Again and Again (A Pride Day Post)

I met a man at a dinner party.Who got very quiet when I answered his question. What do you do for a living? he asked. I told him, with pride, what I did “I am a behaviour therapist,” I said.

“Oh,” was all he said before he left the table. The host got up and followed his friend out of the room. He came back and asked “What did you say to him?” I told him about our brief conversation.

“Oh, no!” he said, “Oh, no! “His friend had been involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric facility for behavioural conversion therapy. It involved using shocks for punishment at any sign of arousal

to pictures of men.They put a gauge around his penis and showed him male images and shocked him and shocked him and shocked him if his body responded. Again and again they burned his

flesh. He was left scarred body and mind by people who do what I do. That I wouldn’t didn’t matter. All that mattered was that someone had. He left the party. The seat beside me stayed vacant.

I sat silenced unit it was time to go.That man one day, when I ran into him at a parade, told me

it took years but that pride,had begun to heal his wounds. But,he told me, sometimes when he makes love to his husband, he can smell the light scent of the flesh on his arm being burnt by one shock after another. I wouldn’t ever do that. But it’s been done. And ultimately that’s all that matters. Take warning those who wield and misuse power.Pride will,one day, bring you down.