Why Do Gays Raise Their Eyebrow Too High?

Here's a thought-provoking observation by Bro. A on why gay men have this habit of raising their eyebrows.

One characteristic mark of gays is that they tend to raise their eyebrows so high whenever they feel something is off or calls for a little incredulity or sarcasm, raising their eyebrows often higher than women would. A possible explanation for this is that raising eyebrows atmospherically high is just typical, symbolic of the other manifestations of gays to have very high standards, raising the bar to the highest level possible because they are trying to prove something.

One can easily notice how gays consistently have a high-achiever streak. Name a field and they are often the leading lights, the best possible mentors, the standards of excellence, be it in the arts, literature, music, dance, cosmetology, etc., especially topping the fields that are typically female-dominated. Other observers may easily contend that this is a strong basis that gayness is genetic. They may be right in making the link, “gay = excellent/intelligent = genetic?” But what they fail to see is that the equation could be an oversimplification, and that there might be another possibility: it could be that gays are often excellent in any of their chosen endeavors because they are extra-driven for some reason.

If that is the case, the next question to ask is: why the freakish, preternatural drive to excel, reap recognitions, accumulate awards? Could it be that there is such a high desire for affirmation? Why is there such a strong desire? Is affirmation lacking in the first place? Why? What happened?

If one sees this other possibility, one is forced to dig deeper into the secret life of the gay man, particular his inner life and how it was formed growing up. Impartial, independent studies have shown that almost all homosexuals, if they were not sexually abused, grew up in dysfunctional homes characterized by a break in the any of the three crucial links that play a major role not just in the formation of a person’s gender identity but identity itself: mother-son, father-son, mother-father. Developmental psychologists say that any break in these links can possibly be a trauma for the child, especially when that child has a particularly sensitive nature.

These breaks in the childhood development, investigators have noted, explain why homosexuals, as they grow up into adults, exhibit “attachment loss” in various forms: lack of rapport with or lack of a warm and fond relationship with the father, antagonistic relationship with the mother, over-attachment with the mother (as though the son is a replacement boyfriend in cases where the mother has a difficult relationship with the father), or alienation from both parents.

What does this mean for the person with a homosexual problem? This only means deep insecurity resulting in an insecure identity and, by extension, insecure gender identity due to the failure to bond with the father figure. This profound insecurity with the self bears equally profound complications: the person fails to grasp the basic fact that anyone born in this world is whole and complete and has the right to live. Failure to understand this basic concept of self results in the inability to understand that one is loved as he is. And this is where that drive, that compulsion, to succeed and prove oneself comes from.

The insecure homosexual person, having grown up with what he perceived as “unmet needs” of affirmation, will try to live the rest of his life trying to compensate for that perceived lack. He will not only hate himself if he perceives failure, he will hate or despise others who equally don't measure up to the high standards he has set; he will also envy others he perceives to be superior to him. A history of sex abuse compounds the problem as the homosexual person ends up eroticizing his "unmet need" particularly for male affirmation. This wrong understanding born of wrong presumptions leads to this catastrophe: He will live perpetually trying to complete himself, compensating for the perceived incompleteness in various ways, and constantly hunting for other men he is “magnetically attracted” to (to quote a psychologist) as though they were missing parts of himself. His life will be a life of trying to buy love, having mistaken love as something that should be bought or earned. His life will be a life of constantly trying to prove oneself, and his conception of love is one of quid pro quo (“give me this, I’ll buy you that”).

Everything he does, therefore, is tainted by this drive to prove oneself because his one great fear is the loss or death of self: the feeling that he is a failure, that he is worthless if he is unable to prove his worth.

The apparent result of this drive can only be excellence and consequently public adulation, affirmation of excellence in the form of awards, medals, achievement, success, recognition. The paradox, however, is that the person, whose identity by now he may have erroneously accepted fully as being a “gay guy,” will never be happy, satisfied, or fulfilled because, at the end of the day, he is still merely trying to buy love.

The ensuing tragedy is absurd because:

1) The assumption that he must DO something in order to be loved is, after all, false; he is unable to see that all he needs to do to be loved or to earn the right to live and be loved is just BE who he is;

2) His basic assumptions about his mother and father are more often than not mere distortions, in the form of exaggerations, omissions of crucial details, colored interpretations of the past, biased views;

3) He does not realize that, in the end, he had a direct hand in creating the problem, starting with his self-identity; he is unaware that, at the end of the day, he is the one who has set the bar so high, not his parents or anyone else; he is unaware that, after all is said and done, his problem is self-inflicted. The homosexual is almost always bound to experience depression because of this self-imposed standard. When he fails, he is bound to perceive himself as a failure instead of differentiating it from the distinction of a whole and complete person who merely happened to have failed in something. But even when he gets the job done with flying colors, he is still bound to get depressed, for the simple reason that he will not feel loved for who he is but for what he has done; he will always feel more like a “human doing instead of a human being,” to quote a brilliant quip.

4) He may have been a victim of trauma and “abuse” as a child, but the “homosexual person” is unable to get over it because he fails to see that he is no longer that boy – he is all grown up and changed.

5) The person who has identified himself as a homosexual or a gay man is neither that at his core; he is in fact still biologically, physiologically male and will remain so as long as he possesses the X and Y chromosomes; only his emotions have been fouled up, thanks to a harmful family dynamics and his own confused reactions to it.

This complicated life is even made more complex by the fact that the so-called “homosexual person” is bound to extend this view of parents, family, life, society/the world to his spirituality, particularly his relationship with God as Father. He will, again wrongly, make the most tragic equation of God = my father, mother, the world. In case the boy grows up in a Christian household, this can only result in the inability to understand the basic concept of unconditional love. Living his life all along as a series of conditions, a series of impossible standards that he aims to reach, he will be unable to grasp the idea that he is loved for who he is, that like a newborn child, he is loved first, that he is already lovable even when he has not done anything yet to prove his worth.

Only when he can figure out these distinctions for himself will the “gay guy” be able to liberate himself from the prison of gay/homosexual thinking, a large part of which is self-imposed and yet he doesn’t even know it.

So why are gays raising their eyebrows sky-high? It appears that it is because they have such a very high standard they are trying to reach, even when they know that perfection in this fallen world is an utter impossibility. Worse, they hold everyone accountable to such a high standard they have imposed on themselves, wrongly thinking that’s how the cookie crumbles, that’s how the world is made round. Little do they know that they have been victimized as children, but the rest of it was their own doing all along. They don't know that they are no longer the children they once were because the past is long gone.

The key to healing “homosexual brokenness” therefore lies in four crucial steps:

a) Being made aware of the wrong interpretations of the past,

b) Forgiving one’s parents -- and by extension, others -- by recognizing the logic of their behavior,

c) Letting go of the high standards one has unknowingly set for oneself (it is one thing to want to excel because one wants to excel versus to want to excel in order to beg for love), and making peace with other people’s giftedness (after all, one has no right to question God’s plan for people; besides, everyone is wanted by God and is unique and irreplaceable to Him)

d) Forgiving oneself for committing the terrible mistakes of childhood and embracing oneself wholly, including all the strengths and weaknesses, recognizing that it is okay to be imperfect; after all, everyone is and nobody cares if one is not perfect.

Understanding Shame

Notes taken from our Lenten Recollection earlier this month on healing our shame.

Understanding Shame: Reflections from Falling Forward by Craig Lockwood


Shame, which has to do with man's separation from himself, gives rise to man's problems with intimacy. The core characteristic of shame is the disowning of self, which demands to be covered up. Shame calls for secrecy and darkness. One who experiences shame has an adversarial relationship with himself. He separates from himself to survive because the true and wounded self is felt to be too bad and unacceptable. It is, therefore, disowned and pushed away into darkness. Shame, in essence, self-hatred.

It is enough to say here that shame enters the heart early in the developmental stages of a child's life, frequently because of abandonment, abuse, and shaming actions of parents. The child bears the charged emotional milieu of the family home. Perhaps Mom or Dad used to rage out of control, used guilt to modify behavior, expressed direct doubt or condemnation towards the child, or perpetuated direct sexual, verbal, or physical abuse. Just as often, the shaming process happened indirectly as parents, in denial of their shame, imparted strong feelings of fear, anger, grief, or anxiety. When these feelings were not explained, the child had no choice but to internalize and carry them. This, the child subtly began to take in these feelings and store them as his own.

Dysfunctional parents use denial to avoid their own feelings of shame. To successfully avoid their own sense of "badness", they must act as if they are perfect or "shameless", by projecting their inner reality onto situations outside of themselves. In this projection, the child becomes the source of bad feelings and is blamed for the feeling state of the parent. The nonverbal message to the child amounts to, "If you would just stop doing whatever you are doing, I would not be so out of control." Even though this message is not given directly, the child must conclude that he is the problem. He must come to this conclusion because his parents are not helping him decode the situation by owning their own feelings. Slowly, a core identity of worthlessness is built and reinforced within the child. He begins to believe that if he could just get better, Mom or Dad wouldn't be so upset. So he tries harder (perfectionism) or develops some other survival strategy to make his pain go away.

At some point, the shamed self becomes too painful to live with and the false self begins to form and harden into place. This false self has many faces: the addict, the perfectionist, the dominant and controlling one, the worm, the shy one, the clown, the scapegoat. All of them are cover-ups for shame. Most shame develops in the early stages of a child's personality formation. Because of this, the split-off self is the child-like part of the person. Often a person with shame will experience an inability to attach to others, or to experience intimacy with others in relationship. The place in his heart that should be able to trust other and be vulnerable in relationships has been hated and sequestered away.

For the addict, changing and becoming like a child must be preceded by reconnecting with the part of him or her that can be child-like. He or she must integrate with that split-off part. Healing shame is accomplished through loving the child-like part of oneself, accepting its weaknesses and wounds, and reintegrating with it into the personality. The addict must welcome this child part with the help of Jesus. This reconciliation is a process that starts with discovering and experiencing negative emotions towards self first, then tracing them to the deeper attitudes and beliefs that embody self-hatred. Next comes confession to the Lord, repentance of sinful attitudes towards self, and sometimes, the building of relationship with the lost part, leading to healing.

Healing shame is almost always accompanied by healing of traumatic memories (from which issue diseased attitudes), and forgiveness of perpetrators - usually parents. Through this process, the faulty belief system is healed. What things are hidden from those who cannot access the childlike parts of themselves - the fact that their name is written in heaven. Jesus refers to a man's adoption into the family of God - the experiential knowledge that he is loved by the Father. Jesus reveals the Father through the part of man that holds the child-like qualities. It is through this part of him that the addict can receive the love of the Father's adoption. Receiving God's love in the depths of his heart can displace the lies fostered by years of shame-based parenting, or by significant events of abuse. The Father's love dismantles the driving power of trying to avoid the feelings of shame. Our call is to press into His love, by embracing the healing process, and letting Jesus walk with us into our most wounded places. As shame is healed, addiction withers and is replaced by inner peace, love and the ability to risk and connect in friendships.

Shame and Sexual Addiction

Notes from our teaching last month c/o Bro. C. This teaching was taken from Falling Forward: The Pursuit of Sexual Purity by Craig Lockwood.


Signs of Brokenness

1. Do you fear something about yourself that will be revealed to others?
2. Do you remember situations in life where you suddenly feel a sudden rush of strong emotions (anger, sadness)?
3. Do you hold on to something or someone in your past?

* Addicts do not want to feel pain by involving self with sex, etc.

Origin of Sexual & Relational Brokenness

1. Parents resort to abuse when they feel overwhelmed by the child's behavior.
2. Sexual abuse relies on boundaries.
3. Physical abuse relies on pain.
4. Verbal abuse relies on SHAME.

SHAME: What is it?

1. Tendency for us to hide ourselves.
2. Common among many cultures.
3. Least exposure but most impacting on life.
4. Designed to curtail negative behavior.

Shame Categories

1. Put-down.
2. Moralizing.
3. Age-based expectations.
4. Gender-based expectations.
5. Competency-based expectations.
6. Comparison.

Effects of Shame

1. Punctures one's self-esteem.
2. May prevent person from life-giving relationships and keep self from interacting with others because there is a part of him that he is ashamed of.
3. Prevents us from fully experiencing ourselves in social gatherings
4. Inhibits all emotions except anger.

There is no emotional expression for shame.

Four Stages of Addiction

1. Preoccupation
- thoughts become focused on his behavior of choice.
- sexualized mental obsessions

2. Ritualization
- Rituals are regularly followed methods of preparing for sexual activity to take place, the beginning of sin.

3. Sexual Compulsivity
- inability to control particular sexual activity.
- the starkest reminder of degradation in addiction, terrible slavery, will paralyzed, no turning back.

4. Resolution
- despair upon falling again, thinking of getting help or hides secret life.

* The addictive cycle produces its own pain which will continue to multiply until external intervention takes place. The more you delay going back to God and seeking help, the more you will fall.

* Going through the addictive cycle produces NEW SHAME.

* We must realize we cannot control our addiction, we need God and Church.

Keys to Recovery from Same-Sex Attraction

[Note: While we are confident that the following list is accurate, we are aware that it can be overwhelming. It would be like handing a newborn baby a list of all the things he will have to learn in the next five years: everything from learning to turn over, learning to walk, becoming potty-trained, learning to talk, discovering he’s not a part of his mommy, learning how to obey, getting ready to read, going to school. . . like we said, overwhelming! This is the “big picture” of how to walk out the goal of recovery. Allow us to encourage you to continually ask the Lord, “What one thing do You want me to do next?” and then do it.]


1. Accept that it’s not going to be easy. Change that challenges our known comfort zone is difficult and painful. You are changing not just one isolated habit, but a collection of thoughts and behaviors that have made up your relational pattern for a lifetime. An important component of recovery is changing the wrong belief about your identity, that “this is me.” This will take an incredible amount of effort, but you don’t have to do it in your own strength: the same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to you. If you are to succeed, you must aggressively engage your will, making deliberate choices to honor God, be self-disciplined, and work with God to form new, healthy habits of relating. Your will is like a steering wheel of a car or the rudder on a ship; you decide the direction in which you’ll go. Use the free will God gave you to choose His directions, and He’ll honor those choices.

2. Pursue the right motivation. Making your family happy won’t do it; saving your marriage won’t do it; not hurting anymore won’t do it. The only motivation adequate to see you through recovery from same-sex attraction (SSA) is complete abandonment to that aching need to live continually in an incredibly intimate one-on-one relationship—-with God Himself. That strong and tender relationship with Him—knowing Him and being wholly known by Him without anything coming between the two of you—is the pure and primary relationship you were created for. It’s why you crave deep relationships so badly, and it’s worth every obedient step of pursuit, no matter how painful or difficult that pursuit may become.

3. Accept that you must make sacrifices to be free and healthy. Recovery and healing always involve “crucifying the flesh (Gal. 5:24),” giving up things that are dear to you but which serve to prop open doors to spiritual bondage and repeated failures. God may ask you to give up friends, social contacts, your career, hobbies, dreams, and desires. There is suffering and sacrifice to get to the joy of holiness and purity, but God lavishes grace on His children when we obey. Whatever you surrender, He will provide an even better replacement—according to God’s definition of “better.”

4. Let go of the lie that you’re different from other people, and no one really understands. The key to recovering from same-sex attraction is radical discipleship, the call that all Christians have in common. Jesus’ call to “follow Me” is the same for you as it is for every other believer. It is a lie that “no one really understands” because Jesus Christ fully understands everything about you. When scripture tells us about His compassion, it means He enters into our experiences and feels what we feel.

5. Trust and obey. There are no shortcuts to these two commands. Homosexual and lesbian lifestyles are built around trusting oneself or depending completely on someone else, not the kind of abandonment to God’s heart and intentions for us that characterize trust. In the context of trusting God, obedience to His commands and His individual leading are absolutely essential. People who have been abused or traumatized by authority figures, which includes many who struggle with same-sex attractions, often have misperceptions about God. Before you can trust Him, you need to find out who He really is, that He is good, and loving, and safe. Asking God’s help to see Him accurately is your first step to learning to trust Him.

6. Commit to sexual purity. This means trusting God for the strength to abstain from physically acting out, engaging in sexual fantasy, pornography and masturbation. Many people who want freedom from homosexuality are also addicted to sex and/or masturbation. As with any other addiction, there are withdrawal pains. Let the misery of not medicating yourself with sexual sin drive you to God instead of your past destructive behaviors. As long as you are making compromises, you can’t hear from God clearly.

7. Accept that you will need to separate yourself from the “stuff” of your connection to the gay lifestyle. Every picture, every memento, everything that connects you to your past is a propped-open door to the bondage of emotional and sexual sin. Recovery means jettisoning everything that triggers you or encourages feelings of longing for what you are no longer a part of.

8. Accept the reality that emotionally healthy life can feel boring—in the beginning. After the drama and excitement of the gay lifestyle, making responsible, God-honoring choices feels black and white in comparison to a color life. This is a lie; it takes a while to discover that healthy living is actually richer and more satisfying than a life that indulges the flesh.

9. Get plugged into a church. Worship with other believers and get involved in a small group such as a Bible study or Sunday School class. It is essential to give back to the Lord in service. You don’t have to experience any level of healing or recovery to help set up chairs! Developing healthy same-sex relationships is key to recovery, and the church is the best place to do that.

10. Develop self-discipline. Do something every day you don’t want to do. The homosexual/lesbian emotional mindset is very self-centered and self-indulgent; recovery means learning to be Christ-centered and self-denying.

11. Remember when you stumble that a fall is not the same as a wholesale return to your old life. There is a difference between a single event and an ongoing habit. When babies learn to walk, they fall down. It’s part of learning to walk. Give yourself grace; God does.

12. Have an accountability partner. You need someone who will ask you specific questions about specific problem areas, on a regular (weekly) basis and to whom you will answer openly and honestly. In addition to your accountability partner, you should have at least three people who know of your struggle. They should be willing to receive a call from you at any time should you feel tempted, discouraged, or overwhelmed. We often refer to these people as your “lifeline” or “fire drill folks” because they are there to talk you out of tough situations. You will need three because not everyone is available all the time. If the first one doesn’t answer, call the next until you reach someone.

13. Develop realistic expectations about recovery. You didn’t get here overnight, and there won’t be any overnight recoveries. God’s timetable is usually a lot longer than what we would prefer! His healing involves going to the root causes of issues of same-gender attraction, not dealing with the symptoms. Because He is more thorough, His healing will also be more complete and lasting. It’s worth the patience and perseverance on your part. Unrealistic prayers such as “God, please make me straight right this instant” and “Take away my desires by tomorrow morning” don’t accomplish anything.

14. Seek out a Christian therapist who has a redemptive perspective of homosexuality. An important component to recovering from same-sex attraction is individual counseling. The counselor must have a biblical understanding that homosexuality is changeable through the power of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 6:11). Living Hope has a list of people in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area we can refer you to. Outside of the DFW area, contact Exodus International (www.exodus-international.org).

15. Avoid being in conversations or locations where you are connecting with just one other person. As you seek to develop healthy same gender relationships it is best to develop these relationships in groups. One on one, exclusive relationships will only lead to emotional dependency. (Emotional dependency is a form of relational idolatry where one person feels a desperate “I-can’t-live-without-you” kind of connection with another.) When you meet for accountability with an accountability partner, it should be done in a public place (i.e. restaurant, Starbucks, etc.)

16. Stop relying on your feelings. Our emotions are largely set up and triggered by our experiences. They aren’t reliable indicators of what is true or even real, and they often skew our perspectives, especially if we’ve suffered emotional trauma by having been wronged physically/emotionally or even emotionally neglected. Relying on your feelings to interpret reality—especially relational reality—and guide you is downright dangerous. God’s Word holds the true perspective. Bounce your perspectives and feelings off of a counselor or accountability partner(s), too.

17. Remember the three “power keys” to recovery. Exodus International has found that there are three elements to the most effective recovery from same-sex attraction: first, be plugged into a good, Bible-believing church. This means both receiving the teaching and being a part of the community. Second, get professional counseling. Third, have a support system consisting of both people who do not struggle with homosexual feelings, and those who do. If you don’t have a real-life support group comprised of other strugglers, Living Hope’s online forums are a good place to find it. (www.livehope.org)

Reiterating our first point, please remember that nothing worthwhile is achieved without sacrifice and hard work. On average, we find that if you work at this diligently, you can expect the process to take about five years. This does not mean that you will not experience freedom sooner than that, but generally, real orientation shift usually takes significant time. The important thing to remember is that all change happens one day at a time. (The goal is not orientation shift from homosexual to heterosexual—although that does happen in many people as a result of healing and growth—but a shift from same-sex feelings and desires controlling your life, to becoming minor annoyances that you habitually submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ.)

The Lord bless you and keep you as you pursue Him, healing, and wholeness!


(Source: Living Hope Ministries)

Henri Nouwen on Forgiveness

Some Nouwenian quotes on forgiveness from the e-book Bread for the Journey. Thanks to a blogger friend who sent it to me. These posts are so timely for me. Today, we discovered that our water meter was cut off and stolen. Maybe the thief could sell it for a few hundred bucks. That means no water for us until the Maynilad repairmen install a new water meter. I know that times are hard, but it does not justify stealing your neighbor's property. This is where forgiving becomes challenging for me because I do not really know who to forgive in the first place! I just pray that the thief would later realize the wrong he has done and for heaven's sake OWN UP to his misdeed and repent.

Forgiveness, the Cement of Community Life

Community is not possible without the willingness to forgive one another “seventy-seven times” (see Matthew 18:22). Forgiveness is the cement of community life. Forgiveness holds us together through good and bad times, and it allows us to grow in mutual love.

But what is there to forgive or to ask forgiveness for? As people who have hearts that long for perfect love, we have to forgive one another for not being able to give or receive that perfect love in our everyday lives. Our many needs constantly interfere with our desire to be there for the other unconditionally. Our love is always limited by spoken or unspoken conditions. What needs to be forgiven? We need to forgive one another for not being God!

-oOo-

Receiving Forgiveness

There are two sides to forgiveness: giving and receiving. Although at first sight giving seems to be harder, it often appears that we are not able to offer forgiveness to others because we have not been able fully to receive it. Only as people who have accepted forgiveness can we find the inner freedom to give it. Why is receiving forgiveness so difficult? It is very hard to say, “Without your forgiveness I am still bound to what happened between us. Only you can set me free.” That requires not only a confession that we have hurt somebody but also the humility to acknowledge our dependency on others. Only when we can receive forgiveness can we give it.

-oOo-

Forgiveness, the Way to Freedom

To forgive another person from the heart is an act of liberation. We set that person free from the negative bonds that exist between us. We say, “I no longer hold your offense against you.” But there is more. We also free ourselves from the burden of being the “offended one.” As long as we do not forgive those who have wounded us, we carry them with us or, worse, pull them as a heavy load. The great temptation is to cling in anger to our enemies and then define ourselves as being offended and wounded by them. Forgiveness, therefore, liberates not only the other but also ourselves. It is the way to the freedom of the children of God.

-oOo-

Healing Our Hearts Through Forgiveness

How can we forgive those who do not want to be forgiven? Our deepest desire is that the forgiveness we offer will be received. This mutuality between giving and receiving is what creates peace and harmony. But if our condition for giving forgiveness is that it will be received, we seldom will forgive! Forgiving the other is first and foremost an inner movement.

It is an act that removes anger, bitterness, and the desire for revenge from our hearts and helps us to reclaim our human dignity. We cannot force those we want to forgive into accepting our forgiveness. They might not be able or willing to do so. They may not even know or feel that they have wounded us. The only people we can really change are ourselves. Forgiving
others is first and foremost healing our own hearts.

-oOo-

Forgiving in the Name of God

We are all wounded people. Who wounds us? Often those whom we love and those who love us. When we feel rejected, abandoned, abused, manipulated, or violated, it is mostly by people very close to us: our parents, our friends, our spouses, our lovers, our children, our neighbors, our teachers, our pastors. Those who love us wound us too. That’s the tragedy of our lives. This is what makes forgiveness from the heart so difficult. It is precisely our hearts that are wounded.

We cry out, “You, who I expected to be there for me, you have abandoned me. How can I ever forgive you for that?” Forgiveness often seems impossible, but nothing is impossible for God. The God who lives within us will give us the grace to go beyond our wounded selves and say, “In the Name of God you are forgiven.” Let’s pray for that grace.

-oOo-

Healing Our Memories

Forgiving does not mean forgetting. When we forgive a person, the memory of the wound might stay with us for a long time, even throughout our lives. Sometimes we carry the memory in our bodies as a visible sign. But forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. When we forgive our parents for their divorce, our children for their lack of attention, our friends for their unfaithfulness in crisis, our doctors for their ill advice, we no longer have to experience ourselves as the victims of events we had no control over.

Forgiveness allows us to claim our own power and not let these events destroy us; it enables them to become events that deepen the wisdom of our hearts. Forgiveness indeed heals memories.

A Realistic Approach to Attractions

This is an article by one of my all-time favorite writers on SSA, Alan Medinger.


It took me 22 years, but I was finally able to come up with a definition of homosexuality that I believe is both succinct and irrefutable. Here it is:

Homosexuality is the condition wherein a person's primary or exclusive sexual and/or romantic attractions are to people of the same sex rather than to people of the opposite sex.

Simple definitions are often the most difficult to come up with, and such was the case here. When we think of homosexuality we think of gender identity confusion, emotional dependency, sexual addiction, and on and on. But these things are not homosexuality. They are present in other people and they are not present in all same-sex attracted people. They are problems that are common to many same-sex attracted people, but they are not homosexuality.

Attractions are what homosexuality is all about and they are the problem. So we can say with some accuracy that if you change your attractions, the homosexual problem is gone. Attractions are the fundamental issue.

This is going to be a "fundamental" article, Homosexuality 101 so to speak. We are going to go to the heart of homosexuality by looking at attractions, and in so doing I hope to offer some valuable clues as to how you can deal with attractions in ways that foster the freedom for which you long.

An absolute foundational truth about attractions is that being attracted is not a sin, and we need to recognize this truth constantly. The attraction itself is not a sin even when it is perverted or towards a sinful end. Over the years I have seen so many people struggle with getting this truth to sink into their hearts. One example illustrates this perfectly. One summer evening, Harry left a counseling session to go get a bite to eat before coming to a Regeneration meeting. He was tremendously excited as he left the counselor's office, feeling that in prayer with his counselor, he had come to a great breakthrough. Then right outside the counselor's office he spotted a man jogging—an extremely muscular man with no shirt, just jogging shorts. Feelings of desire came rushing through Harry, and he went from elation to despair. Looking at this man had ruined everything.

When he arrived at the meeting, he shared these events with the support group. We told Harry that his attraction to the man in no way nullified what the Lord had done in the counseling session, that it was not reasonable to expect attractions to disappear instantly, and that since he didn't carry the attractions to lust and fantasy as he normally would have done, he had experienced a victory. Our words helped, but still didn't take away all of his disappointment with himself.

Okay, if attractions are not a sin, why are we so concerned with them? There are three very good reasons to be concerned with attractions. First, attractions can lead to sin. James writes, "But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full grown brings forth death" (James 1:14-15). Many of us know from years of hard experience that our ventures into sin usually started with attractions to some person or some image.

Second, attractions bring forth a painful longing. I am not talking about just sexual desires here, but rather the deeper longings for touch, affirmation, and intimacy that cry to be met. When these longings are rooted in major deprivations from childhood, they can bring significant pain to an individual when he or she comes into the presence of a certain type of person. In addition, the Christian who tries to obey God by not easing the pain through lust or wrongful relationships actually prolongs the pain.

Third, the attractions keep you from living the life you and God want you to live. With homosexuality this is obvious. Being married and having children is part of God's plan for most of us, and most homosexual overcomers want this for themselves. But constantly feeling sexually and/or romantically attracted to people of the same sex blocks this. With each attraction to a same-sex person, you might feel like your life is going nowhere. If your same-sex attractions would diminish, you would be able to move more freely towards developing opposite-sex attractions, and you would be able to get on with life.

By and large we cannot do anything directly to make attractions go away. This is a hard truth that we each need to face. Attractions just are, and our decision to change them, or even our offering them to God, usually has little direct effect. We feel powerless over them, and this can lead to feelings of hopelessness, and even despair. Maybe when we were teenagers we thought we might outgrow our attractions. But we think so no longer. Years have proven how tenacious they are, and as the years pass they seem to become even more a part of us.

Their power and apparent permanency lies in the fact that they have hold of us in the three areas of our being. Our attractions have formed in our bodies, our souls and our spirits.

1. Our bodies: We are creatures of habit. Years and years of stimulus response activity have most likely burned paths into your automatic response system. You see a certain type of person, and certain responses-leading up to sexual desire-start to take place automatically.

2. Our souls (our hearts, emotions, and psychological make-up): Within our souls are great empty spaces longing to be filled. When a certain type of person comes along, a voice inside immediately seems to cry out, "Maybe, finally, this is the person who can fill that awful empty place inside of me."

3. Our spirits: Sin has its hold; not just the sins of lust and sexual immorality, but sins of idolatry (i.e. "She can be everything to me."), covetousness (i.e. "I want to possess that person's manhood."), and rebellion (i.e. "I know what God says, but I must meet this need."). Frequently, demonic forces also play a role in a person who has engaged in sinful sexual relationships.

Okay, attractions are tremendously powerful, they are deeply rooted in us, and we can't do anything about them directly. What then can we do?

The first thing I want to suggest is that we accept them. I don't mean accept them as acceptable; I mean accept them as reality. You can't wish them away. You probably can't even pray them away. Your healing doesn't start when you get rid of your attractions. Rather, being attracted is the starting place for your journey into healing. Don't fret. Don't feel sorry for yourself. Attraction to the wrong things is what temptation is, and temptation is a central factor of the Christian life. "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man" (1 Cor. 10:13).

So accept the reality of your attractions, and then start on the indirect process that will lead to their change. This can be done by dealing with those same three factors that make attractions so powerful:

1. Break the habit. Your problem is not that you find all men, all women, or certain types of men or women attractive. If they truly reflect the handiwork of the Creator, then it would be silly, even wrong, not to recognize their genuine beauty. The problem is not that you recognize the beauty of the person; the problem is what you want to do with that person-what is triggered in you-when you behold his or her beauty. By years of repeatedly responding to beauty with acting out sexually, you have set up stimulus response patterns in your brain such as: see a muscular man > long for him to protect me > have sex; or meet a confident woman > long for her to nurture me > have sex.

Breaking these links breaks the habit, and this is best done by substitution. Don't deny the beauty of the person, but train yourself to respond with something else. Usually for Christians this will be something God-centered. See an attractive man or woman and start praising God, repeat certain Scripture verses over and over again, or silently pray for that person. Another form of substitution would be to let the attractive person be a cue for you to immediately look around for someone of the opposite sex or simply someone who is not your type, and start searching for the beauty in that person. It is always there to be found.

Doing away with all lust might be too much right now, but breaking the linking habit is possible for most.

2. Identify the real needs behind the attraction and seek to meet them in legitimate ways. How many times I have heard a man, even the most promiscuous man, say, "It wasn’t the sex I was after; it was just someone to hold me." Find out why you have such a craving to be held, or to be affirmed, or to obtain your worth or security from someone else. Seek the healing of the wound, and find ways of meeting the need that are constructive rather than destructive. This is one of the primary purposes of our ministries, so it is too broad a subject to get into in detail here, but let me make one practical suggestion for immediate application. Figure out for yourself how sexual contact with another person will not meet this need, and then develop the habit of reminding yourself of this when you encounter a person who is sexually attractive to you. "I would love to be in that woman's arms. It would feel so good, but I know that she can't possibly fill that hurting place inside of me. Only God can."

3. Seek out the deeper sins and repent of them. I am convinced that the most powerful means we have of bringing about deep change in ourselves is repentance and confession. This is how the old man dies so that the new man can live. Behind almost every unnatural sexual attraction dwells a sin or sins that are not sexual in and of themselves. I have written of this many times. Sins that are common to homosexual strugglers are idolatry (worshipping the creature more than the Creator), envy (wanting to possess that person or a part of him), ungratefulness (not thanking God for what He has given you), not trusting God (believing that you must meet your own needs), and the list could go on and on.

For some, the way to discover the deeper sin may involve Christian counseling. For everyone, it involves living the normal Christian life of prayer, Scripture reading, worship, service and Christian fellowship.

At the beginning of this article, I wrote that if you change your homosexual attractions, the problem will be gone. What I hope you can see now is that the change I am talking about is the change that breaks the link between seeing an attractive person and feeling sexual feelings.

Your goal is not to stop finding other men or other women attractive. That a person is physically attractive may be an objective truth. That a person might make a wonderful friend might also be true. But your goal is to no longer translate your feelings of attraction into sexual or romantic desire.

What I have suggested can help accomplish this. You can consciously seek to break the "linkage habit." Through constantly reminding yourself that sex won't meet your deepest needs, coupled with finding legitimate ways to meet those needs, you can desexualize the needs. Finally, through the normal Christian life, you will clear away the obstacles of sin and brokenness that block your way towards healthy and natural relationships with men and women.

Because I spent more than half of my life feeding same-sex attractions, I may never be able to look at other men the way most men do. I may carry with me a heightened appreciation for manly beauty or strength. But the attraction no longer translates into sexual desire or feelings. This was a major part of my healing. It can be of yours also.

Homosexuality: An Overview

This is an excerpt from the book The Battle for Normality: A Guide for Self-Therapy for Homosexuality by Dr. Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg (pp. 21-24).

Not Normal

It is obvious that the vast majority of people still think homosexuality - being sexually attracted to members of one's own sex, along with an at least substantial reduction of heterosexual interests - is abnormal. I use the word "still", for this is a fact in spite of a prolonged bombardment of normality propaganda by the ignorant and slavishly trendy social and political ideologists who rule the media, politics, and a great part of the academic world. If the social elite of this time have lost their common sense, not so the great mass of people, who perhaps can be forced to accept social measures coming from the "equal rights" ideology of homosexuality emancipators, but not to change the simple observation that something must be wrong with people who, although physiologically men and women, do not feel attracted to the obviously natural objects of the propagation-directed sex instinct.

To the bewildered question of many on why it is possible that "educated people" could believe that homosexuality is normal, perhaps the best answer is George Orwell's saying that there are things "so foolish that only intellectuals could believe them". The phenomenon is not new: many a noted scientist began "believing" the "correct" racist ideology in the Germany of the thirties. For many the herd-instinct, a weakness of character, and an anxiety "to belong" make them sacrifice their independent judgment.

If someone is starving while his feelings fearfully reject the object of the hunger drive, food, we know the person suffers from a disturbance (anorexia nervosa). If someone cannot feel compassion at the sight of those suffering, or worse, even enjoys their suffering, yet becomes sentimental at the sight of an abandoned kitten, we recognize an emotional disturbance (psychopathy). And so on. However, if an adult lacks the capacity for erotic arousal by the opposite sex, while he obsessively chases same-sex partners, this failure of the sexual instinct is considered "healthy". Would then pedophilia likewise be normal (as pedophilia advocates already say)? Exhibitionism? Gerontophilia (being attracted to elderly people in the absence of normal heterosexuality)? Fetishism (a woman's shoe causes sexual excitement, the body of the woman indifference)? Voyeurism? I will skip over other, more bizarre and, fortunately, more rare deviations.

Militant homosexuals try to force on the public the idea that they are normal by playing the role of victim of discrimination, thus appealing to the sentiments of compassion and justice and to the instinct of protection of the weak, instead of convincing by way of argument and rational proof. This in itself shows that they are aware of the logical weakness of their position. Their vehement emotionality is an attempt to overcompensate for their want of rational grounds. With people of this mind-set, matter-of-fact discussion is nearly impossible, for they refuse to consider any view that does not fully endorse their normality dogma. But do they, deep down, really believe it themselves?

Such militants may succeed well in transferring their view of themselves as martyrs to others - their mothers, for instance. In a German town I met a group of parents of avowed homosexuals, who had united to fight for their sons' "rights". They were not less indignant and overemotional in their irrational argumentation than their sons themselves. Some mothers behaved as if their favorite baby's life was endangered if one merely contended that homosexuality is a neurotic condition.

The Role of Self-Labeling

This brings us to the psychologically dangerous decision to identify oneself as a different species of man: "I am a homosexual." As if the essence of that existence were different from that of heterosexuals. It may give a sense of relief after a period of struggle and worry, but at the same time it is defeatist. The self-identified homosexual takes on the role of the definitive outsider. It is, in fact, a tragic role. Quite different from a sober and realistic self-appraisal: I have these fantasies and feelings, still I resist taking on the role and identity of "homosexual".

That role brings certain rewards, to be sure. It makes one feel at home among fellow homosexuals. It temporarily takes away the tension of having to fight homosexual impulses, and yields the emotional gratifications of feeling unique and tragic - however unconscious that may be - and, of course, of having sexual adventures. Recalling her discovery of the lesbian subculture, an ex-lesbian writes about the "sense of belonging" it gave her: "As though I had come home. I had found my true peer group [recall the homosexual's childhood drama of feeling the outsider]. Looking back now, I see how needy we all were - a group of misfits who had finally found a niche in life" (Howard 1991, 117). The coin has another side, however. Real happiness, let alone inner peace, is never found that way. Restlessness will increase, as will the feeling of an inner void. Conscience will send out its disquieting and persistent signals. For it is a false "self" the unhappy person has identified with. The door to the homosexual "way of life" has opened. Initially, it is a seducing dream; in time it turns out to be a terrible illusion. "Being a homosexual" means leading an unreal life, ever farther away from one's real person.

"Self-labeling" is greatly stimulated by the propaganda that repeats that many people simply "are" homosexual. But homosexual interests are often, perhaps usually, not constant. There are highs and lows; periods when the person has more or less heterosexual feelings may alternate with fits of homosexuality. Certainly, many youngsters and young adults who did not cultivate the self-image of "being homosexual" have thereby prevented themselves from developing a full-fledged homosexual orientation. Self-labeling, on the other hand, reinforces the homosexual side, especially when it is only in its beginnings, and starves the heterosexual component. It is important to recognize that about half of homosexual men can be regarded as bisexuals and the proportion among women is even larger.

On Emotional Dependency

For men who experience same-sex attraction, their desire is often visually cued. Men can be tempted by same-sex desires by simply looking at the body of another man. Men who act out on their same-sex attraction often do so in anonymous encounters devoid of emotional connection. This is not unlike men who have never struggled with homosexuality. Men, by nature, are more visual and act-oriented when it comes to expressing their sexuality.

Women who experience same-sex attraction, on the other hand, often fall into lesbianism within the context of a relationship. These relationships can sometimes emulate a mother-daughter relationship where one woman is the care-giver to another woman. Often, lesbians are drawn to take care of needy women. They were programmed to do this with their mothers, and it is in this kind of emotionally dependent relationship where they find a sense of value and identity, and it is where they get their emotional needs met.

Emotional dependency can also be called “emotional idolatry.” Idolatry is when we worship something or someone that gives us (or promises to give us) all that we need. When a person is in an emotionally dependent relationship, he or she relies on another person to be his or her sole source of love, security, and identity. We see this happen in same-sex friendships (which often leads to a homosexual relationship) and in heterosexual friendships as well (where one person is more emotionally invested in the relationship than the other). It is important to differentiate between healthy interdependency and unhealthy emotional dependency.

Some signs of unhealthy dependency in same-sex or opposite-sex friendships are: viewing other people as a threat to the relationship, preferring to spend time alone with this friend and becoming frustrated when this doesn’t happen, becoming irrationally angry or depressed when the other withdraws slightly, losing interest in other friendships, experiencing romantic or sexual feelings leading to fantasy about this person, being unwilling to make short or long-term plans that do not include the other person.

Depending on another person is not necessarily idolatry, however. We are called to live in relationship with one another and to care for and provide for one another. However, to put all of our trust and expectation for provision and love and identity onto one person is unhealthy. The reason it is unhealthy is that no one can reasonably be the answer to our emotional and spiritual needs except God. Only God our Father can fill this role because only he has everything good and is everything good. All human beings fall short. Therefore, when we expect a person to be God for us, we will be sorely disappointed. Unlike friendship, marriage is intended to be exclusive and deeply intimate—a “one flesh” union where the two (a man and a woman) become one. However, even in marriage emotional dependency can occur. The reason so many marriages fail is that we often enter marriage with the expectation that our spouse will be perfect and meet all of our emotional needs. We can also put this expectation on our children. The result is that we end up suffocating and abusing the ones we love when they do not measure up to our expectations and meet all of our needs.

The only emotionally dependent relationship we can afford to have is with our Creator and Savior. Only he is worthy of our worship because only he can be the sole source of love, security, and identity that we desperately need. We were meant to worship someone and that someone is Jesus Christ. All others fall short. Understanding this gives us great freedom to have healthy relationships with other people.

When we go to God with our need and expect him to meet it, we lift a great burden off the people we love. We free them from having to save us when they do not have this ability. Ironically, however, we find something amazing happens. In freeing them from having to be everything for us, we often find that in that freedom they are empowered to love and care for us. In turn, we can love and care for them. When we let God “save” others (and us) we are free to love people without the burden and guilt of being God to them. So many homosexual relationships are short-lived because the need that a woman or man is trying to have met in a gay relationship can never be truly met. In a homosexual relationship, the man or woman is looking for affirmation from his or her father or mother and from the masculine or feminine world at large. This is a tall order and one that can never be met in another person. Men and women can also do this in heterosexual relationships where a woman tries to gain the affirmation she may not have adequately received from her father through her husband, for example, and a man can look to his wife to be his mother. In either case, disappointment and resentment is the inevitable result.


(Acknowledgment: International Healing Foundation)

Homo-Emotional Wounds

This is an enlightening article from the IHF website. It's basically an SSA 101 crash course and I can personally attest that this is so true in my case.


In the father-son, mother-daughter relationship, a homo-emotional wound develops if the child perceives or experiences his or her same-sex parent as either cold, distant, absent, passive, abusive, or unavailable. This homo-emotional wound is a key factor in the development of what may later appear as same-sex attractions. In the heart of every man or woman who experiences same-sex desires is a sense of detachment from his or her same-sex parent. This may be on a very unconscious level, as the imprinting for this condition may have occurred in utero and in early infancy. Ninety percent of the brain develops by the time we are three years of age. Therefore, experiences of detachment, which occurred in the first years of life, are locked deep in the unconscious mind. That is why many homosexual individuals say, “As long as I can remember, I felt different.”

Drs. Moberly and Nicolosi found that the prehomosexual boy experienced a hurt or disappointment in his relationship with his father. To protect himself against future hurt, the boy developed a defensive attitude characterized by emotional distancing. Not only did he fail to identify with his father, but also, because of the hurt, he rejected his father and the masculinity he represents. You may read more about attachment disorders in the works of John Bowlby.

The father may have a difficult time relating to his son if he exhibited any kind of gender nonconforming behaviors, e.g., more feminine, more artistic, and nonathletic. The father may be preoccupied with his own problems and have no time for his son. The father may abdicate responsibility for parenting by having his wife raise the boy. He may have left the family, or he may be at home physically, but unavailable emotionally. The boy may then see his father as emotionally distant, perhaps verbally or physically abusive, and unavailable. In some cases, there is an emotional enmeshment between the two, whereby the father enrolls his son into a peer relationship, and the son loses his identity in order to care for his father’s needs.

By experiencing his father’s disapproval, disappointment, or distance, the son will withdraw from the relationship, feeling hurt and rejected. This leads to a deep sense of ambivalence toward the same-sex parent—“I need you, but you hurt and rejected me, so stay away, but come close and hold me, but it hurts too much.” Dr. Moberly calls this a defensive detachment reaction, and Dr. Welch calls it an attachment strain. The child defends himself from future wounding by putting up an imaginary shield around his heart and soul. He then detaches from his same-sex parent, rejecting his father.

This same-sex ambivalence causes feelings of love and hate to occur at the same time. He seeks bonding with a man, but underneath that need is an angry and hurt little boy. This is why homosexual relationships have a short life span. Furthermore, these ambivalent feelings toward men function as a lifelong block against full male identification.

This defensive detachment is generally an unconscious decision. The detachment also prevents him from internalizing his own sense of gender identity. He has cut off psychologically and emotionally from his father, his role model of masculinity. Hence, a Same-Sex Attachment Disorder is created in the child. This leads to alienation from the parent, self, and others, and a feeling of being “different.” When he rejects his primary source of masculine identification, he is essentially rejecting his own core gender identity.

On a very deep psychic level, the son feels rejected by his father. This may originate from a deep source within the child—a heritable predisposition for being rejected, or an intrauterine experience of feeling unwanted—not necessarily by the parent’s actions or words. (I will explain about intrauterine influences under “Other Factors” below.) Counselor David Seamands said, “Children are the best tape recorders but the worst interpreters.”

The boy, from ages one and a half to three, has an added developmental task girls do not have. He must separate and individuate from his mother, and then be initiated into the world of the masculine by his father or another significant male role model. The girl, even though she, too, must separate and individuate in this stage of development, will continue to identify with her mother, her primary role model of femininity. Three things may rob a boy of his masculine role model and his new source of strength: 1) the mother continues to cling to her son, 2) the father is unavailable or abdicates responsibility to the mother, or 3) the son perceives rejection from the father. This is a critical time for the son to bond with his father or other men.

It states in My Little Golden Book About GOD, “God is the love of our mother’s kiss, and the warm, strong hug of our daddy’s arms.” Pictured are both Father and Mother holding their children warmly. Parents are God’s representatives for children. When children detach from either Mr. or Mrs. God, they are distancing themselves from their role models of gender identification. Therefore, a defensive detachment from father or mother may lead to a defensive detachment toward God.

That is why later on, when the adult tries repeatedly to rid himself of the same-sex desire, it will not go away. This is because the origin of the desire is one of reparation, to make good on past deficits, the need for bonding with the same-sex parent, which did not occur sufficiently in the earliest years of life.

Michael Saia, in his book, Counselling the Homosexual, speaks of a five-phase model that leads to the development of a Same-Sex Attachment Disorder:


First: The child feels or perceives rejection from the same-sex parent.

Second: The child rejects the same-sex parent.

Third: The child rejects his gender identity, saying unconsciously, “If men are that way, then I don’t want to be like them.”

Fourth: The child rejects himself because he is the same gender of the parent he just rejected. Again, he unconsciously says, “If Daddy is not good, and he is a man, then I am not good, because I am a boy.”

Fifth: The child then rejects others of the same gender, as a defensive reaction of self-protection against further wounding.


During puberty, the unmet homo-emotional needs are experienced as homosexual feelings. The individual may then spend a lifetime trying to fulfill those unmet needs for attachment through sexual relationships.

Of course, the defensive detachment may occur with the opposite-sex parent. This is why so many marriages break up and so many men and women seek opposite-sex partners but find it very difficult to commit to a truly intimate relationship. The defensive detachment toward the opposite-sex parent lodges deep in their hearts. They are experiencing an Opposite-Sex Attachment Disorder (OSAD). Until the individual extracts the wounds, defensive behaviors continue to plague adult attempts at intimacy.

Chris’s father was authoritative and punitive. Chris was sensitive and perceived his father’s strictness as personal rejection. Because of this, Chris continued to seek refuge in the safety of his mother’s world, identifying more with her and his sister than with his dad and brothers. This attitude spilled over into his school-age years. Chris was always the teacher’s pet, doing great in academics, yet socially inept in relating to the other boys. In his adult life, Chris fantasized about being sexually intimate with the men he admired. His need for his father’s love and approval had translated itself into sexual desires after puberty. Today, Chris is becoming more authentic as a man among men, speaking more openly with his dad, and learning to befriend other men as equals.

Another young man I counseled was Bob. When he entered therapy, he thought his relationship with his father was nearly perfect. It took quite a while to untangle this enmeshed affair, for his father had enrolled him into a peer relationship. Bob spent his life trying to compensate for his father’s wounds and weaknesses. His father had shared his problems and pain with him throughout his child-hood, adolescence, and early adulthood. His dad isolated himself from the world and had no close friends except his son. In response, Bob had learned to deny his feelings and needs, reinventing himself as his father’s savior, best friend, and confidant.

After Bob strengthened his sense of self-worth and developed firm boundaries, he began the process of successfully separating and individuating from his father. This was frightening for Bob. Each time he slipped back into being the good little boy and pleaser, same-sex attractions emerged. When he stood in his power and expressed himself in a healthy, positive, and assertive manner, he experienced a newfound masculinity. When he thoughtlessly acquiesced to his father and other authority figures, his same-sex fantasies blossomed. Again, the Same-Sex Attachment Disorder is a symptom, a defensive response to past and present conflicts.

Bob worked to heal his relationship with his father. He now expresses himself as an adult, rather than a good little boy. He let go of expecting his father to change and is making the necessary changes in his life to mature into his God-given masculine identity.

I have counseled several men whose fathers were in the military or government. Because of their service to the country, they were often away for extended periods of time. This left their sons feelings abandoned and alone. Other men had fathers who were physically present, yet emotionally absent. As much as they tried to win their fathers’ love, their dads remained distant and unavailable. Another group of men had fathers who were workaholics. Their fathers were never home enough to become seriously involved in their sons’ lives. Others had fathers who were alcoholics, drug addicts, sports addicts, and/or rageaholics. They experienced the war of their fathers’ mood swings, never knowing when Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde would show up. They had to be on guard 100 percent of the time.

De-Sexualizing the Deeper Need

This is one of my favorite Alan Medinger articles. It reminds me that my deepest needs can not be met by acting out sexually because my most basic needs, i.e., affirmation, acceptance, and affection are not sexual in nature at all.


"Homosexuality is more than sex, and there were other parts of me that needed to be healed and changed."


by Alan P. Medinger

Twenty years ago, God set me free from homosexuality. The nature of my healing – an instant release from sexual fantasies and compulsion – was certainly a miracle. Usually, I don’t share this with people who come to us for the first time for the simple reason that this is the type of healing that everyone would like to receive, but few do. To encourage people to look for this kind of miracle, when in fact, for them the road out of homosexuality may be long and difficult, would be to set them up for discouragement.

At the time of my healing, I assumed that I had been “totally healed” of my homosexuality. After all, I no longer wanted to have sex with men, I desired my wife physically, and I simply did not struggle with lustful thoughts. Over the years, however, I have seen that I needed much more healing and change than I had experienced in that one evening in 1974. Homosexuality is more than sex, and there were other very significant parts of me that needed to be healed and changed.

Unmet needs and sex

Over the years, I have asked myself and the Lord, “What exactly did God do when he set me free from a lifetime of homosexuality?” This is an important question because most often a miracle is an instantaneous occurrence of something that could have happened more naturally over a much longer period of time. For example, the body does occasionally, through something called “a spontaneous remission,” rid itself of cancer – over time. People prayed for my mother-in-law after bone cancer had spread over more than half of her body. In a matter of weeks all vestiges of the cancer were gone, never to return. My wife and I and a friend prayed for my father’s debilitating depression, a state he had been in for almost 40 years, and he was instantly healed. Over time, this might have happened anyway, but through prayer and deliverance, God worked this healing in a moment.

What I believe God did in me in an instant in 1974 was to break the link between my deep unmet needs and sex. The needs did not go away, as I was to discover in coming years, but they were no longer sexualized. What God did in me very suddenly can, and I believe will, be a part of the gradual healing of most men and women who struggle with homosexuality (and with other sexual disorders).

After the healing I still had a powerful longing for some man to take care of me. I still felt like a little boy looking for a father. My sense of my own manhood was so undeveloped that I longed for some strong, together type of man with whom I could connect, and from whom I could draw strength. But, it wasn’t sexual; the thought of sex with a man had become sometimes disgusting, sometimes stupid.

I believe that breaking the sexual link to our needs is an essential part of the healing of most men and women overcoming homosexuality.

As the years have passed those extraordinary needs have gone away to the extent that I don’t believe my needs for male relationships could be any more normal than they are today. In fact, today I see this long, slower moving change as being as extraordinary as the sudden miracle of 1974.

However, in 1974, my needs were still there, and they were extraordinary, but they were no longer sexualized. What happened in my life in an instant can, I believe, happen to you over time. Furthermore, I believe that breaking the sexual link to our needs is an essential part of the healing of most men and women overcoming homosexuality.

Let’s look at this link and at how it may be broken.

Sex as intensifier

First of all, why do we sexualize our needs – or the solution to them? I believe we do this because sex is one of the most intense experiences most people have, and whatever sex touches becomes more alive. Just as salt enhances the flavor of food, sex intensifies the power of any experience. Feeling lonely and tired? Whatever release you find will seem much more immediately satisfying if it has a sexual element.

Sex empowers feelings. It is interesting that we use the word “ecstasy” to describe both sexual and religious experiences.

We use sex because our needs are fundamentally relational, and sex is a relational experience. Some people use food or drugs as a means of dulling the pains that arise out of unmet needs, but the numbing quality they offer is much less satisfying than the vicarious relationships that sex or sexual fantasy offer to those whose needs are primarily relational.

Sex has a power because of its symbolic qualities revolving around touch, control and nurturing. There is a tremendous symbolic power in coming together with another person, when they enter my body, or I theirs. Being enfolded in the arms of another offers feelings of security, nurturing, desirability. Sex can give me a sense of worth, even if I am only being used by another person.

For a man or woman who deals with homosexuality, some of the most intense needs can be met temporarily through sex.

Lonely? Sex makes contact with another person. Bored? Sex is exciting. Feeling worthless? In a sexual encounter (real or imagined) someone wants me. Lacking a sense of gender identity? I can make contact with the masculinity or femininity that I crave. Someone wants me as a man or woman.

The links are powerful and over time, through years of sexual contacts or masturbatory fantasies, they become stronger and stronger. Our needs and a sexual expression of their fulfillment become bonded as by a super-glue or a solder.

How to break the bond

If this is so, how do we break the bond, the link? It is difficult but it can happen – for any of us. First, we need to acknowledge the link. Many people already do. Many first timers come into my office – even some of the most promiscuous – and they will say, “You know, it wasn’t the sex I was after; it was someone to love me.”

Second, we need to pray about it daily. This daily prayer will not only keep alive in us the reality of the link, but where we cannot break the link in our own power, it may release God to provide the solvent that will start to dissolve it.

Third, we need to prayerfully and intentionally determine what the real needs are and then seek to find legitimate ways of meeting them. They are going to be somewhat different for each of us. We should not focus on a need because it is stereotypically present in a homosexual person.

We use sex because our needs are fundamentally relational, and sex is a relational experience.

To identify a need and then to try to find legitimate ways to meet it, is a major life undertaking. If, for example, you are lonely, it is usually not because of circumstances of your surroundings or environment; it probably is because of things in your nature or in your whole pattern of relating to people. To say, “Go out and make some friends,” is worse than cheap advice; it trivializes your problems and needs. Learning how to relate to people in life-giving, non-sexual ways can be a major effort in your life. Nevertheless, it may be an important key to your healing.

Likewise, if your problem is a deep sense of worthlessness, I can tell you that you are of inestimable value because Jesus died for you until I am blue in the face, but until you encounter that reality in your own walk with the Lord, my words are almost no use. To find our worth in who we are in the Lord, rather than in our sexual desirability, may only come about through some years of quiet special times with the One who gives us value, but it may be essential for our healing.

When needs are extreme, often it is only the Lord who can meet them initially. He may, therefore, be your first means of healing. Then as the intensity of the needs diminishes, He will place you where other Christian men and women can start to meet them.

A sense of purpose

A way that may speed the process of breaking the link between our needs and sex, is to seek to find a purpose in life. So many of the needs that drive us sexually – loneliness, boredom, a sense of worthlessness – can be met as we discover a sense of purpose in our lives. A sense of purpose implies living for others or for some higher cause; it means living focused outside of ourselves. Many of the people in our ministry advance their healing greatly while they are serving as group leaders or teachers. Discovering a purpose for our life and facing the inevitable challenges that arise out of trying to fulfill that purpose will increase our awareness of our true dependency on Jesus. A dependency on sex will offer nothing.

As we break the link, time enhances the process. Old patterns of responding are broken. Immediate sexual responses to stimuli become less frequent. Our way of using sex to meet non-sexual needs definitely had addictive qualities. Abstinence breaks addictions. Sometimes our addictions were physiological. After my initial healing, one thing I was conscious of missing was the excitement of cruising, of being on the prowl, the thrill of taking risks in what I was doing. To a certain extent, I was hooked on my own adrenaline. I don’t think anything but the passage of time was needed to take care of this.

At some point in your healing you may be able to think about homosexual sex apart from the real need that was driving you, and you will see that it is not what you really wanted. As with me, it may seem stupid or disgusting.

Don’t worry if an awareness of a need brings to mind a potential sexual “solution.” You are not going to forget that this once brought temporary relief, but as time goes on, you will come to know at the deepest levels of your being, that the sexualization of your needs was a dead-end street.

God wants to heal you. Most of the time He won’t be doing it with the sudden, dramatic miracle; it is going to take a while. But, the process will be speeded up as you are able to unlink your needs and sex. As this happens, He will start meeting those needs, and He will start showing you how other relationships can meet them. Sex never will meet them.


About the author

Alan Medinger is the founder and director emeritus of Regeneration, a ministry to the sexually broken in Baltimore, MD and Fairfax, VA.

Healthy Same-Sex Friendships

I truly believe that it is very much possible for a person with SSA to develop friendships with the same sex that is devoid of lust and the trappings of emotional dependency. By understanding that our legitimate need to establish friendship with the same sex is not erotic at its very core, we can begin to develop true connection with them in a chaste and emotionally mature manner.


by Andrew Comiskey

Loving members of our own sex? For people struggling with homosexual tendencies, the establishment of healthy same-sex friendships can be difficult and confusing. We deeply feel our need for same-sex companions; we may also resist that feeling on the grounds that it is "homosexual" . Still others find themselves existing between the two points -- falling in love with friends, then resorting back to the pain and loneliness of emotional repression. Either we possess another, or we repress.

I believe in a healing middle path, one that frees us to act upon our yearning for same-sex love without lustful, erotic intent. Healthy same-sex friendships can be ours! Instead of mirroring the old homosexual identity, they have the potential of enabling us to walk out our true heterosexual selves.

First, let's look at the yearning that we continue to have for same-sex friendships. Elizabeth Moberly details its origins in her excellent books Psychogenesis and Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic. In brief, her theory centers on how an unresolved relationship between a child and same-sex parent can contribute to homosexual tendencies later on. There are many factors here, but the main point for our purposes concerns the truth that children need love and affirmation from key members of the same sex, especially from the same-sex parent. Without that affirmation, a child may grow up and become vulnerable to trying to meet emotional needs for same-sex love through homosexual relationships. A legitimate need that every child possesses wrongly becomes the driving factor in an adult's sexuality!

The major point of deception for the person with homosexual struggles is that his yearning is at core erotic and can only be satisfied through an attempted one-flesh" union with a member of his own sex. Instead, Dr. Moberly helps us define that yearning as emotional and legitimate. Without condemning ourselves, we can own the truth that most of us were unaffirmed in our gender identities, and that has rendered us needy and immature in our quest for same-sex love. We desperately want the strong arms of father or the safe soft breast of mother. As a basic human need, such a yearning is without sin. We need to have compassion on the unaffirmed parts of ourselves; our yearning for same-sex love alerts us to those areas of deprivation and thus can serve as a signpost for our need to be merciful toward ourselves.

But when such a need for the lost father or mother or our youth becomes the driving motivator in our adult relationships, we can readily fall in a disordered state. Why? Because other adults do not exist solely to nurture one's "inner child." A "need" orientation, rooted in childhood deprivation, needs to be placed alongside of the responsibilities that come with adulthood. In other words, I may have childish needs, but that doesn't give me free reign to form relationships based on the egocentric view that another exists to meet my needs. I must recognize that I have distinct boundaries from the other and that my life will remain intact with or without him or her. I must give as well as receive. I may need the other very much, but I must also face the reality that the other doesn't exist on my behalf. I am an adult with childish needs -- I can own that reality without attempting to make any human being the parent that they are not. When we set up any creature as our one golden emotional resource, we become entrapped by the tyranny of our own inner child. Left to its own recourses, that child, fuel by the sum total of unmet needs, can compel us to bow down at the altar of "false parents" who are unable to love us aright.

So we are left with two separate but essential realities. Yearning for same-sex love is legitimate and stems from deprivation in childhood for which we need much grace and mercy. Nonetheless, attempting to resolve that deprivation (and subsequent yearning) by setting up another man or woman as our "emotional messiah" is false and sinful- it needs to be identified as the destructive evil that it is. How then do we proceed to get our needs met?

Personally, I have struggled with this question a great deal. My clinical detachment breaks down in the face of my own journey, alongside of many of my friends and colleagues, upon which we have sought to emerge out of the quicksand of immature same-sex dependencies and into the safe and secure place of healthy, non-possessive friendships. I have experienced a couple of relationships in the last few years where I have faced my inner child's tendency to conform the same-sex friend into an emotional resource that he could never be. I have worked through both relationships, with one friendship becoming more detached, the other growing into a healthy, adult-to-adult source of intimacy. Here are some insights I have learned along the way.

Our heavenly Father must be sought first and foremost in the face of any friendship that sparks that deep yearning for same-sex love. As Jody states clearly in her accompanying article, we need Him as our primary source of worship lest we be tempted to bow down before the creature. Our Creator needs to be our main point of connection as we seek to connect meaningfully with others. Time and time again, I have sought the Father in the face of my friendships- confessing my neediness with the deep understanding that He cares for me at that level of need. Truly, in conversation with Him, I was able to name my intense need and begin to seek him first for the meeting of that need. He sent His Holy Spirit in waves; He enveloped my heart with His nurture and strength in a way that compelled me to focus off the friendship and onto Him. At a profound level, my heavenly Father became my primary, ongoing voice of wisdom and source of love in the establishment of healthy friendships.

The Father called me to make a choice. Would I release this friend to Him and choose to see the other the way He does? Turning from my needy, grasping efforts to make this friend the sum total of my need for "father" love was crucial. I had to confess and repent before the Father of this illusion. I had to agree with Him that my friend couldn't complete me. The hallmark of neurotic relationships is the belief that the other can in fact be one's completion, prompting one to try to control that object of supposed completion. Almost immediately then, I began to release my friend to the Father. I did this several times until I began to realize that this friend wasn't exclusively mine. He was the Father's, a creature with his own brokenness who was in as much need as I was of the Father's care.

The Father in turn challenged me to see this distinct individual as a man of God who needed to be released from any of my own neurotic expectations; only then could my friend be free to walk in the fullness of God's intent for his life. Dostoevsky writes, "To love a person means to see him as God intended him to be." I was sobered by that realization. The potential of my hindering God's redemptive work in this brother's life due to my own neediness hit me hard. But, in turn, my encouraging him to grow into the fullness of his true heterosexual identity liberated me! I ceased perceiving him as somehow my completion and began to see him as a man who could go far in his own relational and spiritual development, with or without me. Slowly, I became less of a needy child to my friend and more of an adult who could really see him walk uprightly in his own inspired adult status.

One important thing I learned is that I didn't need to share the struggles of my soul concerning this brother to him. That usually does one of two things. It either weighs down the relationship with heavy-handed analysis that renders the friendship more tiresome than renewing, or it hooks into the other's neurotic tendencies in a way that bonds the two together unhealthily. I found that ongoing conversation with my heavenly Father, as well as talking to my wife about the friendship, was more than sufficient. My wife is exceptional in her ability to listen without getting defensive; she can speak squarely and compassionately to me, drawing upon her own experience in friendship. And in being honest with her about my strong feelings, their power subsided, and I was able to stand back a bit and become strengthened in the reality of my adult heterosexual status in the friendship.

A powerful realization hit me as I contrasted my marriage to this friendship. My wife is the true human completion of my maleness- through her femaleness she calls forth my strength as a man. She is the primary relationship God has provided for me that rounds out my humanity, and vice versa. My yearning for her physically and emotionally frees me to embrace my manhood; my same-sex yearning, when unyielded to the Father binds me to illusion and immaturity. That inspired rhythm of heterosexual union has helped me to understand same-sex friendships in a whole different light. A same-sex friendship cannot, nor is it intended to be one's relational completion! It can provide encouragement and support and companionship along the path toward heterosexual relationships; however, it is futile to try to exist healthily on the emotional nutrients gained solely from same-sex friendships. I praise God that at the level of my heart He has helped to see this. It has freed me to establish same-sex friendships that are intimate, yet secondary, to the primary relationship I share with Annette.

Today I can say unashamedly that I deeply love my male friends. I need them. And God has been faithful to walk me through the sometimes frightening and clumsy steps I have taken to secure such friendships. I've come to realize that in order to be a whole man of God I truly need other men to stand beside me. May God bless and empower you in your own quest for same-sex friendships. I pray that they will help you to further take hold of your true heterosexual identity.