The basic principle was that homosexuality is the result of unmet needs in early childhood and that if I was honest enough with myself and I was able to really see where these unmet needs happened and where my father didn’t pay enough attention to me and where I didn’t get enough affirmation as a man by another, older man, that I would be able to mourn the loss of that and then ultimately seek that affirmation on my own, and ultimately not be attracted to men. So that was like the idea there. That was the idea, to cure me of that. It wasn’t like Exodus — I wasn’t getting shocked.
I will never, ever, ever, ever speak poorly of my therapist. I haven’t spoken to him in a lotta years, um, but I love that man, and he’s a good man, and I would never say anything bad about him.”
— Model-singer Steve Grand discussing “straight therapy” he underwent (and it should be noted does not support) in a revealing interview with Boy Culture’s Matthew Rettenmund
RomanHans
He seems really really smart so I’ll definitely give his opinion all the weight it deserves.
Wilbready
Does it help the story with Mr Buff Physique standing there? I think, YES! Plus, the article shed some light on an otherwise dismal and demonic practice.
Doughosier
Was there an article with the picture? I didn’t notice.
Cam
“”The basic principle was that homosexuality is the result of unmet needs in early childhood and that if I was honest enough with myself and I was able to really see where these unmet needs happened and where my father didn’t pay enough attention to me and where I didn’t get enough affirmation as a man by another, older man,”
_________________________
Ok, lets analyze this.
A group of men who are closet cases, upset about being gay…set up an organization where the basic principle is that young men questioning their sexuality are told that they need contact and affection from older men.
Yeah, this is about as obvious as a Catholic Priest asking the buff alterboy to stay and clean out his rectory.
nerovenus
My father paid tons of attention to me. I had the most hetro-normative live one could have. I grew up on a farm, but since I was a wee one, I only thought of boys! I loved men, I loved guys. I was always in a boy-crush with my friends. I broke windows, fished, threw rocks, and did all the regular shit one did in the 60’s as a kid. I also was GAY from the day I was born. Sorry, the therapists theories hold no merit in my books. FREUD by any other name is still FREUD!
Deepdow
I do hope he understands that this “principle” is fraudulent and causes harm. People are always pathologizing homosexuality. His therapy was a form of eugenics underscored with the vague demand of abrahamic blood lust.
Thomathy
Cam, for real. And even if the ‘obvious’ isn’t the case, and despite the fact that Grand won’t say anything bad about his ‘good man’ therapist, that doesn’t change the fact that the therapist was/is dangerously wrong and has likely caused or increased the suffering of many people.
Grand’s opinion, in short, doesn’t matter.
Also, Grand’s gay de-conversion therapy was deeply creepy. *chills*
2eo
He’s a good man for an amoral pseudo-intellectual damaging braindead fuckstick.
2eo
Steve Grand would lose a game of wits with a matchstick.
B Damion
ooh Steve..I think we should just hold each other. Lets just hug those bad memories away.
Jackhoffsky
Remember a few weeks back when I said there’s something a bit… fake… about all this? Well, here’s where it gets a little weird for me.
Grand doesn’t defend the treatment, he simply explains the concept. That is fine, no problem there. I loved my father and was closest to him than anyone else so explaining the direction of that particular line of thought is laughable to me.
But his going beyond and being overly nice about his therapist (and by default the therapy itself) minimizes the effects such therapy has on people. It also makes it okay (from the therapist standpoint) that one can put someone through this… and they will turn out okay if the therapy doesn’t take. I do have a (personal) problem with that message.
macmantoo
I don’t think it’s a lack of anything. We’re gay because we’re born this way. It’s not a family’s fault other than the genes you’re born with. Some day some scientist will find the gene or the generic makeup of homosexuality, but beware, the Christians will do everything to stop it.
Matthew Rettenmund
It’s true he said all of the above (and explained what the “straight therapy” was supposed to do), but he also said he was glad it failed and was adamant that he is against the end goal:
“But if I’ve been unclear in other interviews, I want to make sure that people know that I’m not saying that I support the idea of straight therapy—I certainly don’t and it’s certainly harmful, and it’s not something I endorse. My experience was a little bit different. I was seeing a clinical psychologist with the end goal in mind that I would be straight, but the process in which we were revisiting moments of early childhood and places where I was broken as a person, that helped me, that aspect of it. It was harmful in the way that I felt that I wasn’t who God made me to be, and that was very painful. That’s something you don’t recover from overnight and I still feel like I have a long way to go. When you learn to hate yourself, it takes a very long time to undo that.”
Thank you for the link.
[email protected]
Grand will never never never say anything bad about a therapist peddling suicide inducing delusion? It seems our buff singer is the exemplar of the adage beauty is only skin deep. I don’t even think the therapist deserves the limp platitude, “his hearts in the right place” as he seems to me little better than those parents who lets their kids die because taking them to a doctor shows a lack of faith in Jesus or the arrogant pseudoscientific pricks who insist vaccination will kill you or make you kids autistic but dying of illnesses that one can be easily immunised against is perfectly acceptable.
Thank you Grand, nice song shame about the philosophy, call us when your personal shuttle lands.
MK Ultra
Yeah, psychological torture really isn’t the same as physical, so he’s a good man. In fact, he’s Jesus reincarnated. Let’s give him humanitarian of the year award.
Grand just lost a lot of credit in my eyes. He’s practically acting as their spokesperson!
Real people have been hurt by this “therapy”. Real people have killed themselves and he defends it. Maybe his therapist molested him and he has Munchhausen syndrome.
This “therapy” tell you “don’t take any personal responsibility for anything that’s happened in your life. It’s all homosexuality’s fault, and your parents fault, and the world’s fault” How clinically irresponsible!
I don’t care how how this little “victim” is. He’s a part of the problem and no friend to the LGBT community.
MK Ultra
*instead of Munchhausen syndrome, I should have said stockholm syndrome.
Jackhoffsky
@MK Ultra: I think because he’s hot and getting a lot of attention either phrase would work… LOL.
jimstoic
If there were anything to that daddy-didn’t-fulfill-me mumbo-jumbo, we’d see a lot more families where all of the sons are gay.
Jackhoffsky
@Matthew Rettenmund: I did read that. I (personally) felt he was being contradictory. The point of “clinical” therapy is to make you feel broken so that you can be rebuilt as a straight man. I’m glad he found some aspects helpful, but the issue of taking an unbroken kid, breaking them, and making them feel thankful about growing as a person. The psychology isn’t congruent to actual recovery.
Maybe (as he says) he still has a long way to go, maybe he’s hiding something, maybe he’s just too nice… maybe the therapist is an old friend of the family and he doesn’t want to say anything bad. I don’t know. But the result is sending out a muddy mixed message about a very clear and dangerous practice… “clinical” or otherwise.
Jared MacBride
Note to Steve Grand, or Starburst or whatever you’re calling yourself today: conversion therapy is dangerous, sometimes deadly stuff from which you evidently are not fully recovered. You have a lot of sorting out to do and I wish you luck with it, but you need to understand that conversion therapists are nto your friends and they are not good people.
DuMaurier
Okay, it did take me a while to get to the article, but….I don’t think he’s defending the therapy, and obsolete as the theories underpinning the whole thing are, it does seem somewhat different to me than shock/aversion, cast out the devil therapies, etc. The idea that gayness stems from parental relationship issues was–long ago–an honest attempt to figure out alternative sexuality. It was current even among therapists who DIDN’T think LGBT’s needed to be changed, or even believed it was possible. I’m certainly not justifying it, but I’ve known people who’ve been through the whole “kill the demon inside you!” version of “reparative therapy”, and they were way worse than what Grand went through.
Red Meat
Someone release that sex tape asap
Daniel-Reader
I think Cam’s comment sums it up perfectly.
yaletownman
Stockholm syndrome.
andy_d
@nerovenus: Actually Freud was very pro-gay and a supporter of the gay right movement in Austria. He was a contemporary of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs Freud’s theory, in itself, is not homophobic. The interpretation thereof by the conversion therapy people is.
LaTeesha
This guy just screams, “Big Mess”.
samwise343
He’s pretty.
hf2hvit
So that one failed and perhaps he’s hoping for another. JUST GET CORNHOLED.
D9W
“I was able to really see where these unmet needs happened and where my father didn’t pay enough attention to me and where I didn’t get enough affirmation as a man by another, older man”… ‘that’s why I am gay’…– Yeah right! That’s pure horse shit !!! He’s got Stockholm Syndrome crabs big time.
Ogre Magi
@Cam: His rectory or his rectum?
Scott Rose
Why is he still referring to a gay-bashing quack Jesus freak as a “therapist”?
Matthew Rettenmund
@Jackhoffsky: I do think it’s somewhat contradictory, but he was at least firm in rejecting anti-gay therapy. I think he’s been through a lot, and the fact that he did find some good within this terrible thing that was done to him is positive. I personally would like to find out the therapist is no longer working, but I don’t think it’s surprising that he built some kind of positive feelings toward a man who was speaking with him for years. I think Grand was overall trying to make sure people knew he was not in what we think of as “ex-gay therapy” with electrical shocks and hugging and etc. What I think is important is that in spite of being rejected by his parents and coached to be straight by a professional for his entire teen years, Grand emerged from that as gay, as happy to be gay, and as an out artist telling others it’s okay to be gay. As cynical as I can be, it does bother me that people are taking potshots at him. D9W above is just one of many who clearly didn’t read the interview, just the pull-quote—Grand was not saying he BELIEVED all that stuff, he was just explaining how his therapy was supposed to work. He also said he was glad he failed. Steve Grand could have been another gay suicide and people would be sad about it on this site. Instead, he survived and is very much in touch with his complicated feelings, and for that he’s attacked. It’s dispiriting.
4of14
Loving ones therapist and not the therapy: Three therapists: 2 Psychiatrists, 1 Psychologist. I have great feeling for all of them. True, not a one of them was into conversion therapy, but like homosexuality, who you fall in love with, and why you love them is your business.
Steve Grand isn’t on the wrong path, or in a bad place, or misguided. He is on his own path, and that is just where he should be. How he got there, and where he is going, is as I say his business.
p-candotorg
Who ever he his. I don’t know him and don’t want to know him “pretty’r not”. I guess he would have been thrilled to be invited to dinner to the Bachman’s in USA. Sad men who let their brain be directed like that. I didn’t know I was gay when I was very young but my scrap book was filled with Marylin Monroe Rita Hayworth my favorite movies were Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers and every girl I met who introduced me to her mom thought I was such a nice boy and good catch…little did they and I know till I knew at age 16 and still desperado tried to get married at 18 and the caved out (we are still friends she and I).
The analyst probably let him have his share of every fantasy behind closed curtains like myself…Therapist can be viciously deceiving..that sofa is not only to write notes..Wake up who ever you are and enjoy the real 3D world as your 2D instruction will eat you up.
Gigi Gee
I’ll wait for more information as to the when/where/why of this affirmation of his former therapist. To be honest, I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now and Mr. Grand is the least of my worries.
MK Ultra
Yeah…All American faggot and Ex-Gay spokesperson Steve Grand doesn’t support “conversion therapy”
He just went into a detailed rationalization of how therapeutic it was, and how it helped him blame his father for his homosexuality , and how he loves his interrogator (who knows to what degree), who probably has made lots of money selling guilt and shame to many, many gay people. Hey Kids, go out and try it for yourselves! There’s an ex-gay “clinical psychologist” waiting to touch you now!
Nixter
@andy_d: Er, NOT! Freud claimed homosexuality was an “arrested form of development. THAT is anti-gay.
Billysees
@nerovenus: 5
@MK Ultra: 36
Both of your comments make good sense.
.
The last paragraph of Grand’s comment seems strange to me, to overly praise a therapist.
But I guess that a therapist’s job is to at least get your patient to like you, which he apparently succeeded in doing.
krystalkleer
open up down the hatch…hope it doesn’t burn yer snatch! http://getoffmydress.blogspot.com/2013/07/doma-r-e-got-ta-go.html
Rad
Wait? There was an article?
Jackhoffsky
@Matthew Rettenmund: I understand what you’re saying which is why I wanted to immediately draw the distinction that he wasn’t defending the program or it’s technique. The people being critical of his explanation of the therapy are missing the point. It’s annoying but it happens to everyone famous.
But saying there was good that came of it is like saying the guy who shot you is a nice guy because he called 911 on your behalf. The very thing he found positive is the very essence of how gay conversion therapy works.
(Personal opinion) You went into the interview dressed in full body armor, waving a “Steve Grand” flag and welding a heart-shaped sword. So naturally some things are going to be glossed over… lol. I get that, and that’s fine.
But we have mixed messages about his therapist/therapy. We have him modeling in underwear but not an “underwear model” (there are no photography stamps or advertisements, and if he made no money off modeling then this pics were for private use and not publishing). The song is great but not unlike Lady Gaga’s country version of You and I. He’s hanging out with internet porn models in Miami. And some of his “personal” comments seemed overtly rehearsed.
On some levels, I feel like I’m being played. It’s not a bad thing, the gay community gets pandered to all the time (Absolut vodka). Just because I feel that doesn’t mean it’s true. So far, the gay conversion contradiction is the only “problem” to an overall good message… people can emerge from such a history and be successful and (as you mentioned) not be a teen suicide. Despite my suspicions, I cannot deny the positive influence this is having. I thank you for a very real interview with a very real positive message.
the other Greg
@Jackhoffsky: I’m starting to think Steve is just too NICE to be a country singer.
We’ll be making progress when we get a gay country singer who sings, “Mah ex-gay therapist done me wrong, so Ah shot him down!”
Another ten years?
Jackhoffsky
@the other Greg: ROFL! I would buy that album… legally even. lol.
MK Ultra
He works for the Catholic Church, a fact that Boy Culture glossed over.
He’s nothing but a marketing tool of the new “straight therapy” movement.
“Instead of priests and ex-gays, let’s take a hot, gay guy and get him to extol the virtues of “straight therapy” and how it truly helped him. We’ll get him to say that it was “clinical psychology” and not like the disgraced Exodus. They won’t be suspicious because he’s a hot gay guy. They’ll never see it coming.”
Oh, they are clever. Grand might be worth a couple of rides on. Other than that he’s worthless.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was offered a recording contract only on the condition that he becomes an unofficial spokesman for the new “straight therapy”. “I don’t condone it, but here’s a shining endorsement of it!”
murphy0071
The Religious Right, through Exodus International and PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-homosexuals), support their views using a pseudo-journal, The Journal of Human Sexuality, consisting of an anti-homosexual diatribe using argumentum ad hominem, half-truths, deceptions, and articles from questionable sources, use flawed research of found in some mainstream vetted research, selectively quote from legitimate sources. Among many professional bodies, the American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations have condemned Exodus International and similar organizations for giving false hope to ego-dystonic homosexuals desiring to become heterosexual. While stating many living the “homosexual lifestyle” have become heterosexual through “reparative” or “Christian conversion” therapy, Exodus International and others offer no reliable or valid scientific evidence of these metamorphoses and refuse long-term follow-up studies. A study which does not distinguish between male pseudohomosexuals and natural homosexuals indicated that 11 men changed sexual orientation as a result of “folk therapy” as part of a pentecostal experience. Many chapters of Exodus International have fallen by the way. “Two of Exodus International’s founders, Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, fell in love and left the organization in 1979.”
The Religious Right, exemplified by the Family Research Institute and Family Research Council, have a narrow self-righteous view of sexuality and use flagrant deceit and exceptionally questionable research methods (e.g., inadequate and biased subject selection, sampling methods, peer reviewed publishing, and data sources–followed by unsupported conclusions, conjecture, and speculation). Some defend their views by misrepresenting and dismissing a massive body of professional literature and scientific research. A look at their internet sources illustrates their facile use of illegitimate and legitimate research to create a hostile view of homosexuals. Other religions with ultra-right elements also show similar bias against homosexuals.
Wilbready
All of these responses lead to me this conclusion; we (LBGT community as a whole) make it impossible for those struggling with their sexual identity to come out of that all-to-cozy closet.
Go back and read the respondants, mostly they vilify Grand for his looks, his choice of words, etc. Ever think that this is just HIS take on HIS life and the decisions he and others made that got him to where he is now? Can’t we just accept him with open arms? Do we need to rake him over the coals?
I am going to just accept him and hope he has a future in that business, and especially that genre, because he will need ALL of our support to overcome the hurddles so many others will put in his way. He needs an ally just like we ALL did before we came out.
JayHobeSound
When I think of “ex-gay therapy” I picture Michele Bachmann’s husband. I also wonder how freakin ignorant are people in the Bachmann’s community not to notice… oh yeah, they did re-elect her a few times.
Billysees
@D9W: 29
The best comment, especially ” That’s pure horse shit !!! “.
I’ve heard this refrain about childhood issues and homosexuality before.
Where do these therapists get this stuff from ?
Did they learn this in school ?
I guess it’s their “sales pitch” when they can’t come up with anything else.
What did President Harry S. Truman say ?, ” If you can’t convince them, confuse them. “
4of14
What is good for one goose is good for another goose.
If Corey Cann can sing coutry music and pose for Luis Rafael and Michael Anthony Downs, then why is anyone make talking about Steve Grand?
jar
The problem with that train of thought is that it’s a chicken and egg scenario. Did dad’s distance cause his son’s homosexuality or, more likely, was dad’s distance an expression of his anxiety of having a gay son and concomittant inability to handle it?
martinbakman
….and by chance was the therapist an available older man to give some of the affection missed out on? Were those unmet needs finally satisfied by an older man? “Well……how convenient”, said the church lady.
Chris Vogel
That “therapist” is a toxic fraud. Anybody who pushes this malicious and dishonest nonsense is.
enlightenone
@Cam: “…young men questioning their sexuality are told that they need contact and affection from older men…”
Given this bazzar notion about Steve’s therapist, I guess his therapist was an “older man” who held him in his lap!
Frankly, I think Steve Grand was not only inappropriate in sharing NOT AT ALL HELPFUL thoughts.
I will further say how disappointed I am in him equating love with a twisted approach to his therapy, so-called “treatment!”
enlightenone
@enlightenone: Frankly, I think…NOT AT ALL HELPFUL thoughts…but also irresponsible as well!
enlightenone
@Jackhoffsky: “…I do have a (personal) problem with that message.” As any INTELLIGENT, informed person would! Sadly, I gave Steve Grand more credit than is presumed given his choice to verbalize his perspective of his treatment and the “LOVE” and support he gives to his “therapist” given, as he admits, unsubstantiated “treatment” CERTAINLY harmful to many who had the misfortunate to be he his care.
Given Steven’s sentiments about this “therapist” shows he has been NEGATIVELY impacted to some degree to this day!
enlightenone
@Jackhoffsky: “…But the result is sending out a muddy mixed message about a very clear and dangerous practice… “clinical” or otherwise.”
EXACTLY, I’m just so disappointed and disturbed by this revelation! Then again, it shows that just because you are a celebrity doesn’t mean you should have a mike in their face and them publish their thougths. And if we are to continue celebrity = credible, at least include a professional’s/expert perspective in a piece or interview.
enlightenone
@Matthew Rettenmund: “… and for that he’s attacked. It’s dispiriting.”
He’s not being attacked, but he put it out there, and we have strong opinions about it.
I for one support him as an artist. I contributed to his KICKSTART campaign and support his approach to his music. He seems to be a very nice, warm, sensitive, masculine gay man. However, deeply disturbed by his sentimental feelings about a “therapist” whose clincial approach in the 21st Century is coming from a “broken” theory of “treatment!” for WHAT IS A BIOLOGICAL ORIENTATION JUST LIKE heterosexuality. This was not a therapist from the 1950’s! So there was a dark reason for his theories – love doesn’t live there.
enlightenone
@Billysees: “…Did they learn this in school ?…”
NO SCHOOL that is supported by LEGITIMATE psychological institutions!