Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

https://theboard.byu.edu/questions/85500/

I struggle with same-gender attraction but after a lot of prayer and thought have decided to remain in the church and, should all go well, marry a guy in the temple.

Oh, honey. My heart breaks for you.

You're not struggling with "same gender attraction." You're a lesbian. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I really wish the Church's solution to gay members wasn't to suggest mixed-orientation marriages. Statistically, that's almost certainly a recipe for heartbreak.

And I really wish there was a genuine welcoming place for gay members in the Church. But as long as the leadership's answer to this kind of thing sounds like this, there won't be.

I know some straight couples who approached the idea of sex with an attitude of "oh well, sex isn't the most important thing in a marriage anyways," and it's led to problems.

Tell gay people they're broken and throw them into a lifelong commitment with the opposite sex: what can go wrong?

Yeah, conversion therapy is straight-up evil, and MOM is a lifestyle choice with at least 70% failure rate. This sounds like the worst recipe for a dead bedroom ever. I hope she's able to to find peace.

Cogs you should put a trigger warning with that stuff. >.<

not every person who struggles with same-gender attraction is exclusively homosexual, so I think that some mixed-orientation marriages can work. It's obviously not a good solution for everyone though.

I'm feeling grouchy and I'm working on my own complicated LGBTQ answer right now, so out with it: I never "struggled" with being bisexual. I struggled with the culture and the guilt and the shame. Being bisexual makes me happy, and I like it about myself. I think it's a terrible verb.

TheBlackSheep wrote:I'm feeling grouchy and I'm working on my own complicated LGBTQ answer right now, so out with it: I never "struggled" with being bisexual. I struggled with the culture and the guilt and the shame. Being bisexual makes me happy, and I like it about myself. I think it's a terrible verb.

This.

I kind of feel like people should get to choose their own labels, so when someone wants to go with "same-sex/gender attraction," I'll use that, even though I think it's problematic for LDS culture as a whole to use it as a euphemism. But I really hate saying "*struggle with* SSA", because while some people do struggle with their identity in and of itself, I think it normalizes the idea that it's a bad thing, or something that's going to be an inherent trial. It takes away the responsibility that other people have to not make it so much of a struggle for LGBT people. But then I always get tripped up when I use SSA in referring to people, because I've literally never heard it preceded by a different verb.

sorry to use that phrase, I don't think it's helpful and I should have been more thoughtful with my word choice. Although I think in an LDS context, any sexual desires often feel like a struggle, because LDS culture has a hard time accepting that sexual thoughts are normal (just my experience).

I think I'm going to refer to straight people as "struggling with opposite-sex attraction" until everyone realizes why it needs to stop. Hahaha.

Zedability wrote:I think I'm going to refer to straight people as "struggling with opposite-sex attraction" until everyone realizes why it needs to stop. Hahaha.

Literally me today. I am struggling with it.

C is for wrote:

Zedability wrote:I think I'm going to refer to straight people as "struggling with opposite-sex attraction" until everyone realizes why it needs to stop. Hahaha.

Literally me today. I am struggling with it.

Work crushes on married guys? Check.

Whistler wrote:sorry to use that phrase, I don't think it's helpful and I should have been more thoughtful with my word choice. Although I think in an LDS context, any sexual desires often feel like a struggle, because LDS culture has a hard time accepting that sexual thoughts are normal (just my experience).

I think you're right, and, for the record, I was responding to the use of that phrase by a writer in an answer to question 85500, not your use of it specifically.

Whistler wrote:Although I think in an LDS context, any sexual desires often feel like a struggle, because LDS culture has a hard time accepting that sexual thoughts are normal (just my experience).

That's a good point, though, really.

And I just want to add my voice to those wishing this girl well. And her future husband (if she ever marries a dude). And I want to say that reading this honestly made me angry even though I'm not LGBT or LDS anymore for that matter.

I say drop the verb if you can, and just say I'm _____ or they're _______. I'm gay, they're diabetic, etc. Or I suppose "experiencing" is always a safe/neutral substitute for "struggling with." They experience same-sex attraction. I like the phrase "deal with." It can sound kind of negative, like having to deal with something unpleasant, but it also means you're handling the situation - I'm dealing with this! - so that's what I use for stuff I don't think merits the label "struggling with."

Genuine Article wrote:I say drop the verb if you can, and just say I'm _____ or they're _______. I'm gay, they're diabetic, etc. Or I suppose "experiencing" is always a safe/neutral substitute for "struggling with." They experience same-sex attraction. I like the phrase "deal with." It can sound kind of negative, like having to deal with something unpleasant, but it also means you're handling the situation - I'm dealing with this! - so that's what I use for stuff I don't think merits the label "struggling with."

Also I think it (saying "struggling") can give it a salience that it simply doesn't merit. I experience "opposite-gender attraction" to my married coworker: and ... what? I don't act on it. The idea that I've "committed adultery in my heart" actually seems like it would be a great way to get caught in an anxiety loop. I think, however, that this would be a common thing for an active LDS person to beat herself up over.

Not to trivialize the experience of LGBT students at BYU, of course.

Cognoscente wrote:And I really wish there was a genuine welcoming place for gay members in the Church. But as long as the leadership's answer to this kind of thing sounds like this, there won't be.

Apparently this went viral on Reddit. I think this comment is perfect:

And yet people who say "I don't see race" seem to use it as the excuse to not identify or confront racism, including their own. That's what Bednar is doing here. He's rhetorically erasing LGBT people from the equation so it's harder to recognize discrimination against them.

Hey, shoutout to Luciana for not saying "struggling with same-sex attraction" in the latest question about teh gay (#85977) and instead choosing a more neutral verb. I saw it and appreciated it instantly.

Also, shoutout to Frere Rubik, Luciana, and Zedablity for, I think, super solid answers on this one.

I have a satire blog post planned for why people should only say "struggling with opposite-gender attraction" or OSA for short, instead of "straight."

But I'm waiting until (a) I have time, (b) I'm not too depressed to write things, and (c) nothing has recently happened to inflame people's feeling on the topic in advance.

I love it, and I feel you on all fronts.