- Jul 26, 2022
- Posted by: admin
- Category: Abstract of 2nd-icgss
Proceedings of The 2nd International Conference on Gender Studies and Sexuality
Year: 2022
DOI:
[PDF]
Correlation between depression and anxiety and acceptance of sexual orientation in young males
Andreas Aceranti, Simonetta Vernocchi, and Marco Colorato
ABSTRACT:
Internalized homo/biphobia refers to a set of negative feelings (feelings of guilt, contempt, anger, a sense of inferiority) that non heterosexuals may feel towards themselves. We studied 22 young males struggling with their bisexuality or homosexuality. All have come to psychoanalysis/counselling because something was “not going right in their lives”. Even though they were all involved in heterosexual relations they felt that the relation was not satisfactory and even trying having affairs with other women they felt unsatisfied. All revealed that even though they felt sexually attracted to women they felt in love with other men. When we investigated the main resistances the answers were almost the same fearing rejection: 4 from their mates; 6 from their parents; 8 both from mates and parents; the other 4 were unable to accept the “deviation for religious reasons”. During the sessions we educated them about sexual orientation and affection and we spent much time educating them about the normality of sexual orientation. We found out that the majority (20subjects) were totally ignorant about sexual orientation and had evaluated themselves only on prejudice or religious approaches. After many sessions 18 subjects stopped coming to sessions as they felt in peace with themselves. Interestingly the 4 patients who still come to therapy and are still struggling with themselves are the four subjects with religious issues. Based on our experience the most destructive aspect in sexual orientation acceptance is the lack of education. Prejudice and religion unfortunately still play a big role in self-acceptance.
keywords: homosexuality, bisexuality, anxiety, depression, frustration, homophobia.