Therapeutic Offers, Lifestyles, and “Gay Cure” in Chile: Learning to Be Heterosexual

Summary

The debate around the so-called gay cure and reparative practices or therapeutic accompaniment to individuals who want to change their sexual identity is still active. This article proposes a critical approach to the political place of psychotherapy in current debates around therapeutic offers aimed at changing non-heterosexual sexualities, focusing on the ways this discussion has played out in Chile. With this in mind, 2 specific analytical dimensions are discussed. Firstly, the article reviews some of the main milestones that enabled the clinical invention of the ex-gay and the reparative device, critically discussing the place that motivation, effort, and individual freedom play in the context in which psychotherapy is currently practiced, particularly in relation to logics of personal responsibility that are characteristic of the market and neoliberalism. Secondly, the ideological component of the device and the contingent nature of the heterosexual norm are also analysed, challenging the relative legitimacy of pathologising discourses against non-heterosexual sexualities, in a context where the normative principles of the contemporary sexual order are being contested by politico-religious forces.