A Response: Connecting With Other Men with SSA

In response to Summary Reflections #3, a brother emailed me and asked: "But---could you clarify what you mean by "connecting" with other men with SSA? And... does that include me?"

Below is my response to him.

---

Until a couple of weeks ago, I spent a good amount of time relating to men with SSA online. These are men such as yourself: Christian and wanting to change. I received something from these interactions although I am not quite sure what. An affirmation of my own change experience perhaps? A felt need to connect with other men who have experienced change so that my own experience does not feel quite so strange?

Anyway, let me answer your question by stating what I have learned over the last two months interacting with other men with SSA.

(1) Not everyone [read: Christian] is interested in experiencing change out of homosexual desires; some disbelieve me outright that this change is possible despite my constant ranting. Many seemed to prefer to argue and debate rather than to really try to understand what I am talking about.

(2) Not everyone cares to connect intimately. Some dissuade me from doing so--not healthy, they say, even though I keep telling them that what I am talking about is not sexual intimacy, and that it is precisely this kind of intimacy (vulnerable, physical, and non-sexual) with a straight, Godly man that has led to my healing.

(3) A small handful, like yourself and Rob Turner (The Architect's Garage) for instance, have stayed connected in a serious and committed way. And I have found it really rich and rewarding to be interacting with you folks.

(4) I started to notice that the same things were being uttered in blogs and online groups over and over again that I started to tire of engaging in the conversations. At first, I was very excited to get others to come take at look at this impossible pot-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow that I've found, but after a while (and after encountering many jaded responses) my excitement waned.

(5) I was spending so much time connecting with SSA men that I was sidelining my own work and family, not to mention my personal time with God. I decided to cut back, and when I did, I discovered that I was not missing the interactions, and my SSsA did not come back. My relationship with Brother A (and the small handful of other brothers) continues to deepen in intimacy and mutuality that these alone are enough to sustain my need for genuine and intimate connection with men.

At this point, I find myself with little desire to pursue other men with SSA for deepening intimate fellowship. The small handful of men that I'm already connected to (including you) is more than enough. This is not to say that I will not open myself to befriending those who want to befriend me. The point is, I will not chase after them any longer to try to offer them hope.

I think that's healthy for me.

I'm moving on with my very straight man-life. And I like it, a lot. I am looking forward to meeting some new friends, (...) but I am not interested in trying to convince anyone that change is possible. Maybe later, if God calls me to write a book or something. For now, I just want to live my very straight man-life and be fully present for all of its mundane ups and downs.

Last word: YOU are precious to God, and precious to me. I am glad you are in my life, and I look forward to connecting with you with increasing depth and godly intimacy.

Undressing Men (Alternate Title: Everyday-Sized Nuts)

It's commonly said that if a person felt nervous when doing public speaking, he could try to imagine his audience naked.

I never understood that advice. I had always felt that to imagine a bunch of people naked would be more of a turn-on than an anxiety-reliever. Especially if there were good-looking men in the audience.

But I experienced something new today.

Today I undressed three different guys with my eyes. Strip! Strip! Strip! They were completely nude, right down to their willies. Handsome devils, every one of them.

Strangely though, I was not turned on. In fact, I think I did it as a way to turn myself off my attractions to them. (It was a pretty unconscious process. It just happened.)

All three guys had something in common. I wanted to draw close to them. They had a certain look with which I associated strength, masculinity, security, support, comfort, warmth.

By stripping them down completely nude, I exposed them. Seeing them naked in my mind unmasked the myth of "the perfect man" that I had attributed to them. Instead, I saw their boy-souls, tasted their insecurities, smelled their bodily stench, and sensed their own quivering need for male affirmation. Their need for male affirmation.

Male affirmation. God knows every man needs it. Even my almost-perfect Brother A!

Speaking of Brother A, he was, in fact, the first Alpha male who was undressed before me. Come to think of it, he actually undressed himself before me. He took the initiative to expose himself completely to me: physically, emotionally, spiritually. And I, in turn, let him see me too, all of me. First physically, then emotionally and spiritually.

And it has all been good. So good, in fact, that I believe this has been one of the prime factors in my change experience.

So this is my new experience when I see strong, good-looking [read: intimidating] men with whom I want to connect. In 5-Easy-Steps:

1. I strip them naked in my mind.
2. They become fully exposed. Their fantasized god-like phalli shrivel down to realistic everyday-sized nuts, dangling awkwardly. Just like mine!
3. They become, all of a sudden, completely approachable [read: no longer intimidating].
4. My attraction towards them fail to sexualize. (The emotional attraction remains though. But I'm okay with that. Because, as I said, God knows every man needs affirmation from another man.)
5. I feel okay again in and of myself. I am, in essence, just like them.
   

My experience today feels like further development along a thread of experiences I've had before: here [A Definite Shift, 3/25/09] and here [Emotional vs Sexual Attraction, 3/31/09].

That Grossed-out Feeling (alternate title: Brotherly Love)

Tossing and turning in bed. Trouble sleeping.

In the past, I would have fantasized about being sexual with men, leading to masturbation in bed. I'd even hold on to a pillow closely to my chest, pretending it was a warm male body.

I did the same last night--held to a pillow to my chest, that is. But there was an invisible fence.

It was okay to hold on to the pillow, feel the comfort, imagine holding on to a brother in intimate embrace. But once if I even began to sexualize it in my mind, I felt sick. Sick to the stomach. Like I wanted to throw up. Like I had crossed an invisible fence that set off a repulsion within my body.

On the plane a few days ago, I saw someone watching the movie, Milk. I looked and wondered if the guy watching was gay. Suddenly, there was a kiss scene between Sean Penn and some other male actor. The scene faded to black. Then the guy watching shook his head. He turned his head just enough for me to see that unmistakable look in a person's face: disgust.

Brother A gave me that face too when I explained to him once about a sexual male scene when I first met him. At the time, that look felt like an affront to me. I felt rejected. His disgust was not just a disgust over a concept, it was a disgust over me.

Now, I feel that same disgust myself. The thought of making out with another man. The stink, the sweat, the skin-guck of another man upon my body in a sexual way.

I want to throw up.

But...

I still feel that need to connect with my good friends: my Brothers. To share openly, to be vulnerable, to pray for one another, to be hugged (with clothes on, for a long time). I long to know that I am okay. Okay at the very core.

True, holy, vulnerable, brotherly LOVE. That is what I crave.

Holding Hands - It's About The Heart

During prayer, I held two men's hands. The one on the left was a young college student. The one on the right was an elder of a church (I'll call him William).

Several weeks back, I talked to elder William about my struggle. I was completely open. Like Brother A and brother B, William also was not afraid of my SSsA. When I told him that Brother A moved closer to me and wanted to hug me after I "confessed" to having sexual feelings for him (exactly 8 weeks ago today!), he smiled and felt like he could identify with Brother A. He really was not phased by my SSsA. But elder William is pretty busy so I have not had the chance to pursue deeper intimacy with him the way I have with Brother A.

As we prayed today, I was very aware of elder William's hand holding mine. It was not much bigger than the student's hand to my left. Yet, I felt a great deal of loving warmth coming from elder William's hand (and nothing from the student's hand).

Then, it dawned on me that this connection through hands is not so much about hands per se or the student's hand would have illicited a similar response. It is all about how I feel towards the person. Like Brother A, elder William has also accepted me fully in all of my vulnerabilities. Having him hold my hand felt incredibly safe, warm, and comforting. Like the assuring hand of a strong, loving father.

That Being-Loved Feeling

Finally connected with Brother A. We talked for a long time, and prayed at the end with open eyes, peering deep into each others' souls as we connected with our Father God.

But...

Boy-soul was not very willing to come out at first. Angry. Hurt. Not willing to trust Brother A after the long time of felt distance. (You know, that whole defensive detachment thing.)

Brother A reached in, kept at it, pushing at times, pulling back at times. He let boy-soul talk. Air his frustrations, his insecurities, his hurt, and his deep need to be reassured.

Boy-soul softened after a while

Hooray Brother A -- you did it!

(That was my Adult-self talking.)

(Don't worry, this is not multiple personalities. Just metaphors.)

Boy-soul let Brother A in again. In to that soft, vulnerable place to which only God has access. Boy-soul needed it so much. We needed it so much.

And now, despite all the tiredness, all the helping-other-people's-problems, we are feeling good again. I am feeling good again.

Brother A loves me. I needed to know that. I needed to feel that. And now that I do, everything is okay again.

Not porn, not sex. Like a young boy desperate for the love and attention of his father, what I needed was love from a man I respect and with whom I can feel completely safe and vulnerable.

Brother A, we love you. All of us: boy-soul, adult-self, professional-self, caregiver-self, and most of all, brother-self.

Now, I am ready to go watch Star Trek.

Fathers and Sons

These videos move me to tears. I wish I could hug my dad like these boys hug their dads. I wish my dad would hug me back and kiss me like these dads do their sons.

The biggest blessing in my life: I can do this with my own son.

Men Holding Hands

ST (my Spiritual Twin) also struggles with SSA, both emotional and sexual. ST and I have never had a sexual relationship with each other.

ST teaches at a college where a lot of foreigners come to study English. In response to my telling him about how wonderful it is to hold hands with Brother A, he told me that male students--from Saudi Arabia, India, Burma, Africa--would sometimes hold hands with each other in class.

"They would take each others hands, admire innocently, touch and caress the hands..."

My eyebrows raised.

"I'd jokingly say, 'Hey, no touching hands during my class,' and they would reply, 'don't worry, professor, we're not gay.'"

I wondered about that.

"No, they really are not gay. These guys hold hands out of friendship, and it's not about being sexual!"

I want to be like them.

There is an article online entitled Hold Another Man's Hand by Patrick Repp, a married heterosexual therapist. I love these lines of his:

I want to be understood, especially by other men. I want to tell my story and have it matter to someone. Marlboro man be damned, I don't want to grieve my failures alone. I want permission to cry with another man without having to go to therapy to get it. I want those things to be socially sanctioned.

New brother K

Brother K has SSA and is younger than me. [I use caps to denote if a brother is younger (b) or older (B) than me.]

I love brother K like I love my own brother, like I love my own son, like I love my own "boy-soul" within me that is fast growing up.  

When I think of brother K, I get an aching in my heart.  I long to see him come to experience God's full healing in his life, to the point where he no longer seeks out men in a sexual way to find the male-love he so needs and deserves.

Brother K feels things for me that I have felt for Brother A.  It's uncanny to me how similar they are.  Brother K wants to be hugged, loved, and cherished by me--just the way that I have wanted to be hugged, loved, and cherished by Brother A.  Brother K wants wants me to hold his hand, like a father to a son--just the way Brother A's hand turned into my father's hand when he held mine.

I was struck when brother K said that it would break his heart if the intimacy between him and I turned sexual. I said the same thing to Brother A just a few days ago! Only I was a lot more dramatic about it: "I'd kill myself if our relationship ever became sexual."  (Brother A assured me that he could be trusted.)

I understand brother K. This is not a platitude. I really, really understand brother K. And I love him. Like Brother A loves me.

I wonder. How many of us men with SSA struggles are longing for such deep non-sexual male-to-male intimacy? Half? Three-quarters? All?

An Exclamation (a.k.a. An Emerging Masculinity)

I just need to let this out: I LOVE BROTHER A!!!!

I think I have developed an "addiction" to non-sexual male intimacy and have lost my addiction to gay pornography.

Key words: non-sexual, male, intimacy.

I want deep relating with men.  It makes me feel so good and complete as a man. And in turn, a new gentle and attractive masculinity that I have never before experienced in myself seems to be emerging.  A masculinity that melts the hearts of men, yes, even straight men (and I'm avoiding women like crazy because I know they'll flock to me in no time -- my wife can't keep her hands off me)! It's so friggin' attractive! XD

[Don't flog me for being proud or boastful, I write it as I experience it.]

I love the new me I am experiencing, praise God, and thanks to my amazing Brother A!

p.s. Part 2 to Summary Reflections #1 to come when I have some time this week. I printed out Part 1 for my wife to read, and she absolutely loved it. Thinks I should write a book. [o . O]

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.]

Healing Potential Through Male Intimacy

Had a good chat with someone who has experienced healing in SSA and works in SSA-ministry as a professional. I probed him about the role of male intimacy, and he agreed that it was a key healing factor for him.

Jeff over at carleton1958.xanga.com wrote about male intimacy -- a worthy read, and some excellent comments as well.

Haydos over at Giraffe Pen seems to also be experiencing something similar.  

In my conversation with this SSA-ministry professional, he also talked about his heterosexuality being potentiated without him trying to force it.  The attraction to women just came to him out of the blue one day, after some time of receiving unsexualized fatherly-love from another man.  He relayed that it was a really weird experience for him when it came -- like experiencing adolescence for the first time, but way past the teens years.  His description sounded just like what I have been experiencing over the past 4 weeks (which still kind of freaks me out--I now have to work at keeping my eyes off women, and not be scared of the change and run back to my vomit).  

There is something here really worthy of being researched: non-sexual male-intimacy as a key factor in healing SSA.

Is this where You are leading me, Lord? 

Like a dog that returns to its vomit...

I fell on Sunday night. The computer people took off my accountability software as it was giving me problems. So on Sunday night, when I had some time alone, I decided to "check out my healing" by looking at porn.

The first time I did it, I noticed that I no longer had a sexual attraction to my usual stuff. In fact, seeing a "straight guy seduced" felt completely wrong to me at a visceral level. I turned to look at the heterosexual porn and found myself identifying with the guy, and enjoying the beauty of the woman. It aroused me greatly.

After confessing to wife what I did and praying for forgiveness together, we were able to make passionate love. I was completely present.

I had trouble sleeping. So in the middle of the night, I got up, and went back to the porn.

I think deep down, I was grieving the change.  Masturbating to male porn had been my friend for so many years.  It had offered me safety, relieve, and comfort (not to mention all kinds of feel-good chemicals in my brain).  But now, the attraction was gone.  At some level, I was grieving the loss and wanted the attraction back.

Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who repeats his folly. (Prov. 26:11)

The fool doesn't think he is being foolish; he repeats his folly because that's what he is used to doing.  He has not learned new, adaptive behavior.  Trouble is, there are snares and there is real Enemy.  So the fool, if he is not careful, may lose his life because of his folly.

(Okay, back to the porn.)

At first I could not find what used to be there for me.  No attraction to this.  No attraction to that.  But I would not stop.  I kept on looking.  Then all of a sudden, there it was: two men in a most intimate loving posture, and it was sexual.

WHAM!

I fell.

It wasn't just a behavioral fall, like a quickie to relieve tension.  I really, really wanted to be with those guys.  It was a deep emotional and sexual longing.  And the desire lingered even to the next morning.

I looked for my vomit, found it, and the Enemy made sure that it got shoved all the way back down my throat.

- - - 

Brother A came to the rescue today.  I told him everything.  

At first, I didn't want to tell him.  It was as if my sexualizing of male-intimacy was a most serious affront to the holy love that we have for each other.  

When Brother A embraced me and forgave me (in Jesus' name), and reassured his love for me, it was as if Jesus himself embraced and forgave me and reassured me of his love.  It took a while for me to be able to accept it.  I was feeling deeply ashamed.  After some time of talking, shame finally turned into humble acceptance of forgiveness.

I don't want to go back to my vomit, ever again.  I've learned my lesson.  May God, in His grace, not take away the change that He has allowed me to experience over the past three weeks.

A Long Post on Brother M

Brother M is one of my accountability partners. He tends to "M"eander when he talks. Likes to meander to conversations about "stuff" (home repairs, taxes, etc.) and also theology and evangelism. If what you are talking about sparks off some distant experience of his, Brother M might meander there and talk about that for 5 minutes, leaving you all confused as to what he is going on about. But if you wait long enough, he'll come back to the topic at hand with a little new insight he's drawn by connecting the original topic to his other distant experience. Only, you'd have to wait and listen to the whole thing before the connection is made and articulated.

I love Brother M. I sought him out one day at church three years ago and "forced myself" upon him. Said that I wanted to talk to him, get to know him, and have breakfast with him. After some time over breakfast [read: after some time of meandering around topics], he said "I get this feeling that there is something else you wanted to talk to me about." That was when I spilled the beans about my same-sex attraction.

His response?

He said that he was deeply moved by my honesty, and that he had had another experience from way back (no, he was not meandering that time) with a roommate at Bible College who confided in him that he was sexually attracted to him. Apparently that friend fully turned over to the gay lifestyle. He prayed for me, and I think he even patted me on the shoulder.

Over the past 5 months, I had been disappointed with Brother M. When I started this blog, I told him about it. But he lost the URL. I sent it to him again. Today, when I confronted him about it, he apologized for not following up on my blog.

We talked this morning, Brother M and I.  I shared with him about the changes that I've been going through since meeting Brother A. I also told him that I am connecting well with Brother B. "Both of them," I said, "are men who are emotionally intense and they don't give up." I explained to him what I am learning about defensive detachment. I explained to him that I get critical and intellectual when I am in the presence of other men, but that it is a shield of self-protection. I explained that I am now learning how to be vulnerable with men: to admit that I feel inadequate, to admit that I feel less-than as a man, and to admit that I really long for deep, intimate emotional connection with men.

In our prayer together this morning, I asked God to guide me as to my relationship with him. If it grows deeper, that I would be vulnerable and continue to risk putting my heart out there, but if it doesn't, then to just accept the friendship for what it is.

Before we parted, I told Brother M that I would let him pursue me now. After clarifying a bit more, he said that perhaps after he returns from his trip overseas we could meet up again (which would make it mid-May.) This was after our conversation in which I said--extremely vulnerably--that I wish I could just call him up on the phone when I was feeling weak or drop by and hang out at his house like a brother. This is a man whom I had been meeting up with regularly for over 3 years, and our families play together often. This is a man who knows everything about me. He could not even suggest that I could email, or call, or connect for a few minutes a couple of times a week.

Again, I was disappointed with him.

But here is the most amazing thing. Despite my disappointment, I did not feel hurt. Brother M is who he is. He does love me. He even said so this morning. But Brother M is typically guy. He likes "stuff" (home repairs, taxes, cars, bikes) and he's not exactly adroit in the realm of intimate relations, esp. between men. That's okay. I'll let my feelings sit for a couple of days. Then, I might decide to let it be, or to let go of my defensive detachment and pursue him. I know he would never turn me away. He really does love me. And he always thanks God for our time spent together, genuinely appreciating "learning new things" from our interactions.

I have never "pursued" a man in this way before. This would be a first. And I think it would be an act arising out of a place of healing.

Side note on male intimacy and sexual arousal [previous post here]: Brother M told me that he has had occasions too in the past when feelings of intimacy with another man would have led him to sexual (or sensual) arousal had he allowed it to continue. Brother M is straight as a log and has trouble keeping his mind off women.

Being Authentic As A Path To Healing

I need to be authentic on this blog.  I need to say what I really feel.  Honesty and authenticity is the only way I can move forward. 

Even in my deepest vulnerability and desperation, I don't want pity.  Nor the embarrassed reaction of an onlooker trying to cover up my naked shame.  

In reaching out with my bloodied hand, I am waiting for only the hand of the scarred healer to  reach back in full authenticity.

The raw nakedness will now be shown.  Parts still raw and bleeding, parts healing.  I'm telling it like it is.

I've masturbated twice in the past two weeks (the second one was today, an hour after I made my last post).  Both times, it was from fantasizing about being sexual with a straight man.  

The first time, I was drawn into sexual arousal from reading about a gay man becoming intimate with his straight friend and eventually "seducing" him to have sex.  The second time, I was desperate with a sense of anxiety over work, and I found a picture of a good-looking man (just some regular Joe, really, and fully clothed) and imagined being sexually intimate with him.

Both times, I was moved to masturbate out of a desire to be intimate with a straight man in a most vulnerable state.  These men don't even have to be naked for me to be turned on.  It's the fantasy of intimacy that is arousing, not the physiological sexuality.  I need to get this really, really clear in my mind, and not forget.

And yet...

I still feel more male than ever.  And I am not making it up.

I'll write about that in the next post.

Isolation Is Not Good For Healing

I am feeling a sense of withdrawal.  In the past, it would have been clear what I wanted: to go look at porn of men.  Straight men, mostly.  But today, I am not sure what I am feeling a withdrawal from.

I guess I am feeling like I need to talk to someone.  A straight male friend who is capable of connecting intimately.

I am feeling isolated.  That's what it is.

And it has something to do with work stress.  I need to get going on a project and I am feeling a little nervous about it.

My typical pattern has been: I feel insecure/inept, I want to go look at porn and/or masturbate, then I feel better and I get to work.  The same pattern I've had before, but with a difference today.

Instead of wanting to go to porn and masturbating, I have an internal desire to just connect intimately with my brothers.  Tell them how I am feeling.  Allow myself to be vulnerable.  Have them pray for me.

(There is a new brother in my life.  I will call him brother B, and my "first" Brother that I've been blogging about, I will call Brother A.  And tomorrow, I will meet up with one of my accountability partners and see if I can also connect with him intimately.  If so, that will be three straight male friends that I can be authentic and vulnerable with.)

Anyway, Brother A and brother B are probably busy right now.  So, I'm resorting to this quick post to get my feelings out.  The last thing I want to do is to stuff this feeling down, and then let it rear its ugly head through porn and masturbation.

I miss Brother A.  I miss his smile, his presence, his warmth, and his love.  I miss his non-sexual yet intimate and Godly brotherly love.  A love that makes me feel whole.

Emotional vs Sexual Attraction

Today, I saw an ad on a website. Just a regular financial ad, but it featured a strong, good-looking man smiling and sitting on the top of a mountain.

I immediately felt a sexual attraction towards him. I went back to the ad and looked closely while I examined my own responses. My typical response (subconscious, mostly) would have been:

(1) I am different; I could never be like him

(2) Men like him don't think much of me

(3) I want to connect with him at his most vulnerable state: orgasm

(4) I see us having an orgasm together = He loves me

(5) I am accepted at the very core

Instead of the typical process, I tried something different. I allowed myself to adore the man in the picture, emotionally. I allowed these thoughts to naturally emerge from within me:

(1) "Wow, what a good looking man!" (without feeling shame about it)

(2) "I wish he would be nice to me and like me."

(3) "I wish I could just hang out with him."

(4) "It would be really nice if he would accept me fully just as I am."

(5) "I want to love him and have him love me too."

Paradoxically, when I allowed myself to feel the emotional attraction without any sense of shame or hiding over it, the feelings of sexual attraction subsided. The man in the ad was no longer intimidating and distant, nor an object of sexual fantasy. He was just a good-looking man, and I became fully aware of who I was: a boy-soul starving for male acceptance and love. Allowing myself to feel vulnerable, that is, sitting with my feelings of inferiority as a man, is helping me overcome my same-sex attraction.

Who would have thought this could be a pathway to healing???

Aside: It has some similarities to addictions recovery work. Perhaps I can reflect on that in my future posts. (Here is a blog on celebrating recovery.)

I do have a good-looking, strong man who loves me. My Brother (my straight male friend/mentor/brother). Whenever I have feelings of vulnerability, I don't need to go through the old typical response of dissociating from my vulnerable emotions and sexualizing through fantasy to connect. I simply have to be open and honest that I feel crappy and less than a man. And then remember just how much my good-looking, strong Brother loves me through and through (and would even give me a hug, and may even get sensually aroused by it). My need to fantasize sexually will go away, as it did today and likely in the same way for the past 3 weeks.

And when the old habit loses its grip, I can easily move on towards sexual wholeness.... that is, get myself ready for some really hot sex with my wife! Ok, that might have been a little raw, but hey... I haven't exactly been mincing my words on this blog.

Intimacy and "Sexual/Sensual Arousal"

Brother and I were talking about feelings of intimacy that is accompanied with feelings of arousal in the genitals.

Brother gets what I would call "sexual arousal" when he is intimate with another person (regardless of gender). But he calls it "sensuality," this tingling in the loins. It may even be accompanied with a mild erection and the release of seminal fluid. But to Brother, it is not sexual. There is absolutely zero percent interest in following through his sensual feelings into sexual acts when it comes to men. He is straight. Yet, he gets aroused genitally (whether one calls it sexual or sensual) when he is close and intimate with another man.

I get those feelings with Brother. When I am about to meet him, when he tells me he loves me with those soft yet emotionally strong eyes, and when I think about how much I love him. The heart gets achy and warm, and the tingling in the loins follow, and when I checked the last time, I noticed that I had a spot in my underwear.

Yet what Brother is giving me is permission to feel my bodily responses and not regard them as sexual. In a way, I am being re-trained to focus on the emotional connection without having it be sexual. And I think that may be a big factor in the healing I am experiencing.

Male Intimacy and Sexual Arousal

In my previous post, I wrote about the category g0y. I criticized it from a Christian perspective. But thinking about the spectrum of sexuality (hetero to homo) helps me to understand better my own sexual arousal.

I had talked in an earlier post about the "tingling sensation in the loins" when I feel emotionally close to a male person (which I will now refer to as "male intimacy" and "sexual arousal"). Brother said he gets that sensation too, even with men. I didn't know how to think through this matter, but then reading about g0y helped.

In one of the explanations to what is g0y, the author used the Kinsey Scale to substantiate that many men can be sexually attracted to other men. And the author talked about befriending very straight men who like women, and how he slowly got these friends to become intimate, and ultimately to have sex (non-anal) with him.

Note: Very straight men, being sexually aroused through feelings of intimacy with another man.

According to the Kinsey Institute, "Kinsey estimated that nearly 46% of the male population had engaged in both heterosexual and homosexual activities, or 'reacted to' persons of both sexes, in the course of their adult lives (p. 656, Male). 11.6% of white males (ages 20-35) were given a rating of 3 (about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response) on the 7-point Kinsey Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale for this period of their lives (Table 147, p. 651, Male)." [source]

Some men can become sexually aroused when confronted with male intimacy or sexuality, even if they consider themselves straight (perhaps anywhere between 1-3 on the Kinsey Scale above). Those who can't are at 0. Perhaps Brother is at 1, and I was at 5, but through his non-sexual love for me, I am becoming more heterosexual. Having the full male intimacy with Brother in which I cannot act on my sexual arousal (I let it pass over) is creating in me a new experience of being able to be intimate with other men and not be overwhelmed by my sexual feelings for them.

Another straight brother (B) whom I am opening up to in a very vulnerable way said that when he feels emotionally intimate with another person, he gets a burning in his chest, but no tingling in his loins. Even with women, the closer he gets to them, the less it is about sex. How different! Maybe one day, I can become like brother B. When that happens, I will be healed, completely.

A New Category: g0ys

"g0ys." It's spelled with a "zero." Not gUy, no gAy, but g0y.

Basically, it covers a wider range of Kinsey's homo-to-heterosexual spectrum than "gAy" does: from man-to-man sexual behavior (anything except anal sex, which is seen as "gAy") to non-sexual intimate connecting between men. The common theme tying together the thread is men who desire to have intimate emotional connection with other men. The main site even argues that the Bible prohibits anal sex, not g0y sex, which can include mutual masturbation, etc.

Someone told me that many Christians seem to be falling for this. I think one of the reasons is because of the appeal of the intimate emotional connecting. Indeed, the idea of a g0y gains more legitimacy given that the definition includes heterosexual men. As one g0y put it: "There are many g0y men who identify as hetero and desire nothing more from g0ys than a good friend, a deep bond with another man, short of sexual involvement." (from the g0y Facebook)

The trouble with this category for Christians is that mutual penile stimulation between men is a sexual thing. No matter how you try to gloss over it or rationalize it with historical argumentation, when a guy rubs his penis on another guy and ejaculates, that is sex, whether or not there is anal penetration.

I'm not trying to be "better than g0ys" here. In fact, the category is extremely attractive. It allows me to retain my homosexual (or should I say, g0ysexual) desires, but align it with heterosexuality short of having anal sex. I can say that I have mutual orgasms with 2-3 guys every month, but I am not gay. I am g0y. I can have my masculinity and eat my homosexuality too (pardon the innuendo).

G0ydom is rationalization, and it's not Christian. If g0y sex is acceptable to the Bible, then my fantasizing about rubbing my penis against a woman's breasts should be acceptable too. In fact, it should also be the case that I can also have multiple intimate emotional friendships with women, not have penile-vaginal-anal intercourse (but everything else, including oral sex), and call it "just deep friendship."

I would love it if I could be g0y. I would love it if I could genuinely say that I can be emotionally connected with some male friends, and have mutual masturbation experiences, share laughter and tears, and then go back to our wives and families as more manly than ever. But the problem is, once I connect my emotional relationship with a man with my sexual feelings, it changes that relationship. It has become homosexual, whether or not it involves anal sex.

I wish I could say that God blesses g0ydom, but He doesn't.

What God is blesses is the one part of the g0y definition that gives it "legitimacy": intimate, emotional male-bonding that is non-sexual.

That is the kind of love I am receiving from Brother, and it is making all the difference in the world in how I see men. I am less attracted to men sexually because Brother loves me deeply, fully, with all of his heart (oh, I could explode from how much I love him!) and is very, very clear that it is not sexual.