[yourmaster]

For whoever linked NARTH a while back to try and persuade us that homosexuality was not fixed and that people can change sexuality.
Not cited because it's from a good friend of mine who's studying psychology, very true none the less.

The femininity of homosexuals hypothesis, much like the Biblical interpretations upon which NARTH base their "therapy", is an out-dated myth disproven by real science. A study on the viability of increased testosterone [the male sex hormone] as a potential "treatment" completely backfired (Barahal, H. 1940):


Seven psychotic male homosexuals were treated with testosterone propionate. Some stimulation of secondary sex characteristics and increase of libido were observed, but there was no change in the direction of libido, homosexual activity being increased. Little or no change was noticed in mental condition. These results are considered as supporting the psychoanalytic view of bisexual constitution, with the amount of gonadal hormone present in the blood merely determining the force of libido rather than the direction.


That they were psychotic was a reflection of the times: the only psychological studies done on people were done on homosexuals who were in prison, or already seeking therapy (self-selecting samples for the loss).

The study that was to show that homosexuals were more girly is yet to be replicated (Barlow, D. et al., 1974):


Compared the plasma testosterone values for 15 15-35 yr old male homosexuals of Kinsey rating 5 or 6 with the values reported by R. C. Kolodny et al (see record 1972-11202-001), who had found male homosexuals to have lower testosterone values than heterosexuals. The values for the present Ss were significantly higher than those reported by Kolodny et al. In fact, the mean values for the current sample did not differ from the mean value reported by Kolodny et al for heterosexual (Kinsey rating 0 or 1) controls. The present findings thus fail to confirm the relation between degree of homosexuality and plasma testosterone level.

The thing with the way the site has presented the family patterns hypothesis, the same-sex playmate distance/opposite-sex playmate bonding dynmaic, the distant father hypothesis and the gender confusion hypothesis... it's the least scientific way to go about it.


Conversely, for the child who will develop a homosexual orientation, this process does not happen. So, what happens in the development of gender identity that would lead a child to have same-sex attractions? Typically, for this child, there is something that prevents him from attaching to the father. Either he doesn't have a father or a father figure, or he doesn't have a father who he perceives as safe and/or welcoming. Of course, there are many children who grow up without fathers and yet do not develop a homosexual orientation. In addition, there are many children who have loving fathers, yet still become homosexually oriented. This is due to the fact that there are various factors that contribute to a homosexual orientation. Human development is very complex and includes events, as well as perceptions about the events.


When you don't have a reliable correlation, you don't just acknowledge it, say "humans are complex" then continue to say that your unreliable correlation is factual explanada for the phenomenon. Even if you allow the logical fallacy of using correlation to induct causation, which in many psychological issues can't be avoided, the counterexamples are there [athletic homosexuals, homosexuals with good fatherly relationships, homosexuals with a strong sense of male identity] and haven't been explained in terms of their theory of homosexuality.

James Feinberg and Roger Bakeman studied the family patterns of two samples of 25: one homosexual, one heterosexual (1994). This is what real scientists do. They don't just say what they think and write articles on the web that say "humans are complex, but not too complex, since I can tell you factors that cause homosexuality without even conducting studies to back it up!". They go out there and measure reality. Because that's what science is about, amirite?


Examined the relationship between generational family patterns and sexual orientation in 25 heterosexual and 25 homosexual adult men. Focus was on distance in relationships between Ss and their fathers and mothers and between Ss' parents and Ss' grandparents, severed relationships, multiple generational patterns of social isolation, participation in "overinvolved" relationships, marital problems between Ss' parents, and relationship triangles consisting of Ss and their parents. Analysis of genograms reveals that more than twice as many parents of homosexual Ss had marital problems as did parents of heterosexual Ss. Almost twice as many heterosexual Ss had distant relationships with their fathers, compared with homosexual Ss and their fathers. Overall, there were more similarities than differences for families of homosexual and heterosexual males.

Funnily enough, heaps more heterosexuals had distant relationships with their fathers than homosexual. Now, so as not to fall into the same trap as the people way above me, I know we can't say that heterosexuality is caused by distance to the father.

What I can say, is that it makes no sense to think that homosexuality is caused by something that is more likely in non-homosexuals. It's like saying that wearing a red shirt is a causal factor in skin cancer and blue-shirtedness isn't when twice as many blue-shirt-wearers get cancer every year.

But hey, if their goal isn't to objectively study homosexuals (where are the peer-reviewed studies, NARTH?), what is their goal? I just have to look in the thread to see it, and it being accomplished well.




It gets a few all-encompassing things that people kinda accept will cause homosexuality (some, like having a distant father that are contrary to the science as shown above) and throws it up there for kids struggling to find the cause for this thing that makes them so different to lap up and diminish their instinctual belief in sexuality as representative of who they are.

"I had significantly fewer female friends than male growing up."

"I had significantly greater female friends than male growing up."

The second statement is the one that is the alleged cause of homosexuality, but I've heard just as often that having no or few female friends during childhood is a possible cause of homosexuality; since the boy must have at some point been rejected in some way by some girl, obviously the whole heterosexual attraction thing got a spanner in the works. The boy finds safety in homosexual attractions since they identify better with other males (which completely contradicts the "oh, I don't identify with my father, or any other males, so I became a homosexual oh noes!" hypothesis of f**kSTUPID), ergo gay.

I read it at 14, believed it, started questioning whether my homosexuality really is a disorder with clear, distinct causes.

But do you see how this works now?

The main theory of homosexual attraction of Christian converter websites- regardless of whether they say it, since these principles are their basis for therapy- is the following.


That homosexual attraction can be divided into two classes. The first, with qualities that the homosexual shares with the attractee, an externalised Narcissism. The second, with qualities that the homosexual does not share with the attractee, a manifestation of the desire to have those qualities and the otherwise unexpressable insecurity that comes from that desire.

Look at the three 'reverse change' stories and the way the attractions of the first and last example are "reduced" to the above catch-all. The second one isn't even homosexuality, since the feelings were only sexual - the only deep feelings were for his wife. Even still, I doubt they've actually happened, or if they did that the people in question still aren't attracted to homosexuals. The APA challenged NARTH and a few other ex-gay ministries (as opposed to clinics; I make an important distinction here) some time ago to produced follow-up records of 'treated' people, and where records actually were kept (seldom), you could count on one hand the total number who didn't go back to what they were (known to someone who thinks of homosexuality as an illness as a "relapse").

Okay, now think about this 'one or the other' dynamic here. For every single quality you could possibly find attractive in another person, same or opposite sex, it's either something you have or something you don't. There's a convenient catch-all "explanation" that essentially means f**k all, since there are zero studies that manage to successfully find correlations of homosexual attraction with Narcissistic tendencies or self-image insecurity.

Not only is it an explanation that only works in hindsight, it doesn't force a distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality. If one views homosexuals in this way, they are forced to with heterosexuality lest they contradict themselves (but this is a particular brand of Christian that never seems to mind contradicting themself ).