Am I gay? If so, what do I do about it? How do I live like this for the rest of my life?

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I think I might be gay, if not I’m definitely bisexual. I remember when I was eight or nine, when I started realizing that other people could be, you know, exciting, I was excited by other females. I don’t remember ever having an actual crush on a guy. There are guys I have dated or would like to date but that is because I like their personalities, I feel they could protect me, or they have other qualities about who they are as people that makes me think they’d be good partners. But I don’t ever really think of guys as exciting, if you get my drift. Even though I’ve been feeling this way for basically my whole life, I only realized I’m probably gay when a repairman came to my home to fix something, and this guy is a total stunner, yet I admired his good looks as if he were a beautiful work of God, and not in a lustful way. I realized how abnormal this is. It occurred to me that if a man I find this good looking doesn’t excite me, combined with my lifelong attraction to other females then…I’m gay.

BUT the problem is that because I’ve never consciously nurtured this disordered orientation, I’m not sure. And if I’m not sure then I can’t do a whole lot about it. I have a several childhood non-Christian friends who are now openly gay and living the “gay lifestyle” and they say all I have to do is experiment a bit to see what I like. But I will not experiment because I’m Catholic and I care very deeply about my faith and so will follow the teachings of the Church and remain chaste.

I just don’t know how to address this problem if I’m not even sure about it, if I don’t have a settled identity because I have not and refuse to “experiment”.

I thought for a long time I’d like to become a religious sister, but now that I realize I’m probably kinda gay then I guess that is a huge impediment. Life long singleness for me I guess.

Thanks for all your help. Prayers are much appreciated.
 
If there is no nearby chapter, perhaps it might be best to speak with your local parish to see what it takes to set one up? I am sure you are not the only one in your area struggling with this, and a support group would surely benefit not only you but probably many others in your area.

Think of it this way, not only would you be rejecting the temptation yourself, but you are going above and beyond to also help others reject the same temptation and build a support system in your community that will hopefully allow you and others to keep each other accountable and chaste. That would surely please God and leave satan furious. These temptations only come from one place, and you are doing the right thing by recognizing them as temptations and rejecting them.
 
Remember always that God and the Church love you! Being gay does not make you a sinner.

Please seek out support, even support from heterosexual singles who are engaged in a struggle for chastity. Your struggle is a difficult one, because while they might eventually enter sacramental marriage, you will not. However, there are many who never enter marriage and must be celibate for their lifetime. They share your path.

Recognize also, that you were beautifully by God. Find ways to express that beauty and live in service to others.

My prayers are with you!

:blessyou:
 
hatchets said:
I think I might be gay, if not I’m definitely bisexual. I remember when I was eight or nine, when I started realizing that other people could be, you know, exciting, I was excited by other females. I don’t remember ever having an actual crush on a guy. There are guys I have dated or would like to date but that is because I like their personalities, I feel they could protect me, or they have other qualities about who they are as people that makes me think they’d be good partners. But I don’t ever really think of guys as exciting, if you get my drift. Even though I’ve been feeling this way for basically my whole life, I only realized I’m probably gay when a repairman came to my home to fix something, and this guy is a total stunner, yet I admired his good looks as if he were a beautiful work of God, and not in a lustful way. I realized how abnormal this is. It occurred to me that if a man I find this good looking doesn’t excite me, combined with my lifelong attraction to other females then…I’m gay…
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honestly not lusting after a good looking guy does not make you gay…I’m the same way. I’ve never been one to lust after men (or women),I do admire each gender’s beauty for what it is but I’m not an overly sexual person anyway. I admit that I do have some same sex attraction as well and my husband knows this. Whether or not people would consider me bisexual doesn’t really matter…I have never acted on my feelings. I love my husband very much and am attracted to him as well and he’s not drop dead gorgeous. (no offense to him…I’m not gorgeous either…he’s just a very rugged looking man and I find him attractive. I also find other men who remind me of him attractive…I’m very specific about taste lol!)

If you can love a man for being a man and for having the qualities of a man then there really isn’t huge problem. Now, if you same sex attraction is pretty intense you might not be able to be in a relation ship with someone of the opposite sex. You have my prayers regardless…I know it can be a huge cross to bear. :console:
 
First of all - do some research. The world wants you to think you are either gay or not gay. But it’s more complicated than that. People can have all kinds of attractions and they can come and go. It’s not unusual for women to not be attracted by sight. Men are more visually stimulated.

www.ssahope.com

Peace,
John Marie Philomena
 
JohnMPhilomena said:
First of all - do some research. The world wants you to think you are either gay or not gay. But it’s more complicated than that. People can have all kinds of attractions and they can come and go. It’s not unusual for women to not be attracted by sight. Men are more visually stimulated.

www.ssahope.com

Peace,
John Marie Philomena
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I have done a small amount of research but haven’t been able to find a whole lot that rings true to me. A lot of straight Christians, whether they be protestant or Catholic, seem to think that being gay actually is a choice or if not than is purely environmental. There is often a complete rejection of the idea that someone could actually be born gay. The rejection of the possibility of a gay gene is complete hogwash, in my humble opinion. I certainly did not choose to be gay, and yes it’s true that my family is disfunctional however I have SSA memories from before anything weird started happening in my home life. So it’s true that environmental factors may have helped stamp my SSA into my psychology, these factors are not the cause.

And who cares if there’s a gay gene? This would not change the fact that we are all called to live chaste lives. There are other genetic disorders as well, and it’s not that God wants his children to have any sort of disorder or disease but this is a consequence of living in a fallen world.

Sorry to ramble, I just find some of the things on this ssahope website offensive.
 
A friend brought this short video to my attention and I thought it might provide you some support and encouragement.
brandonvogt.com/third-way-homosexuality-catholic-church/
If you are called to a vocation having SSA would not necessarily keep you from joining an order. Maybe you should try to talk this all over with your parish priest before you decide you have to live a single life. I will keep you in my prayers.
 
Praying for you. I’m guessing you are young? Be patient and stay true to your faith.
 
hatchets said:
…BUT the problem is that because I’ve never consciously nurtured this disordered orientation, I’m not sure. And if I’m not sure then I can’t do a whole lot about it. I have a several childhood non-Christian friends who are now openly gay and living the “gay lifestyle” and they say all I have to do is experiment a bit to see what I like. But I will not experiment because I’m Catholic and I care very deeply about my faith and so will follow the teachings of the Church and remain chaste.

I just don’t know how to address this problem if I’m not even sure about it, if I don’t have a settled identity because I have not and refuse to “experiment”.

I thought for a long time I’d like to become a religious sister, but now that I realize I’m probably kinda gay then I guess that is a huge impediment. Life long singleness for me I guess.

Thanks for all your help. Prayers are much appreciated.
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If you are willing and able to remain chaste, you don’t have to concern yourself with defining the degree to which your temptations have roots that are physical, psychological, nature, nurture, or any of the rest. There is nothing keeping someone who is continent from becoming a religious sister. Do you think every celibate person is free of sexual inclinations or sexual temptations? No! Even married people can find themselves “inclined” to act outside of monogamy. The inclinations that would guide us if we were not under the sway of grace are not our identity! This is the great contemporary lie, told in order to make people comfortable in giving themselves over to their disordered or out-of-control passions! No, our identity is that person we are when we are in the sway of grace, not outside of it! (When God said King David was a man according to his own heart, he did not mean the bit about getting Uriah killed in order to have Bathsheba!!)

Your identity has nothing to do with defining who you would prefer to sin with in a sexual manner, whether male, female, young, old, one, or many. You have died to sin and live in Christ. As St. Paul put it, “For through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.” Gal 2:19-20

To be a child of God who lives to do the will of God and live in the love of God is the intended identity of each on of us, the identity won for us by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the identity grace granted us through baptism.

A person who acts out in a sinful manner and cannot seem to get control of themselves does well to investigate the roots of their sinful inclination. As to the rest, it is better to concentrate on virtues than to dwell too much on vices.
 
No, you are not gay.

Masters and Johnson did tests on heterosexual females and discovered that all of them
responded sexually to nude female photos and videos of nude females???

Why?no, the test subjects weren’t gay, nor were they bisexual, they were heterosexual!
Because the nudity itself indicated some kind of sexual something
the test subjects responded, not because the women were actually desiring sexual contact with the person in the pictures.

You are young and have just passed through the time when all your closest friends were female. Females are easier to relate to, because, we understand each other. You may have some self confidence issues re men, and check how you relate to your Dad. Do you find him difficult to communicate with. These are reasons that may keep you out of relating more with males, as you may subc. think of them as more difficult to relate to.

If your Dad has overpowered you, keeping distance from males may make you feel
better inside, thinking they may overpower you too.,etc.

A good friend of mine was in a same sex sex. relationship all through her university days,.
…but she later married an Italian man, who she has informed me she is very sex. satisfied with, and now has 8 children. She tells me she is very happy, and her university years (7 year relationship) was just a phase she went through. She would not call herself bisexual.

How sexual ways are named and ordered by the world are not usually the way they are. Don’t fall for it.

You said your peer group paired up with same sex relationships? This really is peer pressure. Don’t give it a second thought.
You are NORMAL.
Enjoy your life.
 
I cannot guarantee I will parrot opinions or sentiments that are in alignment with Catholic church teaching if pressed to comment, but if you need someone to talk to I am a counselor with experience dealing with Christians who experience same sex attractions. Some have carried on within the faith, others have left; that is something down to each individual.

I can confirm one thing though hatchets; to my knowledge homosexual tendencies are only a bar to the priesthood, there is no such limitation upon those taking up another religious vocation. Or at least that was the case with one lady I have dealt with, she’s now in the Ursulines so it’s not blocked.

There is a book I have recommended to anyone who has spoken to me on this topic, and it is called “Living it out” by Rachel and Sarah Hagger-Holt. It contains a number of stories from Christians who have experienced SSA and their lives coping with it, embracing or rejecting it (I would say about 50:50 either way, it covers multiple angles and coping strategies). One of the stories is a Catholic man within the Jesuit order, so that might be a start!

Courage and “The Third way” are the Catholic Church’s most recent efforts in ministering to those who do or may experience same sex attraction.
 
NekoNecro said:
I cannot guarantee I will parrot opinions or sentiments that are in alignment with Catholic church teaching if pressed to comment, but if you need someone to talk to I am a counselor with experience dealing with Christians who experience same sex attractions. Some have carried on within the faith, others have left; that is something down to each individual.

I can confirm one thing though hatchets; to my knowledge homosexual tendencies are only a bar to the priesthood, there is no such limitation upon those taking up another religious vocation. Or at least that was the case with one lady I have dealt with, she’s now in the Ursulines so it’s not blocked.

There is a book I have recommended to anyone who has spoken to me on this topic, and it is called “Living it out” by Rachel and Sarah Hagger-Holt. It contains a number of stories from Christians who have experienced SSA and their lives coping with it, embracing or rejecting it (I would say about 50:50 either way, it covers multiple angles and coping strategies). One of the stories is a Catholic within the Jesuit order.
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Even with regards to the priesthood, total freedom from any attraction for other men is not a requirement. Candidates for the priesthood are to be free of deep-seated homosexual tendencies, and not from any homosexual tendency whatsoever:

"If a candidate practices homosexuality or presents deep-seated homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director as well as his confessor have the duty to dissuade him in conscience from proceeding towards ordination."vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20051104_istruzione_en.html

A man who described the kind of questions that the OP describes would not be someone that could be described as having “deep-seated” tendencies.

Any person who finds himself or herself presented with a great trial with regards to any temptation would be prudent to seek some outside help to understand the challenges being endured. Suffering is not to be sought out for its own sake, and when it can be alleviated in order to free the victim from torment, that is a good thing. To be worn out by one temptation, the psychologists will tell us, will wear us out generally with regards to self-control. We should not rely too much on our own power, but ought to seek out help when help is to be had.

A person who is merely more prone to one sin rather than to another, however, but not tormented by either, does not necessarily need to put a lot of attention on those areas. There is such a thing as focusing our attention on what is better ignored. This is something the OP might consider when choosing. I do not mean to forbid her from seeking out wise counsel, but to let her permit herself to leave the question alone, if that gives her more peace. That would be OK!
 
No you are not gay!!!

Drop the thought,…

I assume you haven’t been in a sexually intimate relationship with a partner over time.

I also assume you are young.

Catholic training to be chaste and avoid sexual contact can stop up your reactions
to things,…some women, after practicing for many years to avoid men and sex outside of marriage, can take a year or more, to relax enough with their new husbands to get down to
letting themselves go in the sexual area.

You sound like a proper young lady,…and the idea of pregnancy outside of marriage
and the fact that LUSTING IS WRONG,…PROBABLY keeps you away from doing that.
A man can impregnate you in sex. whereas another woman can’t. This takes some pressure off your emerging sexuality,…and might explain ease you have feeling excitement with sexual thoughts around females,…and not around males.

There is safety in other females, -they can’t impregnate you,…also, your training has not ingrained caution in you to avoid and protect yourself from them as you have been trained in good morals to protect yourself from men, sexually.

Like I said, sometimes it takes heterosexual women time to unwind and take the protective lid off their sexuality, even with their own husbands in committed marriage,
…a year or more, to warm up in their sexuality, to let go, with their own husbands.

Also women are not turned on sexually, by sight, like men are. Women’s sexuality and sexual feelings start from the kindness of a man, and then women respond to touch,(they can respond to sight, but much less than males, and usually sex. active females are more pprone to respond to sight)
SO YOU WOULD NOT NORMALLY GET SEXUAL FEELINGS FROM LOOKING AT A HANDSOME MALE. (esp as a good
Catholic girl, trained not to lust) Lusting is sin, and you have been taught to love, instead.

YOU ARE NORMAL!!!
TRUST ME, YOU TOTALLY ARE!!!👍
 
BeingSaved said:
No, you are not gay.

Masters and Johnson did tests on heterosexual females and discovered that all of them
responded sexually to nude female photos and videos of nude females???

Why?no, the test subjects weren’t gay, nor were they bisexual, they were heterosexual!
Because the nudity itself indicated some kind of sexual something
the test subjects responded, not because the women were actually desiring sexual contact with the person in the pictures.

You are young and have just passed through the time when all your closest friends were female. Females are easier to relate to, because, we understand each other. You may have some self confidence issues re men, and check how you relate to your Dad. Do you find him difficult to communicate with. These are reasons that may keep you out of relating more with males, as you may subc. think of them as more difficult to relate to.

If your Dad has overpowered you, keeping distance from males may make you feel
better inside, thinking they may overpower you too.,etc.

A good friend of mine was in a same sex sex. relationship all through her university days,.
…but she later married an Italian man, who she has informed me she is very sex. satisfied with, and now has 8 children. She tells me she is very happy, and her university years (7 year relationship) was just a phase she went through. She would not call herself bisexual.

How sexual ways are named and ordered by the world are not usually the way they are. Don’t fall for it.

You said your peer group paired up with same sex relationships? This really is peer pressure. Don’t give it a second thought.
You are NORMAL.
Enjoy your life.
Click to expand...
Uumm… excuse me? You are making an awful lot of assumptions about me. I don’t look at pictures of naked women, thank you very much. And I don’t stare at women who dress with their breasts showing either, though I’ll admit I refrain from doing this more so because it’s rude and I don’t want to be outed than because it’s a sin. :o

You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. It is not that I find both sexes attractive, but am basically neutral towards men and sometimes turned off, but do like the ladies. It is that the responses I should be having towards men are directed towards women.

You make the assumption that I have a bad father or that I didn’t have any male friends. Actually my father was amazing and we were Very close, and throughout my whole life my best friends have been male. But thanks for judging the people in my life. That was extremely helpful.

Im very glad that your friend is now happily married and has eight children. That’s wonderful for her. I do not have any sexual attraction to men, and so sexual relations with one would be something I’d never want. I’d have to lie to myself to pretend I want it so that my husband wouldn’t feel like he’s forcing sex on his wife who doesn’t even feel the slightest sexual attraction to him. What kind of husband would be satisfied in a marriage like that?

As for peer pressure, I’ve felt attracted to females before I even knew what homosexuality was. I thought it was normal! And only in my later teens, after my own disordered inclinations were long established, did some of my friends surprise me by coming out of the closet. They do not ever pressure me to do things against my conscience. They only suggested I should experiment because they assumed that because I’m thinking I’m probably pretty gay that I’d now reject the Church and all her teachings. Now that they know I’m still loyal they don’t push the topic.

So thanks again for judging everyone in my life and assuming I look at porn. Super helpful.
 
BeingSaved said:
No you are not gay!!!

Drop the thought,…

I assume you haven’t been in a sexually intimate relationship with a partner over time.

I also assume you are young.

Catholic training to be chaste and avoid sexual contact can stop up your reactions
to things,…some women, after practicing for many years to avoid men and sex outside of marriage, can take a year or more, to relax enough with their new husbands to get down to
letting themselves go in the sexual area.

You sound like a proper young lady,…and the idea of pregnancy outside of marriage
and the fact that LUSTING IS WRONG,…PROBABLY keeps you away from doing that.
A man can impregnate you in sex. whereas another woman can’t. This takes some pressure off your emerging sexuality,…and might explain ease you have feeling excitement with sexual thoughts around females,…and not around males.

There is safety in other females, -they can’t impregnate you,…also, your training has not ingrained caution in you to avoid and protect yourself from them as you have been trained in good morals to protect yourself from men, sexually.

Like I said, sometimes it takes heterosexual women time to unwind and take the protective lid off their sexuality, even with their own husbands in committed marriage,
…a year or more, to warm up in their sexuality, to let go, with their own husbands.

Also women are not turned on sexually, by sight, like men are. Women’s sexuality and sexual feelings start from the kindness of a man, and then women respond to touch,(they can respond to sight, but much less than males, and usually sex. active females are more pprone to respond to sight)
SO YOU WOULD NOT NORMALLY GET SEXUAL FEELINGS FROM LOOKING AT A HANDSOME MALE. (esp as a good
Catholic girl, trained not to lust) Lusting is sin, and you have been taught to love, instead.

YOU ARE NORMAL!!!
TRUST ME, YOU TOTALLY ARE!!!👍
Click to expand...
Some things to ponder here. I wasn’t raised Catholic though. But still, some good points.
 
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