romantically involved with somebody of my gender.

I am only putting all of this out there so that people can understand me being gay a little better, I don't want to start debating over gay marriage. If you believe that same-sex romace is wrong, then by all means believe that. Just know that I am not some manwhore that looks at men the wrong way and is automatically sent to hell because of that, because that is bull shit. BULL SHIT.

I am not perfect, and maybe I will end up in hell. Frankly, I don't know. I don't know if its wrong for me to be Christian and love God and believe in my religion and be homosexual. All I know is that I am, and that I know it. I know people who are okay with that, and no matter how many asses try to beat me up and yell "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL, FAG!!!!!" at me. I love God, I believe in Jesus, and the only thing that I don't believe in is bullshit.

I am sixteen years old, and I have kissed a guy.

I am gay. I am a Christian. I believe in God and Jesus. I love rock and roll, I am a wild child, and I know that much about myself.

I am Adam, and I like me this way.

I don't care if you review and tell me that I shouldn't be clogging up the internet with my gay-ass crap, or if you tell me in your review that I'm going to hell. I just want people to see that I am NOT a dumbass, a man whore, a fag, whatever. I'm Adam.

That's all you need to know.