Reply #54: If you think you're child is gay, wave your penis in his face [View All]

[liberalpragmatist]

I posted this a couple days ago. In an accompanying newsletter, Dobson issued an excerpt of his book - the chapter on homosexuality and "prehomosexuality." The following passage is actually an excerpt by anti-gay quack Dr. James Nicolosi who is quoted approvingly in this text:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4307241&mesg_id=4307241

...the boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.

Showering with a very young child is one thing - doing it because you think your child might be gay and you want to "impress" him with your maleness is bizarre and creepy. Moreover, it's not even clear Nicolosi and Dobson mean only very young children (as in younger than 3). Given that in the article they talk about traits that only children older than 5 could exhibit, there's certainly reason for thinking they mean children older than 5 as well. So, you're 7 or 8 year old "effeminate" son? Throw him in there, dads.

I'll leave it to Dan Savage (who's posting on Andrew Sullivan's blog) to point out the ridiculousness of this:

http://www.andrewsullivan.com

I don’t know whether to file this ridiculous/tragic or tragic/ridiculous.

And it’s wrong on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. I have two older brothers, Bill and Ed. We had the same father, also Bill, and he played the same games with us. I don’t recall ever showering with my dad, but I’m pretty sure Dad didn’t drag my brothers into the shower and waggle his penis in their faces either. So it seems unlikely that my want of face-time with dad’s cock made me gay. And somehow—once again, we had the same Dad—my brothers managed to grow up straight.

I have a son, and I don’t shower with him, and I can’t imagine that the Docs Dobson and Nicolosi want me to. My boyfriend, however, does occasionally shower with our son; he takes him swimming at the Y, and you have to shower before you get into the pool. But I kind of doubt that seeing my boyfriend’s penis in the YMCA showers made our son straight. (I’ve been examining my boyfriend’s penis for more than 10 years now—in the shower and other locations—and it hasn’t made me straight.) And I’m convinced our son is straight.