“I don’t go to therapy to find out if I’m a freak”

It’s astounding to me that this can still be the case, but there are therapists out there in Blighty still attempting to “de-gay” people.  Even the expression ‘treatment for homosexuality’, as this article phrases it, fills me with a kind of cold dread.

Saddest of all is that people even in our ‘enlightened’ age can be made to feel that being homosexual is an illness, that it’s something so wrong or shameful that they simply have to have it exorcised, like some form of perverted demon.  While I have had the occasional bout of questioning, of musing over how much easier my life would be if I just stuck to dating men, ultimately it comes down to biology.

When I see an attractive woman, the relevant departments wake up and make their individual contributions to a physical ‘zing’, and all the well-intend chatting in the world won’t stop that from happening.  Similarly, although there are a great many men I find to be handsome and witty and brilliant, I don’t get that ‘raaaaaaaawr I’m gonna jump him’ feeling at all.  (Fernando Torres being the exception, but as I keep reminding everyone – he looks like a girl!).

Ultimately, if people seek ‘treatment’ for whatever reason, therapists can’t simply ignore them or pretend it isn’t an issue.  I really can’t see an alternative course to helping those affected to rationalise and accept their homosexual feelings, any attempts at a ‘cure’ just simply don’t work.  Offering the impossible would be unethical at best.

In further sex-sex-sex news, the Committee of Advertising Practice (judging by some of the adverts lately, there’s an R missing from that acronym) is considering a relaxation of the rules on advertisements for abortion services and condom/STD ads before the watershed.  To which I say, about bloody time.

In the many snippets on rolling news channels that I was half-paying attention to, a seemingly educated gentleman made the point that these are all perfectly legal services, and why therefore should they be subject to restrictions?  I couldn’t agree more, because this country needs more sex education and not less.  The problem is, with everything from Hollyoaks to the Pussycat Dolls (oh, get your own ‘yoof’ terms, I’m on the march to 30 dontchaknow?) that teenagers (and younger) are being presented with the fantasy of sex.  What they need is a large dose of reality – including consequences like STDs and pregnancy.

Speaking of which, here’s an absolutely terrifying report about the irresponsibility of 16-24 year olds: 68 freaking percent admitted they don’t use condoms.  What the hell?  Are you really saying that in a huge metropolitan place like London, with all the access to the internet and everything else that so many people can think that sort of behaviour is safe?  The comments of sheer ignorance regarding HIV made my jaw drop when I first read it on the Tube tonight.  Not getting AIDS because you’re “not gay” or too young, or the disease isn’t as fatal and life-wrecking as it used to be?  While I accept that advances in HIV drug therapies have made it livable, this is not a lifestyle change you want to make voluntarily.  I feel like I’m in a flashback to the 80s (though of course I was only a nipper then) and any minute now there’ll be a press conference with Ronald Reagan not even saying the word.

Are we really back there?  The misinformation, playing Russian Roulette with every ejaculation?  I really don’t know what to say about this anymore, but if ever there was a sign that we need to ramp up the accurate information being given out to these morons, I think we just received it loud and clear.