Singleness and Same-Sex Attraction

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Husband Material Podcast , where we help Christian men outgrow porn . Why ? So you can change your brain , heal your heart and save your relationship . My name is Drew Boa and I'm here to show you how let's go . Hey man , thanks for listening to my interview with Greg Coles , who is the author of Single Gay Action , no Longer Strangers , and he is a senior research fellow at the Center for Faith , sexuality and Gender .

Speaker 1 0:31

Today we're talking about singleness and same-sex attraction and if you experience one or both of these things , I think this will be really encouraging . We talk about some of the pressures and some of the gifts and beautiful things about being single and being able to see that not everything is so negative about singleness and same-sex attraction , and also not everything is positive about marriage . Greg shares some super relatable stories , encouragement , hope for a good and beautiful life and if you don't experience these things , you will get some great insights that can help you be an awesome friend to those who do Enjoy the episode . Today on the show , we are hanging out with Greg Coles , author of Single Gay Christian and no Longer Strangers , and we're talking about singleness and same-sex attraction . Welcome , greg .

Speaker 2 1:23

Hey , thanks for having me A pleasure to be here Truly a delight Truly verily .

Speaker 1 1:30

So why is this topic of singleness and same-sex attraction so important ?

Speaker 2 1:35

It seems to me that the Bible takes singleness really seriously as , like this , beautiful option for followers of Jesus .

Speaker 2 1:43

Beautiful opportunity , I know , for many of us , and certainly in many ways . My experience for a while , within evangelical Christian spaces at least , was that people didn't really seem to give a lot of consideration to singleness as a possibility , and that was made more complicated for me by the fact that I was and am and likely will continue to be though the Lord only knows exclusively attracted to the same sex . And so there are ways in which I now feel that I am beautifully wired for singleness . I mean , there are ways in which singleness still feels like a sort of an awkward fit and yet at the same time so much beauty that I think exists to be leaned into that we maybe miss when we don't talk about it . So I'm excited to be having this conversation . If for no other reason , then it's personally important to me and I think maybe for more folks than we automatically assume . There's opportunity there for us to consider what Jesus might have for us in singleness , especially though certainly not exclusively for those of us who are attracted to the same sex .

Speaker 1 2:51

And both singleness and same sex attraction can feel like a curse .

Speaker 2 2:59

It's true and certainly both often get depicted that way and , to be clear , I think both of them have their challenges . So far , be it from me to go around pretending that singleness is just all roses and butterflies or that there's nothing complicated or negative about the experience of attraction to the same sex . Sometimes I think to myself that when we're talking about singleness or marriage and we're talking about attraction to the same sex versus attraction to the opposite sex , sometimes I wonder if the problem is not that we have said too many negative things about singleness and attraction to the same sex , but the problem is that we have this bizarrely and really unrealistically elevated view of marriage and attraction to the opposite sex . It's like , oh , opposite sex attraction just so holy and always wonderful .

Speaker 2 3:50

And it's like no , it's really not . It's really not the greatest thing . In the same way , it's like , oh , marriage , that's when the Holy Spirit really works . Well sometimes , yes , but also marriage has its challenges . And also , I think , across the board , there's just opportunity for us to see that the Spirit works in a variety of ways , and my journey and yours don't need to look identical for us to have the same spirit and to be walking on the same journey with Jesus .

Speaker 1 4:20

Absolutely and you make this point in single-gate Christian that it's almost as if sometimes people are trying to get guys who are attracted to guys to move towards more socially acceptable forms of sinfulness , Like why can't you be sinful in the way that we all are ?

Speaker 2 4:45

You know , we prefer the company of people who sin like we do . There is so often this sense in evangelical Christian spaces , this sense of like look , the fact that you're like wrestling with kinds of sexual temptation and like drawn toward kinds of sinfulness that I'm not like that kind of freaks me out . So like could you just , like I don't know , watch some straight porn and sleep with your girlfriend a little bit instead ? Like that would be much more comfortable for me and it's like would that improve my life ? I don't think it would . So yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah .

Speaker 1 5:17

Oh , that resonates so much . And of course , in a church context , there's often the well-meaning old lady who says now you know that God has a woman for you and just wait around .

Speaker 2 5:35

I know and love so many of those people . Well , at this point in my life I've been out as gay and celibate long enough that most of those people in my life have sort of caught on that they don't need to say that to me anymore . I mean , I always tried to receive that as a really well-meaning thing , because I think it's as if people want to say to you like your life is going to be good , your life is going to be beautiful . I know that the Lord has good things for you , but their version of what that means is like look , I need your movie to have a happy ending because I like you .

Speaker 2 6:07

And the movies with happy endings that I know are the ones in which , let me describe the happy ending for you and it's like that's why you will get married and you will have 2.3 children and you will , you know , and it's like those are all really good and beautiful things if that's what the Lord does with you . But I think we so often get stuck in this vision of saying , yeah , like Jesus needs to show up in your life the ways he has showed up in my life . And so that means if we live in communities that are predominantly as I think most communities are predominantly occupied by people who are married and have kids , then that is usually the vision they want to pass on to the rest of us , and that just may not be the thing that God is doing . And so , yeah , I always want to encourage people toward , in their interactions with me and just with others , toward seeing the possibility that God might be up to things that are beautiful and yet are not the same as what he's up to with me or with you .

Speaker 1 7:07

Yeah , and also that these parts of you are beautiful too .

Speaker 2 7:12

Hmm , you know , yeah , the idea that that singleness can itself be a really beautiful thing . I think for a long time I did not see that , but increasingly now I'm coming to see it , not just in my own life , maybe not even predominantly in my own life , but especially as I look at the lives of other single folks and I see like , oh gosh , like there's so much goodness and beauty in that , in the ways that people are able to engage the community around them and just in the ways that they themselves , with Jesus , get to model , you know , the human divine love affair in a way that's very , very you and me . I've come to really love and appreciate that , as 1 Corinthians 7 says of the single woman , she is wholly devoted to the Lord in both body and mind . Right , I love the way that the single person in Christ has the opportunity to live that kind of life . I think it can be so exquisitely beautiful in ways that I think we're just beginning to glimpse .

Speaker 1 8:13

And it's hard to glimpse that because of all the pressure . So what are some of the specific pressures faced by men who experience singleness and attraction to other men ?

Speaker 2 8:25

Yeah , in addition certainly to some of the social or cultural pressure to like why are you not getting married , why are you not going for this ?

Speaker 2 8:34

One of the narratives that I think was really common there , and one that I certainly heard in my formational years , was the idea that you were supposed to like save yourself for marriage , right , the reason that you're not going to go around and have sex , the reason that you should abstain from pornography , et cetera , the reason that you should like stew or der body in a certain kind of way is so that when you get married you'll have mind-blowingly good sex and it'll be amazing and you will feel so happy that you waited .

Speaker 2 9:02

And I remember the point in my life at which I was like oh shoot , but if I stay single , like what am I waiting for ? I'm just like waiting indefinitely for no particular reason , waiting for some mind-blowing sex that I'm never going to have , and I was like this no longer works as a rationale for me , like I'm going to need some other reason to do this besides just sort of casting about being like maybe someday somebody else , yeah , and so I think that was really important for me formationally to begin to ask what does it mean , as a single person , to have another reason to want to steward my body in a way that honors God , beyond just this proverbial carrot down the road of like it's so you have great sex later .

Speaker 1 9:53

And , as you briefly mentioned before , marriage is really not that way . It's a false promise . Sexless marriages are much more common than you would think , and they're fraught with the conflict and the brokenness that we have in any close relationship . So , with that aside , greg , how did you navigate this ?

Speaker 2 10:19

Certainly I wouldn't pretend to have done it perfectly , and it continues to be a source of good ongoing conversation between me and Jesus , but one of the principles that has been really helpful for

The Significance of Singleness and Community

Speaker 2 10:33

me , I mean . So I mentioned a little bit earlier 1 Corinthians , chapter 7 and its discussions of singleness . I spent a lot more time with 1 Corinthians 7 for a while before I paid more attention to what had come right before in 1 Corinthians 6 , which is this sort of more general statement about sexual immorality , and I used to sort of read it somewhat quickly and be like yeah , yeah , yeah , paul's saying sexual immorality is bad . I know that you know . Moving on , but I kind of slowed it down at some point and looked at the language Paul was using and kind of the logic that he gives the reason that he articulates for why he's asking the Corinthian church to steward themselves in this way , and what he says is like don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit ? Like you're not your own , you were bought with a price . In other words , like God takes such a deep interest in the way that we are embodied , like there's such purposefulness in that and it's because of that that our logical response is the thing Paul's specifically concerned with . There is like don't go out and unite your body with a prostitute . I mean , of all the , of all the many like sexual sins I have struggled with , you know like seeking out prostitutes was never like super high on the list of things I particularly was wrestling with , which , again , is why , sort of like skipped past this passage relatively quickly . But the broader point is like don't use your body for the things that don't reflect the great honor that God has imbued within you . Use your body in a way that reflects the deep interest , the deep care that God has for the very nature of your creation .

Speaker 2 12:11

And I think that became significant for me , in large part because the idea that I was like supposed to be saving saving my body for this other person who would be , who would be coming later made me feel like , well , if nobody's coming , I'm not saving this for anything .

Speaker 2 12:27

But that notion in first Corinthians six that there's actually a great intentionality , that that God takes in the way that I'm embodied , made me feel like , oh no , it's not even just that , I'm like saving this for something later , it's that I am stewarding this because it's already not mine and because there's already someone who who perceives me fully and to perceives , perceives me with a gaze that is only an entirely loving , and so so much of that core desire of my heart to feel like I am seen , like I am perceived , like someone looks at me and it's like I love you , not just like concretely , physiologically I love you , to know that that that sentiment already exists , that sentiment has always existed and will exist on into eternity , like I don't have to go find somebody to say that about me , because there's already someone who has always said and always will say that of me .

Speaker 2 13:26

I went from feeling like I was hanging around and waiting for something to happen to feeling like I was , I was already committed , already promised , already , if not quite married , since in the eschatological sense , you know , the marriage between Christ and the church is yet to come . At the very least I am , at the very least I am promised .

Speaker 1 13:46

I am promised betrothed , betrothed , quite so yeah , and that seems worth waiting for absolutely , and that reminds me of another great book washed in waiting by Wesley Hill . What a classic west . Yeah , and he talks about first Corinthians six . In our context of outgrowing pornography might be worth noting that the word for sexual immorality there is poor Neha . He's saying this is why you stay away from poor Neha . And , and I also love how he says the body is the Lord's like , the Lord is for the body , the body is for the Lord . What a profound statement . I don't fully understand you and me , both brother , yeah , and yet there is so much goodness in choosing not just to stay away from something , but choosing someone and also choosing like a purpose for yourself . That is different from our , our small ideas of what our life could be . So what would you say ? Awesome singleness really looks like .

Speaker 2 15:00

I think , for me , so much of what has made singleness awesome and what makes it most awesome and it's awesome as to moments has to do with rich embeddedness with the family of God , and so there are really beautiful ways that married people whether they're married with kids , are married without kids can as like as a marital unit , as a family unit . There are ways they can do things that I cannot as a single person and and that I think is really beautiful and wonderful and I bless and support it . But I'm increasingly coming to believe that there are also ways that the single person , by virtue of not having such a big team , right like there are sports that work better as a team sport and there are sports that it's like oh gosh , why did you try to have a team for this ? Right , like group projects in college . Give me a non group project any day , because some things were just not meant to be a team sport and there's a certain deafness . Is that the word I'm looking for ? Yeah , I think so . A certain adroitness , flexibility and like the ability to be here and there and to move quickly . And well , I'm losing my ability to move quickly . I'm in my 30s now .

Speaker 2 16:13

You know the general principle applies , the idea that I as a single person have the opportunity to sort of slip into and out of at least in my own case , slip into and out of a lot of different contexts and be really present in those contexts while I'm there .

Speaker 2 16:27

And then the ways that I get to sort of join into other family expressions not just in a way that makes me a leech , I hope , not just that I like go to a family and be like look , I have no family , I'm a need yours , just give me all the things we were saying earlier . Like marriage , in addition to its delights , also has its challenges . I've actually discovered some really lonely married people . Sometimes it turns out people tell me maybe you can confirm this is true . Apparently sometimes making friends as a married couple is difficult because it's like if you're trying to make friends with this other married couple then it's like , well , this spouse has to get along with this spouse , but they really have to like this spouse and then this other spouse she at least has to be able to tolerate this guy . There's all these relational dynamics and it's like if I try to make friends with a married couple , they only have to agree on one person . As long as they both like me , we're fine .

Speaker 1 17:23

I mean within married couples making friends , there are like 12 things that have to go right , whereas with two single people making friends , or a single person and one married person , it's like there are only two things that have to go right , it's true , it's true .

Speaker 2 17:37

And even if you make friends with like both parts of the married couple simultaneously which is kind of my favorite is like to become good friends with a couple . Some people call that third wheeling , I just call it having two friends who are conveniently married to each other All three of you can get together simultaneously . And in my case there's particular clarity because it's super clear that I'm not interested in the wife . Like if I'm like hanging out with like an opposite sex married couple , it's very clear that I'm not interested in the wife . But also , for like theological and practical reasons , it's very clear that , like the husband and I are not . So it's like there's just no , like I'm clearly not trying to steal any spouse in this relationship . I just want to hang out with both of you .

Speaker 2 18:19

I love that and I think those relationships give so much to me , they're so beautiful for me and yet at the same time hopefully , god willing I have the opportunity to be present for people in ways that maybe another couple who's you know , they've got their own things going on , maybe they've got their own kids or other family obligations that I just conveniently don't happen to have . Like , there are ways that I can be differently present . I think the more I have experienced those gifts in community and the more I've been able to experience singleness not as something that is primarily characterized by a deprivation of community but is actually characterized by the opportunity to really lean deeply into community , the more it seems like something really beautiful to me .

Speaker 1 19:09

Absolutely . It gives you some superpowers .

Speaker 2 19:15

Yeah , and you know , like all superpowers , they come with their like kryptonite side . If you will Do all superpowers , all the interesting ones do , at any rate . The boring superpowers are the ones where it's like I have no flaws , I have no risks , I have no challenges , like nobody wants to watch that movie , but like the true superpower does indeed come with its challenges . That's part of the beauty of it , that's part of the story . Makes for a much better story , yeah .

Speaker 1 19:46

We've talked about befriending married couples . A lot of guys in our community are navigating friendships with each other . So when you're making friends with somebody , what are some things that you don't want them to do , or some things that would make you cringe ?

Speaker 2 20:06

Excellent Relationships can kind of toggle between really really surfacing and reaching to a certain kind of depth , and I think sometimes people really want to get to like I want this relationship to be deep , you know , like I really want to reach the deep things , but what they'll do is they'll like they'll kind of ride on the surface and then all of a sudden they'll do like a phew , like and let's go down here , and then they'll like pop back up for error and be like now let's talk about absolutely meaningless things .

Speaker 2 20:36

And now back to that . You know , I appreciate the desire to like have deep things in relationship and I think it's really , really important . And yet depth in relationship needs to come as a natural expression of like the growing depth in relationship , so that we go into the deeper waters together , as opposed to like floating on the surface and then being like . And after talking about the football game , let me now ask you a really intense question about the most personal secret you've ever had in your life and I think this is especially true when we're talking about depth in relationship . That's related to our experiences of , and our processing and figuring out how to respond to stuff related to sexual temptation .

Speaker 1 21:22

Yeah , this happens sometimes in our community too . Guys who don't know each other at all will open up about their darkest secrets right away , and that feels icky to me . It doesn't follow a natural progression of a friendship and vulnerability . It's not always safe emotionally or sexually . Sure , I think there's a lot of wisdom in having a gradual natural development of getting to know someone , and that's different in person and online .

Speaker 2 21:57

Oh yes , the ways that online only or predominantly online relationships have sort of come increasingly to supplant some people's like in fleshed , embodied interactions with people . I think the soul struggles to regulate online interactions . I don't think it's built for them in quite the way that it's built for human interactions , maybe like . A simple and easy example of this is like how easily cruel and awful people can be to each other online , like the things that we say about each other when there's a computer mediating , that it's like look , if we sat down and you were talking to my face , you would never in a million years , like you may still think I am the scum between the toes of the earth , but you would not say it like that if you were sitting here . I think that lack of regulation seems to me to also express itself in other aspects of relationship as well . So I'm thinking of like a community like the one you guys have , where there is rightfully , a lot of opportunity for vulnerability , right digging into some deep parts of the self . I think one of the dangers there is , to the degree you're relying on this digitally mediated community , these digitally mediated relationships , to be the place where all of that occurs .

Speaker 2 23:18

Some of the regulatory practices of the body that play out really effectively in flesh relationship . I think struggle to do those things when you're online . When I think about , like , who are the ideal people with whom to share some of those deep things ? I think not that you can't or shouldn't be involved in spaces like this , which I think you know . I've heard many reports of all the great things that happen , so you know kudos , and yet I also just want to encourage people like find some people where you are , like have some people in your local church community , like in your chosen community where you are , and make sure that those are relationships in which you are pursuing the kind of , like soul , depth and vulnerability that allows you to have the kind of freedom that you're looking for

Exploring Intimacy and Healing in Relationships

Speaker 2 24:11

.

Speaker 2 24:11

Because I think , relying exclusively digital mediated relationships for that kind of depth and intimacy it's sort of like the pornografication of emotional vulnerability . Right To say like , instead of turning my sexual impulses to the online space , I'm just going to take , like my emotional impulses and put them in the online space Like maybe in some ways an improvement from the pornography , and yet it's still sort of the soul doing the same kind of thing , like just close the computer for both purposes . Go find an actual person . And I'm not saying go find an actual person and just sleep with them , to be clear , but the way that we're just ordered toward being embodied with one another , and so I think it's , I think it's always a risk to shut off that part of ourselves .

Speaker 1 24:55

Hey man , porn is disembodied and in the same way , online communities are disembodied , which is why there's so much value in going on the husband material community and finding who's near me and how can we get together in person or some other groups or places where you can be fully known and be yourself , where you are physically Greg in your friendships . What is healing for you ?

Speaker 2 25:27

What has been most healing for me in friendship is to experience the presence of people who just want to be present with me , who don't need me to perform , they don't need me to like be you know whatever , whatever checklist of proper things but who simply like take the light in my presence because I am present .

Speaker 2 25:51

It's often said and perhaps said to the point of cliche , though I think perhaps said that frequently because it's so very true that so much of what we perceive about God we perceive through our experience of it from other people .

Speaker 2 26:06

And for me , what is so tremendously healing about those friendships where people are like , let's just be present , is that it becomes a reminder and a reassurance in my own heart of the ways that God can simply take delight in me , apart from my ability to perform for him , apart from my ability to have all the correct theological answers , to check all the correct boxes , that the sheer fact of my existence has value , right , which is a very it's a very Sabbath-y principle .

Speaker 2 26:42

And , yeah , maybe the idea of practicing Sabbath feels sort of old school or even perhaps feels really legalistic to some of you hearing it like oh , sabbath , that's something you know rural followers do . I will say , for me , the choice to take intentional time during which I am not being productive has actually been really powerfully transformative for my spiritual life , because it has forced me into a space of being present with God without being able to do anything for him . And the more I do that , the more I realize how much of my relationship with God had felt like it was built upon my capacity to do things for him . And so I think , by a similar token , yeah , the friends with whom I experience their delight in the sheer fact of my existence . That too is participatory in the joy that God takes in me and I and him .

Speaker 1 27:42

I love that so much . In Single Gay Christian you talk about how huge that was for you to realize that you are not like a mosquito . You tell the story of how you and your dad would talk about why do mosquitoes exist ? Like were they good before the fall ? What were they doing before they became blood-sucking , annoying blemishes on the earth and you use that to talk about . Well , am I like that ? Like what is same-sex attraction at the core ? How do you view this part of you that you once felt was a mosquito ?

Reflections on Identity, Attraction, and Redemption

Speaker 2 28:28

I think the reason the mosquito analogy resonated so strongly with me is that when I looked at mosquitoes , I sort of saw this thing that was like all negative and no positive . And that was very much how I felt when I sort of looked at my own experience of attraction and I was like , well , clearly , if I were opposite-sex attracted , that would be an experience that was like all positive , no negative . And I was like , and I'm here in this experience , which is clearly all negative , no positive . I love the way you use the word healing earlier in your question about friendship and I think that feels like a fitting word to hear that it has been healing , to sort of reorient my understanding of those things . And of course , healing is an interesting word to use because so often when people are talking about attraction to the same sex and then they talk about healing , what they mean is like then I was healed and I became attracted to the opposite sex , which , again , per our previous comments , like if God's design for us , his followers , is that we either be faithful in marriage to one spouse of the opposite sex or faithful and celibate singleness , then either attraction to lots of people of the opposite sex or attraction to lots of people of the same sex , like , apart from the one person that you may or may not be married to , like that's still a lot of people that you're attracted to that you are not called to do anything about it , or , more precisely , you are called to not do things about it . So I think one of the things that has been healing in the way I think about my own experience of attraction is to recognize both that I , as with all of my straight brothers and all of my other siblings in Christ , of all experiences of attraction , like there are certainly ways in which I am an inheritor of the fall , but again , I'm an inheritor of the fall , and that's also true for you , true , and that's also true for all the rest of us .

Speaker 2 30:21

Like the ways that we experience ourselves , the ways that we experience our attractions to one another , like those things are messed up in some way . And the more that I could see that to be true of all humankind and simultaneously , the more that I could see that , even as there are these beautiful opportunities for redemption , right Even for somebody who's straight and male , the opportunities for that person to steward their experience in a way that says , like maybe I'm called to be married to this one woman and I will be faithful to her . Like that's a beautiful opportunity for redemption , the more I could begin to see that my story too has opportunities for this beautiful redemption , that I experienced myself increasingly as someone who is ordered toward great excitement about an eternal marriage with Jesus . And I'm not saying that's because I'm gay , necessarily , like I don't know how it all sorts out . I just know that the way I experience myself right now as a single person is that I am eagerly delighted to save my body as it is and as it will be for the person of Jesus . And that is true for me in a way that it is just a little bit differently true for me than it is for anybody else .

Speaker 2 31:39

I think there are ways in which my experiences of attraction , and even my experiences of lack of attraction , have set me up for a really , really beautiful life . I used to hate the fact that I did not experience attraction to women . In fact , that was sort of the first point of distress that I experienced , when I was like , oh no , I think I'm gay . It was not that I was attracted to men , it was that I wasn't attracted to women and I was like , oh , this could be a problem , although also there was part of me that was like , oh great , I've been spared . I was a very conflicted child .

Speaker 1 32:10

Well , you grew up in this purity culture where everybody was telling you to shut those feelings down , right . And everyone was like you're a raging animal who's gonna devour women . So you're like oh , thank God , that's not me .

Speaker 2 32:24

It's true , yeah , yeah . So there was that relief and yet at the same time , there was this sense of like , oh , but if I can't get properly attracted to a woman , like this may make marriage complicated and like marriage is supposed to be the thing . But my lack of attraction to women also has its really , really beautiful components . I mean , I alluded earlier to the fact that , like , when I hang out with a married couple , it's like , very clear I'm not making moves on the woman , very , very clear . There was a time when I used to feel bad about that .

Speaker 2 32:57

In fact , I have a memory that I talk about in single gay Christian of like finding a picture of a scantily clad woman and being like you know , like I think I'm supposed to be able to lust after this picture and being like I'm going for it .

Speaker 2 33:10

And now , like now I look back on that moment and I'm like what a foolish thing to think that my life would be improved by having sort of this , this greater draw toward or capacity for lust that I don't have .

Speaker 2 33:24

And now I think how joyous it is that it's the easiest thing in the world for me to think of my sisters in Christ as sisters , like what a great gift , that is . What a great absence of complexity , even as there are other things in life that are perhaps a bit more complicated , but I can take joy in those things . And so , again , I think this overarching principle that the more I've come to see in my own life and to believe about the lives of others , like all of us , are this complex , messy combination of like that which is broken and that which bears the fingerprints of a God who put us together and is like , oh hot , dang , that is so good . And so I think , as we see both of those things coexisting together , the more we can find opportunity to take delight in the particular story and the particular journey that is ours . Amen .

Speaker 1 34:20

That's some gospel . Goodness , Greg .

Letter to 12 Year Old Self

Speaker 1 34:24

If you could go back to your 12 year old self , what would you like to tell him ?

Speaker 2 34:30

The last short chapter of my book Singular Gay Christian is called A Letter to my 12 Year Old Self . Admittedly , I wrote that like eight years ago now , so maybe things have changed since then . I think the basic heart of that message still remains very much the same . I still want to tell that person that following Jesus will cost you everything and he will be worth so much more than that . I think I still want to tell that person that all the things about himself that he thinks will be a barrier to him being loved by God or loved by the people of God , will actually become places where his story creates opportunity for really deep , beautiful love . Though not experiencing the romantic love of marriage in the ways that he thought he had to in order to have a good and beautiful life , that he'll still have a good and a beautiful life , so much more full of love than he even knew how to hope for .

Speaker 1 35:32

Love and belonging and blessing , not a curse . I hope some of you guys take encouragement from that and it's so common to all of us . I can think of that applying to me so much as a 12 year old with a sexual fetish . I didn't understand and that was just causing me a lot of distress . Greg , thank you so much . Oh , it's been such a joy . Thanks for having me , Drew .

Speaker 2 35:58

You're welcome .

Speaker 1 35:59

And if you guys want to connect with Greg or read some of his books or his research , go down to the links in the show notes and you will find everything about Greg Kohl's . Gentlemen , whether you experience singleness and or same-sex attraction , always remember you are God's beloved Son and you , he is well-pleased .