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Buddhism perspective on same sex attractions???
I'd like to get a buddhist perspective on this problem of mine. I've struggled with my sexuality for a while, and I think I might be gay. But the thing is, I dont WANT to be gay. I have same sex attractions, but I dont want these. And I know the easy answer is 'just accept yourself for who you are' but that just doesn't work with me. I dont want to live the gay lifestyle, I dont want a boyfriend. I just have an attraction to men that gets in the way of my everyday life. I just want to hang out with my friends without feeling attractions. As a little boy I always wanted to be a man, just like any other kid does. I did not see this whole gay thing coming. What is the buddhist perspective on this? I dont want to hear 'just accept yourself' because i cant picture myself living the gay lifestyle. i just have these same sex attractions and they are getting in the way of my life. any help???
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Do you meditate? Meditation will help calm you, but also it can help you get to what is behind what sounds like panic and rejection. Is there fear at the bottom of that? Judgmentalism? Hate? Buddhism teaches to overcome those negativities. Face your fears, have a dialogue with yourself about your fear, or whatever is at the root of your reaction. See what thoughts come up in meditation. Observe.
This may not be the type of answer you were looking for. There is no magic bullet. Go easy on yourself. Practice compassion for yourself.
" Samsaras pleasures are deceptive give no contentment only torment, So please bless me to strive sincerly to gain the bliss of perfect freedom "
HH Dalai Lama has his opinions, but they are not as clear-cut as portrayed here. His main concern is nothing to do with what bits people have sex with, but with fidelity, mutual respect and all the other things that are associated with a virtuous life (he had heard some alarming things about Western 'gay culture'). Besides, he never claimed to be infallible, and you have to remember he is an old man, from a very traditional society. It was unclear when he spoke about homosexuality whether he was talking from a Dharma perspective, or a Tibetan perspective. They are not necessarily the same thing.
I understand the feeling of not wanting to be gay - we call it "internalised homophobia". But the fact is, you are what you are, whether you're gay, bisexual or just confused. It's not really an issue until you fall in love. Until then, my advice to you would be "If you can't be good, be careful" LOL
FWIW there is no such thing as the "gay lifestyle". There's just life. Some people share their lives with a same-sex person, others with an opposite sex person, some live with friends, or alone. But the worst 'lifestyle' is spending your life wishing yourself somewhere else, or being someone else. This is a precious human life: don't waste it trying to be what you're not.
Homosexuals suffer.
Buddhism is available to those who suffer.
Most Buddhist traditions, as far as I know, do not care at all.
PS: I bet it's not that you don't want a boyfriend, it's that you're not comfortable dealing with everyone else's bullshit yet. You'll get there.
Don't worry about labels, just be who you are. I think I can relate to you on the gay lifestyle, but believe me it's just a stereotype. When I come out for example, I thought I had to go to gay clubs and bars all the time. I realized that it didn't matter who I was attracted too, I don't have to do anything that I don't want to do, I just had to be me. I stopped going to clubs and bars, I hated clubbing and drinking anyway. Instead I would spend the night playing on my xbox with my online mates, with a can of Dr Pepper by my side ha ha. That's what I like to do. I don't have many girl mates because I tend to click with men more, and not in an sexual way, there straight, I just see them as my mates. I live with my partner now and pug lol. Like I said before just relax, forget the labels and just be. Do what you like to do, eventually you will realize what you like and don't like. So if you like guys, so be it, you don't have to label yourself anything, only you can call yourself gay, bi or straight. For now though just go with the flow and be you.
why are your eyes the color they are? the same reason you're gay. the genetic reason you are gay are not a MISTAKE.. not an error. they are simply a difference, like the difference between eye colors, hair colors, body types, etc. part of the beautiful, perfect, diversity that infuses all living beings.
the whole idea that 'gay is bad' is PURELY social conditioning... it is perfectly acceptable, even desirable in certain cultures. the Buddha, having perfect clarity of vision, knew this... there were no less gay people in his time, and im sure he didn't touch on this for a reason.
While I don't think it's related, I also think you'll have trouble proving gay people don't reproduce. As politics has taught us, being gay doesn't mean you can't get married to a woman and have a miserable existence.
One of my friends is in a very complicated situation where his boyfriend conceived a child in a drunken one-night stand with a female friend, but the mother couldn't cope so his BF got custody. Then the BF had some sort of breakdown, left him, and he literally ended up holding the baby. So now he's a single dad (officially fostering the child, but social services are very happy about it).
I sometimes wonder if the gay community's rather looser definition of 'family', to include friends, ex's, and friends/ex's relatives makes us particularly good at forming families in unconventional ways.
FWIW many gays and lesbians I know have tried hetero sex at some point, because the social pressures to conform are immense. The problem with living a lie like that aren't usually sex, they're love. Whilst you can love someone you are not sexually attracted to, falling head over heals in love with someone takes attraction. The tragedy is the wives and husbands locked in sexless, lonely and sometimes loveless marriages, because the church or society says that that is what gay people should do. It causes misery all round, effectively sacrificing the hetero spouses happiness for the sake of convention. Imagine being married to someone who would never find you attractive, never fall in love with you?
In terms of compassion and loving kindness, being honest about who you are from day one has to be the best way to be. Unless you live in a country where it is illegal and you are likely to be killed or imprisoned.
However, most male-with-male sex is not by people who identify as homosexual. Quite a lot of it goes on, either among men who consider themselves heterosexual. I know this sounds weird, but study after study has shown this. Exclusively homosexual men are relatively uncommon.
As for lesbians, we are even more of a mystery. Again, it could simply be a side-effect of other genetic advantages, or it could be that non-reproductive females could be useful to the group. It is however a depressing historical fact that for most women, consent wasn't really a concept until quite recently. So whether a woman was lesbian or not, she'd probably end up with a husband and children.
We also should remember that for humans, sex is about more than reproduction. It is pair bonding and it is group cohesion. These aspects of sex are as relavent to homosexual as to heterosexual pairs.
In my opinion, such a quandary will never be answered by science. Sexual preference is varied and conditioned and determined by an infinite number of interrelated factors. Learn to accept yourself and don't be afraid of what others might think.
What does it matter if someone told you that being gay is "unnatural." If no one ever told you that, would you be more comfortable making up your own mind on the subject?
This self-loathing is only going to lead to further confusion and distress.
I'm only just recently beginning to accept the reality of my homosexuality, and one moment of acceptance has been more liberating than 25 years of rejection and denial.
In some Native American cultures, gay people are considered to be highly spiritual people. In many cultures around the world, it's considered quite natural and normal. Check out Wesley Thomas (Navajo), who has published a book or two about "Two-Spirit People", if you want a healthy perspective on the issue.
It seems like this discovery about yourself has come as a shock, gottaq. Give yourself time to adjust, be kind with yourself. I think Compassionate Warrior covered all the bases concisely, and gave some good advice about using meditation to help. One can arrive at peace with oneself through meditation. There's not much more to say that hasn't been posted already. If you're in college, you can get free counseling at the campus health service, to help get over the shock and confusion or rejection of this part of yourself. If you decide to try that, be careful about choosing a counselor.
@Talisman It all gets better from there.
"A new study finds that both drugs and genetic manipulation can turn the homosexual behavior of fruit flies on and off within a matter of hours."
granted, it's from fox news... lol. i somehow feel like they only wrote it to secretly find a way to fix homosexuals. but i digress... the findings are still interesting.
i distinctly remember one girl in my past that i dated only because "she smelled good." i can't really explain it other than that. she was a trainwreck, totally wrong for me, already in an "open relationship" with a guy... but... i'll be damned if being around her didn't just drive me crazy.
In the meantime, gottaq, you're welcome here to discuss, share, ask questions. We're here for you.
One good theory being that homosexuality brings extra adults into a tribe/family providing more security without using the tribes resources by having their own children. Their nieces/nephews then have a much higher chance of survival. This might seem odd until we realise that in some instances the genetic similarity between an uncle and nephew can be extremely high. So homosexuality helps ensure the survival of the genetics of a tribe as a whole.
The parent carries this gene in a dormant state that springs into action, this is why the gene survives even though homosexuals might not reproduce, its carried on from the parent to all their offspring in a dormant state.
On another note I have plenty of gay friends who live a very standard life but just happen to have a same sex partner. You can choose your own lifestyle. Buddhists are only concerned with your spiritual progress and don't judge people's personal preferences.
I'd also like to say, with respect of course, that HH the dalai lama is the authority of one subsect of one school of Buddhism and not Buddhism as a whole, despite the media potraying him as such. I took his view on homosexuality with a pinch of salt.
Metta
I have a mom who is gay and even though she is living with the same women for 30 years no she still refers to her as her "roomate". Denial is no way to live. You have one life in this world, be true to yourself.
All the best,
Todd
:skeptic:
Sexual attraction is something that comes and goes. You can be sexually attracted to one person, and not another. It might help if you reminded yourself that you are not attracted to just men, but individuals. Looking at the individual instead of their sex is the best way to go. Remember that this is just a tiny aspect of a complex human. Forget that you're a man as well; there is really no reason why one should have their own masculinity or femininity on their minds at all.
EDIT: By the way, I am a young woman who is sexually attracted to other young women. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
So you could say that I've seen both sides of the coin. I prefer this side.
i tried homosexuality when I was younger Took a lesbian
out on a date No Joy I also prefer this side but wish the other side
all the best
metta
Dont worry its just desirous attachment which so happens to be a deluded mind, You can meditate on the impurities of the object of attachment to lessen it and finally remove it if you so wish.
Buddhism in general doesn't say anything against homosexuality. If you're not harming yourself or others...
His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaks either for Tibet or for Tibetan Buddhism when he says that oral and anal sex is considered wrong even for straight people. Whatever this is based on it doesn't seem to be something common to all (or even many) forms of Buddhism, and the Dalai Lama doesn't speak for all of Buddhism.
I think the Buddhist way of lessening desires is to acknowledge them when they arise, and then to let them go (without judging them). If you treat cravings in this way, not "feeding" them, they lessen and eventually cease to arise. Training the mind is just like training anything else. If you start feeding wild cats and they keep coming back for more, you have to stop feeding them. They'll come around for a while yet, but eventually go elsewhere.
Of course denial is also harmful and can cause future problems. I used to have a friend who was in agony over thinking he might be gay, but has since found happiness in accepting that he is in fact gay. The question becomes... why such agony over the possibility of being gay? Why so much aversion toward it?
I hope you figure it out. Often when reality and our desires conflict, we're stuck and frustrated. There are two choices at that point: try to change reality, or try to change our outlook (and accept reality).