Oh, this infighting between Alan Chambers and Linda Harvey and other assorted wingnuts, over Chambers’ admission that reparative therapy is useless and harmful, and that “ex-gays” don’t actually change their sexual orientation, has been fun. Now here’s Joseph Nicolosi, head of NARTH, trying to defend himself to Alan and accidentally admitting that his entire life’s work is crap:
“Alan, what you are saying is untrue. I have never said I could cure someone completely from homosexuality. All my books make it quite clear that homosexual attractions will persist to some degree throughout a person’s lifetime. Furthermore, I do not use heterosexual pornography with my clients. I do ask them (if they wish to do this; some clients do not, and I never expect my clients to do anything they do not wish to do) to bring up a compelling image from gay porn that they wish to reduce the power of, and we work on diminishing its power (a technique with which we have had considerable success).
“However, I do not use straight porn; I use pictures of women they find attractive in mainstream magazines and we work on developing a physical attraction to them, through their imagination, while looking at these non-pornographic pictures. I would like you to set the record straight on this. You have been publicly denigrating reparative therapy and misleading people about its nature.”
That really loud, obnoxious sound is Nicolosi hastily uprooting and moving the goalposts.
[h/t Joe]
I nailed this in the spring. I listened to a whole hour of Nicolosi on Catholic Radio a nd he mentioned how many clients he has per month and bragged about how many “therapists” he has on staff and I did the math and figured out that everyone was only working part time. I might be wrong but I seem to remember 15 hours a week, but it might have been 20 hours a week. But it was not any more than that.
I noticed that after Alan Chambers was moving away from Reparative Therapy removing books from Exodus etc. that Nicolosi started making more public appearances. It seemed to me an effort to be more visible and drum up business. And then when I listened to him on Catholic Radio and did the math I was right, he and his staff do not have enough clients to be working full time. They’re all working part time.
dear StraightGrandmother:
How many gay people are there around you? Probably many. But its foolish to assume that there are so much of gays among the population. Census data shows that less than 2% of the population IDENTIFIES them selves as gay. Among them a very minority wants to take therapy, specially in an environment where big fat gay lies such as “born gay” and “therapies are harmful” are thrown at peoples faces.
Get real, there are no 100% homo or heterosexuals. Labeling is stupid. To think that sexuality and human behaviour is innate and fixed is a folly.
“borngay”. CDC numbers have consistently shown that 10% of the population identifies as something other than heterosexual. This would be gay, bisexual, queer, or just “I don’t want to say”. Contrary to your claim that less than 2% of the population identifies as gay, the actual figure is 3.9% with an additional 6% identifying as bisexual or “something else” other than heterosexual. A study of thousands of New York men showed 9-10% of them claim to be heterosexual but have had sex only with other men in the past year. A Canadian study of teenagers showed 14% of them identified as gay or bisexual.
All the major medical and mental health organizations agree that there is no real possibility that anyone can change sexual orientation, that who we are attracted to is innate and fixed. While I personally believe there are far more bisexuals than most people think there are also most certainly many gay men who have no attraction to women whatsoever and some for whom the thought of sex with women makes them nauseous.
Interesting that you think there are no people who are 100% heterosexual, in effect admitting that you have same sex attractions. A couple of studies have shown that the people who are the most hostile to gays are fighting their own same sex attractions.
What is folly is your idea that no one was born gay. I certainly was. You should educate yourself on the actual science and stop peddling propaganda. You sound like an ignoramus.
Correction. The CDC numbers show that when people are asked “Do you think of yourself as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or something else?” 3.9% same “something else and 2.3% say “homosexual”. Not surprisingly many men reject the “homosexual” label, prefering “gay” and selected “something else” as “gay” was not a listed option.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/ad/361-370/ad362.htm
“90 percent of men 18-44 years of age responded that they think of themselves as heterosexual, 2.3 percent of men answered homosexual, 1.8 percent bisexual, 3.9 percent “something else,” and 1.8 percent did not answer the question (figure 8). Percents for women were similar.”
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20080121/teen_sex_080121/
“In addition, the study found 86 per cent of girls said they were attracted to boys only, while 87 per cent of boys said they were attracted to girls only.”
http://www.webmd.com/sex/news/20060918/many-straight-men-have-gay-sex
“Nearly one in 10 men who say they’re straight have sex only with other men, a New York City survey finds.
And 70% of those straight-identified men having sex with men are married.
In fact, 10% of all married men in this survey report same-sex behaviour during the past year.
In 2003, Pathela’s team performed telephone interviews with nearly 4,200 New York City men. They conducted the interviews in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian; a translation service helped with interviews in Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Polish, and Haitian Creole.
In nearly every study of sexual behaviour, the percentage of men who report sex with men is higher than the percentage of men who report being gay.”
“Not surprisingly many men reject the “homosexual” label, prefering “gay” and selected “something else” as “gay” was not a listed option.”
There are also other orientations besides gay, straight, and bi (asexual, polysexual, etc.) but they often get ignored or lumped together as “questioning” or “unsure” or, even more rarely, “other”.
Er, lumped together WITH, not as. Sorry. Obviously “questioning” and “unsure” are valid and distinct options in themselves.
@born,
“Get real, there are no 100% homo or heterosexuals. To think that sexuality and human behaviour is innate and fixed is a folly.”
Really? Tell that to me, my wife, and all of the friends we’ve had who never had an ounce of desire for the opposite sex and knew from an early age that we liked the same-sex.
So, born, all your b.s. aside, how big a percentage of the population does it need to be berfore they get equal rights?
This seems to be the big anti-gay thing lately. They like to say “sexuality is fluid” as a way of saying people aren’t gay. They’re using the talking points of bisexuals against gays. Both bisexuals and gays should be offended.
Oh, I see…”sexuality is fluid” for homosexuals and bisexuals, but not for heterosexuals. Otherwise, heterosexuals COULD wake up tomorrow morning and choose – make a conscious, deliberate decision – to be sexually and/or emotionally attracted to the same sex. Let’s see the homophobes admit to THAT, if they are making the “sexuality is fluid” claim.
Becky said “They’re using the talking points of bisexuals against gays. Both bisexuals and gays should be offended.”.
Becky, I’m bisexual and I am offended. Even for bisexuals its nonsense to say sexuality is fluid. Sure we may choose to be with a male partner at one point in our life and a female at another but we never stop being attracted to both sexes and the degree to which we feel attraction to either doesn’t change. People wrongfully conflate a fluidity in who we chose to be with with a fluidity in our sexual attractions which doesn’t exist.
“Census data shows that less than 2% of the population IDENTIFIES them selves as gay.”
The census did not ask that question. So that’s just not true.
Is this perhaps the percentage of households that identified a person of the same sex as a “Husband or Wife” or “Unmarried Partner”?
‘Cuz, hey, that’s maybe a useful statistic, but it’s not the same as the percentage of people who identify as gay. It doesn’t even identify all same-sex couples who live together (since the census only asked for people’s relationship to the first person listed; two couples who live together, for example, are “Person 1″, “Husband or Wife/Unmarried Partner”, “Roommate” and “Roommate”–only one of the couples is recorded).
Asking how people identify would be totally useless, sadly. Anybody at all closeted who doesn’t live alone would be most likely to be marked “Straight”, either because they’re not the person filling out the form or because they’re afraid others will see it.
Priya–but that’s exactly what these people are saying now, they quote well-meaning psychologists who say “sexuality is fluid” and confuse that to mean that gay people (notice they never bring heterosexuals into the equation) can change. Bisexuals should stand up and shout these people down.
I do every chance I get Becky.
I really don’t think that we can lay down rigid rules on this matter. I think we must allow that there probably are people whose sexual orientation is fluid. What is quite clear is that most people’s, and certainly most men’s, is not. When people’s sexual relationships break up, which unfortunately happens from time to time, they generally form new sexual relationships – if they do – of the same kind as before, heterosexual or homosexual as the case may be. Yes, the contrary sometimes occurs, but when it does, it is usually a surprise to those who know them well (UNLESS they were previously known to be bi-sexual) and gives rise to speculation about whether they have “turned” or whether they were really “always that way deep down”. If everyone’s or even many people’s sexuality were really fluid in the way that some would have us believe, switches of this kind would be an everyday, humdrum occurrence and would occasion no more surprise than someone changing their job or deciding that they’d prefer to live in a different town.
The other thing that needs to be pointed out is that, even if in a minority of cases people’s sexual orientation really does change in this way, that doesn’t show that a change of this kind can be contrived at will (e.g. by “ex-gay” programs or “conversion therapy”). On the contrary, the weight of the evidence is very definitely that it can’t.
Borngay[expletive] is unfortunately giving out advice on his hash of a blog like this:
“Hi Vidal,
You can meet a qualified psychologist with a PHd. There are psychologists who are specialized in these matters. Good if you can meet one of them.
But don’t expect a miracle. Its a difficult therapy. You might not be able to completly overcome same sex attractions. But it works and will make you happy :)”
I’ve no idea if Vidal is a real or not but I hope he ignores the advice who contradicts themselves within the sapce of twenty words.
William, I think you missed the point. The reason ex-gay supporters say sexuality is fluid is so that they can claim everyone, or at least gays and bisexuals, can change so they should.
Becky, I agree with you. But I don’t think it helps our case to deny that ANYONE’s sexuality is fluid, simply because blanket denials of that kind are rash; they could be overthrown by finding one single proven case to the contrary. I think it’s wiser simply to concede that there is evidence suggesting that a very small number of people’s sexuality really is fluid, to note that there is no credible evidence that such fluidity can be created by any kind of “therapy”, religious or secular, or by any other means, and to point out that the argument that, if a few people’s sexuality is fluid, then everyone’s must be, is as ridiculous as the argument that, since lottery winners exist, everyone who is sufficiently motivated can and will win the lottery.