March 28, 2014

The following excerpts are from the article “Why Does the World Not Want to Face the Pain of Child Abuse and SSA?” by John Stephen W. on the JONAH website: … “My personal testimony below will show how inappropriate it is to box someone like myself into a gay identity, after all, change of sexual orientation is entirely possible and I am living proof of that fact.”

“I experienced what is called ‘unwanted same sex sexual attraction’ (SSA) at the age of 10, when puberty began for me. Given the fact that I was sexually abused by my Father prior to that time, it is revealing that my first wet dream and several others thereafter were of my Father. His sexual abuse began at about age 3 (possibly earlier) and continued until I was 7 1/2 years old. All of this occurred while I lived in Toronto. After we moved to the U.K., I blocked out the sexual activity with my Dad in Canada, and I recall only a few suggestive acts with him in the UK.” …

“Thus, I ended up languishing in the mental health system. They betrayed me by not listening to me and my INNERMOST feelings. Their advice and counsel was simple: I‘ll be OK once I was ‘honest‘ about being ‘gay‘. However, honesty was the last thing they wanted. They didn’t want honesty any more than my family wanted honesty. They just wanted another box to fit me in, as they didn’t see me fitting into the ‘straight’ box. This pattern of discrimination because of an assumed sexual orientation clouded my existence and my ability to be the real me.”

“All through this period of time, I could not find a therapist who would listen to me and help me overcome my sexual feelings for men. However, I noticed a particularly curious thing during this period. Whenever I felt negative about myself and rejected by others, especially if the rejection was by other males, my sexual feelings for men increased. However, whenever I felt somewhat good about myself or affirmed by men, especially by peers and those I perceived to have a strong personality or to be in authority, then I felt more sexual feelings for women and the sexual charges I had for men disappeared. Also my sexual attraction to women would not last long because I perceived that people would consider such an attitude as ‘sexually aggressive.’ No one at that time could explain this phenomena to me.” …