Well, the study mentioned in the OP has just been repeated on MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/570656.asp
This is significant because a link to the above article appears on today’s main MSN webpage (http://www.msn.com), which is the default homepage for damn near every copy of MS Internet Explorer out there. So a heck of a lot of people are going to see that article now.
Scientists have been interviewed on CNN and other media outlets. This theory has been thrown out on the basis of shoddy methodology and sample bias.
Your remarks on Etheridge do not come off as being “not my cup of tea” but as an attack on an openly gay performer.
Do not equate the disproving of this theory with the medicine of the 17th century. We are not clueless savages hiding in caves. We are rational, thinking adults who can see this for what it is: more propaganda promoting compulsory heterosexuality.
Eh, if you listen to Melissa Etheridge, that means you’re gay? I must’ve missed the memo… 
Um.
http://gaytoday.badpuppy.com/garchive/penpoints/083099pp.htm
Okay, here is the problem. You’re right, no “sampling” took place, therefore there could be no “sampling bias”. “Sampling” is when you go to the mall and walk around and randomly ask people questions. “Ethnology” is when you look at a specific group of people, say “Blacks for Bush”, and ask them questions. It’s called a “sampling bias” by some people, using it in the sense of “your sample group is already biased”.
However, this is a nitpick on your part, Puddleglum. The study was still flawed and doesn’t prove anything at all. It’s like formulating a theory that says, “I think some blacks voted for Bush and are happy with their decision”, and then only talking to blacks who voted for Bush. See? You haven’t really proved anything, other than “some blacks voted for Bush and are happy with their decision”, certainly not something that should be trumpeted as “an important scientific breakthrough”. It’s like formulating a theory that “some children like licorice” and then only talking to children. What’s the point of the study? There isn’t really one. “Some children like licorice.” BFD.
Okay? See? He only asked people who had already converted from homosexuality, “Can a person convert from homosexuality?”
I wish you would stop assuming that everyone who objects to this study’s findings is doing so out of some kind of knee-jerk reaction. Everybody I’ve read in this thread so far has sounded like rational, thinking adults, presented with a study that their common sense, and experience, tells them was flawed in its statistical base, and that therefore its conclusions are suspect. Do you think we’re all saying, “We already know that a leopard can’t change its spots, gays can’t go straight, so don’t try to prove anything with a study, we know better than that, any study that purports to prove that gays can go straight must be flawed…” If you really think that, all I can say is, you must not be very well acquainted with some of the other posters in this thread, especially Beadalin and Tris.
It isn’t, and it doesn’t.
Actually, puddleglum, I think there are several other questions that need to be asked about the study, such as:
What was the researchers’ definition of homosexuality? Of heterosexuality? And what constituted a successful conversion from one to the other?
The entire study seems to ignore the non-binary nature of human sexuality. Humans aren’t one or the other, and there is no gay/straight switch built into the human psyche.
I’d like to introduce the Kinsey scale as a yardstick in the context of this debate and is “based on the relative amounts of heterosexual and homosexual experience or response in each history.” The scale ranges from 0 to 6, with the following definitions for each gradation:
0- Exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual
1- Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual
2- Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3- Equally heterosexual and homosexual
4- Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5- Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual
6- Exclusively homosexual
With that in mind, here are some questions in regards to the study:
Where on the scale did the participants in the study start out, before beginning conversion efforts?
Where on the scale did they end up?
How many gradations on the scale constitute a conversion?
How long does the change have to last to constitute a conversion?
You see, not only is there a spectrum of sexual orientation, it is also widely acknowledged that individuals at various different stages of their lives will register on the Kinsey scale differently. So we have no way of knowing whether the conversion therapy worked, or if the individuals involved changed due to other factors at work in their lives and their psyches.
Also, this paragraph seems to point out that it’s tough to approach that elusive Kinsey 0…
So, 37 people out of this group of 200 “converted” homosexuals claim exclusively heterosexual status. Less than 20% isn’t that great a success rate.
My point is, that this study is a sensationalization of a moot point. Not too surprising, from an article that starts off describing itself as “explosive”. But my take on what the study boils down to is:
“If you find a group of people who claim to have changed their sexual orientation, and evaluate their claims according to an amazingly broad set of criteria, you will find that a little more than half of them actually have changed some. If they’re not lying.”
I’d also like to point out to you this paragraph of the article:
Beware of any study where the researcher in charge is unable to extrapolate the relevance of the study to the population targeted in the study.
Ok, I’ll go at this point by point. If you’re going to prove the validity of the study, you need to coherently refute all these points (and more: these are just the obvious ones)
There is no evidence that the subjects were actually gay. There is every possiblity that they had a “sinful thought” or two, got scared that they were gay, and went in for treatment.
There is no control sample to indicate that they are not lying. All studies based on self-reporting should have a control sample. Many people intentionally give misinformation on surveys, and many more unintentionally do (that’s why we use placebos and whatnot).
Hi Opal (just try and refute that)
From what’s been said about the survey, there was no guarantee that the subject’s spouse wasn’t in the room, possibly listening. Subjects could have lied to avoid disappointing a spouse, or sparking a fight. Saying “well, my heterosexual sex with my wife last night was really unfufilling” seems like something only a suicidal would blurt out with the wife in question one room away.
While the researcher may or may not be biased, the organizations from which he obtained subjects are. These organizations’ existence depends on homosexuality being “treatable”. Therefore, when Dr Spitzer called them, they are likely to ignore “Jimmy who’s lapsed back into sin”, and give him the phone number of “Bob, who we haven’t caught in a gay bar yet”.
The article itself says:
Which means that presenting it to a group of professionals means nothing about the validity of the study, or the professionals’ opinions on the validity of the study.
…and this is only a partial list.
(BTW: it’s interesting to note that 66% of the subjects were referred by anti-gay groups, and 66% of the men are now supposedly straight. Not that this means anything, but it does amuse me)
MrVisible seems to have already posted most of the information to back up my views. The whole point of my post was the same as his. We are not talking about a toggle switch here. We are not each either gay or straight. We are each somewhere on a continuum of human experience.
Why can’t you admit that.
Once you do your entire argument falls to ashes.
{stands up and applauds Degrance}
Well said.
This has been my theory for years, and, IMHO, contributes to the theory that gay people choose to be gay; in effect, the majority of people, if they are indeed to some degree bisexual, acutally do choose to “be straight,” i.e., act solely on their heterosexual urges and not their homosexual ones, so clearly, they’ve chosen to be straight. So if they can, obviously gay people do, too.
Esprix
puddleglum,
let’s revisit my comparision to the handedness debate for a second.
I’m a lefty, and I’ve known that practically my whole life. When something needs to be picked up it’s my natural inclination to use my left hand to get it. I write with my left hand, hold my fork in my left hand, etc. Suppose I was presured to use my right-hand because people were giving me too much shit about being different. Maybe they were taking the old catholic stanch that redhaired lefties were the spawn of the devil (nuns actually told my mom that) and I should be a righty or I’d go to hell. Being a God-fearing person (at least hypothetically) I’d want anything but damnation. So I decided the best thing to do would be to train myself to use my right hand exclusively. It’d take a lot of effort on my part, but if I tried hard enough, I could use my right hand well enough to get by. If people asked me if I was happy being a righty, of course I’d say yes, since now I wasn’t being tormented, nor going to hell.
Puddleglum, would that make me a righty? Could I participate in a study of people who’d sucessfully converted to righties without biasing the study?
When “they” say it, where did you get the number 10%? I’ve heard that the popularized version of the poll that got that percentage actually included bisexuals. And that gays make up about 2% of the population with bisexuals being 8% with later polls making a distinction between the two.
The 10% figure is the one referenced by the original Kinsey Institute research. Subsequent surveys have put an estimation anywhere from 2% to 12%. Either way, my thinking is that nature generally runs on a bell curve, so I’m willing to allow that the majority of humanity is bisexual to a greater or lesser degree.
Esprix
The qualifiers here would be ‘some’ and
‘highly motivated’…sure some people can
do something (weather they like that
thing or not) if they have enough
motivation.
I would be suspicious of any study where
the participants were referred by a
‘hate group’…
If someone wants to change from gat to
straight - fine, let them try
but if that person is ok with who they
are, why force something something on
them? who are they hurting by not
changing?..
hmmm…
Nobody!
That’s what I thought.
I wish that I could just laugh at this study and dismiss it because of it’s obvious flaws.
I can’t.
I can’t because I just got a hysterical email from a 16 year old kid who got into a fight with her parents because they don’t think she tried hard enough to be straight. Now she’s scared that they might try to send her to conversion therapy. And I just know that countless well meaning parents and confused kids are going to get their heads and lives fucked with because of this mess.
I’m so angry I can barely stand it.
Well, to nit-pick it is much more likely, if we were ever able to “accurately” determine such orientation --social ‘noise’ here I think is impossible to eliminate – to look like a lop-sided bell curve with a strong bias towards opposite sex preference (sorta like a low df chi-square dist), for the sole reason of course that sexual reproduction rather requires that.
But no matter, the point is correct so perhaps I’ll just shut up rather than being needlessly tedious.
A single telephone survey of a handpicked group using vague and loaded questions isn’t science-it’s a badly designed P.R. stunt.
The 10% figure comes from the Kinsey study. If you look at that study you will be able to find the textbook definition of sampling bias. The opinion that 80% of people are bisexual is just that, an opinion. We are trying to talk about facts here not opinions. If you have a credible survey that supports that opinion you should produce it.
DDG
That is not a nitpick that is an explanation of the study. If there were two theories, one it is impossible for black people to vote for Bush and the other that it is possible for black people to vote for Bush, than talking to black people who claim to have voted for Bush could prove one theory or another. If you are not one of the people who think it is impossible for gays to turn straight than of course the study would not surprise you.
Mr Visible
Again all good questions and again point out the need for further research. Again the point of the study is not that these programs are 100% effective, the point is whether they are effective at all. If the postulated success rate was 0 than 20% is very suprising. We do not need to beware of studies which do not try to extrapolate their findings to broader populations than the data would support, we need to applaud the integrity of the scientist involved.
Myrr21
There is evidence that the subjects were gay. They considered themselves gay and described their sex lives to the researcher in detail. Your objection to no control sample is nonsensical. Any professional researcher would try his best to interview his subjects in privacy so unless there is evidence otherwise the presumption should be that this is what happened. That the organizations would point him to succesful conversions is irrelevant because he was trying to talk with succesful conversions to see if it was possible. Maybe an analogy would be helpful. If you are trying to see if quitting smoking is possible and if so how people who quit smoking feel about their decision, who would you talk to? You would go to a group that tries to help people quit smoking and interview people who have quit. The fact that you located them via “anti-smoker” groups would be irrelevant.
Of course the presenting the paper at a convention does not equate to the endorsement of the convention it just points to the fact that this psychiatrist was confident enough in his methodology to present it before other trained professionals and that no psychiatrist who cared about his reputation would present a paper with shoddy methodology at such a conference.
Degrance
If there is no such thing as gay or straight than who we sleep with is entirely a matter of personal choice. That means that if we are dissatisfied with our personal choice and want to switch to another choice that is entirely possible. However if we make a choice enough time it becomes a habit and sometimes we need help in breaking that habit. This study then supports your line of thinking. I for one think more research is needed before we can be as sure of this as you seem to be
Esprix
I guess I misunderstood your previous post as arguing that being gay or straight is not a choice. Thank you for clarifying. This study also backs your theory that it is a choice, though of course further research is needed to actually prove this.
elfkin
Your contention seems to be that a person can be in relationships exclusively with the opposite sex, be happy and fulfilled in those relationships and still be gay. That seems to be a strange definition and one that is at odds with how that term is commonly understood.
andygirl
The obvious flaws are not in the study but in the criticisms of this study. As 486 points out this study involved highly motivated participants, if your friend is not highly motivated than it does not apply to her. If she is happy being gay than this study does not affect her, if she is unhappy this study may provide hope. Either way it doesn’t hurt her.
It Does hurt her if her mother is consdiering putting her in therapy because she thinks it will work.
It seems to hurt her because she’s happy with her sexuality but her parents aren’t, and they might use this study to try to get her “treated” against her will.
exactly so, Captain. See, if the ‘others’ believe that the issue is ‘proper motivation’, then they, of course feel free to supply same.
aye aye Capt’n.
Well, it hurts her in that she might be forced to waste some of her time and her parent’s money but she can not be forced to give up women for the rest of her life which was what I was referring to.