Well, what can I say? (No, really, what can I say?) Basically, I’ve been skulking around this forum for the last week or so, reading stories, gauging the socio-religious beliefs of the individual members, gaining perspective, laughing at the often hilarious conversations that ensue between certain members and otherwise just trying to figure out what on earth I’m going to say when I actually post!

The dilemma for me here, however, is not so much where to start, but how to make my ridiculously boring, insubstantial story interesting enough to bear listening to. The conclusion I have come to is that this is not humanly possible, and so out of respect for the time and patience of each member, I am first going to give a short description of my personality (so that when – theoretically – I say things you’re going to hate me for later, you’ll have some perspective), then a brief account of my life thus far, after which I will provide a more detailed but no less boring account of the same – mostly to make myself feel better.

To begin, I will say that due to the symbolic but ostentatiously absurd nature of my alias, you can call me William (or a derivative thereof – I don’t mind which, I get them all). Unlike Oscar Wilde, I am young enough to know everything 😉 (being closer to 17 than 16 years old), and of those few things I don’t know, what a godly stance on homosexuality should be is one, (unfortunately).

The only person I am out to at the moment is my slightly-homophobic* best friend, who (for obvious reasons) isn’t the easiest person to talk about this with (God knows I love the guy, but he’s a bit irrational sometimes – it’s actually pretty funny 😀 …in a sad kinda way).

Perhaps the easiest way to describe my socio-religious and socio-political beliefs is to say that I’ve got something for everyone to hate. In short, my major beliefs can be summed up in this description: I am a cynical, gay, pacifistic, vegetarian, conservative (on a technical basis) Christian, who (as a general rule, based on ideologies) is too conservative for the liberals and too liberal for the conservatives. As stated above, despite coming a long way in recent months, I am still very unsure about where exactly I stand on the homosexuality issue – which is probably for the best, actually.

To briefly describe the timeline of my life for those who don’t wish to read any further: I grew up in a tiny Pentecostal church from the time I was two, when I was 11 moved primary schools, and a year later I realised I was gay. Several months after that realisation I found out about the Church’s (and presumably, God’s) stance on homosexuality, I spent the next four years self-flagellating mentally in an effort to put such feelings aside, and not three months ago, I found a website that explained to me (for the first time) a convincing Biblical argument for the pro-gay Christian movement. Naturally, I have since stopped my regime of (often devastating) psychological self-conditioning, and accepted my sexuality for the first time. It is my belief that I may actually be happy for the first time since I was a child…which is a very foreign experience.

For those with copious amounts of free time to waste, and who are bored enough to think my story interesting, here is the longer version:

My story really begins (in every sense, not just in terms of sexual self-discovery) when I was 11 and I moved from my original primary school. On the surface, this seems like a fairly routine event that isn’t really noteworthy, but I now believe (for reasons that are too irrelevant to disclose here) that this change – coming at the time it did, in the way it did, and to the school it did – caused a change in my psyche that made the person I am today.

Not long after this event, I first began to consider the fact that I might be gay when I started to feel an attraction to some of the guys in my class. Originally, I just brushed these thoughts off and tried not to think about it, but as my 12th birthday approached, they only grew more and more frequent. Then, one day I finally admitted my sexuality to myself when I watched an episode of a pre-teen/early teen TV show in which a certain character was beginning to struggle and come to terms with his homosexuality. In this person I saw reflected many of my own feelings and experiences, and from that day onwards I never thought of myself a straight.

To start with, of course, I didn’t want to accept my sexuality, and fought it as hard as I could. Several months later, seemingly just as I was beginning to come to terms with myself (at least a little), I found out about the (apparent) Biblical condemnation of homosexuality, which only reinforced my desire to be asexual (I’ve never really wanted to be heterosexual – not since the very early days), and caused me to begin a process of psychological conditioning to try and make myself such.

Between then and now, not much has happened worth mentioning apart from three events only semi-relevant to the story: my baptism, my unwilling move to a godly (but far too large) megachurch, and a falling-out I had with God about 14 months ago (now resolved, praise Him! 😀 ).

So then, three months ago I stumbled upon a website based on a book by a man named Rick Brentlinger (not sure if that’s the right spelling). The website was called http://www.gaychristian101.com, and it did something I never thought possible – it challenged and changed my beliefs about homosexuality from a Biblical point of view. I had heard arguments for the pro-gay Christian movement before, but I always found them unconvincing (perhaps I just hadn’t found the right ones?).

At first, I even fought these arguments – tried to fault them somehow, in any way I could, but I found it impossible, and I was forced (‘forced’ probably isn’t the most appropriate term considering I had spent the last five years hoping against hope for something like this) to accept that homosexuality is not the life and death, Heaven and Hell issue I once thought it to be.

Since then, I have taken huge steps in coming to terms with my sexuality (for real), and as a result, I am now quite content with myself and my life (other problems aside).

I also credit this newfound acceptance with bringing me back to God after more that a year of not being on speaking terms with Him, which I regard as a huge tick in the pro-gay column due to numerous attempts at reconnection throughout the year, without success.

I’m learning, however, that it comes with certain consequences that are difficult to bear. For example, my desire for a intimate relationship has increased tenfold, and I’m already feeling the negative effects of keeping a secret no longer ‘necessary’ to keep.

Still, the benefits outweigh the negatives and in time, with God’s blessing, they may be annulled anyway.

Wow, I tell you I have a boring, insubstantial story, and then come out with something like this. Gawd…I really do have prattling down to an Art form – just one of my many irritating habits… 😉 🙂

It is worth noting (only because it will hurt my pride as a ‘writer’ not to 🙁 , but still… 🙂 ) that at one stage I accidentally closed my browser and practically everthing below ‘psyche’ had to be re-written, and as a result the post isn’t nearly as conscise or as comprehensive as I wanted it to be.

I also want to…apologise, is probably the best word…for my extreme, rather unnecessary attention to detail – I noticed that most other people haven’t gone as far in their stories. The two reasons for this are: 1) I like to be thorough in my writing, and 2) I’ve never really spoken about my sexuality before, and it’s nice to get it off my chest.

For anyone who had the enough saintly patience to endure to the end: thank you for listening to my rambling, verbose and boring account of my life. I feel I owe you at least that much for such heinous torture… 😀

– William

* Please note that I do not mean homophobic in the oft-misused sense of ‘prejudiced against homosexuals’, but in it’s proper sense as ‘fear or discomfort towards homosexuals and the concept of homosexuality’. Just thought that might need to be clarified.

Kudos on the reading, Luke. 🙂

I love reading (one of the few in my generation who still do), but to be honest, my own story would have bored me to tears were I not the one writing it (my terrible writing and convoluted syntax wouldn’t help either, I’d bet). I probably would’ve dropped out after the second paragraph. 😳

Good luck with the website. It’s a little difficult to navigate, and there’s quite a bit of material to read, but I found that it really helped me understand Biblical pro-gay arguments. With all the examples and evidence given it’s hard not to believe him, and although I’m no scholar (I think I am, but I’m not) I couldn’t fault his reasoning at all, and I don’t know where I’d begin to argue (if I were so inclined).

Anyway, thanks for the feedback…it’s much appreciated.

Thanks Anthony, that means a lot. 😀 And for the record, it’s due largely to websites like this one that I have come to realise that faith and sexuality don’t necessarily clash. I am hugely indebted to the Freedom 2 B[e] forum for giving me so much perspective and insight.

After reading many of the stories/posts on this forum I do realise just how blessed I am in regards to my sexuality – I never had many of the experiences you’ve all had.

I’ve never heard a sermon preached against homosexuality, for example.

I’ve never been told that homosexuality is a disease or that it’s a choice.

I’ve always been told that God will love me no matter what (which, of course, is never an excuse for sin, hence my attempts to ‘asexualise’ my thoughts).

In fact, I don’t even think anyone has ever told me that homosexuality is wrong to my face – it was always something I assumed from reading my Bible (and the side notes that came with it).

Of course, I’m not out of the woods (closet?) yet. At 17 (almost) I obviously don’t have the same level of experience you ‘old farts’ have 😆 , and despite my lack of bad experience where church is concerned, I still don’t know how they’d react to an openly gay attendee.

Also, I haven’t been totally unscathed by my relatively brief stint as an anti-gay believer* – last year I did become very depressed and contemplated suicide almost daily, (although, there were other contributing factors to this, as well).

Anyway…the point is, I am very blessed to be who I am (something I never thought I’d say), and I’m thankful for this site and all the stories I’ve read that have helped me realise this.

* There are other consequences, too, first and foremost among them being that I am…how you say…’emotionally dead’ – basically, I find it difficult to feel any deep emotion toward anyone ‘close’ to me (probably a result of that ‘asexualization’ I mentioned). Again, this is something I feel is already changing. 😀

Hi William,

For a guy with a boring and insubstantial story, you certainly know how to write it down well and make it worth reading!

One day, you’ll probably find me writing a grand epic here. The biggest difference between us seems to be that it only took you a week to put fingers to keyboard. I’ve been here for months without writing my story. Admittedly I’ve got a lot more years to cover, but an awful lot of them don’t really reflect any development/progress in thinking so they can be skipped. 😉

I, for one, am really blessed to hear about your journey thus far.

Hey William, so glad you shared your story D and you know whats best about it, the fact that you didnt plan it, it came out naturally as it, just came out!!! LOL…. I felt like I was having a conversation with you and that comes across great. My brother is your age and its awesome to hear from someone as young as you anddddddddd that you have arrived where you are at so far D