Because the world needs another reason to believe the Mormon Church thinks we’re all a bunch of dog fuckers, today let’s learn about a study conducted by a Brigham Young University graduate student that called for homosexuals to administer electric shocks to their penises to de-gay themselves.
Called “electric aversion therapy,” this sounds like something a hole lot worse than all that hugging and pillow beating that “touch therapy” calls for. ABC News introduces us to John Cameron, who volunteered for the 1976 study — which, as all graduate studies must be, was cleared by administrators.
Twice a week for six months, he jolted himself with painful shocks to the penis to rid himself of his attraction to men. “I kept trying to fight it, praying and fasting and abstaining and being the best person I could,” said Cameron, now a 59-year-old playwright and head of the acting program at the University of Iowa. “I was never actively gay, never had any encounters with men — never had moments when I failed and actually had sex with other men,” he said.
But his undercurrent of feelings put him in direct conflict with the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints (LDS) and its principles. “As teens we were taught that homosexuality was second only to murder in the eyes of God,” he said. “I was very, very religious and the Mormon church was the center of my life,” said Cameron, who had done missionary work in Guatemala and El Salvador. The 1976 study at Brigham Young, “Effect of Visual Stimuli in Electric Aversion Therapy,” was written by Max Ford McBride, then a graduate student in the psychology department. “I thought he was my savior,” said Cameron, who enrolled with 13 other willing subjects, all Mormons who thought they might be gay, for a three- to six-month course of therapy.
So how did this, uh, “therapy” work?
A mercury-filled tube was placed around the base of the penis and the students were shown alternating slides of men and women in various stages of undress. When participants responded to images of men with an erection, the closed electric circuit was broken and they received three-second electrical shocks at 10-second intervals. Each session lasted an hour. Participants set their own pain levels. Cameron said his shame was so deep that he selected the highest level. “Max didn’t do it, we did it,” he said. “I was always turning it up to get the most pain because I was desperate.”
Now let’s all remember this was the 1970s, just when the psychological community was abandoning its definition of homosexuality as a disorder. But that’s not a theory the Mormon Church, which runs the show at BYU, has ever really abandoned, despite its claims. And while LDS insists it’s given up its reparative therapy techniques, exiled members of the church claim otherwise. And no matter what the Mormon Church says in public, they still think you’re gross.
How about we take this to the next level?
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And just in case you’re wondering why the study had only 14 subjects, well, it originally had 16. But two of the participants killed themselves during the experiment.
Cam
BYU still kicks students out for being gay, AND it holds their transcripts and refuses to release them, only telling other schools that there was an “Honor Code Violation” which to the other schools means cheating or plagerism.
The state college in Utah accepts non-official transcripts from BYU because they are very aware of this.
So if you are gay and go to BYU, get certified copies of your transcripts EVERY SEMESTER so you have them just in case they boot you.
Spike
Well duh, is’t that called electro fetish play? Wonder if he got his e-stim from Mr. S? And why stop at the penis, they have really cool butt pluggs you can attached and shock the hell out of a guys ass! Yep, a couple of good shocks and he might be str8t, or into hard core e-stim play for LIFE!
justiceontherocks
Lots of gays at Bring Em Young University. The followers of the angel Moroni send young men off on missions at the peak of their sexual awakening, keeps them together 24-7 for 18 months, and guess what happens?
RomanHans
Just for a little context, at the time of this study Mormon church doctrine said African Americans couldn’t be saved.
B
No. 3 · justiceontherocks wrote, “Lots of gays at Bring Em Young University. The followers of the angel Moroni send young men off on missions at the peak of their sexual awakening, keeps them together 24-7 for 18 months, and guess what happens?”
I had to guess a bit when I saw a sign advertising a play, “Confessions of a Mormon Boy”, made a wise crack, and someone who seemed to know from first-hand experience told me, “Mormon boys are really hot – when they get over their sexual repression, they go completely wild.” (Note to religious freaks – “boy” in this sense means a young adult, as was obvious from the picture of the “Mormon boy”, who was probably in his twenties).
Michael
so the study didn’t work that well. i wonder if there are any gay people at byu. my guess is that there is. not really much byu can do about it. no big deal. let them do what they want. why go where you aren’t wanted anyway. too much hassle, there is enough room for everybody. look at the catholic church, who woulda thunk it, but they’re a little too into gay culture. crazy frockers!
Jeffree
“Ten years after the study, former participants reported greater than average interest in electrostimulation, no decrease in homosexual activity but a sharply reduced interest in p0rn depicting all genders” — that’s what would happen if they did a follow up study!
Of course, BYU didn’t do follow up, because that would mean admitting they had no success.
duke and banner
Ever notice that if you take the “i” off of the name of the angel Moroni, you have the word “Moron”?
Just sayin’…..
Les
Wow – really we are going to attack a church based on a study in 1976?
And as far as kicking people out of BYU for being gay, they kick straight students out for being straight to. They have a very strict personal code of conduct, and if you are caught having sex outside of marriage it doesn’t matter if you are gay or straight, you are gone
duke and banner
You just made me remember a story. I was running a gay website and a new dude joined. He told me he lived in Utah, that his father was a higher-up in the Mormon church, and that he wanted to do everything in his power to destroy his dad.
He wanted to have sex in restrooms and get caught. He wanted to contract AIDS and die, just to show how much he hated how his father treated him, just because he was effeminate.
Sounds like he was one of these dudes who was forced into the electro-study.
I hope he eventually found someone to love him. As far as Mormons go, not much change, except Blacks apparently aren’t descendants of the devil anymore.