SSA & Sexual Disorientation

SSA & Sexual Disorientation
I changed the verbiage and apologize if it came across as insensitive. It certainly did not "read" like I meant it to. I can only speak from the truths of my experience - that I have not yet met a person who is gay and has not had at some point a crisis of identity and a wish that life had ascribed an easier journey.
 
jacats said:
"I guess it appeals to those who don't want to be homosexual (and who does?)"

"Ya uhhhhh me? lol I'm a gay, single man, parent of one kid, and I would soooo not ever change any of that. I have never in my life wished I was any other way. I think most gay guys who living they best gay lives would say fuck yes I want to be gay."
"Shit like that - "its not a choice because nobody would choose this" fucking sucks. If you dont get how its offensive, then know that theres lots of guys out there thinking this life fucking slays."

jacats,

Living in the "gay lifestyle" for over 20 years, I can tell you not all gay people are happy with their life. Unless you have a great career, loads of money, good looking......you will be passed by.
It is great they you are happy with your life, but not all can and do say that.
I grew up totally disassociating that I was a boy/male. Due to the rejection of my sex by my mother and her perverted sex abuses/physical, emotional abuses towards me, along with being used as an oral sex machine for some adult males, I developed various masks, and various personalities to be accepted by persons I met, I lived in a developed imaginary state, always to be someone else. At one point, I did set out to have a sex change, but it came to a dead end. And I'm very glad about that.
So I was a CSA victim, which caused me to turn to men, because it was seemingly the only way I could find some kind of love and acceptance.
I grew up as a child/teenager hungering for men's penises, at times I begged to give them oral satisfaction, which was a thrill and a humiliation all at the same time.
I like you find women very attractive, but I have no desire to be intimate with them, why? My mother took care of that, I can never allow to have a women be that close to me, because on an intimate level I do not trust women. When women touch my buttocks now I cringe and strongly inform them to keep their hands off! It makes me feel dirty, and violated. My mother would goose me in public as a teenager, and then again on my 45th birthday on the streets of Old Montreal.
I do not hate women, most of my friends are women, I have very few male friends as I can sense I make them uncomfortable, which can be an heartache, but I do understand.

So I say all this in retrospect, that "IF" anyone who is gay, feels "offended" by the statement you made ""its not a choice because nobody would choose this" fucking sucks. If you dont get how its offensive," Then I can say that those "persons" are truly not all that secure in their sexuality.
If they can not understand why many do not have the same "feelings" about living the gay life, then they do not have empathy towards those that have suffered a different life then they. And that is rather self-centered, and selfish.

Since I have been on MS especially in the last couple of weeks, I am beginning to understand and see why and how I am so screwed up due to other's abuses towards me. I think I am truly beginning to see so much, and I need to take it one step at a time.

Finally, let us just learn from one another, without any self-righteousness, and condemnation because someone see's things differently because of their own life experiences which they have suffered.
I hope I have made some sense here, if not let me know.......
Later.....:cool:
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Chase Eric said:
I changed the verbiage and apologize if it came across as insensitive. It certainly did not "read" like I meant it to. I can only speak from the truths of my experience - that I have not yet met a person who is gay and has not had at some point a crisis of identity and a wish that life had ascribed an easier journey.
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Chase Eric,

Thank you, I agree with your view...........I for one did not think it insensitive.........it was honest......
Let us not be afraid to be honest.............
 
There's a difference between "being honest" and generalizing our personal experiences to cover everyone, which is an error. I'm sorry so many folks out there hate being gay or have had bad experiences with being gay. That's terrible and unfair. But not every gay person has had experiences like that, and it's unhelpful to act or talk as if they had.
 
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Strangeways is correct. And the intolerance of some is truly unfortunate. I would add that it's wonderful to see what looks to be an easier journey of self-acceptance for those who are gay. I just didn't have that, never saw it and never could have imagined it. I am particularly sensitive having served in the military during Don't Ask Don't Tell. The survival instincts really kick in when the enemy is shooting from one direction and your own side would shoot you from another if your secret ever got out.
 
Strangeways said:
There's a difference between "being honest" and generalizing our personal experiences to cover everyone, which is an error. I'm sorry so many folks out there hate being gay or have had bad experiences with being gay. That's terrible and unfair. But not every gay person has had experiences like that, and it's unhelpful to act or talk as if they had.
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No one is generalizing, we are stating our own experiences in the life, I do realize other's have not had such experiences, but we have never said they All did.
Hope that clears it up.
Cheers.......
:cool:
 
2Bnormal51
no, I do get that a person might say that they personally wouldnt choose being gay because its shitty for them. Maybe they have issues with it religiously or live in a not accepting place or maybe they not traditionally attractive and have no partners or they older or so many other reasons. I get people might think omg being straight would be easier! Not saying everyone loves being gay lol. I think thats sad for people to not like shit about themselves but thats the world we live in.
I just mean saying NO ONE would chose it hurts because it says that being gay sucks no matter what. It doesnt suck for me. Its a good thing. Most every one of my friends would say the same but I have a group of similar friends, you know?

Not saying being gay is easy for everyone, being a human sucks a lot of the time too. But i personally dont like this idea that its always like a disability or second choice to straightness, that NOBODY would choose it. Ive never wished it away, never ever looked at a straight couple and wished that was me. I get that people do. And they have good reasons.

I got lots of things i dont like about me. But being gay isnt one of them.
 
I think we may be talking about several different things.

Homophobia is a real thing that a lot of people in our world still struggle with.
I have struggled with this myself so I think I understand it in a limited way.
I think homophobia is something that needs to be confronted in an open and honest way so society can continue to change and heal.

Being able to feel good about ones sexuality and ones sexual orientation is an awesome and an amazingly good thing.
But because of abuse many of us are still looking for a way to feel good about our sexually.

The internal reaction that people have when they feel that their sexuality and their sexual orientation is no longer their own is very painful.
Like these things have been hijacked and taken from us, often we feel our sexuality has been disfigured and contorted.
We end up reacting to our own sexuality as though it was an intruder looking to do us harm.

My sexual abuse caused me significant pain and confusion, for me this is what is meant by disorientation.
I now consider my sexual orientation to be gay with some bi leanings.
I have only recently been able to be OK with saying this out loud here.
Not because I am ashamed of who I am but because I was uncertain who I was.

I had to get past the trauma to see my orientation for what it is, a good thing.

Interestingly enough, I once thought my sexual trauma and my sexual orientation were the same thing.
But now I see that was never true.

My sexual trauma continued to rip me apart and tortured me for decades.
My sexual orientation on the other hand is a good thing and turns out relatively small compared to my sexual trauma.
In other words, my orientation got lost in the loudness of my trauma.
 
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I still struggle with the orientation question because I feel my original heterosexual orientation was so shamed and damaged that I feel uncomfortable declaring myself heterosexual today. For so long, I struggled with SSA in terms of whether I was gay or not because I had no other way of articulating what I was feeling. I got plenty of support for my supposed "gayness" despite my inability to identify with it, and confused about why I was having SSA if I didn't identify as "gay". All of this was dismissed as "homophobia", but after 30 years of having same-sex relationships, even if I was able to function well in them, I still felt like a misfit trying to embrace an identity that simply wasn't mine. I can't seem to embrace a "bi" identity either because to me that would imply that I would feel identified with homo and hetero attractions and that is not the case, either.
So I'm in this no-man's land. While I know I was originally hetero, that part of me was crushed by my abuse and it is very difficult for me to reclaim that part of myself, particularly now that I'm older. I got so little support for this that I gave up for years, and for some reason that part of myself is trying to re-assert itself now that I'm in my late 50s. It doesn't mean that my SSA has gone away, but it doesn't bother me as much as it used to, as I'm not giving it as much power as I used to give it. If I meet a man and can connect with him emotionally and physically, that would be fine, as long as that's what I truly want. If I don't have a woman in my life, the only acceptable reason is that I'm truly not interested, but avoiding them because I feel my heterosexual feelings are not valid or that I feel worthless is not acceptable to me any more. And yet, the inability of so many people, including mental health professionals, to understand my struggle makes me feel that I'm not supposed to exist, because I'm supposed to embrace something with which i simply don't identify.
 
Strangeways said:
I'm sorry so many folks out there hate being gay or have had bad experiences with being gay... But not every gay person has had experiences like that, and it's unhelpful to act or talk as if they had.
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jacats said:
I think thats sad for people to not like shit about themselves but thats the world we live in. I just mean saying NO ONE would chose it hurts because it says that being gay sucks no matter what. It doesnt suck for me. Its a good thing.
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For the record, I was merely speaking my thoughts at the time of my struggle - that if you had a hypothetical recording device capturing my thoughts when I was, say, fourteen or fifteen, that's what you would have heard. It was not meant as a statement - I was only sharing the mental space in which I once lived. It came across clumsily, however. And while that is still my truth, I have owned it, accepted responsibility for not making it clear, changed my post accordingly to make it more clear, and apologized. I am far from perfect. I make mistakes. But I have the integrity to admit them when I do. Is that an apology you can accept? Or does the flogging continue?

I'm genuinely happy that this is not a struggle for some. I suppose I could keep quiet about my journey with sexual identity issues because talking about it hurts some and is unhelpful to others. While I'm at it, why don't I just keep quiet about my abuse issues, too? It seems that far more people in the world we live in don't want to hear about that.
 
idk I am not upset by nothing, I dont think you needed to change your post to nothing. I get that you dont want to hurt nobody and thats admirable and kind. Im cool with disagreeing about it, that's just fyi it dont mean nothing else.
I actually wasnt talking about your post above, I been hearing the "nobody would choose this" line since i was a kid. Sort of a tag line for gay acceptance in the 90s. Usually said to explain how we should accept gay people because they cant help it poor things. Always irked me. And i dont agree with it.

Now having a fucked up sexuality i do get lol i might id as gay because mostly i like having sex with men vs woman like 99.9999% of the time but in all the new weird sexualitys they coming up with i probably fit more aromantic, but ill never call myself that because its too wild to identify as that lol. Just means that I do not want romantic relationships. And ya thats TOTALLY because of my abuse history and life. Im fine with it, i wouldnt call it disorientation because for me theres no changing it, whats done is done and i am who i am. I dont got the enegry or interest to fix that shit but more power to anyone whos after that. Ive tried dating but its not going to happen. Too hard for me.
 
The fact that men have unwanted SSA and feel that they have to censor themselves or worry about their tone or offending people who are often looking to be offended is the problem. We should be able to talk about unwanted SSA without anyone coming in here to tone it down or generalize.

That this is an ongoing issue and has been for close to a decade. There is a specific gay subforum yet anytime SSA is discussed a "perspective" is often added which is a generalization and a very anti-SSA way of looking at things.

I don't care at this point if someone is gay or straight or SSA. It doesn't matter. What matters is honesty and allowing for men who want to discuss SSA without having to be concerned with someone's ultra-sensitivities about discussing SSA and disorientation and USING THOSE WORDS IF THEY WANT TO without someone trying to amend them, correct them, explain them. If one is offended, doesn't the gay forum cover this or allow for it? Why chime into a thread that wants to discuss it deeply? I think it's a threat to some - that's how it feels.

You see it everywhere these days. Even on malesurvivor, there is a victim hierarchy that some want to impose even on SSA conversations. It goes like this - if you're a man who was abused and you are discussing disorientation and unwanted SSA, you have to be careful how you discuss it because you might offend someone and if you offend someone, you've made them more of a victim and since we can't have that, you must censor your conversation because someone may be a "worse" victim than you are (you bad men discussing SSA in such un-pc terms!). It's a scold technique, albeit a mild one. Its effect is to either derail conversation or disallow for depth since in current society, offending a potential victim class is one of the worst social gaffes one can make and one cannot recover from - the social police are watching and enforcing.

Edit: these are my opinions based on my being here for years, seeing a dynamic and just like all of us, having thoughts and feelings. I don't know where I lie in regards to SSA/orientation at least in terms of myself at time of CSA and in terms of today and what the past means and what any desires might mean then vs now. I've done a lot of work in this area in both secular and religious arenas and I have an informed experience and I'm seeing that while outcome matters (SSA vs straight vs gay or whatever "conclusion" a man comes to), robust conversation without censorship greatly matters when it comes to SSA, CSA and sexual orientation and other related issues. These conversations need to flow unfettered as long as they are following the rules.
 
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@EdfromNYC - thank you for you honesty. I, too, have struggled with unwanted SSA issues, and would like to discuss those issues openly without being accused of "homophobia" - I also have strong spiritual beliefs that say homosexual activity is against God and, according to my faith, is considered "sinful" (but not any *worse* than any other sin).

I know many here at MS do not share those same beliefs, but I do feel those need to be respected, but likewise I will also respect those with opinions different than my own since we all have shared experiences and the shared goal here: to support each other on our own Healing Journeys.
 
NC-Survivor said:
I also have strong spiritual beliefs that say homosexual activity is against God
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@NC-Survivor, I like you as a person, but you're going to get a lot of pushback from folks who knew they were gay even before they were abused.

We can disagree, but many would say that such beliefs are bigotry. Why did your God create homosexuals if He's just going to send them to hell for doing things He Himself made them desire? That God is pretty damn mean. That's not a loving God by any means.
 
I understand. You are actually proving my point.

But I firmly believes He loves and cares for each and every man on this forum.

My faith teaches that homosexual *feelings* are not sinful. Acting on these feelings with same-sex intimate behaviors is outside of his plan and design for sexual relationships inside the confides of a male-female marriage.

However, again, I know many here do not share that faith and have their own opinions. I can accept that, and still love and respect each and every man here as my brother!

We are in this Healing Journey together.
 
NC-Survivor, you certainly did prove your point about being attacked for your SSA struggles & beliefs.

Being in the online bubble here, especially at MS where a number of us are conflicted with our broken sense of sexuality or acceptance of same, being victims of hurt and pain already, most are hyper sensitive to any criticism especially something so sensitive like sexuality. This is exactly why the sub gay board was made years ago, to be a safe space for those who needed to be affirmed in their sexuality without perceived challenge or criticism. I think just about every one has respected that. But what I've seen happen over the years is too many try to squelch what is the societal norms on the rest of the site due to their hyper-sensitivity, and that just doesn't make sense and it's especially not gonna work for them out in the real world.
* I believe* after investing 20 years in healing & learning that all sexuality is behavior, it's not something you are born with like a skin color, eye shape or ethnicity, it is cobbled together by nurture rather than nature. I don't think God made gay people gay no more than he made philanderers philandle, pedophiles pedophile, drug addicts or drunkards, over eaters overeat or thieves steal. There are always a lot of reasons why we do all the things we do or crave the thing we crave. I believe most errant or unwanted behaviors can be dissected and peaceful order restored with determination & work, even unwanted SSA.
Those same people who claim, "born that way" have no sound logic for the many who without fanfare walk away from it daily, or the the new pop-sci abandoning born that way for the new fluidity of sexuality & genders...

Either way no one here should feel attacked, being called a bigot or a homophobe for what is societal norms on sexuality. To think otherwise is living in a bizzaro world bubble. Nor should anyone be attacked for being gay. If someone can't handle frank conversations about sensitive matters such as this without lashing out, then they are not ready for prime time and should refrain from posting.
 
I failed to note what section this was posted in. I suppose a section where homophobia is acceptable is fair, considering our issues and the usual religious beliefs of survivors. I will refrain from posting in this section in the future.
 
@Strangeways - why must you assign the term homophobia to anyone who disagrees with your position. My statement was very strong in the love I still have for my brothers who disagree with my position. How is that a phobia? How is that bigotry? I am being true to my faith. Religious freedom. No hatred or fear was ever shown in my post.
 
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