I’m Not Gay! -Bens Story
Disclaimer: This is not a "gay-bashing" article. It focuses on men and women who struggle against unwanted same-sex attractions or sexual desires that conflict with their personality, character, and personal values. These individuals have no desire to pursue a homosexual relationship and simply wish to be free from this internal conflict and bondage.
Ben grew up in a good family a loving, doting mother, a hard-working father who was around as much as he could, and several brothers and sisters. He spent some time in church growing up, but never really understood what faith was truly about.
When Ben was 12, his older brothers themselves navigating the confusion of puberty, experimented sexually with him. The experience left him deeply confused and ashamed. He kept it secret, terrified of getting into trouble with his parents or his brothers.
As Ben entered puberty and started high school, he and his friends would mess around in the usual crude, playful way boys do pretending to kiss or hump each other, laughing the whole time, and calling one another “gay,” “faggot,” or “poofter.” Ben noticed that a few of his mates seemed to enjoy it a little too much, but he brushed it off. After all, he had plenty of crushes on girls.
In high school, though, Ben struggled with confidence. His old friends drifted away and made new circles, leaving him feeling like an outsider. He became increasingly nervous around girls especially the ones he liked.
It was around this time that Ben discovered pornographic magazines. The images opened up a whole new world of desire. Soon he discovered masturbation, and with it, the power of fantasy. Using the women in those magazines, he would imagine himself in sexual scenarios with them. Deep down he felt it was wrong, but the pleasure and excitement easily drowned out the guilt.
One day, a friend showed him a videotape of two women having sex. Ben was captivated. From then on, lesbian porn became his favourite escape. When he couldn’t find any, he’d fantasise about girls he knew from school being together. It felt like a guilty pleasure but not too guilty, because he knew almost all his mates were into the same thing.
Then one night, while he was deep in fantasy and struggling to finish, a random memory flashed into his mind: changing in the boys’ locker room after swimming and seeing one of the boys standing there in his underwear, his bulge clearly visible. Almost instantly, Ben climaxed. He was horrified. Why had that image triggered him? Why had his body reacted that way?
After that night, the fantasies involving other boys started creeping in more and more. Each time he would climax, then be flooded with guilt and self-loathing.
He tried to go back to fantasising about women and lesbian scenes, but nothing worked anymore. He couldn’t reach climax without thinking about men.
When the internet arrived, Ben’s porn consumption escalated. Before long, he was watching mostly gay pornography.
To this day, Ben is deeply confused. In everyday life walking down the street, watching TV or movies he feels zero attraction to men. When he sees a beautiful woman, he’s drawn to her. He catches himself thinking, “I’d love to bang her.” Yet the moment he’s alone, his mind and his porn habits turn almost exclusively to homosexual fantasies and videos.
Now married to a wonderful woman and with children he adores, Ben has come to a resigned acceptance that “this is just how it is.” Every so often, when the urge becomes overwhelming and masturbation no longer satisfies it, he opens Grindr, meets a man in secret, and acts out his fantasies. The moment he climaxes, the shame hits like a wave. He can’t even look the other guy in the eye. There’s no conversation, no lingering — he’s already halfway out the door, desperate to escape.
Ben has carried this heavy burden of guilt and confusion for years.
As a younger man, he had encountered Jesus and heard about God’s forgiveness through Christ. He embraced Christianity for a time, but because he couldn’t seem to change, he eventually concluded that God could never truly forgive him. He believed he was unworthy of Jesus’ sacrifice — that the people who told him he was saved simply didn’t understand the depth of his struggle.
He has often thought about leaving his wife and kids to live openly as a gay man. But the idea fills him with dread. He doesn’t actually want a romantic relationship with a man. His fantasies have never been about holding hands with a man, walking on the beach, or building a life together. In fact, those thoughts repulse him and make him cringe. Yet when he imagines the same romantic scenarios with some hot sexy woman, the excitement he thinks he should feel is strangely absent.
His wife enjoys their sex life. What she doesn’t know is that Ben can only maintain an erection and reach orgasm by imagining he’s having sex with a man. Without those thoughts, he often has to fake it.
Ben loves his wife deeply. To him, she is a beautiful friend, a passionate lover, and a wonderful mother. He feels he doesn’t deserve her, and he lives in constant fear of losing her. The thought of telling her his secret terrifies him — he’s convinced it would destroy her love for him and shatter their family. He once read on Reddit that it’s kinder not to confess past affairs or secrets, because why destroy your partner’s peace just to ease your own guilt? So he stays silent and carries it alone.
By now you have probably realised Ben is not a fictional character. He is the composite of countless real men and women (with not so different stories), including myself, who have walked this lonely, soul-crushing path in silence. A path that has likely been the catalyst for many other dependencies like alcohol and drugs.
If this sounds like your story, please know you’re not alone. I’m here to talk with you — completely anonymously, confidentially, and without any judgement.
Mate, you are not lost to God. You are still forgiven. As long as you have breath in your lungs, there is real hope.
Look I won’t piss in your pocket; I can’t make the desires disappear, no one can — but I can help you learn to master them and walk in freedom through the power of the Holy Spirit.
But it requires willingness. Real willingness. You can’t sit on the fence. You either want to be free, or you’re willing to stay in bondage for the rest of your life under that constant cloud of shame and impending doom.
God has been offering me and many others this same strength for years. Like so many, I spent countless nights in self-hatred and anguish, screaming out to God to just take this away from me. I would feel a surge of hope… only to become disheartened the moment the urge returned.
The truth is, God has been answering your prayer. You just haven’t liked His answer.
It only became effective for me when I finally stopped fighting Him and chose to accept His help and then actually used it. It’s the very same power that set me free from alcohol and drug addiction.
I know you’re not gay. And so does God.
Have you had enough of the enemy’s accusations?
Are you ready to fight back?
