Screen: TLC
'I Think It Can Work, At Least For One Night'
Let's let the men and women of TLC's special My Husband's Not Gay speak for themselves.
- I guess one of the most unique things about our relationship is I experience SSA, or Same Sex Attraction.
NOT gay. SSA. - Who will I notice first: a beautiful man walking down the street, or a beautiful woman walking down the street? I'll notice the beautiful man, nine times out of ten.
So it's somebody that is attracted to the same sex, but wants to be in a heterosexual relationship. - When Jeff told me about his same-sex attraction, it was definitely the worst time in our relationship. We got home to his place, and I thought, "He's finally going to say 'I love you'!" And instead he said, "I think you need to know that I'm attracted to men." And I was crushed. I thought he was telling me, "I'm done with this relationship." But I already knew I loved him. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. So he sent me home with books, and I was devastated, and I sat and read, and for the next week, I was horrible to him. And I had so many questions to ask him, because I didn't know much about this topic. So I didn't know what I was facing: I didn't know that a girl could be with a guy that was attracted to men.
- I know lots of other of my friends that are in the same type of marriages, that are in good relationships, and none of us feel oppressed: we've chosen to be here.
- Growing up, I thought for a long time that I was gay. I thought that these feelings defined me. I didn't ever expect to get married. I wanted to, but I didn't think I was going to be able to get married and have children and live the life that I'm now living. I feel like I'm the winner of life's lottery. Like, have you seen her?
- The first thing that went through my mind was kind of the first thing that goes through every woman's mind: will he be attracted to me? At the same time, though, it was, "Well, at least he doesn't have anybody else to compare me to!"
- I didn't think he was gay at that point because he told me that he wasn't. He explained to me, at that time, the difference between having these feelings and not wanting to act on them.
- In Salt Lake City, there is a pretty tight-knit SSA community.
- There's a lot of SSA in Argentina, did I tell you that?...Yeah, that's a big problem down there too.
What do you mean by SSA being a problem?
Well, the whole act is against the teachings of the gospel. - I think that there's so many people in our church that don't know the difference between having a gay lifestyle and having same-sex attraction.
- What the LDS church teaches is that behaviour is a choice -- that choosing to act on these feelings is what it's all about. Having the feelings: not so much.
- I feel frustrated when people don't understand what it is that Pret's going through, and the choice that he has made to be married to me, and when people question whether he is living up to his true identity.
- I don't feel like I fit the mold of guys that are attracted to other men, other than my deep and abiding love for Broadway show tunes, and the attraction to males. Those are the two things that are kind of gay about me.
- The Danger Scale is a way to bring out some of the inner feelings, and figure out, "Oh, okay, that is attractive to me and I didn't even realize it.
- The Danger Scale goes from 0 to 4. So 1 on the Danger Scale is you noticed, you looked.
A 2 means you looked again.
A 3? You'd be tempted to turn around and look again and again.
A 4 pretty much means you're requiring restraint. - Hey. Your wives are here.
- I want to meet a girl and like her and say, "By the way, I'm attracted to guys." That's what my friends have done, and they've made it work.
- I'm thirty-four years old. I've never kissed a girl. I've never kissed a guy either, but I've never kissed a girl.
- So we can set you up?
If he's tall. Just kidding! - You're sure you want us to set you up with a woman.
Well, I'm interested in men, I'm just not interested in men. - I've got a friend of mine that I'd like to set him up with. She's a little quirky herself.
- I think it can work, at least for one night.
- I think it's really important that the wives of men with SSA stick together.
- When you're married to an SSA guy, he tends to be your girlfriend, and your husband, and so you isolate yourself from your real girlfriends.
- One of the things that our husbands have learned the value of is to have guy time. And because we're Mormon, our guys don't go to the bars and drink. They don't, you know, sit around and play poker or go to strip clubs together or anything like that: they do it by going to the gym. They'll hang out and watch movies. They'll go play basketball together. And it's so healing for them to have these good, non-sexual relationships with guys that they can just go and be guys with.
- What made you brave enough to decide, "Yeah, let's get married"?
I had already discovered that I loved him. My funny thing is, out of all the women, he chose me, and out of all of the men! So I really feel even that much more special. - This is my second marriage, so I know what it's like being with what you would call a "straight" guy and now what some people might call gay, and I say this one's better just 'cause we've learned how to talk about really hard things, so we end up with a much better sex life.
- For the most part, I am a fully satisfied woman.
- I've found it's more freeing to just acknowledge, yeah, that is a beautiful man.
- So if, you know, if I was drugged and forgot that I was married to you, and I was in a back alley and, well, in some dark corner with romantic music, would anything happen? That's the Danger Scale.
- Let's just say that I have a huge crush on Tom Brady.
Okay! - Just because you're not familiar with the equipment doesn't mean the learning curve isn't fun.
- I think me and the guys are going to go camping in a few weeks.
...Camping? - We didn't want Emily to have any preconceived notions about Tom before the date, so we told her that the cameras were here to film a documentary about Mormons in Salt Lake City.
- How do you say "We all know each other through our mutual admiration of men" without saying that?