My views on life are more complex than what you are inferring. But some things are a case of "you can't get there from here." I'm fond of the saying "Going to war to preserve the peace is like fucking to preserve virginity."
While in our early to mid twenties, my husband and I both ended up in therapy individually plus couples counseling. He was very introverted and hated talking to a therapist.
One day I told him "You don't have to go to therapy. Therapy is a means to an end and it's okay if it isn't your cup of tea. I just want our marriage to be better and I don't care how that happens."
He promptly quit both therapy for himself and couples counseling and was promptly a better husband. I never asked how he pulled that off and I never once threw it in his face that he quit or told him he should have continued for some reason. I got what I wanted out of it -- my marriage worked better, in spite of us both having issues -- and I had meant what I said.
For psychological and emotional stuff, intent and context can make a big difference. I typically think of this in terms of "The definition of rape hinges on the detail of consent. If you want it and agree to it, we call it making love and if it is done against your will we call it rape."
Making love is a very positive experience. Being raped is a very negative and scarring experience.
They don't necessarily look all that different in the details of what happens. People tend to imagine rape is some violent event perpetrated by some random stranger and that's mostly not how it happens.
The big difference is consent. And it makes all the difference.
I do not have a simple nor naive view of life. I'm well aware people are complex and life is not black or white nor even shades of grey. It's a highly technicolor experience and sometimes making the hard choice is a positive and sometimes something being forced upon is takes us where we need to go, though it's not a path we would have chosen.
But for something like how you feel about your own sexuality and express your own sexuality and relate to your own sexuality, I'm quite clear that it makes a big difference if you really wanted it or if it you "chose" it because all of the world had a gun pointed at your head and "choosing" this was presented to you as the lesser evil compared to what the world will do to you if you don't choose it.
I was homeless for some years and I still write about homelessness. I started a project for general support for the LGBTQ crowd because they are at such inordinately high risk of homelessness.
Having spent years homeless while a whole lot of people stood around and went "Meh. Not my problem. Get a real job." while I watched other people get support that got them off the street and kept them off the street (from the same people being ugly to me) I don't have to imagine the kind of pressure the LGBTQ crowd is subjected to regarding how unacceptable they are and how literally life threatening that can be in quietly prosaic evil ways.
I'm not straight but I'm very hetero passing. So I'm not unacquainted with the process of examining my own sexual orientation and wondering what that means and so forth.
Anyway, it's a subject I've thought a lot about and that's my take. This is not intended to be argumentative per se. It's intended as conversational, though it can be hard to adequately convey that online due in part to a lack of voice tone, body language and other important cues.
While in our early to mid twenties, my husband and I both ended up in therapy individually plus couples counseling. He was very introverted and hated talking to a therapist.
One day I told him "You don't have to go to therapy. Therapy is a means to an end and it's okay if it isn't your cup of tea. I just want our marriage to be better and I don't care how that happens."
He promptly quit both therapy for himself and couples counseling and was promptly a better husband. I never asked how he pulled that off and I never once threw it in his face that he quit or told him he should have continued for some reason. I got what I wanted out of it -- my marriage worked better, in spite of us both having issues -- and I had meant what I said.
For psychological and emotional stuff, intent and context can make a big difference. I typically think of this in terms of "The definition of rape hinges on the detail of consent. If you want it and agree to it, we call it making love and if it is done against your will we call it rape."
Making love is a very positive experience. Being raped is a very negative and scarring experience.
They don't necessarily look all that different in the details of what happens. People tend to imagine rape is some violent event perpetrated by some random stranger and that's mostly not how it happens.
The big difference is consent. And it makes all the difference.
I do not have a simple nor naive view of life. I'm well aware people are complex and life is not black or white nor even shades of grey. It's a highly technicolor experience and sometimes making the hard choice is a positive and sometimes something being forced upon is takes us where we need to go, though it's not a path we would have chosen.
But for something like how you feel about your own sexuality and express your own sexuality and relate to your own sexuality, I'm quite clear that it makes a big difference if you really wanted it or if it you "chose" it because all of the world had a gun pointed at your head and "choosing" this was presented to you as the lesser evil compared to what the world will do to you if you don't choose it.
I was homeless for some years and I still write about homelessness. I started a project for general support for the LGBTQ crowd because they are at such inordinately high risk of homelessness.
Having spent years homeless while a whole lot of people stood around and went "Meh. Not my problem. Get a real job." while I watched other people get support that got them off the street and kept them off the street (from the same people being ugly to me) I don't have to imagine the kind of pressure the LGBTQ crowd is subjected to regarding how unacceptable they are and how literally life threatening that can be in quietly prosaic evil ways.
I'm not straight but I'm very hetero passing. So I'm not unacquainted with the process of examining my own sexual orientation and wondering what that means and so forth.
Anyway, it's a subject I've thought a lot about and that's my take. This is not intended to be argumentative per se. It's intended as conversational, though it can be hard to adequately convey that online due in part to a lack of voice tone, body language and other important cues.
I hope you have a great day.