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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Anyone know any 'cured' gay folk?
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beatmenace
Shipmate
# 16955
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Posted
While i suspect i'm putting a deceased nag under starters orders again, but then i'm relatively new here, this item on London Transport pulling an ad from a Christian group claiming to cure Gay people caught my attention.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/advertising/tfl-bans-christian-groups-gay-cure-advert-from-london-buses-7640814.html
This type of thing has always puzzled me a bit so do any Gay shipmates have any experience of this type of therapy? Anyone here for whom this has worked or know anyone for whom it has worked? On a side note,is Boris trampling on free speech here by overruling an ad that London Transport were already going to run?
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"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
Posts: 297 | From: Whitley Bay | Registered: Feb 2012
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I do know that many of the professional bodies in medicine and psychiatry and psychotherapy are wanting to ban this kind of 'therapy'. The BMA explicitly called for it to be banned, as it is believed to be dangerous for vulnerable people, for example, gay teenagers.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Sir Pellinore
Quester Emeritus
# 12163
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Posted
It's a bit like other claimed 'miracles' beatmenace.
Only a thorough investigation will reveal the truth.
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Well...
Posts: 5108 | From: The Deep North, Oz | Registered: Dec 2006
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
If there are married people who suddenly realise that they're gay, why wouldn't there be gay people who suddenly realse they're not gay?
I think we're all probably capable of enjoying sex with someone of either gender. Preferences are largely a matter of prejudice and social norms.
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
The problem with the conversion 'therapies' is that they seem to reinforce the idea that begin gay is wrong, they seem to offer some dodgy ideas about how someone becomes gay (e.g. child abuse), and they blend psychology and faith healing in a rather queasy way. I doubt if any of the professional bodies will countenance it now, after the recent case of Lesley Pilkington.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
I think that sexual orientation can be more flexible and changeable than people sometimes give it credit for. People are often surprised by whom they find attractive. I dated women exclusively until a couple of years ago and I'm now engaged to a man (I'm female). HOWEVER. That doesn't mean that it changes in response to people's efforts to change it, and this is important. I've yet to see any evidence that efforts such as ex-gay programs are anything other than a horrible, traumatic waste of time.
I didn't attempt to change my sexual orientation. I'd say I'm about 90% gay and just happened to meet a guy who fit into the other 10%. However, if I *had* been enrolled in an ex-gay program at the time, or had wanted to change, or had been in the kind of church where people were praying for me to change, I probably would have been seen as a fantastic success story and an example to hit other gay people over the head with. Given the sheer number of people who go through these programs, there is probably a handful in a similar situation to me who do think that the program "cured" them, and they are a very dangerous weapon against the other gay people who want to be straight but never will be.
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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Aelred of Rievaulx
Shipmate
# 16860
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Posted
Yes!! I'm cured!!
I'm cured of trying to pretend I'm straight (after so many years) and I'm healthy and happy to be GAY!!
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In friendship are joined honor and charm, truth and joy, sweetness and good-will, affection and action. And all these take their beginning from Christ, advance through Christ, and are perfected in Christ.
Posts: 136 | From: English Midlands | Registered: Jan 2012
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
Oh, I should probably add: I haven't, in any way, become straight. If I ever do end up in another relationship after this one, odds are that it'll be with a woman.
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Our God is an awesome God. Much better than that ridiculous God that Desert Bluffs has. - Welcome to Night Vale
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Yes, have experience of such therapy and yes, know people (or knew people) who say that it worked.
Although, in the case where I had a reasonable opportunity to hear from the person, it was a cure of gay behaviour, not necessarily a complete cure of desires. Such groups would argue that the desire is just temptation to sin. The main thing is not to indulge in the desire - which doesn't just mean not having homosexual sex, it means dismissing the desire instead of indulging in the fantasy inside your head.
I'm happy to answer any particular queries about the cures (bearing in mind that I remained 'sick').
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
This is why the professional bodies in medicine and psychiatry will probably not allow this kind of therapy from now on, as, as soon as you say that homosexual desire or behaviour is sinful, you are no longer doing psychotherapy at all.
Similarly, I doubt if any psychotherapist would today say that adultery is sinful.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...and they blend psychology and faith healing in a rather queasy way[/.
That italicised phrase is one that aptly describes my thoughts while listening to a man being interviewed by Tony Livesey on Five Live last night, just after midnight I think it was.
I've typed and erased several more sentences, but I do not know anywhere near enough to pronounce an opinion here.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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beatmenace
Shipmate
# 16955
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
I think that sexual orientation can be more flexible and changeable than people sometimes give it credit for. People are often surprised by whom they find attractive. I dated women exclusively until a couple of years ago and I'm now engaged to a man (I'm female). HOWEVER. That doesn't mean that it changes in response to people's efforts to change it, and this is important. I've yet to see any evidence that efforts such as ex-gay programs are anything other than a horrible, traumatic waste of time.
Thanks that helps. I must confess its not totally academic iterest as i do know someone who was involved in a gay lifestyle when younger but later married a woman (no its not a Tory MP or Tom Robinson).
I wondered if this was common or very unusual.
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"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
Posts: 297 | From: Whitley Bay | Registered: Feb 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I'm going to bite... exactly what was his "lifestyle"?
My gay lifestyle today involved doing lots of filing, and there might be some ironing this evening.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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beatmenace
Shipmate
# 16955
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Posted
Never really elaborated, so i can't give any gory details - i didnt know him at the time.
However since he introduced me to the first two TRB albums i took it as read he knew what he was talking about! (Thats humour by the way).
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"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
Posts: 297 | From: Whitley Bay | Registered: Feb 2012
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
The Grauniad has a different angle on the story.
I'm interested to see what people think.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
A good friend of mine, who has always been gay, is now getting married to a woman.
Another acquaintance who was married and had children is now in a lesbian relationship.
There is such a thing as bisexual, and in any event, people change, often because of the interactions with people they meet. My experience of such things is extremely limited, but it seems to me that sometimes when you fall in love, the nature of the plumbing isn't so important.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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beatmenace
Shipmate
# 16955
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
My gay lifestyle today involved doing lots of filing, and there might be some ironing this evening.
Your gay lifestyle seems very similar to my straight one. Except the ironing bit. And the filing. But similar in nature if not detail.
Does writing a Word doc count with filing?
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"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
Posts: 297 | From: Whitley Bay | Registered: Feb 2012
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
Yeah Beatmenace. If you don't want to annoy LGBT people I'd avoid using the word "lifestyle" as it is almost invariably used to attack us. I didn't have a "gay lifestyle" until I was 29. I had gay relationships. They're not really any different, in lifestyle terms, from straight relationships.
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Our God is an awesome God. Much better than that ridiculous God that Desert Bluffs has. - Welcome to Night Vale
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I'm happy to answer any particular queries about the cures (bearing in mind that I remained 'sick').
I'd be interested in what exactly this therapy consists of. Is it just prayer and faith healing, and making you feel guilty for who you are? Or is it a genuine psychotherapuetic attempt to comfort, support and assist someone in sexual desires they wish to move away from? For those who find the therapy helps, for them is it just a matter of 'will' and choosing not to indulge their sexual desires, or does it genuinely seek to change their sexuality?
It is easy enough to find people willing to criticise these therapy programs, the internet is full of ex-participants angry and probably rightly so, at being hurt by them. It's interesting to know that there is another side of the story. For you, why do you think the therapy didn't work whereas it did for others? Is your sexuality more definitely homosexual than those who were helped, or are those people deluding themselves prior to inevitably realising it's all a lie and jumping angrily into the ex-participant camp.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by beatmenace:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
My gay lifestyle today involved doing lots of filing, and there might be some ironing this evening.
Your gay lifestyle seems very similar to my straight one. Except the ironing bit. And the filing. But similar in nature if not detail.
Does writing a Word doc count with filing?
Gays don't use Word. We've got our own special software.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
My experience of such things is extremely limited, but it seems to me that sometimes when you fall in love, the nature of the plumbing isn't so important.
Really, really, it isn't important at all. This is why I'm bewildered at the idea that a gay relationship is a source of great moral peril whereas heterosexual marriage is a wonderful gift from God. OK, I'm only engaged at this stage (maybe it'll all become clear after July) but the two kinds of relationship really are more similar than they are different. When it comes down to it, someone still has to buy the toilet roll and feed the cat. You have the same kinds of arguments and cuddles and supportive moments. You make the same kinds of mistakes.
I think that's also why there's so much resentment about the word "lifestyle" because it suggests that gay people are living a completely different kind of life. It also generally involves comparisons of apples and oranges - the "gay lifestyle" conjuring up images of promiscuous young men as opposed to a faithful hetero marriage. The truth is that monogamous relationships have more in common with other monogamous relationships - sexual orientation aside - than they do with random sluttiness, whatever the orientation of it.
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Our God is an awesome God. Much better than that ridiculous God that Desert Bluffs has. - Welcome to Night Vale
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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beatmenace
Shipmate
# 16955
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Posted
All - my heartfelt apologies to all my Gay friends here. I had no idea that using the word 'lifestyle' would be offensive. I suppose that implies a choice of sexuality in the same way we pick curtains. In no way was I suggesting that and i'm sorry if that is the impression i gave.
I guess thats my ignorance speaking and shows how careful we have to be with words.
Guess i'm here to learn this sort of thing - which is why i'm asking questions!
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"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
Posts: 297 | From: Whitley Bay | Registered: Feb 2012
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
This is a really interesting discussion and I hope it continues in a lively way. As the OP'er first suggested might be the case, any discussion of the rights and wrongs of homosexuality belongs in the Dead Horses thread, and a conversation about whether homosexual orientation can or should be "cured" clearly falls within that category. Fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride.
Trudy, Scrumptious Purgatory Host
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
Beatmenace: not a problem at all. I never thought you meant to upset anyone ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Our God is an awesome God. Much better than that ridiculous God that Desert Bluffs has. - Welcome to Night Vale
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Hawk: I'd be interested in what exactly this therapy consists of.
I would be interested in hearing something about this too. A couple of weeks ago there was something of a controversy about this in the Netherlands. It was found out that an organisation who offered this kind of therapy received government subsidies.
quote:
orfeo: Gays don't use Word. We've got our own special software.
I use OpenOffice. No ... I couldn't be ...
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Now, having moved the thread to its new home, I want to pose a question on it.
It seems we get two different stories about how ingrained people's sexual orientation is (and I say this as a straight woman who's never been seriously attracted to another woman, so my heterosexuality feels pretty carved in stone to me). On the one hand, it seems that being gay is something you're born with, not something you choose (hence a lot of anger directed, rightly I think, at conservative Christians who describe homosexuality as a "lifestyle choice"). And you end up with people like my late best friend who was, to all outward appearances, happily married to a woman for many years, but constantly struggling with his attraction to men, praying to be "healed" and "changed." He eventually gave up the struggle, left his marriage and entered a relationship with another man, and felt relieved and whole and happy about having finally admitted who he was. This is the straight/gay paradigm I've always understood -- we are what we are, and it's wrong and dangerous to try to make people change, or pretend to change.
But then I've also been hearing more, in recent years, of the sort of thing that's being said by many on this thread -- that sexuality is much more fluid, that it could go either way depending on whom you fall in love with. A co-worker of mine who identifies as a lesbian and is married to another woman was previously married to a man. You would think her situation would be similar to that of my friend described above -- relief at being free of a "false" self-identity and glad to be openly lesbian, but she says, "You fall in love with a person, not a gender" and seems to suggest she might just as easily have fallen in love with another man when her marriage ended, as with a woman.
As a straight person from a conservative Christian background who tries to advocate for less archaic attitudes towards gays and lesbians in churches like my own, I will admit to being confused by this. Is it just different for different people? Is some people's sexuality far more fixed and others' more fluid? Are the people who claim to be "ex-gay" and have been changed by therapy or prayer or whatever, simply people who tended to be more bisexual anyway and with the right motivation (like believing it was what God wanted) decided they could happily settle down with someone of the opposite sex? Or are they deluding themselves and everyone else?
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I'm happy to answer any particular queries about the cures (bearing in mind that I remained 'sick').
I'd be interested in what exactly this therapy consists of. Is it just prayer and faith healing, and making you feel guilty for who you are? Or is it a genuine psychotherapuetic attempt to comfort, support and assist someone in sexual desires they wish to move away from? For those who find the therapy helps, for them is it just a matter of 'will' and choosing not to indulge their sexual desires, or does it genuinely seek to change their sexuality?
It is easy enough to find people willing to criticise these therapy programs, the internet is full of ex-participants angry and probably rightly so, at being hurt by them. It's interesting to know that there is another side of the story. For you, why do you think the therapy didn't work whereas it did for others? Is your sexuality more definitely homosexual than those who were helped, or are those people deluding themselves prior to inevitably realising it's all a lie and jumping angrily into the ex-participant camp.
I wrote a really long reply to this. Unfortunately, the Ship ate it when the thread moved to DH.
I promise to try again later.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
orfeo: quote:
I wrote a really long reply to this. Unfortunately, the Ship ate it when the thread moved to DH.
Doh! I hate it when it does that! My sympathies.
[ 13. April 2012, 12:22: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
The point about psychotherapy is not to exhort people to move in any particular direction, but to help them to work through various conflicts and tensions they may have, so that they can do what they want.
Thus, any 'therapy' in which the therapist states that homosexual sex is wrong, disordered, sinful, and so on, is not psychological therapy, but a kind of reprogramming. And it will probably not be available in any professional body for that reason.
The word 'cure' itself is redolent - implying that being gay is a disease.
This is quite different from helping someone who is shifting from one position (gay or straight or bi) to another. But here the therapist is not saying that one position is preferable!
This would be like telling a married client that getting divorced is wrong.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Crśsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
On the question of free speech, such protections are usually not considered to extend to fraudulent or deceptive advertisements. A group claiming to be able to turn gay people straight should have their ads subjected to the same treatment as a company claiming to be able to cure cancer with sugar pills.
On the question of whether or not reparative therapy works, writer Gabriel Arana has written a piece about his own experience with such "therapy" under Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, one of the most (in)famous gay cure psychologists.
quote:
Nicolosi’s ideas did more than haunt me. The first two years of college, they were the basis for how I saw myself: a leper with no hope of a cure. I stayed in the closet but had sexual encounters with classmates nonetheless. I became increasingly depressed but didn’t go to mental-health counseling for fear that a well-meaning therapist would inform my parents that I was living the “gay lifestyle.”
I planned for what I would do if my parents decided to stop paying my tuition. I would stay in New Haven and get a job. I would apply for a scholarship from the Point Foundation, which gives financial aid to gay kids whose parents have disowned them. I would not go back to Arizona. I would not see an ex-gay therapist.
I spent hours in front of the window of my third-story room, wondering whether jumping would kill or merely paralyze me. I had a prescription for Ambien and considered taking the entire bottle and perching myself on the ledge until it kicked in—a sort of insurance.
Most of the evidence seems to indicate that ex-gay "therapy" can't turn gay people straight. At best it can make gay people celibate. At worst, it can lead to suicidal tendencies or actual suicide.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
Well, this method doesn't seem to work.
(Sorry for the tired stereotypes -- it was too good to pass up.)
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Oh dear, it's all very complicated. The question of 'curing' begs the question of what is a gay person in the first place. For instance, before the 1860s, there was literally no such thing as a homosexual. Sodomites, yes. But the 1860s saw sexual preference pathologised and labelled for the first time. (Incidentally, it was another decade or so before there was any such thing as a heterosexual. Interesting, that.) And that was when the modern phase of the social construction of (male) homosexuality began. Fairly quickly, the medical profession scented a lucrative bandwagon and so began a whole social-construction industry, linking (male) homosexuality to cross-dressing, effeminacy, lack of body hair, and an inability to whistle. While some of these were so obviously absurd that they were quietly sidelined, stereotypes involving physical weakness and 'camp' seinsibility persisted and persist. Meanwhile female homosexuals continued to be invisible-ised, because after all, who takes female sexuality seriously?
None of these things, of course, have any real bearing on whom you like to have sex with. Or indeed fall in love with. I think it was Gore Vidal who one suggested that it was inappropriate to refer to anyone as 'homosexual' unless they were actually engaged in sex at the time.
So what is it that people talk about 'curing'? Or is the strategy merely to get gay men to marry, procreate, and not frighten the horses? After all, that's what Oscar did. Up to a point ...
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Mary Marriott
Apprentice
# 16938
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Posted
One common form of 'treatment' involves the giving of electric shocks, to gay men while pictures of naked men are shown, projected large size on to a screen. Electrode round one ankle. Very searing pain.
After the shocks comes calm and pictures of women ar projected on to the big screen.
Then more men, more shocks.
These sessions a number of times per week at psychiatric hospital out-patients in the UK. This is still going on to this day I believe.
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'We have to be ready to move forward' she said. 'Maybe this is not how we are meant to be for ever.' (Mina in Skellig)
Posts: 32 | From: the half way house | Registered: Feb 2012
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Crśsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mary Marriott:
One common form of 'treatment' involves the giving of electric shocks, to gay men while pictures of naked men are shown, projected large size on to a screen. Electrode round one ankle. Very searing pain.
After the shocks comes calm and pictures of women ar projected on to the big screen.
Then more men, more shocks.
These sessions a number of times per week at psychiatric hospital out-patients in the UK. This is still going on to this day I believe.
If you say so. Using electroshock to "cure" homosexuality has been considered malpractice by American psychiatrists for about three decades now. I wouldn't be surprised to discover some quacks still promoting this kind of "cure" in the U.S., but they wouldn't associated with any legitimate hospital or institution.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mary Marriott:
These sessions a number of times per week at psychiatric hospital out-patients in the UK. This is still going on to this day I believe.
Citation please.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
A good friend of mine, who has always been gay, is now getting married to a woman.
Does she know? If so, then please give them my congratulations and best wishes. If she doesn't know, then I wouldn't want to give him the time of day and my opinion is unprintable.
The trouble with 'cured' is that the patient is liable-- in fact, almost certain-- to be fooling himself. That's sad enough, but if I roped another person into my little experiment in self-righteousness, and tied her down unsuspecting into a life of frustration, just so that I can be more respectable in society or feel better about myself, how could Our Lord possibly be pleased?
quote:
Orfeo wrote:
Such groups would argue that the desire is just temptation to sin. The main thing is not to indulge in the desire - which doesn't just mean not having homosexual sex, it means dismissing the desire instead of indulging in the fantasy inside your head.
If that is the case, then it's not very consistent to pick on gays in particular. The current This American Life covers the Ten Commandments with stories of people's attempts to live up to them. For "Thou shalt not commit adultery," we heard from a young man who had been taught from childhood a very expansive definition of that word, such that every sexual fantasy was a sinful violation. But far from being able to put women's bodies out of mind, he wasted hours during his college years obsessively haunting supermarkets and drug stores in hopes of catching glimpses down women's blouses when they bent over. About once a week "M happened," as he would confide to his diary, and he put it down to not praying fervently enough. He was able to lead a normal life (and it happened very quickly) only after a more enlightened Christian counselor than the ones he had suffered under advised him to give himself permission to fantasize and masturbate.
If such allowances are needed to enable unmarried straight people to get on with their lives, then to deny them to gay people is simply masochistic.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
In relation to aversion therapy, yes, I am curious about this, as I think that it has been declared dangerous by many professional bodies, and even illegal in some countries. I thought it had been discontinued in the UK. Certainly, the NHS would steer well clear of it, I would think.
[ 13. April 2012, 15:25: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
I'm bisexual, and I've always identified as bisexual.
Well, that is, since I learned the word and had a great, dizzying relief that I wasn't a freak who couldn't decide on a monosexual orientation.
I think a lot of angst and anger and hurt could be avoided if we quit treating monosexuality as the only game in town, and you have to pick a team and stick with it for the rest of your life, or else you're not allowed on the dating field.
(I also think it would help if people didn't automatically think that bisexuality equals polyamory or orgiastic. The number of people who, upon finding out I'm bisexual, immediately ask me to participate in a threesome is staggering. But that's an education thing.)
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Looking for a simple solution to all life's problems? We are proud to present obstinate denial. Accept no substitute. Accept nothing.
--Night Vale Radio Twitter Account
Posts: 10281 | From: Beervana | Registered: Dec 2003
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Mary Marriott
Apprentice
# 16938
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Mary Marriott:
These sessions a number of times per week at psychiatric hospital out-patients in the UK. This is still going on to this day I believe.
Citation please.
My own direct,personal experience I'm afraid, in the 1960s.
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'We have to be ready to move forward' she said. 'Maybe this is not how we are meant to be for ever.' (Mina in Skellig)
Posts: 32 | From: the half way house | Registered: Feb 2012
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
But you said "This is still going on to this day I believe." That's not the same as what happened in the 60s
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
Posts: 12860 | From: The Valley of Crocuses | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Biology - you have straight, homosexual, bisexual and asexual.
The psychology is all over the map. Of course someone can convince themselves, or be convinced, their orientation has changed.
I think conversion therapy is ridiculous, head-in-the-sand foolishness. And damaging on a psychological basis.
Side note based on observation: I do not see sexual orientation as fluid for most people. From a hardware/firmware perspective. As noted, you can run whatever software you like, just doesn't perform well outside its native environment.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Biology - you have straight, homosexual, bisexual and asexual.
If you can find a purely biological difference between those categories - in other words one that is physiological or anatomical or genetic rather than psychological and social - you really ought to publish it because no-one else ever has.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Biology - you have straight, homosexual, bisexual and asexual.
If you can find a purely biological difference between those categories - in other words one that is physiological or anatomical or genetic rather than psychological and social - you really ought to publish it because no-one else ever has.
Shoul have said genetic predisposition, but no one ever has?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Alright, need to stop being lazy, most of those links are bollocks. This one is more to what I was referring.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
And its bollocks too. Handwaving pseudo-scientific crud. Even if the authors don't realise it is.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
I get really quite fantastically angry about this issue. The feeling of shame and guilt and wrongness that comes up over and over again around homosexuality is one of the major things that's keeping me out of churches right now. I'd like to be a Christian but basically I have a horrible feeling that God hates me for who I am and won't have me. I know this is not Christian teaching but it's how the teaching of Christian teaching makes me feel.
As far as I am concerned (in my fantastically angry state) this is similar to parading buses around London with adverts like: 'Feeling angry and aggressive? Have a lobotomy and you can get over it'. Lobotomies did work fantastically at achieving what they set out to do, they just destroyed the heart of the individual along with it, as I feel therapy like this will destroy a fundamental aspect of personhood if undertaken by well meaning but wrong-headed straight people.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
I remember in the early 80s a line going round house churches that homosexuality was caused by demon possession, which meant that the only way to deal with it was by exorcism. One church leader I know was exorcised, confessed his gay past, and shortly after married the woman he'd been working with for years. Sadly I don't know how their marriage turned out, but I have my suspicions....
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Shire Dweller
Shipmate
# 16631
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Posted
Browsing around in my omnivorous Church of England state one day I noticed this video on Oak Hill Theological College's website
I was disturbed by this man's explanation of how he leads his life. I felt he had been bullied by conservative evangelical theology into rejecting something that was integral to who he was.
Yes, I know the response to this banal observation is “It's Oak Hill mate, what do you expect?”
But I find it deeply challenging that this evidently 'Christian' man has felt it necessary to construct an elaborate rationale for being a strictly single, celibate Gay Christian that might, if conservatives are feeling generous, fit in with conservative evangelical theology.
And then this 'Cure' nonsense crops up again. Its bullying people into rejecting something that is integral to who they are.
Alas, I know not any Gay Christians in the Shire (because I'm shy, not because there cant be any) so I exhort my brothers and sisters in Christ (especially C of E ones) to smite these conservative evangelical fools before all this gets out of hand and dear Rowan (bless him) has to give a Holy answer to loaded questions about why all Christians hate the sodomites.
Overall, where's Peter Tatchell when you need him?
(I like him. He is of a generous spirit)
NB. I come from a notionally evangelical C of E back ground so I'm entirely happy to criticise other Evangelicals when they're going off on one.
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Right around the Wrekin
Posts: 77 | From: Shropshire | Registered: Sep 2011
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