by Joseph Nicolosi PhD
The greatest myth we hear these days about homosexuality is that “the homosexual is normal in every way except for his sexual preference.” Yet as we begin to understand the nature of homosexuality we begin to see that homosexuality is not just about sexual choice. It’s a whole psychology, beginning with the idea that the homosexual suffers from a gender identity problem. We must therefore approach the issue with the understanding that homosexuality is not a sexual problem. It is an identity problem. Homosexuality is not a problem about sex. It’s not about sexual behaviour. It’s about identity, specifically gender identity.

Gay vs. homosexual
The most important distinction I want to make, right from the start, is the distinction between ‘gay’ and ‘homosexual’. Gay activists would have us believe that gay and homosexual are interchangeable terms. That’s certainly not true. ‘Homosexual’ is a description of a psychological condition, a sexual orientation. ‘Gay’ signifies a social or political identity. There are many homosexuals who do not choose this social political identity called ‘gay’. Gay activists, however, would have us believe that they are speaking for all homosexuals.

Becoming ‘gay’ is only one way of dealing with a homosexual orientation. My clients are what I call ‘non-gay homosexuals’. They reject the label of gay but they acknowledge the fact that they are struggling with homosexuality. The major difference between homosexual and ‘gay’ is whether or not the person identifies with these attractions. If he sees it as a problem or if he sees it as a positive thing. The latter would call themselves gay.

Developmental patterns
When they are born all children, both boys and girls alike, first identify with the mother. At the age of around two and a half, they go through what we call the ‘gender identity phase.’ They begin to realise that the world is divided between male and female, and that they have to make a decision one way or the other. Girls maintain their primary identity with the mother, but boys have the additional developmental task of disidentifying with the mother and bonding with the father. This might explain why there is more male homosexuality than lesbianism because it’s more difficult for the boy to make that transition. He needs the help of his parents and he needs the help of a culture that respects and appreciates masculinity.

Most so-called primitive societies recognise how important it is for the boy to connect with his father and that’s why they have so many rights of passage for the boy—rituals for masculinity. We’ve lost that in our society.

Now if the mother is smothering or possessive she undermines the boy’s efforts. More importantly, if the father is cold, distant, detached, emotionally unavailable, harsh or severe, the boy will experience hurt and rejection. His response is to return back to the mother. He will then develop what we call ‘defensive detachment.’ This is a very important concept in the healing of homosexuality. Defensive detachment is a child’s way of protecting himself against future hurt. It’s a case of the child saying to himself, “You reject me, so I’ll reject you.” This way he feels he can’t be hurt by rejection.

A parent who is narcissistic or immature might respond to the child’s defensiveness by also becoming defensive, by rejecting the child who has rejected them. A healthy parent, on the other hand, will reach out and turn that around. I’m working right now with some seven year old boys who are very effeminate. These boys are rejecting their fathers so we have to get the fathers to make that connection with the boys.

As the child begins to notice that the world is divided between male and female, he begins to have what we call the ‘androgenous fantasy’—the fantasy that he can be both boy and girl. This makes it easier for him because he doesn’t have to make a decision. Language, however, begins to impose upon him. Language makes a distinction between gender (he/she, hers/his) and the child is forced to make a distinction one way or another.

Again the boy will reach out and try to capture his masculinity. He wants to be a boy. He’s born to be a boy. He wants to make that connection with a male in his environment who will teach him how to be a male. Now if he keeps getting frustrated in these attempts, eventually he will give up. He then takes the attitude of “never again.” He says to himself, “I reject you and I reject what you represent (masculinity). I’m going back to mother where it’s safe.”

For a healthy relationship between father and son there have to be two ingredients—strength and benevolence. The boy needs to see the father as someone strong and good—not someone benevolent but weak, or strong but hostile. The boy will be attracted by the correct balance.

Time and time again we see in the history of homosexuals, the harsh or distant father and the over possessvive, over involved mother. Of the two variables (mother and father), the critical factor seems to be the father. Even if the mother is over involved, the father can overcome that seperation stage and show the boy how to relate to a female.

The healthy mother’s role, is to reinforce the boy’s masculinity. Does she relate to her son specifically as a male or just as a child? One of the things I hear over and over with my clients is the complaint that they feel like little children. They will say, “I never felt like I was treated like a boy. I was treated like a child.” It’s genderless.

The physical nature of the father-child relationship is also very important. Video studies show that a mother is content to just care for the son. A father will play with the boy. The only way that a father knows how to babysit is to play. That physical contact is so important. This is why the homosexual who did not have that connection with the father always wants physical contact and that becomes the basis of a lot of attraction and a lot of behaviour.

The father as a mystery
This is a repeated theme in all the men that I work with. They know their mothers like a book. They can get anything out of their mothers, but their fathers are a mystery. They just don’t know what makes them tick. They feel very ill at ease talking with their father. When a father and his pre-homosexual son are together there’s discomfort with each other. Typically, the mother is the intermediary.

As the boy moves into the latency period, from about 5 to 12 years old, this poor relationship with his father is echoed in his relationships with other boys. He doesn’t know how to mix with the other boys. I often talk about the ‘kitchen window boy.’ The boy who is looking out the kitchen window, admiring and envying the other boys who are in rough and tumble play. He wants to connect with them. He wants to be a part of that, but he doesn’t trust his own male body. He doesn’t know how to do that. He’s alienated. He’s in the kitchen with his mother or his grandmother.

It’s interesting that when a homosexual comes out of the closet he typically tells his sister or his mother first. The father or the older brother is the last to know. There is always that discomfort with males.

The false self
This is a characteristic that I call ‘the good little boy.’ The prehomosexual boy is not rough and tumble. He’s very clean and he’s very neat. He never gets disturbed. He’s like this because he’s out of touch with his body. The male homosexual does not own his male body. He doesn’t believe it. All my clients have an inferiority about their bodies. They think they’re too fat, too skinny, too hairy or too pale. They’re always dissatified with their bodies. This is because the body is an object; it’s not a subject. This is why we see excessive modesty in the pre-homosexual boy . He’s afraid to take his shirt off . He’s afraid to show his body. When he gets older, in adulthood, he reacts against excessive modesty and he goes into exhibitionism. In the gay world we see a lot of exhibitionism.

Many studies show that pre-homosexual boys are into theatre and acting. Why? Becasue it’s part of the false self. They can’t express themselves directly so they express themselves indirectly through theatricals.

As the boy goes into adolescence, at around 12 years old, he enters what we call the ‘erotic transitional phase.’ This is the phase when the psychological groundwork (the alienation from masculinity, and the over saturation with feminity) becomes the basis for sexuality.

The nature of human sexuality is that we’re attracted to opposites. We do not eroticise traits that we possess. We eroticise traits that we do not possess. To the homosexual, men are mysteries. To the hetrosexual, women are mysteries.

Homosexual behaviour as a reparative drive
The therapy we use is called ‘reparative therapy.’ Those pushing the gay agenda get very angry when we speak about ‘reparative therapy’ because they argue that they don’t need to be ‘repaired’ like a car or an appliance. But we don’t call it that because the therapy ‘repairs.’ We call it that because it’s a reparative drive which we are dealing with. It’s an unconscious attempt to repair the part of the self that is deficit.

The homosexual wants to make male contact because he is feeling deficit in his own masculinity. Whenever I ask one of my clients, “What are the qualities of another guy that you find attractive?” he’ll say, “I’m attracted to the guy who is out-going, confident, who knows what he wants, who’s bold, who’s courageous, etc.” When I ask him what qualities he would like to develop in himself, he answers, “I wish I was bold, courageous, out-going, etc.” In other words, he cannot find it within himself so he projects it in an ideal form, and it becomes eroticised.

Associated features of homosexuality
Many studies show a number of associated aspects of homosexuality. The first is the ‘male gender deficit.’ Male homosexuals have a weak sense of their own masculinity, and a sense of inferiority around other men. This produces problems with assertion. Homosexual men have difficulty being assertive, especially to other men, and more especially to men in power. This is why gay men have a hostility towards male authority figures in the Church. They align themselves with the feminists in this—because they both do not trust male power.

There is also a tendency to sexualise aggression. In other words, many of my clients will act out anger in a homosexual way. Instead of doing something about the problem directly, they tend to act it out sexually.

Homosexual men actually have a detachment from men. Gay men get very angry at this assertion because they would like to believe that they have a special connection with men. In fact it’s the opposite. Homosexual men feel uncomfortable around other men. That’s why they eroticise them.

This is the paradox and the problem of living the homosexual lifestyle. It’s what I call ‘same-sex ambivalence.’ On one hand they’re afraid of men, on the other hand they sexualise them, so we have a fear yet an erotic attraction. This is why anonymous sexual contact, which is very, very high in the gay world, is so attractive. It accomplishes contact, which they equate with intimacy, while avoiding connection with the person. It provides a sexual contact without having to really know each other as two individuals.

Failure of the male couple
Finally, we have the failure of the male couple. One of the tricks of the gay agenda is to have conventional hetrosexual society believe that male couples are capable of long term monogamous relationships just like hetrosexual married couples.

Yet when we look at the studies done in this area we find it’s not true. A classic study was carried out by two men—a psychologist and a pyschiartrist who themselves were in a homosexual relationship with each other for 12 years. They decided to disprove the reputation that gay men were promiscuous. They wanted to prove that it would be possible for gay men to be in long term monogamous relationships, and so they set out to find the very best male couples that they could.

After extensive networking, they found 165 of the very best male couples, defined as “being in a relationship together from 1 year to 36 years”. When they started to investigate these gay relationships they found that none of them had been able to maintain sexual fidelity more than 5 years. Of the very best 165 couples they could not find one couple that were sexually monogamous for more than 5 years. This was the opposite result to what they intended to look for in the beginning and so they had to change the entire premise of their book.

What’s interesting further, is that three quarters of these people went into the relationship looking for monogamy— looking for long term relationships.

When I talk to a young guy, 17 or 18 years old, who comes to me, often because his parents have forced him to, he’ll say to me, “Look, I know the reputation of the gay world, but all I want is to find one guy and have a long term loving relationship.” Then I talk to a guy who’s in his mid 40’s, and he’ll say to me, “When I first came out at the age of 18, I wanted a long term relationship, then I realised it couldn’t be, so I gave up and now I’m willing to accept the lifestyle of promiscuity. That’s the reality I have to live with.”

Those pushing the gay agenda are not telling you this stuff when they try to convince us that homosexuals are like everyone else except for their sexual preference. The studies are there in the books, but the strategy is to convince the public to accept the gay lifestyle as a valid alternative. They want to tell us that homosexuals can maintain monogamous relationship when they really can’t.

Why can’t they? They would say it’s because of our ‘homophobic’ society. They argue that if only our society would support and accept these relationships they would be long term. That’s the rationale. One homosexual man answered that by saying that in the history of different cultures there have been many people who were socially ostracised and condemned by the mainstream culture but that has only caused them to become closer to each other. For example, the Jewish families in Eastern Europe were even more close and more tenaciously connected because they lived in a hostile environment. So being in an oppressive culture, so to speak, does not account for cheating on each other.

My understanding and explanation for gay promiscuity is that you have two men who are both looking for something that neither one of them possesses. It’s two halves trying to come together and find the whole in the other person. They’re both initially attracted to one another. They go through that romantic phase of “Here’s a male that is going to fulfill my unconscious fantasies of connecting with the masculine” but as they get to know each other they begin to realise that they both have the same condition, and that they both disappoint each other. That’s why when you look closely at gay relationships, you have a pattern of romantic infatuation followed by deep disappointment.

I remember one client saying to me, “I’m trying to find love but my body gets in the way. What I am looking for is to be in a relationship with a complete man, but a complete man would not want me—he would want a woman. And so my male body ultimately does not satisfy him. The only men that are attracted to my male body are men with the same problem that I have.”

That’s exactly the predicament of the homosexual condition.

Extract from a talk by Joseph Nicolosi PhD, entitled “Male Homosexuality & Reparative Therapy.”