The Aversion Project
Nation Involved: South Africa
Time Period: 1969 to 1970
The infamous Apartheid era in South Africa is one of the worst racist periods in world history. Sure, America and the UK have a dark history with racism, South Africa was horribly racist too. Yet they were even worse to homosexual people. One such instance of being horrible to them was the Aversion Project, led by Dr. Aubrey Levin. The design of government experiments like this is usually always built on BS. This project was literally out to try and “cure” people of homosexuality. Seriously. They’d set out to do it by force as well. The South African government rounded up as many gay men as they could find.
Levin’s testing method was to initially use electroconvulsive aversion therapy. The goal was to shock them any time they could be aroused by a homosexual feeling. Electrodes were strapped to the upper arm with wires leading to a dial that went from levels 1 to 10. Gay men were shown pictures of naked men and were told to fantasize about them. Then they were given several shocks of varying levels, with the concept that making them feel pain would end their gay lifestyle. Of course, that is not how any of this works. Today, Dr. Levin’s experiments with government support are considered a human rights violation.