I’m really not sure how to feel about this.
I hope he succeeds, simply because I’m sick of people who claim all members of group X (whether they’re members of X or not) are locked into unbreakable patterns of behaviour.
He’s not talking about changing behavior. He’s talking about changing orientation. It’s not easy to change behavior, but it’s possible. It’s not possible to change orientation, unless you’re willing to admit that you could “become gay” if you really wanted to. I have no problem with celibate gay men, as long as they’re not little holier-than-thou shits about the whole thing.
On the other hand, there has been no credible evidence proffered in favor of any of these god-based therapies actually changing attraction. Not one peer-reviewed study has been done on “reparative therapy” for sexual orientation. The Exodus International poster boy, John Paulk, has himself been caught sitting in a gay bar in Washington, D.C.'s DuPont Circle (the “Fruit Loop”). He claims he needed to use the bathroom. Funny how it took him 20 minutes to find it.
I’m not going to get too deep into the feasibility or acceptability of the ex-gay movement, although I pretty much consider them bunk personally.
I’m just going to post and say… oh my God. Lots of self-torture seems to be going on in that blog. It made me ache just to fully read the first two posts and then try to skim down the page. It’s rather obvious he believes what he’s posting, that he’s not just mouthing the words for one reason or another, but I also get the image of him nailing himself to a cross. Serious probability of the self-destruction.
At least that’s my general impression.
I think anyone who has ever claimed to change their sexuality is a fraud. Even to those who claim they they can suddenly be attracted to women with the help of God, I think is a falsity. Has God ever changed any asian into an anglo-saxon? Ever changed any blonde into a brunette? Grown a midget to 6 feet tall?
Although he can, he does not. Furthermore, anyone who thinks going and impregnating females will somehow make up for all the times you had sex with males is wrong. A straight man is not inherently more holy than a gay man.
I don’t know the “answer” to homosexuality, or even if there is one, but I do know that pretending to be something your not is NOT the answer, ever!
Given how immensely flexible humans can be, and what determined individuals can accomplish, I’m disinclined to dismiss anything short of spontaneous combustion as impossible.
I’ve always been a little bit bothered by the idea that homosexuality is biological, because contrary to most people’s assumption, biological doesn’t mean immutable. In fact, in some ways, biological predispositions like orientation would probably be EASIER to change than psychological ones.
Ug. I started from the very beginning of that and immediately got the feeling that this blog isn’t being written by some tortured gay college student, but a middle aged member of some anti-gay group. Christian Coalition…one of Fred Phelp’s people perhaps?
Don’t really know why I feel this way…it just seems so…stereotypical, maybe? I looked at his user profile and the music listed was “what the young kids listen to these days”.
Just seems very fishy.
AND he misspelled Nickleback(Knickleback?). Why would you not know how to spell the name of one of your favorite bands?
As long as the letters G, A and Y appear on computer keyboards, computers will be part of the gay agenda and thus no God-fearing follower of Fred will touch them.
Frankly, my experience has taught me to never be surprised at any aspect of bad English. If it’s possible to mangle something, it’ll be mangled, no matter how smart the person or how much (s)he knows and likes the subject.
Not that it couldn’t be a sign of a fraud, but I don’t think it’s enough on its own.
Who’s claiming that you can’t change behavior? That’s absurd. Of course you can change behavior. Smokers can quit smoking. Alcoholics can quit drinking. Straight people can have sex with people of the same sex. Gay people can have sex with people of the opposite sex. Both can live lives of celibacy. Homosexual behavior is not the same thing as homosexuality.
Your comment shows why this website can be considered harmful. People take the writings of a single troubled, confused, dysfunctional individual and try to extend that to all members of group X (in this case, the Dreaded Homos). Even if this guy (assuming it’s a real guy) does somehow manage to come out of all this with something approaching a successful life, it proves absolutely nothing.
He’s got a lot of shit to deal with, and it sounds to me like his being gay is the least of it. There are plenty of us who had perfectly healthy upbringings free of abuse or molestation, with supportive parents and siblings, healthy friendships with both men and women, and a desire to find the right person, fall in love, and live a happy life together. I would even be rooting for the guy, if he weren’t such a sanctimonious prick. He shouldn’t blame his failures in life on his being gay, since there are plenty of us who are successful in spite of, or even I guess because of it. And I object to getting preached at by a dude who gets off on bathhouses as much as this guy does.
For all I know, you may be right. As I’ve said before, I don’t know whether homosexuality is biological, sociological, psychological, or a combination of that plus cosmic rays and sunspots. But I don’t much care, because it’s irrelevant. I spent over a decade trying to deny, redirect, examine, refocus, exhaust, and surpress my homosexual behavior, and I’m still homosexual. One could say that I just didn’t try hard enough. And I could say to that one, “Go fuck yourself. Why should I fight it instead of just accepting it?”
I tried to not be gay for over 10 years, and it didn’t work. Now, fair’s fair. You’ve got to test out your spontaneous combustion theory. Be sure to put up a blog to let us know how you do. I’m rooting for you, big guy.
Ugh. Another victim of the predatory religious right. “I cried myself to sleep” – and for what. So a few pieces of shit can feel they’ve done right by their deity.
He thinks he’s stuck at an earlier stage of development? How can it be called maturity, this squelching of the soul to satisfy an imagined father-figure who rewards and punishes.
Everyone who’s instilled this ugliness in this poor human being is a monster. Eventually he’ll figure out what all ex-gays find out, and that’s that he’s wasted years of his life trying to undo himself. :mad: 
Your response shows you invest too much meaning in a single misused word. On reflection, I shouldn’t have said “behaviour” but some more generic word encompassing orientation, personality, beliefs, etc. In any case, whether the guy is gay or not is irrelevant. I support his right to define and change himself any way he wishes far more than any alleged responsibility to any group. If he’s says he gay and can change, more power to him. If he said he’s Republican and can change, more power to him. If he said he’s a left-handed daisy-collector and can change, then fuck all the gay Republical left-handed daisy collectors who say he can’t. Fuck 'em all sideways with corkscrews. I’m for self-determination.
You know what I’m sick of?
I’m sick of people who’ve never met me psycoanalysing me. I’m sick of people with no formal training in psychology pretending to know the depths and reality of my emotions. I’m sick of the arrogance that goes along with the argument that we can change, over our protestations to the contrary. It’s a dismissal, a patronizing pat on the head, a refusal to accept that we know more about ourselves than you could.
How do you know? You’re on the wrong side of my skull to know what goes on inside me. You can’t claim to know my reality better than I know it myself. You’re applying a personal maxim to our lives with the subtelty of a sledgehammer. Our testimony – the witnessing of our souls – means nothing, because it contradicts your view of the world.
“I hope he succeeds,” you say. I’ve known a few people who’ve walked his path, and all that’s down it is more suffering, more agony – maybe a suicide attempt or two. Knowing that, do you still want him to walk that path?
And another 20 minutes to find his way out of it. Or longer, if he was really lucky.
“…and nobody thought to ask him for what.” - Kate Clinton
“He claims he needed to use the bathroom.”
Maybe all the other bathrooms were closed.
Hey, I don’t know or care who the fuck you are, Jack. You must need a new map and compass if you could miss my point by that much. You’re free, as an individual, to do whatever the fuck you please. Blog-boy has the same individual initiative.
I say, indeed.
A “few” doesn’t make an absolute. You’re unqualified to make absolute statements, and you’re incorrectly accusing me of making them. How ironic.
I said I wanted him to succeed, not fail.
I going to take a wild guess that you are heterosexual. So am I. Your faith in the human power to change fundamental brain wiring is awe inspiring.
Let me ask you Bryan, do you believe that if you thought it was the right, proper and moral thing to do, that you could re-orient your innate sexual pre-disposition to be sexually attracted to men? Could there ever be a day where you would long to have your face nestled against a big, hairy, muscular chest, and have big, brawny man arms cuddling you while you smelled his aftershave, and felt his five o’clock shadow rasping against your face while he tickled your chest with little butterfly kisses and a caressed your butt? That you would pray that he asked you to marry him and be his man?
If there any real world chance that there exists a combination of prayer and willpower that would bring you to the point that man love would be the best love for you?
While I applaud your singing “Climb Every Mountain” in the context of personal and behavioral decision making, the chances of a gay man flipping around to be “not gay” is about the same as you cuddling with the Brawny paper towel guy in the above scenario.