Due to the work I needed complete on my dissertation before I set off on my journey, I was unable to devote as much time to the George Rekers story as I would have liked. Earlier this week, he “resigned from the board of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH)”.
Because NARTH promotes the idea of “reparative therapy,” the idea that through treatment, we can overcome our same-sex attraction, this notion is once again in the news. And Rekers’ recent behavior, like ex-gay activist John Paulk’s 2000 visit to a Washington, D.C.-gay bar, suggest that their “best” efforts notwithstanding, many “ex-gays'” (or social conservatives obsessed with homosexuality) longing for intimacy, emotional, sexual, sensual or otherwise, with men does not always disappear through therapy.
Now, I have occasionally met some men who acknowledge having had (sexual) relationships with other men in their high school, college and early post-college years and then find themselves dating women in their mid to late 20s. That suggests that for some people, their sexuality is less fixed than it is for others. So, I wonder if when the ex-gay groups (like NARTH) tout their “success” rate, they are merely citing those men (and women) who found their sexual attraction shifting naturally, or, find that while they’re bisexually inclined, when it comes time to choosing a life-partner, they want someone of the opposite sex.
After studying the ancient Greeks, who were remarkably tolerant of male homosexual behavior, I am aware that only rarely do they talk about homosexual relationships as being on the same plane as traditional (yes, even back then) marriage. We do get that in the Symposium, with the relationship of Pausanias and Agathon and Aristophanes’s speech. Otherwise, they accept that married men will, from time to time, seek sexual relationships with other (usually younger) men. Or, that some men, like Alexander for example, often had relationships with both men and women.
All I am saying here is that while for many of us, our attraction seems fixed in one direction, for some it is not.
And another thing; those acquaintances now dating women who once dated men don’t define themselves as “ex-gay.” They don’t see their homosexual past as a sinful aspect of their lives. It just happened. By contrast, there seems, to me at least, to be a certain insecurity to those who go around advertising this “ex-gay” status.
I realize my thoughts here aren’t as organized as I’d like them to be, but wanted to get them out there while this story was still fresh in people’s minds. And I do have more to say on this. I’ve hardly touched on the pseudo-science of “reparative therapy” (save to suggest that it cases where it’s said to work, they’re just furthering along a naturally occurring process). I should note also that the ex-gay groups are not working with the universe of gay men, but a self-selected group. So, any statistics they offer on some “cure” rate are based on individuals, who of their own volition, sought them out.
And then there’s the entire purpose of discrediting Rekers et al. Is the purpose of discrediting him to promote greater understanding (and social acceptance) of gay people or as an excuse to promote greater government intervention ostensibly to benefit gay people?
I do hope this post leads to a spirited–and civil–discussion. And do hope to find time to better organize my thoughts in the near future.
I have been through reparative therapy. I, like many gay men, have a poor masculine self-image. I haven’t interacted with my father, brother, or peers the way many men have. To the extent that reparative therapy called me to work on more “traditional” relationships with men, it was helpful. I now have many straight friends with a level of non-sexual intimacy I cherish.
I also find that defining myself as “gay” doesn’t explain my various romantic relationships with women. I fall in love with women, just not as often as men. I also sometimes think that a woman might make a better life partner for me than a man, depending on the person.
I also think that reparative therapists and ex-gays are willing to tell the truth about the gay community. They are willing to name the promiscuity, the drug use, and the toxic behavior rather than pretend it’s not there. A lot of gays seek therapy not because of “internalized homophobia” but because they see the gay community as the toxic place so much of it is.
At the moment, I think I am going to choose to “improvise,” and not really define myself as anything, knowing that I am probably going to be more attracted to men than women, but not use that as an absolute identity. Reparative has freed me from having to identify myself as gay, which doesn’t necessarily change my orientation, but gives me freedom which the gay community doesn’t offer.
+1 Ashpenaz
IMO part of what makes some guys seek therapy is because of the Western, American image of what a homosexual is: an emasculated, denatured, angry and socially invasive caricature of women. The toxicity of what it means to be Gay (officially gay within the bounds of “the community” and hegemonic gayness) is something I think a lot of gay guys would resist more if there were some alternative.
Or if they were aware that there was some alternative: like rejecting Gay identity as an unnecessary component of sexuality.
Unfortunately, Gay the sociopolitical identity has taken too much ground in appropriating “gay” the sexual orientation, so that now they’re hard to untangle.
I don’t consider myself “ex-gay” either. 18 years ago I was 100% attracted to men and today I would say I was predominantly heterosexual but not above homosexual temptation (not acted on and understood when/if it happens.) Those that don’t like “temptation” language would probably call me bi-sexual with predominant attractions toward women.
But none of that is my success. My success is based in my faith and life goals. All of that is personal and subjective. And because of that subjectivity and the polarized pro-gay liberal left of the MSM, we are quite often misrepresented.
Plus, some activists only get a paycheck when they misrepresent us.
I have worked at Exodus International for about 8 years. The organization has been around for 35 and I guarentee you if we were truly the self-loathing haters using religion as a crutch … the organization would have folded 33 years ago. If we only existed to oppose the gay community … we would have folded 35 years ago after the first meeting.
We don’t exist because we haven’t considered all the arguments and evidence brought to the table. We do not exist to oppose the gay community even though we might have different views on social issues being legislated. But as a wise man said, mature civil adults can look at the same evidence and walk away with completely different opinions.
Rekers made an absolute mess of a huge mistake. I don’t know what else to say that wouldn’t be a repeat. He needs to fess up and move on. That said, his work really (and I am not minimizing either) had no bearing on my Christian post-gay journey. His “fall” is a pain in the neck but it really doesn’t challenge our faith or testimony.
I am not gay, ex-gay or a straight wannabee. <–I say that all the time. My life, experience and opinions are so much more than that.
And I know that gay people are so much more than that single primary identification label. I have done my very best to speak to the issues accurately and honestly. I share how God used gay and pro-gay people to help save my life at one point … all the time. I also won't lie about my convictions on biblical sexual behavior through either silence or dodging the issue. I have said some things during my time in public policy a few years ago that I wish I had not said or said differently. That is one of the reasons I am staying away from those topics (for the most part) today.
I know my life and views are offensive to many gay people. But my intent is not to be offensive and I really wish they weren't. That said, I don't want to dishonor people by being dishonest about what I believe or have experienced.
I know this is long and I know you wanted a "spirited" conversation. But I honestly … rarely … follow comment threads outside of the blogs I write for because I just can't. Plus, it's my birthday 🙂 and I HAVE to go. Mr. Blatt, you have my email from the notification of this comment and if any commenters want to follow through they can visit my personal blog linked on my name. <– Hate to self-promote like that but I don't want to just simply disappear.
Thanks for this post.
My success is based in my faith and life goals.
I agree with you Randy. I think a key to turning away from same sex attraction is to have something profoundly more important in one’s life. Whether God requires people with same-sex attraction to turn away from it is, unfortunately, an unanswerable question. But if we are supposed to give support and understanding to “transgendered” folk who have their bodies surgically and chemically mutilated to become the person they want to be, don’t we *also* owe support and understanding to those who are genuinely unhappy with a homosexual identity and wish to change?
My personal view on ex-gay therapy is this: I think that 95% of the time, it doesn’t work, but that it should still be allowed as long as nobody’s pushed into it against their will.
Of course, the reason why groups like NGLTF oppose it is because they’re so wrapped up in “Pride” and identity politics that it would be a hideous insult to them if someone ever believed that they didn’t like being gay.
Randy,
Thanks for your post. I disagree with your viewpoint regarding same-sex relationships, but I would always defend your right to say it. That’s what freedom of speech is all about. With that said, I do not believe that a committed, monogamous relationship between a woman & woman, or between a man & a man is any less moral than one between a man & a woman.
V the K,
I give support and understanding to people who may think that they are gay/lesbian, but realize that they really are straight.
In fact, I’m relieved for them — the world & America is much easier place if you identify as being heterosexual! If you’re a teenager, you don’t have to worry about being bullied by your peers or maybe being kicked out of your house by your parents. If you’re an adult, you can hold hands in public w/ your partner without getting weird stares or complaints. If you would like, you can get legal recognition of your relationship with your significant other, and all of the federal & state benefits that come with it, in any US state you wish. And, you can be completely honest that you are in a relationship w/ someone of the opposite gender, without worrying that you might jeopardize or lose your career or other status.
But on the flip side, don’t you also “owe support and understanding” to those of us that have accepted that we are gay or homosexual?
I really don’t mean to sound rude or offend, but on your blog, V the K, you have numerous pictures of scandily-clad women and remark that “boobs” are the “original stimulus package.” I just find it a little ironic that you would remark about God, and finding a higher purpose in life, and whether people in same-sex relationships should change their ways, while you post and stare at pictures of womens’ tata’s.
I think it’s somewhat simplistic to say ex-gay therapy “doesn’t work.” As I’ve said, it helped me heal my low masculine self-image. It helped me be honest about the toxic elements of the gay community. It helped me sort out my family relationships. It helped me to include my feelings about women alongside my feelings about men. None of these things could have happened in the gay community.
Though it didn’t eliminate homosexual attractions, it has, I believe, helped me to find what I think is a healthy, Christian way of understanding my attractions. My belief that God calls me to have sex only within a lifelong, sexually exclusive, publicly accountable relationship is a result of reparative therapy, and something that I never would have come up with if I’d used gay-positive therapy instead.
So, reparative therapy “worked” for me. It made my life better.
The reality of the “gay lifestyle” is that most gay people are just as boring as everyone else. Yes, there is drug use and promiscuity. I also know that you can find that amount heterosexual people as well. Rekers has the right to live his life as he chooses so long as he isn’t harming anyone. By testifying against the gay people being able to adopt and meanwhile hiring male prostitutes, he set himself up to be outed. It was inevitable. Reker’s problem is not that he is living life how he chooses. It’s that he wants to interfere with other people’s freedoms and choices while meanwhile making some of those choices himself.
My only problem with “reparative therapy” is that it mostly doesn’t work. There are whole websites devoted to people telling stories of trying and failing. But worse, those men and women married opposite sex people, sometimes without their knowledge that there was this ticking time-bomb in their marriage. You have a right to live as you chose, but when your choices affect others, you at least have the responsibility to be honest and fair in your dealings with them. I saw this play out far too many times.
Rekers is part of a vast culture of hypocrisy among religious conservatives. They denounce people in public for what they themselves do in private. It’s not everyone, but it’s common. It’s a joke in the south to have a hidden bar in your house. It’s called a “preacher bar” because you can hide it when the preacher comes over. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s almost a cliche at this point that the most outspoken opponents of gay rights are themselves closeted homosexuals. Who but someone trying to repress their own homosexual attractions would bother to make that a focal point of their lives? It would just be a sick joke if young people growing up in a social conservative environment weren’t often deeply hurt by what Rekers and company are selling.
One of the things reparative therapy allows you to say is that there really, really is more promiscuity, drugs, STDs, and suicide in the gay community than in the straight community. More gays are in open relationships than straights.
It’s true. Really. And I’m glad reparative therapy helps people get past the denial of how toxic the gay community is in nearly all of its manifestations. Free from having to see the world with rainbow-colored glasses, you can go on to make realistic, healthy choices.
I like LZ http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/11/granderson.gay.hypocrites/index.html?hpt=T2
Ashpenaz: You’re right about the points you make in your first paragraph in response #9, but I don’t think that one needs to go through “reparative therapy” to say those things; one only needs to take a good look around at what one observes at gay bars, in gay organizations, at gay gatherings, and especially on various gay websites.
I once observed to a left-wing guy (with whom I was in a relationship at the time) that as long as gay organizations supported such behavior as part of the “rainbow,” gay people would always be seen as marginal.
Ashpenaz,
Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need reparative therapy to allow me to say that “there is more promiscuity, drugs, STDs, in the ‘gay community’ than in the ‘straight community.” That statement isn’t even accurate. Did you know that lesbians (gay women) have the lowest rates of STD infections out of any other group? People who are gay, lesbian, or transgendered may have higher rates of suicide — but I’m willing to bet you dollars to doughnuts that they contemplate or commit suicide because they are tired of facing a large segment of society that claims to “love the sinner, hate the sin,” but then refuses to grant tolerance and respect to that individual when they do not “change”.
And, what exactly is the ‘gay community’? Do you mean the people in costumes who gyrate their hips at a gay pride parade? Or the gay men or lesbians in committed relationships who might be raising an adopted or surrogate child?
And what exactly is the ‘straight community’? Is it the group of college frat boys who make homophobic jokes, but think that “lesbians are hot”? Is the wife who is having an affair with another man? Or is it the husband who downloads and pleasures himself to porn after his wife is asleep?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t box myself into categories. I go to places where mostly gay people congregate, and I also go to places where straight people congregate. I don’t wear my sexual orientation on my sleeve, but I also try to be honest about who I am, wherever I go.
You say that reparative therapy helped you to go on and make “realistic, healthy choices.” Perhaps for you, that means to admit your “homosexual feelings” or “tendencies”, but to force yourself into celibacy, or forcing yourself to be attracted to women (By the way, no truly ‘straight’ man would find it difficult to be attracted to women). But for me, my realistic, healthy choice is to live my life honestly as a gay man.
I don’t have a “gay lifestyle”, but I have a life. And I’m going to live it.
well, there is always that gray area of bisexuality. and sexual fluidity.
on your blog, V the K, you have numerous pictures of scandily-clad women and remark that “boobs” are the “original stimulus package.” I just find it a little ironic that you would remark about God, and finding a higher purpose in life, and whether people in same-sex relationships should change their ways, while you post and stare at pictures of womens’ tata’s.
Other people’s complete lack of a sense of humor isn’t my problem.
Old-timers will be familiar with my ideas on these matters, so I’ll try to be brief. First, let’s distinguish behavior and orientation. Any mentally competent adult can stop, or can refrain from doing, any behavior. The question is ethical: whether they ought to. For any given act, some will say this, some that. You’re a grownup reading this; take responsibility for your choices, including any legal consequences.
Now, orientation. It goes much deeper into the person’s constitution. Undoubtedly some people are “bi” and/or changeable, orientation-wise. Far be it for me to contradict their experience. Having said that: statistically, most people aren’t. In a population of 300 million, you can certainly find 111,362 people who are, and they will have a hell of a convention if you get them together. With no contradiction of what I just said.
Classic ‘victim’ mentality. Let’s take it piece by piece.
HIGHLY arguable.
Arguable, and anyway, why let that stop you? I.e. grow a pair. Take a self-defense class, if that will make you feel better.
So can you, if you’re gay. It just might take more paperwork in some states.
Oh… it’s about teh “benefits” for you. I see.
Again, arguable. In several directions. For one thing, you seem to believe heterosexuals have no problems; untrue. And for another thing, like I’ve been saying, life as a gay person / couple can become quite easy, when you grow a pair. America is, at the end of the day, a pretty darn gay-friendly place.
“You say that reparative therapy helped you to go on and make “realistic, healthy choices.” Perhaps for you, that means to admit your “homosexual feelings” or “tendencies”, but to force yourself into celibacy, or forcing yourself to be attracted to women (By the way, no truly ’straight’ man would find it difficult to be attracted to women).”
This is such a stereotypical bunch o’ crap response I don’t even know where to begin. Reparative therapy does not shame people into celibacy or force people to pretend to be attracted to women. It allows people to be honest about themselves and their experience of the gay community. And, yessir, the gay community is largely monolithic in its promiscuity, drugs, STDs, and suicide. You, sir, are in rainbow-hued denial because you don’t want to admit what everyone else in the world sees clearly. “My Daddy isn’t an alcoholic and just ignore Mommy’s bruises.”
I’m glad I don’t have to buy into the gay community for a sense of identity anymore.
NYAlly, well said, very well said.
Houndentenor, we’re going to have to start disagreeing some more. I pretty much agree with everything you said. Pretty much. Though I would have said it a bit differently, particularly in the 3rd ¶.
Ashpenaz,
I’m glad that you have freed yourself from the clutches of the gay community. Except that nobody has clearly explained or defined what constitutes the “gay community” you and others seem to despise so much. Does the gay community include those people who crossdress or go frequently to gay bars? Does the gay community include those people who are in committed relationships with someone of the same gender, and may have adopted children? Does the gay community include closeted gay men and lesbians? Does the gay community include LGBT Republicans & gay conservative websites, such as GayPatriot, and all the commentators who write & comment on it?
ILoveCapitalism,
I never stated, or meant to imply, that heterosexuals have no problems at all. I meant to say that, generally speaking, openly gay people have challenges to face that most people (heterosexuals), don’t even have to think twice about.
I apologize if I appeared or appear to play the “victim” card. Maybe I do need to “grow a pair” as you said.
Instead of being sympathetic to one of my female friends who was unfortunately raped last year, I should have just said ” Why didn’t you take a self-defense class?” Perhaps if I had “grown a pair” when I was in high school, instead of being ashamed, embarrassed and humiliated, I would have stood up to other students who called me the F-word and sometimes vandalized my locker & other property with anti-gay slurs.
You also wrote that it was “HIGHLY arguable” that an openly gay teenager might be kicked out of the house if their parents found out he or she was gay. Sadly, I know different, from my own personal experience.
I do not have blinders on. I remember what it was like when I first came out. There I was, my little preppy self at an after party where I was the only one not tweaked out on god knows what. I’ve seen pretty much all of that side of the gay community. But you have to have blinders on to think that’s all there is. If my experience with straight people was only the ones who go to clubs all the time, I’d see pretty much the same things. Yes, the drugs and the promiscuity are there, but it’s not all there is and if that’s all you can see that says more about you than the gay communities. And note that I put that in the plural since in most cities there are a wide range of groups, activities and social circles.
Which means what? Does a lack of websites extolling it’s virtues mean that it’s no good? How many of those went to therapy hoping to be “fixed”, as it were, but didn’t do what was necessary on their end to follow through? Therapy is what you make of it and if you’re not willing to do what it takes, it won’t do you any good.
By that same “logic”, that must mean that MLK was a closeted racist, right? Or does that “logic” only apply to those you disagree with?
The sick joke is young (and older) people deeply hurt by the bullshit liberals shovel.
To be the straight guy stepping into the minefield…
What’s the problem with trying to change/improve yourself? I mean, to make an unpopular comparison, if an alcoholic is destroying their lives, no one (well few people) would say him going to AA is a bad idea, right? Or if someone was attracted to kids, no one would say he should “have a right to live as you chose, but when your choices affect others, you at least have the responsibility to be honest and fair in your dealings with them.””
By the same reason, even though I come from a familiy with a history of alcoholism, I enjoy the occasional Mike’s Hard Lemonaide and a glass of wine (medicinial) before bed. It is a matter of controlling those impulses. If someone honestly believes alcohol is wrong, then they don’t drink. If someone honestly believes their orientation is wrong, why are people so eager to ostracize them? (This goes for the Fred Phelps/David Duke/Robert Byrd types as well as those who attack ‘ex gays’)
And yes, Rekers falls in this catagory as well. It is one thing to ‘decide’ that your own orientation is wrong, another entirely to persecute others because you decide your orientation is wrong.
(Disclaimer on the adoption thing: I do believe the best placement for a child is in a stable heterosexual couple who want and will love him, various studies do seem to bear that out. That said, the ‘stable’ ‘couple’ and ‘want and will love him’ are important. I’d rather see a child raised by two women (or men) who want and love him than grow up bounced from place to place in foster care.) NDT’s (in)famous example of the two women who dressed their kids as sex salves and took them to FSF was repugnant, and no, not just becasue it was two women. if you honestly believe that, I suggest some therapy of your own.
@James:
Well, that would’ve been very caddish of you, Princess Sillybuns, but what you might’ve said, instead, is: “Why don’t you take a self-defense class, so that’s less likely to happen again in the future? In fact, I’ll even be your training buddy if you want.”
Speaking of which, I posted this ad on craigslist earlier this morning:
I suspect that the number of serious replies I get will be approximately zero, but I try to keep hope alive that it’ll be seen by a helpless nelly fag who believes that he has it within himself to become not-so-helpless. (If he becomes less nelly, that’s just icing on the cake.)
Oh, bother… something I said got caught in the filter.
By that same “logic”, that must mean that MLK was a closeted racist, right?
Good one.
Now that I’m raising my third teenager, I think I can attest that the experience of contemporary teens with homosexuality is *not* what it may have been a generation or two, ago. The area we live in is relatively conservative, but even here, it’s quite trendy among teen girls to openly experiment with lesbianism, and for boys to be gay is not such a big deal.
On the other hand, gays will always be made fun of (even, if not especially, by liberals [have you ever seen a gay-themed episode of ‘Family Guy?’]), and fag will always be a pejorative. Mainly, because the most visible and vocal gay activists can’t STFU about what goes on in gay people’s bedrooms… which normal people frankly don’t want to hear about.
The problem isn’t so much that some minority of gays engages in deviant behavior … like rest stop cruising, or outrageous cross-dressing, or certain practices that sound painful, disgusting and stinky … but that such behavior is tolerated or celebrated by larger numbers of gays. People will always find highly deviant behavior risible, and no amount of Safe School Czar Fisting Indoctrination classes will change that.
You may not like it, but there it is.
As a straight Christian, I always feel it is important for me to tread lightly in an area like this, since I’m not really able to relate to either those who’ve been successful with this sort of therapy and those that have been frustrated by it for one reason or another. If someone wishes to try this therapy, I’d say more power to ’em, but I wouldn’t ever want to make my acceptance of a person contingent on him or her working to become someone else.
Anyway, I wonder how many of the people who seek therapy to give up homosexual desires are married people (especially religious married people). If there is any sort of gay/lesbian person who would have good reason to seek to get rid of sexual desires for someone of the same gender, I would think it would a person who has committed himself/herself to lifetime loyalty to a spouse of the opposite gender. This is especially true after the marriage becomes a family. In a marriage, the issue isn’t so much whether a person leaves the spouse for a person of the same sex or the opposite but just that the person leaves the spouse period. This is of special interest to me because at our church, which is small, we have had two cases within the last five years or so of a person leaving a marriage for someone of the same gender; in one case, it was the husband, and in the other, it was the wife. (In the same time, we have had no cases where someone left a marriage for someone of the opposite gender. I imagine our church is pretty unusual in this regard.) I can have sympathy for someone who concludes after years of marriage that he/she is gay/lesbian. It seems less selfish and a lot more complicated than someone who just wants to leave for a different woman/man. Even so, a marriage breakup is sad no matter the reason, and it saddens me to see this happen with people I know and love, especially with young kids involved. I would also think that someone who married a spouse of the opposite gender and produced a few kids with that spouse wouldn’t be a person with purely homosexual desires. So, if there is a case where someone maybe should seek therapy to rid oneself of homosexual desires, I’d say it is within a marriage.
LW since you read NDT’s posts so closely, you might want to take a gander again. It”s two men that took their daughters to FSF.
Ashpenaz — if you have the time and money to take martial-arts classes, but are not currently doing so, then you’re not doing everything you can to work on your masculine self-image. (Not to mention the weight issue.)
rusty,
Oops, my mistake, I was misremembering it as two women.
That being said, I don’t care if it was two men, two women, or Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. It’s sick, twisted and wrong. Here in the Midwest we’d have a $#!% hemorage if someone tried to bring kids into a D/s event. Hells, we post guards to keep the ‘normals’ from walking in if it’s in a hotel or something. The FSF is a violation of several laws, let alone societal norms, and shouldn’t be held at all, let alone have anyone bring kids to it.
About the generations: I’m in my 40s and just went back to grad school. I’m about 20 years older than everyone else. I am struck by how freely people associate now. People still have cliques of various sorts but they are mostly NOT based on race or ethnicity or sexual orientation. There are so many other kinds of communities based on common interests. Yes, of course people like to socialize with people with similar upbringings (religion, race, region) and yes there will always be a desire for gay people to congregate socially, and of course there is still racism and homophobia and other problems, but there are not nearly so many barriers to forming friendships with people who on the surface might appear to be quite different than there were a couple of decades ago.
Things really have changed. Maybe not as much as some would like but the change is real and observable. A few years back I was in Sweden for a few days. The gay nightlife in Malmo and Goteborg is virtually nonexistent. Cities of those sizes in the US would have several gay bars. But there’s not so much need for such places since gays are freely out and socialize with friends both gay and straight. Gays are pretty much fully integrated into society and I suspect that a lot of the things that people see as a negative about the gay community are much less common as a result.
Oh, and about open relationships. Never had one and don’t want one. But I think it’s hilarious to pretend that plenty of straight people don’t also have arrangements that are not fully exclusive. They just don’t tell anyone because they know that even some of their most open minded friends will probably disapprove. Moreover, since it seems that some celebrity or politician is caught with a mistress, a string of girlfriends or going to visit prostitutes on a regular basis (and those are just the ones the MSM chooses to talk about), it’s hilarious to suggest that at least half of heterosexual couples are not in open relationships. The fact that their partners don’t KNOW they are in an open relationship is a big problem. I am neither for nor against open arrangements, but I do think that people should be honest about what they need, what they want and what they are willing to settle for in their relationship. It seems to me that it’s not so much that gays are more likely to have open relationships (and the men probably are) but that gay people are more likely to have had a discussion about what the terms of their relationship was going to be and when/where/how extracurricular activities are to be allowed. Honestly is healthy and lying is toxic, IMHO.
BTW: If James was offended by “Hot Babe Thursday” on my blog, then “Gay Tuesday” would give him an aneurysm.
Heh 🙂 I would, actually. But only from the standpoint that there is something far better out there. (Already linked at #15.)
Yes. And if drinking (note that it’s a behavior) is destroying person X’s life, then drinking is indeed morally wrong – for them.
Everyone has some particular behavior that gives them so much pleasure, they have little or no self-control around it. So it’s immoral for them. Everyone. It’s not a disease, it’s normal human brain structure. For you, it might not be drinking alcohol, but it might be eating jelly doughnuts. But most people don’t whine about theirs, or try to claim it’s a special disability or disease, for which they should be sent to rehab with pity and special allowances. They simply take responsibility for never doing that thing again, then go about the business of their lives.
I say the above as a sidebar, with no special bearing on homosexuality. Often, someone’s “special behavior” (that might destroy them) is a sexual compulsion. But that is just as true of straight people as gay people, i.e. straight vs. gay *orientation* makes no difference here. So I am officially off-topic, and apologize for side-tracking the thread.
“For you, it might not be drinking alcohol, but it might be eating jelly doughnuts. ”
Ok, who sent ILC photos of me? 😛
If someone wants to be an “ex-gay”, knock yourself out. Just don’t force me to join. I think all that “ex” stuff is a bunch of hooey. Your religious beliefs end at my nose.
Yes. And if drinking (note that it’s a behavior) is destroying person X’s life, then drinking is indeed morally wrong – for them.
And if a bunch of people want to run proclaiming that it’s their right to receive vodka enemas on a public street in front of children, teach children in public schools to to take tequila shots, and proclaim that chronic alcoholism is a valid lifestyle choice and punish people who say otherwise … that’s another issue entirely.
Ashpenaz—
I’ve been categorically opposed to the vast majority of your political comments, ideas and opinions on this blog to date. Now, I find myself appreciating your posts on here; moreover identifying with them.
That said, I’d like to point out that respondents to your post don’t actually mount a factual case against you, but instead in typical liberal fashion, attempt to deflect honest assessment and identification of problems by now demanding to know “the definition” of something…in this case, ‘the gay community’.
I was married for 20 years, 6 months (oddly identical to my parents) to a wonderful woman whom I still love. I am presently in a long-term, committed, monogamous relationship with a wonderful man with whom I am incredibly in love.
I battled for the longest time and still do occasionally, the most intolerant, hurtful, ignorant and evil bullshit from gay people…that I’ve NEVER gotten from the str8’s, conservatives or Christians in my life. This bullshit usually centers around:
1. I must have gotten married to cover up my homo-bi-tri-sexual…something. (No, I loved her, wanted to marry her and we’d both do it all over again.)
2. She finally caught you in a sausage-fest and demanded a divorce. (No, we realized we were very different people, with different goals, etc. and we weren’t in as fulfilling a relationship as we could be.)
3. As a Christian, conservative, Republican, you must be eaten up with self-hate and conflict and blah, blah, blah. (Not at all; I’m those things because they offer standards, goals and ideals to which i prescribe, my sexual orientation notwithstanding; there exist lofty, noble ideals and goals in society and in my personal life which transcend biological, genetic, and socio-economic environmental products.)
3a. I’ve received nothing but love (with some casual lack of understanding) from EVERY single person in my history: my fundamentalist charismatic pastor and church family of over 230 (“we can’t agree with your homosexuality, but we can’t not love you, Rodney.”) My colleagues in the medical field couldn’t care less; ditto with my cohorts in college recently; often they’re jealous ‘cuz they think I get “twice as much ass” identifying as bi-sexual. My family doesn’t see my sexuality in any light: they see me and they love me.
3b. The most hateful, vitriolic, in-your-face attitudes, comments and ‘projections’ have come from the ‘gay community’ {define it any damn way you want}. I’ve been castigated because I speak out against the TYPICAL parties, after-parties, sexual promiscuity, drug use, vapid and superficial priorities, etc. that seem to promulgate and be promoted by MOST of gay society. And even then, my ‘speaking out’ is limited to personal and small group conversations after those involved have been duly asked, “Are you SURE you want my opinion?”
In other words, Ash, I feel as though when you ask someone (particularly gay persons I’ve encountered) to realize there’s so much more to life than sexuality or the ‘pride’ thereof, etc., they seem incapable of fathoming the idea or even that someone isn’t “happy” {again, choose your own damn definition} with their sexuality and I’m glad to read your expressions on here..
long, I know, but rarely do I feel compelled to ‘bravo’ and share…
rodney:
1. No one ever said gay people were assholes just like everyone else.
2. Why do you care what other people think about your marriage or your relationship. It’s none of their business. But what I hear from you is the same kind of judgementalism that you are complaining about. So long as you believe that what you are doing is correct, you aren’t breaking any laws and your actions don’t involve them in some way, what they think doesn’t matter. No matter what you do, someone somewhere is going to have something bitchy to say about it. If you are going to let that stop you from doing what you need to do, you’re not ever going to have much of a life no matter who you are.
3. I’m sorry that people made assumptions about your life. But they are no worse than the assumptions social conservatives make about me. Most of them are not true. If I cared what those people thought I’d go to their church and ask them. I don’t care. I do care that they want their “values” imposed on me through the government. That’s the only thing I have a problem. I don’t care if they think I’m going to hell. I don’t believe in hell anyway.
V, your “Gay Tuesday” isn’t NEARLY gay enough, compared to your “Hot Babe Thursday”.
PS. Molotov Cocktease sure was HOT!!!!!!!!
I have worked at Exodus International for about 8 years. The organization has been around for 35 and I guarentee you if we were truly the self-loathing haters using religion as a crutch … the organization would have folded 33 years ago. If we only existed to oppose the gay community … we would have folded 35 years ago after the first meeting.
Randy, these organizations still exist, because there is a demand for them. Part of the reason is because of the obsessive opposition to homosexuality by some. There have been too many young people poisoned and shamed to believe that they shouldn’t be gay.
Whether God requires people with same-sex attraction to turn away from it is, unfortunately, an unanswerable question.
V the K, I would argue that anything that God requires is an unanswerable question. Maybe God wants people to turn away from opposite sex attraction, turn away from education, turn away from their computers. Who knows? I think it’s foolhardy and a waste of time to deprive oneselves of something simply because there is a chance that God may not like it. On the other hand, we can see how our actions affect ourselves, family and friends, and the community at large.
But if we are supposed to give support and understanding to “transgendered” folk who have their bodies surgically and chemically mutilated to become the person they want to be, don’t we *also* owe support and understanding to those who are genuinely unhappy with a homosexual identity and wish to change?
I try to give support and understanding to both groups. I would say that the person who truly wants gender reassignment surgery be damn sure that they really want it. And to have the surgery performed by professionals. I just would be even more wary if the person seeking such surgery was because he grew up being told how it was sinful and wrong to be a boy. This is the problem that I have with most “reparative” “therapies.” It seems that most were coerced one way or another. However, if someone truly is unhappy with their sexual orientation, they should seek such therapy, but by qualified professionals, and not quacks.
9.One of the things reparative therapy allows you to say is that there really, really is more promiscuity, drugs, STDs, and suicide in the gay community than in the straight community. More gays are in open relationships than straights.
Ashpenaz, maybe you mean something else by this, but why is this revelation such a positive thing. I happen to believe most of this is true, but so what? How did this affect your choices? Were you promiscuous, into drugs, etc., because you didn’t realize that many gays did this? And only now you could make healthy choices? I have many of the criticisms of the gay community that you do. I simply choose not to engage in such behaviors that I disagree, and not deal with people who are out to harm others. Heck, this makes sense about anything, whether or not sex or sexual orientation is involved.
Gee, Pat, a lot of us weak, useless people occasionally go to therapists for help. I’m glad you’ve never had any problems.
Sorry, Ashpenaz, if that’s the impression I gave you. For what it’s worth, I’ve been to therapy as well. Whether one goes to therapy had nothing to do with the points I made or questions I posed, except to say that if one does go to therapy, to not go to quacks.
Hound:
Go somewhere and copulate with yourself.
Where, in anything I said, do you understand that I CARED what others thought?
If anything my examples of THEIR thoughts and behaviors points out their shallowness and flaws… I couldn’t care less. People like that try to demean and tarnish anything they don’t, can’t or won’t understand. And I point out the sick irony of the supposedly tolerant giving me the most grief.
Try not to project…as ‘methinks thou dost protest too much’.
and now after LZ here is Pitts
“Put yourself in the shoes of the teenager, bewildered and frightened by these feelings he or she is not ‘supposed’ to have, feelings of sexual attraction to people of the same gender. You try to deny them, try to ignore them, try to suppress them, but they will not go away. You are all alone, isolated behind a secret that presses down on you like weights, a fear of rejection that haunts you like ghosts.
“And here comes Dr. Rekers telling you that you are abnormal, telling you that you are bad, telling you he can cure you, as if you had a disease like measles or the flu. Then, in his off hours, he’s trolling rentboy.com looking for young men to handle his, ahem … baggage. That’s more than hypocrisy, more even than self-loathing. It is a betrayal of one’s own, a sellout of the most vulnerable. And what’s sad is not just that a George Rekers would do this, but that ours is a culture that would encourage and reward such duplicity in the first place.
“He purported to heal homosexuals? One is reminded of an injunction from the book of Luke: ‘Physician, heal thyself’ (4:23). Rekers would be wise to heed that advice. Homosexual urges are the least of his afflictions.” – Nationally syndicated Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts.
Reparative therapists are not quacks. And, incidentally, I’m actually aware enough to do the necessary background work on choosing a therapist, finding out his credentials, etc. My reparative therapist was a well-trained, compassionate, insightful professional and our termination of our work together was wholly amicable.
how ’bout those who have had an awakening, say you thought you were romanitcally attracted to the same sex, that you thought of sexual activities ie fanatasized about same sex adventures, and that you found yourself very interested in an emotional bonding situation with the same sex.
now, do a little self examine/assessment – – where were you, how old are you, what is your support system, who do you rely on, if anyone, and how do you think your ‘awareneness’ will shaped your relationships at the time.
now, some of us, like me, had an awareness very early on and adapted and fit it, and others came to their awareness later in life.
And here you are whining about it.
But it’s perfectly fine to impose yours on others through the government…why?
so with Bruce’s kudos to Laura Bush for her support of gay marriage over at GOPROUD, and dear support of gay marriage and gay families from the Cheney clan, and an added kudo from the McCain women, coupled with GOPROUD’s support, well I guess change is a comin’. AMEN
My understanding is that Alexander’s marriage to Roxanne and others were for political stragegic reasons. That has often been the reason for heterosexual marriage thoughout the ages.
45.Reparative therapists are not quacks.
Ashpenaz, as Linda Richman would say, “Reparartive therapist is neither reparative or a therapist. Discuss.” So, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Anyway, that still wasn’t my main point.
rodney,
it’s been my (secondhand) experience that gays/lesbians are more hostile to bisexuals than straights. Just curious if your experiences mirror that.
man,
I’d say the nobility it may have ‘often’ been the reason, I don’t think that generalization is applicable outside of the political class.
Old Joke:
Q: Why did Maria Shriver marry Ahnold?
A: They’re trying to breed a bullet proof Kennedy.
Pat, your opinion and Linda Richman’s is based on stereotypical understandings of reparative therapy. Since I have actually worked with a reparative therapist (from NARTH, no less), I have a better idea of what actually goes on. After you have met several reparative therapists and talked about their credentials and methods, your opinion will be worth something.
Please, we would all love to read the long-term studies of the effectiveness of reparative therapy. What is the success rate? Since this has been in use by some “therapists” for more than two decades there should be more than enough case studies to form conclusions about whether or not it actually works and what the long term affects are on the patients.
#47.
1. I am not whining. I’m responding to someone else’s comment and I fail to see how my comments are inappropriate to this particular forum since I basically agree on this issue with the blogger providing the space.
2. Nothing I demand as a gay person makes any demand on anyone else. If I marry another man, that has zero effect on you or your marriage. Since you don’t even know me I feel confident in saying that it would not affect you at all. I’m pretty much a libertarian on social issues. So long as you aren’t harming anyone else, do whatever you want.
Dan…really you keep saying that you get less grief from Republicans about being gay than you do grief from gays about being Republican. I can see how you get both based on the anti-gay position of most of the responders to your blog.
52.Pat, your opinion and Linda Richman’s is based on stereotypical understandings of reparative therapy.
Ashpenaz, I’m not even sure if the Linda Richman character ever used that as an example, but it would be perfect, in my opinion.
Since I have actually worked with a reparative therapist (from NARTH, no less), I have a better idea of what actually goes on.
You would think that.
After you have met several reparative therapists and talked about their credentials and methods, your opinion will be worth something.
We obviously disagree about that as well.
Again, that wasn’t the main thrust of my post. We obviously have completely divergent opinions about “reparative” “therapy,” and we are not going to change each other’s opinion, or agree with other about how much our opinions is “worth” to the other.
My main question was why did it take to hear opinions about how bad homosexuals were in order to build your own self-esteem up? Look, I’m not trying to hide the bad in the community. It’s there, and we can certainly debate about why it’s there, why it shouldn’t be there, and what can be done about it, in some other thread. I just don’t understand what was it about this revelation that helped you, and why it was needed in order to be homosexual, gay (or whatever label you want to use, or don’t want to use), and retain your values.
Because “coming out” means throwing away your traditional values, becoming promiscous, using drugs, spreading STDs, and jumping on a Pride float. “Coming out” does not mean simply being aware of your homosexual feelings and expressing those feelings to those you trust–for the gay community, the “coming out” process is giving yourself entirely over to their toxic and amoral value system. It’s like Harry Potter discovering he’s a wizard, only negative. “You’re a wizard, Harry–here’s your special part of town, your special school, the special people you get to hang around, and the special rules you get to live by. Grab your wand and let’s go!”
I didn’t want to be a wizard. I liked my world. Reparative therapy was an attempt to find a way to be in the world I liked. At first, I wanted to get rid of my wizard powers. Then, I realized I could be a wizard in the regular world without special treatment or special rules.
You can have your gay Hogwarts and Diagon Alley. I’m perfectly happy at my ELCA church and my local mall.
56.Because “coming out” means throwing away your traditional values, becoming promiscous, using drugs, spreading STDs, and jumping on a Pride float.
Ashpenaz, this is the part I don’t get. I have come out. Yet, I could count the number people I’ve had sex with, with one hand, never used drugs, except a doobie once in Amsterdam, never spread STDs since I’ve always tested negative, and never been to a pride parade (although I may do so one day, who knows?) I guess I could understand someone who didn’t grow up with a strong sense of values, and had some traumatic experience growing being gay, could end up in the world you described. So I’m missing something here. Just trying to understand, that’s all.
the “coming out” process is giving yourself entirely over to their toxic and amoral value system.
Then I guess I “came out” wrong then. Because even in NJ, that simply isn’t even true. And I have a hard time believing that’s true in flyover country.
Reparative therapy was an attempt to find a way to be in the world I liked. At first, I wanted to get rid of my wizard powers. Then, I realized I could be a wizard in the regular world without special treatment or special rules.
If reparative therapy (no scare quotes this time) helped you realize that, then great. I just can’t see what would have led you to believe otherwise.
Ash, let me make sure I got this.
1) You undertook a form of therapy whose starting premise was that your same-sex attractions, as such, were broken or something to be “repaired” (hence the therapy’s basic name, “reparative”).
2) It didn’t achieve its stated goal. You still have those attractions.
3) But fortunately, you did build enough strength and common sense to start saying no to drugs and promiscuity, have normal friendships with straight people that many of us have, and realize that you needn’t believe the Gay Left ideology or even identify as “gay”, if you don’t care to. Congratulations. All that is good.
4) So now you roam the gay conservative-ish blogs, blaming the gay community (i.e., all gays) for its imagined lock-step drugs and promiscuity, simultaneously extolling the virtues of Reparative Therapy, of heroic male-male love (i.e., of gay love), and of such role models as Adam Lambert (formerly, before his AMA performance) and Michael Jackson; expecting your readers to be impressed by such contradictions, and often implying that they must be self-hating or at least “simplistic”, if they aren’t.
Oh-kay…
And 5) Without even attempting to explain or defend the contradictory points of view.
As one of primary gay heroes says:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
So nothing you say has any meaning, is that it? You’re just here to get reactions?
By the way – would you happen to know who else said, in effect, “I am large, I contain multitudes“?
It seems to me that debate would proceed much more clearly if it were recognized that “gay” has become a word for a culture- one that is advocated by a self-appointed gay leadership, a culture, part of which promotes as “gay” some of the very same stereotypes that they get so angry about when others accept the same as being part of “what is gay.”
The other problem is the need for most people to fit others into the either/or of straight or gay. Nearly ALWAYS when I have mentioned someone identifying as bisexual in a conversation within a group of gay men, they smirk that they are just afraid to be “who they really are- gay.” People, in reality, often fit somewhere on a spectrum.
To socially enforce the choice of a straight OR gay identity and to accept a created culture if part of that identity is being same-sex attracted, is to me the oppression that people should be fighting. Again, it comes from all sides.
@56. Where on earth did you get your definition of “coming out”? What you describe is not any definition I have ever attached to the term.
I very much agree. I just think the “oppression” here is, well, a bit overstated.
I mean, picking your own unique mix of friends, identity label(s), practices wrt drugs, practices wrt dating, etc. is part of what grownups do. Wringing hands claiming your choices were forced by “the community” (gay or Religious Right or whatever), in a land so homosexual-friendly and wide-open as America, doesn’t strike me as grownup. To be American, is to forge your own identity – and just get on with it.