Around the beginning of the 1980s some “therapist” wrote a book on the “treatment” of homosexuality which I have never bought or read (having much better uses for my money and time) but which was reviewed in the British paper Gay News (now defunct). I can’t now remember the title or the author but I do remember that Gay News related how the author, having managed to persuade a client that his mother was responsible for his “affliction”, would present the client with a pillow, tell him to regard the pillow as a “stand-in” for his mother, and invite him to give it a bloody good thrashing. This surely can’t have been Richard Cohen back then, can it?

It has been said that whereas gay male violinists are rare, gay male pianists are plentiful, and I think that this is probably true, although I don’t know of any scientific survey on the matter. The pillock referred to above had the theory that this was because the percussive action of striking the piano keys was the male homosexual’s way of subconsciously beating up his mother in retaliation for the damage that she had supposedly inflicted on him. (This ludicrous theory is upset by the fact that gay male organists are also two a penny, and that the touch of the fingers required to play the organ keys is quite different: it isn’t at all percussive or the slightest bit violent.)

Does this ring a bell with anyone?

I can’t even begin to guess whether you are being honest or ironic. Assuming the former…

… Well, there’s a lot I could say.

Hating oneself is betraying oneself. If you do not love yourself, can you love anyone else? can anyone else love you?

Read a book on basic psychology. Positive self-esteem is the basis of good mental health. Low self-esteem is the basis of poor mental health. Self-hatred is a step down in the self-esteem scale, and only produces in yourself what hate produces in other people, especially, as the history of the world shows, if they have the power to enforce their hatred on the objects of their hatred. And you do.

Do you think you’ll actually stop hating yourself if you become heterosexual? your self-hatred is the problem, not your sexuality.

since, as so many Christians seem to claim, homosexuality is a choice, why is it that you are not choosing something different? with G and acceptance on your side, what is stopping you?

Maybe there is actually nothing wrong with you, so you can’t actually choose to not have anything wrong with you. Maybe the something wrong with you is actually the only thing that is right with you, but you’ve been very carefullyl taught to reject the best of yourself, and choose the worst of yourself, which is why you can say cheerfully that you are a self hating gay man…and not be shocked at the aburdity of hating yourself not for what you have done, but for who you are.

As Christians are so wont to say, with all the irony and falsehood, I’m sure, unintentional… love the sinner, hate the sin. can you not be a good Christian in this sense?

(music la-la-da-di-da) “You must be carefully taught…to hate all the people your relatives hate” … You’ve been taught well, and you’re doing the haters work for them.

that you can give credence to someone like Cohen muist give you a clue to how carefefully you’ve been taught. the man is neither healer nor scientist. He is clearlyj ust workingo ut his issues, and managing to earn a living at the same time. That’s why most people become therapists– they have issues to work out in therapy.

If you really are serious when you say that you’re a self-hating gay man who wants to become heterosexual, then that’s certainly not an enviable situation to be in, but it explains why you so often seem ready to defend unverifiable and unfalsifiable (i.e. unscientific) theories which seek to “blame” someone or something for homosexuality. (I’ve never yet heard anyone wondering who or what is to blame for heterosexuality.)

I’ve referred before (over at Ex-Gay Watch) to Philippa Pearce’s children’s novel, “A Dog So Small”, about a young London boy who longs for a dog but can’t have one for various reasons. Towards the end of the story, circumstances have changed and Ben is able at last to have a real, live, flesh and blood dog. But the dog that he’s able to have doesn’t measure up to the imaginary super-dog that he’s been fantasising about in the meantime. He’s sitting on Hampstead Heath fretting about this as the evening draws on and it’s getting darker and darker, and he nearly drives away the real dog that he’s been given. (I read the book many years ago when I was a boy myself, so I can’t guarantee that the following quotation is absolutely verbatim.)

“And then, when Ben could barely see at all, he suddenly saw clearly. He saw that you couldn’t have impossible things no matter how much you wanted them, and that if you didn’t have the possible things then you just had nothing.”

Even if it’s not absolutely impossible for you to become heterosexual, it’s so improbable as to be as near impossible as makes no difference. Perhaps you would do well to rid yourself of the idea that homosexuality is a negative trait and that you would necessarily be better off if you were heterosexual.

How you do that, of course, is another matter: you can hardly reason yourself out of an attitude that you didn’t arrive at by reason. I recommend what psychologist George Weinberg called “the action approach”. Look at your life; identify all the things that you do, however small, which are based on the premise that homosexuality is “bad”, “wrong”, “sick” or “inferior”, and stop doing them for ever. Conversely, are there any things that, on the same premise, you are refraining from doing but which you know that you would do if you thought that being gay was absolutely fine? However difficult it may be, start doing them. As a gay man who once had trouble accepting his sexuality, I can testify to the efficacy of this approach.

As you ask, I’m defending Cohen because I’m a self-hating gay man who wants to become heterosexual. I don’t necessarily agree with Cohen in all respects, but I think there is a lot of truth to his theories about homosexuality, and I don’t like seeing him attacked in this way.

I know that it’s off topic, and I know that I’ll be accused of frivolity, but my curiosity is just burning to be satisfied. Why do you call yourself by that name? In the Italian version of Donald Duck, Donald is known as Paperino, and his three nephews are called Qui, Quo and Qua. Are you naming yourself after one of them?

You wrote, ‘This is Cohen’s way of gettin’ in a little g-rated gay action under the guise of therapy.’

I wonder how you could possibly know this? The expression ‘the guise of therapy’ seems to imply that Cohen isn’t really serious about trying to help men overcome homosexuality. I see no reason to question Cohen’s sincerity.

I would not doubt if he is still running the show from behind the scenes. The fact is, all these groups loves Cohen and knew exactly what he was about. They only freaked out when the rest of America saw what he was doing behind closed doors at right wing conferences.

LOL, same difference in the ex-gay world. ¬_¬