Yes, some good answers there. The problem I have is believing that by identifying a core issue as the cause of your SSA is one thing, but then undoing it is another.
Of course. But acknowledgment of the issues is the first step, and self-awarness and introspection can be a great comfort even though things won’t radically turn around right away. An intellectualization, perhaps, but being able to say, “Oh, I’m only feeling this way because…but what I really want is…” can take a lot of the claws out from the feelings.
Perhaps for a very young guy, like 18, this could work, if he comes to terms with the true cause, it might be possible for him to turn things around. But someone in their 30s and 40s is so ingraned, I really don’t see how going through therapy, coming to terms would “change” you. It might make you understand, and it might even ease some pain, but change you?? I’d like to know anyone here who has changed.
True. I think full change is probably very difficult, and yes…get’s more and more difficult the longer one has lived with it and not dealt with it. Being a developing teenager, my brain still is more plastic, my personality not yet fully formed…so I do have more hope for myself in terms of change, than for a 30 or 40 year old.
But attitude has a lot to do with it to, being optimistic about change helps a lot.
I think one has to ultimately be content with seperating the attractions, taken in and of themselves, from the emotional issues behind them. Because once the attractions are created…they won’t be rooted out just by dealing with the issues that caused them in the first place. Removing the scaffolding doesn’t necessarily get rid of the building.
Pleasure and arousal pathways are laid down in the brain and reinforced on a very base level. They are a simple drive, and whatever may have directed them to develop towards the same, instead of the opposite, sex in the first place no longer is essential to them once they exist. You could deal with all the underlying issues that caused them in the first place, and those neural pathways of arousal and pleasure will still be there.
BUT dealing with the underlying issues does do several very important things. One, it does get rid of the pain and desperation behind the issues. Sure, you might still be aroused by men…but the merely physical attraction-drive, now with the
emotional potency and* psychological *connotations removed, won’t nearly be as strong. Two, it could make you less depressed all around, as I’ve found this issue goes into my psyche beyond merely my sexuality. Third, it allows you to start looking at men, and yourself as a man, and as a man interacting with men, and as a man interacting with women, in a more rightly ordered way. This indirectly will help to lay new patterns of thought over the old ones, which over time (though it is more likely in the young) could become more common and allow the old circuits to fall into disuse and degrade.
Of course, chastity of the mind and eyes is VERY important for this. If you pharmacologically reinforce the old neural pathways with the same old homoerotic stimulation…they are never going to weaken and disappear but rather continue to be reinforced and you dig an even deeper rut into your brain that is then even harder to replace.
But, they will probably never entirely disappear, old ideas die hard, personalities are almost never entirely restructured, remnants of your old self always remain. The past cannot be changed, you have built up your brain, for better or worse, over many years. You can’t really change the past in that regard, those memories and structures will always be there. But what you can do is build NEW thought-patterns on top of the old, and come to identify with the new and dwell less in the old circuits.
Many men expect too much, I think. They see their main goal as becoming positively attracted to women, not as dealing with their issues related to men. Some attraction to women may start to develop as one’s view of gender and attitude about one’s own masculinity become more rightly ordered and natural. BUT ultimately, is that what you really care about? Are you really so concerned about having feelings for women? About not having attraction to men? Is that’s what is really troubling you? I’ve found that is not so much what troubles me. I can deal with not being attracted to women, but rather men. I can simply live chastely, no big deal. The troubling, lonely, depressing, insecure problem is the emotional issues BEHIND those attractions. The mere attractions, I can ignore. But the psycho-social emotional issues that are behind them, and which make them so desperate and all-encompassing in my personality…THOSE are what I really care about dealing with. I think one whose main concern is developing feelings for women has their priorities and expectations wrong.
) without any sort of sexual arousal, etc., then yes I think that it *may *be possible.
I didn’t mean anything bad by “odd,” just that the idea struck me as maybe having more behind it to discuss than just it’s surface meaning.
No wonder it takes so long to post over at COL 
The moderators apparently need to go through all these replies