The Edge’s David Foucher continues his series regarding all things ex-gay with an article today regarding reparative therapy. There are extensive and interesting quotes from Joseph Nicolosi, Clinton Anderson, Jack Drescher, Robert Jay-Green, yours truly and others.
There are a number of quotes that caught my eye. This one from Robert Jay-Green left me scratching my head:
“All these theories are all promulgated by the ex-gay people,” he points out. “They have this theory that distant fathers and overly-close mothers cause homosexuality. Well, that’s been disproved. The research shows that there is no similarities in the pattern of family development in kids who grow up to be lesbian or gay versus kids who grow up to be straight.”
I don’t think that is want he wanted to say. I think he meant no differences.
In fact, there are some differences but they are only of modest effect statistically speaking. In fact, as we have noted here, gay psychotherapist, Joe Kort thinks there are some family dynamics that can lead to homosexual behavior. He believes this homosexual behavior for these actually and essentially straight people can be changed when they get appropriate psychotherapy.
Dr. Nicolosi lays out the core of reparative therapy. As he describes, it is not compatible with the sexual identity therapy framework:
“[Success] occurs by their understanding the causes of their same-sex attraction,” Nicolosi explains. “We call it the three A’s: attention, affection, approval. These are underlying emotional needs that were not fulfilled by their same-sex parent – the father for the male homosexual and the mother for the lesbian.
“There are two jobs [for the patient],” he continues. “The first task is about the past, and the other is about the present. The past aspect is facing the reality that they did not get this love, making it very clear and conscious, and then going through a grief process. They have to grieve that their father never did and never will love them the way they need to be loved – to the extent they need it. And what that does is free them up from the illusion that they are going to get it somehow either by that father or by somebody else of the same sex.”
According to Nicolosi, the next challenge is to replace that need with an emotional connection in their present.
“[They need to] get those needs met thought a relationship with other men,” he says. “The focus is not on not having gay sex… it’s putting the emphasis on making deep emotional attachments. And we have seen that when these men make deep emotional attachments to other men, their sexual interest diminishes.”
While for people who did have problems with parents, there can be some value in acceptance and grieving. However, presenting this scenario to clients as a general explanation for all attractions to the same sex is not consistent with the sexual identity therapy framework. As I noted in this Edge article, I do not believe the research support is there. Thus, we cannot tell clients we know something we don’t know, but rather theorize.
Okay… huh?
Okay….
Lynn
I dunno why I always forget to mention the important stuff.
The dead giveaway we are talking about environment is the age at which people experience SSA. If men started out straight but around the age of 50 or 60 they began to experience SSA a gene/environment combo would be very likely. However SSA begins in people’s earliest memories, long before they’ve had a chance to sprinkle their genes across the landscape.
A secondary fertility benefit or something equivalent is the only way this gene could survive. Until they find something like that I’m going with the safe bet.
Lynn
If I only knew 3 things.
1)Phenomenon reduces fertility
2)Exists worldwide for thousands of years
3)2% to 3% of people experience it
Right there I’d bet the house on environment.
Science could make an unprecedented finding and I could be completely wrong. But when you are talking about something very common and very old like SSA the smart money is always on the environment.
Drowssap wrote: I think we are gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. The system concept is standard Darwinian dogma.
Gee… it is? Hmmm…. Wasn’t necessarily that way when I studied paleontology/biogeology. Maybe we geologists are just a little too simplistic in our outlook, “KISS” and all all. Yep, agree to disagree.
And also: Do you have any human example where genes have been responsible for something similar to the gay/fertility theory? I mean a gene that offers the same kind of +/- in the fitness column and is widespread around the globe.
Nope. We are speaking about chance gene expression of genes from an X-chromosome which overrides the Y-chromosome. Maybe transgenderism in men as a result of the expression of a diferent gene from the X-chromosome? But it is a situation which appears to be unique… why can it not be a unique situation?
Timothy Kincaid
Agreed, in fact I don’t believe homosexuality is post natal. I think orientation has already been chosen by birth.
Timothy Kincaid
Gay sheep certainly could be the result of breeding for traits and getting an extra side effect. I don’t personally believe that is the case but it is possible.
Anyway if I wasn’t half sleepy I would have written a better hypothesis.
Ok, this one might be more relevant
1)Pathogen (for whatever reason) has the ability to switch a male sheeps orientation to gay.
2)5% (as an example) of wild, male sheep become gay.
3)Humans put sheep on farms
4)Pathogen gets a tightly packed, target rich environment
5)5% turns into 25%
Once again that goes into the completely unsubstantiated theory department. I’m just saying that there are a lot of reasonable theories that make sense and fit in with other things we already know about. I believe a gene for exclusive SSA would be an unprecedented find.
If it turns out I’m wrong I’ll happily come on here and say what a dummy I was thinking it was the environment all these years. 😎
Timothy Kincaid
Absolutely, my statement was pretty forward looking. I could be totally INcorrect. I put it in the category of unsubstantiated but not unreasonable speculation.
BTW, I posted that an hour after I read the article about lefties and meningitis. I had no idea that was even possible 24 hours ago. Kind of blew me away.
drowsap
I think that this statement is too aggressive to be supported by the article that you referenced.
As I read it, the altering discussed was the result of “early life brain insult”. In a similar manner I would not be surprised to find that early life brain injuries could result in a change in orientation. This would seem to be consistent with my assumption that ones orientation lies in the physical structure (the “wiring”) of the brain.
However, we must be cautious not to assume that because something can occur post-natal and because in some rare instances it can be correlated with early trauma that therefore this is an indication of the usual or expected means of origin.
Drowsap
Are you suggesting that homosexuality is a biproduct of domestication of humans (ie. civilization)?
Timothy Kincaid
Whoops… I wrote that wrong. Not prenatal development, early childhood development.
I don’t know how many environmental agents can effect handedness. I’m only saying that handedness appears to be routinely altered by the environment…. which to me is pretty amazing.
/righty
Lynn David
Do you have any human example where genes have been responsible for something similar to the gay/fertility theory?
It doesn’t need to have anything to do with sexuality or fertility. I mean a gene that offers the same kind of +/- in the fitness column and is widespread around the globe.
Lynn David
You are right about the sheep, I have read those stats as well. Its certainly puzzling but the most likely cause probably isn’t a heritable gene.
BTW I’m not sure how accurate those figures are for wild sheep (although I’ve read they can also have SSA). When you breed for traits and cut out all the natural fitness killers you can get some unexpected results. Just about all dog breeds have genetically engineered fitness problems that wolves don’t have. If you put dogs back into the wild and came back in a couple thousand years those fitness killers would be gone.
I think we are gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. The system concept is standard Darwinian dogma. Until we have evidence one way or the other I believe an environmental trigger is a much better guess.
This is a very interesting discussion. I hadn’t realized that it was headed toward or even in the middle of GID until I read further down.
Which bears an interesting question: What *will* the church do with intersexed people? Banish them to outer darkness?
Just recently had a *front page* article run in my city’s (major metro area) newspaper on a young woman with the title, “Neither male nor female, now *she* gets to decide.” And then it went on to detail the medical history of this person complete with the doctor “switching” genders on her confused parents with what to name the babe in arms — ya better think of another name….there’s been some head scratching on who your kid is… (of course, hopefully not in those words).
“And God made them male or/and (?) female…” I have questioned my more fundamentalist friends who will at least not refute that between 1 and 2 babies in 1000 are born intersexed — “What say you?” They should be given the utmost grace for their turned around worlds was the response. Agree but rotsa ruck.
Exodus, to my knowledge, has a former member ministry partner who (at least in the past), when questioned on whether one is male or female gives the ever so helpful response, “Look what is between your legs.” Thank God that “Jennifer” — the young woman about to have surgery never ran into *him*! (This former Exodus member is ex-transgender by the way.)
But, at least for me, it does once again underscore the issue of grace. And, honestly, the issue of GID and the seemingly immutability of a lot of homosexuality. It’s given me, personally, a lot of cause to rethink what exactly Romans 1 means with people turning their backs on God (willfully) and *then* the ensuing result of homosexuality. A challenging place to be, but then, hey, it has *all* been challenging.
Lynn David – It went to spam somehow and I just found it this evening. I thought it was posted…
Well… I guess something from my previous posting to Drowssap was deemed somehow inappropriate.
First you exhibit some rather one-dimensional thinking. There are likely several ways to fertiliity. This may be one; another may be towards birthing males. Your idea about system failure just doesn’t make any sense. Nor does the idea that evolution “finely-tunes” an organism. It doesn’t. Evolution is a process which works with what exists to produce changes that are more useful in an environmental niche.
Fertility is a concept which would likely have been addressed early in mammalian evolution. Herding animals like sheep likely take this particular route to fertility. Why? Got me. I’ve read that while 6-8% of rams may be male-oriented that another 18-22% or more of rams are asexual. And an even greater percentage are simply classed as low performance breeders. What’s up with evolution there?
I don’t think your system failure concept holds water.
Interesting. Thanks for the info on that.
Timothy Kincaid
Hey Tim you mentioned an increased incidence of left handedness for men with SSA. They really don’t know what causes handedness although genes must be involved on some level. Interestingly enough being left handed can also be the result of various injuries during prenatal development.
Here is one study on the subject.
http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2006-0526-200045/UUindex.html
From the study
Fig. 1 shows that children with a meningitis severity score above the median had a 6.2 times higher risk of becoming lefthanded at school age compared to those below the median (95% CI 2.0–18.6). Furthermore, those who contracted meningitis below the median age of 1.8 years had a 12.3 times higher risk (95% CI 2.6–58.0) compared to a 5.9 times higher risk (95% CI 1.6–21.7) among children who contracted meningitis at older age.
Eddy,
My take is that we became friends because ‘we were different’.
I suspect you are right.
I have no idea why but none of my childhood friends are gay. It wasn’t until college that I made friends who would later identify as gay. Ironically, my first gay friends were made through those bastions of heterosexuality: the fraternity system and College Republicans.
Drowssap wrote: “Humans depend on hundreds of different subsystems; a nervous system, a limbic system, an immune system, a reproductive system etc. etc. If each system had a built in 2% to 3% failure rate only the luckiest people would have any fitness at all. Each part of our body works together with a built in failure rate that is typically 1 out of thousands. Hundreds of thousands of years worth of merciless and painful natural selection have ensured that we are put together with incredible consistency and quality. We are produced better than any car or computer. When something gets in the way of people having babies you can bet the problem isn’t in the original blueprint.”
That is nothing but taurus stercoris.
And a bit insulting too. I’m a failed human being from the start? Your thinking seems to be one dimensional in terms of biological systems, evolution, and fitness in terms of behavior among a population. You need to expand into two or three dimensional thinking, to how the genetics is systematically implemented in a population.
No, rather than failure, I’m a product of over-engineering, so to speak. A genetic trait which produces your fitness at a greater rate in females than what that same genetic trait over-engineers certain males. If increased fertility (whatever that is) and more females (more wombs, also greater fertility) is a result of the genetic trait then a few “over-engineered” men will not be of any harm, other males are always ready to take up any “slack.” Overall, fitness -fertility – in the population is well increased.
Fitness, whatever that means doesn’t suffer in a population of humans or any other animal (like sheep). Males are always ready to take up any slack in breeding. In human societies, homosexual males take on rolls which still support the extended family/tribe/whatever. There is no real loss of fitness in a population whose males are 3% or so homosexual.
Even in sheep where as much as 8% of rams are so, it doesn’t affect the population. In any one year, a population of 100 ewes may produce 75 female spring lambs and 25 male lambs, 2 of which turn out to be homosexual. You don’t think the other 23 are not going to take up the slack (6 ewes) when they come to maturity? The only problem for the USDA comes when small rancherss/farmers start relying on 1 or 2 rams and they have a 12% chance of getting a non-breeder.
Your idea of fitness seems to be an abstraction which has no bearing on the reality concerning how such genetic trait produces a systematic benefit for any population.
. . .
My best friend from elementary school is married. Never had SSA or anything of the like.
Timothy,
My best friend from elementary school (since 2nd grade) also came out as gay. Had a unique situation. In 8th grade, Iwe met two other friends and the 4 of us remained close friends. We all headed off to different colleges, come home for Christmas break and called each other with our ‘coming out’ stories.
My take is that we became friends because ‘we were different’. Whether the difference was because we were gay and didn’t know it or whether the difference led to identifying as gay…that’s been the question of a lifetime.
Lynn David
I hear what you are saying and on the surface it makes a lot of sense. The genes don’t code for homosexuality they code for something like fertility but the system isn’t fine tuned. Some people are born with extra fertility while a few are born with very little fertility.
Here is where that concept begins to unravel.
Humans depend on hundreds of different subsystems; a nervous system, a limbic system, an immune system, a reproductive system etc. etc. If each system had a built in 2% to 3% failure rate only the luckiest people would have any fitness at all. Each part of our body works together with a built in failure rate that is typically 1 out of thousands. Hundreds of thousands of years worth of merciless and painful natural selection have ensured that we are put together with incredible consistency and quality. We are produced better than any car or computer. When something gets in the way of people having babies you can bet the problem isn’t in the original blueprint.
Touché 😎
Having said that…. what the heck. If they find a gene I’ll believe it. I just don’t see how it could work.
Drowssap wrote:
Actually when you add up what we know it doesn’t add up at all
1) Very common form of what is essentially infertility
2) Present around the world for thousands of years
3) Very low identical twin concordence rate
Right there I say, Ah Ha! It’s environment.
You keep forgetting about gene expression from the X-chromosome, which completely explains your three points. It is a process, a genetic predisposition to not shut down the X-chromosome – not a single gene. It would have an advantage in other forms which outweigh your points – that is increased fertility via the female route &/or a tendency to produce female offspring (more wombs = more offspring/greater fertility).
Then there is the other thing that having too many male children increases a mother’s immune response to a later male fetus. This may be a hormonal response or it may be a trigger to the same gene expression from the X-chromosome, which would be completely independant of the genetic predisposition described above.
The only reason it doesn’t add up for you is that you cannot seem to get your mind around the idea. You seem stuck in a rut, unable to expand your imagination.
But let’s not get into that here, like we did in that other thread….
Androgyny is beautiful!
Timothy Kincaid
I think the factors you mentioned could point to either traits that offer greater susceptability or are a result of something in the environment.
However, I gotta agree its a guess. I’m not an idealogue on this one. If somebody found strong evidence that SSA was caused by early childhood imprinting or a gene I’ll be all ears.
Actually when you add up what we know it doesn’t add up at all
1) Very common form of what is essentially infertility
2) Present around the world for thousands of years
3) Very low identical twin concordence rate
Right there I say, Ah Ha! It’s environment.
But then…
4) Bodies are in perfect physical health
5) Evidence that gay men are slightly MORE attractive than straight men. This is interesting because in a lot of prenatal illnesses children are less attractive because of the disease process. Schiz victims are a good example of this.
All I can say is, what the heck? It doesn’t fit any known pattern that I am aware of. Could be genes, could be environment, could be socialization…. bah… I’ll just make a sandwich and forget about it.
Drowsap,
In re your “environmental trigger” argument… well, it just doesn’t leave a good explanation for the single-chromosome deactivation in mothers of gay sons. Or hair swirls. Or digit length. Or left-handedness. Or pheromones. Or smell preferences. Or aural responses. Or startle points. Or hypothalamus differences. Or all the other physical attributes that seem to be statistically different.
I agree that there are probably different pathways. But it’s hard for me to see that environmental triggering explains the majority, or even the largest subset, of gay men (there’s not enough research on women to make any assumptions).
Ultimately, we are all just guessing. But whatever it is, it seems to be for most gay men to be determined either before birth or in the earliest formative years and is, for the overwhelming majority of gay men, immutable.
A friend of mine on the other side of the park ended up gay. We attended the same church, schools, cub scouts, boy scouts… and, sorry to say, sometimes I thought of him as being a bit of a sissy. I mean, in Indiana you ought to at least be able to get the ball to the basket from the foul line. I might have only rarely beat my best friend at one-on-one basketball, but I still had a hook shot. Though there was that one infamous game when that with hyper-accurate shooting I pump-faked my way to victory over the starting forward from our high school team on his own home court. He looked so despondent at the end that I wanted to snuggle and kiss him to cheer him up…. but I don’t think that would have done it.
Then their was that guy one street over on eighth street who was two grades ahead off me that I always thought that was ‘different.’ He’s now a local hairdesser. But those I cherished as my closest and best friends were all straight when I was young.
Timothy Kincaid
Wait a minute… let me clarify one thing, I was wrong.
Scientists HAVE discovered 1 gene (with NO close 2nd) that conks us out at a rate of 2% to 3% at birth. When someone has 2 copies of the gene that protects humans from Malaria they get Sickle Cell. It has a 100% identical twin concordence rate and it travels by simple inheritance. It is very geographically specific and outside of the Malaria belt the gene disapears.
With such a diverse environment very few helpful genes (if any) are equally beneficial worldwide. If a gene caused homosexuality it should vary quite a bit by geography. Like the gene that protects us from Malaria there would probably be huge areas where it wasn’t present at all.
Timothy Kincaid
As the lone ambassador of the environmental trigger theory on this blog… let me just say one thing… BELIEVE IT! 😎
1) 20% identical twin concordence rate (very low)
2) Possible birth clustering in cities (we’ll see, I would guess true)
3) Dramatically lower numbers of offspring (how could a gene survive? No solid answer yet)
4) Have scientists ever found a gene that conks out 2% to 3% of our species at birth? None so far. Natural selection is just too merciless.
5) Gender Dysphoria part of Autism Spectrum and also the #1 predictor for adult homosexuality (Interesting? maybe)
Nobody knows what causes Autism but researchers are beginning to strongly suspect a pathogenic trigger.
BTW, I should note that I think you guys are correct that there are multiple pathways. Some people probably are gay because of early childhood socialization. I believe in a recent Bailey study some men who thought they were bisexual actually displayed straight arousal patterns.
/been posting a lot lately because I’m sick. Crud!
Timothy – It’s the soy I tell ya!
There is some evidence that an urban versus a country birthplace is associated with likelihood to marry homosexually in Denmark but that is the only neighborhood association I have seen. This was a population sample.
However, you are reporting convenience sampling. I bet we could all come up with some interesting theories based on limited numbers of people we know 🙂
OK, guys, just for fun I’m going to throw something on the table.
I’ve heard stories from gay men about their childhood friends who are also gay. They found each other at a very young age and have been friends since. (alas, all my childhood friends are straight)
One of the things I’ll sometimes hear from these guys is, “Ohmigod, on my block all the boys my age ended up gay. It must have been something in the water, ha ha.”
I’m not a big believer in “environmental causes” but I thought I’d just throw it out there for comment.
I believe that loneliness feeds sexual craving. Further, simply being in the presence of the sex to which you are attracted provides some (for want of a better term) sexual satisfaction.
So it does seem logical to me that making close friendships with persons of the same sex would diminish compulsive sexual behavior. If nothing else, it fills your time – if you’re watching the game with your buddies, you aren’t cruising a bar or internet chat room.
However, I don’t think these non-sexual friendships need necessarily to be with straight men. And I certainly don’t think these friendships change the direction of one’s attractions.
It doesn’t matter how good or bad a parent is – if you are going to have children – they will end up in therapy complaining about you. Please. I have issues with my mom, she has issues with her mom, who had issues with her mom and on and on the wheel goes round.
Rick,
Wow – I think I’ve heard it all know – somehow telling your kids that fighting is bad makes them gay? – are you really insinuating that? What did the father do to shame the son? I’ll bet for every gay kid whose parents said or did those kinds of things to them I could find 9 straight kids whose parents said or did that to them as well – LOL – I thought Joseph Nicolosi with his inexplicably huge laundry list of reasons for homosexuality was bad enough – There have been so many reasons listed for homosexuality that the people who created the lists have made it almost statistically impossible for them to be completely wrong. 🙂
Drowssap –
I oftened think that parent’s “good intentions” are what land children in therapy later in life!
ANON 502 –
I don’t understand what you mean by destructive-homosexual impulses. I’ve never met an impules tied to a particular orientation. There are destructive impulses, don’t get me wrong, but there is no such thing as a destructive “homosexual” impulse.
I also think you misunderstood me – I agree that forming intimate non-sexual relationships can weaken sexual impulses – but that is true for straight AND gay people – I’ve heard of priests encouraging monks and nuns to do the same thing as a way of re-channeling the sex-drive – but these actions do not diminish or change one’s orientation – you take these situations away and sexual impulses will return to normal levels
Drowssap –
I honestly doubt the mom wants the kid to be teased or tormented by bullies either – you seem to assume the father is the only one who is somehow aware of these things – but its a very delicate balancing act between protecting the child and damaging his sense of wholeness, wellness and self-esteem – often the father isn’t prepared to deal with that
jayhuck
It doesn’t matter if a dad is gay, straight, conservative, liberal or anything inbetween. No loving father (or even unloving) wants his son to dress up like a girl and be endlessly tormented by bullies. That is the reality of an 8 year old boy dressed up like a girl. Gender exploration is a perfectly normal and healthy part of growing up. What I saw wasn’t exploration, it was GID.
Rick – I suspect there is a point in there somewhere. Want to make it explicit?
Was the neo-hippie liberal who had such unmasculine ideas also gay?
I once lived with a family, whereby the divorced mother had custody of her six year-old daughter and four year-old son. The boy slept with his mother, and the father, a neo-hippie liberal who had gone on to start another family, would shame his son whenever he did something as innocous as play with a plastic sword, telling him that wanting to “fight” with anyone was “bad,” even in make-believe.
Nearly twenty years later, I Googled the kid’s name, and sure enough he’s a gay activist.
Jayhuck,
Please reread my comment. I acknowledged the potential for diminishing and noted that it happened in my life. I also said quite clearly:
It seems plausible that this theory could apply to the DESTRUCTIVE homosexual impulses rather than to ALL homosexual feelings. I guess what I’m saying is that the PROCESS appears to have merit; I hope they don’t over-promise the RESULTS.
So, why are you reminding me ‘but it doesn’t change your orientation’ when that was my point???
In many of our discussions we’ve championed the wholesome gay relationships that a number have found. At the same time, we’ve talked about the destructive behaviors that the ex-gays seem to all have in their backgrounds. So, whether homosexuality is wrong or not, it would seem that there is a destructive or non-productive side that many struggle with. I was hunching whether Nicolosi’s theories could help with overcoming the destructive impulses for those who have them.
still thinking –
in remembering the segment, the part that stood out was one of the boys expressed verbally that he wanted to be a girl.
Jayhuck,
My heart hurts everytime I see a father act out on their son because they do not live up to his standard or doesn’t fulfill the role his father wants to vicariously live through. It is cruel.
Hi Drowssap,
Yes, I am very familiar with GID and I think you are right that it was the twin study on 60 minutes – one exhibited masculine behavior and one effiminate behavior.
Eddy,
What about the thousands or millions of gay men who actually have and always have had good relationships with their fathers? I just don’t buy into the idea that establishing close non-sexual relationships to members of the same sex diminishes your orientation. It can, at times be another way of channeling sexual desire, but it doesn’t change your orientation. I believe they encourage monks to do the same thing, dont’ they. They often ask celibate people, gay or straight, to do these things, and I think it can help with sex, but it in no way changes your orienation, and it is only a temporary fix.
I think its problematic to say those things have “merit” when they are only being proclaimed by people with an intense desire to see them happen – It goes back to the Old Time Tent Revivals I mentioned earlier – Many people claimed miracles happened them then. Example, I knew of one man who went to a faith healer to get healed of his poor eyesight – he wanted to be healed so badly he TRULY believed he had been healed when he left – not too long thereafter he got into a car accident – this is the kind of things that Ex-Gays are proclaiming, and in the same kind of way. Granted, it doesn’t mean that they are wrong, but this kind of self reporting is not proof, anymore than that man’s belief he was healed was proof.
Drowssap –
Dad’s don’t, as you put it, tolerate the situation often because they are afraid it will make them look bad – that is why mom’s are often better at dealing with this – I do have some friend’s whose son is actually dealing with a gender identity conflict, and it is the mom that is being good for the emotional health of her son, not the dad – Not that the dad isn’t trying, but too often they take it personally and are more worried about what other people think than what is best for the child.
Drowssap –
AH, yes – I know what GID is – my apologies.
What did you mean by “no dad would tolerate this situation”? What do you mean he wouldn’t tolerate it? I know many dads that tolerate their kids playing with toys meant for the other gender. First of all, in that story you relayed, you have no evidence, other than the way the kid dressed, that he had GID! Playing with opposite sex toys doesn’t make a child have GID – good grief – my understanding is that there is more that goes into that than just playing with a toy. A toy may be a symptom of GID, but it is not the cause, and we need to separate the two.
It has torn MY heart out to see some dads yell at or beat their sons because their sons want ot play with a doll or with other toys our society says is only appropriate for a certain gender, or because their sons don’t want to play sports – too often these dads try to live vicariously through their sons and aren’t looking out for their son’s best interest, they just want their son to be the kind of person they want them to be, not who they actually are – which is ridiculous. It also eats at my heart to see dads diminish their sons’ self-esteem by getting angry at them for doing this or telling them its not appropriate – GID is much more than playing with toys Drowssap.
All I know is that I played with very “masculine” toys when I was growing up and I was gay – my sister played with very masculine toys as well and she is straight.
Ann
I’m not sure if it was in the twins piece on 60 Minutes or not. It probably was mentioned in the Bailey piece where one identical twin was masculine and the other was very feminine.
Lynn is right, it is called Gender Dysphoria or GID. This doesn’t refer to boys who are a slightly feminine or girls who are a little more masculine. GID means SERIOUS gender conflict at a very early age.
GID is Gender Identity Disorder or as some prefer, GD, Gender Dysphoria.
Nicolosi: “….their father never did and never will love them the way they need to be loved – to the extent they need it.”
Boy,…. talk about writing in caveats that he, Nicolosi, can subjectively determine himself. Either the client did not get their father’s love “the way they need to be loved” or “to the extent” that evidently Nicolosi or any RTherapist detemines “they need it.”
That’s the first I’ve heard of a biological explanation such as that.
Nicolosi: “We do not want to diminish the rights or civil liberties of gays or lesbians – they have a right to pursue their lives, their happiness, their dreams; those rights should not be limited in any way…”
Really?
Eddy,
That has crossed my mind. As with women who have always been straight – their attachments to eachother is different.
Hi Drowssap,
I am trying to remember – wasn’t the term GID also used on the 60 minutes segment with Leslie Stahl by the therapist she was iterviewing?
Jayhuck,
Just because some people in the ex ex gay group went through these things and had no long lasting effect from “friendship” I know that creating close female relationships has helped me tremendously. But then I have not seen every woman as a potential mate either. By the way, my close friends know me very well and there are no secrets about my past. This also helps and they accept me for who I am.
The closing statement of Nicolosi’s quote begs some discussion:
“And we have seen that when these men make deep emotional attachments to other men, their sexual interest diminishes.”
I relate very strongly to the ‘sissy boy’ as the ‘runt of the litter’ in a family of 7 boys. I also relate to the detachment of the father.
I was fortunate to have several incredible chats with my dad in his declining years. And, I did notice a diminishing of certain homosexual attractions that I could connect to the healing of our relationship. But, they didn’t ALL go away.
I’ve had a number of deep emotional attachments over the years, also. Again, I perceived a diminishing in my sexual attractions. But, again, they didn’t ALL go away.
It seems plausible that this theory could apply to the DESTRUCTIVE homosexual impulses rather than to ALL homosexual feelings. I guess what I’m saying is that the PROCESS appears to have merit; I hope they don’t over-promise the RESULTS.
(BTW: has anybody else noticed that MOST straight men DON’T crave a ‘deep emotional attachment’ to another male? or, maybe to put it another way, that MOST straight men define ‘deep’ and ’emotional’ differently than gay men? The pursuit and realization of those attachments isn’t always an easy path.)
I have a friend who has an overbearing mother who is not affectionate towards her. And the family dynamics should make her a lesbian – but she is not.
jayhuck or anyone else interested.
A couple of months ago I ran into a kid with GID. (first time ever to my knowledge)
I was in line at a Subway in a nice part of town behind a pretty mom in her 30s and her 7 or 8 year old daughter. The college aged guy behind the counter asked the mom what her daughter would like. The mom responded in a pleasant voice, “you mean my son.” (half second of silence) The guy’s face went cold with fear, he was clearly afraid that he offended the mom. The boy had long, sandy blonde hair that went to his shoulders. His face was slightly freckled and was neither masculine nor feminine in appearance. He was dressed in pants and a shirt but they were feminine in style and color. He was wearing a necklace and colorful bracelets. The worker went straight into apology mode and mentioned something about being stupid to have missed the fact that he was “a little dude.” The mom said something about it being no problem “he always dresses like this.” Then she grabbed him by the wrist and held his hand up. “Look, he even paints his nails. I can’t get him to stop.” We looked at his long, multicolored nails and the little boy smiled sheepishly. At this point something was mentioned about how it must be tough at school. The conversation went on a little longer and they both ordered and left.
Knowing that no dad on earth would tolerate that situation I looked for a wedding ring on the mom’s finger. Sure enough there wasn’t one.
I felt like I got kicked in the heart. I felt for the mom, the kid, and the tremendous pain in his future.
I found this quote from Jack Drescher rather amusing: “For example, if you put straight people in prison, they will often have homosexual intercourse with people of their same-sex – and when they come out they act heterosexually. Are they gay? No. They were doing something but it may have nothing to do with their orientation.”
I suppose Drescher means that men who have sex with other men in prison do so simply for pleasure. They’re aware that it is physically possible for men to have sex with each other, they think ‘Hmm, that seems potentially pleasurable’, so they do it. I thought that was the same reason why any man has sex with another man, however, so I don’t see how that makes the sexuality of these so-called ‘straight’ men fundamentally different in kind from that of gay men.
Presumably Drescher must think that gay men’s interest in having sex with other men has nothing to do with their calculating that they can derive pleasure from it, but that’s a false understanding of sexual attraction. It isn’t some mindless instinct like hunger that’s always there, demanding satisfaction, regardless of how you feel or what you’re thinking. Anyone’s interest in having sex with anyone comes from their awareness that sex produces pleasure. The only difference between gay men and the kind of ‘straight’ men who have sex with other men is that the minds of the former focus more frequently and insistently on the potential pleasures of gay sex than do the minds of the latter.
jayhuck
GID isn’t a NARTH thing, it is a legitimate childhood disorder. It refers to very young boys or girls who only play with opposite sex toys or make statements about growing up to be the opposite sex. Basically boys that believe they are girls or will grow up to be women and visa versa.
If 100% of children with GID grow up to be homosexual or transgender that is pretty fascinating. If he is talking about children who are merely less gender conforming it would be jaw droppingly shocking. Could that be true? Somebody has to know the scoop on this study.
Addendum – If you had asked me when I was 18 if I was gay – I would have denied it until the cows came home – ok, bad analogy, I lived on a farm, but you know what I mean – these self-reports don’t mean a heck of a lot
Drowssap –
What is GID????? Is that a real scientific acronym or does it come from fringe-psychological and pseudo-scientific groups like NARTH?
What I think is interesting, is about this review – assuming it IS accurate – is that there is no followup – I am masculine and I didn’t come out of the closet until I was 22 yo – I know many many men who didn’t come out until much later in life – so who knows what this book or this “review” means
The article mentioned the Richard Green study that found that three quarters of “feminine” boys identified as gay later in life. Did Richard mean boys with full blown GID or boys that were simply less masculine than the norm? I can’t seem to find an answer.
A book about the study, The “Sissy Boy Syndrome” and the Development of Homosexuality had an interesting Amazon review on the book. (not sure if it was accurate).
I think its also important to note that just because people experience a decrease in their attractions after getting closer to the same sex in other ways, does not even come close to meaning that the two are tied. It could very easily be a placebo effect. Remember – these are people that desperately want to change, so you give them a scenario that you say will help start that change and they believe you – because they want to believe.
I think we’ve heard enough Ex-Ex Gay stories about people who did these things, who claimed to have experienced diminished SSAs and who now say they were just repressing their desires – they didn’t, in truth, diminish.
Again, there is absolutely no scientific proof at all for Nicolosi’s claims – just the claims made by patients who desperately want to be “cured”!
Sometimes Reparative Therapy reminds me of Old Time Tent Revivals, where healers would sometimes be – all manner of people wanting and needing cures went to them and claimed to be healed, only to find out they, in fact, weren’t.
“In fact, there are some differences but they are only of modest effect statistically speaking. In fact, as we have noted here, gay psychotherapist, Joe Kort thinks there are some family dynamics that can lead to homosexual behavior. He believes this homosexual behavior for these actually and essentially straight people can be changed when they get appropriate psychotherapy.”
First of all, just because Joe Kort says it, doesn’t mean it is so!
Second, as in all things, I wonder if the same is true for some straight people – are there some family dynamics that lead to straight behavior, but that are so “weak” that should the person seek therapy, they will change???? Probably so