#7 - On the Genesis of SSA (Part I)

Waheed:   0:00
This is Waheed Jensen, and you are listening to, "A Way Beyond the Rainbow." Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatu Allah ta'ala wa barakatuh, and welcome to the seventh episode of "A Way Beyond the Rainbow", the podcast series dedicated to Muslims struggling with same-sex attractions who want to live a life true to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and Islam. I am your host Waheed Jensen. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I would like to also thank everyone who has been sending me messages and e-mails, I have been trying to get back to you as soon as possible. So please bear with me and be patient, inshaAllah. I really appreciate all of your messages and all of your prayers and all of your support, jazakom Allah khairan for everyone, I really, really appreciate that. Starting with today's episode, we are going to start discussing the psychology of same-sex attractions. This episode and the upcoming few episodes are not going to be easy topics. In this episode, we will tackle the genetics as well as the concept of predisposition, family dynamics and sibling dynamics. And in the next episode, we will tackle topics related to body image, as well as social and peer conflicts, poor peer relations, the role of culture and society, and the role of abuse and other factors. So a couple of points that are worth mentioning before we start. So these are very tough conversations. Many of you may have already read and studied all of these topics, some of you may not be well aware of them, and for others, it might be the very first time that you might be hearing these topics. So, as a general disclaimer, I realize that these topics, when we go deep into them, they can be triggering, they will be triggering for so many of us. I remember the first time I was exposed to these topics, it wasn't easy reading all of these things and listening to them, because, for the large part, it involves revisiting the past and opening up, wounds and traumas from the past. So I understand that these topics are not easy at all. So this can be a general trigger warning for individuals. Please listen to this with someone you trust, maybe navigate this with a licensed professional or counselor, listen to this with a friend, reach out to people, reach out to me, I am available to hear you out inshaAllah, whenever I can. So that's the first thing that I wanted to mention. The second thing that I wanted to say is, when we discuss these topics, particularly the topics of today's episode, the point is not to place a blame or to point fingers on specific individuals, particularly the father figure, the mother figure, the brother or the sister, or whoever that person might be. The point is to learn, to discuss these topics, to be able to grow and heal. We are not here to point fingers. We are not here to blame anyone, and I will revisit this point towards the end of this episode, inshaAllah. The third thing that I want to mention is that you may feel that certain things that are mentioned in this episode may apply to you, and other examples or things that are mentioned might not apply to you, and that's perfectly fine. What we are trying to do is, we are synthesizing decades of research into one single episode, and we're trying to discuss this. So it is very evident, and it is normal, that some of the things we mention might resonate with you, while others not so much, because we're all different. And, as we always say, no two cases of same-sex attractions will ever be alike. All human experiences are unique, and no two experiences are ever going to be identical, right? So whatever works for you, whatever you can take out of this episode, whatever makes sense to you personally is what ultimately matters. Another point that I would like to mention is, in this episode, there will be a focus more on the male same-sex attractions than the female same-sex attractions. However, many parts of this episode may also be relevant for females to listen to, and the topic of female same-sex attractions hasn't been as extensively studied as male same-sex attractions. But I will, inshaAllah, devote an entire episode, that is going to be episode number 10, to discuss female same-sex attractions. So just as a general disclaimer at the beginning of this episode, inshaAllah. I would like to start this episode by a quote from one of my favorite novels, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and the quote goes like this: "I became what I am today at age of 12 on a frigid, overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment crouching behind a crumbling mud wall peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it, because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last 26 years."  

Waheed:   6:10
So let's start off this episode by talking about the studies on genetics. Is there a gay gene? Do genes play a role in my same-sex attractions? Many studies have been published on this matter, and many have been critiqued for the lack of consistency and replication, their flawed methodology, inconclusivity and being speculative at best. So what I am going to do right now is give you examples of some of the most important studies, and what the conclusions are, and some critiques to those studies. One of the important studies that was published in 1991 in Archives of General Psychiatry, was called "A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation" by Bailey and Pillard. Now this is the famous twin study; they studied the prevalence of homosexuality among twins and adopted brothers, where at least one brother was "homosexual". So what they did was they found a 52% concordance for same-sex attractions in identical twins, meaning that if one of the twins had SSA, there is a 52% chance that the other twin is going to have that. And then, they found the rate for fraternal twins (non-identical twins) to be 22%. For non-twin brothers of males with SSA, the rate was 9%. And for adoptive brothers, notice here that there's no genetic association, they're adoptive brothers who had SSA, the percentage is 11%. The conclusion is that, because the percentage is higher among identical twins than fraternal twins or non-twin brothers of males with SSA, then there definitely has to be a genetic component to that. So what was a major problem with the study? The main problem here is something called "volunteer bias". So, it's not a random sample of individuals who have SSA, it's a biased one. The twins who actually volunteered to take part of the study were solicited through advertisements in homosexual newspapers and magazines, as opposed to general periodicals, where usually scientific studies are advertised. So, the subjects are more likely to resemble each other than non-homosexual twins, so to speak, right? And then, another point of critique would be, if genetics play a major role in one's sexual orientation, and if it plays the sole role, so to speak, the rate of concordance would be 100% among identical twins, right? So if one identical twin is, so to speak, homosexual, then the other one should also be that. Why? Because they share the same genetic makeup, right? So the idea is, it's not 100%, so there has to be other influences that are playing a role. There must be something in the environment to show the discordant rates. In the same year, in 1991, Simon LeVay published a study in the journal Science, and he reported that there's a group of neurons, or nerve cells, in the hypothalamus, which is a region in the brain, and this region in the brain appeared to be two times as big in heterosexual men compared to homosexual men. And so, the theory was that this part of the brain has something to do with sexual behavior. There are so many problems with this study. First of all, the results are not statistically significant or reliable whatsoever. The group with homosexual men included patients with neurons in that region that are larger than average for a heterosexual man and smaller than those in the average homosexual subject. So there was a spectrum. Also, all 19 homosexual subjects in this study had HIV/AIDS, and they died from it, and it is known as a medical fact that this particular disease affects the brain. There is no proof, whatsoever, that neurons affect sexuality, and this study has been critiqued by many other research groups. It is worth noting that there are many reports on the changes in brain structure of humans with different sexual orientations and gender identity, which brought into question that such behaviors result from hormonal or genetic influences, but - and this is very interesting - the reverse can also be true: sexual behavior in adulthood may in fact, cause those structural changes. So, it can be that differences in sexual behavior cause, rather than be caused by, differences in brain structure. Another study that was published also in Science in 1993 was by Dean Hamer from the National Cancer Institute, and the paper was called "A Linkage Between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation". And after the study, the media reported that the "gay gene" was discovered, as a result of this study, and there was a huge media hype surrounding that. This study involved 40 pairs of homosexual brothers and suggested that some cases of homosexuality are linked to a specific region on the X chromosome, which, in men, is inherited from their mothers. 33 pairs of brothers shared the same pattern variation on that chromosome, and the authors estimated that the sequence of the given genetic markers on the X chromosome is linked to homosexuality in 64% of brothers. Now, what are the problems with the study? First of all, there is no control group. Usually when you conduct a scientific experiment, there has to be a control group, which doesn't have the variable that you are studying. So they didn't test the heterosexual brothers in this study. What if the heterosexual brothers had the same genetic markers, right? Another research team tried to duplicate the same study, they couldn't arrive at the same results. So there is no proof, to date, that a section of the chromosome has a direct bearing on one's sexuality or sexual orientation. And even Hamer himself, the lead author of the study, said later, "From twin studies, we already know that half or more of the variability in sexual orientation is not inherited. Our studies try to pinpoint the genetic factors not to negate the psychosocial factors". A study in 2010 by Niklas Långström used data from a population-based survey of all adult twins between 2005 and 2006 in Sweden to conduct the largest twin study of same-sex sexual behavior attempted until that date. They involved 3,826 monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) same-sex twin pairs, aged between 20 and 47 years. The results, as they reported: there was a 10% concordance rate among identical twins and 6% concordance rate among dizygotic twins. Notice that this percentage is way lower than that 52% reported in 1991 by Bailey and Pillard. And they used an analysis called biometric modeling, where they showed that the results are consistent with moderate, primarily genetic and familial effects, and moderate to large effects of the non-shared environment, meaning the social and the biological environment on same-sex sexual behavior. Nowadays, there is this talk on epigenetics causing or being associated with homosexuality, and by epigenetics, we mean that there are influences on the genes themselves, so there are factors that would influence whether a specific gene is expressed or not expressed. So, for example, let's say two identical twins, they have the same genetic makeup, why would someone express specific genes and the other wouldn't? Why would someone have specific traits and the other wouldn't, even though that they have the same genetic makeup? Well, one explanation is that there is epigenetics, and that is basically, there are certain cues, certain stimuli, that allow a certain gene to be expressed in an individual, whereas the same gene in another individual would not be expressed. And there are a lot of studies on this, and epigenetics are, in fact, linked to a lot of environmental influences. Now, the last study that I will mention, in this section, is the most recent study, the largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality, which has revealed five spots on the human genome that are linked to same-sex sexual behavior, but none of the markers are reliable enough to predict someone's sexuality, as they say. The findings, which were published in August 2019 - this was the most recent study to date, and it was also published in the reputable journal Science by Andrea Gana and his team, and it is based on the genomes of nearly 500,000 people. It confirms the suspicions of many scientists, that no single gene has a large effect on sexual behaviors. "There is no gay gene," says the lead study author Andrea Gana, who is a geneticist at the Board Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Gana and his colleagues also used the analysis to estimate that up to 25% of sexual behavior can be explained by genetics, with the rest influenced by environmental and cultural factors, and this is a figure that is similar to the findings of other studies. So the conclusion is, most seasoned researchers and clinicians in the field now agree that homosexuality arises out of a combination of biological, developmental and environmental influences, although this is rarely acknowledged within popular media. Now, for anyone interested, because discussing this topic in great detail is beyond the scope of this episode, but for anyone interested, for a comprehensive overview of the contributions of genetics, hormones, brain structure and other biological factors, I would recommend that you read the book "My Genes Made Me Do It! Homosexuality and the Scientific Evidence" by Neil and Briar Whitehead. I will add a link to this book in the episode description, inshaAllah. The most recent version is the revised version of January 2020, so it's two months old. This is a summary of more than 20 years of research into homosexuality, and it draws on more than 10,000 scientific papers and publications from all sides of the debate. So, many serious consequences can result from unjustifiably attributing homosexuality to biological causes. And mainly, the problem is that we kind of mislead people into thinking that there is no hope for change, that you are stuck this way, that it is immutable. Now, we may consider the possibility of some biological predisposition, but not in terms of the "gay gene". There could possibly be some psychological factor that predisposes a person towards same-sex attractions, but not one that predetermines homosexuality. And this is very important. Predisposition, if someone is predisposed to something, it doesn't mean causation. It doesn't mean that the person is doomed to have that, or to act upon it. So we can think of it as a lock and key, and this is quite frequently cited in medical literature. An individual can have the lock, can have the predisposition, may have the influences brought by genetics, early childhood, specific temperament that is coded for genetically, let's say. That is the lock. But until you have the key, you will not be able to manifest that, right? And certainly, having the predisposition for it does not make it an argument for its normality. Let us explore this in detail.  

Waheed:   19:05
The material that I am going to present, from this point on, in this episode, is a synthesis of the relevant sections in four major books, two of them for the late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, mainly "Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach" as well as his seminal work, "Shame and Attachment Loss". A third book is "Coming Out Straight: Understanding Same-Sex Attractions" by Richard Cohen, and the 4th on is "The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-) Therapy for Homosexuality" by Gerard Van Den Aardweg. I will post the links to those books in the episode description, and I encourage the listeners to try and read them, when they have the chance. They are very, very important. So, a lot of research has shown that individuals with same-sex attractions have a certain predisposition for rejection and detachment, for not belonging, for feeling that they can't fit in, or they don't fit in. Feeling rejected. There's an internal hypersensitivity. Many men with SSA report a more artistic nature. You know, females are generally more masculine. Males are generally more feminine, in a way. As a child, a male with same-sex attractions would be characterized as high maintenance; in other words, they would require more touch, more reassurance, more constant attention. Otherwise, they would have a poor self-image. By saying hypersensitive, we mean that this individual reacts more deeply to influences in their environment, to emotions. So this can be a blessing and a curse, right? You can be more compassionate, you're an empath, but at the same time, you internalize a lot of the pain and the hurt. And in addition to that, it also depends on whether the family reacts with understanding, or with rejection and mockery to the child who displays these emotions, plus, if the child is going to comply and internalize all of this, or if they are going to speak out and react against this. So you can see that there are a lot of variables interacting with each other. In addition to this, we all have mental filters and specific predilections - personally, they come from us, our temperaments, the way that we are created, in addition to the fact that they are accumulated from our own family environment. These mental filters, they influence the way that we see things in our life. We can, as a result, have a lot of misperceptions. In other words, certain events happen, but we tend to perceive them in a specific way, and we tend to respond to them in a way based upon how we perceive them. Therefore, there is a certain propensity, as they call it, to misinterpret what happens, because of the way that we perceived it and not necessarily the way that it actually happened. Many men with same-sex attractions report having always been timid, shy and introverted, and preferring artistic pursuits such as art, theater and music, for example. There is a sort of an avoidance of this so-called "rough-and-tumble" play. Many feel overly concerned about physical injury and avoid dangerous activities. Some people argue that, what might be attributed to this "inborn temperament", so to speak, might also, in some cases, be the consequence of an insecure attachment due to one's upbringing and family dynamics. And we'll get to this later, inshaAllah, in this episode. Now, one example of a psychological theory that I would like to get into on how hypersensitivity and temperament is associated with the development of same-sex attractions, is called the "Exotic Becomes Erotic" theory by Daryl Bem. Bem is a social psychologist, and his theory presents one possible explanation as to what differentiates the etiology, or the cause, of homosexuality from heterosexuality. So, Bem theorized that the influence of biological factors on sexual orientation may be mediated by experiences in childhood, that the child's temperament predisposes the child to prefer certain activities over others. Bem noted that, because of their temperament, which is influenced by biological variables, such as genetic factors, some children will be attracted to activities that are commonly enjoyed by other children of the same gender, while others will prefer activities that are typical of the other gender. And so he theorized that this makes a gender-conforming child feel different from opposite-gender children, while gender-nonconforming children will feel different from children of their own gender. He believes that "this feeling of difference evokes physiological arousal when the child is near members of the gender with which the child considers as being 'different'". He says that this physiological arousal is later transformed into sexual arousal. That is, as adults, people become sexually attracted to the gender which they came to see as different, or "exotic", while they were children. Bem based this theory, in part, on the finding that a majority of "gay men and lesbians" report being gender-nonconforming during their childhood years. A meta-analysis of 48 studies showed childhood gender-nonconformity to be the strongest predictor of a homosexual orientation for both men and women. Bem also noted that, in a study of the Kinsey Institute of approximately 1000 gay men and lesbians, with a control group of 500 heterosexual men and women, 63% of both gay men and lesbians reported that they did not like activities typical of their sex in childhood, compared with only 10-15% of heterosexual men and women who did not. Bem also draws from six prospective studies, longitudinal studies that began with gender-nonconforming boys around age seven and followed them into adolescence and adulthood, and they found that a majority, around 63%, of the gender-nonconforming boys became "gay or bisexual" as adults. Dr. Joseph Nicolosi presents a very nice way that I would like to share with you, he says, "A helpful way to understand the interaction of biology and social environment is as follows: first are the "givens", and these are basically the genes and the prenatal hormonal influences. These biological factors work together to create a temperamental predisposition, either to gender conformity and the likelihood of normal heterosexuality, or to gender nonconformity and the possibility of homosexual development. Layered on top of those biological givens is the social environment of parents, peers and life experiences, and the last is the influence of free will and choice. The biological and social factors work together to shape gender identity and eventual sexual orientation. The element of choice operates in terms of the values that we choose to identify with, the social group we select, and the behavioral avenues that we pursue. All of these serve to reinforce or modify our early shaping experiences." So, most boys who have SSA have a sensitive nature, which makes them especially vulnerable to emotional injury. This same sensitivity is a great gift in some ways - it often includes keen aesthetic and artistic abilities, and many of us find themselves to be empaths and to be deeply compassionate and loving. But when such a child is driven into isolation by an insecure attachment with the parents, these same gifts provide an easy escape from reality and may lead to deep emotional wounds. And in the next part of the episode, I will go deeply into this.

Waheed:   27:59
In this episode and the next, as I have mentioned, I will present factors that are associated with same-sex attractions. Think of them as a constellation of factors, where the sum of them is greater than the individual parts. In other words, what I'm trying to say is, a single factor doesn't lead necessarily to same-sex attractions. But when you think of them as many confounding variables, many factors that come together, they would be associated with higher chances of developing same-sex attractions.  

Waheed:   28:48
So now, we're going to start talking about family dynamics and the interaction between the father, the mother and the child. Before we get into that, we need to discuss a little bit the topic of gender development and the gender identification phases. So, when it comes to normal gender development, up until 18 months of age, which is around a year and a half, the child is really connected to the primary caregiver, in most cases, the mother, right? So, often, a child sees the mom and himself or herself as one being and one entity. At around 18 months of age, or a year and half, the child starts to go into something called "separation-individuation" phase, which lasts until the third year of life. And in this phase, separation-individuation, as it is called, it's basically where the autonomous self is developed. The child feels that they are separate, they're independent. So the child starts do things on its own, starts walking around, exploring the environment, and by doing all of this exploration, the child often looks at the mom, and tries to confirm that certain items, certain people, certain places are safe to be around. Now, if the mom gives that confirmation that those things are safe, the child eventually can explore the environment on its own without, you know, excessively fearing things, knowing that "it's safe to be myself, that it's good to be myself". This is where self-love and self confidence begin. That is what both girls and boys go through. But boys, on top of realizing "I am me "as an individual, as a separate individual, they have to realize that "I am a boy me", which is a gendered sense of self. So, in other words, we can think of it as two phases: the first phase is this separation -individuation phase, where the autonomous self is developed, and then the gender identity phase of masculine identification for the boy. These two phases occur at about the same time, between a year and a half and three years of age. "The child's sense of gender awareness is a crucial aspect of his/her identity formation. It is through gender that he/she grows to understand who he/she is in relation to other people. By understanding his/her place within the natural dichotomy of male and female, he/she is able to create an organized view of him/herself in the world." So, in that period of time, there is an added step for the boy to separate and individuate from the mom, as we said, and then to be initiated into the world of the masculine by the dad, or the significant other male role model in that child's life. For the girl, even though she must separate and individuate, she still identifies with the mother, who is the role model of femininity for that child. As very young infants, both boys and girls are first identified with the mother, who is the first and primary source of nurturance and care, in most cases. However, whereas the girl maintains that identification with the mother, the boy later has that additional developmental task to shift this identification from the mother to "the second other". This shift is very important. How does this happen? It's through the relationship with the father or the significant male role model, as we said, that the boy will change to a masculine identification, which is necessary if this boy is going to develop a normal masculine personality. This additional developmental task for boys explains why they have more difficulty than girls in developing gender identity. That's number one. And number two, it may also explain the higher rates of male to female homosexuality. So, after the male child is open and receptive to maleness, he will exhibit a special interest in his father. He would like to grow like him, to be like him, as Freud wrote. The boy does not yet understand that his emerging interest in the father comes from a primal affinity based on their shared masculinity, as they say. Nor does he realize that the father is the embodiment of what he himself is destined to be. Yet somehow there is a familiarity, there is a charismatic power to the father. He desires to be received and accepted by his father, and that fragile, emerging masculine identity, receiving it's only impulse from one's instinct, must be reflected in their relationship, as Nicolosi says. So, the boy seeks to take in what is exciting, fun and energizing about the father. There is a freedom and power to outgrow the mother, and this power is personified by the father. If the father is warm and receptive, the boy will be encouraged to dis-identify from the feminine and enter into the masculine sphere. He will then become masculine-identified and most probably have heterosexual inclinations. If both parents encourage the boy this way, he will be well on his way to fulfilling his male gender identification and heterosexuality. One of the father's most significant tasks during this period of time is to protect the child against the mother's impulses to kind of prolong this mother-infant attachment. Through the father's example, the father demonstrates to the boy that it is possible to maintain an intimate but autonomous relationship with the mother. This relationship that we can think of as a triangle, with both parents and the son, it helps the boy clarify his separateness and this sense of being different from the mother. It is in this particular triangular relationship that a man with SSA has issues. The family background is commonly at fault. Typically, there is an overly close relationship between the mother and the son, and the father is kind of distant from the both of them. Ideally, the mother and the father should work together to assist the boy in the identification shift, from the feminine to the masculine. However, if a too close mother discourages this kind of shift and gender identification, a father who conveys dominance and nurturance at the same time can try and counteract this influence from the mother, and try to balance things out. Now, this transition from the feminine to the masculine, what could go wrong along the way, and particularly for a male child? One thing we can think of, if the child sees the relationship with the mother to be more rewarding, we can see how the boy would be reluctant to surrender this identification with the mother, if the father was the less rewarding parent, right? Another point is that if the father was not a salient man, what do we mean by salient? Let's examine this further. For the father to kind of encourage this masculine identification in the son, this depends on two factors in psychological literature: first, the father's presence as a strong influence within the household is important, so strength; and number two, his warmth and availability and empathy, so his loving and caring nature. The father has to be strong and also warm enough to allow this son to make that transition from that comfortable relationship and the original identification with the mom. So, to be nurturing means to be warm and accepting and present and available and caring, and to show physical affection for the boy. If the father doesn't have these qualities, which is being strong and at the same time being warm and benevolent and loving, then that father doesn't have what is called "salient features". A third point is, if there is failure to encourage autonomy. So as we said, in this developmental period, there is this autonomous identity formation, which includes the development of a sense of a personal power and the gender identification, right? So, particularly for the boy, these two tasks are highly interdependent: my own personal power reinforces this sense of maleness, and then the maleness reinforces the sense of personal power. Unfortunately, some fathers actually try to nurture the son as a way to satisfy their own narcissistic needs. In other words, they love the child in a way that is controlling and self-centered. Nurturance on its own is shown to be insufficient, if the father fails to encourage the boy's own masculine autonomy. When love is used as leverage against the boy's masculine strivings, both personal power and gender development are ruined. And the fourth point, of what might go wrong, or how this shift kind of becomes turbulent and it doesn't happen completely, is when the father is absent. So a number of studies show that the absence of a father in a boy's life may result in dependency, lack of assertion and/or weaker masculine identity. There is clear evidence that boys with absent fathers are capable of "heterosexual adjustment", if they have not experienced emotional rejection from a significant male figure, and that is very important. Without the impulse to guard against hurt, they can grow up with a trusting and receptive attitude towards masculine figures. And so, basically, this answers the question, do all men who don't have fathers end up developing same-sex attractions? No, of course not. It's about having a significant male figure in their lives who can allow for this shift to happen, who can allow them to feel emotionally embraced and who is strong enough to nurture them. One of the main issues with male same-sex attractions is not the absence of a father figure, but it's mainly the boy's defensive detachment against male rejection, just keep this in mind, we will get to this towards the end of this episode, inshaAllah. As long as the boy remains open to masculine influence, this is what I'm trying to say, he will eventually encounter some father figure who will fulfill those needs, those healthy and proper needs of the child. Every male has a healthy need for intimacy with other males. This desire emerges in early childhood, and is satisfied, first and foremost, with a father, or the proper father figure in that child's life, and then later on with peers - with male peers. When this drive is frustrated, homosexual attraction emerges as what is known as reparative striving or a reparative drive, and this, again, I will touch upon towards the end of this episode. So, in other words, what if there is no father in the child's life? Usually it is the father who is the most significant male figure in the life of the boy, during his early development; however, it could be any other available male, whether it's a grandfather, whether it's an older brother, whether it's a neighbor, an uncle. Usually, it's the man who is emotionally involved with the mother. It's important to mention that father-son relationships have always been based upon sharing of physical activity. So there is this need to be "shown how", right? This is a characteristic of the relationship with the father during a specific period of the child's life. There's this behavioral, bodily phenomenon of identification that seems to result from the father and the son "doing something" together, right? The father challenges the boy with his masculine form of interaction. At the same time, he is setting reasonable boundaries. The father encourages the boy's energy and optimism. From the father, the boy learns that danger can be fun and exciting, not only in the period of early childhood, but also into adulthood. Doing things together characterizes the way that males relate to each other, right? Men tend to view their bodies in terms of strength and agility and action, and they need to relate on a physical level. And unlike men, most women can relate in a static manner, for example, by sitting and talking face to face. That's different. And while men view their bodies in terms of how they function, women are inclined to view their bodies in terms of how they look, as static objects. So the task for the developing boy is to find the normal masculine, this "action-oriented" way of perceiving his own body, and to engage it in his relationships with other males. Now what happens if the boy has a problem with gender identity, a confusion because of that period of his life? Then, in many cases, the boy would be  excited about dressing up, about being pretty, while not at all interested, and might even be quite resistant, to the idea of doing things with the father. While not all boys, obviously, in this case show effeminate behavior, they still often miss this "doing" dimension of development, in the early father-son relationship, and later in life, they're often particularly drawn to the mystique of masculine boldness and strength and power. As Joseph Nicolosi points out, "Homosexuality is an alienation from males: in infancy from the father, and in later life for male peers. By eroticizing what he feels disenfranchised from, the homosexual man is still seeking this initiation into manhood through other males." Now the question is, what about the female child, since she doesn't have that additional step like the boy, is the problem with the mother, then? Well, in most cases, yes. But this is a huge, huge discussion, because female same-sex attractions are quite different from male same-sex attractions, and a whole episode is going to be devoted to that, inshaAllah.  

Waheed:   43:34
Now let's talk more about the relationship with the mother. Men with same-sex attractions have long been thought to have mothers who are overly close, protective or domineering. The mother's influence does seem to be a factor that can undermine the father-son relationship and sabotage the boy's autonomy, including his gender autonomy. So an abnormally close mother-son relationship has been found in the early childhoods of males with same-sex attractions by so many writers, who themselves have same-sex attractions, and who have described their own childhoods. This triangular system describes the theory that the mother, the father and the son, together, bring about homosexual development. It refers to an intensely affectionate, domineering and possessive mother, on one hand, combined with a distant, ineffectual, rejecting father on the other. And we'll talk about the father in a bit. A healthy marital relationship satisfies both the father and the mother's emotional needs. When they are satisfied and secured parents, they will less likely use the child to meet the emotional needs that should be met by another adult. The father normally serves to support the mother's needs as well. When the marriage is kind of felt as empty, many mothers use their sons to fill the void that is left by the emotional absence of their husbands. But when there is a loving bond between the husband and the wife, the father not only provides the boy with a model of male-female relationships, but he also provides the mother with the security that she needs, so that she gives up any over-intimacy that she may have been tempted to maintain with the child. Now let's give some examples on many dynamics that a lot of males with same-sex attractions report from their childhood. A very common example is that the mother could be over involved, overbearing, possessive when it comes to the child, due to the emotional absence of the husband. Another point that is worth mentioning is that, both parents should show some visible pride when the son or the daughter assume gender-appropriate behavior. What does this mean? So when the boy shows masculine traits, and he develops interest in masculine play, and when the girl shows feminine traits and develops interest in feminine play, this should be encouraged. Family harmony and marital cooperation are particularly important in this matter, because the mother and the father should not undermine the child's efforts in this particular area. So why am I saying this? Because there is a history of some men with SSA that reveals that mothers, particularly, degraded masculinity and the child sexuality, and made the son even ashamed to be a male, through their interactions, through what they said to the child. Any chance of the child expressing his own masculinity, his own interests, was kind of suffocated by the mother. Some research emphasizes the influence of contradictory and confusing gender attitudes within the family, which prevented these children from acquiring pride and satisfaction in their own gender. Another thing that is worth mentioning is that mothers who are continually involved in arguments with the father, they are likely to have sons who sympathize and identify with the mother's hurt, particularly if the boy is close to the mother and has had little attachment to the father, right? What follows, then, is that the mother and the son would kind of be united against the father, so to speak. The boy will see masculinity as something that is brutal, that is insensitive, and he would be more inclined to reject his own manifestations of a masculine gender. Now, the mother's attitude towards the father, and men in general, is also very significant for the child. If she undermines the father's role in the family, this is going to diminish the father's status as a desirable model for the child. If the mother does not reflect that the father as a model to strive for, she fails to demonstrate that there is esteem related to being masculine. This is how a child perceives it. This is how a lot of children with SSA have grown to perceive their father or the masculine figure in their lives, and, indirectly, has influenced the way that they see their own masculinity. In a lot of research, also, parental dominance seems especially important in influencing the identification for the boy. So, where the mother is dominant or relatively masculine, there's a disruption in the formation of the son's masculine sex-role functioning. A lot of studies have shown that sons of such mothers acquire more feminine preferences than boys where the homes are more father-dominant. They also tend to identify less strongly with their fathers. It should be also noted that, in a lot of cases where the mother strongly influences and even manipulates the child, this may not necessarily be a dominant personality type. Many of these mothers of men with SSA were actually fragile and anxious, which is to say that their personalities were kind of weak. But in fact, as a result of this weakness, they tried to impose a strong and even manipulative influence on their sons.  

Waheed:   49:12
Now let's talk about the relationship with the father. As mentioned earlier, in this desire to try and fulfill the natural masculine strivings, the boy reaches out to the father to seek his attention and affection and approval. It is through the fulfillment of these affective needs, the three A's: the attention and affection and approval, the boy's masculinity and the masculine identity is acquired. Now, clinical and empirical studies have found that men with SSA are more likely than men with the opposite-sex attractions to have had a distant, hostile or rejecting childhood relationships with the father. They are more likely to perceive fathers as critical, cold, impatient, detached and so on. In some cases, the fathers had spent less time with their sons during their childhood, and they had been less likely to encourage their masculinity, as a result. Poor relationship with the father, and then later seeking male attention and companionship are found in so many stories of individuals with SSA. The masculine qualities conveyed in the healthy father-son relationship are basically confidence, independence, assertiveness and a sense of personal power. When men with SSA report what they are attracted to in other men, you can see that those masculine qualities that have been conveyed in the healthy father-son relationship are mentioned over and over, like assertiveness and self confidence and a sense of control of one's life, leadership, decisiveness and power. Recall earlier, when we talked about father salience, the concept of salience, this requires being strong and benevolent at the same time. Some fathers were strong, but they were not benevolent, and others were benevolent, but they were weak. So overall, there is a lack of this salience feature, whether the father is harsh and critical or passive and withdrawn. So, actually, in fact, in a lot of cases, the father sincerely expresses his desire for the son's best interests. The father feels sometimes that he is rejected by his own son. Some fathers have had a strong degree of concern for their sons, but they don't know how to behave. So it's not like they are consistently being hostile, but the reactions with their sons, and the way that the son perceives this reaction is very important. And in many cases, the fathers themselves don't have explicit personality problems. Sometimes a very sensitive and loving father can become emotionally unavailable because of their own situations in their lives, like maybe he had to be absent for a period of time. Maybe there are financial and emotional burdens on the family. Or maybe he had a very difficult relationship with the boy's mother, and all of this affects the boy. But in other cases, we can see that the father also has explicit personality problems, and these would be, for example, being egocentric, narcissistic, overly critical, cold. Sometimes a father who is warm and consciously concerned about the son still fails to accept the son in a very genuine way. The father might even feel threatened by the boy's individuation and separation, or even by his presence in the family. And this has been reported in many cases. The father might transfer to the son his own hostility and rivalry that the father himself had with his own siblings and own father. And all of this can either be conscious or unconscious. Again, what is very important to keep in mind, over and over, is that we are not blaming anyone. It's very important to know that, in most, if not all cases, parents have tried their best, given what they had during the time. So what we are trying to do is to kind of unravel all of these family dynamics, to understand them, to understand how they affected us. What is important to note is that a father must be secure enough in his own masculine identity to be able to promote his son's own identity formation. A father who feels threatened may project his insecurities on his son at the critical time of gender identity formation. Sometimes a father may be okay and behaves adequately with some of his sons, but when it comes to this son who ends up having SSA, he displaces a lot of his immature needs and his neurotic behavior on the son. And so this creates kind of a negative dynamic. So, generally, in a healthy environment, and we're talking about a healthy family dynamic, once there's proper male bonding with the father and with male peers, then if there is any future disappointment or rejection from, let's say, the father or other men in the child's life; indeed, these do cause some kind of emotional hurt, but they do not affect gender identity. In fact, many boys during the critical period for gender identification, at times, they may even reject the father. But when the father is emotionally resilient and healthy, he can reach out to the child and re-establish this relationship. The critical variable here to keep in mind may be the father's capacity to genuinely be "for" his son, on the side of his son, rather than require the son to meet specific expectations for the father to accept him. One criticism by a lot of men with SSA towards the father, is that the father was emotionally absent from the family, although he may appear strong, but he failed to take responsibility for the family's life. Fathers of many males with same-sex attractions are often described as detached, as helpless, as avoidant, uninvolved in the family affairs, except to criticize and be negative. Shaming by the father can either be active or passive, in the form of explicit physical or emotional abuse, name calling, showing contempt, or passively, in the form of just disregarding the child and neglecting, which means that the boy would internalize the message that "I am unimportant." In this particular case, the father's interaction does harm through not doing something rather than doing something. So when the father displays an indifference and non-response to the boy's need for paternal affirmation, this becomes a problem. The father's incomplete and unpredictable, or less than enthusiastic response, so to speak, to the boy has failed to match the boy's focus on masculine attachment. Now, a favorable scenario is when the father takes notice of the boy's reaction and then rescues him from it. When he realizes that the boy is kind of internalizing all of this shame. "No, I'm going to step in and rescue my son." But if the father repeatedly fails to notice those needs, those bonding needs, the boy will abandon this desire for attachment with the father, and then internalizes the message that "I am unworthy", and as a result, regresses back to the stage of attaching to the mother. There is something that is very important that Joseph Nicolosi mentions, he says, "In my search for the particular quality of father-son bonding that is fundamental to the development of the boy's masculine identity, I have been led to what I call a "shared delight." I am convinced that the healthy development of masculine identification depends on this phenomenon. This special emotional exchange should be between the boy and his father. Although a father figure or grandfather may serve the purpose where no father is available. It is not a single event or one-time occurrence, but should characterize the relationship. So, in other words, what he's saying is activities that both the father and the child enjoy together. The father and the son share the enjoyment and the delight in the boy's success, that's why he calls it "shared delight". This is usually within the context of a physical activity that involves success or failure. There's this quality of risk and danger and adventure in which the boy is first terrified, but then with proper encouragement and coaching from the dad, the child achieves success and feels good about himself. This excitement is intensified by the risk of failure. Now for many men with same-sex attractions, they cannot recall that their father generally took pleasure in their own activities, or their accomplishments or their successes. On the other hand, when we talk about most men with no SSA, I mean men who have opposite-sex attractions, many of those, in fact, recall sharing such activities with their fathers, that involved this possibility of failure or injury or fear or danger. So, we can see that this interaction - this father-mother-son interaction - is very important. And it's an example of how mothers and fathers care for their son in different ways. Mothers attend to the child, protect the child from harm, whereas the fathers engage their sons in play. Often, the play might include reckless and even seemingly dangerous activities, but these are necessary for the child's proper development and masculine identification. One very beautiful example that we have, almost all of us have observed, is this - when the young father tosses his infant son in the air and then catches him. Anyone who observes this ritual, so to speak, will see that the dad is laughing, while the son at the beginning looks very afraid. But then, soon, the boy begins to laugh. Why? Because Dad is laughing. The boy has learned an important lesson that older males teach younger males, which is: danger can be fun. More importantly, the boy learns at that moment another lesson, which is to trust Dad. Dad will catch me. And from that early relationship, he begins to learn to trust other men.  

Waheed:   1:0:29
Now, how do we incorporate everything, so far, into one model? What Joseph Nicolosi describes as the triadic, or triadic/narcissistic family dynamic, and we will discuss both. The system identifies this over-involved mother and then the critical or the detached father. And this model lays the foundation of gender identity deficit, particularly in a boy who is temperamentally sensitive. So if we're going to look at it, as a quick summary: the father is experienced by the boy as a hostile, emotionally detached person, or both of them, he's non salient. He lacks the salient qualities of being strong and at the same time benevolent. And the boy experiences the father as unsafe, unworthy object of identification. That's from the father's side. What about the mother's side? Normally, the mother is described as someone who's over involved, sometimes intrusive, sometimes possessive and controlling, the relationship between between the son and the mother excludes the father. The bond has been described by a lot of men with SSA as something being very special and intimate, that me and my mom were soulmates and confidantes. The mother confides her own emotional needs to the son as well as her chronic dissatisfaction with the father. And both the mother and the son experience the father as emotionally limited or inaccessible. Many times, the boy sees the father through the mom's eyes. They share their mutual grievances about the limitations of the father or husband. This criticism expressed by the mother lays the groundwork for the son to develop a negative view of men, and, by extension, masculinity in general. Masculinity comes to be seen as "mysterious", something that is "other than me", something that is dangerous and unapproachable, or as psychologist Daryl Bem himself says, "exotic" as we said before in his "Exotic Becomes Erotic" theory. Now, when it comes to the son, the son is temperamentally sensitive, kind of timid, passive, introverted, artistic, imaginative, you know all these kinds of descriptions. He fits these descriptions, in general. The mother describes the son as more intuitive, verbal, gentle, perfectionistic maybe than their other sons. While the temperament is usually a biological given, the other traits, like being timid and passive, etc., may be acquired and can be a symptom of insecure attachment. So this sensitive and intuitive temperament causes the mother to kind of gravitate towards that particular son, which diverts him from the normal developmental path towards masculine identification. Now, what about the husband-wife relationship? Because the father has his own psychological imitations, sometimes he tends to maintain a specific distance from the mom, and he might even avoid her because she might be seen as someone who is emotionally draining. So the marriage kind of becomes characterized by a lack of emotional compatibility and minimal intimacy. The father doesn't want to kind of engage the mom, because he risks upsetting her, and therefore stimulating some sort of new emotional demands in the mother. He maintains this balance in himself by offering her the sensitive son, this person who serves as a "spousal surrogate" in their relationship.  

Waheed:   1:4:03
Now, what about other siblings, if there are any in this family? Freud said that, if the individual who has homosexual inclinations has an older brother, then that brother is likely to be feared, and the relationship will be hostile. These are very common patterns that are observed in the lives of males with same-sex attractions. This older brother may have behavioral adjustment problems and may be experienced by the child with SSA as someone who's intimidating, as someone who is a bully. He may be the family "bad boy", so to speak, while the child with SSA happens to be the "good boy". The older child may be the high achiever, for whom everything comes easy, especially in sports. But either way, the child with SSA is kind of intimidated by that older brother and finds little support and encouragement from him. Sometimes, in other cases, there may be a lot of criticism and rejection by siblings of the same sex for individuals with SSA, and this kind of contributes to this sense of gender dis-identification, and it reinforces the boy's poor self image and self esteem; especially if the boy, for example, has a sort of a physical disability, let's say, or if there is any kind of abuse, whether it's emotional abuse or physical or mental or even sexual abuse by siblings. Many siblings might criticize the individual with SSA as being very sensitive, or those siblings themselves might be beaten and hurt by the fathers, and they would take it out on that brother with SSA. Many males with SSA have reported that we have always played the role of the family hero, we always please our parents and our siblings, we always get the best grades, but we don't get the love that we want so badly. If we look closely at the relationship between the father and the older brother, for example, in many cases, sometimes, they do get along very well. They share common interests, and they might be very similar to each other. And, sometimes, this relationship is taken by a younger, more masculine brother, in some cases. An alternative scenario is the one that we have is the one that that I refer to before, where there is a lot of hostility and even violence between the father and the older brother. But in both situations, the older brother who does not have SSA identifies with the father and the father's power enough to be able to confront and engage the father directly. And this is in direct contrast to the son who has same-sex attractions, where any rebellion from that son is kind of indirect, and he is emotionally distant or disengaged. Many males with SSA remember of their family and say that "my brother was always my father's son, I was my mother's son."  

Waheed:   1:7:21
So, what does narcissism have to do with all of this, because there is also a kind of a narcissistic family dynamic in some families? This has been discussed in multiple works. Some families of men with SSA are characterized by narcissistic dynamics. So, what do we mean by this? In the narcissistic family, the son's separation-individuation phase, that we talked about, and not just the gender identification phase, somehow it poses a threat to the parental team's investment in the son as the "good little boy". So in this family model, which has been described as the "parent-centered model", there is this responsibility that is placed on the child, or the burden of taking care of the parents' emotional needs, so to speak, particularly to help kind of maintain that status quo, as they say, between the detached father on the one hand, and the over involved mother on the other. So the father and the mother, who may be on one level very nurturing and attentive and loving and consciously well-meaning, they nevertheless see the child, not so much in terms of who this child is, as a separate individual, but how this child makes them feel. So, ultimately the needs of this "narcissistic parental system" takes precedence over the needs of the child. Typically, when we describe narcissistic parents, they tend to live over-dramatized lives, right? So what is happening to them at a particular moment is what is all important. They transition from one drama to another, while the children are kind of left as passive spectators or even manipulated participants in what's happening. So, the man who grew up in such a family often expresses an excessively painful sympathy for his parents, even an intense sense of sadness and anguish for them. He was conditioned from an early age to be emotionally entangled in this never ending drama of their lives, while neglecting his own. So when he upsets them by presenting his own problems, they respond to him with disapproval. So the family structure kind of creates a reversal of affect, as it is referred to, so the child feels sympathy not for himself, but for his mother and father. In this narcissistic family, the parents' positive regard, in the form of any kind of warmth and affection and love that they give, is generally given for the purpose of shaping the child's behavior. And at the same time, any love that may be given or taken away is according to the moods and the whims and the impulses and the sentiments of the parent. So rather than providing an understanding and an accepting and a supportive emotional environment for the son to develop as an individual person, such parents routinely and systematically fail to see the boy as a separate person, with his own rights and with his own needs. What they do see is selectively determined by how the child affects them. The boy with same-sex attractions is often reported to be this family member whose unspoken role was to "hold the family together" or "to keep Mommy happy". He is given the task to console and to comfort and to take the responsibility for Mommy's feelings, in many ways. Mom's feelings are especially unpredictable when she has an unstable marital relationship, and because she feels this chronic restlessness and stress and emptiness and dissatisfaction with herself and with life itself, then the boy more often than not finds himself in that spot, "I need to take care of Mommy. I need to make her happy," right? Now, it's not surprising that the boy is not able to constantly gratify the mother through the right behavior. In other words, to always be nice, to always be good, to be considerate, to be sweet, and this is completely expected, and what happens is that it backfires - because he's unable to consistently support his mother the way that he thinks she should be supported, and which is a huge burden on him, right? This causes the child to feel chronically dissatisfied with himself. Any accomplishments that he makes, whether towards the mom or in his life in general, they're not consistently rewarded, and they never seem to be enough in his perception. And it is here that precisely those seeds of feeling inadequate with myself and inadequate with others are planted. The boy starts to repress his hurt feelings, especially all of this anger starts bottling up. The boy cannot internalize a sense of competence. He remains intensely confused about his real needs and his real identity. And so he starts to develop this sense of false self that is characterized by outward compliance and passivity. "Okay, I'll just be the good little boy." He becomes this good little boy on the outside, but begins to feel a need for some distraction. He starts to look for something because of this nagging, this inner discontentment, this feeling of helplessness that is dragging him down. The child of such a narcissistic family, for this child, this is learned helplessness, as Nicolosi describes, "a consequence of the repeated childhood experience that 'nothing I ever do or say will make a difference'". There's also this example of the "perfect family". So a lot of these particular families, they have this need, that we always need to maintain this appropriate image, the perfect image of the perfect family, right? Acceptable appearance is very important, because it shows us as desirable people. So the family may appear to have no problems on the outside. They're often very religious, socially conservative, they attend religious services regularly, they appear to be well kept and well adjusted. Now the children of these families, they later say that they were never allowed to acknowledge the reality of their family's brokenness- there is an inherent dysfunction in the family. Instead, the parents presented this idealized image of family life, which the family was not only expected to project to the outside world, but to also believe and internalize.  

Waheed:   1:14:24
Now, when we think about this narcissistic family dynamic, it has so many impacts on the child, right? Many children feel that they are emotionally abandoned. What happens as a result is that this child becomes an object to himself, an object that needs to be continuously perfected. "I need to work on myself and I need to be the perfect image of myself, I need to show this perfect image of myself." The child fears that any spontaneous behavior would be met with shaming. So this personal identity is continuously under revision. Any hope of real personhood, to become a real person, is abandoned for image. "How other people relate to me is how I define myself. Everything about myself is the promotion of an image: my apartment, my clothes, everything about me. I have this hyper self awareness. What are they thinking about me? What are they thinking of me? What should I say? How am I appearing? How am I standing? All the time, I am aware of watching myself through this kind of 'third eye', so to speak." Usually, a lot of men with SSA report that they have a very normal family life, despite this inability to kind of feel and express this inner anger, their low self esteem, their feelings of inadequacy in relationships, any depression that they face, the cynical and pessimistic moods that they have, difficulty in making decisions, etc..There's often no obvious parental neglect. This sense of mal-attunement was kind of subtle. It's not easily detected. So, the things in the family looked normal, yet somehow they felt strange. "My parents were not verbally or physically abusive. I always had plenty of food and education and clothes and vacations, and always felt well cared for. Because they have always been nice to me, it is really hard to hold them accountable for the emotional support that they did not give." This is quite a common answer. So, to add more to that, a lot of the children of narcissistic parents tend to be seen not for who they really are, but they tend to be recognized for this false positive self that is gratifying to the parents. So, a lot of these children, as a result, tend to develop narcissistic character structures, or at least narcissistic features themselves, and we will be talking about this, inshaAllah, in later episodes in detail. But for the purposes of this episode - what happens basically, is that this narcissism and the narcissistic features tend to blur - it causes a person to blur the boundaries between the self and the other, to confuse their own needs with those needs of other people. So such individuals tend to have low self esteem, difficulty committing to long term goals and relationships, as well as problems with delayed gratification. So, for example, a lot of individuals may start a new project with a lot of intensity and enthusiasm, but eventually they're unable to maintain this commitment to it over time, right? So this is what we mean by problems with delayed gratification. Since those individuals lack an attuned parent to help them identify and express their true emotional needs, and to realistically assess their strengths and weaknesses, they do not know themselves on the inside. Now, other narcissistic features include being preoccupied with oneself, emotionally being distant, excessively being concerned with external appearances, having a restricted self-insight, and a tendency to choose image over substance, as well as a tendency to be easily hurt and offended by others. So there is this excessive need to constantly be reassured and a persistent need to be made to feel special. They frequently hold unrealistic expectations of other people, setting others up to have to reflect back this specialness to them. "Other people have to always make me feel special, in a way. I may not realize this consciously, but a lot of the things that I do, you know, I do them in order to seek reassurance, or to make others show me that they know that I am special, and things easily can backfire, and I can easily get hurt and offended by them, because I'm giving them very high expectations that no one can really match." There is a sense of entitlement and self absorption, yet this grandiosity that such individuals feel also alternates with a sense of being deflated and a sense of belittling oneself. A lot of individuals with SSA say that supportive statements from our parents were often absent or were inconsistent or lacking in credibility. So many, many men that I have personally spoken to have told me, and I was really surprised to hear this, they were never hugged by their own father or the significant male role model in their lives. Many weren't told "I love you." It's very common for them to say that they're weak, to feel that they're weak, unmasculine and unlovable, and to have never, ever felt that in their entire lives they were genuinely seen. So in their attempts to kind of try to make sense of their parents, this kind of ambivalent and unclear acceptance of them, many people say "yes, I do think that, on some level, I was loved, but I know that I was not understood." Another man might say, "I know that my parents love me, but I've never really experienced them being there for me. They say they love me, but it doesn't actually feel like they love me." And many, many of us hear this internalized parental voice. There is this nagging voice that is very, very similar to the parents' voice. "My parents are right. There is something that is bad or weak or unworthy about me being a boy." There's a lot of internalized shame. "I am weak. I am flawed. I am defective. I'm damaged. I'm bad. I'm unlovable." All of these negative, negative emotions, these toxic words. These critical labels represent the internalization of a negative parenting message. "I've internalized all of this", and from these negative self assumptions, what comes up is this legacy of self defeating, self destructive and maladaptive behaviors in adulthood. In addition to that, a lot of the children in narcissistic families lack a reasonable sense of entitlement. So what do we mean by that? Many children are not given the right to own their own feelings, to own their own property, their own time, and even in the scenario of early sexual abuse, their own bodies. In adulthood, as a result, they find it very difficult to establish clear personal boundaries. As the child of this family becomes more independent, he finds himself labelled as what? "Selfish", "Disrespectful", "How dare you?" Placed in this hopeless position of having to make Mommy happy and finding himself unsuccessful in gaining his father's love and attention, as we said, this boy grows up with a sense of helplessness, pessimism about life and relationships in general. So, as an adult, he won't trust his feelings or his internal judgment, because he was never taught to be aware of his internal voice and his internal promptings, and many individuals find themselves inclined to "split". What do you mean by splitting? And this is very important to keep in mind, because this is a feature commonly seen in individuals with borderline personality disorder. So splitting means that I perceive other people as either "all good" or "all bad". It's always black or white. I don't see the shades of gray in between. So, you know, the significant relationships in my life, I see them in terms of absolutes. The other person is either great or terrible. Either they love me or they hate me. Extremes, always. The child of this family, who is himself likely to have those narcissistic features that have developed subconsciously, cannot see those ambiguities in the nuances that are inherent to all relationships, those gray areas, so to speak. So why do does the mind split? Why is this a feature? Because it is done subconsciously to avoid intense and often overwhelming anxiety, because there is a sense of control to be gained by interpreting things as all positive or all negative. Yet even this black or white perception tends to change. The other person may suddenly go from "all bad" to "all good", or from "all good" to "all bad", depending on how that person makes me feel about myself. And the reason is, because the parents related to the child as if he were "all good" or "all bad". So when that child was "all good", he satisfied their emotional needs, or he did what what he had to do, in their perception, they were loving and attentive to him, right? But they treated him as "all bad" by being cold and rejecting, when his behavior made them feel bad about themselves, or when he didn't meet their expectations. So what happens is that the child internalized this message. The family, therefore, deprives the child of the experience and understanding that all relationships will inevitably contain both deep satisfactions and deep disappointments. That's the reality of life, right? So one might be questioning at this point, you know, the reaction of the boy should be like a sort of an anger towards those who have shamed him, and anger towards his parents, and to feel sad for himself. But for the child in such a family, it's very important to realize that such feelings are often reversed. This child finds himself taking the responsibility for the shamer's actions, he is angry at himself for upsetting his parents. "I feel sad for my parents. I am so disappointed in myself", right? So, subconsciously, this has been interpreted in psychology as an act of preserving the loved one. Freud said that this child tries to preserve the loved one, in a sense, by maintaining this rightful position of honor and power, but at the same time, it kind of derails the child's ability to perceive and grieve any failure that comes from the parents.  

Waheed:   1:26:07
Now, one question that might also pop up at this point, you know, some people might ask, "Well, not all people had distant or abusive fathers. Not all men with SSA had overbearing mothers. A lot of kids do have this, but they don't end up with SSA. There has to be this inherent predisposition to being sensitive, a lot of sensitive kids do not end up with SSA. So, what are you talking about? Is this like a rule of thumb?" So, as we said at the beginning of the episode, it's a culmination of so many factors, and in addition to all of this, even if this were to take place, if all of these factors were to perfectly align, and you would expect a child to have SSA, it depends on how the child perceives all of this. You might have a child who grows up within a narcissistic family dynamic, within that household with an abusive father, with an overbearing mother, and the child might be temperamentally sensitive. But the way that he perceives all of this is markedly different from the way that a child with SSA perceives it. And in addition to that, there is a constellation of so many factors, as we said. So a single factor doesn't lead to the development of SSA, but it's rather many confounding variables that would be associated with higher chances. And, you know, in this episode, and together with the next episode, we try to kind of paint an overall picture, a broader picture for everyone to kind of try and understand all of these variables and how they fit in. And I hope that with time, this makes sense, inshaAllah. And again, as I said, some things you might feel that you identify with, other things, you feel they don't make sense, or they don't apply to your situation, that's completely fine. As I said at the beginning, you know, we're all unique individuals. The experience is unique, and no two cases of same sex attractions is ever going to be identical.  

Waheed:   1:28:06
A question is, "how is all of this related to gender identity?" So, gender identity, as defined by Stoller in 1965, is that part of our identity that is concerned with masculinity and femininity, and male gender identity is this kind of a man's awareness, this conscious and unconscious awareness, that he is masculine or manly. Many men with SSA have this kind of deficit in that particular aspect of their gender identity. This is not to be confused with core gender identity, meaning "I am aware that I am a male". Confusion in one's core gender identity may result in transsexualism, that's a completely different topic. But for most men with SSA, this core gender identity, that "I am a male", this is intact, this is fine, but there remains this private and subjective sense of simply not feeling truly male identified 100%. This male gender identity deficit doesn't mean simply that this man fails to fit into the culture's image of masculinity. A man with no SSA may have a very artistic nature or may enjoy theater, art, cooking, whatever is deemed, you know, more feminine, if that's a thing anyway. On the other hand, a man with SSA may be a professional athlete or wrestler, what have you. But what I'm trying to say is that there is kind of an inadequacy in this inner sense of maleness, or femaleness when it comes to the female. So we will examine this further in the next episode, inshaAllah, because Gerard Van Den Aardweg discusses this in detail when he talks about what he refers to as a masculine or feminine inferiority complex, to see oneself as not belonging and kind of inferior to members of the same gender. But some things are worth addressing in this episode, given that, you know, we've been talking about the concept of family dynamics, and I'd like to quote Joseph Nicolosi at this point when he said, "Gender identity deficit is this internal private sense of incompleteness or inadequacy about one's maleness, and this is not always evident in explicit, effeminate traits. Some outwardly masculine homosexual men have carefully cultivated their outer image as an armor against inner anxieties of masculine inadequacy. This kind of overcompensation is sometimes seen in "leather bars", where the charade of masculinity includes men dressed in motorcycle jackets, cowboy outfits, military police uniforms and other caricatures of maleness." Van Den Aardweg basically says that "poor relationships with parents of the same sex often accompanied by unhealthy attachment bonds with parents of the opposite sex, especially for males with SSA, these are common childhood experiences for homosexual persons. They are by no means a universal phenomenon", according to him. So, some males with SSA had good relationships with their father, felt loved and esteemed by them, and some females with SSA had good mother relationships. But even such largely positive relationships can play a role in the development of homosexuality. So, for example, he gives this example of a young man with SSA, who's slightly feminine in his behavior, who had been mainly brought up by his affectionate and appreciating father. He remembers that, as a child, he wanted to go home as soon as possible after school, where he felt uneasy and could not cope with his peers, and poor peer relations are a very important point that we will talk about in the next episode, inshaAllah. So, in this example, the concept of "home" for this child did not mean, as you would expect, to be with the mother, but actually to be with the father, you know, whom he considered to be his favorite parent, and with whom he felt protected. And in this case, the father wasn't the weak parent with whom he would not have been able to identify; on the contrary, it was the mother, in this case, who was the weak and the timid personality, who did not play a significant role in this boy's childhood. His father was a manly, aggressive type whom he admired, but the important point seems to have been that this father imposed on the child the role of a girl, of a weakling, so to speak, as if he had no strength to defend himself in the world. The father, in a way, kind of dominated the child in a friendly way, so he was really close to him. This father's attitude created, or kind of helped to create, this view in the child, of himself, as someone who's defenseless and helpless, not manly and strong. So, as an adult, this man kept clinging to fatherly friends for support. Any of his erotic interests focused on young men, not on older fatherly types, as one would expect. Likewise, there is another example of, you know, the seemingly manly man with SSA of, about, let's say, 45 years old, who could not detect the slightest problem in his childhood relationship with his father. His father had always been his friend, his coach in sports, and a good masculine model in his work and social relationships. So why, then, did he not identify with this father's masculinity? Again, the problem lay with the mother. She was proud and dissatisfied with the father's social achievements. She was more intelligent, and she was from a higher social level than her husband, who was a working man. She often humiliated him with deep, sharp criticisms, and the son had always felt sorry for the dad. He did identify with the father, but not with this manly behavior of his, because he had always been taught by the mother to see himself as different from the father. And he was his mom's favorite. So he was to be the one who would compensate her for her disappointment in her husband. Remember, early on, when we talked about how the mother kind of emasculates the father, in a sense, when she is harsh, and when she portrays masculinity as something that is toxic, as something that is wrong, so the child kind of internalizes this image and does not appreciate the masculinity of the father. So in this case, the child, despite his healthy bond with his father, he always felt ashamed for his own masculinity. And there are a lot of men with homosexual orientation who felt their father's affection, but they missed their fatherly protection. One father, who felt unable to cope with life, leaned on his son in times of trouble. This is a sort of a practice that the son felt was too heavy of a burden. He, himself, wanted support from his strong father. So the roles of the parents and the child seem kind of reversed in those cases, as with women who have homosexual inclinations, who, as girls, felt that they had to play the mother's role with respect to their own mothers. A girl in such a relationship would then feel that she could not get her mother's necessary understanding for her own normal problems, and she would miss her mother's encouragement of her feminine self confidence, which is very important, especially during puberty.  

Waheed:   1:35:52
Now, at this point in the episode, it's worth talking about Nicolosi's concept of pre- and post-gender homosexual, as he terms it. So, up until this point, this model of homosexuality that we have, you know, explained and discussed is basically this failure to negotiate the gender identity phase, between 1.5-3 years of age. If that is successful, usually the boy would dis-identify with the mother and would securely identify with the father. This rings true to the majority of men with SSA that Nicolosi has seen for decades in his own practice. However, he says that there is a 20% of men that he has seen that present a distinctly different clinical picture. And so, he calls them pre-gender and post-gender, which is close to what the psychoanalytical literature terms as pre-oedipal and post-oedipal. Anyway, the idea is that here, the developmental trauma, the main issue that had happened, occurred later in the child's life, and it involved a wider spectrum of influences - especially any damage to the ego that was done during the "latency period", which is between the age of five and twelve. So, in this case, he postulates that this post-gender type successfully completed the gender identity phase, but later experienced another form of trauma for which the homoerotic desire became conditioned as a sort of an affect regulator. So what do we mean by this? These men typically present as "straight", they have the masculine attributes, they don't have any effeminate behavior, but inside, they feel in themselves this disturbing need for masculine affection, right? This man might have distinct sexual attractions to women, but he has little or no interest in any female friendship. He is only interested in being around the guys, so to speak, and therefore he behaves like a boy trapped in that period between five and twelve years of age. He kind of demonstrates the ability to establish reasonably good relationships with straight men, but does not feel he can openly share his struggle with them about his homosexual attractions. Usually, this trauma that has occurred in this post-gender type seems to have happened from an older brother or the father, or cruel and teasing peers at school, or from sexual abuse, or from a very disorganizing mother who makes him crazy, who invokes a sense of fear and anger, which the man now realizes towards all women, and which keeps him out of developing proper relationships with them. So, these men appear to be regular guys, but they have a distinct insecurity about their own masculinity. It is not a desire for the other person's masculine qualities that drives this same-sex attractions in this particular person, but what it is basically is that the man tries to seek the anxiety-reducing reassurance of male support and comfort against his inner insecurity. So with this particular type, there is no real deep grievance against the father. It's not like a deep, you know, a very profound sense of pain and grievance against the father. Yet the man kind of typically sees the father as somehow weak or lacking this salience, as we said, to defend him against an abusive older brother, for example, or his very cruel peers at school, or the mother who's driving him crazy. The father was good enough for attachment, but he failed to rescue the son during the latency phase from repeated trauma. Sometimes, these past abusive relationships would kind of repeat in the homosexual fantasies and in the type of relationship that he wants to seek with a partner. But this individual is less likely to develop an addiction to, for example, gay pornography, as the image of the male physique alone is not as sexually appealing. Rather, he kind of looks for masculine affirmation, sometimes from youthful, gentle, boyish, passive and sometimes even more effeminate kind of man. So, the image that is sought here by this individual in a partner is not that idealized masculine type, which is what's desired by most men with SSA, but it's rather a man who represents his own lost, innocent, younger self.  

Waheed:   1:40:55
Now let's talk a little bit about the concept of defensive detachment and how the child reacts to everything that we have discussed in this episode, which is very important. And this is kind of a universal phenomenon. So, if the boy tries to attach to the father continuously, but all of these trials are kind of, you know, ignored or rejected, and he continuously feels frustrated with the father's lack of affirmation, what happens is that usually the boy would go into a natural strategy for all children in that particular age who are frustrated. And what do children do? They kind of protest, right? So they do that in all sorts of ways: crying, demanding, any kind of disruptive behavior. Now what happens if the family dynamic is already unhealthy? All those displays of protests by the child, they are ignored, and in some cases, they are punished. So what this teaches the child is the lesson that any direct protest is going to get him nowhere. In fact, they make things worse. When parents do not respond to the boy's protest, he is going to lapse into a state of helplessness and will eventually surrender the struggle. What is internalized from this is that "there is no alternative for me, but to retreat and go back to my mom and carry a sense of weakness, failure, depression and victimization." Subconsciously, this becomes a sort of a protection from any future hurt. He defensively detaches from the father, and this final self-protective position that he has taken, which is - this basically says: "Never again." It says, "I reject you and what you represent, namely your masculinity." So. later in childhood, the child will indirectly express his anger by ignoring the father and denying that he has any importance in the family. Now, this sort of behavior, this defensive detachment - as it is called, defensive detachment, it's an act of defense against any future disappointments and pain, by detaching from the masculine figure - this particularly becomes important during the latency period, again, between five and twelve years of age. The child becomes fearful and cautious around other boys his age, and he stays close to his mother, and perhaps the grandmother, aunts or older sisters. He becomes this "kitchen window boy", which is a frequently cited example. You know, imagine a boy looking out through the kitchen window and seeing other boys playing. So he looks out and sees his peers playing, sometimes aggressively, and what appears to him to be something dangerous. He is attracted to the other boys, he's attracted to what they're doing, but at the same time, he is frightened by what they are doing. So what happens is that this kind of defensive detachment, it emotionally isolates him from other males and from his own masculinity. Females, as a result, are familiar to me, but males are mysterious. When the sexual needs hit at puberty, and when the sexual needs seek expression in early adolescence, it is understandable that the direction of a young man's sexual interests will be away from what is familiar to him, which is the feminine, and will be directed towards something which is unapproachable, and that is the masculine. So we do not sexualize what we are familiar with, we are drawn to the "other than me". This is a further damaging lesson that a boy carries over into adulthood. Having learned before, that being directly assertive, at least in relation with other males, is useless, "I will always perceive myself as passive and weak in relation to my male peers." Now the exact timing of this transitional phase depends on the boy's emotional development and sexual experience. What I mean is, when does this shift take a turn towards the erotic and the sexual? For most boys, it occurs around adolescence, so between 13 to 15 years of age; during this phase, all of these unmet affectional and affirmation and identification needs take on an intense sexual aspect. During the erotic transitional phase, as they call it, the boy is likely to develop an intense interest in another boy, often an older boy who seems to possess those qualities that he admires. It may be a boy who is particularly good in sports, very friendly, outgoing or especially handsome and self confident. At the beginning, there is an infatuation that he develops with that boy, which is non-sexual at the beginning. But later, with the transitional phase that takes place, this admiration becomes eroticized, it becomes sexual. And the testimonies of so many men proves that these unmet emotional and affectionate needs are the basis for later homosexual attractions. Many men recall their earliest same sex physical contact was essentially kissing and hugging, just to fill that empty space that we feel inside. But with time, this need for romantic affectional contact is replaced by specifically erotic desires. As Nicolosi says, "where neither parent reengages the boy out of his dissociative defense, the foundation is laid for a lifelong shame-based relational style and a pervasive feeling of not belonging and of not feeling truly loved." This sense of detachment may be locked up in our unconscious mind, that's why a lot of us say "I've always felt this way, ever since I was a little kid, I've always felt this way," because 90% of our brain develops by the time we're three years old. So a lot of us don't even realize these things. They have already happened to us by the time we are aware of what's going on around us and we relate to the world. As Richard Cohen says in his book, Coming Out Straight: Understanding Same-Sex Attractions, "the greater the detachment from feelings, thoughts and needs in the present, and the greater the detachment from the unresolved wounds and unmet needs of the past, the greater or more intense the desire will be for homosexual relations. The more a person is unaware of his thoughts, feelings and needs in the present relationships, the stronger the need and energy attachment will be, to engage in or fantasize about homosexual behavior. Sex then becomes a way back to the body and soul, either through masturbation or sex with another person. He is trying to obtain his lost self or dissociated parts. Therefore, seeking sex or compulsive masturbation represents a reparative drive to restore the broken self. The frustration is that this never works!  

Waheed:   1:48:05
In this last section of the episode, I would like to briefly touch upon the concept of reparative drive, and this is the basis for what is now referred to as "reparative therapy". Many people think that what "reparative" means in this case is trying to repair a damaged or broken individual. That's not what it means. Reparative drive is this natural inclination that we have, when we have same-sex attractions. So let me try and explain this. Homosexuality has long been explained as an attempt to "repair" a deficit in one's masculine identity. This theory is not a new one. It has, in fact, been a long tradition within psychoanalytic literature. While not all homosexuality can be explained simply as a reparative drive, for most men with same-sex attractions, it is a significant motivation. When a man with same-sex attractions encounters another man, who is what he himself would like to be, he is likely to idealize him and romanticize this relationship. It seems apparent that some men with SSA and I'm quoting here from Nicolosi, "choose as sexual objects people who have characteristics, whether physical, personal or both, in which they themselves feel deficient. Dissatisfaction with the self, with the way one is, measured against internalized standards about how one would like to be, may be one of the major routes of some homosexual feelings and behavior." Carl Jung, who is an early psychoanalytic pioneer, captures the essence of the reparative drive theory in his description of the homosexual condition, and this is paraphrased by Jacobi in 1969: "Homosexuality is a repressed, undifferentiated element of masculinity in the man, which, instead of being developed from the depths of his own psyche, is sought on a biological plane through "fusion" with another man. It is an unconscious attempt to compensate for a deficit. The man with SSA is attempting to repair those unmet same-sex affective needs, which are attention, affection and approval (the three A's) and gender identification deficits through this homoerotic behavior. So, reparative drive is this yearning, this need for attention, affection and approval from a highly masculinized fantasy figure, in order to rescue oneself from the darkness of what is known as the gray zone, which we are familiar with. Homosexual enactment, it temporarily relieves the stressful self states, most particularly the shame self state that we find ourselves in. And after that, after the homosexual enactment, we often feel this depressive mood of the gray zone We will talk in detail about the gray zone in a later episode, inshaAllah. So, in order to raise ourselves from the darkness of the gray zone, we try to take in some other man's masculinity, through fantasizing, through masturbation or even real sex. In psychology, this is what is referred to as "incorporation". I incorporate another man's masculinity. As Nicolosi says, "homosexual acting out for these men is an attempt at restoring psychic equilibrium in order to maintain the integrity of the self structure. Through sex with another man [whether it's really or imagined], they unconsciously seek to attain a self state of authenticity, assertion, autonomy and gender relatedness. But they have found that it brings them none of those things, only a nagging feeling of inauthenticity and a still deeper sense of unfulfillment."   

Waheed:   1:52:22
I would like to end this episode by saying, I realize that it's quite a long and heavy episode, and going through this myself, it was quite heavy, I would say. It was quite triggering in some aspects, and I can imagine that a lot of you listening, particularly if you are being exposed to this content for the very first time, I realize that it is very, very uncomfortable and triggering in so many ways. It's not an easy episode. When this family dysfunction is recognized, it is very painful. A lot of us don't realize this. And now, it's like an old wound is being open and I'm forced open this Pandora's box, and I'm not sure what else is going to come out. But I want to tell you that you are not alone in this. I have been through this myself, and there are countless and countless brothers and sisters, all around the world, who have been through this. And what I would like to tell you, and what they would like to tell you, is that, when we recognize this kind of family dysfunction, it doesn't need to destroy the family relationship and end in bitterness. It may, in fact, eventually lead to forgiveness. This is what we hope to achieve. But it's a process, and this is the first step for many of us. Realizing all of this and taking time to process it is very important. Try to reach out, reach out to people you trust and love, share your concerns, share your thoughts with others. I would love to hear from you, please share what you think, what you have experienced. Tell me about how this episode has made you feel. You can share through writing, through expression, through journaling, whatever makes you comfortable. Talk to a licensed professional or to a loved one, but don't do this alone. Again, what I would like to stress at the end of this episode is that we are not shaming our parents, we are not pointing fingers or placing a blame on anyone. No parent in their right mind would consciously inflict any kind of pain on their child, or would do anything that would hurt their child, had they known what it would do to that child. I really hope that everyone realizes this. So, we are not here to blame anyone. On the contrary, the reason we are talking about this is for us to get to know these topics, for us to discuss them and for us to pave the way forward, inshaAllah. A path of healing and growth and love. Again, this episode hasn't been easy, and the next episodes will continue this journey, inshaAllah. We will dissect these themes further and talk about healing techniques, inshaAllah. I wish that this journey could have been easier, but again, I want to say that we are all here for you. Please reach out. I would like to end this episode by a quote from a man with SSA, who is cited by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, and he said, "Initially I felt anger, resentment and confusion about why my parents chose to do the things that they did. Today, though, I have come to understand more of how they, too, were wounded emotionally, and that they couldn't give what they didn't have. Recognizing that has led to a much more authentic relationship with them. Now, I have been able to feel more compassion towards them and to move on to a place of forgiveness and understanding." May we all reach that point, inshaAllah. Amen. I would like to sincerely thank you for joining me in today's episode. In the next episode, we will continue the discussion on the genesis and the causes of SSA, particularly when it comes to poor peer relations and body images, as well as the masculinity and femininity inferiority complex, what roles do culture and society play, as well as the big topic of sexual abuse. As always, you can listen to all our episodes on our website awaybeyondtherainbow.buzzsprout.com, and you can catch us on your favorite podcast apps, like Apple podcasts, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio and TuneIn Radio. Until next Friday, inshaAllah, I hope that you have a wonderful week, and I look forward to talking to you soon. This has been Waheed Jensen in "A Way Beyond the Rainbow", assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.