The new fruit fly research has observers wondering about a drug to alter sexual orientation. This article by John Tierney raises some of the inevitable questions which will arise if indeed such a bridge can be made between flies and humans.
He quotes an email from researcher David Featherstone on the controversy:
I asked Dr. Featherstone if it might be possible one day to quickly alter humans’ sexual orientation. Here’s his answer:
Although I am not sure my research is a big step in this direction, I think that ultimately the answer will be: Yes. After all, the goal of neuroscience is a complete understanding of brain function. Understanding in science is typically demonstrated by the ability to control a process.This morning, I received an email from a transsexual 5 years into her hormone therapy. She told me she regularly modifies her libido and orientation with diet and drugs. She even sent me a scientific reference explaining why her regimen might work. Now that is amazing research.The question of whether or not homosexuality should be turned on and off is not a scientific question. It is an ethical/societal dilemma. I am glad my work is stimulating the discussion earlier rather than later. History is replete with poorly thought out attempts to ‘cure’ societal/behavioral ‘illnesses’ that turned out, with proper perspective, to not be ‘illnesses’ at all.
This seems like science fiction now, but deciding such matters may be ahead of us. Good to talk about it now.
UPDATE: John Tierney has posted more from David Featherstone with more explicit commentary about what is novel about his work. He ends his emails on this note regarding ethics:
So the question is not if we will understand the biological basis of homosexuality enough to alter it, but when. And what people will choose to do with the knowledge. If there is a demand, I guarantee some pharmaceutical company will make the stuff. Or will the government outlaw treatments for behaviors that are obviously no threat to the individual or society? Would this imply that the government officially thinks that homosexuality is no one’s business but one’s own?
Male-Male Courtship Pattern Shaped By Emergence Of A New Gene In Fruit Flies (ScienceDaily)
The newest contribution in this field — published in the PNAS.
Some recent findings:
Male and female brains are not so different, fruit flies’ sex acts tell us
Study in flies points to unisex brain
One of the welcome side-effects of this new research is to undermine the loathsome, outdated idea that homosexuality=immorality. As the idea grows that homosexuality is biologically triggered, the whole structure of groups such as Exodus – which promise change through prayer, and are based on the idea of homosexuality as moral failure – is revealed to be futile and archaic.
Sure, some people will choose to take a pill to become straight. So what? The bottom line is, government does not have the right to impose sexual morality, but beyond that it’s up to the individual on how they want to live their life. If such a pill is ever devised, I think it would be quite liberating.
Evan,
I hope you got this nuance I’ve been trying to put across. Finding a “trigger” that can influence a condition is not finding a cause or a reason for the existence of that.
I believe we have all gotten your “nuance”. However, for all your speculation, it should be pointed out that we don’t know if we are dealing with something like a “trigger” or if it is something much larger. We have to admit we don’t honestly know the extent to which nature and nurture play a role in the shaping and understanding of our sexuality, just that they both most likely do.
Drowssap,
It looks like it’s going that way. Even if these rats are not higher mammals, all mammals must have preserved some “legacy” mechanisms in their most basic systems. In rats, it’s the vomeronasal organ that influences the brain in gender roles (the brain is flexible in support); in humans it might be the visual input or some other sense (proprioception, maybe?) influenced by a “trigger”, a chemical compound (or a deficient level of it).
We tend to forget when we think about this subject that it’s not in terms of sexuality that humans are most complex, but in all other ways — tool usage, memory, awareness, reason, discernment, cooperation. Yeah, our brain is complex, as someone pointed out in a previous message, but it’s not for sexuality or gender behaviour that is known to have evolved so much. So I expect this issue to not be susceptible to the same degree of complexity as the ‘modern’ abilities. Helen Fisher developed a model of mammal reproduction valid for humans too, with all the neurological implications.
Jag,
I stated my position, I still believe you were unduly intransigent on the “ex-gays marrying women” and ostensibly neutral on whatever minorities may want to get married for. We can agree we disagree. The message is here for people to judge for themselves.
On the pill question — I have already tried to make it clear that whatever we may understand by “biological support” can be a matter of great complexity. Biological support does not mean necessarily cause, or not mainly that. Some conditions have psychological causes but are supported by chemical reactions, you alter the chemistry, you change the course of that condition without knowing if it’s really genetic, epigenetic or otherwise developmental. I hope you got this nuance I’ve been trying to put across. Finding a “trigger” that can influence a condition is not finding a cause or a reason for the existence of that.
Evan –
Two things –
One, you will note that I am not inconsistent…as per Ken’s comments above. Please reread – you seem a bit confused.
Secondly, a “pill” to change orientation would indeed solidify the biological argument…that doesn’t mean that biology is the ONLY contributor, but that there is a component which is biological in nature. Even that simple truth (which is evident in science today) is denied by many.
Evan, please reread my posts and I encourage you to ask questions before becoming accusatory. If you find an inconsistency (or think you have) – please ask me about it…I’d love to clarify so I am not misunderstood, or misrepresented by others.
Evan
That is a great story and I believe it gives us a strong clue as to how SSA is going to play out. One chemical probably seperates gay and straight. Depending on someone’s genetic makeup it might have an impact on personality and gender identity as well.
On a related note, MTF Transexuals claim that they have female wiring stuck in a male body. It might turn out that EVERY man has female wiring. Most men produce the specialized hormones that turn it off but for some reason transpeople don’t produce these chemical messengers. It looks like it might be headed that way.
Attn: Drowssap and all.
David Featherstone, one of the scientists who participated in that study on shifting Drosophila mating behaviour, mentioned a most interesting study on mammals published in August this year.
The Harvard research team which conducted the study reported that gender roles were shifted in male and female rats just by deleting one single gene, involved in detecting pheromones. The astonishing discovery is that it was not the brain that decided gender roles difference (in fact, both sexes had neural circuitry for both types of gender roles), but an organ involved in olfactory input. This is of great significance, as a theoretical progress, because up until now it was assumed that in mammals it was the brain that decided gender roles.
Here is a press report on that:
Gender Switch? Mice that can no longer detect pheromones because of a single gene deletion cross the boundaries of typical gender behavior.
I’m looking forward to findings on higher primates. I’m sure we’re going to lose some other dogmas in the process.
Just a little reality check about transsexuals, hormones, and orientation change:
Every transperson I’ve ever known or heard of who found their orientation changing during transition, it happened around the first year of taking hormones or after they came out, and it was a one time thing. Str8 as guy to str8 as girl, gay as guy to gay as girl, gay as guy to bi girl, gay girl to gay guy, etc. I’d give it about a 99% chance that the transwomen Featherstone refers to is bisexual and the regular shifts she attributes to hormones and diet are psychosomatic.
Orientation shifts in transpeople are almost certainly the result of lifting psychological repression when accepting onesself as transsexual. Orientation shifts can go either way, and it doesn’t make sense that the same hormones would cause one person to become attracted to guys and another to girls.
As for gay curing pills, well, color me skeptical. The human brain is waaaaaayyyyy more complicated than the mouse or fruit fly brain. To completely shift sexual orientation would likely require a major reworking of the brain itself, and I don’t see that happening with a pill. In the highly unlikely event one was invented, I doubt it would be young people taking it, as homosexuality is increasingly no big deal among the young, and that trend is only going to continue.
Hey, does anybody know where Lynn David is?
He hasn’t put his two cents in for a few threads. I hope he’s doing ok.
Some people do insuline shots all their life just to survive, taking a pill is much less serious than that. After all, it’s better than nothing and better solutions could become available given the necessary time. How much time before this pill hits the shelves? It depends on the industry of science, on how fast they set the pace for getting that. Right now, research seems rather incidental in this area and I can hardly see any rush about it. But then, who expected scientists to shift flies’ mating preferences a few years ago? The next target would be mammals.
I do have my doubts that such medication would be up for the grabs though, and that you could pull jokes on gay friends by stealthily fixing them drinks to turn them into straights for a night’s fun.
Interestingly, there’s a young woman I might have married had I been straight. As it turns out she married my best friend, had an affair in her 30s with their teenage foster kid, divorced my friend and married the kid. So I guess being gay was lucky for me.
Holy Jerry Springer! 😎 What a train wreck. Yeah, you lucked out on that one.
You do make an interesting point. If such a pill existed, once you started taking it you would begin to build your life a certain way. I don’t think that would slow anybody down to begin with but in their 30s and 40s, some people might have second thoughts.
If you were 18 years old again, would you have taken straight pills if they were available?
At 18, still living in the parsonage of the church where my father was pastor in a rural conservative town and knowing that all of my friends and acquaintances were anti-gay, if there were a switch on the wall that I could have flipped I certainly would have.
Interestingly, there’s a young woman I might have married had I been straight. As it turns out she married my best friend, had an affair in her 30s with their teenage foster kid, divorced my friend and married the kid. So I guess being gay was lucky for me.
But as to a pill, that’s different than a switch. A pill would be something you would have to take for life. I probably would have taken the pill for a while. But, as I matured, I would probably have grown to question the necessity for it.
My concern is that I would have made decisions that would leave me in the ethical position of having to continue taking the pill in order to honor commitments. Ultimately, I think I would come to feel entrapped and resentful.
But that’s all speculation. And I very sincerely doubt there will ever be such a pill – or not in our lifetime.
Eddy
Time will tell and you might be exactly correct. Assuming scientists do develop this technology I believe young gay men will take it in droves, older established gay people probably far less.
Rationale> if you are 45, gay in a happy relationship why the heck would you take a straight pill? But if you are 16, why not? You aren’t established and it will probably make your life 10X easier. Whatever people choose it needs to be up to the individual, not groups on either side.
I don’t think there will be a straight to gay pill. Only because developing a drug can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and over a decade of testing. Is there a huge demand in the straight, male population for a daily pill to make them gay? I don’t see any evidence. There is probably a 1,000x greater demand for a pill to turn off sex drive completely just so guys can get work done. 😎 A sex drive can be an ENORMOUS distraction.
Evan,
I think you are just looking for controversy where none exists. You accused Jag of changing her opinion based on the topic when she did no such thing.
Ken,
The context is different, but the way Jag judges “gay/ex-gay marrying women” shows some intransigence with regard to how authentic this marriage would be without much sexual or attraction support, which she is willing to overlook in the case of other people, who just want to marry regardles of their sexual inclinations or lack of them.
Drowssap–
With divorce rates and marital infidelity on the increase, the possibility of paying alimony and child support for years, and the fact that so much of heterosexuality is quite visibly ‘off the mark’, I’m not sure gays will be lining up for that straight pill as quickly or in the numbers you expect. I’d even suspect there would be more than a few straights wanting to take the gay pill.
Evan,
Jag was not being inconsistent in her comments. In the other post she wasn’t talking about asexual couples. The issue was about gay men marrying women. Nor did she say they shouldn’t be allowed to marry, just that she didn’t think such marriages would work.
Timothy Kincaid
Just to play devil’s advocate,
If you were 18 years old again, would you have taken straight pills if they were available?
I could be wrong, but I honestly believe someday in the next ten years it will happen. I’ll turn on the DrudgeReport and he’ll have that corny, red flashing light graphic up. “Researchers turn gay man straight!” And of course the link will be getting so many hits that I won’t be able to click through to it.
Evan asked in post 71831:
Should asexual people have a right to find an asexual companion to marry so that would benefit them legally?
They already do, provide they are an opposite-sex asexual couple (except in MA where same-sex marriages are allowed).
Should it allow people to enter threesome marriages if they love each other?
No, the legal structure of civil marriages doesn’t allow for that. The legal structure of civil marriage (in the US) has evolved in to a structure based on 2 equal partners, such that the gender of the partners is largely irrelevant. However, the concept of there only being 2 partners is not.
Jag,
Your reply runs counter to your own views expressed on another topic I can remember right now.
In a reply to Warren, you said:
Reread this…” [they want a life that appeals to them on] on most other levels besides the sexual?” How do you build a marriage on this? Why not be “buddies?” Every person in a relationship wants to be desired and desireable (is this a stretch?) and every person wants to feel that the person they are with only has eyes for them. (#68012)
Now you say:
I don’t care what their motivations are, but maybe that’s the difference between you and I. If two consenting adults wish to marry, I have no care as to their sexual preferences or nature.
You seem to change your mind from one topic to another.
Evan –
You stated:
“Should asexual people have a right to find an asexual companion to marry so that would benefit them legally?”
Absolutely. People marry all the time who don’t have sex (like inmates who will never consummate their marriages), and I’m sure there are those who marry for reasons OTHER than sex. I don’t care what their motivations are, but maybe that’s the difference between you and I. If two consenting adults wish to marry, I have no care as to their sexual preferences or nature.
I (and the law) agree with Jayhuck that the state is a secular institution. Although, it shouldn’t be such a stretch to expect equal treatment under the law…and, your place of worship.
If they find a pill that replaces same-sex attractions with opposite-sex attractions (an extremely unlikely scenario, in my opinion), then knock yourself out.
I think that would be pointless and stupid, but if that’s what you want to do I see no problem with it.
But of course you don’t get to base MY rights on YOUR pill popping.
I have no problem with that type of legal arrangements, Jayhuck. I live in a country where such unions are legally recognised, so my argument was mainly concerned with setting limits to self-determination. But I imagine that gay believers wouldn’t agree with you.
Evan,
Some religions and cultures have a claim over such practices and they could argue for such status to be preserved and respected as such.
That’s absolutely fine Evan – if certain religions don’t want to sanction gay marriage I don’t have a problem with that. It is the secular state, however, that bestows the rights and privileges, and THAT is what I’m talking about.
The rights should be applied to all (consenting adults), or they should be applied to none.
I doubt that whatever drug would be devised to switch same-sex attractions off would be available for fun. Do you know many people in great distress over their opposite-sex attractions? I don’t mean people who have trouble dealing with relationships or with partner habits or character, just people who are greatly troubled over being attracted to the opposite sex.
Make sure you have the cash and grab a few shares when the time is ripe!
OK, but what about the hypothetical pill we’re discussing here? Why are you so concerned about other people’s choices, Jayhuck?
Not necessarily, as long as they address it symptomatically, downstream the cause. It would be dealing with whatever biological support SSAs thrive on, without supposing it to be the only cause. Take cancer, for instance, they could switch off the protein dysfunctions that lead to cell mass proliferation, without eliminating any other environmental inputs that are conducive to such condition. Do you imply that there is a gene or set of genes that specifically program — ie, design — an individual to thouroughly feel and act as a gay, or are there some genetic components that make one more susceptible than others to developing same-sex attractions? If the former were the case, it would have been easy to find evidence in the general population of gays, in fact, that evidence should have been irrefutable and general to all gays. Like the markers for hair or eye colour. But still, it didn’t happen. We only have some candidates for a ‘gay gene’ in very specific and small subsets, and even that is a matter still very disputed (is Mike Bailey wasting his time trying to replicate Hamer’s ’93 right now?) which shows that maybe our methodological assumptions are wrong and we’re trying to find biodeterministic explanations where there is only some support which is of significance in choice subsets. Do you know of any genetic marker for gayness present in all studied gays? Was it replicated?
I don’t think they will find such a thing, because nature does not have biologically determined categories to clarify our human categories and terms. It’s the other way around — we adjust our terms to make sense of it. We’re still working with the hetero, homo, bi, whatever scheme. Is there a bi gene? A pedo one? They all are ‘sexual orientations’ according to present science. They found a gambling gene, now that’s epochal for Homo Sapiens. We keep finding genes for whatever we identify in the present society in a certain way, under a certain name. Don’t ask gene scientists to make sense of their discoveries, they are as good at it as fixing my car if I tell them it’s broken.
OK, though not playing a game of self-determination. It’s one thing to claim a right to get rid of the ball and chain of unwanted attractions (their sufferers live them as a health problem) and quite another to claim equality for appropriating whatever social practice might be widespread in society. Some religions and cultures have a claim over such practices and they could argue for such status to be preserved and respected as such.
Should asexual people have a right to find an asexual companion to marry so that would benefit them legally? I mean, it’s their nature to be asexual and they can be together in asexual ways, why should they not have the same benefits as other people just because the nature of their sexuality is asexual? To quote Jayhuck, ‘if someone wants a relationships or a “life” that appeals to them on levels beside the sexual, they get friends or get a hobby.’ He seems to imply that marriage is not for everyone, only for people who are sexually attracted to each other, but that discriminates asexual people, depriving them of rights that married people have. How far can self-determination go? Should it allow people to enter threesome marriages if they love each other? It sounds preposterous, but we have to ask the question about the limits of self-determination, where no psychological distress is implied.
Rafe
Let me concur that all babies are designer babies. People aren’t picking mates by accident.
Melissa Etheridge used a sperm doner for her baby, David Crosby. Here is her rationale,
“…he’s musical, which means a lot to me, you know, and I admire his work.”
if someone wants to change their gender via gender assignment surgery, and that is supported, shouldn’t the same hold true for the individual who wants to change SSA to OSA?
This is a personal issue and we cannot allow 1 persons or groups standards to dictate another persons actions. As a previous poster pointed out if the affinity for a member of the same sex causes distress in an individual and there is a some manner of intervention they have every right to pursue it. If you don’t want it don’t take it. If this was available would anyboyd here actually support legislation making it illegal for an adult of sound mind and body to change their sexuality if that is what they desired?
In response to the first poster on designer babies we design them now when we select our partners. Sure love may enter into it but so does attraction to various physical traits. There is no law stopping us from selecting a mate with blue eyes or blond hair because we want our child to have them. Hitler used forced husbandry or sterilized or killed them to design a master race. This doesn’t involve any of those actions. We are already and affront to the forces of evolution with our technology sequestering us from selection, why give it even a mild degree of sanction
Evan –
Two things:
One, If some tablet were developed, it does solidify the biological argument. Medication cannot treat things with no biological component, and I’m not sure many groups are willing to admit that there is one (check out Focus on the Family, etc..). In truth, we know there is some biological component already…to what extent is unknown.
Secondly, please do not misrepresent my views. You stated:
“You seem to have only one message to them, ‘you don’t know what’s good for you, let me explain it to you, you have to go for it and live your unwanted attractions’, when that’s what shatters their sense of integrity.”
I have never asserted such things, ask anyone on the forum…in fact, I have been a fierce advocate of self-determination. The thing is, Evan, the freedom of self-determination should run both ways.
I am more than fine with giving individuals the freedom and opportunity to seek change in their orientation. In fact, I really advocate having solid research behind methods and despise those like Cohen trying to make a buck off of sham methods that lure vulnerable people.
However, saying that self-determination runs both ways means that I also get to choose how to live my life and should have the freedom to do so. We wouldn’t think about denying individuals their rights (like freedom from discrimination in housing and employment) based EVEN in purely choice matters like religion (which is protected)…but I stilll find arguments in the evangelical community that support not giving that same freedom to those who are gay/lesbian, etc…
Exgay, gay, straight, or however you might define yourself – we all have the right to live our lives in peace, freedom and happiness.
Evan,
You seem to have only one message to them, ‘you don’t know what’s good for you, let me explain it to you, you have to go for it and live your unwanted attractions’, when that’s what shatters their sense of integrity. Ask yourself — How much weight can have politics and cultural debates against giving these people a lifeline? Forget for a moment what you would do.
No one on here that I know of, especially Jag, is saying that they only have one message for people distressed by their unwanted natural attractions. I hope YOU understand that there are many different ways to HELP those with their unwanted attractions and that giving them the message that “you can change” isn’t always beneficial – in the end – either. We have enough Ex-Ex Gays to illustrate that. These people who are truly distressed and not having pressure forced on them by religious institutions or society would be good candidates for Warren’s SIT therapy in my opinion.
Mike Airhart
Will drug companies think it’s worth a few hundred million dollars and a decade of testing to make a drug that turns straight men gay?
Ok, so frat guys will have the ability to juice an unsuspecting pledges drink and pull pranks, but who else wants it? 😎
There would be a huge market for the gay to straight drug. If 3% of men are gay, how many 18 year old gay men would sign up? LOTS. And they’d have to keep buying it every month. That’s BILLIONS of dollars in revenue each year. It could be one of the biggest money makers of all time.
I have an honest concern about priorities here.
Society and families suffer far more from the heterosexual wrongs of rape, incest, sexual addiction, and sex outside of marriage.
Where are conservatives’ priorities going to be in the coming years — constructively solving social problems and reducing sin, or picking on same-sex-attracted persons while excusing their own vices? As Jayhuck said, there is a compelling utility for drugs to curb or temporarily halt heterosexual desire.
Not really — it is possible to discover some ‘triggers’ that can be addressed by medication without having the entire developmental picture. It would be fighting the present biological support of SSAs as symptoms, without addressing the past or present cause (just like treating depression).
You’re still hanging on the not-being-an-illness argument, as if that matters to the people who are greatly distressed by their unwanted attractions. You seem to have only one message to them, ‘you don’t know what’s good for you, let me explain it to you, you have to go for it and live your unwanted attractions’, when that’s what shatters their sense of integrity. Ask yourself — How much weight can have politics and cultural debates against giving these people a lifeline? Forget for a moment what you would do.
Evan
Those worms were more evidence of how similarly our brains are wired up. A lot of evidence shows that mice are the same way.
Female mice just a sniff away from male sex drive
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN0336929220070806
There is a better, more recent story about how female mice carry the male wiring and visa versa. Whats turned on or off depends on just a few key zigs and zags.
jag
but to be frank, if I could take a pill tomorrow that would make me “straight,” there’s no way I’d take it….why would I ruin my life like that?
I think you are pretty representative of what a lot of people will choose. I would imagine if you asked the question to young gay men and women it would skew towards taking the drug. In older people it will probably skew the other direction.
Of course if you look forward another 20 or 30 years science will continue to advance. Most parents will likely chose that their children not be born gay in the first place. I wouldn’t put much stock in hormone patches, but some sort of vaccine is inevitable.
It all sounds like science fiction until the day it happens. Ten years later and nobody will remember it was any other way.
Can anyone imagine life without the Internet or the microwave oven? 😎
I agree with Jayhuck in that the question spans quite a bit larger than orientation, but to be frank, if I could take a pill tomorrow that would make me “straight,” there’s no way I’d take it….why would I ruin my life like that?
I think attempting to change orientation would imply that there is something wrong with it the way it is, which, in my own opinion, is not true. I appreciated the quote:
“History is replete with poorly thought out attempts to ‘cure’ societal/behavioral ‘illnesses’ that turned out, with proper perspective, to not be ‘illnesses’ at all.”
Homosexuality being one. It was removed from the DSM in the 70s and yet you still see the military viewing it as an illness with no major scientific organization supporting that view.
This drug, if developed, would also imply a strong biological component to attraction, orientation, etc…which is interesting, and I think, we already know exists from previous studies. I’m surprised no one has really picked up on one important outcome of this development…
If indeed orientation is SO biological that taking a pill/drug can overrule all previous experiences, environmental shaping, etc..it proves much of what many gay activists are looking for and may end up backfiring on what the “hope” of many might want. Full marriage rights, etc..would be imminent (not as if they already aren’t, but you get my point).
It solidifies the biological argument if developed.
I think this topic will end up being the so-called “third rail” of sexual identity politics. It’s also why I was never willing to significantly engage the debate over “what causes homosexuality.” I don’t think either side in the debates have really thought through the implications of all of the possible theories, let alone their favorite ones.
The real question isn’t what, but what then?
Possible side effect
If this or a related hormone turns out to have an effect on sexual identity it could put a lot of sex-change surgeons out of business.
Choice A) irreversible surgery
Choice B) take an inexpensive pill and the feelings of gender dysphoria are gone
If I was considering surgery I might hold off a few years to see how this plays out.
If the chemical they used is believed to be generally safe there is a 100% chance that somebody will test it on humans within months.
The odds are good that it won’t work. But it will be a huge leap forward. Tack on 5 or 10 years for fine-tuning and it probably will work. Not only are there billions of dollars to be made, but somebody wants to get in the history books.
This is a strong near-term reality.
In places like the USA and western Europe people will decide for themselves if they want to take it.
In places like Iran… not so much.
So per this and the earlier article, it’s easy to modify sexual orientation. All you have to do is be part of the subset of transsexuals who experience orientation change, and voila!
It might also be worth asking if we could use the same treatment modality to turn on and off heterosexuality?
This line of reasearch is in the air. Here is one about how sexually differentiated behaviour in worms can be switched on and off using a genetic button:
Worms take the sniff test to reveal sex differences in brain
Scientists alter sexual orientation in worms
If I understood correctly, it seems it’s not mainly the sexually differentiated neural circuitry that makes attractions, but how it is activated. Certain neurons can differentiate and support sexual behaviour, but core neurons, that are common to both sexes can be genetically tampered with to alter orientation. Another interesting fact is that the sexually differentiated neurons were only wired during “puberty” to support male attractions towards “females”, but activation of behaviour is not only due to that.
‘…ultimately the answer will be: Yes.’
I thought as much. The next question would be: are we talking about changing ‘orientation’ as a symptom or changing what causes that? The medication for depression, for instance, obviously addresses the symptoms, their chemical support.
If Featherstone believes that chemical treatment can alter or can lastingly influence the neural circuitry that produces attractions, I’ll take off my hat to that.
I agree that it is good to talk about these things, but I don’t feel that the discussion should be limited to altering orientation – although that is important – the discussion is bigger than that. The question is going to be one of genetically and biologically altering or “tailoring” people to be what we want them to be. Will it one day be possible to scientifically change orientation? How about tailoring our babies so that they are the race, shape, size, gender, intelligence level, temperament, hair color, etc.. that we want them to be?