Life after lesbianism
This article is a follow-up to Dawn Wilde’s Confessions of a Recovering Lesbian . It was first printed at Catholicsistas.com and is reprinted with permission. In January, I wrote about my struggles with same-sex attraction ( SSA ), while living out my vocation as a Catholic wife and mother. The article was picked up by several Catholic websites and secular blogs. I wrote the article anonymously and considering the vitriol of the comments that followed, I’m glad I did. Especially after reading one man’s enraged, sentence-by-sentence dissection of the piece on a site called Face Punch. There seemed to be three main objections to my testimony: 1. I’m not a “real” lesbian so I shouldn’t be calling myself one; 2. I’m living a false, inauthentic life that’s unfair to my husband and children and that’s bound to self-destruct; and 3. I’m harming people who struggle with SSA by suggesting they can overcome their sexual orientation. I was struck by how important labels are to people. At