Question:
Dear minister,
I hope you are having a wonderful day!
I am a student whom you helped when I was 14 years old. Now I am in my mid-twenties. What a journey. I want to thank you so much for being a wonderful resource for me and being a means in which God has worked in my life throughout my teens and now in my twenties. I have recommended this resource to my friends and shared several wonderful learnings with my friends at church. May God continue blessing you and use you for His glory!
I am writing because I have been running into an issue that has been bothering me almost every night. It has taken me a while to consider this as a problem, and it has taken me a while longer to consider seeking help.
I have been having dreams every night where I am desiring to masturbate with another guy. In my dream, I either meet a guy I have known or have never met before, and I lust after their bodies or have a desire to masturbate with them. However, during my dream, I am always halted with the thought of dishonoring God, so I never end up achieving anything. It is not a wet dream, but I guess that if we did masturbate, it would become a wet dream; which has not happened yet.
I am not homosexual as far as I can tell. I never have had a girlfriend, but I am attracted to girls, in the sense that I am praying to meet a woman that is God-fearing, date her, marry her, and have children. However, I do see myself lusting after guys. I often desire to masturbate another guy or be able to date another guy. I sometimes wish I were a girl to be able to freely do so. However, I know that even if I were a girl, dating to satisfy my sexual desires would be incorrect.
My best guess as to why this might be happening is because my entire life, I have been told not to date any girls (even now). I have been told that female genitalia is forbidden and that girls are not to be hurt in any way (I correlated sex with hurting girls). Also, I used to be bullied by guys, so I would always play with girls and not guys while growing up. I have not felt an attraction to a girl except for two occasions, which quickly faded after a week, but for the most part, I look at girls as friends, and it would be horrendous for me to even think about lusting after a girl. I just can’t do it and to the best of my knowledge, I have not lusted after a girl in my life.
I have also a craving to have someone strong in my life. I think that my dad was quite absent in my emotional life, and he put a lot of pressure on me as the oldest child to be the strong one in my family, so I often hid my true desires in order to be strong. However, I always wanted to have someone to lean on and be a man for me to follow. I think.
Finally, I have grown up watching porn of men masturbating because it was the “lesser” sin compared to watching two people having sex. I think that my lust for men’s penises and bodies might have begun there. However, I remember that even before I watched pornography of men masturbating solo I still lusted after the bodies of other men.
I have stopped watching porn four years ago, but I still struggle with these homosexual thoughts. I am a born again Christian, but this sin is honestly something that I cannot beat. I wonder what can I do.
Please pray for me. I would greatly appreciate any help or advice.
Question:
It is always good to hear from someone I’ve talked to in the past and I’m glad I’ve helped in some small way.
Let’s reset a few ideas. When we talk about marriage, it is true that sexual desire is a component in finding a woman to marry, but sex should not be the primary reason for selecting a woman. Your wife is to be your companion — your best friend (Genesis 2:18). Where you are getting confused is that you are trying to follow your emotions and your sexual responses, but you have already noted that your sexual responses are skewed because of your exposure to pornography and past relationships. Whether you have erections around a woman has nothing to do with whether she would make a suitable wife.
There really is no lesser sin. Jesus once clarified that lusting for adultery is just as sinful as actually committing adultery. “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). That same principle would apply. It is just as wrong to lust for homosexual acts as it would be to actually commit them. It is not the same sin, but it is still sinful. Worse, when you let your mind toy with the idea of committing sin, you are more likely to end up committing it. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man” (Mark 7:21-23).
Replacing one sin with another sin isn’t going to solve your problems. Thus, wanting to lust for fornication is not what you need. Fornication is just as much a sin as homosexuality is.
I’m glad you stopped watching pornography, but it appears that you haven’t totally left the lust for homosexuality behind. It is enough on your mind that it is popping up in your dreams. We can’t control our dreams, though as you demonstrated, even in our dreams our moral principles can interrupt. Perhaps “erotic dreams” is a better description for what you are experiencing, but you are essentially having wet dreams. These usually come about because your seminal vesicles are getting full, which signals the brain to produce an erotic dream of some sort so that an ejaculation can eventually happen. The problem you are having is that you have connected homosexual acts as your primary erotic idea and that is what the brain most easily dredges up.
What can you do? First, avoid caffeine in the evening. You will sleep deeper and dream less when it is not in your system. Second, since the dreams are indicating you need to ejaculate, purposely masturbate before going to sleep. When you do, don’t use thoughts of people to stimulate yourself. Just do it while you are doing something totally unrelated. It will take longer and you might not always ejaculate, but it will calm the urge down.
In regards to girls, start thinking about what kind of woman you would like to live the rest of your life with — not the sexual aspects, but her personality and abilities that you want at your side. Friendship is the way to start finding a wife.
In regards to boys, start volunteering to do things with other guys. Go on hikes or other adventures. Go play basketball or whatever. Don’t worry about whether you are good at the sport or not. You are there for the companionship as you play. Volunteer to help someone move or give a hand with a remodeling project. I’m sure there are guys at the church you attend who would not mind having another guy join them in doing things.