L.M. writes:

I hope that my views aren’t offensive to you; I have lurked on your site for a long time, and I have seen some of the things that have been said about homosexuality and other types of perversions. I want to give a perhaps rare, but valid perspective on another side of these tendencies.

I am a young woman. As a teenager, I desperately longed for a young man to pursue me and make me his wife. I especially longed for a man to take charge and be the authority in our marriage. But I had no background for this and no idea of how to pursue it. My parents didn’t have this type of relationship, nor did anyone I knew. No one I knew was traditional. I wanted nothing more than to be married and have children, but it was lonely and no one supported me, especially since I was an overachiever in school and had a good job. They told me to focus on that and to date casually, for fun. I became deeply disillusioned and saddened by my reality. Over time, I drifted into lesbianism and other perversions. People outside the community don’t know, I think, but very masculine lesbians are ‘allowed’ oftentimes to act like men, while men in our society are afraid to or are shamed for doing so. They are often protective and authoritative, and want to take care of a woman. I longed for that feeling so much that I became very confused. Now I feel like damaged goods and like a good man will not want me. I feel a lot of shame and disappointment in myself, but that’s also what’s keeping me from finding light.

I don’t think this makes me not guilty of any sin, but I think it speaks to the horrible sickness in our society. I think many people are getting confused for similar reasons. When men are forced to not be men, it harms them, but it also harms women. I needed masculinity in my life very badly and didn’t know where to find it.

 Laura writes:

Thank you for writing. Your views are not at all offensive to me.

The war against traditional sex roles absolutely encourages homosexual behavior. How could it not? Men are pushed from an early age to be effeminate and women are pressured to act like men. We see all kinds of role reversal and cultivated confusion. Feminism has consciously and deliberately encouraged lesbianism. It is not surprising  you went astray.

You write:

 Now I feel like damaged goods and like a good man will not want me. I feel a lot of shame and disappointment in myself, but that’s also what’s keeping me from finding light.

We are all damaged goods. Whatever man you find will require your forgiveness for his faults and past transgressions.  What you have done is not unforgivable and does not at all mean you cannot be a good wife. Seek God’s forgiveness, through the Sacrament of Confession, and then start a new life. Be glad that you have discovered your own weakness. Knowledge of yourself leads to knowledge of God. Your shame may really be a form of pride. Why should you be exempt from the universal human condition, which is a state of imperfection? The important thing is where you are headed, not where you have been.

God loves you all the more for your honesty. Satan tries to induce excessive shame in people by making them fixate on their sins and become hopeless. Do not be discouraged. That is sinful too.

In On Trials of an Interior Life, St. Francis de Sales wrote that everything turns to good for those who love God:

Everything turns to their welfare, even their faults, and sometimes the most grievous faults. God permits those faults in order to heal a vain presumption, and to teach us what we are, and of what we are capable. David acknowledged that the adultery and homicide into which he had fallen served to keep him in continual distrust of himself. “It is a blessing for me,” he says to God, “That thou hast humbled me; I have been more faithful since to thy commandments.”

You can help show others that lesbianism is not a permanent condition. Regardless of what happens with men in the future, your womanhood is a precious thing. Cultivate your femininity for its own sake. Does a great artist worry about who will look at his painting when he is painting? If no one were to see his work, it could still be a masterpiece. The main thing is whether he fulfills a vision of beauty and truth. And so too, you should cultivate the feminine qualities that this world needs so badly because they are good in and of themselves.

Despise the coldness of the world and you will find the love you seek.

Merry Christmas, sweetheart.

— Comments —

Joe A. writes:

LM, you might, in every sense, make a better wife for a good man than females with a so-called “proper” upbringing.  Why would I say this?  Because you know the horrors of the alternative and are motivated by Truth.  Most everyone else is playing a game without rules and without winners, only losers.

Besides, as a repentant sinner you’ll be in very good company:  St Paul the apostle and Rev’d John Newton come to mind off the top of my head.

And in case you’re wondering, I know four good, traditional men whom I count as friends – right now today – who were recently devastated by false wives who decided sexual license was more important than matrimony or motherhood.  I tell you truly:  those men would give anything for a woman like you and there are millions more I promise you.

God bless and good luck in this time of spiritual renewal.

Leo Walker writes:

As a young man, which was a very long time ago, I was painfully shy around young women, without the slightest clue how to initiate or transact a romantic relationship with one of them, which I desperately wanted. I was introduced the cousin of a friend who turned out to be a lesbian. We ‘ran cover’ for each other, I standing in as a ‘boyfriend’ for her family to see, and she as my ‘girlfriend’ for my shipmates to see.

One evening she invited me to accompany her and her lover to a lesbian bar, and I accepted. It was pretty disturbing seeing all those women hanging on each other, and I was basically very bored. So I asked my ‘girlfriend’ to dance, which we did, and then the lover who was also agreeable. Next thing I know there was a string of six or seven pretty young women who approached me and asked me to dance (I did not refuse!). I was astonished, this did not fit the narrative description, though it was a great ego booster. Despite the nominal lesbianism in that place there was some aspect of those young women who, despite being surrounded by ‘their own kind’ chose to connect, however briefly and superficially, with someone of the ‘other kind’. Clearly their commitment to their orientation was not total, at least for the ones I danced with, and I suspect that if I had been on my toes and more confident I could have come away with at least a couple of phone numbers. I don’t think that same dynamic would hold for the bull dykes in the place, they stayed where they were and just gave me the hairy eyeball.

I note this further difference between LM and myself: as a lonely young man it was unthinkable for me to turn to another man for comfort and consolation, much less any kind of physical affection (I had offers – yuk!). I did what I suspect a lot of lonely young men do, turn to the fantasy world of pornography. Fortunately for me, God in His mercy freed me from that soul-killing trap and now I rejoice (most days :-) ) in a very satisfying marriage.

Another vignette that might be of interest, since we are on the topic of homosexuality: I went through a ‘Holy Joe’ phase. I and a friend went to a conference we had heard of about spiritual direction held in an auditorium that might have seated about 300 people, only about 40 showed up. Being outsiders my friend and I sat towards the back. About the conference itself I remember only this: at one point towards the end of the afternoon the subject turned to homosexuality. There were two camps, those who saw it as sinful and in need of healing, and those who saw it as a natural situation whose sufferers need to be accepted and supported. The discussion grew remarkably heated at which point I noticed the lights in the auditorium. These lights were white translucent cylinders hanging by about eight feet of white cord. They had begun to swing. Now I spent some years in Mexico City, so I’m pretty sensitive to earthquakes; there was no earthquake. Not only were the lights swinging, they were all swinging at different amplitudes and different directions. In every earthquake I’ve ever been in where there are lights hanging by long cords or chains, they all swing in roughly the same direction and about the same amplitude, and I’ve never seen any swing as energetically as these. There seems to have been a tremendous amount of spiritual energy released along with the emotional energy, which had physical effects in the world. If we prayed with as much passion as those people argued with, miracles would abound and we would change the world.

Mr. Walker adds:

Leonard Cohen has a lovely song whose refrain includes the line, “There’s a crack in everything, that’s where the light gets in.” We’re all damaged goods, and thank God for it. I have this crazy vision of the Army of the Redeemed marching into Heaven at the call of the Last Trumpet. All of us will, like old time veterans, show one another the scars of the wounds we bore in battle. On that day they will be marks of honor, for it is by these that each of us in our own particular way, were fixed to the Cross with Him, our Crucified and victorious King. His mercy endures forever, depend on it.

Chris writes:

To L.M.: I admire both your humility before truth and the courageousness with which you now face your newfound understanding. I imagine you suffered terribly in crafting this post to Laura – each word, each sentence, each paragraph, the long-suffering product of spiritually walking on coals. Please know that the voice you put to your suffering and the courage you show to express it signify to me that you have truly been touched with the Holy Spirit, the bearer of light to the world. Follow these sentiments, they are leading you in the right direction.

Tomorrow, December 23rd, my wife and I will celebrate the day we both entered the Sacrament of Baptism together nine years ago. We will light candles and pray to God, remembering our sinfulness and experience anew the joy of his redeeming power. To this day, I am horrified by my past sins and dare not share them with my wife. She has no idea what a young man, living abroad in a wholly un-Christian culture, and believing himself invisible to God, can do. Those sins still linger in my memory but now they feel more like those bad dreams that can shake you out of sleep, but then you recover…and you’re relieved because you know, though powerful, they have no hold over you. Yours too will pass.

It’s hard to intellectually accept that the Sacrament of Baptism truly washed away my sins, horrible as they are, but it did. And the closer to God I become, the more I understand the deeply sad and tragic nature of those sins. The good news is that, with a right understanding comes deeper appreciation of the redeeming power of God and a greater sense of how I need to repair the damage of my sins, in some way, through penitence. I find comfort in knowing that our sins, damaging to the world in ways we can’t comprehend, can be rectified thorough acts of goodness, charity and kindness. Laura’s response to you was one such act of charity – and beautiful in of itself. And yet it is a wonder, no? I don’t understand it but know it is so – this encounter is a wonder and you are a part of it.

We’re now in Advent and the following is a Lenten hymn, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” written by Elizabeth Clephane (1830-1869), but it seems appropriate for you now – from one woman who suffered in another time to another suffering now. The imagery of “burning heat” and “burdens” seems particularly appropriate to what, I imagine, you feel in your heart.

Beneath the cross of Jesus
I fain would take my stand,
the shadow of a mighty rock
within a weary land;
a home within the wilderness,
a rest upon the way,
from the burning of the noontide heat,
and the burden of the day.

Upon that cross of Jesus
mine eye at times can see
the very dying form of One
who suffered there for me;
and from my stricken heart with tears
two wonders I confess:
the wonders of redeeming love
and my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow
for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than
the sunshine of his face;
content to let the world go by,
to know no gain nor loss,
my sinful self my only shame,
my glory all the cross

L.M., if you have not already, seek out the Sacrament of Baptism. Wash it away. Your sins are already forgiven. You just need to acknowledge it. The rest will follow.

Dan R. writes:

A beautiful and moving testimony by reader L.M. I wish her all the best as she re-enters the heterosexual world. And I can’t help noting that her message comes shortly after we’ve learned that the wife of newly-elected Mayor of New York City, Bill DeBlasio, is a former lesbian. It’s an article of faith among the “gay rights” movement and it’s supporters that, as their Philosopher-Queen Lady Gaga has informed us, homosexuals are “born this way.” Hopefully the time is near when that will be more seriously questioned in the mainstream media.

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