Gay by Choice? The Science of Sexual Identity
If science proves sexual orientation is more fluid than we've been led to believe, can homosexuality still be a protected right?
when he leaves his tidy apartment in an ocean-side city somewhere in America, Aaron turns on the radio to a light rock station. "For the cat," he explains, "so she won't get lonely." He's short and balding and dressed mostly in black, and right before I turn on the recorder, he asks me for the dozenth time to guarantee that I won't reveal his name or anything else that might identify him. "I don't want to be a target for gay activists," he says as we head out into the misty day. "Harassment like that I just don't need."
Aaron sets a much brisker pace down the boardwalk than you would expect of a doughy 51-year-old, and once convinced I'll respect his anonymity, he turns out to be voluble. Over the crash of the waves, he spares no details as he describes how much he hated the fact that he was gay, how the last thing in the world he wanted to do was act on his desire to have sex with another man. "I'm going to be perfectly blatant about it," he says. "I'm not going to have anal intercourse or give or receive any BJs either, okay?" He managed to maintain his celibacy through college and into adulthood. But when, in the late 1980s, he found himself so "insanely jealous" of his roommate's girlfriend that he had to move out, he knew the time had come to do something. One of the few people who knew that Aaron was gay showed him an article in Newsweek about a group offering "reparative therapy"—psychological treatment for people who want to become "ex-gay."
"It turns out that I didn't have the faintest idea what love was," he says. That's not all he didn't know. He also didn't know that his same-sex attraction, far from being inborn and inescapable, was a thirst for the love that he had not received from his father, a cold and distant man prone to angry outbursts, coupled with a fear of women kindled by his intrusive and overbearing mother, all of which added up to a man who wanted to have sex with other men just so he could get some male attention. He didn't understand any of this, he tells me, until he found a reparative therapist whom he consulted by phone for nearly 10 years, attended weekend workshops, and learned how to "be a man."
Aaron interrupts himself to eye a woman in shorts jogging by. "Sometimes there are very good-looking women at this boardwalk," he says. "Especially when they're not bundled up." He remembers when he started noticing women's bodies, a few years into his therapy. "The first thing I noticed was their legs. The curve of their legs." He's dated women, had sex with them even, although "I was pretty awkward," he says. "It just didn't work." Aaron has a theory about this: "I never used my body in a sexual way. I think the men who actually act it out have a greater success in terms of being sexual with women than the men who didn't act it out." Not surprisingly, he's never had a long-term relationship, and he's pessimistic about his prospects. "I can't make that jump from having this attraction to doing something about it." But, he adds, it's wrong to think "if you don't make it with women, then you haven't changed." The important thing is that "now I like myself. I'm not emotionally shut down. I'm comfortable in my own body. I don't have to be drawn to men anymore. I'm content at this point to lead an asexual life, which is what I've done for most of my life anyway." He adds, "I'm a very detached person."
It's raining a little now. We stop walking so I can tuck the microphone under the flap of Aaron's shirt pocket, and I feel him recoil as I fiddle with his button. I'm remembering his little cubicle of an apartment, its unlived-in feel, and thinking that he may be the sort of guy who just doesn't like anyone getting too close, but it's also possible that therapy has taught him to submerge his desire so deep that he's lost his motive for intimacy.
That's the usual interpretation of reparative therapy—that to the extent that it does anything, it leads people to repress rather than change their natural inclinations, that its claims to change sexual orientation are an outright fraud perpetrated by the religious right on people who have internalized the homophobia of American society, personalized the political in such a way as to reject their own sexuality and stunt their love lives. But Aaron scoffs at these notions, insisting that his wish to go straight had nothing to do with right-wing religion or politics—he's a nonobservant Jew and a lifelong Democrat who volunteered for George McGovern, has a career in public service, and thinks George Bush is a war criminal. It wasn't a matter of ignorance—he has an advanced degree—and it really wasn't a psychopathological thing—he rejects the idea that he's ever suffered from internalized homophobia. He just didn't want to be gay, and, like millions of Americans dissatisfied with their lives, he sought professional help and reinvented himself.
Self-reconstruction is what people in my profession (I am a practicing psychotherapist) specialize in, but when it comes to someone like Aaron, most of us draw the line. All the major psychotherapy guilds have barred their members from researching or practicing reparative therapy on the grounds that it is inherently unethical to treat something that is not a disease, that it contributes to oppression by pathologizing homosexuality, and that it is dangerous to patients whose self-esteem can only suffer when they try to change something about themselves that they can't (and shouldn't have to) change. Aaron knows this, of course, which is why he's at great pains to prove he's not pulling a Ted Haggard. For if he's not a poseur, then he is a walking challenge to the political and scientific consensus that has emerged over the last century and a half: that sexual orientation is inborn and immutable, that efforts to change it are bound to fail, and that discrimination against gay people is therefore unjust.
But as crucial as this consensus has been to the struggle for gay rights, it may not be as sound as some might wish. While scientists have found intriguing biological differences between gay and straight people, the evidence so far stops well short of proving that we are born with a sexual orientation that we will have for life. Even more important, some research shows that sexual orientation is more fluid than we have come to think, that people, especially women, can and do move across customary sexual orientation boundaries, that there are ex-straights as well as ex-gays. Much of this research has stayed below the radar of the culture warriors, but reparative therapists are hoping to use it to enter the scientific mainstream and advocate for what they call the right of self-determination in matters of sexual orientation. If they are successful, gay activists may soon find themselves scrambling to make sense of a new scientific and political landscape.
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An interesting article if only for it's ostentatious display of legal ignorance. As a legal matter all I can say is "so what" and "who cares."
Choice. One would hope that a so-called journalist would have at least a thimble full of legal knowledge before presuming to explore legal issues. Gay activists make a mistake by only hitching their wagon to the star of an 'immutable characteristic' – which is what the choice question is all about. It's certainly a solid argument but begs the question: why should one not have the right to CHOOSE any pursuit of happiness s/he desires? Look folks, this is a no-brainer: Interstate travel is a 'fundamental' right and it's a CHOICE; one has a 'fundamental' right to practice or not practice any religion and that's a CHOICE; one has a 'fundamental' right to procreate or not procreate and that too is a CHOICE, a woman's right to CHOOSE is also a 'fundamental' right. And the examples go on an on.
This is a legal question and, if they want any credibility at all, before sophomoric pundits presume to present smart-ass answers (that are always calculated to justify their own prejudices) then they must first, at the very least, demonstrate they comprehend the question. Clearly this writer and most of the commentators do not. People look pretty silly and pretentious when they pontificate on civil rights at the same time they display such encyclopedic ignorance of the law. At least when the Pope pontificates he's at least read this catechism.
There is only one question: On what legal basis can one deny others the right to choose whatever pursuit of happiness they wish as long as it harms no one else? That requires legally acceptable answers to the following: What 'legitimate legislative purpose" is there in denying that right? What 'rational basis' is there for the law? What 'compelling state interest' is served? Presuming you can answer these questions the next is: Is there really 'no less restrictive alterative' to achieving those ends. That is, 'equal protection' is a means/ends analysis: if the law does serve a legitimate legislative interest and you can show that it's narrowly tailored to serve that interest, is there really no way other way to achieve that end other than treating this group differently. This legal test is almost always a fatal 'kiss of death' to any law that abrogates a fundamental right. But there is not much point arguing with an ignoramus with a pea-shooter brain. You simply can't have an intelligent discussion about civil rights with those who demonstrate they haven't a clue as to the substantive issues.
Arguments as displayed here only reveal the hypocrisy and deceit of bigots. Their essential argument is that while all Americans may choose or not choose to exercise certain 'fundamental' right only GAYS are not allowed to choose. This, of course, is intellectual rubbish. What sophomoric drivel.
And gee wiz I had nary a clue so many homophobic bigots with pea-shooter brains read Mother Jones. When will Mother Jones reclaim it's reputation as an alternative to the meretricious journalism of the propagandistic mainstream press? This article belongs buried in the back pages of a high school newspaper for the writer demonstrates he does not even begin to comprehend the question he presumes to explore.
The main thesis of this article is the line in paragraph 8, "Even more important, some research shows that sexual orientation is more fluid than we have come to think, that people, especially women, can and do move across customary sexual orientation boundaries, that there are ex-straights as well as ex-gays." Yet nowhere in this article is evidence given. Where are the interviews with the ex-straights and ex-gays saying, "Five years ago I thought Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie was hot, but now I find Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt hot."? The only interview is with a sad gay man whose intellect won't let him sleep with what turns him on. OK--he tried women, so what about men? I had a similar viewpoint, intellectually not wanting to do certain things, and not wanting to be with a man (mainly because of the influence of society), but when I was intimate with a man, boy did it clear things up! It's sad that this gay guy still is 51 and hasn't done it.
The writers here present the best evidence against themselves and oh how they do tell on themselves. Another no-brainer folks: those of you who argue religious precepts for denying civil rights write your ignorance bold and you trash the fundamental bedrock of the Constitution you live under. You need not be a lawyer to get this for it's what any immigrant must show they comprehend before becoming an American citizen: if religion is the only reason you can provide for denying another person 'due process' or 'equal protection of the law' then you propose to violate the 1st amendment (separation of church and state (the government "SHALL make NO law RESPECTING....)) for the nefarious purpose of denying civil rights protected under the 14th amendment. It really is that simple. And this is not one but two constitutional violations.
Anyone who wants to deny civil secular rights for reasons of religion violates America's bedrock. If that's the way you think people should live then you trash
America and our Bill of Rights and our Constitution. You reveal yourselves as American Taliban.
There is only one thing more astounding than this abysmal level of Constitutional ignorance and that is people who so self-righteously flaunt it.
Thank you for this article. Not being a gay person I only have my opinion and what I have read to guide me, but I fail to see how people can be born gay, when we are ALL born male and female, except genitalia. In other words a gay man has the same body as a straight man and a lesbian the same body as a woman. I have always felt it has to be some outside influence with causes people to feel the need to have sex with a same sex partner. After all ALL sex is a choice. Even though I an attracted to men I CAN and have gone without sex.
The real issue is not the fluidity of homosexuality or homosexual rights. The real issue is SAME RIGHTS FOR PERSONS WHO HAPPEN TO BE HOMOSEXUAL. By the way, for those who may not know: Homosexuality does not mean man to man sexuality. The Latin noun :homo" means man. But the root of the word homosexuality is the Greek word "homeo" meaning the same.
Very interesting. Let's put it on the line: Bruce, Robert, Eleni and Todd and others who think gays are sinners - Do you think that homosexual activity should be unlawful in the United States (as it was in many states prior to 2003's Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court decision.?
Yes or no, please.
I just want to say kudos to this author to approach such a controversial topic, and kudos to Mother Jones to publish it! (I would expect nothing less from this caliber magazine.)
Personally, I have no idea what 'causes' sexual orientation. I also have no idea how 'fluid' this orientation may be, for men or for women. (For me it's been very stable since early adolescence.) But I do find any research on the topic very interesting, and I found this article quite refreshing and challenging.
I'm glad that homosexuality was delisted as a disease in 1973, but I'm sorry that a consequence was to stop certain kinds of research around orientation. Frankly, I'm not afraid of hearing different views, even when they differ from my own. And I'm very interested to hear about results of research that might challenge our current understanding.
For some, the Bible may hold the ultimate truths and for those folks, there is probably no reason to look further into anything, for any purpose. For me, I treat the Bible respectfully, as a record of a people's search for the truth and a higher purpose in life. But I also welcome new avenues of continuing inquiry, whether driven by religious or scientific agendas.
The day I close up my mind to opinions, research, discussion and debate -- well, I may as well just be dead!
Very interesting article. Opponents of gay marriage would be better off arguing that society benefits from same sex marriage. The problem marriage has become an institution based on the premise of "love partners". This is a relatively recent historical view of marriage. As long as marriage is based on "romantic love" then same sex marriage becomes an issue of equality. Maybe what harms to institution of marriage is broader than same sex marriage but simply the concept that a marriage can and should be based on "romantic love"
Homosexuals and, sodomy and sodimites are two deferent subjects that get blured by our trying to define the words in the bible and apply them inapropriately to today: Sodomy is an act of one man dominating another in an act of rape by treating another as a female as an act of vainity and oppression. These sodomites as they were called were heterosexual and practicing a form of male power. this still exists in mant cultures in the heterosexual community and in prisons today. A love based relationship between two same sex or opposite sex is not what incures the wrath of God. It is violence, oppression, and confusion that leads to self-distruction of God's creation. A creation with a diverse spectrum which includes the range from heterosexuals to homosexuals and the variations between. Reality is the Word of God. Use Reality to rightly devide the Word which was in the beginning spoke into existance. Worshiping God is not a form of mythology, but is the acceptance of our place in time and in creation to the working of a better future having agape love for all as God has shown us through suffering with each of us.
The greates hurdles, or walls to cross, have been constructed mainly by the religionists who claim their "Godly truths" can not or shoud not be challenged. All human beings should be considered equal in every way. Love should not be limited only to opposite genders. Man can love man and woman can love woman. If there is wrong in that, it is in the evil eyes and minds of the "holier than thou" discriminators.
For the life of me I can't understand why it's anyone's business who one loves or copulates with, as long as it is a consenting coupling between adults. PEOPLE have this God-given right. Those who are not called to couple, or partner, are not prosecuted and persecuted; neither are most heterosexual arrangements. Why should those "outside the norm"? No one is trying to force a homosexual arrangement upon heterosexuals; why should the reverse be true? Think of all the destruction to people and families because of this insane obsession of many heterosexuals? Consider the ruined lives that this touches--people who try, very hard, to deny their innate sexuality in order to conform to society and avoid persecution and prosecution, and then find that they are unable to continue with the charade or are shamefully exposed. What a waste!!!!! I suggest that Christians follow more closely the teachings of Jesus to love their neighbors.
"If science proves sexual orientation is more fluid than we've been led to believe, can homosexuality still be a protected right?" asks Gary Greenberg.
Last time I checked, lesbians and gays were still human; their rights as human beings should not be in any danger.
On the other hand, in his book, Christianity and the Rights of Animals, Reverend Andrew Linzey, an Anglican priest, writes:
"It does seem somewhat disingenuous for Christians to speak so solidly for human rights and then query the appropriateness of rights language when it comes to animals. The most consistent position is that of Raymond Frey, who opposes all claims for rights from a philosophical perspective, or that of Christians who consistently refrain from all such language."
According to Reverend Linzey:
"Raymond Frey, that dedicated opponent of rights theory, has sadly to conclude that 'we cannot, without the appeal to benefit, justify (painful) animal experiments without justifying (painful) human experiments.'
"Frey accepts this even though he justifies experimentation on animals. Again, 'The case for anti-vivisectionism, I think, is far stronger than most people allow,' he writes. Alas, Frey does not seem to regard it as sufficiently strong to oppose experiments on animals *or* humans."
Like Reverend Linzey, I similarly find it odd that pro-lifers (the conservative ones, anyway!) speak so solidly for the human rights of the unborn, and then deny rights to lesbians and gays.
Even pro-choice feminists have expressed outrage at sex-selective abortions. When the gene that causes homosexuality is discovered, parents will be aborting children because of their sexual orientation.
Gays Against Abortion (now known as PLAGAL, the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians) was formed in 1991. They issued a statement:
“We acknowledge that, from conception, the fetus is a human being entitled to basic rights, including the right to life. We hold that abortion denies that right and destroys that human being. We know first hand, from homophobia, what it is to have our rights denied...Like homophobia, abortion tries to get rid of the persons who are considered undesirable...We volunteer time and energy to pro-life pregnancy centers and pro-life agencies...”
Similarly, in the May 1992 issue of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" publication on the religious Left, Donna Marie Kearney, a lesbian Christian, wrote: “It is difficult to understand why so many gay and lesbian people can support the so-called ‘woman’s right’ to abortion. While living as oppressed people, they are blind to the subversion of the rights of the unborn, the weakest and most powerless among us.”
Again, last time I checked, lesbians and gays were still human; their rights as human beings should not be in danger.
Peter Singer writes in Animal Liberation: "We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. You can appreciate this how serious this handicap is by asking yourself how long blacks would have had to wait for equal rights if they had not been able to stand up for themselves and demand it. The less able a group is to stand up and organize against oppression, the more easily it is oppressed."
As a political liberal (a pro-life liberal!), of course I support the rights of lesbians and gays. But lesbians and gays are quite capable of fighting their own battles, and defending themselves against oppression; animals and the unborn are not.
Sad that such an article needs to be written. Sadder that some gays and some non-gays who want gays to be non-gays hold to the slip-shod Freudian-perverse idea that a cold and distant father prone to bursts of anger make a male child gay for want of male affection. Duh! What an encapsulated view of my father--and none of the four of us are gay or lesbian. In the end, it seems that medical science has become obsessed to psychosis in figuring that if a choice is unacceptable to a whole lotta people, then it's wrong, it's a disease and it needs curing. Hmm...when you cure ham it gets to tasting better.... These psychotically oriented doctors are pandering to the status quo AND are stuck in their castle of disease. To follow along on their logic...all tall people should be put in institutions for being tall and above it all. [deleted]ing insane, sick tall people. Who the hell they think they are? No, no--it doesn't matter than I'm short and like tall women, it's...
If science proves sexual orientation is more fluid than we've been led to believe, can homosexuality still be a protected right?
That is a very odd question. Does it apply equally to other aspects of a person? Certainly, political beliefs are "fluid" and one can be a left radical at one point in their life and a right radical in another. Would that make it okay to discriminate based on political view?
Why would fluidity of identity undermine rights? Indeed, if there are "ex-straights as well as ex-gays," that would seem to render the whole question of sexual identity as less important, not more.
And just what is the underlying assumption of the question? Because gays can "become straight" that it becomes legitimate to discriminate against those who don't?
The whole premise makes no sense except as hinting at an underlying bias.
Irene says: "we are ALL born male and female, except genitalia."
True, but it doesn't stop there. Some are born with BOTH which makes them one of several types of true hermaphrodites.
So, if a hermaphrodite were to marry a physically correct male or female, is that a Gay Marriage?
When we make genital the criteria for deciding if two persons can love one another, what the hell are we allowing to happen? Those who feel compelled to judge others need to hard dose of reality.
Get off your pious pulpit and put a stop to what is really immoral, like famine, genocide, immoral and illegal war, avarice and on and on....
Gary Greenburg, please teach me to love pussy. Show me where a girl's clit is. Doesn't it get hard? [deleted] me up the ass while I [deleted] her pussy.
Do you lick pussy, Steve? Show me how to do it... Jews lick pussy the best...
WOW. Get a life folks. Just look at all these self-righteous nobodies, lecturing others on how we should live our lives. GET a life folks. A Life! Do you know what a Life is? Do any of these know-it-all no-nothings have even a clue what the U. S. Constitution, says, or means? Did they ever even hear of the 1st or 14th amendments? Can Americans really be this stupid? Not possible. Please tell me Americans are not this ignorant. Can this many people really have absolutely nothing relevant to say? If [deleted]s could fly this blog would be a friggin' airport. Get a friggen' Life!
Hey folks. Don't you know when you are being used. No one with half a brain can take this article seriously. Mother Jones' 'writers' are so desperate for material that they float rubbish like this into the marketplace of no ideas in the hope someone will provide them something meaningful to talk about with some air of credibility. Unfortunately, birds of a feather .... ergo GIGO. But what a colossal return on such a small and petty investment: one ton of garbage in and a hundred tons of garbage out. Ninety-nine percent refuse that does little but pollute the intellectual environment with a hundred and one tons of toxic sludge which demonstrates how tainted and corrupted the Constitution has become. Yes, Christopher Hitchens is correct: "religion poisons everything."
Funny how Mother Jones will censor _sshole but it's fine to talk about how much one loves "Pussy." But I guess that's what happens when you turn over the First Amendment to a brain-dead robot.
Yep. Brain dead Mother Jones Robot indeed!!! LOL!! One wrote, "Gary Greenburg, please teach me to love pussy. Show me where a girl's clit is. Doesn't it get hard? [deleted] me up the ass while I [deleted] her pussy."
What a joke. Oh, yes, let Mother Robot Orwell Jones delete the filthy words (but hard pussy clit, that's fine). We must delete this filth. Mother Robot Orwell Jones says so and Mother Robot Orwell Jones knows that Mother Robot Orwell Jones is above the First Amendment because Mother Robot Orwell Jones says so.
Mother Robot Orwell Jones indeed! I loved it! But it should be Brain-Dead Mother Robot Orwell Jones. Another example? Another wrote, "Do you lick pussy, Steve? Show me how to do it... Jews lick pussy the best." Could any comment be more scurrilous, racist or bigoted? But Brain-Dead Mother Robot Orwell Jones doesn't notice, ... well... Brain-Dead Mother Robot Orwell Jones is a brain-dead robot. Yes (to paraphrase whoever said it here?) that's what happens when you hand the First Amendment over to a brain-dead robot. Stupidity has a way of breeding itself in geometric proportions. A hundred and one tons of garbage indeed!!!! Nice to see that at least a few commentators here have an IQ somewhere above 85.
This article must seem really progressive--for 1960. It's ignorant and offensive, filled with heterosexist-homophobic crap more apt for some FoxNews outlet. It's hard to believe Mother Jones is this out-of-touch and reactionary. Shame on you.
"All the major psychotherapy guilds have barred their members from researching or practicing reparative therapy" (from above) violates the very definition of science. Are scientist as restricted, today, as they were in the time of Copernicus. The only reason to restrict scientific inquiry is because you are afraid of the truth.
I am so sick of the religious argument. Religion has no real facts - that's why they call it faith. Your prophets wrote from the voice of God - today we call hearing voices delusion (among other things) and it's treatable. Believe if you want, but don't force your doctrines on others, even if outlawing a behavior is the only way to get your congregation to behave by them.
What difference does it make really whether you are born gay or develop those feelings later in life. As long as you have relationships with consenting adults that is all that should matter. If you want to make a legal committment such as marriage with anyone that should be your right and it should be binding on both parties. We need to lighten up on all this stuff. Live and let live and get a life so we don't spend our time worrying about what others are doing.
I agree with Ann. What difference does it make how I became gay? And why are some straight people so concerned about it? And are this ex-straights really bi? I had a healthy and happy relationship with a man for 18 years, until he sadly passed away 5 years ago. Fortunately I was able to find my new partner who complements my life. We have a nice home (no picket fence), wonderful friends and accepting family. We pay taxes, utility bills, and buy groceries just like straight couples. Why can't we just live our lives without some folks trying to figure out why this happened???
Arguing about belief in the supernatural (God) and belief in only the natural (atheistic) is a argument that will only produce conflict and can't be proven by either side.
Religious people rely on arguments that start from the assumption that the physical laws of the universe can be circumvented and atheists (such as myself) simply insist on some sort of demonstrable proof of that assertion.
There is no physical proof that has ever been subjected to close scrutiny that has demonstrated the existence of a supernatural being.
For those who argue that only religion can define morality, you must consider the Buddhist, who is by definition, an atheist (no atman or soul). Theirs is a tradition and practice of ultimate compassion, grounded in the knowledge that doing wrongs to others always has a profound effect on the doer. It doesn't have to be more complicated then that.
The idea of "sin" springs from an ancient patriarchal culture that relied on "sin" as a means to control the group. It again, can't be demonstrated as an objective fact, just a subjective assertion by human beings.
I personally think that human sexuality occurs as a spectrum, not a black and white, either/or issue.
To deny equal protection and equal rights to all human beings, regardless of their differences, based on the person advocating the denial based on their own belief in the supernatural, is absurd on its face.
Eleni- just because you cannot comprehend an "uncaused cause" does not mean it is not possible. We are in our infancy in terms of understanding the physical universe. I mean, compared to the life of the universe, we have been around for a breath of time. To make an assertion that you know the source of the beginning of the Universe is quite presumptuous.
Bruce- I think your bible says something about "judge not lest ye be judged." The vitrol that you used to describe homosexuality, based on a book that was written by lots of people, none of whom can be questioned about their mental state at the time they purportedlly wrote what they wrote, is truly astounding. Such venemous comments, wow!
Todd-Your comment about the constitution mentioning religion is a tad off. The first amendment says: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof and the 9th amendment says: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
It clearly leaves the issue of sexuality up to "the people" by its lack of comment on it. And notice the use of the word "disparage" which means to ridicule, discredit, mock, demean, denounce. The constitution says that it not only are the rights not enumerated not denied but they also are not to be made fun of.
If you are going to use source information, quote it in it's entirety
Enough said.
Hi Lisa-
Actually, when an individual says that they are hearing voices, it's called schizophrenia. When its a group of people, its called religion.
Old psychologists aphorism.
I have read Mother Jones since the seventies. I have never been so disappointed and angered with your magazine then I am now. This article did not present new evidence or compelling new science to support the discredited claim made in the headline. You should be ashamed of yourselves for allowing this piece to appear under your masthead.
Excluding the unprovable belief (and that’s what it is) that a mythical supreme being deemed homosexuality a “sin”, in general, it seems apparent that most tenets of the world’s major religions are oriented primarily around the maxim of "Do No Harm." This needs to be the basis for what we deem "right" or “moral”.
In this light, regarding legal protections or prosecutions, if certain humans choose to act in certain ways and perform those acts considerate of others' rights and choices, there should be no need to protect, persecute or prosecute them.
Inversely, if, by their behavior, a person inflicts their values on another or others who resist such behavior, and that behavior results in physical, emotional or social, including economic, harm, then the perpetrator should be held responsible and liable for their actions.
By applying this perspective on a broad scale, we could achieve a more simplified legal system where people were free to live according to their choices.
In this day of overpopulation ruining our planet, it is criminal for so-called Christians to polute OUR earth with their huge families, excusing themselves with "love of life." They only love their life and their "loved ones"' lives. They condemn gays, but praise themselves, over and over again, JUST FOR THEIR OWN POWER!!!!
To the "Religious" right: you are all for forcing women to carry to term a bunch of cells, totally dependent on her body system to exist, but once that bunch of cells is a baby [no matter what "shape" it may be in], you completely ABANDON THAT CHILD!!! Admit it, you can only exercise power over poor, ignorant women!!! Verry shabby!! And NOT CHRIST-LIKE!!!
Bible or not, when I was five years old, it simply made sense to me that a man and a woman, or two men, or two women could be attracted enough to want to be as one. I could go through the thought process that went into my coming to see things this way but it would take too long and might be considered risky for this board. Let's just say that I used a mental chain of logic points that held together no matter which way one followed the links.
Loved doing that when things didn't make sense back then.
What this is leading to, is if it can make sense to a five year old that gender has nothing to do with love then why hasn't it occured to our leaders to not give or deny equal rights based on gender/sexual orientation?
Hugh Madden asks: Are scientist as restricted, today, as they were in the time of Copernicus? The only reason to restrict scientific inquiry is because you are afraid of the truth.
Wrong. Scientists are restricted from performing research on humans for ETHICS reasons. Hitler's scientists are but one great example. And in Germany in the 1960's, scientists raised the wrath of the world by using frontal lobe lobotomies to try to cure homosexuality. They succeeded. Unfortunately the victims had NO sexual desire and no will left. Their brains were irreparably damaged.
Doug
The transsexual transition experience is that, in passing through a change of sex/gender, roughly half of the people switch sexual orientation and half do not (whichever way you define it the result is still 50/50). That is whether you define orientation as hetero vs homo or androphilic vs gynephilic, either way it's still infuriatingly 50/50 change and no change (or 50/50 no change and change!)
This shows beyond any reasonable doubt that sexual orientation is unchangeable in many people and fluid in many others. Not exactly what either side wants to hear but still the truth beyond reasonable doubt.
The fact that heterosexual people outnumber homosexual people is probably that innate sex divides 50/50 either way, but those with a fluid sexual orientation are mostly pressured by their parents to grow up straight rather than bisexual or homosexual.
Very good article, quite thoughtprovoking. I've been quite skepticle of the genetic argument of sexual orientation. The gay people i've known (family,friends, etc.) seemed to express feelings that indicated to me that they were simply more comfortable around same sex than opposite. I concluded that this was basically environmental. But psycological reasons can be as compeling as any genetic ones and can be subject to change for perfectly normal reasons. Now i'm not pretending to be an expert who is certain of my conclusion. I just believe that orientation is fundamentally environmental and for the vast majority of people,fluid given the right set of circumstances. There is no need to claim a genetic component(disability?) to claim the rights all people should have. In America it's the right to life,liberty,and the puruit of happiness for it's own sake-for everybody.
I have heard and considered all these arguments for nearly 60 years. They have as little force of logic now than they ever did because in part the premises are false. A "genetic basis" is with error equated with "intractable" and "environmental" is equated with "mutable." Neither is true, and combinations enrich our social milieu.
I think part of the problem stems from psychologists' demons: their inability to recognize with clarity the mechanisms of behavior. They are not at fault. They were born that way.
The major problem is religious fundamentalism, and the ignorance of holding a book such as the Christain bible as itself immutably the "word of god." It isn't. It is the words of various writers, oft changed, and politically charged.
Frankly, after reading this article, I'm slightly disgusted by Mother Jones and the writer of this article. It's VERY clear from the tone of many passages within this text that uneven emphasis is placed on the ability to change orientation and somehow "proving" reparative therapy works, even when there's no way to acknowledge much except that this kind of therapy is only successful at rooting out ridiculous causes and then "blaming" the way you are on them, then teaching you how to squelch your sexuality.
Since religion since its foundation seems to predicate so much of sin and immorality on being "dirty, dirty, naughty sexual beings," it follows that reparative therapy will only be able to make you ignore those feelings, not change them.
Sorry, but I can't be part of that debate, I presume. I am bisexual, I like sex with both men and women and I don't see any problem with that. Sexual orientation is a hoax. Sex is fun, no matter the partner! The real sickness is intolerance which usually comes from ignorant and misguided persons who are told that Jesus was not a gay person. Who knows and who cares?
I personally am convinced that there is such a thing as being congentially homosexual, that no matter what one does, no matter how you try, you will just be homosexual.
However it is worth consideration that their could be people in this world who are "gay" for other reasons, psychological reasons. That for them reparative therapy does in fact work. Like for example there are people in the world who were abused sexually as kids, enjoyed the sex, and because of that spent part of their life thinking they are gay. Then got therapy and are not anymore.
On the other hand there are people who have been lobotomized by doctors who want to impose a heteromormative hegemony at any cost. :-( :-/
My point is that psychotherapy for people who think they need it, feel that they want it is a good thing. Some people would realize that they are just going to have to deal with being gay. Others would come to realize they weren't congenitally gay, just confused. If the final results make that person happier good. Just so long as such therapy is not being forced on people who know that they don't need it and are happy with themselves.
Most people just want to have sex, the kinkier the better. If they have to say they are "gay" to make it kinkier, they do. The problems come when they build an entire lifestyle around their sex life, everything they do HAS to be about being homosexual and they try to force the community at large to participate in their fantasy. If there are people born "gay" it is a fractually small number, as some males do stand out, much like Down's syndrome people, you can spot them immediately. For the majority, from my observations, they just want attention, they need to be different, and they act out. Giving people certain "rights" based on with what or how they have sex is ludicrous and downright mind-boggling. Any two consenting adults can go live quietly together, do whatever they want to each other, get legal paperwork for a civil union and be done with it. However, that would just ruin the entire point of being homosexual, wouldn't it? No, they need ATTENTION! Parades, rainbows, drama, being different from the masses. I have to applaud them, they have certainly suckered the population into falling for the BIG LIE and making it almost criminal to even SAY anything against homosexuality. They have companies rolling over and handing them undeserved benefits, getting heterosexuals to coo and gush all over to defend them. Yes, the propaganda machine has done a very good job of even wiping out most memories of the FACT they brought AIDS from their sexrooms to the rest of the world. Innocents die every day, thanks to some old queen 30 years ago, we have lost 25 million people to AIDS. Thanks guys, good way to contain the population growth. Now that you have the upper hand, why not quiet down and go peacefully to your bedrooms? You won! We don't need the drama. Oh right, YOU DO!
Homosexuality is un-natural and unwanted in any civilization. Anyone who suggests this behavior is normal, is a mess.
I suppose I can speak from the perspective of a so-called "ex-straight" person. That is, I assumed that I was straight until early this spring, when I found that I was bisexual. (I am a sophomore in high school.) It is my personal belief that being "gay" is not a choice- I don't think that I could have said to myself randomly, "OK, I feel like being a lesbian today" and then changed my sexual orientation. Perhaps there is something genetic or chemical that causes a person to be of a certain sexual orientation; if this is so, it should not affect LGBT rights. If there is a psychological dimension (which I highly doubt), it still should not affect LGBT rights.
By the way, Gary Greenberg, it would be more politically correct (i.e. sit well with people like me)if you did not use the term "gay" to denote the entire LGBT community. We are not made up entirely of men attracted to men.
Thank you.
It is dissapointing to find this article in Mother Jones. Sexuality is both fluid and complex. People should be allowed to self-define within that complexity. Aaron has every right to his lonely self-loathing life. I question why Greenberg wrote this article. I hope he doesn't bring his simplistic analysis into his client work.
A MYTH WHICH IS SODOMIZING AMERICA
410 words
A myth which is sodomizing America is exposed by Gary Greenberg’s “Gay by Choice?” (Mother Jones, Oct. 2007): that homosexuality is inborn and irreversible, and that its devotees are therefore a stable, definable legal class. This is the incorrect position of the mental health professions, and it is the basis of the Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas.
Homosexuality is not a “stable trait.’” That is the conclusion to which “all the evidence points,” according to the universally-accepted-as-definitive study of American sexual behavior by Laumann et al. (1), as cited by Satinover (2).
Laumann et al “found to their surprise that [homosexuality’s] instability over the course of life was one-directional: declining, and very significantly so.” “[T]he rate for men [having any kind of same gender sexual experience ever]... is 9.1%. [M]en who report same gender sex only before they turned eighteen, not afterward, constitute 42% of the total number of men who ever report having a same gender experience. [3.8% of all men have same-gender sexual experience before age 18 and never again.] Our final measure has the lowest prevalence... only 2.9% of the men report identifying with ... same gender sexuality.” (emphasis added)
“‘Sexual orientation’ wasn’t just not a stable trait,” Laumann et al. continue. “Homosexuality tended spontaneously to convert into heterosexuality as a cohort of individuals aged, and this was true for both men and women... So striking was this finding that it led researchers all over the world in subsequent years to see if if was really true by performing even larger scale studies. Their research has so far involved literally hundreds of thousands of people and it only strongly confirms what Laumann et al had found.”
Might it not therefore be simpler, and more accurate, to see homosexuality as an addiction-like habit which can change - usually spontaneously, sometimes only with difficulty, and increasingly often, thanks to gay support groups, not at all?
1. Laumann EO, Gagnon JH, Michael RT, Michaels S, The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States. Chnicago: Univesity of Chcaog 1994.
2, Satinover J, The Trojan Couch: How the Mental Health Associations Misrepresent Science. 2004, Available at
www. NARTH.com.
Nathaniel S. Lehrman, M.D., 10 Nob Hill Gate, Roslyn NY 11576; 516/626-0238; former Clinical Director, Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, Brooklyn NY; former Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein and SUNY Downstate Colleges of Medicine
submission to Mother Jones
410 words
A myth which is sodomizing America is exposed by Gary Greenberg’s “Gay by Choice?” (Mother Jones, Oct. 2007): that homosexuality is inborn and irreversible, and that its devotees are therefore a stable, definable legal class. This is the incorrect position of the mental health professions, and it is the basis of the Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas.
Homosexuality is not a “stable trait.’” That is the conclusion to which “all the evidence points,” according to the universally-accepted-as-definitive study of American sexual behavior by Laumann et al. (1), as cited by Satinover (2).
Laumann et al “found to their surprise that [homosexuality’s] instability over the course of life was one-directional: declining, and very significantly so.” “[T]he rate for men [having any kind of same gender sexual experience ever]... is 9.1%. [M]en who report same gender sex only before they turned eighteen, not afterward, constitute 42% of the total number of men who ever report having a same gender experience. [3.8% of all men have same-gender sexual experience before age 18 and never again.] Our final measure has the lowest prevalence... only 2.9% of the men report identifying with ... same gender sexuality.” (emphasis added)
“‘Sexual orientation’ wasn’t just not a stable trait,” Laumann et al. continue. “Homosexuality tended spontaneously to convert into heterosexuality as a cohort of individuals aged, and this was true for both men and women... So striking was this finding that it led researchers all over the world in subsequent years to see if if was really true by performing even larger scale studies. Their research has so far involved literally hundreds of thousands of people and it only strongly confirms what Laumann et al had found.”
Might it not therefore be simpler, and more accurate, to see homosexuality as an addiction-like habit which can change - usually spontaneously, sometimes only with difficulty, and increasingly often, thanks to gay support groups, not at all?
1. Laumann EO, Gagnon JH, Michael RT, Michaels S, The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States. Chnicago: Univesity of Chcaog 1994.
2, Satinover J, The Trojan Couch: How the Mental Health Associations Misrepresent Science. 2004, Available at
www. NARTH.com.
Nathaniel S. Lehrman, M.D., 10 Nob Hill Gate, Roslyn NY 11576; 516/626-0238; former Clinical Director, Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, Brooklyn NY; former Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein and SUNY Downstate Colleges of Medicine
God really hates religious bigots who are so closed minded that they can't think for themselves.
Right on Bill! check out www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.com
Great article. But regardless of the reason I am gay, I am still gay. If I choose to try to change that, it is my choice, just as much if i choose not to. It is still my choice (or not).
One sentence from the article I feel hits the nail on the head!
''In this respect, Davidson says, sexual orientation is like another core aspect of identity that is clearly not biological in origin: religion. "It doesn't matter whether you were born that way, it came later, or you chose," he says. 'We don't think it's okay to discriminate against people based on their religion. We think people have a right to believe whatever they want. So why do we think that about religion and not about who we love?'
This is a matter of identity, not limited to just sexual orientation. Statistics can be manipulated. And even if you science is solid, you will still have those who won't believe it, stating that Science is wrong and God is right.
That's the choice I choose not to make.
