The latter. Again, Sheryl Swopes is one example–in “her mind”, she loved her husband, but they divorced for reasons other than her liking women. Her first partner is the first woman she’s been attracted to. Can’t think of any other famous people off the top of my head. In typing, I though of Meredith Baxter, but her case does seem more along the lines of “I was never really right with men, and deliberately sabotaged my het relationships to avoid intimacy.”
That, and one of my friends, who has been a hardcore lesbian for all the years I’ve known her, has recently taken up with a fella. She still likes women, but by her own reckoning, she has drifted into bisexuality. Happens.
if Diogenes the Cynic were to have better reading skills, he would have realized that my post dealt specifically with the undecidability of the question of what percent of American “gays” are actually “bisexual” and hence can be conceivably transitioned to not engaging in homosexual intercourse. But that requires some mindful reading, not majestically saying “bunk, let all opposing viewpoints shut themselves up”.
As for this quaint notion:
“orientation” is not an empirically rigorously measurable notion, just like “bigotry” or “the state of being a nice person” are not rigorously measurable. Which is why there are so many dumb busybodies, some with fancy degrees, making a living out of making unsubstantiated claims about these nebulous categories.
What is actually measurable is precisely the behavior - i.e.when was the last time that the guy have sex with males and at what frequency he was doing that? And can various “treatments” get the person reduce that frequency to zero? Well, for “bisexuals” the answer is probably yes, and for some gays the answer may be no.
“Should” this be done or not? This is beyond the scope of the discussion. If you ask homosexuals, maybe they will tell you that what “should” be done is getting the bisexuals stop having sex with women. These are matters of value judgment, not of empirical reality.
I think what **Dio **was getting at earlier in his scatalogical way was that “treatments” as code_grey describes them have historically resulted in misery, depression, and/or suicide with a much higher frequency than a perceived change in orientation, and as such a consensus has developed among psychotherapists that interventions to change sexual orientation are a horrible idea. I don’t have access to PsycINFO right now (it will always be PsycLIT to me), but it shouldn’t be hard to find this verified in the literature.
Here is an analysis of the Spitzer paper. The main critisms are:
Saying “Many eminent psychiatrists believe that homosexuality is the result of an ill-developed sexual identity due to childhood stress.” Is like saying “many eminent biologists believe in Creationism”. You can always find one or two contrarian scientists to support any claim, the fact is the vast majority of psychiatrists support the DSM assesment of homosexuality.
There was intensive lobbying effort on the behalf of gays and lesbians, but much of the pressure came from inside the APA itself. There were many members of the APA who themselves were gay/lesbian, and like most other gays and lesbians, they had to keep their sexual orientation secret because it could get them expelled from the APA.
What brought the APA around was the realization that gays and lesbians can be happy and productive members of society. And, they weren’t necessarily unhappy about their sexual orientation. Most members thought that’s pretty much a definition of normal.
You must understand that this was also the era when the APA was turning away from Freudian philosophy to a more scientific based philosophy. The idea that schizophrenia was caused by weak fathers and strong mothers or that autism was caused by overly intellectual parents was also being dropped around the same period of time. There was a realization that homosexual preferences might be biological and not caused by clinging too closely to an over bearing mother.
This American Life did an excellent story on the whole adventure called 81 Words. It will cost you a buck to listen to the podcast, but it is an hour podcast, and it is well worth the cost.
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There comes a thing called The Problem. For example, there was The Negro Problem, and The Jewish Problem, and of course, The Gay Problem. The question is asked by general society about what to do about The Problem and how should it be solved. Brows are furrowed, viewpoints are raised, and white papers are written.
However, if you asked the group that is the center of The Problem, they’ll tell you there is no problem with them, and if people stopped treating them as The Problem, the problem will go away.
You said that this tract you read lied throughout the whole track. Who says that their numbers are even correct? But, I’m going to (just for this exercise) assume their correct.
Okay, there is more depression in Teh gays than among straight individuals. So, now, do we look at all gays as in the same group? Do we merely assume that being gay makes you unhappy and therefore, we must treat anyone whose gay? Or, is it better to look at people who are individuals and say, if you’re well adjusted, happy, and productive, who cares whether you’re gay or straight?
Is it possible that there are more gays (as a percentage of the population) who have certain issues than straights? It could be. After all, if you’re a teen who suddenly finds themselves attracted not to the opposite sex as most of their peers, but to the same sex, you might feel there is something wrong with you. Imagine if you’re a God fearing person, and you go to church every week, and the minister harangues on the evils of homosexuality, you might think that you’re a terrible, evil person. You don’t want to be gay, but you are.
What if that’s the reason gays have more mental issues? Maybe the solution should be simply to stop making them feel they’re sick disgusting perverts whom God hates and begin to treat them as you would any other human being. Maybe that will solve The gay problem
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The point is instead of looking at people as a group, we look at them as an individual. Is there a person who’s unhappy about their sexual orientation? Could very well be. Let’s find out why they’re unhappy instead of merely hooking them up with prostitutes in hopes that it’ll (pardon the pun) straighten them out. Maybe if they learned to handle the prejudice and disappointment their family and friends have, they’d feel better about themselves.
Man 'o man, they sure do they have a lot of studies. What’s that word I’m thinking of? Oh yeah! CITE!. What study? Who ran it? How old is the study? Remember that homosexual marriage is still illegal in over 90% of the states and much of the world. There isn’t much data to go on for such wide ranging studies.
What we do know is that the few states which legalized homosexual marriage, there has been no effect on the divorce rate, the rate of infidelity, or the rate of people who rate their marriages as in trouble. Basically, they legalized gay marriage and society didn’t collapse.
I do know one thing. It is rare when I am walking down the street with my wife, and some young person says “Man, I’ve got to get me some of that!”. Heck, if gays and lesbians see my marriage and still want to get married, let them go for it.
The Landmark APA paper was a paper given in 2001 in an APA meeting. The APA itself disavowed the paper. The paper was criticized because it was not peer reviewed, and couldn’t state one study supporting its assertions. The last thing you could call the paper was landmark.
OTOH, “the gay community…[makes] scientifically unbased claims that homosexuality in innate and cannot be changed. They have even been successful in passing legislation prohibiting professionals from encouraging their patients to convert.” Yet people have converted and the “fact that there is no member of the animal kingdom that is naturally attracted to the same sex” gives the lie to their position.
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There is no homosexuality in the animal kingdom? You’ve got to be kidding? Homosexuality in the animal kingdom is well documented. Here’s a list of mammals that have displayed homosexual behavior. Here’s a list of birds also doing something that is an admonition in the eyes of the Lord. Maybe this study would be of interest to you.
In fact, it’s gotten so bad that those who are anti-gay have taken the other tact: Homosexuality in the animal kingdom is proof that it is beneath human beings to do.
You’ve said yourself that the book or whatever you’re reading made several false claims and never gave you a single reference. So, what makes you think anything in the book has any validity?
Imagine if you were a juror. A witness takes a stand and makes several absolutely amazing claims. Many of them are later proven false. What, as a juror, do you think about this person’s ability to tell the truth? Would you accept any claim they said? I hope not.
This probably used to be true, at least for gay men, doubtful for lesbians except perhaps for the depression. Teen suicide is definitely greater for gay youth than straight youth. The implied conclusion, that homosexuality inherently causes these things is of course false. Depression and suicide is obviously much more common in gays who are trying to hide, resist, or deny their feelings - so that’s not really an argument against it. Most of the rest are or were from being the victim of hatred or discrimination. Gay men were and some are still a bit more promiscuous, but it could be argued that the only reason straight people aren’t is because they are subject to different social pressures. And of course, before there was a movement to educate the public about the dangers of STDs, birth control was seen as not needed by gays because well, they couldn’t get pregnant.
While I wouldn’t be surprised if gay couples (male again, not so much lesbians) have some amount of greater fidelity issues (is an open marriage the same thing as infidelity?), I doubt the statistics as states, they seem exaggerated. You’d also have to look at heterosexual couples using the same benchmarks and definitions to get a sense of what this means (is divorce considered infidelity? I know very very few heteros still in their first marriage past 40). Of course, more gays are, by the nature of being excluded from those social groups with more ‘traditional’ sexual rules, not going to follow them as strictly.
I’m sure you could find an “eminent psychiatrist” for any theory out there. The quote itself admits “many” meaning… not most, and… doesn’t give details on how many are basing this position on psychological studies, and how many have some kind of religious motive. More on this below…
Well…like anything else, it’s about 50% genetics/physiology and 50% environment. Is heterosexuality innate and unchangeable? We don’t really have the mechanics of sexual identity pinned down yet. My guess is, everyone has a unique sexual identity that is the result of 100s of different things: genetics, hormones, education, upbringing, social context, religious background, cultural background, exposure to certain experiences, social status, network of friends, etc. And add to the multiple influences the fact that sexual identity itself isn’t any one thing. It comprises sexual desires, behavior, sexual identity, gender identity, emotion, all of which will not necessarily converge.
I’m sure you could ‘convert’ anyone to anything given the right techniques. See: torture, cults, indoctrination, etc. But is that healthy? Generally speaking, professionals are expected to help their voluntary patients with their own goals, and not push an agenda. They generally will not try to aggressively influence the patient about behaviors that are not self-destructive.
This is patently false. There are numerous and well documented cases of all sorts of sexual behavior in the animal kingdom. There are even a few popularized books on the subject. There are even some species for which it is the norm.
But even if it were true, that would be a hypocritical argument. Those who are against homosexuals will be the loudest proponents of the idea that humans should not be looking to the animal kingdom for guidance. Infidelity, for example is far more present in the animal world. Humans are nearly unique in that regard.