I’m a Muslim girl who feels same sex attraction. I’ve been excluded by some sunnis and I don’t share the same views as the modernists. Have you also been excluded by Christians?
Long time lurker (24M), not exactly Christian but raised Christian. I’m constantly questioning whether homosexuality is a sin or isn’t one. This is mostly a vent so I’m not expecting anything, but insight either here or in DMs is welcome. My self esteem is chronically low and I can’t eat, which is very negatively impacting my health. My BMI sits at roughly 14. I consider reconverting often because I want to believe in something and have a sense of community, but I have trouble doing so after I started reading the Bible cover to cover. The more I read, the less I believed in it, until eventually I left the faith.
I feel like as soon as other people find out or sense I’m different they distance themselves or are weary of me. The rejection I felt during University and from family members is affecting me every day. I consider going back to church but I never felt welcomed in the church no matter how hard I tried to seem normal. I always felt like an outsider.
Despite being like this, I want to adopt kids, get married, and start a family one day. At eighteen I felt so much guilt I came out of the closet and it didn’t go well. My situation is unique because for most of my life, I’ve been mostly attracted to women. I consider myself bisexual so I don’t understand why I’m feeling this way. It should be easy to commit to erasing the part of me that is problematic. Part of me thinks my low self esteem is why I have unwanted feelings and guilt in the first place. I don’t think most women would want me but on some level don’t think men would either.
When I tell people I’ve struggled with this for a long time they assume I didn’t read my Bible enough or my family didn’t. I was a very devout Christian for a long time, to the point I slept with my Bible often. I think this is why what happened is still affecting me today even when it shouldn’t be.
I feel like I have no soul and keep everyone at arm’s length. I’m in constant survival mode and am hyper vigilant. There aren’t a lot of guys like me where I live and I’m surrounded mostly by Christians in real life. It sounds over dramatic, but I feel like what happened and the fear of it happening again is eating me alive. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to never come out the way that I did.
I’m not sure if what I want is some level of acceptance from the type of people that had the most negative reaction to what I disclosed at eighteen or if I’m wanting to change. I haven’t dated anyone since my last girlfriend, and feel like on some level I’m watching my life drift away to become a machine that can’t get wounded again.
I’m so tired of homosexuality. I’m gonna go on a dating app and find a date with a woman. I used to get gay thoughts so much but now I get thoughts that women are beautiful. praise God! if anyone has any advice or exhortations please let me know. thanks and God bless
Here’s a short story about me. It’s probably a bit too much, but I’ll share it anyway.
Basically, from a very young age, I can remember touching myself before going to sleep, and I had this picture of a naked woman that I tore out of a newspaper. I did that for quite a long time.
A few years later, when I was about 7 or 8, a man from our village showed us porn on a DVD. There were five of us boys there. While he was showing it, a video of two men came on. That same night, when I got home, I had a dream where I was touching one of those four boys, and it really aroused me.
Not long after that, while I was still 8, I had my first kind of semi-sexual experience with another kid from the village—one of those same boys. After that, we kept exploring, and after a few years it turned into actual sex, which I continued for many years.
I remember how convinced I was that what I was doing was a huge mistake and a sin. When I went to confession for my First Communion, I didn’t confess it because I was afraid the priest would tell someone. I still received communion, and I always carried guilt because of what I had done.
Then college came. I started partying and using drugs, and at that point I was sure that God didn’t exist and that I had been living a lie my whole life. That lasted for a few years, until I felt the presence of a living God again, and I slowly started to change—although I was still smoking weed, drinking alcohol, and watching porn.
Eventually, I decided to fully give my life to Christ and live in celibacy. It was beautiful. I felt so good during that time.
And now, after four years of complete celibacy and nofap, I’ve fallen back, and I don’t feel guilt anymore. I’ve gone back to everything I used to do.
I don’t feel a need for God anymore. I don’t feel that closeness. The doubts are coming back strong, and I don’t know what to do. At one point, I felt so close to God that I believed He would change me and bless me with a wife and children…
It’s interesting that I relapsed right after moving from Europe to America—why do I feel so many temptations? It’s honestly really scary.
Pray for me guys <3
Satan pursues every soul he can grasp.
I'm a 23M So for Basically most of my life I thought I was straight, had strong opposite sex attraction, I would say around 3-4 times maybe I felt SSA, but didn't make it a big deal.
3 years ago I started obsessing about the idea of what If im gay, went the rabbit whole of HOCD, etc.
As today, I think I do experience some degree of SSA, its much more noticeable when I'm in Analysis and obsession mode. Thankfully my OSA is almost always there and I it's the strongest one(it was there for me since I was a kid), but when I try to analyze or fight too much the SSA, it kinda takes over and becomes stronger, which stresses me a lot.
Also the culture we live in and society's view on Sexuality is kinda pushing me to go and explore my SSA. However my ultimate goal in life is to have a Wife and form a family. I've always loved women and it felt good.
I don't want to never act on my SSA, because I would be shamed about it in the future.
How do I get out of this cycle and in your opinion what are good ways to keep SSA as weak as possible.
I've stopped the porn and other bad habits.
I just want to be close to God and live without worrying too much about this.
This post will have a lot triggering content so dont read if you’re easily triggered. I used to read regret/relapse posts that triggered me so just back out of the post now if you are easily triggered. I wish I could tell this story in a less explicit way but I need to let everything off my chest. It’s a long read so if you want to get to the point then read the last 3 sections.
I knew since I was a kid that I was bisexual. I’m only interested in women romantically and I do find them sexually attractive but I find specific kinds of men far more attractive sexually. I was bullied a lot growing up for my looks, mostly by women, so I feel more comfortable around men. As early as elementary school I remember masturbating to gay porn and then moving on to gay furry porn. I would still watch heterosexual porn occasionally but it was usually dominant women/bisexual/cuckolding/femdom porn. It’s like it’s hard for me to watch regular porn between a man and women because it’s hard for me to imagine me having sex with a woman who likes and respects me.
Then in middle school I started using chat rooms where I knew older men would be at. I would tell them my age and what city I lived in. They would offer to get me but luckily my anxiety always let me disengage and then nothing happen. Early on in HS I bought women’s clothing and different kinds of sex toys. I’d flirt with men on kik. Later on in HS I discovered dirtyroulette. Id spend hours showing myself off and masturbating with everyone(mostly men but also women.) I have ADHD and Autism so I was addicted to this loop.
Two years after Covid I started to take my pornography addiction seriously. I’d go 2-6 days without looking at any sexual content and then binge relapse for 2-4 days. Nofap was a gamechanger for me. Life felt less dull, I felt less awkward, I had energy, I could focus far better on studying/work (I flunked out of so many good opportunities educational wise because of my hypersexuality, I would have a college degree, went to a top tier priviate school and many certifications if I had better focus) it was like Nofap was life or death for me. During these times I was less extreme with my porn habits but I’d still relapse on vidchatting websites.
Around January this year I ended up leaving my job and I had too much free time. The longer I was off the more degenerate my habits became. For the first time ever I posted a nude of me with my face in it and it felt incredibly freeing and exciting to not have to hide a secret that I’ve been holding in for most of my life.
(Now for the point of why I made this post) last week I attended a Korean spa. I’ve been attending this spa for over 5 years. A lot of people come here to cruise but I’ve never done anything with anyone in real life for all of these years. I will admit that I liked to take glances and seeing people stare at me but that’s it.
However when I attended last Thursday this guy basically came on to me and started touching me. I reciprocated. When I got home and prayed I felt a very weird disconnect, it was like something was robbed for me. I’m telling you, if you’ve never done anything in person, do not start, it will change something in you.
It was like something changed in me. I tried using porn but the memories of me actually touching someone was stuck in my head. I ended up going back to this spot three times this week and touched men every time.
Two days ago I took it a step further. Some guy basically went down on me for a second without even asking me and then I reciprocated for a few seconds. I then got extremely scared of the possibility of contracting HIV/STDs and left. I spent over 8 hours looking at every single page related to oral sex and getting hiv. I know the chances are astronomically low but I tend to think in extremes. I also feel so disconnected spiritually, before when relapsing I felt guilt and compelled to pray but now I just don’t care about anything. Before I could cope with everything I was watching and doing because it was all virtual but now it’s real. If I ever did get married to a girl then I’d have to admit everything and I don’t want to. I am also still scared about getting HIV(as irrational as it is.)
The worse apart is despite this I want to go back and still do more things. Luckily my anxiety is in overdrive but I’m not sure how I’ll feel in a week or so. I feel spiritually dead. How do I come back from this?
I had a post up a few days ago. I ended up deleting it because I started getting messages from older men and it made me nervous. I'm afraid there might be some predators already in this community. Please just stay safe. Please forgive me for my fear. Just please use discernment.
"The scientific consensus is that these things are nearly always hard-wired into us, impossible to change and primarily occur before we’re even born."
How should the scientific consensus be confronted?
This is something that I have been keeping for so long and recently I feel a lot more strongly about this, the idea of me not being straight. It is one of the things that I'm confused about myself, and a side of me that I am trying to deny and kept buried beneath me because I know that homosexuality is a sin and I can't be like that. Being the Youth Leader of the church does not help either I always feel like I need this feeling in me to be removed. The hardest part of this all is I am also imprisoned by the sin of masturbation, and the material that I am looking at whenever I do the deed are muscular men, it's even worse that I enjoy it but still feel the weight of what I did right after. I try to give and surrender this addiction to God but whenever I try to voice it out to God my mouth hesitates, I feel like there's something stuck in my throat whenever I do. I don't know what compelled me to post about something like this online and on this subreddit, I can't even talk about this with my friends and even my churchmates because i'm scared of what they'll say or think of me. I don't want to talk about this to my friends who are members of the LGBTQ community either because I feel like they'll encourage it more. Has anyone struggled with something like this in the subreddit, and if you did what has helped you conquer this feeling, I don't want to be homosexual, I always rebuke myself whenever I feel arousal towards muscular man or but I end up letting sin and temptation win over me.
i 25m started feeling sexual attraction toward males around age 12 and i hated it
it always felt wrong and uncomfortable but the feelings were strong and grew stronger as i grew up i never claimed an identity in it but i would just give into it
finally for the past few years that attraction to men has been diminishing more and more and now it’s finally to where i basically have no desire or attraction to pursue a man in that way and i don’t feel any sexual pleasure from looking at either sex and even from touching my own body
but for some reason im still struggling and i don’t know why
ive been praying to God about this i’ve been reading my bible so im knowledgeable to a degree about this kind of battle
i use to ask God all the time to take away the sexual attraction from me because i feel like it’s going to ruin my life and im ok with being single and celibate
and now that it has happened i should be able to fully surrender to God and TRULY REPENT and stop turning back to testing my body out or whatever it is i’m doing
i don’t know if it’s my mind i know anything sexual outside a marriage between husband and wife is sin i know that
i genuinely don’t feel pleasure from touching myself anymore
so why am i still trying myself it’s like im so ungrateful to God i DON’T EXPERIENCE sexual pleasure at all
some people are aroused so much and i don’t gotta deal with that anymore it should be easier for me
what is wrong with me
prolly because it wasn’t just about the sexual pleasure but also familiarity and also the fact i used it as a stress reliever as well and distraction from overwhelming life
you know what i am a new creation in Christ and this isn’t how my story ends i am set free from this sin in Jesus name i am repenting this is an ongoing process this is not the end all Glory to God thank you Jesus i am free
Several months ago, I made a post called I've got "the friend I've always wanted", and it's been healing and eye opening. Since it's been a number of months, I thought I might give a little update.
Things have continued to surprise me (in a good way). Joe has officially been my good friend for an entire year now. For some reason, in my head, I KNEW it would be real if he actually stuck around for a year. And he has. And things have continued to change in me as well.
The biggest thing is that, inside of me now, things are "settled". I don't have the urge to try and spend as much time with Joe as I possibly can. I still enjoy my time with him, but if we don't communicate at all for a week, it's totally OK. And I can tell myself that I'm not as "needy" as I was before. Everything deep within me is fully convinced that Joe isn't going anywhere. I think it's what is generally referred to as "secure attachment". And even the juvenile longings that I had (cuddling next to him or hugging his leg like a small child would want to do) have dissipated.
My counselor equated everything to me having been starving to death for so long. When I finally found connection (food), I wanted to eat as much of it as I possibly could. But now, I'm full, so I'm not ravenously trying to gorge myself as much as possible.
Even just this week, I was supposed to see Joe at a meeting on Thursday, but the meeting got cancelled at the last minute. Instead of being really disappointed that I wouldn't get to see Joe (as would have happened in the past), it's a complete non issue. I'll get to see him on Sunday. And even if he won't be at church on Sunday, that's still OK. Even when I don't get to see him, he's not going anywhere.
One thing that really shocked me happened about a month ago. Joe and I went to lunch after church, and Joe ended up telling me about a new personal project he was excited about. At lunch, he ended up inviting me over to his apartment to show me what he'd been up to. I ended up staying over there the entire afternoon. While he was showing me his project, I needed to use the bathroom. There was actually a bathroom right next to where we were, but when I asked, Joe offered to let me use the master bathroom. I ended up taking him up on that offer because I don't like other people nearby if I have to do #2, which I did. So I went in to his bathroom, did my business, and returned. But the surprising thing is that all I did was use the bathroom and then return. Several months ago, I still wanted to know absolutely everything I possibly could about Joe. Getting to look around his bathroom and examine every minute detail would have been like winning a jackpot. But at the same time, it would be a challenge to control myself and NOT open every drawer and cabinet in there. But that day, not only did I not have to fight the urge to be nosy, the thought never even crossed my mind that I could do that.
And now, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Joe is my best friend and I am one of Joe's best friends. We don't spend every minute together that we possibly could... and that's OK because neither of us would want to. I don't believe the friendship is unhealthy in any way. And our interactions are mutual; sometimes I'm initiating things and sometimes he is. And I'm not trying to spend as much time with Joe as possible... in fact, we were at a church event together last weekend, and of all of my interactions with other men, only 10% of that was with Joe.
The one thing I will add about our friendship, where Joe isn't "the friend I've always wanted" is the fact that we're not together as much as possible. We're not doing everything together that we possibly could. We're not "attached at the hip". And after seeing what my friendship with Joe can be like, I don't need a friend like that, and I don't think it would be healthy.