[Two Pronged] I want to be straight

Jeremy Baer, Margarita Holmes

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'I try to teach myself to like girls, but I can't feel anything,' goes this week's Two-Pronged dilemma

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes. Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives. Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer: 

I’m counting on you.

I’m 26, single, and I probably have the most difficult crisis a man could ever have in his lifetime.

I am having difficulty liking girls. I am trying real hard to learn to get a spark but no, it’s not working. I have strong sexual desire for boys, not young boys, but boys my age. I want to get rid of this feeling and I am so confused now. Every time I try to ignore my urges – the feeling is growing deep and I can’t help it.

My situation is very difficult. I can’t come out gay to the eyes of the people or come out as a man who prefers other men. I have a name and dignity to protect and maintain. 

To better understand my situation, allow me to cite screwed-up instances. 

This intense sexual urges for men started not less than a year ago when I happen to work with my cousin named Niko, age 26 like myself. It’s paperwork we needed to finish before May last year. I asked him to help me because he was the only one who was available then. Our schedule was 5pm onwards. We stopped working around 12 midnight for 10 straight days.

One night we were out for drinks without intentions. We got dizzy and  went home. He asked if he could sleep in my room and I did not refuse. Ten minutes after we went to bed, I started to smell and feel him. I didn’t notice my arms were all around him. Things happen real quick. Niko is a basketball player you can imagine his body tone. 

After that, we still continued working, as if nothing happened. Up to now, he makes me feel he wants more by initiating texts with most messages implying something sexy. Though I really badly want more of it, I did not respond. I want to remain the me whom they know. Strict but witty, respectable and decent. 

I had a girlfriend 2 years ago. She is beauty queen, with 3 different pageant titles. I loved her until we finally broke up. Since then I have not found someone for me. I am so lonely.

My workplace is an all-day challenge because I see boys who are really cuter than girls. And I can’t appreciate or feel for girls. I try to teach myself to like girls but I can’t feel anything. 

Could it be the result of my past experience?

When I was 7 I was molested by a man I do not really know but was a family friend. 

In grade six, I was molested by group of friends, who are not my friends. 

When I was in high school, 3 teachers including the head of the school molested and abused me. They wanted it every day to the point that I’ve learned to like it. 

In college some of my professors did the same. I got used to it, even feel like I like it already.  

In my post grad studies, a professor attempted to do those things, but I stopped it before it happened.

My first work gave me the same experience. My boss and some other colleagues have had their attempts but I blocked them. Since then, I thought overcame it by not giving in. Its been 5 years since I’ve been  molested.

Now, I feel hunted. It seem I am now duplicating my abusers.  I fear if not handled well,  it may lead to doing actions that I once feared and hated.  

Dr Holmes, Mr. Baer I hope you will help me overcome this weakness. Please help me what to do to avoid if not get rid of this feeling. Feeling of wanting to taste my fellow men. I am in big trouble.

Hoping against hope,  

Robert 

———————

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your email. 

I have good news and bad news for you. 

First, the “bad” news. There is no cure for being gay. There are no drugs and no therapies that work, no matter what people may tell you. Some advocate conversion therapy, dubbed “pray the gay away”, but the State of California and The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (among others) have declared this type of therapy to be unethical on the grounds that it is not only ineffective but actually harmful.

Another option is to live your life in denial but it will be hard work, as you already know, and it will take its toll on you both physically and mentally, as you are also finding out for yourself.

Now for the good news. As the Psychological Association of the Philippines (PAP) clearly and unequivocally stated in 2013, being gay is not a disease or disorder

You can embrace your gay self and live a perfectly happy and fulfilled life. This is not to deny that you will meet opposition from some family and friends but we all face opposition in one form or another whether we are gay or straight. Not everybody likes us and often there is no discernible reason for their dislike. The world is after all an unreasonable place and there is no point bemoaning this fact, however unpalatable it may be.

The gay community is a minority community and as such it can offer you support and friendship that often exceeds that offered by the majority.

In addition, accepting your gay self will free you from the mental contortions and psychological stress that you are going through trying to be outwardly straight when you are inwardly the opposite. 

All the best,

JAF Baer

 

Dear Robert, 

Thank you very much for your letter.  Since Jeremy has shared how some official organizations or psychological societies the world over view homosexuality, I will focus on three issues which I feel are important given the way you feel. 

  • You are worried that you are gay because you have been abused several times by several different men. The research just doesn’t back that up, Robert. In fact, according to the American Psychiatric Association (2000), a history of sexual abuse does not appear to be more prevalent in children who grow up to identify as LGBT than in people who identify as heterosexual.    

Kali Munro, M.Ed., an online psychotherapist, wrote the following statements in her 2002 article titled “Am I Gay Because of the Abuse?” and posted on her website KaliMunro.com: 

“Sexual abuse can interfere with sexual enjoyment; contribute to a survivor engaging in sexual behaviors that arise from the abuse; and interfere with survivors’ ability to know what they want. But, sexual abuse can’t create a survivor’s deepest passion and desires… 

The truth is that sexual abuse and sexuality are a million miles apart; they truly have nothing in common. Something as wonderful and beautiful as our sexuality could never have arisen out of something as ugly and painful as sexual abuse.” 

  • Please remember that the sex you had with Niko is nothing like the abuse you experienced when you yourself were a young boy.  I am so very sorry that all that happened to you. I am sure you had issues while you were growing up that others who were not abused did not have. Perhaps you still do. 

But there is no doubt in my mind about your behavior with Niko. It was not abuse.

Niko is not a minor, but someone close in age to you. Thus, your relationship with him was one between consenting adults. 

Should you hook up again, it will still be something between 2 consenting adults, and I can find nothing wrong with that. 

  • Acknowledging you are gay or, at the very least, a man who has had and enjoys sex with other men) does not mean you have to announce it to the world at large. It doesn’t even mean you have to tell anyone whom you know will either tell others and/or lose respect for you if he found out. 

I am sure, however, that there are many other men you deal with who have very healthy attitudes about LGBT issues.  And I hope that in time, you meet someone worthy of your trust and who will also trust you as much.

Emotional health can be more easily achieved if you have at least one other person with whom you can share your triumphs and concerns with.  You have started by writing us this letter. In time, I hope you will find someone else worthy of your trust and respect to open up to, a person who will honor all you say, not mention anything you share with another person, and might even, perhaps, share his/her own fears and joys with you. A best friend, if you will. This might be the person you will come out to about your sexual feelings.

Finally, I’d like to “introduce” you to Professor Pierce Docena of UP Tacloban, and end with what he said when I shared your letter with him.  

Prof Docena is also a psychologist and one of his areas of expertise is issues regarding the rights of everyone, including the LGBT community, to love and be loved by people similar to or different from others.

Prof Docena is one of the founding members of the Psychological Association of the Philippines (PAP) LGBT Psychology Special Interest Group, the first organized collective of mental health professionals dedicated to LGBT rights and well-being in the Philippines and in the Southeast Asian region.

At any rate, Prof Docena said: “Sex can be a wonderful thing. But what makes it even more wonderful is the fact that the parties concerned willingly and wholeheartedly agree to do the act. Simply doing each other is mechanical, but doing it together – now that can be magical.”

All the best,

MG Holmes

Need advice from our Two Pronged duo? Email twopronged@rappler.com with subject heading TWO PRONGED. Unfortunately the volume of correspondence precludes a personal response.

When leaving a message on this page, please be sensitive to the fact that you are responding to a real person in the grip of a real-life dilemma, who wrote to Two Pronged asking for help, and may well view your comments here. Please consider especially how your words or the tone of your message could be perceived by someone in this situation, and be aware that comments which appear to be disruptive or disrespectful to the individual concerned will be removed.

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