HUFFINGTON
07.14.13
DAMON DAHLEN
STRAIGHT TALK
and his best friend — I’ll call him
Jacob — would drive around town
in Mathew’s car. They’d play video
games, swim in Mathew’s pool,
take the train into the city or hang
out at the mall. Mathew’s pictures
from this time, which he still keeps
on his computer, show them happy
and affectionate, their arms around
each other. Mathew had been infatuated with Jacob since meeting
him at a Bar Mitzvah at the Waldorf
Astoria when he was 13.
John didn’t discourage
Mathew from spending time
with his crush. In fact, he encouraged him to spend as much
time as possible with Jacob. Like
many conversion therapists,
John believed then that boys
who relate closely to their mothers and lack strong bonds with
their fathers tend to see men as
exotic and mysterious, which, in
turn, produces feelings of sexual
attraction as the boys reach puberty. In keeping with the central theory of conversion therapy, he believed that Mathew
could erase those feelings by
forming strong, nonsexual relationships with other men.
Around Mathew’s 18th birthday, he and Jacob had sex. It was
Mathew’s first time with a man.
Early the next morning, as Mathew
walked home through the picturesque streets of his bay-side town,
he tore off his T-shirt and pressed
Shurka
displays several
photographs of
his family on top
of a desk in his
apartment.