In the group photo, the woman in the purple dress looks more like a man than Talackova.

The group photo and the video are from the "International Queen" contest ( http://www.missinternationalqueen.com/ ) which requires all participants to have been born male, but now are transgender. So, all the women in that picture and the contestants in the video below it are transgendered females. Kind of makes you wonder how she was admitted to the contest that booted him/her out if the other contest was public knowledge. I think I agree about the one in purple... these people have been undergoing a lot of hormonal treatments and years of operations.

Just plead the fifth guys

Good one...

or, "the b set me up!"-- Mayor Berry when caught on tape buying cocaine.

Eastcoast, you can rest assured that your latent homosexual appreciation has not been revealed by Jenna, for his form is distinctly female. All you've done is to re-affirm that you have an appreciation of the female form of beauty. I can claim as much.

What I have claimed is that all men are inherently 'bisexual' in that they can be sexually excited by the distinct kinds of beauty found in both female and male forms. I have tried to remove the confusion of 'male beauty' in the guise of female impersonators or androgynous men who look good as women. Those don't count, for obvious reasons.

I mean that there are men out there that are undeniably male yet are beautiful, and even sexy, at the same time. Four such men are, when they were in their late teens and early twenties, Elijah Wood (as Frodo), Leonardo DiCaprio, David Cassidy, and Kevin Bacon (such as in his speedo scene in Friday the 13th). Yet, I have seen men in gay porn more beautiful than they were.

Out of the frustration I have had dealing with the denial of so-called 100% straight men, a couple years ago I made a CD of images from gay porn of beautiful sexy men that could drive any self-proclaimed straight man wild with homosexual lust. (None of the images were x-rated, by the way.) Obviously, I couldn't actually unleash the CD on any proud so-called heterosexual, so I destroyed the thing. But just to have made it was cathartic to me in the point that all men are capable of homosexual lust and they should get over their prideful denial and homophobia.

Just the same, don't go looking for these images out of curiosity, because they have the power to allure. And once allured, will you ever be able to break free? Homosexuality is on the rise, and the Internet gay porn is helping it; I'm sure of that. All beauty is seductive.

If the number of beautiful males were equal to the number of beautiful females in the world, we wouldn't need to have this conversation. For in that case, the universality of male bisexuality would be accepted. Remember the ancient Greeks? Remember Sodom? Remember God's promise to turn ungodly cultures over to homosexuality? One Eastern European man recently conjectured that the number of beautiful men is on the rise due to genetic mutation. Well, if so, that's one way to increase male homosexuality in a society.

Beautiful men are not handsome, muscle-bound, or hairy (nor are they skinny), thus they are not the kind of men women have typically wanted. These men are free of facial and body hair, have gracile (ectomorph) forms, and are in the perfect spot concerning testosterone. Much less and they'd look physically immature. Much more and they'd lose their beauty to the increase in body and facial hair and overly grown muscles and bones. But a perfectly beautiful male is so well-proportioned in muscle and bone that even the Golden Ratio is jealous of them! The ancient Greeks got close to this perfection in some of their renditions of Apollo.

Male adult beauty starts at 18 and goes only a few years beyond that. Some make it all the way to 25, but most lose it by 23. So, if you're a beautiful young man who desires to keep his beauty forever, then you're in the same predicament that faced the fictional character Dorian Gray.

Of these beautiful men with no body hair and gracile forms, the most beautiful among them tend to have the so-called swimmer's build - a V shape from the breast down to the waist (resulting in additional male curve going over the hips down the thighs and butt), so the kind of exercise that tones but doesn't add a lot of muscle can make a huge difference in beauty of the male form. However, you aren't likely to see this form in the Summer Olympics. I never have.

Not all gay men like this type of male form (or at least they claim they don't), but when I was a gay man, I did. The gay community has a term for this type of male form, but I will not promote it by stating it. Also, there are so many wrong and confusing definitions of this term that it is counterproductive to give it.

Question: which theory better accounts for and explains the existence of true male beauty and how men react to it? Evolutionism or Creationism.

(Indeed, I was being sarcastic about my liking Jenna proved you were correct about me and all men. I'm not saying that you're wrong, and I think we agree that its probably not worth experimenting, though perhaps there has been some type of study done. From what I've read, males are far less likely to be sexually confused, "bi-curious" than females. I can give you the article on an experiment done to document that and let you judge.)

Thanks for the Dorian Gray reference... I read a little about the story and it sounds very interesting.

Your argument that evolution can't explain this attraction, since it doesn't promote the continuation of the species seems valid and I would suppose that evolutionists have already analyzed that "problem" under the general heading of same sex attraction. I know sometimes they point out homosexual behavior among animals, but I think the truth is that animals stay bisexual contrary to humans. BTW, I don't think that using the word twink will harm anyone here.

I don't know why you decided not to share your CD with your heterosexual opponents. Did you fear for them? You could have just told them what's on the CD and let them decide. In all likelihood they would have taken the challenge and passed with flying colors like me! Just kidding with you. Anyway, I'm glad you found* Christ and got deliverance. Even though we have differences of opinion, we would probably get along well, given what we have in common. I hope this post hasn't caused you to stumble in any way.

Blessings!

* When you returned to your faith in Christ and were born again about 3 1/2 years ago, I think, did you feel like you had been truly saved "born again" for the first time? In other words, when you were young and a Christian were you more of a Christian in name only as opposed to having a valid new birth experience?

You said: (Indeed, I was being sarcastic about my liking Jenna proved you were correct about me and all men. I'm not saying that you're wrong, and I think we agree that its probably not worth experimenting, though perhaps there has been some type of study done. From what I've read, males are far less likely to be sexually confused, "bi-curious" than females. I can give you the article on an experiment done to document that and let you judge.)

I reply:

Einstein once said something along this line: It is the theory that tells you what you observe, meaning that it is the theory one believes in that forms the basis by which one interprets events. So, if one believed the theory that all men are bisexual, then one would not be confused to have bisexual desires. But if one believed that men are basically wired to be either hetero or homo, but not both, then a man might well be confused if he had desires for both genders.

But by the bisexual theory, I must interpret this mutually exclusive dualism of sexual preference into hetero or homo but not both as a social construct based largely on pride and societal or religious homophobia and the relative rarity of truly beautiful men to induce lust in men of the general population. And I remind you that the Bible does not support this theory of mutually exclusive sexual dualism, claiming rather that it is prideful to claim to be beyond any sin.

You said: BTW, I don't think that using the word ... will harm anyone here.

I reply:

Maybe not, but I don't want to take the chance. You can use it if you want, but I will refer to such a one as a Beautiful Young Man (BYM). Once a person does an Internet search on the word ... he or she will find a multitude of gay porn sites he or she really should not see. And if one looks up the definition of the word, one will undoubtly find many very incorrect definitions, as has happened to me when I looked up the definition from time to time to see how bad the definitions had become over the years.

You said: I don't know why you decided not to share your CD with your heterosexual opponents. Did you fear for them? [Yes, I did, spiritually.] You could have just told them what's on the CD and let them decide. In all likelihood they would have taken the challenge and passed with flying colors like me! Just kidding with you. [I know it's hard for you to believe my claim that no man could pass that test. No, not one, at least if he is not asexual.] Anyway, I'm glad you found* Christ and got deliverance. Even though we have differences of opinion, we would probably get along well, given what we have in common. I hope this post hasn't caused you to stumble in any way.

I reply:

Last year I toyed with the idea of writing a book on the Mystery of Beauty, that would cover every aspect of beauty, including male beauty. It would have even attempted to show the unnecessity of human beauty for the propogation of the specie. I did a lot of reading research and collected some photos/pics and artwork to support the two propositions that (1) male beauty is best explained by the Bible and creationism and that (2) homosexuality is on the rise in the West, a prediction of Romans 1, as I interpret it.

Evolutionists are free to present any fossil they choose to support their theory, but I am not allowed to present what I consider the best evidence of God the Creator (besides the Bible itself), which is a 'photo' essay on adult male beauty, which would have included at least some near nude male models. (Though I considered full frontal nudity uncessary to make my point.) It was very frustrating so I gave up the whole thing. I have no intension to reprise the subject, except perhaps in those areas that do not require human male models. There is still a lot to say about beauty in the world and its implication for a Creator, which is called an ontological 'argument from beauty'.

BTW, Oscar Wilde had a lot of interesting things to say about male beauty.

You said:

When you returned to your faith in Christ and were born again about 3 1/2 years ago, I think, did you feel like you had been truly saved "born again" for the first time? In other words, when you were young and a Christian were you more of a Christian in name only as opposed to having a valid new birth experience?

I say:

I will avoid doctrinal subtleties and say this: I believed at the time (about 1976) that I was saved, and I still believe that now about that initial experience. I am not a Calvinist. I believed that after a few years of defeat in trying to walk holy that I gave up trying and then fell away from God as a choice (rather than live as a hypocrite). But God was patient with me over the years and He waited for me to return to Him in June 2008. What changed in the interim? I came back with a radically different view of what the gospel demands of believers, and that gave me the victory I had not found the first time.

@Tristan....I REALLY appreciate your thoughts on male beauty and bisexuality...I completely agree with you regarding Believers not taking a posture that they are above any sin...it just inherently makes no sense to me when someone does, though I take it that is their way of saying they would never do such-and-such sin....there is an incredibly fine line between "never" and "never by God's Grace"...

We have some differences of opinion over the extent of what is sexual sin, but I think they are minor, whereas we agree on other issues of righteousness, homosexuality, walking in the Spirit...I am blessed to read your thoughts and am grateful for the Spirit's work in your life.

If you ever come out with a book, I hope you let us all know here, or me through a private message...I would absolutely love to read it! :]

In 1970, I responded to an altar call invitation after much pleading from my peers. I earnestly sought whatever they said I needed.. I was confused, but earnest. I prayed and read my Bible and confessed my faith to others at school. I had always been a conscientious person anyway, so there was no dramatic change of behavior. About a year later, I had already begun to fall away and through many discussions with a close friend, I became an atheist, or believed I was. One of the hardest things I ever did in my life was to tell my dad that. I remained of the atheist/agnostic persuasion until 1975 when I began to believe in a spiritual realm again and in 1976, I came under true conviction for my sins and my need to acknowledge Christ as my Lord and Savior. Once I did so, in private, I felt true relief of my burden, but no real difference internally. I told my mother the next day that I had rededicated myself to the Lord, because that's what I thought had happened. It was almost entirely a matter of faith and dedication, only, know inward assurance. On about the fifth or sixth day after my prayer and confession, it suddenly "hit me". The presence of the Holy Spirit entered my soul and I was born again for the first time. I would have experiences of such power sometimes just sitting on my bed, it seemed like a river was flowing through the ceiling, entering me and swooping out with a near out of body experience in the process. I haven't had many of those experiences, but my point is, my original "conversion" was not genuine salvation or genuine Christianity. It was nominal Christianity only. The experience of the new birth and the keen awareness that occurs, as a result, of the presence of Christ and the truth of the Bible is in extreme contrast to a "saved by faith" only situation.

@becomingwhole10

First, thank you for your comments. What I have to say is apparently not very popular on this forum or anywhere else. I knew the day I got saved in June 2008, that I would have difficulty getting the message of salvation and victory by 'walking in the Spirit' across to people, first because it is a message of total commitment to Christ and second because my intended audience is people younger than me, and I know there is this ageism at work against me. I have to fight this same prejudice myself, and I am getting old myself.

I can thoroughly appreciate the difficulty people have with Gal. 5:16, as I suffered also from not 'getting it' for the longest time. It is not a mantra to be said at the time of temptation, but a lifestyle of total commitment to Jesus and His gospel. But, at some point at least this insight occurred to me: Gal. 5:16 promises victory. Yes, somehow, if one could master this abstract action call 'walking in the Spirit', one would definitely attain victory over fleshly lusts. The question was, How does one walk in the Spirit? The answer soon appeared to me from other scriptures as obvious. There are many verses in the Bible that also claim how to get victory over sin and lust, and all we have to do to get this victory is to OBEY what they tell us to do. 1 John 2:10, Luke 11:41, John 5:44, 2 Peter 1:1-10, and 2 Cor. 8:21are just a few of them. By these verses and others, we learn what it means in practice how to 'walk in the Spirit'.

So, for these reasons I started on two series of Christian fantasy novels, both taking place on an inaccesible continent of old, and both having access to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I do not know if they will ever be published, as I have a number of doctrinal issues to resolve before I resubmit the first series, not the least of which is whether any fantasy fiction for Jesus is pleasing to God. And if God allows certain of them, what are the limits of such writing? For example, can God be a character, as was done in Quo Vadis? Deep questions needing clear answers. Of course, one good reason they might not get published is that they are not worthy stories to be published. I might just be a lousy fiction writer.

Anyway, I believed when I started these novels that modeling 'walking in the Spirit' in characters of young age and of situations that young people could directly relate to would be more effective than me just telling people scriptures to follow. Fictional characters can model the process. What I modeled in those stories is this: Sinners learn the gospel and the high price of salvation, for they must give every aspect of their lives to Jesus. (Bench warmers go to hell.) There comes a time when these young men decide to go through what I call the 'spirit battle', which is the emotional and spiritual turmoil one goes through as one contemplates the full personal cost to surrendering one's life to Jesus. The purpose of which is to overcome one's fear of total commitment. Call it whatever you will, it's doctrinally sound to count the personal cost of surrender to Jesus, and do it with a full understanding of what that entails before doing it.

One thing is plainly and painfully obvious: my just telling people over this blog for over three years has resulted in no benefit to anyone, so far as I can tell. So, would the novel's description of sinners overcoming the flesh nature and attaining salvation have a better result? Who knows? But I believe they just might.

BTW, when I first started to post on the confession blogs some three years ago, it was under the label of Oliver, a name I chose pretty much at random from the names of gay porn models I had seen (who knows if it was his real name). However, I got in trouble with the powers that be for the way I spoke to one woman and from then on I decided not to post on the women's blog. (All I know is that I spoke to women the same way I spoke to men, and, who knows, the way I speak to men may get me in trouble someday too.) So, I started posting under the name of Tristan, another name from the gay porn models, but the name itself was the draw for me. It's just such a novel, fascinating name to me.

And BTW, I chose 'Tristan' as the name of my protagonist in a fantasy story of the same name. He is a young homosexual man which lived the high life, prostituted himself for money, and lived in sin. And, by the way, he is also the most beautiful man on the earth of his day. The story develops on two levels: First, this young man gets saved after meeting Ilfinor, the protagonist of the other series of novels, and goes through the spirit battle. Second, is how this young man has to deal with his striking beauty, both as a sinner and then as a hot-on-fire believer in Jesus Christ. Thus, I am able to say much about the mystery of beauty through the story, rather than in the form of an essay.

I prefer now to not post under the name Tristan and just use the name Steven, a named I have always liked since I was a boy. However, I do not know how to change the name I use on the prayerwall.

Username can only change if you submit a new email address and password, I think.

In a roundabout way, Eastcoast has challenged me to produce a single man who fits my claim of being adult, male, and also beautiful in a way appealing to the so-called straight eye, in spite of him being undeniably male. His purpose for this request I presume is so that he can pass the test with flying colors and report back (in a bragging manner) that I am wrong about him and virtually all straight men on earth.

I have also claimed that a man must also be in a spritually weakened state to be fully susceptible to the allure of such a man's beauty. Nevertheless, it is dangerous to boast of being beyond temptation because that is just asking God to prove you wrong (Isaiah 23:9). What we all ought to say instead is, But for the grace of God, there go I. That's being humble, by which we get more grace from God to resist temptation (James 4:6). To claim to be above temptation is being prideful and that goes before a fall. Jesus told His disciples to pray to not enter into temptation. You don't pray to resist temptation against something you are convinced you are invulnerable to. And make no mistake about it, that attitude is the beginning of being spiritually weak in this area. Ironically, then, homophobia (a form of 'straight' pride) makes men more susceptible to male beauty.

All right, I accept the challenge, although I can't offer the very best because I won't give any of the super beautiful (and bodily sexy) males I used to see on my erstwhile favorite gay porn sites. As I have claimed before, they are simply too much for any man to endure safely. Instead, I offer Justin, a male fashion model, posted on a fashion model site (a non-porn site).

First, some warnings: You view any beautiful male at your own risk. And remember that this link is to a fashion model site, and the fashion industry is avant-gaurde to the point of silliness or even weirdness sometimes. And if you look at any of the other models on the site, you'll notice that the fashion industry is addicted to thin male models (thinner than the gay models I used to look at) just as they prefer thin female models. I don't know why the fashion industry seems to have such a love affair with beautiful young men these days, but it seems to have started with Calvin Klein some years ago.

Once you've seen Justin, perhaps we can discuss two things of relevance. First, how do we explain the existence of the beautiful adult male by some evolutionary scenario? And second, what might be the purposes God has for making some men beautiful?

http://mensmodelstalk.blog8.fc2.com/blog-category-319.html

My own opinion is the Justin was more beautiful before he buffed up. The best pics are where he is standing by or leaning against a wall in a natural pose, with his beautiful arms revealed (before he buffed out). (Women aren't typically known for having such beautiful arms.) Only about a third of the pics are useful for my point. Unfortunately, I can't edit them out.

So, is it perverse for male models to be super models as real men (not as androgynous beings, like the model eastcoast originally gave)? I call Justin a super model, regardless of what the fashion industry thinks of him.

Why is any of this talk of the beautiful male relevant to Christianity? Because if one views Romans 1 as a prediction of the increase in homosexuality in the West, one has to suppose that the advent of the beautiful adult male, particularly in gay porn, is a strong contributing factor, though I can think of others.

Also, I would like for the Church to quit personally judging gays, because any man is capable of homosexual lust. Jesus brought me out of homosexuality and He can do the same for any man, but I got out without any help from the homophobic Church. We can do a lot better, Church. Eternal lives are at stake.

Please, Tristan, don't stumble because of me. You know I was being facetious in my original post, and I have acknowledged the beautiful male exists. Justin IS a good example and I have seen another recently, but forgotten where. I thought the face shot of him with the bow tie was striking, but for me, in my opinion, the reason he is sexually appealing (at all) is because he has feminine looks: no facial hair, feminine lips, rather feminine eyes, distance between the eye and the eyebrow, (male nose and chin, though); obviously the one's in makeup are feminine. One shot (red outfit) the lighting was done the way they would a female model; even the outfit was feminine with decolletage look.

I don't think its pride on my part to not want to get cozy with another male, no matter how good he looks. Even if I thought he was a girl like "Lola-LOLA-Lola", I would quickly lose interest once I unwrapped the package. I loved my best friend in high school, and had a moment of wishing he was female. We slept together one night in his parents' bed. We never touched each other, that wasn't our interest. We loved each other's souls. He was hetero... I was an aspiring hetero! Took me until age 34 to lose my so-called virginity. I have been accosted, even physically, several times by homosexuals, but again, I don't attribute my attitudes to those incidents any more than I have allowed the fact that have been beaten, whipped and struck down on the street by black people make me a racist. Never have been, never will be. My intimate associations with gay men have all been cordial and pleasant as far as I recall, though, I do feel a little 'creeped out' sometimes.

I think your teaching about not being prideful or assuming that I am "above" a given sin, including homosexual attraction, is a point well made though. Thanks.

You said:

Please, Tristan, don't stumble because of me. You know I was being facetious in my original post, and I have acknowledged the beautiful male exists. Justin IS a good example and I have seen another recently, but forgotten where. I thought the face shot of him with the bow tie was striking, but for me, in my opinion, the reason he is sexually appealing (at all) is because he has feminine looks: no facial hair, feminine lips, rather feminine eyes, distance between the eye and the eyebrow, (male nose and chin, though); obviously the one's in makeup are feminine. One shot (red outfit) the lighting was done the way they would a female model; even the outfit was feminine with decolletage look.

I say:

Beauty has no gender. What beautiful men and beautiful women have in common is beauty, not femininity. My point has always been that male beauty and female beauty are distinct manifestations of human beauty.

It was God who told us that there exists beauty in some men:

The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house (Isa. 44:13).

God even pointed out one particular young man in whom He invested a great deal of beauty - David:

And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the LORD said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he (1 Sam. 16:12).

Wow! This was the post-pubescent, prebearded David with rosy cheeks (not red hair). I found a youtube video version of this David at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyMPmObsnQw&feature=related

Jump to 0:32 minutes. The actor playing David comes close to my vision of David, except I image an even more strikingly beautiful young man with rosier cheeks.

Now, are we to say that this David, on whom God had lavished such beauty, was a 'girly boy' because he didn't have a beard at that time? Who gets to draw the line of distinction between a real boy and a girly boy or a real man a girly man? You? You seem to think so, by suggesting that the issue could be settled by whipping out one's caliper to measure the sizes and distances of certain facial features, according to your arbitrary standard. If we had lived in a culture that for the last 1000 years that for each beautiful female on earth there were a 100 beautiful males, such as Justin, would you then declare that the beauty of the female was 'masculine' in nature? You can't make such determinations based on happenstance.

Are we to say that every boy is a 'girly boy' before he grows a beard? Are we to classify the billion men in this world of asian or native American genes to be 'girly men' because they don't have as much facial or body hair as some hirsute cave man? I think not.

[I'll add to this discuss for the sake of completeness the fact that Jacob was a smooth man and Esau was a hairy man (Gen. 27:11).]

Not all smooth faced men are beautiful. Virtually all women have female facial features, yet not all women are beautiful. Therefore, it takes more than female facial charcteristics to make one beautiful. It's the other way around: one has beauty, which has either male or female forms, or in some rare cases both. The beauty of humans exists in distinctly female and males forms. The fact that Justin is beautiful yet immediately recognizable as a male is proof of this. His beauty never made you doubt his maleness, right? Your claim that the beauty of men exists by virtue of them having femininity would make more sense and be less arbitrary if every time a man was beautiful, his gender would be in question. But that's the case of androgyny. But most beautiful men are not androgynous.

In my own case, I could never accept that male beauty owes its existence to femininity because I've seen men in gay porn much more beautiful than any beautiful woman I have ever seen. It would be very paradoxical that the greatest human beauty exists in a man who, by your way of thinking, imitates female beauty, but is not to be found in any female.

You only compared facial features between Justin and females. Take a close look at the breasts, arms, thighs, calves, hips, and butts between these beautiful ectomorph young men and typical beautiful young women and you'll soon see the huge differences between the corresponding parts. No, the physiques of beautiful young men (Bym) are definitely not feminine. Byms do not have wide hips as women do. In fact, this is to their advantage as far as beauty goes, for it is normal for a Bym to have the beautiful bubble butt, which is rare on women because of their wider hips.

You said:

I don't think its pride on my part to not want to get cozy with another male, no matter how good he looks.

I say:

I never claimed otherwise. Your homophobia, your pride, is only that you still refuse to humble yourself in light of the truth of scripture, which declares that all men are bisexual in nature. Now, I don't mean that all men have sex with both men and women. I mean only this: Every man is capable - just capable - of having sexual lusts arise in him for men and for women. I'm not saying that men will necessarily have had such desires or will have such desires. I'm only claiming that the Bible declares that all men are capable of having genuine homosexual lust in them.

Let's look at those verses.

Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall (1 Cor. 10:12).

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted (Gal. 6:1).

You take what you want from those verses, but this is my take. Assigning truth values to these implicit propositions above, then by logical inference any proposition that is inconsistent with them is false. Since the claim that not all men are bisexual is inconsistent with these scriptures, I conclude that all men are bisexual. I gave one example, that of Justin, to give evidence of what God has out there that could do it, under suitable circumstance. These scriptures are merely common sense: Don't declare something to be impossible unless you can prove it to be so.

In my research for my book The Mystery of Beauty (now defunct) I came across some interesting facts. First, that some men who have sex with beautiful young men write it off as a heterosexual act on the excuse that beautiful men are 'feminine'. Do you think God accepts that rationale? It's not much different a rationale than your attempt to spin your attraction to Justin as just to his alleged 'femininity'. Second, that there are men who have an obsessive interest in penises, yet they claim not to be homosexual because they have no other interest in men beyond that. I don't buy it. That's a homosexual lust. In both these cases the men suffer from self-inflicted delusion because their pride refuses to accept the truth.

Continuation of my reply to eastcoast.

You said:

Even if I thought he was a girl like "Lola-LOLA-Lola", I would quickly lose interest once I unwrapped the package. I loved my best friend in high school, and had a moment of wishing he was female. We slept together one night in his parents' bed. We never touched each other, that wasn't our interest. We loved each other's souls. He was hetero... I was an aspiring hetero! Took me until age 34 to lose my so-called virginity. I have been accosted, even physically, several times by homosexuals, but again, I don't attribute my attitudes to those incidents any more than I have allowed the fact that have been beaten, whipped and struck down on the street by black people make me a racist. Never have been, never will be. My intimate associations with gay men have all been cordial and pleasant as far as I recall, though, I do feel a little 'creeped out' sometimes.

I say:

Platonic love between friends is not wrong per se, nor is it homosexual. David and Jonathan had such a relationship. As for that experience and those of the assaults you suffered, they do not seem to bear much on the discussion at hand. You claim that your attitude is not based on them and I accept that. But you do have an unscriptural attitude toward homosexual lust and temptation.

You said:

I think your teaching about not being prideful or assuming that I am "above" a given sin, including homosexual attraction, is a point well made though. Thanks.

I say:

This last confession (in the sense of a statement of belief on doctrine) reveals that you have come a long way toward overcoming this stronghold of pride (homophobia) that keeps you in bondage. To break free of this stronghold, you just need to admit whatever scripture declares is true of the human condition - in your case, that you are capable of experiencing a genuine homosexual lust. I'll show you how to do it. It’s easy:

I, Tristan, admit that according to the Word of God, am capable of having a genuine homosexual lust in the future.

See how easy that is. You just need to state it sincerely in faith that the scriptures are true and come to peace with it. I’m at peace with this confession now, but I wasn’t always at peace with it. It took time. I understand how difficult the stronghold of homophobia is when one is raised in it a homophobic culture and homophobic church. The Bible declares a lot of nasty things about the flesh nature we all have. But if we really want to walk with God, we must humble ourselves before God and receive whatever nasty things He has revealed to us about our human natures (thereby getting the grace to overcome temptations!). It's just that simple. No one ever said being a Christian is supposed to be easy. Don't let pride get in the way of this.

You claim not to be very offended by gays, and I believe that. Your problem, like that of most men, is not the presence of gay men. Your problem is, I'm guessing, your self-identity that you wish to protect at all cost. You have a hard time accepting onto your self-identity any characteristic that makes you in the slightest way homosexual, leaving no apparent choice but for you to deny even the possibility of you having a homosexual lust or temptation. If you really believe the scriptures I gave (1 Cor. 10:12 and Gal. 6:1) then you cannot believe that your prior experiences have vetted you as 100% heterosexual, nor have they inoculated you against future possibility of homosexual temptation. Walking in the Spirit is the only way to accomplish that (Gal. 5:16).

Jesus said that the truth will set us free. The scriptures plainly teach that all men are capable of experiencing homosexual lust and temptations. The only way to get free of the homophobia that keeps you in bondage is for you to accept the truth and tear down the stronghold yourself. No one can do it for you.

If you think about it, one of the high priority purposes of God through the scriptures is to get man to ‘come out of the closet’ of denial of one’s own fallen, creepy, sinful nature. And it’s the job of every true believer in Christ to do exactly that. To own up to the evil within and then overcome it by the power of God working in us. Jesus's parable of the publican and the pharisee seems to be directed toward this point of personal owning up before God.

True that we all have the potential to commit sins that we wouldn't have suspected ourselves of being capable of; pride goes before a fall.

Here's an article exposing the hypocrisy in the "ex-gay" movement and how Christians should have a less judgmental attitude: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-patrick-s-cheng-phd/ex-gays-and-the-ninth-cir_b_582825.html

@Tristin- I would change your user name for you but someone already has the one you have mentioned (Steven).

@MT of X3
I appreciate your looking into this. It looks like I should hang on to 'Tristan' for the time being. I don't post much anyway. Thank you, again.