Continued...

        Consider that everyone is basically the same, regardless of sexual orientation, in terms of romantic longings, a desire to love and to enjoy intimacy. Everyone is turned on by certain things, and repulsed by certain things. The difference between you and a person of another sexual orientation is not how you feel, think and act, but merely the object of your longings, the object of what naturally turns you on, or repulses you.

        If you feel put-upon, by being asked to under-stand, consider this difference too: if you are straight, you grew up in a world where everything around you supported and reinforced who you are. You had nothing to figure out or even think about; what naturally turned you on or off was taken for granted. Gay people, on the other hand, grow up in a world that is not supportive but strange and foreign to them in this regard. Not only that, their very identity is in fact undermined, ridiculed and disparaged. Maybe very little is being asked of you, in comparison to what is required of them.

        In short, we’re all repulsed by what doesn’t happen to turn us on. Be thankful your repulsion is experienced from within the comfort of a supportive world. Others experience it in an un-supportive world of hostility.