What's The Medical Prognosis - Gay For Life Or Not?

MayorBob.

Posted to SciTech on Thu Jul 12, 2007 at 07:36:43 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Almost a decade has passed since when being gay was considered a mental disease. But, even though the psychiatric community has agreed there's nothing basically wrong with being gay, it's still not sure about the best way to treat gays seeking psychological counseling. Now, a task force from the American Psychological Association (APA) will begin conducting a review on its policy of how best to treat homosexuals.

The basic dilemma occurs because there is still a belief among some practitioners that gays can be "cured" of their homosexuality. The task force will be focusing on the clinical treatment known as conversion or reparative therapy. This therapy is promoted by the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and conservative religious groups like Focus on the Family. The latter considers homosexuality to be a sin which must, and can, be eradicated. NARTH sees homosexuality as a condition which can be changed, particularly if the patient is seeking to be treated for "unwanted attractions."

The APA's position is "there is no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of 'reparative therapy' as a treatment to change one's sexual orientation." The APA is further opposed to the use of reparative therapy which presumes homosexuality as a disease. However, the APA didn't totally dismiss reparative therapy, particularly where the client is seeking to be cured of "unwanted attractions" - it merely ruled that no therapy could be begun without "informed consent" of gay and lesbian clients.

The APA received a joint letter from NARTH and the religious groups expressing "concern" the task force will return with findings which won't protect the right to proper treatment for gays who condemn gay sex for religious reasons. According to the letter, "psychologists should assist clients to develop lives that they value, even if that means they decline to identify as homosexual." Psychiatrist Jack Drescher, a task force member, said conservative groups "don't acknowledge" the potential for harm to a gay patient who is counseled to "suppress or change" his or her sexual orientation. Joseph Nicolosi, the president of NARTH, believes the task force will report back that reparative therapy should be banned - a recommendation he plans on fighting. A spokesperson from Focus on the Family also predicted a negative report on the therapies because "the APA doesn't have a good track record of listening to other views." An APA spokesperson said the task force would base its findings on "scientific research, not ideology."

< Sir, I believe you've had enough (children)!

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Tags: edited by Port1080, written by MayorBob, gays, homosexuality, psychology, psychiatry, reparative therapy (all tags)

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11	Hmmn uncarved block. Tue Jul 17, 2007 at 12:27:34 PM EST 5.00 (interesting)

If by "ignoring other views" the topic is Recovered_memory_therapy in order to uncover massive Satanic ritual abuse around the US, then I have little sympathy for complaints by Focus on the Family-- not because they're Christian, but because recovered or repressed memory treatments were attacked and/or debunked no matter what the source. (From what I could find on-line, Frank Minirth and Paul Meier, early and strong advocates of recovered memory haven't changed their mind, and Focus on the Family still publishes them in pamphlets. A personal, rather impassioned take on the mess can be found here.) There may be other thing that spokesman had in mind, but this was the biggest sticking point I could think of right away.
If the conservative critics of this APA panel were smart, or at least willing to appear to set aside ideology for a bit, they could argue that reparative therapy fits in with a larger societal urge to modify or remove all sorts of behaviors and/or physical imperfections. Smoking, drinking, a negative outlook, anger management, Seasonal Affective Disorder-- genetic predisposition or not, there's someone out there willing to try and help you change your life for the better. Is it physical and not mental? Well, a certain loss of potency was once considered normal for men as they aged, but you can hardly watch a day of television (especially sports) without being sold hard on pills. And in a market where folks are given the chance to bleach their asses to improve their self image, reparative therapy looks a lot less sinister. Or at least that's one argument; the bigger issue is that this isn't the 50s, or even the 70s, and gay rights have become a part of the mainstream. Somehow I don't expect someone like James Dobson standing up and saying this was a good thing, though . . .
In my own opinion, though, this is all going to be moot in ten or twenty years anyway, as the pharmaceutical industry will supersede the psychiatrists, in much the same way as happened with depression and mental illness. (Something Jung foresaw and approved of near the end of his life, BTW.) I believe- and it is just my belief- that there will be enough of a market for drug makers to take a chance on the research, as bisexual men and women who want to remove or resist temptation in their marriages will seek medication to help. (Seeking medication to help with problems is also a sweeping trend over the last 30 years, right?) The interesting can of worms that could come out of this is medication that would help gay men and women resist heterosexual urges: would there be enough of a market? Would it really be that easy once the brain chemistry of sexual orientation becomes well known, or will each pill be its own challenge to create?
Interesting times ahead, methinks :)

Ex ignorantia ad sapientiam; e luce ad tenebras

11

Re: Hmmn

thefadd.

Tue Jul 17, 2007 at 03:14:19 PM EST

none

The interesting can of worms that could come out of this is medication that would help gay men and women resist heterosexual urges: would there be enough of a market? Would it really be that easy once the brain chemistry of sexual orientation becomes well known, or will each pill be its own challenge to create?

Extremely interesting points. As with all things, I would see the fringes leading the way in this regard. The first people who would want this, I think, would be people who already identify one way or another that conflicts with their physical state--transgendered individuals. While some might try to make political waves about it--certainly I can see a conservative christian or Hollywood actor here or there going on the drugs in a high profile recovery sort of way after a pulling a gucket, the way the big pharma drugs are being used right now would indicate there'd be a lot more room for personal choice. For example, it's already trendy for a lot of young urban women to label themselves bi-sexual so such designer drugs would fit right in with that.

make it rain you nappy headed ho's

1	Free Will? port1080. Thu Jul 12, 2007 at 02:49:49 PM EST none

I'm not sure how to think about this...while I do think that to some degree homosexuality is a genetic predisposition, I also think that humans have free will and aren't completely bound by their genes. While I deplore the notion of viewing homosexuality as a mental disorder, I do think that people who find themselves sexually confused should have the option of attempting to be whatever sexual orientation they please. They may succeed or they may not, but I don't think that it's the APA's place to play God and tell me if I'm gay or not.

That said, I think the current "informed consent" rule is very sensible, and I also like the proposed rule to limit the use of this treatment on children. It's certainly a very fine line that must be walked here - it's one thing for someone to willingly try to change their sexual behavior, but it's quite another thing to force that experience on someone. Considering where the GLBT community has come from, I completely understand the skepticism towards this type of treatment - but I still think it should be available to those who willingly seek it out.

3 1	Re: Free Will? skeptic. Fri Jul 13, 2007 at 10:36:00 AM EST none

Humans do have free will and can make meaningful choices about sex and even about sexual orientation. If you are a gay man who thinks that homosexuality is morally wrong or is undesirable for some reason, you have the option of abstinence, or you MIGHT be able to force yourself to have heterosexual sex even though you don't like it, or for a more drastic solution, you could have a sex change operation and become a heterosexual (but infertile) female. Changing your sexual attraction toward males into a sexual attraction toward females is much harder, and the psychiatric treatments currently available are not very effective in causing such a change. There are certainly a number of people who claim to have overcome their own homosexuality (often claiming divine rather than merely psychiatric intervention) but a closer examination of their supposedly heterosexual lives suggests that they are lying. There can be very pressing social reasons for such deceptions, in a world where homophobia or anti-gay attitudes remain highly prevalent (despite the progress that has been made). But we still have no good way to alter sexual orientation. If we did (imagine some miraculous pill that you could swallow to alter your sexual desires to the other polarity) then of course people should have the right to take such pills. On the down side, if such a pill existed there would be a tremendous political push to make it legally mandatory for all homosexuals to take the pill, thus depriving people of the right to make their own choice about their own sexuality.

One might also ask, if it were possible for anybody to become heterosexual, what reason would there be for anyone to remain homosexual? Homosexuality, as Orson Scot Card has pointed out, is a reproductive handicap. Homosexual acts fail to result in reproduction. If you wanted to have children you might well find it more convenient to be heterosexual - although there are ways of getting around this inconvenience. You can still adopt children, and you can still either donate or receive sperm in a clinical sense, even if passionate love-making is not involved. But what if you DIDN'T want to have children? Then it turns out that homosexuality is a fabulously effective means of birth control. Indeed, in an increasingly over-populated world where we are going to be facing very real and serious resource shortages and grave environmental problems as a result of having too many people crowded onto our planet, we as a society should value homosexuality as a means of birth control. Perhaps it should be valued MORE than heterosexuality.

Aside from that, people get used to being what they are, heterosexual or homosexual, and changing to the other orientation is likely to seem very perverse. Adventurous souls might wish to find out what it is like to change their sexual orientation, but such experiments would be more attractive if you knew that you could also change back, in the event that you discover that the new orientation does not serve your purposes as well as the old one did. As medical technology gets ever better, many things may become easy in the future that are now difficult or impossible. If a sex change were easy, painless, completely successful, and just as easily reversible, then most people might well want, at some point in their lives, to find out what it is like to be the opposite sex (John Varley imagines such a future in several of his novels). Ideally, everybody should be able to be whatever they wanted to be, male or female, straight or gay, but we are very far from having the means to do that. For now it is far easier for people to just be what they are, and make the best of it.

4 3	Re: Free Will? thefadd. Fri Jul 13, 2007 at 03:15:02 PM EST none

MIGHT be able to force yourself to have heterosexual sex even though you don't like it

Never known a gay man who wouldn't bang a totally hot chick if the occasion arose. That's one reason among many that I think the whole concept of either hating or identifying as "gay" is beyond silly. Who people are just isn't determined by who they have sex with. It just isn't. That's why I love that comedian who's around now that tells the joke about "gays getting all buff" and working out to the point where homosexuals are more the epitome of masculinity than straights. "Man, look at that kid--he's built like a gay. He could totally play linebacker!"

make it rain you nappy headed ho's

5 4	Re: Free Will? skeptic. Sat Jul 14, 2007 at 08:39:36 AM EST 4.00 (interesting)

You may never have known a gay man who wouldn't bang a totally hot chick if the occasion arose, but such men certain exist (I have met them - you have probably met them too, without knowing it). Have you ever known a straight man who wouldn't bang a totally hot guy if the occasion arose? They exist too. You seem to believe that homosexuality does not exist in a pure state, and that all gay men are actually bisexual, but I can assure you that this is not the case. The idea (widely held in popular mythology) that a sufficiently beautiful woman would be attractive to all men, straight or gay, is like believing that a sufficiently beautiful antelope would be sexually attractive not only to other antelopes, but to people as well, and perhaps to all other species. Sexual attraction can be a very specific thing. For some men, women are simply not sexually attractive, and it really doesn't matter how beautiful they are.

Nonetheless, I agree that who people are isn't determined by who they have sex with. Sexual orientation is just a one aspect of the human personality, and it is not necessarily the most important one. Many people do place an excessive emphasis on it. The sense of gay identity is primarily a defensive reaction to homophobia. If there wasn't so much intolerance and hatred of homosexuality, it is likely that gay people would not work so hard to define themselves in terms of their sexual orientation.

8 5	Re: Free Will? thefadd. Sat Jul 14, 2007 at 11:47:06 AM EST none

You seem to believe that homosexuality does not exist in a pure state, and that all gay men are actually bisexual, but I can assure you that this is not the case.

You can? My statements were probably too homosexual focused. My views swing equally to the heterosexual side. I don't feel that sexuality period exists in a "pure" state as you put it. It is also my firm belief that "homosexual" behavior is a deeply ingrained part of the (self) hate filled conservative ostensibly "anti-gay" agenda. As I've seen it, a lot of men who profess anti-gay political views participate in sexual bonding experiences with other men that are suspiciously gay and are as hateful toward gay men simply for being open about their sexuality as any of professed religious reasons.

make it rain you nappy headed ho's

10 8	Re: Free Will? skeptic. Sun Jul 15, 2007 at 03:30:57 PM EST none

Yes, it's true that those who hate homosexuals are often self-hating homosexuals or bisexuals themselves. Sadly enough, being gay does not confer any immunity to prevalent social attitudes which may be very anti-gay and very destructive.

You question my capacity to assure you that homosexuality does indeed exist in a pure form, as distinct from bisexuality. It is in the nature of these discussions that a persuasive comment should include some informative link, so that you are not left to depend upon my unsupported word alone. Studies, surveys, and scholarly data do exist. I ought to seek them out for your benefit, but I won't. I am talking about my personal observation just as you are talking about your own personal observation, when you tell me that you have never met a gay man who would not have sex with a beautiful woman should the opportunity arise. I have met such men. I am such a man, for that matter. There is no woman, no matter how beautiful, for whom I have ever felt the slightest sexual attraction. I could be fooled into being sexually attracted to a woman if she was convincingly disguised as a man, but even then I couldn't be fooled to the point of actually having sex with her - the disguise would fail before that point.

Of course, you don't have to believe me. Maybe I have some reason to lie to you. Maybe I am an egomaniac, and I therefore enjoy pretending to have knowledge of subjects on which I am actually ignorant (much like the late, unlamented L. Ron Hubbard). Fortunately for me, there is no important reason why I have to convince you. If you don't believe me, so be it. I can live with that. I like to share my knowledge with people (on various topics, not just homosexuality) but no one is ever obligated to accept my statements if they don't want to. I can't let myself get too concerned about such things.

9 5	If the occasion arose 3fingerspointback. Sun Jul 15, 2007 at 04:30:48 AM EST none

Have you ever known a straight man who wouldn't bang a totally hot guy if the occasion arose?

I've always had a sneaking suspicion that, while the (NSFW) Bangbus was fake, the (NSFW) Baitbus was actually 100% real.

(is 3fingerspointback)

6 4	Interesting observation. MayorBob. Sat Jul 14, 2007 at 10:01:50 AM EST none

"Never known a gay man who wouldn't bang a totally hot chick if the occasion arose."

You might want to expand that thought a bit, toss in some dialog, hire a bunch of willing thespians and produce a monster porn flick. Just imagine the endless possibilities of a variety of comely femmes trying their damnedest to have XXXX coitus with the hero -- all to no avail. At the end, you could have his mom manage to actually turn the trick. Working title -- "My Mother The MILF."

Illegitimi non carborundum.

7 6	Re: Interesting observation. thefadd. Sat Jul 14, 2007 at 11:39:35 AM EST none

Believe me, I've been working on it. That's a fantastic plot idea really and if I ever pull it off, I'll be sure to credit you.

make it rain you nappy headed ho's

2	Re: What's The Medical Prognosis - Gay For Life Or thefadd. Thu Jul 12, 2007 at 05:38:44 PM EST none

Almost a decade has passed since when being gay was considered a mental disease.

I don't know that the linked page allows you to make the implicit claim that as recently as a decade ago "being gay" was considered a mental disease. You have to go back at least three decades to find a time when such a diagnosis was anywhere near the mainstream. The resolution on the page was more of an outwardly actionable political statement that a summary of the views of the vast mainstream of psychological study.

make it rain you nappy headed ho's

This story: 12 comments (2 from subqueue)

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MayorBob.

Posted to SciTech on Thu Jul 12, 2007 at 07:36:43 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Hmmn

uncarved block.

Tue Jul 17, 2007 at 12:27:34 PM EST

5.00 (interesting)

11

Re: Hmmn

thefadd.

Tue Jul 17, 2007 at 03:14:19 PM EST

Free Will?

port1080.

Thu Jul 12, 2007 at 02:49:49 PM EST

1

Re: Free Will?

skeptic.

Fri Jul 13, 2007 at 10:36:00 AM EST

3

Re: Free Will?

thefadd.

Fri Jul 13, 2007 at 03:15:02 PM EST

4

Re: Free Will?

skeptic.

Sat Jul 14, 2007 at 08:39:36 AM EST

4.00 (interesting)

5

Re: Free Will?

thefadd.

Sat Jul 14, 2007 at 11:47:06 AM EST

8

Re: Free Will?

skeptic.

Sun Jul 15, 2007 at 03:30:57 PM EST

5

If the occasion arose

3fingerspointback.

Sun Jul 15, 2007 at 04:30:48 AM EST

4

Interesting observation.

MayorBob.

Sat Jul 14, 2007 at 10:01:50 AM EST

6

Re: Interesting observation.

thefadd.

Sat Jul 14, 2007 at 11:39:35 AM EST

Re: What's The Medical Prognosis - Gay For Life Or

thefadd.

Thu Jul 12, 2007 at 05:38:44 PM EST