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from Interviews/Testimonials
Chat Rooms
The following article was written for NARTH by a same-sex
struggler who wishes to remain anonymous.
I've spent more than my share of slow workdays talking with
other men in gay chat rooms. It's a mindless habit, and one I
don't equate with the severity of looking at pornography online.
Still, I've found that the consequences can be just as damaging.
Most of the times when I go into chat rooms, I have no intention
of actually arranging to meet the person face-to-face. I really do
it more for the rush, to indulge the
possibility of meeting someone. Just the thought of being near a guy who is as sexually aroused
as I am sparks a whole fantasy of possibility: "You're in L.A.?
Really? Me too. Whereabouts? Westwood! So am I! Wow, I'm just a
few blocks from you at this very moment. I could be there in five
minutes..."
The conversation is enticing not only because someone nearby me
is aroused, but because that someone wants to do something with
me. A major challenge I constantly face -- along with other Reparative
Guys -- is a feeling of loneliness. And the same loneliness and
isolation that fosters homosexuality is sometimes made worse by
misguided efforts, like making contact with guys in a chat room, to
overcome it. If gays lament the difficulty of living a minority
lifestyle, I trump them -- as a Reparative Guy, I'm a minority
within the gay minority!
During these times I feel as if I'm the only one in the world
suffering from these problems. So to have a guy pay me any
attention at all, if only to find out where I live and what sexual acts
I'd be willing to perform with him, is somehow gratifying.
Sometimes I'll even keep a chat room open in an Internet browser while I
do other work, just waiting for someone to strike up a
conversation and pay me a little attention.
That's not to say I'm all talk. Sometimes the temptation is
too great, the guy too conveniently close, and his description too
good to be true. We agree to meet. When I'm sexually aroused there's
a hungry desperation that'll make me settle for almost any guy.
The longing is more than the natural craving felt by regular guys
- there's a near unstoppable obsession that goes along with it.
A lot of the time, in fact, the guy turns out to be
bad enough to be true: While chat rooms draw men of all ages and types, you
could file a large portion of them under "freak," "creepy" or "just
plain ugly." After all, young and attractive homosexual men can go
to bars or clubs and meet other gay men in person. But that's not
an option for a Reparative Guy like me, who is young and
decent-looking enough, but has very little desire to hang out in such places.
So when I meet a guy from a chat room, there's often a
disappointment physically. But Mom and Pop didn't raise no quitter: Once
I meet a guy, I'll most likely go ahead and fool around with
him (safely), even if I'm not all that attracted to him.
I try to justify my actions as an admirable commitment to
following things through; it's a lot more enjoyable than believing the
more likely reality -- which is that in doing such things, I give
myself less respect than Rodney Dangerfield ever got.
After I've fooled around with such a guy, I have self-esteem
issues that would make Charlie Brown seem confident. I feel like an
entirely different person. My craving for sex does a complete
turnaround, and with the obsession now (temporarily) gone, I'm
repulsed by what I did -- not only because it was with a male, but that it
was anonymous and impersonal.
The feeling of regret isn't the "internalized homophobia" that
gays would use to explain it. I know this because I spent a good
amount of time in the gay lifestyle, relishing and accepting it as best
I could. No, the feeling is something deeper -- a feeling that I've
done something that has somehow robbed me of my masculinity and my
claim to being a man. (At least feeling so awful brings me closer to
my True Self, since I've forced myself to feel something.) But
instead I block out the regret, because that's much easier than making
the effort to really feel the nagging feeling of masculine
inferiority and to understand it, and then to do what I need to do to grow
beyond it.
But by the next day I've forgotten the guy's name, if I even
bothered to get it in the first place. For a day or two afterward,
the thought of entering a chat room is absolutely repugnant. But if
I remain in my black hole of depression, the desire to "chat"
returns as strong as ever. Because this
time, I think, the guy will be better looking. He won't seem gay, but he'll be totally
straight-acting (a paradox in itself). This
time the guy will be cool, someone I'd want to be friends with.
"This time" never comes, though.
You'd think it would just be a matter of "just say no," and of
not doing it anymore, but chat rooms aren't easy to resist. Since
chatting takes place right at home, it's not like having to go rent
a pornographic video or to drive to a gay bar. Don't think
of Internet porn as a fast-food chain that tempts a would-be dieter
to go pick up a greasy burger. Think of it instead as a pizza
delivery boy, always ready to make a house call, instantaneously and
free, whenever the slightest hunger pain strikes. The Internet is
the most instant form of instant
gratification. I can commit the act and be done with it before I've even considered the ramifications.
What's more, the act is anonymous. Unlike bars or other gay
meeting spots, I can find someone to meet without suffering the
embarrassment of being seen and identified. I can even avoid the social
necessities of small talk and having to be personable and
friendly. Too often I've started online with only the intention of
chatting, but the process is a slippery slope, and a casual conversation
can all too easily become a real-life hookup in minutes.
What really frightens me is the more I do it, the more normal
it becomes. If I make that first step to start chatting, I'm
almost certainly drawn in to the whole process for a good week or
more. Once I've made one erroneous deviation, I figure two won't
matter. Two then becomes three, until chatting becomes a part of
daily life, like brushing my teeth. To not do it would be weird.
Unlike brushing my teeth, though, there's a compulsion to the
behavior. I'll chat even when I'm not feeling aroused, but I'll
use it as a stimulant to help kick me out of even the slightest
state of boredom or depression. To jolt me back out of that rut, it
usually takes a monumental positive mood of inspiration or else
an even deeper state of depression.
At the risk of seeming preachy (I don't want this to sound like
an "After-School Special"), I'm telling this to all of you --
moms, dads, therapists, pastors and all others who want to support a
Reparative Guy like me -- to let you know what I'm dealing with.
What all of us Reparative Guys are dealing with. The decisions we
make in the privacy of our homes are ultimately up to us, of course,
but a supportive, nonjudgmental chat from you could help us avoid
a destructive chat online later.
Updated: 8 February 2008
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