Explaining powerful unwanted sexual attractions and urges
Sexual energy is inherently aimless, so we cannot say that certain types of of sexual desires and relationships are inherently abnormal or unnatural. They may be statistically unusual or go against our social conditioning or our own values and community standards, but they cannot be said to be anymore unnatural or abnormal than heterosexual activity.
Here I will explain two patterns that are unnatural and abnormal, the first of which is easier to explain, the second of which I will elaborate on in more detail. Many people with childhood, teenage or young adult same-sex experiences could be misled to doubt their heterosexual attraction and relationship potential based on these first sets of experiences, which they “know how to do” as opposed to opposite sex relationships which is foreign to them. It is understandable if people have worries and hesitations about new kinds of relationships if they have no personal experience to draw from. But the culture’s popular sexual orientation binary, which says you either like sex with the same-sex or the opposite-sex, has planted additional and unnecessarily harmful doubts in the minds of many, causing them to worry, delay or forego heterosexual relationships and marriage. When individuals have worries like this, it can be helpful to assure them of their heterosexual attraction potential with the right person and to point out the exaggerated worries caused by this popular and rarely challenged sexual binary.
Another deeper pattern that is considered unnatural and abnormal is when people report a childhood-based, recurring, involuntary, specific part-object and and powerfully intense (acronym CRISP) arousal reaction to any type of “stimuli”, such a body part, hair, physique, garment, personality type or idiosyncratic interaction, with a stranger of either the same or opposite sex, with whom they are not intimately connected to.
In the psychological literature, this reaction is called a perversion or a sexual script[1], or as I prefer to call it, a lust-trigger and is only problematic: (a) if the person unfairly compares this potent and immediate part-object arousal with their feelings in actual intimate relationships with real partners which are more slow to develop and which fluctuate depending on the context or (b) if the person develops an unhealthy fixation or addiction to pursuing arousal with such stimuli. Considering the “highs” that these triggers generate, many people can continue to pursue this arousal as a kind of drug to help them self-medicate feelings of stress and frustration.
Of course, these lust-triggers, whether of the same-sex or opposite-sex or inanimate object, have nothing to do with a person’s hardwiring or “sexual orientation”. Modern psychology has many tools to help people understand how and why these lust-triggers develop in childhood. In most cases, they are created by a child’s subconscious as a kind of fantasy coping strategy that helps them manage their difficult reality. Qualified therapists who “diagnose” these triggers as signs of one’s identity, are often completely missing the point—and misleading their clients. Instead, they can give people meaningful tools to help them reduce their emotional dependency on these triggers if that is their issue.
Even if the person is addicted to their lust-triggers, however, they are not exceptions to the “rules of attraction” described above where any two people can develop feelings of longing and desire for one another when some predictable criteria are met such as repeat physical and emotional closeness. In that sense there is a fundamental qualitative difference between lust-trigger sexual arousal and relationship desire, though the two or commonly conflated.
Specifically in regards to same-sex lust-triggers, an increasingly common situation is where males, much more than females, are introduced from a young age to lustful casual same-sex behavior in peers. In that case repeated exposure and acting-out can hook them onto this behavior like a “drug” that they return to over and over again for distraction, escape, meaning and stress relief. Their dependence on using this drug will naturally depend upon the presence of active stressors in their life and their abilities to get their core emotional needs such as belonging, recognition, autonomy and meaning, in a more normal and direct way.
Especially as males enter puberty through their teens, their sexual energy lies “just under the surface” almost waiting to be stimulated by a lustful image of event. The same-sex aspect of the behavior then is merely a product of their situations and the kinds of sexual experiences that are immediately accessible to them.
The fact that they do not have these same lustful arousing reactions to the opposite sex, can frequently confuse people. “Am I gay? Why am I not aroused by people who I see or interact with?” This pattern, however, is not that different from someone who develops an alcohol addiction problem because they were exposed to it from a young age, but who then report no interest in smoking cigarettes. Or to use a more benign example, why some people who have special memories about apple picking from a young age, will not be as immediately excited when presented with a new fruit later in life, at least until they try it over and over again and develop a taste for it.
These individuals typically need to understand how lust became “coupled” with attractive people of the same gender from an early age and how they might continue to use this lust as a way of self-medicating other life frustrations. Furthermore, it is helpful to reassure such people that they are not inherently gay, and that they, of course, can develop romantic and sexual interest with a person of the opposite sex (because they are a human being) but only if there is a dating/intimate relationship/sexual context and only if there is “personality chemistry” with such a person. Other factors like being vulnerable, sharing fun times, repeat exposure and verbal affection can also help to enhance romantic and sexual feelings. But overpowering and immediate lust-feelings are not typically felt with real people with whom we are in a close relationship, whether of the same or opposite sex.
[1] J. Park, Imprinted Sexual Fantasies. A New Key for Sexology (Existential Books, 2008)