Not Gay Anymore..?

1.  From Gay To Straight - "Reparative Therapy"
2.  Isolation And Persecution 
3.  Gay To Straight + God = Good For You..? 
4.  Your Family Sucks 
5.  FuelMix Has A Question...

Underlining, highlighting and bold print by FuelMix 

1.  From Gay To Straight - "Reparative Therapy"

"Mr. Smith is one of thousands of men across the country, often known as “ex-gay,” who believe they have changed their most basic sexual desires through some combination of therapy and prayer — something most scientists say has never been proved possible and is likely an illusion."

-------Ex-Gay Men Fight Back Against View That Homosexuality Can't Be Changed, The New York Times, 31 October 2012

1.  HHmmm......there's that issue again.......can a man fighting his gay urges successfully transition to a "normal" heterosexual male.....?

2.  The process of transition, sometimes referred to as "reparative therapy" is ironically, the subject of its own gay bashing. Psychologists decry it, gay activists loathe it, liberals despise it, some politicians (as in the Not So Golden State) have banned its use on minors and the Religious Right that advocates reparative therapy, sometimes expels the gay-to-hetero converts from church.


2.  Isolation And Persecution

1.  Small wonder that ex-gays feel isolated and persecuted.  Often, despite being "cured" they can be as closeted as the terrified fag they thought they were. The only thing they have to validate themselves is their personal therapy experience and the support of a cluster of those who went through it.


3.  Gay To Straight + God = Good For You..? 

1.  The New York Times report quotes a person who sought to reverse the argument to one in favour of reparative therapy:

“If I’d known about these therapies as a teen I could have avoided a lot of depression, self-hatred and suicidal thoughts"......... He was tormented as a Christian teenager by his homosexual attractions, but now, after men’s retreats and an online course of reparative therapy, he says he feels glimmers of attraction for women and is thinking about dating. 

“I found that I couldn’t just say ‘I’m gay’ and live that way......"

2.  OK....so what are we talking about here..? Christian beliefs getting in the way of teenage self-acceptance by creating a paradigm of guilt and self-loathing..?  And what if the "reparative therapy" fails? Will there be a double dose of depression, self-hatred and suicidal thoughts..? Or a triple dose when Mom and Dad (who presumably would be paying for their teenager's therapy) put pressure on the kid to "conform"....?

3.  After all, a gay man isn't "born" with religion like he's born with dark eyes.  Religion, like baby formula, is fed to him in incremental doses, often with no idea of future emotional toxicity levels.

4.  It's no secret that "reparative therapy" has religious overtones.  As per the New York Times report:

Whether they have gone through formal reparative therapy, most ex-gays agree with its tenets even as they are rejected by mainstream scientists. The theories, which have also been adopted by conservative religious opponents of gay marriage, hold that male homosexuality emerges from family dynamics — often a distant father and an overbearing mother — or from early sexual abuse. Confronting these psychic wounds, they assert, can bring change in sexual desire, if not necessarily a total “cure.” 

4.  Your Family Sucks
 
1.  Hold on a second.........what about those boys who did have a distant father (physically or emotionally) and an overbearing mother AND who grew up straight..?

2.  And what about those boys who did have a distant father (physically or emotionally) and an overbearing mother AND who grew up gay  - AND are quite comfortable with themselves..?  Did they have to go through their own "dark night of the soul", fear, guilt, self-loathing to emerge as (confident) gay men...? Yep. That personal hell in varying degrees, is a rite of passage that every gay kid, gay teenager and gay adult goes through - frequently several times in their lives as their perceptions and emotions evolve.  Is it enough to change basic sexual orientation...? Nope.

3.  What about the effect of biology..? In the series, The Blood of My Children, FuelMix wrote about research showing that a certain hormonal soup to which the developing foetus was exposed, would result in a brain chemistry giving a greater chance of being born gay.

4.  It would appear that advocates of reparative therapy disagree.  As per the New York Times:

"Joseph Nicolosi, a psychologist and clinical director of the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic in Encino, Calif., which he describes as the largest reparative therapy clinic in the world, disagreed.

'I don’t believe that anybody is really gay,” he said. “I believe that all people are heterosexual but that some have a homosexual problem, and some of these people attempt to resolve their conflict by adopting a sociopolitical label called "gay." '

  
5.  FuelMix Has A Question...

1.  It begs the questions:

1. Whether their "homosexual problem" is internalized homophobia..?
2. If one accepts the above quoted premise that nobody "is really gay", to what extent does reparative therapy (whether successful or failed) contribute to self-loathing..? After all, there is an apparent conflict to resolve isn't there...?
3. If "gay" is a sociopolitical label, then are these ex-gays fighting with actual homosexual attraction and tendencies, or the fear that they might be perceived as gay by their peers...? 
4. When FuelMix drops his towel in a gay sauna, is he then putting on a sociopolitical label.?
5. What about confirmed bisexuals happily going AC/DC with not a care in the world..?
6. When FuelMix  goes out with women one-on-one (which he does), is FuelMix in fact a  heterosexual seeking to resolve "a homosexual problem"....??   Yeah....good one.

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Originally published 9 November 2012
Amended and Republished 5 April 2014 | 9 February 2016 | 30 May 2017

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