Experiencing Same-Sex Attraction (Or You’re Gay Because Your Father Didn’t Love You Enough)
The first person I came out to was a stranger. Irony of all ironies, I was on a mission trip at the time. He was an adult with a different church group, and after coming out to him, he challenged me to share with one of my friends. And I’m glad he did. Weeks later, after sharing with that friend, I came out to my two best friends and my parents.
I also opened up to my college pastor. He hugged me and gave a big smile.
“You know, I know a guy who you’ll definitely want to meet. He works with guys who are going through what you’re struggling with. It’s actually good timing because he’s moving here to start working at the church.”
And as simple as that, I was thrumming with excitement to talk with this ex-gay pastor. Of course, when I shared this with my parents they thought it was a great idea too. Finally, someone that could tell us what to do.
Unwittingly, I ran into the lion’s den with my arms wide open.
(For the purposes of this blog, my ex-gay pastor will be referred to as Drew. I also want to state here that Drew was not professionally licensed.)
Meeting Drew felt like looking at an older version of myself and realizing how people probably perceived me. I had finally found someone that embodied my lived experience. It was one of the most freeing feelings.
It was my first time talking openly with another (ex)gay man about my life. He could relate to me on so many levels. It felt like he really saw me. I knew that he understood exactly what I was feeling. I had never felt like that before.
Our first session was a total word vomit on my part. I started talking and everything rushed out, tears and all. To this day, Drew probably knows more about the pain around my sexuality than anyone else.
When he found out I was a virgin his reaction felt like a pat on the back: “Good. It’s easier that way.” If I had already given in and allowed my body a taste, it would be more difficult to move on.
Just by existing as he was, Drew claimed a kind of authority over my kind of sexuality. I could tell that he knew what he was doing. He spoke like he’d never doubted his decision to change.
He had exactly what I thought I wanted. He had gained mastery over his attraction to men and I wanted to know how long it would take to fix me too.
Drew made sure to warn me that ending up with a woman was not the end goal when overcoming same-sex attraction. But, he said, “If you keep on track, I’d say you’d be ready to start dating in three to five years.”
I saw the years drawn out before me. I was already 24 years old. I had never dated anyone. I’d never even been on a date before. It was daunting but at least there was light at the end of the tunnel now.
I already knew all of the Bible verses on homosexuality. We didn’t need to sit down and analyze those at this point. Instead, Drew used the analogy of bad fruit as the crux of his evidence that homosexuality was sinful and led to death.
Drew’s testimony involved embracing his same-sex attractions for five years. He moved to New York, he dated, he had sex—he lived his life as a gay man.
He said this led to alcohol abuse, drugs, using people for sex, and all-around becoming a person he didn’t like. His come-to-Jesus moment arrived the morning he woke up from a blackout and was told that he’d sexually assaulted someone.
After that, he fell to his knees and cried out to Jesus. He started attending church again and eventually ended up in a Living Waters program. Now he wanted to help people like he had been helped.
I had trouble relating to the trajectory of his story. It wasn’t like mine. I was miserable, sure, but my attraction to men wasn’t causing me to become a bad person. I wasn’t into drugs and alcohol. I wasn’t sexually active. Even though I knew that I was flawed, I also knew that I was a pretty kind and genuine person. And I didn’t know any other gay people to compare his story to.
From the very start, I was encouraged to not identify with the word gay. If I called myself gay, I was giving in and giving power to those inclinations. I was simply same-sex attracted. My sexuality was stripped from my identity and became more of a marker for my particular form of brokenness.
If the bad fruit produced by homosexuality was so obvious, I didn’t see that harm in meeting with someone who identified as a gay Christian. I wanted to meet them for myself and see what kind of person they were. I was about to devote my life to walking down this path. I thought looking at another side would be a normal desire.
I brought up the idea in my next session.
It was swiftly shut down with a simple “I think you’re seeking out what you want to hear.” Thoroughly chastised, I gave up the idea of meeting with the opposition.
I told my best girlfriend about my sessions with Drew and she was happy to hear I was going but confused as to what ex-gay meant exactly. That made two of us.
She wanted to know if he was still attracted to men but she really wanted to know if he was attracted to his wife. To her, the idea seemed suspect. I was also confused about how that worked. I had a hard time picturing myself in the same situation.
One day I asked Drew if he was still attracted to men. He said, “Yes. But less and less all the time.”
“And your wife?”
“Yes, I’m very attracted to my wife.” And who was I to say otherwise? He had two kids in the picture frame on his desk as bona fide proof.
These types of meetings went on for months. One day, Drew had an exciting new opportunity for me: Living Waters.
I had never heard of Living Waters or a program like it, but I would get an up-close and personal education over the next 20 weeks.
I had to fill out an application to apply for the program. The application I was given is what I would have expected if I had started working for the CIA. They wanted to know my medical history, sexual history, familial sins, beliefs, and on and on and on.
On top of the questionnaire, there was a subsequent interview where they decided if you were right for the program. Once admitted you had the privilege of paying a $200 fee. I’m not sure if it came separately but we also got a 465-page workbook. (I still have a copy.)
The men were also encouraged to sign up and download a service called Covenant Eyes. For $10.99 a month you could set up accountability on all of your devices to monitor your browsing habits. A click on a questionable site and an alert would be emailed to Drew and whoever else you thought should know.
Any link about the Kardashians—immediately flagged as Highly Mature. Possibly but very much not my problem. More than the screwy interface and the monthly bill, it was another layer of my life that I was encouraged to cede control over.
Sessions started on January 25 at 7:00 p.m. sharp. The weekly sessions were two and a half hours long. The first half was spent with the full group while we worshipped and were taught different lessons. The second half of the night was devoted to group therapy, split by gender.
Much of what I was taught during Living Waters, I truly don’t remember. But I do remember everyone being anointed with oil while we cried out to break possible generational curses. I remember a girl who got up to give her testimony and proceeded to tell us how she’d been listening to a literal demon her entire life.
When the topic of homosexuality came up it was often in the context of how unnatural it was. They like to point out how the “gay lifestyle” is dangerous, unnatural, and untenable. Couldn’t we see how unhappy gay people were? How many of them are drug addicts or alcoholics or chronically unfaithful? Is that what we wanted? Look, they said, the fruit is bad.
Isn’t it wild how people cope when they’re rejected by society and pushed to the margins? When you poison the soil a plant grows in, it is the environment that causes it to have problems—not the plant itself. But it’s easier for the farmer to blame the result on a bad seed.
The author of our workbook lamented, “Once shameful, homosexuality now poses as hip and shame-free, a sexy alternative to traditional idolatry—especially in the popular media.”
On top of not clearly seeing how their rhetoric affects the gay community, they also ignored the gays within their own.
They’d rather not focus on the lifestyle of a Christian “suffering” from same-sex attraction. It is lonely, depressing, mentally anguishing, and unsatisfying.
That is the fruit I will point to. I will point to the fruit and call it rotten even as Christians force our brothers and sisters to gorge themselves on it.
Programs like Living Waters operate in the shadows and basements of thousands of churches across America. Sometimes the only way you’ll find out about these groups is by referral. We were instructed to not pursue relationships (even friendship) with fellow group members outside of sessions. (How much had to happen on the DL before they made that rule?)
At the church I went to they used the term “sexual brokenness” as a catchall. There’s nothing like being told the way you were made is broken to put you in your place.
I was lumped in with cheating spouses, sexual assault victims, and porn addicts. You know, because we’re all the same, right? Broken.
I sat in group sessions while men revealed if they’d resisted pornography, expressed regret about cheating, and admitted to struggling with their masculinity. As for me, I sat there, my little gay self, and shared my darkest secrets with the group.
After bottling everything up for the past decade, sharing in a group setting and being encouraged by a group of men felt freeing. But it wasn’t just sharing and encouragement, there was always a push toward an ideal. An ideal that included being less gay.
I told myself that if I was able to follow all of their steps to a T that I could be cured of the horrible condition that plagued me.
I was no more cured by the end of 20 weeks than I had been going in. When the program ended, what I left with was an air of hopelessness at what I saw as my greatest effort to end my struggle.
Immediately after distancing myself from Living Waters and sessions with Drew, I wouldn’t have identified what I’d been through as conversion therapy.
The hard thing is that I bared my soul to these people. They saw me in a way that only a handful of people ever have. I felt known...but I knew if I crossed the line, that would be gone.
It would be under the guise of what’s best for me or God’s plan for my life, or, my favorite, the Truth.
Of course, you’re loved, but is it really loving if I don’t tell you all the ways you’re participating in sin—something God sees as evil? I love you, but I won’t support you. (Every time I hear that one I feel like I’m getting the drug addict speech. I care about you, but I can’t support you while you ruin your life. As if me loving someone of the same sex is equal to and as destructive as an addiction.)
It was conversion therapy. Plain and simple.
It doesn’t always have to be like the movies or include violence. It is enough that you were told that an essential, core part of yourself was twisted, perverse, and unacceptable.
The worst thing conversion therapy did was change my relationship with and my perception of my parents. I was told to look at my parental relationships as sources for my brokenness.
The fact that I allowed that to happen even for a moment still bothers me. That they dared to touch such a precious relationship offends me on the deepest level. At the most vulnerable time of my life, I was taken advantage of.
I placed my trust in those who swore they knew better. And I fully believed them.
I don’t have a problem with gay or same-sex-attracted men who decide to openly (disclosing their natural orientation) enter a heterosexual marriage. My objection arises when these men find it imperative to push this choice on other gay men.
I hope Drew and his wife have a full and happy life. But I plan on finding happiness my way.
Whatever you end up deciding about how your sexuality fits with your faith, know this:
You are good.
Do not gloss over that line. Do not skip it.
Go back and read it again. Sit with the idea even if it feels uncomfortable or cheesy. (It probably will.)
What would happen if you believed that? How would your life look different? Would anything change?
I’m sure at some point you embraced the idea that we are inherently evil or at the least fallen and flawed. You’ve seen the fruit that that belief bears.
Consider what changing the idea of your nature could mean.
I’ll leave you with the words of Mary Oliver, who says it better than I ever could.
““You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.””
