Can gays bee straight? | New Scientist

Contents:

• IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
• CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?
• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
• LEGIMACY OF ‘CTOMER’ SUPREME COURT GAY RIGHTS SE RAIS ETHIL AND LEGAL FLAGS
• MEET THE STRAIGHT MEN WHO ARE TERRIFIED THEY ARE GAY
• CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?

Joseph Nilosi, a psychologist Enco, Calif., says he n rid adults, teens, and even children of homosexualy. "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.

CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?

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.

He was unsuccsful, and nclud that attempts to change homosexual orientatn were likely to fail. Given that homosexual activy was also crimally prosecuted the U.

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. It was based on the ia that homosexualy origated om a fear of takg on the normal quali of one's genr.

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

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. Can sctn make straight men gay?

LEGIMACY OF ‘CTOMER’ SUPREME COURT GAY RIGHTS SE RAIS ETHIL AND LEGAL FLAGS

J Homosex. 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?

To those who believe that homosexual preference is homosexual orientatn, an nate blogil predisposn, the answer is a roundg "no.

MEET THE STRAIGHT MEN WHO ARE TERRIFIED THEY ARE GAY

" Contrary to this rponse, the thor prents three s which the men swch om heterosexual to homosexual relatnships (exclively two s) by means of a sexual enunter iated by another man. The thor creds part of the change to the gay liberatn movement which rcued homosexual sire om the hidn, forbidn, and shameful. 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.

Gay liberatn and g out Mexi. AIDS knowledge and sexual behavr among Mexin gay and bisexual men. The Frdian nstctn of sexualy: the gay foundatns of heterosexualy and straight homophobia.

Youth, inty, and homosexualy: the changg shape of sexual life ntemporary Brazil. The formatn of homosexual inti.

CAN GAYS BEE 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. How many ‘homosexuals’ were there?

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.

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.