Sexual Orientation vs Sexual Addiction

I used to get annoyed at how these twelve steps and five goals came up at every (online) Courage meeting, because I was really struggling to see how they intersected with my life.

Courage takes its Twelve Steps straight from AA. Now, don't get me wrong - these 12 steps work to help people with drug and alcohol addictions overcome those addictions, and that is a wonderful thing. But homosexuality is not an addiction - I realize now, using the twelve steps to try to escape homosexuality is like using the twelve steps to try to escape the fact that your hair grows in mouse brown. It just isn't going to work.

I mean, all I have to do is look at the first step - homosexuality has taken over my life? Excuse me? All that has taken over my life is my attempts to avoid ever identifying as a lesbian!!! "No." I would say, "I'm not a lesbian. I'm a woman who struggles with same-sex attraction. It's like any other addiction."

But is homosexuality really an addiction?

Consider the fact that I am a virgin - I've only ever gone as far as kissing, and all of those kisses save one were with guys.

Despite those kisses, I've never been attracted to guys. I've never actually enjoyed a kiss, unless you count the one kiss I exchanged with an incredibly beautiful young woman years ago.

So, let me ask you, how many alcoholics are there out there who have never, not even once, tasted alcohol? How many heroine addicts are there who have never tried heroine? How many self-injurers are there out there who have never self-injured?

Yes, sometimes I think about kissing a woman that I find attractive. Sometimes I even think about making love to a beautiful woman. Sometimes I wake up from those dreams that leave me aching, physically aching, longing to touch and be touched by a woman. What lesbian doesn't?

Now, some will attempt to say that it's in the thinking about it - the fact that I am drawn to women and have those thoughts at all - that indicate an addiction, a powerlessness that needs to be addressed.

But let me ask you - what straight woman doesn't think, sometimes, about kissing a man she finds attractive? What straight woman never thinks about making love to a man? What straight woman never has a dream that leaves her longing for intimacy with a man? And do we accuse her of being addicted to straight sex, simply because there are times when she wants it?

Isn't that a normal part of our sexuality - be we hetero, homo, or bi sexual - to sometimes want the form of sexual contact  to which we are naturally attracted?

Now I'm not denying that some individuals may become addicted to sexual activity - sexual addictions do exist. But a sexual orientation is not the same thing as a sexual addiction, not at all. I don't think about sex all the time, or even most of the time. I don't want to have sex with every woman I see (I mean, for starters, I think that would be exhausting, don't you?), or even with all of the women that I find attractive.

All I want, like any other person, is to be allowed to pursue the occasional fulfilling and romantic relationships. To seek my soul mate, my spouse, my other half.

And yes, I do have a strong suspicion that my other half is a woman. I'll bet she's beautiful, too.

Why DO we Crucify Ourselves?

A while back, when I was really struggling with everything, I painted a picture to show how I felt. It depicts what is supposed to be a human heart, encompassing a black lambda with a rainbow aura, and that heart is hanging on a cross.

I used this picture for something else artsy in my hometown (so if you are from the same place I am, perhaps you will recognize this picture), something that didn't have to be signed. I'm glad that it got out there a little bit because even though it's not well-painted, and despite the fact that I am not brave enough to claim it as mine, it means something to me that I painted this image.

Painting it was the first time I really gave expression to how I felt as a member of Courage. That pain spent so long locked up inside of me, and when I painted this picture it was almost compulsive - I had to paint it, all I had was a visual image of how to express what I was feeling.

At that time, words were not and could not be enough. I felt like, just by painting this image - even though I tucked it away in my prayer space, even though I've never really shown it off - somehow, by expressing it, it lessened my pain just a little.

See, in order to crucify my sexuality, I had to crucify my heart also. I've often prayed to God, begging Him to take my heart down from the cross.

I mean, didn't His Son come to be crucified, so that we wouldn't have to be crucified?

It seems to me now, that as long as I was trying to crucify my sexuality, God couldn't take my heart down from that cross, because I was the one driving the nails in, I was the one holding myself there. Our sexuality is one of the vehicles through which we express human love, love which belongs to the heart.

So as long as I was determined to crucify a part of my heart, my whole heart was stuck there, and slowly dying on that cross along with my sexuality was the rest of my emotional being.

It makes me think of a Tori Amos song I like, so I'll end this posting with that song: