See A Medical View of Homosexuality for the latest research findings.
No matter how you look at it, homosexuality--gay or lesbian--is only a way of thinking reinforced by many years of behavioral preferences. There is no one born gay or lesbian. But there are many who have no good role models of health masculinity or feminity. The role models could either be passive masculines and demanding feminines or oppressive masculines and manipulative feminines or other unknown combinations of certain unhealthy sexuality characteristics. In the same way that a suicidal person is not born depressed as she is raised in a home of depressive atmosphere people with depressed or suicidal role models, homosexuals came to be so because of failure in healthy modelling. With that in mind, homosexuality is essentially a mental problem and not an existential condition.
Studies and observation furnish us a lot of faulty thoughts that bring a person to develop homosexual behaviors, thus changing its "sexual orientation" as far as that person thought it is. The falacy however in this idea of "homosexual sexual orientation" is that what homosexuals claimed as strong sexual feelings towards the opposite sex are actually mental issues that were unresolved and interpreted as a "sexual orientation." The fact that the biological structure of the person cannot support such a "sexual orientation" is proof enough that the person is not born homosexual but either a male or a female.
I don't know how is it to be a male/female. This though is typically among adolescents who are still unsure of what being masculine or feminine is particularly when there is no effective model at home. In a way, homosexuality is a fixation on the confusions of adolescence.
While gender behavior is instinctual among children (male children tends to play rough; female children tends to move slower than the male), exposure to effective role models (parents, siblings, playmates) is needed to strengthen this natural sexual orientation. However, when this role models are ineffective, whether not available (e.g., father is not closely relating to his children, child tends to prefer isolation over socialization with fellow children) or excessive (e.g. mother is domineering while father is passive and not hands-on to raring the children, association mostly with females or sissy children of similar age) this ignorance on how a gender behaves remains, and later on became accepted as a fact of life in the same way that the growing sense of homosexuality is. This ignorance can be so severe that a person may even wonder what should a man do when alighting from a bus; a he knew only of women covering their dress neckline, he too do the same on his polo shirt.
Other thoughts found in studies are often variation of the behavioral ignorance specific to a gender:
- How to feel like a---
- How to think like a---
- How to be interested with (members of the opposite sex)?
Therapy: Rational Emotive Therapy with Behavioral Modification.
What homosexuals don't know is how men behave in certain practical situations and why. This is how far can the ignorance or the damage of environmental factors can go. Homosexuals are either aware of these ignorance or not.
The Ignorants. Those who are not aware will never doubt that they are ignorant in the first place. They simply behave the way they are programmed by their environment. They will not seek to change until this ignorance brings them social and personal problems. In this situation, social pressures in fact are good forces that can help a homosexual redirect himself from that abyss of gender ignorance to living what he really is--a man. Many personal factors often hinder these painful invitations to relearning--pride of being wrong and ignorant; lack of deep prayer life and contemplation; laziness to think this problem through. Most mental health conditions follow the same pattern of development.
The Aware. Those who are aware of their ignorance have two choices to make: learn or stay ignorant. Often their awareness comes from the reaction of other people from a community where homosexuality remains unacceptable. The community in a way provided homosexuals a kind of reality check, and what they receive were negative feedbacks that at time can be very embarrassing and painful to hear and see. The situation forces them to ask the questions--why? (why different? behaving unlike the gender?).
The Aware but chose to stay ignorant. Those who wants to stay ignorant will follow the denial patterns of those who are truly ignorant--too proud to accept their ignorance, too lazy to think ever changing what habits of behavior he has come to use for years. These homosexuals may ask the question why? but that's all they wanted to do. Many times they might not even bother to know the answer, or worse, justify their homosexual behaviors with anything scientific or apparently acceptable to support it.
The Aware but decided to learn. Those who decided to learn go beyond the question why? They also ask the question how? If a male, he will ask: "How should a male behave in this situation?" If a female, "How should a woman behave in this situation?" But even learning cannot ensure a mental redirection of "sexual orientation." The social pressure are not painful enough to motivate change; the personal pain may not be disturbing enough to motivate a change of behavior. Or, the pain from social pressure and personal dissonance are not strong enough so it can simply be ignored.
The Learner who decided to ignore the facts. Those who decided to ignore the facts after learning of their ignorance will simply turn away from social pressure or personal turmoil. At times, homosexuals may have come to enjoy their way of lives to decide instead to stay the they way they are. And oftentimes that's the end of the argument, and they move on to life trying to remove from their mind what they learned about their mental condition.
The Learner who decided to do something. Only those who decided to relearn what he or she relearned from his environment in the past can hope to achieve healing and change in their homosexual orientation. They will learn how their gender think and behave, and with the natural gender-defined behaviors they still use, they reinforce their own gender with behaviors specific to that gender, and eventually their homosexual orientation gradually change into a straight orientation as their natural instincts take over their behavior. These are the people who heal themselves from the mental malady of homosexuality.
Counseling is needed only among those who experience a compulsion to behave homosexually despite the person's effort to change his behavior but failed. The compulsion can be due to the set of behaviors ingrained by habit for so many years. That would not be easy to change without consistent effort from the person. When this compusion becomes difficult to handle alone, a clinical psychologist can help in idnetifying patterns that hinders change and create mental and behavioral modification programs to change it.
