I can only hope he embraces and finally accepts and loves himself for what he is.He will be so much more fulfilled and actually happy if he does.

I can not fathom the self-hatred this man lives on a daily basis.

Because I was wise enough to cast off the heterosexually mandated shame of being gay just as soon as I was old enough to know better.

But I’m not impressed by human puppets and trained monkeys for the anti gay cause. It’s pathetic. As several of you have expressed.
Some days I really wish I could take them aside and tell them how they are trying too hard and are more a caricature of a straight person.

Heteros don’t strain themselves that way, and don’t have to.
They don’t have to actually BE moral to be thought of that way with no effort or sacrifice.
It’s the most ridiculous pageant, and frankly straight people that act like it’s something so special and heroic to be hetero is embarrassing.

Whether we LIKE being who we are, gay or not, is the difference. And forcing someone to HATE being anything they haven’t chosen or had the ability to enjoy freely, is never something that our culture can claim is moral to do.

And how, pray tell, does anyone do THAT exactly?
Especially if you’re a grown assed man or woman and you’ve known you were hetero from the git?
Passing for straight. Relying on deception and ignorance and the unreasonable expectations that all that entails, is what’s in effect.
Not changing FROM straight to gay.

This is why the ex gay issue is so damaging. It creates distrust or makes straight people have the most immovable, unobtainable and double standards for gay people ever known.
To say nothing of expectations that they themselves won’t contemplate, let alone ATTEMPT.
Like TRYING to be gay, or living a celibate life with no adult relationship to test the outcome of that attempt.

Can’t anyone even bother to analyze that on it’s face?
Once the question is put to any straight person of what it would take to make THEM want or try to be gay.
Or at the very least compare notes on experience about when you knew you were aware of what your attractions were, there wouldn’t BE a question or challenge to the veracity of the gay experience.

So true.
Ex gay is a LABEL, not an orientation.
I, as a straight person extremely frustrated with this bullshit, would prefer that anti gay straight people shut up and quit dominating the ENTIRE issue.
Even down to arguing and challenging on who should change whose orientation for the truth to really be known.

Of course language is fluid, and today’s widespread use of the word gay testifies to that, but often the nuances of word use in specialized fields don’t make it into the GP’s understanding. For example, the GP has a general understanding of “theory,” but not necessarily in the context of a scientific theory.

I think the term ex-gay was coined as a deliberate deception, and now we seem to have fallen into their trap and are willing to use the term without modifiers. I think that is a mistake because then the general media will do the same thing.

I also agree with TampaZeke’s comments about the use of quotes. I never understood why so many people automatically referred to them as “scare” quotes.

I appreciate your point about the ex-addict who still craves the stuff. But I’m sure you’ll agree with me that we can’t really just call them an addict either; that would suggest that they are still using.

I think ex-addict and ex-gay are good comparisons (not in behavior or damage or whatever but in linguistics). Many ex-addicts reach a point where they don’t crave on a regular basis and don’t really think about it that much and only in times of stress or loneliness or tension find themselves thinking about using. For all practical purposes they are, mostly, ex-addicts.

That is true also of some of the ex-gays I talk to. They aren’t straight and they aren’t attracted to the opposite sex, but they also don’t really think about it constantly and have themselves trained so that they don’t respond much to anyone at all in a sexual or emotional attraction way.

I know that we think of ex-gays as in a constant struggle – and some are. But there are also those who live in a mostly peaceful kinda-asexual existence.

Not that my opinion or support matters one way or the other. :)

They can also be used as “mockery” quotes or “misnomer” quotes. I can see where both uses could be valid when referring to the “ex-gay” myth.

The fact that they are using the term “ex-gay” to mean “straight” or “celibate” or “having sex with a person of the opposite sex that I’m not sexually attracted to while still sexually attracted to men” or “still having sex with men while claiming not to and preaching against the sins of homosexuality” seem to me to be a very valid reasons for using “misnomer” quotes.

When I call President Obama a ‘”fierce advocate” for the gay community’ I’m not using “scare” quotes, I’m using “mockery” quotes. Likewise when I describe him as a ‘”fierce” advocate of the gay community’ I’m using “misnomer” quotes.