Thanks for posting at length!

I've gone through the "ex-" program in two states, and both were pretty mellow and laid-back. The idea was the you were going to become "more you," rather than made to conform to any preset notion of heterosexual behavior.
(Though I've read of the programs that do some heavy fussing over the externals, as if Sears underwear would make you straight and Clavin Klein underwear make you gay! C'mon!)

My experience was that the more they chipped away at the fears and hang-ups, the more clarity I got as to my vision of who I was. Rather than the sculpture "turning out to be" a heterosexual statue, the more work I did, the more confirmed I was in my vocation to focus on male anxieties as they show up in stories. I became less afraid to just say, HEY, I'm alienated and confused by EVERYTHING masculine, and I'm going to make my life out of that, in service to Christ. So I'm very grateful to the groups I was in, and have only positive memories.

Still, if somebody was interested in walking that road, I wouldn't discourage them. Heterosexuality is, after all, like the formula for a movie script. Half-way through, the hero loses faith in himself...and then he has a talk with the Jedi master, or whatever, and he gets enough spiritual energy to finish his task. That is, heterosexuality is all about believing in your self....

---Didaskalos