Dr. Warren Throckmorton loves himself some reparative therapy. The Grove City College psychology professor, who didn’t soil himself over the APA declaring sexuality is not changeable, does not conduct this sexual identity reassignment service himself, but he’s fond of those who do. Except this man is an academic, a PhD, and he won’t just let these folks go around professing that reparative therapy is the only way to change your sexual orientation. After all, what about spontaneous changes?
The common wisdom among the “you can change” set is that therapy works extremely well for one-third of patients, sort of well for another third, and not at all for the last third. “However,” inserts Throckmorton, “whatever numbers one likes, one cannot put it in context without a control or comparison situation. Another term for this in this context is spontaneous remission. Don’t some people change in various ways for reasons unrelated to therapy?”
Like, divine intervention! Or something close to spontaneous combustion. Call it spontaneous reorientation.
There are a couple of studies which have looked at spontaneous change, although none would be directly comparable to any current studies of sexual reorientation. Diamond found spontaneous change in her study of 100 women. In 2005, Kinnish, Strassburg and Turner reported varying levels of sexual orientation flexibility in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Their report found that 19% of men and 17% of women in their sample moved in a heterosexual direction (from gay to bisexual, or bisexual to straight — none went from exclusively gay to exclusively straight). In 2003, Dickson, Paul and Herbison reported spontaneous change in a cohort. The chart of movement can be viewed here. Note that 5 of 15 went from some same-sex attraction to only heterosexual attraction and none from “major attraction to the same sex” to straight.
While these studies are suggestive, they cannot be directly compared to existing studies of sexual reorientation. However, the fact that some men with some same-sex attraction and many women might shift spontaneously should be taken into account when thinking about the role of therapy in mediating sexual orientation change.
They should also be taken into account when considering other the direction spontaneous reorientation can also take: When straights suddenly transform into gays. Hi Dad!
Jason
When I was in the Marine Corps I had sex with lots of straight guys who were “spontaneously” gay when the wife or GF was out of town or otherwise indisposed.
Mostly, they were all bottoms. Spontaneously, I’m sure.
Latebrosus
See, but with these deniers, there’s no way a straight person could spontaneously become gay, because straight is simply default for them. That’s why the argument of “well, when did you choose to become straight?” doesn’t work on them: they believe everyone’s just born straight. And thus, being gay is a “choice.”
Timothy
Wow did you get this wrong.
Throckmorton does not support reparative therapy. In fact, he’s quite critical of the notion.
If you actually read his comments rather than make assumptions, you’ll see that he’s saying that reparative therapy claims may be meaningless because they don’t have control samples. Their tiny claims of success may not be due to their programs at all but instead just be examples of spontaneous change in sexual attraction.
And spontaneous change does occur, especially in women, for reasons we don’t understand.
nikko
Nonetheless, he’s probably “christian”, therefore sees homosexuaity as a problem. No amount of sincerity or intelligence erases the fact that homosexual orientation is a concrete fact, but religion is a choice. Would he or anyone else suggest conversion therapy for straights if they’re discontented with their lives? Of course not. So don’t suggest that for homos then. It never works. It’s all bigoted lies. Almost always, it’s bisexuals who claim to have gone straight, meaning they’ve decided to commit to the opposite sex, nothing more. As for women, their usually flui, so that doesn’t count.
nikko
Fluid, that is. I can’t believe this snake oil nonsense is still so pursued to this day.
terrwill
I wish this scumbag would spontaneously combust……..
osocubano
I met a Marine once who told me: “I’m not gay, I just like to get screwed every once in a while”.
Robert, NYC
The day we have ex-straight ministries, converting straights to gay then maybe, just maybe the ex-gay ministries will have a small degree of credibility, just for the hell of it. Prove it, I say with sound, documented, controlled studies that the legitimate scientific and medical literature will be glad to publish.
Robert, NYC
@osocubano:
I’ve met several so called “straight” males who had a preference for the passive role with another male, yet assume the dominant role with the opposite sex. A lot of bisexuals, particularly the males have a hard time acknowledging that their same-sex attraction is gay, go figure. Denial is what its all about and the stigma associated with a gay orientation as well as self-acceptance. There are even some who think that kissing another male is reserved only for women. Now how screwed up is that? I’m always baffled as to why straight males get off watching two women getting it on and kissing but are repulsed by two males. It makes me very suspicious why straight males lash out about that. A mirror image of what they’d really like to try perhaps but fearful of stigma and being found out, therefore choosing to deflect those feelings via anti gay male sexual activity?
dizzyspins
Its practically impossible to do scientific studies on sexual orientation for a number of reasons. First, there is the question of control groups. Secondly, there is no way to test for sexual orientation–you’re just going on what the subjects claim, which can be dishonest or vague. Does “spontaneous re-orientation” occur? Its impossible to say, because you only have the subject’s word for it that it was spontaneous. A lesbian who says she “spontaneously” became straight may have been thinking about it for years or may still be gay but decided to cave in to societal pressures to marry a man. In other words, people LIE. Especially if they want something to desperately be true. Not to mention the fact that these labels are not clearly defined. You either have cancerous tumors or you do not–“gay,” “straight,” “bisexual” are defined differently by different people. Its too subjective.
Yewtree
@Robert, NYC: Yes! Let’s start ex-straight ministries. Mwahahahaha!!!
Robert, NYC
Yewtree, you can bet ex-gay ministries, as well as other hatemongers like Maggie Gallagher and her gang would get around it by saying…”why would we want to prove we can convert straights to gays, we’re already normal?”
Estraven
We live in a world where men will have tons of sex with other men, but look you right in the eye and say that they are straight, because they are married to a woman. On the other hand, other men will have sex with women from time to time, but look you in the eye and say they are gay, because mostly they have sex with men. People will flip-flop all over the place every which way from Sunday not to define themselves as bisexual. It’s so bad that even Lisa Diamond, the primary researcher into bisexuality, has given up on trying to use the word. So the person’s innate capacity to be attracted to both/all genders may not change, but to the outside world if you are with the same gender you look gay, and then when you are with the opposite gender you look straight.
So some of these “pray-away-the gay” changes may have just been bisexuals choosing their straight side, as has been said. On the other hand, some of the “spontaneous” changes may have been people simply being more honest about their queerness – if I remember her research correctly, the women moved towards being MORE attracted to women.
ewe
Straight guys are drawn to me like a magnet. I will not tell anything other than a helluva lot of them liked exactly what i do.
counterpoll
@Estraven: You’re very close to correct: women are more likely than men to choose a same-sex partner after having been with exclusively with a partner/partners of the opposite gender.
For people who have reported engaging in sex with both genders, women are still more like likely than men to go back and forth.
Important to note that this research is almost exclusively focused on North American men/women, and to a lesser extent Northern Europeans. Also realise that ethnic minorities are under-represented in almost all studies—including sexuality research–so I’d feel less confident about saying this research (which Dr Diamond is among the most published authors) necessaily applies to minority women {e.g. African-Americans, Latinas, or Asians).
The idea of “spontaneous” re-identification of sexual identity is still, to be frank, rediculous. There are situations in which same sex activity ratchets up: notably prison, military manœuvers in close quarters, single-gender boarding schools, {& of course knitting circles & frat parties!} but that is a question of availability, not identity.
The reparative therapy people focus on behaviour, not attraction, so they forget that the man/woman who has no options may switch behaviour under duress, but that the behaviour reverts to baseline once the man/woman has access to their preferred gender.
cp