My Corrective Mind Rape

A Failed Attempt at Becoming Ex-Gay

July 17, 2024

The Christian book store was unexpectedly modern. Bestsellers were displayed on attractive coffee-colored shelves, while plate glass windows let in natural sunlight. There was an obligatory coffee shop, a large children's section, and an aisle devoted exclusively to planners, mugs with Bible verses on them, and t-shirts.

In contrast to the new goods section, the used section of the bookstore was windowless and devoid of air. It had old taupe carpeting and dim fluorescent lights, sparsely placed, and massive dark shelves that reached the ceiling. It reminded me of the scene in The Mummy where Evy, perched precariously on top of a ladder, knocks all the shelves in the library over. I wondered if these shelves, too, would fall into each other like a set of dominoes. I had been a Christian for a little over a year; my faith was on shaky ground already. It was probably a good thing that there were no ladders in sight.

I stood in the 'E' section and had just placed a few books by Jonathan Edwards in my bag. I had come here for Edwards and Luther and C.S. Lewis, but I had another book in mind. I looked left, I looked right, then I wandered over to the 'B' section. Mercifully, it was deserted.

Ba-Be-Bi-Bo-Bu. Butterfield, Rosaria. I was looking for her book, "The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert." You see, I was (and am) studying to be an English teacher, and the book was about a former English professor from Syracuse University in New York. I had seen her testimony on YouTube about the time I started to go to church. She was an inspiration. She was also, I understood, a former lesbian. I do not remember if they had the book or not. Either way, I did not buy it (and I bought a LOT of books that day) because if someone caught me with that book, they'd ask me about it. And I would have to lie about why I was interested in it — another sin — and they would probably know anyway that I suffered from homosexual ideation. It didn't occur to me that no one would ask or care, or that perhaps I came off as a lesbian anyway.

Paranoia comes with living, breathing, and having your being in the closet.

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SELECTED JOURNAL ENTRIES

From 8/22/2024:

My thoughts today during the movie — not great. Kinda distressing, in fact. I want my thoughts to be pure and clean, like a Christian's should be. But then — well, there they are. Sometimes it's like gun powder in a dry barrel. You're not paying attention, then whoosh! The sight of a lovely person is like that lit match. I don't know where I'm going here. You have to ask God to keep you from getting anywhere near that barrel — AND you'd better put out that match.

It's a firework show that's not worth the price of admission.

Lord, please keep me from temptation. Please deliver me from the Evil One. Please help me to flee. I want to put to death the 'old man' and put on Christ. I know you won't say no to that which is according to your will. Amen!

In short, I don't really know why I should be so affected today. I'm a little discouraged, too. I usually — most of the time — think I've straightened out. But no — there is still quite a bit of Euphemia [my homosexuality, personified] left.

From 9/10/2024:

Here is what I want to be able to tell people someday: God saved me from homosexuality. Before I was saved, I was gay. I never told people because I knew it was wrong. No matter what I tried, I could not change myself. When I wore myself out keeping busy, the desires came back stronger than ever. The fact that I was a hypocrite haunted me day and night. He saved me from that which is against nature.

From 9/14/2024:

Evil concupiscence. You know the one — there's sometimes sprinkled in some normalcy, so I don't feel so bad — at first [i.e., I always end up thinking about women]. Jesus, please help me to hate the sin and turn from it. Help me not to glorify it. It's vile.

Then I had this dream where I was trying to explain myself to an old therapist. I couldn't get her to understand the direness of it — to her, it's like being a yellow tomato instead of a red one.

Trying to explain how long it's been going on only seemed to make it worse. “Definitely since you were 14, but possibly since you were 5?” she'd raise a brow.

I want to change — I need to change. Then the dream shifted to my younger self. I was giving her advice. “Don't become like me,” I warned. “You don't have to follow this path.” But even as I said so, I knew I was going to make exactly the same dumb choices. “You can't undo it once you go down this path,” I said. “It's every bit as bad as trying drugs.”

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I feel as though I have been through a corrective mind rape—and Christianity was my rapist. I have dissociative episodes at church, during Bible study, or while reading devotions with my father and sister. When I dissociate, I feel like I have been dropped in the middle of a foreign planet. Technically, I know who the people are around me, but I feel as though I have never seen them before in my life. I can’t let on that I’m terrified. My arms and legs feel as though they don’t belong to me. My upper lip feels numb and tingly. It becomes difficult to walk. My body moves stiffly, puppet-like, on its own.

These episodes are less intense now that I’ve stopped trying to be straight.

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It's been over a year since I did not buy that book. Recently, I read the first chapter of The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on the internet archive. The author, Rosaria Butterfield, speaks of “declaring” herself a lesbian, her “lesbian identity” and states outright on page 13, “I had not always been a lesbian” (Butterfield, 2012). If I had known two years ago that the author was a political lesbian, I would not have been so impressed with her testimony.

I’ve never been on a date; I’ve never had sex. I know I’m a lesbian because I have never felt lust towards men, only women. I still can't believe that women choose to sleep with men for pleasure, not because they have to, or because they want children, or because they want to be liked. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to be able to change my sexuality.

I just wish the revelation had not come at such a high cost.

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References

Butterfield, R. C. (2012a). Conversion and the Gospel of Peace. In The secret thoughts of an unlikely convert : an English professor’s journey into Christian faith (pp. 1–27). essay, Crown & Covenant Publications. Retrieved August 7, 2025, from https://archive.org/details/secretthoughtsof0000butt/page/26/mode/2up.