Today’s Quackery: Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing

[The Illusive Man]

JONAH, Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, is a non-profit international organization dedicated to educating the world-wide Jewish community about the social, cultural and emotional factors which lead to same-sex attractions. JONAH works directly with those struggling with unwanted same-sex sexual attractions (SSA) and with families whose loved ones are involved in homosexuality.

Our Rabbinical sages explain that because mankind has been endowed by our Creator with a free will, everyone has the capacity to change. Furthermore, the Rabbis emphasize that parents, teachers and counselors have a special responsibility to educate, nurture, and provide an opportunity for those struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions to journey out of homosexuality.

Through psychological and spiritual counseling, peer support, and self-empowerment, JONAH seeks to reunify families, to heal the wounds surrounding homosexuality, and to provide hope.

Meanwhile in reality…

The conversion therapy techniques described in the suit included having them strip naked in group sessions, cuddling and intimate holding of others of the same sex, violently beating an effigy of their mothers with a tennis racket, visiting bath houses "in order to be nude with father figures," and being "subjected to ridicule as 'faggots' and 'homos' in mock locker room scenarios."
"As long as you put in the effort, you're going to change," Goldberg told Bruck, the lawsuit said.

JONAH counselor Thaddeus Heffner blamed Bruck's gay orientation "on Bruck for not working hard enough to change, on his father for being too distant, and on his mother for being too close to him," the suit said.

Homosexuality was not even a diagnosis by the DSM III (1973). The entire section of ‘302.0 Sexual orientation disturbance (Homosexuality)’ was challenged in Homosexuality and Sexual Orientation Disturbance: Proposed Change in DSM-II, 6th Printing, page 44 POSITION STATEMENT (RETIRED) (I wish I could link this but piracy  ). It was replaced by ‘302.00 Ego-dystonic Homosexuality’ in the DSM III, TL:DR being in the closet was classified under ‘OTHER PSYCHOSEXUAL DISORDERS’. That was later removed for the DSM IV and remained absent in the DSM IV-TR.

Recently Gov. Jerry Brown of California signed into law a ban on such “conversion tratments”, effective as of January 1. It prohibits attempts to change the sexual orientation of patients under age 18. Not good enough in my opinion. Such quackery should be banned totally. PERIOD.

[agentCDE]

So, let me get this right - they strip naked with other men... to stop being gay? Sigmund Freud must be laughing his undead ass off.

[TheUnknown]

I wonder how many names they tried out until they found one that they were able to force a meaningful acronym out of.  Or maybe they made the acronym first and pulled a bunch of words together until they found a combination that stuck.  That's the first thing I think of when I see organizations that that "coincidentally" abbreviate to something like this. 

So, let me get this right - they strip naked with other men... to stop being gay? Sigmund Freud must be laughing his undead ass off.

Yeah, apparently they blame the mother for being too close to the son, so exposing him to his father will make him more of a man.

[Witchyjoshy]

Totally honest, here, I was expecting the Jewish form of "faith healing."

Instead, I got Jewish flavored Exodus.

Fantastic.

That being said, it sounds like it's treating to treat homosexuality... by encouraging men to be more "macho" and subjecting them to "stereotypical male behavior."

Because as we all know, all gays are feminine twinks who hate masculinity.  Right, Deimos?

[Old Viking]

Isn't Jonah the guy who swallowed a whale?

[Meshakhad]

Isn't Jonah the guy who swallowed a whale?

That was Soviet Jonah. Normal Jonah got swallowed BY a whale.

[ironbite]

Oh look one of these things that never ever work and leave the participants confused and depressed.

Ironbite-why does religion think it can "fix" people?

[Mechtaur]

*Looks up from newspaper* Not surprised. *Goes back to reading*

[Sylvana]

That list of therapies has to be the creepiest thing I have seen in a long while.
Of all possible ways to abuse people they just had to choose the ones that seem the most "gay".

I am starting to wonder if these kinds of treatments are not just secret harems for the owners or something.

[MadCatTLX]

So, let me get this right - they strip naked with other men... to stop being gay? Sigmund Freud must be laughing his undead ass off.

There are actually straight guys out there that anally rape gay guys to somehow make the gay guy straight. No idea what the logic behind that is, not even insane troll logic can make a workable answer.

[TheUnknown]

So, let me get this right - they strip naked with other men... to stop being gay? Sigmund Freud must be laughing his undead ass off.

There are actually straight guys out there that anally rape gay guys to somehow make the gay guy straight. No idea what the logic behind that is, not even insane troll logic can make a workable answer.

Maybe they're trying to turn gay guys off of anal sex under the belief that all gay guys practice anal sex.  By raping them, they'll force them to see how "horrible" and "wrong" anal (and by extension, gay) sex is, letting them know how preferable vaginal sex is by comparison.  May also double as a "scare 'em straight" tactic by traumatizing them so bad they won't be able to enter another relationship with a man (again, because "all gay men practice anal sex").  At least, that's the conclusion I drew.

[Sylvana]

So, let me get this right - they strip naked with other men... to stop being gay? Sigmund Freud must be laughing his undead ass off.

There are actually straight guys out there that anally rape gay guys to somehow make the gay guy straight. No idea what the logic behind that is, not even insane troll logic can make a workable answer.

Maybe they're trying to turn gay guys off of anal sex under the belief that all gay guys practice anal sex.  By raping them, they'll force them to see how "horrible" and "wrong" anal (and by extension, gay) sex is, letting them know how preferable vaginal sex is by comparison.  May also double as a "scare 'em straight" tactic by traumatizing them so bad they won't be able to enter another relationship with a man (again, because "all gay men practice anal sex").  At least, that's the conclusion I drew.

That would make sense if the very same men didn't also gang rape lesbians. At least there their apparent reasoning (that they admit themselves when questioned) is that they are showing her how having a penis in a vagina is better.

It really just boils down to the age old rape as domination and dehumanization.