Ex-Gay Watch seeks writers to critically analyze the following recent NARTH antigay propaganda items:
Researcher Studies How MSMs Organize Sexual Culture In Public Parks
New Book On Transgender Clinical Practices Urges New Paradigm For Treatment
The Psychology Behind Homosexual Tendencies (Parts 1-2)
The Research Of Charlotte J. Patterson
While the items obviously fixate upon, and exaggerate, prurient and kinky aspects of small subcultures within the scope of same-sex-attracted individuals, we’re looking for analysis that goes beyond that. How are NARTH’s demographic samples rigged? What clinical and political biases can be documented? To whom is this information marketed? By whom was the data vetted for accuracy and scope? What revenues are earned on the syndication of such propaganda? Is NARTH retaliating against opposing claims that were also rigged?
I’m not savvy enough on specifics of clinical research to comment on the accuracy of the Patterson piece on gay parenting… but… the sorts of objections re: research methods sound awfully similar to the complaints raised about the Spitzer research that NARTH vigorously defends.
You’re talking about their articles about the stiudies and books?
#1- Well, some gay guys do have sex in public parks. Best thing to do to discourage that is foster an environment where gay guys don’t grow up ashamed of their sexuality and end up furtively seeking out anonymous sex. The study itself actually seems pretty silly.
“When the city of New York altered the areas within the park to discourage such sexual encounters, MSM were simply more discreet in their behaviors in the same areas. “Though the homoerotic desire of the sexual subjects did not change, the manner in which they enacted them evolved with the structural constraint expressed in spatial change around them,” said the author.”
Yes, relandscaping doesn’t change people’s sexual orientation. Shocking findings.
#2- except for the chapter written by freakazoid Anne Lawrence, the book sounds good. It may not be as comprehensive as people might like, but no book can include everything. It’s positive and Narth doesn’t like that, naturally.
#3- The Catholic church has moved from saying gay people should be celibate to embracing more the “ex-gay” position. Not a great political development, but there’s no research or anything in the article to critique. The author they interview just says some nasty things about gay people.
#4- Pattersons’s research probably does have shortcomings. Social science research is something that’s very hard to do well. All we can really say for sure is that there’s no research saying gay people make bad parents.
I don’t have the info with me, but I know that Patterson’s research certainly has a lot of shortcomings, ones that she herself acknowledges. She discusses the many difficult problems associated with putting together a representative sample and if I’m not mistaken, she doesn’t claim that hers is. In fact, nearly all social science researchers are very upfront about these difficulties. Again, I don’t have it in front of me, but I can look it up tonight when I get home. 🙂
Which if true, what I suspect is actually going on is that Dr. Schoenewolf is simply setting up a series of strawman arguments that he is able to effectively knock down.
Somehow, the idea that MSM and gay people are the same thing seems odd. What most studies on this I have seen referenced (I am not a social scientist, to put it mildly) find is that the toilet and park people are usually married men. The study here seems to be more about furtiveness and secrecy than actual gay life. If one is out, one does not need to fool around in grubby parks. Only those who elect a straight identity find this sort of release necessary. It would be interesting to read the report and see if the author got into the chosen identities issue. And if he found what pretty much everyobne else has, point our that the review ignores this fact. Which fact has a lot to do with exgays.
The scenario shown by the RC person is typically warmed over Freudianism. Which suffers from being at best a hypothoses or theory. It is not a proven fact nor does it measure up to known data from large scale surveys of gay people. Niclas Berggren has several studies refuting the absent father model on his site.
Dalea at December 20, 2005 02:43 PM
Somehow, the idea that MSM and gay people are the same thing seems odd. What most studies on this I have seen referenced (I am not a social scientist, to put it mildly) find is that the toilet and park people are usually married men.
The first is why I have long pushed for a distinction between “gay” and “homosexual.” The second, I agree with, but I’ll expand it a bit. More than a few men who occupy chat rooms like those on gay.com appear to be people who are either married or cheating on their same-sex partners. It takes a while to learn the lingo, but posts like “have to travel” is a pretty obvious indicator.
It’s hilarious.
Niclas Berggren has this article on his site:
https://hem.passagen.se/nicb/quinn.htm
The article pretty thoroughly demolishes the idea that gay men have bad relationships with their fathers. It does so by showing that straight men also have these. The father relationship is not an identifier of gay people, as NARTH proposes.
Mike,
I decided to take on the challenge of addressing The Psychology Behind Homosexual Tendencies.
This, however, does not seem to worth the effort. Literally every single paragraph is filled with stereotypes, innacuracies, myths or assumptions that have been proven false. It was as though Fitzgibbons had never met a person with same-sex attractions and had simply read from a 1945 textbook.
Boo said:
Yes, relandscaping doesn’t change people’s sexual orientation. Shocking findings.
LOL, well put. I tend to agree that people in the parks such as those described are forced into secretive encounters. But something that might actually be worth investigating is why lesbians do not appear to be so inclinded.
PS: They actually got a grant for that study?
David
I changed my mind and decided to go for it… It’s posted in another string
🙂
Dalea at December 20, 2005 08:05 PM
I’m familiar with the Quinn article, and would put it a little differently. The Quinn article’s statistics suggest that the theory, that was initially proposed by Bieber et al and used by the “reparative therapists,” that male homosexuality is caused by a distant father (and possibly an overprotective mother), is incorrect. The reason? Because, according to Quinn, Bieber et al ignored statistics that statistics for male heterosexuals on the same question were not significantly different.
In other words, Bieber et al ignored the statistics from their (heterosexual) control group when formulating their theory. As anyone in science knows, ignoring your control group is a no-no and casts doubt on your theory.
Links to articles that may be of interest:
The Disparate Classification of Gender and Sexual Orientation in American Psychiatry https://www.priory.com/psych/disparat.htm (contains some interesting history)
Therapy Terminable and Interminable:
“Non-gay Homosexuals” Come Out of the Closet
https://math.ucsd.edu/~weinrich/NCLSWNRC.HTML
(a review of Nicolosi’s book Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach)