What is the homosexual inclination?

[Dakota_Roberts]

The opposite of lonely is total union with Jesus. We don’t belong to a church to feel a cheap emotional closeness with others. We should not be driven by our feelings. We should be driven by our will to love, God, and through His graces others.

The Church isn’t there to be ‘attractive and inviting’ to others…the Church is there to serve.

Pope Benedict XVI “I would say that a Church that seeks to be particularly attractive is already on the wrong path, because the Church does not work for her own ends, she does not work to increase numbers and thus power. The Church is at the service of another: she serves, not for herself, not to be a strong body, rather she serves to make the proclamation of Jesus Christ accessible…”

You need to read the Deus Caritas Est encyclical, I think you could grow spiritually (papal encyclicals are good for that)

Hi Dakota Roberts,

I can’t really understand why do you identify yourself as “gay man” when you have no interest to have sex with a man?

To cuddle, to be held, etc without being followed by ANY desire for sex-- those feelings then do not have any sexual inclination whatsoever, thus can be anything but sexual relationship.

A boy can have a desire to be held, cuddled by his parents. His closeness to his parents does not follow any sexual direction. Despite frequent touching, there is no sexual inclination whatsoever, thus such relationship is not sexual.

I guess in your case, if you have no desire to have sex with the man, then your relationship with him is not gay relationship, because you have no sexual inclination toward him. Your desire to be close to him may be because of something else.

God bless you

Some things are very hard to explain.

Romance need not be sexual. Storge is not agape.

Many wives want to be held, to cuddle with their husband, do they need to want sex after that for it to be love?

I’m not in love with anyone.

 

[francisca]

Hi again Dakota Roberts,

Storge is not agape.

Agape is God’s love. People can’t “agape”, only God agape.

Many wives want to be held, to cuddle with their husband, do they need to want sex after that for it to be love?

No, but wive’s do love husband in a sexual way. Husband and wife do have sex. Their relationship is a sexual relationship.

I’m not in love with anyone.

If you have no inclination whatsoever to have sex with any man, you are not “in love” with any man, then I suppose the relationship with whoever you cuddle and share some closeness with may not follow sexual direction (therefore is not homosexual relation). Rather it follows a longing for closeness, a craving for affection, needs to share burden of this life, a kind of loneliness.

I would be happy to hear more of your story if you care to share it here.

God bless you always.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Hi again Dakota Roberts,

Agape is God’s love. People can’t “agape”, only God agape.

No, but wive’s do love husband in a sexual way. Husband and wife do have sex. Their relationship is a sexual relationship.

If you have no inclination whatsoever to have sex with any man, you are not “in love” with any man, then I suppose the relationship with whoever you cuddle and share some closeness with may not follow sexual direction (therefore is not homosexual relation). Rather it follows a longing for closeness, a craving for affection, needs to share burden of this life, a kind of loneliness.

I would be happy to hear more of your story if you care to share it here.

God bless you always.

Deus Caritas Est:

On the other hand, man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn 19:34).

I do believe what you just said is incorrect according to what the Pope said, I believe encyclicals are covered under the ordinary infallibility of the Magisterium.

Are you saying cuddling can not happen in a Josephite marriage?

The last sentence of the paragraph is basically true, however I’m sure how to explain it, but it just wouldn’t work with a woman. I guess the easiest way is that women to have certain masculine qualities would cease to act like women, but men could possess the more feminine qualities and still entirely by men under the Christian ideal (for example while tenderness is considered a feminine trait it is entirely compatible with the Christian ideal of men).

No sane person would pick up this cross lightly for it is a very heavy one. On the one hand I am told by atheists and homosexuals thaat I am denying who I am, that the Church hates me. On the other hand I am told by some Catholics that homosexual acts are sinful therefore I am evil. I think part of why I identify as homosexual is so that if I am successful in life I can provide an example that it is in fact possible to stay fully Catholic and moral while finding love. I want to blaze a trail so that homosexuals can become Catholic.

 

[chrysostim83]

When I was young I had several close friends. One of them was the closest. I used to desire to call her at least once a day. Most of the time it was more than once a day. She called me frequently too. There seemed always reasons to talk to each other. There was no day without talking on the phone despite we met very frequently as well.

Then I had a boyfriend. My boy friend and I talked on the phone very frequently too. My desire to call him was similar to my desire to call my best friend. Despite I had never thought about sex with my boyfriend yet, I knew that my relationship with my boyfriend follow a different scenario compare to my relationship with my best friend. The goal of the two relationships were different, despite the feeling of “wanting to talk to each other all the time” were similar.

I’m not quite sure how this example works. Are you saying your feelings for your best friend and your boyfriend were the same or different? If they were the same, then it seems like it is a purely verbal dispute whether or not we call them both ‘romantic.’ If they were different (i.e., if there was a substantial difference in the feelings themselves that makes your feelings for your best friend non-romantic), then the example can’t touch the proposal Deo Volente and I have been trying to clarify.

 

[francisca]

No sane person would pick up this cross lightly for it is a very heavy one.

I do believe that all people carry a cross in their life. But I haven’t understand yours, the way you put it : you do not have any desire to have sex with a man. So which cross are you carrying? Are you trying to deny yourself for the sake of following Christ by saying that you have no desire for sex with same gender, (but actually you do have some desire)?

I am told by some Catholics that homosexual acts are sinful therefore I am evil.

However, you said in your previous post, that you do not have any desire to have sex with a man. Therefore, you are not evil, right?

 

[francisca]

I’m not quite sure how this example works. Are you saying your feelings for your best friend and your boyfriend were the same or different? If they were the same, then it seems like it is a purely verbal dispute whether or not we call them both ‘romantic.’

My feelings to my boyfriend and to my best friend were different, despite the fenomena “I like to talk to them both”. I am trying to make a point that close-relationship/ attraction can be non-sexual, despite similarity of behavior with the sexual ones.

If they were different (i.e., if there was a substantial difference in the feelings themselves that makes your feelings for your best friend non-romantic), then the example can’t touch the proposal Deo Volente and I have been trying to clarify.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

I do believe that all people carry a cross in their life. But I haven’t understand yours, the way you put it : you do not have any desire to have sex with a man. So which cross are you carrying? Are you trying to deny yourself for the sake of following Christ by saying that you have no desire for sex with same gender, (but actually you do have some desire)?

However, you said in your previous post, that you do not have any desire to have sex with a man. Therefore, you are not evil, right?

I get the joy of bigotry, Protestants who tell me I’m evil, Catholics who tell me likewise (though I know this is because they don’t understand), and of course the joys of being told by homosexuals that I am a broken man, that Catholics hate me and i will never be welcome (which hurts especially in combination with Catholics verbally abusing me).

While I don’t feel any want of sex I am still told not to pursue love because it will only lead to temptations of sex, in effect to deny who I am for Christ. This creates conflict because in research I have found that while the Church quite clearly and firmly opposes homosexual acts and lust it does not oppose love between two people of the same sex. I have also found when I dig a bit back into the Orthodox I find something similar. In both cases if I dig far enough back I find the rite of brother making which was a type of sacramental that spiritually joined two people of the same gender. In the case of the Syriac Orthodox it is still practiced. In no case was it thought of as marriage or marriage equivalent and in all cases the places had harsh punishments for homosexual acts ecclesiastically the penance was a pilgrim with Jeruslem as the most common places while secular courts were a bit more “trigger happy”… And yet somehow they managed.

 

[chrysostim83]

Sorry, Francisca. I guess I’m just really confused. I think we’re just making such wildly different assumptions that’s really difficult to make sense out of what the other is saying. I wonder if you’d mind telling me what you think about the following propositions:

(1) It is impossible for two women to feel romantically attracted to each other. It is also impossible for two men to feel romantically attracted to each other.
(2) The reason that (1) is true is because only a man and a woman are sexually complementary.
(3) Sex is the one and only purpose of romantic attraction.

 

[francisca]

I wonder if you’d mind telling me what you think about the following propositions:

(1) It is impossible for two women to feel romantically attracted to each other. It is also impossible for two men to feel romantically attracted to each other.

I do think that it is impossible for two men / two women to feel romantically attracted to each other. It is possible that they are interested to build a strong bond of good friendship though.

Strong bond of friendship can be as intense as spousal love, eventhough non-sexual.

(2) The reason that (1) is true is because only a man and a woman are sexually complementary.

Yes.

(3) Sex is the one and only purpose of romantic attraction.

Sex is not “the only” purpose of romantic attraction. I guess the big purpose is love. Not ANY kind of love, but a specific kind of love: spousal love that is sexual.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

I do think that it is impossible for two men / two women to feel romantically attracted to each other. It is possible that they are interested to build a strong bond of good friendship though.

Strong bond of friendship can be as intense as spousal love, eventhough non-sexual.

Yes.

Sex is not “the only” purpose of romantic attraction. I guess the big purpose is love. Not ANY kind of love, but a specific kind of love: spousal love that is sexual.

Sounds like you’ve gotten to the point where you all basically agree, but you’re arguing semantics.

 

[francisca]

While I don’t feel any want of sex I am still told not to pursue love because it will only lead to temptations of sex, in effect to deny who I am for Christ. This creates conflict because in research I have found that while the Church quite clearly and firmly opposes homosexual acts and lust it does not oppose love between two people of the same sex.

Love between people of the same sex is called friendship. You are allowed to build frienship. Friendship love can be as innocent and as holy as spousal love. If you have no desire to have same-gender sex, then it will be alright to build a good and strong frienship.

 

[francisca]

Sounds like you’ve gotten to the point where you all basically agree, but you’re arguing semantics.

I don’t mean those to be only semantic. I hope those are more than semantic.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Love between people of the same sex is called friendship. You are allowed to build frienship. Friendship love can be as innocent and as holy as spousal love. If you have no desire to have same-gender sex, then it will be alright to build a good and strong friendship.

Since when does friendship include cuddling with them, to be held, to dancing under the moonlight?

I don’t mean those to be only semantic. I hope those are more than semantic.

Really what it seems like is that your interpretation of romantic is narrower than their interpretation. What appears to have transpired in this thread is that you started with very different assumptions and have been working on narrowing things down, what has happened is merging dissonance into harmony.

 

[chrysostim83]

The dispute was partially verbal (or semantic) and partially not. The non-semantic part came in with male-female complementarity and the purpose of romantic attraction: the claim is that because only a man and woman complete each other in a special sense, only they are able to experience certain feelings for each other; or again, since the purpose of romantic attraction is to draw two people into marriage qua sexual relationship, only those who are capable of getting married are able to experience romantic attraction.

Of course, the arguments there are weak and the conclusion flies in the face of experience. The only conclusion that can be drawn from complementarity and the purpose of romantic attraction is that if two people of the same sex feel this kind of attraction for each other, then it is a disorder. And it is simply common sense, or science at the very least, that two lesbian women or two gay men can be romantically attracted to each other.

But Francisca also pursued a purely verbal (semantic) line of argument to prevent experience from getting in her way: when two people of the same sex are attracted to each other (no matter in what way or how strongly), if they don’t want to sleep together, then whatever they have is called friendship. Once she’s made this move, her position is effectively shielded from any counterexamples to the general claim that romantic attraction is impossible between two people of the same sex: find an example of two people of the same sex who are romantically attracted to each other, and she’ll be able to say that the relationship is improper (if a desire for sex is involved) or merely friendship (if it isn’t).

The correct response to this move is to shrug and say, “Well, it surely doesn’t matter what you call it,” and then to pursue the proposal Deo Volente and I tried to make by substituting ‘attraction to a friendship as intense as spousal love’ everywhere for ‘romantic attraction.’

 

[francisca]

Since when does friendship include cuddling with them, to be held, to dancing under the moonlight?

Sometimes brothers hug each other when one of them in difficulty, or if it’s his birthday, or after they haven’t seen each other for a while. It’s all normal. All these hugs are done in non-sexual context. If you have no desire to have sex, then from where the sexual context come from?

Really what it seems like is that your interpretation of romantic is narrower than their interpretation. What appears to have transpired in this thread is that you started with very different assumptions and have been working on narrowing things down, what has happened is merging dissonance into harmony.

Let’s try a wider intepretation of romance : It is possible for people to be romantic in non-sexual relationship, therefore people can be romantic with parents because they hug their parents a lot, with brothers and sisters because they quarrel a lot (some romantic couple quarrel all the time), with best friends becasue they call and meet frequently, with all people who enter their mind because “I think about you (my student/ my manager/ my customer/ my patient)”.

Aren’t those obscurity?

 

[JoArtist]

I like how straight people like to tell people with same-sex attraction what kind of feelings are possible for them to have for the same gender. You cannot control feelings/emotions, but you can control what you do with them. There is a difference between romantic and sexual attractions (but usually they coincide) and it is possible for you to have both attractions to the same gender… the big thing is what do you do with those feelings.

 

[francisca]

Of course, the arguments there are weak and the conclusion flies in the face of experience. …And it is simply common sense, or science at the very least, that two lesbian women or two gay men can be romantically attracted to each other.

What those two lesbians or two gays feel-- as you put it-- is subject to be tested. By theory, there is no sexual-potential whatsoever between them because the definition of sex is defferentiation of reproduction organs in order to produce offsprings.

Dakota Roberts has said it plain and simple: he doesn’t have that desire. Thus what popular media, and popular opinion about romantic gays and lesbians couple-- those opinions-- not necessarily accurate in case by case basis. My hypothesis: they may be just lonely people who fail to find sexual love, thus they want to enjoy frienship as if it is sexual as well.

The term “homosexuality” must include desire for sex. There are those who truely desire homosexual sex. But there are those who are just plainly confused with their own standing, and may be victim of others, or even porn.

My second hypothesis: homosexuality is a product of “over-sexed society”, so as to confuse some people between friendly affection and compasion with romance and erotic feelings.

 

[francisca]

I like how straight people like to tell people with same-sex attraction what kind of feelings are possible for them to have for the same gender. You cannot control feelings/emotions, but you can control what you do with them. There is a difference between romantic and sexual attractions (but usually they coincide) and it is possible for you to have both attractions to the same gender… the big thing is what do you do with those feelings.

What they are trying to propose is the possibility of romance between same-gender without desire to have sex, “asexual gay” so to speak.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Sometimes brothers hug each other when one of them in difficulty, or if it’s his birthday, or after they haven’t seen each other for a while. It’s all normal. All these hugs are done in non-sexual context. If you have no desire to have sex, then from where the sexual context come from?

Let’s try a wider interpretation of romance : It is possible for people to be romantic in non-sexual relationship, therefore people can be romantic with parents because they hug their parents a lot, with brothers and sisters because they quarrel a lot (some romantic couple quarrel all the time), with best friends because they call and meet frequently, with all people who enter their mind because “I think about you (my student/ my manager/ my customer/ my patient)”.

Aren’t those obscurity?

Is a Josephite marriage just a friendship? Or can there still be romance while the relationship is nonsexual? You’ve set up a dichotomy which since a Josephite marriage clearly violates it is false.

What those two lesbians or two gays feel-- as you put it-- is subject to be tested. By theory, there is no sexual-potential whatsoever between them because the definition of sex is differentiation of reproduction organs in order to produce offspring.

Dakota Roberts has said it plain and simple: he doesn’t have that desire. Thus what popular media, and popular opinion about romantic gays and lesbians couple-- those opinions-- not necessarily accurate in case by case basis. My hypothesis: they may be just lonely people who fail to find sexual love, thus they want to enjoy friendship as if it is sexual as well.

The term “homosexuality” must include desire for sex. There are those who truly desire homosexual sex. But there are those who are just plainly confused with their own standing, and may be victim of others, or even porn.

My second hypothesis: homosexuality is a product of “over-sexed society”, so as to confuse some people between friendly affection and compassion with romance and erotic feelings.

The problem is that you have in effect defined loving relationships as either romantic which includes sex or friendship which doesn’t. Therefore I can not show you loving relationships without sex because to you that makes the friendship.

You can call me Dakota.

homosexuality didn’t disappear in the Middle Ages, it was sublimated.

 

[JoArtist]

What they are trying to propose is the possibility of romance between same-gender without desire to have sex, “asexual gay” so to speak.

Well I understand that, but to say that they can’t have romantic feelings without sexual feeling is silly. This would mean there is no romantic feelings in Josephite marriage. Romantic feelings and sexual feelings can be separate.