Gay community.........If a formerly gay man tells me that he?

Question

no longer has any urges to be with men, gets married and according to him, has a great sex life, I should assume he is lying or psychologically ill? And if a 40 year old married man with kids (who used to have a great sex life with the wife) suddenly starts dating men and says he's been gay since birth, I should assume he is telling the truth and psychologically healthy?

What evidence would I have to believe the second man and disbelieve the first?

It is so amazing the logic twisting that people do to try to convince the world that a person cannot change.

Hmm, seems like some of you are saying that there is no pressure to say that you were gay since birth. I dispute that claim. I have personally dealt with rage and hostility at the mere notion that a person can be turned gay or decide to be gay. I believe that the gay community actively censors anyone who dares say such a thing. I sincerely believe that if a man becomes gay or decides to be gay, the gay community would punish him, harass him or reject him if he does not say that he was born gay or that he was born bi.
So, there is a reason to lie. A great deal of pressure from the gay community.

Answer 1

A simple way to do this is to honestly assess which of the two gains more reward by their assertion. Create a grid with yes and no columns and then ask yourself the the following questions:

1. Is there any pressure from any recognized part of society on the first man to pretend to be straight or to go back into the closet and deny his homosexuality if it still exists -- perhaps even to himself? Is there any religious pressure against homosexuality in our culture? What about his religious preference? Does his church/temple/synagogue/mosque/grove/whatever accept homosexuality, or does it tell him that it is wrong and should be changed? Particularly has he undergone a religious conversion to a group that rejects homosexuality? What about family pressure? Is his family 100% accepting of him as he is or do they want him to be straight? Political/economic pressure? Is there any possibility that he could be passed over for promotion at work or even fired for being gay? Would it cause him to have more difficulty getting another job? Will his life be simpler if he is straight?

2. The second man -- is there any social pressure on him from a recognized part of society to be gay or to pretend he is? Is there any religious pressure on him to be homosexual? Does his church/temple/synagogue/mosque/grove/whatever teach that homosexuality is preferred? Particularly has he recently converted to a religious group that teaches that homosexuality is preferred and pressures its members to be gay? What about family pressure? Does his family accept him 100% as a straight man or do they believe it to be wrong and want him to be gay? Political/economic pressure? Is it possible that the man will be passed over for promotion at work, or even fired for being straight? Will being straight make it harder for him to find another job? Will his life be simpler if he is gay?

Each time for each man that you ask one of the questions, check off a yes if the answer is yes and a no if it is no. Add up all the yes answers for each man. What you have done is create an index indicating the enticement (reward) for each man to be lying. This doesn't show that one man or the other is lying -- but it indicates relative probability of a reason for each man to lie. The higher the number that one of the men has, the more likely he has reason to lie.

For example. If you were to sample me (sorry to use myself, but it would be impolite to use someone else without their permission):

Is there any religious pressure against homosexuality in our culture?Yes
What about my religious persuasion? Anglican (1)
Does my church accept homosexuality or does it tell me that I should change to straight? No (2)
Have I undergone conversion to a group that rejects homosexuality and prefers its members to be straightNo
What about family pressure (3)
Is my family 100% accepting of me as I am or do they want me to be straightNo (4)
Is there any possibility that I could be passed over for promotion at work or even fired for being gay? No
Would it cause me to have more difficulty getting another job? No
Would my life be simpler if I were straight? No


Total score: 1

So, should I suddenly claim to have become straight, I have very little enticement to be lying, so it would be rational for you to presume that I was telling the truth. At the same time if my answers were all yeses, as you can see – there would be good reason to suspect that my courage gave out and I crept away to a lie – to keep other people happy.

On an anecdotal level, we have friends from a large family. I’ve known the oldest of the boys for over 20 years. His youngest brother came out recently. He knew he was gay by age 12. He fought it for years because he believed that his mother (a fundamentalist) and his father would reject him totally and because he thought that he would be a better person if he just lived out his life thinking about boys but doing what he was told to do. He is in college now and he’s living with his brother. His coming out did not terribly shock us, though it was a surprise. A few weeks after he came out – the oldest boy in the family, with whom he is living, followed him out of the closet. We were floored. I didn’t believe it initially – but as I think about it now, I realize that all the signs were there. He was married for years, and his wife complained (to me in fact) that they didn’t have sex often enough and that he didn’t seem to like sex. He always could pick out the cute boys, I’d even commented when he was, perhaps 20, that he had an awfully good eye for a straight boi. After he and his wife separated, he never went out with another woman, I just presumed that he was wounded by the separation, or something similar and thought nothing about it. It turns out that he was slowly and painfully dealing with his own sexuality, about which he had known from his earliest teens. Until his younger brother came out he didn’t have the courage to admit to anyone else that he was gay. He told his brother first, then us, and finally family and other friends. Watching it has been a learning experience. He is roughly my age. It will be difficult if not impossible for him to find a good relationship now. My partner and I have been together 15 years in January. I would not want to be looking now, and I’ve kept as good care of myself as I could. He is still psychologically wounded from dealing with how his family would react, and in fact his mother has disowned him and refuses to speak to him, as both boys expected (she is still talking to the younger one, telling him its just that he needs the right woman mostly, but talking). He had left the Church years ago (it actually explains his atheism to me, his church would not accept him), so that pressure was not there, but the rest – yes it is.

Could this happen in reverse? Under extreme circumstances yes, it is possible - more than possible.

In any event, apply the index to the two you are talking about – and you will know which one is more likely to be lying and which one to be telling the truth, and you can make your own judgements from there.

I hope that helps.

Have a nice day.

Kind regards,

Reynolds
[e-mail]

1. This question is important, but does not ITSELF give a yes or no, you need it for the next question.
2. this question could be confusing, the answer to the second part of the question is what is important and should be answered, we for example accept homosexuality and my rector performs gay commitment ceremonies
3. This question does not yield an answer – it is the setup for the following questions
4. Again the last part of the question yields the yes or no

Reaction to your note regarding people contesting the idea that there was any pressure to stay gay.

If you feel that gays are an established part of society (thank you very much) please add the following questions to the index:

For the allegedly now straight man: "Was there any pressure from the gay community to remain gay?"

For the allegedly now gay man: "Was there any pressure from the straight community to remain straight?"

Given what you wrote, we both know that both questions should be answered by you with yeses -- so each man gets one by your standard, which still leaves you with the same dynamic -- but it fulfills your desire for what you view as honesty.

I hope that is helpful.

Answer 2

Q: Gay community...If a formerly gay man tells me that he
no longer has any urges to be with men, gets married and according to him, has a great sex life, I should assume he is lying or psychologically ill?

A: He's either lying or highly defended against his homoerotic urges. While there is no scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed, more and more evidence implicates biological factors (genetics, hormones, neuroanatomy) in the etiology of a homosexual orientation. So, unless your formerly gay friend found some way of changing his physiology, I find it highly unlikely that his homoerotic urges would disappear altogether.

I suspect that he has played some kind of psychological trick on himself, with heavy assistance from a reparative therapist or tranformational ministry. With the right kind of coaching and conditional support from a like-minded peer group, one's psychological defenses (e.g., denial) can be reinforced so the individual *believes* himself to no longer be gay. Of course, this is less a function of reality than of him *wanting* to no longer be gay, but one can only pretend for so long.

Another possibility is that the individual in question may have more properly been defined as a bisexual. As such, he never would have been truly "gay" in the first place. As a bisexual, it would probably be more plausible for him to simply deny his attraction to men than it would be for a truly gay man to develop an attraction to women.

Q: And if a 40 year old married man with kids (who used to have a great sex life with the wife) suddenly starts dating men and says he's been gay since birth, I should assume he is telling the truth and psychologically healthy?

A: The individual has everything to lose (a great wife, kids) by dating men, so obviously there's something very powerful influencing his behavior in that direction. Indeed, this person could easily be the same person from the first half of your question, just a few years down the road! It's not uncommon for so-called "ex-gays" to realize that they have not really changed at all.

The point is, our society gives people every reason in the world to be straight. This is why you have so many gay people trying SO hard to be straight. This is why there are fraudulent psychologists and pastoral groups trying SO hard to make gay people straight. (But a therapy to help straight people be gay? Out of the question!)

I would say it's much more probable for a man with same-sex attractions to live a sham straight life (Jim McGreevy? Ted Haggard?) than it is for a truly straight man to just decide to go gay one day. It's simply not something one can choose to do.

Or undo, for that matter.

Answer 3

the evidence is simply that many men who claim to have turned straight often revert back to the gay lifestyle. And as to the 40 year old man...the simple fact is that that 40 year old man grew up in a time when it was not, in most places, ok to be gay. Gays were treated with such stigma by most of the general populace that it's unsurprising someone would choose to ignore those feelings and try to make a "normal" life for themselves with the white picket fence and 2.5 kids. Problem is, those feelings aren't gone, just submerged under so the man (or woman, for that matter) can fit into society. I think we'll find that now that being gay isn't as stigmatized, these cases of "turning straight" and being in the closet till 40 will slowly but surely diminish, as people are more comfortable being who they are.

Answer 4

Well, for one thing, unless you are actually the other person in bed with them I'd say that you need to take their judgment of a "great sex life" with a grain of salt. I know people that cannot get a date at all, much less someone to actually be there on a regular basis and they claim to have a "great sex life" too.

Those who claimed to have been "cured" make all sorts of claims, yet I've not heard from one of them 10 years after their supposed cure. What I HAVE heard of is the Leaders of gay "cure" groups being caught cruising in DC gay bars.

I also have known several formerly married men who are very loving to their wives and kids but are arrested at local parks for propositioning and exposing themselves to undercover police officers. Some people do give in to the pressure from family and churches to "marry" and "raise a family" but the sexuality does resurface.

Try doing research on the subject. That is assuming you really want to know and aren't just attempting to cast a bias accusation.

Answer 5

The funny thing about people is that we become whatever gender we are (most of the time) regardless of whether or not we are raised by somebody of the same gender. You could ask exactly the same question about single parents. Considering there are so many examples of either gender all over the place (media, school, other members of the family, friends, general public, etc) we don't actually need a member of the same gender to raise us in order to become that gender. We are just intrinsically our own gender (usually). What you're probably talking about is stereotypical gender associations. If you want to go with the stereotypes then i think it's fair to say that two gay men probably wouldn't have a problem with helping girls learn how to do their hair or wear makeup blah blah blah. If you want to go with logic and rationality then you should just realise that gender isn't society's construction. There will always be girly boys and boyish girls in both heterosexual and homosexual men and women. Stereotypes have no place in reality and kids will grow up to be who they are (gender) regardless of who raises them.

Answer 6

I think you should believe:

(1) the vast majority of gay people, who will tell you that being gay is something that is a fixed part of who they are.

(2) people who make a living of studying that sort of thing, the overwhelming majority of whom agree that being heterosexual or being gay is not something that can be changed.

Some highly motivated people can change to the extent that they marry and no longer have sexually intimate or romantic relationships with people of the same gender. This is a change in behavior. It is not a change in ones orientation.

Many people spend a lifetime suppressing who they are. As evidence, you have the example you yourself cited above of a man who stated that he was gay since birth, despite having been married. Stating that he was gay since birth indicates that he suppressed his affectional preference for decades.

I would say the part about having had a "great sex life with the wife" is highly unlikely. No more likely than saying that you, presumably heterosexual, are capable of becoming a healthy, well-adjusted gay person who has a "great sex life" with someone of the same gender, completely excluding any romantic involvement with someone of the opposite gender. To say that he was able to perform sexually with his wife would probably be more accurate.

As further evidence of people who suppress their affectional preference, you have the example you've cited of the fellow who claims to no longer be attracted to other men. Refer to the sources cited below that debunk the claim that sexual orientation can be changed.

Want more evidence? Consider the well-documented cases of gay people who claimed to completely change their affectional preference, and who were later discovered to have lied. In other words, they continued to have same-gender romantic affairs.

Answer 7

It is possible that the gay man was never gay but "Bi". Bisexual men can be perfectly happy an monogamous in a relationship regaurdless of what people think. It is also possible that he was straight the entire time. There are men who use homosexuality as an excuse to pick-up wemon. It isnt just in the movies.

It is also possible that the second man is bisexual, but if he claims that he has been gay since birth, he probably has. A lot of homosexual men find it hard to come out of the closet in fear of being treated badly.

Answer 8

I would suspect that the first man is delusional or at least was always bi....most gay men in retrospect have always known that they were gay...the hard part was admitting it to themselves. I don't know that you need any evidence unless of course you are sexually interested in that person...in which case...I'd question the first one because most men do not (I have never heard of one) go from gay to straight...most gay men at some point in their lives would have given anything to make this possible. That is one of the reasons that suicide among young gays is so high.

Answer 9

They're BOTH lying, genius. The first is lying about no longer having urges to be with men, the second is lying about the fact that he ever had a great sex life with his wife. There is no such thing as 'formerly' gay just like theres no such thing as 'formerly' human.

Answer 10

There is no societal pressure pushing a straight man toward being gay. There is a ton of societal pressure pushing gay men to be straight.

So the man who claims to be straight...or even "tries" to be straight by marrying a woman may be just bending to that pressure.

Likewise a gay man may eventually buckle to the pressure and join one of these ridiculous cults that claim to "cure" homosexuality.

Answer 11

I think it more likely that a "formerly gay" man is simply giving in to pressure to act straight than actually experiencing a permanent shift of sexual interests. "Formerly gay" always brings hair coloring to mind. Down at the roots he's still gay.

As for the forty-year-old--perhaps he is bisexual, or perhaps he was one of many who hid his true sexuality because of societal or family pressures and now feels free to come out of the closet.