Darkside Rainbow

I freely admit, with a bit of sheepish pride, that I’ve “turned” a few boys gay. By “turned” I mean they were already gay and in the closet, and I just fluttered my pretty lil’ Southern-boy lashes at them until they couldn’t take it anymore. I suppose a little flirtation is nothing particularly reprehensible, until you consider the fact that a couple of those boys were my sisters’ (ex) boyfriends. Still, it’s harmless, and may even have helped those boys comfortably ease out of the closet when otherwise they might not have ever ventured forth - and at least I didn’t flirt with all my sisters’ boyfriends.

I left the straight ones alone, naturally.

The point I’m making here, other than that sometimes I act like a shameless hoyden? You can’t really “turn” anyone gay, or bisexual, or straight; all you can do is encourage them to act on their natural tendencies. They’re attracted to the sex they’re attracted to, period, and no act of seduction or coercion is going to change which chemicals in their brain get tripped off by which gender. Which is why, on a more serious note, today’s news is entirely reprehensible, and downright disgusting:

Revenge Rape Of Stepson ‘To Turn Him Gay’ - 365Gay.com

(Hillsboro, Oregon) An Oregon man has been sentenced to 25-years behind bars for raping his step son to get revenge on the boy’s mother.

Following his arrest William Gerald Collins, 44, told police he wanted to force the boy into being gay so that his ex-wife would not have any grandchildren.

According to court records Collins told police he sought revenge after the ex-wife forced him out of the house and sought a divorce from him.

Collins pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree sodomy and eight counts of first-degree sexual abuse.

Six counts of sodomy and eight counts of sexual abuse.

All so he could use this boy, who’d done nothing to deserve this (what would deserve this?) to cause harm to his mother, out of some sick and twisted view that not only can you force someone to be gay, but rape is the best way to do it.

I’m glad I haven’t had breakfast yet today; last night’s dinner is already trying to come back up just from imagining what the boy must have suffered. That’s not revenge, a**hole, that’s child abuse and rape, and I can’t imagine the kind of malice it takes to deliberately do that to someone with a specific purpose in mind.

I often criticize the American judiciary system, and the permissive and corrupt nature of the courts. Not today. Today I’m glad that the system took action against this man, and handed out far more than the minimum sentence. Twenty-five years behind bars and a lifetime on the sex offender registry will hopefully teach Collins about the results of his actions, before he does it yet again, as he threatened to do to another.

Am I hoping that he receives the same treatment? No, although I’m sure that’s what many are thinking; he raped a boy, and now he’ll be afraid to drop the soap in the shower and it’s probably what he deserves, right? …no. What I’m hoping, instead, is that prison teaches him the value of another’s life by placing him in a less secure situation where he no longer has the power to harm others. Changing someone’s perspective and removing their secure footing without physically harming them can often do a great deal to alter their understanding of their acts. You can make them understand the fear of the victim, without actually making them a victim.

At the very least, he’s got a great deal of time to think things over. I hope remorse finds him at some point in his time behind bars, because I find it hard to believe that anyone can do that without even the slightest shred of guilt.

You can’t turn someone gay, just as you can’t turn someone straight. Period. All you can do is cause them intense physical and psychological harm in the effort, and the end result will never be what you want, and will never be good for them. Then again, I suppose Collins did get what he wanted; even if he didn’t turn the boy gay, he’s left him physically and mentally scarred, something his mother will have to deal with and probably has been dealing with without knowing it in the years since it happened.

I hate that. I hate it - that even if he was punished for his crime, he still succeeded in causing harm to people who didn’t deserve it, even if the outcome wasn’t what he intended. That boy is going to need therapy for years, and it’s too bad this wasn’t discovered earlier, for his sake; his self-esteem is probably a wreck, and he’ll probably consider himself damaged goods even if, in my opinion, there’s no such thing as ‘damaged goods’ - just victims who need help getting past the view of themselves fostered by a traumatic experience.

Congratulations, William Gerald Collins. You’ve fractured a boy’s life.

I hope you enjoy your 25-year reward.

william gerald collins, enforced homosexuality, sodomy, child abuse, rape, sexual abuse, sexual assault, judge thomas w. kohl, hillsboro oregon