Can gays bee straight? | New Scientist

Contents:

• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
• CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?
• I TRIED TO NVERT MYSELF OM GAY TO STRAIGHT. IT DON’T WORK
• IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
• CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?
• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY
• SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS
• MEET THE STRAIGHT MEN WHO ARE TERRIFIED THEY ARE GAY
• GAY OR STRAIGHT, A MALE IS A MALE IS A MALE
• HOW TO LEAD A HETEROSEXUAL LIFTYLE IF YOU ARE GAY
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

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

When I was young, I was told the whole world was divid to heterosexual men and heterosexual women, bar a small number of unfortunate ‘homosexuals’ of both genrs and possibly an even smaller number a third tegory, ‘bisexuals’, who ‘swung both ways’; pl, fally, a ty band of wretched creatur who were physilly not que one thg or the other. He found that almost half his male terviewe had reacted sexually to both genrs; more than a third had had a homosexual enunter; and more than one ten reported roughly equally strong sexual rpons to both men and women.

CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?

That's the qutn Atralian news show You Can't Ask That posed to gay men s latt you're not faiar, You Can't Ask That is a miseri on the Atralian Broadstg Corporatn's (ABC) iview service where they ask "outrageo, unfortable, and shockg qutns to unver the tth behd some of the most margalized and misunrstood Atralians.

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

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?

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.

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.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE 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. “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.

[iii] Daryl Hood, Garrett Prtage, June Crawford, Tania Sorrell, and Chris O’Reilly, "Report on the BANGAR Project: Bisexual Activy/non Gay Attachment Rearch Targetg Strategi Intifitn Project. Ramamurthi, Cleo Manago, Serg Ava, and Marv Jon, “Sexual Behavr, Sexual Inty, and Substance Abe Among Low-Ine Bisexual and Non-Gay-Intifyg Ain Amerin Men Who Have Sex wh Men, ” Archiv of Sexual Behavr 37, no.

CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?

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.

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.

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY

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 [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.

SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS

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. 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. " 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.

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.

We currently have a survey vtigatn unrway that explor some of the posive out of “bromosexual” iendships, cludg our theory that gay men and straight men n be optimal wg men for one another. Send, recent rearch has argued that genr and sexual orientatn might not be as black and whe as prevly thought, which opens up new avenu for explorg how gay and straight men n relate to one another.

MEET THE STRAIGHT MEN WHO ARE TERRIFIED THEY ARE GAY

If a straight guy and his gay male iend are ls rigid about their masculy and sexualy, they’ll probably be more likely to discs tails about their sexual and romantic liv openly wh one another. In short, women are able to tst the datg advice om gay male iends bee they know their gay iends don’t have any ulterr motiv: They’re not tryg to hook up wh them or pete wh them for guys.

GAY OR STRAIGHT, A MALE IS A MALE IS A MALE

Jt as a gay man might be able to pass on advice about women to his straight iend, a straight man uld nnect his gay male iend wh another sirable gay man, sce neher the gay man nor his straight iend are petg for the same person. We believe that havg a tstworthy nfidant to help wh romantic pursus is one of the major reasons straight and gay men are leavg the fort of their same-sex, same-orientatn iend groups to form “bromosexual” iendships. Among the upl, when the gay, lbian, or bisexual partner out, a third of the upl break up immediately; another third stay together for one to two years and then spl; the remag third try to make their marriag work.

Crics, though, say the study's subjects may be ludg themselv and that the subject group was scientifilly valid bee many of them were referred by anti-gay relig Robert Spzer, a psychiatry profsor at Columbia Universy, said he began his study as a skeptic — believg, as major mental health anizatns do, that sexual orientatn nnot be changed, and attempts to do so n even e Spzer's study, which has not yet been published or reviewed, seems to dite otherwise.

HOW TO LEAD A HETEROSEXUAL LIFTYLE IF YOU ARE GAY

Spzer says he spoke to 143 men and 57 women who say they changed their orientatn om gay to straight, and nclud that 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of women reached what he lled good heterosexual functng — a staed, lovg heterosexual relatnship wh the past year and gettg enough emotnal satisfactn to rate at least a seven on a 10-pot said those who changed their orientatn had satisfyg heterosexual sex at least monthly and never or rarely thought of someone of the same sex durg also found that 89 percent of men and 95 percent of women were bothered not at all or only slightly by unwanted homosexual feelgs.

Spzer argu that highly motivated gays n fact change that preference — wh a lot of Study, Old DebateBut crics have challenged the study, even before was formally unveiled at today's ssn of the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn's annual meetg New Orleans, which was jammed wh televisn meras reportg on the prentatn. Ariel Shidlo and Michael Shroer, two psychologists private practice New York Cy, found that of 215 homosexual subjects who received therapy to change their sexual orientatn, the majory failed to do so. "In fact, he said, many of his subjects had been sponnt and even suicidal themselv, for the oppose reason — "precisely bee they had prevly thought there was no hope for them, and they had been told by many mental health profsnals that there was no hope for them, they had to jt learn to live wh their homosexual feelgs.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

"He said some velop such tremendo strs that they bee chronilly prsed, socially whdrawn or even Spzer says his study shows that some homosexuals makg some effort, ually for a few years, make the change. "The sample is terrible, totally tated, totally unreprentative of the gay and lbian muny, " said David Ellt, a spokman for the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force Spzer says while the people his sample were unual — more relig than the general populatn — don't mean their experienc n be dismissed.

"Conservative, anti-gay, anti-diversy folks are gog to embrace and they're gonna e for their own agenda to ph their pot of view that, y, you don't need equaly Amerin society for gay people bee they n change, " he said. "But Spzer — who scribed himself as a "Jewish, atheist, secular humanist" wh no axe to grd — says maybe there are gays who are happy beg gay and ex-gays who are happy beg straight, and that both sis serve more rpect. He rried out the same tt almost every night for the next three weeks, always wh the same searchg Inter mental health foms for answers to his private impasse, Darren beme nvced that he was sufferg om 'HOCD': a not officially regnised form of Obssive Compulsive Disorr fed by the fear of beg or beg homosexual.