Comments on: About.com Page Promotes Ex-Gay Myth to Teenagers

By: Wayne Besen

Wayne Besen — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:10:36 +0000

Chris — we are still working on it. But John’s husband’s mother died and he had to go back to Wisconsin for the week. And I had two projects on the road. So, we are still on it. And John returns tomorrow. But staff shortage last week set us back a week or so.

And now I have a cold. So, we are doing the best we can.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:36:29 +0000

Do we know if there has been any follow-up to the original article. Have About.com responded?

Frank – the fact that these attendees had “unwanted homosexual attractions” is exactly what is wrong. If you came to me and said you didn’t want your skin color the responsible thing for me to do is help you accept and celebrate it not make a quick profit knowing that I really cannot change it.

By: Wayne Besen

Wayne Besen — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:35:19 +0000

Thanks William for reminding Frankie of the infamous “cuddle room.”

By: William

William — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 08:40:03 +0000

Frank:

http://www.alternet.org/story/146557/what_happened_when_i_went_undercover_at_a_christian_gay-to-straight_conversion_camp

By: Wayne Besen

Wayne Besen — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:47:20 +0000

Frank:

That you would even present this joke of a study to our smart readers reflects poorly on you. This was a fake industry “study” that is reminiscent of the ones the cigarette lobby used to disseminate claiming that smoking wasn’t harmful. Or that the chemical lobby puts out today saying that climate change doesn’t exist.

Frank, since it is a study/survey, please enlighten us as to where it was published and who peer reviewed it?

Silence I hear?

An appropriate title for the promotional material/crap you just presented would be: “For Profit $650 Ex-Gay Weekend Says Product Works.”

Are we supposed to be impressed?

By presenting this garbage, you are proving how desperate and shallow such programs truly are — as well as the lack of science to back your myth.

Sad and tragic really.

By: RainbowPhoenix

RainbowPhoenix — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:39:15 +0000

Show us the tumescence exams Frank.

By: Michael C

Michael C — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 21:20:42 +0000

Hi Frank, I am glad so many men had a positive experience hugging it out with other dudes in the woods. “Name it and Claim it” is the most important lesson anyone can learn if they choose self-delusion. This survey was administered by the very organization that conducted the hug-the-gay-away therapy. It really ain’t science.

Also, I noticed that of the 497 men invited to respond to the survey, 273 chose not to. Without the inclusion of their responses, I find it difficult to take any of those numbers seriously.

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:36:43 +0000

Apparently its not a myth afterall.

In a new survey of almost 500 people who have ever sought professional counseling to lessen unwanted homosexual attractions, more than half (55%) said the counseling was effective in causing the frequency and intensity of their homosexual attractions to diminish. And seven out of 10 said they were either satisfied (25%) or very satisfied (46%) with their counseling experience.

The People Can Change survey found other reported outcomes from counseling were:

53% of respondents said their unwanted homosexual behaviors were reduced or eliminated
38% said heterosexual attractions emerged or increased
58% said any remaining homosexual attractions became less troubling
69% said their self-esteem improved
69% said their shame diminished
71% became more self-accepting
66% felt more at peace

By: edward farrell

edward farrell — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:49:39 +0000

I think it is terrible the way these so called pages are acting like they are harmless. I spent 22 years in fundamentalist churches and know what it can do to people who go to them for help.

By: William

William — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:26:25 +0000

I have to confess that I wasted time in my teens and early twenties hoping and repeatedly praying for a change in my sexual attractions. It never happened, of course. After I accepted my natural sexuality and came out, I regarded everything that went before as water under the bridge and never gave it another thought. Years later, however, an unexpected encounter one evening triggered a flash-back which fully brought home to me the way that social and religious pressure had robbed those years off me, and the fact that, no matter how much you would like to, you can never go back and put things right.

In the light of that experience, I cannot adequately express my disgust and anger that people in 2012 should still be attempting to steal gay people’s youth in this way. Our attitude to this kind of abuse should be one of zero tolerance. That these misguided people are sincere in their beliefs and that there is a religious ideology underlying them is beside the point. It is alarming to read that the woman who wrote this About.com page “has been working with Christian Teens for almost as long as she has been a Christian” and that she “has significant experience working with troubled teens”. People like her are fully entitled to hold their retarded beliefs, of course, but they are totally unsuitable to counsel gay teens and should be kept well away from them.