Many young men intify as mostly straight — a sexual orientatn that is not que straight but also, they say, ls gay than bisexualy
Contents:
- SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS
- IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
- CAN SOME GAY MEN AND LBIANS CHANGE THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATN? 200 PARTICIPANTS REPORTG A CHANGE OM HOMOSEXUAL TO HETEROSEXUAL ORIENTATN
- CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?
- ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
- THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
- CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?
- THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS
Sexual orientatn refers to the endurg physil, romantic and/or emotnal attractn to members of the same and/or other genrs, cludg lbian, gay, bisexual and straight orientatns.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
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.
CAN SOME GAY MEN AND LBIANS CHANGE THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATN? 200 PARTICIPANTS REPORTG A CHANGE OM HOMOSEXUAL TO HETEROSEXUAL ORIENTATN
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.
CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?
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.
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. "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.
‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
"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.
THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN 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.
CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?
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.
THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
" 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. Posn statements of the major mental health anizatns the Uned Stat state that there is no scientific evince that a homosexual sexual orientatn n be changed by psychotherapy, often referred to as "reparative therapy.
" This study tted the hypothis that some dividuals whose sexual orientatn is predomantly homosexual n, wh some form of reparative therapy, bee predomantly heterosexual. The participants were 200 self-selected dividuals (143 mal, 57 femal) who reported at least some mimal change om homosexual to heterosexual orientatn that lasted at least 5 years.