Comments on: NARTH fact sheet: Female homosexual development, Part 2 – Child sexual abuse

By: Unknown ;]

Unknown ;] — Wed, 12 May 2010 20:50:58 +0000

ok. I have not really looked at all these messages to get everyones whole story, but if they say women are “gay” because of sexual abuse. Then whats the resoning for all the women who were not abused?
please write back,
thanx

By: meg

meg — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:15:56 +0000

being abused as a child does not correspond in any way to a person’s sexual orientation… There are many other factors which contribute.such people may undergo in their lives some phases in which they may try and experience homosexual behavior but this does not reflect their true needs in the long run and sooner or later they come back to usual. it’s obvious that sexual behavior or history of a person’s sexual life may not necessarily indicate thier orientation. plus, just by the way, all the statistics are bullcrap as many many ppl never take pare in such a survey. there are many homosexuals (men and women) living their lives in the closet, having normal families and normal family background with no abuse.
Sexual orientation is formed very earily which means that neither a person can be born gay nor is a choice. it must be somehow shaped in the very first years of life and what is considered generally as ‘sexual orientation’ consists of :
-emotional orientation
-romantic orientation
-erotic orientation
but not purely ‘sexual ‘- in the meaing of ‘biological’ orienation because from biological point of view there is no instinctive biological sexual attraction towards the same sex.this what is called ‘homosexal orientation’ is shaped later, after birth on psychological grounds and it’s significantly affected by self identification as a woman or man.

By: Katie

Katie — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:00:54 +0000

Just skimmed the commentaries this post ellicited.
One of the problems seem to be speculating over which parent is or isn’t detached from.
In my experience, people who feel CSA has made a huge, lasting, impact, also feel there was general lack of attachments in their life.
Those who had loving parents feel CSA, though influential in negative and lasting ways, not so much. Less issues with drugs, addictive behaviors, etc… And, I would imagine, less likely to be impacted in their sexual development.
So I’m not sure the debate is really one of “did it make you gay or straight”, but the ways in which it impacted the ability to form stable attachments, and where stable attachments are weak or missing ,then how this was expressed sexually.
It seems to me that a lot of sexual abuse victems are not overly concerned with which sex turns them on the most — but which sex seems less scary, and which more scary.
Safety seems more important than attraction in a more overt, on-going -concern, sort of way.
And it was interesting for me to read Arugala Rose’s comments regarding the necessity to study one’s environment and copy it rather than getting it early on and just living in it. I had a longer than average time doing this in order to figure out how to live my gender.
Seems to me that the whole straight/gay thing can lead us to overlook things like this.
K.

By: Arugula Rose

Arugula Rose — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:33:12 +0000

In my case, childhood sexual abuse caused me to be straight. I was raped as a young girl and have spent my whole life trying to “prove” that my sexuality was intact. But, not really knowing what an intact sexuality looked like, and being completely dissociated from my own body, I turned to cultural models about sex which of course are all heterosexual. This led me to ignore, disregard etc. all of my erotic feelings towards women as I entered into one after another unstable relationship with men. Through therapy I see the role of that trauma in making me straight. Without therapy and the loving support of my friends I would never recognize how that violation has set me up for loss over my whole life. I would probably live my whole life and die still identifying as heterosexual if I weren’t uncovering this abuse now. It makes me want to cry and cry and cry, to have lost so many years of connection with my own desire.

By: Evan

Evan — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:27:40 +0000

Katie,
There a few unknowns on this issue. Like:
– Do the same men and women react the same in time? That is, if someone goes through the same procedures in different weeks and months, do they get the same result? That’s too expensive to find out with brainscans..
– Do the same men and women react the same to a large variety of stimuli, given extended time? For instance, could a gay man be attracted to a smaller and shyer woman and a straight man to a more dominant man, but on average remain more attracted to their preferred sex? and
– Why do most gay men prefer passive stimulation? The physiology of arousal is different from that of “straight” men? Likely to be so.
Getting some answers to these questions and seeing how much flexibility is there would really help people understand how many of the things they think are only typical for certain orientations are actually normal, widespread… And how many are really typical, ofc.

By: Katie Cannon

Katie Cannon — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:01:57 +0000

Just want to say, I’m no fan of NARTH.
And also, just like many women who turn away from penetrative sex, many male CSA victims abhore the thought of using their penises in a penetrative fashion.
To me, it seems that ignoring subjective reports requires having EXTREMELY good reasons to do so.
So again, based on what measurements is it “proven” that men’s brains don’t respond to stuff like this in an analogous way — realizing that all analogies fail at some point, and my question do NOT need to assume that there are NO differences between male and female brains, because there certainly is some, otherwise our brains couldn’t help direct the development of different morphologies.
Still, that subjective experience is questioned when it comes to me because of some measurement is highly questionable, unless that measurement cannot itself be questioned. And I doubt this is the case.
Katie

By: Warren

Warren — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:41:33 +0000

Plethysmograph and some brain scanning work. The brain scan work is very clear as is some perceptual work out of Minnesota. When I get time later, I will put some references down.
What is your take on the matter?

By: Katie Cannon

Katie Cannon — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:33:58 +0000

Happened to have pulled this old thread up while doing a broader search, but thought I’d ask Warren:
Based on what sort of measurement is it found that men do NOT respond in any way to both male and female stimuli?
That’s my first question.
I have yet to come across a very good argument for this, and lots of observation that this isn’t quite right, and the problem is the standard of measurement.
Katie

By: mary

mary — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 04:22:59 +0000

Am I missing the point – is the thread a NARTH bashing or are we discussing women with SSA and sexual abuse and how NARTH has presented the information and what can be gleaned from that?

By: Lynn David

Lynn David — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 06:13:26 +0000

Warren wrote…. If the NARTH theory was true for men, that everybody starts straight and some become gay due to detachment from the same-sex parent then we would need a plausible theory about how that detachment changes the course of brain wiring so that attraction to men is so automatic and natural.

Why should it be “wiring” that NARTH has to explain. Is it not simply “thinking” that NARTH is concerned with? I’d think that would be NARTH’s viewpoint, especially a Nicolosi who says that once a guy realizes the problem is with his relationship with his father then the homosexuality goes away. You cannot re-wire a brain that fast, can you? Even easier than my house.
Which is to say that their whole argument sounds so illogical except to anyone who is desperate for change.