Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E160: Are People Born Gay? w/Therapist Michael Gasparro

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E160: Are People Born Gay? w/Therapist Michael Gasparro · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
What really is conversion therapy and then kind of therapy
0:02
that you do, which is reintegrative therapy?
0:04
I would dare people to consider conversion therapy is sort of a
0:07
false flag. It's a bit of a red herring.
0:09
How do you look at the origin of same sex attraction?
0:11
Kind of elephant in the room. How much of this is nature?
0:14
We know it's a significantly smaller than majority
0:17
percentage. What are those environmental
0:19
factors? I'm going to explain some that
0:20
both relate to my own story, but also to the stories of hundreds
0:23
of other men and people I know and clients I've worked with.
0:26
And I'm going to share with you that the church has not been
0:28
silent on this either. Hey guys, welcome back to the
0:33
Lila Rose podcast. Today we're going to be sitting
0:35
down with Michael Gasparo, who is a licensed marriage and
0:38
family therapist. He has an incredible personal
0:40
story and he does some really incredible work in Los Angeles.
0:44
Quick content warning here, we're going to be talking about
0:46
some issues that might not be appropriate for younger
0:49
audiences. So if you're a mom or dad or
0:51
you're in a car with young ones, do there's that content warning
0:54
for you. This might be something to
0:55
listen to when kids are not in the car.
0:57
It's not going to get graphic, but these are serious themes
1:00
having to do with same sex attraction and other sexuality
1:02
issues. Michael Gasparo, welcome to the
1:04
podcast. Hello, thank you for having me.
1:06
I'm really excited to be here. I'm really glad you're here.
1:08
There's a lot to talk about with you.
1:10
And let's start with your background.
1:12
You've got a clinical background, you've got a musical
1:13
background, but tell us a little little bit about that.
1:16
Yeah, so I grew up singing. I love music, and I grew up
1:20
singing, playing piano and sharing this music with the
1:22
world. Until then, in my late 20s, I
1:24
was like, you know what? There's more going on here that
1:26
I want to look at within myself and how I can share my gifts
1:29
with others. So I went back to school and I
1:31
became a therapist. So now I'm a licensed marriage
1:34
and family therapist in California and a licensed
1:36
professional clinical counselor. And I have my own therapy
1:39
practice where I do professional counseling.
1:42
Awesome. And one of the things that you
1:43
focus on in your practice, which is sadly controversial,
1:47
especially in a state like California, is helping and
1:50
assisting those who are experiencing same sex
1:53
attraction. Tell me more about that.
1:55
Yeah, I work with a lot of men in particular, so I can work
1:59
with men, women and other adults on this topic, but I mostly
2:03
focus on work with men and a lot of men from even a diverse
2:06
religious background actually. So I work with Muslim men,
2:09
Christian men and a lot of Catholic men.
2:12
But people often for this particular issue with unwanted
2:15
same sex attractions, they don't identify as gay, but they have
2:19
some kind of sexual confusion or a sense of that their sexual
2:23
feelings don't match up with their highest goals for their
2:26
life or their integrated sense of self or religious identity.
2:29
So they seek professional counseling to try to understand
2:32
a little bit better what might be contributing to the emergence
2:34
of those feelings and behaviors and how to better respond to
2:37
them and potentially explore healing underlying factors which
2:41
may be contributing to them. So they may be more free for
2:45
morality, free for the good in their life.
2:47
So already that term you used unwanted sexual same sex
2:51
attraction because I think a lot of people might hear the same
2:55
sex attraction in the culture and think, well, that's the way
2:57
you're born. You're wired that way.
3:00
And if you don't act out on your attractions and pursue whatever
3:04
that lifestyle may be or that identity is, then you're sort of
3:07
squashing yourself or hurting yourself.
3:10
What would you say to that? And help me understand more of
3:12
this idea or help, you know, share with the audience more of
3:15
this idea of unwanted same sex attraction.
3:18
SO2 parts there. The first part is even
3:21
mainstream science is clear on this.
3:23
Sexual attraction is fluid and it is not something you're born
3:26
with. And the American Psychological
3:28
Association, which is the largest body of psychologists in
3:31
the world, on their frequently asked questions section of LGBTQ
3:36
issues say in their own words, there is no scientific consensus
3:42
on the origin or development of same sex attraction.
3:45
This is a liberal, progressive organization.
3:48
Then they go on to say most people believe some complex
3:51
combination of nature and nurture contribute to the
3:54
emergence of what they call LGBTQ orientations, which is a
3:58
phrasing that I would even take issue with.
4:00
But the complex combination of nature and nurture seems to fit
4:04
very much in line with the church has said over many
4:07
decades on this topic and further.
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The saddest part is they then go on to make a moral claim.
4:12
The APA then goes on to say that it is normal and healthy.
4:16
That's a philosophical claim. That's a moral claim.
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So we have the right as Catholics to make our own
4:22
philosophical and moral claim, or Christians or Muslims, by the
4:25
way, or Jews, or every major world religion which makes
4:28
similar claims to ours, which is that our orientation is really
4:32
male or female and it is an identity.
4:34
We are bestowed by the God who loves us, bestowed with by the
4:38
God who loves us, and that our responsibility and gift and
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opportunity is to receive that and to express it according to
4:46
His designs for our body. Do you think that's a message
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not just for people who believe in a God, but it can be a
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message for anyone? I know you mentioned these major
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world religions and you know, Muslims see you and evangelical
4:57
Christians, Catholic Christians. But what about someone who
5:01
doesn't hold to any religion? How should they maybe view
5:04
sexuality and same sex attraction?
5:07
I think people of goodwill can be very open to the type of
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truths we're talking about here today because as I know, we're
5:15
both Catholic. But at Good Friday service, for
5:18
instance, we pray for people who are Catholic, people who are
5:22
Christians, people who are of other religions, people who
5:25
believe in God, and people of goodwill, you know, in those
5:27
Good Friday intercessions. And being of goodwill, I think,
5:31
in my mind, means receptivity to truth.
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And the truth that we're talking about is built into the natural
5:37
order of of biological design and of human flourishing.
5:41
So I think even if you're not religious, a lot of these things
5:43
we're discussing can reveal truth about ourselves and about
5:47
society that are very freeing and help with human flourishing,
5:51
I think. I think that's great.
5:52
I think it's a great answer. There's a lot to get into here
5:55
and we're going to go all into it.
5:56
And it's, again, it's such an important topic because for so
5:59
many reasons, this effects a lot of people, family, friends,
6:02
loved ones. And then it's obviously become a
6:04
highly, hotly contested political, social, cultural
6:07
issue. And the whole gamut of sexuality
6:10
issues. It's it's in the news, it's
6:12
debated, it's discussed, but I want to start with your
6:15
background more because you said you were really musical, you
6:18
were into music. That was a passion of yours and
6:20
then you felt this calling to become a therapist and now
6:23
you're, this is part of your expertise.
6:25
It's helping those with with same sex attraction.
6:27
What inspired that? When I was growing up in around
6:32
middle school is when I started noticing I had same sex
6:34
attraction myself and a we're similar age and that was an era
6:39
where different than today. I will say it was not something
6:42
that was really celebrated. It was scary.
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It was confusing because it was still kind of considered taboo
6:49
to discuss these things. And shortly after some of those
6:53
issues of mine began emerging in compulsive behaviors I was
6:56
struggling with. I had very incredible encounters
7:00
of Jesus, particularly in the Eucharist.
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So if your listeners are Catholic, it's funny because the
7:05
experience I had I had in the Eucharist, was a freshman in
7:08
high school, came at a time, sorry, it's just, it's a lot to
7:13
process. But it came at a time when I was
7:15
most resistant to even the idea of what Eucharistic adoration
7:20
was or what our uniqueness as Catholics meant, 'cause I was
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raised in the Bible Belt and there was a lot of influence
7:26
from my friends and family that made me kind of minimize some of
7:30
the Catholic beliefs and understandings of the Eucharist
7:34
and why we do adoration. And in adoration, Jesus revealed
7:37
to me in the midst of my doubt and confusion that it was real.
7:41
And it was at the lowest point of my life a few months after
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that, that that revelation. It became so clear what like
7:48
what a grace it was because I think it gave me an anchor point
7:51
to say, OK, well, if the Church's teachings are true and
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I have this inner conflict with these sexual feelings and
7:58
confusion, I've got to find a way to approach this that
8:01
integrates those two things. And I'm telling you, it's grace.
8:06
Like I'm not here as a poster boy.
8:08
I'm here as a messy person with a, a complex background who God
8:12
has touched my heart to want to share that there is a different
8:15
way you can respond to these struggles and issues that you
8:19
have. But I am truly just grateful
8:22
that I even had the chance to be shown that at a time where I
8:25
needed it. Because it gave me the
8:26
encouragement to seek support, to talk to a priest about these
8:29
issues, to talk to a counselor when I was a teenager about
8:32
these struggles and really get different eyes on the ball to
8:36
help me see how I could address these in a way that was
8:38
integrated with my faith, which was a sincere faith.
8:41
Even I was a young person. It was sincere.
8:44
Did you feel that as a young person dealing with same sex
8:47
attraction and also having your own spiritual journey, did you
8:50
have the support that you needed?
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I did in many ways, and I think that's one of the reasons I'm
8:56
speaking out because you asked like, well, how did you become a
8:59
therapist? But if you remember like 2015,
9:03
let's rewind. You know, it seems like a a
9:05
lifetime ago, but that's when the entire country began to
9:10
shift its perception of what marriage is because I think it's
9:13
Virgothel versus Hodges, you know, changes the definition of
9:17
marriage. And all of a sudden, at that
9:20
age, in my late 20s and 2015, I thought, OK, the culture is now
9:25
swinging like a pendulum to the degree that we have yet to see
9:30
come to fruition. Who are people listening to to
9:33
talk about this? And I realize people are not as
9:36
attentive to religious voices on this topic, but people are
9:39
quoting legislators, are quoting therapy organizations, They're
9:42
quoting medical associations. So that was part of the reason I
9:45
became a therapist was I thought, well, I guess people
9:47
like me and others, we need to like enter the arena of the
9:51
language of the culture and begin to understand it from that
9:53
perspective so we can witness to the culture using the language
9:57
of the culture responds to. You've got a lot of chips
10:02
stacked against you because you're in California.
10:05
So you're like, well, it's tough.
10:07
And you know this. I mean, California, first of
10:09
all, is making legislation that would, it has a chilling effect,
10:15
I think, on the work that you do to help people who experience
10:19
same sex attraction where you could be accused of doing
10:21
conversion therapy and hurting minors and there's actually a
10:26
loss of a license or other criminal penalties associated
10:28
with that in California is my understanding.
10:31
Nationally, the whole view of therapy, you know, leading
10:35
someone out of same sex attraction is seen as conversion
10:37
therapy is seen as bad. What's your take on all of that
10:41
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12:03
There is an organization and international organization
12:05
called the International Federation for Therapy and
12:07
Counseling Choice. And I go to their conferences
12:10
sometimes in Budapest and Poland and different countries.
12:13
And there are lawyers and and counselors and pastoral
12:16
ministers from the United States and 28 to 38 countries, you
12:20
know, in the significant numbers of countries around the world.
12:23
So what we're talking about, yes, is it applies to
12:26
California, but it's a global movement and a lot of the
12:30
Western countries are taking the same plays, plays out of the
12:33
same playbook from one another. So what's kind of cool about
12:35
that is we have this diverse international coalition of
12:38
people that are trying to push back.
12:40
What I would say is it's no coincidence that they use the
12:43
word conversion to describe what they're talking about is therapy
12:47
for unwanted same sex attractions.
12:49
Because what is the thing we usually so say the word
12:52
conversion with religion. So they'll say it's not an anti
12:56
religious bill, but they're weaponizing a religious term in
13:02
the therapy realm to try to both, let's say make minimize
13:07
the legitimacy of a conversation with a professional about these
13:10
issues. Even though ironically
13:13
psychosexual development and the way impacted human sexuality was
13:16
like the origins of the western psychological therapy model.
13:20
But everything is on the table to discuss with your therapist
13:23
except this issue now. Is that so?
13:25
What is the law the the state of the law in California?
13:28
The state of the law is that for minors and and there are no
13:30
states in the United States right now to my knowledge.
13:33
So you can Fact Check me, but there are no states in the
13:35
United States to my knowledge right now that have any kind of
13:38
law on the books that would prevent talk therapy, which is
13:41
what I do. Standard evidence based talk
13:44
therapy for this issue. Gender dysphoria, same sex
13:48
sexual issues for adults, there are a lot of laws that attempt
13:52
to restrict that for children, for anyone under 18, but they've
13:56
often lumped together transgender issues and same sex
14:00
attraction under one umbrella term.
14:02
And so that's why we call conversion therapy.
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That word is like a kitchen sink term.
14:06
They just like throw anything into it they can in these bills.
14:10
That kind of just makes generally therapist afraid of
14:13
doing anything other than what they're going to call gender
14:15
affirming care or gay affirming therapy That that's generally
14:20
how it works. So it's not very specific it and
14:23
it the broadness of it, which is happening right now in
14:25
California as well with marriage with the definition of marriage
14:28
through propositions being promoted here.
14:30
Now one by the way, being promoted by the same senator who
14:33
tried or the same congressman who tried to call conversion
14:37
therapy thought fraudulent business practices and they
14:41
included churches in that. And that was in around 2018.
14:45
So there is a general push towards trying to criminalize or
14:49
penalize any therapy that does not lock in lock step go along
14:54
with LGBT ideology and gender affirming care.
14:57
So if you're are, if you're a 14 or 15 year old, let's talk about
15:02
yourself, your own story, right? I mean, you shared that you
15:05
experienced same sex attraction and you were wrestling with that
15:08
and navigating that. And if you were seeking guidance
15:12
about that and you were in California, would you have been
15:16
able to go to a therapist like yourself?
15:18
No. It's incredible, no?
15:21
Because I don't see anyone under 18 at this point in my therapy
15:25
practice to protect myself from any kind of potential accusation
15:31
that I'm doing something that would violate this law.
15:33
Which by the way, it's interesting to note in the NIFLA
15:36
case that the Supreme Court level in his ruling, Justice
15:40
Clarence Thomas references the the specific board versus or
15:44
Brown versus pickup, the case that was trying to challenge the
15:48
minors conversion therapy law in California.
15:51
He referenced in that case as an example of a case that was
15:54
decided in an unconstitutional manager, limiting
15:58
unconstitutional manager manner, excuse me, limiting professional
16:02
speech. And so we know that the Supreme
16:05
Court is primed to potentially, we hope, strike down the
16:09
unconstitutionality of these laws that are restricting
16:14
rights, conscience rights and religious freedom rights of
16:17
minors. So the obviously the opposition
16:20
would say, well, conversion therapy of minors is so evil.
16:23
And there are these, you know, historical Oracle horror stories
16:26
of young kids who struggled with same sex attraction.
16:30
And, you know, in some horror stories, they were forced to
16:32
watch, you know, straight porn or they ended up committing
16:37
suicide because they weren't accepted for for the attractions
16:40
that they had because they're, you know, overbearing
16:42
fundamentalist parents made them go to Christian therapist.
16:45
Like this is the narrative about how horrible conversion therapy
16:50
is. What really is conversion
16:52
therapy? And the what's the difference
16:54
between conversion therapy and then the kind of therapy that
16:57
you do, which is reintegrative therapy?
16:59
Reintegrative Therapy is a trademarked brand of therapy
17:04
founded by Doctor Joseph Nicolosi Junior.
17:07
That is not the only method of therapy to utilize to address
17:11
unwanted gender dysphoria or same sex sexual feelings and
17:15
sexualized attachments, but it is one of many that are ethical
17:19
that are based in standard evidence based talk therapy
17:22
practices and reintegrative therapy.
17:24
Since we mentioned that particular method bases itself
17:28
on the model that traumas, either things that should have
17:31
happened but didn't, so developmental deficits or bad
17:34
things that happened that shouldn't have need to be
17:36
addressed because they may contribute to the emergence of
17:39
gender dysphoria or same sex sexual issues.
17:42
And using standard trauma based treatments like eye movement
17:45
desensitization and reprocessing, which is called
17:47
EMDR or mindful self compassion, things like that to address
17:53
these traumas, relationship deficits, etcetera.
17:55
Some people experience healing and shifts in their sexuality as
17:59
a result. That is not even the goal of
18:02
therapy. The goal of therapy is to
18:04
address traumas and to promote psychological well-being, to
18:08
promote spiritual and psychological integration, and
18:11
to promote self-control and freedom to respond to our
18:14
passions in a way that's guided by right reason.
18:17
Any shift in feelings or behaviors is a is a effect of
18:21
therapy. And what's really important to
18:23
keep in mind is our opponents don't have precise definitions
18:26
either. They just use terminology that
18:29
is broad and I'll defined to try to create like scare tactics.
18:33
So what I would dare people to consider is conversion therapy
18:37
is sort of a false flag. It's a bit of a red herring.
18:39
We don't even need to play on their terms.
18:41
We should promote that we want to talk about types of therapy,
18:45
reintegrative therapy or other kinds of therapy that will help
18:48
young people acknowledge difficulties or wounds that they
18:52
have experienced in their families or through their peers
18:55
or through issues in their life. And that they have the right to
18:58
bring those to a therapist who can use normal therapeutic talk
19:02
based interventions to help them better understand themselves and
19:06
seek healing. And, and last thing I'll add to
19:08
that is I'm Catholic. So I believe above all, we are
19:11
corporal spiritual, corporal spiritual beings, body, soul,
19:15
unity. We cannot so easily isolate.
19:18
We cannot isolate psychological and spiritual issues.
19:21
So for many people, myself included, there was a double
19:24
wound in many of my things that I was struggling with, a
19:27
spiritual wound that I needed healing and deliverance from and
19:31
psychological wounds and developments that needed
19:33
milestones I needed to achieve and go through.
19:35
And I'm still on my healing journey.
19:37
So would you say that same sex attraction always originates
19:41
with some sort of trauma, whether it's a deficit, trauma
19:45
or incidents that happened that were hurtful?
19:48
Or is it nature to some degree? How do you look at the origin of
19:53
same sex attraction from a clinical perspective?
19:56
So I want to help us look at this from an attachment lens.
19:59
There is also religious lens to look at it through, but first
20:02
let's talk about it through an attachment lens.
20:04
Children need to know that they're loved unconditionally,
20:07
full stop, as they say. That doesn't happen perfectly.
20:11
It happened perfectly, I think in one family, the Holy Family
20:15
and every other family, I would call a spectrum of knowing how
20:18
beloved you are because your family's meant to model God's
20:21
unconditional love for us. So for those who that doesn't
20:25
happen to a degree that causes attachment insecurity, meaning
20:29
the caregivers I'm geared to being bonded with and to know
20:32
that they can meet my needs when they're not able to meet them,
20:35
That can develop into what we call an insecure or anxious
20:38
attachment style. So I would argue from an
20:41
attachment lens perspective, children who have insecure
20:45
attachments with their parents with other confluent factors are
20:51
susceptible to certain psychological issues.
20:55
One being same sex feelings that can develop at around age two or
20:59
three. For instance, if a boy is
21:01
insecurely attached to his primary attachment figure is
21:04
mom, but there's some insecurity in that attachment at that age,
21:07
he's meant to, according to a lot of developmental models, to
21:11
shift his primary attachment to dad at the gender identity phase
21:14
of development, which is around 2 to 4 years old, as one.
21:16
You're saying that's a healthy thing?
21:18
That's a good thing to. Shift to Dad at around 2:00.
21:20
For men, and I'm talking about men and same sex attraction from
21:23
a from a male developmental perspective, there's nuances in
21:26
different angles to consider with women.
21:27
So at around age 2 to 4 years old is when we see men, boys,
21:32
needing to shift from mama's primary attachment figure to
21:35
dad. But when due to a variety of
21:38
issues that that doesn't occur as completely as it should, men
21:42
can have what I would call gender insecurity start to
21:46
emerge and develop. That could be due to both
21:49
psychological factors in the family, but also external
21:52
factors like interference or interruption through abuse or
21:56
peer issues or an older sibling causing problems or even genetic
22:00
predisposition. And that's the kind of elephant
22:02
in the room. How much is this is nature,
22:04
right? We don't know how much we know.
22:07
It's a significantly smaller than majority percentage.
22:10
Most studies estimate genetic predispositions at around 28%.
22:16
And that's not even like a single gene characteristic.
22:19
That's a combination of genetic predispositions that total 28%
22:24
of genetic and predisposition towards developing same sex
22:27
sexual feelings and behaviors in adulthood.
22:29
But keep in mind most psychological traits that we
22:32
consider normal for treating and therapy have genetic
22:36
predispositions on average around 45% and it's around 3028
22:42
to 33% for same sex attraction according to the Ghana ET All
22:45
study, which was the largest study ever done on the human
22:48
genome. And that mirrors what we see
22:50
over and over through twin studies.
22:52
So let's say 3233% genetic predisposition.
22:55
Guess what the likelihood of being religious is
22:57
predisposition 33%. But we don't say someone is born
23:01
religious or not by Yeah. So that's so fascinating because
23:07
the the narrative today is you're Born This Way and you're
23:09
a bigot if you don't acknowledge that, accept that, and there's
23:12
no conversation. I think happening nationally,
23:15
you're not allowed to have the conversation about whether there
23:19
were issues in your childhood, there were deficits.
23:22
You think you use the word that led to same sex attraction
23:25
because same sex attraction is supposed to be seen as, if not
23:28
even a neutral, a good thing. That is an innate and
23:31
affirmative thing, a positive thing.
23:34
So what would be some examples of?
23:37
You mentioned the attachment to a male figure, a father, you
23:41
know, between the ages of two and four would be important for
23:43
boys as an example. What would be some examples of
23:48
why same sex attraction might develop because of that other
23:52
70% or so experiences that a kid might have?
23:56
And as I. Answer Am I understanding the
23:58
the the the data correctly? So you're saying it roughly 30%?
24:01
Is genetic. Due to genetic predisposition,
24:04
so the 70 other percent of this happening has.
24:06
To be environmental factor. Is environmental factor.
24:08
So, yeah, I guess the question is then to be more clear here,
24:10
what are those environmental factors?
24:11
So I'm going to explain some that I think both relate to my
24:15
own story, but also to the stories of hundreds of of other
24:18
men and people I know and clients I've worked with.
24:20
And I'm going to share with you that the church has not been
24:23
silent on this either. The Catholic Church has released
24:26
document after document throughout the 20th century in
24:28
the United States and internationally through the
24:32
Congregation of Christian Education, the Congregation for
24:34
the Doctrine of the Faith, identifying these same types of
24:37
factors as potential causal factors for the emergence of
24:40
homosexuality. For instance, they've said
24:43
things like exposure to pornography through like they
24:45
say, license and chosen publications was the old timey
24:48
phrase they used. But exposure to pornography,
24:50
which we know happens at an extremely early age right now
24:53
with children, that's a trauma, OK?
24:55
So especially if somebody's already insecurely attached with
24:58
their same sex father figure and on top of that as sensitive as a
25:02
predisposition towards some of these things that make maybe
25:05
more susceptible to developing these issues.
25:08
Combine that with negative peer experiences with their male same
25:12
sex peers and then early exposure to pornography.
25:15
Well, unmet attachment needs can become sexualized because that
25:19
energy, that longing, that desire for a father to give me
25:22
attention, affection, and approval, that for either due to
25:26
a lack of the attunement of the father or other factors
25:30
contributing to an difficulty in integrating or internalizing
25:34
that attachment might make that child susceptible to developing
25:38
a sexualized attachment if exposed early to pornography.
25:41
And the church identified that in multiple documents as a
25:44
potential causal factor. They also talked about abuse
25:48
being a potential causal factor for the emergence of
25:50
homosexuality. Sexual abuse or any abuse?
25:52
And and other abuse, but especially sexual abuse.
25:56
The the church also identify and these are church documents from
25:59
Vatican congregations. So these are high level church
26:02
teaching documents. So we don't have to have
26:04
certainty though about what causes same sex attraction to
26:07
know that the church also says it's objectively the inclination
26:10
itself is objectively disordered.
26:13
The acts are intrinsically disordered.
26:15
The inclination itself is objectively disordered.
26:18
So my question is, I'll I'll share some more examples as we
26:21
talk, but if something is objectively disordered, did it
26:24
come from nothing? Is it objectively disordered by
26:27
default? I would say we should be more
26:29
curious than that. And even if we don't know the
26:31
exact answer for every person in every circumstance, at least
26:33
give them the opportunity and the right to reflect on their
26:36
own life and think what might have happened that contributed
26:39
to why I have this objectively disordered inclination.
26:43
And how can I invite God's love into that part of my heart or
26:46
soul or body or mind? I think that's such a good
26:49
point, Michael. And even if you're not a
26:51
Catholic or Christian or practicing faith, the studies
26:54
that have been done show that, you know, maybe 30% of this is
26:58
from nature, you know, same sex attraction and sexual identity.
27:01
And then the rest is from environmental factors.
27:04
Even separate from a religious context.
27:05
Shouldn't be people be curious? What were the environmental
27:08
factors that led to my sexual interests and and attractions?
27:13
Yeah, and I would argue too, irrespective of what caused
27:17
them, I have the right as an individual to respond to them
27:22
according to my conscience. So that means that whether or
27:26
not I can determine what caused them and whether or not this
27:29
person over here says that's not a, that's not what happened to
27:32
you, or they have a different narrative to explain my story, I
27:35
still get to choose my path, me, the individual, not somebody
27:39
else outside, external to me. You are not my conscience,
27:42
outside person. I've been given a conscience.
27:44
And I think St. Henri Newman said the conscience
27:47
is the aboriginal vicar of Christ and the soul.
27:50
And so we have the right to conscience even if the studies
27:54
show something different one day.
27:56
What if they showed something different one day?
27:57
Well, I wouldn't change my conscience and it wouldn't
28:00
change my belief that Jesus has a better plan for our sexual
28:04
impulses. The Catechism says basically
28:08
they make it simple. They're like either man governs
28:10
his, governs his passions and becomes happy or becomes
28:15
governed by his passions and becomes unhappy.
28:17
So the choice is not black and white totally because it's a
28:21
journey to get there. You know, chastity is a journey,
28:25
but we're all called to that journey.
28:27
No one gets a pass. Even if you don't struggle with
28:29
same sex attraction, you know like we all have that exacting
28:33
work to respond to grace in our life, to try to integrate our
28:36
conscience with our sexual feelings.
28:39
Can you share more about your story?
28:40
You said, you know, you're you're an example of this in the
28:43
environmental factors leading to same sex attraction.
28:46
And then you also shared you've talked to now hundreds of other
28:49
people and, and no doubt their stories.
28:51
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28:53
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29:29
So for me personally, there were things that I noticed a lot in
29:33
my clients as well. So I'm going to share a little
29:35
bit about my story, but also kind of generalize it to the
29:38
things I've seen as a pattern. I know that I was exposed early
29:44
on to things that inhibited my ability to respond well to
29:50
emotions. So let's say a family
29:53
environment that does not adequately know how to reflect a
29:56
child and corrects them instead. So what I mean by that is not
30:01
you shouldn't correct somebody's behavior, but this is something
30:04
that's very prominent in family therapy too.
30:06
We call emotion coaching coaching parenting.
30:08
We want to promote parenting that reflects children's
30:11
emotional experiences back to them instead of corrects them
30:14
for the feelings that they're having.
30:16
So for instance, as a boy, I was more sensitive and a little bit
30:19
prone towards perfectionism and maybe a little bit more
30:24
effeminate and a little bit more artistic and creative.
30:27
And my father, who I love, who I have a very good relationship
30:30
with as an adult, was very different than me.
30:33
We had very different temperaments, different
30:34
personalities, and we struggled, I think when I was young to
30:38
really connect in a way that I could internalize a sense that
30:42
I'm a boy because I'm like dad and that sense of gender
30:45
insecurity. I did not have gender identity
30:49
problems, but gender insecurity became especially prominent by
30:53
the time I hit early elementary school because boys tend to
30:57
notice when a boy is insecure, and then they can become prey to
31:00
other bullies who pounce on that insecurity.
31:04
So I began getting bullied when I was very young and I think
31:08
that reinforced my sense of insecurity.
31:11
And I didn't turn to my dad. I turned off into my mom for
31:14
comfort. So then I was in the realm of
31:16
the feminine where I was like safe and nurtured and things
31:18
were really easy. But the problem with that is
31:21
eventually that creates a sense of isolation between me and and
31:25
the same sex peers I longed to connect with because every boy
31:28
wants to be have attention, affection, approval,
31:31
affirmation, admiration from their same sex peers.
31:34
And that time period, especially early elementary school, you
31:38
need that to launch you into adolescence where you're then
31:41
kind of sent forth from your same sex peer group towards the
31:44
other, the mysterious other. But for me, the other was not
31:47
mysterious. It was my realm of safety.
31:49
Does that make sense? The other meaning the feminine.
31:52
As the master, right? So the feminine wasn't
31:54
mysterious and alluring. The feminine was the safe place,
31:57
and what was mysterious and even dangerous was the masculine,
32:00
even though you were the masculine.
32:02
Right, but not attentive to that reality within myself.
32:04
And I even defensively began detaching from my dad, resenting
32:08
him at an early age because I didn't understand him and didn't
32:10
know how to connect. And I say this not blaming my
32:13
parents. My parents are amazing.
32:15
Some of this is also just the reality of the messiness of life
32:18
and that wounds happen often unintentionally, and no one's
32:23
immune from wounds in their life.
32:24
And we're not here to blame. We're just going to name things
32:27
that I think contributed in my story.
32:29
But add to that there was, and this is, you know, something
32:33
really important to be nuanced about.
32:34
But exposure to things that I should not have seen or
32:37
participated in an early age due to somehow just being
32:41
accidentally exposed to other children who knew things they
32:44
should have known or done. Things I shouldn't have done or
32:47
had done to them. Things that should have been
32:49
done to them. And those things primed me for
32:52
sexualizing attachments that I longed for with men at a very
32:57
early age. It didn't emerge fully though,
33:00
until I was in my adolescent period, when puberty hits and
33:03
all the hormones rush in which sexualize the body and the
33:06
person, while unmet attachment needs gravitate very strongly
33:10
towards powerful, pleasurable pulls.
33:13
And one of those is the drive for sexual pleasure in
33:15
connection, which is innate to every person.
33:18
So that's a little bit about my story.
33:19
How does sexual abuse and sexual exposure at an early age, how
33:25
can that have an impact on someone who might then struggle
33:29
with sexual attraction, Same sex sexual?
33:32
Attraction and what's really great about that angle we're
33:35
looking at here is that even mainstream a American
33:38
Psychological Association have talked about research studies
33:42
that even indicate potential causal factors.
33:45
We're not talking about correlative, even potential
33:47
causal factors of same sex sexual abuse in childhood and
33:51
same sex partnering in adulthood.
33:53
So we know. And you, your listeners, I dare
33:56
them to go look at the research. It's easily available online.
33:59
Study after study show men who have sex with men.
34:02
And that's a term used in research because the term gay is
34:05
really cultural. It's not really a research term,
34:07
but men who have sex with men have statistically higher rates
34:11
of sexual abuse in childhood, astronomically higher than men
34:14
who do not struggle with this issue, astronomically higher.
34:17
Some cities five times as high, some more.
34:19
And we think those numbers, many of us in this field are even low
34:23
because due to the clients we work with and people we know.
34:25
A lot of things that have happened to men who have sex
34:27
with men in childhood, they don't even see as abuse.
34:30
Especially if it happened in adolescence when they were
34:32
sexually more mature and it was somebody who was maybe just over
34:35
the age of 18 or 21, would it be illegal and would be considered
34:39
abuse? But they didn't see it as such
34:41
because they were groomed by somebody who seemed safe or led
34:44
to their sexual awakening. So it's a serious problem, and
34:47
one of the things that it does is it sexualizes A longing for
34:51
something deeper than sexuality, that affirmation, longing.
34:55
I long to be affirmed as a man, to be congruent with my sexual
34:59
identity as a man. And I'm not feeling that from
35:02
let's say my peers or as adequately as I need from my
35:05
primary father figure. So this person, this boy now has
35:10
given me attention in a way that is sexualized and it feels good.
35:13
Well, it's some people call a fraudulent attachment or some
35:18
kind of false attachment. It seems good.
35:21
And many boys get this through exposure to pornography and not
35:25
just men with same sex attraction.
35:26
Lila men who are longing for connection and stumble upon
35:31
Internet porn. Average age of exposure I've
35:33
seen studies say is 8 to 11 years old.
35:36
So it's not just an issue for men with same sex attraction,
35:39
but I will say even boys who are not in the past probably
35:42
predisposed towards same sex attraction can be conditioned
35:46
towards other sexual issues due to the content and pornography
35:49
that sexualizes their brains towards bizarre or unhealthy
35:53
models of sexual arousal. Templates is the word a lot of
35:56
people like to use. There's so many questions I
35:59
have. And again, I can't thank you
36:00
enough, Michael, for talking about all of these things
36:02
because it's so powerful and important and and being willing
36:05
to Share your story and obviously your clinical work
36:07
too. But OK, wanted to start with one
36:09
thing that you just said, which was there are these studies that
36:13
show that men who have sex with men five times or more likely to
36:17
have been abused as children. And I want to ask, probe a
36:22
little deeper into that because why?
36:24
Why is that? Why is it that child sexual
36:27
abuse is often part of the history of those who experience
36:31
same sex attraction? And I want to say one more thing
36:34
with that. I remember researching this over
36:36
the past few years for different reasons, and I've found a
36:39
justification for this not being evidence that sexual abuse is
36:44
responsible for same sex attraction, but instead that if
36:47
you are a gay kid, you're more likely to be sexual abuse.
36:51
You see this sleight of hand there?
36:53
So the, you know, the pro sort of LGBTQ identity crowd says,
36:57
well, that data just shows that gay children are vulnerable to
37:01
sexual abuse at higher rates than straight children.
37:04
And so it's no surprise that later on, men who have sex with
37:07
men have a higher rate of sexual abuse in their childhoods.
37:11
I mean, yeah, that's the the argument.
37:14
It's a specious argument I think because what is a gay child?
37:18
What does that mean? Child are not sexually active.
37:21
So a 5 or 6 year old child is just a boy or a girl.
37:25
They would say, well, the the child who's you know, the gay,
37:28
the boy who is going to be same sex attracted or maybe has early
37:31
same sex attraction is more of a target, a soft target for a
37:35
predator. Well, So what I'm I'm trying to
37:37
redefine the terms here. So why are you calling not you,
37:40
but the these arguments are calling that child gay.
37:42
Why are you even saying that if they're not what it defines
37:45
someone as gay? If they're five years old, they
37:48
don't have sexual attractions yet.
37:50
They might have draws or pulls or attractions towards the same
37:54
sex in a friendship manner or towards women or girls in a
37:58
friendship manner, or aversion from women or girls in a
38:00
friendship manner. But we know sexual feelings do
38:03
not emerge fully until puberty. So again, what defines gay?
38:07
We should define our terms. If you're saying this is a boy
38:10
who might develop into a homosexual boy so you're going
38:13
to call him pre homosexual, that's very different.
38:16
That just means he has certain personality traits or
38:19
tendencies. Or maybe he's less masculinized,
38:22
less assertive. Well, I would argue that that
38:24
often happens, and most commonly when this child is not as
38:28
securely attached to their same sex parent figure.
38:32
Now, we also don't have to know perfect causality to say that
38:35
when correlation is that high, we should at least be curious
38:39
and not provide reductive, overly simplistic answers.
38:44
And I think to to say that, oh, that that correlation is that
38:48
high, that it is simply because that child is gay.
38:51
One, you're not defining gay and gay is really a cultural
38:55
identity. It's it's not a definition of
38:58
feelings, thoughts and behaviors and children deserve to not be
39:02
sexualized through an adult lens.
39:04
We are sexualizing young people through an adult lens when we
39:07
say things like that. So when you encounter someone
39:11
who has child sexual abuse as part of their history and now
39:14
they're struggling with same sex attraction, how do you approach
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I want to, before I answer that question, say I'm not saying
40:51
everybody who is identifying as gay or has same sex attraction
40:54
was abused and I'm not saying I know of everyone's story.
40:58
We're talking about trends, general issues, and the need to
41:02
be curious and be attentive to people's stories so that we can
41:06
try to get them the help that they need.
41:08
I'll give you an example of of a person that I worked with and as
41:11
a therapist, you know, this is an anonymized version of a story
41:13
where some of the details have been changed to protect the
41:16
identity of my clients. But I worked with a man once who
41:19
was married to a woman with a family with children.
41:23
And this man came to therapy because he was Christian and
41:28
very devout, but had compulsive sexual behaviors where he would
41:31
look at homosexual pornographic images and engage in compulsive
41:35
sexual behaviors on his own at home through masturbation.
41:39
And this was obviously a problem.
41:41
It's a problem because it didn't fit with his morals, it did not
41:44
fit with his ideal for his marriage and he knew it was
41:46
hurting his relationship with his wife and yet he found it
41:49
enjoyable but also felt like he couldn't resist it and he also
41:52
hated it and he had shame about it.
41:54
OK so he comes to therapy for what he says is just same sex
41:57
attraction right? He does not come to therapy for
42:00
sexual abuse. That's not his stated conflict.
42:03
But what we do in a situation like that is we foster
42:07
curiosity, openness, receptivity.
42:09
We do not shame people. We encourage them to accept
42:11
themselves just as they are radically in the midst of
42:14
whatever their behaviors or feelings are, even if they don't
42:17
like them or wish they were different.
42:19
And through that self acceptance journey, we begin looking at
42:22
what are the moments where he's most likely to engage in this
42:25
compulsive behavior. So for this client, it might
42:27
have been when he's feeling kind of weak or not very masculine or
42:31
inadequate as a father. In that case, he was most prone
42:35
to getting on the Internet and looking at images that triggered
42:38
that sense of that false attachment security.
42:40
Here's this other person, this man in this image that I feel
42:43
connected to now. It's an illusion.
42:44
It's not real. So that's why it's a counterfeit
42:47
attachment. It's not a real attachment.
42:49
But in looking at that moment, using reintegrative therapy in
42:52
this man's case, we just foster, reflect reflection.
42:56
So what we do is we check in with the body.
42:59
We see what sensations, distress, disturbance, feelings
43:02
in the body are coming up for you right at that peak moment
43:05
where you're most tempted to engage in this behavior.
43:07
And many of our clients feel distress, tension, tightness,
43:11
fear. So we go with that.
43:13
OK, what does that remind you of?
43:14
We use trauma standard evidence based trauma techniques like
43:18
what we call an EMDR, a float back.
43:20
EMDR is a evidence based trauma treatment for talk therapist.
43:25
And in this float back we say, what is this tension and
43:27
discomfort in your body remind you of in your past?
43:30
We let the mind and the and the and the Holy Spirit hopefully
43:33
guide him. And this man's mind went right
43:36
back to childhood sexual abuse, where as a 5 year old he was
43:39
systematically abused and grown by an educator.
43:42
OK, he didn't even identify that in his adult life as abuse.
43:48
Because many times it's impossible to reconcile the
43:51
complex combination of pleasure and affirmation a child feels
43:56
when being groomed and abused by a known family friend.
44:00
And so they can't reconcile that.
44:02
So they just think it was something that happened to them.
44:06
But shortly after that abuse happened, Lila, he began
44:09
enacting in this is in the in the field of sexual addiction
44:12
therapy called trauma reenactment.
44:14
He began reenacting that those exact same behaviors with
44:17
Pierce's own age, starting as early as eight or nine years old
44:20
and then through high school, and then when he was able to
44:23
eventually resolve not acting out in person, but the behaviors
44:28
went underground to pornography and masturbation.
44:32
Well, through the trauma reprocessing we did with that
44:34
man, we brought in mindful self compassion, how he could see
44:38
himself as a child, as a victim. He was the first time in his
44:40
life he was able to identify he was a victim of abuse.
44:43
We can help him by God's grace. All healing comes from God.
44:46
None of this is without God, right?
44:48
God is the source of all healing, medical, psychological,
44:50
spiritual healing. We could identify a new
44:53
narrative though. What happened to him?
44:55
How can you make sense of it? We use trauma reprocessing
44:58
methods in this case, mindful self compassion, where the man
45:00
visualizes loving, caring for, protecting his younger self in a
45:04
way that nobody protected or could protect at the time.
45:08
And this reduced the vividness, emotionality, distress.
45:13
It provided a new narrative for these foundational trauma
45:17
memories that influence the trajectory of his sexual
45:20
feelings and behaviors into adulthood.
45:22
OK, so we do that and we go back to the peak trigger moment.
45:26
All of a sudden, that peak trigger moment where he's most
45:28
tempted in his current present state to go back to those
45:31
compensatory behaviors he sees with a new perspective.
45:35
He feels less distress. He feels less need to self
45:38
regulate with his inadequacy as a man by using an external
45:42
counterfeit attachment and more able to see himself as a man for
45:46
who he is as a survivor of abuse and also to foster other
45:50
healthier relationships in his life.
45:52
So he began working on men's groups.
45:53
He started going to men's retreats to connect more
45:55
positively with peers. And that is a great example of
45:58
the client who left therapy before his healing was done.
46:01
I know he went on to other therapists.
46:03
I know he kept going on to seek healing through support groups.
46:07
But he, in the time I accompanied him, was able to see
46:11
God's healing work in his life as an ongoing journey.
46:15
And I, I was just graced to be able to accompany and witness
46:18
it. I'm just a facilitator.
46:20
I'm not the healer, you know, I'm just here to accompany.
46:24
So it was EMDR and understanding himself and his own childhood
46:30
and how the the sexual abuse that he experienced impacted him
46:33
because he didn't even see a sexual abuse that came out in
46:36
therapy that he was able to help know what were his triggers,
46:41
what were the kind of inadequacies he experienced he
46:43
felt that led him to want to look at gay porn and you know,
46:48
do these compulsive sexual behaviors.
46:51
Yes exactly, and EMDR is 1 standard evidence based trauma
46:55
reprocessing tool that is known to be used for sexual abuse.
46:59
The people involved in EMDR don't like the idea that we can
47:02
use it to treat abuse that might have impacted sexuality
47:06
development because they tend to be.
47:08
The groups that promote EMDR tend to also be, like most
47:11
psychological organizations, very pro LGBT in a way that
47:14
refuses to acknowledge that sexual identity can be
47:17
influenced by trauma. But we still find it as an
47:21
evidence based treatment to address trauma and then the
47:24
feelings shift as a result. It's not like I'm saying grace
47:27
builds on nature. OK, so I'm not saying I have a
47:29
magic wand and I believe in the God of miracles.
47:32
I think you probably do too, right?
47:34
So miracles happen, but this wasn't a miracle.
47:37
But supernaturally, God was at work through this man's journey,
47:41
both in the way he was able to resolve some of his internal
47:44
trauma, but also in the way grace act progressively over
47:48
time in history, gently, gradually increasing his
47:53
capacity to respond to his feelings with freedom.
47:56
So it wasn't like a light switch we turned off, and we weren't
47:58
even trying to get rid of his feelings.
47:59
We're trying to help him understand his experiences, meet
48:02
his emotional needs in healthy ways that were not counterfeit,
48:05
authentic attachments, real attachments with God, with other
48:08
men, with his wife. So another controversial aspect
48:12
of this is the idea that if you are same sex attracted and you
48:19
you don't go through a therapeutic experience and then
48:21
you come out of that and then you experience or you can have
48:24
attractions for the opposite sex.
48:27
So I know that's also kind of the stereotype for conversion
48:30
therapy, right? What does that treatment look
48:32
like? And do you think that that is a
48:34
good approach to someone who's dealing with unwanted same sex
48:38
attraction to help them discover a way to be attracted to the
48:41
opposite sex? So let's look at this from 2
48:44
fold perspective. Ministry and psychological
48:47
intervention in in ministry terms, we never want to put
48:50
pressure on people to try to change their feelings.
48:53
But if somebody comes to therapy because they have a goal and a
48:57
vision for their life that includes marriage and their
49:00
feelings and their attractions seem like an impediment to their
49:03
vocation, what they have like is like a deep sense of their call,
49:06
their vocation. My challenge to other people
49:09
first is to be on the offensive and say, why don't they have a
49:12
right to explore how we can help remove impediments to vocation?
49:16
That's my first instinct. I will go deeper into it, but
49:19
I'll. Well, a person might say, again,
49:21
I'm playing devil's advocate here because I know I want
49:23
people to listen to this who don't maybe fully agree.
49:26
I want them to hear this perspective that they maybe
49:27
haven't heard before, not in this fullness.
49:30
And so they might say, well, they they should just get
49:31
married to the same sex. There's a stigma being put on
49:35
gay marriage and so they want marriage.
49:38
And so they just need to get married to the same sex.
49:40
So we should then define our terms again, because marriage is
49:43
oriented towards the procreation and rearing of children.
49:47
And so there's only one way and one definition of marriage for
49:50
my clients and for myself, which is marriage between a man and a
49:53
woman that is faithful and lifelong.
49:55
And in Sacramento, too. So if the people who choose to
50:00
engage with what they call gay marriage do that in our country
50:03
right now, they're legally allowed to do that.
50:05
That's another debate and another topic for another time.
50:08
But in this context, why should I not have the right to pursue
50:13
marriage as I understand and define it?
50:15
What would you? What would you do with that
50:17
client? How would you work with them?
50:18
OK, well let's make it practical.
50:20
Can I talk about? Please do, yeah.
50:22
OK, so and then again, these stories, they're told with
50:26
anonymity. I want you to know, I want your
50:28
listeners and you to know if you go to a professional therapist,
50:31
your story is not going to be broadcast on the podcast.
50:32
So details, some details have to be changed.
50:35
I'm going to talk in a little bit broader vague terms to
50:37
protect client anonymity above all, because it's very important
50:40
legally and ethically. OK, So the client that comes to
50:44
mind is one who was a young man, educated, successful, and he had
50:50
a lot of fear about anxiety performance wise, romantically
50:55
with women. How will I man up and live up to
50:57
what expectations one might have for me?
51:00
So there's a lot of masculine insecurity there.
51:02
He also had compulsive sexual behaviors related to homosexual
51:05
pornography, but no romantic longing at all to partner with a
51:11
man. So this is another facet of the
51:13
nuance of this topic that a lot of people don't talk about, that
51:15
you might have some same sex sexual attachments and
51:19
behaviors, but not be romantically interested in
51:22
dating or marrying a man. And this person fit into that
51:26
category. So they knew that these sexual
51:28
feelings and behaviors were aberrations.
51:30
They were sort of not representative as a deeply held
51:33
values identity. He was a Christian too, so he
51:36
saw marriages between a man and a woman.
51:38
So he came and he was like, what are we going to do?
51:39
How do we address these? OK, so there's the the stage has
51:42
been set, right? Well, what we start with is just
51:45
self exploration. Help.
51:47
Let's me. I'm a therapist.
51:48
I'm gonna accompany you. I'm just here to accompany.
51:50
I want to see people's goodness. That's it.
51:53
I want to see your goodness. And by that, I just be open to
51:55
you as a person. And that starts with learning
51:58
someone's story. And this person, from an early
52:00
age, his parents were divorced from an early age, his father
52:04
was excessively critical of any display of emotion appropriate
52:09
to a child's age to the degree that later we're going to
52:12
identify those experiences as traumas in therapy with him.
52:15
And by excessively critical, he was mean.
52:18
He would yell at him. Unkind, verbally abusive,
52:22
terrorizing when he would show emotion like crying or sad or
52:28
anything that was deemed not masculine or maybe just
52:31
intolerable because the father might have been insecure with
52:34
his own emotional experiences. So he has to shut down that
52:37
which reminds him of himself, that he's not accepted within
52:39
himself yet. So this young man, we didn't
52:43
jump in there first. We just started talking about
52:45
family dynamics. You know, mom and dad were
52:47
divorced. His mom was very religious, but
52:51
tend to be very fearful about sexuality.
52:54
You might call it puritanical. The body is kind of to be feared
52:58
and sexuality is viewed a little bit more from a fundamentalist
53:02
perspective as sort of a bad thing.
53:05
So this client, what we would do is start by understanding when
53:09
I'm this and I say I'm me, the client most tempted to engage in
53:13
these compulsive behaviors which are not in line with my ideals
53:18
or my goal for my life. Just like I said with the
53:20
previous client. What does that remind him of
53:22
physiologically, the the body keeps the score as trauma.
53:25
As specialist Besser Vandal Bessel Vanderkolk's book states,
53:29
the body keeps the score of trauma.
53:31
We know in our body we trust our feelings and our sensations.
53:34
Our mind will take us back. The Holy Spirit and our
53:37
faculties will take us back to those early experiences that
53:40
contributed to our perception of the world or ourselves that gets
53:44
distorted and filtered through trauma.
53:46
And so with this young man, Lila, those early experiences
53:50
with hyper critical father and mother who was anxious and
53:54
fearful influenced his perception of men and women in a
53:58
way that skewed his development. Now what's interesting, and this
54:03
is another tangent that is related to story, but I think
54:05
you might have some questions about too.
54:08
As we started with trauma reprocessing for him trying to
54:10
use EMDR, mindful self compassion, he had emotional
54:15
blocks and these were largely related to obsessive compulsive
54:19
scrupulous fear. And for many men, gay men,
54:23
especially gay identified men, non gay identified men who have
54:27
SSA, there's a statistically significant higher level of OCD.
54:31
It's and almost every client I work with has diagnosable levels
54:34
of OCD that has same sex attraction and most of them who
54:38
are religious with SSA have scrupulous religious based
54:42
obsessive compulsive disorder. So for this man, if we looked at
54:45
trauma memories and we looked at blocks towards women that he
54:49
experienced in adolescence, there was a lot of fear.
54:52
And that fear emerged in these symptoms of obsessive compulsive
54:55
certainty seeking, obsessive compulsive fear about religion
54:58
and about God, obsessive and compulsive behaviors.
55:02
Because the fear of sexuality doesn't get rid of sexuality.
55:05
It drives sexuality further out of the realm of reason.
55:09
And our passions are meant they're by their nature ordered
55:13
to be guided by reason. But if you have a mom who
55:16
inculcates fear about the body and about sexuality due to
55:20
misunderstandings of theology and not a trust in the innate
55:23
goodness of sexuality, that can contribute to these avoidances
55:28
and these fears that lead to emotional repression.
55:32
And emerging out of that is obsessive compulsive behaviors.
55:36
Because if, if now sexuality is not in front of me where I can
55:39
look at it, accept it, praise God for it, integrate it, guide
55:43
it with right reason, Like I said, it doesn't go away.
55:46
It just gets pushed further to the peripheries where it emerges
55:48
in dissociative and compulsive ways.
55:51
So we began to look at how to help reduce a shame and fear
55:54
about sexuality in general, even as they emerge in objectively
55:58
disordered ways in his life as part of the trauma treatment.
56:02
So between looking at the early childhood traumas, addressing
56:05
obsessive compulsive fear and religious scrupulosity, and
56:09
cultivating his imagination towards what he's capable of
56:12
with women, this client began to show signs of emerging
56:16
masculinity, confidence. And by the time we were starting
56:19
to come to wrap treatment, Lila, he was in a serious relationship
56:22
with a woman. He still had residual wounds to
56:24
look at, some compulsive behaviors he was still
56:27
struggling with, but he felt confident and courageous enough
56:31
to be engaging in a relationship.
56:33
His girlfriend and him were very serious.
56:35
And I'll tell you the only reason he left therapy is he
56:37
felt it was time to go specifically to focus more on
56:40
spiritual healing. So he pursued remaining healing
56:44
for himself and a spiritual one through his church.
56:46
He was an evangelical Christian. And so we should not minimize
56:49
either. And I'm I'm really glad to be
56:51
just briefly touching this. We should not minimize out of
56:53
fear that people say we're telling you to pray the gay
56:55
away. Spiritual healing is an
56:58
essential part of many people's healing journeys when they're
57:01
emerging out of sexual chaos and sexual brokenness.
57:04
So while I'm all for psychological interventions and
57:06
I believe God is the source of all healing, even in
57:08
psychological domain, there is a real need for deliverance,
57:12
ministry and for spiritual healing for many people who have
57:14
been touched by the twofold wound of sexual abuse or other
57:19
types of deficits where the enemy attaches itself to those
57:25
wounds and keeps us stuck in those lies.
57:28
That I'm not a complete man, my sexual identity is somehow
57:31
flawed because my dad and I didn't connect or my mom made me
57:35
afraid of sexuality, and this is the spiritual reality we have to
57:39
face. I don't want to scare people,
57:40
but like because Jesus is Lord, we don't have to be afraid, but
57:44
we shouldn't put our heads in the sand either.
57:46
There is that common narrative of the person who experienced a
57:50
very restrictive or puritanical upbringing when it come comes to
57:54
sexuality or like the body. And then later on they kind of
57:58
go wild, you know, or in their views, maybe they wouldn't
58:02
consider it wild. They were just free, you know,
58:04
sexually free. And I think even the, you know,
58:07
the last century, look at the last century and you look at,
58:10
you know, the 1950s housewife and, you know, the American
58:13
family all buttoned up. And, you know, divorce rates are
58:16
fairly low and people are in intact relationships.
58:18
And, you know, sexual chaos. You mentioned that term that
58:22
sexual libertinism, you know, sex outside of the one man, one
58:26
woman marriage was seen as a bad thing largely culturally.
58:30
And then the sexual revolution hits, you know, in the 60s and
58:32
70s and now it's like whatever, as long as there's consent, you
58:36
do you. It was like 1 big, you know,
58:38
middle finger to this view of human sexuality.
58:42
Do you think that? How do you think that?
58:45
Like, there's so many questions I have about this, but let's
58:47
start really practical. If you are a parent and you want
58:51
to help your child have healthy sexual development, but you
58:55
don't want to also expose them to sexuality too young of an
58:58
age, you want to do this appropriately and you want to
59:00
give them a sense of love for their body and freedom while at
59:03
the same time helping them live a morally ordered life.
59:07
You know, I guess the question is like, what would, what should
59:08
of the 1950s parents, the parents of that generation do to
59:12
prevent the chaos of the 60s and the 70s?
59:15
I love that question, and I think a lot of young women and
59:20
young mothers need to know how and be affirmed in the goodness
59:24
of their role as mothers and how important it is.
59:28
William Wallace Ross, I think, was his name.
59:30
Said she. Who or he who or they who rock
59:33
the cradle? The one who rocks the cradle.
59:35
Cradle rules the world. It is this really beautiful
59:37
poem. I was reading it yesterday about
59:39
the value of motherhood. So my instinct is first.
59:43
One of the saddest things that our culture is seeing is a
59:45
devaluing of the uniqueness of each parental role.
59:48
And in this case, like let's talk about moms, how important
59:52
motherhood is. And one of the things mothers do
59:56
is protect and nurture and in a way that I would say is the
1:00:01
first default. So especially in our freedom for
1:00:06
license culture, where it's like freedom is how much choice you
1:00:09
have, not freedom for morality, which is really in the tradition
1:00:12
of the church, what freedom really means.
1:00:14
It's like the freedom for good. Protecting your children is
1:00:18
important. That means protecting them from
1:00:20
exposure. We have to encourage moms and
1:00:22
dads, and I know your audience probably already is aware of
1:00:25
this, but prevention is better than treatment.
1:00:29
So what's better than going to therapy and getting help, not
1:00:31
needing therapy? Not that I don't.
1:00:34
I'm going to recommend therapy for people who need it, but
1:00:36
we've got to think more in prevention.
1:00:38
And one of the best ways we can prevent is is monitoring what
1:00:41
our children are exposed to. And mothers, I think, are
1:00:43
especially good at that. Not out of fear, though.
1:00:48
We protect out of love, love for God and his designs.
1:00:52
So I, I don't think you, you need as a mom to be a crusader
1:00:55
against all of culture or even against your children, you know,
1:01:01
but just first and foremost out of love, trusting that God with
1:01:04
you will help protect your children from media and other
1:01:09
factors that are and expose them and try to sexualize them at an
1:01:12
earlier age and is helpful. That's my first instinct.
1:01:15
I, I love that. I mean, obviously protecting
1:01:18
your kids from, you know, pornographic media or media with
1:01:22
sexual themes when they're young is very important.
1:01:26
What about relationships with peer groups?
1:01:28
Because you mentioned that can also be a challenge for kids.
1:01:31
They're getting bullied or unfortunately, you know, kids
1:01:34
who are sexually abused may go on to to sexually, you know,
1:01:38
experiment with other kids, you know, live out and play out what
1:01:41
they endured. What would be other advice you'd
1:01:42
have for for moms to protect their kids?
1:01:44
Yeah. And for moms in particular, I
1:01:46
think befriending and being friends with the parents of your
1:01:51
children's friends, that's kind of by default how I think a lot
1:01:54
of this millennial people grew up.
1:01:56
Like my mom and dad were friends with a lot of my friend's
1:02:00
parents, which I think is a good thing because then you're
1:02:03
connecting with each other's lives and families and
1:02:06
connecting with families who share similar values.
1:02:08
It's not that life is black and white.
1:02:10
And I get that the the range of values is going to be not
1:02:13
perfectly aligned family to family, but cultivating
1:02:16
relationships with families that share your values so you can
1:02:19
trust when your children are together that there's a lower
1:02:22
likelihood that there's going to be problems.
1:02:24
I do think we're at a stage in a place where parents need to be
1:02:26
vigilant about who their children are staying or playing
1:02:30
with how what play dates look like.
1:02:33
I don't want to cause fear. I'm not at all trying to
1:02:35
encourage fear. But I think limiting exposure,
1:02:38
guiding and guarding who our children are around and trying
1:02:42
to really inculcate good themes early on, like what we might
1:02:45
talk about a little bit like music for children, that's
1:02:48
really positive, educational materials for children, that's
1:02:51
really positive. And also we haven't got to this
1:02:53
yet, but sexual education. Let's talk about that in terms
1:02:56
of like education on life and love, not just like mechanics,
1:03:00
you know, it's just so like reductive to be like, oh, we
1:03:03
need to provide sexual education that teaches all these
1:03:05
mechanics. It's like, what about fostering
1:03:08
understanding of love and understanding of relationship?
1:03:11
That's such a good point. And I, I think we've talked
1:03:14
about this before in the show, but I know I talk about it in my
1:03:16
work at live action, but sex education, like you use the word
1:03:20
mechanics. It's about literally putting a
1:03:22
condom on a banana. I mean, for a lot of kids today
1:03:26
and the mechanics of how sex works when sex is about a
1:03:28
relationship, it's not just about body parts.
1:03:31
You know, you are a person. You're not a just a body, you
1:03:34
are, your body is a person, I should say, and you are a soul
1:03:37
and a body and that makes you a person, a human person.
1:03:40
And so I love that idea of let's educate them on on life and love
1:03:45
as opposed to let's just talk about sex.
1:03:47
Sex is part of life and love. What does good sexual education
1:03:51
look like? And the church writes about
1:03:53
this. Just recently I was reviewing a
1:03:55
document from 1995, the Vatican Post published a document on
1:04:00
this, sexual education in the family.
1:04:02
And I think we really want, I'm really passionate about
1:04:05
empowering parents to know that it is their responsibility,
1:04:08
their duty, their privilege, and their right as parents to be the
1:04:11
primary educators of their children.
1:04:13
They should never be forced out of the conversation.
1:04:16
And anything that they, let's say, turn over to an outside
1:04:20
entity should be minimal in this topic and should be very well
1:04:25
guarded. And that's complicated because a
1:04:27
lot of times parents have children in public schools or
1:04:30
even in Catholic schools that might not align completely with
1:04:33
their ideals. But you have a responsibility to
1:04:38
educate your children, and if they're asking questions to you,
1:04:42
mom and dad, they're old enough to start talking about it.
1:04:44
That's a good sign, even if it's a little earlier than you might
1:04:47
think they should. In general we should not be
1:04:49
having these conversations on life and love specifically.
1:04:53
Probably to a little closer towards puberty.
1:04:56
There's no exact age. Puberty's happening early and
1:04:58
earlier too I think for men and women.
1:05:00
So maybe 8 to 10 for girls, 10 to 11 years old for boys.
1:05:05
But you have to know your family and your children and if if
1:05:08
they're old enough to ask pointed questions that somehow
1:05:11
that door is open now and pre act preemptively you need to be
1:05:15
considering What age do you think your children are ready to
1:05:17
hear this? Once puberty's hit the ship is
1:05:20
kind of sailed. Like, you mean you can correct
1:05:22
course, but we should be preemptively considering these
1:05:25
things. And one thing I love, a friend
1:05:27
of mine who's a priest was telling me when we were talking
1:05:29
about sexual education and families, He said a father that
1:05:33
wrote Jared O'Shea I think his name was, he wrote a program on
1:05:36
this that I'll have to remember the resource.
1:05:38
I can send it later. But the idea was that his sons
1:05:41
and him met once a week as they started getting closer to those
1:05:44
ages on Sundays for conversations scaled over time
1:05:49
every week about life and love. Every week.
1:05:52
It wasn't a conversation. It wasn't like a birds and the
1:05:54
bees conversation. It was cultivating a discussion
1:05:58
on life and love over a period of a year.
1:06:01
That themes began to emerge more gradually over time.
1:06:06
And that then is a relationship building experience.
1:06:09
OK. Because think about this.
1:06:11
You catch up on everything. Yeah.
1:06:12
And you can't cover everything in a in a talk.
1:06:14
But what you can do is foster. There's no shame.
1:06:16
You can foster that. This is a relationship you can
1:06:19
come to if you're in need because what what is one of the
1:06:22
worst things that can happen? A child has questions and they
1:06:26
turn to who? Their friends, the Internet,
1:06:29
That's like the worst case scenario.
1:06:32
Their teachers, no offense, teachers are great.
1:06:33
But like this isn't like for mom and dad.
1:06:36
So if you preemptively start these conversations over a
1:06:39
period of time, especially dads with their boys, excuse me, moms
1:06:42
with their daughters, I think that's the foundation for
1:06:46
relationship, which builds trust.
1:06:49
And then the children will continue to turn towards you
1:06:51
when those newer, more specific questions or difficulties begin
1:06:56
to emerge. What about protecting kids from
1:07:00
sexual abuse by educating them? There's like, especially like in
1:07:04
the mommy Blogger world and mommy Instagram world, talking
1:07:08
to your kids in advance about their bodies.
1:07:10
This is your body. It's only for you.
1:07:12
These are your, you know, these parts are private.
1:07:14
They're only if mom is, you know, changing your diaper or
1:07:16
you know, or what, they're a little bit older.
1:07:18
You know, you don't play with this part of our body.
1:07:19
This no one is supposed to touch this part of your body.
1:07:21
If someone makes you uncomfortable, then you know,
1:07:23
there's a whole, you know, there's a whole script that they
1:07:27
encourage parents maybe to use. What's your take on that?
1:07:31
I think it's good. I think you should know your own
1:07:33
children though, and try to be sensitive to like what age and
1:07:36
to what degree your child can tolerate that information.
1:07:41
And I think the default is what is your intention and attitude
1:07:44
as a parent? Do you have fear or are you
1:07:46
educating out of love? That's the whole story, right?
1:07:49
Like, am I educating out of fear or out of love?
1:07:52
And I love Father Jacques Philippe.
1:07:53
He writes a lot about false compassion versus Oh my gosh, he
1:07:56
changed my life. And he writes about false
1:07:59
compassion versus true compassion.
1:08:01
He says false compassion comes and I do this all the time.
1:08:05
Jesus help me. False compassion comes out of a
1:08:07
sense that God does not love this person infinitely more than
1:08:11
I do, and God is not capable of caring for them through whatever
1:08:15
they go through infinitely more than I am.
1:08:17
Whereas true compassion is grounded in the knowledge that
1:08:20
God loves this child infinitely more than I love them, and is
1:08:25
there is for them infinitely more than I can even be for
1:08:28
them. And so entrust in God's
1:08:30
fatherhood, entrust that these children are gifts that I am
1:08:34
stewarding. They are God's children.
1:08:37
I, out of love for God's designs, offer education to my
1:08:41
children. You're good to go because out of
1:08:45
love, if you offer these scripts, it will come across to
1:08:48
your children as love, but if it's out of fear, it will cause
1:08:52
them fear. And fear drives things in
1:08:56
directions that are not helpful. So love, love, love.
1:09:00
I know it sounds simple, but it's it's simple but tough.
1:09:03
We need to ask for the grace. Parents, I want to encourage
1:09:06
moms and dads listening to this. You are not educating on your
1:09:10
own. God is with you.
1:09:11
He is for you. He is more for you than you are
1:09:13
for yourself. So do we trust that as
1:09:16
Christians? Do we trust that the Sacred
1:09:17
Heart of Jesus is for us, not against us?
1:09:20
Because if we trust that, these conversations will be fruitful.
1:09:24
But when we come out of fear, it's not as helpful.
1:09:27
And the last thing I'll add, I know I'm rambling a little.
1:09:29
Bit no, it's great. It's great.
1:09:30
What, what I think is really great to consider is even if
1:09:34
something bad happens to your child, God forbid, your reaction
1:09:38
can make it better or worse. So if your child does come home
1:09:42
and say, so and so touched me in my private swimsuit area, if as
1:09:46
a parent in love, you can trust that God is with you and your
1:09:49
child, you need not overreact or react in fear.
1:09:53
That reactivity can actually cause trauma where there might
1:09:56
not have been much trauma yet. Maybe they say, mom, you know,
1:10:00
somebody touched me here and it felt good and exciting.
1:10:02
That might be a great chance to say, oh, you know what that's
1:10:06
normal that it felt that way. But that's something we say for
1:10:08
marriage and that's something we only, you know, we, we keep
1:10:11
private for very good reasons. And so let's talk more about
1:10:14
that. So we're.
1:10:14
Talking about like an adolescent who had this inadvertent sexual
1:10:17
experience and they're sharing it with the parent.
1:10:19
It could be an adolescent, it could be even a child who, you
1:10:22
know, through some child play that got went wrong with other
1:10:27
kids. You know, I'm not saying it's a
1:10:29
good idea. Children should not play and
1:10:31
engage in sexual play that is unhealthy and harmful to
1:10:33
children. But sometimes something might
1:10:35
happen where your child relays a story to you that goes against
1:10:39
even those boundaries and outlines you've set.
1:10:41
How do you react as a parent? And if you react in fear and
1:10:44
excessive reactivity, that might send a message that I've done
1:10:49
something wrong. I should be ashamed and imagine
1:10:52
the pleasure is not the problem. So if a child says it felt good
1:10:55
when a friend touched me there, that pleasure they felt is
1:10:59
normal to the body. So the pleasure is not the
1:11:03
problem. The problem is they were touched
1:11:05
inappropriately by and they shouldn't have been.
1:11:08
So as a parent, you can acknowledge and reflect their
1:11:11
experience. Oh, at that felt exciting when
1:11:14
somebody touched you. OK, well that's normal for it to
1:11:16
feel that way, but we shouldn't be touched like that and just
1:11:19
redirect and use that as another grounds for of course, if you
1:11:22
need to set a boundary or address any abuse, that's
1:11:24
essential. But then in terms of your
1:11:26
reactivity to your child themselves, not reacting in fear
1:11:30
is very important because then they might internalize shame.
1:11:33
I've done something wrong when they at age 5 or 6 years old,
1:11:37
they don't fully understand what even happened to them yet.
1:11:39
And we don't want to. We don't want to cause fear or
1:11:42
shame for a child in that situation.
1:11:46
But certainly if there's, you know, somebody who is, it's not
1:11:49
just two kids of the same age having play and then
1:11:52
accidentally, there's some sexual element to it.
1:11:55
But we're also talking about maybe sexual abuse where it's an
1:11:58
authority figure or someone who's older and they are
1:12:02
sexualizing the child. And in that case, I mean, isn't
1:12:05
it good to have healthy fear? I mean, should the child have
1:12:07
fear of that? Certainly that person there
1:12:10
should be justice. Right.
1:12:11
For that kid and that person is, you know, gets gets
1:12:16
accountability for what they've done, you know, et cetera.
1:12:19
Right, if if there's any suspicion that your child has
1:12:21
been abused and even by the way, same same age play is can cause
1:12:25
abusive factors and often children that engage in that.
1:12:30
We're taught that by an adult. So I'm not minimizing the damage
1:12:33
that can be done even by same age childhood sexual
1:12:36
experimentation. It's not good.
1:12:37
It's not helpful, especially before the age of reason.
1:12:40
It causes extreme amounts of shame and confusion for children
1:12:42
because pleasure feelings are rousing the body before they're
1:12:45
rationally capable of acknowledging what's happening
1:12:47
and and guiding it towards right action.
1:12:50
So it's very harmful. It should be avoided.
1:12:52
We need to protect children and especially if there is any
1:12:55
suspicion of abuse from an adult, take every step necessary
1:12:59
to protect and act to justice. Combat that abuse.
1:13:03
Remove your child from that situation.
1:13:05
But your emotional reaction to your child, if it is excessive
1:13:09
and fearful to them, might not help them process what happened.
1:13:14
To them. There's a few more questions I
1:13:16
want to ask, picking up on some threads we dropped earlier that
1:13:19
you know, there's so many, so much good stuff in this
1:13:21
interview, so thank you a lot. A lot to think, think about lots
1:13:25
of substance here when it comes to you mentioned, you know,
1:13:30
these are kind of anonymized stories of clients and you
1:13:32
talked about the, you know, someone who is having struggling
1:13:36
with these compulsive sexual behaviors here.
1:13:40
This is something we've talked about in the show before.
1:13:42
I'm curious your take on it. Do you think that someone who is
1:13:44
struggling with compulsive sexual behaviors should be in a
1:13:47
relationship, should be dating, or should get married?
1:13:52
Should is a strong word I think. Would you recommend it?
1:13:55
I would say let me order this towards a general idea to
1:14:01
prepare oneself for relationship with others.
1:14:04
Work on yourself. The point at which someone is
1:14:10
ready for a relationship is such a nuanced topic that I would be
1:14:15
cautious to make a general recommendation.
1:14:18
Are you being honest with yourself about your struggles?
1:14:21
Are you being honest with others about your struggles?
1:14:24
Are you actively seeking help and support?
1:14:27
And are you being honest with the person you're trying to
1:14:29
potentially date? I think this is really about
1:14:32
honesty, preparation, and receptivity more than I can give
1:14:36
a practical, specific guideline. Healing is messy.
1:14:41
And here's the thing. As a therapist, I've accompanied
1:14:44
many clients for many years who are striving to follow God.
1:14:51
That's the key. And are we open to God's work in
1:14:55
our life and grace upon grace implies to me, God help me to be
1:15:01
open to you working in my life. We don't even have to be open on
1:15:04
our own. So that's the message of hope I
1:15:06
want to give because this healing journey, Lila, it's
1:15:08
messy. It's up and down for people.
1:15:10
Many people we're working with have gone through and people
1:15:13
like you know, who have struggled with same sex
1:15:14
attraction have complex, varied stories of a whole variety of
1:15:18
factors in their life that are making this area of their life
1:15:22
difficult to integrate. So I would just dare, dare
1:15:26
people to be hopeful, to be honest with themselves and
1:15:28
others and seek help before jumping into a relationship as
1:15:31
some kind of, I don't know, prescriptive measure.
1:15:34
Oh, I, I have these issues. If I just date or get married,
1:15:38
that'll help resolve my compulsive behaviors.
1:15:40
No, Nope, absolutely not. We need to face those and deal
1:15:44
with them. But recovery is a journey.
1:15:47
And so where someone in their recovery journey is ready to
1:15:50
date is going to be very individualized.
1:15:52
But as Catholics, I would say, are you seeking spiritual
1:15:54
direction? Are you getting wise counsel?
1:15:57
And are you in the Sacramento life?
1:15:59
Things like that or important to consider.
1:16:01
Do you think that priests with same sex attraction should?
1:16:06
Let's start with the seminarians.
1:16:07
Actually, do you think that men with same sex attraction should
1:16:11
go to seminary? That topic is fraught with a lot
1:16:15
of nuance. People like Doctor Timothy
1:16:18
Locke, who's a good friend of mine working in Connecticut at a
1:16:21
seminary up there, They, him and some other psychologists just
1:16:24
released a white paper on this topic.
1:16:26
The church says men with deep seated same sex attractions
1:16:30
should not be admitted in a seminary.
1:16:33
And I hope Francis has reiterated the norms established
1:16:36
by his predecessors. So this is not controversial in
1:16:40
the magisterial direction of the church's teachings.
1:16:43
What is controversial is how active it's been applied and how
1:16:46
to apply it well. And I do work with seminarians
1:16:49
and pre seminarians some as well as a therapist and in
1:16:52
educational capacities. And what we want to think about
1:16:55
is affective maturity. That's the term the church is
1:16:58
going to use a lot and they're going to see this issue from the
1:17:01
lens of psychosexual maturity. Somebody who is psychosexually
1:17:04
mature and affective and mature is both capable of receiving the
1:17:08
gift of their sexuality and freely offering that gift in in
1:17:12
the celibate priesthood. So if that person is struggling
1:17:16
with deep seated homosexual tendencies and is not yet
1:17:19
resolved underlying factors or grown or matured through those
1:17:23
issues, then the seminaries are going to be hesitant to admit
1:17:27
them. And out of a desire that they
1:17:29
are able to heal and mature and grow in a way that would make
1:17:31
them capable of giving the free gift of the celibate folk,
1:17:36
celibate calling to God. So could it be possible for
1:17:40
someone to have experienced deep seated same sex sexual
1:17:43
attraction and then later on through a healing process, be
1:17:47
free from that intense, that level of intense same sex sexual
1:17:51
attraction? I believe so.
1:17:54
Have you seen that in your practice?
1:17:56
I have seen it in my practice, but I've also I've not worked
1:18:00
with seminarians specifically in that capacity I'm.
1:18:02
Talking generally too of just people that had the deep seated
1:18:04
nature of of the attraction. Yeah, but let's not just limit
1:18:07
it to my practice. Let's talk about people like
1:18:09
your friend Kim Zimber. Let's talk about people like the
1:18:12
Protestant brothers and sisters we have at the Changed Movement.
1:18:14
Let's talk about personal friends of mine, one who I was
1:18:17
just talking with this morning, who I went through therapeutic
1:18:20
peer support groups with 10 years ago, who is married with
1:18:24
three beautiful children to a woman he loves, who both support
1:18:27
me and encourage me in my own journey steps ahead.
1:18:30
I sang at their wedding. These people need to know these
1:18:33
stories are real. I think some people in the
1:18:36
culture and again, I don't want to, I feel like I'm, I'm a
1:18:38
negative Nancy in this interview a lot, but I'm doing this
1:18:40
intentionally because I, I want this to help people who have
1:18:43
these objections like that is my and I know that's your heart
1:18:45
too. So I think some people might
1:18:47
say, well, they're just pretending.
1:18:50
They're just putting on this, you know, because they have so
1:18:54
much shame around same sex attraction and gay marriage and
1:18:56
stuff. So they're putting on this other
1:18:58
personality, but they're still restricted.
1:19:00
You know, they're, they're not fully free.
1:19:04
That's an interesting angle, huh?
1:19:05
Well, the science is clear. Sexual fluidity is real.
1:19:09
Even people like Doctor Lisa Diamond, who is a leading pro
1:19:13
LGBT lesbian identified researcher, put out a Ted talk
1:19:16
called Born This Way is a Lie and you can find that Ted talk
1:19:20
on YouTube. I don't recommend it because
1:19:22
it's full of other lies, but she argues in the name of sexual
1:19:26
liberation Born This Way is unjust because she acknowledges
1:19:31
through her research of female same sex attraction, the
1:19:33
fluidity is so significant that women have the quote right to
1:19:37
sexual fluidity and if they are taught the lie that it's born
1:19:40
that way, they won't be rightfully allowed to experiment
1:19:43
with homosexuality. Now her conclusion is wild.
1:19:45
As a Christian I obviously think that's not a good idea, but the
1:19:48
evidence she uses is very convincing that you are not just
1:19:51
born one way or the other. Fluidity exists, the science is
1:19:54
clear, it's a spectrum. Men's sexual feelings things
1:19:58
tend to be less fluid from research than women's, but a lot
1:20:01
of this has to do with personal conviction and desires and
1:20:04
goals. If a man comes to me or to
1:20:07
ministry with same sex attraction and doesn't desire to
1:20:09
explore the underlying causes, but just wants to live in line
1:20:12
with their own conscience, there's ministry we can do to
1:20:14
support them trying to just live according chastely according to
1:20:16
the Catholic teachings. But if somebody comes to you and
1:20:19
says like, but I really want to be married and have a family, I
1:20:21
feel a call from God. How do we help them and?
1:20:26
I think that it can be very unfair to put people into
1:20:30
categorical change or not change sort of paradigms because, OK,
1:20:35
think about this. People come to therapy for
1:20:37
anxiety. They have a 10 out of 10 anxiety
1:20:40
panic disorder over 2 years in therapy and through ministry
1:20:43
support and through peer support, they go down from A10
1:20:47
to a four and they're mostly functional, but they still
1:20:50
struggle. Would we be like, well, you
1:20:51
didn't really change because it's not completely gone or, you
1:20:55
know, you didn't 100% rid this scourge of this difficulty from
1:20:58
your life. No, we would celebrate the way
1:21:01
they were able to find healing and growth and encourage to face
1:21:04
their problems. So why do we put this false
1:21:07
paradigm of black and white thinking and sort of writing
1:21:10
someone else's narrative for them with this issue?
1:21:13
I think it's unfair, it's unrealistic and I don't know,
1:21:16
just take people out their word. Like I love his, I'm not going
1:21:18
to say their names because it's private, but like his three
1:21:21
children are adorable and beautiful and they have a happy
1:21:23
family and they, I go to church with them.
1:21:25
It's like that's a real family. Like you're saying, don't let
1:21:28
you're calling them repressed. That's up for them to decide.
1:21:31
Yeah, let somebody else decide what's repressed.
1:21:33
And like, my friend is not repressed.
1:21:35
He's wonderful and loving and a good father, a heck of a father
1:21:40
and an encourager and a brother to me and people like that.
1:21:43
I'm not telling a story to say everyone should do that or
1:21:46
everyone's even capable of that. I don't know what God has in
1:21:49
store for each person. But like, I'm not going to limit
1:21:51
people. I'm not going to put an
1:21:52
arbitrary limitation on what God can do in their life.
1:21:56
I have been healed of so many things in my life that I didn't
1:21:58
think were possible. I mean physical healing,
1:22:00
spiritual healings, psychological healings.
1:22:03
The healing of God is real and it comes in many forms.
1:22:06
And we need to be champions of hope because it all points to
1:22:09
like eternal hope, right? Like it's all like every healing
1:22:12
we experience psychologically, spiritually, every way we are
1:22:16
able to more image Christ in the world through marriage in which
1:22:19
prefigures the eternal, we're the bride of Christ.
1:22:22
So all these signs of God's love and goodness in our life, like
1:22:25
let's not limit it. We're Christians.
1:22:27
Let's be countercultural and dare to like proclaim the
1:22:30
goodness of the gospel, which would be hard to believe how
1:22:32
good it is. Not like easy to write it off.
1:22:35
I love that. Do you think we're going to see
1:22:37
a time in our culture and in California where the script will
1:22:42
be flipped on all of these sexuality things back to
1:22:45
reality, back to truth? I think it's worth fighting for.
1:22:50
And I don't mean fighting with violence, you know that, but
1:22:53
just in case anyone's listening that's going to accuse me of
1:22:56
that, I think it's worth fighting for.
1:22:58
And we fight by our, our love and by the way we try to dare
1:23:02
people to see something that is true and beautiful and good
1:23:07
within themselves. I, I cannot get people to do
1:23:11
anything. The Holy Spirit can speak
1:23:12
through us to reveal people to themselves.
1:23:16
So, you know, if somebody's promoting a vision for human
1:23:19
flourishing that is false and bad and ugly, we don't have to
1:23:22
rely on ourselves to, to fight this battle.
1:23:25
The Holy Spirit is with us. Amen.
1:23:28
You've created music yourself. This is one of your passions
1:23:31
about the body and these things for kids.
1:23:35
I mean, that's something that you're you're very passionate
1:23:38
about. Can you share a little more
1:23:39
about that? Yes.
1:23:41
So I love music and I grew up going to Vacation Bible school
1:23:46
and learning songs for Bible verses, like throughout my
1:23:48
childhood. Did you ever go to those like
1:23:50
Vacation Bible schools? Yeah, I did a little bit of
1:23:52
that. OK, so like I have all these
1:23:54
verses of the Bible in my mind from Vacation Bible school songs
1:23:57
that I can still like recall at any moment.
1:23:59
And that kind of tells me the power of music to teach lessons
1:24:03
to children. Have you noticed that some of
1:24:05
the music that children listen to though is obnoxious at best
1:24:10
at times and sometimes like almost hypnotic and bizarre like
1:24:12
Coco Melon? Coco Melon, I know, it's so
1:24:14
true. Yeah.
1:24:15
And it's also remarkable. So Mr. Rogers has this very
1:24:21
lovely regal. I mean, it's like there's a
1:24:24
refinement to it, but there's a down to Earthness to it.
1:24:27
And it's very normal. He's not like trying to
1:24:30
entertain them. Like, yeah, look at me, I'm so
1:24:32
crazy and like, la, la, la, la, bright colors.
1:24:34
Like he's just this very, like, genteel is the word.
1:24:37
He's a very genteel, kind man, but he's still captivating.
1:24:42
Now, if you put a kid on a steady diet of coca melon, he
1:24:44
might struggle to be entertained by Mr. Rogers.
1:24:48
But if Mr. Rogers is his access to, you know, that's his
1:24:50
experience with TV, then he'll learn, you know, he'll learn
1:24:53
stuff and he'll be captivated by Mr. Rogers.
1:24:55
So yes, I think there's so much power there.
1:24:58
Yeah, I've been reading a book called The World According to
1:25:00
Mr. Rogers right now. He studied child development
1:25:03
throughout his entire life. Wow.
1:25:05
He was a minister, he was a devout Christian, and he was an
1:25:07
expert musician. That man.
1:25:10
I have wept recently reading his literature of of little
1:25:14
statements about life and love and child development that he
1:25:16
wrote. He was brilliant.
1:25:19
What? Made you cry.
1:25:21
So many different things. Basically, his life philosophy
1:25:24
was that children need to be allowed to learn that they're
1:25:26
loved. That's the most important thing
1:25:28
that a child could ever learn is that they're loved just as they
1:25:30
are. But he did not limit people to
1:25:32
what they could become. He wanted to foster the capacity
1:25:36
to see potential for yourself. And his gentleness, I think it
1:25:40
was when he writes, if you listen to his songs, he's just
1:25:43
so gentle. But he's still a man, you know,
1:25:46
that's a thing. Like no one questioned that he
1:25:48
was married to a woman. He was a father, he was not.
1:25:52
He was childlike without being too childish.
1:25:55
He was gentle without being effeminate.
1:25:57
Yeah. Which is, which is striking
1:26:00
because I think there is the, the stereotype that if you're
1:26:03
gentle, then you're not man, right?
1:26:06
Or if you're not gentle, then somehow you are strong in some
1:26:10
way. Or you're, you know, tough.
1:26:11
Right. He was a scholarly type.
1:26:13
He was a musician. So could that be masculine?
1:26:17
Yes. We we don't want to get caught
1:26:19
in this sort of like cultural dichotomy that masculinity is
1:26:22
equivalent to much machoness or something.
1:26:25
He was very masculine and so he's like a model for me of how
1:26:29
to write songs for children and and the good that music can do
1:26:33
to teach children about their lovableness, about the goodness
1:26:36
of their bodies. I think the reason I got excited
1:26:39
about writing these songs is because I have two hats I've
1:26:41
worn throughout my life. One is music educator.
1:26:43
I taught voice lessons and piano lessons and music theater camps
1:26:46
for kids, music ministry, working in churches with
1:26:48
children's choirs and children's caroling groups.
1:26:51
But then also now I'm a therapist and I study
1:26:52
development and human psychology.
1:26:54
And so I thought, how can these two parts of me kind of get
1:26:57
integrated? And this idea through a friend
1:27:00
of mine who's a priest, and also through my own reflection, came
1:27:02
that we should write songs that encourage constructs of theology
1:27:07
of the body of Catholic anthropology to teach lessons,
1:27:10
lessons to kids at age appropriate ways that can stick
1:27:13
with them and maybe provide the foundation for some meaningful
1:27:17
educational experiences based in music.
1:27:20
I love that Mister Rogers, we both love him.
1:27:24
But you were saying he's inspired you to write more songs
1:27:26
for kids yourself. And there's there's songs about
1:27:29
the body. Yep.
1:27:31
And self worth. Can I venture to say that or?
1:27:34
Sure. Yeah.
1:27:34
Like authentic self worth, which is rooted in God's view of us as
1:27:38
children. Yeah.
1:27:40
Can you share one of your songs? I will happily share about my
1:27:44
songs. And these songs are educational
1:27:46
material, so they're catechetical.
1:27:48
So they're more complex than, let's say, just like a generic
1:27:52
praise song, although praise is a part of these songs, praise of
1:27:55
God, but they're meant to go along with educational
1:27:58
materials. So organizations like Rua Woods
1:28:00
Institute, have you heard of them?
1:28:02
No, I have not tell. Me about that.
1:28:03
Rua Woods Institute is a psychological institute leading
1:28:06
the charge on creating curriculum K through 12 that
1:28:10
integrates theology of the body concepts and they're lessons for
1:28:13
kindergarten and 1st grade. Yes, they're narrative based.
1:28:15
They have like storybooks they use to kind of make these very
1:28:18
visceral lessons for kids. And they're one group, another
1:28:22
group called Theology of the Body Parent School, which is one
1:28:25
another one that I'm familiar with who created workbooks for
1:28:28
children of this age range. And a lot of them use what the
1:28:31
Cardinal Newman Society published, what they called
1:28:34
Christian anthropology standards.
1:28:36
And these standards take Theology of the Body concepts
1:28:40
and Catholic theology concepts and boil them down to age
1:28:43
appropriate material, especially for, in this case, like 2 to six
1:28:47
years old, which is where my songs are focused.
1:28:50
So these songs, I'm looking for people like that to partner with
1:28:52
to potentially collaborate so that they can be paired with
1:28:54
these types of educational lessons so they can further be
1:28:58
points of discussion for family. Yeah, I'm so excited.
1:29:01
I cannot tell you how excited I am.
1:29:02
What's your favorite song? OK, several of them come to
1:29:05
mind. And I've realized I believed in
1:29:09
my whole life to write an album and share an album.
1:29:11
And I'm telling you, the Lord works in mysterious ways because
1:29:14
I never thought it would be writing children's music ever.
1:29:17
Ever. And the funniest part is God is
1:29:20
trying to help me not take myself as seriously.
1:29:22
And then this album I had to make animal sounds.
1:29:24
So it's really hard to take yourself seriously when you're
1:29:26
inking like a pig. So Jesus is helping me be
1:29:28
childlike. One of the songs that I love to
1:29:31
think is part of the antidote to sort of the gender ideology
1:29:33
stuff is just the basic teaching that the body and soul are one,
1:29:38
You can't be born in the wrong body, right?
1:29:41
Like that's kind of basic Christian teaching.
1:29:43
So that song for mine, my album is called God Gave Me Me.
1:29:49
Do you want me to share a? Part of it, yeah, please.
1:29:51
Do I've been talking a lot, OK? God gave me my body and I like
1:29:57
it. God gave me my soul.
1:30:00
They're both mine. They are 1 and that's what makes
1:30:04
me me and God loves me all the time.
1:30:09
I said God gave me my body and I like it.
1:30:14
God gave me my soul. They're both mine.
1:30:18
They are 1 and that's what makes me me and God loves me all the
1:30:28
time. Thank you.
1:30:33
That's lovely. There's verses, but we'll leave
1:30:36
that for mystery. That So that's the course.
1:30:39
That's the course, because for me, educational music has to be
1:30:42
catchy, singable, fun, silly. The verses, we get into a little
1:30:48
more deep theology, and that's partly 'cause when you're
1:30:50
educating children, you're educating the family.
1:30:52
So the parents are listening to the verses.
1:30:54
They're able to think about more deep concepts.
1:30:57
I'll share a verse with that song for you.
1:30:59
The soul you cannot see, but God gives it to you freely, giving
1:31:06
life to your body. Your soul can love completely.
1:31:12
Oh, God gave me my body and I like it.
1:31:16
God gave me my soul. They're both mine.
1:31:21
They are 1 and that's what makes me me.
1:31:24
And we love you all the time. Yes Lord.
1:31:29
Thank you God for all you've given me, and we love you all
1:31:38
the time. Very cool.
1:31:43
I don't want to share it, so we're going to have to link that
1:31:45
in the bio or link that in the description so that folks can
1:31:48
find it. Michael, this has been awesome.
1:31:50
How can people find your work? They can visit me on my website,
1:31:54
which you guys can link if you want, Michael gasparo.com, so
1:31:57
I'm available there. You can contact me reach out to
1:32:00
me for any kind of questions they have.
1:32:02
And are there any resources that you would also recommend, and
1:32:05
this might be at your website too, for people who are
1:32:09
themselves experiencing same sex attraction or they have loved
1:32:13
ones who are and they're looking for good therapists, good people
1:32:17
to accompany them? There's a couple.
1:32:19
Do you mind if I share a couple of resources?
1:32:20
OK, So the Catholic psychotherapies, I'm not being
1:32:23
paid for this, by the way, these are not paid promotions.
1:32:26
The Catholic Psychotherapy Association is a fantastic group
1:32:30
based out of Georgia with hundreds of psychologists and
1:32:32
therapists from around the country who are committed to the
1:32:35
teachings of the church. We don't all agree on exactly
1:32:38
how to address this issue or, you know, there's lots of nuance
1:32:41
with therapeutically modalities and ministry support, but we're
1:32:45
that organization is on the same page.
1:32:47
The teachings of the Church are true, and we need to help people
1:32:50
live in accord with them. Catholic Psychotherapy
1:32:53
Association. I'm on the board for a therapy
1:32:55
organization called the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and
1:32:58
Scientific Integrity, devoted to promoting a judeo-christian
1:33:03
worldview of human sexuality and providing professional,
1:33:05
competent therapy in accord with that vision.
1:33:09
Check them out. Another really good resource are
1:33:12
ministry support organizations. You have people like Doctor Bob
1:33:15
Schutz who you probably know about JP 2 Healing Institute and
1:33:19
the Theology of the Body Institute where and desert
1:33:22
streams, Living Waters which is ministry and pastoral
1:33:26
organizations here towards spiritual especially matters
1:33:29
that can influence sexual brokenness, sexual wounds.
1:33:33
And there's many other resources, but those are a few
1:33:36
to start with and they can reach out to me if they want
1:33:38
additional ideas. Amazing.
1:33:41
Thank you so much, Michael. You're awesome.
1:33:42
Keep up the good work. Thank you.
1:33:44
It's so. Important for having me for for.
1:33:45
Coming thanks for singing Yeah, bringing the guitar next time or
1:33:50
the piano you. Don't have to twist my arm to
1:33:52
sing. I'll sing anytime.
1:33:53
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