“Just a thought. Because someone is behaving in a homosexual identity does not mean they are homosexual either.”

Huh? Let’s give this person an IQ test in addition to the eye test.

This comes very close to Webster’s definition of quackery: “characterized by pretentious claims with little or no foundation”, “dishonestly claiming to effect a cure.”

Come on. Why would anyone get hostile about that?

“Ex-ex-gays, I know, have felt misled and betrayed by “overpromises,” but the implied hostility here needs to be addressed.”

In my opinion, being a bit “hostile” is a perfectly understandable human response to being “misled and betrayed by overpromises” of reparative therapy organizations.

Why does that need to be “addressed”? If a car salesman had misled and overpromised, wouldn’t Mr. Blakeslee be upset? The anger of ex-ex-gays is justified. Maybe the liars should stop lying.

I am tired of NARTH pretending to be scientific, tired of EXODUS’s alliance with with wing politics and frankly, tired of 30 years of excuses from reparative therapists — blaming gay activists for their lack of good scientific evidence to back up their “reorientation” claims. ENOUGH ALREADY!

More than that, I am angry with the repetitive message that gays are sick, sinful. disordered and broken — and need to be “repaired”. You might feel hostile too if you had been told since early childhood that being straight was a disorder and that you would burn in Hell if you didn’t become gay. Can’t you see that such messages are highly offensive? Such message also harm people — particularly the young and vulnerable.

I know personally that at least four of the high profile leaders of EXODUS (back in the 70’s) were still actively gay — even though we claimed we were not. Then, you have guys like John Paulk claiming that he “didn’t realize” he was hanging out in a gay bar. There are lots of other examples.

So, no, I don’t trust that exgays are honest. Sincere, yes. But often sincerely self-deluded and in denial. (As in, I am still homosexually oriented but I’m not a homosexual. I’m “formerly gay identified” now.) WHAT???

The history of reparative therapy is absolutely littered with false advertizing, quack cures, deliberately misleading terms (like ex-gay), inflated promises and leaders who claim to be what they are not.

Maybe lie detectors aren’t the answer. What are we supposed to do? Just take ex-gays at their word that their orientation has changed? How scientific is that?

I feel like the Cuba Gooding character who keeps yelling at Tom Cruise to “show me the money”. I will be less “hostile” when reparative therapy groups (1)define their terms, (2) clearly outline their therapetuic methods,(3) present some real evidence of change (not just inspiring anecdotes), (4) and disentangle themselves from right wing politics.

In the meantime, show me the science.

I’m not offended, but that may be because I’m not being asked to take one. 😉 I’m sure if the shoe were on the other foot, I would be.

There really is no such thing as a “lie-detector”. Polygraphs are notoriously subjective and can be defeated. I don’t think this line of inquiry is very productive.

But I think comparing eye movement toward masked nude images to self-reports gets at the heart of what we might be looking for — the psychological measure that confirms self-self reports.

The only other psychological measure I’m aware of is phalometric testing (also known as plethysmography). But its reliability is somewhat one-sided. Test subjects can falsify results by supressing their responses, but it is very difficult to initiate a response where there is no sexual attraction (although general nervousness can cause a false response). It is also highly subjective when used for individual diagnostics as opposed to research based on larger samples. I suspect this may not be of much use here. And besides that, it’s exceptionally invasive.

Are there other measures which are reasonably reliable?

Ex-ex-gays, I know, have felt misled and betrayed by “overpromises,” but the implied hostility here needs to be addressed.

(A better word is physiological measures which confirm self-reports)

David Blakeslee

Lie detector tests might help to show whether or not a research subject is lying about PREVIOUS sexual attractions and behaviors. They might also reveal if the subject is being truthful when he says he no longer finds men sexually attractive, no longer has sex with them and no longer masturbates to gay fantasies.

If the exgay passes the lie detector test — and the “unconscious attention eye test” is consistent with the self-report, then I would think reparative therapists mights finally have the tools they need to convince their skeptics. Will NARTH or EXODUS do this even if they had sufficient funding? I strongly doubt it. They woouldn’t want to let the facts get in the way of a good story.