Exodus International Apologizes and Shuts Down

Star Forge, I would like to point out that this thread shows examples of the straight privilege that you laughed at in another thread.

There are not places specifically dedicated to curing people of being straight. It is not even believed that there is a cure for being straight or that there should be one.

People don't have long debates over whether they agree with heterosexuality or not.

People don't generally qualify things they say about straight people with "I have no issue with straights in general as long as they don't..."

Those are just the examples that have popped up so far in this thread, not to mention many others that don't have to do with ex-gay therapy. Homophobia is a significant problem, and I would bet that many homosexual relationships that are unhealthy are that way because of so many external stressors (like constant homophobia, not being able to be open about their relationship, etc.).

Metsu Desal wrote: I don't think they were wrong, homosexuality CAN be cured but it is extremely damaging mentally and even then it is not a "true" cure as it just damages the mind.

You could mentally condition someone to think of pain whenever they have a homosexual thought by associative memory and you could reward them when a straight thought occurs.

Needless to say homosexuality is not an illness but instead an emotional outlook

I don't think brainwashing someone into internalizing so much homophobia that they run back into the closet exactly counts as a cure.

Abhaya Budhil wrote: Star Forge, I would like to point out that this thread shows examples of the straight privilege that you laughed at in another thread.

There are not places specifically dedicated to curing people of being straight. It is not even believed that there is a cure for being straight or that there should be one.

People don't have long debates over whether they agree with heterosexuality or not.

People don't generally qualify things they say about straight people with "I have no issue with straights in general as long as they don't..."

Those are just the examples that have popped up so far in this thread, not to mention many others that don't have to do with ex-gay therapy. Homophobia is a significant problem, and I would bet that many homosexual relationships that are unhealthy are that way because of so many external stressors (like constant homophobia, not being able to be open about their relationship, etc.).

No, there are not places for curing heterosexuality, because heterosexuals are the majority and therefore are considered the norm, fair or not. I have seen "gay brainwashing," so to speak, but, yes, again, there is no major campaign to turn people gay, it simply happens now and then, mainly unintentionally by environment in their younger years (to clarify, I mean the ones that are "brainwashed" gays, not the ones who are just wired that way). As stated before, I'm against "conversion therapy." I've seen the results, and if I was a gay person, no matter how much I hated being gay (as I would have to to want to pursue conversion therapy), I would just make the most of being gay, rather than even look into that crazy Exodus stuff. That being said, I support the ex-gay movement, in that, if a person is genuinely unhappy with their orientation (rather than just tired of the problems it causes in regards to discrimination), I fully support their efforts, as long as they are personalized and don't involve an industry like Exodus.

I don't buy into the whole "privilege" thing, because every identity one can apply to themselves (gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and so on) has its pitfalls and perks, depending on the society. If a straight person were to say something along the lines of "gay sex is unhealthy," (I'm not arguing this point, just using this as an example), they'd be called a "homophobe" and bigot, and possibly lose their job or something similar. When I started a thread nearly two years about about antinatalism, that is, the idea that reproduction is immoral, it sure as hell caused a stir, but nobody accused me of "heterophobia." Additionally, society does not badger, say, a young adult lesbian, married nor single, about when or if she will have kids, even though it is totally possible with today's technology, but a young, married, straight woman, and her husband as well, are subject to such badgering. A lesbian couple could go right through young adulthood and middle age without even thinking of kids, and they wouldn't be considered odd, whereas the same is not true for a straight couple. There are advantages to being a white straight man, but trust me, the pitfalls more than compensate for them. Big-name rappers can write "kill whitey" lyrics with no controversy, but Paula Deen gets fired from Food Network for admitting making tongue-in-cheek "n-word" jokes in the distant past (and I actually know her personally, and her "inner circle" is mainly black women and gay men). I have a friend who holds a Ph.D. in English, and is repeatedly denied job opportunities and tenure for being a white, straight man. There is actually a joke floating around in academia that one almost needs to be a handicapped black lesbian to get anywhere in the field I actually had to apologize and explain to a friend yesterday that I wasn't staring at her ass, which I wasn't, but that's one of those things that comes with being a white straight man. Talk up all the privilege you want, at the end of the day, the white, straight man is not the beneficiary of massive double-standards. A few, but nothing like affirmative action.

Sorry if I sounded hostile, just making a point.

Lesbians are often badgered about children as well. People want to know how they can have children, if they will have children, which method they will choose for having children, if they realize that being in a lesbian relationship makes having children more difficult, etc.

If your only problems are that you have to apologize for looking at someone's ass and that you get called out when you say things that further the oppression of gay people your life is going pretty well as a straight man.

As far as white people not being able to get hired, perhaps your friend just wasn't the right person for the job. I can tell you that in my experience, that just isn't true. I've only had two professors that were not white, and before college all of my teachers were white for my whole life. I've also never heard of anyone getting fired for having homophobic ideas, as long as they weren't making a hostile work environment (and anyone can be fired for creating a hostile work environment).

As a straight person can you get married wherever you want? Is your sexuality debated over? Can you adopt children without people wondering if you should even be allowed to raise children? Have you ever been beaten up for being straight? Bullied and harassed for being straight? Did you have to come out to friends and family, or was your sexuality taken for granted by everyone around you? Did you have to risk losing everything you had to be who you are? Can you hold your girlfriend's hand in public without worrying about what people will say?

Abhaya Budhil wrote: Lesbians are often badgered about children as well. People want to know how they can have children, if they will have children, which method they will choose for having children, if they realize that being in a lesbian relationship makes having children more difficult, etc.

If your only problems are that you have to apologize for looking at someone's ass and that you get called out when you say things that further the oppression of gay people your life is going pretty well as a straight man.

As far as white people not being able to get hired, perhaps your friend just wasn't the right person for the job. I can tell you that in my experience, that just isn't true. I've only had two professors that were not white, and before college all of my teachers were white for my whole life. I've also never heard of anyone getting fired for having homophobic ideas, as long as they weren't making a hostile work environment (and anyone can be fired for creating a hostile work environment).

As a straight person can you get married wherever you want? Is your sexuality debated over? Can you adopt children without people wondering if you should even be allowed to raise children? Have you ever been beaten up for being straight? Bullied and harassed for being straight? Did you have to come out to friends and family, or was your sexuality taken for granted by everyone around you? Did you have to risk losing everything you had to be who you are? Can you hold your girlfriend's hand in public without worrying about what people will say?

Yes/Yes/No/I was mistaken for gay when I was a teenager and essentially kicked out of church/last answer suffices for this one too/My sexuality growing up was sort of ambiguous. I guess I gave off "gay vibes"/Yes/Yes, actually. An American with a Ukrainian woman in Ukraine is not a welcome sight.

Star Forge wrote:
Yes/Yes/No/I was mistaken for gay when I was a teenager and essentially kicked out of church/last answer suffices for this one too/My sexuality growing up was sort of ambiguous. I guess I gave off "gay vibes"/Yes/Yes, actually. An American with a Ukrainian woman in Ukraine is not a welcome sight.

Being mistaken for being gay means you were oppressed for being gay, not for being straight. Nobody did those things to you because you were straight. They did them because they perceived you as gay, so my point stands. Really? You risked losing everything to be straight? You must have lived in a strange area.

Let me also add, as to the marriage question, that I don't see the gay marriage debate as one of old values vs new, "homophobia" vs tolerance, or anything of the like, but rather, as a question as to whether marriage is a secular or religion institution. I myself am pro-gay marriage, in the secular sense. Beyond that, it should be the decision of the individual religious bodies.

You might be pro gay marriage, but the fact remains that it is not legal in many places. You have that privilege, whether you believe you should or not.

Abhaya Budhil wrote:

Star Forge wrote:
Yes/Yes/No/I was mistaken for gay when I was a teenager and essentially kicked out of church/last answer suffices for this one too/My sexuality growing up was sort of ambiguous. I guess I gave off "gay vibes"/Yes/Yes, actually. An American with a Ukrainian woman in Ukraine is not a welcome sight.

Being mistaken for being gay means you were oppressed for being gay, not for being straight. Nobody did those things to you because you were straight. They did them because they perceived you as gay, so my point stands. Really? You risked losing everything to be straight? You must have lived in a strange area.

I mean I didn't live up to "straight" norms, even in the eyes of those who knew with certainty that I wasn't gay. It indeed is a cultural issue in a strange area.

Abhaya Budhil wrote: You might be pro gay marriage, but the fact remains that it is not legal in many places. You have that privilege, whether you believe you should or not.

It's legal in any place that a gay person would reasonably want to live in.

As for the violence question, I don't believe there is any significant violence against gays in the Western world anymore, no more than anybody else anyway. You'd be surprised at how tolerant the more extreme corners of the world are. Ireland, a strongly Catholic country where abortion is illegal, nonetheless has a population that is overwhelmingly supportive of gay marriage, although it is not legal yet. My best example comes from when I worked in Malaysia. Malaysia is a strongly Islamic country, not a theocracy like Saudi Arabia, but very Islamic nonetheless. Homosexuality is technically illegal, but nobody cares. As a caning officer (due to being a martial artist), I resolved that, if for once they decided to enforce the caning penalty for homosexuality, I would quit. I was never put in that position.

Really, what I am trying to say is that most discrimination toward gays is really just being in the wrong place. Yes, I was the target of anti-gay bullying, but, then again, it was in a Southern Baptist church that I could have left any time.