It’s one of those things gay men grew up hearing: “Maybe you just haven’t found the right girl yet… have you even tried sex with a woman? Maybe you’d find you like it!’ There were always stories of fathers who feared their son might be gay and so took them to sleep with a prostitute in the hope that vaginal sex might straighten them out. In Africa – as things usually do – the issue takes a more brutal turn: Lesbians are subjected to “corrective rape” in a violently misguided effort to change their sexual orientation. In an article for The Guardian, Julie Bindel notes that several respondents to a survey on so-called ‘conversion therapy” said that they’d been forced to have sex with someone of the opposite sex as part of their “therapy” to change their sexual orientation.
So why is the BBC colluding with these outdated ideas on a supposedly ‘progressive’ dating show?
In the new season of “I Kissed A Boy” (which, come to think of it, is an incredibly patronising name for a dating show for gay men, while at the same time making gay attraction seem exotic and transgressive in 2025 when it has been largely uncontroversial for a decades now), the BBC has decided to be “inclusive” and allow transmen to participate. These Transmen are heterosexual woman who believe they are actually gay men born in “the wrong bodies”, and resort to extreme measures to modify their female bodies, including often the amputation of their breasts and the taking of hormones to encourage the growth of facial hair. But they are not men, and they are not what typical gay men are actually attracted to.
The woman the BBC have enlisted to bait/date gays calls herself “Lars” and is profiled on the BBC show site.
As well as gender, Lars has had to tackle his (sic) sexuality too, “I didn’t have an attraction to girls, I always liked guys. I felt like a gay guy trapped in a woman’s body.”
“Lars” did not have to “tackle” her sexuality. It is utterly unremarkable for a biological woman to be sexually attracted to men. What she doesn’t have is the tackle to be a gay man.
Trans activists now accuse gays of having “a genital fetish“. This is true. But it is true of almost every human. A “genital fixation” is literally what powers human sexuality and literally defines sexual orientation. It is notable that these accusations directed at gay people echo old-school psychology that regarded homosexuality as a mental illness. This view was revised half a century ago, but – with the BBC’s help – it is being revived today as the view seems to be that a gay man being attracted to men alone, and a lesbian being attracted to women alone is an example of that new pathology: “Transphobia”.
But of course, participating in a dating show is voluntary so no one is being forced to do anything, right?
Well, let’s examine this. Twenty years ago, there was a TV show called “There’s Something About Miriam”, which aired on Sky. The network was forced to pay out hundreds of thousands in compensation to contestants on this dating show when the “twist” at the end was that the “woman” whose affections the men had been competing was actually a man, or a “transwoman”. This ‘date-and-switch’ did not go down well.
I am fairly certain that this means the participants in “I Kissed A Boy” must have been asked to consent to one or more of their number not actually being real men. The risk of a “Miriam” lawsuit would be too high for any broadcaster not to take this precaution. So the odds are, the gay men participating are going along with this. But, if they consent, why is this a problem? Well, it means that the BBC’s one gay dating show will of necessity exclude the vast majority of gay men who have no interest in vaginas and/or prosthetic penises.
What’s more, lumping gays and trans people on the same dating show also reveals a sort of prejudice. The BBC – whether consciously or not – is putting all the “queers” into the same box. Other than the costly “Miriam” fiasco in which tricking people into intimacy with someone of the wrong sex was the twisted plot for a plot twist, we haven’t yet seen any dating shows aimed at heterosexuals including people passing themselves off as the opposite sex and demanding the participants to pre-affirm that they are happy with this. But this is what gays are being asked to do.
With this, the BBC has taken it upon itself to police what “acceptable” expression of homosexuality are, and this now means that gay men must learn how to enjoy the female body, and, by implication, lesbians must learn to love the penis. Amazingly, there are now “progressive” therapists who push this. For example, a seminar entitled “Unexplored Pleasures: A Gay Man’s Guide To The Vagina”. How is this any different to the religious conversion therapy practices campaigners have been trying to get banned?
During the debate around a conversion therapy ban, the BBC produced an “explainer” about why it is a harmful practice. Ironically, the BBC may as well be engaging in conversion therapy itself.
