Source: wthrockmorton.com
This is a well hashed subject but sexual identity therapist Dr. Warren Throckmorton has just posted some previously unreleased video of an interview he conducted with Dr. Robert Spitzer a few years ago.
In this interview, Dr. Spitzer gives his candid views on the meaning and value of his 2003 study on whether or not anyone has ever significantly changed their sexual orientation. Up to that point, success rates as high as 70% had been quoted by no less than Exodus International (see note below) and yet no one had even attempted to justify these figures with scientific study. For his part, Spitzer conducted his 2003 study simply to find out if change was at all possible, not how often it might occur.
Few works have been more distorted than this one, an excellent example of which appears on the intro to the PFOX website. Only recently, Daniel Gonzales produced a short instructional video to address just such distortions and Spitzer himself conducted an interview for the same reason.
In 2006, when asked if gays have a choice, Spitzer is quoted as saying:
They have a choice whether to go into therapy, about whether they adopt a gay lifestyle, whether they tell their friends and their family. They don’t have a choice as to whether their basic sexual orientation is gay or straight — that they don’t have a choice about.
I thought this interview was a good example of Dr. Spitzer speaking as a professional outside the (often imposed) political agendas of both sides.
Edit: Exodus president Alan Chambers has asked that we note that this figure was claimed by Sy Rogers circa 1990 and not by him. Our source of the quote is the movie “One Nation Under God” where Rogers quotes a success rate of 71.6% for homosexuals, and that he himself went from complete homosexual orientation to heterosexual within approx 2 years.
Well, fine, but I am still very uncomfortable with the term “gay lifestyle”. I really have no idea what that is. My “lifestyle” is very different from many of my gay friends, and is often more similar to some straight people.
I think that is a meaningless label used to demonize us, although I am sure Spitzer isn’t using it that way – but he should think about that.
Fair or not (and I personally hate the “gay lifestyle” term as much as anyone) I think its somewhat reasonable to assume in Spitzer’s case he means living in a long term sexual relationship with a person of the same sex.
The problem is that many ex-gays and people who posit that homosexuality is unnatural or sinful seem to believe in encompasses a range of things from wild sex parties, hundreds of partners (I don’t think I’ve MET 100 gay men), and a cocktail of diseases served with every sexual encounter, not to mention drug use.
Since Spitzer is not known to use the “gay lifestyle” term in the derogatory manner as do many ex-gay and anti-gay groups, I would agree that in this instance he probably means to live a life openly and consistent with attraction to the same sex. The fact that so many use the term as an insult has made it a sensitive hot-button word and I don’t care for it either.
Count me in as one offended by that word too. I hate the use of the word ‘lifestyle’ as well.
To be even more derogatory, we’ve all heard more than a few openly ANTI gay people use the word ‘deathstyle’ when talking about gay folks.
Hearing straight people lecture a gay person to their face on what it is to be gay sets my teeth on edge, and a straight person enveloping themselves in piety to justify political bullying and dominence makes me want to holler back.
But that’s just me.
Do I sound bitter….or justifiably PISSED?
actually, the more I think about it there are worse things than references to the “gay lifestyle.” To me its more annoying when the AFA or other groups use the word gay in quotes or similarly talk about gay “marriage,” its actually a rather brilliant rhetorical tactic on their part but that’s the one that is probably most offensive to me.
Groups that promote ex-gays claim they only want the right self determination and define their own sexual identity, but every time they put quotes around words like that it just shows they don’t respect our own sexual identity.
Just in reference to the word “gay lifestyle”, I do feel that at the least the word still describes a person in a life.
Not really in the topic, but just to share, in Malaysia late last year, an article was published in regards to transsexuals, and in some relations to gays and lesbians. We are labelled as a ‘culture’ with a threat.
https://www.ftmaustralia.org/press/06/1213.html
I am not offended by the term lifestyle, but it does suggest everyone is the same. I would definately not “fit” into the “gay lifestyle” as defined by the religious right and others, but I am as gay as gay is.
I do not go to parades, go to bars, have sex with anyone other than my spouse, or take an activist view (I also do not vote according to my sexual orientation). This is what many people think about gay people, of course.
I have never had a sexual dream or fantasy though about a female ever. I have always been attracted to males (although I find sexy women beautiful, I don’t find them sexy–and no, I am not grossed out by women. Female nudity is beautiful but does nothing. I like to point out that I have seen more naked women than any gay guy ever). People think I am pretty masculine. My clothing choice is more swinger and punk like clothes, and I don’t obsess about gay issues. If I ever had a lifestyle, I have a punk rock lifestyle, but not a gay lifestyle. I am gay, but I don’t live it. It happens.
@Aaron – the problem isn’t with the word lifestyle per se, it is with the way it is used as a shorthand to dehumanize and judge GLBT’s.
We seem to be more a-flutter due to the mention of “Gay Lifestyle” than with the primary content of the Spitzer interview. Oh, and speaking of the “Gay Lifestyle,” I would argue that celibacy, for homosexuals so inclined, is a gay lifestyle.
Yukichoe said: “Just in reference to the word “gay lifestyle”, I do feel that at the least the word still describes a person in a life.”
How’s that for vague to the point of meanglessness? Every person is a “person in a life”. What does that actually mean? My lover and I have been together for years now, and we are STILL looking for the “gay lilfestyle”. Every gay person we know weems to have a different one. It has become an amusing hobby. Whenever we are together, we ask ourselves: Is THIS “the gay lifestyle”? Are we doing “THE lifestyle” now? No? How about now?
Last weekend, we cleaned his garage. We went to the gym. We went to a movie. We picked up dog poop in his yard. We asked friends over to dinner. We cut palm fronds from his trees and decorated the Church. We attend services and took communion. Oh yeah, late Sunday night, we ate left-over Chinese food, had sex for about five minutes and fell asleep watching HGTV. What part of that was “the gay lifestyle”? And while we are on the subject, is there a “straight” lifestyle?
Apologies Michael Bussee, actually what I am trying to say is it could be worse… like being called a ‘culture’… and a ‘threat’….
I am a person who suffers from gay attractions and I am also a person who has made the decision to change. You seem to making a big deal over nothing. The term gay lifestyle just refers to the lifestyle a person leads when that person decides to live as a gay person and peruse gay relationships. A person can have more than one lifestyle because any one person can and will peruse more than on interest. I am trying to insult anyone but I will ask you to stop slamming and criticizing the ex-gay community. You are jumping to conclusions about a simple term. No one means anything insulting ex-gay groups are just presenting the chance to people who want to try and change. Why should anyone have to live with this if they do not want to? I realize each and every one of you is a person with thoughts and feelings and there is more to you than just being gay. But I must ask why you continue to tell that they cannot change. Before I made the decision to change my life was a living hell. I had attractions to other men and all I ever heard was that I could never change, that I was born this way and I would always be this way. Hearing these things drove me in to a deep depression and I seriously considered suicide. Please I beg you to stop attacking groups like PFOX and Exodus. I know you mean well but you do more harm than you realize.
I am trying to insult you if I have in any way please let me know at runningbook20@yahoo.com
Jake – I don’t think anyone here hates ex-gays as individuals. I think that a lot of us do however resent some comments that ex-gay leaders have said. For example, Stephen Bennett is on record as saying:
“Homosexuals are desperately looking for acceptance and they will do everything and anything possible to force you to give in to them. You may do the slightest act of kindness toward them and they will immediately misconstrue that as you are giving them full approval now of their homosexuality. Let me give you a final word on this. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having your child there for the holidays, you should show that unconditional love, allow your child to be there, have the whole family together. That doesn’t mean you have to be forced by your child in having the partner come. Let your child come by himself or herself.” (post was archived to this page).
Although I do not claim to speak for everyone on this site, I think most posters on this site find that rhetoric and advice more than a little offensive and divisive. I personally feel that it is an attempt to drive a wedge between me and my family.
I also personally take issue with comments such as these from Mr. Bennett:
We need to love the sinner, but we don’t need to love the sin. We need to love and respect all individuals, but we don’t need to tolerate. Jesus was not a person who tolerated. When the woman was caught in adultery, what did Jesus say to her? “No man condemneth thee, so go and continue in your adultery?” No. [Jesus said,] “Go and sin no more.” God is not a god of tolerance. And when you really think about it — this is really radical, what I’m about to say, and I don’t want people to misconstrue this — God is a very bigoted god. (archived to this page)
It has always been my belief that God is love, not hate, and not bigotry. I believe in a loving, yet firm God. I believe in a God that believes in the good in me and everyone else in the world. I believe in a God of wisdom and understanding.
I’m showing you these examples not because I want to pick on Mr. Bennett and not out of a desire to attack your beliefs. I merely wish to indicate that its easy to be defensive when you’re under attack from comments like those.
For the record I’m a perfectly happy gay man who has nothing against ex-gays who do not make personal attacks on others. And just a last note, your comments on the “gay lifestyle” are all well and good, but do you believe that is what most people are referring to? Do you believe it to be a generally neutral comment? Positive? Negative?
Jake, I don’t think most people here care if someone is exgay; what people care about is when they feel demeaned by the rhetoric and hurt by political activism that affects their lives. I think if exgays and exgay groups existed just as an alternative, no one would care. Some people and situations cause more harm than good though.
Also, about “gay lifestyle,” if it is a benign term, do you ever hear “straight lifestyle”?
Hi Jake, I am deeply concerned with your thoughts that:
1) You were suffering from being gay.
If you are really gay what kind of suffering would you endure, because most gays are not suffering like you.
2) Gay is an interest
If you think being gay is just an interest, then you would not be a true gay, you are just a heterosexual who so happens to have perused gay lifestyle in the context of your situation.
If you are suffering in your self imposed gaydom, by all means no one is stopping you from being a heterosexual again. After all, you as an accidental hetero gay can decide to be back in your original orientation.
But that is it, when we say gays cannot change, it just simply means that. True gays cannot change.
Only confused heterosexuals like you who think they are so gay and suffering a sexuality they find abnormal can change.
Anyway, have you ever think of the harm that PFOX and Exodus do when they tell the world that all gays are like this and like that when gays are not?
And do you know that these groups are similar to you in thinking, you know why? Because they are ex-ex-heterosexuals like you.
You would notice I put you in three boxes with labels here. Yes, it is intentional. Why? Becase I want you to understand how it feels to be labeled like us.
Why must we be definitive when the universe is anything. Very few things are definitive. In fact, there is an ever growing number of bisexuals. Gays call them phonies and straight call them gay. Who knows.
Science is closing the gap in many research areas and there is research being perfomred to induce being gay or staight What then?
Also there are many depressed people who are having electrodes implanted in thier brain to block certain thoughts or brain chemstries which is having great success. In fact they are certain that they can if they want make people feel anything they want.
I am certain capitalism will prevail and the days are short until we will have choice in are being gay or straight. Now that’s something to think about.
Put on your seatbelt folks cause you ain’t seen anything yet.
Arthur, as a bisexual transsexual female, if one day there is a choice between gay and straight, I would prefer to maintain myself just the way I am. Why?
Put it this way. I am in relationship with a man, but I have a choice to be straight, as a bisexual and a transsexual, which one is straight? And would it be fair for my partner?
Most of all with all the confusion as to whether we are born the sexual orientation and identity or not, would it not be feasible to just be ourselves?
And if such technology exists, what would happen if you apply such implants to exgays?
Choice is the operative word and we will all have access to it for a price. Yukichoe, you are in a good relationship but people change, get depressed, enlightened, disinterested or interested in having new experiences and change.
I can assure you the pharmaceutical companies are investing in research in these areas. Gene therapy and nano technology are other avenues of research. I have done work in all three of these industries and it is all about the numbers $$$. My bet is in five years we will hear open trials in this area and within ten a method or product will be on the market. In twenty years it will be low cost and taken for granted.
With global population increasing highly educated countries like China, India, Korea, Japan, Russia, Europe, and the US are graduating literally hundreds of thousands (and maybe millions) of chemists, geneticists, doctors, and engineers each year. This is in addition to the millions of those already in these fields. You throw enough people onto any problem that is profit driven and you will have a solution. And the labor and manufacturing costs are dropping like a rock!
Then we would have a new moral issue. The inborn human state of being versus the genetically altered state of being. Well the operative word still stands, whether we choose to live as who we are or choose to modify ourselves to what people expect us to be.
But I am curious, what would you choose Arthur? A quick fix to be Ex-Arthur? Or just remain as Arthur? Is being Arthur itself a problem? Unless of course, you are not Arthur. Are you?
You did not reply to my previous questions. But I believe these are questions that not only me, but even you would shudder to answer. Cheers.