Why Straight Women Are Attracted to Gay Men | Psychology Today New Zealand

Contents:

• SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS
• CAN SOME GAY MEN AND LBIANS CHANGE THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATN? 200 PARTICIPANTS REPORTG A CHANGE OM HOMOSEXUAL TO HETEROSEXUAL ORIENTATN
• 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
• WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN
• MEET THE STRAIGHT MEN WHO ARE TERRIFIED THEY ARE GAY
• FOR GAY MEN, AN ATTRACTNTO A DIFFERENT KD OF SCENT
• WHY DO SOME GAY MEN INTIFY AS "STRAIGHT-ACTG" AND HOW IS IT RELATED TO WELL-BEG?
• WHY IS SUCH A BIG AL WHEN A GAY PERSON HS ON A STRAIGHT PERSON? WHY N'T WE JT ACCEPT PEOPLE FOR WHO THEY ARE?
• FIFTY SHAS OF GAY
• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

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.

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

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.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?

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.

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

"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.

"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.

WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN

"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. 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.

Eher some gay men and lbians, followg reparative therapy, actually change their predomantly homosexual orientatn to a predomantly heterosexual orientatn or some gay men and women nstct elaborate self-ceptive narrativ (or even lie) which they claim to have changed their sexual orientatn, or both. "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. 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.

MEET THE STRAIGHT MEN WHO ARE TERRIFIED THEY ARE 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.

FOR GAY MEN, AN ATTRACTNTO A DIFFERENT KD OF SCENT

" 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. 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.

WHY DO SOME GAY MEN INTIFY AS "STRAIGHT-ACTG" AND HOW IS IT RELATED TO WELL-BEG?

But Diamond and other rearchers have piled numero se studi of gay men who spent years feelg (and actg) fully and fortably homosexual, only then to fall unexpectedly love wh a heterosexual woman.

WHY IS SUCH A BIG AL WHEN A GAY PERSON HS ON A STRAIGHT PERSON? WHY N'T WE JT ACCEPT PEOPLE FOR WHO THEY ARE?

In general, gay men, and gay women, too, tend to be more fearls than their straight unterparts—particularly straight men—bee they’ve ually experienced bullyg and prejudice bee of their sexual orientatn.

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. While he asserts that 'HOCD', an acronym ed by sufferers sharg their stori onle, isn't officially classified the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM), he says that the irratnal fear of beg or beg gay falls firmly wh the umbrella of Obssive Compulsive Disorr. Darren says he grew up a "liberal-ish" hoehold and believ that homosexualy would have been accepted by his fay and iends, but 's easy to see how a ls tolerant upbrgg uld turn homosexualy to a e for anxiety.

Nowadays, the majory of tablished OCD chari – cludg OCDUK, OCDActn and Md - addrs tsive sexual thoughts as a mon trope of the disorr, but that has done ltle to stem a backlash om some high-profile skeptics wh the psychologil muny, who believe that HOCD is at bt misguid, and at worst homophobia s most pernic guise. "My psychologist jt looked bored and hand me a leaflet"In November 2015, BuzzFeed UK's LGBT edor Patrick Stdwick published an article tled '"World's Leadg Anxiety Expert" Offers Treatment For People Who Worry That They're Gay' that heavily cricised the practice of a Harley Street therapist named Charl Ln who, acrdg to the se, boasted of a "100% succs rate" the treatment of "HOCD" the time the article was wrten, Ln's publishers were dubbg him as "the world's leadg thory on anxiety", and his webse ma hefty promis to sexually-nfed OCD sufferers.

FIFTY SHAS OF GAY

"If you are experiencg HOCD … and the thoughts , " the se read, "you are not gay and when you do my Method to elimate this and your other anxieti you'll fd out why you thk you might be and why you certaly are NOT! Elizabeth Peel, chair of the Brish Psychologil Society's 'Psychology of Sexuali' sectn and a profsor of Communitn & Social Interactn at Loughborough Universy, stat wh the piece that: "The term 'Homosexual OCD' is simply nversn therapy unr another guise and somethg we strongly nmn as damagg. And an age where even the Vice Print of the Uned Stat has exprsed tac support for the practice, 's unrstandable that high profile figur the psychologil muny would nmn anythg that uld fuel the rhetoric of homophobic 'therapists', or provi party-le approval of their methods.

After all, spe recent headways by LGBT groups and nunciatn om former Print Barrack Obama, gay nversn therapy is still legal across the US and only six stat have banned the practice relatn to mors. "If a client who is gay but anx about the nsequenc of acceptg themselv or g out go to a therapist who has an agenda about homosexualy, then of urse that therapist isn't workg the bt tert of their clients.

"Rose Bretécher believ the accatn HOCD is jt 'ternalised homophobia' is rrect, but don't blame anyone for leapg to such a ncln: "People's unrstandg is only as good as the rmatn available out there – and awarens is still pretty poor. "Over the years, therapists here […] have treated many homosexuals (male and female) who are plagued by obssive fears of beg "straight", and who suffer equally when OCD attacks their sexual inty, " stat their webse, which also offers an onle HOCD tt.

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

"If someone is fearful of beg gay bee beg gay reprents to them abandonment by their fay, or rejectn, or experiencg vlence or abe, then you would help them to accept themselv unndnally as a gay man.

This experience was a major motivator for her unrtakg this work:“I wanted to unrstand where my experienc fted wh those of other women, pecially those who may have received treatment for female homosexualy the past. In the archiv of the Gay Liberatn Front, we found acunts om the early 1970s targetg var psychiatric hospals London, specifilly the Mdsley Hospal, for s e of aversn therapy to treat homosexualy. Aversn therapy was one of the flagship treatments the behavurist non, and some psychologists who believed they were succsfully treatg male homosexualy were eager to tt out their treatments on women.

For example, while gay men were enuraged to be attracted to ‘soft porn’ imag of naked women and given electric shocks when viewg pictur of naked men, women were given shocks if they lgered over sexualised imag of women. Her rearch terts clu mental health service er knowledge, mental health social re and policy, mental health and lbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) populatns and the history of Woodward is an award-wng Brish photographer based London and Cornwall.