Are there any gay people who think they choose to be gay?

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They are an effective means of driving people to kill themselves, dude. Is that what you set out to do?

Perhaps you will clarify your opinion then. I certainly have the impression that you do not believe that so-called "ex-gay" programs can do anything to alter a person's sexual orientation. Now, that is not the same as "farces or charades or that they don't do anything," but you seem to continue in your disingenuous dancing around the goalposts.

So let's get to the root. In your opinion does the experience of a handful of individuals demonstrate a viable option for the tens of millions of LGBT people in North America?



Again with the sloppy language.

You can correctly claim, "they have been effective at helping a limited number of people cope with unwanted same-sex attraction." You cannot claim the general statement, because that statement implies that they are effective at helping all people whose same-sex attraction is unwanted, and the clinical evidence demonstrates precisely the negative of this statement.

And even with the more limited claim, you leave a vast amount of territory unspoken, not the least of which is an acknowledgement of the circumstances that gave rise to their sexual orientation being unwanted in the first place.

"Ex-gay" programs are little different than the con-artist who infects you with a disease and then offers you a product that he claims will relieve the symptoms.



Well if you weren't engaged in an exercise of attempting to prove generalities through anecdotal evidence, then perhaps your point might be more apparent.



Define, "gay lifestyle." I've been aware of my homosexuality for somewhat more that 32 years, and I have been out for somewhat more than 27, and I have no definition of what a "gay lifestyle" is, even if I am living one.

You are using sloppy language, and you leave it open to the rest of us to assume that you are demonizing same-sex behaviour while being too cowardly to do so explicitly. Perhaps you are as mealy-mouthed as the language you use--but it seems to me that if this were the case you would have long ago drifted on to other subjects.

Since you're still here, you clearly have a drum to beat; and since you are being so coy about making it, it's a pretty clear inference that you are well aware that the point is either offensive or dubious.



But you are skipping over what some of us might consider to be the most important point:

Why does that person not want to be gay? What is the destructive influence that has caused a person to present a disordered state in which the person's values are so ego-dystonic?

From a clinical perspective I have no doubt that these people exist. But my medical view on disorders is that treatment should seek to eliminate or mitigate the cause of disorders, not merely their symptoms. If a poisonous environment causes a patient dermatitis, we get rid of the poison, we don't just give the patient ongoing hydrocortisone injections.

Similarly, if a person has emerged from a poisonous cultural environment in which that person has been taught that the person's natural sexual orientation is wrong, then perhaps the proper treatment is not to suppress the sexual orientation, but rather to cure the patient of the cultural environment.

If you and your ilk are part of the cause, you cannot abdicate your responsibility for the consequences by claiming good faith. The road to hell is paved with such sentiments.

ALWAYS? That's pretty strong language. Are you absolutely certain that there can be no exceptions to this rule?


Um...explanation?


I'm not sure that you have, though, but I don't really see this as relevant...


If you are uncomfortable continuing the conversation, that is fine. But reporting me for something? I don't see that as appropriate. The only point I've tried to support is that while someone doesn't choose who they are attracted to, they do choose their responses. That's really all, and I'm not sure how supporting that opinion has violated any rules. I don't recall treating you with contempt. I do try to be civil, so I'm not sure what I've done wrong in pointing out that one can make alternative decisions to living a gay lifestyle.

Last I checked, this thread was still in PPR. Perhaps it would be best to move it to LGBT if the participants feel it best to keep the discussion one-sided.


Does it always necessarily follow that an alternative to accepting a gay lifestyle is destructive, though? This is a situation in which if at least one person can show that leaving a gay lifestyle and living a full, productive life, then it is not necessarily destructive.

I might agree with you on "the consequences of keeping it secret," however. Someone suffering from unwanted attraction would not be keeping it secret if he sought help for it.


Is that ALWAYS the case, though? Can alternatives work? It seems that they can.


Agreed. They deserve to know that accepting a gay lifestyle is not the ONLY viable option.


Well, strictly speaking, praying is a gesture of faith. So if there is a God and He listens to prayers, He is powerful enough to enact those kinds of changes in someone's life. I'm not trying to get into a religious debate, though. But I don't see that it is necessarily unhealthy to suppress those feelings. People who do not WANT those feelings might ultimately feel better if they found alternative ways of dealing with them.


But you DID make the choice to deal with it the specific way you did.

[Side note: I'm truly sorry for what you went through. Whatever differences of opinion you and I have, I don't at all believe you deserved any of those things. FYI I came from a pretty rough home and at one time felt that my father dying was the biggest relief I had in my adolescent years.]


For you, though. I mean, I can't make any more sense of your previous relationship with your family any more than you could reconcile my childhood. But that should tell you that no two situations are ever exactly the same. What works for you doesn't necessarily work for someone else.

Incidentally, I found an interesting study on the topic at hand:
Jones and Yarhouse study

It's an objective study of one organization that works with individuals who WANT to try to change their orientation, cope with or reduce same-sex attraction. It's not without controversy, of course, and it doesn't claim a 100% success rate. But it is interesting that some participants seem to have experienced change.

He wants them dead if they do not change. I'm serious. He has continually said he was going to get banned if he opened his mouth, when all he had to do was denounce the death penalty for homosexuals JUST ONCE to make me go away.

Glad someone else picked up on the cowardice.

Fixed, with added content.

Really. I'm kind of endeared toward Ragtime. As jerky as his views are, Ragtime is forthright. He doesn't try to play games with you, like this guy apparently is.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D58eB2k8Kdk[/youtube]

He plays the personal attack/ultimate victim complex game

He never EVER did that! What the f**k is your problem? all he did was say his views and people kept calling him a bigot because they disagreed. And the moderators had it out for him when he didn't do anything

Last edited by Delphiki on 25 May 2012, 7:35 pm, edited 3 times in total.

EDIT: Serious cut/paste misquote there. My apologies to delphiki.

Last edited by HerrGrimm on 25 May 2012, 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it's not cool to talk about other members if they won't ever read it and can defend themselves, really. I hope my video was shown to be towards AngelRho and not Ragtime. I already called out one person for doing this and I need to play fair here. If I was a hypocrite concerning this I am sorry, but my position is actually my first sentence.

Last edited by HerrGrimm on 25 May 2012, 7:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nothing I haven't said to Ragtime himself before

I hope it does not come as a surprise I am defending Ragtime here. The man should really have a chance to defend himself from accusations. Just because you said it to him previously does not make it right to do this when he is probably never going to post on PPR again. in my opinion.

But I'll drop it. If I keep the thread on track I might feel less disgusted and disturbed, and maybe I can sleep better at night if something happens.

This is pure doubletalk.

Ok- I apologize for impllying that you actually said the words "charade and a farce" even though you failed to make a single arguement to dispel the popular image that such programs are charades and farces, and that you continue to damn these programs with such incredibly faint praise that you might as well have said that they were "charades and farces".

Moving on
So you're point is that you are saying these programs are "an alternative to acting on your gay impulses".
How are they "alternatives"?

You either engage in gay sex, or you dont.
These programs apparently cant turn you into a heterosexual so what you're saying must be that these programs are for the purpose of making practicing gays into celibate gays.

Thats what I said -that YOU said.

You deny that that is what you said.

Then you go on to state what you did say. And what you say that you did say is something that can only be understood to mean: "there are alternatives to having gay sex- they are- getting coaching to be gay -but-celibate".

Which is the very thing I said that you said( that you claim that you didnt say).



OK... "alternatives to the gay lifesytle".
What exactly does that phrase mean?
If not being gay-but-celibate- then what does it mean?

Okay, my original question was, Are they gay people who think being gay is a choice to where if anyone were to ask them if they chose to be gay, they'd respond "yes" and may even reject to people saying that it's not a choice.