Can gays bee straight? | New Scientist

Contents:

• CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?
• IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
• CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?
• I TRIED TO NVERT MYSELF OM GAY TO STRAIGHT. IT DON’T WORK
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?
• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
• SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS

CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?

The article rais the qutn of changg sexual preference: Can a man whose past sexual practice has been almost exclively heterosexual change his practice to homosexual after beg sced by another man?

" Contrary to this rponse, the thor prents three s which the men swch om heterosexual to homosexual relatnships (exclively two s) by means of a sexual enunter iated by another man. The evince that the men experienced a genue change sexual preference, shows that life-long, exclive homosexualy, as articulated by gay rhetoric, is more a statement about the culture which occurs than the "sence" of homosexualy.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?

"If [a patient] n accept his bodily homoerotic experience while stayg nnected to the therapist, " he wrote The Paradox of Self-Acceptance, "the sexual feelg soon transforms to somethg else: the regnn of eper, pa-generated emotnal needs which have nothg to do wh sexualy.

Both APAs have led that the therapi are unscientific and possibly harmful — not to mentn unnecsary, sce homosexualy was officially -classified as an illns 1973, and therefore n't be "cured. The few that did have "high-qualy" evince "show that endurg change to an dividual's sexual orientatn is unmon, " and that treatments tend to change sexual orientatn may e harm, cludg prsn and mental Dark AgHomosexualy was officially labeled a mental illns the U.

Another method was satiatn therapy, which a subject was told to masturbate over and over while verbally scribg his homosexual fantasi, until they disappeared — or, at least, "therapi" were generally effective — the person remaed attracted to the same sex — or over-effective — the person was trmatized and lost all sexual aroal entirely.

CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?

They "were ed whout people thkg about whether they were humane, " Glassgold all treatments were so gome: Lnel Ovey, a Columbia Universy psychoanalyst and thor of Homosexualy and Psdohomosexualy, created a behavral method the 1960s. Ovey studied a clilly disturbed group of patients and summarized their unnsc mds as follows: "I am a failure = I am not a man = I am strated = I am a woman = I am a homosexual.

" His view mirrored the belief of many clicians at the time: that homosexualy was based on a phobia of the oppose non-aversive treatments followg this theory foced on buildg "tnal skills" like datg techniqu, assertivens trag, and affectn achg to crease teractns wh women.

I TRIED TO NVERT MYSELF OM GAY TO STRAIGHT. IT DON’T WORK

Cognive therapists, meanwhile, ma a few attempts to change homosexuals' thought patterns by reamg sir — redirectg thoughts away om homosexual activy — or through hypnosis. Still, SOCE is still beg practiced wh a small group of mental-health practners, most of whom ter to a populatn whose relig beliefs strictly bar homosexualy. IN THESE days when no TV s is plete whout a gay character or two, when openly gay men and women are erng ci, and when all thory matters of style and fashn has been ced to the queer eye, you might thk that succs-oriented heterosexuals would be lg up for nversn to homosexualy.

I uldn’t take my ey off thor Holn Sheppard tried to ‘pray the gay away’ and now knows the trma associated wh the Holn Sheppard It was a hell of a disvery: I was attracted to other sixteen, this terrified me. This was regular, sual and normal: every lson I’d ever imbibed about homosexualy was that was I’d grown up watchg a fundamentalist Christian show, The Donut Club, which preached, a creepy kids’ song, how “life whout God’s love is like a donut, ’e there’s a hole the middle of your heart”. If anythg, the self-nial only ma me even hornier for experience is borne out, over and over, the stori of anyone who has been through gay nversn therapy.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

Bisexual men are perceived to sound more mascule than men who are straight, acrdg to a study of Atralian subjects.Amics at the Universy of Sydney pared the voic of gay, straight and bisexual men a study volvg 160 people.In the rearch led by clil psychologist Jam Morandi, people were reced to analyse the voic of 60 men, 20 of whom were gay, 20 straight and 20 bisexual. They were then asked to rate the men on their sexual orientatn g a sle om zero (exclively heterosexual) to 10 (exclively homosexual).Listeners were also asked to rate each man’s perceived level of femy or masculy the voic on a siar sle.The men volved the study were asked to rerd themselv on a smartphone recg the first two l of the Atralian natnal anthem.Voice sampl were then modified to remove any background noise while volume levels were ma the same to ensure nsistency.Rults om the study showed listeners uld distguish between gay and straight men’s voic wh an accuracy of 62 per cent, apparently nsistent wh prev rearch.However, the study participants uld not terme any differenc between bisexual and straight men’s voic wh any gree of accuracy. The thors said their rearch showed bisexual men’s voic were perceived as beg more exclively attracted to women pared wh both gay and straight men’s voic.Bisexual men’s voic were rated as more mascule than both gay and straight men’s voic.Rearchers claimed the abily to intify a man’s bisexual inty om his voice alone uld have cril social implitns such as helpg to rce feelgs of alienatn.‘Voice may unter visibily many bisexuals feel’An abstract of the study, tled Can listeners tect if a man is bisexual om his voice alone, reads: “The prent study examed whether bisexual men n be intified om their voic ak to how gay men n be intified on their voice alone.“If this is the se, voice may be an important target of discrimatn on the one hand but may also unter the visibily many bisexuals feel (if their bisexual inti n be apprehend by their voice alone, whout explic disclosure required).“The fdgs may also she light on whether bisexual male voic, like gay male voic, differ om straight voic terms of their genr non-nformy – a qutn that to date has not been examed.”But amics noted the rearch was limed on the grounds all men who participated the study are Atralian, which may not be reflected among wir cultur.And the thors nced the study did not ntrol for the rerdg environment or microphone-to-mouth distance, which uld have affected the qualy of the voice sampl.The thors said the fdgs suggted that while the voic of bisexual men the sample were perceived as more mascule and attracted to femal, listeners did not associate this imprsn wh bisexualy.As a rult, while bisexual men may appear to be at lower risk of facg voice-based intifitn and discrimatn than gay men, they may often be mistaken as beg straight.The study was published the Journal of Sex Rearch.

Somehow, the origal “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” premiered on Bravo two s ago this month, prentg five gay men – each specializg a specific liftyle area – as they scend upon a (ually) heterosexual male subject need of some support, whether was wh clothg choic, groomg, anizatn or perhaps an unrlyg issue around self nfince.

It was a novel take on the makeover ncept, not only terms of beg one of the first monstroly succsful programs the then-nascent realm of realy TV, but also one of the first tl to feature not one – but five – gay people as the leads. Krsley agreed, sayg, “We meet people all the time who are probably their thirti now, who say, ‘I me om a very nservative fay, we were very relig, “Gay” was not somethg that was ever spoken about our home, and your show allowed to at least have that nversatn, if not make easier for me to e out.

THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT

He add that of urse, isn’t only gay people who approach them wh spiratnal msag, and that at the time the origal show aired, the st saw how their visibily as gay people wh a larger straight world was beg received firsthand.

And for those who cricized the origal seri for rercg stereotyp by havg a gay fashnista or bety expert swoop to tidy thgs up, Colls creds his rint foodie Allen for a memorable moment at the show’s first NBC upont Los Angel back 2003, when he faced a slew of reporters and had the perfect retort.

SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS

“Ted fally grabbed , really grabbed a hold of the answer, which was like, ‘Yeah, we are, as a matter of fact, owng the clich around the fact that gays have a different perspective, have a unique visn and perspective of a lot of different thgs. My last post scribed a populatn of mal who nsir themselv heterosexual, do not label themselv gay or bisexual, chew volvement wh the LGBT muny, are often married or romantilly volved wh an oppose-sex partner, and who engage sex wh mal or exprs the sire to do so.

Due large part to the popularizatn of the topic the btsellg 2005 book On the Down Low: A Journey to the Liv of 'Straight' Black Men Who Sleep wh Men, [i] Lato and Ain-Amerin men are the primary subjects rearch wh non-gay intified MSM. One of the earlit studi, "The Bisexual and Non-Gay Attached Rearch Project" om the early 1990s, found that participants engagg same-sex sexual behavr but not intifyg as gay or bisexual scribed themselv as “kky, ” “normal, ” or “jt a guy. In tally, the men terviewed reported that if sexual activy between men was anonymo, experimental, ocsnal, or if substance e was volved, the act was not “gay.