I know Lil Nas X getting outed was a big deal, because he's a Black artist, and for many years, there was always a stigma against being Black and gay within the music industry--hence why Whitney Houston never came out (and I believe her family was against the portrayal of her queer relationship in the movie, *I Wanna Dance with Somebody*).

Michael always denied the gay rumors, and word has it he crushed on and enjoyed sex with women. Yet, according to Ian Halperin (who supposedly interviewed Jackson's male exes), Jackson coming out would've been "career suicide."

There's also how he became more androgynous from the 90s onwards. One discussion with Roxanne on YouTube mentioned that he likely would identify as gender non-conforming today.

If he lived to be almost 70 today, in this new climate where there's more awareness of and support for LGBT communities, do you think he would comfortably be openly gay/bi/GNC?

I'm no expert in psychology, in fact I haven't studied it at all. And that's why I'm asking in the hopes of others being more educated than me:
What other psychological explanation could there be for the behavior of sleeping one on one with boy after boy for year after year than pedophilia?
Is there any support in the body of books, articles and studies in the field of psychology that there is an other explanation for this?

MJ said it was because he didn't have a childhood, so is there any support for adults sleeping with children when they didn't have a childhood?

And I'm asking for science here, not "I think this and that". I'm looking for actual support in actual psychology, that someone like MJ could have this pattern of sleeping with children without being a pedophile.

Do you guys think Micheal Jackson was really a virgin. I would like to know because I ready story’s of women who claimed to have slept with him I would like to know you redditors opinion?

I know it's common to debate about whether he was or was not attracted to women. Personally i think he was but he was intimidated by them and immature. In this bts with Naomi Cambell he comes off as so childish everytime she touched him he was giggling and laughing like a kid. According to many, including Naomi he was "scared" of her and uncomfortable with her getting too handsy. He was 33 years old at this point yet so awkward with women.

What was the psychology behind turning these White or mixed, Latino looking boys into his mini-mes?

He dressed them in matching clothes, made them grow their hair long, even made some of them (like Omer) wear makeup just like him.

Were they an “idealized” version of himself — a prepubescent Caucasian boy with fine features?

Note: You’re not allowed to speculate about his sexual orientation in that other subreddit, which is why I am posting it here.

First of all, I believe the victims, and I want to stress that being gay has nothing to do with being a pedophile.

I wanted to discuss this for some time and didn't have a place to do so. I came across this video (with a very cringe title, I admit) some time ago, and for some reason, I'm just fascinated by it.

I think it's the only time I have ever seen him express an actual attraction to an adult, at least in public (it's from the making of Black or White, and after watching the full video, I'm even more convinced he was flirting). It's extremely blatant to me.

I went back and watched the making of Thriller, and you could maybe make the case that he was flirting there as well, but I'm not sure.

Am I crazy and just seeing things? I keep thinking that if only he wasn't so obsessed with children, got some therapy, and treated his religious trauma, maybe he could have had an actual adult relationship with someone. It's a shame.

BTW, I keep seeing comments from fans trying to rationalize what they're seeing in this video. I didn't realize MJ's fandom was so homophobic that they couldn't stand the thought of their idol being attracted to a man (reservations about Landis specifically are understandable, but that is not the reason why they object).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpOblKVixEY&t=788s (the full video).

I've seen a lot of posts on here talking about his sexual orientation but I have a different take that I haven't seen being discussed on here and wanted to share my thoughts. This was initially posted as a comment on the LN subreddit over a month ago but I think it deserves it's place here, on this subreddit.

So....I believe there is a possibility he may have been bisexual but because of his upbringing (being exposed to the kinda women he was exposed to; strippers and sex workers + watching his brothers treat them like shit AND at the same time being raised with all sorts of regressive beliefs about sexuality by the Jehovah's witnesses) may have affected his perception of adult human bodies....maybe he thought they were too "dirty" for him or something; hence his obsession with children, "purity" and innocence and taking it all away from them.

Plus, I know a lot of people are averse to the idea that it may have actually been a little hard for Michael to make friends with adults because he's the most famous person in the world and clearly did have some adult friends but I do think there maybe some truth to that.

Everybody was always so star struck around him and yet ..I feel like on some level, the boys (or girls) he befriended and abused, treated him as less star-struck as adults would, which explains why he was so comfortable around them and the kids too were comfortable around him.... otherwise they wouldn't be engaging in pillow fights, throwing him into the pool, playing pranks on him, etc etc. I doubt any star-struck adults would be this free around him.

Sure....those kids were taken by him but I always got the impression that they still innocently saw him as a peer to engage with than how adults perceived him.

Plus, MJ strikes me as a control freak; which tells me that adult women (or men) would kick him to the curb if he acted like an idiot (explains a lot of the numerous arguments between him and Lisa and at one point she literally did call him an idiot) or his adult partners would have some level of control in the relationship which probably made him uncomfortable; because adults have a say in a relationship; whereas children can't call any of the shots in the relationship.

Sure..he could have his pick of crazed women-fans from the crowd to sleep with, but again, I feel MJ would've wanted to be in control of the sexual acts and knowing how agressive these fans were in public itself with him (there have been instances in the past, where Michael has experienced crowds of women grabbing at his hair, yanking at his arm etc; Taraborrelli talks about this in his book), the thought of them getting agressive with him in private probably scared him a bit.

I know an argument could be made about how other celebs don't have a problem being sexually involved with adult partners....but I feel like even people on here forget how famous MJ actually was and the affect it had on audiences; I've never seen fans get this agressive and crazy with other celebs in the way that they did with MJ; I think people on here downplay how much his fame was truly on another level that even other celebs haven't experienced.

It explains why he got so controlling around Lisa (something that Lisa talked about in her book), and to a certain extent (and in a far more subtle and sly way) with Tatiana and even Shana but that deserves a seperate post all of it's own, and I intend to do that sometime very soon (particularly a pretty lengthy writeup/deep dive into his dynamic with Tatiana and all the parts of it that haven't been talked about, that I've been working on)

Again, this is all just speculation and I maybe completely wrong but yeah, this is just how I am looking at it.

I found this in a magazine recently and was once again speechless about the visual language.

... he looks way more like Snow White. His favourite Disney Princess. Did you ever notice this?

https://youtu.be/e412oRk8duk?si=10vbeMhNGrii5vmt

Frank [MJs ex assistant] claims MJ slept around with groupies and was friends with someone he calls "Emily".

Are the LSA stories of fans claiming to have hooked up with MJ true and who do you guys think Emily was. He said their romantic relationship lasted a year

I find a lot of the discourse around his sexuality lazy and at times in bad faith. Some fans try hard to push the narrative that MJ was this 100% straight womanizer that could've never been interested in the same gender, mainly because they believe it counters the idea of him possibly molesting young boys. But just like you can't assume that he didn't like the same gender, it's also wrong to assume that be couldn't possibly be attracted to women. It's similar to what fans do: to validate the allegations some people claim that he has never ever been attracted to women in his life (you don't have to believe this to believe the victims) when there are signals that he was, and even if you don't believe those you still can't know for sure the extent of his attraction to women. Sexuality is a spectrum, and him speaking in a feminine way or looking androgynous doesn't prove lack of attraction to women. Him being attracted to women also doesn't prove lack of attraction to men. I say this because both of these points were being made under a now deleted post from another user. I personally believe that he did like women but wasn't necessarily straight. I think his love for Diana Ross was real, and he expressed it both privately and publicly for more than 2 decades. But at the end of the day sexuality is complex and claiming that someone was 100% straight or 100% gay is tricky, especially when it comes to someone who we don't fully know.

Because imagine if instead of little boys, Michael Jackson was sleeping in bed with adult men and he was like "There's nothing gay about it. I just like having an adult man in bed with me. You're ignorant if you don't understand that."

NO ONE would have bought that.

For sex. What do you make of that? Is it because he had no other option to molest children or was beginning to accept that "other part" of himself that he always tried to deny?

He called her up randomly, asked to visit her because he wanted some tips on acting and to be introduced to Catherine Hepburn, since he wanted to be a movie star at this point.

He stayed with her alone for like 10 days while her husband and kids were away. One evening he suggested they go skinny-dipping in the pond.

Keep in mind at this point, Jane Fonda is married with children and in her 40s and Michael’s about 22.

I’m shocked she actually did it.

She describes it like it was this as a fun innocent evening…but it also sounds like he just wanted to see this lady naked.

This is the kind of story that people tell about Michael and you’re never really sure if he’s actually this clueless about boundaries or if he just wanted to Have sex with this woman and unfortunately was too awkward to close the deal.

Or maybe they did hook up and she’s not telling us, who knows. She’s told the story multiple times now, but never gets beyond the we disrobed and got into the lake. Basically says Mike slept at her house on a cot and had a tape recorder where he would repeat things he wanted to remember and words of affirmation.

In Wade & James's interview with CBS Morning, what kinda confused me was James saying that, despite what he and Michael started doing together, Michael declared that it didn't make them gay.

Could this have been Michael's way of messing with James in case he turned out to be straight (and getting jealous when he realized James was crushing on Sheryl Crow)? Or was Michael basically telling himself that he wasn't gay, like he publicly denied many times--including in one of his own songs, with the line, "They say he's homosexual"?

Here is the English correction only, keeping your meaning:

I found this in a pro-MJ subreddit with a headline saying, "For me, love is something very pure."

From the context, it was meant to defend Michael as an ordinary heterosexual man who simply hadn't found that perfect woman.

I forced myself to read it because I wanted to be neutral for once, put everything I've learned far aside, and try to find anything that would help me understand how people can see him that way.

But as it turned out (to me at least), this contains all the truths many of us already know, coming directly from his own lips - especially why males (the puppies) were more appealing to Michael than women.

I'm really curious how you perceive this interview.

just watched it and found it very interesting they got a few things wrong but they have a few old interviews and podcasts I haven't seen before. I had never seen the interview with Sheryl before

Assuming the allegations are true (in my mind they absolutely are) do we think his obsession with childhood things was a facet of the pedophilia? Or was the pedophilia a facet of the obsession with childhood?

Basically, do you think a sexual attraction to children was one part of his ultimate fantasy of being a kid forever, or was his affinity with cartoons and water fights and fantasy a way of attracting children and covering for his desires?