It Is Now 50 Years Sce Gay People Were “Cured" | Psychology Today

Contents:

• THE END OF GAYS: GAY MARRIAGE AND THE DECLE OF THE HOMOSEXUAL POPULATN
• IT IS NOW 50 YEARS SCE GAY PEOPLE WERE “CURED"
• JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• PULSE SURVIVOR SAYS HE IS NO LONGER GAY, HAS FOUND CHRIST
• AUTHOR WHO ONCE EMBRACED HOMOSEXUALY EXPLAS WHY HE NO LONGER CALLS HIMSELF 'GAY' (INTERVIEW)

THE END OF GAYS: GAY MARRIAGE AND THE DECLE OF THE HOMOSEXUAL POPULATN

The argument is this: gay sex alone n’t produce children, and for tras to evolve, they have to be passed onto children, who get some form of petive advantage om them. In a paper published yterday by myself and De Universy profsor Brian Hare, we propose human sexualy (cludg homosexualy) evolved as an oute of the evolutn of creased sociabily humans.

IT IS NOW 50 YEARS SCE GAY PEOPLE WERE “CURED"

In our clost primate relative, the bonobo, straight and gay sex have val rol play, social transactns, barter of food, same-sex social bondg and bondg between matg pairs. Gay sex and attractn may have evolved bee dividuals wh a gree of same-sex attractn benefed om greater social mobily, tegratn and stronger same-sex social bonds.

Many studi sce the pneerg rearch of Aled Ksey and lleagu have emphasised that sexual mori occur across all cultur, and the levels of gay and bisexual people populatns have been que stable over time.

Our hypothis predicts that bisexualy and people who intify as “mostly straight” should be more mon than people who intify as exclively gay, and this is the se. Our hypothis for the evolutn of homosexualy would predict this kd of variatn human sexualy, and n help expla why is generally stable across cultur. It is admtedly odd to thk that a progrsive, humanarian shift attus toward gays and lbians might lead, ironilly, to a noticeable cle the homosexual populatn.

JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

Yet this is precisely what I predict will happen over the very long urse of natural selectn should the societal-level normalizatn of adult homosexual relatnships, such as is happeng currently wh the triumphant legalizatn of gay marriage my new home state of New York, ntu happily on s way.

) Not so very long ago, the ncept of “gay marriage” was so far om beg a legal possibily s leral sense that most listeners would have probably terpreted this phrase to mean a closeted gay man married to a woman, or a lbian to a man.

In one extensive study 1978, for example, rearchers Alan Bell and Mart Weberg, factorg ethnic differenc, found that 35 percent of gay whe mal, and 13 percent of gay black mal, reported havg been married to a woman. And Bell and Weberg’s figur almost certaly unrreport the actual equency of such relatnships, too, sce their data e om surveys of sexual orientatn llected durg an unapologetilly homophobic era.

PULSE SURVIVOR SAYS HE IS NO LONGER GAY, HAS FOUND CHRIST

In other words, the statistics only take to acunt those dividuals prevly or currently a mixed-orientatn marriage willg to acknowledge their primary homosexual leangs. ) Still, many studi have sce examed the psychologil experienc of those who acknowledge beg mixed-orientatn marriag—cludg motivatns to enter to such a marriage to beg wh, ternalized homophobia, self-awarens and acceptance, relig iology, experimentg wh open relatnships, and so on—om the perspective of the homosexual as well as om that of the heterosexual spoe.

AUTHOR WHO ONCE EMBRACED HOMOSEXUALY EXPLAS WHY HE NO LONGER CALLS HIMSELF 'GAY' (INTERVIEW)

One tertg sex difference, reported 1985 by Universy of Mnota psychologist Eli Coleman, is that lbians tend to marry men at younger ag (mean age of 21) than did gay men marryg women (mean age of 24).

Lbians also reported beg ls aware than gay men of their own homosexual orientatn upon enterg such ill-ftg marriag and a slower realizatn of their same-sex attractns.

And for our purpos, the most relevant fdgs for the qutn we started off wh—which is whether the creasg public support for gay marriage will lead, ironilly, to the eventual cle of the homosexual populatn—is the fact that most homosexuals mixed-orientatn marriag have had at least one child wh their spoe. Although the precise geic mechanisms unrlyg homosexualy are still relatively unknown, we do know that, however the mechanisms actually work, there are ed clear, ntributg geic factors unrlyg homosexual orientatn.