I would like to see a documentary on the damaging effects of "ex-gay therapy"

I would love to see a well made documentary about the survivors of so-called reparative and “ex-gay” therapy. I would like to see some of them interviewed so that they can tell their stories in their own words. I would like the process explained in detail. I would like mental health professionals interviewed. I would like to hear them explain exactly how this is not mainstream therapy, how there is no scientific basis for the methodology, how it is not peer reviewed or held up to any kind of professional scrutiny, and I would like them to explain how a person could be harmed by this, how spending your life being coerced into making a change that really isn’t possible can damage a person, how you might end up feeling betrayed by your family, your church, and an organization that promised to help you change but only managed to make you feel shame, and took your money while doing it.
I would not want the documentary to focus on what is and is not sin. I certainly wouldn’t want to hear what someone like Alan Chambers thinks is sin. In my opinion, the man is an idiot, and his opinions are worthless. When he talks, all I hear are two-bit rationalizations for his abhorrent behavior. I also don’t want “their” side given equal weight for the sake of some foolish quest for balance. We’ve already heard enough from the “gay=sin”, “change is possible” crowd. They don’t need yet another platform to spew their lies.

I don’t know much about filmmaking, or how much money it would cost, or who would be interested in directing it, but I think such a documentary, if it was well made and compelling, could be a very useful tool in educating the general public as well as family, friends and ministers who might be thinking about recommending (or mandating) ex-gay therapy.

Maybe We Should Be Less Afraid of Sex and More Afraid of Certainty

by Gary Cottle

Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling explores the anxiety people feel when they put into action what they have come to accept on faith. Tillich talked about doubt being an integral part of faith so much that many wondered if he was really an atheist. But I don’t see much fear and trembling on the part of Christianists. For them it’s all about certainty. It seems to me that they closely associate their opinions and ideas of God with God. Some don’t even seem capable of understanding that there might be a difference.

I find the idea of reaching into someone else’s head with the intention of manipulating their dreams, thoughts and fantasies to be alarming. I think if anything should give one pause, that would be it. And to blithely do that to a pubescent kid… Explicit sexual thoughts and fantasies are new to them, and they might find them to be frightening to some degree, so it might be traumatic to have some judgmental, know-it-all jerk come in and claim that some of those thoughts are evil. Has it ever occurred to these arrogant people who would impose their ridged, unyeilding sexual ethics on our youth that maybe nature knows what it’s doing in planting those “sinful, lustful” thoughts in the minds of pubescent kids? Maybe it’s an important part of the maturation process. Maybe it’s one of the ways young people come to know that they’re separate from their families with dreams and desires of their own and that they need to start preparing to go out into the world to fulfill those dreams and desires.

I don’t think Christianists care much about maturation and independence. I think their goal is to keep people emotionally dependent, locked in a state of puberty, always worried that they might have a “dirty” thought, always seeking the approval of authority figures who have set themselves up as the lawgivers, the ones who speak for God.

Sexual urges are very powerful. And we see people getting in trouble because of their sexual urges all the time--unwanted pregnancies, the lies and manipulations of seducers who don’t care about the feelings of their partners so long as they get what they want, cheating that leads to broken homes and ruined friendships, saying “yes” when there’s no condoms around and being told six months later that you’re now positive. No wonder some people want to believe there’s some kind of rule book that will protect us all from harm. No wonder some are quick to believe that any sex that’s not approved of by the self-appointed messengers of God is an addiction, something evil in and of itself, something that must be avoided at all costs even if the core of their being is telling them the lawgivers are wrong.

We have heard so much from the Christian Church, and Christianists in particular, about how we should be afraid of sex. But maybe we should be worried about authority, too--the desire to surrender our individuality to it, as well as the flip side of that, the desire to pretend we have more knowledge than we actually do. How many wars have been unnecessarily fought, how many people have been unnecessarily killed, how many dreams have been delayed, cast aside, lost, how many have gone through their whole lives half awake because some of us are too quick to stand up and claim we know more than we do, while others are too quick to follow blustering fools because they’re too afraid of the uncertainty, the fear and trembling, the doubt that comes with thinking for themselves or because their courage to face those things was ripped from them at an impressionable age or during a period of vulnerability?

Alan Chambers, merchant of shame, labeled "Man of the Year" by a Christianist magazine and even placed on a dais and given a mic at a Gay Christian Network conferrence as if what this fraud has to say is worth considering.

Thankfully, I have never had to endure so-called reparative therapy, but I am an adult survivor of childhood abuse. In fact, I was in a psychiatric hospital several times in my twenties and I was placed in a special ward for survivors of abuse.

As a child, I was taught that what I feel and what I think don’t matter. Scenes in movies that show adults speaking to children with great care and offering comfort and understanding will remind me that no one ever did that for me. My mother loved me, but she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. We didn’t have heart to heart conversations. I found out early on, if I told my mother something personal, what I got back was crazy and sometimes scary. My father was concerned for my welfare, but he was not a nurturing person, and he was wrapped up in fundamentalist dogma. And he was often not even there. I learned early on that society was disapproving of sissy boys and boys who didn’t fit a certain stereotypical view of masculinity. Later I learned that society disapproved of boys who like boys. I was bullied at school, and those in authority there seemed indifferent to the hurtful names, the marginalization, and the threats of violence. Home was not a safe place. Home didn’t provide comfort. Home was chaos and condemnation. My older sister was desperate for approval and acknowledgement from our damaged parents, too, and because of the deficit, she turned to sibling rivalry. She belittled and berated me constantly, and my parents ignored this. When I was twelve, I performed a striptease for a neighbor boy. I already knew I was gay at that point, and I wanted the boy to like me. I didn’t know what I was doing or how to go about finding a boy who was interested in me, so I acted out in this foolish and embarrassing manner. My father caught us, and I’ll never forget the look of shame on his face. He was disgusted with me. And to add insult to injury, he told my sister about the incident. For years she regularly humiliated me by bringing the incident up…out of the blue, whenever she felt like making me feel like shit. I was terrified that someone would find out my secret.

Even though it might be irrational, I grew to believe that I couldn’t trust most people and that my inner thoughts and feelings must be protected. In my 20’s, I was diagnosed with PTSD and social phobia. I suffered from severe anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. I am more stable than I was in my twenties, but to this day I have never had a proper boyfriend, never been on a proper date. All I have are memories of one night stands and the unrequited love I had for a young man I knew in college. I never found the nerve to tell him what I felt for him, and we were close for just one year before he graduated and moved away. I don’t work. I’ve been on disability social security since the early 90’s. I don’t drive. I don’t leave the house much, and when I do, I avoid talking to people. If there’s a knock on the door, I often don’t answer it. I have caller ID and an answering machine, and I never answer the phone unless I know who is calling. The internet is my primary social outlet, and I can literally go a year without having a real face to face conversation with anyone.

Alan Chambers publicly and repeatedly states that there is something wrong with LGBT people, and that God will not accept them until they reject their feelings and identity, and he’s highly praised for this, labeled “Man of the Year” and given money for spreading the lies, while I live in a roach infested government subsidized apartment in a town I don’t like, in a neighborhood that is described as a ghetto. I see things like this, and it drives me further into my shell and reinforces the belief that has been ingrained in some primitive part of my brain that I can not trust people, I can not talk to people, I can not tell.

I’d like this to be a still from an old movie about two guys who fell in love during WWII.

I’d like this to be a still from an old movie about two guys who fell in love during WWII. I would like it to be romantic, tragic, and poignant like Casablanca. It would be great if such a film were made today, but I would like for it to have been made back in the 40’s. I would like to have seen it when I was a kid. I would like for this film to have helped me imagine falling in love with a man, and being so in love with him that I would risk everything, do anything to be with him. I would like for this film to have shaped my character and my expectations. I would like for this film to have affirmed a nascent dream that was just beginning to emerge in me when I was eleven or twelve.

Plastic Utensils

In the hospital they gave him plastic utensils. That was funny to him because he had always been quiet, never got into trouble, and he was often ignored. No one had ever noticed that his painfully shy exterior hid a savage and unstable heart. But one day he said to his doctor in a low and tremulous voice that he didn’t think he could ever be free until he pealed the skin from his body. Now they treat him as if he’s a dangerous character, speak to him using carefully modulated tones, check on him every fifteen minutes, even while he sleeps, and he is denied the use of real tableware, but at least they’re finally paying attention.

The Spasm Under The Scourge

"There are those for whom virtue is the spasm under the scourge, and you have listened to their clamor too much.”

I first read this quote from Nietzsche many years ago, and it has always stuck with me. I think I remember it because I know this is advice I should take to heart. I have listened to the clamor of those who would make me feel unwelcome and ashamed, and I’m going to try to stop giving so much weight to the opinions of those who are hell bent on bringing me down. I’m not saying I’m perfect. I know I can be a jerk, and I will try to keep myself open to constructive criticism. But a great big raspberry to those who think I should like women instead of men, and those who think I should be more masculine, and those who think I’m not trying hard enough to make friends, and those who think I’m not deserving because I don’t take better care of myself and stay fit, and those who think it’s tacky or creepy or strange of me to openly admit I appreciate the beauty of younger, pretty, slim and not so masculine men. A raspberry to anyone who takes the attitude that they’re better than me. I should turn a deaf ear to the clamor of those people, and I should remember I have a perfectly good deaf ear. Maybe fate struck me deaf in one ear to remind me I should only listen to half of what people say.

The Villain In The Piece

Growing up the son of a schizophrenic woman has, in a way, served me well. That’s because when you’re gay, it seems you have to assume that up to half the population is insane. They say that spiritual truth can only be recognized by those who are ready to comprehend it, and those who are not ready won’t see it even if it’s right in front of them. A lot of people are like that about the whole LGBT thing. You can tell them the truth, the honest truth, plain and simple, and still they cling to weird ideas about choice, endless wild orgies, recruitment of teenage boys and secret agendas. Whatever, hun. I just hope the fantasy version of me that’s running around in your head is much slimmer, dresses well and goes for the elegant, beautiful boys because if I’m going to be the villain I don’t want to be a slouch about it. :P