silentbattle wrote on 12 Mar 2010 18:48:

If you are asking me re my friend, I'd say he doesn't even know himself! His parents wouldn't invite girls to the tisch when he's home etc. He might not know the words gay homo fag etc. He just know he thinks about doing stuff with shiur-mates.

Your question is exactly my point -- he isn't ready to bring himSELF into a marriage because he (probably) doesn't know who his SELF is. Or at least that's my view.

Or maybe in a world where girls marry at 19, NOBODY is self-aware til after marriage.  I was over 30 whe I married, so I don't know.

So, frummees out there -- how does this work?

From my understanding (and I could be wrong), the odds of him being completely unattracted to women is a lot lower than the odds of him simply having some thoughts about his classmates.

Not sure what you mean when you say that
Briut wrote on 12 Mar 2010 19:07:

SB: True, there are folks all over the Kinsey scale of sexual orientation, from 1-10. Not many at purely one end or the other. So this kid could be a '5' in the middle, even if he is thinking about his classmates and not women.

What does that mean, though? Shouldn't he still have some clue of 'who he is' whether it's 1, 5, or 10?  Most wives aren't as understanding etc as mine. Families could get charred!

(As to his parents not inviting young women to their Shabbos tables, I just meant that he's one of LOTS of brothers and his parents don't typically like teenaged babes who might give their boys 'ideas.' I know a lot of families like this. Even single guys like this. It's called, er, um... guarding your eyes??)

Good Shabbos. Daven well/bring Moshiach.

Briut,

Shavua tov. To me, it is unclear exactly what this guy you are speaking of is going through. You say that he is facing "this challenge." Do you know to what extent? Do you know how much of an issue it is for him? Has he acted on it? Does he want to act on it?

I think that if he has ssa and also osa, and he is interested in dating and not sleeping around with other men, then he could very well be alright. I agree with you that is important to know one's "self," but that could take a long time for some people, and it is unclear to me if it needs to be a prerequisite to marriage. I think, more importantly, if I don't know myself, I need to at least be aware of that.

Is he looking at dating as a solution? Yes, I agree that is a problem, and I think that has been mentioned many a time on this forum.

My point is that if he does have some attraction to women, then even if he does have attraction for men as well, who cares? Trying to figure out "who he is," in that case, may only lead to more confusion about his identity, and what he wants, whereas if he gets married to a woman that he's sexually attracted to, then he can be in a healthy relationship. Not because he won't have any other taivos - but because he has a healthy outlet for his taivos at home.

In other words - as long as he's capable of being attracted to his wife, so - we all have people outside of marriage that we can be attracted to more than our wives.

The issue arises (it seems to me) if he's completely not attracted to women.

I don't know.
I fear most people here won't want to hear this.
But I'll say it anyhow.

You see, from my own semi-secular upbringing, it's important to "KNOW yourself" and understand yourself and find out where your strengths and weaknesses and preferences (!) are.  You can't give "yourself" over to G-d if there's no "you" to give.

From an ultra-frum-upbringing perspective, I'm afraid it's important to "FORGET yourself" and do just what Hashem asks without asking any questions. In which case it should CERTAINLY make sense that he stop asking questions and just get married "like the Good L-rd asks." 

I just think it must take an AWFUL lot of bitachon to expect the sparks (of marital life) to stay lit when depending entirely on Hashem and not on our (animalistic) desires.

(Does that make any sense??)

DISCLAIMER: As I mentioned previously, I am talking here about a guy who DOES have some attraction to women. Which implies some basic, physical attraction. If this is not the case, then the issue becomes much more complicated.

I agree that it's important to know yourself. However, does that mean agonizing about just how much attraction one has to other guys? If he does have attraction to women, what is gained by investigating further? It seems to me that it would only cause more confusion. You've got sparks. You've got enough to cause a flame. Who cares that there might be bigger flames for other types of people?

silentbattle wrote on 14 Mar 2010 01:20:


I think G-d gave people the ability to figure out who they are and then deal with it...

What you probably mean is that deliberately suggesting to someone to investigate whether they are straight or not may be suggestive...

Kind of like asking a kid if he has all the toys he needs...
"Well, come to think of it I can use this that that and the other...."

Or like reading an article all about itches (ever done that...? Everything starts itching...)

But I think everyone should be encouraged to figure themselves out....