Sexual Orientation, Gender, and Reparative Therapy
Daniel Gonzales of Ex-Gay Watch talks about the therapy he went through with Dr. Nicolosi, the co-author of A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, in the speech he wrote for the press conference at Love Won Out Atlanta (video below).
From his speech:
Dr. Nicolosi practices what’s called “reparative therapy”. He actually wrote the book on reparative therapy. The basic idea behind that is that your own sense of masculinity is somehow broken, and you try to make up for that deficiency by being attracted to people who represent the things that you feel you’re lacking. And part of that therapy is that you take those attractions when you have them and you try to figure out what they represent about yourself that you’re somehow lacking.
Makes you wonder…
What’s the plan for “fixing” a super-masculine gay man? And how would Dr. Nicolosi explain why men with “broken” masculinities don’t look to masculine females to find what they are “lacking?”
You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.
I like how they also manage to ignore, say, “femme” women that are attracted to “butch” women. Or “butch” men that are attracted to “femme” men.
This is simply another way of saying “gay men are ‘that way’ because they were mothered too much.” Or “daddy didn’t love them enough.” Or whatever head-in-the-sand phrasing they’re using today.