These days us gay boys think we’ve got it bad if someone dares to suggest, ‘it’s just a phase’. So imagine the horror of being told you had to undergo therapy to ‘cure you’ of your homosexuality. Scarier than Jackie Stallone without her make-up? Just a bit!
The 1950s and 60s may have been way before our time, but we’re pretty glad that we were nothing more than a twinkle in our grandmother’s eyes when we know what it was like to be a puffta in those bad old days.
As horrifying as it sounds today, it was less than half a decade ago that gay men were told to undergo behavioural therapy to ‘cure’ them of their homosexuality. Don’t forget, it was still illegal to take part in ‘homosexual acts’ – and those who were convicted of doing so were often given electric shock treatment, hallucinogenic drugs and subjected to bizarre brainwashing techniques. Frightening, isn’t it?
Remember that shit-scary film A Clockwork Orange? Well it was common practise to use the kind of aversion therapy seen in that as an attempt to turn gay men straight. Hard as it is to believe, those who took part in such therapy were often volunteers. Mind you, when you think that the only other option was a pretty lengthy prison sentence, the therapy seems kind of tame!
Sadly, it was anything but tame. The men involved were shown pictures of naked men whilst being given vomit-inducing drugs and electric shocks. Nice. Then when they couldn’t bare any more, they were shown pictures of naked women – as if to provide some sort of relief. They were also played audiotapes telling them how disgusting they were for being gay, and were even forced to drink Guinness in a cringe-worthy attempt to ‘straighten them out’.
As if that wasn’t horrific enough, the men were refused buckets for the vomit caused by the drugs they’d been given – and so they were forced to be sick on themselves. Add that to the excrement they were sat in and you’ve got yourself a rather unsavoury situation.
Luckily for us, aversion therapy died out in the 1970s, soon after the government had finally come to their senses and realised it shouldn’t be a crime to be gay. But bizarrely homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness until 1991.
So yes we’ve got our Civil Partnerships, our gay rights and a helluva lot more acceptance than those poor guys in the 50s and 60s ever had – but for how long? Believe it or not, Berlin was once a gay Mecca; and look at it now! Times change scarily fast and we tend to forget that nowadays we’re lucky bastards really. And at the risk of sounding like Peter Tatchell, sometimes we just need to thank our lucky stars and make sure we don’t take it all for granted.
|
