[Yorick]

Originally posted by Jerr Conner: Ok then explain this. I spent almost ten years of my life choosing to be attracted to girls yet I wasn't attracted to them. How come I couldn't make that choice? If attraction is a choice, prove me wrong and choose to be attracted to a guy. It's that simple

I never said I wasn't attracted to men. Hetrosexuality doesn't preclude finding men attractive. What do you call narcisism? If I find myself attractive for example, it stands to reason that I'll find any man that looks like me attractive also.

The choice is what do I entertain? What images do I remove from my mind if they arise? Mental dieting. For example, if I want to become obsessed with a person, the quickest way is to entertain fantasies and scenarios together. If I want to get over someone, I need the mental discipline to not entertain notions, hopes, pictures and dreams, but to remove them from my mind.

In my profession, I've worked with a lot of attractive people, men and women. Many available, many actively pursuing involvement. As flattering as it may be, I excercise the same mental discipline in maintaining a commited relationship that I do in maintaining hetrosexuality and refuse to give these things "life".

A partner of mine could NOT ask me to not be attracted to the many beautiful people - men and women - that I work with, but CAN ask me to excercise commitement, and not entertain that attraction. Practicing mental, emotional and physical fidelity.

That's the issue with porn for example. It's a real person you're fantasising over. They may not be there with you, but if you entertain fantasies with the person in the picture, you're practicing mental infidelity against your partner.

If it's that simple, choose to hate your parents. I never chose to love my parents. I just do. I can't even not love them when I'm mad at them! If love is such a choice, hate everything you love then. Prove me wrong.

Happiness is a perceptional choice. You choose to see what you have rather than what you've lost or may not have. You chose to be thankful for "the everyday" miracles that surround us. Love - especially forgiveness involves choice. Forgiveness is love with a cost. It is easy to love someone who's never hurt you, much harder to forgive, and put yourself in a vulnerable situation by loving them again.

Not all of us find it easy to love our parents Jerr. Any relationship, for it to weather storms and troubles, needs commitment or it breaks down. I love my parents because I have chosen to move past offenses, move beyond issues in my childhood for example. Choice. It would be easy to dwell on the negative. Dwell on the offense and have no love whatsoever. Love involves choice.

Note: It's not an "on/off" switch. You don't just say "right I'm going to love this person" and it magically happens.

You make a series of choices over the things you can control and move towards the intent. In a relationship what can you control?

Time together
Open communication
Shared experiences
Verbalisation of affection, acceptance and hope.
Restriction of negatives - criticisms, attacks, seperation, alienating factors, fears, or relationally destructive scenarios.
Management of imagination and hopes for future.

It doesn't happen overnight. Love grows.

For ten year I chose to be attracted to women yet I wasn't attracted to them. To be blunt, they never once aroused me. Explain why. I made the 'choices' to be heterosexual, yet I wasn't attracted, explain why.

Impotence in men has often become a problem if the man feels "pressure" to perform. It becomes a cyclic problem, where the pressure to be hard makes flacidity even more likely, thus increasing the pressure, thus increasing certainty of flacidity.

This is with hetrosexual men, in love with their wife. Arousal and attraction are not conjoined. The more pressure is put on arousal, the less likely it will occur.

I have no idea of your story, but if you put any pressure on yourself to feel aroused, you can bet it contibuted to ensuring you wouldn't be.

However, I have experience a number of occaisions where individuals have become not only more attractive, but also far more sexually arousing. Once I have chosen to allow myself to love particular women, they have ended up being so much more sexually attractive than I imagined possible. The loving relationship created the sexual attraction, not the other way around.

Conversely, there have been women who I've initially found sexually attractive, who become severe turn-offs due to personality issues, or circumstances. We can choose to overlook the turnoffs or dwell on them and allow them to influence or like or distaste for them.

But, sex does not, I repeat, does not dictate one's lifestyle. Prove how it does.

1.The destruction of an entire family lifestyle (ie. it ceases functionality) due to one sexual relationship outside the marriage.

2.The pursuit of repeated sexual encounters leads to lifestyle choices such as clubs, bars, alcohol, clothes and appearance choices etc etc etc. Lifestyle.

3.The pursuit of celibacy leads to lifestyle choices that will not put a person in a position of "temptation". Exhibit A: The numerous monasteries and nunneries that have existed over the centuries.

As far as definition goes, then let's expand it to sexual attraction. I'm not sexually attracted to women, never have, and haven't met one yet that's sexually attractive to me.

So. Proves nothing. How old are you? There have been numerous times in my life when I've found no-one sexually attractive. Waiting for a "right person" takes time. Additionally, as I said, once I chose to enter certain relationships, and got rid of my fears and other barriers, the woman became unbelievably sexually attractive. Blew my mind.

If sexual attraction is a choice, then why not simply prove me wrong by choosing to be sexually attracted to a guy that isn't you?

Because I am in a commited relationship and don't want to ruin it by entertaining attractions for ANYONE else.

As far as committed relationships go, these are not simply, as you put it, 'choosing to be attracted to someone'. If it was, then a lot of people would be in a committed relationship.

A lot of people are....

A committed relationship involves a major committment to stay with that one person. Commitment is the only true choice you can really make. Despite the fact that a person is in a commited relationship, it doesn't automatically equal "will only be attracted to one person". [/QB]

How do you think the person stays in love? Ever heard people equate relationships to gardens? Staying in love requires work. The dividends are unbelievably wonderful however.

[ 06-03-2004, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Yorick ]