If sexuality is never fixed like a stone but more like the moving of sand as the tide flows in and out, how can one create new configurations? In this article, we will start tackling the issues that block the road to new insights.
The results from science
To broaden sexual horizons, we need to acknowledge the new scientific data that has been published over the last decade. Since 2019, we definitely know that anyone can experience homosexual feelings and engage in homosexual activities and that anyone can experience heterosexual feelings and demonstrate heterosexual behavior. And these are not two different groups, but one and the same. The borders are fluent, and also fluid, that is to say, they are on the move.
Science also now definitely knows that homosexual feelings are exclusively a software issue and that heterosexual feelings are mixed, that is to say, in part genetically induced (or hardware) and also influenced by software matters that may be going on (for example, a warlike divorce case can influence your sexual desires for some time).
No separate homosexuality
The paragraph above is not meant to belittle homosexual feelings, they are what they are. But they do not point to a specific or a separate sexuality, a homosexuality. There is no genetic deficit of heterosexual or homosexual potential in anyone. Separate sexualities do not exist, despite popular myth and hearsay.
The mantra of separate sexualities with which one just happens to have been endowed has been enforced by a small but radical faction within the emancipation movement over the last fifty years. It turns out that when we measure the extent to which people who call themselves ‘gay’ say that their sexual feelings are immutable, we are in effect measuring the success of this publicity campaign rather than the assumed rigidity of the feelings themselves.
There is but one broad full sexual potential and everyone is endowed with it. There are no exceptions. Feelings can change over time. I am not saying that they therefore must change, but it is also unfair to say that they are not allowed to change and that any form of change must be combated, ridiculed, or criminalized.
Only when this insight sinks in, can we begin to look into the formation of new configurations. The myths of immutability must be put to their grave, especially now that science knows for sure that separate sexualities do not exist. Only after this funeral can new insights germinate from fresh soil. The moderate emancipation mantra is “improve the world, start with yourself” because you cannot improve other people. Don’t even try. You can improve yourself though, there is much to look into, and it will turn out to be a lifelong task.
Mental blocks
In an email exchange, Rodney from Denver wrote:
“I feel that I am heterosexual but I have so many blocks to feeling positive emotion with women that I don’t pursue them or desire them in my company. I like women but I do not dream of them. Usually, you see much discussion on the subject of same-sex attractions, the feelings towards men, but where is literature on the subject of improving your heterosexual side?”
What Rodney is expressing is called a paradox because he says he is sexually attracted to women but doesn’t desire them. We can use paradox psychology to get to grips with this. Let us take a close look at this frame of mind.
In the frequently used unidimensional approach, only one truth can exist at a time. Yet in paradox psychology, we admit that life, more often than not, is made up of paradoxes. There are two truths to be found. They oppose one another and even rule one another out, and yet both are present in the same person and at the same time. This state of mind is far more common than the presence of a mono-dimensional awareness. Nicolosi calls it double binds and Rodney is trying to find a way out of this predicament.
There is a distinction between having homosexual feelings on the one hand and adopting a “gay” label on the other. And it is highly controversial that one should encourage feelings to identify each aspect of your very existence.
Radical activism is crushing all other sexual and identity possibilities by triggering an automatism to adopt a gay label, that is to say, to declare that one has an immutable and inborn trait that just happens to be there for no reason at all. People who have other thoughts on these matters are becoming the odd man out, a marginalized and ridiculed freak.
Homosexual feelings yes, gay label no
We agree with Nicolosi when he writes that the mental health profession is largely responsible for the neglect of the non-gay homosexual. In its attempt to support the liberation of gays, it has pushed underground the other population. By no longer categorizing homosexuality as a problem, it has cast doubt on the validity of this group’s struggle.
The non-gay homosexual himself has also contributed to this social neglect. He is not likely to be found at parades or rallies celebrating his identity. He would rather resolve his conflicts quietly and discreetly. Today, even “all-out” child molesters and transsexuals who surgically or by hormones castrate themselves, tell their stories to Oprah or Geraldo. But not so the men who refuse to identify as exclusively “gay”.
It is unfortunate that the non-gay must be identified by what he is not. The assumption of radicalized activists is that fear, ignorance, and social pressure are locking him up in the closet, and that with enough time and education he too will find liberation. Yet announcing not to be gay and to look further, is as much a decision and a conscious choice about one’s self-identity as is deciding to be gay and to look no further.
The choice to see what life has more to offer should be just as legitimate. And there is much to see once an individual leaves the mantra of exclusive gayness behind.
Coming out or going in?
The process of ‘coming out gay’, that is to adopt a stigmatizing social label, is much celebrated as being highly courageous and noble, but from our point of view, it is more correct to describe it as ‘going in’. That is to say: going into a trap from which it is hard recoiling back to a life where other possibilities still exist. Radical activism fundamentally rejects the notion that basically, all mankind has a bisexual potential. Oops, another label.
One is passing a certain “point of no return” when one announces to adopt the political label ‘gay’. But that point is exclusively dictated by social pressure. Not a million rainbow flags can rule out the physical and emotional possibilities of each and every individual. The flag serves as an instrument of oppression to shout down those who choose to reject the myths and mantra.
Rodney continued to write,
“I fear being around girls will turn me feminine”.
Every young boy needs to be successful in growing free from the psychological umbilical cord that still attaches him to his mother. This part of child development occurs between the ages of 1 and 4. The identification with the mother is the first identification in a series of identifications that occur in his life.
It is a difficult task for a toddler to understand that he and his mother are two different beings after having been in her womb all his life. He then has to learn that not only are Mother and I different individuals but also deeply different in the sense that she and I are of a different gender.
Every child automatically grows into the awareness that there are two different genders. Gender is a condition induced by having either two XX sex-chromosomes (=female) or having one X sex-chromosome and one Y sex-chromosome (=male). This awareness is a healthy part of child development and forms the basis for a healthy sense of self and self-esteem.
Why does Rodney say that being around girls may very well make him feminine? Well, he fears that his identifying with maleness may be undermined. Why is that?
A canyon-sized difference
It comes in handy to see the mother and father figure as representatives of their gender. And there is a canyon of difference between them, 6.500 genes to be exact. For a child, they are like giant-sized rocks or boulders, and in growing up, he needs to make his way away from the mother figure toward his ultimate destiny, the father figure or maleness.
All too often, this process goes smoothly but for some, it can turn out to be a long haul. The young boy needs to leave the feminine, up till now his home-sweet-home, and to make his way to identification with maleness, his new home-sweet-home. We can assume that Rodney has left the female side of the canyon but fears coming back against his will, still feeling like a little boy. He has not fully identified with maleness like his father’s, but also dreads being thrust into the home-sweet-home that he left behind. He is crossing the canyon between femaleness and maleness; he is trapped in the middle.
You could compare this development phase as if you are walking on a tightrope between two sides of a canyon. You look straight ahead to the other side, hoping to get there, but when you look down, you hold your breath when you see the deep gorge beneath you, a great space of nothingness, the void. There is a gap between maleness and femaleness, and dwelling there all too long is not a comfortable sensation. It is not where you were meant to be, and it is not your genetic destiny either.
Back to Squaw Camp?
When Rodney says “(it) will turn me feminine”, he is fearing the return to the feminine, the original home-sweet-home that every young boy has left behind. He fears that he is not standing firmly on the other side of the canyon and that he may still be dragged back to the place from where he came.
Mind you, he does not hate women, but the fear is about being dragged back to the old hierarchy with giant-sized women and a little boy who is dependent on her/them and who feels that his stay there is or should only be temporary. Rodney fears being pulled, pushed, or sucked back and he also expresses a fear that he would have no control over such a situation, should it occur.
Defensive detachment from this predicament lies on the lure, and he turns away, although he has no clue as to where to go from there. He has become avoidant of such situations and is probably very shame-filled about the whole subject to go with it.
The four push-pull forces
Now that we have looked into the emotional side of his email, let us analyze his predicament rationally.
There are four negative forces that can frustrate his attempts to cross the canyon between femaleness and maleness:
1. his mother does not stimulate him sufficiently forward to cross the canyon
2. his mother even sucks him back
3. his father is not cheering him forward or acting as a role model or welcoming committee
4. his father pushes him back to the world of women by not accepting him sufficiently as a real boy but instead: shaming him as a disappointment or failure
The forces can be summarized as
1. a maternal push to maleness,
2. a maternal pull back to the original identification with mother and her world,
3. a paternal pull helping the boy to feel great among men,
4. a paternal push back across the tightrope through negligence, or perhaps shaming, disapproval, social distancing, or emotional unavailability.
Rodney’s email show how these four forces are at work. There is also a fifth force that we will examine in later articles, namely the situation that the boy is caught in the middle of the tightrope and has nowhere to go. It is then that he is engulfed by the fear of nothingness, the fear of the void.
Rodney writes,
“I also hate my mother constantly trying to make me close with her when I don’t want to be. She pushed dad away from my life and all I want is to connect with him. But dad is so distant and in fantasy-land when talking, that I find it hard to connect.”
In this cry for help, Rodney expresses three of the forces mentioned above.
We see
– force 1: his mother’s lack of helping him across the tightrope to his dad and maleness, she pushed dad away from Rodney’s life instead of coaxing him in that direction,
– force 2: she pulls him back to her world by excessively needing and even restraining him as a companion or confidant,
– force 4: his father pushes him back to the world of women as a result of his unavailability.
Rodney is now left dangling in the middle of the tightrope: it is difficult to go towards dad and maleness, and he finds it highly undesirable to go back to the original female world “…(where) I don’t want to be”.
Where is he now? He is nowhere and will ultimately feel like a nobody with no ground under his feet. He is facing identity problems because he does not belong, he suffers from loneliness because as a child he did not learn to connect, and above all, he will become shame-filled for being a disappointment and a failure.
Rodney writes,
“My theory is that I have become codependent, a pleaser, Goody Two Shoes, a perfectly drilled nice model child. But I don’t have a sense of self, and while also being sensitive, I am taking in other people to create my sense of self/fill the void. I feel that it is only women who are tolerant of my sensitivity, not other males, so I take on parts of women as it’s less threatening.”
What on earth is a “Goody Two Shoes”, I thought. I looked it up. According to Urbandictionary.com, it is an expression saying that someone is always on the side that is “good” and never takes a chance of being “bad”. The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes is a children’s story published by John Newbery in London in 1765. The story popularized the phrase “goody two-shoes” as a descriptor for an excessively virtuous person or do-gooder.
Rodney says he takes on parts of women and yet he also says: “I fear being around girls will turn me feminine”.
How can Rodney create new configurations? Well, same-sex attractions are a yearning for, and jealousy of, the looks and accomplishments of confident and good-looking males. They appear not to suffer from low self-esteem. They are the cheering squad at the other side of the canyon, a place where Rodney’s genes compel him to go. After all, male identification in humans who possess an ‘X’ and a ‘Y’ sex-chromosome is induced by those very genes; the urge stems from within. It hurts when that emotional and physical need is not met. The pain is located inside the soul and the young boy becomes aware of it as a shameful experience. It is as if he is saying:
“I am nothing, I am just not good enough, don’t know why. I wish I wasn’t me”.
This feeling cannot be tackled directly using any shortcut. In the analysis above, we have presented a framework and easy-to-follow roadmap to describe stepping stones that have paved the way to this predicament. Every struggler will find himself one day muddling through those steps to finally gain insights, to put together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.
In the following articles, we will tackle all four forces that haunt Rodney’s mind in greater detail.
To be continued
Job Berendsen, MD
