Also, it takes fortitude and humility once again to say that you really don’t understand what happened to you — ie. how you became straight or attracted enough to your husband to marry.

As far as not staying on focus is concerned — how much can *any* of us say about Ted Haggard? If we don’t know why we don’t change or do change — I wonder what any of us hope to accomplish in the greater Christian world with ruminating about all of this. But it is interesting at the very least.

But, so be it that blogs are divided into topics. As I mentioned I am not a blogger. So maybe that in and of itself puts me far (or farther) afield of understanding the nuances of this genre.

At any rate, I have enjoyed the commentary of the readers and yours of course. At the very least it is good to know that there are “others” — whatever “others” means. But that is another topic, too.

Yeah… I don’t really know what to say. You seem to be looking for a clear message, or “overriding purpose” behind this blog. I don’t think I have one; I’m just thinking aloud here. Also, I don’t know who my target audience is, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t ssa strugglers in their 40’s and 50’s. I honestly wouldn’t presume to say much of anything to such people–what the heck do I know?

As far as the details of my journey and what I did when and why…that gets super-complicated and would take us very far afield very quickly. But I think you might misunderstanding something: I sought out exgay ministries for encouragement and support on my celibate journey. You seem to have gotten the impression that celibacy didn’t work for me, so I went to exgays to try to become straight, and eventually it worked. Instead, what happened was that I was having a hard time with celibacy, so I sought support from exgays, and eventually the change thing kinda happened for reasons I don’t really understand at all.

I’ll be revamping my “About” page so that it says more about where I’m coming from. That may be helpful to you. In the meantime, feel free to email me if you want to discuss this further. But that’s enough of this seriously off-topic discussion for this thread, okay? Thanks.

Not-so-new Reader:

Yeah, bisexuality is a whole conundrum on its own, isn’t it? Hmmmmm. That’s another topic to add to the pile.

I started out with a sort of “No Bisexuals Allowed” policy when I was younger, because an aunt had told me “Stay away from them, they’ll just leave you for a man someday.” But it quickly became apparent that if I were going to be zero-tolerance on bisexuals, I was going to be pretty much just dating myself. I always found female sexual flexibility so perplexing. And then it finally got me too.

I don’t know what I think about male bisexuality. I see what the studies say, how skeptical they are about it. Yet at the same time, I hear guys professing bisexual orientation, and I have a real soft spot for taking people at their word when it comes to their own experience. So…not sure what to do with that.

Mary:

Thanks for your thoughts. I’m totally open to changing the discourse, to using words differently. It’s not about allegiance to the old guard for me; rather, it’s simply about speaking in a way that people can understand. I think that means that any changes we make ought to be gradual and carefully explained. In other (i.e. not exgay related) contexts, when people are going to use words differently from the standard usage, they take the time to make that clear, so that everyone is on the same page. I guess I’m saying I wish we would do that. Similarly, it doesn’t bother me as much “within the exgay community”, when we’re speaking to each other. But if we’re speaking to people who don’t understand the local dialect, then I think there’s an obligation to communicate clearly with them. That’s all I’m trying to say. I agree with you totally that we don’t want to be confined by the current concepts of sexuality and “sexual orientation” which are popular today. But I’d like to pursue that healthier, more godly self-definition without unnecessarily confusing others.

I too struggle with the *meaning* of heterosexualality/homosexuality, and this case is a fascinating example of the taxonomy of language in this field. I find myself concurrently disbelieving in the existence of true bisexuality of the male human, or at least that it is much less common than currently perceived (although its physical manifestation is obvious, how much of thius is a factor of the anything-that-moves prefernce of the male sexual centers?), while have longstanding, cyclic experience of profoundly bisexual prefence myself, which I suspect is distinctly more common than discussed. Add to this granular mess a layer of profound religious convinction along with an ironclad social necessity to be straight (as an evangelical pastor) in a subject like Haggard gives us the most fascinating opportunity to probe the differenet aspects of interaction between biological, spiritual, and social sexual preference and behavior. A great case, great posts.

If all of this is so:

Why were you not celibate?

It seems to me: and please correct me if I am wrong — you initially went to ex-gay ministries *because* you were having a difficult time staying celibate. O.K., no big sacrifice there. (*not* said sarcastically).

But then, God revealed to you what you needed to change — thinking patterns (?), etc… and you were changed.

It seems that we are talking apples and oranges here with possibly 2 comparisons. I am open to insights on this that maybe I am not getting. But as for now, that is how I am seeing the picture.

Again, maybe this dovetails into the reason for being of your blog. Admittedly, I am not a blogger, so I do not know blogger “society” that well. So please forgive me there.

Perhaps I do not understand the overriding *purpose* of your blog — past the point of hearing yourself think (and I don’t mean that sarcastically, so please don’t take it that way, O.K.)

You have essentially arrived: nice hubby you love, great sex you say, baby on the way hopefully. Sure you could slip and fall (and potentially lose it all) — but let’s say not.

What is it exactly that you want to say about this issue that will make a difference in the man or woman (Christian) who has never changed (and let’s say they are in their 40’s, 50′’s and beyond) that would be of any real comfort and help:

That God doesn’t owe you anything? That walking by faith can be tough? Sure enough. That…maybe you just haven’t pressed on — there is something wrong or hidden in your life that needs to be dredged out?

Your blog is kinda in a strange place — you are not ex-ex-gay yet not *pro* ex-gay. I guess that the best way to ask is this: Do you hope to get a message across to someone or some group or, again, is this thinking aloud because it can be done thanks to the Internet and much of your struggle is over (at least as I understand your change experience).

I am asking because maybe I don’t understand the purpose or principles and shouldn’t be commenting on what is going on here in your blog in general. That is all I mean by the above.

Welcome and thanks for your thoughts.

I think I agree with you conceptually, although I’m not sure who’s responsible for what linguistically. My understanding (though I could very well be mistaken on this, and would appreciate correction with references if so) is that the word “heterosexual” was coined at the same time “homosexual” was, as a contrast to it. So my understanding was that they were created as “two sides of the same coin”, so to speak.

Anyhow, regardless of the history of the word and who is to blame for that history, the fact is that now one of the word’s primary meanings is: “Characterized by a sexual interest in members of the opposite sex,” as the OED puts it. However we got here, this is what the word is understood to mean now, by many people, and when we are speaking to those people, I think we need to take into consideration how they will interpret what we say.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that our society is rather deeply confused about this stuff, and that heterosexuality and homosexuality ultimately can’t be conceptually symmetrical. But given that people are confused in that way, I just want to be careful in not misleading them about my personal experiences.

Frank:

I agree with you about “gay,” in many circles and contexts at least. Certainly in Christian circles (well, evangelical Protestant ones at least), “gay” implies intent to be sexually active with members of the same sex.

I know some people will disagree with me, claiming that “gay” just means that one is attracted to the same sex, but I personally think that it carries a lot of connotations that are hostile to traditional Christian convicitons on this subject. It suggests, at least in some contexts, a particular package of culture and values. So I’m not saying that predominantly same-sex attracted people with Christian convicitons forbidding homosex should go around calling themselves “gay” in general. I do feel, though, that in some contexts, if such people have to choose between “gay” or “straight”, that “gay” would be less misleading than “straight”.

My identity posts will dwell on this more, but I totally agree with you about the unhelpfulness of the “celibate gay” mindset. It sure did not work for me.

I agree with you about Haggard as well. I don’t say that he shouldn’t have gotten married, or that he’s not attracted to his wife. It’s not at all clear to me what the balance of his sexual attractions is, and regardless of the balance of his attractions, I don’t think his apparent homosexual attractions invalidate his marriage or make it a “lie” or a “fraud” in any way. But I’ve been through all that before.

It does seem to me that a lot of people are tossing aside the more complex and nuanced ways of talking about sexuality (like the Kinsey or Klein scales) in favor of this black-and-white simple “gay or straight” stuff. Granted, there are studies that question the existence of male bisexuality, but these are mostly based on the fact that allegedly bisexual men generally get aroused by erotic images of one sex or the other, not both. But for me that just raises yet another question: is *that* (i.e., how we respond to erotic movies) the only real measure of sexual attraction and desire? To many women, even a woman like myself who is rather visually-oriented when it comes to sexuality, this sounds pretty crazy! Many exgay men and also many self-avowedly bisexual men claim that things are more complicated than that, at least for them, and I’m inclined to believe them.

Also, finally, I realize that I underestimated the energy and effort that it takes to rephrase the conversation in a different vocabulary. Ron also took me to task for this, and although I initially resisted, I think that you and he are right. While the words themselves aren’t all that tricky, we do need to understand where other people are at, and that is often far from easy.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Anonymous:

Eh, I don’t have a problem with the “nothing new under the sun” verse per se, and I think there’s wisdom in it, properly understood in the context of the rest of the book and the rest of Scripture. I was more concerned with a particular mindset, with a particular application of the verse that tends toward apathy and indifference. I thought you were quoting it in order to say “Why bother?”, and so I tried to explain why I bother.

As far as the pleasing God thing goes, I think we just plain disagree. I understand that the struggle can be very difficult. (But I would add that we can make it much more difficult than it has to be!) I understand that God sometimes does not answer prayers in the way that we would like, even desperate prayers that involve tears and prostration. (Been there, done that.) And I understand that a lot of people who want attraction change don’t experience it. But in spite of the difficulty, I believe that all Christians by God’s grace have the power to choose daily to deny themselves and pick up their crosses and follow Jesus. God hasn’t promised anyone attraction change, to the best of my knowledge, and I don’t believe that He owes it to anyone. I don’t think that “God would never want my life to be so difficult, so He must not mind if I get a boyfriend/girlfriend,” while understandable from the perspective of human psychology, is sound Biblical thinking. The same goes for “It’s unfair that I should have to struggle with this when other people don’t have to, God doesn’t have the right to ask this of me!” I can understand why some people might feel that way, and sympathize with them and feel their pain, but ultimately I think they are mistaken.

In any case, this line of conversation is kinda drifting way off the topic of the thread. You raise some very interesting questions–both the “why does it matter if it’s not a salvation issue?” question and the “Where is God in the struggle?” question–and I’ll try to post about them as I get the chance, although I’ve got something of a backlog. But I hope I’ve adequately explained why I bother with this stuff and why I think these issues matter, even if you disagree with my reasoning.

At some point action and choice must come into play — elsewise how can that be considered a life? It seems to be sleepwalking at best.

And that’s enough for me. I have been mixing with “ex-gays” for about a year now and, yes, many fit the “nothing new under the sun” category. I’m the imposter in my exgay group with no church or evangelical history. It’s easy for me to believe they would all be waving rainbow flags now if they had been born into non-evangelical families but I also find it difficult to believe they are simply sexually repressed. To do so would trivialize the Christian faith. Some exgays will end up marrying the men/women they truly desire but the faith will remain.