From Pray-the-Gay-Away to Pansexual Pragmatism
How Gen Z is Rewriting the Script
In 2018, Joe Nicolosi Jr. (son of conversion therapy creator Joseph Nicolosi Sr.) founded the Reintegrative Therapy Association to promote his "new" counseling intervention for gay people hoping to become straight(-ish). During that same year, 9.5 percent of US adolescents aged 13 to 17 identified as LGBTQ+. Over the following six years, Nicolosi's therapy has grown to fill the space his father's imploded brand left in many conservative churches and communities, with hopes that more same-sex attracted individuals would successfully marry people of the opposite sex.
During that same time span, the percentage of youth in the 13 to 17 age bracket identifying as LGBTQ+ jumped to 22.3, with increasing numbers of teens identifying as pansexual and open to dating individuals they might not be most sexually attracted to.
As a survivor of pray-the-gay-away therapy, a therapist who helps queer Christians authentically navigate their faith and sexuality, a ministry leader who trains pastors and parents to disciple the next generation of Christians, and the godfather of a Gen A kid who will grow up amid these parallel yet contradictory narratives, how should I make sense of the simultaneous rise of a new ex-gay movement and the rise of Zoomer and Gen A openness to (definitionally) the kind of relationships Nicolosi is hoping to foster?
A LITTLE ON MY BACKGROUND
From ages 15 to 25, I met with three therapists who promised to increase my heterosexuality. I attended multiple psychotherapeutic ex-gay retreats, interned with a pray-the-gay-away ministry for nine months, and prayed nightly for God to make me straight. Each week, my therapist recorded my levels of opposite-sex attractions (OSAs) and same-sex attractions (SSAs) to graph my progress (and failure). I attended a psychotherapeutic weekend where leaders re-enacted my worst homophobic experiences "to bring healing." Weekend facilitators led us in supervised "golden father holding" sessions (complete with handouts of approved cuddling positions) and pressured me into letting older men hold me.
An ex-gay pastor blamed my homosexuality on a lack of parental touch after being in a full-body cast for four months as a toddler. He instructed me to do infantile activities to repair my childhood wound, all while he watched. During a charismatic healing session, I was asked what the Holy Spirit was saying to me. When I shared honestly that I wasn't hearing anything, I was chastised in front of the entire group, "You must have some kind of unrepentant sin that’s blocking the Spirit. No doubt that’s keeping you from sexual wholeness."
The results? Like 96% of people who’ve participated in sexual orientation change efforts (SOCEs), I experienced no change in my sexual orientation. And like most ex-gay survivors, my anxiety and depression deepened, and my dependence on unhealthy coping mechanisms landed me in sex addiction recovery.
At the same time, I dated multiple women in college while being transparent about my sexuality, enjoyed romantic intimacy with them, and aspired to get married.
While I’m not bisexual and was fairly out in college, I was in a Christian fraternity and had to take women to date events. A handful of times, both my date and I were surprised by how much we enjoyed the date and decided to go on more. On two separate occasions, I fell in love while we dated, and at one point we nearly got engaged (but later broke up for reasons unrelated to my sexuality).
By the end of college, I knew that if God wanted me to marry a woman, it could work. But I also studied what the Scriptures had to say about lifetime abstinent singleness for the sake of kingdom work. Both seemed like possibilities for me. Eventually, the Holy Spirit made clear to me that I wasn't supposed to pursue whichever vocation I wanted, but instead I was supposed to ask God whether He had a preference for which gift He wanted to give me. So in 2014, I started discerning my calling.
Though I went into the process preferring marriage and hoping God would call me to it, by 2017, I felt strongly that God was calling me to vocational singleness in the context of a committed community. I then started focusing on building what would become the Nashville Family of Brothers (the intentional Christian community where I find family today).
That being said, I still acknowledged that it was possible for me as a primarily same-sex attracted man to develop genuine romantic feelings for a woman—with transparency. Since then, I've had many friends and counseling clients in healthy mixed-orientation marriages.1
So as someone who grew up with pray-the-gay-away therapy, when I started seeing articles about a "new" therapy for gay people that helps them marry people of the opposite sex—established by a man with the last name Nicolosi—you could say I was skeptical.
THE NEW EX-GAY?
According to its website, the Reintegrative Therapy Association (RTA) does not provide conversion therapy, but rather "interventions designed to resolve traumas and develop greater attachment security." Yet, a nifty graphic on their about page admits that "changes in sexuality are a byproduct, rather than a goal of the therapy," setting up an explicit expectation of change.
While RTA pays lip service to orientation changes not being the goal of reintegrative therapy (RT), in practice, RT is primarily for same-sex attracted people who want to marry someone of the opposite sex. They meet with an RTA-licensed therapist hoping to decrease SSAs enough and increase OSAs enough to make a MOM work.
Enjoying the acronyms?
Practitioners of this new "therapy" claim that it's meaningfully different from the SOCEs of the 90s and 00s. In reality, it's the same haunted house with a fresh coat of paint.
The only difference? The RTA website graphic brags that, unlike conversion therapy, reintegrative therapy is trademarked, licensed, and ethics-bound exclusively by this new RT organization.
It's conversion therapy, but with better franchising.
Ohh, and guess who the founder, owner, and profiteer is? None of that the son of the father of conversion therapy, Joe Nicolosi Jr.2
Rich.
In part, RT offers common pre-marital counseling processes, leading to general positive mental health outcomes that have nothing to do with sexual orientation, yet calling it sexual orientation change. But there are some ways RT is different from other forms of therapy—and it's why I'd never practice RT or recommend it to a client or friend.
Similar to OG conversion therapy, practitioners of RT are still preying on their clients desire to "not be gay" and pass as straight, leading to OG results: continued hiding and shame, lack of authenticity, loneliness, depression, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. Just like OG conversion therapy, if the client isn't ultimately successful at a lifelong healthy MOM, the client is blamed instead of the fraudulent therapy.
REINTEGRATIVE THERAPY & GEN-Z’S FLUIDITY
To their credit, RT advocates are onto something when highlighting research about sexual fluidity, as well as in their effort to normalize people (honestly) seeking companionship with people they might not be most highly attracted to. For evidence that sexual orientation can change, RT advocates often point to the research of Dr. Lisa M. Diamond, a lesbian feminist psychologist based at the University of Utah who is the poster child for sexual fluidity research.
Yet her studies (this one, this one, and this one) demonstrate that while it continues to be uncommon for OSAs or SSAs to diminish over a person's lifetime, it is common for SSAs to increase over a lifetime, particularly among females.
These findings are not new, of course. Researchers have known (and if you ask any woman, she’ll likely tell you) that female attractions are driven by more of a mix of the emotional and the physical. As a result, females who don't experience unavoidably robust SSAs can develop (intentionally or unintentionally) romantic desires for someone of the same-sex that are enough to step into a same-sex romantic (and eventually sexual) relationship.
Males, however, are different. Male sexual desire is driven primarily by physical attraction, so as a result, it's more difficult for a straight male without unavoidably robust SSAs to develop romantic desires for another male. In addition, homophobia is greater among males, often driven by cultural obsessions with masculinity and the association of low masculinity with homosexuality. This increased homophobia, on average, leads to even greater aversion to same-sex romantic love if a male isn't gay (and even if he is).
But that's changing for Gen Z…
Gen Z and Gen Alpha are generally disillusioned with romance idolatry, regardless of sexual orientation. They've seen the impact of "happily ever after" on their parents. Their parents were promised "the one", but when "the one" didn't materialize (or ended in heartbreak), the idol of romance convinced older generations that if they were only more attractive, more wealthy, more cultured, or spent more money on enough magical dates, they too could achieve happily ever after. Too many people have been tricked into chasing something disappointing under the guise of “a gift from God.”
Younger generations see through the false promises. They know that Disney romances are just fairytales. They see divorce everywhere and know that romance is unreliable. They know that sex isn't everything and too often has been taken without consent. They're disillusioned and pivoting, choosing to have less sex than older generations did in their teens and 20s. Instead, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are increasingly valuing friendship. They're focusing on putting the work into investing in their “people,” their tribe, their ride-or-die's, instead of over-focusing on their romantic partner.
RETHINKING MOMs
What does this mean for MOMs? Younger generations know that what makes marriages work (if they'll work at all) is how much work you're willing to put sober-mindedly into the relationship, and not how arousing and ravishing your partner is at first sight.
Second, homophobic attitudes are decreasing among younger generations, and particularly among males (as compared to previous levels). Whereas homophobia might have served as an additional barrier to consider same-sex relationships in the past, younger generations are at a baseline neutral toward the possibility of same-sex love (as opposed to baseline aversion in older generations) even if they experience zero genuine SSAs.
Third, an increasing number of teens and young adults are identifying as pansexual. While different people use that term to mean different things, it generally represents individuals who are willing to consider dating anyone, regardless of the biological sex of the potential date. Often, this identification reflects a cultural/philosophical commitment to romantic openness rather than being attracted to males and females at similar levels.
As you could imagine, all of these factors could lead to rampant, unrestrained sexual indulgence.
But there's another possibility, particularly for Gen Z and Gen Alpha Christians. Imagine a generation of Christians who don't believe that following the path set by their strongest sexual desires/attractions will lead to "the one." Imagine instead that they (soberly) recognize that nothing is guaranteed, that lasting love is not easy, and that it'll take much more than puppy love to find lifelong companionship. Imagine believers generally resistant to labeling their sexuality and limiting their relational options based on their sexual orientation. Some of these Christians will eventually notice SSAs in their experience, but they'll do so in a world of less homophobia. After being honest with themselves, God, and their Church about their queer experience, they might learn to integrate it while stewarding their sexuality according to historic sexual ethics. Unencumbered by a sexual identity label, they might discern whether God is calling them to vocational singleness or Christian marriage.
The queer, publicly-out Gen Z and Gen A Christians who've discerned they're called to Christian marriage might begin dating in hopes of marriage, but for different reasons than previous generations. Instead, they might choose to seek companionship with people whom they might not have intense sexual desire for, but who are a good fit for them for other, more sober reasons. This decision would not stem from an attempt to run away from queerness or vocational singleness, or to perform heteronormativity in hopes it'll make them straight, or expecting romance to fix all their problems. Instead, they might seek Christian marriage because they feel called to a vocation of offering their life as a living sacrifice in the context of the vocation. They're saying "yes" to the challenges and beauties of their called vocations, and humbly stepping forward.
So no, I don't think pursuing Reintegrative Therapy is wise…or necessary if you're a queer Christian who has made sense of your sexuality in a theologically and psychologically healthy way and feel called to an opposite-sex Christian marriage. Particularly in light of these generational trends among zoomers, we may need to prepare for a resurgence of MOMs by means other than RT.
For more information on how to pursue a mixed-orientation marriage with transparency and how to steward a mixed-orientation marriage faithfully, consider this article.
Pieter Valk is a speaker and author, the director of Equip, a cofounder of the Nashville Family of Brothers, an aspiring deacon in the ACNA, and a licensed professional counselor. Learn more at pieterLvalk.com and or on socials @pieterLvalk.
Mixed-orientation marriages (MOMs) is a term many use to describe an opposite-sex marriage in which at least one individual experiences same-sex attraction. As a Licensed Professional Counselor, I've served many individuals in MOMs. I'm convinced that those marriages, when begun and continually lived out with honesty, can be just as healthy as (if not healthier than) the average straight marriage.
Joe might quip back, "But when we've helped people with their emotional wounds, they've found it easier to enjoy relationships with people of the opposite sex!" Well yes, Joe, tending to trauma scars makes a person more emotionally available, regardless of sexual orientation, to step into friendships or relationships of any kind. That's not sexual orientation change.
Or Joe might snark at me, "What about the SSA Christians who we've helped disentangle their sexist attitudes toward people of the opposite sex, leading to less barriers to a MOM?" Yes Joe, some SSA Christians had negative experiences with their opposite-sex parent or another opposite-sex figure in their life, leading to sexist attitudes. But reducing a general yuck toward the opposite sex isn't sexual orientation change, it's just maturity.
In a last ditch effort, Joe might still chirp, "We've helped people lower their unrealistic expectations for marriage. We teach that honesty, emotional intimacy, and commitment are all you need for a good marriage. And it's worked for some MOMs!" Again Joe, yes, but no. It's true that secular sex therapists teach that the key to a lasting marriage and satisfying marital intimacy has nothing to do with finding your spouse "smoking hot", in the words of way to many youth pastors. Instead, the keys are honesty, emotional intimacy, and commitment. But that's true of all marriages and isn't sexual orientation change.
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Back in the early 2000’s, I was in what you would refer to as a MOM (really weird acronym btw 😂). I was raised in the 1980’s by a mom (not the acronym) who identified (though no one stated they “identified” as anything back then) as a lesbian and I was raised in the gay community (I hear nowadays that saying I was raised the gay community is a no-no, but it was pretty common to say “gay community” back then), along with my brother. I was shown that sexuality is fluid, there is no real sexual identity point and that anyone and anything is up for grabs. As you can imagine, it was a nightmare for a kid/teen to navigate and my brother and I were put in incredibly gross situations with people really confused and obsessed with sex, male and female. Everything I experienced growing up in the “fringes” is now considered mainstream and over the years it has grieved me to no end. My husband is a high school teacher and 1/4 of his students “identify” as somewhere along an alphabet soup spectrum. Yes I’m aware I sound like a curmudgeon waving my fist saying, “kids these days!” 😂 But having grown up, raised by parents (don’t even get me started on the abusive “straight” perspective at my dad’s house riddled with porn and all the misogyny that 80’s movies personified…Earth Girls are Easy, anyone?) who were both sexually broken beyond belief and raising children in the midst of their crazy, I can’t help but feel like “kids these days” are going to need massive help as they get older and realize (in their bodies) that they have been lied to. When I turned 20 and came to know Jesus (through a gay-identified friend no less!) God flipped my world and narrative I had been taught about male, female, sex, upside-down. In the past 25 years in Christian circles I’ve met many, many people who experience SSA, and I even married a SSA man (until he decided Christianity wasn’t for him and he promptly got into the gay club scene, hooked up with an HIV infected gay guy, and left our marriage). I’m sharing a bit of my complicated story in a nutshell to say that the premise of your post is exactly what eventually led me out of the limited Protestant view of marriage and sexuality and into the Catholic Church where seeking your God-given “vocation” is rightly taught instead of shallowly holding up marriage (even a “godly marriage!”) as the high ideal and singleness as something not possibly acceptable but sadly endured (a “cross,” maybe). Now far into my journey with Christ, in my mid-40’s, with children of my own, in a beautiful sacramental marriage with a man who has experienced his own sexual healing (am I allowed to say “healing?”) through living the Catholic view of sexuality (that has been shaped by the paradigm changing Theology of the Body) I am really happy to see other Christians starting to talk about vocation rather than the flattened view that marriage is the end all, be all. I do think that this needs to be lived out in a life drenched in the Sacraments and the sacramental worldview that the Catholic Church holds out to the world, but at least the conversation is being had. I do encourage anyone considering vocational singleness (whether it’s consecrated virginity, the monastic life, etc) to pursue their vocation with an order that has lived this out for years…even a thousand years or more!) and I get a bit cringey-feeling when I hear non-Catholics talk about “vocation” (especially singleness) because the framework for this doesn’t exist fully fleshed out in the Protestant church, and a typical prot. pastor would have no clue as to what this means.