06-19-2015, 01:53 AM
*wanders back to the thread for a brief reply*
I recall as a teenager a friend (female) saying to me that she was attracted to girls... I hadn't experienced the (stated) concept of lesbianism prior to this (this was decades ago) and I had a strict Christian upbringing - so it was very 'weird' and not in my perception of reality.
As such it was quite unsettling and caused me "cognitive dissonance" for some time after... (even weirder though is that in primary school I had a female friend who I kissed and was sort of 'in love with'... and that didn't seem weird at all)
so - cognitive dissonance is an explanation for how you're feeling (imo)...
without exposure to 'difference' - we can live - often for a long time - without our basic ideas of 'reality' being enlarged...
and when they are - it can be very strange and even feel very repugnant - until the new information sinks into our concepts of reality and over time becomes less weird.. and more a new 'everyday reality'...
homosapiens/animals have evolved to be very cautious of 'difference'.. of that which is not 'us'... as a survival mechanism..
so there's a lot of hardwiring in your feelings/reactions (imo)
also - if something is very normal for you (opposite attraction) and you're naturally totally disinclined to same sex attraction, which (by default) for you, is not a pleasant thought... (just as (for example) - sex with a woman- for most gay men is an unpleasant thought)...
your psychology/imagination.. is likely conflating the two aspects and transferring your innate repugnance of the activity - to a repugnance of the people that engage in the activity...
over time - if you separate your automatic connecting of these ideas, it could become less unpleasant for you
- just like we're conditioned not to be interested and in fact- to be repulsed (for example) in seeing our parents mating, but we're not conditioned to oppose it in principle either... this is what can occur with your feelings about LGBQT sexuality.
I'm so touched by both of you - the honesty and caring attitudes in sharing these feelings
I recall as a teenager a friend (female) saying to me that she was attracted to girls... I hadn't experienced the (stated) concept of lesbianism prior to this (this was decades ago) and I had a strict Christian upbringing - so it was very 'weird' and not in my perception of reality.
As such it was quite unsettling and caused me "cognitive dissonance" for some time after... (even weirder though is that in primary school I had a female friend who I kissed and was sort of 'in love with'... and that didn't seem weird at all)
so - cognitive dissonance is an explanation for how you're feeling (imo)...
without exposure to 'difference' - we can live - often for a long time - without our basic ideas of 'reality' being enlarged...
and when they are - it can be very strange and even feel very repugnant - until the new information sinks into our concepts of reality and over time becomes less weird.. and more a new 'everyday reality'...
homosapiens/animals have evolved to be very cautious of 'difference'.. of that which is not 'us'... as a survival mechanism..
so there's a lot of hardwiring in your feelings/reactions (imo)
also - if something is very normal for you (opposite attraction) and you're naturally totally disinclined to same sex attraction, which (by default) for you, is not a pleasant thought... (just as (for example) - sex with a woman- for most gay men is an unpleasant thought)...
your psychology/imagination.. is likely conflating the two aspects and transferring your innate repugnance of the activity - to a repugnance of the people that engage in the activity...
over time - if you separate your automatic connecting of these ideas, it could become less unpleasant for you
- just like we're conditioned not to be interested and in fact- to be repulsed (for example) in seeing our parents mating, but we're not conditioned to oppose it in principle either... this is what can occur with your feelings about LGBQT sexuality.
I'm so touched by both of you - the honesty and caring attitudes in sharing these feelings
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