Homosexuality is a Mental Disorder

Reading comprehension fail- I never said that 'gay's don't hit on straights'.

Gay men act like men. They make advances on those who they find attractive. Simple as that. In general all men do it. It makes you really uncomfortable to have a gay man make advances on you. Women often find unwanted advances uncomfortable too. Such is life.

I have never had a gay man who knows I am straight hit on me. I have had gay men in gay bars hit on me, and back in my younger days when I would be in the Castro or the Polk I would certainly get attention. But just as I havent' been hit on a woman who knows that I am married, I have not been hit on by a gay man who knows that I am straight.

I can honestly say that I have seen straight men do such stupid things to the women pretty often. You wouldn't do it- I wouldn't do it- and no gay man I am friends with would do it- but men do these things all the time. Men are often pigs.

Without being too snide- I would say two things:
a) You have met lots of gay men you never, ever found out were gay.
b) They would no more want to be your friend than a black man would want be buddies with a racist.

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By the way- homosexuality is a mental disorder in exactly the same way as being left handed is a mental disorder.

 

Actually women who have sex with women have a higher rates of stds

 

Not according to the CDC. Whoever told you otherwise was lying. Or you are.

 

The reason homosexuality was in the DSM in the first place was because old studies showed comorbidity linking homosexuality with criminal behavior, depression, drug use and other psychological and antisocial problems. Again, simply being weird or unusual is not a justification for being in a clinical manual requiring treatment, that's not what the DSM exists for, it's a clinical manual for distressful and inhibiting conditions.

40 years ago, they were still working on the mathematical methods for calculating probabilities, averages, standard deviations, representative samples and other methods used in modern, credible research. The methods used for modern psychological study are very new, so the difference between 40 years ago and today are very relevant. Old studies on homosexuality were done by researchers pulling from bias samples.... samples of homosexuals that were easy to find, homosexuals that were currently receiving psychological treatment in psychological facilities, were discharged from the military, or homosexuals who were convicted of a crime related to their homosexuality (like sex in public places, or just sex in general wherever they were caught). Homosexuals were rarely studied from the general population. In other words, they were junk science by todays standards. But the linkage between homosexuality these other psychological and antisocial behaviors is what justified the inclusion in the DSM in the first place, as a psychological ailment instead of just being a deviant/abnormal behavior behavior.

Evelyn Hooker in 1973 was one of the first researchers to recognize this deficiency in the research, and conducted a blind study with other trained psychologists. From the general population, she selected a group of homosexuals and a group of heterosexuals, and performed psychological testing on them, standardized tests that are used to diagnose psychological problems and diseases. She gave the results of the psychological tests to experienced psychiatrists and asked them to evaluate the results, without telling them which ones were identified as homosexual. Suprise, the psychiatrists evaluated members of both categories as "“perfectly well-adjusted, normally functioning human beings” at exactly the same rate. http://www.well.com/~aquarius/hooker.htm

So, while homosexuality was still certainly viewed as abnormal, deviant behavior from most people, credible evidence was starting to fall that homosexuality had any inherent comorbidity with psychological ailments, that it was possible to be homosexual and still “perfectly well-adjusted, normally functioning human beings.” Thus, the argument was made that homosexuality need not be universally diagnoses as a disease that should be treated in the DSM... instead, other categories were added for those who did experience distress.

 

No, that would be you who is lying. But feel free to back up the BS you spew.

 

I've never much looked at information related to this, although this one looks interesting:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377304/

For heterosexual women who only had sex with men, the STD rate calculated for them was 10%, vs 6.7% for lesbians and 17.2% for bisexuals. So, it's specifically bisexuals that have higher rates of STD's, not lesbians, according to this study. One could only speculate as to why this is.... maybe these "bisexual" women are bisexuals and lesbians who are fighting with their lesbian tendencies and thus frequently having sex with men in an attempt to fight it? Maybe these "bisexual" women just have overactive sex drive and impulses, driving them to have sex with anything - frequently and unsafely. Maybe there's something unique in the culture and perceptions of bisexuals which causes this to happen. I have no idea, but it does seem important to note that lesbians do indeed have lower rates of STD's than heterosexual women, unless you're going to average them together with the bisexual women who have sex with men.

 

Those must be lifetime infection rates, nowhere near 10% of any category of person is infected by an STD of any kind on an annualized basis.

 

Thank you honestly for your informed response. I will have to check out that link. This is more what I expect out of a good debate. You may vehemently disagree with my point, but if you want to make a counter point, present an argument, some facts, and a link to your information.

Kudos to JeffLV, this is the right way to do it.

So I'll study this information and get back to you. Send more links if you got them.

 

Well first a correction, I put the wrong date down, it was 1957 when she did her research. 1973 was the year the APA members voted to remove homosexuality in favor of a different category of homosexuals who were distressed. I don't have a whole lot of links for you, a lot of what I've learned about the subject I learned while in class and in my text books (I'm in college for occupational therapy). But there are some interesting links for the story of the removal of from the DSM, including the parts where activists stormed the APA and parts where certain key members were working to remove it from the inside. This is the root of the conspiracy theory around the removal. Although I believe such explanations fail to explain why the whole body of APA members at large voted to remove it... it's not in the power of just a certain few members to do it alone, although it required their effort to bring it to the table. It also highlights the unfair demonization of psychologists who were working to treat homosexuals of their homosexuality... as there's a difference between disagreeing whether it's right or wrong to treat it as a condition that must be treated, vs demonizing... many had nothing but the best intentions and were unfairlly demonized. Anyway, here's a link to some of the stories.

http://www.mindofmodernity.com/not-sick-the-1973-removal-of-homosexuality-from-the-dsm

The audio version is also pretty good:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/204/81-words

 

They define subjects with STDs as those who have ever had warts or herpes

 

Because they don’t want to (*)(*)(*)(*) the other gender? Im not getting any perks out of being hetero sexual I don’t want to be gay or anything else because of it

 

More homophobic idiocy.

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Wrong. And I won't waste another electron tolerating your dehumanizing, homophobic BS.

You're on 'ignore'.

 

Cameron isn't 'credible', for the most part.

 

Yeah, just like "heterosexuality" (if you want to use 'religion' to measure/label it). Go figure.

 

LOL!! (Stop making things up.)

 

I linked you an audio story of a reporter who put the story of how homosexuality was removed from the DSM above... IMO, it's a good, balanced depiction of all the good, the bad and the ugly on all sides of the story, including interviews with many of the psychologists directly involved in the decision, on both sides, and I think you would get a lot from it... it's very long though, so I just wanted to pick out a couple key parts... first, Evelyn Hooker who's research was a major precursor to the removal. Her study was revolutionary for the time, but limited still by today's standards. It has been repeated many times since then.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/204/81-words?act=1#play

Here's the part of the story where a key member in the committee responsible for drafting the change was "convinced" and made the resolution which then passed the committee, the board of trustees and the president. Prior to this, Ron Gold (mentioned below) had just finished a debate with another man of the merits for and against homosexuality being in the DSM.

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Probably HPV in general, not just warts - although HPV is likely not frequently diagnosed without the presence of warts.

 

Done and done Or at least appropriately clarified to specify that it is bisexual women, not lesbians, which have higher STD rates.

 

Funinsnow is a particularly awful troll, a waste of breath to talk to, and a waste of faith in humanity to even listen to. Let's hope he's gone for a little longer this time. Shangrila, care to comment on that? ^_^

I don't see how you feel this expectation was reasonable, honestly. You provided an OP with little to no evidence for a very controversial, extraordinary claim. How the burden of proof was somehow shifted to us is beyond me. And even then, I already provided the explanation for why homosexuality is not considered a mental disorder now, nor was considered on in the DSM-II (straight from the horse's mouth, at that). I mean, come on, man. You offer up this thread asserting something that an entire scientific discipline has asserted to be not the case for almost 40 years, and you still haven't provided an explanation of what your definition of "mental illness" is! JeffLV is being more than a little bit forthcoming in that regard.

 

Well, if we define STDs as only genital warts or herpes, excluding all other STDs and we define lesbians as this study defines lesbianism, you have some evidence. Most self identified lesbians also have had sex with men.

 

You haven't provided any citations for your claim. Perhaps before complaining about how the study that was cited wasn't complete enough you should provide something to back up your claim?

I believe that HPV and Herpes are the two most common STD's in the U.S.

 

Actually you've already agreed with my claim and you just define lesbians differently than I do

 

It's a ridiculous conclusion that sexual orientation dysfunction is not a mental issue. It's a joke. I understand why they changed the classification. Back in the day gays were taking it tough and I don't approve of bulling anyone especially when the handicap is not self inflected. However now we have leaped from sporting their self acceptance to forcing others to accept it as normal. It is not normal. Sex drive is not about sex...it's about procreating the species. Something gays can not do in pairs of same sex partners. That some other critters have the same occasional sexual orientation dysfunction is in no way proof it is normal behavior.

This is why you avoid slippery slopes. Its why people have said "give them an inch and they try to take a mile" (John Heywood (1497-1580))

What's next after they get marriage and they still feel empty inside? Public acceptance is not going to make their self loathing go away like they think it will.
Their problem is coming from the inside out. .

 

Um no and no.

I didn't agree with you on anything- that is such a rare occurance that I would remember and I can't remember ever defining lesbians at all.

 

Yet most men seek out sex with the express purpose of avoiding procreating the species.

You confuse 'sex drive' with attraction.

And something that many couples of different sex partners cannot do either. The ship has long since sailed since Henry the Eighth required children for a marriage to be considered a marriage.


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Why do you think that they 'feel empty inside'? What arrogance makes you assume that all gays are self loathing?

My gay friends simply want the same legal recognition and obligations as my wife and I have. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

Suicide is the leading cause of death among gay male, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual youth. I guess it is because they love themselves so much. I am not being arrogant...unless you think the facts are arrogant. You seem to have anger issues however.