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.
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