If You Grew Up on a Desert Island

by Janice Graham

Most people don't realize that attitudes toward sex and sexuality are taught and learned. I myself didn't realize this until an expert pointed this out, and even then I had to think about it some. We don't realize that the basic premises of human sexuality are learned because the information is so ubiquitous and self-evident that we just absorb it from everyday life. We see underlying evidence of human mating all around us in every aspect of our existence. For example, we grow up knowing our parents had us, their parents had them, their parents had them, etc.

This is how it was explained to me: Think about if you lived on a desert island alone (not even any animals). What would you know about sex and sexuality? You might stumble upon pleasant sexual stimulation somehow but you would never know what it was for. You would never know that these pleasurable feelings  could involve another person or love or reproduction. That's right, you wouldn't know how to reproduce because there was nothing to model it, or teach you about it, or even suggest it. Sex and reproduction would never occur to you. Think about it. You wouldn't know anything about sexual attraction at all, hetero or homo! Even if other equally clueless people appeared, the likelihood of stumbling upon how to reproduce would be very small. Remember, Adam and Eve had to have their eyes opened, to be instructed to go and multiply.


I actually did do a good portion of my earliest growing up on a small island. And although I was with my family and went to school and church, I can tell you it was pretty isolated from the rest of the world. It was its own little Earth surrounded by a huge empty cobalt plate of endless sea. My earliest memories are of scratchy sand and salty water and hot sun and heat rash. It was the 1950s  and we did have a little black-and-white TV but there were only very few shows, local only, like a kids' show called Captain Coconut. I share this to show that wherever we are in time and space determines what we are exposed to, or what we learn. Whatever I learned in my formative years, I learned it from whatever was on that tiny island.

Most people don't live alone on desert islands; they live surrounded by people and information, especially today with endless modern communication technology. As such, everything each person knows about sex and sexuality has been learned. As young human beings develop sexually they can be taught, and learn, all sorts of notions. These notions may be taught in all sorts of ways. Up until recent years, only heterosexuality had been culturally taught and modeled on this island we call Human Society. Presently, homosexuality, among other alternative sexual orientations, are being taught as well, as equal to heterosexuality or even better than. Not only that, but these unlimited outlets for human sexuality are being taught in an extremely prosperous, self-indulgent, permissive, overstimulated, erotic, oversexed culture. When in the past heterosexuality alone was shown as the norm in countless modest and unspoken ways, now boundless sexuality is not just ubiquitous but increasingly taught to children, legally protected, and societally respected. (Even people who insist they were born that way and irreparably homosexual must admit that there is something terribly wrong with teaching maladaptive sexual manners to innocent little kids.)   

The notions our young island native learns and embraces as true will be the ones that will stimulate his romantic or sexual feelings. For example, if he is taught homosexuality, and he internalizes homosexuality, all his growing romantic/sexual thoughts and feelings will be directed toward people of his same sex. Remember, sexual feelings are just sexual feelings. Depending on what they are focused on, they can be right or wrong, good or bad, in keeping with reality or not. It's interesting that Plato, thousands of years ago, recorded that the little savage must be taught what to find worthwhile and valuable and what to find disgusting and worthless.

There may be a lot of other factors involved, too, but the fact remains that whatever we feed grows. So, yes, anybody can be straight, anybody can be gay, anybody can claim any old notions and feelings about sex and sexuality depending on what they were taught and consequently what they believe or what they want. And we should care very much what our society is teaching. It's the vulnerable young people we should all be most concerned about, who are abused in any way, including being taught homosexuality, who surround themselves with homosexuals, who become initiated by predators, who become unwitting pawns, who have been brainwashed into thinking there is no way out, and whose lives are ruined. But of course there is always a way out.

It may not feel like we're choosing our thought patterns but we most certainly are. We can change our minds whenever we want to bad enough. We have to desire it. That is absolutely essential. People who want to change their minds but have trouble often get professional help. Religion often plays a foundational role. People who say they tried reorientation therapy, but it didn't work or was harmful, really didn't want it bad enough, didn't work at it long enough, went to the totally wrong professional, used the wrong methods, kept themselves surrounded by homosexuals and all things homosexual, and/or are mentally or emotionally ill.  

Incidentally, in my opinion, group therapy and retreats attended by groups of SSA men who are trying to change is like alcoholics having their AA meetings at a bar with alcohol served up for free. However, it's actually much worse because people don't have to participate in sex with their bodies, as drinkers have to drink, in order to excite addictive pleasurable feelings and physical responses; these can occur just by talking and fantasizing. The gay lifestyle is by nature about casual promiscuous sex. It seems that these programs may further justify and encourage homosexuality, no matter what is advertised or presented, and end up being harmful and counterproductive. Somebody is making a lot of money exploiting misery.      

Dear precious souls who have embraced homosexuality: reflect honestly for a moment about the crowded island world of today you grew up in and what you have learned from our clever, permissive, oversexed, deceptive,  environment. All sorts of extreme, distorted, and lawless stuff! But there is no cause for despair. If something is learned it can be unlearned and replaced with the truth. That happens to people all the time. It's hard to admit we've been wrong, but if we love God and His truth we'll admit we have sinned, humble ourselves, and do what must be done to correct our most inward secret thoughts and, in the case of sexual sin, redirect our God-given sexual feelings and put them in their proper place.We'll believe Christ is the author of all goodness, including sexual boundaries, and we'll put our faith in his power to redeem us from our sins. 

We're sorry that youth are growing up learning wrong, extreme, and harmful notions about their sexuality. How sad it is when they do not find the right kind of help, or when it is outlawed! How sad that they  cheaply and perversely sexualize what could be healthy, fulfilling, appropriate relationships with people of their own sex. How sad that they could just as well have grown up protected, surrounded only by proper human sexuality, and taught the right attitudes and the right uses, as in times past.

Sex is a serious aspect of human society. If improper attitudes are taught and learned, someone gets hurt. The acceptance of homosexualism comes with great social costs. Societies throughout the ages have had strict rules regarding human sexuality so that they may survive.