So I found this thread on Something Awful, here are a few salient posts for those too lazy to read the thread:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3369766
I'm at a loss for words....why is this legal?
This type of thing seems the natural consequence among Christian that "Oh it's a choice they could change or control themselves if they really wanted to" This is how they justify sending children to their gay concentration camps so they can brainwash them into being less gay. Is it any surprise that the suicide and depression rate among the gay population is as high as it is?
I was involved in ex-gay therapy a couple years ago. When I was around 13 or 14, I voluntarily joined some online groups, and when I was around 16 or 17, I involuntarily went through in-person counseling. I also have several friends who went through it, as well, and I've joined a casual support group for survivors.
If you don't know, ex-gay therapy (or repairative therapy) is a bunch of different, and often disturbing, techniques to attempt to change someone's sexual orientation. Pretty much every major professional organization (including the American Psychological Association) have released official statements against it. But, these programs are still going strong, and are a bit more common than you might imagine.
Oh, and for the record, it didn't work.
The online groups that I participated in were almost like AA groups, just mostly support, advice, prayer, that sort of thing. My face-to-face counseling was mostly talk therapy; my counseling kept trying to get me to admit that I'd been molested (I hadn't) or that I had a bad relationship with my dad (I didn't).
I was even offered exorcism services at one point. Seriously. Exorcism is really not that uncommon, apparently. I also later found out that my counselor was disclosing everything that I told him to a "prayer committee" so they could pray for me, and he was also disclosing information to my parents. He eventually referred me to a residential treatment center (which I refused to go to).
Some programs do things like:
* Rubber Band Therapy - Clients wear rubber bands on their wrists and snap them every time they have a sexual fantasy. Just like the cattle prods in But I'm A Cheerleader. It seems like nearly every program uses this.
* Dissonance Therapy - It's exactly like A Clockwork Orange. They'll show clients pornographic images while making them take nausea-inducing drugs, or doing other things to create discomfort, like sticking their hands in a bucket of ice.
* Touch Therapy - An older male staff will hold the client in an extremely intimate way to help reproduce the broken father-son bond. There's been a lot of allegations that have come out of this, obviously.
* Family Therapy - They'll bring your parents in and coerce you to tell them about all of your sexual experiences and fantasies.
* Gender Appropriateness Training - Again, pretty much identical to But I'm A Cheerleader. They'll teach the men how to do manly things like play football or hunt, and teach the women how to be good housewives.
* Exorcism
* Coerced Marriage - They'll convince you to just get married to a woman and try to make it work. Sometimes they'll hook up gay men and lesbians.
Shock therapy used to be really popular, and allegedly some programs still use it. There have also been cases where counselors have resorted to trying to "beat the gay" out of their clients when they're not making progress.
My parents found out I'm gay (by sneaking a peek at my journal), and things were very intense for awhile. They told me that they couldn't accept having a gay son, and asked me to get counseling. I was under the impression that this would be a real counselor who would tell my parents that I'm okay. But it turned out that it wasn't. At the time, I was terrified that I would be kicked out of the house if I refused to go through treatment (I was only 16 or so at the time), so I complied for a few months.
My survivor group is an online group of people who have left these programs. We try to work against these places by sharing our stories, and protesting when they hold conferences in our cities. I also know a few people who belong to Beyond Ex-Gay, which is a website that hosts a lot of testimonials and information about ex-gay programs.
I think it would be nearly impossible to get these places shut down. Even though the things they do are horribly unethical, none of the staff are ever licensed with any sort of regulatory body, so, with the exception of extreme cases like sexual or physical assault, there's no one to report it to.
I'm personally trying to find ways to work against these programs. I've spent the last few years focusing on trying to recover from it all, and now I'm starting to feel ready to be more active. I just need an outlet.
As far as losing my religion, it was a lot of things, really. I was really deeply involved in my religion, so leaving it didn't happen overnight. Even though I was a hardcore Christian, I was never an rear end in a top hat, so seeing things that the Church would do, or reading certain things that the Bible condones really bothered me. I also had problems dealing with the fact that my particular brand of Christianity required so much willful ignorance, like refusing to believe all of the data pointing to evolution just because a book tells you it's not true.
I'd struggled with the concept of Hell pretty much my entire life, and I used to have pretty intense nightmares about it when I was little. I couldn't really understand how a “loving” God would also create that.
When I first started coming to terms with my sexuality, I got involved in some gay Christian websites. They can manage to reconcile their faith and their sexuality, either through believing parts of the Bible that forbid homosexuality are bad translations, or just accepting that the Bible was written by people, so it's obviously flawed. I accepted that for awhile.
But then, I guess having my whole life come crashing down, and having Christian people I really looked up to turn against me dealt a pretty major blow. In my counseling sessions, my therapist would ask me how I reconcile my sexuality with the Bible. When I'd tell him, he'd let me talk for quite awhile, and nod and pretend to agree with me, then turn around and crush everything I'd said with the full weight of his Bible college degree. It just sort of made me realize that it's all just words, if that makes sense. The entire thing can be manipulated to say whatever you want it to say, so it didn't seem like there was really a core of truth to any of it. You can really just take it and believe whatever you want to believe.
I got really burned by everything that happened, and I tried to find other, more open denominations. I explored Quakerism for awhile, and I really enjoyed it, but I've just gotten to the point where any discussion of Christianity or the Bible, or even sitting in church, is just really uncomfortable for me. Whenever I visit my parents, I always make sure to schedule things so I'm not around when they're going to church.
I never went to EI, but I came very close to getting shipped off to a residential center run by Love Won Out.
As far as what I went through, I got involved in ex-gay support groups online when I was younger. I got encouraged to do the rubber band thing (snapping a rubber band on your wrist every time you have a sexual though; apparently this is really popular), and, of course, did an intense amount of praying.
Eventually I came out, and pretty soon after, my parents found out. It was really intense, and I feel physically ill every time I think about i. They told me they wanted me to go to counseling, which I completely agreed with since I assumed I'd be going to a mainstream counselor who'd tell my parents I'm okay.
My counselor ended up being a minister at my church, and someone who I'd looked up to most of my life. When I began therapy, he told me that he wouldn't try to "change" me in any way, and that he was there to support me in whatever I chose to do. Given everything that was going on (incredibly strained relationship with my parents, intense fear that I'd be kicked out, lost friendships, etc), what I really needed was someone to support me. And that's not what I ended up with.
Like I said, this was someone I really trusted, and someone who I thought would actually be on my side. During my first session, I opened up with him about a lot of personal things, and he would sit there and nod and pretend to be supportive. Then, all of a sudden, he did a complete 180 and told me that I don't appear to have any morals, and that I'm living in a bubble of subjectivity where there's no absolute right or wrong, and everything is subjective. He encouraged me to try dating girls (which I refused to do to someone; yet I'm in the one who doesn't have any morals).
He offered me exorcism services. I graciously declined.
I'd been incredibly pious my entire life, and my faith was extremely important to me. During my sessions, he started to ask me how I reconcile the two, and I was pretty open about it. I told him all of the popular things I'd heard about homosexuality in the Bible, how they're bad translations and whatnot, and I also mentioned that much of my spirituality is very personal, and that I relied heavily on what my heart told me. Again, he appeared to be supportive, then turned everything around on me and used the full weight of his Bible college degree to crush everything I'd said. He also attacked my reliance on my “feelings” as weak (I'm an INFP, so feelings are pretty important to me).
Now, I have some reason to suspect that he was leaking personal things that I was telling him to a “prayer committee” made up of other ministers in the church. These ministers would, of course, gossip to their families about things that I'd said, and pretty soon, nearly everyone in the church seemed to know some pretty personal things about me. A lot of people in my church also attended my high school, so some of that even leaked to my school.
This counselor completely betrayed my trust in him. I feel like he stole my faith from me; he was at least a major reason I lost it. He would act supportive to my face, and give my parents information on Love Won Out behind my back. I get really angry, because looking back I realized how badly I needed someone to be on my side, and instead I got stuck with him.
I never went to a residential center, but I was forced by my parents to go to a Jesus Camp to keep kids from being gay. My first night there, some kid had a panic attack. They made us watch these horrible movies about Sodom & Gomorrah and how we were going to hell for having immoral thoughts and he began to sob hysterically in terror.
We were encouraged to do the rubber band thing too. Also, pinching our arms or legs if we had a bad thought.
The counselors would sit down with us and ask us about our thoughts and feelings, one-on-one. I was always really nervous about talking to someone like this, so to "break the ice" the guy I talked to started asking me if I'd thought about a whole plethora of sexual acts. He listed almost every single sexual act you could do with another guy, and all I could do is just sit there, horrified. I was 14 and pretty sheltered about sex; this guy was naming off and describing explicitly things sane people wouldn't do. (Like cutting your dick and having someone else suck it, WTH)
Anyone who didn't respond to the therapy after the first couple of days were subjected to "healing circles", where the counselors would all put their hands on the person and pray from them, for nearly half an hour straight. If you tried to leave or get away you were held onto. There were about fifteen people grabbing onto you, so if you were claustrophobic, this was hell. It happened to me twice the first week alone.
The counselors would also burst into the cabins at random times during the night, unannounced and very loud, terrifying the poo poo out of everyone inside, to make sure you weren't doing anything "Jesus wouldn't approve of", or whatever.
This was all on top of hours of praying, movies about how every gay person will die horribly of AIDS and spend all of eternity burning in hell.
We also had to describe any fantasy, sexual dream or thought to the counselors, at least once a week. It was called "Confession". They didn't believe you if you said you didn't think of anything (even if you truly did not).
It was a four week program, and some of the kids had been there once before. By the time it was over, two kids had threatened to kill themselves, and I was convinced that I would have rather died than go back
Man that was a long rant. I haven't talked about my experience at all before now, and its been seven years. Its really cathartic to get it out, and it feels good in a way, to know someone else out there knows what this poo poo is like, and is getting over it. Again, thank you so much for starting this thread.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3369766
I'm at a loss for words....why is this legal?
This type of thing seems the natural consequence among Christian that "Oh it's a choice they could change or control themselves if they really wanted to" This is how they justify sending children to their gay concentration camps so they can brainwash them into being less gay. Is it any surprise that the suicide and depression rate among the gay population is as high as it is?
