What, you may well ask, is gay therapy?
Perhaps it is a kind of complementary healing designed to enhance one's sexual connection to the divine, using chakra yoga, and tailored specifically to homosexuality? No. Not that.
Perhaps it is a kind of blend of psychotherapy and Shamanism, designed to help one explore one's homosexual feelings in a creative way and come to terms with one's sexuality comfortably? Sadly, no, it's not that either.
Perhaps then, it is a sort of talking therapy for people who are gay, struggling with issues around their sexuality and the intense amount of homophobia in the world? No, not that either, that's usually called gay counselling, or with more political correctness, LGBT counselling.
Gay therapy is something else. Gay therapy starts from the principle that homosexuality is an illness, and attempts to "cure" people of their gayness. People who have been through this process and go on to define themselves as heterosexual, are referred to as "ex-gay".
"I no longer have sexual feelings for men", reported Ben Odama. "Sometimes they look at me kind of cute, and I just wink at them. But I'm happily married now, to a woman called Bernie."
A brief summary of the situation might go like this. For centuries, the religions ruled the minds of the people and the politicians. What they said, happened. So when Leviticus asked us to smite the homos, that's exactly what a self-respecting citizen would do, so long as they wanted to stay out of the dungeons.
Nowadays, in the "western" world at least, the religious types don't have so much power and the world has started to notice that a significant percentage of the population are, in fact, gay. That's how they were made. Other animals have homosexuality too, it's just a fact of being a mammal. Decades of civil rights marches and Pride carnivals later, not to mention the movie "Brokeback Mountain", the situation is still tense and there is still huge amounts of homophobic violence, as well as verbal abuse and discrimination, but by and large, the western world is now a place where homosexuality is basically accepted, and gay people don't get thrown in prison anymore for holding hands in public. Of course this is not true world wide, and there are still dozens of countries that serve the death sentence for homosexuality, but this article is not going into that.
Realizing that they were losing their (firm) grip on the gay propaganda debacle, the churches started persuading gay people that, even though they were sinners against God, they could still be accepted into the church. After all, they couldn't turn away such a large percentage of their congregations could they? They'd lose a fortune in subscriptions.
So organisations like NARTH, JONAH, the Evergreen Foundation and Homosexuals Anonymous began to spring up. They have an umbrella group called PATH, which stands for People Against The Homos.
Make no mistake, all these people are fundamentalist religious types. They go on about how they are reputable therapists acting out of compassion for their clients, helping people to become better Christians/Jews/Muslims/Jedi. They tell clients that they can purge them of their sinful feelings and become purer. They tell the world that their clients voluntarily come to them because they can't bear to have these impure feelings anymore. The world sees people being brainwashed into getting the "treatment" because the other people in the church (and, basically, as a result, everyone in their life) tell them they are disgusting.
In fact, the whole culture of homophobia that still exists all over the world is driven by religious organisations, and it is largely as a result of this hateful non-acceptance that gay people struggle with their sexuality in the first place. The churches, having created this hatred, can now make use of it to shame people into stopping having homosexual relationships. Furthermore, huge amounts of cash can be made from all these bunk therapy sessions, residential treatments, book sales and all the other crap that goes alongside this ridiculous "therapy" that any sane person knows full well is a waste of time right from the start. I'm sure that the people who practice gay therapy know this also, but they will happily continue to provide it, for as long as their churches can bully people through the doors (sometimes as young as 3 years old) and keep the money coming in.
In the meantime the majority of people who have had such treatments are still gay, and it is easy to draw the conclusion that the ones who claim to be "ex-gay" have achieved some form of advanced repression to their sexuality, and suffer married life begrudgingly.
Rupert: So, I understand you can stop me fancying men.
Therapist: Absolutely.
How does it work then?
Well, we'll talk a little about what being gay means to you, then maybe we'll get an idea of how to proceed.
Sounds a bit vague. OK. Being gay means I fancy blokes. I fuck them up the arse and suck on their cocks. Most weekends when I was younger, I'd go clubbing, take loads of pills and have loads of filthy sex, but nowadays I tend to have quite nights in with me feller. However, some bloke in the pub told me that, despite being attracted to men for as long as I can remember, I've committed sins against Jesus and can only repent by becoming straight. Is that even possible?
Of course it's possible. Homosexuality is a choice.
No one gave me a choice, mate, I've never fancied women. People like Pamela Anderson disgust me. I was born gay and that's all there is to it.
That is not true. You were made and brought into the world by God, who is perfect. He made everybody heterosexual as that is the perfect union required to make a family.
You don't think it was my parents who brought me into the world then?
Yes, but ultimately you came from God.
So he made me want to suck cocks.
No, he made you pure. Wanting to indulge in homosexual acts is impure. It came from somewhere else. Something in your early childhood. What do you remember about being young?
Oooh, you mean in relation to being gay? Well I liked the look of the milkman actually, when I was about 6. It wasn't really a sexual thing, I was too young, I just kind of wanted to be naked with him. Then there was the time when Mum put me and me mate Daz in the bath together. We were about 8. Anyway I got kind of hard and he was a bit freaked out, but he's me best mate still now. Straight as an arrow that one. That's when I knew really.
There must have been something before this depravity began that triggered it in your mind.
You mean when I was a baby? Nah, nothing sexual there. Just bottles and Calvin Klein nappies.
What kind of friendships did you have in early school? With girls, with boys?
I had lots of female friends and was quite popular in general, but the bullies - you know, the hard lads who went on to become gangsters - beat me up quite a lot. They thought I was a bit weird. I didn't understand why at the time but now I realise that I used to look at them kind of longingly. Not suprised it freaked them, out, really. Some of the boys were nice, me and Joseph used to hang around together a lot *sighs with a smile and happy memories of Joseph*.
So at what point did you realise you were different from these, er, bullies?
Probably when they used to talk about girls they thought were pretty and I laughed at them.
Why did you laugh?
Cos I thought those boys were pretty. Mate, this isn't going anywhere, can we try something else luv?
OK, I want you to think about times in your life when you have felt more normal.
I am normal. Look, do you have any techniques that actually might work?
*Coughs* Well, erm, OK, we'll jump straight to your relationship with God. Tell me about that.
He's some big guy up in the sky who loves everyone unconditionally.
That's right.
So why does he want me to change then?
Because you have sinned.
Well, hello! Who hasn't? And you haven't convinced me yet that he made me straight.
We are all sinners, you are right. We all need to improve ourselves in our own ways.
Does your wife suck cock?
Excuse me?
Does she? If so, does that make her a sinner too? Does she need to improve? I could give her a few lessons if she likes... *winks*
*Ahem* As I was saying, homosexual acts are a sin and you can repent of those sins by immersing yourself in the body of Christ.
Sounds quite exciting.
I don't mean literally. I mean you need to accept Christ into your soul, body and mind and live his teachings and his actions.
OK, so I need to hang around mostly with other men, going out on fishing trips and so on? And not sleep with any women, but have a prostitute as a kind of pretend girlfriend?
Pause.
OK, Mr Willow, I'm recommending you for a residential course of aversion therapy You'll be shown pictures of naked men and women with various amounts of eletricity being applied to your genitals.
For information about the campaign against gay therapy, check out: Truth Wins Out.
That's the funniest thing I've seen in ages mate. Nice one! Love & light, Mark (ex leeds, now Aus).
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