The "gay fix" is out

[Rune]

@Bricker

It might, if your attraction was to Perez Hilton.

Not that Paris Hilton is so much better.

A more interesting question is what will happen when the actual functional gay fix medication pill is released in a few years, which I’m sure it will, or an effective early fetal screening method has been perfected.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Rune

…what will happen when the actual functional gay fix medication pill is released in a few years, which I’m sure it will…

Uh… what?

[dngnb8]

I wasnt aware that being Gay meant something was broken…
Im waiting for someone to fix Hate

[dngnb8]

@Trinopus

a sexually reserved person into a sexual enthusiast,

Okay, now Im interested…

[Steve_MB]

@BrainGlutton

There was a time when Timothy Leary thought he could do the first with LSD therapy, so why not the second?

It would be highly entertaining to suggest legalizing LSD for such theraputic purposes, just to watch the resulting cranial detonations…

[BigT]

@Trinopus

Or a liberal could be changed to a conservative, an atheist into a believer, a sexually reserved person into a sexual enthusiast, etc. Behavior modification therapy can be remarkably powerful, perhaps even dangerous. It should be used to help people who are in distress, not as a Procrustean “fix-all” to eliminate diversity.

I was under the impression that the reason it is unethical for a psychologist to attempt a conversion of sexuality in a willing participant was precisely because such therapies don’t work. I’m also pretty sure the doctor in the OP or those clinics mentioned later in the thread wouldn’t be giving up on it unless it had to happen.

I mean, if we could just change someone’s sexuality, then pedophilia could be cured. Instead, we even sometimes resort to chemical castration.

[Lamia]

@BigT

I was under the impression that the reason it is unethical for a psychologist to attempt a conversion of sexuality in a willing participant was precisely because such therapies don’t work. I’m also pretty sure the doctor in the OP or those clinics mentioned later in the thread wouldn’t be giving up on it unless it had to happen.

IANAP, but I can see how it might be considered unethical to use therapy to “treat” something that isn’t considered a mental health problem in the first place. However, I believe you’re right that the real ethical issues with ex-gay therapy are that it 1) doesn’t work and 2) is likely to cause psychological harm to the patient. Here are some figures I looked up for a previous thread:

@Lamia

Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder’s 2002 study “Changing Sexual Orientation: A Consumers’ Report”** seems to be the best study on how successful “ex-gay” therapies actually are. This study involved interviewing 202 people who had undergone sexual orientation conversion intervention. 13% (26 people) of these people considered themselves to be success stories, but nearly half of these still experienced repeated “slips” into homosexual behavior. Of the remaining 14 people, 6 reported having successfully stopped engaging in homosexual behavior but still experienced some same-sex desire and did not self-identify as heterosexual. Only 8 people (4%) self-identified as heterosexual and reported exclusively engaging in heterosexual behavior with little or no same-sex desire.

[snip]

The majority (77%) of the participants in Shidlo and Schroeder’s study indicated not only that the therapy hadn’t changed their sexual orientation, but that it had done them significant long-term damage. (Another 10% reported experiencing neither change in orientation nor any long-term psychological harm.) 11 participants reported attempting suicide after undergoing “ex-gay” therapy. Only 3 of these had previously attempted suicide. So it looks to me like “ex-gay” therapy is at least as likely to make people want to kill themselves as it is to result in a successful conversion to heterosexuality.

[snip]

**Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2002, Vol. 33, No. 3, 249–259

[BigT]

@Lamia

IANAP, but I can see how it might be considered unethical to use therapy to “treat” something that isn’t considered a mental health problem in the first place.

Well, I base that assumption on the idea that psychologists mostly let the patient determine whether something is a problem or not, unless it causes harm to themselves or others. In a world where ex-gay therapy both worked and did not cause harm, I can’t see a psychologist being allowed to interject their own opinion that these people were wrong to pursue therapy. It would be like a psychologist telling you not to believe in God.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@BigT

Well, I base that assumption on the idea that psychologists mostly let the patient determine whether something is a problem or not, unless it causes harm to themselves or others.

Lots of pedophiles, psychopaths, etc. do not believe they have a problem. So psychologists shouldn’t bother treating them?

@BigT

In a world where ex-gay therapy both worked and did not cause harm, I can’t see a psychologist being allowed to interject their own opinion that these people were wrong to pursue therapy. It would be like a psychologist telling you not to believe in God.

(Well, that would be an imaginary world, indeed.) But if a patient says that rather than surgery for prostate cancer he’s going to treat it with a diet of fruits & vegetables & breathing essential aromas, surely an ethical doctor would be obligated to give his opinion about the ineffectiveness of that ‘therapy’. And the facts to back up that opinion. That’s what I go to a doctor for – his expert opinion.

[BrainGlutton]

@BigT

I mean, if we could just change someone’s sexuality, then pedophilia could be cured. Instead, we even sometimes resort to chemical castration.

That could work as a “gay fix”!

[Lamia]

@BigT

Well, I base that assumption on the idea that psychologists mostly let the patient determine whether something is a problem or not, unless it causes harm to themselves or others.

I don’t know that this is the case. An ethical mental health professional might understandably be reluctant to take a patient’s money to “treat” something that is not a recognized mental health problem and is not causing harm to anyone.

In a world where ex-gay therapy both worked and did not cause harm, I can’t see a psychologist being allowed to interject their own opinion that these people were wrong to pursue therapy. It would be like a psychologist telling you not to believe in God.

I think it would be more like a psychologist telling you that the question of whether or not there is a God is not really the sort of thing therapy is meant to address.

[BrainGlutton]

What ever happened to “Pray the Gay Away”? It works just as well and it’s cheaper.

[Trinopus]

@t-bonham@scc.net

Lots of pedophiles, psychopaths, etc. do not believe they have a problem. So psychologists shouldn’t bother treating them? . . .

What, against their will?