(UPDATE: Jesus’ General has a hilarious letter to Smid: “I’ll never forget the day I first heard you speak about how your “wife’s vagina was enough.” I remember silently praying as I heard it, ‘please God, give me what this man has. I too want to be satisfied by my wife’s vagina.’”)
“I’m sorry, but my wife’s vagina is enough. I’m going to be honest. It’s enough. It is enough for me. If it is not enough for me, then that’s my problem. You know, I really have to be honest about that. God created her for my fit, he created that and I need to honor and respect my wife. I need to respect that.”Those are the words on why he has no need to spank the monkey of now-former head of the ex-gay camp Love In Action John Smid. As Jim Burroway reports, he’s stepped aside.
The rumors are true. I spoke with Josh Morgan, communications manager at Love In Action. He has confirmed that John Smid has resigned from the Memphis-based residential ex-gay program. A quiet announcement was made to staff and supporters, and an official announcement will be made in their April 1st newsletter to subscribers. Josh had no further details or statement about the announcement.As director of LIA, Smid gave a workshop on masturbation at an Exodus conference that boggled the mind. Watch it after the jump.
***
”What is it that stirs that up? And we have to look at things like how am I talking? What’s my verbage? Who am I relating to? What kind of clothes am I wearing? Where am I going? Am I visually allowing myself to go into places that stimulate my sexuality? If I’m going to try to deal with masturbation and sexually acting out, I better turn down the flame. ”…if I could be so bold — what kind of underwear do I wear that no one else sees? When I put that underwear on, am I feeling sexual? Is it stimulating my sense of sexual power? Is it making me feel more erotic? Do I feel more sexual around other people because of the way that I feel wearing that underwear?
Jim:
Love In Action gained worldwide attention in 2006 when Zach, the 16-year-old whose MySpace blog revealed that he was about to be involuntarily committed to Love In Action’s youth live-in program “Refuge”. Thanks to Zach’s myspace post, the world was able to learn about the complicated and bizarre rules that all house residents are expected to follow. When he was committed to a two-month stay in the residential program, his plight spawned international outrage along with unprecedented protests in Memphis. It also inspired filmmaker Morgan Fox to begin filming the documentary, “This Is What Love In Action Looks Like,” which is currently in post-production. Last July, it was announced that the controversial youth program was shut down.The batsh*t rules in the camp are not to be believed, they are so sick. Just a few from BTB:
Men: Men must remove all facial hair seven days weekly, and sideburns must not fall below the top of the ear (the top of the ear is defined as where the ear meets the face below the temple). Clean business-like haircuts must be worn at all times. Hair must be long enough to be pinched between two fingers.It’s a looong list of insanity, folks. You can read my Blend posts on Zach here.Women: Women must shave legs and underarms at least twice weekly.
All: Only natural hair color is allowed. Hair that is colored, highlighted or streaked, mut be dyed back to its original color, or the color must be cut out before entrance into the Refuge program.
…No sexual/emotional misconduct. Any temptations, fantasies, or dreams are to be presented to one’s staff worker only. Sexual misconduct includes viewing pornography, visiting an adult bookstore, emotional dependency, voyeurism, stalking, masturbation, mutual masturbation, or any form of genital or sexual contact with another person. Sexual temptation, as well as the above, is not to be discussed between clients. This includes MI’s (Moral Inventories) written on current sexual struggles or temptations).
…No hugging or physical touch between clients. Brief handshakes or a brief affirmative hand on a shoulder is allowed (exception is when observed by therapeutic accountability).
47 Responses to “Ex-gay therapist John ‘Vagina’ Smid steps down from Love In Action”
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When the spokesperson has no details about a resignation, that’s NOT a good sign.
Presumably, his wife’s vagina was not enough. I’m going to be honest. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for him.
He couldn’t turn down the flame. He put on underwear that stimulated his sense of sexual power. It made him feel more erotic. He felt more sexual around other people because of the way that he felt wearing that underwear.
Oddly, I cannot read your Blend posts about Zach, because pamspaulding.com is deemed to be a “Malicious Site” by the Webwasher filtering software used at my job (no such problem with pamshouseblend.com though). wtf?
$100 on he got caught sucking a cock.
I like how leg-shaving was a requirement for women. How in the world did body hair ever become associated with being a lesbian or a feminist?
I find it disturbing that those poor kids were supposed to report “Any temptations, fantasies, or dreams” to their ’staff-worker’.
I particularly liked how “emotional dependency” is considered a form of sexual misconduct.
I’ll raise you to 150.
And $200 down that his wife is frantically searching the Help Wanted ads so she can be out of the house as much as possible!
“Oh Wife? Where are you—”
“Sorry-gotta-go-emergency-at-work-probably-overtime-BYE!!!!”
(screeches tires out of driveway)
“Emotional dependency” is a code word for any same-sex relationships that go beyond casual, non-touching friendship.
Because such a thing ~can’t~ be natural or normal, it ~has~ to be a deviant behavior.
/snark
Men must remove all facial hair seven days weekly, and sideburns must not fall below the top of the ear (the top of the ear is defined as where the ear meets the face below the temple).
Ummm … doesn’t this violate Leviticus 19:27?
So they claim that teh gay is bad because it violates Leviticus 20:12-14 (etc) but then they go and mandate that people recover from teh gay by violating another part of the same holiness code? Talk about your “picking and choosing from the Bible” which I thought fundies were against.
But I guess it’s ok to pick and choose from the Bible because somebody, somewhere wanted to join up with an Abrahamic faith but still wanted to be able to eat pork and shrimp … or something like that.
Reading things like this makes me want to cry. Can you imagine believing that you are so inherently evil that you can’t be trusted with the simplist forms of human interaction?
This is self-hatred taken to a whole new level. Imagine the adults who voluntarily enter into the program…
It does however inspire me to try to make a difference to the people who are around me. To let them know that they are wonderful just the way they are, that they are not evil and disgusting.
My God. These people are so afraid of having sexual feelings that they are dening themselves simple human contact. Not to mentions simple human common sense . . . . .
Awwww, god made his wife’s vagina just for him.
$250 here!
—-
Okay, so here’s how I’d play the leg-shaving thing:
Week 1: Shave Sunday and Monday mornings.
Week 2: Shave Friday and Saturday nights.
In between the first Monday morning and the second Friday night, watch me turn into a gorilla!!!
—-
As to the “what did I do to make myself sexually aroused?” nonsense, could he make the case more clearly for the fact that these people have no understanding whatsoever of human biology and the interaction of hormones?
teac, grand duchess of dark roast coffee
I’ve had the misfortune to know some male fundies (straight for real), and their obsession in life was to never look at a woman’s body or think of a woman sexually (because that’s adultery dontcha know!). To them it is their ‘responsibility’ to do this, to look away if they see a woman’s body. If they make themselves think about something else eventually the sexual arousal will chill out.
Of course you are correct in that they are misinterpreting the first step, but that’s fundies for you.
Any temptations, fantasies, or dreams are to be presented to one’s staff worker only.
*blinks*
…
*blinks*
If they make themselves think about something else eventually the sexual arousal will chill out.
Sure, that’s what they’re told!
It’s as lame as “Vagina” wondering whether his choice of underwear for the day caused his boners.
Not only do they not bother to actually learn any science, they have no - zip- zero - nada sense of skepticism or curiosity to figure out if what they’ve been told is actually true!
I can’t imagine residing in a brain like that, I just can’t.
*boggles*
atheist woman and annejumps beat me to it *snicker* but I can’t let it go *snerk*
Staff worker…heh, indeed.
Funniest shit all day.
Awwww, god made his wife’s vagina just for him.
One can only hope that she took it back for her self and kicked him out for good!
Of course this probably involved some practicing of witchcraft and murder of their children.
Any temptations, fantasies, or dreams are to be presented to one’s staff worker only.
I find that temptations, fantasies, or dreams are often best handled by working one’s staff.
Ms Kate - Cats, there must be cats involved as well. Preferably black ones.
For me perhaps some of this vagina talk would be funny if I didn’t know John Smid and especially his wife. She is a lovely, kind woman. I also was married to a woman when I was ex-gay, and she suffered greatly because of my gay orientation and our failed marriage.
We have no indication that John has been unfaithful. From everything I heard from folks in Memphis, he is not leaving in disgrace. Although some folks may wish to see such an outcome after all the harm that many of us experienced in Love in Action, some of this sounds downright cruel and petty. Lord knows I get angry about a lot of this stuff. It has affected me and my family in devastating ways. I attended that awful program for two years.
But these are people we are talking about.
No question, Ex-Gay leaders need to be held accountable for the harm they cause, for the uniformed misguided programs they create, and the dangerously misleading statements they make. But that doesn’t give me license to treat them like shit.
Perhaps I am just a sappy Quaker who believes the crazy notion that that of God is in everyone. But I cannot forget that for most of my adult life I had been a born-again, Evangelical, Conservative Republican Christian who was very very anti-gay (and self-hating). I have changed dramatically. Change is possible. It was a hard road to make the changes I had to make, to question my world view, to see just how wrong I was. But it becomes even more difficult when people assume the worse and hurl insults.
I have been one of the most constant critics of Love in Action, and I will be thrilled the day that program completely shuts its doors. May that day come quickly! But I was one of them, and I care what happens to them and hope that they find a better way.
Damn, atheist woman… these people are seriously messed up. No LOOKING???
I woke up late one Sunday morning years ago, staggered out, and my Charlie told me to go sit out on our deck. (We had a large 3rd floor apartment overlooking a lovely pool and tennis courts in NE Austin; lots of landscaping and really pleasant)
He made and brought me out my coffee and I watched college guys playing tennis shirtless for an hour. Helluva nice way to wake up; he even got me a refill at one point. An utter sweetheart, that man.
Our theory: when one of us stops looking, the other should get the shovel because the first one is dead.
Louise, amen! There’s the thing:
When it is okay to look, and okay to have wonderful, vibrant, loving relationships, then sharing the view and giving yourself or your partner the encouragement (and the coffee) to enjoy, become life’s little pleasures.
When it isn’t okay, no amount of repression is enough. Whatever level you deem off-limits, the next more innocent level becomes titillating. It’s like Victorians and women’s ankles. If actual human contact becomes “dangerous” then choice of underwear and friendships become sexually charged.
The sad thing is these people are charging it for themselves. Because they are afraid of adolescent sexual attitudes (in themselves, not just in kids), they never let themselves actually face that charge and incorporate it into their lives. Instead of taking your approach and enjoying it and letting it be an innocent pleasure, they would declare that God forbids patios, and that tennis is an abomination. (And I wish I was kidding. I really do.)
Whatever, Peterson. He totally forsook his right to be treated gently when he decided the human rights of gay human beings—who are people, and unlike Smid, people who didn’t do anything to deserve negative attention—didn’t matter. You go out there as a public figure, swinging against the human rights of an entire class of citizens, and you have opened yourself up to what’s coming.
And because you didn’t see the cock-sucking, well. Maybe you’re right it’s something else. But listen to that tape. He’s trying to convince himself as much as the poor souls in his room.
The way he talks about his wife’s vagina makes it sound like it’s detachable.
There was a time, perhaps long past, that refusing to shave armpits and leg hair was considered a rebellion against the mainstream culture.
These people are so bizarrely nuts they’re funny. Maybe its because I watched a George Carlin routine this morning but I’m in that kind of mood. If the purpose of these regulations was to suppress sexuality, wouldn’t they want the women to AVOID shaving? After all, to those ultra straight men isn’t body hair on women, particularly on legs and armpits a turn off?
Peterson,
I agree with Amanda and add that for me, while I would still very much disagree with them, if they were openly running a program with stated goals more like AA - “this is who we are but we refuse to be controlled by it, one day at a time” I would not be so violently opposed to it, nor would I feel that the leadership is, well, evil.
What Amanda said.
These people are personally actively working not just to affect the lives of the people who show up for their programs, but to destroy the lives of people who don’t, who have no desire to, and who aren’t hurting anyone else. And they are doing it using demonstrable lies about the success of their program, and knowingly letting themselves be used by the Right Wing for despicable political reasons.
Being asked to cut them some slack as people just doesn’t fly. When you stand in front of a camera and headline national conferences to maintain a lie that has been used to rewrite half the state constitutions, you forfeit your right to ask for a little sympathy because, hey, you’re suffering too.
You know what? I had some trouble coming to terms with my sexual orientation too. But I didn’t go national and fuck over millions of people in the process.
I see God in everyone too, but to try to float that as an excuse for evil behavior is despicable on your part.
I don’t care why he’s stepping down or whether or not he still fits in his wife’s vagina. I don’t care if he’s stepping down because he thinks he looks chubby on camera. He’s a shit.
“some of this sounds downright cruel and petty”
Oh, cry me a river. What the hell does stripping millions of people of basic civil rights, declaring us damned to hell, and positioning us as a threat to all of civilization sound like? And I don’t give a flying one whether he’s ever gone on record as saying any of that - he aligned himself as a spokesperson for a group who does.
“Oops” just doesn’t cut it.
I just read the update at the top. In the category of “better when you misread it”, I wish he had written this instead: “give me what this man has. I too want to be satisfied by his wife’s vagina.”
As director of LIA, Smid gave a workshop on masturbation . . .
I’ll have to keep an eye out for that one on HBO’s “Real Sex” - sexy and informative no doubt!
teac, it was a “blink and you missed it” episode…
Oh wow. I just found this site. I used to be in the original Love-in-Action (when it was in San Rafael before it decamped to Memphis). I used to live in the same house as Jon, though I wasn’t in his circle of friends. But I did know him and he always struck me as one of the kinky ones. The way he would look at you and lick his lips made you think he wanted to rip your clothes off, tie you up, and get his freak on.
doesn’t this violate Leviticus 19:27?
For my part, the first thing that shaving-bit made me think of is the Taliban. Is there a difference between religious zealots telling you you have to have a beard, and religious zealots telling you you can’t have a beard?
According to them- yes. Having a beard (if it’s not female) makes you want to blow up America.
louise - bwahahaha!
Whatever, Amanda. (That goes double for your sycophants).
I’ve actually seen Peterson talk about the Ex-Gay movement as an educator. As far as I can tell, all YOU do is say ugly and hateful things on the internet about people you don’t know. Oh, and get kicked off of political campaigns.
(And post shitty music. I digress…)
Anyways, you said:
“He totally forsook his right to be treated gently when he decided the human rights of gay human beings—who are people, and unlike Smid, people who didn’t do anything to deserve negative attention—didn’t matter.”
So, what rights did you forsake when you decided the human rights of Duke Lacrosse Players didn’t matter? You remember that, right?
For that matter, I’m not aware of Smid pushing people into concentration camps or signing bills into law or anything like that. As near as I can tell, his main “human rights” violation is saying things that hurt your precious FEELINGS…
Cry ME a fucking river…
And another thing- where do you get off lecturing PETERSON FUCKING TOSCANO about the Ex-Gay movement and the people in it? Comparing your vicarious victimization to his actual factual experiences is pathetic. Hiding behind gay people like myself and him to snipe at people you don’t know is fucking pathetic.
Syncophants! Amanda, you’ve got syncophants! What is it with the trolls and their paranoia about pussy power? Why woudln’t they want to be gay if the pussy has power to brainwash people?
“Why woudln’t they want to be gay if the pussy has power to brainwash people?”
Exactly.
“Chadwick” talks about the “Ex-Gay” movement as if it’s legit - and then tells us he’s gay. There seems to be a glaring disconnect there…
“Pussy Power” sounds like the name of a band…
And why does Amanda get all the sycophants? Pam started this thread - no sycophants for her?…
It’s the Chad!
The Chadster invalidated his argument by mentioning the fucking Duke Lacross team, but he wasn’t talking about the Ex-Gay movement as if it was legit. He seemed to be trying to defend Mr.Toscano.
I took a second to check out Peterson’s website, and he’s apparently made a career out of exposing these sorts of organizations and trying to get people out of them. He probably knows what he’s talking about, even if he’s a little too sympathetic for some people’s tastes.
Not saying John Smid jokes aren’t hilarious and perfectly justified, but to be fair it seems obvious that Peterson Toscano has done more to hurt the ex-gay movement than any snarky comments on the internet ever could.
Peterson certainly could have introduced himself better, don’tcha think?
‘Cuz I sure haven’t heard of him in the three+ years I’ve been reading Pam’s House Blend and Pandagon and 365Gay.com. Among others.
I’d venture to say, your assertions notwithstanding, he’s no Wayne Besen…
teac-
“Peterson certainly could have introduced himself better, don’tcha think?”
Yes, he certainly could have.
I, too, checked out Peterson’s website earlier today. Bully for him - that’s good work.
As for this: it seems obvious that Peterson Toscano has done more to hurt the ex-gay movement than any snarky comments on the internet ever could, well, that’s debatable isn’t it. After all, snark has its place, and in some cases I’d venture to say our ability to snark here has emboldened many of us to take actions in the meat world knowing there are people here who think like us and who will support us.
I am not ex-gay and never will be - I’m proud of who I am and so are my family and they would never in a million years think there is something “wrong” with me that needs to be “fixed.”
If we want to poke fun at the absurdity of people who call themselves “educators” who cannot bother to actually, you know, educate themselves on a topic we certainly can and will do so.
They deserve all the snark and derision thrown at them - no matter how nice Peterson thinks such people are - particularly when their “educating” is actively and demonstrably wrong and dangerous to LGBTQ people like me, like Pam, like Peter, like Sarah in Chicago, oh the list goes on.
They’re not “eductors” rather they’re propagandists.
And seriously, for a man to objectify his wife the way Smid did is some fucked up shit no doubt. He lost my respect from the get-go for that.
I don’t disagree with you in the slightest.
As for my snarky comment on snarky internet comments, well, that was probably a bit too snarky on my part.
.
.
After watching the video, I am convinced, never to wear underwear again.
Peterson Toscano has been at the forefront of taking down the ex-gay movement and he deserves kudos for that. We’re all coming at this from various perspectives, and for those who do something about it by speaking out are worthy of praise.
What I think is cruel is Smid’s public disrespect and debasement of his wife by reducing her to body parts. He is sadly working out his issues in this YouTube video for all to see. He has heaped this ridicule upon himself.
Love in Action has hurt so many people, particularly young people thrown into ex-gay camps by parents trying to get the gay out of their kid by submitting to what I consider psychological torture.
Smid, based on his public statements, is the last person on earth one would want handling their child’s mental health if they are coming to terms with their homosexuality.