Direct link here. (JiM is second segment, about 6:30 in)
Patterned after the equally bizarre Mankind Project, Journey into Manhood is nothing new to those who keep up with pseudo-therapies which make wildly unscientific claims of success in changing people from gay to straight. JiM’s founder, Richard Wyler, doesn’t even try to claim a professional background that would qualify him as a therapist or a researcher. Claims made by the organization have as much factual weight as those made on behalf of “male enhancement” pills on late night cable — anyone can claim anything.
Yet in spite of all this, and the dearth of any credible evidence that sexual orientation can be changed as an act of will, gay men still pay the $650 to spend a weekend with the boys, chanting about manhood, elevating males to mythical positions, hugging and holding each other (while naked en masse according to former attendees).
Since JiM invited Nightline cameras into the normally secretive reunion weekend, things were probably less intense. Also, this was a reunion, not an actual weekend — JiM refused entry to those. Even so, it gets rather strange. And inevitably the question arises, as it does with many of these groups, are these people — leaders included — simply fulfilling their needs for male intimacy through the activities created to drench the weekend in maleness? Is this really a wink wink, nudge nudge farce, where most everyone knows what’s really going on, but uses the pretext because it is a safe way to experience the intimacy without guilt?
If so, not everyone plays along. Nightline also talks to a couple of men, Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, who were steered to JiM through JONAH, the group known mostly now for the criminal record of it’s founder, Arthur Abba Goldberg. These two men expected some semblance of professionalism, and instead found themselves asked to do things they were unprepared for and unwilling to do.
And what of the “successes?” The wife of the person they highlighted and who seemed most positive about his “change” later said that they often look at men together, but his type is different than hers.
Update: The ABC piece isn’t really investigative journalism, as they took whatever JiM spooned out to them. Check out a more thorough undercover piece here.
Edit 11/10: Replaced expired promo video with full version from Hulu.
I was very disappointed that the Nightline segment didn’t feature more voices from ex-ex-gay survivors, as well as more information on the ex-gay movement’s ties to the Religious Right.
Anyone watching the segment would recognize that Preston is still gay, despite having impregnated his wife. The guys came accross as pathetic and rediculous. I doubt that even straight, religiously conservative, politically conservative Americans who watched that segment were at all persuaded that these men were becoming straight.
This segment made me sick to my stomach. I’m sorry, anyone who preys on someone’s insecurity is a criminal. Wishing gay away is about as realistic as wishing you would wake up a different race. Disturbing, pathetic, and criminal.
apparently he hails from “outside of Salt Lake City.” Anyone surprised about that? anyone?
I was fortunate to have caught the last fifteen minutes or so of the program. The saddest thing about it is the feeling of being “infinitely flawd” by the participants, which is what I perceived based on what I saw. I get that being straight is a character trait that is highly acceptable in our society, just like being thin, smart, and athletic… but, I believe that gay people are just born that way and accepting that will make their life a lot happier.
It would be nice to see a “where is he now” update ten years from now.
I’m surprised the gay movement doesn’t brace this acceptance, after all, the gay movement continously preaches to the relgious right on tolerance, where is that tolerance now. Good for Preston! If someone doesn’t want to be something, why be angry? Transvestites certainly aren’t ridculed by the gay movement for “being who they are – born a man”. Why should someone who feels they are not gay be ridiculed for wanting a different path – Gay movement = hypocrites I think so.
@Mark
Do they print that response in pamphlets somewhere? Let me guess, you tried one of these Warrior/Manhood things and it opened your eyes, etc., etc. More power to you, I’m sure you play a mean game of softball.
You sound tense and defensive, perhaps your bucket is empty?
The great thing about America is that people who do not want to be gay can do whatever crazy things they want to try and not be that way. The good thing is there’s no doubt that the average educated person will see that this is ridiculous at some level. I mean, there is some logic behind it, which was what sucked me in for awhile in my life, but I mean there’s no real evidence that people are actually changing, not even from this piece. In contradistinction to some of the comments here, I thought the piece did a good job at representing both sides with the gentleman from the APA, their mentioning that the guy was not a therapist, that the methods have no scientific backing, and the testimonies of the two ex-ex-gays. This piece “showed” more than “told.” And I think the message is clear at the end, especially from the reaction and testimony of the wife: he’s still gay (or, at least, bisexual) and still (contrary to his claim a few minutes earlier of only being emotionally attracted to men) sexually attracted to other guys – his wife admitted it for him! In the end, I’m satisfied with the piece.
It was very obvious that the Preston guy was still gay and just pushing it away. He just seemed like a puppet in a pointless marriage that is just there for appearances.
Jordan – I can relate to Preston on that point. I wanted so badly to have what I was raised to believe was beautiful and could make me happy. I also wanted to be “normal.” It was a great struggle to give up this idea of the “wife and kids” and realize that I may never have kids and MY family may never be accepted and looked at as beautiful by others. The piece talked about how much Preston wanted to be a father his whole life. I don’t think it’s there “just for appearances.” I think he is truly trying to make what is beautiful in his mind a reality. Many gay men want to grow up, get married and have kids, but biology obviously limits that once they realize they’re gay. As someone who’s gone through it, it can be incredibly painful and difficult to let go of that “dream family idea” and accept oneself for who you are. I had to learn that though the idea of having a wife and kids is a beautiful notion, so can be a gay marriage and adopted kids. Preston hasn’t been able to see that yet. I just hope for the sake of that family he is able to carry through and be what it is that he wants to be, though I suspect trouble in years ahead.
@Mark
When one is subjected to the constant message that you’re not only flawed, but you’re seriously incapable of anything else that’s good and life enhancing UNLESS you affect being hetero, then the message of ‘choosing’ to NOT be gay, is coerced.
This, after all, is enforced by the reality of being bullied by peers AND family, by risk of losing one’s career and family network, or the children you might already have.
Were being gay routinely accepted, without the systemic bigotry and discrimination…and even with that, a person decides they don’t want to be gay: ONLY then, will I believe they chose freely and willingly.
The way the ex gay industry presents heterosexuality, it’s really NOT how life actually is as a hetero. They use a lot of props, people whose lives were seriously damaged by bad choices that had NOTHING to do with their sexual orientation.
And they were guided by narrow stereotypes of homosexuality, not the varied and real character building communities that gay people actually form.
Ex gays create another set of being outsiders, then call it intolerance by gay people.
When in fact, they CHOSE to not only abandon what they think is a lifestyle, but they spend a lot of time, bashing the gay people they left to deal with the real world prejudice that ex gays basically don’t have the moral fortitude to fight.
A very important reminder, TJ, thank you. Sometimes we forget that, behind the bravado of the ex-gay organizations and those who use them as cover for anti-gay views, there are people desperate and in pain. Taking advantage of this are operations like JiM who feed this silly garbage to people like Preston because they know they will try anything. I vacillate between disbelief that anyone could be taken in by such rubbish and feeling incredibly sad for the same people.
The truth is, many here have experienced this same agony and tried the same things. Preston isn’t the problem, he is the victim.
As a gay male, I feel it was a fair piece. They portrayed the JIM as a radical theory that is in opposition to the mainstream consensus that sexual orientation is something that neither can nor should be altered. I don’t know why all these angry queens feel the need to get their panties in a bunch. If these men want to find expression for their homoerotic desires in a manner that is more socially acceptable to themselves more power to them.
Several years ago, I participated in the New Warrior Training (ManKind Project) in Los Angeles. Journey into Manhood is the same thing, but tailored specifically for those men with same sex attraction (SSA) who want to change. Even within our group, the official policy of ManKind Project was to not judge. It was gay-affirming, but also supported SSA men who wanted to be faithful to their wives or girlfriends or just avoid sexual encounters with men. I think the gay men like myself had more problems with the SSA men than the other way around. The SSA men, for the most part, were so happy to be around men who liked men that they were content to soak up all the hugs and kisses and massages and honesty they could. For many of the SSA men, this was the first time they felt so safe to even talk about their desires for men. It seems obvious that the reason Preston enjoys his Journey in Manhood weekend so much is because he gets to be “gay” on a level that he can still feel good about. In “The New Warriors” most of the participants are straight. They seem to also enjoy a high level of physical and emotional intimacy. They also seem to enjoy running around naked while pounding on drums and sweating in the lodge and talking about sex during the “cock talks.” By the way, the scene in Nightline where the men were being led around in a long line, holding hands and blindfolded was done nude in my group. It wouldn’t surprise me if Journey into Manhood also does it nude, but didn’t want to share that with Nightline’s audience. I think all of it is good for those who want to join in on whatever level they’re comfortable. Preston strikes me as an open honest person, one who won’t for long settle for less than what life offers. Maybe he can enjoy the best of both men and women.
@Brian Kraemer
Bingo — excellent, honest observation. Do you think all the theatrics and chanting are simply props to put imaginary clothes on the emperor, i.e. to give “safe” pretext to what you just described so it isn’t simply a gay potluck?
@David Roberts
You’re absolutely right. Preston is a victim.
I know two very good friends of mine who are gay but have been counseled to get married. That’s the way for them to get promoted and get jobs and “fit-in” with the majority. The pressure from peers and society can force anyone to do almost anything.
There is a strong correlation with culture of Mormons and every-day life that cannot be dismissed. You have to live in Utah to understand the pressure to conform.
Preston is not the only one.
Time-out to get some facts straight. [no pun] There is zero nudity @ JiM. There is much nudity @ New Warriors. (I’ve been thru both.)
@ludovico
Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, both interviewed in the Nightline piece, reported full nudity at their JiM weekends. Rich Wyler, JiM founder, when responding to these claims, did not deny it but instead tried to minimalize the significance:
Perhaps you experienced none on your weekend(s) but others have. I have heard from that it may have started out without the nude aspect, but has slowing moved into it.
This whole discussion reminds me of something I read in a Chicago gay newspaper 37 years ago. It underlines the whole absurdity, emperor-has-no-clothes, fantasyland nature of this discussion.
A psychiatrist– I’m pretty sure it was bieber, Bergler, soccarides, or one of the major anti-gay playersof that time– was saying that it was certainly understandable that men isolated from women– sailors, prisoners, and so forth– should turn to each other for sexual release. However, to do so as a “lifestyle”– meant in the very broadest sense of the word– was clearly an indication of mental illness.
In other words, if we have gay sex, it’s sick, but if heterosexuals do, it’s normal. WTF?
This is exactly the same sort of nonsense. A bunch of guys, some of whom are, ahem, same sex attracted. all hand around together being masculine, taking their clothes off, hugging each other and so on. but it’s not gay. Really really really, we’re just being guys trying to rediscover our lost masculinity, nothing gay aobut it. Masculinity being defined as “not a woman” and “not gay”. It seems to be so very fragile, so dependent on being defined as what it is not instead of what it is. And of course, there is that unstated assumption– and it would never do to state it clearly– that there is only one type of masculinity in the world, as clearly unclear as it is, and as clearly nonsensical as it is.
The old sterotypes– gay men are weak, effminate, unmasculine. Or, as Bryan Fischer so beautifully puts it, we are hypermasculine and account for the savagery of the Thrid reich. Which is it? We are gay, we are effeminate because we under-masculine and didn’t get enough fo Good Old Dad. (If you don’t hug your son,. another man will). We are gay, we are hypermasculine, because we over-identified with dad, or we are compensating for our own hypo-masculinity by being hyper masculine.
Why is it that when gay men do this, it is proof that we are hypersexualized and perverted. when straight guys do it, they are being even more masculine than they were before, or at least trying to be. and of course, in this Alex in Wonderland viewpoint, both gay men and straight men are trying to recover their lost masculinity, both lost and found for totally different reasons and recovered for totally different reasons. And, funny enough, the results are different. Gay men are damaged by their loss of masculinity, straight men only need to recover it. But funny enough– when the gay men recover their lost masculinity they are still gay. nothing has been “healed”.
So, maybe it isn’t about masculinity at all, but just the same old, illogical nonsense. It makes my head hurt. So much energy, intellectual and emotional gymnastics, so much pretzelling, are devoted towards trying to explain something as simple as this:
Quoting Malvina reynolds: There are men who love women who love men. there women who love women, now and then. There are men who love men because they can’t pretend that they are men who love women who love men.
@David Roberts
I thought I read that Ben and Chaim’s nudity complaints had to do w/one-one counseling sessions w/Alan Downing–?? Now, Alan Downing was associated w/JiM [he was a facilitator @ my weekend] but is no longer because of Ben and Chaim’s complaints-?
@ludovico
You could be right on Chaim Levin — I haven’t got the quote in front of me. I believe both of them had bad experiences with Downing, but Ben Unger explicitly recounts his experience at a 2008 JiM weekend, led by Rich Wyler in Virginia. Starting at the 18:00 min mark in the Nightline video:
When Nightline asked Wyler about this, he gave the reply quoted above about it being similar to what happens in any high school gym class (yes, there is nudity in those classes as a result of changing clothes and showering, not for “therapeutic” purposes). Clearly, Wyler is confirming the nudity but wishes to de-emphasize it — he could simply have denied Unger’s claims.
I believe there are other claims out there, but this is enough to reasonably conclude that, at least in some of these JiM weekends, there is indeed full nudity.
Ben in Oakland,
It’s making my head hurt too. All this tells me, is that individual characters are unimportant and that gender and what we’re supposed to do with it, were defined extremely narrowly by ancient cultures in which modern cultures cannot reconcile.
The point is, why try? We’re supposed to be going forward, our past is our past. As long as there are people who keep trying to define gender fluidity as an inferior mixing with an inferior, therefore they are contaminated, is going to get anyone nowhere.
It’s really over analyzing the whole issue of a justification, looking for a rationalization to treat gay people badly, or as diseased THEN badly all over again.
Why can’t people just leave it ALONE, and let actual unsegregated socialization and equal consideration take it from here?
I learned as a CHILD that when there are those who confront someone with the sole interest of converting them to the subversion of their authentic selves, it’s a lack of interest in who that person is and the things that make them who they are.
Then you NEVER know who they are.
So then what’s the point in talking to them in the first place?