Naked Men Wild Party: Ex-Gay Participant Describes JONAH’s Fraudulent Therapy Practices (Video)

This ex-gay therapy participant explains the methods the group JONAH uses that they claim will make gay men straight. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center has just released this video deposition provided by the “ex-gay” group JONAH, Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, whom the SPLC sued for fraud. A jury last month agreed JONAH was practicing fraud, by making claims they can make gay men straight.

This video below is condensed an edited deposition testimony of a man JONAH claims as a success story, but in fact he admits he still is sexually attracted to men. Hoffman’s statements are responses to questions from the SPLC.

In the video, the man, Jonathan Hoffman, describes the methods and techniques JONAH uses.

He explains that often groups of men are naked together, shower together, and touch themselves. There’s a part he talks about being in a cabin in the woods, another part which sounds like a naked gay cake orgy, presumably without actual sex.

The man talks about the men, all completely naked, “having a lot of fun together experiencing their wild side” at “the wild party.”

“After the wild party they’re led to the showers to clean up after all the cake that was flung around, and mud, and all the carefreeness” he explains. 

Then, “they’re woken up by the archetype boy who plays fun games with them,” he continues. 

Later, men are put into a room and “asked to evaluate their bodies.” They are often blindfolded and the men “are undressed,” and feeling “camaraderie,” and “they might touch themselves, sure, and they’re feeling that masculine energy in their body,” he says.

“There’s an impromptu skinny-dipping, jumping into a pool,” where they “remain as boys,” because “that’s what boys do.”

Actually, usually, no, they don’t.

Again, to be clear, these are the methods a religious organization uses to supposedly turn gay men straight. Which, of course, is both impossible and fraud.

Watch:

As harmless (and erotic) as all this may sound, most “reparative,” “conversion,” or “ex-gay,” therapies are actually harmful and dangerous quackery that can lead to emotional trauma and even suicide.

Here’s the YouTube video description from the Southern Poverty Law Center:

This is a condensed version of a sworn video deposition presented at a June 2015 trial in New Jersey: Ferguson v. JONAH. Conversion therapy provider JONAH offered Hoffman as a “success story” witness claiming that conversion therapy works to change sexual orientation from gay to straight. A jury unanimously decided that JONAH is liable for consumer fraud for misrepresentations including that its program was effective in changing sexual orientation from gay to straight.

Equality Case Files has the complete transcript.

 

This article has been updated for clarity. 

Image by Kevin Zolkiewicz via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: Equality Case Files/Twitter