Made Him Gay?

This blog, while titled "Musings of a Straight Wife" has a URL of madehimgay.blogspot.com.

Why on earth would this be the URL?

It's actually a bit tongue-in-cheek, reflecting some of the ignorance that's out there, probably spurred by subconscious homophobia.  Let's begin to talk about that homophobia, and the shame that women, unwittingly married to gay men, are often asked to bear.  Talk about rubbing salt in a wound ...

The same kind of poison was spewed by some when the news broke about Ted Haggard and his long-suffering wife, Gayle.  Now, why Gayle has chosen to stay with Ted is beyond me.  I'm not sure if her spiritual explanation as given in her recently-published book is really what it is, or if it's more economically expedient for her to stay with the guy (who, by the way, looks quite gay to me and always has.)  Tell me: what is it that Gayle Haggard supposedly did to drive her husband away from her arms and into the arms of a male prostitute who provided him with meth?  Likewise, what is it that I supposedly did to "make" my ex-spouse gay?  The notion that a wife hasn't been sexy enough or loving enough or fill-in-the-blank enough and so is responsible for turning her husband away from women to men is ludicrous at best.  And yet, there are some people who believe this. 

My prolifically promiscuous former spouse compartmentalized his life so very well that he had a "nice guy" identity, at least among those who didn't know his proclivities.   He was an elder in our church and the music/worship leader.  But then he had this secret gay life that involved sadomasochism, "muscle sex" and lots and lots of porn.  I liken it somewhat to the cartoons that show a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, both whispering into the cartoon character's ear.

Even though I longed to be physically intimate with him, he most often turned away.  When I asked him why (or cried or raged about it) he would tell me it was his rheumatoid arthritis, or the stress from our money problems (most created by him, but which he perennially blamed on me) or the way that I talked to him and how it made him feel like less than a man.  So 2/3rds of the time, you see, the lack of sex was "my fault"  -- just like the Spanish Inquisition, Hurricane Hugo and the Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.  (That's a joke, by the way ...)

It took some almost harsh talk from a counselor trained in sexual addiction (and codependence to sex addicts) to rouse me from my stupor.  I'm very fortunate.  I never got an overt STD, although I did contract bacterial vaginitis a couple of times.  And once, I found pubic lice on myself.  Imagine the denial of finding these little beasts, knowing you were monogamous and when asking your spouse, he tells you that it must be from the gym -- and you believe him! In fact, I believed him to the point of reporting the gym to the Board of Health.  The guy taking the report must have thought I was nuts.

I was.

(And I can tell you I didn't get the lice from having sex with him.  Nope.  It was from sharing a bed with him after he'd gotten the crabs from some nice little anonymous, equally promiscuous guy in a park or a bathhouse glory hole.  At that point, we hadn't had sex in about two years.)

Made him gay?  Are you kidding me?  That's like saying I turned my dog into a cat.

Let's be honest: sexuality is somewhat fluid.  Almost ever straight person I know who has a shred of honesty can admit that once or twice in their life (or more) they've experienced a fleeting attraction to someone of the same sex.  Does that make you gay?  No, it simply means that your sexuality is labile enough to register something biochemical with someone who is similar to you.  Now, if that's all you're attracted to, then yes: you're probably gay.

Here's what I believe: nearly every woman I've ever spoken to who was married to a gay man believes that he was her best friend and genuinely loved her when they got married.  Certain behavioralists now believe that as a man with same-sex attraction ages -- and it takes more to get them stimulated -- they begin to fantasize more about gay sex.  The fantasy, and eventually the act, gets them off in a way that they used to be able to with their wife.  Sometimes, far better.  This enhances their feelings of sexual prowess.  And, for the sex addict, arousal and the orgasm are the things.  The biochemical rush created is what they're hooked on.  So more and kinkier and ...

My ex now swears that he was never a sex addict and that I was the one who insisted that he go to therapy and a 12-step group in a feeble attempt to save the marriage. Au contraire.  I insisted that he got help.  During that process, he admitted that he became hooked on porn by the time he was 9 or 10 and stayed hooked ever since.  Are all gays sex addicts?  No.  Plenty of them are, but plenty of straight people are, too.  Saying that is as ridiculous as saying I made my husband gay.