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Icarus
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worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65112
Why do you suppose this reaction from the Homosexuals.
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Fitswimmer
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Well, as a homosexual who is outside the gay activist community I don’t know how valid my response is-but I’ll take a shot at it. I’m only speaking from my own experience and from the opinions of those that I associate with.
First, most of us do not believe that there is any such thing as an actual “ex-gay”. There are people who have somehow come to a place where they can subvert their natural desires to live a “normal” life, get married and fit in-but in their essence they are still gay.
Second, the “ex gay” movement is another way of saying to us that we, by our very existence, are more flawed than other people and need to be and can be “cured”. We don’t need to be cured. We need love and support as we live our lives and for those like me who choose to follow Catholic doctrine-we need prayers for strength.
First, most of us do not believe that there is any such thing as an actual “ex-gay”. There are people who have somehow come to a place where they can subvert their natural desires to live a “normal” life, get married and fit in-but in their essence they are still gay.
Second, the “ex gay” movement is another way of saying to us that we, by our very existence, are more flawed than other people and need to be and can be “cured”. We don’t need to be cured. We need love and support as we live our lives and for those like me who choose to follow Catholic doctrine-we need prayers for strength.
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Courage_Married
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As a member of “Courage” I do not agree with the previous poster that there isn’t such a thing as an “ex-gay”. In today’s world the terms “gay”, “homosexual”, and “gay-lifestyle” take on a defined meaning. Members of Courage do not consider themselves as gay. Some members of Courage may have at one point in their life considered themselves gay, but don’t anymore. Through Courage we realize that our attraction to members of the same sex is just that, an attraction. Different people have different degrees of that attraction. The attraction can go up and or down at different times in your life. Some members of Courage see their attraction to members of the same sex diminish enough that they can see themselves get married. Just because you may be attracted to a member of the same sex doesn’t mean you have to act on it. Just like a person that doesn’t have SSA doesn’t need to have an affair just because they are attracted to someone besides their wife. I never identified myself as gay, before joining Courage I felt that I might be bi, but after joining Courage I realized it was just an attraction and I shouldn’t label myself with any labels other then as a Catholic.
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graceandglory
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:clapping:
I have known four women in my life who would all say the same thing. One married, one single, and two who are living in lesbian lifestyles today. Those two would both say that they still “like men.” Unfortunately, the lifestyle is SO hard to break out of. One told me she feels she would be unfaithful if she left her “lover.”
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Fitswimmer
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Interesting. So does the attraction ever go away or is it simply suppressed? I’m interested in this whole diminishing attractions idea because I’ve really not experienced any real change over the years and I’m approaching 50. None of my friends ever mention such a variation either-and I’m close enough to them to have discussed these kinds of things.
I’m a Catholic first, obviously, but I’m also gay. I find the SSA moniker to be awkward, personally and it doesn’t really change anything about how I view my sexuality. My attractions are now and have always been towards my own gender. I can appreciate a good looking member of the opposite sex, but there’s no attraction there.
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Courage_Married
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It varies from person to person. Some people in Courage can never see themselves attracted to a woman. Courage is not an orientation change ministry but it does recognize that SOME people may have their orientation change over time. Everyone is different. That is one of the problems I see with the mainstream gay media’s view that anyone that has ever been attracted to a man is gay. They even consider bi people as just people that are repressing their “true” sexuality. This view is just as one sided as they claim other people view them. Some members of Courage see their attraction to members of the same sex go down, some don’t. Some members that considered themselves as bi before joining, just repress the attraction, some see it go away totally. It varies person to person.
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Fitswimmer
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So does Courage view homosexuality as something that is curable?
I have a college friend who was dragged by her fundamentalist family to something that was like a boot camp designed to “cure” her and “purge” her homosexual attractions. When the “cure” didn’t work, her family disowned her. The sad thing is the experience drove her into a far more militant existence than she was living before.
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Courage_Married
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No Courage does not view homosexuality as “curable” because they don’t view it as a disease. Courage is not an orientation change ministry. It recognizes that the degree of SSA can change over time. It recognizes that in some people it may not change at all, in other people it may diminish to the point it is no longer recongizable. It varies person to person, case by case.
Courage primarily deals with living a chaste life as defined by the Catholic church. Unless the SSA dimishes to a point where they can get married the person is called to a life of celebacy. Most people that I know in Courage are not married (unless they were married before they joined.) Only a few actually see the SSA diminish to the point where they can validly get married.
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Fitswimmer
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Sounds good. Does your ID mean that you are one of the few married Courage members?
I did try a Yahoo courage group for a very short time, but I found that I didn’t have a whole lot in common with most of the posters.
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Courage_Married
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Yes
There are a couple different Courage Yahoo groups. The main one has a lot of posters and is pretty active. There is a much smaller group for those members of Courage that are married. It is not real active because most of the members are VERY active in their family life and the only purpose of the group is to talk about things specific to married members so “general” talk takes place in the main Courage group.
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Fitswimmer
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Not to drive this completely OT, but I found a lot of discussion about things that we are all trying to avoid-which didn’t really help all that much. Obviously, that’s a personal thing.
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Newbie2
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I wonder how many “ex-gays” weren’t really gay, but were confused about their orientation, experimented, and discovered it wasn’t for them?
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Riley259
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Very good insights for those of us who don’t have SSA. Thanks.
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mflaschner
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I second that, thanks!
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rlg94086
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Hi Courage Married,
I join others in thanking you for your posts. It helps me with the question of changing/curing “homosexuality.” Is the change that some people with SSA go through assisted by good counselling (psychology, not psychiatry)? I would guess that it is, as they can help you deal with your desires in the same way that someone who has a fidelity problem would see a psychologist for help.
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pathia
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Just like marriage/fidelity problems are not always solved by psychologists, SSA cannot always be solved by psychologists. Can it help some? Sure, I would never say that it can’t.
However, my personal experience of 12years of therapy from the benign to quackery in attempts to cure myself, not a single thing did a darned thing for my attractions. At the best it did nothing, at the worst it made me extremely depressed, feel soulless, lost, and doomed to eternal damnation, that’s pretty heady stuff for a ten year old to feel. While my peers were into ninja turtles and rainbow bright, I was struggling with my very soul. My only crime? I acted a little too effeminate for my teacher’s and clergy’s comfort levels.
The therapy pretty much ruined my childhood. I have almost no positive memories anymore, I remember only therapist after therapist and constant brutality at school. No one wanted to be friends with me, because they would instantly be known as a queer-lover. It got even worse in HS when people figured out I was in therapy, they didn’t know what for, but it was just yet another thing to mock me for.
As it is, my case is as mentioned many times before, an extreme case. However, I have met fairly many people in both NARTH and Exodus, two of the larger ‘ex-gay’ groups, and if you talk to their leaders in private, none of them will confess to being straight. They may have gotten themselves to be attracted to one man, or one woman enough to fulfill their marital vows, but most only manage in their marriage bed by imagining sex with a same-sex partner, with their eyes closed and the lights off.
I can’t imagine what sort of environment that would be like to grow up in, every few years there’s a huge scandal of one of the high-ranking folks ‘breaking down’ and leaving it to ‘relapse into homosexuality’ leaving a broken family behind.
I think the church is right to suggest chastity, the consequences of leaving a crushed family behind and the lives of children ruined is a huge risk.
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rlg94086
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Pathia,
My question was not about using psychotherapy to “cure” homosexuals. I just asked if people are able to get help in living a chaste life with some good help from psychologists.
I’m sorry about your experience, but it doesn’t make all counselling evil. A lot of us need help. Courage is not NARTH or Exodus. I don’t think they recommend the same sorts of treatment. As Courage Married mentions, everyone’s situation is different. I’m just asking if it is common for people to get help…the same sort of help that non-SSA folks get.
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Courage_Married
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Some people in Courage go to psychologists, some don’t. It varies person to person. A couple people in my group have gone the NARTH and Exodus route and didn’t feel it was appropriate to them. Most people in my group that have counselors, the counselors are Christian counselors of various types. It is not always easy to find a good counselor that supports the Catholic take on SSA.
Many people do it without “official” support. Personally the only support I have had is Courage, the priests associated with Courage, and my own personal spiritual director which is not associated with Courage.
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Courage_Married
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I am sorry to hear about your NARTH and Exodus experiences. Most of the people I know that went that route have had bad experiences. I am glad I found Courage before finding those other methods. Like you said it MAY help some people, but it isn’t for everyone. Courage was just what I needed and turned me around from a downward spiral. Hopefully you can find something that works for you and keeps you inline with church teaching.
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gam197
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I know of two married couples where the male had SSA. One has been married about 30 years with a nice family whose children are adamantly pro-life.
The other is Stephen Bennett who does a ministry. I have his video and the testimony of his wife is something else as she talks about how she felt grief-stricken that he was in trouble as she prayed about her future and husband-to-be.
igroops.com/igroops/sbm
A former Episcopal Priest, now an Anglican Father Earle Fox does speaking engagements and I have his two videos on a lecture he gave in Ma on homosexuality which are great.
theroadtoemmaus.org/EM/Fox/0EFox.htm
I have also gotten two books written by Father Harvey founder of Courage for a single homosexual friend
The other is Stephen Bennett who does a ministry. I have his video and the testimony of his wife is something else as she talks about how she felt grief-stricken that he was in trouble as she prayed about her future and husband-to-be.
igroops.com/igroops/sbm
A former Episcopal Priest, now an Anglican Father Earle Fox does speaking engagements and I have his two videos on a lecture he gave in Ma on homosexuality which are great.
theroadtoemmaus.org/EM/Fox/0EFox.htm
I have also gotten two books written by Father Harvey founder of Courage for a single homosexual friend
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