“I’m completely cured – I haven’t looked at another man’s arse in lust for over three years,” says top male model Ray Badger, endorsing psychotherapist Dr Phil Muzzler’s controversial Florida sex clinic in a new TV commercial. “My life was a homosexual hell of relentless sex and promiscuity until I attended Dr Muzzler’s clinic. I thought I was just degenerate, but he made me realise that I was simply demented!” Muzzler – who is set to open a chain of similar clinics across the US – claims to have helped thousands of men overcome what he terms the ‘handicap of homosexuality’. “By approaching homosexuality as a mental disorder, we’re able to treat our patients with tried and tested psychiatric techniques, in order to restore their mental health and normal heterosexual drives,” explains forty-eight year old Muzzler. “Most fundamentally, they must learn to respect the penis, to accept that its only legitimate sexual function is that of pleasuring the female.” Consequently, patients at Muzzler’s clinics frequently find themselves being bludgeoned and poked with outsize rubber penises wielded by nurses. “In this way they learn to associate male penis contact with pain,” explains the sex guru. “Another penis-based therapy involves them being exposed to pornographic images of both men and women. Any erectile reaction to pictures of naked guys is punished with an electric shock, whereas reacting in the same way to a nude woman is rewarded with an artificially induced orgasm.” However, Muzzler doesn’t just employ aversion therapies in his treatment of homosexuality. Patients are encouraged to climb inside giant vaginas rather than beds to sleep, and jump up and down on giant inflatable bouncy breasts in their recreation periods. “We’re trying to reinforce the idea of female organs as pleasure-giving centres,” claims Muzzler, who has recently been commended by the Bush administration for his contribution to medical science. “It’s amazing how quickly the effects of our therapies is seen in most subjects – lower, more masculine voices, manly postures whilst walking and the rejection of such obvious sexual props as hair gel and loud clothing.” Despite his high success rate, Muzzler still finds himself accused of homophobia by liberals and gay rights activists. “It’s ridiculous – like calling a psychiatrist anti-crazy! I neither approve nor disapprove of homosexuality, I just recognise it for what it is – a mental disorder,” he retorts. “These people should be thankful we live in such enlightened times – in the dark ages homosexuality was branded a Satanically inspired sin and its practioners persecuted. At least I try to treat these poor deluded souls with some dignity!”

Although Muzzler’s methods have won glowing endorsements from many church leaders in the US, at least one prominent British spiritual leader is vehemently opposed to his psychiatric approach to homosexuality. “He’s simply another apologist for the devil’s work! By characterising this obscene activity as a disorder, he is excusing the sodomites’ repugnant behaviour,” declares ‘Father’ Sean O’Dribble, the former Catholic priest who has attained celebrity status with his televised ‘exorcisms’ of homosexually haunted public toilets for the popular cable TV series High Spirits. “The Church is quite clear on this matter: homosexuality is the result of demonic possession! The only effective treatment for it is to literally beat the evil out of the possessed souls!” O’Dribble’s first encounter with the evils of homosexuality occurred when he was a young parish priest in rural Ireland. “Some of my parishioners called me in when they became worried about their teenage son’s behaviour. He’d undergone a complete change in personality since falling in with some dubious youths down from Dublin – he’d traded in his Daniel O’Donnell collection for a set of Judy Garland albums and they’d found moisturiser secreted under his bed,” he recalls. “When I visited the house, I caught him in his bedroom, stark naked, masturbating over a body building magazine!” The stream of invective directed at the priest from the boy’s mouth convinced O’Dribble that the youngster might be demonically possessed. “I knew that if this was the case, the only way to save his soul was an immediate exorcism,” he says. “With his parents and brothers pinning him face down on his bed, I touched my crucifix to his arse to test for the presence of evil. As soon as the Holy cross touched his buttocks, it burst into flame!” The boy’s possession confirmed, O’Dribble proceeded with the exorcism, repeatedly beating him across the buttocks with a huge wooden cross, whilst reciting prayers. “All the while the demon screamed obscenities at me from the child’s lips, calling me a pervert, a sodomite, a bum boy, arse bandit and the like,” the priest explains. “But after three hours of relentless beating, the abuse stopped and he was a sobbing wreck, crying out to God for mercy! I knew then I’d been successful!” Sadly, O’Dribble’s subsequent interest in investigating cases of homosexual possession in young boys, led to a series of unfortunate misunderstandings and defrocking. Undeterred, he has since been re-ordained in the West Midlands Catholic Church.

Although condemning O’Dribble’s approach as being ‘cruel’ and inspired by ‘ignorance and superstition’, Muzzler does concede that even his more enlightened regime of therapy does include some more extreme measures for some patients. “It’s true that some of our clients do find it extremely difficult to break the cycle of homosexuality,” he says. “In these very rare cases, we sometimes have to resort to the administration of high voltage shocking via anal penetration with an electrical probe . Generally this treatment – which I usually supervise personally – is successful, creating a powerful aversion to gay butt sex in the patient.” Despite their differences, both the psychotherapist and the priest do have something in common: both have themselves experienced the horrors of homosexuality first-hand. “I suffered an unfortunate episode in my early twenties, when I became convinced I was a homosexual. I even lived with a same-sex ‘life partner’ for three years,” admits Muzzler. “Luckily, due to my psychiatric training, I was able to recognise my condition for what it was: a psychosis which was treatable through therapy. Having cured myself, I decided to share my good fortune with other homosexually insane men.” O’Dribble’s lapse occurred when he was exorcising a group of choirboys in Burnley. “I became possessed myself, and instead of spanking those cherubic little bottoms for God, I found myself coveting them for the purposes of carnal lust,” he confesses. “Luckily for me, the Bishop himself intervened to save my soul. So powerful was the demon possessing me, even a bloody good bare knuckle beating in the vestry didn’t do the trick. In desperation the Bishop blessed his own member with Holy water and buggered Satan clean out of me! It’s a technique I’ve had to resort to myself, a few times since.” But whether it is spiritual evil or just a mental disorder, are those ‘cured’ of homosexuality actually any better off after their treatment? “In the old days, my life was just one round of continuous sex and debauchery – I was sleeping with at least four guys a day! I know on the surface it all seemed so fulfilling and glamourous, but deep down inside I just felt empty and ashamed,” declares Muzzler’s star patient, Ray Badger. “But now it’s all so different – sex with a different woman every night is just so much more satisfying and meaningful! These are real relationships of the kind I could never have with another man. Hell, most times I even know their names!”