Replies to '06/06 "I'm Gay, OK?"'

I'm glad you were able to find happiness living as a heterosexual man.  However, what worked for you can't be applied to all people.  It didn't work for me and it doesn't work for the majority of people who attempt to "change" their sexuality.  The most I ever got out of any program or any advice from the religious sect is the abilty to supress my attraction to women ~ to ignore it and pretend it was not there.  This never was equated with an opposite attraction to a man, however, nor did it mean that I ever really stopped having those attractions to women.  It never went away despite prayers and pleadings and serious effort into brainwashing myself into believing I could be straight.  Could I physically be in a heterosexual relationship, and married with kids, I could probably make that choice, but it wouldn't mean I really "changed."  At least Im honest with myself, and have found happiness with a partner I feel love and attraction for, and still will have the family (with kids) I have always dreamed of.  Thats MY "Truth."

Here are a few questions for  sbministri : Did you, sir, have physiological sexual attraction sensations down inside your lower body, even when you were not even thinking about sex, and those feelings directed at other men in the immediate vicinity? 

  

Did you, sir, have physiological sexual attraction sensations down inside your lower body, even when you were not even thinking about sex, and those feelings directed at women in the immediate vicinity during the same time period? 

  

If you answer "yes" to both of those questions, you were not a homosexual nor a heterosexual. But, in experiencing physiological sexual attractions to both genders, you had to be bisexual in your sexual orientation. 

  

Now to the next question if it was "yes" to the first question and "no' to the second question: 

  

You wrote that you are now a heterosexual man; so, have all of the physiological sexual attractions toward other men stopped? Are all of your physiological sexual attractions directed at women only now?  

  

If you no longer experience those kinds of sexual attractions toward men and they are only directed toward women, then you can rightly claim that you are now exclusively heterosexual in your sexual orientation.  

  

In my study of the ex-gay/ex-homosexual/sexual-change-ministry of the umbrella group, "Exodus International, since the latter 1970s, and groups connected with it, as well as the homophobic pseudo-psychology outfit called "NARTH, I have yet to encounter a so-called testimony of anyone whose sexual orientation has been changed, neither by professionals nor by God Himself. Every one of those 100s of testimonies, officially sanctioned by Exodus International, that I have read have a loophole in them which either proves that the person giving the testimony was never exclusively homosexual in the first place, or he or she was either heterosexual looking for love in the wrong places or was just bisexual to begin with . . . or is still one who is a homosexual attempting to fool others that he or she is heterosexual.  

  

Sir, you do contradict yourself. In regard to the mountains of research supposedly proving that homosexuality develops over a period of time, from what I know as a person who has had a lot of classes in psychology and counseling and as a person who has done professional style educational research on those research studies and their sources, the people making those claims have been discredited and shown that their reports are false. Many of those whom the religious right put up as "experts" in psychology and psychiatry regarding sexual orientation have been discredited by both mental health professional organizations which have APA as their initials.