Wayne Besen and James Barber both point me to an excellent Apr. 3 article in the Guardian (London).
Using Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out” ex-gay expo in Nashville as a focal point, Going Straight explores the conflicting views of ex-gay researchers Ariel Shidlo and Robert Spitzer, and the confused arguments of ex-gay therapy guru Joseph Nicolosi.
The whole article is well worth reading. Here are key quotes and my reactions…
On the biased data sample provided by Exodus and NARTH to Dr. Robert Spitzer:
It had taken Spitzer more than 18 months to find just 200 or so people willing to describe themselves as successfully converted. He found his interviewees by advertising through ex-gay organisations. Almost half were recruited through ex-gay ministries, and nearly a quarter by Narth. Religion was “extremely” or “very” important to 93% of them. One in five was a mental health professional (Cohen, for example, is a high-profile reparative therapist) or director of an ex-gay ministry, and more than three-quarters had previously lobbied for sexual reorientation. These are people who get paid to say that therapy works.
On Spitzer’s disinterest in followup research — or, for that matter, fresh research upon ex-ex-gays:
“Some people have suggested I ought to do a follow-up study.” The idea would be to see if anyone had fallen off the wagon. “But if you were doing an evaluation of the treatment of cocaine addiction, say, and someone had a relapse, you wouldn’t say that the treatment was of no value, would you?”
You would not. But there is a crucial distinction here, one that undermines the analogy Nicolosi and others frequently like to draw between ex-gays and addicts. A recovering alcoholic will always be an alcoholic; successful treatment can only sustain his willpower. But to suggest an ex-gay can “relapse” implies that sexual reorientation is only ever a triumph of willpower, never a conversion of authentic desire.
On a more methodical study that used a broad data sample:
“We interviewed 182 people who tried very hard to change,” Dr Ariel Shidlo told Newsweek. “The stakes were really high for them. Some really thought that if they didn’t change, they would literally find themselves in hell… And they still failed.”
On reorientation therapy guru Joseph Nicolosi’s (mis)definition of successful cure:
“Using the general definition of cure,” he continues, “the diminishment of problematic behaviour is a cure. I would consider that a successful case.”
We seem to have travelled a long way from the radical claims being made so confidently on stage at Love Won Out. And we are about to depart even farther. “Let’s say,” Nicolosi suddenly suggests, “you work with a man for six months. Let’s say he acts out once a week in the beginning, but when he acts out he tortures himself, beats himself up, thinks he’s a pervert. After six months in therapy, he understands why he acts out. He’s still acting out once a week, but it’s more like a hollow ritual. He’s not as upset with himself, he’s more hopeful of change in the future. Now, his behaviour is still the same. Would you consider that a success?”
Would you?
“Yes,” Nicolosi replies, “I would consider that a success.” Even the most successful ex-gay, he adds casually, is always going to have to keep an eye on himself, to make sure he “doesn’t fall”.
Nicolosi proceeds to misdefine “the gay lifestyle” as a means of contrasting a client’s pre- and post-treatment activities. In his view, apparently, “ex-gay” describes neither sexual attraction nor sexual behavior with the same gender. Instead, Nicolosi defines “ex-gay” as a lifestyle consisting of opposite-gender marriage and children regardless of one’s attractions or extramarital sexual activities.
Nicolosi’s definition of “ex-gay” is better suited to affirmation groups for gay and bisexual men married to women– discussed here by Ex-Gay Watch — than it is to the pro-chastity and gender-role-modification groups that seek referrals through Exodus and Focus on the Family.
The Guardian article’s closing anecdote is emotionally wrenching, as a family is driven to confusion and despair over Love Won Out’s contorted definitions of change — and spiritual damnation.
The family’s torment is all too familiar to ex-ex-gays, such as this one profiled Apr. 1 by the Winston-Salem Journal.
Sad indeed. I wonder what will come of Drew Sermon or Travis Wininger in the brave new future. Are ex-gays even shrinking in numbers though?
>Instead, Nicolosi defines “ex-gay” as a lifestyle consisting of opposite-gender marriage and children regardless of one’s attractions or extramarital sexual activities.
Has Nicolosi re-defined “ex-gay” yet again?
According to “Therapy Terminable and Interminable: “Non-gay Homosexuals” Come Out of the Close” https://math.ucsd.edu/~weinrich/NCLSWNRC.HTML a review of Nicolosi’s book “Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach”
“This is a precedent-setting book, but probably not in ways that the author would appreciate. It sets a milestone in the history of sexual orientation self-acceptance; after homosexuals and bisexuals, the latest out of the closet are “non-gay homosexuals” — Nicolosi’s term for men who are homosexually responsive but who reject the cultural assumptions of the gay world. As the latest in a long list of books which offer therapy to men who wish to change a homosexual orientation to heterosexual, it sets another precedent in that the author is apparently the first to admit that this change is not possible. It is important to understand why the “prochange” school has finally admitted this fact and why they believe that therapy is advisable nevertheless.
“The first six chapters of the book (“Striving for Gender Identity”) ground Nicolosi’s reparative therapy program in this history of mental health views of homosexuality and set out his main theoretical point: male homosexuality emerges from a disturbance of the father-son bond in childhood. Although Nicolosi believes that only one type of homosexuality is caused in this way, it is the type that he believes is amenable to his treatment. He also criticizes other therapeutic approaches to homosexuality, including gay-affirmative psychotherapy and earlier “change” therapies. Absent from the book is a discussion of any effect Nicolosi’s religious beliefs may have had on his convictions; he dedicated the book to the priest founding the homosexual ministry “Courage” and is the founder and clinical director of the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic.
“Nicolosi believes that the underlying homosexual attractions felt by non-gay homosexuals rarely, if ever, disappear. Thus, reparative therapy is aimed at reducing their salience, encouraging heterosexual contacts and eventual marriage and children, with celibacy the supported option for those who do not find their heterosexual attraction reaching levels that would allow sexual contacts with women.
According to the Guardian article, Nicolosi still acknowledges celibacy as an option.
But he divorces homosexuality from both attraction and behavior. Someone can be having sex once a week with another person of the same sex, but if the person aspires to heterosexuality someday, or if they have reduced their same-sex activity from, say, a daily compulsion, then Nicolosi declares the person changed and therefore cured — an ex-gay success story.
If you can’t reach the bar, lower the bar.
Defeat is transformed into victory at the point of a pen!
Incredible. Still locking the gullible into a miserably frustrating life of therapy with no end… malpractice, anyone?
You know, by that standard, it’s hard to avoid being an ex-gay success story someday. All you have to do is reach a point where you can no longer maintain the sexual schedule of your youth :-).
That’s one of the things that makes me chuckle, Lynn… In the conversations I have with some ex-gay folks and their supporters, they’re so much more focused on (obsessed with?) sex than I am.