When we look at homosexual feelings as a complex, we first need to address the controversy created by the American Psychological Association. Their 2009 paper on the subject of psychotherapy did much harm. In this series, we will demonstrate the multitude of psychological phenomena to be observed when looking at the Gay Related Complex. But activists within the APA peddle their assertion that there is nothing in particular to be seen; homosexuality is an entity, so they claim, with nothing unusual going on. We will investigate the origins of the ‘homosexuality’ paradigm, demonstrate how the myths called ‘Orientation Theory’ and ‘Gender Theory’ are based on pseudo-science, and by comparing them to Racial Theory, demonstrate how harmful these recent theories are to the individual and to society.
1. False claims
In 2009, the American Psychological Association published a paper called ‘Appropriate therapeutic responses to sexual orientation’. As Dr. J. Nicolosi Sr. writes on his website, it was conceived by a small in-crowd of gay activists,
“Not only were these members gay, but all – including the one non-gay-identified member, and the one bisexual member- engaged in gay activism before their selection for the Task Force.”
The group was led by chairwoman Judith Glassgold, author of the book “Activism and LGBT-psychology”. In our previous article, we have exposed her LGBT-psychology as a pseudo-science. In their paper, the activists write on page 1:
“We see this approach (for our paper, ed.) as grounded in an acceptance of the following scientific facts: Same-sex attractions, behavior, and orientations per se are normal and positive variants of human sexuality. In other words, they do not indicate either mental or developmental disorders”.
This claim is the foundation of the whole dispute on sexuality and therapy. After starting a paper with this ‘a priori’ stance, a mind frame expressed beforehand, then there is in our opinion no further need to write 138 more pages. If there would be nothing mental or developmental regarding this issue, then all psychotherapy is useless and ridiculous, except corrective dog training. The debate has been nipped in the bud on page 1, and the rest is history.
We cannot accept this, and we have reasons to do so. Note the words: ‘scientific facts’. There is nothing scientific about the claim of the activists, no matter how loudly it is proclaimed in every arena. These American extremists are spreading and even exporting their ideology within the Western civilization and beyond, but in spite of all this bulldozing, we need to remain critical and have a deep look into the facts of this issue. Let us start at the birth of the term homosexuality.
2. The history of the term homosexuality
The idea of the existence of an ‘orientation’ is no older than 150 years. In 1856 a Hungarian doctor, Karl-Maria Benkert, decided to name homosexual feelings and behaviors “homo-sexuality”. This was novel. He did this to help people stand up against the then current disapproval and persecution of behavior. Two years later, activist Ulrich used this new medical phrase to fight for civil rights, and to receive public approval. He succeeded in doing so. The struggle for sexual freedom has been going on ever since, and along these very same lines.
In an article called “How male same-sex desire became ‘homosexuality’”, published in the LGBT History Project, we read
“In 1869, Benkert anonymously published a pamphlet entitled ‘Paragraph 143 of the Prussian Penal Code of 14 April 1851. It saw the first public use of the word ‘homosexuality’, although he had used it in May of the previous year in a private letter to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the German gay-rights advocate.
Before then, there were very few neutral words to describe people who experienced romantic or sexual attractions toward others of the same sex. Those used, such as “bugger”, “molly”, “sodomite” or “pederast”, were loaded with condemnation and shame. But as the budding science of sexology began to grow, and as same-sex loving defenders began to speak out about what same-sex love was all about, their first problem was with how to name it: the “abominable vice” wouldn’t do. A new word was desperately needed to describe their lives and feelings. The ‘love that dared not speak its name’ in fact couldn’t; it didn’t have one.”
The first to try to give it an acceptable name was Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. In the 1860’s, he described the Urning as a “male-bodied person with a female psyche”, who is sexually attracted to men and not women; the opposite form was Urningin. Ulrichs devised an entire system of classification based on different combinations of attractions and gender roles. Some of these words gained usage in English, although the less foreign-sounding sexual inversion and inverts, to describe homosexuality and homosexuals respectively, fell more naturally to English ears. But they quickly became obsolete, replaced by Benkert’s new creation.
In his pamphlets, Benkert argued that the Prussian sodomy law violated the “rights of man”. He advanced the classic libertarian argument that private consensual sexual acts should not be subject of the criminal law.
Benkert also believed that homosexuality was inborn and unchangeable, an argument later called the “medical model”. This contradicted the dominant view of the time, that men committed “sodomy” out of mere wickedness. Homosexual men, he said, were not by nature effeminate, and he pointed out that many of the great heroes of history were homosexual. He was the first writer to put these now-familiar arguments before the public.
In his Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), German sex researcher Richard von Krafft-Ebing, borrowed the terms homosexual and heterosexual. Krafft-Ebing’s work was so influential that these became the standard terms for differences in sexual orientation, superseding Urning.
Benkert died in Budapest in 1882, aged 58. In 2001, sociologist Judit Takács found his tomb in Kerepesi Cemetery, Budapest. The gay community placed a new tombstone over it, and since 2002 it has been a recurring event at Hungarian gay festivals to set a wreath on the grave.”
3. The term ‘homosexuality’ in the 21 st century
To this day, we observe homosexuals holding on to this medical paradigm, asserting that we are seeing an actual entity. On page 1 of the 2009 APA report, the activists say they observe the existence of four things. The first two we agree with, but the last two we do not:
1. same-sex attractions (feelings)
2. behavior
3. orientation
4. variations of sexuality.
Before Dr. Benkert wrote his article in 1865, society acknowledged only feelings and behaviors. Benkert introduced the notion of a ‘homo-sexuality’, an ‘orientation’. Later, it was expanded by others into a ‘variation’. In a new emerging Western tradition, Dr. Benkert made ‘orientation’ sound as an entity, a physical medical phenomenon like other medical conditions.
We, on the other hand, assert that ‘orientation’ is merely a figure of speech. It does not exist as a demonstrable entity. Sexuality does not come in ‘variations’ either, and there is no published scientific article substantiating the emergence of these alleged ‘variations’.
4. The myth of ‘variations’
It would be quite interesting to find such an alleged article proving the existence of variations. We would like to see how, when, with and by whom such a claim was substantiated.
Were we to discover this elusive scientific document, then we could perhaps use the train of thought to see if other major problems of current sexology are also merely a ‘variation’.
Take, for example, wife-bashing. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could use this scientific method to prove that wife-bashers are not sinful, wicked and criminal, but are motivated by a sexual ‘variation’? They are just being who they are, they are just following their innate drives, and when they bash up girls at age 13, they are merely ‘coming out’. Wouldn’t it save us much psychotherapy, and social injustice to the poor wife-basher who is not understood by society, and who is discriminated against? All he needs is social support, and kind understanding, and recognition of the fact that he is merely member of a ‘community’, that is harassed by society at large.
We laugh at the thought, because wife-bashers are harmful, yet we do not laugh when we hear that 80% of young Afro-Americans who enter the gay scene, according to the Center of Disease Control in Atlanta in 2016, will be contaminated with the H.I.V. virus before reaching their 50th year of age by elder homosexuals who prey on younger hot guys. Five a night is not an unusual score. This does not seem to worry anyone.
Is the comparison so weird? We assert that there are less people seeing a doctor every three months for the rest of their lives due to wife-bashing than due to entering the gay scene and being recklessly sodomized.
Does society care? No. After all, this is the LGBT crowd.
In Canada, life expectancy of elderly male homosexuals is twenty years less than for men indulging in opposite-sex attractions. Who cares? Many people have come to think:
“If adult, obsessively hungry homosexuals don’t care, why should I? By raising my eyebrow, I may look anti-LGBT. I may even get into trouble.”
Do we do the same with battered wives? With wife-bashers, the professional community considers it wise to investigate the behavior on an individual level. But with the LGBT-crowd who are recklessly killing and hurting one another with disease (of which they are very well aware) and where the sexual harassment, assaults and rape that every young gay has repeatedly experienced, is considered initiation rites of the newby and the sexual rights of the experienced predator, the very idea of psychological investigation and therapy is considered offensive. The prouder the gay movement asserts itself, and the bigger the separatist multi-colored flag gets to be, the bigger the taboo on what is really going on in the gay scene, collectively and at a personal psychological level.
But this is the level where psychotherapists and psychiatrists should step in.
5. The scam of ‘orientation’
In order to understand the way the word ‘orientation’ is used these days, let us for the sake of argument just change one of the props on the stage, and see what we get. Let us exchange the word ‘homosexuality’ with ‘tennis’.
Charlotte and Tennis
Charlotte is the six years old daughter of Ray and Michelle. Her parents are tennis professionals, and Ray is winner of six grand slams. Mom won once, but is lagging behind. The parents are totally obsessed with the game; as Ray once said, “this is what we live for”.
Charlotte is always taken for granted. She once opened Mommy’s trophy cabinet during her mother’s birthday party and displayed the cup that she had won once. Mommy was thrilled, and exclaimed to everyone what a wonderful daughter she had.
Charlotte got the hang of it, and discovered that if she applauded Mommy, if she flattered Mommy, if she feigned to be happy and exhilarated with Mommy’s successes, she would at last receive the love and attention that she was always craving for. Dad started paying attention to her too. At last Charlotte had discovered the secret of receiving love in this family.
At age six, Mommy brought her to tennis lessons, and secretly hoped that this daughter would fulfill her dreams: to win grand slams, one after the other. Charlotte would perhaps live the life that Mommy had set out for herself.
From a psychiatric point of view, this is considered child abuse. The love in the family is conditional, there are strings attached, and the child will not develop a healthy sense of individuality. She is learning to be who you want me to be. Her own desires become so remote, that in the end she may even have forgotten what own needs were all about in the first place.
The Tennis Federation on the other hand (if there were one like radical gay-lib, this is for the sake of argument), labels this behavior as an orientation. Charlotte has a Tennis Orientation. It is an innate desire, and her love for tennis, the lessons and the competition, are all expressions of her innate destiny. It has nothing to do with child upbringing, so the Federation insists. It is a clear example of Tennis Orientation. The orientation was there all along, and sooner or later, it is bound to express itself, to bud and grow into bloom. Tennis is wonderful, so the Federation insists.
Imagine Charlotte having an identical twin sister, Susan. At an early age, her mother slapped Susan in the face for letting her tennis trophy fall on the ground. There was a big dent in it. It felt for Mommy as if Susan had created a dent in her own heart. Susan was punished. Suddenly, Susan saw how conditional the love was in the family. She considered tennis to be stupid. Go to hell with your tennis, she yelled. She was sent to bed without supper. “That will teach her”, Mommy thought. And Dad agreed. How dare Susan be so disrespectful.
At school, Susan was invited by a girlfriend to come to music school and to learn to play the violin. A new world opened up for Susan as she joined the Music School Orchestra. She learned to defy her parents and to go her own way.
From a psychiatric point of view, this is considered a healthier development than Charlotte’s, but it goes at a price: loneliness. Emotional needs will have to be met in other ways, and the child must find out how to do that all by herself.
Our imaginary Tennis Federation has a totally different explanation. Susan is exhibiting a Non-Tennis Orientation. Just as gay-lib insists that the world consists of heterosexuals and non-heterosexuals, so does the Federation proclaim that the world consists of people with a Tennis Orientation and people with a Non-Tennis Orientation. Susan just happens to fall into the latter category. It has nothing to do with upbringing. Psychologists are out of their mind.
For its users, the ‘orientation’ paradigm has two clear advantages: all phenomena can be thrown onto one big pile as being merely an orientation, thereby alleviating the necessity to take a close and empathic look onto what is really going on, and one can maintain the stance that having a ‘Tennis Orientation’ or a ‘Homosexual Orientation’ is innate, biological, wonderful, and desirable. All painful details can be swept under the ‘Orientation’ carpet.
6. Stigmatization as a consequence
In this way, people are stigmatized. In history, we have seen this before. Eighty years ago, mankind was labeled as belonging to a distinct race. Almost every European was led to believe in Racial Theory. The white race may never be contaminated by inbreds. It contributed to the Second World War and ultimately to the Holocaust.
On glosbe.com, we read:
“Racial Theory is a pseudoscientific theory about the subdivision of humanity into races.”
In accordance with this definition, it is safe to say that:
“Orientation Theory is a pseudoscientific theory about the subdivision of humanity into people with innate orientations.”
It is a fabrication, it is pseudoscientific and it is harmful, due to the inevitable stigmatization that it leads to. The term LGBT has recently been expanded. On the website Transstudent.org, we read:
“LGBTQQIAPP+: A collection of identities short for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, aromantic, pansexual, polysexual and others”
Above, we already saw that the number of labels has been growing haphazardly with Ulrichs devising an entire system of classification based on different combinations of attractions and gender roles. You can expand or diminish Orientation Theory for every purpose that suits you.
There are more fabrications on their way, for example, the new Gender Identity Theory. On the activist website Plannedparenthood.org, we read:
“Psychologists used to call gender confusion “Gender Identity Disorder.” However, the mismatch between a person’s body and gender identity isn’t in itself a mental illness (but it can cause emotional distress), so the term was changed to reflect that.”
Imagine my saying:
“The mismatch between my body and my identity (I am Napoleon) isn’t in itself a mental illness, but it can cause emotional distress. We are facing social injustices and I want my empire back!”
In New York, the ban on psychotherapy for youths has recently been expanded to also include working with adults, whether they are consenting or not (click here). Psychotherapists find themselves losing their license for life if they deny Orientation Theory and Gender Identity Theory. Even if your adult client pays for it out of his own pocket, you are thrown out of the profession for good.
In Malta, extremists have even succeeded in taking it one step further. In December 2016 (see our article on the subject), activists from the ILGA (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) succeeded in coming over from the USA and convincing social-democratic politicians on this Mediterranean island (smallest member of the EU) that it is necessary to criminalize and lock up each and every professional who dares contradict Orientation Theory in deed or in word when consulting clients with sexual issues. Therapists are forcefully removed from the public space, and politicians feel extremely good about “being on the forefront of civil advancement”.
7. Orientation is a non-entity
Homosexuality does not exist as a separate sexuality. All that exist are: feelings and behavior. So we agree with the first two words of the APA document, but not with the last two: orientations and variations.
Furthermore, it does not stand for reason that if you wish to label anything an orientation, then this would necessarily by itself imply no mental or developmental issues. Labeling does not automatically exclude childhood psychology. All you need to do is take a close look at the individual. But LGBT-psychologists discourage doing that. As Judith Glassgold, chairwoman of the Task Force writing the 2009 paper on therapy, says in her book “Activism and LGBT-psychology” on page 37,
“Psychotherapists must abandon the practice of seeing mental health issues as individual problems and more willing to see these issues as the consequences of social injustice.”
But studying “social injustices” implies studying society. And that is the field of sociology, not psychology. Another example of the fact that with “LGBT-psychology” we are facing pseudo-scientists peddling their junk science.
Now that we realize that orientations do not exist as actual entities, then the term ‘orientation change’ is not a relevant issue either. You are not changing anything, you are merely exploring your sexuality. And sexuality consists of nothing other than feelings and behaviors, not of orientations or variations, and neither can you take your pick out of the many gender identities that are incessantly being promoted.
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In the next part, we shall investigate the consequences of Orientation and Gender Theory, and demonstrate the harm they inflict at an individual level and at the level of society, just like the equally pseudo-scientific Racial Theory has done: stigmatization, harassment and persecution of non-believers.
To be continued.
Job Berendsen, MD
Gary Morgan.
