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.

The Insanity Within

WTF!

The more I try to sort through my feelings, the more I get caught up in a loop.

I only know this: The same-sex attraction I used to feel is gone, and has been gone now for two whole weeks.

And this: I am scared to hell of what is happening to me.

Other that those two things, I don't know anything else. I don't know if Brother is changing; or if I should visit him; or if I am being too much for him; or if he really loves me; or if I am too much of an imposition; or if he is scared of me; blah blah blah.

Turn Brain On.

I'm going to walk away from my attachment to Brother. Let's see where this will take me. If the same-sex attraction comes back, well, I've lived with it for decades. Nothing new.

Come what may, I am Yours, Lord. I have always been.

- - -

One more thing: I have a hunger right now to go play basketball. I have never felt this before. Ever.

All This Change

All this change:

It has something to do with keeping my heart open when I look at guys, combined with a deep feeling of being loved and fully accepted by another man in a non-sexual way.

The homosexual feelings become secondary, fading into the background, disappearing completely.

It Is Manly To Care

I'll admit it. I watch Ugly Betty. I'll also admit that I wouldn't profess that publicly before because I was afraid someone would call me out as "gay" for liking that show.

Okay! Now that that's out of the way, I want to reflect about why the ending of Season 3, Episode 14 so moved me tonight.

Two subplots.

- - -

One.

Wilhelmina, the power-hungry co-editor-in-chief of Mode magazine, works hard to hold back from admitting to her powerful and handsome boyfriend Connor that she loves him in order to have the upper hand in the relationship. She warns Connor that she wants all of him, but she won't be second fiddle to his ex-fiance, and she never begs.

Later, realizing that Wilhelmina has actually fallen in love with Connor, Wilhelmina's assistant Marc tells her:

"Waiting for someone else to say 'I love you' first doesn't mean you're more powerful. It just means you're afraid."

- - -

Two.

Daniel Meade, the other co-editor-in-chief of Mode magazine, tries to get his assistant Betty to organize a lavish surprise party for Claire's (his mother) 60th birthday. Betty was hard-pressed to find anyone who could say something pleasant and non-embarrassing about Claire given her past alcoholic lifestyle. Claire begins to shoplift in some kind of psychopathic response to growing old and alone. When caught, she confesses to Betty that she knows about the surprise party.

Betty explains:
"Daniel just really wanted to do something special for you."

Claire replies:
"You know what I wish he'd do? I wish he'd give me just a little time alone with him."

- - -

At the end of the episode, proud and perfect Wilhelmina comes forward and vulnerably admits to Connor that she loves him, without knowing what his response would be. Connor turns around, briskly walks over to Wilhelmina while she is still talking, grabs her, and kisses her passionately. Then he replies with a gentle yet masculine whisper, "I love you, too."

In the meantime, Daniel tells his mother Claire that they need to stop by his office before heading to the "surprise" party. Claire protests that they will be late, but he insists. Suddenly, Claire's eyes widen and her jaw drops. "What's this?" she asks. Daniel says, "Surprise." Two well-dressed waiters draw open a set of ceiling-to-floor sheer curtains to reveal a beautifully-set private dinner arrangement for two. Claire breaks into tears. "Happy Birthday, mom," Daniel says, as he raises a glass of champagne to his mother.

- - -

I cried when I watched those two scenes one after the other. I'm not sure why I was so moved.

Was it because I could relate to Wilhelmina's fear of being vulnerable to love, giving in, and then being surprised to find it coming back in full?

Was it because I could identify with Claire for finally getting a bit of the love that she had been wanting so much from her son?

Or...

Was it because I was astounded that I had absolutely no desire to be kissed by the strong handsome Connor, and that his gentle yet masculine "I love you" did absolutely nothing for me personally? Or because I felt a deep sense of pride (as opposed to sexualized attraction) over Daniel for doing the right thing for his mother--the kind of pride a father would have for a son?

Connor and Daniel were two men in the show that I had strong sexual feelings for prior to my becoming open to the love that I am receiving from Brother. All of a sudden, I am discovering that I have absolutely no desire to fantasize about them sexually. In fact, the thought of them doing something sexual with me, even kissing, grosses me out a little. (I can imagine them stinking, like brothers.)

Could I have been so deeply moved because I am having a taste of heterosexuality... in ME?

I think I was deeply moved because I am finally experiencing what it means to be free emotionally. And this freedom is showing me that the pathway to manhood is not to hold back my gentle and caring nature, but to embrace it fully. Like crying at a cheesy-yet-touching ending of a chick-flick comedy like Ugly Betty.

My brother who bullied me all of my life had it wrong. I am not girlie because I care about people; I am manly because I care about people. I am more manly--and strong--when I am not afraid of being vulnerable with my emotions. As manly as my Brother is. As manly as Jesus is.