Hypothetical Question for People Who Vote Dem: Heterosexual Pill

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

I was just having a conversation with a friend who told me I was nuts for thinking my cohorts who generally support/vote-for the Democratic or Green Parties would answer this question the way I think they will, so I’d appreciate y’all’s opinion (others are of course free to answer, but I’d appreciate if you just let me know that you’re not a Dem/Green supporter). The (very, I realize) hypothetical scenario is as follows:

Some philanthropist gives money to pro-LGBT organizations and supports marriage equality. But some of his gay friends want to have biological children. They don’t have a problem with other gay people, it’s just something they want for themselves. They agree that NARTH and similar organizations aren’t effective. So he decides to invest his Wads o’ Cash in coming up with a scientific method of effecting sexual orientation change.

Would you have a moral problem with that and if so, why?

EDIT: Sry for not including Greens in the Subject line, my bad.

#2

Your premise is faulty, but I’ll ignore that.

No, I would have no problem with that. If someone wants to change, and it’s possible to change, then I have no problem, with the understanding that it can go the other way, too.

Most people who have a problem with orientation “changers” and methods thereof is that it doesn’t work in any discernible way. It’s snake oil.

#3

I don’t understand part of the dilemma presented. What is to stop gay people from having kids now if they have that as a strong priority? They can already get IV fertilization, sperm donation, or just bite the bullet and sleep with a person of the opposite sex like many of them already do to solve that problem.

Are you really asking if they would be willing to go all Ward and June Cleaver if they could?

#4

Erm, yeah, I was clearly hasty in writing the OP and it does look ridiculous…how embarrassing…Well, my mistake.

What I meant to ask…For whatever reasons they want to become heterosexual, have biological children with passionate sex, etc.

#5

snip.

Not at all. The only person who should be concerned with any given person’s sexuality is that same person. If someone wants to change, and change is available then I see no moral issue with it. The problem historically, is that change has not been available and those pushing it have had an agenda that does not concern itself with the personal nature of the patient, but rather upon “correcting” a “problem”.

#6

Again, they can have passionate (or any other kind) of sex now and have kids the old fashioned way. Its not a pill but sometimes booze works. Is the pill temporary?

Like others I don’t care who changes into what but I can’t think of a reason other than family or society pressure to make a change like the one described.

#7

Most gay men my age(I’m 39) have probably had plenty of sexual encounters with women.

Male-female sex for gay men isn’t the equivalent of male-male sex for straight men. Gay men haven’t grown up in societies where men and women having sex was a huge taboo and not considered normal so they don’t have the psychological blocks that straight guys would have. They’re not going to go “Ew, girly parts! Get away from me!”

They just probably won’t find it as enjoyable and may have to close their eyes and envision David Beckham or someone similar.

#8

My only conceivable problem with it is nonconsenting use of the pill.

#9

Which is why I think inventing such a thing would be a bad idea, since if it existed you could expect to see it forced on people on a massive scale; even if doing so is illegal.

#10

Meh. You can say that about almost anything. Should hormonal birth control be banned because some dictator might force members of an ethnic minority to take it?

#11

I usually vote for Democrats, primarily because of the Republican position on just about any issue having just about anything to do with sex.

I would say that I have not problems with your hypothetical philanthropist, except …

I don’t believe it; I just don’t believe there is no hidden agenda.

Okay, this is hypothetical situation, so I have to accept the basic facts; scientific, effective, no hidden agenda …

Opposing this would be against every ethic I have.

#12

I am not american but were I in the US I would probably have to vote democrat on the national and state level (local level not necessarily as it would depend on the candidate) and I see absolutely no reason to have a moral problem with it.

#13

Well, something just came up, and I might not be online for a few days, so just thought I’d let y’all know:

So far, everybody took the position I expected. He thought I was delusional and my fellow lefty Dopers would despise anybody making the choice I described. Good to hear he was wrong.

#14

This. The first thing I thought was “it’s a date rape drug”.

#15

Wait, what? I assume the pill doesn’t make the target ultra-horny or something. It just makes them straight.

#16

Well, let’s stop for a moment and think, going beyond just gays and into the notion of the whole LGBT range, if we’re cool with the transgendered, why would we not accept the “Transorientational”?(*) Oh, sure, there would be some hardcore identity-politics hardliners out there who’d look upon those who avail themselves of the treatment as Class Traitors, but what cause would most of us have to censure the TO?

I think he means in the sense that people could slip someone the pill surreptitiously just for the sake of imposing over their will (dad “fixing” his daughter; girl clique not letting Hunk McDreamypants go to waste even if they themselves don’t get him), creating a major violation of the person without laying a hand on them.

But still, this leaves those who willingly wish to use the treatment morally in the clear. And any onus upon the creator/provider is no greater than upon the creator/provider of anything that may be misused. The very existence of the knowledge of the treatment (e.g. the formula) is neutral until someone does something with it.

(*) And things would be even easier if the treatment were NOT a “magic pill” type of therapy but a more complicated, time consuming process that would be hard to just administer unnoticed…

#17

No, because it is overwhelmingly used for the purpose of women willingly controlling their own fertility. A treatment like this on the other hand would be almost exclusively be used as a tool of oppression; I don’t see many people willingly rewriting a major portion of their identity. It’s like inventing a torture device; maybe someone will figure out how to use it for a good purpose, but it’s going to mostly be used to torture people since that’s what it’s made for.

#18

Der Trihs,

You are doing a nice job in this thread of laying bare the faulty analysis you use all the damn time–you pick what you think people’s motivations for something would be and then you are off to the races. So much of what you believe is based on your view of someone else’s motivations for wanting to do something, when you have no basis for believing in the existence of those motivations.

It’s just nice that you’ve made it so easy to connect the dots in this thread–often this flaw in your thinking is a little more veiled.

#19

Except of course for the intense, vicious, and endemic anti-homosexual bigotry that pervades our society. Much less the even worse societies that will inevitably also get hold of this pill.

#20

Of course you won’t see your own faulty thinking, you never will. Nice hand-waving away of the example of the pill. You are basing your support of the pill’s invention on facts that only exist several decades after the fact. Say the heterosexual pill is invented and only used by gays who want to be heterosexual–will you then say “oh, ok, guess I was wrong about that.”