Sexual attraction—what arouses one person and what arouses another—is a complicated phenomenon with multiple contributors. On one hand, sex is simply a biological drive, a physical arousal produced through the combination of endocrine, neuronal and molecular mechanisms that wants to fulfill itself. The object of desire may be secondary.

On another level, sexual attraction is fueled by loving feelings, longings for a connection with the object of one’s affection.

At a third level, sexual attraction can be understood as symbolic. Our fantasies, our attractions, and even our behaviors mirror parts of us, telling a story of our own individual mythology. By mythology I do not mean falsehood, but rather images as symbols that bring a level of understanding to our attractions, which cannot be known simply through the image or our own personal history. The symbolic meaning is truer than the act of sex because it acknowledges a reality that could not otherwise be expressed. It is this point of view that begins to hint to us that sexual attractions in all their forms and behaviors can have spiritual meaning and intent.

Sexuality as symbol will broaden and deepen humanity’s understanding of itself and of the enormous forces that live in the unconscious, which if not made conscious, may live out in harmful and destructive ways. Mircea Eliade, the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and one of the world's foremost interpreters of religious symbolism and myth says that sexuality has everywhere and always been a manifestation of the holy. According to Eliade, the purpose of sexuality is to reveal to human beings that which is beyond ego, or in religious terms, that which is divine. If sexuality is to reveal that which is beyond ego, that which is transcendent or divine, then understanding its symbolic and sacred meaning becomes a means of self-knowledge of what our sexual compulsions are really about.  Sexuality holds within its various manifestations revelations of the archetypal and sacred character of the unconscious. To miss their meanings is to live them out unconsciously and remain stuck in the repetition of compulsive sex while missing what the soul is longing to bring into consciousness, its connection to the transcended or the divine in us.

From my book, The Other Man in Me, Erotic Longing, Lust and Love: The Soul Calling. To explore the symbolic and spiritual meanings in male same-sex attractions, visit https://www.sheldonshalley.com/book and  download a free excerpt or check out The Other Man in Me at https://www.amazon.com/Other-Man-Me-Longing-Calling-ebook/dp/B08N5LQ7NM