Our gayness disorder can be cured!

ixoy

Great news everyone! This gay thing? It could be in our heads, according to today's Irish Independent :

A STUDY showing that it may be possible to change the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians has reopened the debate over whether people are born homosexual or straight.

Controversial research demonstrating that some homosexual men and women were capable of becoming "predominantly" heterosexual following psychotherapy has created a furore within academia.

The study was based on interviews with 200 men and women who claimed to have had their gay preferences changed following therapy - often provided by religious organisations who believe homosexuality is a developmental abnormality.

Critics believe the study is seriously flawed but supporters argue that it exposes the myth that homosexuality is "hard wired" from birth, which would mean that nothing can be done to alter a person's preordained sexuality.

The findings are being taken seriously because the study - published in 'Archives of Sexual Behaviour' - was conducted by Robert Spitzer, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in New York.

Prof Spitzer is an eminent authority in sexual orientation and in 1973 was instrumental in having homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association's list of recognised mental illnesses.

"People who are bothered by their homosexuality have a right to have this therapy," he said.

The therapy involved a range of psychological techniques, mostly of the "self control" variety, such as avoiding tempting situations, stopping erotic thoughts from developing or mixing socially with straight men and women in non-sexual situations.

Critics of so-called "reparative therapy" argue that it is only effective in getting people to resist their instinctive feelings, simply making them believe that they no longer feel sexually attracted to the same sex. (© Independent News Service)

Does anyone here actually really believe it? It seems only people who WANT to believe it ever get cured: those who feel they're living in sin because of ridiculous religious rules :rolleyes: But it IS worrying when a article like this, from respected professionals, supports the principle. One of the characters in TV3's "The Shield" went through re-orientation and it's kinda spooky to watch.... I hope this gets shot down.

solice

oh yay, sign me up please.

it comes across as if the only people they can "re-orientate" are people who want to be, that is a little bit too much like brain washing if you ask me.

does it work the other way? if im straight can they make me gay?

Stark

I heard they still haven't solved the problem where when the person is sleeping with a member of the opposite sex it's all mechanical, and the person keeps twitching and saying to themsevles over and over "i like this" "i like this" "i'm happy now"

claire h

Controversial research demonstrating that some homosexual men and women were capable of becoming "predominantly" heterosexual following psychotherapy has created a furore within academia.

I think the key word there is 'predominantly' - i.e. it doesn't really work.

Have any of you seen 'But I'm A Cheerleader'? It's all about that reorientation crap...

... and I do think it is crap. I'm willing to consider that environment has an influence on one's sexuality, rather than it being something that you're born with, but.... ah, maybe it does work, but it depresses me that there are people out there who want it to work. Y'know, it sounds a lot like they're saying... right, we can 'fix' this 'problem'. When it's not a problem at all.

madmoe

@claire h
Totally agree with you, peoples attitudes never change, its not a problem that must be solved, its as nature intended!!

Seen that movie, a good laugh

The Brigadier

Look the end of the day is someone is Gay and happy what the hell is the problem? It is only society in it's most abhorently puritanical form which dictates homosexuality as wrong.

I just hope someone can cure me of some of my personality traits.....

I am currently infected by Devilish Charisma, Confidence and a certain amount of savoir faire..... Can I be cured....

The Brigadier

News just in.... It is now possible to cure people of that most horrid affliction - being Irish.

Nearly four million people currently suffer from being Irish, while at first it was believed to be hard-wired in from birth, there is now an end in sight.

The special treatment unit at Langley, Virginia(USA) has come up with a revolutionary treatment that is giving hope to these poor afflicted souls..

oneweb

ffs, what a load of crap. I think it's the people who have an obsession with trying to 'fix' something that just is not a problem who need to just grow up and accept people as they are. It's those people who really need the help.

Brainwashing is certainly the word here, and no doubt many of the 'turned-straight' people were either religious, brought up in a 'homosexuality is wrong' environment, were condemned by someone for their sexuality or even just weak-willed. Or maybe even all of the above.

Shinji

I don't quite see why everyone is getting so upset about this. I don't agree with sexuality altering therapies at the moment because, quite simply, they're incredibly primitive - usually entirely based on repression therapies, which are a recipe for disaster in later life.

However, if someone did pioneer a method which could successfully alter someone's sexuality in a permanent way without causing other mental problems, I wouldn't have a problem with that - in fact, I'd welcome it. If someone isn't happy with the way they are, they should be able to change that (after sufficient psychological treatment to ensure that this what they REALLY want and/or need), just as people are now able to change their gender.

It's certainly not something which I find "threatening" in the way that a lot of people here seem to. If you're perfectly happy the way you are, what's the problem with a method of changing yourself existing? It's not like it's actually relevant to you in any way...

I think you'd also be surprised at how many straight people would choose to become gay, at least for a while.

(Good article by Simon LeVay about this in this week's New Scientist, by the way.)

claire h

If someone isn't happy with the way they are, they should be able to change that (after sufficient psychological treatment to ensure that this what they REALLY want and/or need), just as people are now able to change their gender.

Which would be all well and good if it worked both ways. But this treatment is being presented as a one-way path to being straight. There's a difference between being able to change your sex to male or female (since the idea is that you're already the gender, but in the 'wrong' body for that gender), and being able to 'go straight'. It implies that heterosexuality is the Great Wonderful One True Way to which we all should aspire. And, y'know, not everyone does. Besides, one's a physical change and the other's a psychological one; you can't compare. A better comparison would be trying to change someone who was born male but feels female, a potential MTF transsexual, and convincing them that they really are male - it's going against their nature.

Shinji

Which would be all well and good if it worked both ways. But this treatment is being presented as a one-way path to being straight.

Right, and if you actually read my post, you'll note that I said that I don't agree with the methodologies being used at the moment to effect sexuality "change". I would expect that any decent way of causing this kind of psychological change (which for the record I don't think exists or ever will, I just think it would be nice) would be reversible - in effect it'd be a flick switch, probably using hormonal therapies rather than behavioural therapies, and would work in both directions.

It implies that heterosexuality is the Great Wonderful One True Way to which we all should aspire. And, y'know, not everyone does.

Well indeed I don't agree with the way these therapies are promoted any more than the way they're carried out. They're pushed with very heavy moralistic and religious overtones which I really dislike.

Besides, one's a physical change and the other's a psychological one; you can't compare.

Why not? What's wrong with wanting to effect a psychological change in yourself? If there's an aspect of yourself - physical or psychological - which makes you unhappy, then you're entitled to try and change that, or try and find a way to live with it - but either of those approaches are equally valid. I don't hold with this concept that psychological changes go against your nature somehow - if they can be effected in a successful way which focuses on actual changeover therapy rather than repression therapy, then they're a perfectly valid way to change yourself to fit the life you want to lead better.

Typedef

You know.

With a sufficient amount of repetative suggestion applied with varying degrees of trauma, one can make a person, do or think pretty much what one wishes.

Think "A Clockwork Orange".

Personally, I can provide evidence to support the claim that homosexual tendancies are evident in the hominid liniage for millions of years.

Many Chimpanzees for example, regularly perform (mostly male) homosexual acts, though, bi-sexual would be a more apt description of the chimps, since to my knowledge there are no cases of homosexual chimps.

So that is my proposition for the 'nature' side of the argument, then my further proposition for the 'nuture' side of the argument is that human society can and does magnify the latent ambiguity of human's sexual activity, polarising humans, into groups who are almost exclusively hetero or exclusively homo sexual, or sort of non-tolerant evangelical snobbery that exists in both the hetero and homo sexual scenes.

Frequently, bisexuals (or what I propose as a kind of species wide inherited tendancy towards ambituity) are castigated as being (queer) by heterosexuals and (pretenders/in the closet) by homosexuals. Thus society (or the nuture aspect of the human developmental process) polarises human sexual discourse.

So yes, I do believe that it is possible to re-engineer the human psyche on several different levels.

Re-engineering of Western humans to be soldiers, is how you take a middle class kid, and make him into a killer, see the Vietnam war, similarly I think it would be quite possible to magnify the pressures of society imposed sexual superego, and perhaps change it.

Many psychologists subscribe to a thing called "individuation", which is when you decide what sort of individual you will become, around the ages of 12-17, so while it may be difficult to change the state of mind that arises from individuation, I think it could be wholey possible, to do so.

If one takes my proposition to it's logical conclusion, it is 'natural' for humans to be bisexual, this knowledge doesn't stop me recoiling from sleeping with a man though.

That's slightly hypocritical I'm sure, but, I'm comfortable, enough with it.

Typedef

Originally posted by James Melody
News just in.... It is now possible to cure people of that most horrid affliction - being Irish.

Nearly four million people currently suffer from being Irish, while at first it was believed to be hard-wired in from birth, there is now an end in sight.

The special treatment unit at Langley, Virginia(USA) has come up with a revolutionary treatment that is giving hope to these poor afflicted souls..

Sorry voting "Yes" to the Federal Constitution of the EU, won't fix this[1]

[1]Since the yes side will lose.

eth0_

Hmm. So by these scientists' same thinking, they should be able to turn a STRAIGHT person GAY, using the same techniques, only in reverse?
Hey, I volunteer! I've never had a lesbian fantasy etc in my whole life, so I think i'd be a good candidate to show what a load of rubbish their 'therapy' is.

If you're 'bothered' by your homosexuality, you're going to be even more bothered by living a pretence your whole life, aren't you? Think of the therapists bills! All those regular top-ups to keep you on the 'straight' and narrow, lol!

Remember in the 70's they tried aversion therapy to get rid of gay tendancies? Nice to see we've moved on.

claire h

Originally posted by Shinji
Why not? What's wrong with wanting to effect a psychological change in yourself? If there's an aspect of yourself - physical or psychological - which makes you unhappy, then you're entitled to try and change that, or try and find a way to live with it - but either of those approaches are equally valid. I don't hold with this concept that psychological changes go against your nature somehow - if they can be effected in a successful way which focuses on actual changeover therapy rather than repression therapy, then they're a perfectly valid way to change yourself to fit the life you want to lead better.

I said that you couldn't compare, not that there was anything 'wrong' with it. There is a difference between changing yourself physically, and changing yourself psychologically. I'm not against psychological changes - though I'm not in favour of these changes being effected when there's nothing wrong with the person - but there's such a leap from a physical transformation which will make you physically what you are emotionally, and a psychological transformation which alters a facet of your psyche.

Originally posted by Typedef
So yes, I do believe that it is possible to re-engineer the human psyche on several different levels.

It still doesn't make it a good thing, though. *grin* I mean, the comparison that you're using - re-engineering kids to be soldiers - is hardly a positive one. Maybe it works, but it's still pretty screwed up, isn't it?

Originally posted by eth0_
Hmm. So by these scientists' same thinking, they should be able to turn a STRAIGHT person GAY, using the same techniques, only in reverse?

Yet, funnily enough, they never mention that. But why on earth would anyone want to be gay? Everyone should want to be straight, for it is the only way to happiness. :rolleyes:

Zillah

It would be a rather simple task to design a form of 'therapy' that made homosexuals think they were chickens and tell everyone they were happier. Doesn't make it a good idea.

*Bok bok

boomdogman

The problem is that this type of crap is used to punish, frighten and demean young gays."You could change if you wanted to but you would rather be a dirty queer"
And you dont need it: as all my x's seem to go str8 and get married just go out with me, I am the cure!

Lukin Black

I've a friend (female) who has had three ex-es "go gay"

She's beginning to get a complex

boomdogman

I know how she feels! Maybe we should get together, tho if we do, knowing my record she'll end up a puple haired lesbian in 3 months!:horned:

carbonkid

i though that kind of crap was over with you can suppress your feeling as much as you want but you are who you are

everyones on a scale right...a percentage gay or stright so people who are more towards stright and who do this treatment will look like it worked but in fact they probably just found it easier to surpress this feeling than those higher on the scale

when will people learn:rolleyes: