How do I deal with unmet sexual desire? It's a question which led me to ask, what is my sexual desire? Of course, "sexual desire" is a category with a lot of things in it. "There's a lot of different fish in that bucket," I told myself. But let's not call it a bucket. Let's call it an aquarium so all the fish have plenty of room to swim around, and so we can get a good look at them.
Here's one vocabulary term I've taken away from therapy: euphoric recall. I'd never heard that phrase until last year, and it gives language to this nebulous internal struggle I've faced since my first bout with pornography at 19.
For so many years I thought I was just dirty, lustful, and awful for thinking all these terrible sexual thoughts. I was filled with constant shame because the sexually intrusive thoughts kept coming. The realization that I can actually, with practice, redirect my own thoughts, is more freeing than I can write.
We have been blogging and podcasting a lot lately about gay characters or themes in various shows, films, and other media. Should we as Jesus-followers who may also identify as LGBT+ but also follow a traditional sexual ethic be consuming LGBT+ media? What are the potential benefits and costs, and where is the line between what is beneficial, acceptable, distracting, or harmful? How do we interact, if at all, with LGBT+ media? Join Tom, Ryan, and Aaron for this final (for now) discussion on the pros and cons and nuanced middle of LGBT+ media consumption!
Tom welcomes back Marshall to catch us up on his pandemic-induced overworked, yet puppy-filled life on the farm! He shares what he has always enjoyed about our YOBBERS retreats and gives some context to his "bought the field" Xanga blog username of yesteryear. Finally, Marshall shares about one of his longtime single friends, now dating a girl, and the joy he finds as a "friend of the bridegroom."
Being gay has ruined large crowds for me. Something about being surrounded, seen but utterly unknown, twists my soul. And then add to that the layers of guilt I feel. All these couples I'm jealous of because they get to be here together. Or the number of attractive men I see, the number of times I don't control my lustful thoughts. Or worst of all: when I spot a gay couple somewhere out there, and I want to be them, and I wish I didn't.
I had tasted all these new intense bursts of touch in recent years, perhaps some healthy and others not so much, and during one isolating season I was desperate to share the warmth of masculine flesh again. I was having trouble making friends with other men, though...so where did I turn? To an app.
Many of us with same-sex attractions have experienced that well-meaning friend or family member who feels the need to "love us well" by telling us, "God made you gay, so how could marrying someone of the same sex be wrong?" I appreciate not being cast out by said people because of my sexuality, but they also seem unwilling to believe that I've actually given my sexuality some thought.
It's now been three to four years since I've written those blogs on cuddling and nudity, and I've shared many cuddles since with guys I've met through YOB. But have any of my thoughts changed since I wrote those posts?
What follows is a template to give you a potential starting point for conversation with anyone in your church leadership. I write this as one who has had both positive and negative experiences coming out to church leadership.