Same sex attraction


Sunday21
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same sex attraction?  

23 members have voted

  1. 1. Is same sex attraction sometimes genetic?

    • Yes
      6
    • No
      4
    • Sometimes
      2
    • Don't know
      8
    • No one knows
      3
  2. 2. Is same sex attraction sometimes a choice?

    • Yes
      15
    • No
      3
    • Sometimes
      4
    • Don't know
      2
    • No one knows
      0
  3. 3. Those with same sex attraction should

    • Be celibate
      10
    • Marry a heterosexual partner and have children
      10
    • Be secular
      3


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Guest MormonGator
24 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

So, the only examples of Canadian humor that stand out are 

Strange Brew and Canadian Bacon.

Which is your preference?

I don't really have a sense of humor. I believe that smiling and having fun is immoral. You know, like @Vort

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1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

So, the only examples of Canadian humor that stand out are 

Strange Brew and Canadian Bacon.

Which is your preference?

Strange BRew. This represents half my high school class...except these people have front teeth (hockey)

 

Edited by Sunday21
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1.  Yes

2.  Always - as in, we chose to come to Earth, hello...

3. Do whatever they need to do to follow God's commandments.

I'll add one more - Does being against gay marriage discrimination against those with SSA?  (Discrimination is always stated as - they're banned from Love).  The answer, of course, is No.  Being against gay marriage is a stalwart position that unequivocally states - who you're physically attracted to does not dictate who you Love.  Love goes beyond physical attraction.

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Guest MormonGator
19 hours ago, person0 said:

I know I've seen that pose somewhere before. . . hmm. . . oh yeah:

$_1.JPG

I'm sorry Vort, I think Vader's expressions come across much more clearly.  ;)

I find Vader much more friendly than @Vort as well. 

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1) Don't know
2) Don't know
3) Don't know

All my thinking about SSA has been changed since my daughter came out as Gay.  My daughter telling me about the conflict within her with church teachings during her childhood and teen years and having a sense that she was gay three years before she told me made me rethink it all.

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4 minutes ago, slamjet said:

1) Don't know
2) Don't know
3) Don't know

All my thinking about SSA has been changed since my daughter came out as Gay.  My daughter telling me about the conflict within her with church teachings during her childhood and teen years and having a sense that she was gay three years before she told me made me rethink it all.

I have sympathy for those with SSA. How would you like to live your life with no hope of having a significant other. That is what we are asking these people to do. If I meet a potential partner, I can marry that partner. What is a gay person meant to do?

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1 minute ago, Sunday21 said:

I have sympathy for those with SSA. How would you like to live your life with no hope of having a significant other. That is what we are asking these people to do. If I meet a potential partner, I can marry that partner. What is a gay person meant to do?

Find a way to learn and realize that "significant other" doesn't always start or end with physical attraction?

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30 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

 If I meet a potential partner, I can marry that partner. What is a gay person meant to do?

Seeking the support of others who have had to face the prospect of lifelong celibacy, and/or have had to turn away from relationships that they found very appealing, would be a start.  

Unfortunately, the tendency has been the opposite--rather than building common ground, there is often a tendency to isolate themselves by portraying their life experience as wholly unknowable and thus demanding validation in lieu of the empathy they want is to believe is impossible.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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1 hour ago, Sunday21 said:

I have sympathy for those with SSA. How would you like to live your life with no hope of having a significant other. That is what we are asking these people to do. If I meet a potential partner, I can marry that partner. What is a gay person meant to do?

I have sympathy for them too, just as much as anyone struggling to obey God's laws.  But to answer your question, they're meant to obey God's commandments rather than demand we change God's mind to validate their behavior.

Everyone has something in their lives that is not in harmony with God's laws.  We're all expected to change who we are.  Why are they any different?  For some reason, a gay person is more likely to believe that God should simply change His mind.

What if I'm a rapist, or a pedophile, or into beastiality, or if I just like porn so much that I will ignore any real relationship with a real person?  Should I ask God to change His mind?  Or should I change who I am to become the person the Lord wants me to be?

Edited by Guest
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19 hours ago, anatess2 said:

Find a way to learn and realize that "significant other" doesn't always start or end with physical attraction?

I often wish it was really that easy -- or maybe I have found that it is that easy and I don't like that it is that easy, I don't know. Whatever it is, this, IMO, hits at the heart of what we really believe (if we all even believe the same thing) about the relationship between the physical/sexual relationship and the rest of the significant other/romantic relationship.

As long as we tell heterosexual married couples that their sexuality is "...one of the ultimate expressions of our divine nature and potential and a way of strengthening emotional and spiritual bonds between husband and wife." (Elder Bednar Apr. 2013 GC), but counter that with something like this that suggests that gay couples' best chance for happiness is in seeking to completely separate their sexual selves from their "significant other" relationships, then I am going to agree with what Sunday21 said. This is a very difficult thing we are asking gay members to do. It is similar to what we expect of single heterosexuals, but that hope she mentions can make it quite different, as well.

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16 minutes ago, MrShorty said:

I often wish it was really that easy -- or maybe I have found that it is that easy and I don't like that it is that easy, I don't know. Whatever it is, this, IMO, hits at the heart of what we really believe (if we all even believe the same thing) about the relationship between the physical/sexual relationship and the rest of the significant other/romantic relationship.

As long as we tell heterosexual married couples that their sexuality is "...one of the ultimate expressions of our divine nature and potential and a way of strengthening emotional and spiritual bonds between husband and wife." (Elder Bednar Apr. 2013 GC), but counter that with something like this that suggests that gay couples' best chance for happiness is in seeking to completely separate their sexual selves from their "significant other" relationships, then I am going to agree with what Sunday21 said. This is a very difficult thing we are asking gay members to do. It is similar to what we expect of single heterosexuals, but that hope she mentions can make it quite different, as well.

And therein lies the other issue.  The Ultimate Expression of our divine nature and potential... that means it is an expression.  That means - LOVE COMES FIRST, physical intimacy develops from that Love.  Not the other way around - physical intimacy comes first then Love follows.  So, to say, I'll never be able to express my love in that manner is a self-defeating statement.  You never know until you've opened up yourself to completely loving someone of the opposite sex in that manner instead of outright rejecting them for their gender.

Of course it's difficult.  Marriage is not easy, not even for the most "normal" of us.  The road is full of thorns and each one of us have our own baggage we carry.  But we jump in with acceptance and faith and love.  Because we hope to share in that divinity.

The problem really is not the SSA.  The problem is the distrust in the teaching that homosexual relationships is not pleasing to God.  Most people with SSA have a hard time accepting that as truth.

Edited by anatess2
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7 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

And therein lies the other issue.  The Ultimate Expression of our divine nature and potential... that means it is an expression.  That means - LOVE COMES FIRST, physical intimacy develops from that Love.  Not the other way around - physical intimacy comes first then Love follows.  So, to say, I'll never be able to express my love in that manner is a self-defeating statement.  You never know until you've opened up yourself to completely loving someone of the opposite sex in that manner instead of outright rejecting them for their gender.

Of course it's difficult.  Marriage is not easy, not even for the most "normal" of us.  The road is full of thorns and each one of us have our own baggage we carry.  But we jump in with acceptance and faith and love.  Because we hope to share in that divinity.

The problem really is not the SSA.  The problem is the distrust in the teaching that homosexual relationships is not pleasing to God.  Most people with SSA have a hard time accepting that as truth.

I believe that anatess just made the argument that sexual attraction is a choice.

:eek:

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10 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I believe that anatess just made the argument that sexual attraction is a choice.

:eek:

No I didn't say that at all.  SSA as a natural state is not a choice (not counting pre-mortal choice, of course).  What you do with it is a choice.  But there are more things that attracts people than their physical make-up.  For example - most females have this interesting approach to attraction where an emotional response can override the physical attraction such that even as they are physically attracted to a man, they reject intimacy when the emotional aspect is not met.  And on the other token, even when they find the man physically unattractive, they desire intimacy when their emotional aspect is fulfilled.  (Which is one of the reasons Milo likes to say Lesbians are fakers).

Make sense?

Edited by anatess2
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2 hours ago, anatess2 said:

That means - LOVE COMES FIRST, physical intimacy develops from that Love.  Not the other way around

Perhaps, though I am not convinced (or don't yet fully understand) that this "demisexual" model sexual desire is Truth (TM). As you note, it seems to be more strongly associated with (stereotypical) women (just finished reading Brotherson's Knowing Her Intimately, and she leans heavily on a demisexual model for female sexual desire), and we have a tendency to "pedastalize" women, but I don't know that that is enough to make this Truth (TM). In things that I read, I see too much "proactionary" discussion (using sexuality to precede and grow love and not just as a reactionary thing to other loving feelings and actions), to see sexual desire as strictly an outgrowth of love. It seems to me that it is both an outgrowth of love and a way to build and grow love -- sometimes more of a "feedback loop" type model where sexuality grows love which grows sexual desire which grows sexuality which grows love which grows... (you get the idea). I unidirectional model that insists that love/intimacy must precede sexual desire, IMO, ignores a large chunk of human experience. Perhaps I am misunderstanding (I do that a lot) what you (and the Church) are trying to say here.

2 hours ago, anatess2 said:

So, to say, I'll never be able to express my love in that manner is a self-defeating statement.  You never know until you've opened up yourself to completely loving someone of the opposite sex in that manner instead of outright rejecting them for their gender.

Anecdotally, I think there are examples of this (like the Weeds http://www.joshweed.com/2012/06/club-unicorn-in-which-i-come-out-of.html ). From the few anecdotes of successful mixed orientation marriages that I have read about, it seems that one of the key elements in growing a successful MOM is figuring out how to navigate the sexual relationship (I think it would be really interesting to study this in more detail with greater rigor). However, I also know (like Josh did about men) that I would be attracted to a woman if/when I married her long before I got married. What you describe could be possible. However, I still think it is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do (above and beyond how heterosexuals experience this). The leap of faith that, if I develop a loving, intimate relationship, the sexual desire will follow may be possible, but experience also seems to suggest that it is far from automatic, and that very few mixed orientation marriages (maybe all marriages???) ever really achieve this ideal.

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20 hours ago, MrShorty said:

The leap of faith that, if I develop a loving, intimate relationship, the sexual desire will follow may be possible, but experience also seems to suggest that it is far from automatic, and that very few mixed orientation marriages (maybe all marriages???) ever really achieve this ideal.

This is a challenge that has been addressed and proven over and over and over in history as achievable.  It is not just possible, it is traditional in a lot of countries even today.  Hello, arranged marriages.

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