His first statements in italics, then my questions, then his responses in italics.
7. "I've never heard your quote about gayness being a "core characteristic"—do you have a reference for that?"
In an interview with two members of the Church's Public Affairs staff in August 2006 about homosexuality and which has since been published on the Church's Web site, Elder Lance Wickman of the Seventy, speaking on behalf of the Church with Dallin Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve next to him, stated that one's gender (euphemism for sexual) orientation was a "core characteristic".
Even the way you just worded it, I don't see how you can say that. Gender is male or female. People who choose to live gay are still male. So no, gender and sexual orientation are not the same thing. You're wrong on that one, for sure.
8. "It is absolutely possible for one gay person to try to "recruit" or seduce someone else into gayness and be successful doing so, especially in a person's younger years when sexual identity and orientation are still fluid. I have heard many people say that they became gay through trying out the sex and enjoying it, not because they felt attracted exclusively to their same gender prior to experiencing gay sex."
Please explain your basis for this belief and identify, as much as you can without breaching confidentiality or privacy, the "many people" you've heard say this and what they actually said. Please explain why it is not possible that these people enjoyed it because they were innately gay already but perhaps didn't realize it, rather than that the experience "converted" them.
Gay sex is a vice, which I define as pleasure without any potentially useful or redeeming quality, such as nourishment, rest, or procreation. I'm sure it feels good on the genitals. It would also feel good on the genitals if a Martian of unknown gender did something the right way to them, or an animal, or even a device. And a lot of people will become addicted to that source of pleasure, if they don't feel a lot of innate abhorrence of it. I remember when I was very young, pre-baptism, there was a news show on TV about gays. This would have been in the early 1970s. They were interviewing people about why they were gay. One guy said, "My roommate and I had to share a bed for some reason one night, and when I woke up in the morning, his leg was over mine, and it felt good, so we just took it from there." If they had not experienced that, then they would not have entered into a gay relationship together. A few people may feel a strong desire for exclusively gay sex/romance from an early age, but others may just get into it because of circumstances. Personally, I believe the carnal man is basically bisexual, if you take away religious and societal influence and dull the conscience. I think the natural man likes whatever feels good on the genitals and has the least amount of unwanted baggage associated with it.
We all have the potential to respond to a vice, if it is presented to us in the right way. People who have already entered into the gay vice can seduce others to try it, and many of them will like it. It feels good; how could it not? In some ways, because it's new, it may even be more exciting than what they're used to, just as a new sexual position can be exciting for a hetero couple. For many kids, it's their first sexual experience. Some experiment and move on, others get stuck in it because their natural carnal attractions are stronger that way or because they don't want to go the conventional hetero route. Being gay can be trendy and fashionable, in some subgroups of kids (I saw a ton of gayness in the punk/new wave scene in the mid-1980s, had friends die of AIDS and go to prison for gay-pedo molestation, etc.). If a person doesn't have an innate gross-out factor about same-gender sex, or not a very strong one, then why not run with it, at least for a time. Whether they acknowledge it to themselves or not, I suspect that many people prefer gayness in part because they don't want to enter into conventional family life, answer to a wife, be saddled by kids, financial obligations of a parent, etc. So if they're able to enjoy or even prefer gay sex, it all adds up to an easier route in life. And yes, some people really are naturally mostly or even completely homo oriented, for life; but I suspect such pure homos are relatively rare. Most of us are a mix, and most gay people are a mix deep down, and that mix can evolve over a lifetime; a person can feel very different sexually at 40 than they did at 20. But the bottom line is that all desires need to be channeled and kept within the bounds the Lord has set, otherwise the natural man is just all over the place sexually.
05 February 2010
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3 comments:
Mr Bigelow's response seems to center around the idea that people "turn" gay because they have sex with people of the same sex before they have heterosexual sex or because they want to avoid responsibility. All I can say is that I bad for his wife if he married her because he was socialized to do so and wanted to have sex, and not because he wanted to build a life with her. I know many people, gay and straight, who desire to have families and build relationships with people. He apparently married his wife to have sex and because he felt obligated to.
Oh, and I love that a television show he watched in the 1970's is the basis for his conclusions. Where does one begin with what is wrong with that statement?
I did enjoy his assertion (though false) that there are very few "pure homosexuals" on the planet. It made me feel a little bit special for being a "pure" one. :P
But alas, his entire view of gay people cannot move past sex, which makes me worry about his personal relationships in life. Is this the only way he can define his relationships with others, by sex?
What a sad life, and a terrible life he must lead. His posts are interesting mix between sad and entertaining. If I was a superstitious person, I would pray that none of his children turn out gay because I know the immense emotional, mental, and physical pain that it will cause them.
I think it's sad that Mr. Bigelow seems to think being gay has everything to do with sexual pleasure or gratification. But I suppose many people latch on to that idea. I've only been with one person sexually, and that is my partner, and believe you me, if our relationship was based solely on sex, we probably never would have gotten together (or stayed together). We never had sexual relations (aside from kissing) during the almost three years before our commitment ceremony. And, frankly, as I get older, my sex drive diminishes, so I'm sure if it were all about sex, we wouldn't last.
I would imagine my marriage is not much different from a heterosexual marriage. And I take offense at Mr. Bigelow's clearly ignorant statement that "Whether [gay people] acknowledge it to themselves or not, I suspect that many people prefer gayness in part because they don't want to enter into conventional family life, answer to a wife, be saddled by kids, financial obligations of a parent, etc. So if they're able to enjoy or even prefer gay sex, it all adds up to an easier route in life." Oh, yeah! The gay life is so much easier! That's why we do it! I loved the shame and guilt I felt for a good portion of my life because I thought the feelings I had were wrong. It was sooo easy to live a double life, putting on a facade of who I thought the world, my family, and my church expected me to be while really wishing I could be who I felt I really was. I loved banging my spiritual head against a wall, begging God to take my homosexual feelings away from me, and feeling unworthy when He didn't. It was sooo easy thinking death would be a better alternative to my sexuality. Yeah, I picked gayness because it's so easy to be in the minority and still have ignorant fools completely misunderstand who I am. I love not having the same rights as my heterosexual counterparts. Very easy to get excommunicated from a religion I loved and still love.
As for escaping the "conventional family life, answer[ing] to a wife, be[ing] saddled by kids, financial obligations of a parent, etc." I have plenty of gay friends who have been together for years and years, who have kids, and the same financial responsibilities as any straight couple. My partner and I have a mortgage to pay, we nag each other to do things just like any other couple might do, we go grocery shopping, pay the bills, clean the house, etc. Yeah, if I really wanted to escape all that, my "gayness" has really helped out!
I've read a lot of what Mr. Bigelow has said and haven't commented before because it seems to me that Mr. Bigelow is so entrenched in his beliefs that debating the issues would do little good. I don't expect this comment will change his opinions either, nor do I care if it does. But it's clear to me as a gay person that Mr. Bigelow hasn't a clue what it is to be in a gay person's shoes. His opinions are full of ignorant misperceptions. He's entitled to whatever opinions he wants; I just think he's full of a lot of hot air.
D-Train,
It too made me feel special for being a "pure one". There is no question about it, I am 100% gay. If his analysis had any merit then why is it that many gay men who have their first sexual experience with a woman do not "choose" to "go Str8"?
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