It seems that I am fighting a losing battle trying to convince people that a study that does not involve sampling can therefore not have sampling bias. So I will move on to other questions.
The implications of this study is that some gay people can become straight people. This has good implications because we know that a certain number of gay people would rather be straight. If this was impossible the best that could be done would be to help them accept this and move one. However this study provides hope for these people who are caught in a lifestyle they no longer want. They can change their lives to what they see as a more rewarding style of relationship. The end result of this is that people who were unhappy and unfulfilled as gays end up happy and fulfilled as straights. Who could object to such an outcome? Only those who care more about politics than people.
More research needs to be done as to how best to help these people achieve their personal goals. Hopefully the scientific community will have the courage to stand up against the mau-mauing and perform the needed research.
As to whether I think it is appropriate for straights to use psychology to help them turn gay, that is between them, their psychologist, their God, and their pool boy.
As for the black guy who wants to be white I would warn him that one of the side effects of the treatment appears to be a quicky marriage to Lisa Marie.
Does the study say anything about being able to change boneheadedly stubborn and ignorant people into reasonable ones?
No it doesn’t mention anything about that but hopefully research will continue and as the evidence mounts fewer and fewer people will be able to shut their minds to the truth. Until then we have to fight ignorance the best we can.
I saw this on FoxFriends network.
I beleive someone said the magic word: “repression”.
Thats what it is, they repress their feelings.
The feelings don’t go away, they just get pushed way down.
I will admit that I didn’t take the time to read all of the replies on this issue but I did want to interject my .02. I have a had a similiar discussion with a professor of biology and a local university. I used to feel that ALL gays are gay on thier own accord. However I was enlightened to the fact that some people are born with a hypothalamus* the size of the opposite sex. Exp. A man with a born with a hypothalamus like that of a woman is in turn going to be attracted to the man just as any woman with femine hormones would be. However, I am not saying that this is always the case, some people are probably just kinky, want attention, fed up with the opposite sex, or any number of things; but bottom line not ALL gay people can help thier sexual orientation. So with all that said I feel that some can go straight but I also feel that some people can no more want the opposite sex than I could ever want the same sex. But that situation with the hypothalamus is an extremely rare situation so Im going to make up a stat and say that 85% of gays are not gay due to biology, however psychology is a whole nother issue and we all know how fragile the human mind is, especially at younger ages. So I believe help could be given to these people but who the hell says that want or need it.
(at the base of the brain and controls the body’s endocrine system - or better yets its hormone production)
That is an interesting opinion and points out why more research is needed in this area. I for one didn’t know that newborns hypothalamus’ were even measured.
That is an interesting opinion and points out why more research is needed in this area. I for one didn’t even know that newborns’ hypothalamuses were measured.
When there was a flap about this a few years ago I remember reading an mostly unbiased article where they first described the Exodus ex-gay ministry’s position, which I personally found absurd, and then it reported on some psychologists who claimed that therapy like this could be harmful and that it should not be attempted. But then one particular therapist made the point that it depends on what a person’s priorities are. If they derive most satisfaction from their personal romantic relationships with members of the same sex, then “reparative” therapy was probably ineffective and possibly harmful. If, on the other hand, the most satisfying part of their lives was adhering to obscure biblical proscriptions and/or belonging to a community that does so, then denying that they are actually gay may not be any more harmful than, celibacy, monogamy, vegetarianism, or any other lifestyle that requires a person to make a choice to deny something to/of/from themselves.
Granted, all that was before this current study that makes claims of changing orientation rather than just lifestyle. This Dr. Spitzer doesn’t seem to have any interest in making people not be gay anymore, but rather to find out what the brain is capable of. I heard another study (probably a thread topic) that recently said that people’s IQ could go way up or down during their lifetimes, where they previously thought that it was a fixed measure of ability. I have no problem believing that whatever it is in a person’s brain that makes them be gay or straight, it might be able to be changed.
The question is, who the hell cares? Most of us, with notable exceptions, agree that people who try to force others to change their lifestyle and/or orientation with regard to sexuality are wrong wrong wrong for doing so. Even if it were proven that sexual orientation was completely a choice and had nothing to do with genetics, environment, or anything else, it wouldn’t make it any less wrong to try to forcibly “de-gay” someone.
But OTOH, the concern is that this study might enable this kind of sexual-lifestyle coercion. I suppose I could see someone taking the results of this study and using it to further an anti-gay agenda. If I were a gay leader I would not make this an issue. I would not question the integrity of the study before it’s even reviewed, because that definitely makes it look like a knee-jerk reaction. What I would do instead would be to make it clear that I was still against (a)forcing or coercing people to change their sexual lifestyle/orientation/whatever and (b)contributing to attitudes in society that make people feel as though being queer were a bad thing that needed to be changed.
But if you discourage this sort of research and profesionally ostracize those who do this sort of therapy aren’t you in fact forcing gay people who want to go straight to remain gay? If a therapist has a client who wants to go straight shouldn’t that therapist be allowed to help him using scientifically proven methods without being accused of being unethical or unprofessional? Shouldn’t reseachers be encouraged to study this issue instead of discouraged because some people are afraid of what they might find?
But are these people straight? Or do they only act straight and say they no longer have feelings for the same sex because to admit that the faith-based therapy didn’t work would be to deny their faith? Or to admit that they’re too sinful and evil and in thrall of Satan to have done the therapy right? Remember that most of the conversion therapy groups are fundamentalist Christian in outlook and provenance. These are not neutral, scientific, clinical therapy organizations. They are faith-based, in one of the more close-minded corners of faith.
jayjay
**Puddleglum wrote:
But if you discourage this sort of research and profesionally ostracize those who do this sort of therapy aren’t you in fact forcing gay people who want to go straight to remain gay?**
And aren’t these people who want to change doing so at the insistence of others who view homosexuality as wrong or somehow harmful even tho there’s no evidence to support that viewpoint?
That’s the whole point of my analogy with the black man wanting to be white.
Honestly, Puddleglum, you ought to rent yourself out as shielding for neutrinos
The Onion’s take on this sort of thing.
Perhaps the unhappy gay people want to get married and have families, perhaps they have religous convictions, perhaps they are tired of pretending to like Melissa Etheridge “music”. There are probably as many reasons to want to go straight as there are people who do. No one is being forced, they are simply being given an option. Who are we to take that option away based on nothing but prejudice and stereotypes?
And yet these “scientists” are attempting to invalidate our lives based on nothing but prejudice and stereotypes. What irony and hypocrisy to rely on skewed data and pseudo-research to base an opinion that is laden with prejudice and call it fact. Are you next going to tell us how The Bell Curve also used a valid sample and is also supposed to be true?
Melissa Etheridge is very talented, and I love listening to her music. Your prejudice has never been more blatant or disgusting. You have lost your air of wanting to discuss a question and have made it obvious that you want to spout a belief, no matter how well you are proven fallacious.
A family is not composed of a man and a woman. A family is composed of people who love each other.
I’ll take the fork that Hastur didn’t…
What the HELL are you talking about? I know many gay couple who are married right now in the eyes of their church, who have kids either from previous marriages, adopted, or artificially inseminated. I know many, many gay people with religious convictions. I know a lot of gay people who don’t particularly like Melissa Etheridge’s music.
That said, who exactly is basing their argument on stereotypes? My irony meter just broke…
jayjay
Having someone decide they do not want to be gay anymore does not invalidate your way of life any more than your listening to Melissa Etheridge invalidate my choice to listen to musicians with talent. I have presented evidence, a study with over 200 participants done by respected psychiatrist with over 30 years in the field and presented to a prestigous gathering of psychiatrists. People have tried to discredit that evidence with the ludicrous charge of sampling bias, but no one has presented any evidence of bias in the researcher, preferring to attack his motivations thereby exposing their own bias. I think this debate is illustrative of the dangers of politically correct science where a dispassionate analysis of fact is met with hysterical personal attacks.
Hmmmn.
puddeglum, you are a hypocrite. You have spent your time in this thread calling people politically correct if they disagree with you. When you have been proven wrong in your support of this study, you have called people hysterical and claimed we are trying to force people to remain gay.
Then you have the temerity to cast aspersions on Melissa Etheridge. You could have picked countless singer/songwriters, but you had to choose one of the most visible and out lesbians and slam her music in a thread not about music. Your bigotry just becomes more and more obvious.
This is not about a study, nor has it ever been. This is about your anti gay bias, and your BELIEF that we can and should change. You are not a dispassionate scientist caring about research and results, you are a bigot using skewed data derived from suspect sources to try and support an argument that is narrow and hateful.
This is by far the silliest thread I have ever seen on the board. Since when is a person either straight or gay? I thought that idea died in the 80s.
They say 10% of the population is gay. Well I say that another 10% is straight. The other 80% is all the rest of us who are bi. Yea, in our culture it is far easier to be labeled straight than gay. It is also likely to be seen as a sin or as socially unacceptable or as a reason to get the shit kicked out of you to even admit that you feel any attraction to the same sex. So is it any surprise that the vast majority of bi people just accept the straight label and go on with their lives?
The main thing that makes a person straight or gay is how they identify themselves. It’s the poor bi person who I sympathize with. Both sides tell them that they are wrong to feel how they feel. The straights say it’s a sin and the gays say that they are just confused and not ready to be “really” gay yet. (And yes I have heard these statements myself from many on both sides of the issue.)
So even if we accept this study all we can say is that bi people are capable of having a meaningful relationship with either same or opposite sex partners. It is the whole gay straight terminology that sets up the argumentative situation.
Look folks people are attracted to INDIVIDUALS. Some people are attracted almost exclusively to members of the same sex. Others are attracted almost exclusively to members of the opposite sex. Some are attracted about equally to either sex. There is no way you can look at one person, NO MATTER HOW THEY HAVE PREVIOUSLY BEEN CLASIFIED, and say ah that person was gay and is now straight or the reverse. All you can say is there is a person who was once attracted to an individual of one sex and is now satisfied being in a relationship with the an individual of the other.
Let’s stop labeling people and start treating them as individuals.
As to the OP the study sucks for the reasons I have given here as well as others that have been posted.
My own take would be similar to taking a poll of members of any religious cult. Ask them if they are fulfilled, ask them if they are happy. Etc. Even if they have just handed their inheritance over to a crook in exchange for being allowed to clean out the latrines they will answer yes. That is how cults work. The members allow the cult to define them. Therefore I see no reason that the interviews with a group of self confessed cultists should be accepted as convincing data in a scientific study.
A couple of points I would like to bring up in relation to this study.
The study focused on people who already claimed to have converted from homosexuality to heterosexuality. “200 people, 143 of them men, who claimed they had changed their orientation from gay to heterosexual.”
There were criteria established (however arbitrary) for determining the study group’s functional heterosexuality. However, there were no criteria mentioned for determining the subjects’ functional homosexuality prior to their conversion.
Of the subjects, “66 percent of the men and 44 percent of the women had arrived at what he called good heterosexual functioning.”
The researchers involved found a population that claimed to have been homosexual, and now claim to be heterosexual. No research was done into how functionally homosexual the subjects were, and no statments were made as to their reasons for wanting to become heterosexual.
Of the people the study were able to find who claimed that they had actually become functionally heterosexual, even with lenient criteria for heterosexual functionality, the study found that only 119 of the 200 participants had achieved an acceptable level of heterosexual functionality.
The study’s criteria found occasional fantasies about persons of the same gender while engaged in sexual intercourse with a heterosexual partner acceptable.
So. If you poll a group of 200 people who claim to have successfully “converted” from gay to straight, no matter how bad their experiences as homosexuals were, no matter that the criteria you use is pretty darned broad, even if you take no precautions to make sure none of the subjects were lying, 81 of them will not admit to having achieved what you define as an acceptable level of heterosexual functionality.
Which just puts a slightly different spin on things.
** Mr VisibleYou make good points which is why there needs to be further research on such questions as:
Does how long one has been gay effect the outcome of the therapy? Does the kind of motivation affect the outcome? Which kind of therapy is most effective? Are different types of therapy effective for different types of people? Does age effect the outcome? Does sex?
Many questions are brought up by this study that hopefully researchers will be courageous enough to investigate. None of your objections effect the basic conclusion of the study though. It was never claimed that this is 100% effective regardless of method or individual variation.
** Degrance
Who is this “they” you keep referring to and where is the scientific evidence that backs “them” up. You seem to have alot of opinions but where is your evidence. Your cult analogy is flawed, these people are not living together cut off from the rest of society. These are functioning members of a society, if they had any cult like tendencies an in depth discussion with a trained psychiatrist would certainly be able to spot them.
Hastur
No one has proven me wrong about this study. The only thing that has been proven is that very few of the people responding know anything about social research beyond the obviously wrong assertion of one critic quoted in the article. As for Melissa Etheridge if she can find enough people who like her to make a living selling records, good for her, she just is not my cup of tea. I understand that when new knowledge is discovered that those who have a stake in the old understanding will lash out at the messenger. Just as when bleeding was found not to be medicinal the leach sellers were quite upset. However that should not stop us from embracing truth when we find it and so your accusations against me shall not stop me quest for enlightenment.