The image that immediately comes into my mind when I hear this is that of the dental hygienist, with her vibrating water machine, dislodging the nasty plaque and tartar from your teeth. So presumably the idea here is that the ex-gay programme or the reparative therapist can dislodge the homosexuality to reveal the nice, white, gleaming heterosexuality underneath.

I think that Dr John Money (although he’s not a man of whom I’m very fond on the whole) got it right when he said that the only way to remove someone’s homosexuality was to remove their brain.