Straight Women and Their Gay Hbands | Psychology Today

Contents:

• SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS
• IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
• ‘EX-GAY’ MEN FIGHT BACK AGAST VIEW THAT HOMOSEXUALY CAN’T BE CHANGED
• STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• CAN SOME GAY MEN AND LBIANS CHANGE THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATN? 200 PARTICIPANTS REPORTG A CHANGE OM HOMOSEXUAL TO HETEROSEXUAL ORIENTATN
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS

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. 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.

"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.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?

Another 23 percent were referred by the Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy, which says most of s members nsir homosexualy a velopmental disorr. "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.

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

Rick McKnon, who is openly gay and works as an edor at the weekly Seattle Gay News, is ncerned the study rults n be ed to forward an anti-gay agenda. "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.

"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.

‘EX-GAY’ MEN FIGHT BACK AGAST VIEW THAT HOMOSEXUALY CAN’T BE CHANGED

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. 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. 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. 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. Ksey diststed btal tegorisatn but, wishg to unt, nstcted what me close to a slidg sle ntag seven gradatns between exclive heterosexualy and exclive homosexualy.

STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS

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. All all, I’ve probably slept wh as many straight men as self–intifyg gay or bisexual on: I doubt most were lyg, and some s have reason to know they weren’t. In what pass for the gay ‘muny’, there’s somethg of a taboo about admtg, even to ourselv, that que a few of (not me) uld, wh a ltle axg and self-disciple, be ‘straight’.

There exist strong reasons for this taboo among gays: first, ‘we n’t help ’ was absolutely central to our early pch for equaly, and we need to believe . He spent 17 years a doomed marriage while battlg his urg all day, he said, and dreamg about them all recent years, as he probed his childhood unselg and at men’s weekend retreats wh nam like People Can Change and Journey Into Manhood, “my homosexual feelgs have nearly vanished, ” Mr.

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

Smh is one of thoands of men across the untry, often known as “ex-gay, ” who believe they have changed their most basic sexual sir through some batn of therapy and prayer — somethg most scientists say has never been proved possible and is likely an men are often closeted, fearg ridicule om gay advot who acce them of self-ceptn and, at the same time, fearg rejectn by their church muni as tated oddi. Jerry Brown signed a law banng e of wily discreded sexual “nversn therapi” for mors — an asslt on their own validy, some ex-gay men feel. ”But many ex-gays have ntued to seek help om such therapists and men’s retreats, sayg their own experience is proof enough that the treatment n Bzer, 35, was so angered by the California ban, which will take effect on Jan.

He was tormented as a Christian teenager by his homosexual attractns, but now, after men’s retreats and an onle urse of reparative therapy, he says he feels glimmers of attractn for women and is thkg about datg.

CAN SOME GAY MEN AND LBIANS CHANGE THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATN? 200 PARTICIPANTS REPORTG A CHANGE OM HOMOSEXUAL TO HETEROSEXUAL ORIENTATN

Bzer, who plans to seek a doctorate psychology and bee a therapist ex-gays guard their secret but quietly meet support groups around the untry, sharg ias on how to avoid temptatns or, perhaps, broach their past wh a female date.

The theori, which have also been adopted by nservative relig opponents of gay marriage, hold that male homosexualy emerg om fay dynamics — often a distant father and an overbearg mother — or om early sexual abe. Spzer, publicly repudiated as valid his own 2001 study suggtg that some people uld change their sexual orientatn; the study had been wily ced by fenrs of the this summer, the ex-gay world was nvulsed when Alan Chambers, the print of Exod Internatnal, the largt Christian mistry for people fightg same-sex attractn, said he did not believe anyone uld be rid of homosexual Nilosi, a psychologist and clil director of the Thomas Aquas Psychologil Clic Enco, Calif., which he scrib as the largt reparative therapy clic the world, disagreed. “I believe that all people are heterosexual but that some have a homosexual problem, and some of the people attempt to rolve their nflict by adoptg a socpolil label lled ‘gay.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

Jeremy, who did not want his last name prted to avoid embarrassg his parents, said that om his teens until three years ago he lived as a gay man, at tim havg sex almost daily. Crics like Wayne Ben, the executive director of Tth Ws Out, which fights antigay bias, liken such therapy to fah healg, wh apparent effects that later fa also pot out that the failur of such therapy are seldom reported.

Swaim is unemployed and liv wh his parents Orange County, Calif., where his father is a pastor of the Evangelil Friends Church of the tried the gay life, but “ jt don’t settle wh me, ” he said, and ultimately cid “there’s got to be a way to heal this afflictn.

A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 16 of the New York edn wh the headle: ‘Ex-Gay’ Men Fight Back Agast View That Homosexualy Can’t Be Changed. When he told his mother he was gay, she threw him out of the hoe, and the only place he uld fd belongg, safety, and inty was the gay muny. A homosexual orientatn isn’t the actual problem; ’s the symptom of a eper issue–legimate, God-given needs for relatnship and timacy that have been channeled unhealthy and sful directns.