But I don't understand why that means you 'left' homosexuality, or even what leaving homosexuality entails
Are you hetero now? Are you married, with children?
You left a hateful environment, and for good reasons, but I don't understand what that means for your sexuality NOW. Did you become straight, or something else entirely? Or nothing? 4/8/2013 5:58 PM Chrifu
@Chrifu
That is a very good question...And this is the answer:
What do I mean when I left homosexuality? First, I left gay sex. I first made the vow to quit gay sex sometime in 1987, after I learned one of my friends and former lovers had full blown AIDS, my friends rejected me, and then I learned about this horrible group of gay, HIV positive men called ACTUP!. ACTUP! would disrupt business and government meetings, they even disrupted trading on Wall Street. They would shout out things like, "YOU ARE KILLING US!!" The only people killing gay men were, "We, ourselves, and us."
But that was only the last straw. My walk into and out of homosexuality started at the same place.
I suffered, because I was gay, not because of what anyone thought of me. I hated myself. And I was raised in the "Not Very Gay" 70's in a small Kentucky town. Everyone I knew thought gay meant 'happy'. No one even suspected I was gay, but I wanted to kill myself every single day. How could there be any societal condemnation when they didn't know there was anything to condemn?? Were gay people suffering in the big cities? There were, but for most of us outside the gay enclaves on the edges of most urban centers, to say we were persecuted is utter and complete nonsense. I was my own persecution. (This part is a cut and paste from a recent comment I left to a gay activist).
See I had a dad who neglected his wife and children. My dad only ever cared about controlling the people in his life. He took whatever he wanted and gave little to nothing in return. When I was 3 or 4 years old, my uncle came to live with us. He was born to my grandparents when they were in their 40's (Yes, that's right, that's pronounced "WHOOPS! A'BABY!"). My mom was 21 years old, and married when her little brother was born. Mom's two sisters were grown and married too. Can you imagine a man with 3 daughters who finally has the son he always wanted?? My uncle got away with everything, he was the apple of my grandfather's eye. Grandpa's apple, everyone else's worm. My uncle was a monster. My parents knew what uncle monster was like, because he'd already lived with the other 2 sisters before coming to us, and the stories were hair curling. I was uncle monster's favorite chew toy. He could always torment me into tears, kicking, and screaming. At first uncle monster would only torment me when dad wasn't home, but one night, don't know why, he took the tormenting into overtime. I cried out and then my dad yelled. Dad, bellowed, "LONNIE...WOULD YOU SHUT UP!" That was the end of me. I was an object for a monster to chew on, and the dad, who should have protected me, threw me to the monster to be used. I was an object of neglect and an object to be abused. Funny thing about being treated like an object, you start acting like an object. Then, SURPRISE, You start seeing other people as objects.
It was actually after I started working in a soup kitchen (several years after leaving homosexuality) and started ministering to drunks, addicts, hookers and etc. that I would come to understand how I'd been treating people, especially other guys like objects. One day the realization just took hold of me that these women doing the hooking talked about loving sex and money, but no matter how much they loved sex or money, they hated being used, and no amount of love for sex or money was ever enough to make being used okay. With that realization about hookers came a question for me, "Have I ever used a guy the way guys use hookers?" I thought, "Well, I never paid, or was paid for sex..." but I knew there was something deeper I was missing about my own behaviors... I started remembering interactions with my classmates from grade school. I never had a real friend. My way of relating was to go home alone, and bring my classmates home, but only in my mind. The only way I could have a relationship with other guys was to have a fantasy relationship with them. In the real world I knew know one could want to be my friend. My dad didn't want me, and my uncle only ever abused me. I learned the lessons dad and uncle monster taught me very well! I didn't know what I was doing, I honestly thought I was doing my classmates a great kindness by refusing to burden them with my presence. In my fantasies I was the best at everything, football, baseball, basketball, you name it. As the years went by the list of all the great things I could do grew. Eventually playmates went from the football diamond, and the baseball goal, to the bedroom. At first I just imagined masturbating with another guy in the room. It was all fantasy, so I could do anything, and masturbating moved into something a lot closer and invasive. I already knew a lot about sex, because dad was a porn addict, and he left the stuff lying around everywhere. I wasn't born gay, I was made to feel like an object and started using other people as objects of pleasure.
When I was 8 years old, one of my older brother's friends started being nice to me. I never understood why. I was convinced no one could so much as like me, and it was completely impossible anyone could ever love me. But this older kid was nice to me, when my brother's other friends just ignored or picked on me. It turned into sex play. Now back in the very early 70's every kind of play between boys was just that, play. We've lost something today, that even a dysfunctional kid like me was able to recognize. back then. There was this period of time in a boy's life between like 5 and 11 years old when being a boy was the greatest thing on earth, and boys could innocently share that with other boys. Today everything a boy does is scrutinized and labeled. Little boys who might just be playing get labeled "gay", and they are only 4 or 5 years old! It is sick to saddle a child with the anchor "gay", before they even know what sexuality is. (Children do not develop an understanding of sexuality until after age 8. That was proven by years and years of rigorous scientific testing by scientists studying child mental development. Of course today with our sex saturated culture children are being rushed into things their little brains can't yet handle. SAD!)
I didn't understand at 8 that what I was going to begin doing with other boys was, in fact, selling myself for a little bit of pleasure in return. I didn't like the sex. Okay I need to back up. I loved the powerful sexual pleasure, but when the sexual high wore off I felt horrible. It took me years and years to see that I felt horrible because I was using and being used. Sex was what I traded to be with another person I liked. I believed that I had to do something for someone, or give something to validate my reason for taking up a fellow human beings time. If I could make the other guy feel good, then it was okay if I felt good. I wasn't getting paid for sex, I was trading good feelings, so I could feel liked, valued, worthy to a fellow human being. I just settled for the smallest crumbs of human warmth and kindness. And as always I loved the sexual high, but after the sex I felt terrible; like something had been taken away from my soul. After awhile the sexual high wasn't worth the pain afterward. Add that to learning my friend was dying of AIDS and my friends, and the WHOLE gay community behaving is such irresponsible and reprehensible sexual behaviors and you've got the perfect storm. At that point I honestly didn't care if I died. What I decided I couldn't live with was being a part of my friends f***ing themselves to death. For the first time in my life I wasn't thinking like an object, and more importantly I wasn't treating other guys like objects. I cared about these people who'd rejected me. I made a vow I would not be part of cause the deaths of my friends. No one would ever be able to say I gave another person AIDS. I took a vow to stop having gay sex. And except for 2 incomplete blow jobs I kept my vow...and...um, like...one night of full blown sex with a longtime friend of mine.
That last sex, with a person I already respected and loved...I just had to give it a try. I'd never had sex with someone I really loved and respected. AND IT WAS GREAT. But then in the middle of having sex with this guy, I really loved, my dinner started backing up. Vomit rose into my mouth, but I forced it back down. At first I just thought it was a burp coming up for a quick visit accompanied by some chunky friends, and I continued the 'deed'. It wasn't a burp...I was having "gastric interruptus", while I was balls deep!! (Sorry for the graphic language for some of my regular readers!!!) What I thought was a burp was my stomach roiling in disgust. I was truly, deeply, horribly disgusted with my behavior. I had sworn off sex to protect friends, but here I was with someone who'd been the truest friend, I don't know, maybe ever, and I was doing something to someone I loved that would end up killing at least 3 people, in my tight knit group of gay friends and lovers. Obviously that vow had meant more to my stomach than it had meant to my dick. but you know what? It is really hard to keep johnson up for the job when you're stomach's trying to kick your teeth out with loco bandito chunks of Mexican food!! It was either throw up on my friend, or pull out and run. What can I say, I really cared about this guy...way too much to blow chunks, all over him. My gay lifestyle was over. Didn't know how I was going to change my gay feelings, but with the threat of gastric histrionics, every time I pushed wood into some guy's chocolate shop, I didn't have to worry about acting out sexually again.
I did nothing whatsoever to choose the gay feelings I had. Honestly, I'd been pushed into the situations which lead to those feelings. But what I'd never done was take responsibility for my feelings. I didn't choose them, but I never challenged their right to control my life either. I didn't choose, but now as an adult that wasn't the right excuse anymore. I had to take full responsibility for my feelings and what I did with them. That was a loooooong road.
I was an atheist when I left homosexuality, so there were no religious reasons; no god or gods involved in what I was doing. That changed 3 months after my last sexual experience. The little sister I had abused when we were children. Fancy that an abused kid who abuses someone else he should have loved and protected. That little sister had confronted me in Fall of 1986 with all the abuse I had heaped on her as a little kid. I took full responsibility for that behavior, and changed that very night. My relationship with my sister changed completely from that night on. I told her I never expected her to forgive me, and if she wanted to hurl abuse back at me, I'd allow that. In January of 1990 that sister called me out of the blue. We hadn't spoken in probably 7 or 8 months. She called me and told me she'd accepted Christ, and she said, "I just needed to call and tell you, I forgive you." I was very kind on the phone, I mean what could I say? I got off the phone and I said, "BULLSHIT!" I wasn't in the best place at that time in my life. I didn't need my sister going all religious on me. And I knew she couldn't forgive me for the things I'd done to her. I knew I could never forgive my dad or my uncle, and there was no way she could forgive me. It was bullshit. "But what if she has forgiven you?" That thought kept gnawing at my mind. I'd wake up out of a dead sleep with that thought, "What if she really forgives you?" I was an atheist, and I knew if she'd wanted to haul me down to the police station for some of the things I'd done to her she could have pressed charges, and that's no joke!! There are certain violations people can't forgive, and that is just the fact. The Jews can't forgive the Nazis, and no one should ever expect them too. There are behaviors which cross the line, and when that line is crossed you are F***ED! I knew the truth; knew what I'd done, and I knew I could never forgive someone who'd done to me what I'd done to her. "BUT WHAT IF SHE HAS FORGIVEN YOU?" She called me at least once a month, and a terror started building inside me.
See I'd been a "christian", as a teen, but I was GAY. Back then only gay people in California could be gay and christian, since that's where some gay guy had started the first gay church...or at least the first gay church which has lasted to this day...The Metropolitan Community Church. I knew what the Bible taught, and just before I went away to college I had a little "come to jesus" meeting with God. Only the meeting I had with God was a "go away jesus" meeting. Go away; get lost; f-off; "I'm kicking you to the curb, God, like yesterday's trash!" I was gay, God didn't like gay, so we needed to part company! Every time I talked to my sister, she'd tell me all the things she was learning, and all the things God was doing in her life. She knew I was gay, but she didn't tell me I was going to Hell, or what an abomination I was, like all Christians are SUPPOSED to do to gay people. Look, I understand hate. If my sister had been full of hate, I could tell her to go f*** herself. She was loving, caring, and so concerned about how I was doing. Hate is not the heaviest thing to have to carry around. Forgiveness is the heaviest thing there is, because you can't hate someone who has forgiven you all the horrible things you've done to them!!! IF ONLY SHE WOULD HATE ME I WOULDN'T HAVE TO HEAR ABOUT LOVE, FORGIVENESS, AND HOW WONDERFUL GOD'S LOVE AND FORGIVENESS IS!! GRRRR!! LOVE, CARING, SHARING...HEINOUS BITCH! 
Every time we talked I felt like God was getting closer to finding me; like God was coming to get me. There was only one reason God would be coming for me: Every other Christian I knew would tell me I was an abomination, so if God came for me it would be to kill me. See I really did listen to Christians and their preaching. Now those assholes were gonna get their hate's worth. The God they said was mad at me was coming to stomp me into a greasy spot on the floor. That's what good Christians had been teaching me.
God really did arrive! Now I'm not some uneducated hick from small town Kentucky anymore. I am a college graduate, and I've had classes of all kinds, I had all kinds of facts that this Jesus was just a radical Jew who got too radical and the government did what good governments do...THEY KILLED THE DUMB PRICK!! Dead Jew, end of story! But somehow none of what I knew made any difference. Jesus Christ showed up in my little apartment. And you know how I know Jesus was there? Because suddenly the realization took hold of my mind. Suddenly; I mean one moment I didn't know this new piece of information, and the very next moment I did know a new piece of information: "Jesus is the source of unconditional love, unconditional understanding, and unconditional acceptance." When that realization took hold of me another realization took hold of me. ALL I'D EVER WANTED WAS TO BE LOVED, UNDERSTOOD, AND ACCEPTED. I had peace. There wasn't anyone I could see, but he was there. I couldn't smell him, or feel him, or taste him...WHAT?! I had to try it and see, just stick the tongue out for little lick... I was a gay guy after all!! But even that didn't matter! Jesus was still offering me unconditional love, acceptance and understanding. When I had the realization of Jesus and what he offers, I also realized I'd never had it, and everything I'd been doing to get, just the smallest crumbs of human kindness from other people was JUST WRONG!! I knew my way of looking for love, was the absolute opposite of the right way to find love. I did the only thing I could think to do when confronted with the wrong way I thought, and the wrong ways I'd acted. Just like when my sister confronted me with all the ways I had abused, misused and hurt her, I accepted my responsibility for the wrong things I'd thought, been, and done. I asked Jesus Christ to forgive me, and said, "If you'll teach me your ways of loving, understanding, and accepting I'll give up all my wrong ways of thinking, doing, and being." I guess he took the deal...But I had one more thing to say. I said, "Look, I'm gay, and if I could have stopped being gay, I would have done it a long time ago. So don't think I can change myself. If you don't want me to be gay then you are going to have to fix it. You can tell me what I'm supposed to do, but don't ask me to change anything about my self. It's all on you chief!" Yes, I actually said, "It's all on you chief."
Change started happening slowly, but change I did. I had my little roll to play in all of it, but I didn't do any of the changing. It took 7 to 8 years before I started finding myself attracted to women. The biggest thing that changed me was learning to build relationships. Rather than looking at guys and their attractive part I started talking to them; I started behaving in a relational manner. At first I'd be aroused, but when I started talking to them, getting to know them, the arousal would turn to a desire for something deeper and more meaningful. I started desiring and looking for brotherhood, and finding that was better than any sex I'd ever got from a guy. I still have relationships with guys I met back in those early days. They know where I come from, and they accept, understand and love me.
I've said all of that!!! To now say. YES, I AM NO LONGER GAY...well biology has given all of us a drive to propagate the race; the procreative drive, for lack of a better word. All I really did was change the way I related to other guys, and all the emotional baggage and junk I'd shoved down in side buried what biology had given me. When I started wanting guys in deep brother to brother relationships then what biology gave me simply came to the surface. My male to male relationship needs were met, and when I learned to relate properly to other guys then other relationship needs started coming out. IT WAS LATE IN LIFE, BUT BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!!
I have had 3 relationships with women. The last relationship ended last fall. She is a wonderful lady. I thought being Christians would allow money to not be an issue. She makes more than 4 times what I make yearly. She travels all over the world with her work, and she wanted me to quit my job, leave all ministry obligations behind, and simply become her companion on the road. She actually started demanding that I change to meet her desires. I'd already been forced to change by people who were supposed to love me. I ended the relationship. It broke my heart, but I can't ever go back. Even if going back is going back for a woman this time.
So thanks for asking that wonderful question!! BET YOU'RE SORRY YOU ASKED IT NOW, AREN'T YOU???
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