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from "Born that way" theory
How Might Homosexuality Develop?
Putting the Pieces Together
Excerpted from "The Complex Interaction of Genes and Environment: A Model for Homosexuality" by Jeffrey Satinover,M.D.
It may be difficult to grasp how genes, environment, and other
influences interrelate to one another, how a certain factor may
"influence" an outcome but not cause it, and how faith
enters in. The scenario below is condensed and hypothetical,
but is drawn from the lives of actual people, illustrating how
many different factors influence behavior.
Note that the following is just one of the many developmental
pathways that can lead to homosexuality, but a common one. In
reality, every person's "road" to sexual expression
is individual, however many common lengths it may share with those
of others.
(1) Our scenario starts with birth. The boy (for example) who
one day may go on to struggle with homosexuality is born with
certain features that are somewhat more common among homosexuals
than in the population at large. Some of these traits might be
inherited (genetic), while others might have been caused by the
"intrauterine environment" (hormones). What this means
is that a youngster without these traits will be somewhat less
likely to become homosexual later than someone with them.
What are these traits? If we could identify them precisely, many
of them would turn out to be gifts rather than "problems,"
for example a "sensitive" disposition, a strong creative
drive, a keen aesthetic sense. Some of these, such as greater
sensitivity, could be related to - or even the same as - physiological
traits that also cause trouble, such as a greater-than-average
anxiety response to any given stimulus.
No one knows with certainty just what these heritable characteristics
are; at present we only have hints. Were we free to study homosexuality
properly (uninfluenced by political agendas) we would certainly
soon clarify these factors - just as we are doing in less contentious
areas. In any case, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever
that the behavior "homosexuality" is itself directly
inherited.
(2) From a very early age potentially heritable characteristics
mark the boy as "different." He finds himself somewhat
shy and uncomfortable with the typical "rough and tumble"
of his peers. Perhaps he is more interested in art or in reading
- simply because he's smart. But when he later thinks about his
early life, he will find it difficult to separate out what in
these early behavioral differences came from an inherited temperament
and what from the next factor, namely:
(3) That for whatever reason, he recalls a painful "mismatch"
between what he needed and longed for and what his father offered
him. Perhaps most people would agree that his father was distinctly
distant and ineffective; maybe it was just that his own needs
were unique enough that his father, a decent man, could never
quite find the right way to relate to him. Or perhaps his father
really disliked and rejected his son's sensitivity. In any event,
the absence of a happy, warm, and intimate closeness with his
father led to the boy's pulling away in disappointment, "defensively
detaching" in order to protect himself.
But sadly, this pulling away from his father, and from the "masculine"
role model he needed, also left him even less able to relate to
his male peers. We may contrast this to the boy whose loving
father dies, for instance, but who is less vulnerable to later
homosexuality. This is because the commonplace dynamic in the
pre-homosexual boy is not merely the absence of a father - literally
or psychologically - but the psychological defense of the boy
against his repeatedly disappointing father. In fact, a youngster
who does not form this defense (perhaps because of early-enough
therapy, or because there is another important male figure in
his life, or due to temperament) is much less likely to become
homosexual.
Complementary dynamics involving the boy's mother are also likely
to have played an important role. Because people tend to marry
partners with "interlocking neuroses," the boy probably
found himself in a problematic relationship with both parents.
For all these reasons, when as an adult he looked back on his
childhood, the now-homosexual man recalls, "From the beginning
I was always different. I never got along well with the boys
my age and felt more comfortable around girls." This accurate
memory makes his later homosexuality feel convincingly to him
as though it was "preprogrammed" from the start.
(4) Although he has "defensively detached" from his
father, the young boy still carries silently within him a terrible
longing for the warmth, love, and encircling arms of the father
he never did nor could have. Early on, he develops intense, nonsexual
attachments to older boys he admires - but at a distance, repeating
with them the same experience of longing and unavailability.
When puberty sets in, sexual urges - which can attach themselves
to any object, especially in males - rise to the surface and combine
with his already intense need for masculine intimacy and warmth.
He begins to develop homosexual crushes. Later he recalls, "My
first sexual longings were directed not at girls but at boys.
I was never interested in girls."
Psychotherapeutic intervention at this point and earlier can be
successful in preventing the development of later homosexuality.
Such intervention is aimed in part at helping the boy change
his developing effeminate patterns (which derive from a "refusal"
to identify with the rejected father), but more critically, it
is aimed at teaching his father - if only he will learn - how
to become appropriately involved with and related to his son.
(5) As he matures (especially in our culture where early, extramarital
sexual experiences are sanctioned and even encouraged), the youngster,
now a teen, begins to experiment with homosexual activity. Or
alternatively his needs for same-sex closeness may already have
been taken advantage of by an older boy or man, who preyed upon
him sexually when he was still a child. (Recall the studies that
demonstrate the high incidence of sexual abuse in the childhood
histories of homosexual men.) Or oppositely, he may avoid such
activities out of fear and shame in spite of his attraction to
them. In any event, his now-sexualized longings cannot merely
be denied, however much he may struggle against them. It would
be cruel for us at this point to imply that these longings are
a simple matter of "choice."
Indeed, he remembers having spent agonizing months and years trying
to deny their existence altogether or pushing them away, to no
avail. One can easily imagine how justifiably angry he will later
be when someone casually and thoughtlessly accuses him of "choosing"
to be homosexual. When he seeks help, he hears one of two messages,
and both terrify him; either, "Homosexuals are bad people
and you are a bad person for choosing to be homosexual. There
is no place for you here and God is going to see to it that you
suffer for being so bad;" or "Homosexuality is inborn
and unchangeable. You were born that way. Forget about your
fairytale picture of getting married and having children and living
in a little house with a white picket fence. God made you who
you are and he/she destined you for the gay life. Learn to enjoy
it."
(6) At some point, he gives in to his deep longings for love
and begins to have voluntary homosexual experiences. He finds
- possibly to his horror - that these old, deep, painful longings
are at least temporarily, and for the first time ever, assuaged.
Although he may also therefore feel intense conflict, he cannot
help admit that the relief is immense. This temporary feeling
of comfort is so profound - going well beyond the simple sexual
pleasure that anyone feels in a less fraught situation - that
the experience is powerfully reinforced. However much he may
struggle, he finds himself powerfully driven to repeat the experience.
And the more he does, the more it is reinforced and the more
likely it is he will repeat it yet again, though often with a
sense of diminishing returns.
(7) He also discovers that, as for anyone, sexual orgasm is a
powerful reliever of distress of all sorts. By engaging in homosexual
activities he has already crossed one of the most critical and
strongly enforced boundaries of sexual taboo. It is now easy
for him to cross other taboo boundaries as well, especially the
significantly less severe taboo pertaining to promiscuity. Soon
homosexual activity becomes the central organizing factor in his
life as he slowly acquires the habit of turning to it regularly
- not just because of his original need for fatherly warmth of
love, but to relieve anxiety of any sort.
(8) In time, his life becomes even more distressing than for
most. Some of this is in fact, as activists claim, because all-too-often
he experiences from others a cold lack of sympathy or even open
hostility. The only people who seem really to accept him are
other gays, and so he forms an even stronger bond with them as
a "community." But it is not true, as activists claim,
that these are the only or even the major stresses. Much distress
is caused simply by his way of life - for example, the medical
consequences, AIDS being just one of many (if also the worst).
He also lives with the guilt and shame that he inevitably feels
over his compulsive, promiscuous behavior; and too over the knowledge
that he cannot relate effectively to the opposite sex and is less
likely to have a family (a psychological loss for which political
campaigns for homosexual marriage, adoption, and inheritance rights
can never adequately compensate).
However much activists try to normalize for him these patterns
of behavior and the losses they cause, and however expedient it
may be for political purposes to hide them from the public-at-large,
unless he shuts down huge areas of his emotional life he simply
cannot honestly look at himself in this situation and feel content.
And no one - not even a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, sexually insecure
"homophobe" - is nearly so hard on him as he is on himself.
Furthermore, the self-condemning messages that he struggles with
on a daily basis are in fact only reinforced by the bitter self-derogating
wit of the very gay culture he has embraced. The activists around
him keep saying that it is all caused by the "internalized
homophobia" of the surrounding culture, but he knows that
it is not.
The stresses of "being gay" lead to more, not less,
homosexual behavior. This principle, perhaps surprising to the
layman (at least to the layman who has not himself gotten caught
up in some pattern, of whatever type) is typical of the compulsive
or addictive cycle of self-destructive behavior; wracking guilt,
shame, and self-condemnation only causes it to increase. It is
not surprising that people therefore turn to denial to rid themselves
of these feelings, and he does too. He tells himself, "It
is not a problem, therefore there is no reason for me to feel
so bad about it."
(9) After wrestling with such guilt and shame for so many years,
the boy, now an adult, comes to believe, quite understandably
- and because of his denial, needs to believe - "I can't
change anyway because the condition is unchangeable." If
even for a moment he considers otherwise, immediately arises the
painful query, "Then why haven't I...?" and with it
returns all the shame and guilt.
Thus, by the time the boy becomes a man, he has pieced together
this point of view: "I was always different, always an outsider.
I developed crushes on boys from as long as I can remember and
the first time I fell in love it was with a boy, not a girl.
I had no real interest in members of the opposite sex. Oh, I
tried all right - desperately. But my sexual experiences with
girls were nothing special. But the first time I had homosexual
sex it just 'felt right.' So it makes perfect sense to me that
homosexuality is genetic. I've tried to change - God knows how
long I struggled - and I just can't. That's because it's not
changeable. Finally, I stopped struggling and just accepted myself
the way I am."
(10) Social attitudes toward homosexuality will play a role in
making it more or less likely that the man will adopt an "inborn
and unchangeable" perspective, and at what point in his development.
It is obvious that a widely shared and propagated worldview that
normalizes homosexuality will increase the likelihood of his adopting
such beliefs, and at an earlier age. But it is perhaps less obvious
- it follows from what we have discussed above - that ridicule,
rejection, and harshly punitive condemnation of him as a person
will be just as likely (if not more likely) to drive him into
the same position.
(11) If he maintains his desire for a traditional family life,
the man may continue to struggle against his "second nature."
Depending on whom he meets, he may remain trapped between straight
condemnation and gay activism, both in secular institutions and
in religious ones. The most important message he needs to hear
is that "healing is possible."
(12) If he enters the path to healing, he will find that the
road is long and difficult - but extraordinarily fulfilling.
The course to full restoration of heterosexuality typically lasts
longer than the average American marriage - which should be understood
as an index of how broken all relationships are today.
From the secular therapies he will come to understand what the
true nature of his longings are, that they are not really about
sex, and that he is not defined by his sexual appetites. In such
a setting, he will very possibly learn how to turn aright to other
men to gain from them a genuine, nonsexualized masculine comradeship
and intimacy; and how to relate aright to woman, as friend, lover,
life's companion, and, God willing, mother of his children.
Of course the old wounds will not simply disappear, and later
in times of great distress the old paths of escape will beckon.
But the claim that this means he is therefore "really"
a homosexual and unchanged is a lie. For as he lives a new life
of ever-growing honesty, and cultivates genuine intimacy with
the woman of his heart, the new patterns will grow ever stronger
and the old ones engraved in the synapses of his brain ever weaker.
In time, knowing that they really have little to do with sex,
he will even come to respect and put to good use what faint stirrings
remain of the old urges. They will be for him a kind of storm-warning,
a signal that something is out of order in his house, that some
old pattern of longing and rejection and defense is being activated.
And he will find that no sooner does he set his house in order
that indeed the old urges once again abate. In his relations
to others - as friend, husband, professional - he will now have
a special gift. What was once a curse will have become a blessing,
to himself and to others.
Updated: 3 September 2008
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