I flaming well hope not. I don't think that's the intention. But I think it explains why he's clearly been ashamed of his m/m past - it's been drummed into him that it was something shameful, to be forgotten about.


Yep, I mostly agree with this. Though I really don't think aversion therapy has ever "worked" - people say that because they desperately want to believe it. What it does is make them absolutely repress any gay feelings. But repression is just that.

I hope this doesn't end with him marrying Bernice and being happily hetero forever - that would be so dodgy. I wish they would let Lawrence explore his feelings, and clarify them. I'd love to know how he really felt about Edna's husband. He obviously is still attracted to fellas - he fancied Robert, anyway. Maybe they'll revisit it in the future. Maybe Bernice will get her heart broken. There's a long way from engagement to altar. Specially in soap.

Why have i been quoted for a post i never said? Weird

Whilst we are being told how awful this treatment of gay men and this aversion therapy was - are we to believe that it works

I didn't say this

You're probably right about the oppression thing. It's horrific to know that this stuff went on and continues to do so in some countries.

I think we have a long way to go with Lawrence yet so I am hoping for some clarification on these issues and some clarification on who he is. I am not altogether optimistic however, as the storyliners have suggested time and time again that sexuality is something that people can flick like a switch.

I think what they' re saying ( hopefully) is that there' s a lot going on with Lawrence that that we don' t know about yet.



I agree, we could find out a lot more about Lawrence if they went into more detail about his marriage and Iife before Emmerdale, rather than relying on Lawrence's odd references. Maybe he' ll open up more to Bernice in oncoming months and be able to be honest with her. Frankly if I was Bernice I' d be seriously reconsidering the engagement. Lawrence is a nice guy but does she really want to get emotionally involved with someone so messed up? And if she' s being honest with herself, can she live with him potentially falling for a man?

I reckon there was s a lot of denial going on with Lawrence - he' s convinced himself that he' s not attracted to men and denied that part of himself. We' ve only got his word for it that his marriage was a glowing success. He could be lying to himself and others, or perhaps he had a very forbearing wife who turned a blind eye to the ' odd indiscretion' as I would bet many did. Maybe he really lived her, and never fell in love with a man again?

Poor Lawrence. Yet another ED resident in need of years of ( good, ethical) therapy

I don't know, isn't that weird? I was trying to quote sheepiefarm.

Oh please
This is your plan to bring me down.

It is weird

That' s happened to me recently too, or when I' be gone to quote someone another FMs name has come up with the correct quote underneath

Or maybe it's your plan to completely confuse me.

Probably a glitch in the system. Totally weird though to see yourself quoted for what you didn't say. Talk about putting words into someone's mouth. Someone might actually quote me as liking Aaron, and I'm not having that.

Or me being quoted in saying Harry Reid can act? I would be mortified

I'm so tempted to edit that to "Harry Reid deserves an Oscar", but I think it's against the T&C.

I got my eye on you and my posts from now on

I agree.

As much as i believe most characteristics and personality are formed. Be our experiences in childhood, so parents have a huge input, i hate this 'blame the parents' culture we appear to have now.

Unless it is going to transpire that Chrissie has sexually interfered with him in some way (which i seriously doubt) I don't see how she can be responsible for the way Lachie views women and sex. Although i do also hate the "page 3 and video games will turn young boys into mudering raposts' brigade, i do think very hardcord, snuff type porn being available on the Internet to young boys with no sexual experience possibly does give them a warped view of what is and isn't normal and 'wlhat women want' and that is what they are getting at here.

Well I've got to be good or you might do it back. It's like a nuclear standoff.

[quote=Foxster Hotpot;79860366]Yes, it did happen here, been gay wasn't legalised in the UK until 1967 and all sorts of treatments and therapies were used to try and "cure" then. But was taboo for years after that. In fact in the 1980s, section 28 was passed which banned schools from "Promoting" homosexuality and was only repealed in 2003.[/QUOTE


I know it did exist, but I don't think Lawrence would have been the right age to have experienced it. If, as previous poster has said, Homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967, then L would have to be much older than I'm guessing he is being portrayed in E'dale. I thought he must be around 65, so born in 1950, age of majority until 1969/70 was 21, so I doubt he would have been given aversion therapy as a legal minor.

If he was 80, I would go along with the back story but not 65 ish.

England and Wales decrminialised homosexuality in 1967, but still with prohibitions. It excluded the Merchant Navy the Armed Forces, had a higher age of consent, and an "in private" clause.

The legal consequence of the legislation is often described as partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality as the act introduced a strict exemption from prosecution (distinct from a full decriminalisation), the implication of this being that outside this exemption, technically speaking, homosexuality continued to be a punishable offence in and of itself.

Peter Tatchell in his 1992 book Europe in The Pink claims that the legislation facilitated an increase in prosecutions against homosexual men.

Homosexuality was decriminalised in Scotland by the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 and in Northern Ireland by the Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Offences_Act_1967

----

This extract from another article describes the prohibitions:

The Sexual Offences Act 1967 was accordingly passed and received Royal Assent on 27 July 1967 after an intense late night debate in the House of Commons. It maintained general prohibitions on buggery and indecency between men, but provided for a limited decriminalisation of homosexual acts where three conditions were fulfilled:

1) the act had to be consensual,

2) the act had to take place in private and

3) the act could involve only people that had attained the age of 21. This was a higher age of consent than that for heterosexual acts, which was set at 16.

Further, "in private" limited participation in an act to two people. This condition was interpreted strictly by the courts, which took it to exclude acts taking place in a room in a hotel, for example, and in private homes where a third person was present (even if that person was in a different room). These restrictions were overturned in the European Court of Human Rights in 2000.[13]

The 1967 Act extended only to England and Wales. Organisations such as the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the Gay Liberation Front therefore continued to campaign for the goal of full equality in Scotland and Northern Ireland where all homosexual behaviour remained illegal. Same-sex sexual activities were legalised in Scotland on the same basis as in the 1967 Act, by section 80 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980, which came into force on 1 February 1981. An analogous amendment was also made to the law of Northern Ireland, following the determination of a case by the European Court of Human Rights (see Dudgeon v. United Kingdom); the relevant legislation was an Order in Council, the Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982,[16] which came into force on 8 December 1982.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_r..._as_an_offence

Wikipedia also has a large article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy.

Conversion doesn't work as the process is about repression - there's ex-gays who condemn it and have accepted their sexuality plus too many proponents caught with guys to prove its a vile evil idea
The only ones pushing it are either homophobes or repressed and too many homophobes get caught out sooner or later with someone of the same sex

This got talked about quite a bit when Lawrence first came in. You're right, they have stretched reality a bit to make this story work, because he's not quite old enough. He would have to have been one of the last men in the country to be imprisoned before the new act came in. If he was 20 back then (say), it makes him 68 now minimum. The actor is 65. So I guess it just about works, but only just.

Scott Mills from BBC Radio 1.


Oh wow I am sorry to hear that. Your experience must be an eye opener.


Religion is the root to most evil in the world today.


Pointless after he killed himself after his miserable exsistence. He was a big reason we won the war!


Were the 80's that bad with the whole HIV scare? Why?


Sounds like Phil Mitchell and Ben Mitchell off Eastenders.

Very true

Yes they were certainly in Glasgow they were, homosexuality was only legalised in 1981 in Scotland and prejudice runs deep, for years the public were taught that gays were evil, disgusting, unnatural and all sorts of other nonsense. Then HIV/Aids came along they called it the "natural way to purge gays from society" and people re-branded it "Arse Injected Death Sentence" we were considered almost as predatory paedophiles and were the scourge of society. There were of course liberals who saw through it all but unfortunately back then politicians and people of high standing Judges etc were believed much more than they are now. I have a friend who was murdered simply because he was gay and that was only 18 years ago.

How did you survive?

In 1988 I was 15 and knew I was gay but I delayed coming out until my late twenties asI didn't feel comfortable or safe in the atmosphere of the time but life wasn't easy, and trying to meet like minded people when you are young, naive and have never known another gay person was very difficult, I have suffered depression ever since, however, never feel sorry for me I have had a wonderful life and I am 42 with a 28 year old boyfriend and have lived everywhere from Hong Kong, Prague, Cape Town and Copenhagen as my boyfriend is a polyglot who speaks 16 languages and is a translator.

Yes, i'll confirm this.

I was 15 in 1986 when the whole 'Don't die of Ignorance' campaign came out and it you really paid attention to that, you knew that it was nothing to do with being gay or a punishment from God. But sadly a lot of people did believe that or at least used it as an excuse to go back to their own bigotry - in a way some now have with racism or zemophobia due to Al Queeda / iSIS (anybody with a brown skin is a Muslim who wants to blow us up) but that is a different debate.

There was a lot of belief that it was a plague on fays, a punishment from God for being 'against nature' and that you could contract it in all sorts of bizarre ways. So, it led to marginilsation again.

I'm not gay but have a number of friends who are and we were right at the age where many knew and wanted to come out but we're very scared to and did delay for several years.

I agree with the point that Lawrence is a little too young for this storyline to really work unless he is supposed to be quite a bit older than John Bowe. He looks a lot younger than Edna but maybe he is meant to be more late 70s.

Good grief, that' s appalling! I remember the fear that AIDS struck in everyone' s hearts. What always struck me was the horrendous way that Freddie Mercury was treated in the press - FGS the man was dying and they were camped outside his house. I too remember the days when judges thought women deserved to be raped for wearing short skirts and newspapers treated gay men as predatory types. How much has changed for the better in so many ways since the eighties. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I' be lived through two completely different eras that have nothing in common with each other and I' m only 40!

Does he have a brother?