Fall 2007

Ben,

So, I wrote you a letter like this three years ago which started some discussion between us, as well as re-affirmed that we wanted to keep in touch with each other. I realize that has kind of gone by the wayside as both of us haven’t done the best at keeping in touch or returning each other’s calls or emails. Hopefully this letter gets us a little back on track.

First off, let me lay it out to you. Over the past three years, after I wrote the email to you where I said I thought I would be fulfilled by a homosexual relationship, I have experimented and tried finding relationships and sex with other guys I have met (mainly through online venues).  It hasn’t been easy, especially since I view God as looking down on me and condemning me to hell for my behavior and actions.  I know that God loves me and I know His grace is infinite, but at the same time I have this thought, “how he could forgive someone who is engaging in willful, sinful acts who is not asking for forgiveness or showing repentance.” But, we can get in to that later.

It has been a very singular journey because I didn’t allow myself to tell anyone about what I was trying and experiencing, besides what I shared with other guys who were also gay. And while they were accepting of my actions, most if not all did not share my beliefs. After all, it IS depressing to think that your actions right now are condemning you to hell and a life without God. So, most of the gay guys I meet are either not religious, or they have a VERY liberal Christianity where they view the homosexuality passages in the bible differently than I do. Although I am wondering if I should revise my beliefs on those passages, especially since there are only a few of them in the Old and New Testament.

But I guess I survived by pushing my religion back into the background. I still go to church, I will pray every once in a while, and I tithe. I don’t read my bible or have a relationship with God because every time I try to approach and talk to him, I realize that my sexuality puts up a wall between us. Now, I think that this wall was created by myself rather than God, but I don’t know how God would break down the wall, unless I can really believe that God created me this way and wants me to stay this way. That is what I feel. I feel like this is a part of me, a part of me I don’t just want to change or pray away until I find out what caused it and whether if changing my sexual attraction would change other parts of me as well. 

But how do I find out where these feelings of attraction came from?  No one really has an answer to it right now, although there are a lot of theories out there.  I can debunk quite a few of them, because I wasn’t sexually abused, I didn’t have a distant father, I didn’t have a broken family, I wasn’t influenced by the media or society, at least not until college. And while I accepted to myself that I was attracted to guys my senior year in college, looking back, there was a component to guy attraction earlier than that. I had stared at guys in high school (and I was teased for being gay once or twice, although I think it was more just because I was short, didn’t have a girlfriend, and they wanted to pick on me rather than actually thinking I was gay). When I first masturbated, I would look at pictures of guys (underwear models in the Sears catalog) because that was what would turn me on.  So, I had this attraction from the beginning, although I didn’t accept it for a while.  And while I was attracted to a girl (Jennie at Wheaton), I realize now that it was only emotionally that I was attracted to her. I never thought of her in a physical, sexual way. 

And I guess that could be some of the influence on my attraction to guys.  Growing up as a conservative Christian, I was taught to respect women, to not think of them sexually. But, so are thousands of other conservative Christian boys, and they have no problem eventually thinking sexually about girls. For me, that feeling never developed. The other rational that fits more into why I am attracted to guys is that my mother was a very dominant figure in my life and in our family.  You could say that I took more after the feminine side because she was my biggest influence in my early life (although I don’t feel that I am that feminine, or that homosexuality is rooted in feminism, because it isn’t. I actually consider myself a masculine homosexual).  Here’s a little more on that. 

My mother wanted a girl.  After my two older brothers, she definitely wanted a girl, and yet she had my brother and me. And while she loves us and I know that, a part of me wonders if her desire for a girl affected me, possibly even in the womb.  I don’t really buy that, but maybe there was some chemical stuff going on that affected my development even then. The reason I say this is because I firmly believe I had no choice in my feelings, and that it is deeper than just environmental factors growing up.  I guess you could say that I do believe it is genetic, or maybe you have a genetic pre-disposition to develop feelings of attraction to the same sex.

The second part of my mother’s influence stems from my being a caring and empathetic kid when I was around my mother. When my mom would cry because she was stressed or mad at my dad, or mad at my sister, I would start crying as well because when I saw her in pain, I was in pain. Again, not to say that homosexuals are weeny or puny or emotional, but that stereotype exists out there and there has to be a little truth to it.

 

Ultimately though, I don’t know WHY I have these feelings, which is a very big obstacle in my life. The reason being, I don’t know if God created these feelings, or if they are a result of sin in the world, or if they exist for some other reason or a combination of all of them. I would love to reach a conclusion, especially one that said that God was okay with me living a homosexual lifestyle. Because the only way I can see that I can live a heterosexual lifestyle is to have God “heal” me and make me right. And I believe that God COULD heal this, after all, He is God. But I don’t want to be healed and I don’t know if I could believe that it would work for the rest of my life. I would be very paranoid that I would start liking guys again and then cause so much pain for my spouse, and I would never want to do that. And why don’t I want to be healed?  I think I mentioned this before, but I don’t want to be healed until I figure out where this came from, and if God will accept me living a homosexual lifestyle. And I’m afraid of what else it will change about me if I asked God to change my attraction. And honestly, I like being attracted to guys. I like the feeling it gives me, I like the feeling I can give other guys when they are attracted to me. When a girl is attracted to me (which I think is happening with my friend Liz right now), I feel really bad and awkward because I know I’m not attracted back.

You may be wondering why I am telling you all of this, especially since most of it will sound like a re-hash of the first email I sent you three years ago. Well, there is a big reason why I am emailing you now.  It is more to ask to see if you still accept me and love me, after knowing that I have not only entertained thoughts of being gay, but I have engaged in homosexual relationships and sex.  Let me say that I am careful and smart about my sexual contact, well as careful and smart as you can be. I know there are still dangers out there, but I couldn’t sit back and wait for marriage until I had sex, because I wanted to be with a guy. I guess I could have waited until I married a guy, but we aren’t really at that point in our society.

I want to know that you are okay with having me as a friend and I want to know your honest thoughts.  If you think I am totally wrong with God, let me know.  If you think I can be healed, let me know that. If you think that living a homosexual lifestyle doesn’t exclude me from being a Christian, let me know that. And maybe you think we dealt with all of this three years ago, but those emails had no actual actions about them.  They were only about my desires and my frustration. Eventually, those emails did lead me to consider and eventually act on my desires, both in the last 9 months in Delaware and the past two years here in Billings. So, I want you to know the truth, because I have been hiding it and suppressing it to all of my friends and family.

You aren’t the only one who knows this time around, although after I emailed you three years ago, I never told anyone else or brought it up. This time, I told my younger brother and his wife in person. I had made up my mind to tell them while they were back from Japan for two weeks. Last weekend there was a perfect chance because we were talking about if I liked anyone and if I had dated anyone recently.  And I finally had the guts to tell them that I was attracted to guys, basically I then told them everything that I just told you. And the most amazing thing was that they said they still loved me and accepted me and that they didn’t know what they believed about homosexuality. The best thing was right after I said it, my sister in law had this big smile and said, “I knew it.” And that just made me feel okay, because they had thought about it, and wondered but it hadn’t ruined their life or driven them away. 

I am still worried about that, with them and with you. Although you may initially accept me, maybe you reconsider and take a new position on the issue. Or maybe you never fully accept it and feel comfortable around me. I don’t know, I guess I am just concerned that this will change things for the worse and they will never be the same. But, I have hung out with my brother again since I told him, and it was still normal and relaxed, although I know he is still evaluating what he believes about the issue.

I don’t know who else I could tell, or who else I want to tell right now.  Eventually, I would like to tell the rest of my siblings and possibly my parents, but there are so many issues in that and I don’t want to risk the existing relationship I have. I can tell you more about why I don’t think they would take it too well if I told them, either my older brothers, or my parents. I think it would just shock my sister and she would have a hard time dealing with it. Parents would feel they had done something wrong, and my older brother might cut me off from my niece and nephew.

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So, I need to figure out these 5 things.  1) Why do I have these feelings?  2) I need to figure out if God will accept me living a homosexual lifestyle. The only way I can see Him doing that is if I still refrain from sexual contact because while He may accept homosexuality, he most certainly does not accept sexual immorality, which is basically sex outside of marriage.  And I don’t know how I could be in a homosexual relationship, a fulfilled, complete relationship without sex.  But, maybe I can figure that out.  3)  I need to somehow get over my wall or block that I have put up and start talking to God.  4) And I need to experience His love and acceptance, even if I am engaging in willful, unrepentant sin. What was good to hear was that my brother didn’t think I was going to hell simply for engaging in willful, unrepentant sin because he said tons of people, tons of Christians do that every day. I tried to point out that they are eventually repentant and ask for forgiveness whereas I don’t ever ask for forgiveness for chatting with guys or hanging out with guys with the intent to date them or have sex. But he is right, if God can accept deathbed conversions, maybe He is more gracious than I believe.  5) Finally, I would like to find a guy to date and have a committed relationship with.  I have dated a few guys casually, but nothing serious, nothing with any meaning.  But I guess number 5 doesn’t fit in with the others. I wish it did, which is why I included it here and why I am going to keep talking to guys in the hopes of finding something committed and serious.

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And maybe you don’t even remember the email from three years ago that started so much. I have been rereading it quite a few times and I gave my original email to my brother to read. If you don’t remember it, I can send it, although it probably sounds like this email. I think this email is more positive and less frustrated though. Well, maybe this isn’t more positive, but it is more set. Before I was wavering on whether I should act on my feelings. Now I am only wondering how do I act on these feelings and still be a Christian, because up to this point, I haven’t been able to do that. And maybe I will never be able to do that. But, I am accepting that I want to keep pursuing guys and acting on my feelings. But give me your honest opinion if you think I shouldn’t do that, or if you think I am messing up my life or my relationship with God by doing these things. 

I do miss you and I hope you are doing good. I am not as lonely as I was in Delaware, because I have family and friends here, and I have made a few gay friends who I can just talk to or hang out with, so that helps too. But I realize that I have no idea where you are at with your own spirituality or even in your contentment with life, or in your marriage, or anything. And I do want to find out about you. So, while you can reply to that, I would also like to hear how you are doing, or if there are things I can help you with, because it seems like I am starting to make a bad habit out of typing up huge emails for you to respond to. Thanks for being a true friend though, and for being more than a college friend by being a life-long friend.

Well, I am about out of self-exploration and self-evaluation for now, so I might read through this and correct errors and then send it to you soon. I hope you are having a good day. Say hi to Alison for me too!

Derek