Sexual History Paper 1
Christian Gentil
School of Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Liberty University
Author Note
Christian Gentil
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Christian Gentil
Email: Cwgentil@liberty.edu
Sexual History Paper
Sexual History Paper 2
Sexual History Paper
Sex and Sexuality has played a very intersting role in my life. My family that I grew up
in was very hypocritical religious members. I grew up in a very abusive home, and life was very
hard from as early as I can remember. My parents were not saved until they were in their early
adulthood, so the things that we were allowed to watch and listen to were very secular, and not
very filtered for us. So we were very familiar with what the world was presenting and how
sexualized media was. When I was 7 years old I was sent off to live with my distant aunt and
uncle, while my older sister moved into the hospital with my parents while she had surgery to
remove a brain tumor that was growing in her brain. During this time of living with these distant
relatives, I remember there were constantly people living with us and coming in and out of the
home. During the time that I lived with them, I was sexually abused by my aunt's brother. Up
until this point in my life I had already struggled with feeling loved and wanted because of the
physical abuse and everything that was happening in my family, then after this happened, I
remember feeling numb inside. I continued to experience this environment for a few months
following this, until my sister was released from the hospital and my family came back and got
me.
After what had happened to me, I began to question what love really was, and what I
needed to do in order to feel wanted. All I knew is that man wanted something from me and was
willing to give me attention and worth in order to get it. It was at this time that I started having
same sex attractions, and feeling that the only way that I would feel loved and wanted is to
perform for other guys. Because of what had happened to me, I became very distant from those
around me. My father noticed that I was acting differently and didnt like it, so he started to beat
Sexual History Paper 3
me for it. I developed a fear of men and guys after being abused and kept my distance from most
of them. At school, I would only hang around girls most of the time, and got bullied because of
this. I would get called gay and faggot and other degrading and hateful terms, yet know one
knew what I was really struggling with. This did a lot of mental damage and caused a lot of
anger issues, which I began to act on.
Like most young guys, when I was in 6th grade, I discovered masturbation. This act
allowed me to experience personal gratification while a lot allowed me to have an outlet for my
anger. This was a hard tying to deal with as I was a Christian and I knew that this was not
something I should have been doing. After I was sexually abused, shame began living inside of
me, and this act just amplified it all. I had to hide many parts of my life and that brought shame
as well.
My parents got divorced when I was in highschool. I was always too scared to do
anything crazy out of fear of what my father would do. But now that he was out of the picture, I
saw this as an opportunity to experience different parts of life. I began partying and drinking,
then I soon got into drugs, and sleeping around. This was my outlet to deal with all the pain,
shame, and things that were built up inside. Yet after what had happened to me when I was a kid,
I had a lot of trust issues. Every time I would sleep with someone, It was always a one night
stand and never anything more. I didn't trust anyone so I never wanted to pursue a relationship. I
wanted to be loved so badly, but would never let anyone close to me. So though I did all these
things to help deal with my pain and shame, they just caused more pain and shame.
All of this carried on for years until I got into my senior year of college. At this point I
finally decided to pursue a true relationship with Christ and die to myself. My whole identity
began to change, and I looked for love and worth in Christ instead of others and this world. The
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Lord began to transform my heart and renewed my mind and I no longer defined myself by what
had happened to me or the mistakes I had made., I was able to view myself through Christ’s
eyes. Once I grew in my faith and healing, I was then able to help others walk through their
journeys and be able to heal from them by pointing them to Christ and showing what he had
done in my own life.
As I continue to move forward in my faith and now in my career in counseling,
perspective and identity are of the utmost importance. In order to help others, we must first be
rooted in Christ and have our eyes fixed on him who is where our help comes from. I believe as I
am moving forward in my career, If I have my eyes fixed on Christ and am able to understand
his power in being able to heal would that goes as deep as mine have, he can heal anyone. This
perspective, I believe, will help me to work with clients no matter what their background and
counsel to the best of my ability.
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