Customer Reviews

Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

For the past few years, the ex-gay movement has started to take it's hold on the United States. Several prominent people have lined up to say that under therapy, with a distinct desire to change, homosexuals can honestly wake up one day to find out they are straight. Wayne Besen disagrees with that thought. Besen loads up his ammunition and fires at pointblank range at the ex-gay movement with his powerhouse of a book called "Anything But Straight".

Besen, employed by the Human Rights Campaign, spent four years examining this strange turn of events in American politics, the end result being this book. Dividing up the topic into four distinct sections, Besen starts with a frontal assault on nationally t outed ex-gay John Paulk, and his infamous "bathroom break" at Mr. P's, a local gay dive in Washington, D.C. He uses that incident as a spring board into the ex-gay ministry movement itself, revealing all of its ugly flaws in the process. He then moves into the practice of reparative therapy, and how it developed with the support of psychiatrists in the field. Next, Besen bashes the political movement behind the ex-gay myths, ripping down the religious right as a primary motivator in bringing to light this fallacy. He ends the book talking about the future of this movement, writing both hopeful and frightening predictions.

Originally, I purchased this book wanting to get a more well-rounded viewpoint on the ex-gay theories. One way to combat them with your family, friends, and in society, is to be able to honestly understand where the other side is coming from. Besen's book is more of an assault on this movement, which at first turned me off, but then, as his rhetoric died down a bit, made for some interesting reading. At first, Besen would liberally interject his own opinions about what he was writing, sometimes with a cutting remark or a put-down. We as readers are fully aware of the insanity of some of the things he writes, and don `t need an author to point that out for us. Perhaps some self-editing in that area would improve the book a bit.

However, the information that Besen presents is incredibly horrible in and of itself. What he presents is an incredibly thorough book, bringing to light all the negative, nasty things this movement has brought to people's lives. The ex-gay movement is essentially a house of cards built on a pile of lies, and exposure of that will help bring ruin to it eventually. In the meantime, a bunch of people, many of them struggling with their own identity, will be run over by this machine and destroyed. Besen's book is an honest, real attempt to give those people hope and some information to save themselves.

"Anything but Straight" is very much a one-sided look at this contentious issue; but when only the other side is presented in the media, in advertisements, commercials, and television, our country needs books such as these to balance out the hateful damage they do.

Despite years of hearing, reading, and writing about this topic, I can't think of a better ex-gay resource than Wayne R. Besen's book Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth. Besen not only gives an accessible and easy-to-follow history of the sham's path of destruction but also makes it clear why so many gays and nongays choose to believe its obvious lies. He also exposes the many people who profit monetarily, politically, or even sexually from ensnaring more ex-gay followers.

Still, Besen also shows how most of the people who become involved with or lead these ministries probably mean well. More importantly, he shows how gays and their allies can expose these hurtful groups, which rely heavily on wild semantics, shaky statistics, pseudo psychology, and highly questionable science, all the while trying to appear Bible-based.

Besen also shows how gays can make their communities less vulnerable to ex-gay groups, while warning those communities about insidious new tactics that the increasingly media-savvy ex-gay leaders use to lure parents into forcing children to join the ex-gay circus. For groups that keep claiming that all of their members come there voluntarily, they certainly keep taking advantage of parental pressuring and other fears of rejection!

Best of all, Besen offers resources and alternatives for people who might want to join these groups. He even defends, to my satisfaction, his undercover efforts to capture all of the information that appears in this sometimes shocking but always fascinating volume. I suggest Besen's study for all gays, all of their allies, and anyone who thinks the ex-gay movement needs support or more recruits.

I also suggest Ronald L. Donaghe's scathing fictional treatment of the ex-gay movement, The Salvation Mongers, as well as the disturbing documentary One Nation Under God and-for some needed levity on the topic-the silly yet likable comedy But I'm A Cheerleader.

I'm reading `Anything but Straight' for the second time. With my busy life......that's about the best vote of confidence I can give any book.

Wayne has done and excellent job researching the ex-gay movement, history, programs and connections. He's read the materials, interviewed people, gone to meetings undercover to make sure he has all the facts. His work is extremely valuable. The homosexual debate has become much more than a religious issue and is now more complex since it has been politicized; often the key players being men with multi-million $$$$$ ministries with hidden agendas. Wayne helps us shift through the maze and get some clarity on what is really going on.

Having spent 22 years unsuccessfully trying to change my sexual orientation I know first hand, much of what he writes about. Therapy, counselling, exorcisms, 40 day fasts, months in an live-in ex-gay program and 16 years of marriage were just some of things I was told would help make me heterosexual. The result.......I'm still gay.......but at last happy about it....and realise that same sex attraction is no different to left handedness or red hair. It's just the way we are.......different but not abnormal.

In Australia, the ex-gay ministries lack funds, success stories, charismatic leaders and political connections so are not the threat experienced in the extremist/fundamentalist/Judaeo/Christian culture of some parts the US. this work is still valuable to us however to ensure we don't follow America down the Golden Arches Road into a country constantly harassed by Christian extremists whose worldview has not moved past Genesis. The wise have learnt by your mistakes.

I'm glad Wayne has devoted himself to detailing these things because I wouldn't want another human being to go through the torment that I did. If `Anything but Straight' was out years ago maybe many of us would not have wasted years of our lives trying to do the impossible and change our sexual orientation and learnt to be true to ourselves.

Against all the research and understanding today, many in fundamentalist churches still hold on to the archaic belief that being gay is a sin, a choice and the result of being brought up in a dysfunctional family. Thanks Wayne for reminding us again how futile and damaging those beliefs have been.

Anthony Venn-Brown
Author of `A Life of Unlearning - A Journey to Find the Truth'

WOW!!!! The author has hit a grand slam with this book! I have been waiting a very long time for someone to write a book about reparative therapy and the con people who run these organizations. Besen has exposed these people and the damage they do to thousands of people every year. I hope every Gay person who is being dragged to these seminars will make their parents or friends read this book first and then let them make an intelligent decision about these radical right wing zealot organizations who are not their to help you but their to take your money and your soul. This book is a great read, very factual, very informative, and very funnny. I could not put this book down!!!!.

I have read hundreds of articles and books on reparative therapy and ex-gay movements. Many are written so academically that I cannot get through it. Or it is written through the words of Christianity that they lose me being the Jewish man that I am. This is the first book I have ever read that was engaging and kept my interest. The author is smart, well-researched and funny. He absolutely exposes the ridiculousness of the Reparative therapies and ex-gay movements. BRAVO!!!

Joe Kort
[...]

I really wanted to like this book. It has good information in it but the writing style is a bit amateurish in the beginning, then seems to completely change a third of the way through. it was as if two different people wrote it. Still, if anyone is even CONSIDERING joing an ex-gay ministry in hopes of changing his/her sexual orientation, don't do anything until you read this book.

I first read the reviews on this book and was disturbed by the attempts of straight folks promoting the ex-gay "agenda" giving the author lousy ratings.

Then I read the pro-gay reviews and had a lot to think about in terms of how angry the GLBT community is at this blatant ripoff of our more vulnerable community members (those just coming out).

Then I read the book! It's tough to read, see people abused over and over again, and have it be justified by the Religious (Not)Right. Evidently any psychological technique is fair game if you're a homosexual. I'm surprised we haven't seen chastity belts and sexual lobotomies.

Nobody likes being told they are horrible sinners and must change one of the most fundamental parts of themselves unless they're already buying into the notion that they are worthless.

God doesn't make worthless! What a shame so many people are being hurt.

"Anything But Straight: Exposing the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth" delivers on the promise of its title. This is everything that the ex-gay industry and sociocon advocates don't want you to know about their individual and collective failures. Although well researched and with ample footnotes and references, this is not a dry scientific tome. Wayne Besen presents a thoroughgoing yet easily readable perspective on the ex-gay phenomenon and the powers and personalities that keep it alive; yet he reserves a surprisingly compassionate concern for those that felt (or feel) it necessary to become involved in this failed experiment. Although sometimes heavy on rhetoric, Besen brings his enormous knowledge and experience (as well as documented an checkable facts) to bear and presents them with compelling wit, force, and persistence. Besen offers not just an exposé but also constructive suggestions and advice for all sides of the debate. "Anything But Straight" should satisfy anyone interested in the intersection of religion, politics, sociology, and sexuality; but it will also be a potent weapon against anti-gay propaganda and the false advertising of the ex-gay industry. Finally, if read and appreciated by those considering such "therapy," whether for themselves or for others close to them, this book could very well be a literal lifesaver.

I've been looking forward to this book's appearance for a long time, ever since I found the Human Rights Campaign's "Finally Free." It must have been satisfying to write, and in many ways it was satisfying to read. But I am a happy gay man, and I was looking for something to make a serious case to people who find that impossible to believe -- including many people of the kind who would find themselves on the sharp end of Besen's somewhat self-indulgent rapier wit (if that sounds like a shop-worn metaphor, so, unfortunately, do many of the author's own tropes).

I would second the reviewer who suggested that the author do some editing of the gratuitous "see how evil/stupid/foolish these people are" pointers that frequently intrude on his presentation of compelling facts and details. Uh, yes, Wayne, I already noticed that, I always wanted to say.

On page 187 he says, "One reason I wrote this book is to help those struggling with their sexual orientation make informed decisions about whether to enter reparative therapy." I fear that many such struggling persons would have put the book down in dismay before they reached that page. The author offers balancing self-deprecation along with assurances that he does understand that there are good people involved in these programs, but often not until he has fired off yet another dollop of sarcasm.

Especially confusing is the way, in the last chapters, he suddenly turns around and offers advice to the same "ex-gay ministries" he has effectively savaged in the first chapters -- here's what you need to do, folks, is unlikely to be kindly received by someone who has just been told how appalling they are.

I hope I am wrong. Perhaps if some of these struggling people the author wishes to reach can be handed the book with a little forewarning, a little guidance in getting past the invective, it can be useful. Certainly the solid information that is presented is invaluable -- although I had the same reaction as another reviewer to the startling assertion that a $300,000 house with a pool in southern California betokens a lavish and profiteering lifestyle. I have little doubt that greed drives much of the reparative therapy scam, but if this is the best datum the author can come up with as proof, he would be better off not even mentioning it. (Likewise, a $125 per-session fee is, sad to say, not out of line in the world of psychotherapeutic practice.)

The most valuable parts of the book are those that expose the machinations of the political right, naming names and supplying dates and exposing who is in bed with whom. As a handbook to the history of how such forces exploited antigay prejudice for their own ends, it is worth the price and then some.

If Amazon offered the option of half stars, I would like to restore half of the fifth star I took away to acknowledge Besen's ingratiating habit of turning his gift of sarcasm on himself at times. But it seems to me that this book will be much better received by the glbt reading public and their friends than by the people the author wants to reach.

Mr. Besen documents in chilling detail the cynical and harmful psychological manipulation of the so-called ex-gay movement. He directs useful attention to the fact that, almost without exception, these people don't become "straight" in the sense of being attracted to opposite-sex partners; rather, nearly all admit that they continue to fantasize about same-sex encounters when having intercourse with their opposite-sex spouses. It is amazing to learn how completely oblivious these zealots are to the effects of condemning these well-meaning heterosexual partners to sham marriages in which they will never experience the deep sense of connection that comes from a partnership with a person who is attracted to you as a whole person, rather than as necessary sacrifice for salvation.