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Should gay conversion therapy be banned in Ireland?
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,253 Mod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 59180
Whoah! Jaysus Rory, away with your obvious logic.If I was in a long term sexual relationship with a woman I whom I was attracted to either emotionally or physically I would consider myself bisexual.
Your argument is that two women in a longterm romantic and sexual relationship are entirely straight. Entirely mind you folks, not mostly, or always thought themselves as straight, but found they were open to a bisexual relationship with a particular person(which I'd see zero issue with). Entirely straight.Deleted User wrote: »This is just more of the same "you stating it with a straight face is all I need to show it is nonsense" empty dismissal. Basically "If you do not see it my way, then you are just wrong" which is hardly an argument of any merit or note.
My argument is in line with the second part of the above. Thought of themselves as straight and otherwise would be, but they were open to a bisexual relationship with a particular person. It still means they're bisexual, if only with one individual, thus far, or ever.
Which argument is more based on reality? Which argument is more accurate a description? Which argument sound less like nonsense?
Outside of 80 year old virgins, people in the closet and sex workers and outlier examples you point to, who someone is actively and enthusiastically and regularly having sex with a damned good indicator of their sexual orientation.Again - who you are actively having sex with says _nothing_ about your sexual orientation.
It's got little to do with neat little boxes either. It is a continuum as the research shows. One that brakes down into heterosexual - bisexual - homosexual. Some are more extreme ends of that others are in the middle and the middle has more extreme ends too. So someone who is otherwise at the gay end, but "becomes" bisexual with one individual is still bisexual. They happily and actively chose to be full members of a bisexual relationship, so are therefore bisexual.
I'd bet the farm that a general description of you if someone was asked who was aware of you would be "that bloke who talks about his two girlfriends". As for "alternative" I would also bet I could paint a pretty accurate picture of your beliefs and worldviews and where your opinions on a few matters would lie and it wouldn't require me to go all Sherlock Holmes about it.much larger than your blatant overstating of the size my relationship plays in my posting on this forumRejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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My argument is in line with the second part of the above. Thought of themselves as straight and otherwise would be, but they were open to a bisexual relationship with a particular person.
They and others I have met would tell you they were not open to any such thing. It evolved and ended up in a place that surprised them as much as it did everyone else. At no point along the process - had anyone asked them - would they have been open to it.
But that is the reality a lot of people find themselves in in a lot of situations. Not just sexual. We are led to places against our nature or expectation by a series of tiny steps. Each making entire sense at the time. But the culmination of which leads us to a place we never would have gone otherwise.
In fact some of the best villains in movies are of this form I have found. Not the outright evil to the core ones - but the ones who ended up in a place we as the viewer can condemn - but for a series of reasons and steps that individually we can not. The depth of the villain coming then from how easily we could imagine ourselves following the same path even if we can look at the villian and say "That could never be me".It still means they're bisexual, if only with one individual, thus far, or ever.
By your definition but not by any definition I have posted on this thread - seen anywhere - or seen supported here in any way. I can only keep repeating it that sexuality is defined by your orientation not your activities. And you can only go on ignoring that I suppose. And forever we can make this dance if you like. I got time
But certainly calling it "nonsense" over and over is not going to progress the conversation further. Any more that citing studies that do not address anything I actually said at any point.It's got little to do with neat little boxes either. It is a continuum as the research shows. One that brakes down into heterosexual - bisexual - homosexual. Some are more extreme ends of that others are in the middle and the middle has more extreme ends too. So someone who is otherwise at the gay end, but "becomes" bisexual with one individual is still bisexual. They happily and actively chose to be full members of a bisexual relationship, so are therefore bisexual.
And what you somehow keep missing is that I have never denied or disagreed with _any_ of that. I too believe sexual orientation is a continuum. I believe people fall into all kinds of places on that continuum. And I see utility in vaguely labeling chunks of that continuum with words you also use. And a couple more you do not. You say all this here as if it somehow goes against _anything_ I have said on this thread. Which it does not.I'd bet the farm that a general description of you if someone was asked who was aware of you would be "that bloke who talks about his two girlfriends". As for "alternative" I would also bet I could paint a pretty accurate picture of your beliefs and worldviews and where your opinions on a few matters would lie and it wouldn't require me to go all Sherlock Holmes about it.
It is nice you are making this about me rather than the topic now but I would be willing to bet the same thing actually. Self selection bias is a powerful thing and people notice what is different and stands out. That is how the human mind works. We see patterns where there are none by noticing the things that stand out to us. But whether the pattern is _actually there_ is another issue altogether. I just opened the last 50 posts from me that are not on this thread. Guess how many fit your description? 2. And one of those was because it was specifically very relevant to a question a user asked about how to discuss such relationships with your own children and I felt I had something to offer.
Actually having read all those posts together just now - I think if anyone went over my posts honestly and without an agenda they would probably describe me as someone who spends most of my time discussing and talking about my children and a few of my hobbies. That seems to be mostly what the last 50 posts were about almost exclusively.
Sorry reality does not fit your pattern seeking behaviours there. But that is just how the human brain works. We notice something about a person or a group of people - and we have a psychological tendency to cherry pick occurrences of it. So if you think black people are all violent for example you might read in a newspaper about 10 violent crimes. And if _one_ of them involves a black person and the others do not - the brain goes "aha those blacks at it again".
But no I have not seen you predict or paint any of my views accurately in the past. Quite the opposite as I said. Assuming I had "skin in the game" on issues that literally affect me or interest me not at all for example.0 -
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Not speaking of them specifically but also other people I have known in similar situations - basically a level of closeness evolves over time. A friendship that is ever deepening to something more emotional. Then this becomes more tactile over time. Hand holding. Cuddling. Fairly average stuff. But it continues to grow in depth and expression until mere tactility becomes more and they begin to express their mutual love in ways that are more in line with the romantic and physical ways many of us start our relationships with.
Sex and sexuality can be a way of expressing all kinds of things. Not solely and only mere physical gender based reproductive attraction. And I for one cherish and celebrate the multitude of diverse ways people can find their way into - and then express - love.I disagree with you but if thats the way you see the world who am I to call you out on it? As long as everyone is happy and consenting then more power to ye.
Yeah it is amazing how many people get genuinely worked up about this stuff. I enjoy both language and conversation and I think the way we use language is interesting and that makes this an interesting conversation for me for that reason.
Neither I nor anyone I know actually gets in any way upset about what label people do or do not use to describe them though.
But it is interesting to watch as we realise that our neat little linguistic boxes fail to capture the diversity of human relationships in the world. And the extremists at both ends who want to either rigidly hold on to out dated minimalist terms - or free up language to mean anything to anyone - are only fringe loons on the edges of what is otherwise an interesting conversation in the world worth having.This did jump into my head for whatever reason tho. “It’s not what you are underneath. It’s what you do that defines you.” I think we can all agree that the caped crusader is as good a source as any
Hah and we had citations from Urban Dictionary earlier Just shows how much fun this conversation _can_ be even if some people take it or themselves too seriously in it. But I think I would have to disagree with Batman on that one - if not to his face
It is not what you do but why you do it that defines you. Because doing the same thing in two different situations can change the playing field entirely. Take lying for example. I think we would not struggle to think of two situations where lying is the wrong and absolutely right thing to do in each. If you were defined by "what you do" then in both situations you would be little more than a liar. But _why_ you do it can define everything.0 -
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What if a straight person 'decides' they want to gay now? They should have the option too then?...
Yes?
I can of course see the issues (the multitude of issues really) that people would have with this, but if you've ever watched a programme like "Queer eye for the straight guy", you'd have realised such therapies are widely available already for straight men who want to be gay :pac:The only reason these 'therapies' exist is because society says it's wrong to be gay..
Bit of a broad stroke there fam. Certain sections of any given society will condemn many natural human behaviours. It's how civilisations generally either progress or die out. It's happened throughout history, and it will continue to happen when archaeologists are digging up our remains in an attempt to piece together how we lived and parse it through their current lens. I'm not a fan of evolutionary psychology myself, but I don't feel it's enough of a threat to society to get too het up about it. The field is mostly still full of intellectual willy wavers (metaphorically speaking!).Sexuality isn't sonething you decide ffs!
Of course it is - want to have with people the same sex as yourself, off you go and more power to you. Want to have sex with people the opposite sex of yourself? Don't be such a bigot! :pac:
I'm probably not taking the whole topic seriously at this point
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It is hard for them to even describe it - so I am not really in a position to do it any better than they already struggle to. But they certainly say that the feelings it brings do not in any way match feelings of more base-basic sexual attraction they might feel for me - or for some guy model in a particularly attractive photo shoot or anything else. And they feel nothing of this sort for any other female before or since.
They basically describe it as powerful and mostly emotional - as if it is going through all the brain centres except the ones associated or normally triggered by sexual orientation.
Rather it is a sexual attraction based solely in emotion. A culmination and mix of emotions and feelings that leads them to want to express that for each other in many intimate ways - including sexually.kunst nugget wrote: »Can we stop with the semantics about what words mean versus what I want them to mean is what they really mean and get back to sending the quares to the re-education camps!!!
I mostly agree but it seems for the most part everyone is agreed on that. And the few users like Graces7 who are in disagreement do not seem to want to come back and make it clear why.
But there are a few - - -Why should it be banned? As long as its consensual then I don't see the problem.
Because it does not appear to _at all_ do what it claims to do. Which puts it into a dodge category to start with. The same kind of category that homeopathy is in for example which many people also want to see banned.
But further it seems to have harmful side effects and be harmful to the well being of the people who attempt it. So that puts it on a worse plane than things like homeopathy.
And on top of all that it invents the disease as well as the cure. Which homeopathy does not do. While homeopathy might not cure your headache or your depression it does not pretend headaches and depressions warrant curing. Where as "therapy" of this sort suggests that homosexuality is something to be cured.You don't say. Which doesn't negate my point.
So you have completed the shift of ignoring parts of my post and making it about me to now ignoring pretty much every point in my post and talking solely about me. Nice - I am flattered. But while it might not negate your point it proves mine which was that the description is over stated and erroneous.
However the main point was not about it being overstated - it was about the linguistic simplicity you operate under as if there is "normal" and "other" and all the "other" simply fits in that box together to the point you essentially call people liars if they say that have no "skin in the game" on a particular topic. Because - to you - if they are sexually alternative at all they have skin in the game in anything sexually alternative.Effectively this is what we are talking about...brainwashing people to become 'straight'
From reading about the "therapy" and what it entails I can not even claim that they are even doing that. What they appear to be doing is little more than aversion torture to stop people who are homosexual from wanting to have sex at all.
They are not at all making them straight from what I have read - which is only a little so far I admit - so much as erring them towards being functionally - if not sexually - asexual.of course it is. If i decide I want to like men i can like men. If i decide i want to like women I can like women. If i decide I want to like animals....thats alright as long as i keep it platonic
If this is true you would certainly be the first person I have ever met who can do that. While you can choose to have sex with men - women - or animals - I have yet to meet a person who can choose to actively be attracted to them.
I - for one - can not stand at all the flavour of tomato sauce baked beans. I can choose to eat them. And I have done in the past for reasons of sheer desperation. But not once have I ever managed to choose to like the flavor. And short of eating so much of them that I desensitise myself to the flavor I do not think I ever will/can.
To be honest I can not say I feel any different about sexual orientation. I could choose to have sex with a man tonight. I can not even imagine how I would start to go about choosing to find him attractive though. Let alone choose to find men generally attractive so as to be bi or homosexual. And I even more certainly can not imagine being able to choose to stop being attracted to women. Cos I really _really_ am.
So if you genuinely believe you have the ability you have then there are likely a multitude of scientists who would love to have you in all kinds of scanners 0 -
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Sorry I dropped out of the conversation. I do not usually do that - though I do not expect anyone even noticed I was gone
Life went _mad_ there for awhile. And a couple of Russian guys I once met and had all but forgotten about suddenly contacted me out of the blue and insist I go to Russia at their expense and accommodation for the entirety of the world cup.
Been back in Ireland a little while but recovery from a trip that long and life changing in some ways took some time. My head is in a weird place at the moment. So apologies for the etiquette there.taxAHcruel, do your partners know just how much you talk about them
They are boards lurkers and occasional posters yes. One of them works in law so posts quite often in that area of boards.ie. Though I dont think anyone has linked her to me yet.
But we are very activist on some issues - though not others despite certain people thinking I by default must have a dog in races I literally have no interest in - and they see discussion of our relationship as one of many aspects of consciousness raising we engage in. We were on both FM104 and 98FM for example discussing it in the past - though those late night talk shows did churn out much of the car crash results you might expect but much of it was useful too.
So all in all yea they are both aware of and supportive of discussion of such things. And anyone who knows us well enough to identify us probably knows most of the stuff I discuss here anyway. But I do not think anyone really cares enough in the locality to be bothered by it. It is interesting in it's own way in certain contexts - but in general people in modern Ireland care less and less about such things which in many ways is a great thing.
Near the beginning of my time on boards.ie for example one guy PMed me with death threats should I ever become a parent in my relationship. Now years later people barely bat an eyelid at the concept. Is this progress of a sort? I think in ways it is. Depends whether it is acceptance - understanding - or just complacency I guess.This post has been deleted.
There is a sweet called clove rock that I love to eat on rare occasions. I will settle down with it and enjoy relaxing and having it alone with my thoughts.
I actually hate both the smell and taste of those sweets. Very much.
My occasional enjoyment of them however comes from a few other things. Mostly memory. It links me back to the days my dad used to take me to Croke Park to watch GAA. Or to Parnell Park to watch St Vincents who he used to play for.
When people really enjoy a food - to the point of making a whole ceremony out of having it - tea and coffee a big one here - it almost always starts with them loving the taste of the food. So people look at me funny when I say I hate the taste of my go to ceremony food.
It is hard for them to sit with the notion that my connection with the food did not pass through the logic-gateway (programmer speak sorry ) of taste first before everything else - let alone not to have passed through it _at all_.
Yes they are attracted to each other - I never suggested otherwise. I am just saying that gender had nothing to do with it. It was despite gender - not because of it - just like my relationship with my comfort food is despite the taste not because of it.
And I can genuinely entirely see how odd that appears (both the sex thing and the clove rock thing) to the 99% of people who do go through the same logic gate way as everyone else. It is hard to imagine people getting to the same place by a different path.
But so it is. People can reach the same place in life by different paths - even if 99.99999% of people before and after them reach that point the same way.
So that is what I mean - falsely labeling their sexuality is not going to indicate their sexual attractions from the past or the future. It is a label that simply would not correctly inform you about anything about them as individuals which is what I feel labels should do.It won't cure a headache save through the placebo effect(which is a strong effect to be fair) because homeopathy has absolutely zero evidence for efficacy. It's pseudo science and quackery. The second part of that sentence reads oddly. Surely if it pretends to treat headaches and depressions by definition it considers them conditions that warrant and have "cures"?
100% agree with your opening there but that is not even tangential to what I was saying. I will try to make clearer what I mean by the bit you think reads weirdly.
I was just pointing out the difference between a therapy that does nothing - but is claiming to influence an actual problem or condition that warrants curing - and one that does nothing but also pretends that the thing it is targetting is actually a problem to be cured in the first place when it is not.
I see three tiers here. The first is good - the second bad - and the third possibly worse but certainly equivilant:
1) Things that claim to cure something that is real and a problem.
2) Things that claim to cure something that is real but only the people offering the cure act like it is a problem.
3) Things that claim to cure something that they have made up and is not even a thing let alone a problem.
I think homeopathy is tier 1 in that list. I think Gay Conversion therapy is tier 2 there. Certain aspects of religion for example would be in tier 3 where they often invent the problem and the cure in parallel.0 -
Prominent US ‘gay conversion therapist’ David Matheson divorces wife and comes out as gay
https://news.sky.com/story/prominent-us-gay-conversion-therapist-david-matheson-divorces-wife-and-comes-out-as-gay-11616605
There's a surprise! 0 -
Deleted User wrote: »Prominent US ‘gay conversion therapist’ David Matheson divorces wife and comes out as gay
https://news.sky.com/story/prominent-us-gay-conversion-therapist-david-matheson-divorces-wife-and-comes-out-as-gay-11616605
There's a surprise!
I for one am shocked. Shocked! :eek:0 -
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