Root Causes, Homosexual Consequences
They say opposites attract.
That maxim, in the very simplest of
terms, explains much about our former homosexual condition and how we were able
to uncover the underlying problems creating it.
As long as we felt that men were the
opposite from us, while we identified with women as our sisters, we remained
attracted to our opposite -- the mysterious, unknown masculine. To us, it often
felt like men were the opposite sex, so being sexually attracted to them felt
natural. Initially, at least, we didn't feel homosexual so much as we felt
genderless and, lacking sufficient maleness within ourselves, attracted to that
which we felt would make us feel masculine and whole.
Every man has a masculine drive. In our
case, that drive inadvertently became sexualized. But we also found it could become
desexualized as we fulfilled that masculine drive in more emotionally grounded
ways.
We discovered the path to healing as we
came to understand that, at least in our case, our
homosexual feelings were not the problem but were actually symptoms of deeper,
underlying problems and long-buried pain that usually had little or nothing to
do with erotic desire. Rather, they had to do with our self-identity,
self-esteem (especially our "gender esteem"), relationships and
spiritual life. Once we discovered and healed the underlying pain, the symptoms
of homosexuality began to take care of themselves.
In 2004, People Can Change surveyed the
members of its online support groups to determine what they perceived to have
been the most significant causes of their developing homosexual feelings in
their own lives. We asked about 25 possible factors -- everything from biology
to personal choice. More than 200 men responded.
(Keep in mind that this is not a survey of the
beliefs of the general "gay" population -- those who have accepted a
gay identity and are happy in that life. Rather, it is a survey of the beliefs
of those who are seeking to overcome or minimize homosexual desires. Gays may
or may not answer these questions differently.)
1. Father-son relationship problems: In the survey, 97% said problems in the
father-son relationship while they were growing up contributed to their
developing same-sex attractions (SSA) -- and men usually identified it as one
of the three most significant factors.
·
It seems very rare for a man who
struggles with homosexuality to feel that he was sufficiently loved, affirmed
and mentored by his father growing up, or that he identified with his father as
a male role model. Oftentimes the father-son relationship is marked by either
actual or perceived abandonment, extended absence, hostility or disinterest (a
form of abandonment).
Like all human
experience, this is not universal, and sometimes the father-son relationship
doesn't seem to have been a problem. Rather, the relationship with brothers or
male peers or male abusers may have created deep wounding. Whatever the source
of the estrangement, it is a common experience for many of us to have felt a
deep longing to be held, to be loved by a father figure, to be mentored into
the world of men and to have our masculine natures affirmed by other men.
2. Conflict with male peers: The same percentage of men who said
father-son problems contributed to their SSA -- 97% -- also said problems in
their male-peer relationships contributed. And half said it was one of the
"top three" factors.
·
Somehow, even as boys or young teenagers, we felt like we were
never "man enough." We felt like we didn't live up to the masculine
ideal. We saw ourselves as too fat or too skinny, too short or too awkward, not
athletic enough or tough or strong or good-looking enough -- or whatever other
qualities we admired in other males but judged to be lacking in ourselves. It
was more than low self-esteem, it was low gender
esteem -- a deficiency in our core sense of gender upon which our whole self
image is built. Other males just seemed naturally masculine, but masculinity
never came naturally to us. We aspired to it but were mystified by how to
achieve it. Among other males, we felt different and lonely.
Feeling deficient as males, we pined to
be accepted and affirmed by others, especially those whose masculinity we
admired most. We began to idolize the qualities in other males that we judged
to be lacking in ourselves. Idolizing them widened the gulf we imagined between
ourselves and so-called "real men." In idolizing them, we increased
our sense of our own masculine deficiency.
At the same time that we idolized certain
male traits or maleness generally, many of us came to fear other boys and men.
Born with unusually sensitive and gentle personalities, we found it was easy
for many of us to feel different from and rejected by our more rough-and-tumble
peers growing up. We came to fear their taunts and felt like we could never
belong. Many of us feared the sports field and felt like we could never
compete. Many of us felt rejected by our fathers and feared that we could never
measure up or would never really matter to them.
So where did this leave us, as males
ourselves? It left us in a Neverland of gender
confusion, not fully masculine but not really feminine either. We had
disassociated not just from individual men we feared would hurt us, but from
the entire heterosexual male world. Some of us even detached from our very
masculinity as something shameful and inferior.
3. Mother-son relationships (and the
"smothering mother" syndrome): Nine out of 10 survey respondents said
aspects of their relationships with their mothers contributed to their SSA.
·
Even as we perceived our fathers as abandoning, ignoring or being
hostile toward us, it was a common experience for us to over-identify with or
become overly dependent on our mothers. Oftentimes, we never fully cut the
"apron strings" that attached our identity to hers. Mom often became
our confidant and mentor instead of Dad. But Mom could never show us how to act
and think like a man. So it was common for us to view maleness from a woman's
perspective instead of a man's. We inadvertently adopted a woman's view of the
world. The gulf between us and the world of men was widened and reinforced.
Feeling alienated from the male world, we
often found comfort in female companionship. Some of us labeled women and
femininity as superior to men and masculinity because we perceived females as
more sensitive, accepting and loving. They felt "safer" to be with
and to expose our painful emotions to. Instead of ridiculing our sensitive
natures, they appreciated them. They didn't expect us to prove we were
"man enough," even while we were still just boys. Many of us learned
to identify with women and girls as our sisters, our buddies and,
inadvertently, even our role models. Our sense of girls as the "same
sex" and boys as the "opposite" sex was reinforced.
4. Sexual abuse: 48% of respondents said that, as children
or youth, they had been sexually abused by an older or more powerful person.
Usually it was by a male, and in those cases, 96% considered the abuse to have
contributed to their developing SSA feelings.
5. Other sexual experiences: 93% said they had had other sexual experiences
-- including pornography, sexual fantasy and sex play with other boys -- as
children or youth, and of those who did, 93% said they believed these
experiences contributed to their SSA feelings.
6. Personality traits: 87% said they believed their personality
traits were a contributing factor.
·
A great many of us were born with or developed an innate
sensitivity and emotional intensity that we learned could be both a blessing
and a curse. On the one hand, our sensitivity caused us to be more loving,
gentle, kind and oftentimes spiritually inclined than average.
On the other hand, these were some of the
very traits that caused our more rough-and-tumble male peers to taunt us, girls
to welcome us into their inner circles, moms to hold onto us more protectively,
and dads to distance themselves from us. Perhaps even more problematic, it
created within us a thin-skinned susceptibility to feeling hurt and rejected,
thus magnifying many times over whatever actual rejection and offense we might
have received at the hands of others. Our perception became our reality.
Homosexual Consequences
These and other hurts were oftentimes the
problems buried below the surface. Complex, interwoven and painful, they drove
us to homosexual relationships in an attempt to find healing. But we found
that, for us, acting on these homosexual desires actually worsened rather than
lessened the underlying problems. Homosexuality, for us, wasn't the solution;
it was an escape from solving the real problems that had caused the symptoms to
begin with.
Time alone could never really heal these
kinds of deep wounds without our going back to face them, acknowledge them,
grieve them, release our legitimate anger over them, take steps to repair the
damage they had caused us (to the extent we could), and finally, to forgive and
move on.
(From
PeoplecanChange.org)