Dear Editor,
I loved the “Of this and that” article.
Here are my thoughts on homosexuality. I am a practicing Catholic man, married with children. The reality is that I have struggled with homosexual emotions. I grew up with brothers and my parents (God bless them) “protected” us from neighbors and girls –we were not allowed to play with neighbors and having a girlfriend was prohibited.
I never had a father at home; he was always “sleeping” out and missing for days. Growing up in a Catholic family, I was an altar server. In those days, altar servers were the only boys who became my buddies, friends and joyful companions.
As a teenager, I heard about sexual encounter between male classmates and girls, and the description of their excitement was actually a turnoff for me – sex was nasty and painful for the girls. I was not interested in sex.
Discouraged from a girlfriend, I focused on my studies. I was attracted to male athletes, to male teachers, to businessmen and their beauty, and success was arousing. I felt girls were not interested in me.
Today, I realize, I never took the “reads” properly, because girls had tried to get my attention. My focus was education.
I studied abroad. My focus remained on education and not a girlfriend. With the media blitz promoting homosexuality, in a foreign culture where male prostitutes worked the streets and homosexual relationships are evident, I struggled with my attraction to males.
Yet, as a practicing Catholic, there was no doubt that the option of being with a male was wrong.
Having achieved my education and gotten a job, I started looking for a wife. I rejected my attraction to males. I prayed for the right person in my life.
Having a wife did not stop the struggle. I had engaged in anal sexual relations; the instant excitement was amazing and at times it was all I wanted. It drove my emotion for males.
Your article is absolutely on target, as the anal tightness is the only point of pleasure. The reality is after the initial penetration the pleasure quickly dies, then what next? The tightness does not allow for long lasting pleasure. It is always a quick fix and then the desire for more, another quick fix.
The reality is that such a relationship is filled with quick fixes, and also in my opinion, an addictive behavior that can be equated to a drug user, who will do anything for another quick fix.
My wife had denied me the pleasure of those quick fixes. I have learned it is only through good foreplay that I can drive her to her excitement level, and I can truly fulfill her and myself. The result is that I do not desire the quick fixes, but a long-term fulfilling, healthy sexual relationship.
So, what are my points?
1) My childhood shaped my sexual formation. I did not see a father loving his wife. I was directed away from girls. Male companions were all I knew. I learnt about sex from the wrong persons. To deal with the epidemic of homosexuality, we need to fix our family. Churches need not only fight the legal battle, but they need to develop good family programs. Churches need to develop and invest in shaping good family leaders in their congregations. Weekly collection needs to increase and pastors need to make the decision to investment in family development.
2) My wife healed me. Without a doubt, the real ecstasy from sexual relationship can only be achieved in a heterosexual relationship. Quick fixes are not true pleasure. Again, our society fails in this area of marriages. Selfishness is at the root cause of the failures of heterosexual relationship. A fruitful marriage is only achieved by choosing chastity. Each individual, before and after marriage, has the choice of chastity: to have only one sexual partner during his/her lifetime.
Selfishness is surrendering to peer pressure, giving up your right to choose. Peer pressure dictates that your individual pleasure is the most important. The reality is that marriage is the most important. It is only by putting aside your personal pleasure that your spouse can truly bring healing pleasure to your life, and you to your spouse’s life.
3) Our constitution is based on one formula, a formula that says we are a GOD-FEARING NATION. My Catholic faith and my fear of losing God’s love and eternal happiness drove my choices. Yes, I had made some wrong choices which have allowed me to discover the beauty of the confessional.
My parents, in their fear of God, wanted us to choose chastity and they drove us to make that choice. As a people, we can heal our brothers and sisters by loving them in the right way. Women are beautiful creatures.
We must recognize the importance of the true natural family in the development of our country’s future. It is important in addressing so many issues. We must reject the negative influences of those international forces that want to dictate a foreign culture upon us, a culture that is destroying their own nations, a culture from nations whose leaders take God out of their speeches on a day declared by their founding fathers to give thanks to GOD, a culture that is clearly an “ideology of evil” as described by Blessed John Paul II.
I pray for our nation and our families.
A happily married man
(To be clear, I had never experienced and cannot imagine any alter server in my parish going through any sort of sexual abuse from our priests.)