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Programme on BBC 2 television, Tuesday, 9 August 2005, at 2100-2150 hrs BST.
"An inevitably controversial film tracing one man's quest to change his sexuality. David Akinsanya believes he wasn't born homosexual, but 'learnt' to be gay following his traumatic experiences growing up in a children's home, where older boys abused him. He says he's never found a satisfying gay relationship, and longs to have children. Willing to try anything once, he checks out one of the many centres in the US which believe, based on religious convictions, that they can turn gay people straight. This is the engaging, moving story of Akinsanya's visit there, and the insights he gains in the process. Unsurprisingly the Memphis, Tennessee, 'Love in Action' organisation doesn't prove to have all the answers."
I think this could be quite a harrowing programme.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Did anyone else watch this?
For the benefit of everyone who didn't, or couldn't:
The narrator, David, is a gay man who is disillusioned with being gay, hating the promiscuity and shallowness of the "gay scene" and unable to find a long-term partner. He wants to be able to marry and have a family (something I imagine a number of us can sympathise with).
He enrolls on an American Christian course that aims to "cure" people of their homosexuality. This entails a lot of group therapy (rather like Alcoholics Anyonymous), a lot of talking about their problems, and a lot of stringent regulations about personal habits and appearance. By constantly re-visiting unhappy (and even abusive) episodes from the past -- "I bawled, and bawled and bawled - the whole point of these programmes is to make you feel sorry for yourself" -- they try to make you turn your back on a gay lifestyle: "all they will do is turn you into a bible-basher". (Quotes paraphrased from memory.) He eventually drops out of the course, unable to see any chance that they will actually change either his sexuality or his beliefs.
Negative propaganda aside, and basing my opinion solely on what I saw in the programme, the purpose of these organisations is to allow people who are unable to reconcile their Christian beliefs with their homosexuality. Essentially, it gives them an opportunity to say "this marks the point at which my sins end". The course will not genuinely "cure" anyone: even one of the "cured" said of himself, when asked by the narrator if he was still gay, "I am a person who struggles with same-sex attraction." By regarding it as a continuing struggle, it is evident that these people are still not happy with who they are; the course has only gone to reinforce their perception that it would not be right for them to go and live a (perhaps happy) gay lifestyle.
It is an interesting question whether anyone has been "cured" of homosexuality without having a grave moral objection to it. It seems likely to me that such a course simply gives a person an excuse to tell others that they are no longer gay. In a Bible-bashing environment, where being gay is considered wrong, this serves only to allow friends and relatives to feel happier about themselves, and ignore the problems with their own beliefs.
Does anyone have any comments?
David
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Well.... Some people get it and some people do not.
Sitting around in therapy sessions and following some regulations...
This all seems like a freaking walk in a park on a nice sunny day...
You have not a clue what a good aversion therapy session can do to you...
Not a single clue...........
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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You know, marc, maybe it is time to remind them what happpens. Thsi is all sop alien to today's generation in civilised nations. Our generation was different. It made you the man y9ou are and me the man I am. Neither of us is "whole" yet each is as content as he will be. You went through it, I lived in fear because it was an ever present threat.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Okay, I imagine I am perhaps being overly naive here...
But what is about aversion therapy that is so awful?
I ask, not because I wish to stir the waters, but because I honestly would like to know. You are at liberty not to respond, or to flame me as much as you like.
In Timmy's case, is it not rather that he feared being ostracised by his parents and friends, being sent away, and being a disappointment to them, that made him fear therapy?
I understand that aversion therapy involves such things as electric shocks when looking at photographs, depending on the amount of time spent looking at them. Could you not train yourself to look at the "right" photographs for longer and the "wrong" photographs for shorter to prevent these shocks? Am I missing something?
David
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I will add that one of the most awful episodes of my life did not involve any type of physical therapy, but that it, the loss of family and friends, combined with my low self-esteem, anxiety and loneliness, caused far more distress than any mere physical torture could have done. I still shudder and sometimes even cry when I think of it.
I believe that psychological torture is the worst type of all, especially when administered in the belief that they are "helping" you.
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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This all came flooding back.........
.........I hate reading this ....... it brings back alot of memories that i would rather keep burried.......
I grew up living in a suburban town about 45 minutes out of Boston. I come from a good family, and though my parents were busy with their own careers, they did manage for the most part to be there for me when I needed them. About the time I was 11 or so I began to realize I was *different* from the rest of my friends. They were starting to talk to girls and I just wasn't interested. At the time I really didn't think much about it. In the sixties, we did not learn about sexuality and its related issues in school, and such things were certainly not discussed in the home. It wasn't an issue my parents were willing to entertain.
As I progressed through Junior High and on to High School the feelings became stronger and as my friends began full fledged dating, my heart just wasn't in it. When changing for gym, I would find my self checking out the field, and I would struggle not to pop a boner. When the guys got together to compare notes about their (more than likely imaginary) sexual conquests, I never had any thing to add to the conversation. I would get kidded about it and as kids are, eventually my silence *to them at least* began to scream volumes.
After a time of sidelong glares and under-their-breath innuendo I became aware of out-and-out rumors. Things like "I've never seen HIM with a girl, he MUST be a queer," and notes pushed into my locker. That kind of stuff. Kids really can be so cruel.
At first I would just try to shrug it off, thinking to myself, what the hell do they know, its only talk. I would try and convince my self I'd start to like girls soon, or tell my self I was only shy. But I knew the truth and couldn't bring my self to just deny who I was. I felt I had to be true to my convictions, if not openly then at least to myself. I couldn't just turn my back on the feelings that made me who I was.
I had never had many friends; the only person I ever hung around regularly with was Tim from next door. We had been friends since we were little.
One day, after school some wise ass decided that if Timmy was my friend, then we just had to be *FRIENDS*, so to prove himself a big, shit for brains, macho jock, he and a couple of his idiot toadies beat Timmy up.
They hit him because he was my friend!
So now it wasn't only talk any longer! Timmy did not deserve to be hurt! What they had been saying hurt me, bad!!!!!! But now it went beyond talk!!!!!!!!
In those days there was no Internet where a person could go for answers or help. You could not even talk to the school counselors at that time. It just wasn't done; things such as this were not spoken about in polite society. I was on my own!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then the shit hit the fan, I went to my best friends house to pick him up, we were supposed to go somewhere, I don't remember where, His Mom INTERCEPTED me at the door, at which time she said that my best friend since I was five years old, of some ten years was not to be seen with me.
When I asked if I'd done something wrong the answer was, “DID SOMETHING WRONG!!!! YOU’RE A F----- QUEER AND I DON'T WANT TIM TO CATCH IT. I'M NOT GOING TO HAVE MY TIMMY BEATEN UP BECAUSE OF YOU!!!!! YOU WILL STAY AWAY FROM HIM, AND THAT'S FINAL!!!!!!!! And the door slammed shut.
To say the least I was devastated. What was I going to do? Does everybody know!?!? What am I going to do!?!?!?! Oh shit NOOO!!! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!?!?!?
I was feeling utterly despondent, I knew I was Gay, but other than getting an eyeful in the locker room, and a great deal of self satisfaction, (and never even having been caught at that). It was all rumors. Rumors that started at school, and now they were spreading all over town. I was feeling like I was being crushed, utterly destroyed.
To make a long story short, mostly because I don't remember it, I spent that Friday evening drinking a great deal of vodka and taking a great deal of my mom's sleeping pills.
I was rudely awakened in the hospital, to find out it was now Tuesday and to my despair I was still here to have to listen to who has heard the latest GOSIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All I could was cry. I did not want to deal with any of this. Why me?!?!?!?
After a couple more days in the hospital (my only visitor was my Mom) I was released on Sunday.
The next day was Monday and I knew all too well what happens on Monday. School!!!!!!! I did not want to go to school! Not there! Not with those people! They all knew, and they had my attempted suicide as a total validation of their rumors. I did not want to go. I couldn't!
I Begged. I yelled! I screamed! I threatened to do it again, and this time I'd do it right!!!!!!! But when my father said, "You will go to school, and there will not be any more discussion of the subject" and he then turned away from me with a look of utter ....................I do not know what it was for sure, but I can tell you this one thing for sure, it was not admiration.
THAT'S, IT, NOT MY DAD TOO, NOOO! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING.
So I went to school that Monday. My Father dropped me off at the door himself to make sure I got there. He said not one word to me all the way there. All that day not one person said one single word to me. Nothing, it was like I wasn't even there, I was exiled, a non person. I may as well have died that Friday night. In their eyes, in all their eyes, I was dead.
Now it was Tuesday evening again, and also again, I was rudely awakened in the hospital. Shit!!!!!!!!!!!!! God damn it!! Can’t I get anything right?
After the judge ordered me to undergo thirty days *observation* and I was deemed, to be no longer a threat to myself, my Mom saw fit to enroll me into a private school, where I could start fresh *get put out of sight* and no one would have to deal with me and my *strange habits* ---------especially my father. After that the only time I ever went back home was for holidays, and I have never gone into town since.
I have to say this, this week it all flooded back into me, quite by accident, but I just have to get this out before I explode. When I was 14 years old and I was under a lot of stress (I tried to commit suicide two times in a week) a Judge, an esteemed champion of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, saw fit to expose me to the kind and caring ministrations of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. I was promptly strapped to a gurney, and hauled off to one of their many and varied pleasure palaces. Once there I was treated to all manners of comfort. All the Thorazine I could tolerate, Thorazine is a drug that destroys any effort to string together a coherent thought. It is like a living death..... And a nice comfortable bed, which I was strapped to..24 hours a day. When it was time to eat it was done through a tube stuck up my nose and down my throat and they pumped it in. When it was time to go to the bathroom, I did right there, I was too drugged to talk to ask to go.
Now I think we should all praise Thomas Edison, after all without him we would not have such wonders such as electric lights, which was on all the time in my 6 foot by 10 foot cell ,,, or another wonderful byproduct *electro-shock therapy*, five times a week at no extra charge, "EST" As they loved to call it. I got strapped to a table, then electrodes are placed on my head, arms and legs, then they would pump enough juice thru me to throw me into convulsions. Then they would stop, wait 3 seconds and do pt over again, and again, and again, for 30 minutes every day, every fucking day. I would scream to be let go, I would beg for them to stop, and they would say take this faggot and push the button again. The smell of those electrodes singing skin and hair still haunts me... "AAAHHHHH!! America what a country, Gotta love it!!!!!!!!" And then the Doctors *if you could call them that* Thinking of nothing but ***MY WELL BEING***, such kindness, it is overwhelming...... They would tell me over and over that I was sick and it was for my own good, and if I would admit that I was a sexual deviant that was the first step toward a ***normal life***. They would strap me into a chair and with several of them there grill me for hours and hours, in shifts to get me to say what I could not say...Every day I cursed my parents for allowing this to go on *for my own good* and I hated them for it. And there wasn't a day I didn't pray to God to end it.....to just let me die.....
All in all I spent nearly A year there............They never broke me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And the center for higher learning they chose to inflict upon me was little better. I was treated like I had the black plague, no body talked to me, teachers included, at meals I sat at a table alone, they would wait for me to finish and leave before they would sit at the table (the tables were for 16 people.......). I ate alone for 3 years. There was a sailing team at the school, and I bought an old boat and restored it from the keel to masthead. When it was finished I asked to join the team, and in front of the entire sailing team, told me to leave, he would not have a queer on his sailing team........
That afternoon I set fire to the boat.....
If this seems a bit disorganized I’m sorry...
..........
There is more..... Ask Tim about all that..... He should have the text file..... I can't go there again .......
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I have access to the file. But a simple precis is that they hurt marc badly with electricty and abuse and drugs to attept to cure the incurable, for homosexuality may deviate form the norm., but it is no less natural for that.
He was rescued by a care worker formally through the courts.
He has had a rough time and good times.
The point is that aversion therapy is legalised torture and brainwashing.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I feared the therapy. I looked it up in encyclopedias. I was terrified of it. It was far worse than one could aimagine, as I learned when talking to the men who were children when committed for therapy.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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You know.........? As time passed I managed to educate myself.
I met a great person and we had a lifetime of adventure in just a few short years. He is gone now and I think about him alot... Sometimes a bit more than others... but I'm handling it good enough I think...
I had a great job for a number of years that took me to alot of places... but that is over now... At least for the time being... Maybe I will go back to it someday... For now though I am having fun growing a retail venture as well as a small computer company that designs and manages websites...
Kevin and I just celebrated another anniversary (4) now... We have a nice big home... albeit hugely crowded with all the usefully useless things we manage to collect...
Yup... For the most part, this is a happy time... Unless something manages rock the boat...
As for boat rocking I have been dealing with a personal problem concerning my Mom's failing health for the past 15 weeks. We still have a couple of unresolved issues but at least she (over the years) came to terms with the fact that I am Gay... Over the past 4 years she and Dad have visited here twice, they both met Kevin... (the first time I was chewing glass) but her and Kevin hit it off big time and now they are great friends... Dad too for that matter... We, Kevin and I are planning a trip to Florida this September to... Well... settle the last few things I have to deal with and have a nice visit...
Yup... things are going to be OK...
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Marc,
I'm really sorry to hear about that, and I'm sorry for having brought it up.
I guess you are right: I don't have a single clue what you went through.
I have seen what happens to people who have had ECT, and I was then - and continue to be - completely astonished and horrified to discover that this still goes on today. I imagine they still have no idea why it "works".
Has the state accepted any liability for the existence of these programmes? Has no-one sued the living daylights out of them?
Best wishes,
David
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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There is nothing wrong with having brought this up. The thing that we all need to know is both how far the world has moved on and how easily it could slide back
Marc may cringe at the memories, but he is brave enough to have shared them. he has conquered a huge number of unpleasant phobias brought on by his judicial mistreatment, and has managed to forgive his family.
We must all remmeber that yesterday's abandoned "treatments" can be easly replaced with other, newer forms of brainwashing. Indeed we need to recognise that they are still in use in less civilised nations, and that ECT is used in clinics still despite having no provable therapeutic benefit.
We also used to be given Insulin Shock Therapy, Oestrogen treatments, and were also lobotomised. We were grist to the experimental mill because we were sick perverts. We were ill, and committed to institutions and had no rights. Homosexual men were not considered to be people.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Isnt it weird that in a group of people, the MEN will be called that and yet the Gay people get called GAY?
I always thought MEN were MEN regardless of sexual orientation.Gay MEN are perceived to be NOT MEN but Gay?
We have an EX Rugby League player who is gay and he couldnt have picked amore manly sport but he is considered GAY first and that is that. I wonder how other non-gay MEN would like someone saying "Oh, he was that Hetro guy...." I dont think so. They would be the first to compalin they were being thought of only as a sex object 
People have a habit of changing your direction through life
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Heteros are not refered to as "heteros"
We call them breeders....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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