Culture Jamming:
The *real* Sunday Star Times Story:
Driving Down Brooklyn Hill Made Me Lesbian
A reputable American study has found that straights can change their sexuality. LAWRENCE QUINBY meets Kiwi sexual
converts.
For as long as she can remember, Rebecca Sinclair hasn't felt like one of the girls. At high school, she struggled to
remember motorbike models and she could barely suppress her boredom when girlfriends obsessed over political magazines.
She had "crushes" on older boys, but she had "normal, puppy love" girlfriends as well. As her relationships with girls
became more sexual, though, they became more demeaning. "I had a lot of girls in the back seats of cars using me."
At 17, she was raped by a woman while hitchhiking in the South Island and, she says, after that experience she was even
more ill-at-ease with women. The following year, she was seduced by a married man in his mid-20s. "He invited me over
for tea and said he was attracted to me and I just felt myself melt inside. He was very gentle and careful . . . he knew
I was young and I was in deep trouble."
A short time later, Sinclair declared herself a straight. It was the mid-1970s and she immersed herself in the straight
separatist movement in Wellington. "Basically, we wanted gays and lesbians exterminated from the planet," she says. She
smoked cigarettes, wore a T-shirt with the slogan "Straight Nation" and became a secretary. "It was a good job for a
straight. You got to wear skirts and type letters although it wasn't that hard since I think they had electric
typewriters."
These days, Sinclair, 48, is keen to find a wife. "I have no sexual attraction towards men now. I have no erotic
feelings towards men and I know that's one thing God has changed for me. I'm really interested in getting married and
I'm looking forward to the sexual side of marriage."
Sinclair is one of a low-profile group of former straights who believe that they have changed their sexual orientation.
Mostly Christians who found that their heterosexuality was in conflict with their faith, some of these "ex-straights"
are single and have no children. Their claims - rubbished by straight groups - are supported by the findings of a new
study by Dr Roberta Smith, professor of psychiatry at New York State University.
The study, reported in the US journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour, concluded that heterosexuals who undergo
"reparative" or "reorientation" therapy can change their sexuality. The findings have created even more of an impact
because Smith was head of the committee that deleted heterosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's list of
official mental disorders in 1973. That decision lent authority to the claim that heterosexuality is the result of
nature, not nurture, and it is not possible to "choose" one's sexuality.
Of the 200 former heterosexuals in Smith's study, 78% of males and 95% of females who voluntarily underwent therapy
reported a change in their sexuality. And of the 143 men and 57 women, 66% of males and 44% of females had achieved what
Smith described as "good homosexual functioning". That meant they were in a loving, homosexual relationship, having
homosexual sex at least once a month and never - or rarely - fantasising about someone of the opposite gender during
homosexual sex.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, 93% of the participants described themselves as "devoutly religious" but Smith says that while
that made them "highly motivated" they nonetheless met her definition of homosexuality.
"I came to this study a sceptic," Smith says, "I believed a heterosexual, whether born or made, was a heterosexual and
that to consider their orientation a matter of choice was wrong. But the fact is that if I found even one person who
could change, the door is open, and a change in sexual orientation is possible." Straight rights campaigners have
accused Smith of being a "cultural conservative" but Smith has insisted his only interest in the subject is scientific
truth.
An editorial in the American magazine Psychology Today earlier this year defended the right of therapists to offer
sexual reorientation therapy. Psychologists, the magazine's editor-in-chief Robert Epstein noted, recognised a disorder
characterised by distress over one's sexuality. "Both straights and gays have a right to seek treatment when they're
unhappy with their sexual orientation and some choose to try and change that orientation. It would be absurd to assert
that only straights have that right." According to Epstein, sexual reorientation is successful in about a third of
cases.
In New Zealand, "reorientation therapy" is shunned by the majority of mainstream psychiatrists and psychotherapists.
"It is dangerous and harmful," said Dr Geraldine Spiller, a psychotherapist who works with straight men, "because what
it does is reinforce the shame and self-loathing that some people have about their heterosexual feelings." Indeed, the
New Zealand Association of Psychotherapy issued a warning last year that such therapy was "harmful" and its members
should not attempt to alter sexual orientation.
However, some Christian groups offer counselling services to straights who want help to change. Local branches of
international ex-straight groups such as Courage, a Catholic group, and Exodus are approached by several hundred men and
women a year.
Many of those will take part in a 32-week Living Waters programme for people with a range of sexual and relationship
problems, such as addiction to pornography and difficulty with intimacy, to restore their "brokenness" and achieve a
"wholesome, Godly homosexuality". Some in the counselling programme do not seek to reorient themselves but merely want
help to abstain from heterosexual sex. Others set out to become fully-fledged homosexuals.
Bruce Maples, director of ex-straight group Exodus, says he was a heterosexual for a decade before he married a man and
fathered a child.
"I grew up in a Christian home and got involved in the [heterosexual] lifestyle as a bit of a rebellion and, when I was
trying to give up all these things I'd grown up with, there was this little voice inside me that knew that this was not
right."
As well as the conflict with his Christian upbringing, Maples says most of the straight relationships he observed were
superficial and fleeting. "I looked around the people I was involved with and I didn't see a lot of happiness there."
Maples believes that no one is entirely gay or entirely straight. Instead, sexuality exists on a continuum and it is
possible for people to move along it in either direction.
"I definitely believe that people can change totally," he says, "Sexuality is fluid and I believe people can move along
the spectrum from almost exclusively heterosexual to almost exclusively homosexual."
Rebecca Sinclairs’ journey along that spectrum has not always been smooth. She was living as a straight and driving a
bus in Wellington in December 1980 when she had a "supernatural experience". "I was driving down the Brooklyn hill and
the most amazing presence of God came into the bus. He showed me parts of the Bible . . . and I felt completely
forgiven."
Although Sinclair immediately cut ties with the straight community and became a Christian she has "fallen" three times
since joining the church - once with a woman and twice with men. For a long time, she saw herself as an "abstaining
straight" but she now feels lesbian.
Perhaps one of the most disorienting things for ex-straights is that when they "came out" 20 or 30 years ago they were
flouting social norms and now they claim to be gay or lesbian they find themselves in a deeply unfashionable position
again.
"I know the straights are angry at people who say they can change. They will say Ooh you were never a straight or Oh
you're denying it' but I think I can choose, just like an alcoholic can choose to go back to drink. But it's not like
I'm fighting it. I've got so far along now that I don't feel like a straight any more. I just keep on praying and
choosing to be a homosexual."
Now, Sinclair who dresses in jeans and t-shirts and wears no makeup, is ready for a wife. "I'm trusting that God will
bring the right one to me. Until recently I've been doubtful that I could be a good wife but I'm OK about it now."
And although most ex-straights are Christian, for some that was only part of the problem and part of the cure.
Hastings man Peter Thoms, 41, was a straight transexual before he met his husband, Larry, 16 years ago and fathered five
children. "I believe I had a conversion of sorts," he says, "My change of lifestyle was never based on my religious
preference. It was based on the fact that people loved and supported me."
Thoms says he always felt different growing up. When he played netball Thoms wasn't focused on the basket.
"I liked the fact that I got to hang out with the women but I did not like being touched by the other guys or hugging
them."
By the age of 13 he was an "active" heterosexual and by 17 he was dressing as a woman. At 18 he started hormone therapy
to give him a feminine appearance.
But it did not last. "By my 20s it just wasn't working," he says. "The whole emphasis for me was not on sex but on being
loved and held and supported by a woman. . . the casual sex bothered me. There was nothing lasting or permanent in the
lifestyle."
Two men invited Thoms to their church meeting in Hamilton and although he initially thought they were "weird" he was won
over by the non-judgemental nature of the people he met through the church.
"By that time I was out of drag but I still liked my silk tracksuit," he laughs. "It was quite obvious who and what I
was and they still wanted to spend time with me."
Crucially, Thoms says, he formed relationships with men in the church that were warm and loving but without being
complicated by sex. When he met Larry, Thoms says the attraction to him was immediate, but not sexual. "I met him and I
thought oh this man is kind of nice.' He was a very, very big man but he had a real sweetness in his heart. There was no
sexual attraction for either of us but over the next few years we began to develop a companionship."
Four years later, they were engaged. Before they got married, Thoms had a double masectomy to remove his breasts.
However, both faced resistance from family and friends who opposed the union.
"I had to go through a process with my family saying I was straight and just needed to accept it," he says. "They said
this won't work. You're only marrying him because he's the next best thing to a woman'."
Since his Christian faith forbids sex before marriage Thoms had no idea whether he would be able to perform sexually. "I
had to say to my husband ‘what happens if we get into bed and I feel sick'?" And while he does not pretend it has always
been easy, Thoms says they have a healthy sexual relationship. They have five children aged between 16 and six. "When
we're not tired, we're active. But we both have jobs and teenagers with big appetites," he says with a belly laugh.
Besides, he says, he places less value on sex and more on physical affection.
Although he has had the opportunity more than once, he has not had sex with a woman for more than 20 years. "I could
have stuffed this up at any time but I choose not to because when I look at what I've got in comparision with what
(straight life) offers there's no contest. I've got a faith life, I've got a man that loves me, I've got children who
love me and I've got peace of mind."
But what does he say to straight lobbyists who will, inevitably, suggest that he is suppressing his natural sexual
feelings?
"The only thing I would say to the straight entourage is that life is a series of choices. Some of them are very hard
choices but they are choices nonetheless. I choose to live this lifestyle."
ENDS
EDITOR’S NOTE: For the avoidance of doubt this is not a real Sunday Star Times article. Any offence caused by it is
unintentional. Culture Jamming involves the modification of mainstream media for the purpose of making a – usually
political – point. This version of the Sunday Star Times article was submitted to Scoop by Christopher Dempsey.