He’s not joking, the book is You Don’t Have to be Gay by Jeff Konrad. If you want to get a copy, look no further than the Exodus bookstore — not that Exodus has anything to do with gays going straight or anything.
I tend to agree with one commenter from the Amazon listing:
He [the author] says that in high school, he had a big crush on a girl but was too shy to do anything about it or was hurt by her. He then got a boyfriend and, at first, was “disgusted” at the idea of kissing him. This tells me that the author was either bi-sexual, heterosexual, or 90% heterosexual to begin with. As a gay man, I have never had an attraction to a girl, and the idea of kissing a man I loved was wonderful to me and still is.
Whatever Konrad was, it doesn’t sound like he was gay. Yet he’s giving advice that gay men are supposed to follow to become straight (something which is either extraordinarily rare and unpredictable, or just impossible). This illustrates in a nutshell a significant avenue of damage caused by these organizations. Most are painfully unprofessional and unscientific, which leads to a buffet of recommendations consisting of every amateur idea and “therapy” one can imagine — just about anything will do.
Exodus must think a lot of Konrad’s ideas, as they don’t just sell his book but highly recommend it. From a review in their newly renovated student (youth) section:
I strongly encourage any male struggling with homosexuality to read this book. It is not only educational; it is transformational and filled with hope and optimism. Konrad does a fine job by utilizing support from well-known psychologists and scholars on homosexual issues to address the root of the matter and provide an alternative to the world’s view of what to do with this attraction. As a struggler himself, he pulls from a life of experience to provide heartfelt wisdom to a man that is in desperate need of answers. Reading this book will truly bring great insight and healing for the homosexual struggler, and enlightenment to those who don’t struggle.
Res ipsa loquitur.
so, Exodus wants Queer youth who are struggling to read this book.
But when you fail to change your sexual orientation, or fail to look like you have (attn: Randy Thomas and Alan Chambers), blame only yourself and not God, or the bullies tormenting you at school.
Oh, but don’t commit suicide in response to this failure or your torment; that would make Exodus look bad; plus it’s not like they advocate for suicide (just enable the environment that encourages it).
What’s the deal with “Jeff Konrad?” There’s always been something fishy about this book. First of all his author name is a non-de-plume. I can’t find a picture of him via Google (?) That book was written back in the ’80’s. Where is he now? Dead? An ex-ex-gay?? Why doesn’t he appear at any ex-gay conferences? Why has he not written any other books or articles? Jeff! Come out, wherever you are!
It appears that Alan Chambers personally admires Konrad’s book. Let’s sample an example of information Konrad provides from “well-known psychologists and scholars” we have this gem:
How inspiring, especially for gay teens as Exodus suggests. No possibility of damage here at all.
Let’s see. The Christian right does everything in their power to prevent and discourage gay people from having healthy, happy, wholesome, and dare we say it, NORMAL and HOLY relationships.
And then they complain if we don’t.
Personally, I have found far more love coming from a complete stranger in the night (Oh, frank, what WERE you singing about?) than i have from the bulk of fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity.
The thing about being hetero and hearing what the ex gay industry does to sell it…is requiring people to be stereotypically straight.
Nobody REALLY straight, has to do SO much work at it! Nobody straight has to PROVE it, because frankly to do that, one would have to do the same icky, overtly crude things gay people are always being accused of doing.
And gay people going through all this, is as if gay people just dropped from another planet without EVER being exposed enough to gay people to KNOW what it means or IS to be straight.
It doesn’t mean ANYTHING. It’s not something that makes you a better person or a whiz at relationships.
If this is what being straight means to the ex gay industry, then it’s like they are putting up a movie set, and everyone has a part to play to promote a fantasy that isn’t really there.
Only those feelings and deep down attractions are too inner and private to IMITATE. No one is even attracted to the op or same gender the same way twice, necessary.
But the same MISTAKES can be made if one’s expectations are unrealistic.
Which is the bane of just about all relationships, gay or not. With God or not. Profound disappointment can only heal once the source of that disappointment is known and owned and understood.
That’s impossible of one orientation is treated like a bad habit and the other is treated like the most important part of one’s happiness and personal insight.
Ludovico asks a good question. So much of Exodus et al’s information expired years ago. The authors are the same people over and over again and fresh material, or fresh representatives is having a tough time coming around.
Which, essentially, I can see would be a turnoff to the younger set. And there isn’t a lot Exodus can do except go to other countries a little behind in cultural changes that we have experienced.
i will just say that as someone who fought his sexuality tooth and nail I can relate to what he is saying about having a disgust about kissing a guy (or doing anything else for that matter) while at the same time having an overwhelming desire to do it at the same time. There was a split in me because of my homophobia. Couldn’t totally make out whether this was different from the book’s author’s experience or not, but I definitely know I experienced that internal ambivalence prior to accepting my sexuality.
I have to thank my gay family here for having such honest and intellectually important and stimulating comments and articles here.
Sometimes the way I deliver my own comments might seem too expository (to the choir), but I think what I mean to do is let you know that I’m absorbing EVERYTHING. That it’s a part of my thought process and that I can impart it to others. I’m listening. I’m paying attention and I don’t have any better teachers than someone like Emily K and so on.
And in that process of you opening so much and in my social circle, I’m entrusted with the most precious thing, gay children…it means the world to me to have that trust.
As to how these conversations go about attraction, or what outsiders assume minds work.
I’ve been married to a white man for nearly twenty years. When I was young I remember watching talk shows that had to do with that, with the adoption of black children by white families and I remember realizing how people don’t want to consider gay people could be attractive TO a straight person even as a friend.
Or that a white adoptive parent could deeply love a black child. I heard such outrageously stupid questions in that.
As if white people who DID love blacks and cared about them…had something missing from their moral center or intelligence.
And if it was about sexual attraction and interracial marriage, then those turned off by people of color, never could understand any physical intimacy and might be so rude as to voice their disdain openly.
There is much the same here…as if your relationship isn’t with another HUMAN BEING with the same mutual feelings.
Their mindset puts the devalued minority more on a level with a dog or chimp and the mixed or gay relationship is more on the level of bestiality. Which is why they bring THAT up in that context.
I get a lot of crap from homophobes because I have intensely close relationships with gay men and women. Straight allies like us aren’t any more understood than a gay person is. We’re not supposed to LOVE you. We’re especially not supposed to actually FIGHT any straight people in favor of you. We’re not supposed to challenge other straight people and contradict them, however stupid they might be.
We don’t get a pass for doing it, quite the opposite. And, I want to thank my gay family for the character building process along the way. I might not have it, but for jumping into the most controversial issue ever.
You gave me quite something to get my teeth into, and allowed me into some very special and meaningful places.
What I hope and wish for, is that the homophobes take notice of how strong and healthy I AM for being on this road. That I have been very happy most days, and any sadness comes from a better place too. The place of empathy and caring, not defeat and hatred. I’m trying to impart to those with the deepest fears that theirs isn’t healthy, chronic, unrelenting fear like they have…is toxic and a disease unto itself.
And the results to prove it are everywhere.
Children tormenting each other to death.
Soldiers and others losing their careers.
Parents losing their children.
Property being lost…or destroyed.
Distrust and hostility everywhere, to the point of no one getting to any level better than since 50 years ago. Or at least, if there is more honesty, the opposition resenting it and claiming being victimized by it.
I can make comparisons and it would make me laugh if the results of the oppositions activity wasn’t so damaging.
What fools.
Well, I’ve said my piece and thanks again people. Someday…
And although many try to use the tired ‘well, you MUST be a lesbian’, that don’t deny it, that I don’t care they think so and that I’m FLATTERED they think so, only makes me know I’m doing something VERY right.
It’s not an insult to be thought of as lesbian. I only say I’m not in a certain context. For example if I’m asked out on a date, while I’m out with my girlfriends. Or if another straight male ally DOES want to have a date with me.
I wish this book had never been written or published.
I read it when I was fourteen and the false ideas contained within stole the next ten years of my life pursuing something rediculous and unobtainable. I did always remember what Konrad had said about kissing guys and also about having sex. I could not believe the reality and total-body ignition that came from my first kiss – oh how I had been lied to. I am now 31 and happy in my self determination.
I’m sorry. I’m still hung up on Konrad’s advise about romancing women and stuffing flacid penises into their vaginas…
The person who wrote that book is uniquely diabolical. It is a deliberate mind-f**k. Worse than the other “ex-gay” books in my view. By far. The author is a highly disturbed individual.
I always thought that “Jeff Konrad” has an eerily similar writing style to Rich Wyler. Read the writing of both men and be the judge. Wyler also went under the pen name Ben Newman, where some of the Konrad-like writing was done. Was this another pen name?
It’s no surprise then Wayne, that one of the worst would be the most forward representative of what Exodus supports. The worst for gay people, the best for ex gays. And in between, the truth and the ability to have gay people be understood and accepted is lost over and over again.
As I keep saying: ex gays behave as if their message isn’t stale and unreliable. As if there is no refutation, and that changing or repressing homosexuality isn’t even theory or hypothesis, but a fact accepted in all scientific circles.
And if this questioned or denied, then comes the complaint, the INSUFFERABLE complaint, that their right to be is compromised or they are suffering FROM prejudice, rather than dealing with the reality that LIARS don’t deserve to be respected or understood.
And, they ARE liars.
Wayne,
That’s a fascinating theory. Jeff Konrad’s “book” was the first thing that I read when I began the ex-gay stuff. I’ve always wondered who that guy was and why he never showed up anywhere. Years later I also went to one of the JIM Weekends, so I met Rich. It only took me two seconds to get a bad feeling about him.
What do you know of Rich’s history? I typed “Rich Wyler Jeff Konrad” in google. One of the links was the “People Can Change” website with a testimony from one of their guys who heard Jeff Konrad speak years ago. That’s the first time I’ve heard someone say they ever saw this guy. However, when I looked at Rich’s testimony, he says he started therapy in 1997 and “You Don’t Have to Be Gay” came out in 1987. Do you know Rich’s true story?