Fearfully, Awkwardly Avoiding the Gay: My Experience With SSA

What were your early impressions of the word "Gay?"

At a young age, I suppose I didn't understand it. I was a bookworm and a recluse, preferring my family, social only in so far as I was dragged by sibling into street hockey and kickball at first, and then later social among only extremely comfortable friends. As a home-schooler, I was outside of mainstream school culture, and understood words not by their slang meanings, but dictionary definitions. Gay was very much still slang when my generation was growing up, so as a non-insider, I'd hear the word 'gay' and assume it meant "merry."

My first introduction to another possible definition was on the basketball courts near my home. My older brothers' friends constantly teased me, as part-and-parcel of their duty and loyalty to my elder bros. Something which I accepted in stride (while pugnaciously fighting it back.) Smack talk was passed back and forth as much as the basketball, and amidst it, someone called me "gay," asking if I was a "lesbian."

Same Mess or "Same Crosses," But New Creation in Christ!

As a kid, we all had chores, and naturally my mom would be on us about them. The worst was when we'd do our own particular chore but, because there were eight other people in the house, it inevitably got undone. My mom would point to whatever it was and say "that is the same pair of shoes as yesterday," or "that is the same coat/dish/toy/towel/game/throw pillow as two hours ago!!!" And, knowing that I'd very honestly put those things away, I'd shout "Well, this is the SAME HOUSE! Did you expect the neighbor's shoes?"

I was defensive because, often, she was accusing us of shirking; Mom thought we left work undone and was upset. But I have to wonder if sometimes her source of exasperation was the fact that we make those same messes over and over. It was the same house, the same people living in it, with the same bad habits. I found myself wondering absurd things, like if she'd be happier if the messes were 'nicer' messes, instead of things she was bored with looking at. Or if they were made by less-annoying people: we were raucous and sloppy, and that never changed. Or were in a less-boring house.

A Matter of Nurture: Why the Wound of Homosexuality Claims It's Nature

I've been yelled at by professors, been eaten alive by an area full of students (some I had considered pals) who happen to overhear my thoughts on this, and lost a couple friends who found my opinion just too emotionally unbearable. I've had gay friends disagree, but take it in stride, while straight friends threw absolute fits at the mere suggestion that, no we weren't "born this way." I tried, but I could never get out of them why this suggestion hurt so badly. All I was told was an insult to the dignity of their friends, to the suffering homosexuality attracted individuals had gone through, believing that environment and experiences were the primary determinate for a person's sense of sexuality. They plead that I "just can't know," which is ironic, because they don't know that I do know.

Finding A Couple Brothers

[You meet someone new and find him attractive. You wonder if maybe, just maybe, this might be “The One.” You start to look for any sign of affection in their behavior towards you, and become mildly flirtatious in your own behavior. We’ve all been there! There’s no physical contact, no premature declaration of love, nothing obviously inappropriate in your relationship. It’s innocent, right?
Except that you don’t have to let your physical guard down to let your emotional guard down. Without meaning to, you’ve taken the emotional connection to a level that the relationship is not, and may never be, ready for. More often than not this risks distracting you from where God is calling you in life and may damage your friendship with the person in question. Not only that, but when we see each other as merely a romantic potential rather than as people, we actually deprive each other of our dignity as men and women.
The Bible calls us to ‘Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters’ (Hebrews 13:1), because that’s exactly what we are in Christ. Our primary identity is as sons and daughters of God, meaning that we also need to view each other first and foremost as brothers and sisters in His family.....]

The article continues here: First a Brother, Not a Lover. 

Written a bit ago, yes, but I keep coming back to it as sort of a challenge to myself. Chastity Project is one of my favorite sites, and Ester Rich isn't too bad a writer. In her article, the author emphasizes the importance of understanding and appreciating people as their own, unique individual self, rather than just a potential romantic "other."