“Ex Gay” Could Actually Work for Me
Published at 11:08 on 11 September 2015
Mainly because sexuality is more than a simplistic gay/bi/straight spectrum, and I happen to be further from that line than most.
I just don’t have the sort of strong sexual urges most men do, so if I wanted to I could become an “ex gay” and put up with the ruse basically indefinitely. Attractive men would still catch my eye, but it would be trivially easy to resist any temptation to go further (because for me there simply isn’t much temptation).
It would of course still be a lie (I’d not be straight), and I have no interest whatsoever in practicing fundamentalist Christianity (or any other sort of organized religion, for that matter), and I strongly support the right of all individuals to live according to the sexuality they actually possess, so I’d never actually do such a thing.
But if I wanted to, I could. And although my sexual orientation is unusual, I doubt it’s unique.
So there exist “gay” men who are sexually active to the degree they are not because they’re gay and that’s what their deepest intrinsic desires lead them to be, but because they can be that way if they try. (They’re play-acting at being gay, in much the same way that many so-called “ex gays” play-act at being straight.)
Perhaps, like me, they were curious about sex and wanted to experience some at least once in their lives. I realized that I just didn’t fit in with what is — to me — a hyper-sexualized subculture that was continually imposing its alien sexuality onto me, primarily through the implicit assumption of others that I wanted the same sort of frequent, often casual, sex they desired. I wanted a little bit of sex, with one or two individuals I had a very close relationship to, that’s it.
I resolved the problem by basically walking away from the subculture and ceasing to identify as a member of it. Others may find that difficult to do, and want to replace the gay male subculture with another one, say that of conservative Christianity. And the world’s a large enough place that at least a few individuals probably have.
Keep that latter point in mind. Because, no matter how many “ex gays” continue to be caught in the act of lapsing, it means that somewhere there are probably some who don’t — and won’t — “lapse.” Odds are this will eventually get some attention in the Establishment media.
When it does, it in no way means that it’s possible to become “ex gay;” the individuals which will be reported on never actually were gay in the first place.