As I read testimonials from gay and ex-gay people, I see a similar trend. Many were sexually abused as young children/adolescents. This must certainly cause people to question sex practices as they grow up, because their sexuality has been violated.
Also, guys and girls who grow up and don't fit the gorgeous "barbie and Ken" look, seek acceptance from peers anywhere they can find it. If someone from the same sex is going to love them for who they are, then they will gravitate to the love. We all want to be loved. Its just too bad that kids are so mean to one another, and the outward appearance is so important to teens. Like the skinny short guy who gets teased in high school. He figures he'll never get a date with girls, so as he grows up he gravitates to boys. We need to love and accept everyone as they are young so they don't have to go looking for love in other places.
I just want to break this down quickly and give my response to this as I hear these kinds of statements all too frequently.
As I read testimonials from gay and ex-gay people, I see a similar trend. Many were sexually abused as young children/adolescents. This must certainly cause people to question sex practices as they grow up, because their sexuality has been violated.
I find it intriguing that since the vast majority of pedophiles are men, when a man molests a boy, it supposedly causes the boy to be attracted to men. Yet, when a girl is molested by a man, it allegedly causes that girl to be attracted to women. That doesn't make sense. Yes, sexual abuse messes people up. No question. But if it really "caused" homosexuality, the percentage of people who are gay would not be as small as it is (I think the current estimate of the gay population in the U.S. is about 3-5% vs. the 25-30% or more of the population who have been sexually abused as children). And, there wouldn't be the confusing issue of why being molested by a man would cause completely opposite outcomes between men and women.
I've written in the past that I am pretty certain that having abuse in one's childhood is actually one of the main reasons that many people enter the ex-gay movement, or attempt reparative therapy to begin with. A while back, Peterson wrote a great post about this called How Sexual Abuse Made Me Ex-gay, and it absolutely represents how I feel on this topic.
Also, guys and girls who grow up and don't fit the gorgeous "barbie and Ken" look, seek acceptance from peers anywhere they can find it. If someone from the same sex is going to love them for who they are, then they will gravitate to the love. We all want to be loved. Its just too bad that kids are so mean to one another, and the outward appearance is so important to teens. Like the skinny short guy who gets teased in high school. He figures he'll never get a date with girls, so as he grows up he gravitates to boys.
I think that many of us who had problems with our peers did so because we already felt different or were perceived as being different and/or bad or wrong.
I had never even had a girlfriend by the time I started the ex-gay program I attended. And I know I'm not alone in that. Many ex-gays or ex-ex-gays had never had any same-sex experiences before we went into the ex-gay ministries, so we certainly weren't loved and seduced "into" it.
It is "just too bad" that so many kids are mean to each other. But this is not going to stop as long as kids are raised to believe that it is OK to make fun of gay people, or it's OK that gay people's lives are being derided, and decided and voted on by the rest of the country. Kids today hear and read and absorb amazing amounts of anti-gay rhetoric all the time, especially from the pulpit and from their parents.
It's most definitely too bad that there are so many kids who barely survive junior high and high school because of torment from their peers. It's too bad so many become suicidal as a result of their sexuality. It's too bad that there has to be special high-schools set up where gay or gender-variant kids can learn in peace and without having to face violent speech or actions on a daily basis (there's a great article in The News Journal in Delaware that looks into the lives of kids who come out in high school and what they face).
And I love the "skinny short kid" thing. A kid like that who grows up thinking he'll never get a date with a girl is almost certainly not going to start "gravitating toward boys." If a guy is feeling like he'll never get a date with a girl, I somehow can't possibly imagine him deciding that instead of having roughly 50% of his peers in the potential dating pool, that he'll limit his options to 3% and risk even more teasing, bullying, harrassment and rejection.
All this stuff isn't even logical, and yet people say it all the time without even thinking about what they're saying. This is the message they take away from the Exodus seminars, ex-gay testimonies, and the short sound bites that people like Dr. Dobson, Alan Chambers and Randy Thomas give to the media.
Vicki concludes, We need to love and accept everyone as they are young so they don't have to go looking for love in other places.
Yes, we do. It would be wonderful if kids could feel accepted and loved when they are young so they don't have to try to "change" something that doesn't need changing. I'd love to see the day that gay people stop going to ex-gay programs because they are looking for acceptance and love from their parents, their pastors, their teachers, their friends, and most importantly, their God. I want to see the day that all gay, lesbian, bi and trans folks can accept and love themselves and don't feel they have to turn themselves inside out just to find love and acceptance from everyone around them. I guess I agree with Vicki on that.
Beautifully put, Christine.
ReplyDeleteI'd add that, to me, the unacknowleged elephant in the room during conversations like this is the experience of bisexual folks.
I've got relevant experience along that line, at least nominally. As a married, intent-on-being-straight guy, I didn't feel like I was faking an attraction for my wife. Coming out for me was a matter of being honest about having a more visceral attraction to guys than girls without it being an entirely black-and-white issue.
Perhaps unwittingly, thoughts like those expressed by Vicki are more relevant to bisexual folks: If a person has potential for developing intimate relationships with either a guy or a girl, could abuse by or dysfunctional relationships with one push them towards the other?
For me, the answer is still no, early experiences and relationships don't change the nature of baseline attractions. Giving me a model childhood with strong, traditionally male role models and freedom from ridicule and abuse (much of which I had as a kid) wouldn't have changed the fact that I was not straight; it also wouldn't have made being bi but only expressing the straight side healthy.
I don't talk much about my thoughts on this matter because I always read so many different opinions, I don't think there really is a 'this-is-how-it-plays-out-for-everybody' scenario. Sexuality is so fluid, of course there will be many nature and nurture factors in play.
ReplyDeleteI was targeted as gay by my classmates as early as 4th grade. I don't think I even knew what sex was at that age.
I was bullied and beaten daily on the playground. I was held down by groups of guys and all the girls would line up to force kisses on me. Everybody would laugh and point, the ridicule was insurmountable for someone about 9-10 years old. Walking home from school, I would be surrounded by classmates and the girls would push and shove me, breaking my glasses. Everybody would laugh because I was being tormented by girls, but since I was taught to never hit a girl, I didn't know what to do but just take it.
My property (books/locker, etc.) were defaced regularly, kids in the classroom would jeer and taunt, openly and in front of the teacher. I can't even begin to talk about all that I went through, most of which the teachers knew full well about, but this was in the 70's when there were no harassment guidelines. A few of the teachers were overly hostile to me anyway. By 15 I tried suicide.
It didn't occur to me to try and change or go straight for a long time, because all this torment came about without me announcing my gayness or living a gay lifestyle.
I mean, I was just a kid, what was there to change? I hadn't done anything yet to change.
In a way, sometimes I do think that all that I went through pushed me more towards the gay community and I wonder if things had been different, if I wasn't so tormented as a child if I would have ended up with the same life. I do find I am capable of loving anybody with the right soul regardless of gender, so who knows where life would have taken me.
Commenter Steve says: Perhaps unwittingly, thoughts like those expressed by Vicki are more relevant to bisexual folks: If a person has potential for developing intimate relationships with either a guy or a girl, could abuse by or dysfunctional relationships with one push them towards the other?
In my case, I think so. I wasn't accepted by my straight peers, so I sought out the gay community, where I was told I belonged. They accepted me.
Now, if I wasn't pushed in that direction, would I have eventually wandered there anyway? I think so, but who knows how differently life would have played things out.
The thing I am most thankful for, that our society has achieved, is a somewhat acceptable status for being gay. Gay people are no longer criminals just for being gay and we get more and more protections every year.
When I was young, I thought my life was going to be forever bars, drunks and untrustworthy men. I never would have pictured that I would have such a long term monogamous relationship with someone I love completely and having the raising of a family as my primary purpose in life.
If we keep up with this trend, the need to go ex-gay will only decrease. The more we can 'have it all' as a gay couple, the less we will need to seek to create a life that isn't true to our inner self.