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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Anyone know any 'cured' gay folk?
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Right, the country that drove Alan Turing to suicide for being gay. What's amazing is the way the criminalization of homosexuality has just fallen down the memory hole (a reference originating on your side of the Pond) along with electroshock and other attrocities despite being enforced within living memory.
Criminal penalties for homosexual acts are of a piece with gay conversion therapy. They're both premised on the idea that homosexuality is essentially a choice, so if you just change around the incentives enough a gay person will simply "choose" to straighten out. The only thing that's changed is the latitude society is willing to extend to these quacks and zealots, not their eagerness.
For heaven's sake mate, you make it sound like it's all my fault!
When you make a stark claim along the lines of "nobody* would ever do that" despite the fact that several people, many of whom are still alive, actually did "that", it makes you complicit in whitewashing history. It's even less helpful when you attach that asterisk to "nobody" to mean "nobody in my country".
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Maybe it's because I'm from across the pond!
All together now:
British police are the best in the world...
Yes, I know - Tom Robinson - now married to a women who subsequently bore him children! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Maybe it's because I'm from across the pond!
All together now:
British police are the best in the world...
Yes, I know - Tom Robinson - now married to a women who subsequently bore him children!
He wasn't 'cured' I don't think, but he did change his "orientation" - read the Wiki section on his personal life.
[ 22. May 2012, 08:41: Message edited by: Mark Betts ]
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
That certainly does beg the question. I wonder how many people here think there is anything wrong with gay people in the first place.
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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
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
That certainly does beg the question. I wonder how many people here think there is anything wrong with gay people in the first place.
I wasn't implying anything - it is just that the term 'gay cure' is used freely, and no-one can be cured (of anything) if there is nothing wrong with them.
Just words...
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
That's good to know. "Gay cure" isn't a term I use, for exactly the same reasons as yours.
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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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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I think the "gay cure" has been discovered!
Mark Betts just turned every gay commenter on the "redefine marriage" thread straight by fiat. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
No I didn't! It's just an imaginary scenario of straight people defining the plight of gay people.
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!
Oh dear me, no. This is not to say that there are not examples of men somewhere on the sexuality spectrum that do indeed fall in love with a woman after having been attracted to men, but so many of us have had to live through the "you just haven't met the right girl yet" kind of comments...
If it happens, it happens. But the idea that it should happen and that it's a 'solution' to a 'problem' is really quite dispiriting.
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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.
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!
Oh dear me, no. This is not to say that there are not examples of men somewhere on the sexuality spectrum that do indeed fall in love with a woman after having been attracted to men, but so many of us have had to live through the "you just haven't met the right girl yet" kind of comments...
If it happens, it happens. But the idea that it should happen and that it's a 'solution' to a 'problem' is really quite dispiriting.
I was never suggesting that it was a one-size-fits-all "cure" for all gay and lesbian people.
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!
I'm sure it happens. I know a number of straight married men who were cured of their heterosexuality when they met the right man.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
I believe that several prominent evangelists have been cured in this manner. After spending hours in prayer the Lord blessed them by sending cute young boys to carry their luggage.
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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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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!
I'm sure it happens. I know a number of straight married men who were cured of their heterosexuality when they met the right man.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Of course not - I wouldn't dare say otherwise, in case the Thought Police are watching!
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I know a number of straight married men who were cured of their heterosexuality when they met the right man.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
What, apart from the adultery, you mean?
But I take the point. I know several formerly self-identified straights who subsequently identified as gay, and a few people (both genders, but mostly women) who have callled themselves bisexual and subsequently settled down with one exclusive opposite sex partner. Some of these continue to categorise their sexuality as bi, some class themselves as de facto straight.
I don't know anyone who once called themself 'gay' and now identifies as straight, though I'm sure there are such people, sexuality being the complicated thing that it is. I suspect that this identity shift is comparatively rare, because there is a lot of social pressure against identifying as gay in the first place, whereas straight is pretty much the default. It doesn't surprise me at all that people who find thselves attracted in some degree to some men and some women, have a natural bias towards assuming that it is the heterosexual feelings that represent their normal sexuality. Life experience is therefore more likely to shift self-identity in the direction of 'gay' or 'bi', but shifts the other way are clearly possible.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I was going to suggest that maybe, for some men at least, the problem is merely that they haven't met the right sort of woman. Once they do meet that certain young lady, they are 'cured'... but then that begs the question whether there was anything wrong with them in the first place!
I'm sure it happens. I know a number of straight married men who were cured of their heterosexuality when they met the right man.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Of course not - I wouldn't dare say otherwise, in case the Thought Police are watching!
Mark, you give your location as "Leicester". Which country is that in?
We have a Leicester in England, but no Thought Police, so you must live somewhere else.
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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
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
I knew one young woman who identified herself as lesbian -not bi- and later fell in love with a young man and maintained the relationship for about five years. But then, she was around twenty when I met her and she may have discovered a latent bi streak in herself. How she pursued her life after that relationship, I don't know, since she moved away from the circle in which I knew her.
ETA: I'm having a moment of deja vu. If I've pounded this example before, forgive this really dead horse.
[ 25. May 2012, 15:59: 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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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Mark, you give your location as "Leicester". Which country is that in?
We have a Leicester in England, but no Thought Police, so you must live somewhere else.
Robert - the Thought Police are secret, so you're not supposed to know about them - until you fall foul of their expectations!
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
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Posted
If anything, this thread has shown that the word "cured" can be twisted to mean anything.
When I was a student at a fundagelical university near Los Angeles, I got involved with an ex-gay group called Desert Stream.
Almost everyone who joins an ex-gay group envisages the word "cure" to mean becoming entirely heterosexual. People who join these groups no longer want to have homosexual feelings, period. They want to have a healthy, sexually fulfilling, heterosexual marriage with kids in the suburbs, just like every other straight couple (as they believe.) Once they finish the therapy they want to get on with their lives.
But as one gets deeper into the therapy, the definition of what "cure" means starts to change. One stops working to achieve typical heterosexuality but instead the goal is to become an "ex-gay" which is something different. In fact, one ex-gay group "Parents and Friends of Ex Gays" aka P-FOX advocates the passing of laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation to include "ex-gays" as a particular category which is a damning admission that ex-gay people aren't really straight, and won't ever be. So there is much bait and switch in this groups.
In my experience "cured" success stories fell into one of 4 categories:
1) Bisexuals who are successfully able to repress their homosexual side.
2) Gay men who married gay women they met through the ex-gay group and had a, perhaps emotionally close, but sexless marriage. Their sexual orientations remain the same.
3) Gay men who married naive straight women.
4) Professional ex-gays who had to stay in the church/ex-gay bubble to maintain their relationships. They usually work in ex-gay ministries or church organizations and probably couldn't function in the secular world without the constant support.
But about 80% drop out eventually and never get even this far.
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"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
When I was a student at a fundagelical university near Los Angeles, I got involved with an ex-gay group called Desert Stream.
That's my mob. Or at least, the Australian version of it was. I did Living Waters twice.
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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.
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I know several formerly self-identified straights who subsequently identified as gay, and a few people (both genders, but mostly women) who have callled themselves bisexual and subsequently settled down with one exclusive opposite sex partner.
Dude. Bisexual doesn't mean polyamorous. It means attracted to both genders*. You can be bisexual and monogamous. Or even celibate! Neither monogamy or celibacy negates the attraction to both genders.
*For people who subscribe to the adorably quaint notion of binary genders, that is.
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
If anything, this thread has shown that the word "cured" can be twisted to mean anything.
When I was a student at a fundagelical university near Los Angeles, I got involved with an ex-gay group called Desert Stream.
What a horrible group. They speak of... quote:
journey out of homosexuality and into his true identity in Jesus Christ
Presumably anyone who is LGBT do not have a true identity or have Christ.
When are these weird groups going to die and leave people in peace?
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ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
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Posted
These groups are in a slow state of collapse, mostly because:
1) There are too many stories about the therapy not working (IOW, they can't hide all the ex-ex-gays anymore); 2) professional societies like the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, British Psychological Society, etc. are taking a harder line against ex-gay therapy; 3) conventional views on matters of sexual morality is on the decline in western societies - people are more comfortable with defacto and gay relationships; 4) many religious groups are becoming less hostile toward gay people and 5) younger people have increasing difficulty regarding homosexuality as anything to be cured of.
[ 30. May 2012, 19:21: Message edited by: ToujoursDan ]
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"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spiffy:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I know several formerly self-identified straights who subsequently identified as gay, and a few people (both genders, but mostly women) who have callled themselves bisexual and subsequently settled down with one exclusive opposite sex partner.
Dude. Bisexual doesn't mean polyamorous. It means attracted to both genders*. You can be bisexual and monogamous. Or even celibate! Neither monogamy or celibacy negates the attraction to both genders.
Well, yes, of course. My next line was:
quote:
Some of these continue to categorise their sexuality as bi
I'm not in the business of telling other people how to define their own sexuality. I'm merely observing that sometimes a change in relationship status or behaviour prompts a change in stated self-identity, and sometimes it doesn't. I am deliberately contrasting the cases where it does with claims that homosexuality can be cured. A woman who has previously fancied/slept with women and men, and is now settled with one (male) person, could call herself bisexual (because she is still attracted to both) or straight (because she considers her attraction to her partner to be the important thing) and who am I to argue? I wouldn't see either as a case of homosexuality being 'cured'. It's just life happening, and causing her to redefine (or not) how she sees herself.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
What a horrible group. They speak of... quote:
journey out of homosexuality and into his true identity in Jesus Christ
Presumably anyone who is LGBT do not have a true identity or have Christ.
That sounds like something right out of the ex-gay lexicon I mentioned earlier. From Part 3 of that series:
quote:
“On The Journey Out Of Homosexuality”
When someone who is “struggling with homosexuality” decides he or she doesn’t want to be “gay-identified”, then that person is said to have embarked on a “journey out of homosexuality.” This is where the poorly-defined concept of “change” comes in. This “change” was much talked about, but never really defined except in its most important aspect: a new identity in Christ.
Exodus sometimes provides something of a non-religious public face, although that face is never entirely a secular one. Focus on the Family, however, is unabashedly evangelical in the public stage. At Love Won Out, both groups were free to be who they really are with the like-minded audience. Everyone who spoke did so from a plainly religious perspective. Even Joseph Nicolosi, the “secular scientist” closed his plenary session on male homosexuality saying, “When we live our God-given integrity and our human dignity, there is no space for sex with a guy,” and arguing that “good psychology is compatible with good theology.” Melissa Fryrear’s personal story (known as a “testimony” in evangelical circles, and was labeled as such on Love Won Out’s published agenda) was not so much a clinical struggle to change her sexual feelings as it was an unabashedly emotional religious transformation.
And this appears to really be the only transformation that matters. As the day wore on, it became clear that Love Won Out wasn’t there just to convince us that gays and lesbians needed to become heterosexuals. The goal was actually much, much higher. Mike Haley alluded to it earlier when he described gays and lesbians as “the unwanted harvest.” In his personal testimony that morning, he attributed his “journey out of homosexuality” and, ultimately, his marriage and career to an irrevocable calling from God. Alan Chambers reinforced the religious theme by repeating that “the opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality. It’s holiness.”
Long article short: it's a religious conversion technique, not a way of altering sexual orientation.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
A woman who has previously fancied/slept with women and men, and is now settled with one (male) person, could call herself bisexual (because she is still attracted to both) or straight (because she considers her attraction to her partner to be the important thing) and who am I to argue? I wouldn't see either as a case of homosexuality being 'cured'. It's just life happening, and causing her to redefine (or not) how she sees herself.
That's kind of like saying that someone who had "previously fancied/slept with" both blondes and brunettes might legitimately consider themselves "cured" of their blonde-fancying after settling down with a brown-haired partner. Just casting it in those terms is freighted with all kinds of assumptions.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
A woman who has previously fancied/slept with women and men, and is now settled with one (male) person, could call herself bisexual (because she is still attracted to both) or straight (because she considers her attraction to her partner to be the important thing) and who am I to argue? I wouldn't see either as a case of homosexuality being 'cured'. It's just life happening, and causing her to redefine (or not) how she sees herself.
That's kind of like saying that someone who had "previously fancied/slept with" both blondes and brunettes might legitimately consider themselves "cured" of their blonde-fancying after settling down with a brown-haired partner. Just casting it in those terms is freighted with all kinds of assumptions.
![[Confused]](confused.gif) Do you mean what I AM saying is kind of like that, or that what I am deliberately and clearly NOT saying would be kind of like that? If the first, no, if the second, yes.
Is it really controversial to say that there are people who once thought of themselves as bisexual now think of themselves as straight (or gay)? There are. It's a fact.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Poe's Law strikes again! If it weren't posted at The Onion, this article would sound plausible.
quote:
Evangelical Hospital Holds 5th Annual Gayness Cure Walk
MARIETTA, GA—As part of an ongoing effort to eradicate homosexuality, Cobb County Evangelical Hospital held its fifth annual Walk to Cure Gayness Sunday, drawing thousands of participants to raise funds and awareness for the debilitating psychosexual disease.
Hospital administrators said the remarkably high turnout, which included many survivors and their new opposite-sex spouses, would allow the gayness treatment center to focus on developing new, more effective techniques to cure sufferers of their deviant lifestyle choice.
"Today's walk marks another important step in our continuing battle to make gayness a thing of the past," said hospital president Kenneth P. Strickland, who like many in attendance was wearing a gray ex-gay-awareness ribbon. "Thanks to the groundbreaking research these events make possible, perhaps in 10 or 15 years people who realize they're attracted to members of their own gender can have a shot at leading long, heterosexual lives in the eyes of God."
A bit over the top, perhaps, but in very much the same vein as the representations made by Exodus International and other of similar ilk.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
I know at least one gay person who left his lover, joined a search and is involved with a woman from the church.
I also know several gay people who went or were sent to ex-gay groups where they were seduced by the ex-gay leaders of the group.
Finally there's no shortage of married men who are out looking for promiscuous gay sex.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I know at least one gay person who left his lover, joined a search and is involved with a woman from the church.
I also know several gay people who went or were sent to ex-gay groups where they were seduced by the ex-gay leaders of the group.
Finally there's no shortage of married men who are out looking for promiscuous gay sex.
Hmmm... So in fact, some of these programmes could actually provide cover for gay people to meet up and have relationships in the midst of an evangelical church environment? That's interesting.
If one takes the view that sexuality exists on a spectrum, then presumably it would be possible to enable someone who is closer to the centre of the spectrum (i.e. close to being bisexual) to pay more attention to their heterosexual than their homosexual impulses. But it would be harder to do this for someone who is further along the spectrum. This might be where the danger of doing psychological damage comes in.
Maybe there are those who do such a course without damage, and come to the view that celibacy is their calling. Do these courses ever posit celibacy as an option, or is celibacy viewed as failure? It seems, ironically, as though the celibate gay person might end up in everyone's bad books - neither 'cured' of their homosexuality, nor expressing it proudly in a physical way.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
Svitlana I just hope to goodness you are wearing your asbestos underwear. Getting a celibacy debate going and suggesting that such courses are not of themselves damaging to all participants is going to get you some serious heat.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
FooloftheShip
Oh dear! You may be right.
But before I made my post Palimpsest wrote that various outcomes were possible with these courses; that's what I was responding to. If you think my thoughts are highly regrettable, than the same must be said for his/her comments as well.
The problem with these courses is that they're seen as symptomatic of a homophobic culture. I understand that. But in a truly pluralistic society, people are free to change whatever they want about themselves, whether it's their sexuality, their religion, their gender or anything else. Or at least, to make the attempt! Yes, there may be family and societal pressure to fit in, but families are now quite fragile anyway, bonds are loose. If we're desperate to fit in, we can also be desperate to break away. People make the choice between one and the other every day.
These courses, if they're going to exist, should just represent one available option among many. They shouldn't have to be representative of anything but themselves. They shoudn't have to represent national homophobia any more than a network of atheistic meetings represents national hatred of Muslims or Hindus.
Maybe we need to have more 'courses' that represent a different perspective of the connection between Christianity and homosexuality.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The problem with these courses is that they're seen as symptomatic of a homophobic culture. I understand that. But in a truly pluralistic society, people are free to change whatever they want about themselves, whether it's their sexuality, their religion, their gender or anything else. Or at least, to make the attempt! Yes, there may be family and societal pressure to fit in, but families are now quite fragile anyway, bonds are loose.
Of course the bonds of family are a lot "tighter" in regard to minors, who are more or less subject to the whims of their parents. I'm sure it doesn't take much imagination to understand the harm that can occur from homophobic parents expecting a course to "fix" their teenager and not getting the results expected. As I mentioned earlier, the state of California is considering a ban on such "treatments" for all minors.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Croesos
That's reasonable enough, especially if there are signs that children are left needing more medical/psychiatric care after attending these courses.
But I'm fascinated that there has been enough controversy to make this change in the law necessary. Are parents sending their children to these courses pre-emptively? Are parents deliberately looking out for 'gay characteristics' in their children? In a way, these children haven't been well-served by the greater openness about sex, because it's just served to make their parents more paranoid. Where previous generations would have assumed that two tactile friends were simply very close, they may now assume that these children are sexually attracted to one another.
Are children now coming out earlier? Why would they do so, knowing that a course like this awaits them? Straight children don't necessarily tell their parents if they're thinking about having sex! Maybe in an ideal world they should, but children should have some idea about how their parents might react to news like this! But if children are coming out earlier, that indicates that the society is already changing, despite the dramatic response of the parents.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
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Originally posted by FooloftheShip:
Svitlana I just hope to goodness you are wearing your asbestos underwear. Getting a celibacy debate going and suggesting that such courses are not of themselves damaging to all participants is going to get you some serious heat.
Let me be a little more temperate. It's going to generate some heat, though hopefully as much light as well.
The scare quotation marks around 'cured' must not be forgotten. There is no openness of outcome in these attempts at cures; those undertaking them intend that the 'graduates' should emerge capable of the heterosexual marriage for which, allegedly, Jesus designed them. So I will confess to finding the equanimity of your post hard to take.
Also, speaking as the most unwilling celibate of my acquaintance, I don't feel remotely inclined to recommend it as a lifestyle "choice". I'm also unconvinced it's a choice; it's a consequence of avoiding certain other things, such as emotional vulnerability and exposure of physicality, which scare me so much that even this feels less painful. Or so I seem to have thought so far....mostly......
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Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Are children now coming out earlier? Why would they do so, knowing that a course like this awaits them? Straight children don't necessarily tell their parents if they're thinking about having sex! Maybe in an ideal world they should, but children should have some idea about how their parents might react to news like this! But if children are coming out earlier, that indicates that the society is already changing, despite the dramatic response of the parents.
Given that the old assumption was that a lifetime of closeting was appropriate, I'd say yes, children (and adults) are coming out "earlier" than posthumous revelations.
There also seems to be a fairly big double standard in your post. Or are you willing to make the claim that no straight teenager would ever let their parents know they had an opposite sex boyfriend/girlfriend? It's that kind of 'subtle' behavior that parents sometimes pick up on to draw conclusions about their kids' sexual orientation.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Are children now coming out earlier? Why would they do so, knowing that a course like this awaits them? Straight children don't necessarily tell their parents if they're thinking about having sex! Maybe in an ideal world they should, but children should have some idea about how their parents might react to news like this! But if children are coming out earlier, that indicates that the society is already changing, despite the dramatic response of the parents.
Given that the old assumption was that a lifetime of closeting was appropriate, I'd say yes, children (and adults) are coming out "earlier" than posthumous revelations.
There also seems to be a fairly big double standard in your post. Or are you willing to make the claim that no straight teenager would ever let their parents know they had an opposite sex boyfriend/girlfriend? It's that kind of 'subtle' behavior that parents sometimes pick up on to draw conclusions about their kids' sexual orientation.
Well, obviously, many teenagers in a western cultural environment would be happy for their parents to know about their opposite sex boyfriend/girlfriend.
The 'old assumption' about a lifetime in the closet seems to me two generations away. We read about people who came out in adulthood; now people are more likely to come out in childhood. If parents are now more savvy about picking up on subtle 'gay' behaviour that's as a result of a previous generation talking openly about what it's like to be gay; and children are less concerned about hiding their orientation for the same reason.
These programmes may be a response to greater awareness, but they're also battling against that same awareness. This is rather like religious fundamentalism; it's a response to widespread secularisation, but it's also undermined by widespread secularisation.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Well, obviously, many teenagers in a western cultural environment would be happy for their parents to know about their opposite sex boyfriend/girlfriend.
Is that not a coming out also, and generally a very painless one. We come out as straights to our parents, families and the world at large with little angst or difficulty; young gays/lesbians usually don't have such a luxury.
[ 22. August 2012, 22:24: Message edited by: Gee D ]
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
If parents are now more savvy about picking up on subtle 'gay' behaviour that's as a result of a previous generation talking openly about what it's like to be gay; and children are less concerned about hiding their orientation for the same reason.
One problem with this is that many parents are NOT savvy about it at all: if the kids don't show an interest in all the things that they consider typical masculine behavior (fast cars, drunken brawls, brutal sports, taking joy in killing things, beating up on queers, etc.) they worry the kid might be gay, and send him to a camp to learn him right.
While the middle class and urban environments have become more accepting of GLBTs, there remain large segments of the population that have little personal interaction with anyone who has come out; where a lifetime in the closet, or an escape to a more supportive city elsewhere, is still the norm; and where any sort of acceptance is still at least a couple generations in the future.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Carex
My comment was made in response to Croesos' remark that parents are able to pick up on hints about their children's sexual orientation. If they're knowledgeable (or just think they are) about that, then they've got that knowledge from somewhere. I suggest that society's greater openness about homosexuality that has ironically influenced that awareness.
What they choose to do with that information is another matter. To be honest, in the society you describe, anyone with any kind of sensitivity or any ambition at all would have to get out - it sounds horrible.
Gee D
quote:
We come out as straights to our parents, families and the world at large with little angst or difficulty; young gays/lesbians usually don't have such a luxury.
I don't think I can quite qualify as a 'we', but I understand what you're getting at.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
But in a truly pluralistic society, people are free to change whatever they want about themselves, whether it's their sexuality, their religion, their gender or anything else.
Their height, their skin colour, their date of birth, their blood type...
...one can only take this notion of changing "whatever they want" so far, Svitlana.
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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.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
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Posted
Svtlana - as school homophobic bullying around here is triggered by girls not being sexually active at 13 - you know: being locked out of the changing rooms, having your PE kit trashed, being shunned socially, name calling, abuse and a whole lot more, and just from the assumption that if you're not interested in boys at 10, 11, 12 you are gay, and this is the UK - you are making huge assumptions here. It's pretty much the same for boys.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
But in a truly pluralistic society, people are free to change whatever they want about themselves, whether it's their sexuality, their religion, their gender or anything else.
Their height, their skin colour, their date of birth, their blood type...
...one can only take this notion of changing "whatever they want" so far, Svitlana.
Well, as I said, people are free to make the attempt. And they do. People wear certain shoes or hairstyles to make themselves look taller. Changing skin colour is controversial, but there are ways and means, if not for yourself then for your descendants (see Frantz Fanon, etc.).
I suppose my inner existentialist is coming out here! However, I realise that the discourse around homosexuality is mostly essentialist, and is predicated upon a single, unchangeable sense of identity. It seems to me, though, that in cultures where homophobia is a serious problem, the issue is about a lack of pluralism, an unwillingness to accept difference. Some would say that in such cultures, change isn't only possible but is highly desirable.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Svtlana - as school homophobic bullying around here is triggered by girls not being sexually active at 13 - you know: being locked out of the changing rooms, having your PE kit trashed, being shunned socially, name calling, abuse and a whole lot more, and just from the assumption that if you're not interested in boys at 10, 11, 12 you are gay, and this is the UK - you are making huge assumptions here. It's pretty much the same for boys.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'huge assumptions'. I didn't make any comments about little girls being abused for not wanting boyfriends at that age. In any case, this just seems to me a sign of hypersexualisation in children (obviously of the heterosexual kind). Without the constant sexual emphasis in our culture, young children wouldn't have to be judging each other on this basis.
I'm middle aged, but on this matter it seems as though I should feel grateful for having missed out on 'progress'; I was never abused at school because I was insufficiently sexually aware at a young age. (Because of other reasons, to an extent, but not that one!)
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Well, obviously, many teenagers in a western cultural environment would be happy for their parents to know about their opposite sex boyfriend/girlfriend.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
In any case, this just seems to me a sign of hypersexualisation in children (obviously of the heterosexual kind). Without the constant sexual emphasis in our culture, young children wouldn't have to be judging each other on this basis.
I'm middle aged, but on this matter it seems as though I should feel grateful for having missed out on 'progress'; . . .
I'm not sure that having a boyfriend or girlfriend in the teen years is necessarily a symptom of "hypersexualization". In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that a standard where no one is supposed to take an interest in sex until at least their twenties is an aberation, both psychologically and historically.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Croessos
OK, you and I come from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds, and have different experiences on these matters! I'm rather more ok with the idea that people are different in terms of the nature and extent of their sexual expression, as in other things. I also think it's fairly reasonable that we reflect our cultural/social environment as well as our basic sexual impulses. But you and I are unlikely to agree on these matters!
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Croessos
OK, you and I come from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds, and have different experiences on these matters!
That's what I'm questioning. I have severe skepticism about some idyllic non-sexual age in the recent past where no one had "those urges" until at least the age of twenty-five, if not thirty or even older.
For instance, looking back fifty years the median age at first marriage was 20.3 years for American women in 1962. That's the median, meaning half of American women entered their first marriage at an age younger than that (i.e. as teenagers). I'm not sure why a society where at least half of the female population became openly sexually active as teenagers wouldn't count as "hypersexual" under your rubric.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I'm rather more ok with the idea that people are different in terms of the nature and extent of their sexual expression, as in other things.
The question isn't whether people are different in their sexual expression, but whether they can change their sexual impulses simply by an expression of will. Like Ted Haggard waking up one morning and deciding from that point forward he's going to be "100% heterosexual". Most who make claims along these lines are ideologues or charlatans.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I know at least one gay person who left his lover, joined a search and is involved with a woman from the church.
I also know several gay people who went or were sent to ex-gay groups where they were seduced by the ex-gay leaders of the group.
Finally there's no shortage of married men who are out looking for promiscuous gay sex.
Hmmm... So in fact, some of these programmes could actually provide cover for gay people to meet up and have relationships in the midst of an evangelical church environment? That's interesting.
Indeed - i know someone who went to Jeremy Marks' "Courage". he said her got more sex in that house than he'd ever picked up from cottages or clubs.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I have severe skepticism about some idyllic non-sexual age in the recent past where no one had "those urges" until at least the age of twenty-five, if not thirty or even older.
For instance, looking back fifty years the median age at first marriage was 20.3 years for American women in 1962. That's the median, meaning half of American women entered their first marriage at an age younger than that (i.e. as teenagers). I'm not sure why a society where at least half of the female population became openly sexually active as teenagers wouldn't count as "hypersexual" under your rubric.
Well, I wasn't referring to any 'idyllic' age, because I don't think one exists. But if you're talking about marriage, then different cultures have often had different median ages for marriage. And different statistics for those who remain unmarried, or who are widowed.
Of course, in our culture, sex and hypersexualisation have less and less to do with marriage. This is not to say, of course, that in the past, sex only occured within marriage. But the figures for pre-marital sex varied too, depending on certain factors.
quote:
The question isn't whether people are different in their sexual expression, but whether they can change their sexual impulses simply by an expression of will.
[... See]
Ted Haggard
Surely the point isn't that Haggard is '100% straight', (although he might describe it like that, which is certainly dubious) but that he's chosen to live his life in a particular way. That choice may be valid and comfortable for him, but may be unsuitable and unattractive to others. Other clergymen have no doubt been in similar situations and have chosen to divorce their wives - or their wives have divorced them -because that felt better.
You may say that lots of clergymen are living a lie, married to women but secretly meeting men, and I'm sure that happens. It happens when both spouses are straight too! But the clergy divorce much more than they used to, so deception isn't the only solution, in the long run. Haggard's wife could presumably have divorced him, as so many clergy wives do (and lots of them seem to be evangelicals), but chose not to.
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