A man has appealed to famed UK columnist Dear Deidre with a pressing question: If he endured sexual assault as a kid, does that make him gay?
“I am a 27-year-old man and I’ve never had a girlfriend because of something that happened when I was 11,” the anonymous man writes. “My 14-year-old cousin was wrestling with me and then he took me to a quiet area. He wrestled me again but this time he pulled down my shorts and pants and sexually assaulted me.”
“I didn’t know what he was doing,” the man continues. “These things weren’t spoken about in my family. As I grew up, I got to understand what it was all about and although I was angry at first, I have wondered if it happened because I did something to provoke him. I now wonder if I’m gay.”
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Deidre, ever the wise advisor, offers up her sound counsel.
“You may be gay but your sexuality is a completely separate issue from the fact you were abused as a child,” she observes. “You are a survivor of an assault from an older boy and you did nothing to encourage him. Please believe you are not at fault.”
“You can find support from the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (napac.org.uk) and LGBT Foundation (lgbt.foundation) which supports the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans communities,” she also offers.
Studies continuously have shown there is no link between sexual assault and sexual orientation. LGBTQ people, however, are far likely to suffer sexual assault, and far less likely to report that abuse according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Donston
This is a difficult subject. Sexual assault or molestation can definitely help trigger certain developments in the sexuality or gender spectrum, especially paraphiliacs, contradictions, fluidity. And it can help foster insecurities, internalized phobias, gay resentments, misogyny, misandry, mental health struggles. These are things we need to be more real about. And these are things he probably needs to constant with a professional therapist.
As far as if he’s “gay”, no one can answer that for you. Only you know the dimensions of your sexuality. It can be difficult because “sexuality” entails so much: rates and types of arousal, desire, passions, enjoyment, fetish, fluidity, sexual, libido. And it can be difficult to suss out where you are in the gender, sexual, romantic, affection, emotion, commitment spectrum. Once again, therapy might help to assist that. But ultimately, no one can answer these things for you or decide how you will live your life.
Dymension
Such an interesting question. At 10 I was an assaulter. The boy I assaulted was 13. He was much bigger than me, but I was sure I knew what I wanted.
Matthewnow
You may not pay for what you did in this life. But you WILL pay. FAG!
wikidBSTN
There is a standard reliable test for telling whether a man is gay or not:
Q: Do you find men sexually attractive and want to have sex with them, but not with women?
If you have answered yes, you are gay.
Donston
As much as we’d love it to be that basic, shit is often not that simple. A lot of folks contend with fluidity or contradictions throughout the years. Sexual behaviors and sexual desires are not even close to being all the elements of sexuality. Folks seem to embrace whatever identities for a variety of reasons, which can make “labels” more confusing. While just
because you have sexual interests or attractions towards someone doesn’t mean that’s where your romantic interests, emotional investment, relationship comfort, commitment ambitions lie. And stuff like ego, religion, mental health, insecurities, family, drugs, money, etc. are always gonna be driving forces. So, it’s not that simple.
The big problem is that he’s another dude caught up in whether he’s gay, straight or bi instead of just investigating and confronting his traumas and dimensions and living his life freely and honestly.
inbama
Sexual Identity is BS.
It is your sexual attraction – androphilic, gynephilic or both – that is fixed and measureable.
Donston
Inbama, you love to randomly make that same statement every couple of months. And the more you make the statement the more passé and disrespectful it comes off. A lot of people do experience different degrees of fluidity. I’ve experienced degrees of fluidity, as have a handful of people I know. It’s a real thing. Sexuality and gender can be a continuously evolving thing for some people. Arousal is the only aspect of sexuality that can be measured (and yes, arousal can have fluidity). It’s impossible to measure other aspects like desires, passions, sexual comfort, fetishes, sex drive. Nowadays, we don’t even know what “gender” is or what exactly is supposed to be “gay” or “straight”, which is partly why, yes, folks just embrace whatever identities they wish. While things like the romantic, emotional investment, relationship comfort, commitment aspects of orientation should not be dismissed, as those are often huge determining factors in people’s lives.
There’s many people struggling to understand who they are and/or struggling with their dimensions, fluidity, contradictions, traumas, mental health struggles, insecurities, resentments, etc. This is something you need to respect instead of looking to always be decisive, dismissive and bitchy. It’s not a good look.
bivector
Sexual attraction changes plenty over a lifetime and even across people and situations. Even the straight guy joke “I don’t find guys attractive, but I’d totally let X have his way with me” is true and not hyperbolic more often than you might think. My personal experience says “admiration” is somehow strangely on a spectrum with sexual attraction.
nunya
A better question is: Do you fantasize about men or women when you masturbate?
Donston
Masturbation fantasies can be a key. But even that has limitations. You could simply be turned on by seeing men or women be dominated rather than actually be turned on by the sex. The attraction could be more situational than anything else. It could be more about individual body parts than the entirety of that person. And that still doesn’t resolve your romantic, affection, comfort, emotion, commitment aspects. We keep looking for quick answers and easy fixes when people, their traumas, dimensions and journeys are often more individual or complicated than that.
Jack
This is proof that sexual abuse has far reaching and long lasting consequences. Those of you posting and oversimplifying the results of his trauma….you aren’t psychologists, you’re super judgmental and I’m guessing you weren’t raped as a child. Even if the guy is surpassing his attraction to men, he clearly hasn’t dealt with the guilt, shame and confusion of being raped. Usually you’re just messy and petty. This is ugly and ill informed.
Donston
There’s a lot of projecting in this post. I’m only seeing one kinda bitchy, dismissive post. My couple of posts aren’t at all oversimplifying anything and aren’t judgmental. If anything, my posts are embracing that these types of things affect people in different and nuanced ways. While Dymension’s post is basically a quick synopsis of their own traumatic experience.
Also, don’t assume what someone has or hasn’t been through or what someone is or isn’t qualified to discuss. Even wikidBSTN could be rape, assault or sexual abuse victim. Once again, this type of stuff affects everyone differently. And people who have experienced them do tend to have varied opinions about it.
hotdogla
What heavy to carry, these traumas never seem to leave.
Jim
Sexual assault is traumatizing without doubt. But it doesn’t make one gay, straight, or bi.
What it does do is disrupt trust. Trust in yourself and trust in others.
And also, trust in the wonderful intimacy of sex.
Only therapy can help this gentlemen proceed to a positive and pleasurable life of intimacy.
Mister P
There is no afterlife!!!
GayEGO
We are all different. I have always felt a warmth from guys since I was a baby. Growing up I had some guy friends whom I fooled around with. I was 20 when I decided to find a mate and settle down. My body never reacted to a woman even though I tried, so it was never a question for me.
nunya
I was sexually assaulted by an older boy. I did nothing to stop it ‘cause it felt so good. I guess he knew what he was doing.
Michael
Wow, I’ve been transported back to the 80’s where sexual assault as a kid must be the reason why you’re gay.
As someone has already pointed out, kind of, is the way you can tell if you’re gay is “Do you get turned on by women?” If so, you may be, at best, bisexual.
Donston
It does seem as if abuse, assault, molestation can help instigate some gender/sexual fluidity, paraphiliacs, contradictions. It’s not about gay=sexual assault. But we do need to face the reality that everyone’s sexuality develops in its own way and for different reasons. Furthermore, what if he’s not homosexual in the least bit but still prefers same-sex attentions, affections, romantic bonds, relationships? Trying to oversimplify people’s struggles and journeys and making everything about sex and identities does need to stop if we’re gonna truly be open and honest in this world.
Michael
My brother started molesting me when I was just 5 years old, he was 13 – by the time I was 8 (he was 16) we’d done absolutely everything apart from anal sex. This went on until my late teens – I was 19 and he was 26 – yes by then I knew it was wrong, but every time I began to feel good about myself which wasn’t often – I would remind myself I was dirty, disgusting, unlovable because of what we were doing. What compounded the matter was his extreme lack of personal hygiene – he never bathed, he was filthy with the most disgusting smell and his genitals were thick with bodily secretions.
I also know that while it’s a fantasy for a lot of guys of seeing two brothers engage in sex for me it was anything but that. Unless you lived through a sexual assault you can sympathise but you’ll never understand the shame, self disgust, the belief that it’s ALL YOUR fault that it happened. With my abuse I would tell my self I was disgusting, filthy whilst showering with bleach using pot scourers frequently rubbing my skin raw to try and get myself clean – which would never happen. Those bleach showers lasted over 10 years, the damage of believing what I told myself is still there in the back of my mind. The scars are there, unseen to anyone walking down the street but they are still as vivid to me as if I was covered in 100% burns in a fire. Even now 32 years later (I’m 51) I still have a problem with semen, and it touching my body even my own – though the full blown panic attacks and scalding bleach showers are a thing way in the past. It took 20 years of therapy after 3 suicide attempts, a stay in a psychiatric hospital to understand he abused and groomed me to fulfil his sexual needs, and years and years of self help and the love of a husband to get to the point where I actually like myself. I’ll always have mental health issues but they no longer dominate my life.
I’ll never know if I was born gay, conditioned to thinking it because of what happened. I strongly suspect I was born gay, but I’ll always have that doubt. I love women but find them sexually repulsive so I do believe it’s 99.9% my own true nature but there’ll always be that 0.01% doubt of what my life would have been had none of this happened.