The person in this video goes by the nickname RevolutionaryHorizon on YouTube. I don’t think this is a joke – he seems to be serious about what he is saying. I’m posting this in an open forum because in just a few minutes, he touches on all kinds of issues we discuss here.
A lot has been made lately of how best to provide therapy to those struggling with issues of sexual orientation. Here is your chance; you are the therapist and he is your patient. How would you honestly address some of the things he is saying? What is your advice?
There’s a whole lot can be said about that video, but what really struck me was that he was talking about not being predestined for anything, that he can influence his own life, and yet still talks about a single “gay lifestyle”, without recognizing the myriad lives that gay people lead. Apparently, the “havins sex with men and making out with men” (and nothing else) is the destiny of any people “with homosexual attractions”, unless they decide that they’re “not gay.”
This bloke is just a mass of contradictions, he’s not gay but he fancies men, he has romantic feelings for men but finds it shallow, he thinks his gayness will fade (yeah, right!) but never mentions if he now finds women more sexually attractive just that heterosexuality is deeper (does he know any hetero men?) I’d hate to see this lonely young man in 10 years time when his suppressed feelings are tearing him apart and he resents the reigious nuts who screwed him up in the first place!
I think that he is already heavily immersed in the ex-gay lifestyle. He uses all the keywords, all the explanations that we have heard time and again. I feel for him and his pain, but he is going to have to first work his way through this ex-gay path before he can really come to terms with his homosexuality. You can already tell that despite his desire to believe the line that “nobody is born gay,” he recognizes that he has always been gay and effiminate and struggled with homosexual feelings.
He’s a cute guy, I’d probably just cuddle with him, and eventually he’d be like… aww this is nice… OK I’m gay. Really for however much we may want to go with some very intricate horribly well thought out therapy for this poor guy. Really what he needs is a nice boy who doesn’t just want to use him as a sex toy to show him some genuine good old care. He’ll fall for him, and he’ll stop making videos on YouTube where in the first five minutes you’re screaming HE’S SO FREAKING GAY!
Not that bad looking either.
I will tell you that this clip seems, especially at the beginning, a joke. He seems too flippant about the whole thing. He also seems really young–did he have enough time to really evaluate his sexuality.
Somehow that sounds like the old “he just needs a good woman to turn him straight” in reverse, though I suppose there are some extenuating factors.
I’m not gay. I’m not!!!
I’m not!! I’m not!! I’m not!!
I’m not gay.
Really!!!
.
.
.
I’m not gay.
I’m not.
.
.
If I just keep repeating this, maybe I’ll believe it.
What a really good example of of a christian young man who is so torn between what he has been taught about his same sex attractions and what he feels.
If I was his therapist I would make him express what he feels and thinks, not what he has been taught he should feel and think. He seeems to hope that his same sex attractions will “fade” as he grows older.
He seems to have been exposed to some of the anti-gay rhetorics. “No-one is born gay! He pathologies his same sex attractions as some kind of disase or virus that has gotten a hold of him, and he tries to resist and fight back.
He says he can be a person of value despite his sinful feelings. Same sex attractions are shallow…while heterosexual attractions are more spiritual. He wants to be “saved”, but is really not sure if he is saved if he begins to see his same sex attraction feelings as part of who he are.
Warren Throckmorton said on Cnn:
But is it his sexuality or religious beliefs that are his most core? Can both not be reconciled? I would make him explore how he learned how he “must” feel (In order to be saved and be a person of value) or how he really feels and why that would make him less saved and of less value.
His same sex attractions are obviously unwanted because they are not in congruence with his religious beliefs. He do however express some attractions towards the opposite sex, even though he is vague about it. Obviously an area that needs to be addressed and explored during therapy as well as his feelings about his same sex attractions.
It will be up to him to make his own conclusions about how he will cope with his same sex attractions and religious beliefs. A therapist could help make him sure that he makes choices that are in congruence with his feelings/sexuality/religion. Right now he is in limbo and makes too many contradictions. And he obviously try to conform to his religious beliefs. My heart really goes out to him and I hope he finds love and happiness. Gay or not.
This is an interesting video. It’s unusual. However, let me add my two cents.
What caught my attention is what his concept of the ‘gay lifestyle’ is. Those are two very loaded words. There are subcultures that have developed among minorities because of outsider status. And insiders look upon them, usually as something wild and forbidden.
But the persons in the outsider group, are more invested in SURVIVAL, than expression sometimes. And the way of expression tends to be a by product of repression.
As a black woman, I can tell you often there are some white people who have certain expectations of how I’m going to act, speak, express myself. They are already uncomfortable, and sometimes hostile, before I utter a word or have an opportunity to present the ‘real me’.
It’s hard to know if this kid knows the difference between affectation and what a person is.
He’s compared his orientation to living with a disease.
In so many ways, I resent that. I have lupus. A genetic auto immune disorder that’s hard to control and life threatening. Being gay isn’t life threatening in one’s physical matrix.
Nor is one’s entire value, as he said, tied up in sexual orienation.
However, gay person’s worth is downplayed and a heterosexual’s is upgraded as if orientation WAS a moral issue, rather than one of human condition and how the outside world responds.
As I’ve mentioned before, sometimes a lot of support can come not only from knowing who you are, but who you come from and WHERE you come from.
A lot of gay youth are not presented with examples of gay accomplishment and contribution to society. But are told often that homosexuality has no value, or is a threat and that being gay (or having a gay sex life) devalues you in other areas that you have to share with straight people.
He’s unimpressed, and perhaps feels very uncomfortable with what he is being taught gay culture is. Perhaps his knowledge and experience isn’t broad or supportive enough.
I remember a young Russian immigrant I used to know whose family was Jewish. Michael was fully embracing the hip hop culture and he broke my heart one afternoon saying how much he hated being a Jew.
I told him it was understandable to feel that way because he came from a society that hated jews and discriminated against them.
The whole idea was to make him hate who he was, not integrate who he was, nor support others like him.
I see this same attitude in Revolution here. He’s responding in kind, or the way he’s been TAUGHT to respond. But it’s a contradiction of what’s natural for him to do.
And I assert again, it’s part of keeping gay people from being cohesive, supportive of each other and being compatible romantically.
This is a calculation and so is this young man’s struggle. I’ve known others, as I’ve mentioned, who have struggled with their Asian features, with their color with their breast size.
And why?
Because the impossible and irrational standards set sometimes by the public at large do this sort of damage to people in a less contentious subject, it still stands to reason why this young man has a struggle too.
He might be right, perhaps his attractions for men WILL fade. And attractions to women never reach the zenith needed to be authentic either.
Problems arise for heterosexuals too in that arena. However, the contradictory expectations of the straight world, that’s being absorbed by gay people too, is making a lot of people unhappy and unfilled.
A struggle to be true to yourself and work with yourself depends on the culture that raised you. This young man’s speech patterns didn’t indicate what region of the country he’s in, but I empathize with him.
I dont embrace the hip hop culture and I’d resent it if that’s what I’m expected to do. I have my own identity and there are many to one person over different times.
We can be defined by our family tree, culture, color, religion, profession and so on.
But the less mutable basics WILL predicatably be the struggle in a socio/political situation like it is here in AMerica for a gay young person like him.
I wish him well, but he’s obviously not strong enough now to fight the calculations against him, and those just like him.
The most heartbreaking part of this video was when he said with so much innocence and earnestness that he was sure his homosexual desires would fade with time.
“Whatever you’re going through, you’re more than just a pile of problems and sin.” He has that right, at least. Whether he believes it or not, from the resigned way he says it, I don’t know.
CK,
That’s exactly what struck me most of all that he said….cause even if people don’t agree on what’s sin or not…that’s a very helpful and true sentiment.
Other than his words, his demeanor or nature is what stood out most to me. It’s like he’s almost going out of his way to come across as “stereotypically” gay while maintaining that he’s not gay. Timothy’s point, pretty much.
He is just free associating. He needs a good therapist to talk to, not utube. Please don’t sensationalize or exploit him.
He placed the videos up to spur discussion and debate, and that’s what is happening here.
Often the best advice a therapist can give is to ask the right questions. There’s nothing that focuses the mind on the reality of the situation they face than having to formulate sensible answers to reasonable questions.
HR thinks he knows where he’s at. So while we would all likely be skeptical, asking him about the topics he’s just covered probably wouldn’t do much good.
Instead, I’d sit back and say, “Well, HR, what are you looking forward to in your future? What do you expect your life will be like in a few years, in five, in ten?” When someone is floundering around in the present, as HR is, finding goals to pursue, and developing the concrete steps required to meet them, keeps the person grounded in real world activities.
If he tries to set unrealistic goals, as HR might, then this will become evident when the basic steps required to get there prove infeasible. Letting the person discover this for himself is better than any advice one can give.
An excellent start, and something I wish my own reparative therapist had encouraged a little bit longer. I don’t think anything here is outlandish or joking because I can personally identify with every single word he said. When I stopped parroting things I had read on Exodus’ website and heard from my therapist, I got around to admitting things I already knew. I knew from puberty that changing my orientation was a ridiculous conception, that I didn’t really see anything wrong with being gay and was just allowing myself to hate it because I was told it was wrong.
I think it’s telling that he only once indicates he has any attraction to women, and it seems like a pro forma response to me. The rest of the time is spent talking about how he’s attracted to men, sometimes, except that he isn’t really, he just wants to CONNECT with men on a DEEPER level. He’s not gay, he just really, really loves men. Spiritually. Not sexually. Except that sometimes he does. But that doesn’t make him gay, because that would be shallow, and he’s deep because he’s a spiritual Christian sort of guy.
It actually sounds to me like he has a problem with sexuality PER SE– witness the mutual exclusion of shallow, fleshly sexuality with deep, meaningful spirituality– that’s been extremely exacerbated by the ex-gay philosophy. It’s a common feature of a lot of evangelical philosophy, this sort of Gnostic spirit > flesh dualism, that usually gets played out by suppressing sexual desire or sublimating sexuality into the “higher plane” of spiritual connection, which it looks like he’s got covered in spades.
He throws around a lot of buzzwords. I would ask him what he means by those buzzwords. When he says,”Gay Lifestyle”, what does he mean? What dose he mean by “love men?” By helping him to understand what he believes first, then it would be possible to work farther. He throws around terms but these terms seem to have a prejorative connotation. Helping him to understand what he means first, can help him to understand what is really happening in his life.
I kept a diary all through my 20’s and into my early 30’s. It pains me to read the diary now, but it served a good purpose helping me figure out what I believed.
This guy will eventually work through his questions and may one day look back on his YouTube the way I view my diary. Either that, or he’ll turn into Randy Thomas.
Consider how he discusses alcoholics and alcoholism: You’re not an alcoholic, you’re a person who struggles with alcoholism, or words to that effect. This young man recognizes that labels can be dehumanizing, has undoubtedly experienced himself the dehumanization of being labeled. “If you have this label, then you’re not a person of value and meaning and worth” is his subtext; his experience of himself does not fit with what he’s been told ‘gay’ means. If I were his therapist, I’d try to work on this issues about labels. What does, say, “Asian” mean? If a person is of Asian descent, but his/her experience doesn’t match what “Asian” implies to your mind, do we then say s/he isn’t “Asian,” but ‘a person of ancestry from Asia’?
Good point Touchstone. I am from Chinese ancestry, but born in Malaysia. I do not know how to write or read in Chinese. Does that make me less of a Chinese? But when I met current Chinese nationales, I am refered to as Malaysian. So who am I? Gosh, I am confusing myself…
I’d note this as off topic, but it’s an open forum post:
https://www.covenantnews.com/alansstang070731.htm
I would love to read that forward.
Since we’ve gone off topic – I saw this recently but haven’t seen any comment on it.
https://couragerc.net/sportscamp_2007_info.htm
Boo:
I thought Ellen Degeneres was the most famous lesbian in the united states.
Yep, this is all pretty queer.
hee hee, good point Emily K!
If only the Cheney’s were like Betty de Generes, Ellen’s mom.
And I can say in all honesty, the DeGeneres ladies are clearly more beloved in America.
I love it that two of America’s sweethearts have been out and proud lesbians with beautiful women in their lives.
Since we’ve gone off topic – I saw this recently but haven’t seen any comment on it.
https://couragerc.net/sportscamp_2007_info.htm
Okay… they let a team of men trying their darnedest to be notgay name themselves “The Dolphins?!”
The Good Samaritan Dolphins battled back and took their revenge in flag football.
How can these guys possibly macho themselves up enough to become notgays by playing flag football?!
An anonymous source says, “I’m just telling you, man those Lions better watch their furry backs.”
Not even touching that one.
The obvious point, and one already made, is that this young man said all sorts of contradictory things. He seems to think a thing can be something and yet not be it at the same time. In other words something can be what it isn’t. Elementary logic tells you this is wrong.
He holds some sincere beliefs that contradict reality. They are false beliefs. They are the religious fantasies he indulges in. And these cause the conflict. This conflict can’t disappear because reality doesn’t change merely through wishing it to be so. His religious beliefs won’t be true just because he sincerely believes them or wishes them to be true.
He is sincere, there is no doubt. He is not acting. And the line he gives is precisely the sort of rubbish the exgay movement has been inflicting on people for years. He knows the lingo and he entertains the false hope that eventually reality will fit his beliefs.
I would tell him that his beliefs and reality are in conflict. He will only find emotional peace when they are in harmony. And reality isn’t going to be any different just because he has theological beliefs. He will have to change his theology, or abandon it (which I think is even better) if he is ever to find peace. And then he can explore what it means for him to be gay. He can learn he is an individual. He doesn’t have to fit a mould of “the gay lifestyle” nor does he have to fit the mould inflicted by some ancient text.
Every evening after devotions and team meeting we have our fellowship hour(s). Saturday night after the SportsCamp championship has been determined, join us, as we celebrate with cigars and cognac.
That’s it, boys. Butch it up just like “real” men.
I don’t know whether to laugh at or cry for these guys.
Just a thought: When you have to post an 8 minute “I’m not gay” treatise on YouTube, who exactly are you trying to convince?
Forget about the beer and scatching.
“Then we discuss the theological significance of David and Jonathan over water crackers and pate.”
Oy!
If he’s straight, I’m the king of England.
One of the things that jumped out with me is that by far, he seems to create this dichotomy between “sexuality” and “spirituality,” at least as far as sexuality towards men is concerned. But he gives no basis for this claim, nor does he explain what makes sexual attractions towards women “less shallow.”
Also, as others suggest, his tendency to constantly repeat words like “I’m not gay” and “I never was gay” has me inclined to believe he’s trying to convince himself.
Just thinking: I am not bisexual. I never was bisexual. Sounds weird?
But I would sound absolutely ridiculous if I am to say: I am just living a bisexual lifestyle or I love to be intimate with girls and boys, I am attracted to them, but erm… not sexually.
To undergo reparative therapy as a bisexual would be an attempt change my orientation to…. asexuality, rite?
lol, I guess that means the opposite of bisexuality is asexuality. Or wait, is it “Holiness?” Nicolosi, throw us a bone here.
I have watched almost all of this boy’s videos:
https://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=revolutionaryhorizon&p=r
But I still do not get him.
In the video posted here, he seems to be an ex-gay still struggling with same sex attractions.
In one video, he seems to be an attention seeker who just uses the topic of homosexuality as the bait.
In another, he seems to be just a straight boy experimenting on anal sex.
In yet another, he seems…
Gosh… this could go on forever….
I wish men like this guy would simply not talk about homosexuality if that is not how he self-identifies.
I can understand that he, like many, might have homosexual attractions and desires and not wish to self-identity or live as gay man. I can appreciate that and honor that.
Where he and the others like him go wrong is they try to promote that anyone can go from gay to straight. With that in mind they become like Jehovah’s Witnesses and try to convert everyone to *their* beliefs rather than just saying this is what works for “me”.
I know it is not politically correct to say that one can be homosexual in orientation but not *live* as a gay man but they can and should if that is right for them.
I don’t like how this guy and others try to then step onto the gay landscape and immerse themselves in promoting change from gay to straight like it is some disease!!
I have watched almost all of this boy’s videos:
You watched almost four hours of this kid rambling on? Oh, my. You have far more patience than me.
Lol. This is actually a good real life test for anyone wanting to qualify as a reparative therapist for some confused heterosexuals. Thanks for the appraisal on my report card, Timothy. ; )
This child will waste the best years of his life trying to repress his natural sexual desires and end up more than just a little crazy. He will hate himself for not being able to live up to his ideals. Think of him as a young Ted Haggard.
His attention seeking behavior is a cry for help which he is obviously not getting from his “Christian” friends.
He also follows the pattern of ex-gay people testifying to provide “hope” for others before they’ve worked out their own path. They’re so anxious to make sure they’ve gotten “saved” from this “gay lifestyle” someone has been lecturing them on, they actually think they have something to teach others. No doubt the person who has been filling his head with all this propaganda is no less “gay” than he is.
Ex-gay 1: So that means I’m not really gay, just looking for male friends. Wow!!
Ex-gay 2: Really!! You are fabulously heterosexual – just struggling with attractions. Oh, and I LOVE your hair.
Ex-gay 1: Ohmigod, I just had it highlighted and it took for eeeeever. You really think it’s cute? oh, but about the “I’m not gay” thing. That is like soooo cool. I have to do a video.
Ex-gay 2: OMG OMG OMG you should. That would be like, idon’tknow, like totally fun… wait don’t look – there’s a really hot guy walking by… ok, he’s gone. So yeah you should totally do a video and tell everyone how completely heterosexual you are.
Ex-gay 1: All riiiiiiiiight, gr.. um, boy, I’m gunna do it. I am going to be such a testimony. Move over, Paris. Watch out, Hillary.
LOL!
That’s classic Timothy that is 🙂
There are a number of published guidelines for helping young gay men who are far from ready to be “out.” One of the first steps is to help the person back off a bit from the label and what it means – this guy has obviously spent a LOT of time struggling with and fixating on very rigid definitions of sexuality and how that relates to his life. It would be helpful to work with him on those rigid messages. He also clearly has a lot of misinformation about what it might mean to be gay. In many therapies, providing specific and accurate information about sexuality only occurs after a person is conceding that they might be gay. It’s trickier as this guy has obviously been misinformed significantly by his faith community, but he would benefit greatly.
Would these result in him just “being gay” and comfortable with himself? Not necessarily, but it would be a step down the road of incorporating his beliefs and reality, and many years down the road might open the possibility that he would be able to form a deep and meaningful romantic relationship (undoubtedly with a man – I’ve yet to see any scientific literature indicating it could be otherwise).
P.S. I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation in clinical psychology last week, so humor me if I include the “Ph.D” for a while. 😉 It has taken a lot of work.
Congratulations!
Consider yourself humored, Dr. Skinta 🙂
Something just isn’t quite adding up here….and I think we’ve all identified it via the comments above. You can tie a ribbon around a turd, but it’s still a turd. Today is our local Portland “Love Won Out” Conference…..and I’m just sick. Because of the (closeted) gay people that I know of in the particular church where they are holding the conference. The kid in the video talks in circles just like I used to. I know all of his story lines, innuendos, inflections, buzz words and phrases, “what I’m supposed to say to make myself appear NOT gay.” I find it sad. For him. For those who struggle.
I agree with Steve – this is ex-gay propaganda.
This young man, however sincere, is throwing out all of the ex-gay lingo – this is too formulaic to be some random kid struggling.
“The lifestyle”
“No one is born gay”
“I just want to be accepted and loved by other men,” not to “sexualize” (this is part of the reparative model that same sex attractions allegedly develop from relational deficits with parents of the same sex).
C’mon, people, it’s ex-gay propaganda by a young man who is more willing scapegoat gays (than take personal responsibility for his own problems) by claiming to have lived as a gay man (when he did not) and thus others will think he is some authority on our allegedly sordid “lifestyle” – which he admittedly knows nothing about first-hand, but which he seems to know everything about from all the right-wing propaganda he’s been reading or getting in ex-gay ministry.
Bearing false witness is a sin, is it not?
And Ex-Gay Watch has just given him a platform to give his (predictable) testimonial.
It’s Ex-Gay Watch, no?
It’s all a conspiracy!