It has been suggested that I write my story here, although I think I am relatively boring compared to many of the other stories I read here. When I was a teenager (and before, now that I think about it) I ‘mucked’ around with boys (sexually) and the odd girl. But, when I was six months from being twenty-one and ‘adulthood’ was looming, I thought that I was not doing the things (sexually) that adults do.
Through a series of events and by talking to a work personnel officer, because my work was being affected by the turmoil I was in, I ended up spending some time visiting a psychiatrist. He gave me many books on homosexuality to read. I am not sure how long I visited him for, but at our last session, he said: “You now know as much as anyone about homosexuality and have a choice – you either fight it for the rest of your life, or accept that this is just the way you are and live in it.” This was pretty far-sighted for 1964.
Of course masturbation was not allowed with my Christian involvement and by the time I met my future wife, I had not masturbated for nine months. The verse god gave me was Jer 17:7 which I have now forgotten, but said something like; because I had been faithful, I was now being blessed (with a wife!)
Our marriage was turbulent, not because of my sexuality, but because my wife thought she was better than me and continually put me down. I never had a very good self image. We had four children and ended up in a religious cult in Sydney. It was an independent Baptist church which has now gone bad. It was the subject of an article in the ‘Good Weekend’ magazine in which I featured, and a forty minute segment on the Sunday Program (on Channel Nine). As an aside, about four hundred people have sent emails to Fred Nile, telling him what they are really like, but he thinks they are wonderful!
While I was married, I never had any same-sex involvement, although I did all the usual things to fight my ‘disorder’. I had years of (almost continual) counseling from both secular and religious counselors. I was interested to read in Anthony’s book that he was counseled by Roger Waters at Christian Faith Centre – so was I. After my marriage broke up, because I left the cult, I then started having same-sex involvement, but was never really in ‘the scene’, as I was still trying to be a Christian and, as you know, you can’t be a good Christian and a homosexual (joke Joyce!)
I was single for the next few years, but tried to resist the temptations. I then met a woman who had been in the cult and our kids had grown up together. We married fairly quickly and were together for four years until she left me because: “I did not speak to her properly, nor treat her right.” The real story is that she hit me twice and she would go into depression (which she would not admit) because of the antics of her ‘loser’ son. Then, after about three days she would start to blame me because she was ‘sad’ as she called it. By that stage, I did start to talk to her roughly. After she left, I spoke to her son, because she had expressly forbidden me to do so. He said: “You knew she was a freak when you married her.”
She was over the top religiously and had a hotline to god. It was interesting that her first husband was also a homosexual. She said that the difference between him and me was that I wanted to change – he didn’t. Well, now, knowing what I know, neither do I want to change.
It is two and a half years since she left me and I am now starting to learn so much about myself and the ‘disorder’ that I have been fighting all my life and that I do not have to fight it any more. I can now walk down the street and see a very attractive young man and do not have to feel guilty because I think he is attractive.
I have left the church because I could not see that my sexual orientation is compatible with the church. I was also been involved in a very bad church, as I mentioned earlier, and I see most (if not all) of them as being money-making power bases. Perhaps there are some that aren’t, but I have not found one. People ask me if God loves me the way I am. I suppose he does, but I am ‘unlearning’ half a century of religious conditioning and am not sure yet.
What of the future; I am lonely on my own and would like to meet a nice man to share my life with. The days of pretending with women have gone. One of the things which made my second wife so mad, was that I said I did not find her physically attractive; but then I do not find any woman physically attractive. This did not matter to me as I found her personality (in the early years) very attractive and I enjoyed sex with her. That was not enough for her. She wanted me to say she was beautiful – well, she wasn’t.
What more can I say? I am sixty-seven, but I am told I do not look it. Obviously, this has been only a fraction of nearly three score years and ten, as the Good Book says. Finally, let me say that originally, I was adopted and when I comparatively recently found my birth mother, I realised that I am also Jewish. Why am I attracted to the same sex? Who knows, but that is just the way I am and there is no changing it, no matter what religious zealots may suggest.
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