Subsequent hesitations were simply a result of wanting to be accurately informed with references to back up my thoughts and opinions. While some of the stuff you will read in this post will be limited to my personal experience, I want to be able to offer resources that have been more scientifically researched than just my own trial and error. Mostly, I want to open discussion on a topic that plays an obvious role in my life and that might get skipped over because of discomfort. We talk openly about the origin of so many human conditions (pregnancy, behaviors, addictions, etc.) with little to no discomfort and the taboo of homosexuality, particularly in religious environments I feel creates compulsiveness and secrecy that never makes anything better.
The average person might be surprised to find out just how much research has been done on the topic of homosexuality. There really is a whole lot. And while I am not a social scientist, writing grants for research funding, my experience through schooling for a bachelors and masters degree has
taught me enough to be able to say with some conviction that the political atmosphere of the day tends to impact which types of research gets funded, and which outcomes are going to be more widely publicized. Political climate, and political correctness has long played a part in the mental health field. I mean, last time I checked, those with Down Syndrome are no longer clinically referred to as being a "mongloid idiot" and thank goodness for that! I am NOT opposed to political correctness in all of its forms, I just prefer it not to supersede viable research and the real life experiences of thousands of people.
Several years ago, I was introduced to a theory on the origin of homosexuality within an individual that made a lot of sense to me. This theory is plainly explained and laid out in a scholarly paper by Daryl J. Bem in 1996 called Exotic Becomes Erotic: Interpreting the Biological Correlates of Sexual Orientation. In this theory, Bem discusses a long-time and widely accepted phenomenon of in-born and naturally determined temperaments. He discusses the idea that a child born with a temperament that might lead to interests in gender-atypical activities leads a child to become familiarized with opposite-sex peers. As the child grows through the stages of development a child will naturally begin to feel different and alienated from same-sex peers, perceiving them as unfamiliar and exotic. Over time these feelings of unfamiliarity will create sustained autonomic arousal, and this arousal eventually develops into an erotic/romantic attraction. So here it is in less science-y words: little boys who are born more sensitive will tend to enjoy more typically "girly" kinds of activities. This will lead them to feel more comfortable and accepted by the girl population, and feel different and separate from other little boys. This makes him feel anxiety when around other boys and as he develops, this anxiety will turn into sexual attraction. This pattern would follow the same steps in a typical little boy, only his anxieties and eventual attractions would be directed toward girls.
This theory made a lot of sense to me because it pretty simply laid out my experience as a child. In my earliest years, I was different from typical little boys. I hated when my brother tried to wrestle with me and had little interest in anything risk-taking or aggressive in nature. My best friends were my little sister and two female cousins that I naturally enjoyed doing things like coloring, dressing up, and playing house with. I had a couple of male friends, but I remember even from a very young age feeling like I was just pretending to like what they were doing so that I would fit in, and this rarely was successful. I could remember having anxiety around male friends in grade-school and feeling like an outsider whenever I did things with them (this is not to say that all of them did things to make me feel this way. I am still friends with a few of those friends who really made an effort to include me) and I can see how this anxiety turned to attraction at a typical age. When I initially thought about writing about this topic, my intent was to discuss this theory in detail because for so long this is what seemed the most relevant to me. I have done a lot of other reading on the topic and I never really thought of this theory coming into conflict with any other theory, until I kind of put two and two together and realized...there is a contradiction.
This theory by Bem, and supported by research cited in his article is pretty politically safe. This is because it puts homosexuality on an even plain with heterosexuality in pretty much every regard as the same pattern of development would happen for either a homosexual or heterosexual person. It describes a person's discomfort or unhappiness with homosexuality as merely a shortcoming of our gender-strict society that discriminates those who don't fall neatly into socially determined gender roles.
The contradiction in theories that I have found helpful and meaningful is described clearly in an article written by Joseph Nicolosi (whom I have referenced previously on this blog) titled A Critique of Bem's E.B.E Theory. In which he suggests that viewing sexual development in this way reduces sexual attraction, either homo or hetero, to the psychology of a fetish. Nicolosi draws from various statements in Bem's article support for a belief that love itself is merely a fetish in both its origin and mechanism.
Nicolosi observes that within his theory, Bem disregards the plentiful research on family dynamics, the role of gender in human development, and attachment that identifies a child's natural need to feel love and acceptance by same gender parents and peers that is not strictly a culturally based idea. Nicolosi states: "He gives no consideration to the boy's authentic needs for acceptance, affection and approval from members of the same sex, particularly his father and male peers, and his genuine need to experience himself as a boy-like-other-boys. Nowhere is there acknowledgment of the boy's natural emotional need for attachment and identification. For Bem, even love is reduced to autonomic arousal."
Within this critique, Nicolosi touches on a theory of the origins of homosexuality that has had the most helpful application in my efforts to choose a heterosexual lifestyle despite my natural homosexuality. This idea shifts slightly from the notion: "exotic becomes erotic" to "what is missing-and subsequently admired- becomes sexualized." However, this slight shift, comes with a political punch because the idea that something is "missing" identifies homosexuality as a pathological problem in which there is a deficiency of some kind.
He takes a quote from a clinical interaction with a client and suggests that Bem "fails to understand the developmental significance of critical moments in the life of the prehomosexual boy. One such moment was described to me by a 35-year-old client:
"I recall the exact moment I knew I was gay. I was twelve years old and we were taking a shortcut to class. We were walking across the gym and through the locker room, and an older guy was coming out of the shower. He was wet and naked and I thought, Wow!"I asked the client to again tell me exactly what his experience was. He became very pensive. Then he answered,
"The feeling was, 'Wow, I wish I was him'."As a little boy, this client had been asthmatic and physically frail. Clearly, the "older guy" coming out of the shower was his idealized self--all that he wasn't, and wished he could be."
Early on in my efforts to sort out my homosexual feelings I was given the advice that I needed to work hard on cultivating healthy male friendships. In the context of Bem's theory I thought this to be simply an effort to make "exotic" things more familiar to me. I made concentrated efforts to have meaningful relationships with male peers, and not surprisingly most of those efforts ended up with me being really close with men who were like me in lots of ways (I'm not outing anyone here...'like me' doesn't mean 'gay'...like I've said before there is more to me than just being gay). These friendships have been helpful in lots of ways, mostly in terms of being validating to my ego, letting me know that it is okay to be me. This is a great blessing that I am extremely thankful for.
Over the last few years, and particularly more recently I have cultivated friendships that have helped me to grow in ways that have been less strictly a "validating my nature" sort of help (although there is plenty of validation) but have challenged me to find acceptance and identification in things typically male.
I wish that every guy in my situation could have friends like Brady, Cory, and Shane. Each of them personifies various attributes of things typically male and yet are sensitive and understanding enough to empathize with my struggles in life and help me to work through my insecurities to feel a part of the male population in general. They assume that I will help them build a shed, go golfing with them, go to a Jazz game, or make sexually inappropriate jokes. While they can identify the ways in which I am different from them, they create an environment where I feel like part of a group of men in which my homosexuality is neither encouraged or discouraged, and what is important is that I am a man...one of them.
There is more going on here than me just being comfortable with males. I feel it is about filling a gap in my development, that hole that has kept me from truly identifying as being male, and subsequently developing homosexual attractions.
Again, the information presented here is obviously a small part of research and information that there is out there regarding homosexuality, its development, and origin. But I wanted to share the tip of the iceberg as it relates to my personal experience. I understand that these are theories, and by definition do not apply the same to everyone, but I hope that something here can be helpful, or at least spark an interest for you to do some of your own research to find something that is.
