"Ex-Gays" Say the Darndest Things

Our friends at Ex-Gay Watch (I need a nifty logo like theirs) alerted us to a piece that aired last night on CNN featuring Richard Cohen – not the WaPo columnist – one of the most controversial, and unlicensed, practitioners of so-called "reparative therapy" for gays.

I'll leave the heavy lifting to the experts at EGW, but the piece – whether unintentional or not – was hi-frickin'-larious.  We are treated to therapy sessions between Cohen and 42-year-old "Rob," a gay man who thinks that Cohen can help him become un-gay.

We see Cohen practicing "touch therapy" to recreate a "healthy father-son bond."  Call me crazy, but it appeared to be a cunning way for Cohen for be able to get his jollies cuddling up with other men while still claiming that he is now straight.

We then see Cohen engaging in an interesting form of quackery that he calls "bioenergetics," whaling on a pillow with a tennis racket in lieu of his overbearing mother.  Frightening stuff.  Norman-Bates freaky.

I suggest if you find yourself in a session with Cohen that you dial 9-1 on your cell phone, just to save time in case you need to hit that last 1.

We are treated to more of the same tripe that we have seen from the ex-gay movement, this happy-crappy talk about how "there's nothing wrong with being gay," but somehow one can choose to be straight, even though we don't exactly see hordes of heterosexual men stampeding the opposite direction into ex-straight therapy.

What I got out of the piece is that it is a sign of progress that the gay guy aspiring to be straight was the one hiding his identity, while the gay guy who long ago gave up on reparative-therapy nonsense was proudly public.

[Watch video – 6:42, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 6:42, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Comments

[Patrick]

It was very creepy seeing "Rob" trying to pick up ladies on "eHarmony.com".

eHarmony is the new Kablahblah

[Jamie]

I think I read about this on Pam's House Blend this morning. Thanks for the video--I couldn't believe the description, but I guess she was right!

[Kevin]

Oooookay.

[Dan Gonzales]

Oh my god can you make an animated GIF of the tennis raquet scene?

[Malcontent]

I can! Give me a few moments.

[will]

Do u really believe that gay guys can be turned straight? the whole "reparative therapy" thing is just a crap story!

[will]

well, but I think there are lots of ex-straight in this world.

[Yum Yum]

happy-crappy? I'm sooooo incorporating that word into my vocabulary.

[MT]

That's HILARIOUS, Will. We should totally start and 'ex-straight' movement. I'll bet it would totally swamp anything these guys could throw out there!

[anapestic]

Well, this would explain why the ex-gays have such dust-free carpets. I'm thinking they also make excellent collection agents.

[I love women]

lol..
well, not everyone was sexually abused at a young age like that ex-gay man. Maybe for him, he was straight, but the trauma from his childhood abuse could have induce him to develop gay feelings. Once he delt with the trama, then he went back to what he was, a straight man.

But for the rest of us, who had normal childhoods with no childhood abuse, being gay was neither a concious choice nor a unconcious choice. Not a choice in any way.

There has been no finding of a gay gene in humans yet, but scientists believe it plays about 50% in the role. The rest can be attributed to prenatal enviornment(in the womb) and hormones released during pregancy.

[monkey]

we cant choose to change our sexual orientation
but we can choose whether to be our real selves or be fake selves.

He chose to be fake.

[monkey]

um lets see, that ex-gay therapist gets to touch men all day long, smelling the body, and hugging them....
its obvious why these patients are able to stop being gay for the time being, when they get to have a daily dose of gayness in therapy office.

The ex-gay therapist may argue that sexual feelings are not involved. But HELLO, being gay is not only about sexual feelings. It's also the emotional feelings too.

[Jamie]

Does Cohen play Marvin Gaye's "sexual healing" during the therapy sessions?

[Jamie]

I take that back. He probably plays "Let's get it on."

[1630r]

I doubt therapy ever makes gay men un-gay but transexuals never really change sex either.

[muluno]

"I doubt therapy ever makes gay men un-gay but transexuals never really change sex either."

we got a transexual in the house!!! woot woot

[Autumn Sandeen]

Hey! More than one of us!

Seriously though, being a transsexual I'm trying to figure out how Cohen would apply his brand of conversion therapy to "repair" all those "men-who-want-to-be-women-so-they'll-be-comfortable-with-men" transsexuals -- I'm quite happy I'm not an "ex-transsexual" client of his, thank you!!

[Michael W.]

I swear, if I hadn't seen that on CNN, I would have thought it was an SNL satire...

[biboy]

While transexual and homosexuals do face similar injustices and discriminations, and while both deserve acceptance , tolerance, and equality in society,
they are two different things.
Homosexuals deals with sexual orientation.
Transexuals deals with gender identity issues.

Ex-gay therapy believes homosexuality is wrong, not natural, sinful, heterosexual is natural, result of childhood abuse/trauma, and also something that can be changed.
Thus, ex-gay therapy couldnt be applied to transexuals, which can range in different sexual orietantion (straight, bi, homo, etc).
I couldnt imagine what type of equivalence therapy can be applied to transexuals. And please note that not all transexuals go through surgery. The word transexual describes both preop and postop individuals.

[Peterson Toscano]

It would only be really funny if it wasn't happening all the time throughout the US. Virtually every state has at least one "ex-gay" program or support group and now the umbrella group, Exodus, supported by Focus on the Faggot, um Family intentionally target queer and questioning teens--as young as 13! They even use such predatory tactics as to set up MySpace accounts to troll for youth who are not oppressed by their same-sex attractions, but from living in a world that oppresses them for feeling that way.

[Tommy]

I've always said their a bunch of recruiters. Yuck!

[el polacko]

oh my god... i nearly crapped myself laughing during the hugging therapy.. of COURSE he feels safe and warm when he's being hugged by a man... he's GAY ! .. and if his mom made him the "substitute husband" wouldn't that have "made" him str8 ? he wasn't made the 'wife' or 'best girlfriend'.. hahaha
it's sad though that news reports still show gay men from the neck down or behind a potted plant or some such austin powers device.
if you're walking down the street hand-in-hand with your bf i don't think you'd have a problem being identified as gay.. but the newsfolk still see it as something shameful and, therefore, possibly litigious.

[Jucky]

el polacko,

stop being redundant and saying things that were already mentioned by early commentors.

[Maya Angelou]

and if his mom made him the "substitute husband" wouldn't that have "made" him str8 ? he wasn't made the 'wife' or 'best girlfriend'.. hahaha

NO dummy. The reason that many ex-gay therapy groups give for homosexuality --is that a boy will become gay because of an overbearing/domineering mother and an absent father. The domineering/seductive mother creates a weak sensitive boy in which the boy is trying to avoid the sexuality from his mother. The absent father creates a situation where the boy does not receive any type male bonding or male love or a father figure, thus, inducing the boy to search for it his whole life. So this is true? NO.
This theory, as scientists and psychologists researched, shows that this does not cause a person's sexual orientation.
And again, you could just take a loook around, most gays grow up in normal situations with lack of childhood trauma or abuse.