Have any of you ever thrown in unique, maybe even politically incorrect, happenings to character's lives for the sake of getting a plot going? Like maybe a once gay man who goes to a reparative therapy (ex-gay) camp and actually comes out straight? Or maybe a KKK group who is successfully convinced of a black man that their ideology is rotten? What say ye? do you think this is desperate?
I wouldn't think it was desperate but I wouldn't find the first example at all realistic. You can't change your sexuality through therapy, so I'd want it clear that he's only in denial about his sexuality, not actually "turned straight." The second example can be done well (American History X) but could easily come off preachy and obvious as well. It's all in the execution.
Well that's the thing - sexuality , at least, is a very personal, subjective route- there's myriad factors that inclufences how someone arrives at his or her sexuality and the truth is, some people literally have reported having a change in their sexuality after "therapy" of some sorts- but I would not say that this is how it is for eveyrone. Some people benefit, some do not and I do not think it is advisable for everyone to do it- but my whole point ins writing about the story like that is that hegemonic story-telling can occur on both sides and affect the nation's moral psyche and memory.
I would really have an issue with any book showing someone "benefiting" by changing their sexuality though an anti-gay camp. It's not something that can be, or needs to be, "cured". Anyway, to answer your broader question, no. I've never done this.
I've done it (similar things, not your examples specifically) as an experiment with the plan remove it once the plot ideas start rolling again. It worked but not before someone close to me read it and bent ballistic on my head. I've heard people say that you should never write anything your mother couldn't/wouldn't read. LOL....I honestly remove certain scenes before allowing my mother to read some of my pieces (she's 84 - the inheritance will come soon enough; I don't need to help it along). It's a great exercise to help get over writer's block but I wouldn't use it in a published/public piece.
No, not really. I've explored inside the minds of the deranged, but it's not really portrayed as positive or negative. Just something that happens. Expanding on your first example, I don't have a doubt that a person who is suppressed in some way could live a decent, meaningful, even a genuinely happy life. I'm not gonna tell you what to write or what not to write, but I believe suppression doesn't come from one instance. A person could be "scared" into it for a little while, but true gender/sexuality suppression (imo) comes from daily life, the bigotry of others. They want to believe that the therapy is working, so they say it is.
