Category: Professional issues

If not ex-gay, then what?

Former Q-Syndicate owner, David Benkof writes a provocative column in today’s Jerusalem Post – If not ex-gay, then what?
He writes:

For years, I have been a critic of the ‘ex-gay’ movement, particularly its Jewish manifestation. Many advocates of ‘reorientation therapy’ appear to exaggerate ex-gay transformation rates, and so far the non-gay leaders of the Jewish ex-gay movement have been utterly unable to produce success stories who are willing to be interviewed. Alarmingly, Jewish ex-gay organizers sometimes lead Jewish strugglers perilously close to Christian ideas at odds with Judaism.
Well, I have a suggestion. Instead of gay or ex-gay, those of us who have stopped thinking of ourselves primarily as same-sexers can emphasize the fact that, whether we’re celibate or in opposite-sex relationships, we’re ‘Deliberately Living Traditionally.’ The handy acronym Delta corresponds to a Greek letter representing change; it can be a rival to the use of the letter Lambda to represent all things gay. Delta can serve as a new identity and community for people who are making or have made that tough transition. (Perhaps the Hebrew version will be known as ‘Dalets.’)

He does not promote change but a different perspective and set of choices. How does this sound?

Research note: Gay and straight men assess parental qualities

I am re-examining (in some cases examining for the first time) older studies of parenting and adult sexual orientation. This post will look at a paper from 1983 – Sipova, I., & Brzek, A. (1983). Parental and Interpersonal Relationships of Transexual and Masculine and Feminine Homosexual Men. Journal of Homosexuality, 9, 75-85.
This Czechoslovakian study claims to find differences between assessments of parents by gay, straight and MtF transsexuals. However, the actual data do not support the discussion from the authors who clearly wanted to find the traditional triad. A look at the data reveals few statistical differences. The authors reported absolute values in the direction they expected but analysis finds only a few differences and those were not supportive of their discussion.
This study is interesting in that the authors divided the homosexual group (from a clinical population) into effeminate and non-effeminate males. Self-assessments of dominance differed with gay males viewing themselves as less dominant than straight males. However, assessments of paternal dominance were not different by sexual orientation of respondent. In other words, these men did not differ in how assertive and strong they perceived their fathers to be. Relevant to the reparative drive model, the non-effeminate group of gay males did not differ from the straight group on how loving they perceived their fathers as being. However, the effeminate gay male group did differ from the straight males and non-effeminate gay males on perception of paternal love. This finding supports the idea that gender nonconformity may evoke paternal rejection rather than paternal rejection being causally related in a comprehensive way to homosexual attraction.
Now here is an interesting finding: Non-effeminate gay males differed from both the effeminate gay males and the straight males on assessments of maternal love. Straight and effeminate gay males were no different on this dimension — both saw their mothers as quite loving while the non-effeminate gay males saw them as loving but significantly less so than the other two groups. All groups saw mothers as equally dominant and all saw their mothers as less dominant than the fathers. While some differences associated with the groups, the study does not support the “classic triadic model” of a distant/hostile father and overbearing/protective mother associated with male homosexuality. It is striking how similar the assessments were.

Prairie Voles, early stress and sexual behavior

Not going to start where the title suggests. First, I want to highlight another quote from the Carol Tavris article Mind Games. David Blakeslee noted this in a comment recently and it is an appropriate beginning for this post:

The scientific method is designed to help investigators overcome the most entrenched human cognitive habit: the confirmation bias, the tendency to notice and remember evidence that confirms our beliefs or decisions, and to ignore, dismiss, or forget evidence that is discrepant. That’s why we are all inclined to stick to a hypothesis we believe in. Science is one way of forcing us, kicking and screaming if necessary, to modify our views.

Live by the sword…
It is no secret that I believe research does not support a reparative drive formulation as a general theory for same-sex attraction. On the other hand, I need to practice what I preach about confirmation bias so I am looking for any evidence that could support the notion. As a consequence, I am reviewing the literature in the area of hormones, early brain organization, attachment and sexual behavior. A 2003 article by C. Sue Carter, using prairie voles as a model, reported the following:

Another example of the consequences of perinatal exposure to stress hormones comes from work with prairie voles; in this species, corticosterone treatment during the perinatal period altered both social and reproductive behaviors. In female prairie voles, postnatal treatment with corticosterone was associated with an increased preference for unfamiliar partners versus siblings, lower levels of alloparenting and increased masculinization of sexual behavior (indexed by mounting behavior in females). A more stressful early life, including possibly the absence of the father, also inhibited alloparenting in female prairie voles from a population captured in Illinois [92–94]. In nature, a lack of preference familiar animals or unwillingess to engage in alloparenting behavior might be associated with less tendency to remain with the natal family, further undermining communal breeding and monogamous social systems [20].

Note that stress hormones introduced around the time of birth effected adult parenting and sexual behavior, including same-sex behavior in females. This is the kind of evidence one would need to make a link between high levels of stress and later sexual behavior. There is nothing here that provides direct support for the developmental scheme of reparative drive theory. However, the notion that attachment stress might act to organize the developing brain structures involved in sexual behavior is plausible. Several lines of research suggest that hormones at critical periods may impact sexual behavior. However, what human experiences would lead to comparable hormone changes is not at all clear. We know that many people experience neglect, abuse, disappointment, etc., during early development and demonstrate no same-sex sexual interest. Individual genetics may play a role as may cognitive mediation and the individual experiences which shape self awareness.
One thing is clear. Whatever shapes sexual attraction leads to clear brain responses out of the awareness of the person. What is in awareness is most often experienced as intrinsic. As opposed to prairie voles, however, what we do is mediated by cognitive and social concerns that often are of greater importance than impulse.

Carol Tavris – Mind Games and a vulnerable public

From the article Mind Games by social psychologist, Carol Tavris:
“A public unable to critically assess psychotherapists’ claims and methods for scientific credibility will be vulnerable to whatever hysterical epidemic comes along next.”(Tavris, 2003, 7).
Just felt like that was important…

Gay children: Is it the parent's fault?

Crosswalk.com today published an article I wrote regarding the issue of causes of same-sex attraction. In it, I describe several problems with reparative drive theory as a general explanation for same-sex attraction. You can go there to read the entire article, but I want to post an email from a couple regarding their experience with the failure-to-bond idea. This segment is also in the Crosswalk article.

As parents of a same-sex-attracted son, there was no mountain too high for us to connect our son and our family to the “best help” for our issues. We found a counselor for him, and then joined him in many sessions and spent a good deal of time examining our parent – child relationships; classifying them as “close” or “distant” and figuring out why. With our broken hearts on the table each week, we looked for the magic thread, the exact moment we disabled our son’s sexuality so as to examine it, repent of it, be forgiven and put this nightmare away. Our counselor finally admitted that we were “unique” and that our son was “unique,” not fitting into the usual (how does the term “usual” apply to sexually fallen humans?) categories and that he basically did not know what else to say to help to untangle these conflicts for our son. We went on to read many books, we attended a famous conference 1000’s of miles away from our home, only to meet one of the most famous authors whose flippant response to us upon introducing ourselves to him was “Yes – I can see it, the mother who did all the research and coordination to get here, the dad who has no idea why he is here and the son who is miserable being here.” The three of us were after words of life, not words of sarcasm.
I can accurately say now that naval gazing your potential contribution to a child’s same-sex attraction is nothing short of anguish. Our son would tell you that his father and mother did not contribute to his same-sex attraction. We actually wish some days that it were that easy to put into an equation like “Dad ignored you for some formative years, mom made up for it, you identify with mom not dad – therein lies the reason!” Alas, this is not true in our family. We never ignored our children, our family has been busy bearing one another up, and our son takes responsibility for his same-sex attraction. If we were responsible, we would have accepted the blame gladly. Instead, now, we find ourselves relying on the truths of Scripture such as Romans 8 and II Corinthians 1:3-4. My husband and I come from a promiscuous past, we were products of the sexual revolution and legalized abortion. We are the right parents for this son of ours because we know restoration of sexual brokenness through a relationship with the living Lord Jesus. That is the relationship we pray that our son examines and gazes upon. In the meantime, we adore him and he us and we celebrate God’s goodness and sovereignty.

UPDATE: 2/2/09 – The Christian Post published a version of this article today.