The Write Angle: A Guest Post by Author J.C. Long

Welcome to author J.C. Long, who’s joining us today in our author spotlight segment, The Write Angle.

As we all know, for every point there is a counterpoint, and I believe wholeheartedly in fair treatment and equal time when a subject such as this arises, so I’m going to step aside and give J.C. this platform to address an inarguably serious subject.

Gay Conversion Therapy

I seem to have a bit of a reputation for being the Angry Queer, and that’s something I don’t have much of an issue with. You know why? You’re damn right I’m angry! Sometimes you’ve got to raise your voice and speak out, and if doing so earns me that sort of rep, fine. I’ll take it. But here’s the thing, I speak out when issues are important to me, and this particular one is very much so.

The latest “garbage fire”, so to speak, in the MM community revolves around some of the harmful and destructive and downright horrifying tropes and plot devices present in The Preacher’s Son by Lisa Henry and J. A. Rock. Let me preface this by saying I don’t know these authors, nor do I claim to know what they believe or feel. I am speaking to the BOOK and what was in it, and not to the authors.

But there’s a lot to address here. The most important thing I want to address is the heart of the issue: the idea that abuse is a moral gray area, to use the words of the authors in one of their posts explaining the story elements of the novel.

A quote that stands out to me from this book is this:

Timothy Tull did genuinely love the kids who came to Moving Forward. And that just made it more of a fucking tragedy, didn’t it?

No. This is just no. In no world is this okay. In no world is the man who runs a conversion therapy camp allowed to be painted in this light. Love does not abuse. Love does not hurt. What this man feels isn’t love, it’s a perversion, and to say otherwise is utterly, utterly reprehensible. Conversion therapy is torture. It is torture, plain and simple, and it has been the source of a world of unending pain for so many. Thousands of people commit suicide because of the torment they face in these places, not just physically but emotionally. Thousands more attempt and are unsuccessful. This is not some moral gray area. This is a pain and burden that the authors could never hope to understand. They sought to tell a story, sure, but it’s a story utilizing pain they know nothing about, and that is the failing here. That is where they went wrong. They are profiting off the pain of a marginalized community. It’s fetishistic, it’s exploitative, and it’s wrong. They knew this would be polarizing, by their own admission, which to me makes it all the more awful. They wrote this book knowing people would react negatively to it. I have a hard time believing they didn’t realize people would be triggered by it in severe ways. That is what is most awful about this book’s release.

Let me backtrack to how I became aware of the novel. Someone messaged me screenshots of the blurb, and I then saw it on Twitter. This someone is someone who’s brother killed himself because his parents tried to send him to conversion therapy, or as they called it, a Pray Away the Gay seminar. She was devastated that someone would use this as an element in a story, and then have the gall to paint it as a romance (please note that I did receive her permission to tell this story). Shortly after is when it hit the Twittersphere in my area, and away things went.

Abuse is not love. This needs to be said again and again. Abuse is not love, and love cannot grow from abuse. That these authors even attempted to shows me an insidious misunderstanding of their subject matter. I am a child of abuse, much like one of the MCs, though my abuse was of a different nature. And I can flat out tell you that I would never in any way conflate the abuse I experienced with love. That wasn’t love. The “romance” in this story isn’t love. The authors want you to look at Jason as a genuinely good guy who just made a mistake. This wasn’t a mistake. It was abuse. It was assault. It was a violation that cuts right to the core. Not only did he set out to seduce him [Nate] SPECIFICALLY to fulfil his own purpose (classic sign of an abusive narcissist, seeing someone as a pawn, collateral damage, something less than human) but films it and then outs someone. That is not the sort of betrayal that can grow into a romance, nor should it. There’s no happy ending there. There’s no hope there but a continuing cycle of abuse.

This book attempted to see both sides of the issue—of both abuses—which I think is absolutely unfair. There shouldn’t be two sides. There is no moral gray area around abuse of any sort. Jason isn’t a morally gray character—he’s an asshole, an abuser, and that makes him a bad person. The end. I don’t care how just his causes, I don’t care what his motivation was. He forfeited his right to be considered a good person when he took the step to become an abuser. Plenty of abusers look like upstanding citizens on the outside. There is no moral gray area around conversion camps. There is no moral gray area to a person subjecting children to torture. To try to paint it in any other way is abhorrent.

The authors want the readers to look at this story as something complex and edgy and so real-world like when, clearly, they didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about. This story wasn’t theirs to tell. It was flawed from its conception, because instead of caring about the community they were writing about, they chose to go for the shock value and the edge. The authors know this. They say it themselves, say that it will get polarizing reactions. My concern with that is they don’t seem to care who it hurts.

Please, reviewers, readers, authors, please listen to the queer people around you. Please listen to us when we tell you this story is more harmful than anything, and just because a story CAN be written doesn’t mean it should be. Some people just shouldn’t write some stories. Just as I, a white man, would never dream of being arrogant enough to think I can appropriately tackle a story of slavery or Civil Rights with the depth and delicacy necessary, the story of conversion camps, if it gets told at all (and I’d be happy if it didn’t), should be left to someone who can intimately explore it, and not two women who thought it would be a neat and edgy idea.

The Trevor Project 50 Bills 50 States Initiative

This will be the year that every single state in the country submits a bill to protect LGBTQ youth from conversion therapy.

Visit The Trevor Project to donate or get involved.

About the Author

J.C. Long is an American expat living in Japan, though he’s also lived stints in Seoul, South Korea—no, he’s not an Army brat; he’s an English teacher. He is also quite passionate about Welsh corgis and is convinced that anyone who does not like them is evil incarnate. His dramatic streak comes from his lifelong involvement in theater. After living in several countries aside from the United States, J. C. is convinced that love is love, no matter where you are, and is determined to write stories that demonstrate exactly that.

His favorite things in the world are pictures of corgis, writing, and Korean food (not in that order… okay, in that order). J. C. spends his time not writing thinking about writing, coming up with new characters, attending Big Bang concerts, and wishing he were writing. The best way to get him to write faster is to motivate him with corgi pictures. Yes, that is a veiled hint.

Social Media: Website || Twitter: @j_c_long_author || Facebook