Time For A Group? [And Short Summary Reflection]

I have come to know a few people since I opened up this blog--especially during my "raw/authentic" writing period. They have either been introduced to me by others, or found me themselves and left a comment. As we have interacted openly and honestly, we have also become good friends. One such example is Rob, who started to do video-logs not very long after we made contact through my blog. (I mention Rob because he has chosen to be public and visible, and he does not mind me mentioning him.)

In the past 3 weeks, a handful of new guys have approached me via email. They span across the ages from teenager to fifties. One thing in common about these men: they are all moved by my experience of healing and change. Several mention that they are desirous of the relationship I have with Brother A.

I have not made another official Summary Reflection to date, so let me add a short summary of how I have been doing, and the proceed back with my topic.

My eSSA (eroticized SSA, as one new brother put it, or SSsA as I had put it, but I like eSSA better) is pretty much non-existent. I am still attracted to good-looking guys, but there is no longer a need to sexualize it. It is not even a struggle to not sexualize it -- it just will not happen. I think I can still force myself to fantasize if I wanted to (you don't forget how to ride a bike once you've learned), but I have no desire to. Rather, I am in touch with the feeling of "inadequacy" that hits me from time to time. So, in place of the feeling of a need to be sexual with another man, the feeling presents itself as "I am feeling inadequate." I sit with that feeling and just feel miserable for a while, and do other helpful things such as talk to a friend, or journal, or exercise. I have had no interest in porn. As for masturbation, that too has not happened for a while (I have not counted days), but the purity aspect of that is more specifically enabled through spiritual discipline. Believe it or not, having sex with one's wife does not necessarily curtail masturbation.

On the heterosexual side, it has been hard to avoid looking at beautiful-looking women. Wife and I watched Dreamgirls last night, and I had zero identification with any of the women like I had in the past. Rather, I identified with the "brothers" (as they called each other), especially in their desire for the women. The women--especially Beyonce--were very beautiful, and I could have sexualized the thoughts I had for them. But I avoided that. Besides, my wife is also beautiful and she is real. Fantasies cannot meet reality needs.

Brother A and I have further refined and developed our relationship. We relate to each other as mutual friends and brothers rather than our previous mentor-mentee relationship. We also irritate the heck out of each other from time to time, but there is no question that I love him deeply and dearly, and I would do anything for him. Truly, it feels like a David-and-Jonathan relationship!

And now, I come back to the topic with which I started this post: the new guys. You know who you are: JG, EH, CL, and most recently, DA. There is also JoeMn who had contacted me in a different way. I am pleasantly surprised that you have found me through my blog, and I want to get to know each one of you deeply and intimately. But I am finding myself stretched for time as one of you has already complained. So, I am starting to think that I need to do something so that we can more effectively help each other. My present strategy of getting to know you one-on-one in an intimate way will peter out real soon if more people come my way. But I want more men to come and receive help because there is HOPE for change! I just can't help everyone by myself, and it's foolishness for me to even to attempt to do so.

So, for any of you younger folks (i.e. not-married or below 30) reading this post, there is an Accountability Brothers' group on Facebook -- it is an invisible group that you can join, and does not show up on your Facebook profile. If you're interested in that group, ask me, and I will point you in the right direction. I need to warn you that not everyone in that group thinks the same way I do -- not everyone there wants to experience change to heterosexuality like I have, although most would likely agree that purity and/or holiness is a worthy pursuit.

As for the married Christian men (or singles over 30?), I am starting to wonder if it might be time to start a group of some sort? People who have felt a connection to this "hope for change" that I have written about in this blog coming together online--perhaps even with Brother A (!)--either in email or FB or some other form, for mutual encouragement, prayer, exchange? A group that is made up of people who are further along in their journey of change? A group where we can also talk about how to help others who are just beginning to work through their struggles? I don't know. I thought I'd throw this idea out into cyberspace and see what the Lord does with it.

Summary Reflections #3 (June-July 09)

I don't know how much of it is because I am busy, but I just don't have very much to say anymore.

My "struggle" is more and more a thing of the past.

How long has it been now?

About 4 months.

But it feels longer. I hardly remember what it is like to masturbate to a fantasy of having sex with a man.

Ugh. Gross just to even mention the idea. (No offense to non-straight folks, it's just how I feel.)

Even my desire to connect with other men with SSA is diminishing.

I don't know what to make of this. Should I stop writing here completely? As for posts on manhood or fatherhood, I find myself not really interested in blogging about it. I prefer to just live it.

Summary Reflections #2 (April - June 09)

Two months have passed since I wrote my first summary reflections (part 1, part 2). What has transpired since?

Same-Sex Attraction

My SS(sexual)A has pretty much left and stayed gone. The SS(emotional)A is there, but I welcome it. I find that when I do not *feed* my SSeA, SSsA can creep in. And so I have spent a great deal of time cultivating quality relationships with Christian brothers who have similar values as I do. Most of them are married with kids, but a couple are single and older, men with more real-life experience. I have found that I am not at all interested in debating about SSA.

In the two months following Summary Reflection #1, I am becoming good friends with more than a handful of SSA-brothers online. I can count 4 in Asia, 3 in North America, and 1 in South America. There are also others, thanks to an online Facebook group to which I belong, but it's a large group, and I only connect with a handful of the older folks there.

Almost everyday, I get to email or IM or Skype with one of these brothers. And there is also Brother A, and Brothers from my home church right here who I see and talk to regularly.

After getting to know them a bit, I try to get pretty intimate in my conversations, expressing my feelings of fondness towards them quite openly (e.g. I love you). Some are comfortable with it, some are not. What is interesting is, over the two months, I have found a decreasing sensual response to encounters of real-life emotional intimacy with these brothers (i.e. telling them I love them, talking about meeting and hugging each other, etc.). What used to excite me in a sensual (or genital) way is becoming less so. There is a sense that the more I allow myself to embrace SSeA, the more SSsA becomes a moot issue.

When I am feeling down, I feel like I want to go to one of these brothers and get a big long bear hug, lean on their shoulders, cry and receive empathetic support and care, and I would be okay again. I don't want to get naked with them; I don't want to touch their penises; I don't want them sexually. But I do long for emotional intimacy and connectedness, esp. when I am feeling down.

And that is absolutely okay.

Roller-Coaster Emotions

Part of the process of healing over the month of May was a roller-coaster ride of emotions: first anger, followed by grief. Both took me by complete surprise.

First, I was angry, but I did not know at what. At the same time, I started to experience a new heterosexual energy. After some time, I realized that what I was feeling was a sense of what I have called an unbridled male adolescent sexual energy.

Shortly after, without much warning, I started to feel a sense of grief. It was deep, strong, and it puzzled me. At first, I didn't know what or why I was grieving. Something to do with death, with loss...

• the loss of who I could have been had I not been so abused as a child by significant men in my life;
• the loss of the comfort that homosexual fantasies used to offer me;
• the loss of Brother A, to whom I said my "emotional farewell" two months after meeting him and falling head-over-heels in love with him.

As I write this post, the anger and grief are no longer present. Looking back, I realize I was struggling to accept the change I was experiencing, the change into my heterosexual self.

Accepting Heterosexuality

On May 19, I wrote "Here's the last thing I need to do now: fully accept this change, and don't fight it anymore."

That was a month ago. If April was the realization that Brother A's love for me had taken away my sexual desires for men, then May was the realization that in order for me to fully experience orientation change, I needed to embrace that change from the outside in. And that is exactly what I did... or what happened to me.

Sometimes, I am not sure how much of this change is a result of my decisions/actions and how much of it happened outside of my control. It is likely both, but hard to tease apart.

When I said farewell to Brother A at the end of May, I simultaneously also put on a new male self. More manly, more secure, and definitely heterosexual. This does not mean that I had put away my desire to relate with men. On the contrary, I found myself relating to men more naturally, more comfortably, and still intimately but without the need to imagine myself in their sexual embrace. A big, long brotherly hug when you're down, yes. Touching each others' penises or even kissing mouth-to-mouth had become not only unnecessary but a little gross.

Several times towards the end of May, I found myself waking up in the morning with an erection with images of nude women floating around in my subconscious mind. Interestingly, because I have not looked at many images of nude women, all the women in my dreams looked like my wife's body.

A few times, I dabbled into pornography. I found myself uninterested in anything gay, not even the image of a guy masturbating himself. However, I was fond of heterosexual scenes of men and women together. I might have also looked at scenes of women only (I can't remember), but I don't think I allowed myself to linger there too long. My forays into porn were boundaried by my desire to not allow myself to become sexual with another woman in my mind aside from my wife. The heterosexual images reminded me of sex with my wife, and such was their allure. I became the man in the scenes, and my wife became the woman.

Encountering Judgment, Moving Towards Christ

Around the time I took a break from blogging, I encountered some judgment from a few SSA-brothers. Some looked at my blog and made conclusions about me that were unjustified. Unjustified because they really didn't know me, my mind, my identity, my training, my experience, etc.

They discredited my experience of change, they judged me for using pornography and writing about it graphically, they cautioned me from becoming emotionally enmeshed with men, they distrusted my openness, and yet, they refused to connect with me about these things one-on-one, face-to-face so that I could explain myself to them. I was stuck.

This blog has a clear rhetorical purpose: to chronicle my experiences of same-sex attraction in a raw and open way. It is meant to be a personal journal of the deepest, most intimate emotions I have towards this area of my life. But this blog does not represent the totality of who I am. If you knew me in person, you might be surprised at my level of education and professional competence. This blog is only a slice of me, a very raw, emotional slice. I have made it intentionally so.

Because these judgments came pretty much all around the same time, I didn't know what to do. I was hurt and confused. I had to accept what these people thought of me even if I were wrongfully misunderstood. It was incredibly hard to do. Without other options, I went to Scripture and clung onto Philippians 2:1-11. (Some of these relationships have seen been reconciled after one-on-one live conversation.)

Around that time, another theme that began to emerge was my need to move towards God. The love that I received from Brother A was God's love "in the real." But Brother A is not God, and as wonderful as he was (and still is), he is limited. Now that I had internalized his love for me, I am able to draw from this Godly-love-in-the-flesh and turn towards Abba God. Now, when God says "I love you," in His Word, I can actually feel a manly embrace around me and know in my body what that love feels like.

I have heard counselors talk about how children who have been abused by earthly fathers have a hard time relating to a loving Father God. Looking back through my experience (3 months now), I can see that God wanted me to experience Brother A's love so that I could know His Love in a real, tangible, physical way.

God is doing other things in my life now that is opening my eyes to realizing how much I need to draw close to Him and to depend on Him. He was the one who brought about all this change, and now He wants me to draw closer to Him.

Is Sexual Orientation Change What It's About?

This blog has been about SSA and change. Three months into my experience, the change is still there. Some people don't like my using heterosexuality as a gauge for change, but that makes little sense to me. They prefer to use "godliness" or "wholeness." I think the reason they do this is because they have not experienced change in the way I have. And many (even leaders that I've recently communicated with in Exodus) tell me that they know very, very few men for whom orientation change has been complete. So, in light of the lack of experience with change from homosexuality to heterosexuality, they talk about change as a "spiritual" change.

Talking with one Exodus leader recently, I told him that when I read the book "Wild At Heart" by John Eldredge two year ago, I hated it. I critiqued it from the angle of gender bias. "Not all men are meant to be wild at heart," I argued. Then I told him that with this new change in me, I really want to read the book again. The testosterone in me is boiling, and I want to conquer the wild. I was surprised when he replied that he too hated the book in his first reading of it. But now, in his sixth reading (!), he is appreciating it more than ever.

I am not sure yet exactly what to conclude of the notion of "moving towards wholeness" versus "moving towards heterosexuality." I don't have time to delve into the literature and clarify the issue for myself this year. As it is, I have already spent considerable time over the last three months processing this journey. But deep within me, I feel that the right next move for me would be to process manhood and fatherhood, especially from the perspective of godliness.

Next Steps

• What does it mean to be a man and a father in God's image?
• How do men and women differ biologically and sociologically, and across cultures?
• What is the essence of maleness in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of God?

These are some of the questions I will tackle in the coming months.

I don't know how often I will blog, and in what style or capacity. In some ways, my existing style of writing on this blog has outlived its use, and I could shut down this blog. But because I have made a handful of new friends who are SSA-brothers-in-Christ through this blog, I will keep it open.

If you are new to my blog and want to get in touch with me, feel free to do so by leaving me a comment with an email where I can reach you.

Summary Reflections #1 (Dec 08 - April 09) -- Part 2

[ .../ continued from Part 1 ]

4. God’s Love “In The Real”

I can’t remember exactly what we were doing at the time, but twice when I was with Brother A, I asked the Lord if there was a purpose for me in meeting him in person. I had a strong impression in my heart that God wanted to or was going to show me His love “in the real.” The words “in the real” were so clear I could almost hear them with my ears.

God’s love? In the real? What does that mean?

I love Jesus. I had seen first hand God’s power demonstrated through miracles. I had learned how to enter into God’s presence through prayer and worship and let His Fatherly love fill my soul. But it never crossed my mind, not even once, that God might want to bring that awesome love and power to me in the real through an actual human being. And I certainly never imagined just how incredibly captivating and intoxicating God’s Fatherly love would be when expressed through a real person. Loving a gentle yet strong and mature God-loving man like Brother A--who loves me back deeply--has been like falling in love with Jesus. It is turning my life around in ways I never imagined possible.

5. Defensive Detachment

The more I fell in love with Brother A, the more I became deathly afraid of losing him. To protect myself, I began to defensively detach from him: breaking off the relationship first to avoid the pain of having him break it off with me. I did it in subtle ways, convincing myself each time that the decision was rational and noble [post, post].

Thankfully, Brother A had read about defensive detachment [post] and recognized it when it was happening with me. Each time I pulled away, he moved closer towards me. I kept doubting and questioning his love for me. Why me? What did I do to deserve this amazing love? Intensely engaged yet respectfully gentle, he convinced me again and again that his love for me was real. He did not give up pursuing me. And the more he pursued, the more I began to trust.

To this day, I still struggle with the fear that Brother A might leave me at any time despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary. But I know that the fear comes from the insecure boy-soul in me, desperate to be loved by a father like Brother A, and still recovering from the decades of verbal, physical, and emotional abuse suffered under the hands of significant men in my life.

6. Fear of Men vs. Love of Men

God’s love in the real through Brother A is giving me enough self-worth to admit something I have always denied: I fear masculine men because I don’t feel masculine enough in myself. This makes a great deal of sense because I have ever only been really attracted to men whom I feel have masculine characteristics that I don’t have. I see it now more clearly than ever before: for all these years, I have been “homosexualizing” my desire for masculinity. And I am beginning to realize now that I don’t need to do that!

Brother A’s deep, genuine love for me seems to be repairing my fear of and lust for masculine men. I found myself going to the gym and seeing “boys” everywhere. When I saw a guy who was sexually attractive to me, I looked at his face and saw the “boy” behind the masculine intimidating-thus-sexually-attractive figure. Immediately, the attraction was gone! [post]

I still get flashes of sexual attraction to guys from time to time. But now, instead of lusting after them in some unrealistic fantasy, or white-knuckling the sexual feelings, I do the following:

1. I accept and embrace my masculine insecurities in the same way Brother A accepts and embraces me
2. I perceive the men’s masculine qualities to be a God-given gift that I also want
3. I admit that I want to draw close to them and be like them
4. I imagine them connecting with me and opening up to me (which I am finding happens a lot when I don’t push them away)
5. And I immediately recognize that they are just “one of the boys” like me

Each time I have gone through the steps above, the sexual attraction leaves, replaced by an attraction that is non-sexually relational. This non-sexually relational attraction causes me to want to hang out and talk with these men, drink beers, play sports, laugh, and just be one of the guys and enjoy being together. And I have no desire to have sex or be sexual with them in any way.

7. Potentiating Heterosexuality

Probably one of the most surprising and least understood processes that I am experiencing is my sudden attraction to women. I see beautiful and gorgeous women everywhere! I used to be somewhat attracted to beautiful Bollywood actresses (their Aryan features combined with their Asian softness was a perfect blend for me) but generally, women did not do much for me sexually.

But now, I find all kinds of women attractive—even the loud, brash ones. I am seeing them in a whole new light. I want to say nice things about them and see them smile and blush under the power of my manliness. It is not so much a desire to toy with them, but rather I sense that they need to be cared for, especially the ones that look like they could really use a little bit of loving attention.

The sexy-looking ones, however, is another story altogether. I feel a strong lust towards. I just want to rip off their clothes and devour their gorgeous bodies. I imagine them moaning with pleasure under my touch, and… okay, that’s going too far. Yes, I am objectifying them. It’s something that men struggle with, okay?

Did I just write that?

Yes, I did. Dang!

8. What’s Next?

I really don’t know what’s next. I never expected to experience all the change that I started to experience since meeting Brother A. I don’t know how deep or how long-lasting this change will be. I just want to be like soft, vulnerable clay, pliable and moldable in God’s good hands. If the homosexuality returns with full force, so be it. If it goes away completely, hallelujah!

As far as I am aware, a part of me still grieves the loss of my old pattern [post]. It’s comfortable; I know it well. Sure I love this new me [post], but it’s very new and I’m not used to “wearing” it. Feelings of insecurity still come from time to time and beckon me to masturbate to fantasies of masculine men even though I no longer find that compelling. And because it is no longer compelling, I can avoid it easily. I only need to sit with this feeling of loss, which in itself is not very comfortable.

A part of me tells me that I should start masturbating to fantasies of women, especially on my work trips away from my wife. If only I were 13 again and had 5 years to experiment with my newfound masculinity, I would let my hormones go wild. Well, I can celebrate at least that sex with the wife is simply amazing. I am so glad I am married. I don’t know what I’d do if I were to experience all of this as a single man.

Lastly, the boy-soul who longs for father-intimacy is still there, albeit growing incredibly quickly. I worry that the growth might be too quick. Thank God I still have Brother A… and brother B [post], and Brother M [post], and now a host of SSA brothers that I’ve recently connected with [post]. With intimate community support, maybe this change can take place for real and for good.

And so, I journey on. I hope the next four-five weeks won’t be quite as intense as the past four-five weeks because I am exhausted from all this change and processing. As much as this is one of the most exciting things that is happening to me in my life, I need a break.

[End of Summary Reflections #1]

Summary Reflections #1 (Dec 08 - April 09) -- Part 1

Exactly four weeks ago today (Sat., March 14, 2009) things took a major turn for me in my journey towards sexual wholeness. This is a summary what has taken place so far.

1. A New Accountability Partner

I have known Brother A for more than a year, but because we live in different cities, we only interacted online, and infrequently. Last November, I started to have serious difficulty staying off pornography and masturbation. My accountability partners allowed me to slip through for many weeks. (I think they were sinning too since they avoided asking me the hard questions.) In desperation, I sought out Brother A for additional accountability, and I started this blog to process my walk. Brother A did a fantastic job of keeping me accountable, and my relationship with him started to change how I felt about myself.

The best part about my interaction with Brother A was when he talked to me in detail about the things that turned him on as a man! I was like a pubescent boy listening to a man tell him everything he'd want to know about the world of grown men! The impact was not just in what Brother A said, but the way he interacted with me about it.

Because I sent an accountability sheet to him every week, Brother A was privy to all of my secret homosexual sins. Despite knowing my failures, he accepted me and loved me--he would tell me so. He also started to talk with me about his own sexual turn-ons in open detail. I was able to get into the mind of a straight man and figure out how it worked. Because he was so open with me about sexuality, I started to feel like "one of the guys."

2. Meeting Brother A

A business trip took me through Brother A's city last month, and so he invited me to spend the weekend with him and his family. Exactly four weeks ago, I met Brother A in person for the first time.

We went to the gym together (he was not worried about being nude with me even though he knew that I struggled), he gave me massages (not in the nude!), I got to see how gentle and loving he was with his own son (hugging and kissing his 15 year old), and we enjoyed a great worship time together at church.

We also talked a lot. It wasn't just surface chatting; it was real, deep, and intimate. He related to me at the very edges of acceptability without crossing the boundaries. For example, when we were both nude in the public showers, we talked about having oral sex with our wives! I had never in my entire life felt so accepted as a man in my sexuality. And the fact that I was talking sex with a Christian man I respected was even more freeing.

It became evident by the end of the weekend that Brother A truly and genuinely liked me and loved me. Wow... an older, handsome, muscular, straight man who is deep, sensitive, and intelligent loves me! This is how I knew for sure:

Before we parted, I admitted to him that I had sexual feelings for him. I avoided looking at him when I told him, and I expected him to put an end to our relationship. Instead, he moved closer towards me--his body touching mine--and looked straight at me with the softest, most loving eyes. Then he told me that he loved me even more now, and that he wished he could give me a big, huge bear hug.

*Faint*

After that, I fell head-over-hells in love with Brother A. (Can you blame me?)

3. Deep Non-Sexual Male Intimacy

The first week after I left Brother A, I obsessed about him. I thought about him constantly. Each time I did, I would get this warm, achey feeling in my chest accompanied with a mild erection. Brother A had told me that he also sometimes felt this way, with women and with men, but for him it was a "sensual response of the body" and not sexual.

Because of my personal resolve to never fantasize about people with whom I have a real-life relationship, I did not allow myself to masturbate to thoughts of Brother A. It was really hard to do. To make things even more difficult, Brother A kept heaping his puppy-eyed, muscle-clad love on me over internet communication. I was forced to keep receiving all of his intoxicating emotional manlove without once being able to sexualize it. It was a nightmare in heaven! [post]

Five days after I left Brother A, I realized that I had not once thought about men sexually or had an instance of wanting to look at pornography [post]. I had not masturbated for over a week, and it didn't bother me in the least bit. It was then that I came to realize that what I really needed from men was not sexual intimacy but relational intimacy [post]. And that was when I started to believe--truly believe--that my SSsA has its roots in a deficit of male attachments [post].

[End of Part 1.]