So-lled gay nversn therapy is nmned by experts but still wily practised. What happened when a proud gay man signed up?
Contents:
- I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
- I’M MALE AND I AM AAID THAT I MIGHT BE GAY
- I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY…
- ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
- HOW DO I KNOW I’M NOT REALLY GAY/STRAIGHT?
- THE DAY I MET A ‘GAY NVERSN THERAPIST’
- LETTERS TO THE EDOR: I’M GAY AND DON’T WANT TO PATRONIZE BIGOTS. THANKS, SUPREME COURT
- JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH MAJOR U.S. PRO LEAGUE TO E OUT AS GAY
I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
I have for the last few years been very aaid that I may be gay. Deep down, I want to watch my wife have my children and have a really close relatn... * what if i dont want to be gay *
A gay person is someone who is attracted to people of their same genr, and the term is often ed to scribe men who are attracted to other men. There are many gay men who say "I'm not part of the scene" -- men who hate gay bars and, prumably, crowds of queer people general.
Internalized homophobia -- self-shamg, self-hatred -- leads many gay men, and many queer people general, to recreate their closets long after they're "out" by shunng others, particularly those they nsir "flamboyant. But you mt spend time wh others, whether that means havg a group of gay movie iends or queer gamers or playg on a gay sports team. This parable piece by lbian wrer Sarah Prager go through the lp of great gays who changed the world -- om ventor Alan Turg to Tchaikovsky, the poser, to the Renaissance pater and ventor Leonardo da Vci.
I’M MALE AND I AM AAID THAT I MIGHT BE GAY
Read the numbers: In four years, more than 5, 596 people the Uned Stat had died of AIDS, many of them gay men and transgenr women. Fd a gay elr who's been where you are and r for your well-beg, someone who unrstands you and never pass judgment, someone who lets you make the mistak you need to make. There would be no ternalized self-hatred if no one had ever told you that beg gay is wrong, or that gay sex is disgtg, or that gay men n't feel real love, or that beg transgenr is fake, or that beg nonbary is a mental illns or a ll for attentn.
If you thk a word like "gay" or "queer" works for you right now (aga, don't have to work for you forever -- labels do not e wh lifetime ntracts) and you're not ready to tell everyone, simply say out loud to yourself. However, at the surface, I fantasise over homosexual sex and many people believe that I am gay, and exprs those opns – and have done for longer than I n remember.
I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY…
People fd me funny and ‘sweet’ and I n’t really thk of anyone who I don’t get on wh, however people still assume I’m gay even though I ask out many women, and show affectn to women. I don’t want to be gay, as I said, ep down I am ashamed of the way I feel, I still feel as though is not normal, which may have origated om my parents views.
The other thg to remember is that vast numbers of so lled heterosexual men and women have gay fantasi - but they choose never to do anythg about them. And then there are huge numbers of ostensibly heterosexual men this untry who marry happily and have children but who also like to fd exprsn gay love om time to time. Disregardg all evince that the ex-gay movement is credibly damagg to more than 90% of those who unrgo "treatment" (bee they clearly jt didn't believe God enough), Settg Captiv Free wants you to know that you were not "born this way.
" Homosexualy is a s that you need to purge om your system, and the only way to do is to follow their three-parts-a-day the app is only downloadable om Google Play (iTun and the 69, 822+ people who petned them don't believe nversn therapy for some reason), there is an abridged versn available on the mistry’s webse. Stop Callg Your Homosexualy an "Alternative Liftyle": It's "Wicked, " "Evil, " and a "S": The are the only thgs you should ever ll om now on, preferably hhed ton.
‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
Even better, feel ee to refer to your homosexualy wh water-based metaphors: It's a "broken cistern" that will never satisfy your thirst. Change For the Right Reasons (the Glory Of God): After all, homosexualy is nothg but "lt, porn, and sexual immoraly, " ss that are applible only to gay people and never to straight on.
Always Read Scripture, But Only the Parts We Tell You to: Who knew curg homosexualy uld be so much like dog high school homework?
Remove Yourself From Anythg Even Remotely Gay: Don't watch porn (aga, 's only a gay thg), don't go on gay webs, and most of all, certaly don't associate wh gay people. Any of those thgs might make you feel like your homosexualy is a natural part of your inty and n be accepted by those around you. Realize That Beg Homosexual Mak You Feel Alone Fet that we told you to shut yourself away om most of the world, and ignore the ia that maybe gay people feel so alone bee of the discrimatory and hateful attus that they face, helped by people like .
HOW DO I KNOW I’M NOT REALLY GAY/STRAIGHT?
Rencile Wh Those Who Tried to Help You Stop Beg Gay: All those people who lled you "faggot" and told you that you were gog to Hell? But if at the end of this 60-day therapy, you still have homosexual tennci, then you didn't really believe and you didn't really want to change. You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change.
I me out at a nservative Christian llege the US and was a gay relatnship for around two years wh a basketball player who end up marryg a woman. Well, you mt have been gay the whole time, some might thk, and bee of some relig shame, you cid to lie to yourself and experiment wh a girl. But what feels most accurate to say is that I’m gay – but I wasn’t born this people may fd their sir changg directn - and n't jt be explaed as experimentatn (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In 1977, jt over 10% of Amerins thought gayns was somethg you were born wh, acrdg to Gallup.
Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to. ” Around the same time, the Human Rights Campaign clared unequivolly that “Beg gay is not a choice, ” and to claim that is “giv unwarranted crence to roundly disproven practic such as nversn or reparative therapy.
THE DAY I MET A ‘GAY NVERSN THERAPIST’
”People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backwardAs Jane Ward not Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Whe Men, what’s tertg about many of the claims is how transparent their speakers are wh their polil motivatns. “Such statements, ” she wr, “fe blogil acunts wh an obligatory and nearly ercive force, suggtg that anyone who scrib homosexual sire as a choice or social nstctn is playg to the hands of the enemy. ” People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backward – even if they are themselv, for example, Cynthia Nixon of Sex and The Cy fame.
”Gay rights do not have to hge on a geic explanatn for sexualy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)For Aravosis, and many gay activists like him, the public will only accept and affirm gay people if they thk they were born gay.
Patrick Grzanka, Assistant Profsor of Psychology at Universy of Tennsee, for stance, has shown that some people who believe that homosexualy is nate still hold negative views of gays. In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance. “It don’t seem to matter as much whether or not people believe that gay people are born that way as do that they simply know someone who is currently gay, ” Allen spe of the studi, those who ph agast Born This Way narrativ have been heavily cricised by gay activists.
LETTERS TO THE EDOR: I’M GAY AND DON’T WANT TO PATRONIZE BIGOTS. THANKS, SUPREME COURT
Siarly, Ward has received her own hatemail for phg agast the lg LGB narrativ, wh some gays tellg her she’s “worse than Ann Coulter, ” the ntroversial US thor of books like If Democrats Had Any Bras, They’d Be Republins.
And when I published my say on choosg to be gay, an irate Amerin lbian activist wrote me that had “jt been nfirmed” to her that my wrg was “directly rponsible for four gay aths Rsia.
JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH MAJOR U.S. PRO LEAGUE TO E OUT AS GAY
There is a unanimo opn that gay “nversn therapy” should be rejectedLet’s first be clear that whatever the origs of our sexual orientatn, there is a unanimo opn that gay “nversn therapy” should be rejected. The efforts are potentially harmful, acrdg to the APA, “bee they prent the view that the sexual orientatn of lbian, gay and bisexual youth is a mental illns of disorr, and they often ame the abily to change one’s sexual orientatn as a personal and moral failure.