“I think I might be gay.”
After 20 years in youth and college ministry, these words don’t surprise me anymore. I believe that today, few teens go from childhood to adulthood without questioning their sexual orientation somewhere along the way.
When I worked with Stephen Arteburn on Every Young Man’s Battle and Every Young Woman’s Battle, which were released almost a decade ago, we heard from hundreds of teens who wanted to know how to live a life of sexual integrity if they experienced same-sex attraction. I confess, I often struggled about how to guide them with confidence. I’ll bet you know the feeling.
As spiritual leaders, we can help young people look beyond the fruit of such fantasies to discover the root of their same-sex attraction. I believe there are several reasons why a teen may feel drawn toward a same-sex fantasy or actual relationship. Here are just a few theories:
The Rebel Factor: As we emotionally separate from our families of origin, we often reject our parents’ spiritual and sexual values in our attempts to develop our own moral codes. If homosexuality was considered a big taboo, walking on that side of the street can satisfy one’s urge to be shockingly rebellious.
The Ghost Principle: Many men and women with same-sex fantasies have experienced a traumatic loss of a significant same-sex figure—either through death, divorce or emotional disconnection. Therefore, the homosexual fantasy is the brain’s way of re-creating the male-male intimacy or the female-female intimacy that was lost in the mother/daughter or father/son relationship.
The Fix-Me Factor: When one grows up with a dysfunctional parental relationship, it’s easy to feel innately broken. The concept of having an older, wiser same-sex partner who can fix us is the brain’s way of trying to right that wrong and can make fantasizing about that particular person sexually appealing.
The Cannibal Effect: Cannibals only make meals out of people whom they admire and want to emulate. Similarly, humans usually are attracted to someone who possesses a strength or characteristic they believe they need more of in their own lives. Sometimes this desire for the characteristic is mistaken as sexual desire for the person.
The Pinnacle Principle: It’s interesting how God created the heavens and earth, then the animals, then man, then woman, then retired from creating anything else! The female body, which has inspired more music, art and literature than anything else in this world, is surely the pinnacle of God’s creation; as such, it is the object of many fantasies, including those of women.
The Familiarity Factor: We’re more intimately familiar with the body of one gender or another simply because that’s the skin that we’re in, so same-sex fantasies may simply be a reflection of what we already know rather than what we want more of.
The Danger/Default Factor: When a woman is physically, sexually or emotionally abused by a man, it’s easy for her brain to conclude, “I’ll never feel safe with any man.” By default, this sense of danger only leaves one other gender in her mind with which she can be comfortable enough to explore her own sexuality.
From Fantasy to Reality
These are some of the main reasons teens may feel drawn toward a same-sex fantasy or an actual relationship; but as with all fantasies, reality can be much different. All-things-sexual may look rosy in fantasies, but is the homosexual lifestyle really as rewarding as it may appear in a young person’s mind?
I asked several gay men and lesbian women to tell me what the homosexual lifestyle is really like—all of the glamour, mystery and fantasy aside. They mentioned some of the obvious issues, such as fear of contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted infections and fear of societal rejection.
There are other issues that make the homosexual lifestyle less attractive that it appears in teens’ fantasies. The Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group promoting “faith, family and freedom” identifies many of these problems in its issue analysis: “Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples” (frc.org):
• Fear of relational failure—Few homosexual relationships ever make it past two years.
• Fear of being cheated on—Gay men and lesbian women are often unfaithful to their lovers. Many self-described monogamous homosexual couples also reported an average of three to five partners in the past year.
• Alcohol and drug abuse—Many use not just illicit sex, but also excessive drinking and drugs, to medicate their emotional pain. Approximately 25 to 33 percent of people in the homosexual lifestyle are alcoholics compared to 7 percent in the general population.
• Domestic violence—Because many homosexuals come from broken or abusive homes, anger and hostility easily translate to physical abuse. According to one study, women are 44 times more likely to be abused by a lesbian lover than a husband, and men are 300 times more likely to be abused in a homosexual relationship than in a heterosexual marriage.
• Higher Depression and Suicide Rates—Studies indicate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. Those who are rejected by their families are up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.
In an article titled “Gay Rights: The Facts Behind Homosexuality,” FaithFacts.org highlights the ravages of the lifestyle by examining these types of statistics and concluding “homosexual behavior is marked by death, disease, disappointment, promiscuity, perversity, addiction and misery.” Indeed, the social implications of choosing a gay lifestyle are minor compared to the physical, mental and emotional torment one may face.
Charting Our Sexual Identity
It’s important for every human being to understand we are the captains of our sexuality ships. We may not always have control of which sexual thoughts initially come into our minds, but we have complete control of how much energy we give them.
We decide which fantasies we pay attention to and which ones are ignored. We determine which direction to take at every turn; and with God’s help, we have the power to remain completely on course as we navigate the waters of healthy sexuality.
What a privilege when we are able to help young people do the same.
Cindy’s Search for a Soft Place to Land
Cindy (31, married with one child) writes, “I was 19 when I walked into a friend’s living room and saw her older brother watching porn on their big-screen television. What I recall most about that incredibly awkward moment was that the porn stars were both female, and they were having sex with each other, which was something I didn’t even know women could do.
“Unable to get that scene out of my mind, I sought similar scenarios on the Internet, masturbating to those images and being astounded at the intensity of my orgasm. I began to wonder if I could be a lesbian because it was overwhelmingly more pleasurable to envision being intimate with another woman than it was with a man.
“I never told anyone about this experience, and within a few years I was married to a great guy, and we had a beautiful baby girl. We were attending a church where the women’s ministry leader, Lydia, was this really beautiful woman—inside and out—and she was great to take me under her wing. She was maybe 12 years older than me, and she seemed very open to discussing anything that was on my heart, so I told her about my earlier experiences. I also confessed to her that in order to reach orgasm with my husband, I usually entertained lesbian fantasies in my head.
“In hindsight, there may have been a small part of me that hoped she would identify with this issue and provide a safe relationship where I could explore whether I was really a lesbian. After all, that’s what I’d been encouraged to do by the media, especially the “Oprah” show, which frequently featured adult women or men finally coming out of the closet to own their homosexuality.
“Fortunately, Lydia was more trustworthy than that and didn’t take advantage of my vulnerability at all. She assured me sexual confusion is relatively normal and asked a series of questions over the course of several meetings together to try to help me make sense of it all. We discussed my relationships with my mom, dad and siblings. I told her about how my father was very emotionally distant and verbally abusive to everyone in the house if he was having a bad day. On a few occasions, he flew off the handle and hit one of us, but would always break down and cry afterward, begging our forgiveness. We just learned to walk on eggshells around him while my mother made excuses for his behavior and assured us he really did love us but didn’t always know how to show it.
“My mom was very attentive and adored her children, and I loved her deeply. I still do. In 1995, she changed—we all changed—when the world as we’d always known it came crashing down around us.
“When I was 14 and my younger sister Penny was 10, Penny was spending the night with some close friends. Their house caught fire in the middle of the night when lightning struck their roof. Everyone inside was burned to death, including my sister.
“We all tried to cope as best we could, but my mother was never the same fun-loving, affectionate person. She was more like a walking zombie, staring into space while putting one foot in front of the other, assuring everyone she was fine, but completely oblivious to the needs of anyone else around her.
“As I shared these stories with Lydia, it became crystal clear why lesbian fantasies would invade my mind on occasion. She explained that when we’re experiencing orgasm, our brain has a way of righting all wrongs or soothing our pain. We orchestrate events in our imagination to line up with what our soul longs for most—and I’ve spent years longing for my little sister to have survived that fire and longing for my mother to snap out of her grief and return to being the woman with whom I felt so safe and cherished.
“In light of these connections, I’ve never again questioned my sexual orientation. I’m a heterosexual woman, who has a great husband and a great sex life; and even if lesbian fantasies creep in on occasion to distract me from the pain I’ll always carry around in my heart, that’s OK. I control them. They do not control me.”
Ethridge is the author of 19 books including the Every Woman’s Battle Series and her latest book, The Fantasy Fallacy: Exposing the Deeper Meaning Behind Sexual Thoughts (Thomas Nelson, 2012). Shannon also delights in mentoring aspiring writers and speakers through her B.L.A.S.T. Program (Building Leaders, Authors, Speakers & Teachers). Learn more at ShannonEthridge.com. Christianity Today named her one of “50 Women You Should Know” in a 2012 cover story.
