70 Comments on “A Thought”

  1. What scintilla of evidence is there that he is repressing his heterosexuality, and what motive could he have for doing so? What possible benefit can he imagine, rightly or wrongly, that faking being gay even might confer on him?

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    • On the basis of that comment I eagerly anticipate you never ever again challenging the sexuality (or the change of sexuality) of any person who claims to be gay, straight or someone inbetween.

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      • Although I remain sceptical, and with good reason, of claims of deliberately engineered change of sexual orientation, it has never been my general practice to challenge the sexuality (or the change of sexuality) of any individual who claims to be gay, straight or somewhere in between. The few exceptions are those cases where a person claims to be “ex-gay” explicitly in the sense of “formerly homosexual but now heterosexual”, but their known behaviour gives the lie to this, or they have made statements containing internal evidence of falsity, or they have given multiple accounts which are so much at variance with each other that they are plainly phoney. Even then, I would not bother about it particularly, if they were not publicly using their stories to support misleading claims about the likelihood of change and to peddle dubious forms of “therapy”.

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  2. Motive is crucial. Daley has no apparent motive to repress anything. The same can’t be said of a person who believes that expressing their sexual orientation is a sin in the eyes of God; or even that just *feeling* same-gender attraction is sinful.

    When people who’ve tried to change their sexual orientation freely confess that they lied to themselves and others out of a desire to change, it’s reasonable to be skeptical. That skepticism needn’t translate into accusing people lying. Personally, I wait until an individual clarifies things for themselves.

    I accept that in some cases people’s sexual orientation may shift along the scale, although I’m unclear about how and why it happens. Your own testimony — I’ve tried to be accurate, but please correct me if I have anything wrong — of being asexual until 23, being same-sex attracted for about a year, and then falling in love with your future wife, is convincing. Other testimony is less so.

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      • OK, my bad, I could’ve phrased that more clearly: is “being exclusively same-sex attracted for about a year, submitting yourself to God’s will, falling in love, and feeling your orientation shift along the Kinsey scale” better?

        As for Daley, I don’t know if he does or doesn’t have a motive to repress, which is why I said “apparent motive.” If one comes to light, I’ll reassess my view, although it’s one I’d keep to myself until he clarified things in public.

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  3. In a sane society somebody would take Tom aside and say, Look here old chap, nobody wants to tell you how to behave, but you really ought to bone up on gay sex and see what harm it can do to you before you embark on a life of hedonism saturated with promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse and physical and psychological harm. You are young; your brain is not fully developed.
    Not only does risky behaviour continue but permanent memories are stored and neurological pathways are laid down, which shape and trigger future sexual responsiveness. Young people who are same-sex attracted can grow out of it quite spontaneously. Get out before it’s too late and it becomes an addiction, when escape becomes too difficult, and before your body in injured and you contract HIV which will be with you for the rest of your life. We understand that you are grieving for your Dad, but this is no substitute!

    But no, the fawning fools are all over him congratulating him on his ‘courage’ in ‘coming out’. Unluckily for them, and luckily for Tom, he has refused to be labelled as gay (he still fancies girls). Even Pink News have had to backpedal on their first rejoicing, Note what the Deputy Ed had to say … ‘what is also interesting is that Tom Daley’s coming out has opened up a really honest debate from within and outside the LGBT+ community on where perceive that we stand with equality, and most prominently it seems, people’s own decisions to define (or not define) themselves as they please.’ (But of course that doesn’t apply to ex-gays. Hypocrites!}

    What I would really like, and what may well happen in the future, is for some lawsuits to
    pop up against David Cameron and Maria Miller for leading people into a false sense of security over gay sex, resulting in some of the above-mentioned ills. Then this house of cards would really come tumbling down, and people would be discouraged from drifting into this kind of behaviour.

    That’s today’s rant out of the way!

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    • In a sane society you would be more clued up about the things you talk about.

      First of all, I fail to see how being gay automatically turns you into a promiscuous, drug-addled, alcoholic person.

      Secondly, I want to see the evidence you have for making the claim that ” Young people who are same-sex attracted can grow out of it quite spontaneously.”

      “before your body in injured and you contract HIV which will be with you for the rest of your life.”
      HIV is not just a gay-disease, I read recently that half of people contracting it are now straight. And catching HIV has nothing to do with gay sex; it has everything to do with UNSAFE sex.

      What I would really like, is for people like you be sued for making absurd (and frankly idiotic) claims.

      That’s today’s rant out of the way!

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      • From the US Centers gor Disease Control: Nearly 93 percent of HIV infections in males aged 13–19 and 91 percent in males aged 20–24 come from “male-to-male sexual contact.” The CDC also reported in December 2012 that “new infections among the youngest MSM [males having sex with males] (aged 13–24) increased 22 percent, from 7,200 infections in 2008 to 8,800 in 2010.” In the UK new cases of HIV in young men have doubled in a decade. Why would this be?

        There is good evidence to show (Savin-Williams & Ream 2007) that the vast majority of those who believe themselves to be gay aged 16 will revert to being straight when they are 18 years old. (If left to their own devices, and not seduced by older gay men).

        The truth has a sneaky habit of eventually seeping out. Sometimes this takes many years. But it will, it will.

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        • “From the US Centers gor Disease Control: Nearly 93 percent of HIV
          infections in males aged 13–19 and 91 percent in males aged 20–24 come
          from “male-to-male sexual contact.” The CDC also reported in December
          2012 that “new infections among the youngest MSM [males having sex with
          males] (aged 13–24) increased 22 percent, from 7,200 infections in 2008
          to 8,800 in 2010.” In the UK new cases of HIV in young men have doubled
          in a decade. Why would this be?”

          There are numerous reasons as to why gay men are more likely to contract HIV, and the biggest reason is that the “dating pool” is smaller, and so diseases spread around quicker. That doesn’t make gay people inherently prone to it; just as school children aren’t any more prone to getting a cold/flu; it’s just that when you stuff 1000 kids into small interior spaces, infections spread rapidly. Equally, the gay community is smaller; so someone who regularly has sex is more likely to contract HIV, even if they’re as promiscuous as a heterosexual person, or even if they are less promiscuous than a heterosexual person. HIV contraction has very little do with with sexual orientation and EVERYTHING to do with safe sex.

          Also: interestingly, according to UK statistics, in 2012, the rates of newly contracted HIV between homosexually active men and heterosexually active men was /almost/ the same at 47% vs 41%. (http://www.nat.org.uk/HIV-Facts/Statistics/Latest-UK-statistics/HIV-Diagnoses.aspx)

          Peter has already addressed the issue with the “Savin-Williams & Ream 2007” study.

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          • To be fair, it is pretty well established that *on average* homosexual men have more sexual partners than heterosexual men. That might be one reason why homosexual men have a higher HIV incidence. The other might be particular sexual practices *some* homosexual men prefer (I do so hate when some people seem to think that all gay sex is sodomistic – it’s so reductionist) have greater likelihoods of transferring the HIV virus.

            But regardless, it would be nice to discuss these issues in an environment devoid of pejoratives.

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            • That is also true.

              The point I was trying to make is that the HIV virus is “blind”, as it were, and does not infect specific groups of people. You’re just more likely to contract it if you have MSM sex and/or practise unsafe sex.

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                • No. Her initial statement seemed to say that any gay sexual behaviour would lead to an inevitable contraction of HIV, which it doesn’t. Though there are greater chances of contraction among homosexual communities, that 1) doesn’t make them evil 2) doesn’t mean heterosexual communities don’t contract it and 3) says more about sexual habits than anything else. It’s like saying that children in a school are more likely to catch a common cold/flu/whatever.

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                    • Hmm, tricky, because we don’t know how many will admit to it, but according to Laumann E. et al ‘The Social Organisation of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States’, 1994, the estimate is around 20 per cent (who don’t).

                      But the whole of the article needs reading because of the huge range of other homosexual activities and the illness and injuries caused.

                      I am not squeamish myself, and am so used to talking to people about this kind of thing, that it always takes me by surprise when others are offended by it. But it is this very reluctance to discuss these important issues which contribute to the rise of STIs in young gay men, and particularly HIV. I noted in my deleted post that the Terrence Higgins Trust don’t make much of a differentiation between anal and vaginal sex when it comes to HIV, which is such a lie that I think they should stop receiving public money.

                      http://www.tht.org.uk/sexual-health/HIV-STIs/HIV-AIDS/How-HIV-is-transmitted

                      Perhaps I should send a copy of ‘Health Risks’ to David Cameron. I wonder if he would read it. It is a few years old now, but still very relevant. He can then explain to us why he thinks gay sex is morally equivalent to straight sex, as our children and grandchildren are likely to be taught.

                      (And no, I have not forgotten that promiscuity among straight people is a huge problem – but then, no one is advocating that.)

                    • As a postscript to the above – it should be noted that anal sex is far more widely practised than it was 20 or 30 years ago, which surely must account for the skyrocketing HIV rates. We should ask ourselves why this is. Surely the government’s green light must bear some responsibility?

                      This is what I describe as homophobia, Peter – that young men who think they might be gay ~ (when they are quite possibly not, like Tom Daley) should be led to believe that homosexual activity is fine and dandy, no need to worry, just celebrate and be yourself. A life on antiretrovirals is no fun, apart from the enormous expense.

                    • Why does Tom Daley “quite possibly not” have gay attractions? What leads you to that decision?

                      Why shouldn’t safe homosexual activity be as fine and dandy as safe heterosexual activity? Antiretrovirals are as unfun as becoming infertile because of STIs. You keep making the comparison between promiscuous (and unsafe) gay sex and safe/monogamous heterosexual sex. That’s not a fair comparison.

                    • To be fair, anal sex is far more dangerous than vaginal sex or non penetrative sex. The issues with anal sex in particular are more than just HIV.

                      But once again, anal sex is a minority interest in the male homosexual world – around a third if that.

                    • If it is such a minority pursuit, why are the Thinklies making such a fuss about the Jamaican buggery laws?

                    • So, Jill, if it’s only a third or fewer of gay men who engage in anal sex (leaving aside any hets who also do), do you think they should be banged up for it? If so, why?

                    • Why are you asking me that? It wasn’t my suggestion that it is only a third or fewer. I was asking Peter why the Thinking Ones get so worked up about something that affects a minority of them.
                      I think you know the answer to your question.

                    • Sorry, Jill. I obviously didn’t make myself clear enough, perhaps because I made my question too compact. I suppose I was really trying to ask THREE questions:

                      (1) Do you think that gay men should be banged up for having anal sex?

                      (2) If your answer is “yes”, then why?

                      (3) If your answer IN PRINCIPLE is “no”, do you nevertheless think that, if at most only a third of gay men (as per Peter’s estimate) potentially risk getting banged up for it, then making a fuss about it is being unreasonable?

                      In answer to your own question, if gay men in the UK were still liable to imprisonment for consensual anal sex, as was once the case, I, for one, would certainly get worked up about it as an intolerable infringement of freedom and privacy, no matter how many or how few of us actually qualified for imprisonment.

                    • Touching though it is to have you setting so much store by my humble opinions, Gugli, I am finding this rather tiresome. (You’re not Ryan in disguise in your sweet little sailor suit, are you? Whatever happened to Ryan, by the way?)

                      For the record, just so you have no more brussels sprouts to throw back at me at some future date, no, I don’t think people should be locked up. I do, however, think that if they want it kept private they should keep it private, ie do not use places where people take their children and dogs and should have the right to not have to witness this. So some sort of sanctions would be useful – and this applies to all sorts of sexual activity, gay or straight. But this is digressing.

                      I did attempt to ask the Thinking Anglicans to explain to me what was so good about buggery, but unfortunately this didn’t get past the moderators. So now I’ll never know.

                    • Thank you, Jill, for confirming that you don’t think that gay men should be locked up for having anal sex. I agree with what you say about what the police call PSEs (Public Sex Environments), but that is a separate issue, as you acknowledge.

                      I fail to see why you should find it tiresome if I ask you to clarify a question which you have asked. If you feel it worthwhile to post what appears to be a rhetorical question of that kind on a blog, it is quite reasonable to ask you what you do or do not mean it to imply.

                      As for what is so good about “buggery”, I could ask people to explain to me what is so good about all sorts of things, and not just sexual things, but that would have no bearing on whether it was OK to send people to prison for them.

                    • For me it is an issue of compassion – not wishing health risks on people I care about. Free to do so? Sure, sure, that’s fine…but why aren’t there more warnings about very real terrible effects which could hurt people for life (especially for young people?) I want my kids to know about all of the risks of promiscuity, in all forms. They need to be fully informed before they make decisions which will affect their lives.

                    • Holly, you are absolutely right in wishing your kids to be fully informed in these matters. I hope, however, that you don’t imagine that knowing about risks associated with anal sex (or with any other type of sex) will alter anyone’s sexual orientation. It won’t.

                    • So true, Peter. Loss of proper bodily function is another one. Bleeding. Loss of bowel control. That’s a terrible thing, and like Jill, I can’t even begin to imagine why anal sex is not mentioned as a health risk, unless we are very worried about offending the population which – up until recently, in whatever percentages we cite – has been most likely to partake.

                    • Interesting that the UK and US trends are different.

                      However: a possible reason for those skyrocketing rates is that the generation that got HIV awareness thrown in their faces (eg. people who were teenagers during the 80s) have now grown up and a younger generation who did not have the same exposure have started to have unprotected and unsafe sex. All that tells me is that sex education is more important than ever before.

                    • Dare we add that the prevalence of gay porn has also affected the hetero community, and that hetero men are now expecting anal sex from their women? Women – mostly – don’t like it, but they will do it to go along and keep their men. All of the lines are blurred, the boundaries are gone. I may be wrong, but I believe that sadly, that this is why we see a rise in HIV rates in hetero communities as well (as has been mentioned.) Types of sex, crossing lines, no taboos…Jill has some very good points.

                    • Thank you, Holly. This is demonstrably true. Anal sex is now being normalised, and will become more so. Read what passes for sex education for young teens now:

                      At the risk of being deleted again, please dear Peter may I quote just one small section from this website? After all, if it is deemed suitable for 15-year-olds, surely rational adults can be expected not to swoon?

                      It is entitled ‘How to have sex’. ‘ If you are going to have vaginal or anal sex with toys*, fingers or penises, I think that you should know how to make it as pleasurable as possible as well as making it safe.’

                      http://bishuk.com/2009/07/31/how-to-have-sex/

                    • That comment has no relevance…no one is advocating it.

                      It may be that higher proportions of the gay community ARE promiscious, but that does not make it a necessity of gay life nor a reason to consider gay behaviour harmful. All that condemns is promiscuity.

                    • I still don’t see this as a legitimate argument for why gay relationships are wrong or inappropriate. Sure, if you have multiple sexual partners and unprotected sex on a regular basis, you’re more likely to contract HIV and other STIs. But equally, if we look back a few hundred years, heterosexual sex that lead to conception was also incredibly risky and more it was not uncommon for the child or the mother to die during childbirth. Nobody seemed to stop having sex, though. Technological break throughs have prevented this from happening so regularly. Equally, the condom is a great way of protecting yourself. Of course, the best way is not to have sex unless you are very sure you aren’t going to be transmitting/contracting any STIs.

                      People need to decide for themselves what is appropriately risky behaviour, and risky behaviour on behalf of some people shouldn’t condemn the safe behaviour of others.

    • Daley hasn’t announced his embarkation on “a life of hedonism saturated with promiscuity”: he’s announced that he’s in a relationship with a man. The two are distinct and separate things. Your response makes about as much sense as responding to an engagement announcement with, “Ah, shame, a life squandered on orgies and the worship of Bacchus.”

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    • before you embark on a life of hedonism saturated with promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse and physical and psychological harm

      And the evidence Tom Daley is going to do this is what?

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      • I’ve lost track of this thread a bit due to being tied up elsewhere. Tom is involved with a known gay activist, who I assume (perhaps wrongly) is involved in the gay scene. If that is true he is as much at risk of HIV etc as if he did intend to go clubbing every night.

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    • Jill, people’s sexual attractions may change during their teens. Either it will happen or it won’t. It cannot be MADE to happen. Irrespective of one’s views on the desirability of sexual abstinence, there is no reason to suppose that it will change anyone’s sexual orientation. I was one of those totally gay teenagers who never had any sex with anyone during his teens; in fact I made it till the age of nearly 22. I arrived at that age every bit as “same-sex attracted” and just as exclusively so as I had been at 15. I know from gay friends that I am far from unique in that respect.

      And then we have gay men who were always “same-sex attracted” but never had gay sex, got married in their late teens or early twenties in an attempt to conform, have lived a heterosexual lifestyle for years, but still remain “same-sex attracted”. And men who during their teens frequently participated faute de mieux in same-sex experimentation, although they were always other-sex attracted, and have been entirely heterosexual throughout their adult life.

      Sorry, Jill, the addiction model of homosexuality, while it makes an obvious appeal to a certain kind of mentality, is not consistent with anything except certain people’s fantasies. It can only be taken seriously by someone who not only has never been a gay teenager or adult – which, of course, most people have never been – but, like you, clearly has not the slightest knowledge, much less the remotest understanding, of what it is like to be one.

      That’s tonight’s rant out of the way.

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      • How do you know I have no knowledge or understanding? You are quite wrong.
        However, that is your story. But it is not Tom’s. I believe he has been seduced by an older man – a gay activist, too – while at a low ebb grieving for his father. I may be quite wrong, but that is not the point. My anger is directed at the culture which will not warn him of the dangers of the way he is going, which could cause him to stop in his tracks.

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        • He might stay in this relationship all his life and never take drugs, consume an innapropriate amount of alcohol (it would destroy his sporting career for a start) or engage in any form of dangerous sexual activity. What then?

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        • Jill, if you have any knowledge or understanding, then you must have gone out of your way deliberately to deceive us into believing the opposite. I say that on the basis of many things that you have said, e.g. speaking of homosexuality as an addiction; implying that being in a gay relationship must entail promiscuity and drug and alcohol abuse; and even trying to deny that there is such a thing as sexual orientation. Quite irrespective of your views on the morality of homosexual behaviour, those are incredibly foolish things to say. If I were to say equally silly and ill-informed things about heterosexuality, I am sure that you would very quickly put me in my place, and rightly so. I think that you really excelled yourself quite some time ago when you tried to draw an analogy between being gay and a childish food fad like not liking Brussels sprouts. That fully deserved a prize for fatuity.

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          • Really? Brussels sprouts? Surely not.

            Let’s not pretend, Gugli, gay relationships are notoriously promiscuous. Hardly any male gay couples want to sign on the dotted line, and when they do it’s rarely on the basis of monogamy, not as we understand it anyway (forsaking ALL others till death us do part). Of course it does happen, but it is my firm belief that it is usually women who keep men on the straight and narrow, and that element is missing from a gay relationship. All this is well documented; I’m not going to throw out any more stats because Peter will challenge them, but I expect he could give you some if you asked him.

            I’m not pretending that all is right in straight world either. Sadly our culture is hypersexualised and children are being taught to become sexually active at an earlier and earlier age with disastrous consequences. But it’s Tom Daley we’re talking about. My beef is with the culture which is so risk-averse that children can’t even play conkers without wearing crash helmet and goggles, but young men are drawn into dangerous sexual experimentation which can alter the course of their lives without so much as a government health warning.

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            • Yes, Jill, you did indeed make that absurd comparison, and it made me wonder whether you even understand what homosexuality is, let alone have the vaguest concept of what it is like to be gay.

              I am perfectly aware of the amount of promiscuity on the gay scene, and I agree that one of the important causes of it is the simple fact that men are men. Although there is plenty of straight promiscuity too – and it certainly isn’t a mid-twentieth century invention either, as some would have us believe – there would be even more of it if more women were more cooperative. Criticizing promiscuity is fine and may or may not persuade people to alter their behaviour. It will not alter anyone’s sexual orientation. If you can succeed in convincing a promiscuous heterosexual male to stop putting himself around, that is most commendable, but he will remain a heterosexual male. Likewise, if you can succeed in convincing a promiscuous homosexual male to stop putting himself around, that is equally commendable, but he will remain a homosexual male. How difficult is it for you to grasp that?

              With regard to Tom Daley, I don’t know him, and I assume that you don’t either, but correct me if I’m wrong. As I have already pointed out, same-sex experimentation during the early and middle teens is far from uncommon, especially in single-sex institutions, and there is no evidence that it determines sexual orientation in adulthood. But a young man who enters a gay relationship at the age of 19 is about as likely to be doing it as sexual EXPERIMENTATION as a 19-year-old who enters a straight relationship. As for your suggestion that he’s doing it as compensation for the loss of his father, that’s just another thing that not only makes me wonder whether you understand what homosexuality is; it also makes me question – wife and mother though you are – how much you really understand about young men’s relationship with their fathers.

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  4. Just as an encourager, here is a link to former gay activist Michael Glatze’s story: ‘Michael Glatze stepped down as co-founder of XY Magazine in 2007 where he walked out by leaving a note on his computer that read, “Homosexuality is death, and I choose life.” His transformation from gay to straight began after he started to question his lifestyle following a health scare and with no one to turn to, Glatze decided to seek help in God. Now, he lives life as a straight man and recently married a woman, Rebekah, who critics are referring to as his “prop.”‘

    http://www.christianpost.com/news/former-gay-activist-marries-woman-addresses-critics-who-condemn-his-new-heterosexual-lifestyle-110736/

    I wish him and his new wife well, and hope that something similar will happen for Tom.

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    • I too wish Michael Glatze and his new wife well. But honesty compels me to say that the abstracted expression on Glatze’s face in the wedding photographs (you can find more of them with a bit of googling) makes me wonder about their prospects as a married couple.

      If I were trying to convince a gay man of how much happier and more fulfilling an “ex-gay” married heterosexual lifestyle is – not that I would ever bother with such a fruitless task – I certainly wouldn’t try to do it by showing him those photos.

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      • That’s rather worrying, because my husband has exactly the same expression on his face in all our wedding photographs! :)

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        • Well, I don’t know what you are going to read into that, but I’m sure you know your husband well enough to be able to interpret his facial expressions. But even if the expression on Michael Glatze’s face is misleading, his marriage should be one of the happiest events of his life. If I were the bride or a member of her family, I would feel very uneasy about a bridegroom who felt the need to use the occasion, or to encourage others to use it, as an advert for the “ex-gay” message (no matter what I thought of that message in itself).

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