Anything But Straight
by Wayne Besen
Harrington Park Press (Haworth). 311 pages, $16.95 (paper)
A FEW years ago, Wayne Besen got a call informing him that John Paulk had been spotted in a Washington, D.C., gay bar called Mr. P’s. Thanks to his reporting, the story broke soon after, destroying John Paulk’s credibility as a spokesman for the “ex-gay” movement. On the other hand, Paulk’s inability to go straight makes him a good poster boy for the failure of the ex-gay movement, because, as Besen proves in Anything But Straight, the movement’s methods just don’t work.
The ex-gay movement began in the 1970’s and continues to promise that either prayer or psychotherapy can help gay men and women to lead straight lives. Its most famous incarnation is a group on whose board Paulk used to sit, Exodus International. For his research, Besen interviewed movement leaders and rank-and-file “ex-gays,” scrutinized the history of their spiritual and scientific beliefs, and went undercover to infiltrate their organizations. At ex-gay meetings and “reparative therapy” conferences, he witnessed firsthand the failure of these groups to induce consistent behavioral change—or to provide a solid theoretical model upon which to base their claims. Among his interview subjects were the usual right-wing zealots, but also a few more colorful characters, such as therapist Richard Cohen, whose therapeutic massage methods encouraged men to touch each other. At a reparative therapy conference in D.C., Besen observed the surreal scene of Cohen “with more than 100 shoeless archconservatives massaging heterosexuality into one another.”
When Besen presses ex-gay leaders for information about their methods and rates of “cure,” he finds a startling lack of consistency—as well as conflicting figures about how long it takes to become “straight.” By attending ex-gay meetings undercover, he learns that, although national leaders may shy away from the word “cure,” local groups continue to promote the idea. He also discovers that ex-gay conferences, therapy groups, and retreats can themselves become hotbeds of desperate, guilty sex (as the author was himself hit on at such events). He concludes that the movement appeals to people who want to change their lives and have made their sexuality an easy scapegoat for their dissatisfaction. In effect, these groups “have reduced God to no more than a rabbit’s foot, a simple good-luck charm that is used to stop them from masturbating or running to an adult bookstore.”
The so-called “reparative therapy” movement is heavily influenced by the work of Christian psychologist Elizabeth Moberly, whose theories on the origins and nature of homosexuality Besen easily disproves. Contrary to her theories, not all gay people feel alienated from their same-sex parent, and not all gay men are unable to participate in sports because of this! What’s more, one’s own sexual orientation will not be changed by that of one’s friends. Ignoring the fact that not all gay men are effeminate and not all lesbians are butch, one method of reparative therapy involves teaching gay men and women to behave in more traditionally “masculine” and “feminine” ways.
“Reparative therapy” is espoused by clinicians and theorists who refuse to accept the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 decision to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness. They even have their own professional association, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (narth), which almost sounds like a gay outreach group! Besen characterizes the work of prominent reparative therapy advocate Joe Nicolosi as the “scientificization of stereotypes.” In short order, he dissects the contradictions that underpin Nicolosi’s propositions, among them “alternating between calling gays weak and all-powerful depending on the point he is trying to prove.” Unfortunately, these contradictions—and his reluctance to supply statistics on his rate of “success”—have not stopped Nicolosi and his colleagues. Like the explicitly religious ex-gays, they are inconsistent in their claims about whether a “cure” is possible and how long it would take. In fact, the therapy leads all too easily to a cycle of disappointment and psychological disaster.
Anything But Straight ends with a study of anti-gay politics and some recommendations for what the GLBT community can do to counter anti-gay hate. The murder of Matthew Shepard in October of 1998—after a summer filled with virulently anti-gay politics—sparked a national backlash against anti-gay rhetoric. But it seems to be politically acceptable again to engage in such dehumanizing speech, as long as it is cloaked in the soothing language of salvation. Besen recommends that we embrace inclusive religious organizations and strive to end the far Right’s monopoly on public faith, one that “too often pits gays versus God in the media.” And his book represents a giant step toward politically defrocking those who, in spite of the spiritual pronouncements they make to the contrary, deny the full humanity of the people they claim to help.
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Thomas March lives in New York City and teaches at The Brearley School.
