The failure of My Husband's Not Gay is one of style, not substance.
January 12, 2015 7:48 AM Subscribe
The Profound Lack of Empathy in "My Husband's Not Gay"
Rolling Stone: 4 Reasons TLC’s 'My Husband’s Not Gay' is Dangerous for LGBT People: "Bisexuality is a thing. This is not it.
Slate: My Husband’s Not Gay Misunderstands What It Means to Be Gay Pret, one of the men with a history of ex-gay activism, explains how, growing up, “I thought for a long time that I was gay. I thought that these feelings defined me.” Later he says: “If it was accepted to be a homosexual in the church, would I be gay? Or would I live that lifestyle? Maybe eight or nine years ago, 10 years ago, the answer would be yes. Today? No.” Clearly, these are people who believe that if they had made different choices, they would be gay men, not people who believe that being gay is categorically distinct from their experience of same-sex attraction.
Salt Lake Tribune: Utahns in ‘My Husband’s Not Gay’ promote discredited ‘conversion therapy’
The New York Times: Where Being in Denial Is Right at Home: The program does have a few interesting and genuine-sounding moments in which the couples or their friends explore the collision of faith and feelings, but they’ll be drowned out.
Rolling Stone: 4 Reasons TLC’s 'My Husband’s Not Gay' is Dangerous for LGBT People: "Bisexuality is a thing. This is not it.
Slate: My Husband’s Not Gay Misunderstands What It Means to Be Gay Pret, one of the men with a history of ex-gay activism, explains how, growing up, “I thought for a long time that I was gay. I thought that these feelings defined me.” Later he says: “If it was accepted to be a homosexual in the church, would I be gay? Or would I live that lifestyle? Maybe eight or nine years ago, 10 years ago, the answer would be yes. Today? No.” Clearly, these are people who believe that if they had made different choices, they would be gay men, not people who believe that being gay is categorically distinct from their experience of same-sex attraction.
Salt Lake Tribune: Utahns in ‘My Husband’s Not Gay’ promote discredited ‘conversion therapy’
The New York Times: Where Being in Denial Is Right at Home: The program does have a few interesting and genuine-sounding moments in which the couples or their friends explore the collision of faith and feelings, but they’ll be drowned out.
From The Atlantic piece:
"I don't feel like I fit the mold of guys that are attracted to other men," says a single "SSA" man, Tom. "Other than my deep and abiding love for Broadway show tunes. And my attraction to males—those are the two things that are kind of gay about me."
Not sure how that line was delivered, but if it's funny kind of depends on that.
The couples in My Husband's Not Gay have created lives they say they want, lives that are tolerant of homosexuality in every way except choosing, themselves, to have gay sex.
I feel like there are very few definitive statements about someone you can make after seeing them in a reality show.
posted by ODiV at 8:06 AM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
"I don't feel like I fit the mold of guys that are attracted to other men," says a single "SSA" man, Tom. "Other than my deep and abiding love for Broadway show tunes. And my attraction to males—those are the two things that are kind of gay about me."
Not sure how that line was delivered, but if it's funny kind of depends on that.
The couples in My Husband's Not Gay have created lives they say they want, lives that are tolerant of homosexuality in every way except choosing, themselves, to have gay sex.
I feel like there are very few definitive statements about someone you can make after seeing them in a reality show.
posted by ODiV at 8:06 AM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
Years ago my wife and I were eating a Boston Market and there was a guy there wearing a t-shirt, that explained in lengthy fashioned how Jesus had saved him from homosexuality. His wife was there also wearing a t-shirt that explained how her husband was no longer gay because of Jesus. Out in the parking lot, I saw their van, which I could identify by the fact that it, too, was covered in text explaining how the man driving it had been saved from homosexuality by Jesus.
Obviously, these people are living a different version of this, but it makes me sad in a similar way.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:06 AM on January 12, 2015 [12 favorites]
Obviously, these people are living a different version of this, but it makes me sad in a similar way.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:06 AM on January 12, 2015 [12 favorites]
(is it the The Atlantic piece?)
posted by ODiV at 8:08 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ODiV at 8:08 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
It continues to be very weird to me that people think they have to be *this way* in order to be "gay"/have sex with people of their same sex. No, people. Be however you want to be, have (consenting!) sex with the people you find attractive. Obviously, this is difficult for some, but I'm stuck in "why is this so hard" land.
posted by rtha at 8:09 AM on January 12, 2015 [39 favorites]
posted by rtha at 8:09 AM on January 12, 2015 [39 favorites]
"I don't feel like I fit the mold of guys that are attracted to other men," says a single "SSA" man, Tom. "Other than my deep and abiding love for Broadway show tunes. And my attraction to males—those are the two things that are kind of gay about me."
Obligatory link from the Onion
posted by Ber at 8:10 AM on January 12, 2015 [21 favorites]
Obligatory link from the Onion
posted by Ber at 8:10 AM on January 12, 2015 [21 favorites]
Ironically, all of this makes their lives seem a lot like a queer version of Leave It to Beaver.Leaving it for beaver, rather.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:14 AM on January 12, 2015 [40 favorites]
Apparently the original title "Endless parade of avoidable human misery" didn't test well.
posted by The Whelk at 8:16 AM on January 12, 2015 [89 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 8:16 AM on January 12, 2015 [89 favorites]
Obama would do me a big favor if his next Executive Order just went ahead and banned the fuck out of Reality TV.
posted by allthinky at 8:18 AM on January 12, 2015 [18 favorites]
posted by allthinky at 8:18 AM on January 12, 2015 [18 favorites]
So, I saw "TLC" and though of the musical group and not the cable channel, and thought they'd released a really goddamn weird song.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:20 AM on January 12, 2015 [53 favorites]
posted by jason_steakums at 8:20 AM on January 12, 2015 [53 favorites]
Be however you want to be
When everyone you know and love is telling you otherwise, that has to be really really tough. Especially when the spectre of ostracization is lurking behind their words.
posted by ODiV at 8:20 AM on January 12, 2015 [9 favorites]
When everyone you know and love is telling you otherwise, that has to be really really tough. Especially when the spectre of ostracization is lurking behind their words.
posted by ODiV at 8:20 AM on January 12, 2015 [9 favorites]
"why is this so hard"
That's what those guys said.
Hey-oh!
But seriously:
Be however you want to be, have (consenting!) sex with the people you find attractive.
Its entirely possibly that these people are not reliable narrators and whatever man-man attraction they may have is completely glossed over by their desire to conform to and promulgate an ideological narrative. That's basically preaching that gay men can act "not-gay". For all we know these guys actually love hetro sex and are just really polite bigots.
posted by GuyZero at 8:20 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
That's what those guys said.
Hey-oh!
But seriously:
Be however you want to be, have (consenting!) sex with the people you find attractive.
Its entirely possibly that these people are not reliable narrators and whatever man-man attraction they may have is completely glossed over by their desire to conform to and promulgate an ideological narrative. That's basically preaching that gay men can act "not-gay". For all we know these guys actually love hetro sex and are just really polite bigots.
posted by GuyZero at 8:20 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
FWIW, I grew up with a gay father who did not come out until we were teenagers. That kind of thing really destroys families, and children.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:21 AM on January 12, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:21 AM on January 12, 2015 [10 favorites]
It continues to be very weird to me that people think they have to be *this way* in order to be "gay"/have sex with people of their same sex. No, people. Be however you want to be, have (consenting!) sex with the people you find attractive. Obviously, this is difficult for some, but I'm stuck in "why is this so hard" land.
Well, considering that these people are trying to fit into a set of communities like their own church, and also the larger community of Respectable Christian Americans, perhaps they are the type of people who need to have the sense that their identity comports with certain established or prevalent identities, such as the models of masculinity or femininity that tend to be promoted in very specific terms in discrete communities like some churches. Although it seems obvious to some that one should "be however you want to be," that's evidently hard for a lot of people, and maybe not only because they're denying their authentic selves.
posted by clockzero at 8:23 AM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
Well, considering that these people are trying to fit into a set of communities like their own church, and also the larger community of Respectable Christian Americans, perhaps they are the type of people who need to have the sense that their identity comports with certain established or prevalent identities, such as the models of masculinity or femininity that tend to be promoted in very specific terms in discrete communities like some churches. Although it seems obvious to some that one should "be however you want to be," that's evidently hard for a lot of people, and maybe not only because they're denying their authentic selves.
posted by clockzero at 8:23 AM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
I can't help but think how this ideology fits on the spectrum next to Roy Cohn's lines from Angels in America:
I have sex with men. [...] Roy Cohn is not a homosexual. Roy Cohn is heterosexual man, Henry, who f--ks around with guys.posted by mochapickle at 8:33 AM on January 12, 2015 [7 favorites]
I guess my disconnect is that there are still people who I guess think you have to be a particular way (swishy, campy, femmy) that isn't "manly" in order to actually be gay. The disconnect is there because I've been fortunate to know many gay men over the years who are all over the map in terms of "man" and "gay"and it makes me sad that there are still so many people who think that somehow wouldn't be possible for them.
posted by rtha at 8:33 AM on January 12, 2015 [21 favorites]
posted by rtha at 8:33 AM on January 12, 2015 [21 favorites]
It's also complicated by the notion that one must be either gay or straight. Life has no grey areas, no sir.
posted by bonehead at 8:49 AM on January 12, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 8:49 AM on January 12, 2015 [13 favorites]
Its entirely possibly that these people are not reliable narrators and whatever man-man attraction they may have is completely glossed over by their desire to conform to and promulgate an ideological narrative.
That's the verified case with ex-ex-gays like John Paulk, who was literally the face of quote-endquote ex-gays for decades.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:50 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
That's the verified case with ex-ex-gays like John Paulk, who was literally the face of quote-endquote ex-gays for decades.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:50 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
The articles say it better than I can, but this is a disgusting show and TLC should be ashamed of airing it.
I keep reflecting on how damn lucky I've been. I was raised in a conservative Christian church, but I lost my faith before I realised I was bi, and my mom was (and still is) a liberal evangelical. I have no idea what might have happened to me if I had been invested, but had to suppress that part of me. I'm even married to someone of the opposite sex, but still don't feel straight.
A show like this legitimises a very dangerous ideology - it's not an acceptable alternative, any more than religiously-based misogyny or racism is.
posted by jb at 8:52 AM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
I keep reflecting on how damn lucky I've been. I was raised in a conservative Christian church, but I lost my faith before I realised I was bi, and my mom was (and still is) a liberal evangelical. I have no idea what might have happened to me if I had been invested, but had to suppress that part of me. I'm even married to someone of the opposite sex, but still don't feel straight.
A show like this legitimises a very dangerous ideology - it's not an acceptable alternative, any more than religiously-based misogyny or racism is.
posted by jb at 8:52 AM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
I guess my disconnect is that there are still people who I guess think you have to be a particular way (swishy, campy, femmy) that isn't "manly" in order to actually be gay.
I get (mildly) annoyed when I meet people who think that you must be gay if you are swishy or loved Broadway when you were 10. Lots of straight men are what I like to call "gaydar foils" - and that's awesome.
posted by jb at 8:55 AM on January 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
I get (mildly) annoyed when I meet people who think that you must be gay if you are swishy or loved Broadway when you were 10. Lots of straight men are what I like to call "gaydar foils" - and that's awesome.
posted by jb at 8:55 AM on January 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
> It's also complicated by the notion that one must be either gay or straight. Life has no grey areas, no sir.
That, too!
I have a couple of ex-girlfriends (I'm a woman) who identified as bi and/or lesbian who are now very partnered with men. They still identify as queer or bi. One of them, her husband identified as gay when they met. They've been married about 14 years now or so.
> I get (mildly) annoyed when I meet people who think that you must be gay if you are swishy or loved Broadway when you were 10. Lots of straight men are what I like to call "gaydar foils" - and that's awesome.
And that!
posted by rtha at 8:57 AM on January 12, 2015 [7 favorites]
That, too!
I have a couple of ex-girlfriends (I'm a woman) who identified as bi and/or lesbian who are now very partnered with men. They still identify as queer or bi. One of them, her husband identified as gay when they met. They've been married about 14 years now or so.
> I get (mildly) annoyed when I meet people who think that you must be gay if you are swishy or loved Broadway when you were 10. Lots of straight men are what I like to call "gaydar foils" - and that's awesome.
And that!
posted by rtha at 8:57 AM on January 12, 2015 [7 favorites]
FWIW, I grew up with a gay father who did not come out until we were teenagers. That kind of thing really destroys families, and children.
FWIW, I was unwittingly a beard for three years with a man who was amazing at lying. This fucks with your head so much I can't tell you. Putting this kind of shit on TV is horrible.
posted by Melismata at 9:00 AM on January 12, 2015 [20 favorites]
FWIW, I was unwittingly a beard for three years with a man who was amazing at lying. This fucks with your head so much I can't tell you. Putting this kind of shit on TV is horrible.
posted by Melismata at 9:00 AM on January 12, 2015 [20 favorites]
From first link:
The problem, though, with making reality television about gay men who don't want to be gay is that it will invariably lack empathy for the pain that likely defines those men's lives.
Did the subjects agree to appear on TLC and expect that the experience would be dignified and affirming? I believe that I once saw a cable guide entry about a TLC show documenting people who fuck their cars. Seriously. Anyone who would willingly participate in this sideshow should expect cash and negative attention. That's it. I have a hard time imagining that anyone might believe otherwise.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:14 AM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
The problem, though, with making reality television about gay men who don't want to be gay is that it will invariably lack empathy for the pain that likely defines those men's lives.
Did the subjects agree to appear on TLC and expect that the experience would be dignified and affirming? I believe that I once saw a cable guide entry about a TLC show documenting people who fuck their cars. Seriously. Anyone who would willingly participate in this sideshow should expect cash and negative attention. That's it. I have a hard time imagining that anyone might believe otherwise.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:14 AM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
Huh. I would have thought the problem would be them making these deluded idiots a freak show, not actually taking them seriously.
I may have been out of the loop as regards TLCs current core values.
posted by Artw at 9:15 AM on January 12, 2015
I may have been out of the loop as regards TLCs current core values.
posted by Artw at 9:15 AM on January 12, 2015
I think this is all a terribly complex thing, in part because both sides have for a very long time denied that there was any gray area. Pro- LGBT organizations have endorsed "you were born with your sexuality, it is rigid and unchanging and cannot be changed" as a defense against people who said "why don't you just change instead of doing these terrible terrible things?" Anti-LGBT organizations have said "In no way were you born with homosexual leanings, it's all some terrible problem that can be solved by the love of Jesus." And both of those things aren't really acknowledging a lot of gray area. There are people whose sexuality changes as they age, as they experience sex, as they choose to change, for a whole fucking lot of reasons. There are also people who are pretty rigid in their orientation and have no "give." Both of these things exist and it is okay for both of these things to exist.
We will never get truly "pro-LGBT" until we stop clinging to biological essentialism and start proclaiming that it doesn't matter if people DO choose to be gay or straight or bi or anything in between, that it's fine to choose sexuality and it's fine to choose whatever sexuality the hell you want - without having to offer the defense of "I would totally choose to be het, you know, if I could, it's just that I can't!"
posted by corb at 9:15 AM on January 12, 2015 [25 favorites]
We will never get truly "pro-LGBT" until we stop clinging to biological essentialism and start proclaiming that it doesn't matter if people DO choose to be gay or straight or bi or anything in between, that it's fine to choose sexuality and it's fine to choose whatever sexuality the hell you want - without having to offer the defense of "I would totally choose to be het, you know, if I could, it's just that I can't!"
posted by corb at 9:15 AM on January 12, 2015 [25 favorites]
I guess my disconnect is that there are still people who I guess think you have to be a particular way (swishy, campy, femmy) that isn't "manly" in order to actually be gay. The disconnect is there because I've been fortunate to know many gay men over the years who are all over the map in terms of "man" and "gay"and it makes me sad that there are still so many people who think that somehow wouldn't be possible for them.
These are also probably men who grew up in climates where proper masculinity was sharply defined, so perhaps that's part of why it's difficult for them to come to terms with the fact that there isn't also a parallel One Right Way to be gay, which every gay man abides by. Or perhaps it's just their way of maintaining the delusion on non-gayness -- sure I like to have sex with other men and adore Broadway show tunes, but not in the same way that gay men do! I admit, it sort of falls apart if you look at it too hard. Or even medium-hard.
posted by clockzero at 9:18 AM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
These are also probably men who grew up in climates where proper masculinity was sharply defined, so perhaps that's part of why it's difficult for them to come to terms with the fact that there isn't also a parallel One Right Way to be gay, which every gay man abides by. Or perhaps it's just their way of maintaining the delusion on non-gayness -- sure I like to have sex with other men and adore Broadway show tunes, but not in the same way that gay men do! I admit, it sort of falls apart if you look at it too hard. Or even medium-hard.
posted by clockzero at 9:18 AM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
So, in case there was any doubt, this proves that TLC will do anything for viewers and to increase their bottom line. Given that point, can we really doubt that this show isn't just setting the ground work for when this inevitably happens for one of the Duggars? I mean, statistically, it just seems likely...
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:21 AM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:21 AM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
I guess my disconnect is that there are still people who I guess think you have to be a particular way (swishy, campy, femmy) that isn't "manly" in order to actually be gay.
I'm a little embarrassed to admit a story in Vice many years ago about gay slobs was for this guy a bit of an eye-opener. Like "Woah! That makes so much sense!" In my defense it was a long time ago and I was very young and stupid.
posted by Hoopo at 9:25 AM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm a little embarrassed to admit a story in Vice many years ago about gay slobs was for this guy a bit of an eye-opener. Like "Woah! That makes so much sense!" In my defense it was a long time ago and I was very young and stupid.
posted by Hoopo at 9:25 AM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
I mean... just look at that Mr. Show link that Joey Michaels just posted! It definitely uses camp as shorthand for gay. This is extremely common, even in a lot of media that claims to be pro-gay. For me, my first non-stereotypical portrayal of a gay man was Keith from Six Feet Under. Or maybe Kima or Omar from The Wire.
posted by yaymukund at 9:30 AM on January 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by yaymukund at 9:30 AM on January 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
A review written by someone who actually watched the show.
posted by gadge emeritus at 9:32 AM on January 12, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by gadge emeritus at 9:32 AM on January 12, 2015 [8 favorites]
FWIW, I was unwittingly a beard for three years with a man who was amazing at lying. This fucks with your head so much I can't tell you. Putting this kind of shit on TV is horrible.
Me too, Melismata! Secret handshake! And confirming it not only sucks from an interpersonal and emotional perspective but also from a financial one. Relying on the lies caused me financial damage for YEARS, yet he skated out scot-free into a high paying job.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 9:37 AM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
Me too, Melismata! Secret handshake! And confirming it not only sucks from an interpersonal and emotional perspective but also from a financial one. Relying on the lies caused me financial damage for YEARS, yet he skated out scot-free into a high paying job.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 9:37 AM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
A review written by someone who actually watched the show.
What about compassion for the families of these men? While they may be momentarily satisfied to be in these marriages, they are at a increased risk of depression, suicide, cheating on their spouse, etc.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:41 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
What about compassion for the families of these men? While they may be momentarily satisfied to be in these marriages, they are at a increased risk of depression, suicide, cheating on their spouse, etc.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:41 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
Conversion therapy kills kids. Many divorced husbands in my community (I'm gay and live in Utah) have shattered families from marrying to fix their gay, from having kids to fix their gay, from suffering through 18 years of awful married life to fix their gay. I know these people in the show might be an exception, that the panopoly of sexuality is a wide and diverse world. If so, good for them. Promoting the image that they can be fixed, that if they just deny hard enough and often enough that they're happy and saved is a bullshit way to live a life. These words have impact. There are families who will see this show and say "See Timmy, these guys get it, they can do it. You need to work harder at therapy (formerly Evergreen Intl, now rebranded as North Star)." Gawking at them, watching their pain and life as a vehicle for TLCs ad revenue bottom line is not the appropriate way to have this conversation. It will do more damage than good.
posted by msbutah at 9:51 AM on January 12, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by msbutah at 9:51 AM on January 12, 2015 [12 favorites]
The spouses entered into these marriages eyes open and with the belief that faith would solve these problems. That is more information than even people in this thread have described in terms of marrying a gay man. At least if there's fooling going on they're primarily fooling themselves, and that applies about as much to the spouses as it does to the men involved.
posted by gadge emeritus at 9:51 AM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by gadge emeritus at 9:51 AM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
I mean... just look at that Mr. Show link that Joey Michaels just posted! It definitely uses camp as shorthand for gay.
Sketch comedy's going to be the worst possible example though-- the bit relies on the viewer recognizing that the person in question is unmistakably gay, and playing the character very camp is the quickest way to suggest that. The sketch would have a very different tone if it didn't have a big flag stating "the character is lying to himself." It's not nuanced, but the focus of the humor is the character's delusion, not his flamboyancy.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:56 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sketch comedy's going to be the worst possible example though-- the bit relies on the viewer recognizing that the person in question is unmistakably gay, and playing the character very camp is the quickest way to suggest that. The sketch would have a very different tone if it didn't have a big flag stating "the character is lying to himself." It's not nuanced, but the focus of the humor is the character's delusion, not his flamboyancy.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:56 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
i feel like it's hard to explain or show or understand being gay, especially being a gay male, in the mormon church, especially in utah/idaho/arizona/nevada area (not that any of us queers get off easy in the church - just that there's a special, grotesque focus on male homosexuality which damages in a unique way). it's hard for me to even start to find the words about how they teach us to hate ourselves before we even begin to learn who we are. because of the ordained by god gender roles, and eternal families, and patriarchal familial focus, being gay and happy seem like they're impossible goals.
for the women who marry these men - to say they have choice about it also shows a certain amount of ignorance of the social issues facing women in the church. how i've read about these things going before is that the bishop specifically picks a woman who likely won't get married otherwise, one who is very devout, one who is easily led and then the church plays matchmaker and the bishop helps forward the lie that the man is healed of his SSA and he just needs a good woman to love him and god to keep him on the straight and narrow. or, the women don't find out until after the marriage - a marriage that has been sealed for time and all eternity - because the bishop has convinced the man that just as soon as he starts fucking his wife he'll forget about fucking men. for these women to not follow the council of their bishops is pretty unthinkable.
the other part this fucks with lives is that to many mormons the sin of homosexuality is the same sin as pedophilia, which introduces a fuckton more shame into the gay side and weirdly gives a pass for men who rape children, so long as they "repent." it's an extremely complicated thing and i don't know how to even begin to unwind it.
posted by nadawi at 10:00 AM on January 12, 2015 [49 favorites]
for the women who marry these men - to say they have choice about it also shows a certain amount of ignorance of the social issues facing women in the church. how i've read about these things going before is that the bishop specifically picks a woman who likely won't get married otherwise, one who is very devout, one who is easily led and then the church plays matchmaker and the bishop helps forward the lie that the man is healed of his SSA and he just needs a good woman to love him and god to keep him on the straight and narrow. or, the women don't find out until after the marriage - a marriage that has been sealed for time and all eternity - because the bishop has convinced the man that just as soon as he starts fucking his wife he'll forget about fucking men. for these women to not follow the council of their bishops is pretty unthinkable.
the other part this fucks with lives is that to many mormons the sin of homosexuality is the same sin as pedophilia, which introduces a fuckton more shame into the gay side and weirdly gives a pass for men who rape children, so long as they "repent." it's an extremely complicated thing and i don't know how to even begin to unwind it.
posted by nadawi at 10:00 AM on January 12, 2015 [49 favorites]
i think the best explanation i've ever heard for what it's like to a faithful mormon man suffering with same sex attraction (who eventually becomes an ex-mormon out gay man) is benji schwimmer (from "so you think you can dance") on mormon stories. it's long, but fascinating to listen to and really takes you through all the different ways the church tries to destroy you, and how conversion therapy actually reinforces the gay=camp thing (while encouraging weird extreme masculinity with hugging). you can skip to the last part if you want, but you'll miss some of the context and some of the ways the church tried to "fix" him.
posted by nadawi at 10:10 AM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by nadawi at 10:10 AM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
Jeff and Pret have been described as participants in People Can Change. This is what People Can Change does.
posted by prefpara at 10:15 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by prefpara at 10:15 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think the mental gymnastics involved are fascinating.
The "SSA" men feel that they were born this way, that despite their attempts they are always going to have some "SSA", but they also feel that this is just an extra challenge God has given them in life.
I'm thinking of this cartoon. A teacher offers the same "fair" exam to a line of students. They must climb the same tree. Except the students are an elephant, gold fish, seal, monkey, dog and a bird. So I guess in these men's minds they're the goldfish. They're still climbing up that tree though!
posted by fontophilic at 10:26 AM on January 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
The "SSA" men feel that they were born this way, that despite their attempts they are always going to have some "SSA", but they also feel that this is just an extra challenge God has given them in life.
I'm thinking of this cartoon. A teacher offers the same "fair" exam to a line of students. They must climb the same tree. Except the students are an elephant, gold fish, seal, monkey, dog and a bird. So I guess in these men's minds they're the goldfish. They're still climbing up that tree though!
posted by fontophilic at 10:26 AM on January 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
Well, considering that these people are trying to fit into a set of communities like their own church, and also the larger community of Respectable Christian Americans, perhaps they are the type of people who need to have the sense that their identity comports with certain established or prevalent identities, such as the models of masculinity or femininity that tend to be promoted in very specific terms in discrete communities like some churches. Although it seems obvious to some that one should "be however you want to be," that's evidently hard for a lot of people, and maybe not only because they're denying their authentic selves.
I think you'd find many sociologists and psychologists who would disagree that it's "hard" at all for MSMs (men who have sex with men) to compartmentalize identities. Maybe it's hard for these men because they're playing a role that it's difficult, in front of a camera, for a national TV audience, for a show whose purpose is to reinforce the idea that being an openly gay man is nothing more than a hopeless tribulation. But many, many, many men have successfully structured lives on the downlow that allow them to "comport with" their Respectable Church Communities (whatever those may be) and still look around for and have sex with men in another compartment of their lives -- and still go back to their "normal" lives as though there were no separation. I've known many men who've lived that life, and I know men who are currently married to women who want to live that life. What living and coming to rely on that kind of prolonged double life does to the other people in their lives, including the women they are in relationships with in their "normal" lives, is another story.
posted by blucevalo at 10:59 AM on January 12, 2015
I think you'd find many sociologists and psychologists who would disagree that it's "hard" at all for MSMs (men who have sex with men) to compartmentalize identities. Maybe it's hard for these men because they're playing a role that it's difficult, in front of a camera, for a national TV audience, for a show whose purpose is to reinforce the idea that being an openly gay man is nothing more than a hopeless tribulation. But many, many, many men have successfully structured lives on the downlow that allow them to "comport with" their Respectable Church Communities (whatever those may be) and still look around for and have sex with men in another compartment of their lives -- and still go back to their "normal" lives as though there were no separation. I've known many men who've lived that life, and I know men who are currently married to women who want to live that life. What living and coming to rely on that kind of prolonged double life does to the other people in their lives, including the women they are in relationships with in their "normal" lives, is another story.
posted by blucevalo at 10:59 AM on January 12, 2015
corb: There are people whose sexuality changes as they age, as they experience sex, as they choose to change, for a whole fucking lot of reasons.
There are plenty of instances (I know a couple of people in my own life who went through this) in which someone who'd previously had romances exclusively with one sex fell in love with someone of the other. I know of absolutely no cases in which someone chose to change their sexual orientation, successfully, and if you can cite cases of people successfully choosing to change, by all means do. Also, WRT your "both sides do it" argument, you could acknowledge that it's not the pro-LGBT side that's urging people to undergo sexual-orientation-alteration "therapy" (which does not work, period) to change their orientation.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:07 AM on January 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
There are plenty of instances (I know a couple of people in my own life who went through this) in which someone who'd previously had romances exclusively with one sex fell in love with someone of the other. I know of absolutely no cases in which someone chose to change their sexual orientation, successfully, and if you can cite cases of people successfully choosing to change, by all means do. Also, WRT your "both sides do it" argument, you could acknowledge that it's not the pro-LGBT side that's urging people to undergo sexual-orientation-alteration "therapy" (which does not work, period) to change their orientation.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:07 AM on January 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
From the Rolling Stone article: "Bisexuality, as any sexuality, is an identity." is just the flipside to all of the "Other than my deep and abiding love for Broadway show tunes. And my attraction to males—those are the two things that are kind of gay about me." talk. This is the same thing said in different words.
posted by koavf at 11:09 AM on January 12, 2015
posted by koavf at 11:09 AM on January 12, 2015
...And when I saw an Onion link, I expected this one.
posted by koavf at 11:10 AM on January 12, 2015
posted by koavf at 11:10 AM on January 12, 2015
There are plenty of instances (I know a couple of people in my own life who went through this) in which someone who'd previously had romances exclusively with one sex fell in love with someone of the other. I know of absolutely no cases in which someone chose to change their sexual orientation, successfully
How, precisely, would you define the difference there?
posted by corb at 11:11 AM on January 12, 2015
How, precisely, would you define the difference there?
posted by corb at 11:11 AM on January 12, 2015
koavf, I don't think these men on this show are attracted to their wives. So, in essence, they aren't bisexual.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:12 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:12 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
corb, not sure if you're being facetious, but your sexual attractions can be fluid, if you're bisexual. Straight or gay people tend to stay straight or gay.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:13 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:13 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
TLC is giving a fringe narrative a platform.
Say it isn't so! TLC? Seriously? They are the LEARNING channel right? Not a bunch of sensationalist idiots intentionally trolling the culture wars.. right? right?
(ok, I've effectively used up my allotment of sarcasm for 2015. *sigh* and I was doing so good these ...past...um... 12 days)
posted by edgeways at 11:13 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
Say it isn't so! TLC? Seriously? They are the LEARNING channel right? Not a bunch of sensationalist idiots intentionally trolling the culture wars.. right? right?
(ok, I've effectively used up my allotment of sarcasm for 2015. *sigh* and I was doing so good these ...past...um... 12 days)
posted by edgeways at 11:13 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
How, precisely, would you define the difference there?
The difference is obvious. They didn't choose to fall in love with someone of the other sex after years of same-sex relationships. They just did. "Choose" indicates that they made a decision. That is not what happened.
posted by chonus at 11:19 AM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
The difference is obvious. They didn't choose to fall in love with someone of the other sex after years of same-sex relationships. They just did. "Choose" indicates that they made a decision. That is not what happened.
posted by chonus at 11:19 AM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
If gay sex is a requirement of gayness, then logically it must follow that there are no straight virgins.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:20 AM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by blue_beetle at 11:20 AM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
If gay sex is a requirement of gayness
It's not.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:22 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's not.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:22 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
The men featured on this show are not random SSA Mormons. At least two were and are actively involved in ex-gay xian reparative therapy organizations/hate groups.
More xian reactionary propaganda in the guise of entertainment. Tell me, are we going to see the faith failure, domestic violence, child abuse, substance abuse and post-suicide funerals at the 5- and 10-year followups to this travesty?
posted by Dreidl at 11:24 AM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
More xian reactionary propaganda in the guise of entertainment. Tell me, are we going to see the faith failure, domestic violence, child abuse, substance abuse and post-suicide funerals at the 5- and 10-year followups to this travesty?
posted by Dreidl at 11:24 AM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
Dreidl, TLC keeps spitting out Duggar episodes even after the mother has repeatedly put her children's lives in danger, so....
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:25 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:25 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
And so into the sparkling rainbow of relationships, attraction and deception. I have known a dazzling array of modes of marriage among my friends, which most certainly includes people who lived stereotypically gay lives in their twenties (cruising, a kaleidoscope of temporary attachments, Old Compton Street aficionados) and are now living stereotypical straight married lives-with-kids, because they met a woman they wanted to do that with. Were they bi all the time? You'll have to ask them. Apologetic, defensive, confused? God, no.
It's not only possible to decide to act or not act on components of one's sexuality, it's mandated by society. If you're married in the conventional sense (as every other posh novel exhaustively relates, it ain't always that way) you're supposed to quench sexual desire for all except your partner. If you do feel sexual attraction for your own gender, that 'all' may be a larger gamut than for if you don't, but the principle's the same. The exact nature of sexual liaisons accepted by society changes all the time, from society to society, even from family to family - there are those who don't leave unsatisfactory marriages for someone they love and are having a secret affair with because they'd be the 'first in their family' to do so, even when there's absolutely no religious or outside peer pressure that way.
So the 'my husband's not gay, he just likes sex with men' thing falls well within my experience of how people conduct their lives, even if it may seem far too close to the pray-away-the-gay coercion and self-delusion that's known harmful. I don't doubt that living in a very stratified religious environment is an influence and one with its own dangers: when it comes to sex and God, I'm of the opinion that religion should stick to preaching honesty, compassion and awareness, perhaps get in a bit of a celebration, then bug out. There are a lot of people I feel that way about, too.
In ostensibly simpler times, Jane Austen said that half the world doesn't understand the pleasures of the other. I can't offhand work out a neat way to rephrase that away from a 50:50 ratio to 20:20:20:20:20, because I'm not Jane Austen, but tolerance really does mean letting people you think you understand make choices you don't.
posted by Devonian at 11:29 AM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's not only possible to decide to act or not act on components of one's sexuality, it's mandated by society. If you're married in the conventional sense (as every other posh novel exhaustively relates, it ain't always that way) you're supposed to quench sexual desire for all except your partner. If you do feel sexual attraction for your own gender, that 'all' may be a larger gamut than for if you don't, but the principle's the same. The exact nature of sexual liaisons accepted by society changes all the time, from society to society, even from family to family - there are those who don't leave unsatisfactory marriages for someone they love and are having a secret affair with because they'd be the 'first in their family' to do so, even when there's absolutely no religious or outside peer pressure that way.
So the 'my husband's not gay, he just likes sex with men' thing falls well within my experience of how people conduct their lives, even if it may seem far too close to the pray-away-the-gay coercion and self-delusion that's known harmful. I don't doubt that living in a very stratified religious environment is an influence and one with its own dangers: when it comes to sex and God, I'm of the opinion that religion should stick to preaching honesty, compassion and awareness, perhaps get in a bit of a celebration, then bug out. There are a lot of people I feel that way about, too.
In ostensibly simpler times, Jane Austen said that half the world doesn't understand the pleasures of the other. I can't offhand work out a neat way to rephrase that away from a 50:50 ratio to 20:20:20:20:20, because I'm not Jane Austen, but tolerance really does mean letting people you think you understand make choices you don't.
posted by Devonian at 11:29 AM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
i feel like the choice conversation is fraught, but i'm going to try to wade in. as a pansexual queer woman i got horrific messaging from my church/home/community about my desires towards anyone who wasn't a cis male. i also got quite a bit of blowback and negativity from the gay communities about my attraction towards cis males. i think the lg side is getting better all the time when it comes to accepting the b&t, but it's just a fact that there is significant biphobia from all sides. i don't think you can compare what the devout heterosexuals do with how there is mistrust of bi people in gay circles, though. one is incredibly damaging, deadly, and abusive while the other is unfortunate and can encourage people to stay on the damaging, deadly, and abusive side out of confusion.
as a woman who loves across the span of genders, i will say that while my attraction has never been a choice, i have been able to chose how i outwardly express it and so i did struggle with the born this way narrative, because before i understood more about fluid sexualities i did feel like i had control over it and could just chose to act either gay or straight for the rest of my life. this is where biphobia from the queer community is hard, i think, because i bet there are a fair number of men (and women, but that's treated differently by the church) who think they sufffer from ssa instead of thinking they're gay because they are legitimately attracted to their wives, they just also love dick.
posted by nadawi at 11:36 AM on January 12, 2015 [11 favorites]
as a woman who loves across the span of genders, i will say that while my attraction has never been a choice, i have been able to chose how i outwardly express it and so i did struggle with the born this way narrative, because before i understood more about fluid sexualities i did feel like i had control over it and could just chose to act either gay or straight for the rest of my life. this is where biphobia from the queer community is hard, i think, because i bet there are a fair number of men (and women, but that's treated differently by the church) who think they sufffer from ssa instead of thinking they're gay because they are legitimately attracted to their wives, they just also love dick.
posted by nadawi at 11:36 AM on January 12, 2015 [11 favorites]
So the 'my husband's not gay, he just likes sex with men' thing falls well within my experience of how people conduct their lives, even if it may seem far too close to the pray-away-the-gay coercion and self-delusion that's known harmful.
i agree - accept, as it specifically relates to mormon men dealing with same sex attraction, if they have confessed to their bishop their "condition" they will be in some way put through pray the gay away/conversion therapy where they are explicitly told that part of them is sinful. having been raised in the church and listened to countless members, active and ex, talk about it, i truly do not believe you can be dealing with same sex attraction in the confines of the mormon church in a healthy way. i guess if there are any small consolations, i'm pretty sure byu has stopped using aversion therapy to "cure" them, but that's not a lot to hang hope for the future on.
posted by nadawi at 11:46 AM on January 12, 2015
i agree - accept, as it specifically relates to mormon men dealing with same sex attraction, if they have confessed to their bishop their "condition" they will be in some way put through pray the gay away/conversion therapy where they are explicitly told that part of them is sinful. having been raised in the church and listened to countless members, active and ex, talk about it, i truly do not believe you can be dealing with same sex attraction in the confines of the mormon church in a healthy way. i guess if there are any small consolations, i'm pretty sure byu has stopped using aversion therapy to "cure" them, but that's not a lot to hang hope for the future on.
posted by nadawi at 11:46 AM on January 12, 2015
I'm glad there are people who can have a mature and intelligent discussion of this. Because the mere fact that there exists a TV reality show with this premise makes me want to alternately stab holes in my eyeballs and spoon out the gelatinous insides with a spork.
posted by drlith at 11:47 AM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by drlith at 11:47 AM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
They didn't choose to fall in love with someone of the other sex after years of same-sex relationships. They just did. "Choose" indicates that they made a decision.
I think that it's absolutely possible to choose to be attracted, and even to choose to fall in love with, people you wouldn't ordinarily otherwise. In fact, there's even an FPP about choosing to fall in love rather than just falling that went up today. I'm not saying that anyone should be expected to make those decisions. But those decisions can in fact be made.
For me, personally, as a DV survivor, I generally fell in love with really destructive individuals with a severe failure to commit. I made a choice to ignore my attractions to those individuals, try not to fall in love with them, and to build my attractions to/try to fall in love with more stable individuals who would be better for both myself and my family. And it worked. That is a thing I decided to do and was able to do. That was my choice and my empowerment.
In terms of more observable and less personal choice that is still not harmful shame-based forcing, I would reference political lesbianism.
I think that it's absolutely possible to choose to be attracted, and even to choose to fall in love with, people you wouldn't ordinarily otherwise. In fact, there's even an FPP about choosing to fall in love rather than just falling that went up today. I'm not saying that anyone should be expected to make those decisions. But those decisions can in fact be made.
For me, personally, as a DV survivor, I generally fell in love with really destructive individuals with a severe failure to commit. I made a choice to ignore my attractions to those individuals, try not to fall in love with them, and to build my attractions to/try to fall in love with more stable individuals who would be better for both myself and my family. And it worked. That is a thing I decided to do and was able to do. That was my choice and my empowerment.
In terms of more observable and less personal choice that is still not harmful shame-based forcing, I would reference political lesbianism.
The RFs told me that, to them, lesbianism was a choice that women could make, and not a "condition" we are born with. "All women can be lesbians" was the mantra. I loved the sense that I had chosen my sexuality and rather than being ashamed or apologetic about it, as many women were, I could be proud, and see it as a privilege...posted by corb at 11:52 AM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
"We made the decision to become lesbians because loving and fighting for women was the centre of our lives, and for me it still is. It made little sense to spend our whole time working for women's liberation and to then go home to men."
i think people with fluid sexualities have a lot more choice in attraction and expression of sexuality and that non-fluid people can't just opt to start thirsting after dick or loving boobs. it seems likely to me that most, if not all, political lesbians are fluid already. i absolutely learned how to be attracted to men (i actually studied it like it was french class or something), but i think that's due to being fluid. i don't doubt that for others that's an impossible task.
posted by nadawi at 11:58 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by nadawi at 11:58 AM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
The TLC show seems crass and I don't intend to watch it, though the crassness doesn't really surprise me, given that TLC has seemingly become the go-to network for ___sploitation "reality" TV. There is no depths to which I think they won't descend at this point. Ugh.
That said, there is probably a really interesting opportunity for someone—with a lot more tact than anyone at TLC is going to have—to explore the large (and in my personal experience apparently-increasing?) number of people who don't self-identify as "gay" despite having (in some cases exclusively) same-sex relationships.
A good friend explained to me once that despite being a woman who is married to another woman, she doesn't really think of herself as "gay" per se, because she doesn't feel like she has the right bona fides; in particular, she doesn't have the sort of personal bildungsroman of feeling different, not being accepted, coming out, etc. that she felt like a gay person ought to have, and that most of her wife's (mostly older than her) circle of friends had. She just happened, as an adult, to fall in love with another woman after a lifetime of dating men, nobody really gave her a problem with it, they got engaged, and then got married. (Which is a pretty awesome story and it's worth reflecting on the progress that shows.)
None of the people I know have much in common with the poor Mormon sods on TLC, who seem to be stuck in a social environment that has found a very uncomfortable middle ground between 'acceptance' (be attracted to anyone you want!) and control (but you have to live this way, at least if you want to be treated as a Serious Adult). That's an old story, and a sad one; it's one that middle-class WASP culture played with throughout much of the late 20th century and it sucks. I'm not sure what there is to say there, except that "this has been tried before, and it tends to end badly". Probably in a higher-than-necessary divorce rate and a lot of unhappy people.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:07 PM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
That said, there is probably a really interesting opportunity for someone—with a lot more tact than anyone at TLC is going to have—to explore the large (and in my personal experience apparently-increasing?) number of people who don't self-identify as "gay" despite having (in some cases exclusively) same-sex relationships.
A good friend explained to me once that despite being a woman who is married to another woman, she doesn't really think of herself as "gay" per se, because she doesn't feel like she has the right bona fides; in particular, she doesn't have the sort of personal bildungsroman of feeling different, not being accepted, coming out, etc. that she felt like a gay person ought to have, and that most of her wife's (mostly older than her) circle of friends had. She just happened, as an adult, to fall in love with another woman after a lifetime of dating men, nobody really gave her a problem with it, they got engaged, and then got married. (Which is a pretty awesome story and it's worth reflecting on the progress that shows.)
None of the people I know have much in common with the poor Mormon sods on TLC, who seem to be stuck in a social environment that has found a very uncomfortable middle ground between 'acceptance' (be attracted to anyone you want!) and control (but you have to live this way, at least if you want to be treated as a Serious Adult). That's an old story, and a sad one; it's one that middle-class WASP culture played with throughout much of the late 20th century and it sucks. I'm not sure what there is to say there, except that "this has been tried before, and it tends to end badly". Probably in a higher-than-necessary divorce rate and a lot of unhappy people.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:07 PM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
Kadin2048: "A good friend explained to me once that despite being a woman who is married to another woman, she doesn't really think of herself as "gay" per se, because she doesn't feel like she has the right bona fides; in particular, she doesn't have the sort of personal bildungsroman of feeling different, not being accepted, coming out, etc. that she felt like a gay person ought to have, and that most of her wife's (mostly older than her) circle of friends had. She just happened, as an adult, to fall in love with another woman after a lifetime of dating men, nobody really gave her a problem with it, they got engaged, and then got married. (Which is a pretty awesome story and it's worth reflecting on the progress that shows.) "
This is a lovely story. Just to be explicit, this is very different from the subjects of this TLC show because it's not rooted in a fundamentalist belief that homosexuality is sinful. But I agree it would be interesting and I'd watch your show :)
posted by yaymukund at 12:19 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
This is a lovely story. Just to be explicit, this is very different from the subjects of this TLC show because it's not rooted in a fundamentalist belief that homosexuality is sinful. But I agree it would be interesting and I'd watch your show :)
posted by yaymukund at 12:19 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
I want to emphasize that people who support ex-gay therapy typically base that on the belief that homosexuality is caused by childhood trauma or bad parenting. So this is not just a neutral choice to not act on certain desires or to live out a heteronormative life. It's bound up with an awful, pernicious idea of what being gay is. To them, it's a sickness.
posted by prefpara at 12:25 PM on January 12, 2015
posted by prefpara at 12:25 PM on January 12, 2015
I think that it's absolutely possible to choose to be attracted, and even to choose to fall in love with, people you wouldn't ordinarily otherwise. In fact, there's even an FPP about choosing to fall in love rather than just falling that went up today. I'm not saying that anyone should be expected to make those decisions. But those decisions can in fact be made.
Oh, I don't know about that. It is certainly possible to choose to encourage yourself to fall in love or develop affection for someone over time--I did that with my current partner, who is awesome. And it is certainly possible to feel an initial spark of attraction--or even to be in love with someone--and to choose, over a long period of time, to shut down your affection for that person. After all, not all crushes end up in relationships or never seeing a person again! I would argue that that phenomenon because it is possible to think intellectually about your own emotions and either encourage them in yourself or quash them over time. It sounds like you were doing the latter there when you talk about changing your reactions to certain types of men.
However. To do that, you have to have emotions to work with. And usually, we're talking about either encouraging ourselves to want someone that we already want more, or we're saying "I want that, but here are some reasons that thing I want is bad." I've seen a lot of people go "I want to want this" and try to push themselves into making it so over the years, and I've never seen that end well. You can't build attraction where none there, especially not if you try to pressure yourself into doing it. It doesn't work.
In terms of more observable and less personal choice that is still not harmful shame-based forcing, I would reference political lesbianism.
Um. You realize that political lesbianism comes straight out of feminist traditions saying that to be feminist, you must be lesbian, right? And that actual lesbians who are attracted to women for their own sake often find it offensive these days, right? (Part of that is "you're not attracted to me, why are you wasting my time saying you are," part of it is "it is a really fraught thing to call a thing about myself that I did not choose inherently poltiical"--it's complicated.) I would... not call political lesbianism a shame-free kind of thing or treat it as something that is generally accepted as fine.
posted by sciatrix at 12:29 PM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
Oh, I don't know about that. It is certainly possible to choose to encourage yourself to fall in love or develop affection for someone over time--I did that with my current partner, who is awesome. And it is certainly possible to feel an initial spark of attraction--or even to be in love with someone--and to choose, over a long period of time, to shut down your affection for that person. After all, not all crushes end up in relationships or never seeing a person again! I would argue that that phenomenon because it is possible to think intellectually about your own emotions and either encourage them in yourself or quash them over time. It sounds like you were doing the latter there when you talk about changing your reactions to certain types of men.
However. To do that, you have to have emotions to work with. And usually, we're talking about either encouraging ourselves to want someone that we already want more, or we're saying "I want that, but here are some reasons that thing I want is bad." I've seen a lot of people go "I want to want this" and try to push themselves into making it so over the years, and I've never seen that end well. You can't build attraction where none there, especially not if you try to pressure yourself into doing it. It doesn't work.
In terms of more observable and less personal choice that is still not harmful shame-based forcing, I would reference political lesbianism.
Um. You realize that political lesbianism comes straight out of feminist traditions saying that to be feminist, you must be lesbian, right? And that actual lesbians who are attracted to women for their own sake often find it offensive these days, right? (Part of that is "you're not attracted to me, why are you wasting my time saying you are," part of it is "it is a really fraught thing to call a thing about myself that I did not choose inherently poltiical"--it's complicated.) I would... not call political lesbianism a shame-free kind of thing or treat it as something that is generally accepted as fine.
posted by sciatrix at 12:29 PM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
part of what makes the mormon issue unique is that there's a much repeated belief in the church that in the pre-existence we were told what our trials and tribulations would be and that the strongest angels were given the biggest challenges because we could handle it. it reinforced and weaponized the idea that god never gives you anything you can't handle. so, for the people who struggle with same sex attraction, or addiction, or being a victim of sexual assault, or having depression, anxiety, bpd, or anything else the church tries to "fix" with prayer and repentance, they are told not only that they are failing but that everyone knows they are capable of overcoming this because god and you discussed it before you were born. it really starts to feel like on top of the original struggle, you're also a specific kind of failure because you're supposed to be better than this, god trusted you to overcome it.
it gets so oppressive that you start imagining ways to kill yourself that won't be by your own hand so maybe god can just call it an accident and you won't screw up your eternal family.
posted by nadawi at 12:33 PM on January 12, 2015 [7 favorites]
it gets so oppressive that you start imagining ways to kill yourself that won't be by your own hand so maybe god can just call it an accident and you won't screw up your eternal family.
posted by nadawi at 12:33 PM on January 12, 2015 [7 favorites]
Things like this are why, although I am "technically" bi, I self-identify as "non-judgemental".
As I explained recently to someone, if you are lucky enough to find someone you can really connect with, yay for you and go for it. Everything else is just engineering challenges.
posted by Samizdata at 12:33 PM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
As I explained recently to someone, if you are lucky enough to find someone you can really connect with, yay for you and go for it. Everything else is just engineering challenges.
posted by Samizdata at 12:33 PM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
"We made the decision to become lesbians because loving and fighting for women was the centre of our lives, and for me it still is. It made little sense to spend our whole time working for women's liberation and to then go home to men."
Huh?
posted by Melismata at 12:37 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
Huh?
posted by Melismata at 12:37 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
I would... not call political lesbianism a shame-free kind of thing or treat it as something that is generally accepted as fine.
Yeah, sorry - I know this is all complicated and controversial, it was just the biggest example I could think of of people deliberately trying to choose sexuality. I think it is probably less harmful than church based "you are sinful for liking same sex stuff", but I erred in saying it was not shame based at all - there definitely is a lot of shame towards het women.
You can't build attraction where none there, especially not if you try to pressure yourself into doing it. It doesn't work.
I think viewing it that way is to place attraction on a level separate from other feelings. Maybe it belongs there - I don't know - but I think there's a lot of things we tell ourselves we like until we believe them. (Often, terrible life circumstances, sadly) Religion is also another one - people make choices deliberately to seek out religious belief and sometimes succeed. The human mind is an incredibly powerful tool for either good or evil.
Now whether we should do that - whether it is morally right to do that - that is a different story altogether. But I think in many cases it is possible.
posted by corb at 12:40 PM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah, sorry - I know this is all complicated and controversial, it was just the biggest example I could think of of people deliberately trying to choose sexuality. I think it is probably less harmful than church based "you are sinful for liking same sex stuff", but I erred in saying it was not shame based at all - there definitely is a lot of shame towards het women.
You can't build attraction where none there, especially not if you try to pressure yourself into doing it. It doesn't work.
I think viewing it that way is to place attraction on a level separate from other feelings. Maybe it belongs there - I don't know - but I think there's a lot of things we tell ourselves we like until we believe them. (Often, terrible life circumstances, sadly) Religion is also another one - people make choices deliberately to seek out religious belief and sometimes succeed. The human mind is an incredibly powerful tool for either good or evil.
Now whether we should do that - whether it is morally right to do that - that is a different story altogether. But I think in many cases it is possible.
posted by corb at 12:40 PM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
I made a choice to ignore my attractions to those individuals, try not to fall in love with them, and to build my attractions to/try to fall in love with more stable individuals who would be better for both myself and my family. And it worked. That is a thing I decided to do and was able to do. That was my choice and my empowerment.
It's also very, very much different from what we're talking about here, as admirable as your personal example is. Avoiding getting involved with destructive individuals is not only a good thing, but something that is absolutely amenable to therapy; not only is there nothing bad generally with getting involved with individuals of your own gender (assuming that they don't have particular personality faults of the sort you describe above, and ignoring the proscriptions from doing so by one brand or another of Invisible Sky King), anti-gay therapy just doesn't work. If someone chooses to remain celibate, or to engage in sexual activity with someone that they're not sexually attracted to, that's their choice and I respect that, but to tell someone that it's possible to change which gender turns you on is cruel and irresponsible. (I'm not particularly interested in what Julie Bindel has to say about political lesbianism, as she's the textbook definition of a TERF.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:50 PM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
It's also very, very much different from what we're talking about here, as admirable as your personal example is. Avoiding getting involved with destructive individuals is not only a good thing, but something that is absolutely amenable to therapy; not only is there nothing bad generally with getting involved with individuals of your own gender (assuming that they don't have particular personality faults of the sort you describe above, and ignoring the proscriptions from doing so by one brand or another of Invisible Sky King), anti-gay therapy just doesn't work. If someone chooses to remain celibate, or to engage in sexual activity with someone that they're not sexually attracted to, that's their choice and I respect that, but to tell someone that it's possible to change which gender turns you on is cruel and irresponsible. (I'm not particularly interested in what Julie Bindel has to say about political lesbianism, as she's the textbook definition of a TERF.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:50 PM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
I think viewing it that way is to place attraction on a level separate from other feelings. Maybe it belongs there - I don't know
It absolutely does.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:53 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
It absolutely does.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:53 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
See, I actually don't think this is necessarily specific to attraction. I think this is actually more centered in enjoyment, and how we develop passions for other things we enjoy. Pretty much everything I'm saying here could also apply to, say, foodstuffs.
And I think that the central problem here is, as I mentioned, the pressure people put on themselves to develop a new desire. If you're going "Right now, I want only men, but for external reasons XYZ I would like to want to want women and not want men." to yourself, you're setting an actual goal that you're trying to achieve. Then you try really hard to want a particular lady, say. And you constantly pay attention to your emotions when you're with that lady, and when you notice you don't want her, you get frustrated with yourself and you try harder. And you notice dudes, and you notice wanting them, and you get more frustrated with yourself. Eventually, given time, you associate your lady with that frustrated, angry-with-yourself feeling. This is not so conducive to actually being happy or developing a real sexual attraction or, honestly, a real emotional connection. Associating people with frustrating feelings is a recipe for relational disaster, given enough time.
Note, by the way, that I'm not talking about behavior here, I'm talking about emotions and desires that I think are hard to force. The example of someone telling herself that she REALLY likes an abusive partner, for example, and so she shouldn't leave, and trying to make herself love the partner. Well, I've seen that play out, and I've definitely seen such people get really defensive if you suggest the spouse isn't all that great. And I've seen them rationalize how much they love the partner. But I don't see indications that they actually are all that much happier with the partner, and I don't necessarily observe such people seek out the objects of their stated "desire" when given free choice. You know?
I've known people who tried to force attraction where it wasn't there. I haven't personally done it, but a rather depressing proportion of my friends have done it at some point or another. And that feedback of pressuring themselves and noticing that their actual desires don't line up with the desires they think they ought to have and getting increasingly upset about it has happened every time.
posted by sciatrix at 12:54 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
And I think that the central problem here is, as I mentioned, the pressure people put on themselves to develop a new desire. If you're going "Right now, I want only men, but for external reasons XYZ I would like to want to want women and not want men." to yourself, you're setting an actual goal that you're trying to achieve. Then you try really hard to want a particular lady, say. And you constantly pay attention to your emotions when you're with that lady, and when you notice you don't want her, you get frustrated with yourself and you try harder. And you notice dudes, and you notice wanting them, and you get more frustrated with yourself. Eventually, given time, you associate your lady with that frustrated, angry-with-yourself feeling. This is not so conducive to actually being happy or developing a real sexual attraction or, honestly, a real emotional connection. Associating people with frustrating feelings is a recipe for relational disaster, given enough time.
Note, by the way, that I'm not talking about behavior here, I'm talking about emotions and desires that I think are hard to force. The example of someone telling herself that she REALLY likes an abusive partner, for example, and so she shouldn't leave, and trying to make herself love the partner. Well, I've seen that play out, and I've definitely seen such people get really defensive if you suggest the spouse isn't all that great. And I've seen them rationalize how much they love the partner. But I don't see indications that they actually are all that much happier with the partner, and I don't necessarily observe such people seek out the objects of their stated "desire" when given free choice. You know?
I've known people who tried to force attraction where it wasn't there. I haven't personally done it, but a rather depressing proportion of my friends have done it at some point or another. And that feedback of pressuring themselves and noticing that their actual desires don't line up with the desires they think they ought to have and getting increasingly upset about it has happened every time.
posted by sciatrix at 12:54 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
But I think in many cases it is possible.
There's testimony from many, many ex-ex gays who desperately, sincerely - did I mention desperately? - wanted not to be gay and wanted to actively be attracted to opposite-sex people that contradicts this assertion. Some of them maybe found some attraction to a particular person of the opposite sex, with the assistance of a whole lot of really destructive "therapy," but that's not the same as becoming straight.
posted by rtha at 1:00 PM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
There's testimony from many, many ex-ex gays who desperately, sincerely - did I mention desperately? - wanted not to be gay and wanted to actively be attracted to opposite-sex people that contradicts this assertion. Some of them maybe found some attraction to a particular person of the opposite sex, with the assistance of a whole lot of really destructive "therapy," but that's not the same as becoming straight.
posted by rtha at 1:00 PM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
The show didn't seem to have a coherent meaning for the title. A woman might easily say of her partner, who was attracted to other men, "My husband's not gay--he's bisexual." And it seemed like that could be true of several of the couples profiled, but it also seemed like the show wanted to say something other than that.
At first I thought the point was, "I am SSA (have same-sex attractions) but since I don't act on them, I'm not gay." (Which has the interesting component of tacitly acknowledging that sexuality is largely unchosen and typically immutable, which are points I wouldn't typically expect Mormons to make.) But when Tom said being attracted to men and liking show tunes were the only gay things about him, it's clear that "My husband's not gay" is meant to communicate something other than, "My husband thinks his natural same sex-attraction is sinful and therefore he doesn't act on it."
I guess I have more sympathy for the whole idea that I should, because if you asked me to be totally honest, I don't think my same-sex partner of 15+ years is gay (or bi), though I'd probably be unable to give you a coherent explanation of why I think that either.
posted by layceepee at 1:03 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
At first I thought the point was, "I am SSA (have same-sex attractions) but since I don't act on them, I'm not gay." (Which has the interesting component of tacitly acknowledging that sexuality is largely unchosen and typically immutable, which are points I wouldn't typically expect Mormons to make.) But when Tom said being attracted to men and liking show tunes were the only gay things about him, it's clear that "My husband's not gay" is meant to communicate something other than, "My husband thinks his natural same sex-attraction is sinful and therefore he doesn't act on it."
I guess I have more sympathy for the whole idea that I should, because if you asked me to be totally honest, I don't think my same-sex partner of 15+ years is gay (or bi), though I'd probably be unable to give you a coherent explanation of why I think that either.
posted by layceepee at 1:03 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
I would rather have heard about "My Husband Is Not Gay" in 10 years as a bit on Maury about dudes whose dudes are screwing around with non dudes. That would be awesome. This is just really really sad.
posted by PMdixon at 1:24 PM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by PMdixon at 1:24 PM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
Sexuality is not exempt from being the weird-ass morass of contradictions and exceptions that describes all human interactions and internal lives. It may be possible to come up with people who have decided X and made it work for them absent denial and self-hatred.
The main reason not to care about this from both directions is that one side of the equation is the one filled with shaming and beatings and murders and excommunication and suicide and and and. So having a dialog about how maybe some folks can make a choice about their sexual attraction cannot (honestly) happen without acknowledging that there is a tremendous amount of overt and hidden pressure to hew to the hetero standard.
So something that forwards the "just stop being gay" narrative plays into that - and I will non-ironically use the word - evil. When the LGBTQ orgs get pissed off and say shut the hell up in response and push on a "you just are what you are" standard it's because the denial proponents cause harms like suicide and broken homes. Can you argue that, absent the "pray the gay away" folks, that this more rigid standard would be prescriptive? Sure. But it is a harm that, were you to chart it alongside the harm cause by people pushing folks to deny their identities, wouldn't even show up on the line graph.
The people saying "just don't be gay" create the societal structures that cause all the harm. They throw people out of the churches they grew up in. They refuse to serve them in their bakeries and restaurants. They fire them and blacklist them. They petition the government for the right to discriminate and to keep them from secular agreements.
The people pushing the "you are who you are" standard... might write some nasty press releases, at worst, and probably then only when the FRC types want to use the "ex-gays" as a cudgel. Certainly none of them have attempted to tie Anne Heche to a fence and beat her to death. They do not harass Amber Heard every time she appears in mass media and try to harm her career. Really, when someone leaves the fold they do a big whopping mass of nothing. They don't remind those people, every chance they get, that they once identified a different way. They don't accuse them of trying to lead other gays onto a path that will cause them eternal suffering and cause them to break with the lord.
If you really want to have an interesting and productive dialog on the question of inherent sexuality you'd talk about to what extent the destructive beliefs, massively internalized by everyone in a culture which maligns same-sex attraction, cause people to be unable to recognize these things or subtleties in themselves. You'd look at how our language choices reinforce this binary, and that's a language that's evolved in a structure that was and is hostile to same-sex attraction.
How LGBTWTFBBQ orgs push a rigid structure? It's just not relevant in any real way. It's not even deck chair positions on the Titanic. It's maybe whether one deck chair has a towel on it. And I'd wager it would disappear like smoke in a tornado if "ex-gay" wasn't a weapon for oppression.
posted by phearlez at 1:34 PM on January 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
The main reason not to care about this from both directions is that one side of the equation is the one filled with shaming and beatings and murders and excommunication and suicide and and and. So having a dialog about how maybe some folks can make a choice about their sexual attraction cannot (honestly) happen without acknowledging that there is a tremendous amount of overt and hidden pressure to hew to the hetero standard.
So something that forwards the "just stop being gay" narrative plays into that - and I will non-ironically use the word - evil. When the LGBTQ orgs get pissed off and say shut the hell up in response and push on a "you just are what you are" standard it's because the denial proponents cause harms like suicide and broken homes. Can you argue that, absent the "pray the gay away" folks, that this more rigid standard would be prescriptive? Sure. But it is a harm that, were you to chart it alongside the harm cause by people pushing folks to deny their identities, wouldn't even show up on the line graph.
The people saying "just don't be gay" create the societal structures that cause all the harm. They throw people out of the churches they grew up in. They refuse to serve them in their bakeries and restaurants. They fire them and blacklist them. They petition the government for the right to discriminate and to keep them from secular agreements.
The people pushing the "you are who you are" standard... might write some nasty press releases, at worst, and probably then only when the FRC types want to use the "ex-gays" as a cudgel. Certainly none of them have attempted to tie Anne Heche to a fence and beat her to death. They do not harass Amber Heard every time she appears in mass media and try to harm her career. Really, when someone leaves the fold they do a big whopping mass of nothing. They don't remind those people, every chance they get, that they once identified a different way. They don't accuse them of trying to lead other gays onto a path that will cause them eternal suffering and cause them to break with the lord.
If you really want to have an interesting and productive dialog on the question of inherent sexuality you'd talk about to what extent the destructive beliefs, massively internalized by everyone in a culture which maligns same-sex attraction, cause people to be unable to recognize these things or subtleties in themselves. You'd look at how our language choices reinforce this binary, and that's a language that's evolved in a structure that was and is hostile to same-sex attraction.
How LGBTWTFBBQ orgs push a rigid structure? It's just not relevant in any real way. It's not even deck chair positions on the Titanic. It's maybe whether one deck chair has a towel on it. And I'd wager it would disappear like smoke in a tornado if "ex-gay" wasn't a weapon for oppression.
posted by phearlez at 1:34 PM on January 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
My friend Samantha wrote a bit on this show for the Daily Beast: "Your Husband Is Definitely Gay," which includes a fairly comprehensive primer on homosexuality in the Mormon community.
posted by schmod at 1:41 PM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by schmod at 1:41 PM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
that is a fantastic piece by your friend, schmod. the only change i'd make to it is, "your husband is definitely not straight," which seems like something we can know more than labeling them absolutely gay.
posted by nadawi at 2:11 PM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by nadawi at 2:11 PM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
But I think in many cases it is possible.
The problem is that this claim is unfalsifiable: no matter how much evidence people bring out to the contrary, you can always speculate that perhaps there really is someone out there who was able to make this choice. But if you're looking inductively, you'll find that the overwhelming majority of the weight of evidence is against any type of conversion therapy having been "successful" in the sense of producing heterosexual attraction where none existed.
posted by en forme de poire at 2:45 PM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
The problem is that this claim is unfalsifiable: no matter how much evidence people bring out to the contrary, you can always speculate that perhaps there really is someone out there who was able to make this choice. But if you're looking inductively, you'll find that the overwhelming majority of the weight of evidence is against any type of conversion therapy having been "successful" in the sense of producing heterosexual attraction where none existed.
posted by en forme de poire at 2:45 PM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
I also have to say that adopting a "who's to say" attitude about these relationships, knowing the controlling social context in which they're embedded, is something I profoundly disagree with and find very distasteful. I feel strongly that pressuring someone to perform sexual acts with someone they cannot possibly be attracted to, while also conditioning them to fear and avoid any sexual thoughts of their own, should be recognized as a form of sexual abuse.
posted by en forme de poire at 2:57 PM on January 12, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by en forme de poire at 2:57 PM on January 12, 2015 [10 favorites]
i completely agree, and i think that should be extended to the wives as well. the church is absolutely abusing these people and then encouraging them to have lots of kids in an abusive situation. there's really not a nice way to spin what's going on here.
posted by nadawi at 3:01 PM on January 12, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by nadawi at 3:01 PM on January 12, 2015 [9 favorites]
"The RFs told me that, to them, lesbianism was a choice that women could make, and not a "condition" we are born with. "All women can be lesbians" was the mantra. I loved the sense that I had chosen my sexuality..."
quoted by Corb
And let me tell you how fun it was in the 1970s-early 1990s to be in lesbian-feminist community where many of the women DIDN'T LIKE SEX WITH WOMEN. There is no way the feminist sex wars would have been as virulent had they not been used INSIDE THE COMMUNITY as a way of policing lesbian sexuality to the point where there almost wasn't any. Because so many of the theorists may have loved other women, but found touching pussy was icky and orgasms were patriarchal (if only I was making this up). Where lesbians were slut-shaming each other in person and in print for two decades.
Screw that, taking care of my dying faggot friends was more fun. And I wish I had made that up, too.
What does this have to do with OP? I can perceive when people are lying about their sexual desires, and I know the utter sense of unworthiness, un-lovability and sexual undesirability those liars force onto the people who love them. Fine, Mr SSM - don't fuck men. But stop destroying women and children so you look good in the eyes of the men of your church or synagogue or mosque or sports team or executive suite.
posted by Dreidl at 3:54 PM on January 12, 2015 [12 favorites]
quoted by Corb
And let me tell you how fun it was in the 1970s-early 1990s to be in lesbian-feminist community where many of the women DIDN'T LIKE SEX WITH WOMEN. There is no way the feminist sex wars would have been as virulent had they not been used INSIDE THE COMMUNITY as a way of policing lesbian sexuality to the point where there almost wasn't any. Because so many of the theorists may have loved other women, but found touching pussy was icky and orgasms were patriarchal (if only I was making this up). Where lesbians were slut-shaming each other in person and in print for two decades.
Screw that, taking care of my dying faggot friends was more fun. And I wish I had made that up, too.
What does this have to do with OP? I can perceive when people are lying about their sexual desires, and I know the utter sense of unworthiness, un-lovability and sexual undesirability those liars force onto the people who love them. Fine, Mr SSM - don't fuck men. But stop destroying women and children so you look good in the eyes of the men of your church or synagogue or mosque or sports team or executive suite.
posted by Dreidl at 3:54 PM on January 12, 2015 [12 favorites]
Secret handshake!
*handshakes all around* I did it twice! Although not for multi-year relationships.
The, I guess not crazy, but for lack of a better term, downright weird, part of it is that neither of them are Christian or particularly any other religion. They just . . . didn't want to be "gay".
I will say, though, it makes you feel pretty dumb when you have to sit down your potential date and pre-verify, "So, you're a theatre professor? With two cats? And you want to date . . . me????" *allllllll the eyebrow* Reader, I'm marrying him.
posted by chainsofreedom at 4:08 PM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
*handshakes all around* I did it twice! Although not for multi-year relationships.
The, I guess not crazy, but for lack of a better term, downright weird, part of it is that neither of them are Christian or particularly any other religion. They just . . . didn't want to be "gay".
I will say, though, it makes you feel pretty dumb when you have to sit down your potential date and pre-verify, "So, you're a theatre professor? With two cats? And you want to date . . . me????" *allllllll the eyebrow* Reader, I'm marrying him.
posted by chainsofreedom at 4:08 PM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
The mistake these people are making is conflating desire with action.
You can choose to act however you like. But, Mr Mormons, you're still going to get hard for other Mr Mormons. That makes you some flavour of queer.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:04 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
You can choose to act however you like. But, Mr Mormons, you're still going to get hard for other Mr Mormons. That makes you some flavour of queer.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:04 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
I can't really comment on the show, but I am never going to forget that the Mormons had two men arrested for kissing a few years ago.
posted by Catblack at 7:53 PM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Catblack at 7:53 PM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
Years ago my wife and I were eating a Boston Market and there was a guy there wearing a t-shirt, that explained in lengthy fashioned how Jesus had saved him from homosexuality. His wife was there also wearing a t-shirt that explained how her husband was no longer gay because of Jesus. Out in the parking lot, I saw their van, which I could identify by the fact that it, too, was covered in text explaining how the man driving it had been saved from homosexuality by Jesus.
OMG I think you met Ex-Gay Greg and Dede! They are favorites on the Free Jinger forums. Greg embroiders his ex-gay story all over his clothes and Dede was once pregnant for 2 years. Hands-down, my favorite fundies.
posted by Biblio at 8:15 PM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
OMG I think you met Ex-Gay Greg and Dede! They are favorites on the Free Jinger forums. Greg embroiders his ex-gay story all over his clothes and Dede was once pregnant for 2 years. Hands-down, my favorite fundies.
posted by Biblio at 8:15 PM on January 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
@roomthreeseventeen: Maybe I'm not clear. The common element here is that both of them are saying, "You're not really gay or bisexual or whatever unless you have some extra identity or culture affectation or whatever." which is BS.
posted by koavf at 9:39 PM on January 12, 2015
posted by koavf at 9:39 PM on January 12, 2015
Koavf - I think you're misunderstanding the Rolling Stone piece. I've read a lot of articles by the author (he's one of the more prolific bi activists, as well as an outspoken Christian LGBT activist) and he certainly wouldn't say that you're only bi if you have a "culture affectation". His point is that being bisexual is an orientation which, though sometimes fluid, is no more under conscious control than straight or gay orientation is.
That said, my very-straight, rainbow-flag waving SO is convinced that all those homophobes that claim that being gay is a choice must be bi. He knows that his orientation isn't a choice, he couldn't be attracted to a man if he wanted to be. But homophobic activists don't seem to understand monosexuality. Others even imply that everyone would be gay if it were approved of, which strongly suggests that they may be on their way to Narnia.
posted by jb at 9:55 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
That said, my very-straight, rainbow-flag waving SO is convinced that all those homophobes that claim that being gay is a choice must be bi. He knows that his orientation isn't a choice, he couldn't be attracted to a man if he wanted to be. But homophobic activists don't seem to understand monosexuality. Others even imply that everyone would be gay if it were approved of, which strongly suggests that they may be on their way to Narnia.
posted by jb at 9:55 PM on January 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
*sigh* I can't find the link right now, but I heard some interview on NPR the other day by another ex-gay minister who had just gotten his wife pregnant (um, yay?), which was then apparently followed up on by a gajillion comments and the minister's gay brother, who the minister had ah, Not Mentioned at all as existing previously.
You know what, I wish them luck in trying this shit and at least the wives aren't 100% in the dark about it, but wanting the penis, as far as I can tell from the Internet, will literally trump your family, God, wife, and children because it's THAT ALL CONSUMING. So....yeah.
We really should think of some more appropriate name to call TLC, because "learning" isn't what's going on there.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:59 AM on January 13, 2015
You know what, I wish them luck in trying this shit and at least the wives aren't 100% in the dark about it, but wanting the penis, as far as I can tell from the Internet, will literally trump your family, God, wife, and children because it's THAT ALL CONSUMING. So....yeah.
We really should think of some more appropriate name to call TLC, because "learning" isn't what's going on there.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:59 AM on January 13, 2015
Didn't they jettison the acronym a la KFC? Rightly so, it seems... though we're learning how low they'll go for eyeballs.
posted by phearlez at 7:16 AM on January 13, 2015
posted by phearlez at 7:16 AM on January 13, 2015
Okay, now I found the links.
Attracted To Men, Pastor Feels Called To Marriage With A Woman
Pastor's Gay Brother 'Frustrated That NPR Made This A News Story'
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:01 AM on January 13, 2015
Attracted To Men, Pastor Feels Called To Marriage With A Woman
Pastor's Gay Brother 'Frustrated That NPR Made This A News Story'
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:01 AM on January 13, 2015
Oh, hey, look, another ex2-gay comes out. (Scroll down to the comments and you'll see a congratulatory one from Alan Chambers.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:02 AM on January 13, 2015
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:02 AM on January 13, 2015
if a gay mormon marries a woman, divorce is likely, study finds
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 8:15 AM on January 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 8:15 AM on January 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
It struck me last night out of the blue, all those referenced here who think people who are gay conform to a limpwristed- flambouant -showtune stereotype would have their minds blown by W.S Burroughs
(hopefully not literally... hey ho!)
posted by edgeways at 8:55 AM on January 13, 2015
(hopefully not literally... hey ho!)
posted by edgeways at 8:55 AM on January 13, 2015
It struck me last night out of the blue, all those referenced here who think people who are gay conform to a limpwristed- flambouant -showtune stereotype would have their minds blown by W.S Burroughs
Aren't there plenty of limpwristed-flamboyant-showtune stereotype gays in Burroughs' oeuvre?
posted by layceepee at 9:30 AM on January 13, 2015
Aren't there plenty of limpwristed-flamboyant-showtune stereotype gays in Burroughs' oeuvre?
posted by layceepee at 9:30 AM on January 13, 2015
Not for a total derail but it always seemed like straight culture was a little more accepting of prancing sissies then actual gay male culture, which has historically hated them with a blinding, all encompassing passion.
posted by The Whelk at 9:37 AM on January 13, 2015
posted by The Whelk at 9:37 AM on January 13, 2015
For exactly the same reason, Whelk: prancing sissies are easily identified, mocked, and avoided.
Whereas for hetero men, you can't identify Dave in Accounting as gay and one day he might look at your dick omg.
Said it before and I'll say it again: I firmly believe that most if not all homophobia comes down to straight men realizing what it feels like to be objectified by someone you have zero interest in.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:05 AM on January 13, 2015 [4 favorites]
Whereas for hetero men, you can't identify Dave in Accounting as gay and one day he might look at your dick omg.
Said it before and I'll say it again: I firmly believe that most if not all homophobia comes down to straight men realizing what it feels like to be objectified by someone you have zero interest in.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:05 AM on January 13, 2015 [4 favorites]
Not for a total derail but it always seemed like straight culture was a little more accepting of prancing sissies then actual gay male culture, which has historically hated them with a blinding, all encompassing passion.
I'm confused here--are you saying that "actual gay male culture" has historically hated prancing sissies (who, to my mind, have historically been an important part of actual gay male culture)?
posted by layceepee at 10:19 AM on January 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm confused here--are you saying that "actual gay male culture" has historically hated prancing sissies (who, to my mind, have historically been an important part of actual gay male culture)?
posted by layceepee at 10:19 AM on January 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
Important, perhaps... but in some ways too visible, too outrageous, too "fuck you I am living my life the way I want it and you can just deal."
There's a hell of a lot to unpack around flamboyance and gay men's ambivalence towards it; we love our drag queens but ugh, that fluttery little twink is so annoying, no way could I take him on a date anywhere that's not a gay place.
There's also a lot of misogyny wrapped up in there. Gay men are viciously, disgustingly misogynistic en masse.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:41 AM on January 13, 2015 [6 favorites]
There's a hell of a lot to unpack around flamboyance and gay men's ambivalence towards it; we love our drag queens but ugh, that fluttery little twink is so annoying, no way could I take him on a date anywhere that's not a gay place.
There's also a lot of misogyny wrapped up in there. Gay men are viciously, disgustingly misogynistic en masse.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:41 AM on January 13, 2015 [6 favorites]
I firmly believe that most if not all homophobia comes down to straight men realizing what it feels like to be objectified by someone you have zero interest in.
On an interpersonal level, particularly in societies that are officially tolerant of varying sexual orientations, this is probably true. But there's still institutionalized homophobia / homosexual-intolerance baked in to a lot of cultures. The ultraconservative branches of Abrahamic religions, including Mormonism, with their obsession with monogamous, procreative sex to the detriment of any other form of sexual expression, are particularly rife with it. (Though obviously it's not universal or uniform.)
That's a problem that goes above and beyond eww-yuck-buttsecks or omg-that-dude-is-looking-at-me discomfort. It's official, canonical disapproval of homosexuality, generally on the grounds that it's not strictly procreative, and only procreative sex is morally defensible. (Which always struck me as imbuing God with a certain lack of imagination, but whatever.) And that exists on top of, and in addition to, the usual shitty behavior from people who are afraid that somebody might be checking them out in the locker room or whatever. I think that official disapproval probably has as much or more to do with why people are in relationships like the ones highlighted in the show than interpersonal homophobia.
That homosexuality always seems to be among the last non-procreative sexual activity to be grudgingly tolerated by religions as they get dragged kicking and screaming away from the procreative-sex hardline stance, that's probably got a lot to do with patriarchal discomfort with the idea of ever having the sexual tables turned, I suppose.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:56 AM on January 13, 2015
On an interpersonal level, particularly in societies that are officially tolerant of varying sexual orientations, this is probably true. But there's still institutionalized homophobia / homosexual-intolerance baked in to a lot of cultures. The ultraconservative branches of Abrahamic religions, including Mormonism, with their obsession with monogamous, procreative sex to the detriment of any other form of sexual expression, are particularly rife with it. (Though obviously it's not universal or uniform.)
That's a problem that goes above and beyond eww-yuck-buttsecks or omg-that-dude-is-looking-at-me discomfort. It's official, canonical disapproval of homosexuality, generally on the grounds that it's not strictly procreative, and only procreative sex is morally defensible. (Which always struck me as imbuing God with a certain lack of imagination, but whatever.) And that exists on top of, and in addition to, the usual shitty behavior from people who are afraid that somebody might be checking them out in the locker room or whatever. I think that official disapproval probably has as much or more to do with why people are in relationships like the ones highlighted in the show than interpersonal homophobia.
That homosexuality always seems to be among the last non-procreative sexual activity to be grudgingly tolerated by religions as they get dragged kicking and screaming away from the procreative-sex hardline stance, that's probably got a lot to do with patriarchal discomfort with the idea of ever having the sexual tables turned, I suppose.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:56 AM on January 13, 2015
Kadin, yeah, I should have been more precise that I was only talking interpersonally and not institutionally.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:11 PM on January 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:11 PM on January 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sounds like the guys on this show need to consult The Book of Mormon Missionary Positions.
posted by Catblack at 2:36 PM on January 13, 2015
posted by Catblack at 2:36 PM on January 13, 2015
Second link borked, jenfullmoon.
I cannot get ANY of the damn links I've found on that story to work now. I originally found it by listening to the first one on NPR's "playlist" and then the second option came up on the bottom frame doodad, if that helps anyone else to find it. Everything I've googled for won't work for crap. Dammit.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:41 PM on January 13, 2015
I cannot get ANY of the damn links I've found on that story to work now. I originally found it by listening to the first one on NPR's "playlist" and then the second option came up on the bottom frame doodad, if that helps anyone else to find it. Everything I've googled for won't work for crap. Dammit.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:41 PM on January 13, 2015
I watched the show. It's dangerous, because it's subtle. The guys seem reasonable. Even the wives seem a bit progressive. But then you realize the entire Mormon SSA movement is just using the same tactics that "Intelligent Design" proponents are using to try to force their nonsense into schools.
They aren't talking about sexuality. They're talking about religion. The only reason these guys are going for "the D", is because God is watching.
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 8:32 AM on January 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
They aren't talking about sexuality. They're talking about religion. The only reason these guys are going for "the D", is because God is watching.
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 8:32 AM on January 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sorry, should read "AREN'T going for the D"...
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 10:28 AM on January 14, 2015
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 10:28 AM on January 14, 2015
A couple of the authors of articles made comments about the style of the show being worse than the substance. Having seen it now, I have to agree. The show's been compared to a sitcom, but it reminds me more of the Real Housewives franchises. The single, horrible-joke-cracking guy has clearly been told to play up his obnoxious behavior. The apparent ambush of the woman on the blind date-- I don't know what to make of that. They say she was just told it was a show about Mormonism but I suspect someone tipped her off to what was really going on; either way, it was incredibly contrived. The little discussion about camping-- "CAMPing?" the wife says, sounding incredibly suspicious-- also feels very scripted to me. And that's just for starters. Every single place they go, there's someone they get into an SSA discussion with. Girlfriends; male acquaintances who have decided to give up trying to be straight and whom they just happen to run into; restaurant servers they treat to a little bit of innuendo. (That scene was pure Real Housewives.) Do they have this kind of discussion at least once a day, like the episode makes it appear?But most of the conversations seem to be very low stakes: the interlocutors aren't family, members, or bosses or anyone with whom it would be a real risk to discuss SSA. I would have been interested to see someone like that, but I suspect it would have been too real.
I agree with the Atlantic writer that the episode shows a stunning lack of empathy but I think the participants agreed to go along with at least some of this.
posted by BibiRose at 7:55 AM on January 15, 2015
I agree with the Atlantic writer that the episode shows a stunning lack of empathy but I think the participants agreed to go along with at least some of this.
posted by BibiRose at 7:55 AM on January 15, 2015
john dehlin - the guy behind mormon stories - has been called before a church court, likely to be excommunicated. he's released this statement [pdf] which draws a direct link between his support of lgbt members (as well as the ordain women group, and some other stuff) and his impending excommunication. it seems obvious to so many that what the church needs to do is figure out how to have another "revelation" about the personhood of certain groups like they did back in the 70s and instead they're just excommunicating everyone they feel challenges their absolute authority. it'll be interesting if other members step up where the excommunicated members have fallen away...
posted by nadawi at 5:23 PM on January 15, 2015
posted by nadawi at 5:23 PM on January 15, 2015
More on Dehlin: Mormon Church Threatens Vocal Critic With Excommunication
posted by homunculus at 6:26 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 6:26 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
motherfuck sometimes the church goes above and beyond in pissing me the fuck off.
from the article : Eric Hawkins, a spokesman for the church in Salt Lake City, said, “We respect the privacy of individuals, and don’t publicly discuss the reasons why a member faces church discipline."
from dehlin's stake president, attached to dehlin's statement : You should also be aware that if you choose to have your name removed from Church records, I feel it is important to make an appropriate announcement to the adults in the stake that you have chosen this option.
we respect the privacy of our members but we will make sure the smear campaign is well on its way should you choose to leave, knowing full well that one of your biggest and longest lasting issues is the way that members facing doubts are ostracized by their communities and families. fucking fuck.
posted by nadawi at 6:43 PM on January 15, 2015
from the article : Eric Hawkins, a spokesman for the church in Salt Lake City, said, “We respect the privacy of individuals, and don’t publicly discuss the reasons why a member faces church discipline."
from dehlin's stake president, attached to dehlin's statement : You should also be aware that if you choose to have your name removed from Church records, I feel it is important to make an appropriate announcement to the adults in the stake that you have chosen this option.
we respect the privacy of our members but we will make sure the smear campaign is well on its way should you choose to leave, knowing full well that one of your biggest and longest lasting issues is the way that members facing doubts are ostracized by their communities and families. fucking fuck.
posted by nadawi at 6:43 PM on January 15, 2015
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posted by GuyZero at 7:55 AM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]