Back 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next

And then came puberty. And I apologize for being a bit specific and graphic here, but it is important if we're going to talk about this issue, that we talk about it in its reality. Young adolescent boys are very easily sexually aroused, beginning at about twelve years of age. They are sexually aroused by any change in their physical environment, by any change in their emotional state, or for no reason at all. So their pants are too tight, they get aroused; their pants are too loose they get aroused. They're hot, they get aroused; they're cold, they get aroused. They're angry, they get aroused; they're relaxed, the get aroused. They're bored, they get aroused; they're nervous, they get aroused. They get aroused very easily or for no reason at all. When I am presenting to groups of men, I joke with them about this, and tease them about it, and they laugh because they know that it's true. So I talked to one client who was sixteen years old, and he said, “You know, I'm doing so much better not doing sexual fantasies about men, so I just have the normal arousal about every 45 minutes.” I thought, “Whoa, goodness, goodness!”

But that is the reality of a young boy's life. At this stage in their life, this arousal is what I would call non-differentiated. It is not aimed at anything in particular; it just happens to anything and everything. And most boys at this stage of life are almost bored with other boys--I've been playing football with these guys, we've been hanging out together, there's nothing new or exciting or intriguing there--but those girls over there, now they're shaped different. They talk different. And my culture sends me all kinds of messages about sexuality, romance, girlfriends, marriage, all kinds of things, and so pretty soon this arousal that happens so easily is beginning to focus on those girls--that's where I'm intrigued by, that's where I feel different then, that's where I have strong emotional reactions to. But for a significant minority of boys, their focus isn't on those girls; their focus is still on these other boys because of fascination, curiosity, wanting to belong, and envy of comparison. That's who they want to be close to, that's who they have strong emotional reactions to, and in this stage where arousal occurs so readily, pretty soon they find themselves being aroused by these other boys.

When that happens, three things occur, sometimes very quickly, sometimes over a period of years. First, over-focus and over-interpretation. This becomes huge in their life. They think about it constantly. They worry about it all of the time. They worry about the future. They worry about why. They try to figure it out. See where a boy who's introspective gets caught up in over-focusing and over-interpreting what's going on here? Universally, I describe to clients and say, “It's like this. Here is the fact that you get aroused by other boys, and over here is every other thing in your life: your family, the Church, friends, hobbies, everything else in your life, school. And as far as the amount of concern and mental energy and effort you put into these things, this fact that you get aroused by other boys outweighs every other thing in your life.” And often they nod their head, and their eyes tear up, “Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It matters more than everything else combined.”

When I focus that much on something, does it get larger or smaller? Larger. Another metaphor that they use, I'll take my clipboard in my office and I'll say, “Let's say that this clipboard represented the fact that you get aroused by other guys, and let's say that everything else in the room here represents all the other things in your life.” Boys will take the clipboard and think about, “Okay, I get aroused by boys. Boy, look at that--oh, no, my goodness, look at this! Oh, no, can this be true? I can't believe this! Oh, my word!” And pretty soon, this is all they can see; I might see other things off in the periphery here, but this has filled by entire field of vision. When I do this with clients, they're nodding their heads, “Oh, yeah, that's it, absolutely. I can't think of anything else.” That's the first thing that happens when they recognize they get aroused.

Second thing: self-loathing. Self-loathing, they start to hate themselves. “I wanted to have my calling and election made sure before my mission, just to get that out of the way. And now I've got the worst possible thing you can have; no one will love me because of this. This is so disgusting, so loathsome. I'm so disgusting and so loathsome.” Self-loathing, very strong.

Third thing that happens: isolation and secrecy. “Nobody must know about this; I cannot tell anybody. I will will it gone, I will pray it gone, I will force it out of my heart and my mind, but I cannot tell anybody.” So I talk to men all the time who say, “I have not told anyone about this is five years,” or ten years, or fifteen years, or twenty years, or thirty years. Or I told one bishop a while ago, good man, but didn't know what to do. That was embarrassing; it was humiliating. This thing that matters more than everything else in my life, and it has been a complete secret in my life. Not only that, but I have had to be very careful about how close I let other people get to me, because they might figure me out. So I put a lot of effort and energy into creating a façade. Occasionally I see young men who might have looked withdrawn in adolescence and introspective or introverted, but most often they become world-class fakers, and they just smile when I say that, world-class fakers. Oh, yeah. They walk down the hall at school, giving high-fives and talking to people, and they're all everybody's favorite kid, and they're the, hold all these positions in the Aaronic priesthood, and they're, at church everybody's complimenting them and telling their parents how wonderful they are. Nobody knows the inner hell that they are living through day by day by day; it is a complete secret, and they've isolated themselves socially and emotionally from other people.

Those three things--over-focus and over-interpretation, self-loathing, isolation and secrecy--to those and as a result of those add two other things: some level of compulsive sexuality, some level of compulsive sexuality. I take a very simple approach to this; it simply means, “I'm having some sort of negative emotions; I'm feeling lonely, I'm feeling guilty, I'm feeling unworthy, I'm feeling tired, I'm feeling bored, I'm feeling some negative emotions and I know how to make them go away. I know something that will replace them with feelings that are exciting and intensely pleasurable and intriguing to me, feelings that will make me feel close to other men, other boys, if only in my fantasies. That's why I turn to fantasy and eventually to masturbation, pornography, and sometimes acting it out with other men.” This becomes very, very common, and they spend much of their waking hours turning back again and again and again to sexual thoughts and fantasies.

Eventually a young man in this situation becomes like an alcoholic. Think of an alcoholic sitting on the street corner looking in the gutter and he says, “Alcohol has ruined my life. My wife has left me, my kids won't speak to me, my health is ruined, my career is shot, I've got no friends. I think I need a drink.” But instead it's this young man thinking, “I'm a fag, I'm a queer, I'm evil, nobody will love me if they knew this--I think I need a fantasy.” And so they turn to it again and again and again; they spend many, many hours, and I say to these young men, “If you had spent as many hours practicing the piano in the last ten years as you've spent thinking sexual thoughts about other guys, how good a piano player would you be?” And they say, “Oh, Jeff, I'd be playing in Europe, I'd be playing all over the world, I'd be fantastic! You just can't imagine how good I would be! I'd be incredible.”

And so they practice these sorts of sexual thoughts and feelings and arousals for hundreds and thousands of hours throughout their adolescence, and then they think, “Where do these feelings come from?” Ironic, ironic. Some sort of compulsive sexual behavior, medicating the pain. I've likened this to overcoming this problem like an alcoholic giving up alcohol, well, walking around with a bottle of whisky open in front of him with a straw in the bottle and the other end in his mouth, and he's not going to drink, because this young man doesn't have to go anywhere to get this. He doesn't have to purchase anything. He just turns his mind to it and experiences those, that rush of pleasant feeling again and again and again.

Back 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next