Peterson Toscano has three recent posts he describes as “awesome” he feels have gone unappreciated by Ex-Gay Watch. Said posts are based on principals Peterson was taught in the Love In Action program and include scans of select pages. Who am I to say no to Peterson? Voila, the posts are titled:
The Ex-Gay Lifestyle
How Ex-Gay Therapies Made Me More Desirable to GAYS!
Submission for Bondage Lovers
A passage from How Ex-Gay Therapies Made Me More Desirable to GAYS! caused me to laugh out loud and awaken my roommate:
Once I began to hang out with “ex-gays”, I received lessons on how to present myself as a white heterosexual protestant male. My pastor had written a book that revealed how gay men were often “limp wristed” and effeminate. An “ex-gay” roommate of mine coached me on how to bring the inflection of my voice down to a more masculine level.
At the beginning of my two-year stint at Love in Action (LIA), I received the Steps Out Program Manual with the front cover partial image of a manly workman firmly gripping his toolbox. In fact, this same image appears on nearly every third page of the 374-page book.
Don’t expect much out of me for the next week. We’re submitting plans for a 400 unit condo complex to the city of Las Vegas before Thanksgiving.
How odd. I have a toolbox just like that. Am I now straight?(Actually I have two. One is a wee one, made by dad and given to me when I was about 6 or 7. I still have all the child-size tools that I used to “help” dad with.)And when you have nieces and you’re handy with tools… this is what they get for Xmas (including the cubby house the stove and sideboard are in, which Dad and Grant knocked up. All those doors, drawers and knobs work BTW.)Am I being gender appropriate enough now Rev. Smid??? I wonder why it hasn’t had any impact on my “same-sex attraction disorder”.
That is a gorgeous play kitchen, Grant! I can’t believe it didn’t at least make you have an impure thought or two about Anna Kournikova.
These exercises in gender-role rehabilitation that you see in various ex-gay ministries confuse the hell out of me. I don’t get the logic behind it at all.
I don’t mean this in a cruel way, but the most absurd post I think I ever read on scatteredwords was the one where Ben is talking about doing some kind of remodeling work with a bunch of other guys.
Can someone explain to me how remodeling makes you stop being gay? And if it does, why do all my gay friends have kitchens that look like something you’d see on “Cooking with Emeril”?
And I guess the answer you’d get from the ex-gay community is that it’s not the remodeling that ungays you, it’s some process that happens in the course of the remodeling or the hay baling or calf roping or whatever gender appropriate activity is taking place. But what is that process? Nobody seems to be able to explain it.
The part of Ben’s post that I had the hardest time making sense of was this passage where he’s contrasting his own childhood to the life of this six-year-old boy who’s working on this project alongside the grown-ups. He means to imply, I think, that the boy is going to grow up to be a heterosexual because he’s experiencing “authentic male interaction” from an early age.
Now here’s the part that struck me as really odd. Ben says of the boy, “I was impressed that he knows what a five gallon bucket was.”
Now, I wanted to ask– and I’m honestly still wondering– isn’t a five-gallon bucket just a bucket that holds five gallons? Like your paint comes in when you’re painting your house? That’s the kind of bucket Ben’s talking about?
I guess it’s kind of unusual that a child would have such in-depth bucket knowledge at such a young age, but what does that have to do with anybody’s sexuality.
I have a couple of five gallon buckets in my garage, and I’m as gay as a fan dancer at a Cher concert.
grantdale,
yeah, yeah. You’re just trying to trick us into thinking you made the little kitchen. We aren’t fooled. We know the REAL gift you made was the cute little pink dress.
😉
If working with a tool box made you straight, I’d be straighter than the pit crew at Nascar. My entire family is in construction (and preaching – yeah, I know, Jesus complex). I’m sure I hammered more nails in my teens than James Dobson ever has.
Interesting tool box in the picture, but the contents appear to be a mess. We have two plastic tool boxes, with the contents carefully arranged so that we can easily find them. They both have covers so that the tools don’t become dusty.
Has anyone noticed that sports like tennis and golf…the outstanding female athletes tearing up their competition are GIRLS of Amazonian proportions?
The Williams sisters should scare the average MAN from attempting anything rude with them.
The new Chinese sensation of the ladie’s golf links is already six feet tall and she’s not fully grown yet.
And of course, women’s basketball has athletes extraordinarily tall for females.
Height, grace, musculature…this is about certain gene pools.
But also what certain disciplines will do to the human form.
That’s HUMAN, not male or female.
As a tall, very trim, athletic woman, I’ve had times when I’ve intimidated some men.
I look strong, and I know it.
I WANT to….why should I put up with knuckleheads in my face because they think they can intimidate ME?
But being a woman, it’s unexpected. Decades ago, it used to make me a curiosity to be seen in a weight room (lifting heavy) until more girls and women of sports distinction became more common.
Gone too, is the myth that strong women had to have the equivalent BULK of men.
Men are taking women in sports more seriously and girls don’t have to be slumped over in an attempt to hide their height and physical strength.
WHATEVER explodes a stereotype about men and women is fine by me.
The ex gay movement is full of people still trying to work irrational gender roles into their philosophy.
THAT is what is unnatural.
To disallow a person’s talent and characteristics and force them aside because of gender.
I dont think these people understand the word ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’.
They don’t seem to be able to have a discussion that goes outside of certain arbitrarily established boundaries, for THEM.
I sent Randi my picture.
I shave my head.
Anybody else wants to see it, you are welcome to.
Men and women are not pure and separate entities.
There’s a little or a lot of each in all of us.
And our alternatives in between.
That’s what gay people are.
That’s to keep the human race entertained and from being lonely and men and women from hurting each other too much…perhaps while God is away on other business.
I think I should mention something here.
I don’t know if it’s more a European colonial thing that started all this. Or the role of women in Asia…precisely because of their slight size.
Thankfully, tall Asian women are becoming more common.
The Masai of Africa are tall people. The average woman from that group is over six feet tall.
The women shave their heads, the men grow theirs long.
It’s requiring men to be superior and women to be inferior and whatever variation of that, is what’s unnatural.
And there is a gazillion ways that prove it.
Two things happened today to keep my shoulders up for the fray.
Another call from a young friend, just needing that voice of comfort.
The other, the latest post from DL Foster. I will take your counsel to not give him oxygen.
But perhaps there’s a young gay person out there vulnerable to his nastiness.
Had he been the other voice I spoke to today, I would gird my resources to help him without judging his being gay.
And without any religious or any other ulterior reason to do so.
Just motivated by helping someone in a crisis.
I thank you for my education here gang, and your intellect is powerful. I respect that.
I love kids.
I am the moral and spiritual custodian of a lot of young minds. Something that’s come from being a neighbor, a volunteer and I get along well with teenagers.
Gay teenagers are a large part of it too. I can’t lie or betray my young friends with ignorance or more of the same hurtful situations already experience by them.
I can imagine a lot of you now as teenagers. The things you tell me you experienced, I’m hoping to help my young friends avoid.
They are counting on me and I don’t want to let them down.
You are helping me learn a lot for them. It’s not just about me.
I’ve learned that being a NON religious person is far, far less threatening and kids have a chance to be more forthcoming about what bothers them.
You’re a big help to some interesting and very smart teenagers gay and not.
BTW, Foster’s last post about me gave them a giggle.
One emailed me and said “Ig’nint is as ig’nint does!”
Timothy said:yeah, yeah. You’re just trying to trick us into thinking you made the little kitchen. We aren’t fooled. We know the REAL gift you made was the cute little pink dress.Actually no, those were these hideous pink Barbi numbers that both girls wanted, but ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod… I DID make the blue skirt in the second photo. Arghhh!!!Here was I pretending to be all butch and handy with tools and you’ve discovered I am also mighty handy on the Husqvarna. And a Bernina overlocker. I can also make pattern blocks.Dang, I guess I’m still gay.
Raj said:We have two plastic tool boxes, with the contents carefully arranged so that we can easily find them. They both have covers so that the tools don’t become dusty.Carefully arranged, and you worry about dust???GAY!!!!
grantdale at November 18, 2005 11:35 PM
I know that your are joking, but I’ll explain the “dust” comment. Dust can be very gritty and irritate the working parts of tools. The tools’ longevity can be enhanced if they are regularly cleaned and protected from dust while in storage.
Beyond that, yes, Gay.
I’m seriously thinking about contacting LIA to counsel my straight friend on losing his feminine mannerisms and to inject some masculinity in his voice as it is mighty gay sounding. He is as straight as straight goes but to meet him, if you bought into stereotypes, you would swear that he was as gay as the day is long, but nothing could be further from the truth. Getting lost in stupid sterotypes sure takes a lot of credibility out of these organizations. Myself, I could toss a football that would knock the wind of out James Dobson and yes, I hold my toolbox with a firm grip. If this wasn’t so dangerous, it would be a joke.
Damn you, Peterson Toscano!
Your manly tool box illustration made me think of an old thread on scatteredwords about some sort of ex-gay house remodeling therapy, and I just couldn’t resist making an off-hand comment about that.
And this morning I see that Ben is mentioning me by name on his blog!
And what’s really embarassing is he’s making it sound like I don’t know the difference between a one-gallon bucket and a five-gallon bucket!
Now I feel like I need to go in my garage and take a picture of the damn bucket and post it on the web!
Then Ben and his friends will probably say it’s a doctored photo, and no gay man could possibly have a five-gallon bucket in his garage and how do you even carry a five-gallon bucket home and “gay propaganda” and yada yada yada.
Well, it’s not like I went out and bought the bucket. The painting contractor just left me a bucket with some leftover paint for when I need to do touch ups.
Ironically, the bucket contains Benjamin Moore Peach Kiss, the gayest housepaint you ever saw in your life.
Tim’s post reminded me of when I attended my younger sister’s wedding with a friend of mine. After the ceremony, my friend commented, “Except for the fact that he’s marrying your sister, I’d swear that your brother-in-law is gay.”
“That’s why he’s getting to marry her,” I replied.
Her (and my) two older sisters had married classically masculine, overtly heterosexual men – two classic cases of ‘marry in haste, repent at leisure’.
kurt,
I’ve learned ex-gays love it when you mention them, even in passing. It gives them a chance to say “they’re obsessing about me” and feel like they matter.
But what can you expect from sites dedicated to writing about ME and MY experiences and MY opinions about ME and what people are saying about ME and what God is saying to ME about ME (and occasionally how I’M not like them).
Of course, I’m certainly not talking about any site in particular, not even the one you mentioned (or we’ll just get more “they’re talking about ME”). There are plenty of sites dedicated to getting attention and public whining and they’re all the same.
To be fair, we all do chat about ourselves here at XGW. But I think we do at least try to keep it somewhat on topic and the topic isn’t ME (at least not today).
About ME this time…
My garage has several five-gallon buckets from when my house was painted 3 years ago. It is also littered with one-gallon buckets for all of the colors of paint that has been added to the interior and exterior over the years.
I pretty much spotted the difference right away. Thank God. My masculinity is intact.
And given that it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, let me add: I am thankful that I was able to brighten an ex-gay’s life by referring to him in passing.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
Jim, Timothy, thanks so much.
I know I should let it go, but I took a picture of my buckets.
I know. I know. It was just something I had to do.
Though many cute comments about buckets and tools, the reality is this ministry is still going strong and gay people are being duped, ripped off, and made a mess emotionally. That is something to be mad about.
These “ministries” are propogating lies against the LGBT community and not challenged enough on their claims. Ask them to show you the records and their statistical outcomes and they can’t probe their successes (or is it they can’t admit their failures). And if you have ever been in a “live-in-ministry”, you get it rammed down your throat 24/7. Then when you get out of it, it takes a long time to accept yourself again.
I hope I’ve said enough about them as I am a graduate of this purported “ministry”. I was in it before they were even really known about it in 1990-91. Trained to be a counselor too. The rude awakening came 2 years after I left. It took a number of years before I could even go on a date with a man, let alone be intimate with them.
I hear people making jokes about these “ministries”, but think about the people who get sucked into their lies and then when they fail, they blame themselves. John Paulk (formerly of Focus on the Family) was caught in a gay bar and lost his job. Sure, he still claims it was a lapse in judgement, but it was the truth surfacing. Most of you may think “Good, he deserved to get caught”. But it is religious society who has hurt another gay person. I hope he did the responsible thing by his wife and kids. I’ll leave that to your judgement.
So next time you hear about the “ex-gays” and think about how silly it sounds, there are real people involved in those ministries who aren’t a joke and horribly misguided. They need our love and support to be who they truly are.
Jerry, how would you respond to ex-gays and their sympathizers who would tell you that your walking away from your ex-gay identity was something equivalent to a drunk who starts drinking again after attending AA?