THE LEARNING CHANNEL PETITION
Many of us felt nauseous when we learned about the series
on The Learning Channel called "My Husband's Not Gay." This is a
reality show following mis-marriages in the Mormon community between gay men
and straight women. Well, maybe the men aren't gay. Maybe they just have SSA.
SSA stands for Same Sex Attractions. My slogan now is "SSA rhymes with Gay." Is that a
coincidence that it rhymes? I think not. It sounds kinda trendy. I think it's
more hopeful when you tell a woman, "I suffer from SSA" instead of,
"I suffer from homosexuality." Yep, that's a great way to hide the
truth. Sort of even better than A-sexual, bisexual, confused sexual...etc.
Several gay organizations responded to the show by
promoting this petition. Please cut and paste this into your browser and fill
it out to stop the insanity. Over 127,000 people have done this--and we need
more of you to be clear to TLC about your disgust
Here's the link to the petition.
https://www.change.org/p/tlc-cancel-your-upcoming-tv-show-my-husband-s-not-gay
A DANGER IN OUR MIDST
In view of all of the confusion about homosexuality that
is rising thanks to this show, several gay men proclaiming to be
"experts" are riding on the bandwagon in conjunction to the show. Joe
Kort, a gay therapist, has a website called "Straight Guise." You can
find it at www.Straigtguise.com.
It
states:
It's not a gay thing, it's a guy thing!
Straight
Guise is
about straight men who have sex with men who question their sexual orientation
and are not gay. It is about the many reasons men engage in sexual contact with
other men that are not about a
homosexual identity.
Straight
men cannot become gay and gay men cannot become straight. Gay men are not gay
due to complicated childhood experiences such as sexual abuse or problematic
parenting.
He goes on to state: There
is a significant difference between sexual identity, sexual behavior, and
sexual fantasy.
If you watch his video on this home page, you'll see how
absurd his faulty thinking is. His logic is if a man is more turned on by men
on a beach and says that women are blocking his view, he's gay. But if he says
that if he likes looking at both, he's not gay. And when women look at women on
the beach while they are with their husbands, they are really undressing them
in their minds because they want to have sex with those women.
Personally, I don't understand women's sexuality which is
why you never see me writing about it. I only understand men--and if they want
a penis--they want gay sex. Call it what it is.
Jumping on the Joe Kort bandwagon is a gay therapist
named Rick Clemons who used to support me many years ago, but after hooking up
with Joe Kort decided it was profitable to adopt the philosophy that Kort could
be right because after all, he broke his relationship with me claiming he
thought I would send more business his way. Men who want to be straight when
they are gay are far more profitable! Believe me! I know! People come to me
asking for all kinds of miracles, but I won't do it. I will not make them
suffer for more years living a lie that they want to hear. But if I did, think
of how rich I could become!
Clemons has gone one step further into the realm of
stupidity with his recent article on Yahoo called "Five Reasons Having a Gay Husband is a Good Thing."
I won't even waste your time here discussing this, but if
you feel like fueling your angry feelings about a statement like this, feel
free to paste this link into your browser:
https://www.yahoo.com/style/5-reasons-having-a-gay-husband-is-actually-a-good-107324577233.html
Here is the point I want to make. I DON'T WANT TO LIVE
WITH A MAN WHO WANTS A MAN. PERIOD. Does it matter that his identity is
straight but he wants a penis? I don't think so. Does it matter that it's only
a sex thing but not an emotional thing? I don't think so. Does it matter that
watching men have sex with each other or even masturbate alone in gay
pornography is what turns him on before he has sex with you? Yes, I do think it
matters.
I don't care if all of these men are justifying their gay
sexual behavior with this new terminology of "SSA" or any other
ridiculous letters. I tell people (and
yes, repeating):
SSA rhymes with GAY
About six years ago, a young man in his mid 20's who was
in the service came to me because he was very confused about his sexuality. This man had never had a sexual relationship
with a woman before, but he was obsessed with a married man who had no interest
in him. One time the straight man laid with him in bed--no touching or
feeling--but as he slept his arm was around the gay man. He interpreted this
into the married man wanting to have sex with him. There was no further
physical contact between them.
The young gay man told me that he wanted to get married
because he came from a strong Christian home where homosexuality wasn't an
option. He didn't think he could ever really perform with a woman because he
was so hung up with this married man.
Not to worry--he found Joe Kort. Joe charged him $200.00
an hour by telephone to make him feel better about that particular gay
attraction. After two sessions, Joe Kort reassured him that he wasn't gay. The
guy felt so much better that he decided to stop talking to me. After all, I was
the voice of doom promising this man who had no passion for women that some
poor inexperienced one would be suffering every day from his sexual rejection.
After all, he never had a woman and he was hung up on a man.
All
of us know the real truth. All of us know what it is like to live
with a man who wants a man more than he wants us. Yes, it is confusing--to YOU.
Not to your husband. He knows what he is out there doing even when he comes
home to deny it to YOU. He feels reassured that if he can convince you, then he
can convince himself. He doth protest much to much, dothent he?
My ex used to tell people, "How could I be gay? I
have a wife and two children." That was his cover up to people who were so
sure of what they believed. They went away scratching their head thinking,
"I guess he's right."
I will remind you all again of my philosophy:
THE
PENIS IS THE DIVIDING LINE
Once you cross over it by wanting it, thinking about it,
looking at it in porno, fantasizing about it, touching it, or letting someone
play with it--you've crossed over to the gay side of life. I don't care how
sweet you are or how miserable you are--your man has engaged in penis sex. Period.
And remember, sex with a penis is GAY sex.
Any woman who wants to stay with a man who is engaging in
gay sex--well, that's the choice you make. But don't expect the women who are
part of my network to grin, bear it, or accept it!!!
ANOTHER WORD ABOUT THE
CHILDREN...
The
next article is really an eye opener for women with children. It was in the gay
publication The Advocate in
September 2013. One of my wonderful Straight Wives, Patti, posted this, and I
thought everyone with children NEEDS to read it.
I
Want My Dad to Finally Come Out
My dad is gay, and my
mom won't face it, but his coming out could heal our family.
BY JUSTIN M. QUINN
My father’s gay. As our nation stumbles steadily towards
long-overdue legal equity for same-sex couples and their families, I’m grateful
to know that doesn’t necessarily make me a rarity these days. My father’s gay.
I’ve known since I was 16, when a confluence of events (his repeated “solo”
trips to Key West, his membership at an all-male gym, the discovery of his Playgirl stash)
forced my siblings and me to reevaluate our entire family dynamic. My father’s
gay. In the 20 years since, I’ve shared those exact same words with my best
friends, a few girlfriends, and a therapist who is, I’m quite certain, the
closest thing I’ll ever have to an attentive paternal figure. It’s too bad I
have to pay him.
I don’t normally lead with this information, but I’m not
dishonest about it either. If you’re curious enough to wonder out loud how my
parents have stayed married for 40 years, I’d tell you the truth: No, it’s not
one of those marriage-takes-many-shapes “understandings” that’s keeping them
together. That would at least be a step toward openness and acceptance. My
father and mother are still married because he lies about his sexuality and she
chooses to believe him. It wasn’t always this clear to me.
I’m the middle child of three. My brother and sister and I have
analyzed our parents ad nauseam. We’ve had to. Over the telephone, over beers,
on countless jogs, we’ve tried to make sense of our painfully confusing
childhoods because we long to live genuinely. When it’s about my parents, my
siblings and I speak to each other directly and hold back nothing. There is a
palpable feeling of safety and trust that runs through and connects the three
of us. There is also an immense sadness.
My father was abusive. That one’s a little more difficult to
admit. I’m convinced that my dad knew who he was well before that long walk
down the aisle in 1972 that led him into a legally binding relationship with a
woman. He was trying to please his conservative parents. He was doing what he
thought was right, and dare I say, normal. And although I’ve often been
reluctant to call him a coward for folding under what must have been immense
family pressure, I will not hesitate to stamp that word on him for the physical
and emotional violence he subjected us to growing up. I’m convinced that my dad
didn’t want kids before he impregnated his wife for the first time. Children
know when they aren’t wanted. They might not be able to verbalize that void,
but they feel it, and it shows. My grammar school teachers noticed. They could
never figure out why I was always so distraught, and to be honest, at that age,
neither could I.
My father wasn’t abusive because he’s gay. Of course not. My
father was abusive because he had trapped himself in a life he hated, and he
took his frustrations out on three defenseless kids. Coward.
When I was 16, my mother found several back issues of Playgirl in
my father’s dresser drawer. He denied they were his and claimed he had come
across the magazines on our apartment balcony. As you do. He was simply storing
them until he had time to interrogate my brother and me about their origin. My
father‘s a generally smart man. Unless he was so completely blinded by his own
self-hatred, he had to have known that his teenage sons were rather obviously
heterosexual. He only asked us about his stash because he told his wife he
would. It was part of his cover story, and he was determined to see it through
to the end. My brother and I offered up nothing more than genuine bewilderment.
I drew two sweeping conclusions from that incident, and they
have since proven, time and again, to be sound: (1) My father may be
intelligent, but he is also an extraordinarily bad pathological liar, and (2)
He has no qualms whatsoever about using us, his children, to keep his secret.
It explains a lot about his unending crusade to make his brood come off as
squeaky-clean; why he had always gone ballistic when we brought home average
grades or grew our hair too long or got into harmless sibling skirmishes in
front of company — he used us as a shield. And whenever we threatened to poke a
hole in that perfect facade, we never felt safe in our own home.
As young adults we grew stronger. For us, that didn’t mean going
far from home for college. We stayed in New York City, close to my parents. We
were determined to fix our family. Fifteen years ago, at the dining room table,
my sister and I sat down with our mother and asked her if she thought her
husband was gay. She thanked us for inquiring, told us she’d once before
wondered about his sexuality, and assured us that it was nothing more than a
temporary struggle that he would no doubt overcome. My sister and I shared a
look as it landed on us hard — righting the ship was way beyond our
capabilities.
We didn’t give up. We outed our father … to our father. I was 23
and working at my first publishing job when he called me at my desk to say he
knew all about our conversation with Mom.
“Good. I’m glad you know. And I want to tell you something … all
we want is for you to be yourself, Dad. We’ll be here for Mom if you need to
take some time to figure things out. Just let our family be what it truly is,
no matter how off-kilter that may look. It’s OK.”
He couldn’t do it. My mother accepted his weak admission of
occasional “bisexual tendencies” and turned her head back toward the sand. The
lies survived. And that was so strange to me. He knew we knew, but he had
crafted too much deceit to stop. He was on automatic.
I moved away. Yes, my intimate circle knew the whole story and
that helped, but we kept it from our extended family in an act of complicity
that I’m still uneasy about. My parents, reverting to their roles, continued
right on pretending. My father enabled my mother to be in denial while she
enabled him to live a double life. When I’m exhausted, I sometimes think
they’re perfect for each other. I moved away because it can’t be healthy to be
in on such an all-encompassing masquerade starring your childhood tormentor.
Last fall I got a call from my sister. Had I noticed that Mom
was acting belligerent and antisocial? Sure, I said, but her marriage is
a sham. Who wouldn’t be angry? I don’t give my mother a pass — she failed
to protect us and is willfully oblivious to so many wrongs — but I tend to see
her side more often than not. My sister finds it easier to back my father now
that he’s in his mid-60s, frailer, and noticeably miserable. With a lot of
professional help and a hugely supportive partner, I’ve tried not to hold so
tight to my parents’ lives. They are a mess, but they are adults, and the mess
is their choice. I’ll see them once in a while, but I will not participate in
any conversation that asks me to prop up their lie. This is what I tell myself.
And I try to follow through. My success rate fluctuates. My sister has three
daughters. It’s important to her that they know their grandparents in some
capacity. My mother’s recent nastiness was threatening that bond, and so we
took it upon ourselves to do what she can’t or won’t: We brought up my father’s
sexuality one more time.
My mother played dumb (again), my father confided in me that he
wished he weren’t gay (again), and my brother, wisely, stayed out of the whole
deal. Ultimately, my sister and I encouraged them to see a couples counselor
even though they were never much of a couple to begin with. I feel like I’m
parenting my parents. They went to two sessions together before my mother
decided she’d rather not face the truth.
My father still goes. Twice a week. Whether it helps or not, I
have no idea; nothing has changed on the outside. The facade still stands. I
think one of the saddest things about my dad is that he’s spent so much energy
and effort hiding himself — he’s been so needlessly self-involved for so many
years — that he’s failed on an epic level to ever get to know his children. And
that failure keeps him blind to where he’s lucky. He asked me rather solemnly
the other day (no doubt encouraged by his therapist) if I knew there was an
emotional aspect to being gay. That broke my heart. Not only because we’ve been
trying to embolden my father to come out for well over a decade, but also
because he was so oblivious to my life, to the circles I socialize in, to the
friends of all sorts that mean so much to me, to the person I am … he’s so
oblivious to the life I’ve tried in vain to share with him that he needed to
ask me a question whose answer would be glaringly obvious to anyone who knows
me even mildly. His question broke my heart because it insinuated that my
father doesn’t understand love, not for himself and not for us.
That’s
when I knew that he might never do it. He was stuck in a dark room of his own
construction, and I had to divorce myself from the notion that he’d someday be
brave enough to use the light switch. I knew I had to let go and move on for
good. I hope that distance gives me more steady days than angry ones; more days
when I can wish my father the best and my mother strength as I continue
building something of my own.
I hope that article will inspire you to rethink staying together for the sake of the children.
I hope that article will inspire you to rethink staying together for the sake of the children.
Bonnie's Straight
Wives Talk Show News!
This month, in
addition to my wonderful monthly guests Dr.
Brian Hooper (last Sunday of the month) and Suzette Hinton Rearnon (first Sunday), I have two wonderful guests.
This Sunday -
January 18th - Mary Ann Glynn who
specializes in Post Traumatic Stress and has developed an app to help people
through it. We will be talking about Additions--including sexual addictions.
Here's the link:
Next Sunday -
January 25th - Wayne Besen, NationalGay
Leader, who is one of the leaders against the "My Husband Is Gay"
show. Wayne is awesome in fighting for gay men to accept themselves instead of
marrying us. He is a real advocate for us!
To listen to
the shows, go to Blogtalkradio.com and type in Straight Wives Talk Show into
the search bar. The show is live at 10 p.m. EST, but you can listen anytime it
is over!
Here are some
interesting thoughts for you to cut out for the month!
LOVE, BONNIE ♥
