Cause of homosexuality

[bennierja]

I’m interested in what you said about the human soul in being essentially feminine. I was just wondering if that was your own thought or if you’ve acquired that idea from several different sources. I recently came to that personal revelation myself but I was wondering what there might be to back it up. I mean, femininity is to receive, is to be loved, is to be delighted in, is to be protected, is to be cared for, is to be sheltered, is to be fought after, is to be beloved, is to have the lover love jealously, and this is how God relates to us, and in this way he is our masculine counterpart; we, the church, are his bride, and he is our bridegroom. But other than the verses on the church being the bride I just don’t know if their’s specific support for that idea, the essential feminine nature of the creature that is the human being.

On the actually topic of the post, however, the cause of homosexuality, if you’re interested in that I would advise you to check out narth.com/ for some possible psychological causes of homosexuality. I would just say this; most disorders come out of an emptiness, not a fullness. The alcoholic drinks because life is to painful to handle sober. The drug addict shoots up because life is to hard to take clean. The workaholic keeps himself busy because he’s afraid if he stands still and silent for just a moment, God might reach him, and then what? The need which drives every person is the need to know that we deeply matter to and are loved by God. It is the fear of asking this question that leads us to all these distractions and substitutions, which all amount to so many drugs meant to dull the aching. We are afraid to ask because God might answer our hearts with a “No”, but we are also afraid he might answer with a "Yes,’ because yes means we must stop being our own gods, yes means we are completely powerless, yes puts us in the perspective of Infinite Love, which can be nothing but humbling in light of our small, sinful selves. As concerns homosexuality, it is one of my struggles and the emptiness I see it coming from is the absence in my childhood of a loving dad, close brothers, and supportive male friends. This deficit of masculine affirmation, unaddressed and unrecognized under the surface, then collided in puberty with the sex drive; the result was that my need as a boy for masculine affirmation was sexualized. It applies to my life and I have seen this deficit in the childhood of virtually all the other homosexual men I’ve talked to about this. Sadly, research along these lines was popularly silenced in the 70s when the APA removed homosexuality from its book of disorders. Homosexuality is not a fun thing to deal with, and so it has been widely accepted that it can’t be changed. There are also those who believe homosexuality is chosen and of course this is also wrong, no one in their right minds would choose that humiliation and separation. And as I have demonstrated, it is like other psychological disorders, and in that sense it is never chosen at all, but merely develops out of a very specific combination of circumstances. Anyways, I hope that was helpful, God bless you all.

 

[bennierja]

I would just like to follow up on some of Sonic’s points as well: I think he has it spot-on with the importance of semantics, it can not be over-emphasized in this discussion. So much of this issue is based on how people identify themselves and so we have to have clarity. It’s a small portion of the population that has SSA and believes that acting on them is wrong, yet it’s a portion nonetheless. From talking to a large portion of this population, and as a member of it myself, they almost never identify themselves as “gay,” but instead as “homosexual.” Likewise, in the population that has SSA and has no moral compunction to acting on them, they never say “I’m homosexual.” They say, “I’m gay.” I think the difference is that “homosexual” is a more scientific term, less personal and more conditional, so someone who is displeased with his SSA would use that, while “gay” is a word that describes a personality, or is more personal, and is therefore preferred by those who don’t want to distance themselves from their SSA. Thus, “homosexuality” can be used to define the entire population of persons who have SSA while “gay” is a more specific term for those who embrace it, i.e. with pride marches, political activism, lifestyle choices, etc.

I would also like to say that my point in the last post about the cause of homosexuality was, as far as I can tell, merely a confirmation of the points made by BobObob and brittrossiter; homosexuality is a psychological condition resulting primarily from a marred relationship with the father in the very early years and usually also unsatisfactory relationships with male peers as the child continues to develop. Already, among the confessed homosexuals of this group 3 agree with the father-relationship model. I would again encourage people to attend to BobObob’s suggested site viewing: homosexuality101.com/. It was also spot on. For further information along this line, again I posit the enlightening site, narth.com/. God bless.

 

[fix]

Fix,

You have it down. I cannot argue with all you have said. You believe what you believe and I can’t argue with your beliefs. Only a fool would do so.

But… Just because those thoughts are yours doesn’t mean everybody agrees with them. I don’t. In fact, I heartily disagree with them. But such is life…

Blessed be, Dousias

It is not a matter of subjective understanding. It is a matter of objective truth. Yes, you can accept reality or you can deny reality but reality is unchanged.

 

[Dousias]

It is not a matter of subjective understanding. It is a matter of objective truth. Yes, you can accept reality or you can deny reality but reality is unchanged.

This is so true. Reality just “is”. What we believe is independent of what is.

Blessed be, Dousias

 

[Dousias]

I would just like to follow up on some of Sonic’s points as well: I think he has it spot-on with the importance of semantics, it can not be over-emphasized in this discussion. So much of this issue is based on how people identify themselves and so we have to have clarity. It’s a small portion of the population that has SSA and believes that acting on them is wrong, yet it’s a portion nonetheless. From talking to a large portion of this population, and as a member of it myself, they almost never identify themselves as “gay,” but instead as “homosexual.” Likewise, in the population that has SSA and has no moral compunction to acting on them, they never say “I’m homosexual.” They say, “I’m gay.” I think the difference is that “homosexual” is a more scientific term, less personal and more conditional, so someone who is displeased with his SSA would use that, while “gay” is a word that describes a personality, or is more personal, and is therefore preferred by those who don’t want to distance themselves from their SSA. Thus, “homosexuality” can be used to define the entire population of persons who have SSA while “gay” is a more specific term for those who embrace it, i.e. with pride marches, political activism, lifestyle choices, etc.

I would also like to say that my point in the last post about the cause of homosexuality was, as far as I can tell, merely a confirmation of the points made by BobObob and brittrossiter; homosexuality is a psychological condition resulting primarily from a marred relationship with the father in the very early years and usually also unsatisfactory relationships with male peers as the child continues to develop. Already, among the confessed homosexuals of this group 3 agree with the father-relationship model. I would again encourage people to attend to BobObob’s suggested site viewing: homosexuality101.com/. It was also spot on. For further information along this line, again I posit the enlightening site, narth.com/. God bless.

These are really just word games meant to obfuscate the issue at hand. It also doesn’t matter the source of homosexuality.

People exist who display affection, love and sex in ways we may or may not feel lies within our comfort zone. Some people feel discord within themselves for being affectionate, loving and sexual with people our culture deems unacceptable. The cause of discord is a lack of integration and acceptance of self. A lack of love, if you will.

This discord has source in our culture. We are, culturally speaking, a repressed mess of self-hating, guilt-ridden, immature, loveless people.

But… We are also a culture filled to the brim with love and joy and peace and abundance and tolerance and responsibility and kindness. This is a culture where discord is addressed and mollified as needed. This culture is connected to our Spiritual selves on a level that seems impossible to those in that sad, hopeless culture mentioned above.

The former culture has had two thousand years to change the world into a place of wonder and delight. Instead it wrought hunger, warfare, intolerance, bias, misunderstanding, hate and dissension to this planet. It has repressed entire nations, destroyed entire native populations and enslaved peoples the world over.

This is why asking if the source of our knowledge spawns from God or is sourced from man. God creates THROUGH us, not AT us.

As Meister Eckhart would relate: Let God be God, as you. Are we being very God-like? Or are we repeating the sins of the past?

Okay, I totally digressed from your letter but what I wrote are important words. If you choose the simple path, the one where every rule is spelled out and all you need do is follow the simple plan, then by all means do so. It is a good path to walk. But… Other paths exist. Lots of people find happiness taking a unique path that is their very own. God supplied all paths, good and bad.

The vast majority of gay people are content and happy with the path that they are on in spite of the self-righteous, outspoken minority we find on these pages. A few are in discord and their words on these pages are a reflection of how poorly healing happens here.

That’s it, I’m done. Rake me over the coals, mark me with a “P” on my forehead, cast me from the forums or curse my name.

But I am just a messenger. We are all messengers. Do keep that in mind.

Have a happy Friday and peace to you all.

Blessed be, Dousias

 

[bennierja]

Dousias, you do realize you’re having a discussion on a thread titled “Cause of homosexuality/transgender.” The cause does matter because, depending on the cause, homosexuality either is or is not changeable. If every night I seem unable to get a good night’s sleep, I’m going to want to know what the cause is, because the difference between an inability to sleep caused from drinking coffee and an inability to sleep caused from incurable insomnia is that the former I can resolve but the latter I cannot.
The cause also matters because if a man is having sex with another man due to a psychological disorder, i.e. because he’s trying to meet a deficit of masculine affirmation from his father, then it is not sexual “love,” because it is an act made out of neediness, out of selfishness, not an act of giving. What’s more, because this man is trying to satisfy an emotional need with a sexual solution, he’s avoiding actually addressing the need and he’s ultimately not going to be satisfied, he’s not going to be happy. And thus, we arrive at people like me, BobObob, and brittrossiter, who find homosexuality unsatisfying. Though we have religious reasons for confronting our homosexuality, we also realize that there is a deeper reason for our desire for change; we are unsatisfied with our homosexuality. Speaking for myself and on behalf of virtually all the homosexual men I’ve personally met, one sexual relationship is never enough. You keep on needing more and more and in the end you can never be faithful to just one person because, in the end, you have a legitimate emotional need for masculine affirmation that you’re trying to meet through sexual means, and it never works. What the homosexual man really needs, what would quench his thirst, is relating on deep levels with other men who love him, being vulnerable to them on an emotional level about his struggles and victories in life, about his fears and joys, about how he’s been hurt and traumatized, about who he really is and being loved by those men in return. What the homosexual man really needs is to be able to take off his mask with other men who he can trust and to be accepted and loved by them in return. I guarantee that a man who receives continual (name removed by moderator)ut of love from other men, I mean is genuinely vulnerable to them and genuinely understands that he is loved and accepted for who he is by these men, simply will not have significant sexual attractions to the same sex. Homosexuality is the result of a deficit for legitimate male affection and love and because it has a psychological cause, it has a psychological cure. Additionally, because it is a psychological need, a sexual relationship perverts the essential need and therefore, in the end, will never be satisfactory.

 

[Kevin42]

Speaking for myself and on behalf of virtually all the homosexual men I’ve personally met, one sexual relationship is never enough. You keep on needing more and more and in the end you can never be faithful to just one person because, in the end, you have a legitimate emotional need for masculine affirmation that you’re trying to meet through sexual means, and it never works.

Keep in mind here that you do speak **only **for yourself here. Assuming that you have not gotten to know more than 20 gay men (probably less) this is an incredibly small and biased sample. Therefore, this statement cannot (and should not) be applied to the homosexual community at large. Furthermore, it is no more helpful a statement than saying that for many heterosexuals one sexual relationship is never enough.

 

[djeter]

I would say that many people who have SSA have felt like outcasts, or felt a subjective sense of feeling different, most of their lives. I do think that not feeling accepted and not feeling like you fit in is a major factor in why many people with SSA form their identity around their sexual attraction (which is what happens when someone refers to himself as a homosexual or a heterosexual) and join gay communities.

That makes perfect sense to me. After all, we never would have all those art images of man without SSA so there is a goodness to SSA that can tug the innocent towards homosexuality. The turn to sin is when homosexuality becomes homosexualism.

I was recently on another forum discussing this and made a post called A Homosexualist Paradox here:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/12/10/a-homosexualist-paradox/

Most folks want to label the Church’s position as homophobia so its very difficult to get across a position that is not on the extremes of homosexualist<----->Christianist where the former promote gay behaviours and lifestyles and the latter are gay bashers in Christian clothing.

The essay is an attempt to stake out some high ground. It is grounded in N. T. Wright, John Paul II and a paper by Andrew J. Sodergren, of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. If you can leave a comment, I’d appreciate your reactions.

dj

 

[aspawloski4th]

That makes perfect sense to me. After all, we never would have all those art images of man without SSA so there is a goodness to SSA that can tug the innocent towards homosexuality. The turn to sin is when homosexuality becomes homosexualism.

I was recently on another forum discussing this and made a post called A Homosexualist Paradox here:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/12/10/a-homosexualist-paradox/

Most folks want to label the Church’s position as homophobia so its very difficult to get across a position that is not on the extremes of homosexualist<----->Christianist where the former promote gay behaviours and lifestyles and the latter are gay bashers in Christian clothing.

The essay is an attempt to stake out some high ground. It is grounded in N. T. Wright, John Paul II and a paper by Andrew J. Sodergren, of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. If you can leave a comment, I’d appreciate your reactions.

dj

As one who is transsexual myself. I wish transegender was taken out of being part of this thread’s title. Almost all of this discussion is about samesex attraction which has nothing to do with anything transgenders whatsoever. We have enough to deal with without having pople mix our condition with homesexuality.

 

[Dousias]

As one who is transsexual myself. I wish transegender was taken out of being part of this thread’s title. Almost all of this discussion is about samesex attraction which has nothing to do with anything transgenders whatsoever. We have enough to deal with without having pople mix our condition with homesexuality.

Hold on, cowboy! You are caught in the same mis-information stream as gays and bis.
I know the difference! I had a very close friend make the surgical change to female over twenty years ago and know two very wonderful people who are in the advanced planning stages. The term GLBT covers a wide range of people who are seeking recognition and equality. The gay/trans connection stems from flamboyant gays who exhibited a decided
feminine aspect. Straight looking gays and feminine looking lesbians flew under the public radar. Flamboyant gays and butch women became targets. It became popular to connect fem and butch with gays. So now the clue-less directly connect gender with sexuality.
This info comes from a book called: Queer America, A GLBT History of the 20th Century" by Vicki L. Eaklor.

How are things going for you? Did you go the surgical route? You can email me direct if you wish.

Blessed be, Dousias

 

[Dousias]

… And thus, we arrive at people like me, BobObob, and brittrossiter, who find homosexuality unsatisfying. Though we have religious reasons for confronting our homosexuality, we also realize that there is a deeper reason for our desire for change; we are unsatisfied with our homosexuality. Speaking for myself and on behalf of virtually all the homosexual men I’ve personally met, one sexual relationship is never enough. You keep on needing more and more and in the end you can never be faithful to just one person because, in the end, you have a legitimate emotional need for masculine affirmation that you’re trying to meet through sexual means, and it never works.

Hmmm, If you are homosexual and unsatisfied why not try heterosexuality? If that is also unsatisfying then the problem is sexuality in general. Be happy in being asexual, I guess.

Why should one intimate relationship at a time be the norm? In this culture we practice “serial monogamy.” That is we have a relationship, then we find a new relationship and close out the old relationship. Then after a few years we do it all over again. This is the norm for modern society. In pre-modern society marriage was vastly different than today. Back then marriage was a way to advance family power and wealth and it was common to have a wife and one or more lovers. Some people don’t buy into the concept of serial monogamy and reject it. These people see another intimate relationship as additive rather than divisive. The modern term for this is called Polyamory.

Blessed be, Dousias

 

[Dousias]

… is to have the lover love jealously, and this is how God relates to us, and in this way he is our masculine counterpart; we, the church, are his bride, and he is our bridegroom. But other than the verses on the church being the bride I just don’t know if their’s specific support for that idea, the essential feminine nature of the creature that is the human being.

Is this another case where we anthropomorphize God?

Blessed be, Dousias

 

[Dousias]

Dude! Are you even following the conversation on this topic? If you had, then you would have realized why I’ve concluded to take your post with a grain of salt. I’ve heard similar rhetoric before. besides, your previous argument about asexual animals and your reply to Buffalo does not lend me to think your arguments are worth following up.

Dude? Did you really start your point with “Dude!” If my words fail to elicit a response, than I have not pricked your skin deeply enough.
Dude Sayith...:

You’re telling me the doctrine is flawed, and I’ve already stated three times from my own personal experiences that the Church helped me to find myself. If I had continued to listen to arguments like yours, I’d have never found out I had OCD. Instead, I’d still think I was Gay. So, for me the Church has proven to work for me. You can understand that I don’t see it as flawed, because I studied what the church teaches and came to the conclusion that it was true. Quite frankly, I’m not confused or suffering from anxiety or any other mental incapacitation beyond replying to this topic. I’m able to cope and have developed a stronger more meaningful life.

If you found solace via the Church than God worked through them to you. Wonderful! Your experience is not ALL experience though. For many other people in conflict the Church was unable to manifest meaningful change.

I don’t know who you are talking to, but it’s certainly has not been to me. No, I’m not going to look up the subject or church teachings on simony or mixed race marriage, because it is not directly relevant to this discussion. Homosexuality (the actions) has nothing to do with simony or race.

You are correct.

You’re simply trying to show me that there will be a change in doctrine by trying to show it has occurred in the past. You have not shown me how there will be a change in church doctrine over the acceptance of homosexuality. Heck, you haven’t shown that a change in doctrine has taken place over simony or mixed racial marriages.
What do you have a crystal ball or something? No, so don’t make predictions about church doctrine unless you can prove that change will happen in the future. The burden of proof is in your court not mine. Say whatever you want to say, but at least keep the discussion in the context of the original topic. Keep in mind, it’s not my responsibility to back up you claims. You’re the one who is making these statements.

In the past, major changes happened and small changes happen quite often. This is common knowledge. It will happen at some point in the future. It will happen when the Church needs to adapt to a changing world.

Blessed be, Dousias

 

[Zoe_Brain]

this is just a theological theory I’ve be working on and just looking for some creative critism and (name removed by moderator)ut on it (is still work in progress). … the transgendered male to female is caused by the fact that the human soul is femine is structure though not always in personality. they have such an intuitive knowledge of this that they come to belive they are really female. the female to male transgendered have an unknown desire to be like Jesus christ that they come to think like the male to female that they are really men.

An alternate view:

Debate on the relative contributions of nature and nurture to an individual’s gender patterns, sexual orientation and gender identity are reviewed as they appeared to this observer starting from the middle of the last century. Particular attention is given to the organization-activation theory in comparison to what might be called a theory of psychosexual neutrality at birth or rearing consistency theory. The organization-activation theory posits that the nervous system of a developing fetus responds to prenatal androgens so that, at a postnatal time, it will determine how sexual behavior is manifest. How organization-activation was or was not considered among different groups and under which circumstances it is considered is basically understood from the research and comments of different investigators and clinicians. The preponderance of evidence seems to indicate that the theory of organization-activation for the development of sexual behavior is certain for non-human mammals and almost certain for humans. This article also follows up on previous clinical critiques and recommendations and makes some new suggestions.

It’s only “almost certain” as we can’t do experiments on human foetusses to reliably and consistently induce transsexuality via hormonal manipulation, the way we can on animals.

That’s from Clinical implications of the organizational and activational effects of hormones. M.Diamond, Horm Behav. 2009 May;55(5):621-32 BTW.

Others relevant papers

Specific Cerebral Activation due to Visual Erotic Stimuli in Male-to-Female Transsexuals Compared with Male and Female Controls: An fMRI Study by Gizewski et al J Sex Med 2009;6:440–448.

Neuroimaging Differences in Spatial Cognition between Men and Male-to-Female Transsexuals Before and During Hormone Therapy by Scoening et al J Sex Med. 2009 Sep 14.

Male-to-female transsexuals show sex-atypical hypothalamus activation when smelling odorous steroids by Berglund et al Cerebral Cortex 2008 18(8):1900-1908;

Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041

Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism and sexual orientation. Swaab Gynecol Endocrinol (2004) 19:301–312.

A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. by Zhou et al Nature (1995) 378:68–70.

A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity by Garcia-Falgueras et al Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3132-46.

As to why a cross-sexed brain (in certain areas) universally leads to a discordant gender identity - Girls “know” they’re girls not from preference for gendered behaviour (though even that’s a simplification), but by unconsciously (or rarely, consciously in late crystallisation of gender identity after age 4) observing that their emotional response, sense of smell, sense of hearing, body language, spatial cognition, instincts, language and thought patterns etc correspond closely to that of female peers, and differ markedly from that of males.

See Biased-Interaction Theory of Psychosexual Development: “How Does One Know if One is Male or Female?” M. Diamond, Sex Roles (2006) 55:589–600

The field is complex; there are many unknowns; we’ve studied “classic” transsexuals (who are relatively easy to differentiate from the general population) but not transgendered people generally. I’ve simplified things, and both sex and gender are bimodal distributions, multivariant continua with two clusters, rather than a binary. A tiny proportion of gender behaviours has a clear biological basis, though the majority has none whatsoever, and much that does has a tenuous basis at best.

But we’ve gone well beyond the question of “is there a biological basis to transsexuality”, and are now investigating exactly what brain structures are involved, and in what ways.

All of the papers I’ve mentioned in this comment are available online

 

[Zoe_Brain]

The over-simplified sound byte version - Men have male brains, women have female brains.

The rest of the body usually is congruent, but some are Intersexed, some so badly they’re cross-sexed.

 

[Dousias]

The over-simplified sound byte version - Men have male brains, women have female brains.

The rest of the body usually is congruent, but some are Intersexed, some so badly they’re cross-sexed.

Welcome Zoe,

Good (name removed by moderator)ut!

I guess the bottom line, after all the analysis as to causality is set aside, after all the issues of right and wrong are set aside, after all the judgments are set aside, what do we have left?

People. Us. We. Them.

And we all share the same wants, desires, truths and connections. We desire communion with others, we all want peace and abundance. We want love and acceptance.

And we desire, no, we demand equality. That is our birthright.

God wants this for us. It is our special Gift from Her.

We are complex creatures with no two beings the same, just like snowflakes. That is the way it should be.

My purpose here may seem to the faithful to be challenging their beliefs. Sorry if all you see is that.

The message is simple: Let go, let God. Seek the Source in whatever form you find it. Listen to Source more and words less.

Peace to you all, Dousias

 

[MariaTS]

What i’m trying to get across is that they are drawn to god without knowing it and this love they do not understand is changed into sexual feelings.the end of all actions and feeling is happiness and god is the perfection of all happiness. so the unconcious desire for god inherent in all human beings can be corrupted into these feelings. Since they do not know god they transfer this desire onto others.

I feel deeply disheartened by this statement. I am a transgendered girl who is also bisexual. However, I love god and I have not confused my desire to be perfected by god with my gender identity nor my sexuality. I am also disheartened that you believe that gender identity and sexuality are interchangeable. My desire for god has, in no way, been corrupted into my natural feelings that are a gift of god, a cross that I bear that will only make me stronger. I do know god, I do not transfer this desire into others. I have taken a vow of celibacy and I have taken to living my life as how I feel, I have also taken to helping people come to know god. I have no desire for anyone or anything other than the divinely intelligent creator and his son that died for us. Perhaps many people of variant/different sexualities and gender identities have not been able to find god, but not all. Do not ever try to represent an entire group as anything. When you say most or all, that is when you enter the realm of fiction.

 

[Hosh]

Oh wow… wow. Homosexuality is caused by both genes and enviornment. Personally I would put more emphasis on genetics. Whatever I read went to memory dump real quick. I swear I could feel my I.Q. dropping. That’s like a religious version of the Oedipus complex in an attempt to make homosexuality “a choice”. Though I must admit there have been studies that show the type of relationship a person has with there parents does have some influence.

 

[St_Francis]

Welcome Zoe,

Good (name removed by moderator)ut!

I guess the bottom line, after all the analysis as to causality is set aside, after all the issues of right and wrong are set aside, after all the judgments are set aside, what do we have left?

Wow, when it comes to murder, if we set aside the causes, the issues of right and wrong, and all the judgements, what do we have left?

Just plain ol’ folks. What’s a little murder between just plain ol’ folks? No big deal!

And we all share the same wants, desires, truths and connections. We desire communion with others, we all want peace and abundance. We want love and acceptance.

Unfortunately some of us choose morally wrong ways of fulfilling our desires.

And we desire, no, we demand equality. That is our birthright.

Who is “we”? and what equality is demanded?

God wants this for us. It is our special Gift from Her.

You know so little about God that you do not know His sex? And the fact that he has made it perfectly clear that homosexual activity is absolutely *not *what He wants for us?

 

[Hosh]

You know so little about God that you do not know His sex? And the fact that he has made it perfectly clear that homosexual activity is absolutely *not *what He wants for us?

You didn’t know that Elohim is arguably a feminine name? It’s silly to think God has a sex, these are just qualities that are attributed to “It”.