Is there cure for gay?

Just like in Desperate Housewives:

"If you don't change who you are [this to a gay boy] you won't go to heaven with me!"

:roll:

I'd like to meet these 'former' homosexuals. I bet if you got deep down and got an honest conversation out of them they would admit that they still had feelings towards the other sex. That conference thing is relying on peer preassure, its not going for a cure. Its suppressing it. Not exactly promoting this whole idea of 'free speech' is it?

notice none of the quotes actually said...i am a reformed homosexual, i no longer have any feelings of that nature.

This falls in the same cathegory as the rather famous swedish singer who thinks that all homosexuals can be cured if we pray enough in church.

A few months ago a test was done, on phermones, and how people percieved them. Apperantly gay men reacted on phermones from men, and not women. (duh) the women reacted to mal 'scent' except for those who were homosexuals who prefered the smell of other females.

If there is, it will be on the pharmacist's shelf beside the cure for bigotry

Love Wins Out when you love your family members regardless of to what gender they are attracted sexually and this is all I have to say on the matter.

...must...stop...reacting...

There are cultures out there which allow for an existence of a third gender... I.E. if you're a man attracted to other men, you're expected to dress like a woman and perform "womanly" tasks - not as a punishment, just as a way to help you fit into society and avoid confusion. These people aren't considered male or female, but are assigned an alternate gender and allowed to get on with their lives.

Some examples I can think of are American Plains' Indians, and erm..Indian Indians - Sampanna, correct me if I'm wrong!

We could learn from them and chill out, and stop pestering our gays. That's my anthropology-studies-fueled 2 cents

I've had a few discussions on this subject with my aunt, she's of the ilk that think there is a "cure". She seems to think if a father is distant it can cause his son to become gay. I think if a child is born gay it will be harder for a straight parent to connect with that child.

I do not think there is any "choice" for most people. Now there are special circumstances like prison where people make do with what is available, and I think it may be possible for a person to actually be bi-sexual, maybe there is a sort of spectrum. For certain almost all men have a feminine side and most women have some thing of the masculine nature.

I guess it might be possible for some people to "swing both ways", though I have heard a gay person say that they did not think it was possible to be bi-sexual. It seems to me that only confirms the theory that sexual orientation is present at birth and probably immutable.

To be honest I do not understand the whole gay phobia thing. I haven't figured out what they do that is so wrong. Maybe I am naieve but I haven't discovered anything that a gay couple could do that some straight couples don't also do, and quite happily. I have been trying to find out what would cause all the hatred I know does exist. There are people I love who are gay and I wish they didn't have to be afraid to be who they are anywhere they go.

My husband has the attitude that being gay is totally perverted. I have been working on him, but he refuses to budge. Maybe when he sees his nephew again he'll start to change. He told his sister he thought the boy was just joking, but I have always thought it was more likely that he was completely serious, "not that there is anything wrong with that".

Mostly I just wish people spent more time with their lover's in their own bedroom's and less time trying to tell other people what they should or shouldn't do in theirs.

I think that people can be brought into an environment that causes them to look towards being bi-sexual, like prison. It’s not something that comes naturally to them but something they grow used to when forced into it. It’s the same thing that is happening with this conference, except people do it intentionally.
They tell themselves to love women (or men as the case may be) and if they are surrounded by it and everything tells them this is right, theyeventually convince themselves that they no longer are gay. In other words they force themselves to ignore their bodies. It’s the same theory with cheating lie detector tests, so long as you can convince yourself what your saying is true, you could be male and claim to be female and the detector would believe you.

It’s fear, it always is. People have been brought up in world where there is one main stereotype and that is that men love women and vice versa. Then someone comes along and tells them they are gay and theirentire belief system crashes. So they block it out and claim these people to be outcasts that should be ashamed of themselves. They did it with black people and now doing it to gays. My hope is that the fear will eventually disappear as older generations become used to the idea of it and see it in their every day lives.

Social conditioning.

If it even works how long until these people break and it destroys their families. How long till the curers have to deal with what damage they have done, if they deal with it at all?

I really doubt it, there will always be those who must hate. Its a power thing.

Thats really sad. They treat it like is some kind of disease...or something your doing to be "rebelling agasint God" Honestly, if you can get Gay people "cured" to be straight, then couldnt you get straight people to be Gay? If its so much easier to accept "a life of sin and rebellion against God" Then why arnt our straight friends just queing up to go to Gay clubs and watch "queer eye for the straight guy" at Kevins house?

The problem is, when people talk about sexual orientation they mix up sexual attraction, emotional attraction and commitment, which are completely different things.

For example, you can have a man who is very sexually attracted to other men, but he isn't able to form long-term emotional relationships with them. He tends to fall in love with women, but the actual sex with women just isn't as good for him as sex with men. He might choose to have a girlfriend or wife, and have sex with men on the side. This might be done with the consent of his wife/partner, or he might cheat on her. It depends on the relationship. Or he might decide that sex is more important than love, and just have sex with men. Or he might decide that love is more important than sex, and be monogamous with his girlfriend.

Or you can have a man and a woman who are both sexually and emotionally attracted to members of the same sex, but have a child together, so they decide to live together in a monagamous relationship because they believe it is better for the child.

There is also confusion between bisexuality and non-monogamy. Being bisexual just has to do with being attracted to both sexes, either physically or emotionally, or both. You can be attracted to both sexes, and still have the need to be with only one person for your whole life. Being attracted to both men and women doesn't mean that you have to have real sexual relationships with both men and women. As an analogy, if you are a straight man, you could be attracted to women with both blonde and brown hair. That doesn't mean if your wife is blonde you have to cheat on her with brown haired women. The same way, if a woman is in a relationship with another woman but is attracted to both women and men, it doesn't mean she can't have a monogamous relationship with her partner. But she's still bisexual because she's attracted to both sexes. If she's had serious relationships with men in her past, you can't discount them and say they never happened. And you can't discount any physical feelings she has for men, even though she doesn't act on them because being in a secure, monogramous relationship is more important to her.

On the other hand, there are also plenty of people who only go for one gender, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, and still can't restrict themeselves to a relationship with only one person.

And saying that there is no such thing as bisexuality is silly. How can you say that a person's feelings don't exist. That if someone tells you that if they are attracted to both men and women, that their feelings aren't real. That's like telling someone who is homosexual you're not really attracted to the same sex; you're just imagining it.

Also, sexual identity--feeling like, and wanting to behave as if, you are a man or a woman--has nothing to do with who you are attracted to. For example, of men who have sex changes and become women, after the sex change, some have relationships with men, some have relationships with women. The same type of thing goes for female to male sex changes.

edit: When Garner talks about societies where bisexuality is accepted, but homosexuality is not, I think he is talking about commitment. As long as you are married (to a member of the opposite sex) by a certain age and are making babies by a certain age, what you do on the side for fun is your own business. However, if you openly say that you choose not to get married, then you are destroying the fabric of society. In this case, a straight woman who chooses not to marry because she would have to give up her property, for example, is just as deviant as someone who is homosexual.

A lot of anti-gay rhetoric that I've read/heard focuses on the fact that gay men are incredibly promiscuous and unable to form meaningful relationships, which automatically makes them dangerous, sinful and bad for society in general.

Here's my guess on what happened: back in the day, when gay love/sex was restricted to the utmost fringes of society, people have realized that they might be hanged for the ram instead of a lamb (butchered proverb, meaning that if they're going to be caught and persecuted anyway, they might as well have the time of their life in the meantime). Since gay people don't have to worry about unexpected pregnancies - which has long been the biggest dampener on unbridled hetero sex, - and AIDS wasn't yet in the picture (or maybe it was, but the men believed themselves damned to a brief and shameful life anyway?) - so they did what humans are meant to do... and that's follow their body's instincts without any concern about society's reprisal. Isn't that what happened in the 60's, to a degree, during the time after the Pill but before AIDS, with straight men and women? Free love, yay!...

My point is that, if someone comes up with a fool-proof way to prevent both pregnancies and STDs tomorrow (condoms don't count - they break!), and all the religious leaders suddenly reverse their stance on premarital sex and say: "Ooops, we've read this wrong, it says "CELEBRATE" not "celibate", then the straight folk will totally catch up with the gay folk in their original burst of "whooohooo, free sex!". Then maybe they'll start calming down and forming families, after the initial rush wears off.

I think there's also an economic factor involved. When times are tough, two incomes are better than one. Or one person can work longer hours and earn extra money while another person stays home and cares for house and possibly kids.
Since women usually earn less money than men, and are more likely to be custodial parents, they would be more likely to pair up in monogamous relationships, just because it's harder for them to get by financially on their own. A divorced gay woman raising a child just wouldn't have the time, money or energy to go out every night. Neither would a gay man with a child, but he would be less likely to have custody of a child.

I remember when AIDS came into the picture, when it was thought to be caused by the abuses that some gay men put themselves through. I was on duty in the health science library Wednesday evenings and I read a few things. that was all the way back in 1981. I can say that theory didn't make much sense to me and I am flabbergasted that birthcontrol pill advertisements have disclaimers about not protecting against STDs. But then again the capacity for sheer lack of thinking is boundless, Jay Leno has all the proof you'd ever want to see in his JayWalking archives.

I just wonder how much anti-gay predjudice affected the research processes. I wonder how much it is still affecting the search for a cure. There is also the problem of people perceiveing it as just other peoples concern, even though it has spread through out most of the world and is in most socio-economic groups.

The one good thing that AIDS has done is make the gay community just a little more open, there has been just a little more acceptance in the last couple of decades, and I only hope the folks trying to "cure" gayness learn the whole truth about loving.

To Garner and Marcia: I think we're onto one of homophobia's biggest contributing factors - envy ! (I know I'm jealous...)

To Tamyra: I remember reading how, back in the day, tanning salons were rumored to cause AIDS

This is a classic case of classical conditioning, if we reward you enough when you respond to a member of the opposite sex then you'll behave in a way we want you to, Pavlov's dog with sex. The problem is that sexual orientation isn't entirely learned and its also not entirely genetic, nature vs nurture is almost never exclusive and you can't just change someone else cause you don't like what they do in their private life...

Not all gay men are promiscuous, I had a friend who did not like the gay seen and was looking for a boyfriend and not just sex but I have other gay friends who are the biggest hussies ever... the gay seen is a subculture, with its own norms and traditions, when none of it is illegal its a bit much to say that as a group they are evil :evil:

Lesbian's have a different subculture and have different rules too... I had a friend who thought she was lesbian as a teenager and had a couple of girlfriends but is now married (to a man) with 2 kids. SHe wasn't cured her attraction just shifted, it happens. No one set up an intervention for her to fix her.

Sexual orientation as well as identity are as ephemeral as personality, but boy does society want to tie it down like a rock.

Is it just me or do all the 'speakers' in that conference look a bit...well..gay. Just a thought.

It must be so hard to be closeted. I was engaged to a boy once who was closeted. It was hard. He wouldn't atmit it. I would come home and my clothes and jewlery would be all over the room. He looked better in my jeans than I did, I was a bit jealous of that. Anyway, we finally broke up when he cheated on me with Giovanni (a good looking gay italian man). I hope he came to terms with it eventually.

The thing is, I don't think he has. We both grew up in the Children of God, they basically has the same thing going on that these people do. If you are homosexual you will go to hell. There is a cure for it and all. I acctually knew a guy who was married with a couple of kids that used to 'testify' that Jesus saved him from homosexuallity. He was a really cool dude too. I felt sorry that he had to live his life so repressed.

A rather famous person (who I can't remember the name off because I never remember important stuff) had a theory that everyone is bisexual though we lean more or less towards one of the sexes, mostly the opposite one.

He also ment that in certain situations, or with conditioning, we could sway on that scale, soemthing which I think might be right.

If you observe a moderate group of people (say 22 persons) in a socially enclosed space for a couple of weeks, many couples will have formed. (when I was a part of that 22 person group we ended up with 7 couples and one guy that 'cheated' on his 'girlfriend' with two other girls. please note that we were 11 guys and 11 girls in this particular group)

What would happen if the group consisted solely by men? or only women? According to his theories people would have started to pair up but to 'break through' the social conditioning and the mindset we enter the stage with, it would take more time, or stronger convincing. ( like all alone on a deserted island or something of that caliber)

He was also a thought that those who protested the most strongly against gays/lesbians/bi's/ (whatevers) were those who recoginsed the tendencies in themselves (which only proves that emil will end up so gay you'll see in in the us)

I'm done ranting now.

Another thing to remember is that the concept of marriage for romantic love is only maybe a few hundred years old. Before that, you got married to make babies and to create ties between families. You weren't expected to be in love with or even be sexually attracted to your spouse. You were considered lucky if you both got along. Even today, there are cultures where marriages are arranged; sometimes people are engaged since childhood to people they've never met. So in a "traditional" marriage, it wouldn't matter if you're gay, straight or bi, because marriage had nothing to do with love or physical attraction.

There is something like third gender in Thailand if I'm not mistaken, and somewhere else in Asia. But I think it's no good learning from them - attitute to such people is very specific, utterly unacceptable in the western culture.

P.S. Garner, "Alexander" is very gay indeed, don't know why the director concentrated attention on this Greek issue in particular. THis movie wasn't taken by major part of American cinemas while it was very popular in Europe.

Actually, in India a gay is a gay .. the third gender you speak of are people who have both/none physical characteristics, not a preference issue. And these people are horribly treated, so it's not the best situation. In fact, thugs/beggars use the inherent fear people have against them by dressing up like them, and extorting money from people.

Edited: to remove a statement which didn't make much sense

In Thailand and Malaysia the third gender is lady-boys, men who are gay but must conform to some expectation that being gay also means being effeminate. By and large they are widely accepted in certain situations, ie its probably not acceptable for them to become teachers but they can do most other professions without too much hassle, although a lot tend to be in karaoke or dangdut bars.

I can't remember if I said this on the other board but anyways...

When i was in Malaysia there was an article in the national newspaper about being a gay muslim man. The article gave 2 cases, both men were married, one had come out to his family and the wife dumped him and he regretted it; the other was in the closet but uncle X was Dad's gay lover. He thought the wife knew but didn't say anything and the boyfriend was sometimes miffed but overall he was quite content with the situation... So my interpretation is that according to the article its OK to be gay but as long as you keep it in the closet and don't cause distress to you family.

Opinions?

Most people who claim to hate Gay people actually don't really care. They just pay lip service to the Extreame Homophobes in order to ovoid aleinating freinds.

Okay, I stand corrected about the Asian variety of 3rd-gender (thanks Sampanna, Spiky and Ivanushka)

Here's a link to the Native American variety - something I actually did a bit of research on, before posting

http://www.coreymondello.com/Berdache.html

I only personally know one homophobic person. This is probably true for a lot of people, but he refuses to be identified as homophobic ("Phobia implies fear and I'm not afraid of them; I'm just disgusted as hell"). When I asked what exactly was it that grossed him out so, he said it was "the whole notion of what they do, when they're alone". I asked if the same thing was acceptable between a guy and a girl. His response: "Of course! Then it's hot!"

I'm still trying to puzzle this one out.

My theory for why gay men inspire fear (regardless of whether anyone admits to being afraid of them) is because straight guys are a) afraid that they'll get hit on, b)afraid that they'll get raped, c) afraid that they'll be deemed gay by association, and finally d) that they might get seduced and enjoy the results too much to go back.

Interesting, many guys here don't concern lesbians as somethings strange, while they are perfectly intolerable towards men homosexuals.

I must confess that I always found this a little strange.
Do women suffer from Homophobia, or is it a male thing?

Regarding the being 'Hit on' issue - I am not homosexual, but I did have someone try to seduce me. As it is a guy that I work with, but in a social situation, I told him to forget about it - Strictly butter side up. He was OK with that.
If I had run screaming away, it would have destroyed any friendship, which I didn't want to happen - he is a nice guy. His wife is pleasant too, although I don't know her that well.

A lot of people think his is gay, but I don't tell them either way. That was agreed between us at the time. I am only mentioning it here because it is pertinent and anonymous

Maybe the ones who are homophobic are more worried that they might be gay? I don't know :?

Hobophobia - Scared of Bums

....

You know, if you start thinking about the mechanics of ANY sexuality, it is pretty unsettling!

A little while ago when I was spreading a rumour (actually it was a truth) about a friend of mine (girl) dating another friend of mine (girl) I was very suprised that a lot of the random people I told at my all-girls school were rather disgusted. Sure, I was disgusted but only because of the people involved. It just seemed strange, but what was interesting was that it was mainly the white bread middle class very very straight girls who were homophobic to any extent. Just social conditioning I think, some of these people had never actually met anyone who mightn't consider a male the be all and end all of hotness. Also perhaps being slightly afraid that their own sexuality might be challenged. Most had never actually had to acknowledge the existance of someone who was that radically different to themselves. Never actually met a girl who was violently opposed though.

A person I know thinks that "gay is contageous." It's outragous, people thinking like that. It makes me really angry about how worked up conservative people get on the subject. What is the main arguement, anyway? That homosexuality is destroying morals? That if same-sex marrages are fine, then animal-human ones should be too? Homosexuality isn't doing anything wrong, and someone's pet is not able to give consent. An adult person is. They need to leave everyone else alone and worry about their OWN salvation, if it's such a big deal.

Besides, if everyone went around correcting homosexuality, the world would be full of girls like the pregnant one in the movie, "Saved."

I don't know if amyone had heard, but the California legislature Just Amended an existing law: Redifining marrige as bein between two people, regardless of gender. The Governer (ARNOLD) anounced that he will veto that amendment soon afterwords.

Mimiru, I hope "Saved" is out on DVD here, I really want to see that movie.

Unsurprisingly, the alleged 'cure' is prayer. That stinks of that maniac preacher who goes to gay peoples funerals and shouts "God hates fags" (see http://www.godhatesfags.com/ if you don't believe me)

There are some even scarier links on that page I really don't want to click, and not going to write here, but there is a lot of godhates<insert non-Christian entity here>.com - like www.godhatessweden.com, hate hate hate..

My father was an evangalist, and was training to be a minister.. The amount of repressed homosexuals there were at his church alone was quite telling. They pretended not to be gay, cos a true Christian apparently can't be gay, but they all 'shared' with my father.
It always amazed me how un-Christian most Christians I've met are.

I don't get it anyway, the whole Soddom / Soddomites story is about men wanting to bum Angels, who have no genitals and one would assume, no bums either..
Genesis is full of horrible stuff, actually.
The bit about him offering his virgin daughters instead of the Angels is more disturbing, I thought, and then ofcourse the incest that followed his wife being turned to salt..

I need to have a bath after looking at that site, I feel cold and dirty.

~BoB~

Here you can find an alternate explanation of the story of Sodom.

Of course, any explanation is based on the assumption that the story is actually true, for which there is no proof anyway.

I resent that, Sweden's christian!

That was an interesting analysis. And once again, there's the possibility of The Old Testament (and come to think of it, the New Testatment as well) having been horribly mistranslated over the course of several millenia! The thought of so many people basing their entire moral code on a goof-up is hillarious, unless you think of how many other people have been killed/injured/insulted over it.

(For an old joke that usually comes with that thought, read
here)

I guess the whole Sodom story could have been based on some kind of catastrophe, which swallowed up several local towns. Or maybe there was a battle, which involved Greek fire. Either way, it could have been used as a background for a lesson in righteousness - with the main point being one's willingness to protect the guests in one's house, even to such a desperate extent as to offer your own children to the mob. It would'nt have mattered whether the mob was threatening your guests sexually, or with some other kind of abuse - it had to be kept at bay, or else you were a bad host. The whole moral got turned completely around

I rented "Saved!" last night. I thought it was a great movie and you know, love actually wins out here.

Just not in the way some Bible thumpers would like.