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Conversion Therapy Proponent Caught Trolling for Sex on a Gay "Hookup" Site

btthegreat said:
I am a 57 gay man who came out to his family in his early twenties . I have been in, then out , then back in,, then out again, at periods of my life, depending on the circumstance, the cultural setting etc. I pick when and to whom I come out. I can correct assumptions or leave them uncorrected. At one time I was insecure, scared, and mired in confusion and guilt, so I understand that form of closeted behavior. (I think 'self loathing may be a bit harsh to describe it). But I never pretended to be some straight guy, making or laughing at homo jokes. Too much class and decency for that crap.

I agree its hard for those who have never been out, to have a healthy frame of reference about the impact of the choice, because they have not lived on both sides of the closet door. They carry too much baggage they can't really unpack, but I won't impose a broad judgement on every other closeted individual because I don't know all the factors in their decision. IMHO Its okay to do with that closet door whatever you want. Those of us on the other side, have no business labeling them, or defining them by their decisions.

Your subset that includes you and the men in your support group, are self selected or they would not be searching for and involved in that support group. Any emotionally mature and content gays, secure with their decisions on either side, won't be found there.
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Your entitled to your opinion, as am I.
 
btthegreat said:
I am a 57 gay man who came out to his family in his early twenties . I have been in, then out , then back in,, then out again, at periods of my life, depending on the circumstance, the cultural setting etc. I pick when and to whom I come out. I can correct assumptions or leave them uncorrected. At one time I was insecure, scared, and mired in confusion and guilt, so I understand that form of closeted behavior. (I think 'self loathing may be a bit harsh to describe it). But I never pretended to be some straight guy, making or laughing at homo jokes. Too much class and decency for that crap.
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I did but then again I was self-loathing over my homosexuality I considered these treatments as a boy but I couldn't even ask for them because then people would know about it.

I agree its hard for those who have never been out, to have a healthy frame of reference about the impact of the choice, because they have not lived on both sides of the closet door. They carry too much baggage they can't really unpack, but I won't impose a broad judgement on every other closeted individual because I don't know all the factors in their decision. IMHO Its okay to do with that closet door whatever you want. Those of us on the other side, have no business labeling them, or defining them by their decisions.
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That's a good point.

Your subset that includes you and the men in your support group, are self selected or they would not be searching for and involved in that support group. Any emotionally mature and content gays, secure with their decisions on either side, won't be found there.
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Yeah I guess you're right there too it's like kicking down the closet door before the person inside is ready. And that can be bad.
 
SDET said:
One thing that is surprising is that Will Geer was a homosexual. As a connoisseur of 1950s cultural artifacts, I find it interesting that Communists and Homosexuals were lumped together.
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Blue:
Until literally just now, I had no idea "Grandpa Walton" was gay.



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Red:
FWIW:
 
We learned at the Pulse nightclub incident that the Democratic Party values the life of a murderous anti-LGBT Muslim many, many times more than the life of any number of LGBTs combined. If the conversion therapy was to convert gays to anti-gay Muslims the Democratic Party would demand such therapy be federally financed.
 
OlNate said:
Present one shred of physical evidence that justifies it being there in the first place. You cannot. Its all fake parameters with made up observations, all concocted out of the blue. Its crap.
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That guy isn't about to do anything of the sort.

That he isn't and won't (because no such evidence exists), yet he stood on his absurd notions that are roundly refuted by the content found in the documents I shared in post 27, is precisely why I've determined to give him no more of my time and attention.

CLAX1911 said:
I love watching people talk about this like they know something that experts in the field of Behavioral Science don't.

The first Diagnostics and statistical manual was published in 1952. It contained approximately 60 different disorders that it didn't refer to as disorders but reactions. It was less than a hundred pages and it was more of a manual on how to treat people committed to sanitariums. It wasn't based on objective criteria because the field of psychology was in its relative infancy or early childhood at the time. It was actually the first standard that was produced in the field. Up until that point all they were working on where theories. And treatments for mentally ill people varied from one sanitarium to the next.

This isn't based on any knowledge I had to go to school for, it was based on a few Wikipedia articles. So this information is available to anybody who doesn't want to remain in an echo chamber.

The argument aside there's a few videos on YouTube if you're at all interested in this produced by professors that discuss this very subject and it is extremely fascinating the development and evolution of this field in just the past 40 years.
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Red:
I so feel you....People don't just comport themselves thus re: matters of behavioral science. As I'm sure you've noticed, folks do so with regard to pretty much any science discipline, be it social or natural. Daily I see such remarks and think to myself "is this person playing 'devil's advocate', being a churlish provocateur, or is s/he truly one of those folks who thinks Moby Dick is an STD."

As Isaac Asimov wrote:

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"​


Blue:
There ya go. One needn't really be an expert on "this or that," provided one bothers to read. That's why experts publish the stuff they discover...so the rest of us can avail ourselves of their findings and, in turn, integrate them into our comprehension of the world in which we live.
 
btthegreat said:
I am a 57 gay man who came out to his family in his early twenties . I have been in, then out , then back in,, then out again, at periods of my life, depending on the circumstance, the cultural setting etc. I pick when and to whom I come out. I can correct assumptions or leave them uncorrected. At one time I was insecure, scared, and mired in confusion and guilt, so I understand that form of closeted behavior. (I think 'self loathing may be a bit harsh to describe it). But I never pretended to be some straight guy, making or laughing at homo jokes. Too much class and decency for that crap.

I agree its hard for those who have never been out, to have a healthy frame of reference about the impact of the choice, because they have not lived on both sides of the closet door. They carry too much baggage they can't really unpack, but I won't impose a broad judgement on every other closeted individual because I don't know all the factors in their decision. IMHO Its okay to do with that closet door whatever you want. Those of us on the other side, have no business labeling them, or defining them by their decisions.

Your subset that includes you and the men in your support group, are self selected or they would not be searching for and involved in that support group. Any emotionally mature and content gays, secure with their decisions on either side, won't be found there.
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Red:
You probably then recall the wild and crazy scene I mentioned in a different thread and for a different theme...the "heady days" of the '80s. That period in my life was when I first became exposed to gay people.

Some years later, I was chatting with my neighbors, a gay couple, sharing with them my first time seeing gay men interacting as such. That happened at 54, and I shared with them that my girlfriend and I both had the same thought: Who knew there were that many gay people on the planet, let alone in one place? They broke into a guffaw upon hearing that for, surprisingly, that was their thought as well when they first went to a gay club, though their frisson augured very different implications for them than for my GF and me. ;)

To this day, however, that conversation poignantly reminds me of just how universal the American experience is. For whatever be our differences, we are yet culturally bound, more alike than unalike, despite the cues that'd, given the rhetoric of discord pervading so much of America's sociopolitical discourse, suggest otherwise.


Aside:
I see you're on the West Coast now...were you then? If you were, perhaps yours was the West Coast scene....IIRC, the Trocadero and I-Beam (? -- I think they're the places my gay friends from those days would talk about).​
 
CLAX1911 said:
Yes the Reds under the bed paranoia was quite bizarre. It seemed odd to be worried about such a thing.

I like to point to the Stonewall riots as the first real strong motion in the battle for equality. And that happened shortly after the Civil Rights Movement. One could even say they were connected and I think they were.

We as a culture were abandoning backward axiom's and canards. It was a difficult time culturally speaking because that was shortly after this summer of love and hippies and this sort of postmodern movement. If we look at things as as a whole we see a lot of civil movements at the time. There was the women's Liberation movement the Civil Rights Movement was winding down the homosexual rights were kicking up.

I think is a culture it was just time to challenge these beliefs and viewpoints.
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Red:
I don't know how it the gay rights movement couldn't have burst into life. The exuberance and abandon I witnessed in the early to mid '80s could only have led to that outcome....I mean, really. You go to a nightclub (not a sex club) and in it folks are having sex, openly tooting coke and doing other drugs. You think, "Okay...This is essentially Woodstock in the middle of a city, and with good lighting, glamor and you don't have to go the middle of nowhere to do it. Yes, there's a revolution coming; one'd have to have been blind not to see it was inevitable...Straight folks had theirs at Woodstock, Black had the civil rights movement, women has theirs in the early '70s, so the only thing it could have been was gay.

I know for myself as someone who was a big partier just after college (end of the '70s to middle of the '80s), and everytime my GF, friends and I went to swanky parties/clubs, unlike when were were kids in school/college, the people there were gay and straight. All that intermingling made it impossible deny that gay folks are literally like straight folks in every way save for with whom they sleep, usually...because a few years in, naive me began to notice that folks whom I thought were gay weren't always so and folks whom I thought were wholly straight weren't exactly that either. At that point, it becomes eminently clear that all the "crap" one's heard/thought really was just that, crap.
 
Xelor said:
Red:
I don't know how it the gay rights movement couldn't have burst into life. The exuberance and abandon I witnessed in the early to mid '80s could only have led to that outcome....I mean, really. You go to a nightclub (not a sex club) and in it folks are having sex, openly tooting coke and doing other drugs. You think, "Okay...This is essentially Woodstock in the middle of a city, and with good lighting, glamor and you don't have to go the middle of nowhere to do it. Yes, there's a revolution coming; one'd have to have been blind not to see it was inevitable...Straight folks had theirs at Woodstock, Black had the civil rights movement, women has theirs in the early '70s, so the only thing it could have been was gay.

I know for myself as someone who was a big partier just after college (end of the '70s to middle of the '80s), and everytime my GF, friends and I went to swanky parties/clubs, unlike when were were kids in school/college, the people there were gay and straight. All that intermingling made it impossible deny that gay folks are literally like straight folks in every way save for with whom they sleep, usually...because a few years in, naive me began to notice that folks whom I thought were gay weren't always so and folks whom I thought were wholly straight weren't exactly that either. At that point, it becomes eminently clear that all the "crap" one's heard/thought really was just that, crap.
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I was born in the 80s so all I'm going by is things that have been recorded.
 
Xelor said:
Red:
You probably then recall the wild and crazy scene I mentioned in a different thread and for a different theme...the "heady days" of the '80s. That period in my life was when I first became exposed to gay people.

Some years later, I was chatting with my neighbors, a gay couple, sharing with them my first time seeing gay men interacting as such. That happened at 54, and I shared with them that my girlfriend and I both had the same thought: Who knew there were that many gay people on the planet, let alone in one place? They broke into a guffaw upon hearing that for, surprisingly, that was their thought as well when they first went to a gay club, though their frisson augured very different implications for them than for my GF and me. ;)

To this day, however, that conversation poignantly reminds me of just how universal the American experience is. For whatever be our differences, we are yet culturally bound, more alike than unalike, despite the cues that'd, given the rhetoric of discord pervading so much of America's sociopolitical discourse, suggest otherwise.


Aside:
I see you're on the West Coast now...were you then? If you were, perhaps yours was the West Coast scene....IIRC, the Trocadero and I-Beam (? -- I think they're the places my gay friends from those days would talk about).​
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I have always lived in Oregon. Small towns or medium sized cities, which for the most part had very little open social scene for gays. In my twenties, before internet, Grinder, or any 'chat rooms' or youtubes, or Glee, etc. What I learned as a naïve shy man, I learned about homosexuality or the gay subculture from the Phil Donahue Show or from literature/ magazines we'd see at a bathhouse or club in Portland miles and miles away. You could not help but get a twisted idea of what being gay was about, when all advertising and revenue sources directly or indirectly targeting gays, was dependent on venues of sex, porn, alcohol or drugs for access to the demographic.


Gays in long term or monogamous relationships were not hanging around where I might find them and the Advocate had little interest in promoting values contrary to its primary revenue sources -the advertisers or its main source of distribution the bathhouses or porn shops or bars .
 
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RAMOSS said:
More than one ex-gay came out an ex-ex-gay. They basically said they lied to themselves about it. Remember when two of the founding members of Exodus International ran off with each other?
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Say that fast 5 times....;)
 
btthegreat said:
I have always lived in Oregon. Small towns or medium sized cities, which for the most part had very little open social scene for gays. In my twenties, before internet, Grinder, or any 'chat rooms' or youtubes, or Glee, etc. What I learned as a naïve shy man, I learned about homosexuality or the gay subculture from the Phil Donahue Show or from literature/ magazines we'd see at a bathhouse or club in Portland miles and miles away. You could not help but get a twisted idea of what being gay was about, when all advertising and revenue sources directly or indirectly targeting gays, was dependent on venues of sex, porn, alcohol or drugs for access to the demographic.


Gays in long term or monogamous relationships were not hanging around where I might find them and the Advocate had little interest in promoting values contrary to its primary revenue sources -the advertisers or its main source of distribution the bathhouses or porn shops or bars .
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Red:
Oh, the power and importance of imagery and the language of "the other!"

Your "red" passage encapsulates exactly the effects of the "words of interposition and nullification."
 
Xelor said:
Red:
Oh, the power and importance of imagery and the language of "the other!"

Your "red" passage encapsulates exactly the effects of the "words of interposition and nullification."
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Please rephrase. I can't even guess at what you mean here. I am sure you can a more concrete way to communicate these ideas or explain them. I don't even know what you took away from what I wrote above
 
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btthegreat said:
Please rephrase. I can't even guess at what you mean here. I am sure you can a more concrete way to communicate these ideas or explain them. I don't even know what you took away from what I wrote above
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Your "red" passage reminded me of the comments Black friends of mine have shared about the impact of not seeing Blacks depicted (or seeing them inaptly depicted) in advertising, television shows, movies, etc. Thus what I had in mind when I wrote that passage is that your brief anecdote was a fine non-race-related illustration of how important imagery is in shaping both individual and cultural perceptions.
 
Xelor said:
Your "red" passage reminded me of the comments Black friends of mine have shared about the impact of not seeing Blacks depicted (or seeing them inaptly depicted) in advertising, television shows, movies, etc. Thus what I had in mind when I wrote that passage is that your brief anecdote was a fine non-race-related illustration of how important imagery is in shaping both individual and cultural perceptions.
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It is indeed important. We had gays depicted in mass media, but the closeted ones were full of shame and fear and 'out' ones were promiscuous and lust driven. Gay newpapers and magazines were driven to reinforce stereotypes, thanks to a very narrow market of potential advertisers. Ford, Nabisco Foods, General Electric, and Hasbro were not about to have their wares advertised next to a photo of two 'affectionate' gay men in speedos That meant Trojan, gay bathouses , adult stores and porn outlets pretty much had to be catered to, to keep income flowing. Prescription fees to such a small sliver of the population, simply could not cut it. This dependence on a narrow class of advertisers and distribution sources undoubtedly impacted how gay media framed calls by CDC for safe sex and the closing of bathhouses when AIDS hit.
 
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TrumpTrain said:
I know EXACTLY what I am talking about. Apparently you do not.

The APA is not some group of wonderful doctors, its a lobbying group. It removed Same-sex attraction as a disorder from the DSM for purely political reasons. If you don't know that then you should not start threads like this.

Same-sex attraction is a disorder.

See red.
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You must be one of those self loathing gays that are still in the closet. Open the closet door and set yourself free. Lindsey Graham awaits you!
 
JoanDavis said:
You must be one of those self loathing gays that are still in the closet. Open the closet door and set yourself free. Lindsey Graham awaits you!
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Well he mentioned that it was in the DSM 1 and 2 but he doesn't know why it was there or how these manuals were made and what criteria they use to include things.

He's just trying to bolster banal argument with false intellectualism.

People think that if they mention the DSM that they are smart. The DSM didn't start using objective criteria until the 1980s. Oddly enough that's when it became more common worldwide.
 
CLAX1911 said:
It seems to be a psychosis with some of these folks. I think most people who are proponents of conversion therapy or even practitioners are at least to some degree homosexual themselves. The tend to adopt this sort of binge and Purge Behavior. They view it as sort of like an alcoholic slipping up and having another drink.

It's really myopic that they don't see their own psychosis for what it is. I have been there before I've never done conversion therapy but years ago I tried very hard to not be homosexual. And you can go along resisting things until you can resist no longer.

I find it sad more than anything. These people are so desperate to fit into some religion or social structure that they torture themselves. I did it for about 13 years and I have enough. But some of these people hey do it into their fifties and sixties I don't know how they do it.

I guess some people just never grow out of they're very limited religious views. I really do feel sorry for them.

I would love the opportunity to talk to an ex gay person I've never met one I've seen videos and crap on YouTube but I've never actually met a real person from that philosophy.

I really do wonder what makes them tick.
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There's a movie called "But I'm a Cheerleader" staring Natasha Lyonne as a popular high school cheerleader who discovers she's gay and is sent to a gay conversion center by her frightened and ignorant parents. The movie was made in 1999, but in a comedic way it cuts like a knife through how ignorant proponents of gay conversion therapy are and how hopeless of an endeavor the therapy truly is. It's both entertaining and educational.
 
beefheart said:
Wait.....a self loathing hypocritical anti gay person who really is deep in the closet?


Sounds like a lot of republican senators....:lamo
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Larry Craig and Lindsay Graham come to mind.
 
TrumpTrain said:
Homophobia, a disgusting made up word designed to make sick people look normal and normal people look sick.

I point out the truth that homosexuals suffer from a mental disorder and that means that I have the disorder, the phobia. Anybody who uses that word is an ignorant fool.
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For people like you, it just makes sick people look even sicker.
 
SDET said:
When people seek to throw things away that have worked for hundreds of years, it's the height of arrogance. Society shouldn't be so quick that look down their nose at previous generations. Many things were done the way they were 50 or even 100 years ago for a reason.
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Doctors used to drain blood out of sick people in medieval times as a mythical "cure". Just because people believed or did stupid **** years ago is not a testament to their success. People evolve. People become educated and enlightened compared to our ancestors.
 
Xelor said:
Conversion Therapy Proponent Caught Trolling for Gay Men

Norman Goldwasser is a therapist who likens homosexuality to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and claims his so-called therapy, a regimen rejected by every respected medical and mental health association, can alter one's sexual orientation. That's his daytime schtick. At night the guy "cruises" for sex on a gay dating website.

While I think it ridiculous to attempt to alter people's sexual orientation -- it's not as though there's overt encouragement to be gay, so there's no reason why anyone who isn't gay would seek same-sex partners/romantic relationships and live as a gay person -- the country's laws allow individuals thus inclined to do so. What I have a a bigger problem with is folks singing one tune and dancing to a diametrically opposite one.

Goldwasser is yet another manifestation of the degradation in integrity and honesty we observe throughout our society. While I'm willing to tolerate the existence and expression of a host of ideas, attitudes and behaviors I oppose, I just have no forbearance for hypocrisy presented to abet one's own fortunes or that deliberately dehumanizes others and destroys them by declaring their very being dysfunctional. If one is going to undertake such tacks, one must do so with portfolio and integrity.
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Political parties do not cleanse sinners from their sins. Some religious republicans and democrats are found to be hypocrites, but that is certainly not a surprise to Christians who understand the Bible.
 
marke said:
Political parties do not cleanse sinners from their sins. Some religious republicans and democrats are found to be hypocrites, but that is certainly not a surprise to Christians who understand the Bible.
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Red:
Indeed, they do not, nor can they. What political parties -- their leaders and rank and file members -- can do, however, is exercise intellectual integrity and gravits by withholding acclaim and approbation (explicit and tacit) to self-aggrandizingly, hypocritically and/or palteringly promoted notions and their promoters.
The problem is that the very brazenness of Goldwasser's claims re: conversion "therapy" made him either grossly ignorant of the research in what's supposedly his own field or not grossly ignorant that research and thus a flat-out liar. Dissembling so alone violates a basic notion of Christianity, and it doesn't take much to have determined Goldwasser had done so. Accordingly, "getting in bed" with that guy was amiss from square one.
 
Xelor said:
Red:
Indeed, they do not, nor can they. What political parties -- their leaders and rank and file members -- can do, however, is exercise intellectual integrity and gravits by withholding acclaim and approbation (explicit and tacit) to self-aggrandizingly, hypocritically and/or palteringly promoted notions and their promoters.
The problem is that the very brazenness of Goldwasser's claims re: conversion "therapy" made him either grossly ignorant of the research in what's supposedly his own field or not grossly ignorant that research and thus a flat-out liar. Dissembling so alone violates a basic notion of Christianity, and it doesn't take much to have determined Goldwasser had done so. Accordingly, "getting in bed" with that guy was amiss from square one.
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Different researchers may come up with different results. So what? I have talked to homosexuals who claim they were influenced against their will to become homosexuals, but that once a homosexual it is hard to shake the curse sort of like an alcoholic trying to stop drinking.

I don't believe Shawn Hornbeck was born homosexual. He was 'made' homosexual by a wicked pervert.
 
marke said:
Different researchers may come up with different results. So what? I have talked to homosexuals who claim they were influenced against their will to become homosexuals, but that once a homosexual it is hard to shake the curse sort of like an alcoholic trying to stop drinking.

I don't believe Shawn Hornbeck was born homosexual. He was 'made' homosexual by a wicked pervert.
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Are you an expert in the area of homosexuality? If so,what is your field of study/training? What are you qualifications and degrees,if any?
 
Logician Man said:
Are you an expert in the area of homosexuality? If so,what is your field of study/training? What are you qualifications and degrees,if any?
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More importantly, what are the scholarly works on the topic that s/he has published?

I don't really care about or demand that one share one's credentials -- people one the Internet are likely and able to claim all sorts of things that nobody can verify -- for I know that if one is indeed an expert in a given field, one will have published something that's been critically reviewed, and whatever one has published will speak (or not) to the quality of one's expertise.

Of course, to be credible, one need not have published anything or be an expert. One need only reference the work of others who are experts and whose work has passed rigorous scrutiny.
 
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