Oy.

I try removing my glasses, but my uncorrected vision is over 20/1500 so it's a litle dangerous. Plus, often these folks are jogging while I'm DRIVING. Not a good idea. Removing them MENTALLY is very very helpful, though.

I try telling myself that ultimately I don't want it, so it's better not to look. But for now, that feels untrue. I DO like to look. It IS a thrilling rush. I FORGET it's a lust I can neither hold nor discharge in a holy manner. I HAVE learned how to keep it all "compartmentalized" in my heart. So I'm not yet at a place where the thoughts could go in one side and out the other. And I won't lie to myself.

What I HAVE realized, though, and this helps a LOT, is that my own challenge of "wife doesn't look like I'd want her to" really isn't any different than the other guys here who hope for some size 2 Barbie doll wife or whatever. Sameach b'chelko is a common theme, equally tricky for everyone on GYE. Oy.

when you say you do want to look, do you mean when the lust is already there, or in a time when you're not feeling horny do you also think you'd like to have the rush?

I'd say from the fact that you're posting about it means that you prefer not to look. Put it this way, if you could push a button and make the last go away would you? If yes that means you don't really wasn't the lust and the drive that it brings. The problem is its only in your HEAD and not in your HEART. and when you cone to the situation your heart is what acts when the lust is there and not your head. so its a situation of Vehashevoisa el levovecha which is what a lot of yidishkeit is about.

The thing is to really be shoikel in your heart the pros and cons of looking, what you have to gain and what you have to lose.

BF

Lets be mechazaik!!!

breaking free wrote on 07 Jun 2010 15:02:

I'll confess. I sorta like it all the time, not just when I'm already feeling lustful. It's not anything worth talking about on a public GYE forum, any more than asking the other guys whether they prefer or .

Given all the other stuff on my mind these days (day 92), I'm not surprised it's happening. And I know I've got answers in here somewhere. It's just that the Yetser says, "come out and play; it's speedo time at the Y" it's hard to remember what that answer is supposed to be.

I need a prompter at the front of the stage with a cue card. Applicants, anyone?

Kedusha wrote on 06 Nov 2009 14:04:

Could someone post the letter from Dr. Twersky?

If you're talking about a letter concerning yeshiva bochur with gay ("SSA") leanings, you're talking about the letter from HaRav Feldman (Rosh Yeshiva in Baltimore). The URL just got pasted onto the thread.

If there's one from Rabbi Dr. Twerski, that's news to me.

Chevra, and I mean the ones who DON'T face SSA challenges even more than I mean those who DO, AMUSH:

What can be done for yeshiva guys with secret desires for other guys, who nonetheless hate every single thing about anything M-M (aka SSA, aka gay or bi or whatever).

You know, the guys who hate themselves for what they want. Who hate themselves for foresaking the Torah or even thinking about it. The guys who can't face themselves in the mirror without telling themselves how there's no tshuva and no olam haba and Hashem hates both them AND what they do, etc.

What if such guys show up on GYE, as part of the journey through the naarishkeit we all share. (We're all bozos on this bus. This tricycle.) WHAT WOULD YOU WANT TO SAY TO THEM?

(And yeah, I'm afraid this question is 'toeles.' :-< )

[quote="Briut" link=topic=1200.msg69606#msg69606 date=1276052385]
You know, the guys who hate themselves........

Fist thing need to work on accepting themselves as Tzelem Elokim.
I think Dr. Twersky, wrote the mitzvo of V' Ahavto L'Reyach Kamocha is michyev a yid to love himself!!! B'shem the Chafetz Chaim -Hashem loves us more than we love ourselves!
helps to be mechalek between the person and his behavior.
Does Charotoh for aveiros equal self-hate? I hate the fact that I did the aveiroh but i can still love me the one who wants to do Tshuva!
Now what about if i like the color pink?

sorry Bruit ,i messed up that quote thing again....

this is what i wrote in reply to Bruit

Fist thing need to work on accepting themselves as Tzelem Elokim.
I think Dr. Twersky, wrote the mitzvo of V' Ahavto L'Reyach Kamocha is michyev a yid to love himself!!! B'shem the Chafetz Chaim -Hashem loves us more than we love ourselves!
helps to be mechalek between the person and his behavior.
Does Charotoh for aveiros equal self-hate? I hate the fact that I did the aveiroh but i can still love me the one who wants to do Tshuva!
Now what about if i like the color pink?

Briut wrote on 09 Jun 2010 02:59:

YA: There are distinctions that are a little hard to define. In my view, as soon as we start to say "hate the sin, love the sinner," we've already poisoned the well. For me, I don't see my own "sins" (of any nature) as a poison within me, I see them as PART of the whole package that is me. I don't have to "hate" them in order to love myself enough to work on them.

I'm afraid that lotsa folks who go around spouting Torah reasons to stop doing sin a, b, c are really just talking to themselves, and are really just telling themselves how hated, hate-able, and irredeemable they are. Which means that Hashem would have to hate them, too, or else He'd be, so to speak, an idiot (Ch'v).

Folks might be better off if they simply stood up, declared their "sin," took all the wind out of its sails, and just went back to work. [Maybe I'm starting to sound like the 12-step model, after all. (Go figure!)] But I can't see how we can breathe hellfire and brimstone against a sin that we hold, without coming to hate ourselves.

I know I'm rambling. Am I even CLOSE to understandable yet?

Good night.

yedidya aleph wrote on 09 Jun 2010 18:18:

I was re-reading this thread. I'm learning a lot. I have one add'l thought -- a little sharp but then again you know, Y.A., that I don't hold back.

Wearing pink clothes doesn't make anyone a f*ggot any more than wearing a Borsol*no makes someone a Ben Torah. And, someone showing up at yeshiva with that shirt and not that hat shouldn't be seen as a bad person. Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke (Freud).

And even if the shirt were a grave sin, the person wearing it is still entitled to love himself. As you said, even mechuyev to love himself. AND, AT THE SAME TIME, TO WORK ON HIMSELF -- on his aveiros, his middos, his mitzvos. I'm just not sure he needs to hate even the sin, and certainly not the sinner. It's all just an opportunity for tshuva mi'ahava, for dveikus to Hashem.

i hear u. Of course we love all Yiden! And we feel rachmanus for those who are nebach misguided,misinformed ect.
BTW ,believe it or not i saw two frum guys this morning wearing "pink" shirts. no,i did not ask them if they has ssa!
Have a Good Shabbos.

Hey!  I see y'all have been very busy with my life and it opened up a lot of thought.  I am proud to admit that I have been so long off-site and particularly off-topic is because I have found my way back.  I took it upon myself to join a frum mixed class and met a girl there on the first night.  we clicked immidiately.  We have been together for almost 6 mos and the relationship just gets better.  Also, my father, ZT"ZL, will never get to meet her.  The first time my mother met her was at shiva for him.  But I am sure that he was very proud of me for finding someone of the oppisite sex.  Back on topic, I do still keep two files, they are gay, but i don't know why I dont delete them.  I do not have any urges now towards men, except to run up to the extremely well muscled ones and ask if they can teach me how to look like that :-}  I stop at the thought of it.  And I hardly look at the videos.  I think I'm pretty much cured.  I put in my effort as best as I could, and Hashem straightened (no pun inteded) it all out for me fairly quickly. 

Coby613: I am really happy to hear all the good things going on in your life! Wow.

May you and your kallah come to build a bayis ne'eman b'yisroel, which is to say based on a state of true emunah. With some of  the knowledge you probably picked up just reading the threads on GYE, you'll have a good foundation for that structure. 

Construction Zone, ahead!