I cannot express completely how sad and disappointed I am that so few people took my daughters terrible pain and ask for help seriously. I suggested this site because I thought it would provide safe and Catholic help. My daughter is tormented by sexual urges about thinking of 2 men being phsical together. It’s not funny. I am trying to teach her that sitting around talking about cute guys, with guys who like guys also, it supportig the sin. I continue to pray someone will help, I’ve run out of ideas. I know there’s COURAGE but she isn’t lesbian in orientation. She wants to watch 2 guys kiss, etc. I pray somone will understand and thow us a lifeline, right now I just regret suggesting this site.
halx–
If your daughter was using an account that wasn’t hers but had your permission, we needed to know that up front, so that it didn’t appear that either you were a troll who waited until your 15th post to start trolling, or that a troll had gotten a hold of your account. This is the internet; clever people post disingenuous things all the time. If an account user claims in one thread to be a mother with kids, but in another threads claims to be a highschooler with a slightly odd-sounding question, that is going to send up red flags in any internet-savvy person if there’s no explanation.
Anyway, to your daughter:
I’m glad you are evaluating your behavior honestly and trying hard to do the right thing. There are a few aspects of your post that I, just as a young and male outsider, would like to speak to.
Gay men are, of course, our fellow children of God, and they deserve all of the love, support, and welcome we can give them. Building friendships even with those who engage in sins we know to be serious is praiseworthy as long as those friendships do not damage your faith. Keep your gay friends; how could such people be evangelized if they are not authentically befriended and loved first?
There are other things about your situation that concern me, though. First, this: “I’m a girl and I find gay guys and the thought of gay guys being together attractive and sexually exciting.” That impulse is understandable; most men, in their fallen sinful state, find the idea of two women together sexually exciting. But God gave us sexuality for the imaging of his divine love in the Sacrament of marriage; fantasizing about any kind of sexual images unless you’re with your spouse in the bedroom is a sin. Lust is a corruption of God’s very high intentions for human sexuality; becoming sexually excited thinking about gay men being together is altogether wrong if Christianity is true. It could also have the effect of normalizing the idea of gay sex in your mind, which would also be bad; 2000 years of Christian Tradition speak to the fact that human sexuality is built spiritually on the complementarity between the sexes, and that same-sex romantic relationships are wrong.
Second, this passage: “Gay guys won’t hurt you the way straight guys might, and they can be pretty funny. I have a gay friend, and he’s fun to talk to about what guys are cute and that sort of thing. I prefer talking to him than to my girl friends because with girls, there’s more competition for guys and they’ll pick on you if they don’t like the same (straight) guys as you. I feel kind of conflicted, because a part of me doesn’t see why I should stop liking this stuff because I don’t see how it’s hurting anyone–in fact, in a way it’s keeping me safe from bad straight guys and nasty girls.”
Two things concern me about this passage. First, as your mother said, taking about gay men about what guys are sexually attractive is doubly dangerous: first, because either you or your friend may be lusting (and leading one another into lust), and second, because it encourages your friend to act on his same-sex attractions, if only in his thoughts. You should genuinely, authentically be friends with these men (if your faith can handle it), but you can’t ever compromise the truth that homosexuality is spiritually disordered and that acting on it is wrong. It is a very hard truth to live by, but that’s all the more reason why you cannot compromise it to your friends and must instead gently try and lead them to see that they must live by it.
Second, your descriptions of your straight friends are downright terrifying. The girls you know “pick on you if they don’t like the same (straight) guys as you”? You’re convinced that the straight guys you know will hurt you? Where on earth did you find such mean-spirited people? I think you need to re-think whether or not you’re being fair to your straight friends, and if so, I think you need to get the heck away from them! Do not put up with fellow girls who bully you or straight guys who will hurt you! I assure you, there are better girls and straight men out there than that.
Love your gay friends as a good friend should. But never fail to witness to the truth with them; as their friend, you owe them that.
Hello.
Now we’ll wait for the reply from the OP.