sexual attraction, child abuse, the church

[Portia]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/74149/

I NEED The Black Sheep's thoughts on this guy's situation. Especially considering the how-childhood-abuse-affects-orientation-or-doesn't point (which was always a bogeyman against gay folks in my youth).

[TheBlackSheep]

That's very flattering. I saw this question earlier today but I haven't had a chance to read it or the answers thoroughly. I will try to respond on the train tomorrow morning or evening. I'm very interested...

[TheBlackSheep]

Okay, so as to the question about molestation causing or not causing a GLBT orientation... Some of the literature suggests that a direct correlation exists, and some of the literature suggests that it doesn't. My personal opinion is that it is probable that a statistically greater number of gay men and women were sexually abused as children than straight men and women, though probably not too much greater. In either case, correlation does not imply causation. It could be that adults who victimize children choose boys who exhibit the more stereotypical "gay" attitudes and behaviors because those behaviors cause the abuser to feel more masculine. Who knows. The jury is still out on this, and it doesn't really concern me anyway. People are sexually attracted to who they are sexually attracted to, and they should never feel as though it is a mistake, problem, or punishment. It simply is what it is.

It is interesting to note, though, that the view on women who are gay and were sexually abused by men as children is that they are now angry/scared of men, whereas the view of men who are gay and were sexually abused by men as children is that that caused them to be gay because... whatever. It seems like confirmation bias to me, but like I said, I'm not too worried about it.

As to the question, dude REALLY needs to seek therapy related to his abuse. He and his therapist REALLY need to work on creating some sort of a support network for him in his daily life. Keeping it a secret only leads to the continued belief that it should be kept secret, which is shame. Shame is completely incompatible with healing. He also needs to accept the fact that he is gay, for whatever confusing, unknowable reason, and that is not going to change. He can deal with it however he wants to deal with it and make whatever choices he wants, but he's going to be gay, and that's okay. He also needs to know that mixed-orientation marriages that work are exceedingly rare, especially in relationships such as the one he wants that have no other outlet for sexual expression.

[Portia]

Thanks! That was spot-on. Miss your voice on the board.

[vorpal blade]

When I first read this question I thought, here is another miserable, unhappy soul who was molested as a child and now has an unwanted same-sex attraction. Over the last ten years I’ve read dozens, if not hundreds of life stories of gay people. I’d say that the majority of them were molested as children. It is so sad that virtually everything we read today gives us the impression that there is no hope for such people. We are told that their sexual orientation is fixed, and they are lectured that they should learn to just accept it.

What I’ve found is the good news that thousands of people who were once thought of as hopelessly “gay” have successfully changed their orientation. Psychiatrists have found ways to help these people who sincerely want to change. Not everyone has been a success, but the success rate has been around 40% which is comparable to the success rate of treating psychological disorders. There is hope for miserable gay people who want the choice to change.

[Portia]

What about young girls who are molested by men? Are they "hopelessly 'straight'" if they then grow up, are attracted to men, but have fears/issues about sex?

There are a lot of problems with your post. I just don't think patronizing gay people (whether they are comfortable with their orientation or not) does anyone a lick of good. The "majority" allegation just sounds cray-cray to me.

[vorpal blade]

Aww, you know I don’t think I’m smarter or superior to gay people.

My estimate of the majority comes from searching gay blogs and reading life stories, many of which were written by ex-gays. So my impression may be skewed. Do you have better data?

I’m not sure what you are trying to say in your first paragraph. Assuming you aren’t just mocking me I’ll give you a straight (and gay) answer.

I don’t know if anyone is “hopelessly” anything, but many find change to be very, very difficult. In my readings and conversations with those who have been molested I find the subject very complex and involves many factors. Molestation leads to different results depending on such things as the resilience of the child, the manner and frequency of the molestation, what the child thinks happened, the level of fear experienced, the level of trust involved, and the reaction of family and friends. Probably more factors than that. Sexual molestation is always harmful and traumatic, but most people survive a single molestation without becoming gay because of fear/anger towards men (as TBS points out is one theory) or becoming “hopelessly straight.” I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that most molested children have issues about sex.

Sexual molestation of children is exploitation, and there may be great anger and resentment later when the child begins to understand what happened from an adult perspective. But the molestation may be either violent or seductive in nature. When seductive the child is left with a sense of being complicit in the molestation, especially if the seduction was accompanied by feelings of pleasure, gratitude for being “loved” or thought special, arousal through the use of pornography, and gifts given to “woo” the victim. If not corrected the child may develop a sexual orientation toward the perpetrator of the seduction molestation.

Violent molestation will probably bring a more immediate reaction of anger, hurt, and feelings of being violated. Yet you cannot always predict what the outcome will be when the innocence of childhood is shattered. Some violently molested become heterosexually promiscuous.

TBS is right that correlation does not imply causation. It is a little difficult to prove, however, because today we could never permit molestation of children as an experiment in order to see if we could statistically increase the number of children who later become identified as gay. So, how can we ever prove causation?

If we go back in history we find that just such an “experiment” was conducted. I came across this fact when involved in a long (daily, for months) online discussion with a couple of smart gay people and others. By the way, both of the gay people had been molested as children. One of the things that came out of the discussion was that the gay guy yearned for the golden age when 100% of the men were gay. I didn’t believe that such a time ever existed. He insisted that it did in ancient Greece, and he offered references to many history books to prove it. So I read a lot about it, not just from history books he suggested, but other history books. It turns out the smart gay guy was right and I was wrong, for at least the free class of Greek men.

Will Durant in his “The Story of Civilization: II The Life of Greece” spells it all out. The way it was done was like this. At the age of six a boy in ancient Greece was taken from his family and put in a dormitory with men and boys. A boy had to have a mentor/lover in order to survive. The men showered gifts, poetry, praise, attention and favors on the boy until the boy selected one of them as his lover. In essence it was institutional molestation by seduction. As far as history records 100% of them develop same-sex attraction, preferring sex with other men or boys to sex with women. The government had to provide many tax and other incentives to get the men interested enough in sex with women to prevent a total collapse in the population.

That’s what we read in the history books.

And just to be clear, I’m not saying that a gay man today is more likely to be a child molester than a “straight” man.

[Portia]

Wow, I'm actually very taken aback. Some digging on PubMed/NIH (which I trust as scientific and without a particular agenda) brings up this:

In research with 942 nonclinical adult participants, gay men and lesbian women reported a significantly higher rate of childhood molestation than did heterosexual men and women. Forty-six percent of the homosexual men in contrast to 7% of the heterosexual men reported homosexual molestation. Twenty-two percent of lesbian women in contrast to 1% of heterosexual women reported homosexual molestation.

I think that therapy to "pray the gay away" so to speak has a multitude of problems, but the issue of crimes against children and later adult behavior is one I'll have to think about.

[vorpal blade]

Very interesting, Portia. Thanks for posting that. I notice that the study only deals with same-sex molestation. As has been pointed out sometimes gay men and women report that they were molested by someone from the opposite sex. This is especially true for lesbians.