EX-GAY or Whatever--The Scam Remains the Same

More and more is written about reparative therapy, the hoax treatment to convert gay men and lesbians to being straight. Ugh.

The Washington Post ran an interesting article in yesterday's paper, titled, "Vowing to Set the World Straight." The article first focused on the fallacy of this fraud. Nicholas Cavnar had thought that he wasn't gay anymore, after going through the therapy. Then 9/11 came, and he discovered as he knew all along that his oddysey from gay to ex-gay to ex-gay-gay was a waste of his gay life, that afterall, he was gay from the beginning. His greatest regret was the 26 year sham of a marriage whereby he inflicted pain on his straight wife and their three children.

The article next interviews a reparative therapist Richard Cohen, an ex-gay. He says that he overcame his homosexuality with the help of a heterosexual mentor who "gave me the warmth of my daddy's love". Give me a break. This guy is covering up his desires for male2male sex, disguising it as a need for daddy love. He likes being smothered by a daddy figure. How can he say that he has been "cured" of his homosexuality. A big hoax. This guy is now a therapist, oh my God.

Cohen, however, is not a "real" therapist and in 2002, he was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association (ACA) for multiple ethical violations. According to the article, Cohen was found to have violated six sections of the ACA's ehics code, which bars member from actions that "seek to meet their personal needs at the expense of clients,", those that exploit "the trust and dependency of clients", and for soliciting testimonials or promoting products in a deceptive manner.

He blames his gayness on being molested as a child. Surely, that is a tramatic experience. Countless gay men have faced that. His parents even accepted his homosexuality. But still, Cohen had to drift and drift several times, pretending to be straight but having male boyfriend flings in New York. But now, he says he is "ex-gay".

Like Anne Heche is the only true bi-sexual in the world or the greatest actress alive, (check her stint on Everwood, the WB series), Cohen may well be an "ex-gay", but I really doubt it. He is going to stray again, and again inflict pain on his wife and his children. The shame of all of this is that he isn't man enough to admit he is gay. That reality we have all faced. We faced it, accepted it, and now live our lives accordingly and openly. Anything less is a life sentence of self betrayal, self pity and self persecution.