For those who believe homosexuals can change their orientation....

[Hadrianus]

Don't despair, Dakota. From your comments I am guessing that you are 20 something. All these things do become easier with age. There is no denying the fact that we live in a hypersexualized society which puts extreme emphasis on sex and romance, and this just makes life that much harder for young people. You are certainly not alone.

[Dakota Roberts]

Originally Posted by Hadrianus

Don't despair, Dakota. From your comments I am guessing that you are 20 something. All these things do become easier with age. There is no denying the fact that we live in a hypersexualized society which puts extreme emphasis on sex and romance, and this just makes life that much harder for young people. You are certainly not alone.

I'm actually 18. The odd thing is I've never wanted to engage in sex with someone. What society really needs is friendship with permanance, practically kin.

[francisca]

Dakota,

I think you are a nice guy and a very normal one too and that is what you should believe.

The fact that you are being attracted to a guy in your college class, it's not a homosexual thing. Instead, it's a desire of true frienship. The very concept of homosexuality takes away true friendship among men. You can't find a true frienship-- the one you long for-- from a homosexual relationship, because homosexual relationship is always about sex. Sex is not what you desire as you constantly wrote in your many posts.

All humans are social beings. We begin our lives by knowing our parents, then later we learn to make friends. By the time we try to be independent from our parents, we hope we can rely on frienship apart from parents. Man will look for male friendship, and woman will look for female friendship to discuss life issues and strategizing and going through life apart from parents.

You are still very young. You may still at the above stage.

Human being then will reach maturity when he has become confident about himself, he will then enter the next stage of his life when he begin into making a family of his own.

Within the two stages, is man's search for himself: this include things like what's important and what's not for him, how he want other's to perceive him, how he perceive himself, what love (and sex) is, what is the purpose of life, what's the meaning of relationships, etc. These questions may not come out as a logical thinking, rather a sequence of processes one must go through.

Your case, I do not know much about you, but from what you constantly wrote, I suppose you have never fallen in love with a girl yet, and this is normal because you are still very young. Instead you feel intense feeling of attraction towards guys. These facts shows that you are still at the stage of socializing (learning about friendship building).

Unfortunately, our modern society nowadays being loud about homosexuality-- a concept of sexuality that ignores human dignity, disregard human body and has no respect of the purpose of sex in itself-- so that young people like you-- who has never experienced any falling in love with the opposite sex yet-- these young people wrongly perceive themselves as homosexual, thus open themselves into a harmful concept of sexuality.

The truth is, human being usually fall in love with the opposite sex only once of twice in his life time.

Your search for true frienship is a part of a process of finding yourself and the meaning of good relationship. Friendship will teach a man about many things, it's a part of finding himself eventually.

Be patient Dakota.

May God bless you.

[Hadrianus]

Originally Posted by Dakota Roberts

I'm actually 18. The odd thing is I've never wanted to engage in sex with someone. What society really needs is friendship with permanance, practically kin.

First, my compliments. For 18 you are well read and exceptionally articulate in debate. Sadly, our society does not put much value upon friendship. This seems to be a fairly modern change, within the last 100 years or so. The sexual revolution also damaged the normal development of friendships because by becoming sexually active at ever younger ages teenagers began to pursue (generally heterosexual) sex rather than friends. The result is a confusion between emotional depth and sex. I incline to the view that many people are really seeking stable and emotionally satisfying relationships of a nonsexual kind, but our contemporary society does not encourage this. Instead people go from one quick romantic fix to another, whether heterosexual or homosexual. The whole of popular culture exists to uphold this practice, unfortunately.

[Dakota Roberts]

Originally Posted by francisca

Dakota,

I think you are a nice guy and a very normal one too and that is what you should believe.

The fact that you are being attracted to a guy in your college class, it's not a homosexual thing. Instead, it's a desire of true frienship. The very concept of homosexuality takes away true friendship among men. You can't find a true frienship-- the one you long for-- from a homosexual relationship, because homosexual relationship is always about sex. Sex is not what you desire as you constantly wrote in your many posts.

All humans are social beings. We begin our lives by knowing our parents, then later we learn to make friends. By the time we try to be independent from our parents, we hope we can rely on frienship apart from parents. Man will look for male friendship, and woman will look for female friendship to discuss life issues and strategizing and going through life apart from parents.

You are still very young. You may still at the above stage.

Human being then will reach maturity when he has become confident about himself, he will then enter the next stage of his life when he begin into making a family of his own.

Within the two stages, is man's search for himself: this include things like what's important and what's not for him, how he want other's to perceive him, how he perceive himself, what love (and sex) is, what is the purpose of life, what's the meaning of relationships, etc. These questions may not come out as a logical thinking, rather a sequence of processes one must go through.

Your case, I do not know much about you, but from what you constantly wrote, I suppose you have never fallen in love with a girl yet, and this is normal because you are still very young. Instead you feel intense feeling of attraction towards guys. These facts shows that you are still at the stage of socializing (learning about friendship building).

Unfortunately, our modern society nowadays being loud about homosexuality-- a concept of sexuality that ignores human dignity, disregard human body and has no respect of the purpose of sex in itself-- so that young people like you-- who has never experienced any falling in love with the opposite sex yet-- these young people wrongly perceive themselves as homosexual, thus open themselves into a harmful concept of sexuality.

The truth is, human being usually fall in love with the opposite sex only once of twice in his life time.

Your search for true frienship is a part of a process of finding yourself and the meaning of good relationship. Friendship will teach a man about many things, it's a part of finding himself eventually.

Be patient Dakota.

May God bless you.

Romantic friendship is an altogether better phrase to describe it than homosexual relationship.

Is a desire for physical intimacy really part of "true friendship"?

I'm no trying to become more independent from my parents, I'm trying to be a dutiful son.

I think you are making a mistake in waving off all homosexual relationships as about sex, I've seen plenty of cases where the people seem truly in love with each other. I think if we can provide a model where two people of the same sex can love each other chastely.

I am a very confident person regardless of whether I'm delivering a speech to 500 people or am 100 feet up on a rock face.

I have plenty of male friends and female friends, but this feels totally different. I feel no attraction to females at all, indeed some of my friends suspected I was gay because I didn't seem to notice that girls were hitting on me. Also once a girl came up to me in the cafeteria and kissed me on the lips and I felt traumatized and violated..






Originally Posted by Hadrianus

First, my compliments. For 18 you are well read and exceptionally articulate in debate. Sadly, our society does not put much value upon friendship. This seems to be a fairly modern change, within the last 100 years or so. The sexual revolution also damaged the normal development of friendships because by becoming sexually active at ever younger ages teenagers began to pursue (generally heterosexual) sex rather than friends. The result is a confusion between emotional depth and sex. I incline to the view that many people are really seeking stable and emotionally satisfying relationships of a nonsexual kind, but our contemporary society does not encourage this. Instead people go from one quick romantic fix to another, whether heterosexual or homosexual. The whole of popular culture exists to uphold this practice, unfortunately.

Well read yes, articulate no, succinct perhaps.

Society places so little value on friendship that it is easily discarded, like a used condom. This is one of the reasons I immerse myself in the Middle Ages. I must warn you that if you are to dwell much on Mediaeval society one must toss out the modern lenses or all one will see is fruit...

In Mediaeval English literature extremely strong bonds, blood brothers if you will, are a recurring feature, A Knight's Tale by Chaucer, or Adam Bell and Clim of the Clough and Bewick and Graham in the Child Ballads. Heck, you can find it in real life monuments especially funerary ones such as Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe (friends of Chaucer)

For John Bloxham and John Whytton here's a sketch of the monument (notice how it is almost the same as one for a husband and wife)
http://www.gothiceye.com/images/large/CL016-2.jpg

And of course for a far more modern case we have Blessed Newman and Fr. Ambrose St. John (weren't sexual involved obviously).

Although I really do wonder about affrèrement, very peculiar thing.

[francisca]

Originally Posted by Dakota Roberts

Romantic friendship is an altogether better phrase to describe it than homosexual relationship.

Is a desire for physical intimacy really part of "true friendship"?

No.

I think you are making a mistake in waving off all homosexual relationships as about sex, I've seen plenty of cases where the people seem truly in love with each other. I think if we can provide a model where two people of the same sex can love each other chastely.

Young people may think this way for they are in the beginning stage of it. Just wait for a few more years. As you will find out there is no real purpose in such a relationship.

I have plenty of male friends and female friends, but this feels totally different. I feel no attraction to females at all, indeed some of my friends suspected I was gay because I didn't seem to notice that girls were hitting on me. Also once a girl came up to me in the cafeteria and kissed me on the lips and I felt traumatized and violated..

I remember as a young girl I hated boys. I thought boys were naughty and rough and stupid. I prefered to befriend grils who were polite and "good". That changed later.

[Dakota Roberts]

Originally Posted by francisca

No.



Young people may think this way for they are in the beginning stage of it. Just wait for a few more years. As you will find out there is no real purpose in such a relationship.



I remember as a young girl I hated boys. I thought boys were naughty and rough and stupid. I prefered to befriend girls who were polite and "good". That changed later.

Which is why I highly doubt that it's just wanting friendship (even though I wish it were).

There are plenty of childless heterosexual couples who have been together many years, decades even.

I never went through a girls have cooties stage, in fact for a number of years my best friend was a girl.

Also, when that happened was in 10th grade

[francisca]

Well, it happens that people fulfill their own prediction/ suspicion.

You hold yourself suspect. And because of it, you may walk to "that" direction.

For example: your comment in your previous post (I bolded) below:

Originally Posted by Dakota Roberts

I have plenty of male friends and female friends, but this feels totally different. I feel no attraction to females at all, indeed some of my friends suspected I was gay because I didn't seem to notice that girls were hitting on me.

You are perceiving yourself as being perceived by others as "a homosexual suspect", and you are agreeing with them. The prove that they have is that you have not notice the opposite sex yet. This is not a prove (as I have said in my posts) because you are still too young to say "well I have never interested with any women yet" so yeah my friends may be right "I am a homosexual" Let's see how I feel about those guys... hmmm... then you follow your friends suspiscion into fulfilling itself.

Also once a girl came up to me in the cafeteria and kissed me on the lips and I felt traumatized and violated..

I honestly think that your feeling of being traumatized and violated is normal. If a male stranger (or even a male friend) come to me and suddenly kiss me in the lips, I will feel the same way. Such is not a prove that I am a homosexual.

The above shows, how you without really knowing what love and sex really is, you try to prove a concept of "sexual orientation". You noted the fact when you felt violated by girls as a fact that you do not like girls.

In my time, when there was no "homosexual" word in young people's ear, we grew up according to our own time. Some young people were earlier than the others regarding attraction, while some didn't even notice the opposite sex until they fell in love much later in life. Nobody said "you are gay" just because a boy or a girl did not really care about those things.

[Dakota Roberts]

Originally Posted by francisca

Well, it happens that people fulfill their own prediction/ suspicion.

You hold yourself suspect. And because of it, you may walk to "that" direction.

For example: your comment in your previous post (I bolded) below:



You are perceiving yourself as being perceived by others as "a homosexual suspect", and you are agreeing with them. The prove that they have is that you have not notice the opposite sex yet. This is not a prove (as I have said in my posts) because you are still too young to say "well I have never interested with any women yet" so yeah my friends may be right "I am a homosexual" Let's see how I feel about those guys... hmmm... then you follow your friends suspiscion into fulfilling itself.



I honestly think that your feeling of being traumatized and violated is normal. If a male stranger (or even a male friend) come to me and suddenly kiss me in the lips, I will feel the same way. Such is not a prove that I am a homosexual.

The above shows, how you without really knowing what love and sex really is, you try to prove a concept of "sexual orientation". You noted the fact when you felt violated by girls as a fact that you do not like girls.

In my time, when there was no "homosexual" word in young people's ear, we grew up according to our own time. Some young people were earlier than the others regarding attraction, while some didn't even notice the opposite sex until they fell in love much later in life. Nobody said "you are gay" just because a boy or a girl did not really care about those things.

My friends didn't tell me until after I came out so it is not in fact a self fulfilling prophecy.

It's not that I don't like girls, they are fine to hang out with, but the concept of actually kissing one makes me feel a little bit sick.

No one said I was gay except me.

[someguy14]

It sounds as though they're getting attacked and could use praying for.

James 4:7 KJV
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Matthew 19:26 KJV
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

[TarkanAttila]

Originally Posted by Dakota Roberts

My friends didn't tell me until after I came out so it is not in fact a self fulfilling prophecy.

It's not that I don't like girls, they are fine to hang out with, but the concept of actually kissing one makes me feel a little bit sick.

No one said I was gay except me.

I hope I'm not reinventing the wheel with your feelings Dakota, but I would not confuse strong attraction with sexual attraction. If you love someone a lot, even if it is not in a sexual way, of course you will want to touch them. I touch my mother, and when he was alive, I used to touch Dad, too. Sometimes I would stroke his head when he was asleep, or massage his back (because he needed it). I do the same with mom, too.

If you feel dearly for a good male friend, there is nothing wrong with wanting to intimately touch him - as long as we are not talking about intercourse or anything dealing with the genitals or any carnal relations. Which it doesn't sound like that is what you are going after. Sounds like "Guy Love" (which isn't as gay as it sounds, believe me).

You don't sound like you're interested in sex. Nothing at all wrong with that. You just want to connect in a deep way with this other fellow. Nothing wrong with that. But there are more ways to do that than sex. Pity we live in a society where sex is seen as the only way to achieve this deep interpersonal connection. Modern society's idiotic. Don't bother with them.

If you want to bond with this fellow, take him to church, and meditate on the Holy Eucharist, or on Mary, Our Mother. Take this to your Father in Heaven, or to Our Lady. If it is any relationship worth pursuing, love will be on your mind; sex will not.

It's one thing when a gay couple loves each other in Christ's charity; it is completely another when they "love" each other by fornicating and seeking state-sanctioned benefits and recognition. THAT's ungodly.

[Dakota Roberts]

Originally Posted by TarkanAttila

I hope I'm not reinventing the wheel with your feelings Dakota, but I would not confuse strong attraction with sexual attraction. If you love someone a lot, even if it is not in a sexual way, of course you will want to touch them. I touch my mother, and when he was alive, I used to touch Dad, too. Sometimes I would stroke his head when he was asleep, or massage his back (because he needed it). I do the same with mom, too.

If you feel dearly for a good male friend, there is nothing wrong with wanting to intimately touch him - as long as we are not talking about intercourse or anything dealing with the genitals or any carnal relations. Which it doesn't sound like that is what you are going after. Sounds like "Guy Love" (which isn't as gay as it sounds, believe me).

You don't sound like you're interested in sex. Nothing at all wrong with that. You just want to connect in a deep way with this other fellow. Nothing wrong with that. But there are more ways to do that than sex. Pity we live in a society where sex is seen as the only way to achieve this deep interpersonal connection. Modern society's idiotic. Don't bother with them.

If you want to bond with this fellow, take him to church, and meditate on the Holy Eucharist, or on Mary, Our Mother. Take this to your Father in Heaven, or to Our Lady. If it is any relationship worth pursuing, love will be on your mind; sex will not.

It's one thing when a gay couple loves each other in Christ's charity; it is completely another when they "love" each other by fornicating and seeking state-sanctioned benefits and recognition. THAT's ungodly.

To get an idea of how I feel listen to Truly, Madly, Deeply and Every time we Touch by Cascada

So basically bromance eh? Well, guess what, the European past is very Ho Yay (minus sex of course), once you get out of the Middle Ages the letters some of these guys' letters get rather steamy. (Don't worry, Erasmus and St. Thomas More were BFFs not Ho Yay, although there was that one letter...)

You don't need to tell a mediaevalist twice that the present day sucks compare to ye* past

Actually that's kind of what I was thinking of, though first I should get him away from libertarianism and instead hook him up with distributism ()

Very much agreed, love isn't condemned, but sex is thus simply no sex in the relationship (although it's still a very much complicated relationship)

*ye is pronounced as "the", if you are wondering why you can blame þorn and die Deutche

[michelleds]

Originally Posted by Dakota Roberts

My friends didn't tell me until after I came out so it is not in fact a self fulfilling prophecy.

It's not that I don't like girls, they are fine to hang out with, but the concept of actually kissing one makes me feel a little bit sick.

No one said I was gay except me.

Dakota, forgive me if I am redundant to others in this post. I'm trying to follow three fairly active homosexual threads right now and I might have missed some of the posts in this particular thread.

If I read your posts correctly, you started out by saying that you had an attraction to another male. Then later on you say that you have "come out" and no one has called you gay except yourself.

Brother, please stop identifying yourself with your sexuality. You are a child of God and a Catholic, and your focus should not be on some 20th or 21st century "identity" but on the love of God and learning to love others as Jesus did. Aim for purity, as the Scriptures call us to do so, and remove yourself from near occasions of sin. in your case, near occasions of sin might include trying to come up with justifications, reasons and examples (including from the middle ages).

[francisca]

Originally Posted by Dakota Roberts

My friends didn't tell me until after I came out so it is not in fact a self fulfilling prophecy.

It's not that I don't like girls, they are fine to hang out with, but the concept of actually kissing one makes me feel a little bit sick.

No one said I was gay except me.

In your post 95

you said in your own words that "some of your friends suspected that you were gay"

[Dakota Roberts]

Originally Posted by michelleds

Dakota, forgive me if I am redundant to others in this post. I'm trying to follow three fairly active homosexual threads right now and I might have missed some of the posts in this particular thread.

If I read your posts correctly, you started out by saying that you had an attraction to another male. Then later on you say that you have "come out" and no one has called you gay except yourself.

Brother, please stop identifying yourself with your sexuality. You are a child of God and a Catholic, and your focus should not be on some 20th or 21st century "identity" but on the love of God and learning to love others as Jesus did. Aim for purity, as the Scriptures call us to do so, and remove yourself from near occasions of sin. in your case, near occasions of sin might include trying to come up with justifications, reasons and examples (including from the middle ages).

Why would someone call me gay?

Considering I firmly oppose "gay culture" I don't identify with it really

I would be incapable of engaging in sex with him because I couldn't bear to assist someone I care for in engaging in mortal sin.

Love strengthened by the Holy Spirit through prayer is not a thing very vulnerable to sin.