Gay Cure MERGED

You guys are being goofy. Has anyone considered the possibility that it's not genetic? It's simply a part of who you are? There are a lot of things in this world that science can't seem to explain to us, why not this? What if it's not a choice, but it's not genetically pre-determined? It could just be engrained in your soul. It could simply be a part of who you are. OR what the hell, what if it is a choice??? (Although if it were, then why are only some people able to make that choice while others find absolutely no attraction to the same sex??) Maybe it's not genetic and we have nothing to worry about. The population won't all turn out gay. And if they do, meh, big deal. If they're happy, then who cares?? I just wonder when people are going to start to realize that THE SEXUALITY OF OTHERS DOES NOT AFFECT YOU. I'm guessing never, but we can all have dreams, right?

 

It is not supported at all by the case study results. It is not going to make you gay, just because you grow up with gay parents. It may be 'goofy' to acknowledge the scientific data that seems to indicate that environment and genetics are both factors, not just environment. I know of two men who raised five kids. Unfortunately, they all turned out straight. And the gay people I know grew up in straight households with straight siblings. They didn't 'model' their straight family. Because they are just who they are. that is who they are, and that is good.

 

The possible "environmental factors" come down to "something in the water", if you will. Hormonal changes during pregnancy, and early development of the child.

In early development, psychological factors seem to create certain sexual needs, if you will, but there has yet to be any direct connection to that and homosexuality. While having a week father and strong mother figure, as Freud pointed out almost a century ago, may lead to an effeminate or submissive boy, that is true of gay as well as straight. It doesn't make you gay, it makes you passive. There is no proof that you can raise somebody to be gay or to be straight. Exodus and other crazy Christians will try to torment these people into living a heterosexual lifestyle, but they do more harm than good.

 

There are increasing numbers of people coming out of Exodus (and other similar groups) who would certainly disagree with your idea that its harmful.

What exactly is the problem with someone using therapy to 'convert themselves' from homosexuality to heterosexuality.

This gets back to the notion that if they become 'straight' then there is no loss here because, after all, they think they are.
That is now their understanding of what they want.
So wheres the problem?

 

The biggest problem that I have with groups like that is that instead of letting someone be happy with who they are, they want to force you to change. What you generally end up with is a "recovered homosexual" who is miserable and living a lie. They are NOT "straight because they think they are", they are living a hetero lifestyle because they believe they should, no matter how wrong it feels. If said "recovered homosexual" then marries, instead of two people who may have been perfectly happy without each other, you end up with two people who are unhappy most of the time. Their life together is a lie, based on a lie, and held together by further lies. Not my idea of a good thing.

 

The problem is that they are getting their nosy asses involved in someone else's personal business that has nothing to do with them. They are creating a negative situation out of a perfectly positive one. They are contributing to lifelong depression, heightened suicide rates, hate crimes, etc. They ARE doing more harm than good. And if you know what that "good" would be, please share it with the rest of us, because I can't seem to see any.

 

It's no more wrong than a black man having cosmetic surgery to look whiter. The argument is generally that people are being urged to "correct" something about themselves which is only a problem because other people are making it one. If it's their decision, it's their decision.

I suppose there's also a relativist issue when you're talking about something as metaphysical as orientation, likes and dislikes etc. If someone is made to want something, on the one hand you're changing an aspect of their self, but on the other hand you're also programming them not to notice/mind. So no real difference, right? Maybe. Ignoring the ethical aspects of changing someone's personality, which I'm sure will be argued to death, I'd feel a lot better about people choosing to change orientation if I knew no-one was profiting from it.

How would you feel about a camp/clinic where straight people could make themselves homosexual/bisexual? Forget whether or not you think it would be a popular service, but simply on moral/ethical grounds, would that be something you would tolerate/object to?

 

Actually, I meant more that, if a gay guy stays in the closet and raises a family with a woman, and if there's no miraculous conversion, he's always going to have at least a little resentment towards that family. I don't believe that any relationship, especially one with children involved, benefits from being founded on a lie.

But yeah, re the homosexual children thing, it doesn't work. I know a few people with gay parents who aren't gay, and plenty of gay people who didn't have gay parents. It doesn't add up. I guess it's an argument against homosexuality being passed on genetically, but I don't know enough about genetics to say that for sure. I think if it is genetic, it must be something more complex than "if your parents are gay then you will be because you have their genes".

 

Ok.
I think we need to get some facts straight (no pun intended) about what is happening with Exodus Int.

Fact: There is no such thing as 'Forcing'.
Get off of that.
Stop making up ridiculous things that are really the opposite of anything happening. Nobody is 'Forced' and anyone who decides to go attend workshops goes because they WANT TO.
They can leave, go to sleep, question, reject, go home, embrace whatever they want, whenever they want.
Nobody is even compelling anyone to be or do anything.
Im even told by a guy in that - they will actualy encourage people who appear disinterested to leave the program because they would rather have only interested people to work with.
btw.. Like AA, they are not 'telling people what to do' anymore than its the people themselves who are supporting each other through the courses.

Get off this nonsensical 'forcing' anything.

The reason we refer to physical appearance and behavior as 'two different things' is because they are 'two different things'.

Also: Stop disrespecting people by trying to attach behavior as equateable to their cause.

Again, nobody is 'Urging' anyone to do anything.
People join Exodus because they URGE themselves.
Period.
They will meet many people just like them with the same interests.
Nobody has to urge anyone to anything.

Total Idiocy here.
Total.
Nobody is 'canvassing' anyone and nobody goes 'nosing' into anything and Exodus members can tell Exodus when and what to 'nose into' or not 'nose around in.
The person joining is making THEIR personal business whoevers business THEY decide or not.
Seriously.. what or who is telling you people these hysterical urban legends?

 

to be fair erasmus, i agree that not one is being physically forced, but i dont think you can deny that pressure from society in general is a very REAL FORCE. so in the way that people may be 'pushed' to want to convert to being straigth (and perhaps redundant to point out that the conversion is to the ACCEPTED NORM), i dont think this is really 'total' idiocy, because if they 'think they are straight' why are their sexual impulses homosexual in the first place? And if they are not homosexual in the first place then they are straight and there is nothing to 'convert'.....
so of course people from exodus are not bullies who directly physically or psychologically 'force' people to want to be straight, but i do think that when you are a minority in a still conservative society, psychological pressure can be a very real thing for you....
just consider the amount of people that are coming out these days because in some cities there is more intellectual freedom to be who you want, compared to the amount of gay men and women who 50 years ago would never have dreamt of coming out (probably never even faced it personally) because there was so little possibility of them leading an otherwise normal life in their society..... thats what i mean by society as a real psychological force in people's lives and decisions.

 

Exactly. The urging doesn't have to be done by people within the project itself. People may be recommended and pressured towards it by church groups and religiously minded parents, or as has been said, simply through the insistence of their society that they are abnormal and that their sexuality is equatable to a deformity.

I find it interesting that you picked me up on the cosmetic surgery analogy, but really, all that comes down to is a basic disagreement over whether homosexuality is something you do or something you are. Substitute "nature" for "appearence" and that's basically the debate. I would argue that being gay is more to do with your nature than behaviour. I'm consider behaviour to be things like what brand of fabric softener you buy, whether you choose to go to college, rather than whether you have a cleanly nature or whether you're intelligent.

It's obviously not something we're going to agree on though. I was just trying to say that if someone is encouraged to believe that there is something wrong with their nature, is it right to humour them? You get those women who have breast enlargements every six months, not because they have small breasts but because they suffer from low self-esteem, poor body image etc. Is it right for a surgeon to keep operating on them?

I am not bringing this up because I am confused. I am bringing this up because this is the issue I have with personality modification. If someone is teased because they wear glasses, should they stop wearing them, go for contact lenses, or should they learn to defend themselves? If someone is homosexual and sections of society encourage them to despise themselves because of that fact, should they stop having sex, learn to be attracted to women, or give society the finger?

Don't even try that one.

 

From their website



"What is Exodus?

Exodus is a nonprofit, interdenominational Christian organization promoting the message of "Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.""


Freedom from homosexuality that makes it sounds like an addiction. Sort of a twelve step program for Gays. "Hi! My name is Paul and I am a queer ---- Hi Paul." Through the power of Jesus Christ is that like driving out demons into swine or what. Does this involve laying on of hands? Do you have to pick up snakes?

 

Check out Ex-Gay Watch, The site is written by gays who tried the Ex-Gay Ministry, They report on the recidivists of Exodus and others.

A humorous report of former ex-gay How"Ex-Gay" Therapies Made Me More Desirable to GAYS!

Documentary Fish Can't Fly.
Review of "Fish Can't Fly"

A teenagers desperate plea for help Evangelicals Concerned: 'ABC-TV Debates Ex-gay Myth',

Heart wrenching.

Another poor kid dragged to Ex-gay In which yet another teen is made to feel disordered.

It's a horrid little buisness.

 

can we just all agree that as a christian organisation, exodus is departing with a clearly very narrow frame of mind?? i mean, to more devout christians, homosexuality is 'bad' simply because god says so. simply. and that is not the debate here (and is pretty much a pointless debate anywhere....)
so -unless someone is profoundly religious and 'disgusted' by their own homosexual urges, in which case if they'll have an easier time living 'straight' then good on them for trying- why should anyone be encouraged to 'cure' themselves of being gay if not to satisfy a broader society based largely on christian ethics?

 

It may not be 'wrong', but it is, imo, a poor choice. If someone goes against their heart, solely due to the stressful coercion of others, that is sad. I do not condemn anyone who does, but I feel that they have been beaten into submission. Whether it is liposuction, a facelift, a bald man getting a toupee, a woman getting augmentation, accepting workplace harrassment, discrimination or slurs, when one makes changes they wouldn't have without others telling them they had to, that decision is made for the wrong reasons.

 

bad toupee: $49.99
liposuction treatment: $499.99
Lifetime of romantic fulfillment & happiness: priceless

This is what they do to us.
They convince us to sacrifice our happiness.
It's not only sad, it's so wrong.

 

Sure, but turn the situation around.
A guy comes on here and says that he is having a lot of anxiety, difficulty and trouble because - although he has been in heterosexual relationships and all, he has this constant urge to want to be homosexual.
Maybe he even tried some homosexual sex before and although it was awkward (or not) he knows that is what he wants to persue.

YOU GUYS and honestly, every 'Gay Org' on the planet along with celebrity endorsers would NOT HESITATE to point out how he was 'A Homosexual' and the most beautiful thing would be to start acting like one.
The WORST thing he could do would be to try and deny it (thats the worst sin of all).

NObody here would be suggesting that he should 'Stop trying to change what he is.."
or
"Obviously you were born a hetero if you had those urges before.."
or
Encouraging and rallying to have him stop trying to be white (gay) and learn to accept his HETEROsexuality just as his skin colour - because thats 'who you are'.

Am I right people?

 

yea, i get what your saying, but my point is that it shouldnt even amount to an issue of 'who you are definetively'.... i mean say this guy your talking about, although he's had hetero urges 'up until now', is now begining to get homosexual urges.... so your saying that since he first experience hetero then he must be 'born hetero'... but still the question remains: if being gay or straight or whatever wasnt at all a problem in the eyes of 'society', then why would anyone have to worry about 'what we end up as'? i mean, if this supposed guy is now getting homosexual urges, as far as i know what 'urges' means, he finds other men sexually attractive. so if he has sex with a man, wont he be satisfying these, albeit 'new', urges? so i dont see a 'problem' either. and if in some years time he begins to get hetero urges again (maybe this guy is just bisexual....) then if he has sex with a women, he will still fulfill his sexual identity. it doesnt have to be so fixed, i think for alot of people thats unrealistic

 

... but i dont get the comparison btw gay/heterosexual and white/black..??

 

I think you'll find you spell that "amirite".

I've never personally encountered any LGBT organisation that encourages people to exclude heterosexuality from their life in favour of exclusively homosexual orientation. I seriously don't know where you're getting that from.

As for people on here, they try and be supportive. No-one here claims to be able to cure heterosexuality, they just offer support and encouragement to people who are asking for help. No-one is saying "go gay and never go back to heterosexuality because it's unhealthy and wrong". No-one I've noticed, anyway. There may be a tendency for people to encourage experimentation based on minor urges (I personally try to avoid doing this), but even then, where's the harm? If someone tries it with both sexes they're in a far better position to make an informed decision about whether they are straight, gay, neither or both than if they just stick to one inspite of their curiosities. It's not about conversion, just making people feel better about those urges. A lot people are taught that those things are sinful, unnatural or whatever, when even my relatively conservative sex ed taught us that it's almost abnormal not to have some kind of homo urge, particularly in your teens.

So, back to those evil "GayOrgs": If you were just trying to present a hypothetical, fine, and I apologise, but really, if you're just trying to make us sympathise with your cause, making shit up isn't going to help. I'm calling you on this one: show us some evidence of an LGBT organisation that explicitly states as a goal that people should be exclusively homosexual rather heterosexual/bisexual. In fact, show us 3. If " every 'GayOrg' on the planet" does it, it shouldn't be hard to find that many.