In 2009 the American Psychological Association, which has been battling against orientation therapy for years, commissioned a Task Force on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts to put an end to the discussion on orientation issues. No heterosexuals were allowed to participate in the Task Force. They came up with a 138 page document. But what did they really write in the small print? In the summary they remained negative about Orientation Therapy.
Sadly, radical gay-lib exploits the summary heavily by giving it a twist each time they abuse it. In the end even Obama, recruited to a joint Democratic Party gay-lib assault on orientation therapy in 2015, casually states that orientation therapy constitutes “deadly practices”, the most absurd statement a lame duck president on his way out could make.
Let us check the facts in the last pages of the document, facts that the authors do not include in their summary or press statements, and thus are being hidden from the general public:
(Page 42): “Early and recent research studies provide no clear indication of the prevalence of harmful outcomes among people who have undergone efforts to change their sexual orientation or the frequency of occurrence of harm. Why? Because no study to date of adequate scientific rigor has been explicitly designed to do so.
Thus, we cannot conclude how likely it is that harm will occur from SOCE.
There has been no rigorous research on the safety of SOCE, neither have perceptions of harm been thoroughly investigated.
We found that nonaversive and modern approaches to SOCE since 1978 have not been rigorously evaluated. Given the limited amount of methodologically sound research, we cannot draw a conclusion regarding whether recent forms of SOCE are or are not effective.”
What are the gay-libbers, who run the show in APA Task Force, basically saying?
They say that they have not found any clear indication of harmful outcomes of orientation therapy nor of the frequency of occurrence of harm. They cannot conclude that it is harmful. And they say that they cannot draw a conclusion regarding whether more modern forms of orientation therapy are, or are not, effective. They just don’t know for sure. (How then can Obama, together with radical gay-lib, issue press statements saying that we are facing ineffective therapy and even “deadly practices”)?
Therefore they cannot conclude that it doesn’t work, although they did all they could to scrutinize the scientific facts.
This then leaves us only with the facts in the same document, where they have discovered that orientation therapy DOES work. Gay-lib states that same-sex attractions are genetically caused, and therefore cannot be changed. But this is what various studies have proved according to APA in 2009:
– (page 36) – “In their review, H. E. Adams and Sturgis (1977) found that across the seven studies that they classified as controlled studies, 34% of the 179 subjects that were retained in these studies decreased their same-sex sexual arousal.”
– “McConaghy (1976) found that roughly half of the men who received one of four treatment regimens reported less intense sexual interest in men at 6 months. A majority of participants showed decreases in same-sex sexual arousal immediately following treatment.”
-“McConaghy and Barr (1973) found that about half of men reported that their same-sex sexual attractions were reduced.”
– “Tanner (1975) found that therapy could lessen erectile response to male stimuli”.
– “Birk et al. (1971) found that 62% of men in the therapy reported decreased sexual feelings following therapy”.
-“McConaghy and colleagues (1981) found that 50% of respondents reported decreased sexual feelings at 1 year.”
– “In their review, H. E. Adams and Sturgis (1977) found that 50% of the 124 participants in what they called uncontrolled group studies reported reduced sexual arousal, and 42% reported less frequent same-sex sexual behavior.
– (page 37) “In another study, H.E. Adams and Sturgis (1977) reported that 68% of 47 participants reduced their same-sex sexual arousal.”
– “McConaghy (1976) found that 50% of men had reduced the frequency of their same-sex behavior, 25% had not changed their same-sex behavior, and 25% reported no same-sex behavior at 1 year.”
– “In another study, McConaghy and Barr (1973) reported that 25% of men had reduced their same-sex sexual behavior at 1-year.”
– “Tanner (1975) reported a significant decline in same-sex behavior across treatments.”
– “Bancroft (1969) found that 4 of the 10 men in his study had reduced their behavior at follow-up. Freeman and Meyer (1975) found that 7 of the 9 men in their study were abstinent at 18 months.”
– “Other single-subject and case study subjects reported declines in or no same-sex behavior (Gray, 1970; Huff, 1970; B. James, 1962, 1963; Kendrick & McCullough, 1972; Larson, 1970; LoPiccolo, 1971; Segal & Sims, 1972)”
– (page 40) “Recent Studies: As we have noted, recent studies provide no sound basis for attributing individual reports of their current behavior to SOCE. No results are reported for these studies.”
Conclusion
In other words, no recent studies have disproved the positive results of orientation therapy mentioned above. A therapeutic success of 50% is quite high for any therapeutic effort, especially where the behavior has been engraved into the mind for many, many years. And according to APA, no recent studies have proved the contrary.
We may therefore say that the stance of gay-lib, that homosexuality is a genetically acquired condition which is immutable from birth, is not supported by the scientific findings of APA in their review of 2009. People can change, and do change, perhaps not 100% of the time, but then again the question arises if that was their goal in the first place.
No scientific study has compared the outcome of therapy to the expectations of the same clients, and the question still exists if all people share the radical 2-label view of radical gay-lib (either gay or straight with nothing in between). Looking into your predicament is worthwhile for many, irrespective of the outcome. Not everyone appears to be as obsessed with sexual labels as are militant gay-lib radicals.
JB
