Journey Into Manhood

Summary

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Love and Radio: “Journey Into Manhood” (March 1, 2023)

Episode Overview

This powerful episode of Love and Radio, hosted by Nick van der Kolk, centers on David Matheson—a former leader and practitioner in the movement for gay conversion therapy, particularly through retreats like “Journey Into Manhood.” With raw honesty, Matheson charts the trajectory of his life: growing up in a strict LDS (Mormon) environment, struggling with same-sex attraction, becoming a proponent and practitioner of reparative therapy, and ultimately coming out as a gay man. The episode weaves together reminiscence, deep regret, and new understanding, offering profound insight into the personal and communal costs of conversion therapy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life in the LDS Church

• Religious Context and Internalized Shame
  • Matheson describes his upbringing in Utah where the LDS Church’s teachings shaped daily life and identity, especially regarding sexuality.
  • Spencer W. Kimball, then LDS president, is recounted as “sweet” and “gentle”—except when discussing homosexuality, which he called “an ugly sin” ([05:24]).
  • Matheson’s response was denial; he couldn’t even admit his feelings to himself because of such intense cultural and spiritual condemnation.

“This is so bad. I can't even admit to myself that the feelings that I have are that.”
—David Matheson ([05:29])

• Discovery of Sexual Identity
  • First aware of his same-sex attractions around age 13–15 but only accepted he was gay at 23.
  • Reminisces about furtive glances and powerful crushes during his adolescence ([06:40]).

2. Confession, Marriage, and Church Pressure

• Annual LDS Interviews and Confession
  • Matheson is expected to confess sexual “transgressions” to his bishop.
  • He bravely attempts to disclose not just masturbation but also experimenting with anal stimulation and same-sex attraction ([08:40]).

“I literally could not speak. … He finally ventured a guess. ‘Have you put something in your anus?’”
—David Matheson ([08:40])

• Meeting and Marrying Peggy
  • Meets Peggy at Brigham Young University; whirlwind romance and quick engagement.
  • Early in the marriage, Matheson discloses his attractions to men.
  • Peggy responds with compassion and a desire to make things work ([11:45]).

“Her message was, ‘I'm still with you. Let's go forward and we'll make it work.’”
—David Matheson ([12:24])

3. Conversion Therapy: Theory and Practice

• Working with Joseph Nicolosi & Reparative Therapy
  • Introduced to “reparative therapy” (not “conversion therapy”), which posits all are born heterosexual and homosexuality stems from family dysfunction ([15:12]).
  • Matheson embodies Nicolosi’s “classic triadic relationship”: distant father, over-involved mother, lack of male peer bonding ([16:20]).

“I was a poster child for his theory.”
—David Matheson ([16:54])

• Becomes Nicolosi’s assistant, later opens his own clinic ("Center for Gender Wholeness") and writes a book.
• Explains he could “privilege the heterosexual side” and “sublimate” homosexual desire ([16:54]).
• Frames his work as motivated by helping others, creating “wholeness”—yet, in retrospect, he questions the cost of that approach.

4. The “Journey Into Manhood” Retreat

• Retreat Format and Exercise Descriptions
  • Men arrive nervously at nature camps; greeted warmly, asked deep introspective questions ([19:40]).
  • Activities:
    • Writing and surrendering things to a fire.
    • Candlelit ceremonies about being a light in the community.
    • “Guts work”—confrontational psychodrama to reenact and “win” over past trauma ([22:56]).
    • “Father energy”: Men comfort each other in group hugs, sometimes taking on parental/child roles.
    • Notably, a controversial exercise where men stand naked in a circle, confronting body shame and striving for non-sexual acceptance ([21:22]).
  • Matheson describes a cathartic moment from a retreat where he is symbolically buried with his (living) father and “sons,” realizing generational emotional deadness, leading to a powerful awakening ([00:34]).

“We've got three fucking generations of men here, dead. And that's when I exploded… It was like this rebirth experience.”
—David Matheson ([02:35])

5. Personal Contradictions & Intimacy

• Relationship with Another Man
  • During his leadership of Journey Into Manhood, Matheson begins a deeply intimate—if nonsexual—relationship with a man ([23:09]).
  • They live together, share deep connection and physical closeness, but set boundaries short of orgasm; Matheson claims this met their needs without being “sexual” as strictly defined.

“It was about closeness, physical closeness, intimacy, connection.”
—David Matheson ([26:44])

• Realizes the depth of his love and care: “I never feel that with my wife… something has been missing from my side of the marriage.” ([27:30])

6. Coming Out and Public Fallout

• Disclosure to His Wife and the Public
  • Recalls the “hellish” conversation coming out to his wife: intent to divorce and live as a gay man ([29:06]).
  • News breaks rapidly after Wayne Besen (Truth Wins Out) calls; Matheson’s story goes international, stirring controversy and anger ([30:17]).
  • The gay rights community and former clients demand accountability, labeling his past work predatory and damaging ([31:47]).

7. Reflection, Regret, and Painful Realization

• Internal Conflicts about Harm
  • Matheson grapples deeply with regret:
    • Admits that, whether by repeating a lie of “not being attracted” or by living closeted, he and others were denying their truths ([34:12]).
    • Recognizes the harm—especially for single men who didn’t have the “buffer” of a straight spouse—that his and others’ efforts perpetuated ([37:02]).
    • Describes a wish to grieve with those he hurt by encouraging them to “tell this lie” to themselves.

“We were giving morphine to these amputees because otherwise they were just going to be sitting there in pain. But…we are helping them continue to tell this lie to themselves.”
—David Matheson ([36:45])

• Ultimately, concludes, “As much good as it does for men… we all meant well, but it didn’t have to be that way.” ([39:40])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• On the harm of conversion therapy:

  “All you've done is move where you tell the lie. … That's where the lie was.”
  —David Matheson ([34:22])

• On the cathartic retreat moment:

  “I found strength in me that I didn’t know was there…like this rebirth experience. …Did I get what I was looking for? I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I got life change.”
  —David Matheson ([02:35])

• On deep regret for past actions:

  “If I let myself go into that regret, that's going to be a bottomless well. …I wish I could sit down with them and grieve that together.”
  —David Matheson ([39:10])

• On intimacy and unfulfilled partnership:

  “I realized I never feel that with my wife. …I think that tells me something about who I should be in a relationship with.”
  —David Matheson ([28:20])

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Retreat “guts work” & emotional breakthrough: [00:34]–[03:00]
• Growing up Mormon / LDS Church influence: [03:29]–[05:41]
• First experiences of same-sex attraction: [05:56]–[07:52]
• Marriage, confession, and early struggles: [10:42]–[13:58]
• Introduction to and defense of reparative therapy: [14:15]–[18:46]
• Journey Into Manhood retreat details: [18:46]–[23:09]
• Romantic/Intimate relationship with another man: [23:09]–[29:02]
• Coming out to his wife and public response: [29:02]–[32:36]
• Critique, regret, and final reflections: [34:05]–[39:40]

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Tone & Style

The episode is crafted with Love and Radio's characteristically immersive sound design and unflinching honesty. Matheson’s tone is reflective, at times painfully candid, mixing sorrow and careful, belated candor. The questions from the interviewer are empathetic but persistent, pressing on hard truths with understanding and precision.

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Summary Takeaway

“Journey Into Manhood” is both a personal reckoning and an exploration of the psychological and communal costs wrought by the ex-gay movement. David Matheson’s story serves as a rare, complex portrait of a man who once tried to suppress and "heal" his own sexuality and led others to do the same, only to discover and finally accept himself as gay—amidst a trail of regret and a longing for communal healing.

Transcript

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[David Matheson]

I can describe the process that I remember most intensely, though they call this guts work. And it's because basically you spill your guts. There's a process, about a half hour for each man you volunteer and you go into the center of this rectangle that's taped onto the floor. You know, the staff is there to assist you. They ask you what's going on inside you? Why are you here? What is the piece of inner work that you need to do? Mine had to do with my relationship with my father, which had not been good. And I don't remember specifically what it was, but what I do recall was the idea of him being dead. And he wasn't dead at that point, but the idea of him being in the grave. And was I ready to say goodbye to him? Was I ready to make peace with him? And I wasn't. So a man was playing my father. He's under a blanket in the grave. They take me and they stick me under the blanket too. So I'm in the grave with my father, and I went completely passive. I'm like, okay, this feels okay. I'm kind of comfortable here. They're like, you're comfortable being dead with your father in your father's grave? That's comfortable. Yeah, I think I'm okay. They knew that I had sons, so they chose two men to be my sons, and they stuck them in there with me. I mean, my father was already dead emotionally. Now I'm dead emotionally. But the idea now of my sons, you know, following in that same path freaked me. We've got three fucking generations of men here, dead. And that's when I exploded. Of course, there are like 10 men around kneeling on the edges of the blanket so that I can't get out. And I found strength in me that I didn't know was there, you know, that adrenaline surge and got out of there. And then it was like this, like, rebirth experience after that. It was. That was the central point on that retreat. And that was the point at which I believe these Changes that I talked about really happened. Did I get what I was looking for? I didn't know what I was looking for, but I got life change. Yeah. So then, let's see.

[Nick Van der Kolk]

You're listening to Love and Radio. I'm Nick Van der Kolk. Today's episode Journey into Manhood featuring David Matheson.

[LDS Church Leader]

My beloved brothers and sisters, it is a joy to be with you again in another general conference. Regarding our home evenings, a home evening with the family or an evening out to some place of interest with your family only partly.

[David Matheson]

Living in Utah Growing up in the 1960s and 70s, the LDS Church was central to everything.

[LDS Church Leader]

We have recommended that so far as possible, all the children have their own scriptures and learn to use them.

[David Matheson]

We would have three different meetings on Sundays. You'd go to one meeting, go home later, go to another one, go home in the evening, go to the third meeting, go home, and there's another meeting on like Wednesday or Thursday morning or evening for the children of the young adults. So it was the center of our lives.

[LDS Church Leader]

These are happy days, the days of the patriarchs.

[David Matheson]

Spencer W. Kimball was the president of the LDS Church from the time I was a pretty young child.

[LDS Church Leader]

We extend to every listener a cordial invitation to come to the water garden, to the shade of pleasant trees.

[David Matheson]

He was this sweet, small Yoda like man who had this raspy, hoarse voice for cancer.

[LDS Church Leader]

Come with us to the shore and security.

[David Matheson]

He was so sweet and so loving and so gentle until he talked about homosexuality.

[LDS Church Leader]

Let us vigorously oppose the shocking developments which encouraged the old sins of Sodom and Gomorrah.

[David Matheson]

And then he. He became fierce.

[LDS Church Leader]

And there's had to be millions of perverts.

[David Matheson]

I mean, it just sounded like he was utterly.

[LDS Church Leader]

God will not be mocked.

[David Matheson]

Utterly disgusted by the whole concept.

[LDS Church Leader]

Homosexuality is an ugly sin.

[David Matheson]

And I think my response to that was denial. This is so bad. I can't even admit to myself that the feelings that I have are that.

[LDS Church Leader]

It is the sin of the ages. It was present in Israel's wandering as well as after and before it was tolerated by the Greeks.

[David Matheson]

I didn't really accept that I was gay until I was 23, but I was aware of my attractions from the time I was probably 13, 14, 15. That's when it started to become pretty blatant to me that when I was masturbating, I was thinking about other boys.

[Interviewer]

Who would you think about? Were there specific people or. I guess I asked because I remember I must have been 15, 16, something like that. One of the guys on the rugby team I was just obsessed with. And you're playing a game with yourself in the changing room where you're like, I want to get as many glances as possible without.

[David Matheson]

Do you know what I mean? Yes, yes, yes. Stealing as many furtive glances as you possibly can to build an inner library of different angles of different boys that you can use later. There's one incident, this is in high school. I remember, for some reason, I'm walking by myself across a field, and there's this boy walking toward me, and he's wearing only shoes and red gym shorts, no shirt. And I don't know if he was wearing anything under the gym shorts, but as I remember, I think one of his hands was in his shorts. But I remember his upper body was just so, so, so, you know, so much muchness. I mean, I walked past him and then he was gone. But, you know, the brain can slow down three seconds and make it last near eternity. And I think my brain did that. To this day, I have a mental picture of what he looked like, which is probably vastly different. He was probably some skinny kid, but to me at that time, he was this muscular, beautiful, tan piece of exquisite meat.

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[David Matheson]

In the LDS Church, one of the things that happens is you have a yearly interview with your priesthood leader, your bishop, and he's going to ask you the questions about chastity and morality, and he's going to ask you, do you masturbate or do you play with yourself or something like that. I told my bishop at that point that I had masturbated, and by that time I had started experimenting with anal stimulation, because by that time I was aware that I could Be gay if I wanted. And I was curious, and I wondered what it would feel like. And so I stuck something in there. And I remember trying to confess that to him. And I literally could not speak. Like, I started and I said, like, there's. There's. You know, I told him about masturbation. I said, and there's. There's something else. Oh. And I told him also that I had attractions to men. Not only do I masturbate, but I'm attracted to men and I stimulate myself anally. But I couldn't say it. He finally ventured a guess. Have you put something in your anus? I'm like, yes. And so then he asked questions. Did it feel good? Did it give you orgasm? Because I don't think it actually will. And I'm like, I don't want to talk about this. And it seemed like he was trying to prove to me that being gay wasn't a thing. Because anal stimulation didn't make you orgasm. That's what I took from. Was just kind of confusing because I'm like, well, yeah, I don't know. He seemed to know more than I did about it. My name is David Matheson. And I'm Peggy Matheson. And we've been married for. We finally figured out we've been married for almost 28 years.

[Interviewer]

I know when we've talked about your meeting with your wife a couple of times, you've said, you know, it was just a regular courtship every day. But I'd be curious to find out more. Where did you notice her? Where was that?

[David Matheson]

This was a summer term at Brigham Young University. It was a theater history class. It was a theater class, of course. Final project. Final project. Young. It made me laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. And I thought, okay, there's something special about her. And so I asked her out to lunch, probably. And I know by this time that I'm dating for marriage. Not necessarily her, but it's not just like we're, you know, just goofing off in high school. Because I knew by that time I knew I wanted to get married. I was really ready to not be alone the next day after that, that we first kissed. And I remember when I.

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When he held me, it was like.

[David Matheson]

I never wanted to let go. So, like, this is it. I can feel it. This is eternity to me. So I think it was like two weeks from there that we were engaged.

[Interviewer]

We were engaged.

[David Matheson]

Yeah. About a year into our marriage, I realized that my attractions were not changing. You know, I was attracted to her. We were sexual. And it worked. And my attractions to other guys were still there and getting stronger. And so I knew I had to talk to her. And so one morning, I remember it being morning because I remember the sun coming through the windows. This was on the east side of the house. This little kitchen, that tiny little kitchen that we had. And just sitting down with her at this tiny table in this tiny room. It was a beautiful circumstance because the sun is flowing in and she's beautiful and. And I'm telling her this hard truth that I'm attracted to men. Hard. Even though I wasn't telling her, I'm not attracted to you, I'm gay. This is over. That's not at all what was going on. I had every intention of living out this marriage. But I just thought that she needed to know that I was also attracted to guys. She was really calm. She didn't freak out. She didn't react. She was just really calm. I remember that there was a point at which she was teary, but I think the teariness was like compassion and connection and love. Her message was, I'm still with you. Let's go forward and let's. We'll make it work. We probably had really good sex that night. Next morning things were normal and felt fine. But even after you knew, even after I told you about. About my same sex attraction, we still didn't know about therapy. And so we were just trying to make things work without any help from the outside. And that was tough. Coming up.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

He claims he's reversed homosexual tendencies in hundreds of his patients through therapy.

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Stay with us.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

My name is Joseph Nicolosi. I'm a clinical psychologist. He says it's entirely possible for gays to change their ways. I believe that one's core is defined by one's value system.

[David Matheson]

Joseph Nicolosi.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi.

[David Matheson]

Interesting figure in my past.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Well, many of you are here. Probably you're here because you were personally touched by the question of or the issue of homosexuality. Most people would rather not think about homosexuality unless something happens to his book.

[David Matheson]

Had been really instrumental in my early attempts to overcome same sex attraction for.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

The individual who wants to change. And if the therapist and the client are working together together in what we call the therapeutic alliance, he will begin to experience a diminishment in the same sex attraction.

[David Matheson]

So this actually opens up a larger question of what is conversion therapy? Or actually, I mean, we, we don't use the term conversion therapy. That was made up by people who talk about us, but we never use that term. His term is Reparative therapy. And the concept behind reparative therapy is.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Homosexuality is a gender identity disorder.

[David Matheson]

Everyone is born heterosexual.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

We are all heterosexual, but some of us.

[David Matheson]

And that some people develop a homosexual problem.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Homosexual behavior is always. My wife says, when you speak publicly, never speak in absolutes. I'm saying homosexuality is always prompted by an inner sense of loneliness and emptiness.

[David Matheson]

When I was going to finish my degree, I proposed to him that I come and work as a psychological assistant.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

This is our Thomas Aquinas Clinic in Encino, California.

[David Matheson]

And I was there with him in his office as his psychological assistant, one of them for about eight years.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

We have about 135 cases ongoing each week. I have a staff of seven therapists. And this is the work we do.

[David Matheson]

Everything resonated with me, like 100%. Because the way he described the family.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Relationship, we typically see what we call the classic triadic relationship.

[David Matheson]

Lo and behold, that fit me.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Critical father, hostile father.

[David Matheson]

My father was distant and terrifying to me.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Emotionally over involved, intrusive, domineering mother.

[David Matheson]

I was close with my mother, who was on the one hand kind of close, and on the other hand kind of abandoning.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

His sense of masculinity is discouraged by the mother's disconnecting.

[David Matheson]

You know, I had a distant relationship with my brother.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Never have I met a man with a homosexual issue who had a loving, trusting relationship with the older brother.

[David Matheson]

I didn't get along with other boys. I wasn't into sports.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

We see this pattern over and over again.

[David Matheson]

I mean, I was a poster child for his theory. But what makes that even more interesting is that when I went through my own therapy before becoming his psychological assistant, the therapy shifted my sexuality to some degree. I could choose to privilege the heterosexual side of myself over my homosexual side and I could choose to sublimate it, which means to experience closeness with men in non sexual ways and also to repress the deep need for intimacy with men. And. And it worked. I grew up with same sex attraction, but I didn't want it. I wanted something more than what I was. So I began on a journey to find the truth. I mean, I was intensely and consciously motivated by the intention to help people, to relieve suffering, to relieve pain, to stand up for people who had been marginalized. Not only marginalized by society in general, but marginalized by gay society. I became a counselor myself. Sharing. I realized that what I was trying to do as a therapist was to create wholeness in a person's sense of their gender. Now I find myself here. I'm 50 years old. I'm happily married. I used the term gender wholeness for the work that I did. I called it gender wholeness therapy. And my clinic was called the center for Gender Wholeness. And now I'm here to help you. David Matheson has been a pioneer in the field of overcoming SSA for over 15 years. During that period of time, I also wrote a book, so I was pretty busy in those days. Come learn from David Matheson in person at this special event near you. Registration is limited, so register now by clicking on the link below this video or go to cgwevents.com.

[Interviewer]

It'S just amazing.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Part summer camp bonding, part therapeutic peer counseling, this 48 hour retreat is called Journey into Manhood.

[David Matheson]

Take a deep breath and let it out. When a man arrives at Journey to Manhood, they're usually held at like some kind of YMCA camp or a Christian camp off in the woods somewhere. A lot of the locations are just so beautiful, kind of out in the forest in nature. My favorite place. The men arrive by car. They're usually pretty nervous. They're all standing around in a parking lot as they check in one at a time. Someone takes their bags and puts it in their room for them. It's very friendly, very warm environment, warm greetings, a lot of talking and laughing and guys getting to know each other. And then they're sent one at a time down a pathway where they meet four men, one at a time. What is your greatest fear this weekend?

[Interviewer]

Of letting people down.

[David Matheson]

And myself and these men, I was usually the first one that they met, asked them a question like, why are you here? What is your greatest fear this weekend? My greatest fear? Just not being present and not being here, doing what God wants me to do. Another question might be, who are you? As a man, what do you hope to get from this weekend? Those kinds of questions to cause this introspection. My greatest fear is that I will leave without having touched someone else. And then they go in a room and they sit and there's this soft flute music playing. And they just sit for quite a while until everyone's there. And then the weekend starts. I'd like all of you to put your hands in your lap. Journey to Manhood. A lot of it is indoors. There's a lot of, like, visualizations and journaling. There's a process where they write down things that they want to surrender, to let go of and they put them into a fire. There's a process where they stand on this field at night and they all have candles and we talk about how they are the light of their community and go out into the world and be a light to the community around you. There's a somewhat controversial process where the men hold each other. One of the men is taking on kind of a father energy. And the man that he's holding is going into his kind of his boy self and letting his loving father hold him. And this is all done in a group, you know, so it's not like they're slinking off into dark corners with their clothes off. This is, you know, this is done with a great deal of care being taken.

[Interviewer]

Am I right in thinking one of.

[David Matheson]

The.

[Interviewer]

Therapies was for men to stand in a circle naked?

[David Matheson]

Yes. The men are in a room, everyone is naked. And the intention and the dialogue, the discourse that happens here is to overcome the shame of your own body, look at the outside of this man, overcome the shame of seeing other men's bodies, look at his physical appearance and to experience them in a look into this man's heart, you know, in a shame free and non sexual way. Look into his soul. Now look more deeply. The process that's probably the most potentially harmful. So it's in a small group and one man is in the center and it's him doing his work and he recounts some kind of life experience that he has pain around. It could be anything from being shamed by a religious leader to feeling his anger toward God, to being bullied, to being raped, you know, all sorts of things. And you never know what the man is going to bring up. And then what you do in this process is you set up an opportunity for that man to re experience that and to win. Because in all of those experiences, they came away feeling like they lost. They lost to God, they lost to their mother, they lost to the rapist, they lost to the bully, they lost to their brother. And so you recreate that experience in some way and give them an opportunity to come away from it feeling empowered and feeling healed and feeling whole.

[Interviewer]

If I've understood the timeline right, you were in an intimate relationship with a man, or at least sharing a home with a man at the same time that you were running Journey into manhood.

[David Matheson]

Yes. Yeah. You want me to talk about that, don't you? Yeah. So how do I introduce that? Oh, he was dreamy. He really was. He really was. I mean, I love him to this day. First of all, he was extremely attractive to me. Really nice body, really nice looking guy, broad shoulders, big chest. And he's just handsome, super handsome. If you could see my face, you'd See the smile. But I didn't really know him very well. And then there was, like, a leadership retreat where we were. I don't know what we were doing. Developing new processors or something. I don't know what we were doing. And he was there. He was part of it as part of a process. I asked him to do some holding with me, to hold me. He and I and another man spent some time, and he just held me. The other man was there as our chaperone. Right in this holding, which was just, you know, lying together and just holding each other with clothes on. We were, like, looking into each other's eyes, and this thing happened. This. Oh, my gosh, I see you, and I see that you see me, and I really feel this intense draw toward you. I mean, we. As I look back, I mean, we fell in love with each other.

[Interviewer]

And when did you decide. How did you decide to kind of house share together?

[David Matheson]

So I got this apartment close to my office because I lived too far away. And he moved in there and was working with me, kind of as a paraprofessional. And we would sleep together. We would hold each other, you know, on and off all night. And then we would get up, we'd make breakfast together. We'd go to the gym together, come home, shower. Not together, go to work together, come home together and do the same thing. I mean, it was so domestic.

[Interviewer]

And you stayed at your family home together sometimes as well?

[David Matheson]

Yeah, yeah, on the weekends, because, I mean, he didn't have any place else to go. He let go of his apartment. He lived in a different city, miles away, Hundreds of miles away. And so he was with us. He was with us on the weekend. And my kids knew him and loved him, and my wife knew him and loved him. And my wife knew that we were obviously. She knew we were living together. She knew we were close. She did not know we were sleeping in the same bed.

[Interviewer]

But he would sleep in a different room when he came to stay with you?

[David Matheson]

Yeah, yeah. He did not sleep in the bed with my wife and I. We happened to have a guest bedroom down.

[Interviewer]

Stupid question, Tom. Yeah, stupid question.

[David Matheson]

Yeah, that's a good question. Let's clarify that it was not a threesome, which does not mean that in the morning, my wife had to drive the kids someplace. And so as soon as she left, I would run downstairs and just cuddle with them for, you know, 20 minutes or 30 minutes or so. It was just. It was insatiable.

[Interviewer]

What was going through your mind when you were having these cuddling Sessions like, how did you. Did you feel like you were doing something wrong or.

[David Matheson]

I really didn't. I mean, we. He and I had set a boundary that this is not going to be sexual. That meant we are not going to, you know, touch each other's genitalia and come to orgasm. That doesn't mean we didn't touch each other. We just didn't bring it to orgasm. In other words, it wasn't about sexual release. It was about closeness, physical closeness, intimacy, connection. And, you know, some people listening to this are going to say, that's so much bullshit. Who are these people? You know, Are they fooling themselves? Okay, if you want to see it that way, I don't care. See it however you want to. But I know that for us, for both of us, we were able to maintain a boundary that was important to us while also, you know, experiencing something that met a need that we both had. There was a moment. I may have told you about this before. There was a moment with him in this apartment where I was making us breakfast while, I think, he was in the shower and I was making us breakfast. And I had this realization that I thought of him and me as. I don't know how to describe this, but like, as one. As one unit. And it's not that our identity is refused or anything psychologically crazy like that, but it's like we both have to eat. I'm going to make his breakfast. Like, I want to. I want to make his breakfast. And I realized I never feel that with my wife. This feeling of the desire to do for him. I don't feel that with her. And I thought that's something that has been missing from my side of the marriage. Not from her side, but from my side. I felt, I think, bad about it, but I also felt like, okay, I need to take this and I need to import that into my marriage, because that'll help my marriage. And I tried to import that and then kind of realized I can fake that here, but it doesn't come naturally. And that, I think, tells me something about who I should be in a relationship with.

[Interviewer]

Do you remember coming out to her?

[David Matheson]

Coming out, meaning I'm going to divorce you and go into a gay relationship? Yeah, I remember that really well. That was one of the more hellish conversations I've ever had. So what I was explaining was my attractions to women and you are gone. I'm only attracted to men. I'm intending to divorce you and I'm intending to have a relationship with a man. Took me about 10 seconds to say it to you. It took me a long time to say it to her. Eventually I started realizing, wait a second, this is going to be upsetting to a lot of people. This is going to be upsetting to former clients. This is going to be upsetting to relatives of former clients. This is going to be upsetting to that whole movement. This is going to be confusing to people in my congregation. It's going to be confusing to my family. But I had no idea that my story was going to have international interest.

[Nick Van der Kolk]

Do you remember like where you were when you got that phone call from Truth Wins Out?

[David Matheson]

Yeah, I was standing right over there by the table here in my kitchen eating breakfast. Sunday morning, I think I was in my school suit already getting ready for to go to church. The phone rings, I pick it up and he says, hello, David, this is Wayne Besson. And I knew who he was. I'd known who he was for years. He was kind of like, you know, the great Satan to me.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Joining us now with reaction, Wayne Besson.

[David Matheson]

Gay rights activist, founder of truthwinsout.org/gay watchdog, Yellow journalism thing. Wayne, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you, Wayne. Again, that comes down to the. It was a pretty short conversation. He said, we're gonna print this story. My editor, whatever, is ready to print this. Do you have a comment? I said, I don't have one off the top of my head. He said, we're gonna print in 10 minutes. I was completely unprepared for that. The big news now is that prominent gay conversion practitioner, I don't even want to call him a therapist. David Matheson, described by some as the.

[Sponsor/Rakuten Advertiser]

Intellectual godfather of gay cure therapy, making.

[David Matheson]

News by coming out as a gay.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Man seeking a male partner.

[David Matheson]

It was all over the Internet, it was on the Drudge Report, it was in print publications around the world. It was just ridiculous. Some of his most influential work was as the architect of retreats offering conversion therapy. What is happening on these weekends and in these group settings is predatory, dangerous and irresponsible. One man who attended the camp on a number of occasions told us he.

[Sponsor/Rakuten Advertiser]

Was subjected to traumatic psychodrama techniques.

[David Matheson]

A lot of guys love it. Other guys, it creates a real problem for them. The biggest tragedy at the bottom of this is that he still seems to think that this so called ex gay therapy is legitimate. He seems to be interested in understanding the harm that he's done. But I don't feel that he's gone far. Your business is to try and convert people to be gay and you now admit that they can't be converted.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

But the guy leading the business of trying to convert gay people has now admitted you can't be converted.

[David Matheson]

That is purely the purest definition of a sham. Surely, if you want to understand the real story, I'd be happy to describe it to you. But explain to me why it's not a sham.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

That the man.

[David Matheson]

Well, okay, here's my question for you.

[Joseph Nicolosi]

Explain to me why it's not a shack.

[Interviewer]

You know, speaking personally as an out gay man, I have this real conflict because I look at the journey that you've been on and I'm like, this is a guy that's been struggling under such enormous social and religious pressure and he needs time to heal from that. You know, internalized homophobia is a real thing. But I look at, you know, some of this other work and I'm like, yeah, but not all of us create programs like this. And I think from some of the people who I've spoken to who attended gym, some of them feel like the program sort of hindered that self acceptance for them, that they were using it to try and push away a part of themselves that that was kind of core to who they are. You're surrounded by men, you're looking at these bodies and exhausting yourself constantly trying to say, I'm not attracted to this man, I'm not attracted to this man, I'm not attracted to this man. And you just leave that feeling completely drained. And does it.

[David Matheson]

Do you. Well, I think.

[Interviewer]

Do you think that that kind of practice is harmful?

[David Matheson]

Well, let's back up. Some men, the message that they got from wherever and the way they went about their own work was like you just said, they're trying in their head to say, I'm not attracted to this man. In other words, they're trying to persist in a lie. That's not the way I did it and that's not what I ever taught anybody. I knew I was attracted to men. I knew my clients were attracted to men. I was, you know, my efforts with my clients was, let's be truthful, let's be honest about the fact you're attracted to men, but what are you going to do with it? But now we're kind of splitting hairs because still it's. At what point in the process are you going to tell the lie? Are you going to tell the lie by saying, no, I'm not attracted to these men, that's nonsense and that's a lie, or are you going to tell it further down the road when you say, okay, I am attracted to men. I'm gay and I don't have to do something with it. Now all you've done is move where you tell the lie. I was just telling the lie. Later I was admitting, yeah, I'm attracted to this man. Yeah, I need to be close. Yeah, I need hugging. Yeah. I need cuddling. Yeah, I need to make out with this guy in bed. But then there's still the lie. I don't need to be married to this man. I don't need to spend my life with a man. And that's where the lie was. Yeah. And honestly, honestly, Thomas, I. What I just told you about, you know, the choices, where do you put the lie? I never thought of that. I never realized that until I said it just two minutes ago. And that hurts my heart to think about that because ultimately, really, at the end of the day, as much good as it does for men, and I mean, it serves men who are just not kind of like me. For all those years, I was not going to make the choice to come out that was just not even on the table. Because of the way I was raised, because of the whole culture in which I was ensconced, because of my belief about my church. There was not a way that I was going to accept myself as a gay man. And so when I think about that, you know, I can think to myself, okay, so we were doing something merciful. We were giving morphine to these amputees because otherwise they were just going to be sitting there in pain. But then the other side of that two edged sword is, yeah, and we are helping them continue to tell this lie to themselves. Gay is a choice. You don't have to be gay, man, that hurts. I think maybe the ones where there's maybe the strongest sense of regret is the men who were single, you know, so they didn't have, they didn't have a wife in the picture to kind of blunt the loneliness. These single men who are trying to, trying to find some kind of happiness in life and they're trying so hard to please everyone but themselves. They're trying to please a God who's been defined by a heteronormative culture. They're trying to please church leaders, they're trying to please parents, they're trying to please, I don't know, some paradigm that they have in their head of who they're supposed to be. The thing that they just cannot do is accept the truth about themselves, which is actually really beautiful. And they've been taught to see it as ugly. And then there I am in that picture, focusing all the hard work because they worked hard. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, they. They worked hard in therapy. But what if that hard work had been focused instead on coming to accept the real truth? If I let myself go into that regret, that's going to be a bottomless well. And I know I need to go there. And I kind of feel like I need to go there with them. Like, I wish I could. I wish I could sit down with them and grieve that together, you know, cry together with them about how I helped them continue to tell this lie to themselves. And I did that because I was telling the lie to myself. And we all meant well, but it didn't have to be that way.

[Nick Van der Kolk]

That's it for Love and Radio. This episode was produced by Thomas Curry, Stephen Jackson and Phil Domhofsky. It featured music by Dialect, Kate NV and Joseph Chaveson. For a complete list of all the music we feature on the show, please Visit our website, loveandradio.org where you can also sign up for our mailing list. Love and Radio is produced by Stephen Jackson and Phil Domhoski and directed by me. Oh, weird. My voice sounds different. Love and Radio is an independent project and a labor of Love and Radio and made possible thanks to our supporters on Patreon. Thank you. Extra special thanks to Ali, Mothra Perry, Andrew Simmons, Casey Anderson, Chakrit Sudhachan, Dan Palmino, Jacqueline Leake, Jason V, Joe Palmieri, Sam Huffman, Sanju Nick actually has to read this. Schroeder, William Spears and Edging Candytuft. I'm Nicholas Sardine. Punch Punch Vanderkolk. Thanks for listening.

[David Matheson]

Sa.