Thread by @JMHendersonSr

When I was a kid, it seemed that a favorite insult used on playgrounds, in the neighborhood, and wherever kids gathered, was calling someone a "faggot."

I could tell, from an early age, that being a "faggot" must be a really horrible thing, but I didn't know what it was.

Later, when understanding illuminated meaning, I knew that kids, well, now teens, who were contemptuously deriding the guy that couldn't shoot straight (at basketball), or missed a catch in baseball, etc., were talking about ... me.

How could I ever tell family and friends that the word they invested with such disgust, such contempt, such disregard, was a word that described me, and people like me.

Let's set aside some assinine stupidities for the idiots that adhere to them.

I never asked to be #gay.

I didn't sign up for the course.

I didn't save box tops like #Ralphie in #AChristmasStory ending up with an equally disappointing version of the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, this one a diabolically twisted Sexual Attraction decoder.

I haven't submitted an oral swab to have someone search for my #gaygene. And the truth is, although I was sexually abused in my pre-adolescent years, I have never associated that abuse with my attraction.

So, TBH, I'm probably as #clueless as anyone else as to why my orientation is toward members of the same sex.

You might as well ask someone why they like apple pie versus peach pie.

Oh, they'll give you lots of information about the kinds of pies, pie crusts, flavorings, textures, etc. But scrape all that away and do you have an explanation for why apple or peach or boysenberry or lemon or chocolate or pecan?

No.

No, they don't.

In the year immediately after being "outed," losing my job, losing the last shreds of my human dignity, I participated in a year long program called "#LivingWaters."

"#LivingWaters" offered to assist persons who were struggling with #samesexattraction, #sexualaddictions, and #sexualabuse.

This program was #Christ #centered. It included traditional elements of Christianity -- prayer, scripture reading -- along with a guided examination of one's life experiences.

The directors of the program and the authors of the book underlying the program had the impression that if you peeled back the years and the layers of life traumas, harms, abuses, and injuries, you could unearth the source of misdirected sexual attraction.

And TBH reflecting on my childhood, the sacrifices of military families, the harms of angry parents and absent parents, the betrayals of Catholic priests and professionals, was probably a worthwhile venture.

But at the end of the day, no moment ever arose when I was struck at the end of the day with a realization of WHY I was attracted to members of the same sex.

And as the year long program ended, the founders of Exodus International closed the doors on that program with a statement that read in part:

"I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change."

Well fuck.

Yes, I said fuck.

No sense pretending I didn't.

I'd just spent a year of my life in an intense effort to try and understand, and be freed from, my orientation, and the founders of this movement were jumping ship and expressing sorrow to those harmed by their actions.

Mind you, having begun a relationship with Christ in my early teen years, I had lived a consistently inconsistent life.

Externally, I was a straight teen, a straight young adult, a straight married man, a straight dad, a straight grandfather, for fuck's sake.

But since I can remember thinking about such things, I found myself attracted to guys.

And in my mid-teen years, when I began to understand anything at all about sexuality (late bloomer in a very shielded family), I knew I could never tell anyone about the real me, the inside me, the dark, terrible, and dirty me.

How could I be kept as a family member, as a friend?

How could I be other than discarded with that same disregard as invested itself in every derisive denouncement of "faggots" that had lined the playgrounds and battlegrounds of my childhood and youth?

So I kept that dark secret in terror for years, for decades, all the time, and I do mean ALL THE TIME crying out to a God that never spoke back to me on the topic to be set free from my disordered heart and mind.

I hadn't intended to bring you this far inside the darker corridors. If you've stayed this long, thank you for your company, and your consideration.