Last updated on September 19, 2020
Question:
Hello,
I’m 22 and I’m really concerned about my situation. When I was 12, I used to like girls, and I used to tell my friends my stories with girls until one day I was seeing a movie with a friend and I fell asleep. When I woke up he was touching me, and I was aroused. After that, I started seeing boys in another way. I’d already started to go to the church, but it meant nothing to me at that time. It wasn’t until I experienced my first sexual contact with a guy when I was 18 that I felt confused, happy, sad, helpless hopeless, excited. I really like guys now, but I don’t want to be homosexual. Since the time I was 19, I surrendered my life to the Lord, and I decided to serve him, no matter how I feel. But after a few years, I was seeing gay porn again and contacting gay people over the Internet. I just don’t know what to do. Several months ago I kissed a guy again, after four years without kissing anybody. I felt deeply depressed and confused again. I don’t what am I supposed to do to not be gay.
Answer:
Your story is not unusual. Guys expect to be turned on by girls and are surprised to discover that other guys can turn them on. Because of all the misinformation being spread, they assume that if they get aroused by a guy then they must be homosexual. What is overlooked is that arousal is an instinctive response of the male body. The body doesn’t care what triggers arousal, it just enjoys the state of being aroused. And especially during adolescence, it doesn’t take much to get a guy sexually turned on.
Let’s take the incident in the theater. You fell asleep, but the male body goes into a state of sexual arousal during the dream phases of sleep, which by the way is why you have an erection when you wake up in the morning — you just woke up from a dream. Thus, while snoozing in the theater you were sporting an erection. Your friend decided to take advantage of the situation to put his hand on your penis. I can’t say if he did this because he was tempted by homosexuality or if he had the idea of embarrassing you by getting you to ejaculate in your pants. Regardless, you woke up and realize what he was doing. But since it never occurred to you that a guy could arouse sexual feelings in you, you came to the wrong conclusion. You decided that since your body enjoyed it, that you, therefore, must want it.
Having sex with guys and lusting after them just reinforced the idea. You were too busy chasing after sexual pleasure to stop and question why you were making these choices.
Now, before we go further, let me point out that I would say the same thing to a guy who woke up to find a girl massaging his penis. Just because he is turned on, it doesn’t mean that it is appropriate for him to go have sex. “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4).
In other words, being turned on is a fact because your male body is designed to respond to certain stimulation, both visual and physical. But what you chose to do because of that arousal was your decision. You let your body control you instead of you controlling your body.
Satan found a weak point in your armor. It is easy to see why it was there and how it came about. It didn’t help that you were a weak Christian at the time and didn’t know enough to defend yourself against these temptations. Likely you were thrown for a loop because it came from a direction you weren’t expecting. However, it isn’t that you’ve ever lost the ability to make choices. “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (I Corinthians 10:13). All along the way and even today, you still have choices. Now slipping back into sin appears to be the easier choice. You know what it is like. It is familiar and in some sense comfortable, even though you know it is wrong. Thus, you been drifting back toward sin.
The first drift was when you allowed yourself to start looking at pornography again. That just inflamed your lust for sex. Then when an opportunity came to act on it, you expressed yourself in a homosexual way because you had been thinking about it for so long. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man” (Mark 7:21-23).
The plain fact is that your chasing after sex is wrong. It is killing you spiritually. “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 6:9-10). Notice that Paul treats fornication, adultery, and homosexuality as all equivalent sins. You don’t have to be out of control. You can choose to live your life differently and as a side benefit, you will be ultimately happier.
So where do you start? It may be hard to believe, but your body doesn’t care who it has sex with just as long as it is sex. Therefore, you have to make up your mind that you would rather live your life the way God made you. Now, I don’t mean to go out and have sex with some women. That would just be substituting one sin for another. But you can choose to get rid of pornography and allow yourself to get to know and perhaps like some woman. As you fall in love with a woman, you are going to find that your body is quite willing to follow your choices. Then you can get married and not have to worry about sex — it will come naturally and you’ll find it satisfying in ways that sex in the past had never been, but that is because it is done with a person you’ve committed your life to.