Then again, I’m not sure gay men REALLY want men who need to objectify men to be considered fully gay, any more than a straight guy who can ONLY objectify women would be considered fully straight.

I agree! BUT, I know of no one, gay or straight, who hasn’t had problems with objectifying people. If its a case of them ONLY being able to do that I suppose it would be different, but I’ve never met anyone like that either.

Yes, I don’t assume all forms of heterosexualtiy is simply an unfolding of biological truth.

I actually don’t believe — cuz I just don’t feel like it’s the case — I was simply born straight. I too readily remember my own development. Yes, this development might have been the development of my biological truth. And I can’t know this for sure one way or the other. But it sure FELT like a developmental path more driven by psychological factors.

So for now, I’m going with that. For me, in my case.

For those who feel they were simply born straight or gay, I take no issue whatsoever. I’m me and they’re they.

I tend to go towards the easy cases first. So the type of problematic homosexuality I have in mind is more along the lines of the guy who is married, loves his wife, is spontaneously attracted to women romantically, yet can’t stay away from glory holes.

The gay positive movement has a tendency to assume the only problem this guy has is internalized homophobia which blocks his own knowledge of his heart’s intent.

And our fear of sinking back into Victorian shackles has a tendency to assume that all sex is good sex as long as it’s between adults and results in an orgasm.

I understand the fear that gay men have when the specter of SOME people who probably really do experience their homosexuality as a fetish might lead us back to the days when all forms of homosexuality was assumed to be little more than a fetish.

Then again, I’m not sure gay men REALLY want men who need to objectify men to be considered fully gay, any more than a straight guy who can ONLY objectify women would be considered fully straight.

Nor, bi for that matter.

Even within the most mechanistic takes on sexual orientation, the theme of emotional and moral development keeps coming back. Like most people who hold very mechanistic beliefs when it comes to attraction to adult men and women, still don’t consider the exclusive attraction to shoes an “orientation”.

There’s a good argument to be made that Ted Bundy didn’t have a developed orientation, and neither did Jeffry Dahmer — though they both killed only one sex.

K.

Because it seems to me that we assume that all forms of homosexuality is the unfolding of a biological truth.

The same thing can be said of heterosexuality as well. From what you said earlier I know that’s something you realize, but its not often said – when it should be

Too bad there’s too much advocacy and agenda on this issue that can prevent someone from getting professional support when it’s needed.

Evan,

What do you mean by this? Obviously there is advocacy and agenda from both sides of this issue. I agree with most of Katie’s ideas regarding therapy as well, but we have to be careful about that kind of therapy.

When we talk about the way other cultures have dealt with homosexuality, we usually aren’t talking about whether a man who was primarily homosexual was happy in a relationship with a woman (and that goes for Ancient Greece), or if a man who was primarily heterosexual was happy having relations with men – we are talking about cultural norms and expectations. Ancient Greek culture expected men to eventually have long-term relationships with women. Today, things are different. We have men who have primarily SSA who are saying – and who have a culture to back them up – that they prefer to have long-term relationships with men. This is fairly new – most societies weren’t open to that kind of thing – even in ancient Greece. People are actually allowed today to deal with the possibility of being with the person they love instead of the person that society dictates they be with.

I agree with the following absolutely Katie

And I think that a guy who’s homosexuality is problematic for him should be able to have social support in building a life that feels less problematic for him.

Just as I think a guy who feels his heterosexuality is problematic — like the closeted gay guy who feels compelled to practice heterosexuality because of the dominant, and largely heterosexist culture in which he grows up puts undue pressure on him to do so.

As long as we realize that the guy who feels his homosexuality is a problem may not need therapy other than something that is gay-affirming. Not all gay men who struggle with their orientation need to be changed or moved in a direction that doesn’t support their feelings – they need therapists who help them deal with the reality of their orientation. BUT, this doesn’t take away from the fact that some gay men may need something more in line with Warren’s SIT. I get that

AND, as you said, there are probably plenty of gay men leading heterosexual lives who are having trouble with that as well – and may need to move in a different direction!

Nice points on therapy. I agree with most of them. Too bad there’s too much advocacy and agenda on this issue that can prevent someone from getting professional support when it’s needed.

You brought the subject of ancient same-sex behaviours. I think it’s more to them than we see from the modern perspective of sexual identity(ies). Ancient Greek men, not all of them, apparently used the practice to regulate some group and social power relations. One major difference from modern homosexuality is that it wasn’t a question of consenting adults, based on sexuality. Average life expectancy for men in that time was short, ~40 yrs, so many boys lost their fathers before reaching adult age, which posed a problem for the very citizenship-oriented Greeks. It is theorised that they used these bonds to ease a boy’s transition from puberty age to maturity, based on the fact that the man was required to attract the boy using gifts that would help him in his development. Anal sex was out of the question and sexual passivity in general was considered shameful. Once the boy grew up into an adult citizen he was expected to marry and cease the same-sex relations, those who did not and remained celibate ran the risk of becoming the laughing stock of the city. These relations were not so exclusive, that is, they didn’t put female prostitution out of business. And marriages were a lot more important than they are today.

Anyway, by today’s scientific criteria, if some ancient Greek men’s attractions were exclusive for boys, they’d be more probably classified as ephebophile or hebephile. Male exclusive adult homosexuality would probably be as rare in Ancient Greece as it is in modern Greece. And, as you mentioned, it was mostly a phenomenon restricted to aristocractic people, because they were very concerned about keeping the number of heirs under strict control. Here’s a short paper, that gets into more detail on this issue.

On this issue of age, I once saw a documentary on paleolithic living in Scandinavic regions and I remember, among other things, that some scientists claimed after studying human bones from that period that the age of sexual initiation and onset of puberty came much earlier for ancient females because they had a very short time frame. According to them, females were sexually active as early as 11-14 years of age and were expected to attract men and bear children way before their twenties, because infant mortality was very high and they had to make sure they see at least one child survives and is able to reach adulthood before their death. So, it seems that for women a short life span can compress some stages, lowering the age of sexual maturity, and eliminate menopause. If that impacted women’s sex lives, it is possible that dealing with sexual “orientation” was urgent enough for men to make sure that a boy gets beyond the same-sex stage quite fast and early. There is some evidence that this was performed as a ritual in less advanced tribes in which boys were first required to go through sexual initiation with men before they became mature enough to look for a woman.

What if we just call the Greek behavior as Same Sex gratification…rather than homosexuality….or pedastry?

It seems the word “homosexuality” for same sex behavior is a way to broadly define a group.

Same sex behavior…and the possibility of being coerced into it as a young man or encouraged to participate in it in Greek culture, are two good examples of “what science has not examined.”

No I don’t champion the idea that all forms of homosexuality is a disease — nor even any forms of homosexuality.

But, like certain forms of heterosexuality, I think certain forms of homosexuality aren’t exactly filled with sunshine and light and all things good.

Nor do I think that all forms of heterosexuality and homosexuality are grounded in either genetics or fetal hormonal washes.

So I don’t think that all forms of questioning one’s sexual attractions is doing harm to a biological drive that can’t be changed anyway.

I support gay positive therapy. I support gay marriage. I’m not religious. Consider myself on the very far left politically. Etc…. Pretty much a card carrying Liberal who don’t think the average Liberal is liberal enough.

And I think that a guy who’s homosexuality is problematic for him should be able to have social support in building a life that feels less problematic for him.

Just as I think a guy who feels his heterosexuality is problematic — like the closeted gay guy who feels compelled to practice heterosexuality because of the dominant, and largely heterosexist culture in which he grows up puts undue pressure on him to do so.

But putting undue pressure on a guy who has homosexual fantasies and/or behaviors to identify as gay doesn’t solve the above problem.

Supporting self-determination and respecting the feelings of individuals, while not perfect, is probably as good as it gets.

And yes, a therapist should allow their clients to challenge their beliefs. That’s part of what therapy is — hopefully.

But the role of the therapist should be helping their client to challenge their own beliefs for themselves.

They shouldn’t be taking a patronizing role in which they know better than their clients, because lots of therapists are at least as crazy as their average client.

The average client isn’t all that crazy. The really crazy people don’t tend to seek out therapists.

So most clients are probably deserving as being viewed as having both their intellect and emotions pretty well intact. Even if that means they might make a mistake, just like therapists are apt to do.

But mostly — not allowing questioning one’s identity in a therapeutic way assumes it’s harmful to do so…. Why?

Because it seems to me that we assume that all forms of homosexuality is the unfolding of a biological truth.

But it’s obvious that’s not the case in all forms of homosexuality.

And if it’s not, who’s to decide which is which? The therapist?

Or the client?

Take care,
Katie

For the people who seem to think that all forms of homosexuality have an early bio-chemical predisposition as an influence, then they’d have to content with the wide-spread practice of homosexuality in Ancient Greece — which, of course was pederastry by our standards, but maybe not by theirs.

And, based on the existing cultural artifacts, both written and artistic imagery, it wasn’t as though the Greeks merely practiced ritualized homosexuality divorced from an assessment of the beautiful, like many others cultures have done, and do.

Not unlike the differing standards of female beauty in different historical epochs, it seems the Greeks were pretty successful at creating a cultural standard of beauty out of the male form. There doesn’t seem to have been the divide between female as beautiful and male as handsome like we live today.

Anyway, it’s obvious, and the Greeks are but one example of this, that not all forms of homosexuality has a strong, early, bio-chemical underpinning.

And if not all forms have a strong bio-chemical underpinning, then the argument that any engagement in questioning, and thus modifying, one’s pattern of attractions doesn’t do undue harm to all people because it’s merely a harmful attempt to modify a biologically driven aspect of a person that can’t really be changed anyway.

A Greek man could have stepped back from his culture’s mandates and questioned the politics behind compulsory homosexuality. And some did.

I doubt they were harmed in doing so.

The more modern practice found in certain areas and within certain socio-economic groups in Mexico is another interesting case in point. It’s common practice for older boys to take as “lovers” younger boys. The older boy is to relate to the younger boy as though the latter were a girl. That is, the older boy is only to be the top, the younger, the bottom.

The older boy is permitted to then go on and marry and be straight. The younger boy is not supposed to go on and be marry. Because of the social prohibition against marriage, and because he’s not considered able to take on the mantle of full masculinity, he’s often restricted to the most menial jobs and often prostitution.

Again, I doubt that men coming from this background who decide to step back from his cultures definition of him as gay, and inherently so, would do himself grave harm.

In fact, the lack of resources for him to get social and emotional support in doing so if he wishes seems to be the greater harm.

Take care,
Katie

Jag doesn’t post here anymore – fyi!

Here’s where I have a problem with the, meeting the client’s wishes/desires style therapy. Doesn’t a therapist have the responsibility to look at the reasons behind a client’s wishes/desires and decide FIRST if those desires are indeed healthy? OR, do we simply allow therapists to cater to any desires/wish/whim that an individual has – carte blanch – without questioning the motivations behind such desires?

And all the while the therapists must realize and accept that being gay is NOT a disease that needs to be cured. I’m fairly certain you aren’t championing such an idea, but that is the foundation, IMHO, for all secular therapy regarding sexual orientation and homosexuality.

Is sexuality a complex issue – Yes. I’ll never disagree with you on that. And defining the word GAY is as complicated as defining the word heterosexual. BUT, therapists do have a responsibility not just to the people they see in therapy, but to any of the people who might enter into a relationship with the person they are counseling.

Perhaps we need to get rid of terms like gay AND straight – although I think they serve a purpose!

I would need to know more specifics about Joe Kort’s type of therapy before I could ever support it.

What does science need to explain about Ancient Greece?