Wash Away The Gay

5 Responses

1. 1

   Gabriel Malor 3.15.2006 at 1:33 pm | Permalink

   Woah. That alicublog post is way out of line. Let’s take a look:

   First, he refers to Helen Reynolds as “Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser.” Does this bother anyone else? Not only does he feel it necessary (funny?) to call her “Dr. Mrs.”, but he identifies her solely in terms of her husband. He goes so far as to say “But the important thing is that she is a worthy practitioner of her Ole Man’s passive-aggressive schtick” — as if she isn’t an independent, well-educated and well-known documentarian. Rather, he makes it sound like she’s just trying to suck up to her husband.

   Second, he manages to take what she said: “Personally, I’m skeptical about turning gay people straight. But shouldn’t the client be the one to choose, not the APA? The APA has decided that the answer is no.”

   And turn it into: “Hello, my boy is a big fag and me and Lutiebelle decided to de-fag him but good. First I gotta ask: is your program approved by the American Psychological Association? It hain’t? Shoot, Lutiebelle, guess’n we all gots to take dick up the ass! Th’ APA has spoken! ”

   That’s a LOTTA stretch.

   I get it. Roy doesn’t like the Reynolds. Surely it’s possible to get all royally offended and throw a hissy without having to fall back to “Students of this sort of locution — Personally, I’m all for equal pay for women — know it usually ends up with what we call a double-reverse demurrer — but some of these bra-burning kooks — half of them couldn’t land a man anyway! — meant to turn the tables, though in this case the Dr. merely bruises her thigh on it.”

2. 2

   piny 3.15.2006 at 2:08 pm | Permalink

   Second, he manages to take what she said: “Personally, I’m skeptical about turning gay people straight. But shouldn’t the client be the one to choose, not the APA? The APA has decided that the answer is no.”

   And turn it into: “Hello, my boy is a big fag and me and Lutiebelle decided to de-fag him but good. First I gotta ask: is your program approved by the American Psychological Association? It hain’t? Shoot, Lutiebelle, guess’n we all gots to take dick up the ass! Th’ APA has spoken! ”

   That’s a LOTTA stretch.

   He’s certainly vituperative, but how is it a stretch? Her implication is that the APA doesn’t have the right to define standards of care for psychiatric professionals–and, indeed, that those professional standards are some kind of violation of the autonomy of their prospective clients. I’d love to see her apply that kind of reasoning to the ABA or the AMA.

3. 3

   norbizness 3.15.2006 at 3:30 pm | Permalink

   To put it simply: such therapy is outside of the standard of care of professional psychology. To implicitly invite your core demographic to turn the comments into a cesspool of people shilling for harmful, counterproductive organizations like Exodus and NARTH deserves a bit of scorn.

   Not to speak for Roy, but I think he’s just identifying the Reynolds family modus operandi; e.g. “Are there vast storehouses of chemical weapons in Iran that require immediate war? I’m not totally convinced, but here’s 14 links and e-mails that all magically conclude that there are!”

4. 4

   roy 3.15.2006 at 3:42 pm | Permalink

   Surely it’s possible to get all royally offended and throw a hissy without having to fall back to…

   “Fall back”? That’s my A-list material!

   Gabriel may be right — could be Ma is the brains behind Pa. I’m sorry I missed that angle — not because I sweat the inferences of sexism (come fucking on), but because it means I missed an opportunity to stretch this bit out into something you would have hated even worse.

5. 5

   Grog 3.16.2006 at 9:02 am | Permalink

   NARTH members are active advocates for “Reparative Therapy”.

   I suspect strongly that the APA’s position vis a vis granting credit for a NARTH-sponsored conference relates to the fact that the SOC’s (Standards of Care) for the APA very specifically consider “Reparative Therapy” techniques extremely dangerous and potentially seriously damaging to the client’s well-being.

   There’s little difference in attitude between NARTH and “Love In Action” or other such groups. NARTH merely attempts (and fails) to wrap their BS up in the language of bad science. (There’s a reason they like the work of Michael Bailey)

Comments are closed.