Sexual Disorientation: Am I Gay, Bisexual, Straight or Somewhere in Between?

So many men who read Straight Guise tell me that my discussions of straight men who have sex with men ( SMSMs) confuses them because before coming out, gay and bisexual men are often in denial and convince themselves that they are 100% straight.

I even receive e-mails, some of them hostile, from gay men who accuse me of keeping gay and bisexual men closeted by citing the ways in which men might still be straight and have sex with men.

They often write, in effect, “If I had read Straight Guise during the years I was in denial and lying to myself, I’d have felt comfort in thinking I was straight and gone on leading an inauthentic heterosexual life.”

For them, staying closeted was fraught with lying to themselves that they were essentially straight, with simply a “kinky” side or that their sexual interests were just that—sexual—and not about their identity. They now have great remorse over the lost years when they could have lived as openly gay men. The trauma of staying closeted was so painful that it strikes a nerve to learn that it’s possible to go through all that and still be straight.

I understand their strong reactions: The trauma of suppressing their identity is so profound that reading Straight Guise can prompt symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, reminding them of their horrible experiences of being closeted and of all the deprogramming it took them to understand they were truly gay.

To me, that all makes perfect sense: I, too, had to go through the very same coming out and deprogramming process as a gay man during my coming out years!

No doubt, the experiences I address in Straight Guise parallel the experiences that every gay man—and some bisexual men--can relate to. Secrecy, shame, hiding, lying, self-hate and self-blame are the very things straight men who have sex with men present in the therapy room.

Differences Between Gay, Bisexual and Straight Men Who Have Sex With Men

There are major differences between SMSMs and gay and bisexual men. Straight men who admit and come out as having sex with other men are usually not anti-gay or homophobic. They do not tell their therapists or people they trust, “I hate fags!” In fact, they usually have gay friends, support and affirm lesbians and gays they know and the gay civil rights movement in general.. They’ve often have read books on coming-out process to see if they are going through that process themselves and to understand what it is to live as a gay man.

Whatever shame and self-hatred these SMSMs are coping with does not arise from homophobia, but from their acting on impulses that are incongruent with their heterosexual orientation.

In other words, they are experiencing something like an addiction, a mood disorder, a chemical disorder or some other compulsion that causes them to go against their own will, repeatedly, and is interfering with their life. They cannot accept it, not out of denial regarding their true identity, but because it is not their true nature the way it would be if one were truly gay or bisexual.

True, some SMSMs are anti-gay and homophobic, straining their masculine muscles to ward off any trait that may appear gay or effeminate. This, too, parallels the dynamic gay men display who resist their homosexual identity and so “protest too much” to attempt to disown that there is anything gay about them. But these are not the SMSM’s who seek treatment and who I write about on the Straight Guise website and blog.

Another difference is that gay and bisexual men recall having sexual interests and crushes on other males during their childhoods, teen years and even in college. Heterosexual men who have sex with men do not have these type of memories. They might have memories of having sexual experiences with other males—some of which are a result of sexual abuse—but it is not erotic for them as is their recall of interest in females once they hit puberty. For them they have always been sexually and romantically interested and aroused by women. Their sexual behavior with other men is episodic, situational, spontaneous and momentary. For gay and bisexual men, the sexual desire is enduring and is connected to a romantic, affectional and psychological desire to connect with another man.

How do I know if I’m one of the SMSMs,
or if I’m truly gay or bisexual and in the closet?

I can’t know for sure what is true or right for you. Only you will discover that as you read and experience things related to sexuality. But I can tell you some things that I’ve learned from my 24 years of treating men and their sexuality issues:

1. Gay men enter the coming out process and recognize their identity not
when they have sex with other men but when they fall in love with other men. Men
can rationalize that their sexual behavior is a bit “kinky” or different but
when he begins to feel romantic desire for another male—in addition to sexual
desire--he then has to consider it is more than just about sex.

2. For
closeted gay men their depression and anxiety arise from being out of integrity
within themselves and from living an inauthentic life related to their identity.
This “out of integrity” dynamic is also true of SMSMs—their behavior goes
against their true orientation—but it is not related to their identity. SMSMs do
not feel compelled to--nor desire to--have a romantic relationship with another
male.

3. No matter how much they read about or investigate the gay
culture, it never feels like a true fit for them. SMSM’s feel a desire only for
the sexual acts with other men. Typically, gay and bisexual men will say they
enjoyed the other guy and whatever they did with him, while the SMSMs enjoy the
sex alone. The other man is irrelevant.

Of course, gay and bisexual men
also have encounters that are only about sex, where the other man is
irrelevant—an insignificant other. It’s also common for heterosexual
men to have sex with women just “to get their rocks off.” The woman is
irrelevant.

But for these gay, bisexual and straight men, that is not always true or
the norm. They will have periods of genuine romantic interest in the person they
hook up with. However, SMSMs never feel any interest in the other male as a
person--only for the sexual act between them. The encounter is strictly sexual, often involving a heightened sexualization of
a certain act, fetish, sexual scene or part of the body.

4. If a man
having sex with other men is authentically gay, his identity will eventually
surface, whether or not he wants it to. When a gay or bisexual man calls me for
therapy and wants to stay closeted and remove any shame or guilt they have about
their homosexuality, I always warn him that the more he talks about his
homosexuality, the harder it will be to keep himself closeted. Ultimately, his coming out process will get activated. He will want to come out and
won’t be able to hold back his identity.

It is reductionistic to assume that having sex with the same gender, in and of itself, makes someone gay or bisexual. That seems to be the worst form of homophobia, contributing to the myth—seized on by reparative therapists and others heterosexists—who define homosexuality as merely sexual behavior.

Being gay or bisexual entails much more than just sex. If a gay or bisexual man never engaged in sexual behavior for the rest of his life, he would still be gay, because that is his identity, not a description of how he behaves.

On Being Jewish and SSA (Same Sex Attracted)

There is an article in AISH.com which is a website on Judaism and Spirituality. I have been reading their material for years and much of it is very good.

There is an article called, The Straight Path Home: My personal struggles with homosexuality. The essence of it is that the writer, "David" does not feel that homosexuality is right for him nor does he see himself as a gay man. He writes:

I didn't have to "change" anything. The definition of teshuva is returning
to one's true self, one's soul. The sexual attraction I felt to other men was
not my true nature; it was an attempt driven by my yetzer hara, my baser self,
to satisfy unmet needs, a symptom of missed developmental opportunities and
distorted perceptions

Most of it is good in terms of his struggle with SSA and his Judaism. I write on this very blog about how men exist who act out homosexually and are not gay. The problem with "David's" article is that he believe that all those who struggle with SSA's are not right and cannot lead healthy lives as gay men. This is not true as I have seen differently in my own life and amongst my clients who ultimately come out as gay.

However, there are definitely many men who struggle with SSA's and never come out--nor should they--because either they are not gay and the SSA's are a result of other problems or they are innately homosexual but living a gay affirmative life would be fraught with problems.

The place the author is misguided--and anti-gay--is when he paints a broad brush about all men who struggled with SSA is here:

I grew up in what psychologists call a "triadic family" -- it is so
common in the backgrounds of men who struggle with homosexuality that it has a
name. A distant or belittling father, an emotionally smothering or needy mother,
and in the center a boy with nobody to guide him on the path to manhood. A boy
for whom manhood has become dangerous, threatening, distant. A boy who grows up feeling different from other boys and men, yet yearns to connect with them, with
his own masculinity.

As a therapist I see many men coming from this type of background that are not gay at all--nor are they struggling with sexual issues of any kind.

This believe that this family dynamic is "so common in the backgrounds of men who struggle with homosexuality" is old-school thinking from the 1960's and false. In addition it doesn't address lesbianism at all.

I have treated straight men and women with family dynamics exactly like this and, again, their suffering does not include anything related to homosexuality. It is like the old theory that Schizophrenic children were the product of "refrigerator" cold mothers. That is, until we discovered that Schizophrenia is genetic and the mothers were detached from these babies because the babies could not attach to her. Psychiatry and Psychology had to reexamine that false dynamic created around this.

Then the author addresses JONAH, which he feels helped him. However here is what JONAH is really about:

JONAH

Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) is a Jersey
City-based Jewish “ex-gay” ministry. The organization adheres to NARTH’s archaic
reparative therapy model and promotes the work of the International Healing
Foundation’s Richard Cohen, a discredited fundamentalist Christian therapist and
former Moonie who was expelled for life from the American Counseling Association
in 2002.

JONAH perpetuates the unwise idea that gay people should marry,
even if they are not attracted to their opposite-sex spouse. According to an
article by Rabbi Joel Beasley posted prominently on JONAH’s site: “But even if
their innermost desires remained unfulfilled, it does not matter. It may never
become clear why some people do not feel predisposed to marrying someone of the
opposite sex. The obligation remains.

Marriage is meant to teach people
how to rise above their own selfish needs in order to give to a partner who is
both psychologically and physiologically different.” This idea of marriage at
all costs is cruel and unfair to the gay individual struggling to accept his or
her sexual orientation. But, it is just as harmful for the spouse, who will
likely find an unsatisfying marriage that may end in heartbreak and divorce.

JONAH is so wedded to its interpretation of doctrine that it seems to
have little regard for the feelings and legitimate needs of people – including
children - who would suffer inside such catastrophic marriages. In the same
article by Rabbi Beasley, crass stereotypes are used to oppose same-sex unions
and promote heterosexual marriage: “Same-gender marriages might have been too
easy. As one essayist put it, male couples would have been able to sit around
and watch ballgames all day; female couples would have been able to sit down and
really talk about one another's feelings. But marriage is meant to challenge
each of the partners.”Perhaps, the biggest concern that most Jews have about
JONAH is that it appears to be a front for converting Jews to Christianity.

While there are a few obligatory Jewish resources on the organization’s
website, the majority of the books recommended to readers are written by born
again Christian authors. Works offered on the site by Richard Cohen, Joe Dallas,
Jeff Konrad, Alan Medinger and John Paulk are deeply sectarian and consider
believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior a crucial component in “overcoming”
homosexuality.

JONAH even pushes a book co-written by Wheaton College’s Stanton Jones and
Pat Robertson University’s Mark Yarhouse entitled, “Homosexuality: The Use of
Scientific Research in the Church's Moral Debate.” For Jews who attend
Synagogue, not church, this reading list may seem a bit peculiar, if not
downright offensive. It is debatable whether JONAH’s real mission is to create
ex-gays or ex-Jews. Like other ex-gay organizations, JONAH keeps no statistics
and offers the promise of change without any documentation of success.

The group relies on anecdotal stories and promotes a therapeutic
approach that is not supported by any mainstream medical or mental health
organization.

So I hope that those who read Straight Guise can understand that while there is help available you must ensure that you are receiving the correct help that does not include hateful information and ways of an organization the ways in which JONAH, NARTH and any other reparatative therapy organization does.

There is nothing wrong with someone who has unwanted interests and behaviors toward sexual experiences with other men. There is something very wrong with those who say that man has to be gay or could never be gay. There are many things between this and the man needs to have the right to search this out himself.

A great book on homosexuality and Judaism on this topic is:




The author states that there is nothing in the Torah which states that homosexuality is wrong and bad. It does state, however, that if it is not your "true" nature and identity than, perhaps this behavior should be stopped. Back when the Torah was written people did not understand that homosexuality could be an identity the way we understand today.

No Sympathy for the Sex Addict: New York Times Article

WHAT SELLS A scene from “Choke,” about a sex addict.

By ALLEN SALKIN
Published: September 6, 2008

THE distributors of “Choke,” a forthcoming film about a sex addict’s struggle to overcome his demons, have been handing out a strange promotional gift at preview screenings. Attached to a bookmark, the gift is a set of beads typically used as a sexual toy.
“Not for small children,” the bookmark warns.

In “Blades of Glory,” last year’s ice-skating comedy, Will Ferrell’s character attends a Sex Addicts meeting where the 12-step serenity prayer has been rewritten: “God, grant me the serenity to not have sex with my friend’s girlfriend, the courage to go home tonight without having sex with my friend’s girlfriend, and the wisdom to walk away from my friend’s smokin’ hot girlfriend.” Many of the meeting participants, unhealed, wind up coupling in the bushes outside.

Move over, tubby; take a break, old maid, there’s a new straw man available for theatrical ridicule: the sex addict. Even as Hollywood has learned, slowly, not to mock the handicapped or brand all Middle Easterners as terrorists, and has turned a more sensitive eye toward alcoholics and drug addicts, it has shown little tact in portraying people diagnosed with sex addiction.

Which is why experts in the field took heart from the announcement last month by the actor David Duchovny, who plays a sex-obsessed writer on the television drama “Californication,” that he was seeking treatment in real life for the disorder. “I have voluntarily entered a facility for the treatment of sex addiction,” Mr. Duchovny said in a statement released by his lawyer. “I ask for respect and privacy for my wife and children as we deal with this situation as a family.”

Robert Weiss, the director of sexual integrity services for the CRC Health Group, a nationwide behavioral health provider, said it can be difficult to find sex addicts willing to tell their stories, change the clichéd images of the condition and explain that there are effective treatments.
“It’s exciting to see someone for the first time come out and say ‘I am a sex addict and I am going into treatment,’ ” he said

Many of those who might have put a sympathetic face on the condition — choose any person whose sexual behaviors seemed to defy all reason and, once exposed, cost him or her a career — have not stepped up to do so.

Nevertheless, there have been a few sex addicts willing to discuss their battles. The author Susan Cheever has a book coming out in October called “Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction” in which she discusses her struggle with obsessive relationships. The comedian Russell Brand, the host of the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, admits in his memoir, “My Booky Wook,” that he is a sex addict who received treatment at the Keystone Center in Chester, Pa.

“One day,” he writes, “I had to write a victims’ list — a litany of the women I’d wronged as a result of my sexual addiction. I felt like Saddam Hussein trying to pick out individual Kurds.”
Sex addiction is defined as “any sexually related, compulsive behavior which interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones and one’s work environment,” said Patrick Carnes, the author of the pioneering 1983 book “Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction” and creator of the Web site sexhelp.com. Addicts often vow to stop behaviors such as hours-long sessions with Internet pornography, infidelity or criminal sexual activity, and cannot.

Comments on the Web about Mr. Duchovny seeking treatment show that not everyone is willing to accept that compulsive sexual behavior can be an addiction.

“How do they cure someone’s craving for sex?” asked a commenter on the gossip Web site justjared.com. “Lol this is funny,” wrote another. “I love it!”

A few mental health professionals still argue that sex addiction is not a real disease. “You cannot be addicted to yourself,” said Roger Libby, a relationship therapist in Seattle. “You have to have a substance external to yourself like alcohol or drugs to be addicted.”

Sex addiction is not listed as a disorder in the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the bible of psychiatric disorders, but it is being considered by a work group on non-substance-related addictions for inclusion in the next edition, the DSM-V due in 2012, said Dr. David Kupfer, chairman of the DSM-V task force with the American Psychiatric Association.

Treatment for the affliction aims not to remove sexual desire but to reconcile a person’s sexual behavior with the positive values the person already holds, Mr. Weiss said. Since as much of the brain’s pleasure-causing chemical dopamine is released during orgasm as during the consumption of alcohol, Dr. Carnes said, it is also possible to view sex addiction as a chemical addiction.

Throughout the country, there are sexual recovery 12-step meetings where the real serenity prayer is read and those who believe their behaviors have become unmanageable share experiences.

One participant, who asked for anonymity in accordance with the program’s traditions, said he was offended by the sex toy promotion at ”Choke.”

“It’s like if they made a movie about alcoholism and they were handing out shot glasses or a movie about diabetes and they were handing out sugar cookies,” said the man, who is in his 40s and works in publishing.

What made him seek help was a pattern of “rapidly diving into one romantic entanglement after another, sometimes more than one at a time, without getting to know a person,” he said.

Michelle Hooper, the senior vice president for publicity and promotions of Fox Searchlight, the distributor of “Choke,” defended the sex toy handout as “provocative and funny, like the film.” The movie does occasionally nod to the seriousness of sex addiction, especially in a scene at a 12-step meeting where a man, who has been jailed and had his teeth knocked out for stalking, testifies that the program helped him stop and save his life.

The fact that pop culture is making jokes about sex addicts is a sign that awareness of the condition is percolating in mass consciousness, Dr. Carnes said. Some films are taking it seriously, such as “Love Sick: Secrets of a Sex Addict,” which was shown in April on the USA network.
Not that everyone is ready for a sober look at sex addiction.

“A commenter on the Web site imdb.com who was dissatisfied with “Love Sick” griped “I expected there to be more sex scenes in a movie about sex.”

Ideas for Teleseminars

I am planning a series of online teleseminars which will be podcasts and able to be downloaded in mp3 formats.

I need suggestions from those of you who read this blog in terms of what you would like me to address. Please list things you would find helpful for me to include and I will try to do so in a podcast.

You can put your ideas under the comments section of this blog or email to me directly.

I look forward to your ideas and thoughts.

Warmly, Joe Kort, LMSW

Sex with the City: An introduction teleclass about Sexual Addiction

September 8
8-9PM EST

Sex with the City: An introduction teleclass about Sexual Addiction for men.

{This is also an opportunity for wives and female partners as well as therapists to understand sexual addiction in men.}

Sexual addiction and compulsivity is on the rise for men—and for women, particularly with the expanding Internet bringing ease to sexual hookups and online porn. Because of sexual shame, people often are afraid to talk about their sexual acting out behaviors and clinicians are not sure what to do once the sexual behavior is reported.

This telelcass will help those struggling with whether or not they have a sexual addiction or not and accurately assess and get help.

Participants will be learn what makes sexual behaviors an addiction and what to do to stop the behaviors. It will give direction to help men recover from out of control sexual behavior. Treatment planning often involves assessing the clients erotic mapping and ritualized sexual behavior.

The secret logic of the sexual fantasy and behavior can provide the nonsexual map to recovery.
Various modalities of therapy along with the most recent research of effective medications for this disorder will also be addressed.

What is a telephone bridge line?

A telephone bridge line is a central calling place where each participant phones in. Joe Kort will lead the class and do some lecturing followed by answers, questions and discussion by the participants.

You will have the opportunity to participate as much or as little as you want and your identity will remain completely anonymous to other participants.

Fee: $25.00

To register for the class click here. After you register you will receive the call in number and pin number to join the class.

Lesbians who are aroused and enjoy watching gay male pornography

Many people who read this blog have a hard time understanding how a straight male could enjoy gay male porn.

I have uploaded an article entitled:

Hot Man on Man Action (And the Lesbians Who Love Watching It) by Elizabeth F. Stewart from In the Family Magazine, Summer 2000.

By clicking on the link and scrolling down you will find the article.

I believe this article clarifies how and why sexual orientation does not always line up with sexual preferences. Most people would say that lesbians would be turned off by gay male pornography if they are truly lesbians. However, the author of this article makes some important points about the lesbians who do enjoy gay male porn:

• The "players in the gay male porn are all very hot and the focus is on the sex"
• Lesbians who enjoy anal sex
• Men "cannot fake arousal"
• What "the viewer sees is real"
• Gay male sex is seen as "nastier," more "down and dirty," and "forbidden".

My own judgment about why anyone who is not gay or bisexual would be attracted to gay male pornography is that the male porn stars are usually engaged in a mutual, reciprocal and power balanced act in which no man is being abused, objectified in a humiliating or demeaning way and both seem to be wanting the other to enjoy the sexual act.

This is unlike much of straight porn where usually the male is dominant and the woman is submissive and there only to please the man and her pleasure is for the enjoyment of the male--not her own.

Straight Guise: Treating Heterosexual Men Who Have Sex With Men

Upcoming Talks on Straight Guise by Joe Kort, LMSW

AASECT Sponsored Talk for Mental Health Clinicians

DATE: November 1, 2008

COST: $40 (which includes 2 AASECT CE’s and 2 Michigan Social Work CE’s plus a continental
breakfast)

WHERE: Center for Sexual Health at University of Michigan Health Systems

Ann arbor, MI
East Ann Arbor Health Center
4260 Plymouth Road Ann
Arbor, MI 48109 just off the highway (us 23)

Contact: Sallie Foley salliefoley@gmail.com

Straight Guise: Treating Heterosexual Men Who Have Sex With Men

Joe Kort, LMSW

1. Description of Training

When a male client reveals he fantasizes about having sex with men, is caught looking at online gay porn and in gay chat rooms, and possibly is having sex with men, the tendency is to label the client as gay or bisexual. However, for many of these men this is not about either. A variety of reasons exist as to why men seek other men for sex which are not about a gay identity.

Therapists, being politically correct, often believe the man is in denial about his homosexuality or bisexuality and move him in a direction toward coming out gay when--in fact--he is not. This presentation will discuss ways understanding the male client’s interest in sexual contact with men, and helping him decide what course of treatment is best for him.

2. Bibliographic references for talk:

A. Mending A Shattered Heart: A Guide for Partners of Sex Addicts
A Gentle Press edited by Stephanie Carnes, Ph.D. with chapter by Joe Kort, LMSW called Straight Guise: Is My Partner Gay?

B. Psychotherapy Networker Magazine

Gay Guise: What To Do When Your Client Has Sex With Men, But Is Straight was a
case study article for therapists working with men who have sex with men (MSM) and
are heterosexual.

C. On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of “Straight” Black Men Who Sleep with Men
by J.L. King

D. Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies, and Denial in Black America by Keith Boyken

3. Objectives for talk:

• Understand the psychological meanings of the arousal template of the straight men who seek sex with men (MSM's) who are not gay or bisexual.
• Learn to help the client communicate an understanding about his sexuality and to understand what the behavior means for him.
• Address the fears, homophobia, anxieties and insecurities of these clients about their sexual behaviors and interest in engaging in sexual activity with other men.