The fact no one lik to adm: many gay men uld jt have easily been straight | The Spectator

Contents:

• SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS
• CAN GAYS TURN STRAIGHT?
• IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
• IS WILL BYERS GAY, BI, OR STRAIGHT? HIS SEXUALY EXPLAED
• LEGIMACY OF ‘CTOMER’ SUPREME COURT GAY RIGHTS SE RAIS ETHIL AND LEGAL FLAGS
• KEV SPACEY: I N’T TELL WHETHER MEN ARE GAY JT BY LOOKG AT THEM
• CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?
• I TRIED TO NVERT MYSELF OM GAY TO STRAIGHT. IT DON’T WORK
• ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL
• CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?
• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
• IS STRANGER THGS' WILL GAY? IT'S PLITED
• JAGUARS STRENGTH COACH KEV MAXEN COM OUT AS GAY
• “HELP ME CHANGE FROM GAY TO STRAIGHT”

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.

CAN GAYS TURN 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. "There's no doubt that many homosexuals who have been unsuccsful and, attemptg to change, bee prsed and their life be worse, " he said. "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. "We found that women our sample moved om a ls extreme homosexual to a more heterosexual level than did men, " Spzer says. 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.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?

"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. 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.

IS WILL BYERS GAY, BI, OR STRAIGHT? HIS SEXUALY EXPLAED

In the early 1970s, he spearhead the effort to get homosexualy removed om the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn's list of mental disorrs.

” Sexual orientatn (heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual) is a person’s inty as relat to the genr(s) to which they are attracted that physil, emotnal, magil way we associate wh romance, sex, domtic partnership, matrimony, and qutn of changg or “nvertg” rose to promence as the gay rights movement evolved.

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

Conversely, if sexual orientatn n’t be changed that weighs favor of grantg gay people protected-class legal stat, as we do for other groups intifiable by thgs they n’t change (e. Bee if ’s a choice that also weighs agast creatg laws to protect gay qutn, then, is twofold: 1]is sexual orientatn nate, and 2]n be changed? E., how a person be gay), here is what our leadg profsnal stutns have nclud:Amerin Psychologil Associatn: “There is no nsens among scientists about the exact reasons that an dividual velops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lbian orientatn.

"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.

KEV SPACEY: I N’T TELL WHETHER MEN ARE GAY JT BY LOOKG AT THEM

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.

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.

CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?

" 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.

” Many people, cludg sex rearchers and scientists, believe that sexual orientatn is like a sle wh entirely gay on one end and entirely straight on the other. Sometim a woman may have been a heterosexual relatnship for years and yet feel somethg is somehow "off;" and she may fd herself askg, "Is my hband gay?" Many women fd this qutn unthkable but acrdg to Bonnie Kaye, M.ED., an expert women married to gay men, is timated that 4 ln women have been, or are, married to gay men. Unfortunately, is timated that 50% of gay hbands hi their homosexualy om their wiv and don't reach this place of honty on their own.

I TRIED TO NVERT MYSELF OM GAY TO STRAIGHT. IT DON’T WORK

In many s, is the wife, who after spectg that somethg is wrong, mt nont the gay hband wh the evince, and only then n hontly be achieved. If turns out that a hband is, fact, gay, the fallout n be difficult to al wh, particularly for the straight partner. What's important to remember is that the hband's homosexualy is entirely his rponsibily and has nothg to do wh the wife.

Will Byers is gay, the actor Noah Schnapp nfirmed as much his terview wh Variety referencg his close relatnship wh Mike. This was probably the first ht that Will was ed gay and that he was jt simply stgglg wh his inty bee he was probably nfed about the thgs he felt ep wh himself. As such, the creators of the show are probably throwg hts that Will uld be gay but are still wonrg whether or not he actually believed that he was gay.

ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL

However, while Stranger Thgs has given out hts that Will uld be gay, Noah Schnapps went one step ahead and nfirmed Will’s sexualy his terview wh Variety. In a recent TikTok post that went viral, Noah Schnapp the actor that plays Will Byers Strange Thgs me out as gay. “When I fally told my iends and fay I was gay after beg sred the closet for 18 years and all they said was ‘we know, '”.

A Christian graphic artist who the Supreme Court said n refe to make weddg webs for gay upl poted durg her lawsu to a requt om a man named “Stewart” and his hband-to-be. Supreme Court led uld refe to make a weddg webse for gay upl had ced a requt om a man who says he never asked to work wh her.

CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?

Smh — who did not plan to start creatg weddg webs until her se was rolved — would first have to get a requt om a gay uple and refe, triggerg a possible plat agast her, the state argued. Osr-wng actor Kev Spacey has said he is attracted to mascule men but is not able to tell whether someone is gay jt by lookg at cross-examatn durg his trial on sex abe charg, the Hollywood star nied he was a “sexual bully” and told the jury he did not have a “power wand” to make people want to sleep wh about his sexual preferenc, Mr Spacey said he had prevly had romantic enunters wh men who would not scribe themselv as homosexual.

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.

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

" 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. I uldn’t take my ey off thor Holn Sheppard tried to ‘pray the gay away’ and now knows the trma associated wh the Holn Sheppard It was a hell of a disvery: I was attracted to other sixteen, this terrified me.

IS STRANGER THGS' WILL GAY? IT'S PLITED

This was regular, sual and normal: every lson I’d ever imbibed about homosexualy was that was I’d grown up watchg a fundamentalist Christian show, The Donut Club, which preached, a creepy kids’ song, how “life whout God’s love is like a donut, ’e there’s a hole the middle of your heart”.

JAGUARS STRENGTH COACH KEV MAXEN COM OUT AS GAY

I didn’t want to have a hole the middle of my heart, so I did what the webs three years, om 16 to 19, I tried to pray the gay away.

I’ve only spoken about aged people are forced to programs signed to nvert them om gay to straight, cludg Amerin thor Garrard Conley. If anythg, the self-nial only ma me even hornier for experience is borne out, over and over, the stori of anyone who has been through gay nversn therapy.

Conley is married, too, and the people who facilated his nversn therapy have sce admted they are gay, and severed their ti to the ex-gay movement. Vcent and the Grenad, where gay sex is still homelsns to ongog physil and verbal abe, the gay muny the small natn of some 100, 000 people says is unr nstant threat. Vcent, anal sex is punishable by up to 10 years prison, while “gross cency” wh another person of the same sex is punishable by up to five years, acrdg to lonial-era laws that are mon the socially nservative Caribbean rarely voked, the rights group and a lol activist said the laws help legimize hostily and abe agast gay people.

“HELP ME CHANGE FROM GAY TO STRAIGHT”

Vcent who are livg abroad filed a se to challenge lol laws crimalizg gay sex that activists say should be stck down.

”Human Rights Watch terviewed more than 20 members of the island’s LGBTQ muny who shared their stori but were not intified to protect them, notg that lol police are often openly discrimatory toward gay people who seek help. Several reported that their fai are homophobic and physilly and verbally abed them, g them to bee homels and promptg some to nsir also stggle to fd jobs amid a high unemployment rate and said they face discrimatn, cludg a 19-year-old gay man who said he has rorted to beggg: “Sometim I am so hungry.