Can gays go straight? Science says yes

AndyGirl, I think you’re beautiful. Only the coldest of hearts would not hear what you’re saying. This is just to let you know that there are people who do hear you. Thanks. God go with you always.

If you are asking for my advice, I’d have to know a little more about you before I would give it.

the issue that you seem to be missing is the underlying cause of the unhappy/unfufilled life. Are they unhappy etc. because they’re gay or are they unhappy because they have mom/dad/the rest of society telling them that they’re evil-hell-going miscreants, that with sufficient motivation they can stop being themselves?

If you want a quick fix, go to a plastic surgeon. A trained psychiatrist or psychologist does not accept what a client tells them that they want and try to help them achieve that goal; rather, they dig to the root of the patient’s anxieties and traumas to discover why the person is unhappy, and nine times out of ten discovers that what the patient says they want is entirely different from what they actually want. If a patient wants to change his or her behavior to please others, that doesn’t even come close to a reason to advocate that change. And if a person wants to change their sexual orientation, it is a sign of self-loathing and low self-esteem - wouldn’t it behoove someone to solve those more integral problems first? And wouldn’t that, in turn, lead the person to then accept the way they are?

Esprix

Are you bargaining for a Pit thread?

What I am saying, my myopic friend, is that scientists have an obligation to consider how their research results will be used. The instant study proves the bleeding obvious: some people can change their behavior if sufficiently motivated. And yet this profoundly uninteresting result is announced with great fanfare and publicity, in a manner certain to draw undue attention to it and certain to be misrepresented by the media and by groups whose interest is not purely scientific. Why? I and others have tried to draw attention to this incongruity, and you have steadfastly ignored our efforts to do so.

As science goes, Dr. Spitzer’s study is not even on the sixth-grade science fair level. It certainly doesn’t deserve public acclaim for its scientific merit. Even as an ethnography it suffers from an excessively narrow scope. Ethnographers need to try to include as diverse a population as practical, or alternatively be extremely clear about likely biases within the sample population; Dr. Spitzer appears to have done neither. In short, it’s sloppy science.

I submit that Dr. Spitzer’s interest in this research topic is not limited to the scientific. This study has all the hallmarks of a study done for political (rather than scientific) reasons. It’s precisely the sort of prove-nothing study that gets used by people, including apparently you, to stand for the proof of something which it does not stand for. It is professional irresponsibility for a scientist to formulate or conduct a poorly-designed study to further a non-scientific goal. And, I submit, this is exactly what Dr. Spitzer has done.

Your analysis is true but it is outside the scope of the question being asked. The question that was asked in the research was not “does conversion therapy work better than trying on your own”, but “is conversion possible using any method”. The study found that it was and that some people had utilized some form of counseling. As I have said more research needs to be done as to what kind is the most effective or even if it is better than reading self-help books or praying.

Jayjay
I hope you have fun in the Pit but I will stay here and engage in the rational exchange of ideas and leave the emotional harangues to others.

Esprix:

[Moderator Hat ON]

Not in GD, Esprix. I know you know the rules here by now.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

Success rates for what? Converting gays into straights, or curing ego-dystonic homosexuality (which need not require making the patient into a straight person)?

It is my belief – one shared by most of the APA – that the most effective treatment for ego-dystonic homosexuality is acceptance of one’s own homosexuality and adjustment to that fact. The alternative, repression, is not generally accepted by the APA.

There is no evidence – certainly none from the Spitzer study – that conversion therapy is effective in changing orientation. All the Spitzer study proves is that people can change their sexual behavior with sufficient motivation. We knew this already, thank you very much. Spitzer is guilty of misrepresenting his own study to the public and to the media, and you are guilty of perpetuating this misrepresentation. Now move along.

OR, the gay person could go into therapy and emerge both gay AND happy, because the source of his unhappiness had NOTHING TO DO with some unconscious pussy-lust you’re projecting upon him.

The very concept of “happy” is nebulous anyway. Psychological repression might not come back to bite you for another two, ten or even twenty years (consider people only now dealing with consciously repressed memories of abuse).

People much more astute than I have said it repeatedly: If you want to believe something strongly enough, and believe it’ll make you happy, you’ll succeed - in the short term, at least.

-J-

Good. Now we’re getting somewhere.

So, this sensationalist study proves what, exactly? That some undetermined percentage of people can sometimes change their sexual behavior for an unknown period of time for unknown reasons.

You’ve admitted that it proves absolutely nothing about conversion therapies.

Let me refer you to your OP:

So, now that you’ve admitted that the entire premise of you OP was fallacious, what do you want to talk about?

Esprix
When I was in psychology school they told us that it was generally not a good idea for the therapist to impose his goals and values on the client. The client has his own goals and values and if therapy is to be anything other than mind control than the therapist should work in the framework of the client’s goals and values. The therapist can and should suggest things but it is the client’s life and don’t you think he should be allowed to decide what he wants with his own life?
KellyM
I am glad that you have been conviced that people can go from gay to straight. That has been my arguement the whole time. It is not mine or Spitzer’s fault that his study may be misinterpreted, as we have seen on this thread there is an awful lot of ignorance on how social research is conducted. I am sure that many would like his research to have gone further and maybe he will in further research but at least the fallacy that sexual preference is fixed for all time and can’t be changed has been disproven.
Mr Visible
This study proves that

if you have no objection to this then I am not the one you should be arguing with.

Puddleglum, may I inquire, what the heck do YOU know about social research, or ANY research for that matter?!?!?

You’ve suggested that there cannot be a sample bias, without a sample. Thats true. There also cannot be a study. This researcher questioned participants in a type of therapy - the participants that answered are the respondents. The respondents ARE THE SAMPLE. Every researcher worth his or her salt will admit that sample bias is inherent to social research - it is a necessary evil because you can’t interview all the people, all the time. You HAVE to use a sample because you will NEVER find all the participants unless you have an N of one, in which case you have a case study.

Your suggestion that the study in question has no sample bias, is COMPLETELY ABSURD!

Anyhow, moving right along.

I haven’t noticed ANYONE suggesting that this researcher should not carry out research. People have only pointed out that his research design/methods are flawed. His conclusious are premature and eronious. He has circumvented the normal reserach process in an effort to gain fame and fortune in the media. (Believe me, research like to be in the spotlight as much as the next guy).

If you truly are intrested in the “plight” of gays in the world, and different therapies that may or may not help people with internal conflicts, fine, but you should find at least a valid study upon which to base your arguments. The way you are carrying on here just makes you look foolish.

Al.

Being gay is wrong, immoral, and wicked. If you’re gay, you’re going to hell. If you get beaten up or raped or killed, you asked for it. Why? Because you’re gay. You’re a second class citizen. The sex you have is illegal, you need to be kept from children, you shouldn’t be allowed to work with or live by decent people who are not gay. You’re dangerous, you’re subversive, you want to have sex with children to make them one of you.

You caused AIDS. God hates you. God sent AIDS to punish you. Who you are as a person, what contributions you make in your life- they are overshadowed because you are gay.

You are shameful for loving. Hide. Be in the closet, marry someone you don’t love, just try harder. God will love you if you try to be straight. It doesn’t matter if every part of you is screaming that this isn’t working, that this isn’t the way- do it. God will love you. Your family will accept you. The community that rejected you will now embrace you with open arms.

If you’re not going to change, that either shut up or go away.

These are the messages I get because I’m gay. These are the messages that everyone gets.

There are two ways of dealing. You suck it up and try to live your life with grace and dignity however best you can, be it in the closet or out… or you play the game, because you can’t get past that the messages you get make you hate yourself.

People who are part of extremely homophobic communities (particularly fundamentalist Christians) are the ones most likely to go through “therapy”.

I suppose that hating yourself but having your community love you for changing is worth it for some. I pity them.

This is like a car wreck: horrifying, but I can’t stop watching.

No, puddleglum. Read closely:

The only thing that the study proves, as you yourself have admitted and as has been amply demonstrated by my learned colleagues, is that

a) when told by their family, religion, and/or therapists that homosexuality is a moral and medical sickness and
b) coerced into having sexual relationships with people of the opposite sex,
c) twenty percent of ostensibly gay or bisexual people
d) will claim that they have done so
e) to a researcher who telephones them.

This is not

a) a new revelation;
b) what it was represented as being by you and by its author; or
c) of any scientific interest at all,

because the study does not prove any of the following things that you have misrepresented it as proving:

a) that an underlying sexual orientation can be changed;
b) that people who have sex with people of the opposite sex are heterosexual;
c) that people who stop having sex with people of the same sex and take up with people of the opposite sex for moral or social reasons are happy for so doing; or
d) that even such a resolution will last.

But I have objected to them, puddleglum. They are invalid conclusions, not supported even within the narrow definitions of the study itself.

Address my points, as listed above, please.

He has one.

You’re running on the assumption that these “therapists” are doing what they client wants. This is not the case, especially for those people who are forced into therapy. These therapists specialize in “conversion therapy”. They want the client to play straight and will use any means they feel is necessary to make them do this.

If that means raping a lesbian, electroshock therapy, solitary confinement, constant verbal harassment… so be it.

No credible psychiatrist condones conversion therapy.

One more try.
You only need a sample if you are going to extrapolate to a larger population. If you are not doing this you do not need a sample. If you do not need a sample, you can obviously not engage in sampling bias.
There seems to be a perception that the only way to conduct social research is to conduct a survey. This is not true. The method of social research needs to be adapted to the question being studied. This researcher’s methodolgy was wholely consistent with the question he was studying. Proof of this is the study quoted by MattMcl which used the exact same methodology on a slightly different population.

No

Because I find the science of this study to be (at best) questionable, and possibly politically motivated, I cannot condone basing a therapeutic regime on its findings. Doing so [be]is** irresponsible.

And shouldn’t therapists be held to the standards of science like everyone else? It is unethical to accept a less rigid standard of proof when one agrees with the opinions of the researcher.

There are always people who resist the findings of science. This study is politics dressed us as bad science. Publicity hounds like this are the reason people discount science. The reasons to avode peer review is that the author knows scientists will dispute his findings.

“Treating” people in according to these findings is unprofessional. Behavior modification is a highly intrusive and potentially cruel process. To use it without very good methodology, including examining the likelihood of success, and the consequences of both success and failure in a dispassionate and reliable way is extraordinarily unprofessional. What theraputic harm would be done by not attempting to alter the client’s behavior? Unless you predefine homosexuality itself as harm, there are none. Doing so demonstrates bias. Bias on the part of a therapist is grounds for recommending other sources of treatment, to recuse the therapist from intervening his own agenda.

Tris

Sorry, forgot what forum I was in. Apologies to you, won’t happen again, thanks for the reminder, and so on…

Esprix