Could my aunt have turned me into a lesbian?

About 10 years ago, an aunt who was who was taking care of us performed some sexual acts on me. It went on for a while and even though we knew it was wrong, it felt good at the time and we kept it secret. I am now 24 and I find myself getting more attracted to and identify better with women. Recently, my friend’s sister openly hit on me and I fell for this and now we are in a relationship. Looking back, it scares me that I would even consider such a thing as I want to live a straight life. I don’t want to be a lesbian but I think I am already one. I haven’t had a really serious boyfriend for a while and I don’t enjoy having sex with men. Please help me understand what is happening to me. {Nkirote}

Your Take:

Your aunt sexually abused you mainly taking advantage of your childhood innocence. However, you now know right from wrong. You can break the vicious cycle she started by deliberately choosing to be heterosexual. It is you who has let yourself be attracted to women so you can easily change that by choosing to be attracted to men only. It is all in the mind. Do the right thing for yourself and society will not have a reason to judge you.

{Samantha Nzilani}

It is good that you understand yourself. It is high time you shared your feelings with your spiritual leader with whom you can pray together for your good desires. Indeed, they will come, ask from God and you will be set free.

{Lydia Ongeri}

What you are going through needs a lot of counseling and advice. Even thieves enjoy stealing not until they are caught and punished. This feeling is not normal.

Stop thinking or imagining anything to do with lesbianism, as the first step to distancing yourself from it. Think about the impact of being gay – the hatred, isolation, loss of dignity, no marriage and definitely being thought of as inhuman.

{James K}

There is no doubt you have already turned gay. You do not have feelings for the opposite sex and you enjoy sexual activities with women. Accept you are a lesbian and start working on how to withdraw.

Discuss with a counsellor on all these tribulations. More so, pray over it for spiritual intervention. Take it as a vice and try avoiding it as you do to other vices.

{Sheila Njoki}

There is always room for change, stop looking back at your past mistake and focus on what the future have in store, .... give your life to Christ for he knows how to direct your path.

{Alberto Koech}

Counselor’s Take:

Nkirote, your aunt performed a sexual offense on you and she should have been made to face the music for her actions. What she did was child molestation and she ought to have been duly punished for it.

Yes, it may have “felt good at the time” but evidently the effects have lived on into your adult life and have molded many elements including your sexual orientation.

Just so you know, sexual molestation is the coercion of a minor into sexual activity which may include fondling a child’s genitals, masturbation, oral-genital contact, digital penetration, and vaginal and anal intercourse. This is what has shaped your sexuality towards homosexuality.

At present, it may not help much to focus on her since this is water under the bridge. What happened, happened and since it cannot be reversed and since the culprit is a family member, you may only deal with this at a personal level.

This should also be kept between the two of you. What is most important is to work towards changing the negative influence this has had on your sexuality. I say negative because you want to be straight. This is however a change process that may take time for it to be effective.

The change process involves the primary sexual organ which is the brain. Our actions, thoughts and feelings are usually as a result of elements that have over time been coded and entrenched in our brains.

Undoing or altering these is not a one-day activity but a process that requires convincing yourself beyond reasonable doubt about the right sexual orientation. As you go through the process of correcting your sexual orientation, it is important that you remain focused on what you want and avoid instances that would interfere with this process or erase the gains you may have realised.

For example, if you convince yourself that you are only going to be attracted to men and you find yourself in a situation where a lady is hitting on you, you should take every step possible to avoid such persons.

To effectively address this, you need to entrench firm thoughts in your mind about the kind of life you want. Fantasize about having a boyfriend and husband and tune your mind to accept that there is only one form of sexual gratification for you and that is by engaging intimacy with members of the opposite sex.

 By constantly putting this to your mind, you will be using a powerful mental process called autosuggestion. Your mind subscribes to and identifies with the things you put into it. The other half in sustaining this is filling that vacuum with a straight relationship. This will help to address your sexual needs and with time erase those memories you have of the past. {Taurus}