Seeking to expose the lies and manipulation behind various ex-gay therapies, writer Harmon Leon decided to go undercover to hear what they had to say firsthand. What he found isn’t anything truly shocking — we all know these groups rely on shame and delusion in order to convince people they aren’t good enough in God’s eyes, but the nuts and bolts of how they get in people’s heads are worth examining.
At one clinic, a pamphlet titled Can Homosexuality Be Cured? The Answer Is YES! read:
Proclaiming Victory Over HOMOSEXUALITY How Should the Church Respond?
- Do not fear the homosexuals.
- Recognize that at the core of the homosexual struggle, there is a deep-seated sense of rejection.
- Ask the Lord to open a door of communication.
- Pray for them.
A counselor told Harmon that, “if you let Jesus into your life, then he will go right to the trouble area and help you with whatever you are struggling with,” and that he should consider entering into a lifetime of celibacy.
A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality was also lying around the office, which advises:
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
- Masculinity is an achievement. Growing up straight isn’t something that happens. It requires good parenting.
- Dad is more important than Mom. Mothers make boys. Fathers make men.
- Recognize that most homosexuals were not explicitly so when they were children. More often, they displayed “nonmasculinity” that sets them painfully apart from other boys: They’re un-athletic, somewhat passive, unaggressive and uninterested in rough-and-tumble play. Tip: Single mothers may need to recruit a trustworthy male role model.
- Be concerned if you see gender confusion or doubt in your child from ages 5 to 11. There is a high correlation between feminine behavior in boyhood and adult homosexuality.
Harmon asked another counselor if he was a “professional.” He responded:
“No, we are not professional counselors. We’re people who have dealt with same-sex attractions ourselves. Or we are people who have a desire to help people that do.”
But that didn’t stop the phony therapist from giving guidance as if he was actually credentialed. Harmon baited him by asking if people can become gay due to “envy of better-endowed boys.”
“You know, just from reading up,” the counselor replied, “I think it could be envy of other guys, like if they are more well-endowed… that could be an envy trait.
That’s when Harmon told him, “For me, it’s the complete opposite. I was much larger than all the other kids in that department.”
The counselor quickly changed the subject, moving on to another manufactured “cause” for Harmon’s gayness.
In a group session, “held in an office complex that resembled a meth-addict trucker motel,” Harmon observed that most of the men had serious drug and alcohol problems, yet they attributed all their issues to the gay lifestyle.
At one point the leader spoke up:
“It’s not a sexual problem. It’s a relationship problem. Men feed off of each other’s masculinity. It’s a relationship problem! And that’s the key. God, he accepts me with all my frailty in all my screwed-up-ness, but he has the plan, the desire, to transform me into something that is going to bring him glory.”
Harmon told the group that he wasn’t into drugs and alcohol, and that he was in a monogamous relationship. The group called this “cannibalism,” or taking the attributes of another person.
Then another man leaned in and told him:
“An erection put into a woman’s vagina is like going into the paradise of heaven. An erection put in anything else is unnatural, and it’s a sin!”
Charming.
To read Harmon’s complete story, head here.
Related stories on Queerty:
An Ex-Gay Therapist Was No Match For This Amazing Harvard Law School Student
Former “Ex-Gay” Activist Marries A Man And Finally Finds His Happily Ever After
Trippy
Horrible! Bottom line, ex-gay “therapists” (like Congresswoman Bachmann’s silly husband) need to be arrested for fraud/torture/malpractice… or whatever it takes to expose and end this craziness. Better yet, maybe it’s time to sue these people out of business.
Why the media doesn’t focus more on this is beyond me. Where are Maddow and Cooper? They really need to use their platforms to address this horror show.
Xzamilio
Naturally… you tie a stigma to homosexuality, tell us how it is evil and wrong, and then when most of us grow up depressed, angry, fill with self-loathing and hate, they look at their work and go, “See? Homosexuals are unhappy because they know what they are is wrong!!” Gotta love it… it is the ultimate message of religion: Tell you you’re a sinner until you believe it, and then proceed to blame your hangups on you and prescribe the “cure” which is really the root cause of the “illness.” Get the hell out of here with that iron age BS
I’d love to hear an ex-gay testimony from an atheist… fingers crossed *sarcasm
Dev.C
This junk gives me a contact sad; using real illness like drug addiction and alcoholism to pray on peoples insecurities in order to further your own screwed up agenda, shameful. Ex-gays literally are the worst, they are sexual terrorist bent on making gay men as miserable as them.
AJAnders
That ‘Parents Guide to Preventing Homosexuality,’ has got to be written in the 1950’s or earlier. Even the most homophobic of guys has got to laugh at those tips in 2014. Like…
Growing up straight isn’t something that happens, it requires good parenting?
So what’s the excuse for the millions and millions of people in the world who were raised by awful parents yet still turned out to be straight? What happened there?
Taking every stereotype that has ever been written about gay people and using it as ammunition for “conversion therapy” makes you look like the biggest moron on the planet. It’s the equivalent of sending an African-American to a therapist because they don’t like fried chicken or watermelon.
People have got to actually use their brains. It’s almost 2015, not 1955.
NoCagada
‘ “if you let Jesus into your life, then he will go right to the trouble area and help you with whatever you are struggling with,” ‘
Yeah…I let a guy named Jesus in once…he REALLY did go right to the trouble area…with his 8 1/2 uncut inches! YES! He REALLY helped me with what I was struggling with…UH-HUH! Oh, YEAH!!! UHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMM! OOOOOOOOO!
Stache99
Why are they only concerned with men and no reference at all to women. Oh that’s right. Women on Women sex is hawt and socially approved by these Misogynistic Pigs.
Stache99
Of coarse it’s 99% guys that come through their doors looking for salvation. Male sexuality is still a very taboo subject in America. No wonder there’s so many fucked up guys and they play on those stereotypes well.
Stache99
@AJAnders: You do realize were talking about religion here. Since when has thinking things logically through been a requirement?
Nixter
The arrogance, assumptions, lies and vile claims of ex-gay “therapist” are astounding.
Stache99
@Nixter: To a logical thinking atheist absolutely. To your average Christian. All par for the coarse.
dm10003
“An erection put into a woman’s vagina is like going into the paradise of heaven. An erection put in anything else is unnatural, and it’s a sin!”
So “sin” is what makes you straight and straights have no “sin” issues.
AtticusBennett
I did something similar a few years ago and attended a group like this, to see what goes on. and it’s exactly as he wrote. they blame their moms, they blame absentee father figures, they use terms like “the lifestyle” with no understanding of specifics, and they commit to a group lie that’s little more than a jesus-y circle jerk.
and it’s sad. they’re COMMITTED to lying.
Stache99
@AtticusBennett: Understanding them requires understanding their way of thinking. They go by faith or the Gospel truth. The dictionary definition of that..
“Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence”.
SaraYork
At least once a week I get a letter from a gay man who went through conversion therapy. Many experience terrible conditions that go far beyond what this group did. The lies perpetuated by misguided christians are nothing but self loathing and self hate because they can’t stand what they see in themselves. Adults who voluntarily attend meetings, that’s their choice, however, too often gay men and women are coerced into therapy and forced to believe that there is something wrong with them. I’m glad that there is a ban on these therapies from professionals, but now it’s even scarier because any old self-loathing Joe can give advice.
AtticusBennett
@Stache99: “believing a lie because your family made it clear that they will not love you if you tell the truth, and you think you’ll go to HELL, even though hell doesn’t exist”
that’s what ex-gays are. that’s why they do what they do.
they have to ignore science, sociological facts, rationale, reason, and even biblical consistency in order to maintain a belief in their chosen lies. i mean faith. no, i mean lies.
there are no atheist ex-gays. they say “i’m gay because my dad didn’t show me affection” – NO. your dad didn’t show you affection because he could tell you were probably gay at a young age.
i’ve heard them ramble about “a spirit of effeminacy” but the nonstop rambles about “the Lifestyle” are so eye-roll inducing – if enough weak people tell the same lie, they start to convince themselves that it’s true.
and it never is. and it never will be.
Stache99
@AtticusBennett: Preaching to the Quire brother:)
I do remember going to church in my wayward youth desperately trying to believe. My dad even set me up with some counseling with our Pastor. When I looked around at my church and saw everyone with their hands up in the air with tears flowing down their cheeks singing to God, Jesus or whatever I actually wanted that for myself. I was told you need to find faith or something to that effect. Then you’ll know. I really…. tried.
I just can’t turn my brain off I guess. I need evidence. Hell maybe even flimsy evidence and I didn’t even see that. The weird thing is I’m sometimes impressed people can actually do that. I’m like WTF. How do you just say I’m going to make myself believe it without a shred of proof. That’s some serious mind hoops.
That’s why I also don’t even try to debate these willfully ignorant people. Anyone who has tried knows it’s an utter waste of time. If it wasn’t for religion we’d just get them committed and medicated.
AtticusBennett
@Stache99: yup. and i’ve tried talking to them, too. wish as much patience and love as one could muster – at a point you finally see them lying, and knowing that you know they’re lying, and they get MAD.
Lance “Sketchboii” Rhodes – he messaged me on youtube, so i replied on Facebook, and rather than have a dialogue all he wanted to do was “give me his TESTIMONY” – which is what these broken boys do: they give their speech that they practice to their congregations of low-thinkers, and want it to be accepted as fact. i called it out. he got furious.
basically saying to me “how dare you be so rude to tell me my testimony is false”
well it is false. he claims to have a “spirit of effeminacy” in him, which Jesus will help extract. he claims he became one who was victim to the Gay Lifestyle because, guess what? HIS DAD WASN’T AROUND. *eye roll*
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lance-Sketchboii-Rhodes/90922759274
http://lancesrhodes.tumblr.com
that’s his page. yeah. nothing at ALL gay about those super-sexy Jesus images, eh?
but – you can’t debate with him. at this point, he needs to tell lies to feel that false sense of safety. it’s true – what we’re dealing with in guys like him is not just ‘religion’ – but a profound form of mental illness wherein a person simply is not operating in the same rational fact-based world as the rest of us.
Stache99
@AtticusBennett: Ha. Yeah, low thinkers like the “I’m no gay no more dude” and his congregation. No logic required. Just dance and shout Hallelujah. I got the Jesus in me!
That’s some weird shit. Religion mixed with I don’t even want to go there. All the men are all naked, muscular and sexualized and the women are all glammed but that’s about it. Yup. Totally Gay.
Kieran
It is interesting how these “reparative therapists” only seem interested in “helping” gay boys. Boys are the only ones worth trying to “save” from their homosexual desires. Homosexual girls nobody seems to want to “fix”. I wonder how these “therapists” would go about curing a lesbian…..cut out all the sports and spend more time baking with Mom?
theWorldyouMade
The most disturbing thing about this is that all the counselors, helpers, and people that work in these clinics all think they are doing truly doing the right thing. They think they are making the world a better place and they think they are helping people with a problem. I disagree with other comments that they know their lying and the just follow along. The message they have would not be as strong if they thought of it as a lie. In reality they do not think it is a lie at all they truly think they are helping and doing the right thing.
This is disturbing because they are doing harm to confused gay people that don’t get much support and this is usually the first and only support they can find. If you’re at the point in your life when you come to terms with being gay and no one supports you, once you find a cure gayness place and all your friends and family tell you to go and be cured. You feel like you’re doing the right thing and you might not believe all the crap deep down, but you try because you think this is right.
The problem is newbies to living a gay life is that they have no support and they have nowhere else to turn. Yeah they could search for other gay people and their lucky when they find them so that they can relate with other gay people. Do you think they know of articles like this and the gay community? No, they don’t. It takes time to find the truth and in the meantime the cure gayness is up their rears before they can even think about what is right or wrong.
Gay people are really the only ones that help other gay people because if you are not gay you will not really understand. Again this is very disturbing but perhaps if there were places that support gays, like its ok to be gay then people probably wouldn’t go to the cure gay places.
erasure25
My friend went undercover and wrote a story about his experiences: http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/undercover-at-a-christian-gay-to-straight-conversion-camp/
Sebizzar
It’s things like this that make me wonder how and why this still isn’t considered a crime. I truly can’t fathom what doesn’t click in these “therapists” brains, that what they’re doing is so illogical and sickening.
martinbakman
@Trippy: Justic Scalia’s son is a priest and also involved in a Catholic organization that drives young LGBT Catholics to abstain from sex. I look at this an their endless revenue stream. The world will always have more LGBT youth coming up, to cash in and prey upon
enlightenone
@Trippy: “Why the media doesn’t focus more on this is beyond me. Where are Maddow and Cooper?” They have, go to YouTube. These flop houses run by pathetic sociopaths are funded by the federal government – the government that’s “too big,” at least the Buchmann clinics!
LadyL
@Kieran: It’s curious, isn’t it? So many of these ex-gay therapies do seem to be the province of men; the “counselors” and “therapists” appear heavily to be men. Why is that…?
I’m zeroing in on that quote from the counselor Harmon questioned: “We’re people who have dealt with same-sex attraction ourselves.” That admission is key. I think the males that run these organizations are playing a dangerous double game:
They are on the one hand using the fear and confusion of others to shore up their own denial and struggles with same-sex attraction, but also–I’ve become convinced of this–they are at heart sexual predators, taking full advantage of young men and boys desperate for love and support, especially the ones made even more vulnerable by drug and alcohol problems.
Women don’t figure as much in these motel-hell therapy sessions because the counselors running the show are frankly not attracted to women. All the Jesus babble-speak is just so much smokescreen–guys coming to them looking for help with their “sinful problem” (particularly hunky, good-looking guys) feeds a lurid fantasy.