On an Australian radio program ex-gay Richard Cohen may have said the stupidist thing to date about ex-gay ministries:
RICHARD COHEN: I was exclusively homosexual. Now I am exclusively heterosexual. I’m not interested in guys. I feel my “guy-ness”. If somebody wants to change, it’s guaranteed. It can be done.
What little grasp on reality that Cohen ever had seems to have been jarred loose the last time he beat a pillow with a tennis racquet. And someone should remind Cohen that one of the biggest criticisms of his own brand of therapy is that it isn’t his own “guy-ness” that he’s been cuddling.
There was a segment on the ABC television program ‘Foreign Correspondent’ just last night on this, which probably has a bit more to it. I’m trying to get a recording of it off a friend.
The ABC, being a public broadcaster, uploads much of its materials onto the web. They might upload it to the website for the program in a few days time.
Hopefully it will.
There are 84,000 not very nice jokes swirling around in my head regarding his “feeling his guyness.” I’m sure y’all can guess most of them.
Do the people who book these programs just enjoy a train wreck or something?
I constantly feel my guy-ness–that is why I am gay.
Well, that idea of Cohen’s along with his ideas about having a guy play sports (throw a ball) and how your father upset your mother during her pregnancy with you… will get you absolutely nowhere.
Who is doing exorcisms? All I can think of is that crazy bunch out in Oregon that preaches about demons. Would make pounding a tennis racket into a pillow rather tame by comparison.
What seems really odd is that the Aussie reporter on “The World Today” gave his piece sort of an edge. As if the ex-gay movement was a cancer spreading across America and if Australia wasn’t careful, it would metastasize into Oz. And why did I imagine that the slow parts from Feudin’ (Dueling) Banjos from Deliverance was playing in the background of that piece. Or am I projecting?
If Cohen is telling the truth (which I sincerely doubt) then he must be the ONLY “ex-gay” to have so successfully “converted” his sexual orientation 180 degrees from “exclusively homosexual” to “exclusively heterosexual”. I wonder if he’d be willing to submit to some scientific/medical testing to confirm his “miracle”.
If you beat a square peg hard enough, for long enough, you can make it fit into a round hole – but it is still a square peg, forced into being something that it is not.
I have run across three ex-gays in various forums on the Internet of various levels of rhetoric about their ‘conversions.’ All claim to have been ‘heavily’ into ‘the lifestyle’ and attribute their status to their strong faith in Christ. However, the three are very different in their rhetoric concerning gay issues which I’ll refer to as mild, strong, and fanatical.
As far as I know only the mild and strong ex-gay men were married with children and have been for the long term. It’s difficult to gauge but it seemed to me that mild had the most grounding there in his family. He, mild, was also the one who would talk in favor of gay rights and was most understanding of what gay peoples experience.
Strong was more adamant, against any gay rights as being anti-family and yet there was a compassion there in his demeanor and he sometimes spoke against the more extreme of homophibic speech and measures which someone might propose. He also may be the eldest of the three. But there came a time when I sought to question him on his ‘conversion’ and learned that he worked yet in an ‘ex-gay ministry.’ Questions concerning the extent of his ‘conversion’ went unanswered.
Then comes the fanatical. He claims to have been the homosexual the AFA or FotF tells us we all are. His rhetoric is as homophobic as it can get, so far as to even using Cameron. Yes, he claims homosexuals are mostly pedophiles, so I’ve asked him how many kids he corrupted before his conversion. Never has an answer has been forthcoming. His fundamentalist religious rhetoric is no less fanatical. He claims to have been instantly converted by the spirit of the Pentecostal movement known as the Toronto Blessing and is continuing in a ministry work, though apparently not associated with any gay conversion work.
Well, I think we know the lesson we can draw from these three. True, my view in that regard might be due to my own sexual orientation, but I think it is obvious that ‘mild’ is being the most true to his own feelings. Beyond that one tends towards the somewhat farcical by degrees. ‘Fanatical’ like Cohen seems to be among those who make the most ‘noise’ – and perhaps needfully so.
I can’t believe that I was once THIS STUPID!
I tried for over 30 years, ever since my childhood, to get rid of my homosexuality. Now I have seen the light of truth and I now accept my homosexuality as the NORMAL and beautiful gift of sexuality that the Good Lord has given me.
I want to apologize to anyone and everyone that I have hurt with my hateful and ignorant words that I posted here last November. I was wrong to do that, but I thought that you were the “bad guys” that were trying to “beguile” me into the devil’s hell by getting me to “revert” back to my old homosexual ways.
Please, forgive me. I thought that I was doing the right thing. I now love myself and my gayness. And I am going to do my best to help show others that being gay is NOT evil.
Thank you.
Jeffrey,
I’m happy that you appear to be more comfortable with yourself and the way that you were created. And I am certain that no one holds ill will towards you about whatever you may have said in November.
But please know that you don’t have any obligation to “show others that being gay is NOT evil”. As a newly out man, now might be the time to focus on your own growth and observations. Showing others will come of its own accord as you live a life filled with integrity and dignity.
I have two bits of advice, if you’ll accept them:
1. Don’t give up on your spirituality. Find a church that can affirm you the way that God made you but in which you can continue to maintain a relationship with the divine.
2. Don’t get caught up in sowing wild oats. We all know that is best done when one is 22 and has a lifetime to recover. Remember the goal isn’t “being gay” but being you.
And congratulations. It isn’t easy to step away from the safety of what one knows. That’s a very big step you took.
Don’t get caught up in sowing wild oats.
Why not? Why should 22 year olds have all the fun?
How do ex-ex-gays know where to draw the line? Can porn stars maintain a relationship with the divine?
I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to form a relationship with something to which, by definition, you cannot relate.
“Why not? Why should 22 year olds have all the fun?”
Because wild oats don’t lead to meaningful relationships. And while it can be somewhat cute and fun in a kid, it isn’t particularly attractive in someone who isn’t.
Ex-ex-gays have to draw the line where everyone else does. If you want a meaningful life and a relationship, you have to take steps in that direction whether you’re gay, straight, or ex-gay.
I have a straight friend who is in a dilemma – none of the girls he dates are the type he wants to marry. And he’s hot enough that he can get pretty much any girl he meets – so he falls into the trap of dating the beautiful fun young party girls that everyone else wants. And while that’s exciting, at 35 he’s starting to recognize that it isn’t going anywhere. And while he’s “having all the fun”, he’s losing the opportunity to establish the foundations of a life that will be more rewarding in the long run.
(and I don’t limit God. I think that of course porn stars can maintain a relationship with God… I just doubt very many of them want to)
I have felt my guy-ness on many occassions. And what is more, I have felt the guy-ness of other guys too. And the hard truth of it is, it doesn’t make me feel very heterosexual doing it. Feeling…guy-ness. I doubt cuddling other guys while feeling their guy-ness would change me all that much either.
No Richard…you are not convincing me…
Ex-ex-gays have to draw the line where everyone else does. If you want a meaningful life and a relationship, you have to take steps in that direction whether you’re gay, straight, or ex-gay.
Yes. Exactly. We, all of us regardless of our experience in coming out to ourselves and others, we all have to draw that same line, and it’s pretty much the same line heterosexuals have to draw too. We might individually draw it in our own way, but we all have to draw it, and sexual orientation really doesn’t change that.
Well! Shouldn’t we just consider that Richard Cohen is an expert by his position as an unlicensed therapist(!) — and therefore shouldn’t we implicidly trust him as an authority figure???Oh, that’s right — we probably shouldn’t. 😛
Timothy Kincaid: Because wild oats don’t lead to meaningful relationships. And while it can be somewhat cute and fun in a kid, it isn’t particularly attractive in someone who isn’t.
You are assuming Jeffrey wants/needs a “meaningful relationship”. Plenty of older guys stumble from one orgy to the next. Some older gay men are happy doing it. Why isn’t it “particularly attractive”?
The ex-ex-gay identity seems to be “gay but still Christian”. Do ex-ex-gays think it is un-Christian for a guy to screw around?
1630r said:
You are assuming Jeffrey wants/needs a “meaningful relationship”. Plenty of older guys stumble from one orgy to the next. Some older gay men are happy doing it. Why isn’t it “particularly attractive”?
Please discontinue goading people into responding in such a way that you can pounce on them with your view of things. Debate, don’t play chess, and please get to your point. And try to do it without any more false, unsubstantiated representations which are little more than couched slurs about people with whom you disagree.
For those who don’t make a habit of Warren Throckmorton’s blog, thought you may be interested in the discussion going on over there. Have also attached our last response below.
Still waiting, of course, for the press release from Exodus saying they want nothing to do with Cohen and that they should have acted against him years ago….
—
Warren,
I hope I’m not going to keep banging on about this, but I am concerned about the re-writing that’s going on. Apologies for the length, but I think you do need to address the underlying problem rather than suggest we forget about Cohen and move on.
Because the question is not just “move on”, but “move onto who next?”
Firstly — fully recognise that you have indeed distanced yourself from Cohen and spoken against his behaviour with clients. As best as we can tell, you went public on this about 3 months ago when you announced you would no longer officially represent PFOX. Exodus quietly dropped web links through to Cohen about the same time. PFOX has made no comment on the matter, although they seem to have removed him as well in the past 2 months.
OK, so everyone’s gone running for the hills since that interview in May 2006.
My concern is that Cohen has been behaving like this since 1990. And while it’s somewhat pleasing to know you thought his 2000 book was basically unprintable — you’ve said you did review a draft of it before it was published. The book was endorsed by Nicolosi as President of NARTH, Paulk as FOTF’s “gender expert”, Socarides and Satinover. [sorry, left out the link in the Throck. post]
Cohen himself has been sending out newsletters for years and they make it all perfectly clear what he’s been doing; including the group gropes and the therapist hands-on with clients. Besen also covered Cohen in some detail in “Anything but straight” from 2003. In that year Cohen and 10 other groups — including Exodus and NARTH — formed the P.A.T.H. coalition. I think the last time Cohen spoke (officially) at a NARTH conference was November 2004, and you were personally working with PFOX and Cohen right up until the first months of this year (eg Montgomery County School Board, the PFOX brochures etc). He was kicked out of the APA in 2002 for an ethics violation on this very issue of unprofessional client-therapist boundaries.
OK. That’s the history. And it’s a very clear history.
Anyone reading that history should be asking one very pointed question; namely, what does it take before ‘your side’ is willing to exercise some professional standards in this regard?
Please do not point me to your recent guidelines. Happy to see them, as a start, although no exgay group has adoped them, but I want to know why nobody said or did anything throughout all those years?
To any outsider it would appear that ‘your side’ will allow people to get away with the most outrageous and unprofessional behaviour — until some bad press causes everyone to act. And by “act” I mean lift up the carpet and sweep it all out of sight, away from the embarassing media spotlight.
We’ve got a clear case of unwillingness to properly examine, to be honest, and to act against this “therapy”. Richard Cohen has had a flashing red light on his head for years, and yet the concerns about Cohen haven’t come from ‘your side’, but from ‘our’s. In fact, ‘your side’ kept rewarding the man up until a few months ago for heavens sake!
Now… square this history with the current exgay media campaign going on against the APA and it’s concerns about what can — and does — occur in exgay therapy? Richard Cohen and the exgay response to Richard Cohen is a textbook example for why the APA’s concerns are justified.
Done, for now.
Jeffrey, we’re glad to see you back here too.
Going to ignore some of the other comments about what you should or shouldn’t, or can and cannot be “doing”. Whatever.
I think the most important thing is that you don’t have to prove anything, not to us anyway. Your words for reconciliation are very welcome, of course!, but you’ve got nothing to prove to us. Your life isn’t a contest 🙂
Just be happy, and gentle with others. Where life will take you I have no idea, but we wish you well and hope you’ll be at peace.
cheers, G&D
Sorry 1630r, but I’m not assuming anything. I’m giving some unsolicited advice. Jeffrey can ignore it and so can you.
As for whether people want to stumble from orgy to orgy, that’s their business. While I may think it doesn’t lead to happiness, I’m not the sex police. And I have no problem with your living celibate. Again, while I may think it doesn’t lead to happiness, I’m not the sex police.
And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you will find more happiness in life either living celibate or running from orgy to orgy.
I have my opinions as to what leads to long-term happiness and I suspect that you do not share them. And that’s fine. And my advice for you would be pretty much the same as what I gave Jeffrey: Remember the goal isn’t “being ex-gay” but being you.
Jeffery:
Slow way down. Don’t have to prove anything to anybody — not sexually or spiritually. Fcus on growing up. Many gay men NEVER do. (Yeah, yeah, I know. It applies to straight men too.)
Please, please stay AWAY from speed. Use condoms EVERY time. 1/2 of all new HIV infections are speed related. Drink moderately, if at all. Don’t rescue anybody. You can’t “fix” another person. Focus on your career, your family, your church and friendships. Give back to your community. Eat right, get some exercise, play, pray. And try not to make “looks” your idol. Character counts. Live honestly, love courageously.
And never let anyone convince you that God doesn’t love you.
Welcome OUT brother.
I swear, every time I see or hear something Richard Cohen has said or done, it’s even more extreme than what he’s said or done before. This guy is weird even by ex-gay standards.
The pillow-beating interview is classic though. I actually had some respect for the reporter for managing to control herself during that.
KUDOS to all who have COME OUT — from ex-Gay, closet, or wherever!!! All deserve AFFIRMATION & reminders about the need for personal INTEGRITY — whatever that is to each of us! Only we can define what that is, and many times it is an evolutionary process. However, as long as INTEGRITY is our goal, we’re heading in the right direction!!!
Again, I say “KUDOS TO US ALL!!! For we’re here, we’re queer, and . . . .” The rest is our own personal story/journey. PEACE!
Timothy: Please discontinue goading people into responding in such a way that you can pounce on them with your view of things. Debate, don’t play chess, and please get to your point. And try to do it without any more false, unsubstantiated representations which are little more than couched slurs about people with whom you disagree.
Yes I did goad (although my aim wasn’t to pounce on anyone or “play chess”). I’m not sure where the slurs are in my comments. Anyway, I’m sorry. I will goad no more.
Ex Gay Watch does a fine job challenging the anti-gay lies of the ex-gay ministries.
FYI, that was Robert who said that, not me
Ugggh… I mean that was David Roberts who said that, not me… it must be Friday