Sasha writes 'developing relationships with women' and draws a heart.

"Your root is the cause of your homosexuality. All homosexuals experienced some pain or trauma in early life that caused them to inappropriately sexualize their natural desire for intimacy with other men. For some, their root is parental abuse or neglect. Others experience bad parenting that is not abusive, such as overbearing and intrusive mothers or distant and demanding fathers. Still others are bullied or rejected by their peers, perhaps because they are sensitive or gentle. Some experience sexual abuse in childhood or during puberty. And some had parents that failed to model appropriate gender roles and a loving relationship."

Asher writes down "root == cause of homosexuality" and then doodles a raincloud.

Lev hears the phrases "distant and demanding father" and "bullied or rejected by their peers, perhaps because they are sensitive or gentle" and curls in on himself.

....he doesn't have any of those. 

Sasha is deeply, deeply skeptical that people become gay due to trauma. He draws another little heart and makes sure Asher can see it. 

"Over the next three weeks, you'll hear testimonies from ex-gays about their roots and talk in group about your own experiences. At the end of three weeks, you'll be expected to share with the group what your root is and how it led to your homosexual behavior. Does anyone have any questions?"

"What if, after three weeks, you still don't know?" 

"You can continue in private work with me, during free time, until you know."

— yep, he will definitely be making something up. 

Christine answers some more questions from Andre and Clayton, then gives her own testimony. 

She had distant and emotionally neglectful parents as a teenager. She ran away from home at fourteen and lived on the streets, doing sex work to survive. She took a lot of drugs, dated a woman named Rachel who was also a homeless teenage sex worker, and had unprotected sex with men and women. Eventually at seventeen she went to ex-gay camp, found God, and recovered from her homosexuality. She has not had homosexual sex since she was nineteen. 

Does anybody have questions about her testimony?

That seems like a deeply intrusive thing to ask questions about. 

That seems like it would involve a conversation with Christine that wasn't built on elision and bullshit. 

Is that what being an openly gay person is like. 

Sixteen-year-old Christine seems like kind of a cool person, too bad about adult Christine. 

And after she's answered some questions from Dolph, they're dismissed for dinner.

"The first one wasn't too bad," he says conversationally to Asher, "although I doubt I'll be able to keep not talking." 

"That could have been worse," he says to Lev. 

He glances around, then says in a low voice, "I'm going to have to spin some dire bullshit for this one."

"Well, I already know what my root is," he says to Marlo, "so this will be an easy couple of weeks."

"I'm extremely skeptical of the whole concept but I really don't want to have to give up free time. I can keep giving you answers, in a broad-strokes kind of way, if you want." 

"I'm glad! That it'll be easy for you, I mean. I have no idea what mine is." 

"Yeah, I have both 'distant and demanding parents' and 'rejection from peers because you were too sensitive.'"

(It doesn't matter. Marlo's going to hear it in three weeks anyway.)

To Sasha: "Oh, good, so I don't have to track anyone down and disembowel them for hurting you?"

"You do not!"