Gay Man Describes 'Conversion Therapy' Torture

A gay man has come forward to describe the torture that he endured as part of a program of so-called "reparative therapy," British newspaper the Daily Mail reported on Oct. 7.

Reparative therapy, also called "conversion therapy," is a religiously based treatment program that promises gays they can be "cured" and "converted" into heterosexuals. Programs usually include prayer and counseling, but can also incorporate more extreme measures.

Mental health professionals warn that although some individuals may be able to focus their sexual interest on one gender or the other, there is no evidence that gay individuals--as opposed to bisexuals or young heterosexuals experimenting with same-gender sex--can be "cured" by such means.

Rather, reputable mental health professionals note, gays subjected to such treatment may be damaged by intense shame as a result of the treatment having no effect.

In the case of Samuel Brinton, a young man from Kansas whose family are Southern Baptists and whose parents are both ministers in that faith, physical violence was the response he encountered to his homosexuality from the moment he described his feelings for a same-sex best friend at age 12.

When his father heard Samuel's account of how a group of friends had discovered a pornographic magazine geared toward heterosexuals, and how Samuel did not find it sexually interesting but had special feelings for another boy instead, the Baptist missionary cold-cocked his son on the spot with a vicious blow. The attack was so brutal that Samuel was knocked unconscious and needed medical care.

Samuel's story was told by Boston-based Bay Windows when the young man was studying at MIT as a graduate student last summer.

"He really thought if he scared me enough I would change," Sam said of his father.

The abuse didn't stop there, the Daily Mail reported. That first savage blow was followed by more beatings, which landed Samuel in the hospital six times. He was then subjected to crude attempts at aversion therapy that included Samuel's hands being burned and frozen while he was forced to look at men embracing.

"What Sam calls 'the first step' of his therapy involved attaching his hands to a table with leather straps, palms up," Bay Windows reported in an Aug. 25 article. "The therapist placed blocks of ice on each hand and showed Sam pictures of two men holding hands, so that the young boy began to associate touching men with the 'burning cold.'

" 'The second step' was similar, but the ice was replaced with copper heating coils that had been wrapped around his wrists and hands," the Bay Windows article continued. "The heat was turned on when pictures of two men holding hands were shown, but turned off when pictures of a heterosexual couple holding hands were shown.

"Following these sessions, Sam would shudder when hugged by his father, experiencing what he calls 'heat flashbacks.' "

The torments also took a psychological form: Samuel heard from a "therapist" and from his parents that the government had implemented a program to round up and execute gays. They warned the boy, then 13, that he, too, would be taken away and killed. He was also told that because he was gay, he had AIDS. The nature of AIDS--which is a syndrome in which opportunistic diseases ravage a patient after the immune system collapses due to the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) decimating the body's T-cells--was not explained to the terrorized boy.

Then the faith-based "reparative therapy" began. A main feature of this was something called the "Month of Hell," which turned out to be aptly named.

"The Month of Hell consisted of tiny needles being stuck into my fingers and then pictures of explicit acts between men would be shown and I'd be electrocuted," the young man, who has now escaped from his family and studies at the University of Kansas, told the media.

The newspaper account said that the young man considered suicide, and even stood on a rooftop three stories up. When his mother appealed to him not to kill himself, her approach was far from one of unconditional love and support.

"I'll love you again if you just change," she reportedly told her distraught and suicidal son.

The belief that gays somehow "choose" to be sexually and romantically attracted to individuals of the same gender is deeply rooted among evangelicals, and accounts for a great deal of the social and legal inequalities that GLBTs face in America. Anti-gay groups claim that gays who wish to change can do so, and this assertion justifies bias and voter-driven curtailment of equal rights and protections before the law for gays.

But science indicates that this article of faith is tragically erroneous. Homosexuality has been observed in more 7,000 non-human species, and steadily mounting evidence suggests that genetics, in utero hormone levels, and brain structure all play a role. Additionally, while bisexuals may be able to "choose" which gender they will concentrate on, gays--much like straights--have absolutely no choice in the matter.

But anti-gay people of faith have proven highly resistant to this message, whether it comes from medical professionals or gays themselves. Rather, anti-gay pastors and other activists point to so-called "ex-gays" who claim to have conquered their homosexual attractions and entered into a heterosexual "lifestyle."

The language used by "ex-gays" is telling, however. When describing their putative conversions, "ex-gays" often say that life is a "daily struggle" against lingering homosexual feelings. Others say that they have quelled same-sex attraction, but only by completely sublimating their sex drives and becoming essentially asexual.

The only way Samuel survived was to tell his family what they wanted to hear. Conscious of the fact that he was lying, he claimed to have been changed into a heterosexual. But once he was away from home at college, Samuel dropped all pretense. Eventually, he came out to his family all over again--only to be rejected by his family, with his father threatening to kill Samuel if he ever came back to the family home.

Samuel told his story to I'm From Driftwood, a group that collects the stories of gays all across the country, the Daily Mail reported.

Samuel is able to talk about his history, but his present and future still bear the stamp of the ravages he endured in the past. Even today, Samuel is deeply scarred from his experiences, and cannot respond to physical contact with men without flashing back to intense pain.

"I'm ruined," the young man told Bay Windows. "I cannot get rid of the shock" that he experiences all over again with any sort of physical contact involving another man. Even a handshake brings back the agony of the fine needles that were stuck into his fingers and electrified as the young man was forced to watch pornographic gay videos.

"I've gotten used to the pain," Samuel added.

He's also moved past his personal suffering to reach out to others who have been abused in the name of salvation or "conversion."

"My core goal is to make them know they are not alone," Samuel told Bay Windows. "You are okay just the way you are."

It's a message the needs to be spread and intensified for the sake of people who, like himself, have been abused simply because they are gay. Bay Windows noted that Samuel belongs to a support group that started with ten young men who had similar stories. Eight of them ended up killing themselves.