Archive Home Page >>Well, maybe the gay lifestyle IS as problem-free as some of you say<<
Well I would be the first person to say that this community is dealing with an enormous number of problems (or to use a religious term carrying quite a few crosses), and we are thriving in spite of them.
One of the problems we constantly face is outside attempts to trivialize our inherent sexual identities (including our deepest feelings of love) into negative categories (both scientific and religious) that are then "curable" via various nefarious interventions, ie. in this case your supposition of addiction.
Can sex be an addiction? Yes of course and there are gay sex anonymous groups dealing with it just as there are straight sex anonymous groups dealing with it. But it is entirely dependent on the emotional makeup of the individual and their feelings about sex both in content and quality and quantity. One person's unbalanced "addiction" might be another person's balanced and desireable steady state :)
I agree with Agustus2 and would add that as long as the subject is segregated by classifications and the underlying hint of normalization "if only the problem could be identified and the final solution implemented so that 'good' people would no longer have to deal with the subject", then you can't expect a balanced discussion. If you had stated upfront a belief that heterosexual sex above and beyond that required for procreation (even in marriage) is also an addiction you probably still would have gotten negative replies, but at least we wouldn't be assuming you to have an underlying harmful intent towards gay people.
Most people are in DENIAL of their own internalized homophobia, and you could write a book on homophobia just by reading the negative posts we have to deal with coming from outside this forum. We hear the same emotionally loaded words over and over and over again: "sinner, unhappy, unbalanced, inferior, trapped, going thru a stage, seduced, brainwashed, unnatural, depraved, sick, enslaved, dirty, shameful, evil, shallow, self loathing, diseased, unrepentant, unhealthy, guilty, condemmed, being punished, in denial, addiction...".
Somewhere folks wondering about us leave out the opposite side of the coin and are in denial of even the possibility that even now those of us stripped from the crosses of the hate God asked us to bear (and they are many) are defining ourselves in different terms "kind, gentle, courageous, giving" and in the terms of my own religious beliefs, guilty only of one thing: profound valor.
Perhaps you were sincere in asking your question without realizing how it would make us "feel" to listen to an attempt to once again have us be marked as "diseased". Enter this forum to ask your question in recognition of our inherent worth as human beings and children of God, and with respect for our right to exist in peace from hate and prejudice, and acknowledging the existance of the very real love that can exist between people of the same gender, and I'm sure you won't get such defensive replies.