By Shepherd Hoodwin
Channeled from Michael
(From Loving from Your Soul–Creating Powerful Relationships)

The soul has no gender. Virtually every soul has both male and female energies, although in varying percentages, and each soul can relate energetically to any other. The soul, in this sense, is bisexual–it can take either side in a creative act. This flexibility is the natural state of the universe. Whether or not a person expresses this bisexuality through physical sex, everyone has the ability to relate in some way to both male and female energy, and must, if he is not to become one-sided.  It is common for people to be physically bisexual to some degree in many of their lifetimes. In addition, virtually everyone will have at least one lifetime in which he is homosexual, because that is part of life on earth.

When you are in a male body, your primary lessons are about male energy, and in a female body, about female energy. However, the more lifetimes you have had in both male and female bodies, the less your identity is limited to the gender of your present body. Therefore, you can use both your male and female energies as appropriate.  Satisfying sexual relationships are as you define them. All other things being equal (which they rarely are), and not taking into account the key issue of one¹s intrinsic orientation, sex with someone of the opposite gender is more balancing because, by definition, what is opposite is balancing. However, this does not invalidate sexual experiences between those of the same gender.  If a sexual experience fulfills your particular needs and is satisfying to you, that is what matters.

On a scale of one to one hundred, with one hundred being the ultimate sexual experience, most people seldom if ever come close to one hundred. To reach the nineties, you would have to have ideal circumstances all the way around. If you reach the sixties, you will likely see that as being quite satisfying and pleasurable. Every element that could contribute to increased satisfaction does not have to be present.  You seem to imply that there is an element missing if you aren’t with the opposite sex, that there is something about the physical male or female body itself. The physical body has tendencies apart from the personality living in it.  For example, a forty-year-old physical body tends to be most comfortable with others of approximately the same age. Nevertheless, the person living in the body may feel differently, for whatever reasons, and nullify the body’s tendency. For instance, he may have made an agreement on a soul level to mate with someone who happens to be much older or younger than he is. Or, he may have unresolved issues that he can work out with an older or younger partner. Therefore, he is attracted to such partners.

One might say that heterosexuality is the “default setting” of the physical body for the purpose of reproduction, but there is much more to you than your physical body. You are the total of all your parts. This aspect of balance between opposite physical genders is just one element of many that can contribute to sexual satisfaction in a relationship. If you are with someone of your own gender, there are many other elements that can bring satisfaction. It is not “wrong,” and you may reach seventy on the scale. Someone who has that element but is missing many others may reach only
thirty.

Technically, your sexual orientation is not specifically determined by your soul before your lifetime begins; rather, your personality unconsciously chooses or at least ratifies it early in childhood at the same time you choose other key ideas on which to base your life. However, your soul can set up your life plan, which includes agreements and karmic debts to be repaid, to point it in a certain direction or even make a particular sexuality all but inevitable. Past life factors you are working on in your present lifetime influence your plan, and beliefs you brought forward from past lives can strongly affect your sexuality. Nonetheless, the personality has free will; it usually ratifies the soul¹s influences in this regard, but not always.  Orientation is not determined consciously, and cannot be changed later in life by conscious willpower. A gay person cannot decide to be straight, just as a straight person cannot decide to be gay. Those who seem to change based on conscious choice are, in fact, bisexual to some degree, although repressing their dominant tendency rarely holds up over the long term.

Many factors can contribute to your sexuality, both on a soul and personality level. Some souls need same-sex relationships for internal balance. For example, those who have not been male frequently and who want to learn as much as they can about male energy might choose both to be born into male bodies and to have sexual relationships with males as a way of reflecting their own experience back to them. Also, those who have been female much more often are probably used to being with men sexually, so continuing this gives them greater comfort while getting used to being male. Of course, the reverse is also true. Souls may also use homosexuality to learn to have loving relationships with the same sex if their same-sex relationships were often competitive or unloving in lifetimes when they were heterosexual. Those who persecuted homosexuals in previous lifetimes may choose homosexuality as a way to learn compassion.

On a personality level, homosexuality is often a reaction to a culture¹s excessive polarization of the masculine and feminine. Like many other cultures, this one tends to see masculinity and femininity in terms of “either/or,” rather than as two interrelated aspects of one thing on a continuum. They are promoted as extreme, limited, and rigid stereotypes rather than all-encompassing aspects of human potential. The softer qualities of manhood and the more focused qualities of womanhood are not adequately acknowledged and respected. Those who exhibit them are often seen as not being fully acceptable and are not allowed to simply be who they are.

At an early age, many children are given the message that they must fit into their gender¹s sexual stereotype. Boys often repress their softer traits, and girls, their more focused ones. This has begun to change, but there is a long way to go. Young children who find their own gender¹s sexual stereotype unacceptable, unattainable, or both might identify with the other.  Another factor can be unresolved rage toward the opposite gender. Where this is present, a child might reject that gender sexually.

Of course, a child¹s relationships with his parents influence his sexuality, but it is not usually valid to say that parents “made” a child become gay, although it might be valid to say that the child co-created his sexuality with his parents. A child¹s susceptibility to his parents imprinting varies, partly based on the soul¹s makeup and the issues brought forward into the lifetime. For example, a boy who carries the belief from past lives that males are violent and “bad” will either act out that belief by being violent or identify with his mother rather than his father. Parents and child may be working out issues together: the mother the boy identifies with may also have ambivalent feelings about masculinity, and therefore may reinforce her son¹s identification with her.  As with anything else, those who have same-sex orientation mainly because, on a soul level, they simply want to, because it will bring valuable lessons, rather than in reaction to external factors on a personality level, tend to have an easier, more comfortable experience. However, all experiences ultimately bring lessons, one way or another.

Many who classify themselves as being strictly heterosexual or homosexual are capable of bisexuality and might be more comfortable if that option were truly open in them, not necessarily for sexual intercourse, but at least for physically expressing affection. If their boundaries were not so rigid, they would have greater freedom to express love to others in whatever ways seem appropriate.  Any stimulation of the body in a pleasurable way can be construed as being sexual. This is why those who are homophobic sometimes have difficulty even hugging someone of the same gender.  A hug can be pleasurable, and that brings up fears that they are being sexual with a member of the same gender. Having such rigid definitions of one¹s sexuality is not conducive to loving
relationships. It is good to be open, letting your experience be whatever it naturally is.

SHEPHERD HOODWIN is an intuitive, workshop leader, and teacher. He also does past-life therapy, counseling, and channeling coaching (teaching others to channel). He is the author of The Journey of Your Soul–A Channel Explores Channeling and the Michael Teachings, and Meditations for Self-Discovery-Guided Journeys for Communicating with Your Inner Self.