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Paperback
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
Restoring Sexual Identity offers answers to the most commonly asked questions from both homosexuals desiring change and friends and relatives of women struggling with same–sex attraction. - Is lesbianism an inherited predisposition or is it developed in childhood?
- Does becoming a Christian eliminate all desire for members of the same sex?
- What support is available for women who struggle with lesbianism?
- Can a woman be a lesbian and a Christian at the same time?
- How does childhood sexual abuse relate to the development of lesbianism?
These and other important questions are answered as the author draws from her own experience and that of many other former lesbians who participated in an extensive survey on same–sex attraction.
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| Still the Best Resource Out There |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I read Anne Paulk's wonderful book over a year ago to evaluate it as a possible resource for a recovery group for women struggling with same-sex attraction. I was quite impressed with what I read then and I still feel the same. We have desperately needed a resource such as this. Years ago, when I was struggling and in therapy, all I had was Leanne Payne's "The Broken Image." It helped, and I very much believe in the power of prayer to help heal the brokenness of homosexuality. But this book is extremely accessible and well-written. The survey, itself, is worth the price of the book.
Frankly, I give a hat tip to any layperson who can write like Anne Paulk does. I am a firm believer in peer support for those desiring to overcome same-sex attraction. The safe, ideal place for this kind of support is within our churches. It is a function of discipleship, although we seem to have forgotten that in our quest for scientific validation of our counseling methods. The Bible validates quite nicely, thank you. Science is God revealed. Compassion is helping others to see Him.
I cannot yet compare this book to Janelle Hallman's "The Heart of Female Same-Sex Attraction," but I do plan to read that one, as well. One thing that disturbs me about Hallman's approach is the appearance (gleaned from articles I have read by her and about her) of affirming women who decide to maintain their lesbian identity. This sounds a bit fishy and unhealthy to me.
As for the gay activists posing as reviewers here who diss Anne merely because she is married to John Paulk and obviously have not read her book ... what childishness! Certainly lends credence to Elizabeth Moberly's classic assertions that homosexuals are stuck in adolescence, developmentally speaking.
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| Restoring Hope |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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A wonderful review of the complex creature that is woman and the steps to take for women who desire to walk away from homosexuality.
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| This hope is real! |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Let me start by saying to all women who struggle with same-sex attractions that hope exists and that it is real! Anne did a wonderful job presenting this hope in her book! And yet she also honestly admits the struggle and the journey out of lesbianism in the reality of a fallen and painful world. It is not an easy road! It can be long and ardous, but my beautiful women, it is possible, and completely worth ALL the blood, sweat and tears!!! Let us not fall into the trap of what this person said, or what that person said! Let us not make generalized, absolute and yet un-substantiated statements regarding the impossibility of freedom! Change is possible! I myself am a testament to that.
Anne also does well to provide several different case studies of struggling women. Different women with different stories allows for personal identification with at least one or more! And when you can relate, it makes the hope even more real to you! I would also greatly recommend Jeanette Howard's book - Out of Egypt... an excellent portrait of the development of same-sex attractions, linked with this hope and this freedom!
The world tries to hide the fact that freedom exists and our stories are hidden from the public. Have you ever noticed that the world acknowledges our failures more-so than our successes?! And when humanity is constantly shown only failure, we tend to believe only in failure! Do not fall for it! Hope is real and VERY MUCH ALIVE!!!!!!
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| Met the author in a support group- she is for real! |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Hello, I want to say that I have not yet read the book, but want to ask if someone wants to get a car fixed, would they go to someone who's never worked or fixed a car themselves or someone who knows how because they have had to walk it through and learn? What I'm getting at is that Anne Paulk has worked through and walked through what it takes to walk out of lesbianism and same sex attraction so why not give a try a book written by someone who has "fixed a car" and walked out and went on.
I remember going to the Love In Action support group over 15 years ago to help with my own lesbianism and having come when Anne was still just an attendee but meeting her as well as a handful of other women who I find still have their testimonies listed whether on Exodus International or Love In Action websites and am so delighted to see them still walking it out after so many years.
Now, would you want to learn from a mechanic who has fixed their own car or from a critic of the mechanic who has never fixed any cars before or ever experienced anyone fixing their car before?
Why not give her book a try? If anyone has hope, she seems to be one of them.
This book is not about her husband, or anyone else's walk, but her own personal one. It might be more reasonable to keep it all separate as that is not what the title and subject matter of her book is about. Thank you and bless you, Anne, for trying to write and get out there some resources/tips that you have learned along the way in your journey out of lesbianism and for being willing to be vulnerable to even write a book on this subject matter.
The 5 star rating (sorry, but they wouldn't let me just not put a rating) is for the exciting thing that God can do with a life that's broken and rebuild it in a lovely way in rebuilding who Anne is and who we each are. There is hope.
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| Consider the source |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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Now, let me get this "straight": We're supposed to give credence to the wife of the founder of Exodus International, who, two years after appearing on the cover of Newsweek as the poster boy for "ex-gay" movement, was discovered chatting up another man in a Washington, D.C., gay bar?
Don't take my word for it -- ask Wayne Besen, who recounts the incident (and who photographed Paulk at the bar) in his book, "Anything But Straight: Unmasking The Scandals And Lies Behind The Ex-Gay Myth" (ISBN: 1560234466, available on Amazon.com).
"I have never," Besen told the Guardian (UK) in 2004, "met a single person I believe has changed. I've met a few people who've changed their behaviour - but not their orientation. The founder of every single ex-gay ministry has failed. All of them have failed."
By the way, when is somebody going to ask Anne Paulk herself why she and her husband left Love in Action in 1993 to deal with (as one observer noted) "unspecified personal problems"? Let's see how dedicated the Paulks really are to coming "clean" about their personal lives.
It would easy enough to attack this book (and its author) as the worst the Homophobic-Fear-Mongering Movement has to offer -- but that would be far too easy. Instead, I ask _thinking_ people -- Christians, heterosexuals, and misguided self-loathing lesbians and gay men alike -- to use the brains God gave them and judge for themselves the "success" rate of the Paulks and others like them.
And I thought Christians believed that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life -- and that God loves you for exactly who you are... even if you don't have the good sense to love YOURSELF as God intended.
Sadly, that's just lip service for some "Christians."
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