In many of my posts (most recently, here), I’ve made the case that sexual desire is more malleable than we think it is. I tend to argue against reparative therapy (the pseudo-science of helping gays become straight, repudiated by every serious professional body of psychologists and psychiatrists) not on grounds of inevitable ineffectiveness but on grounds that it attempts to fix something that isn’t broken. I do think we can shift our desires, and that to a far greater degree than we realize, our desires are less inherent in our make-up and more a response to external influences. I realize that the pendulum of popular thinking is in the opposite direction — the last quarter-century has seen the hegemony of the evolutionary psych crowd, the sort who insist that virtually every aspect of our identity is coded in our genes and driven by our hormones. In the nature v. nurture debate, the trendy thing to believe now is that nature has won in a cakewalk. But — to mix my metaphors recklessly — pendulums do swing back, and I think the turn of the tide approaches.
To that end, this very interesting article in last weekend’s Science Blog: ‘Straight Men, Gay Porn’ and Other Brain Map Mysteries (h/t to reader Jo for sending it along). It opens:
For most of the last century, neuroscientists were convinced that adult brains were pretty much set. Now, recent neuroscience reveals that our brains are surprisingly plastic throughout our lives. By learning techniques that help us sidestep unwanted wiring, we can even direct the re-wiring process—with seemingly miraculous results.
Read on. It’s nice to have something I’ve been saying for a long time validated by some of the latest research. It doesn’t end the argument, but it’s the beginning of a counter-narrative.
Hugo, this article doesn’t really support your conclusions and had a few weird, unreliable-sounding turns in it. Look instead at Lisa Diamond’s book Sexual Fluidity, or J. Michael Bailey’s chapter “What is Sexual Orientation and Do Women Have One?” in the 2006 Nebraska Symposium on Motivation.
Short version: Right now it looks like men’s SO is more strongly determined, perhaps biologically determines, than women’s. This is a really fascinating area with a lot of discussion and argument.
I love the Diamond book, and ought to review it — but reject the notion that male sexuality is necessarily fixed. Reminds me of the old hoary chestnut that “there are no male bisexuals, only female ones.” Utter garbage. I’d love to see the Bailey piece! Is it online?
Right now it looks like men’s SO is more strongly determined, perhaps biologically determines, than women’s.
Well, I’d say that men’s sexual orientation (by which I don’t mean just gay/straight, but which people are supposed to be seen as most attractive) is more heavily policed.
I’d say that men’s sexual orientation… is more heavily policed.
Definitely. Women are allowed to have a more fluid sexuality. If you identify as a straight woman, you can say “I kissed a girl, and I liked it, hope my boyfriend don’t mind it” and you’re actually, ironically, seen as more straight.
If you identify as a straight man and say “I kissed a boy, and I liked it, hope my girlfriend don’t mind it,” people will just say you’re closet gay.
What jpfbookworn and A.Y. said. I have bi male friends who wish they had a dime for every time they’ve been hit on by a “heterosexual” guy who, gosh darn it, IS straight, insert rationalization here about why whatever he wants to do with another man doesn’t “count”. It never ceases to amaze me how much effort some evolutionary biologists put into playing Dr. Pangloss.
A.Y., that fluidity is pretty much one-way, though. Women being attracted to/having sex with women is OK, as long as they’re damn clear that their lives primarily revolve around a penis.
I thought that research was intended to determine what was empirically true, rather than to “comfort”.
I’m not convinced. Or more to the point, I’m not convinced that most people are self-aware enough and desiring to change themselves enough to do that.
It’s probably because I just read http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1963768,00.html
Also, you can’t really totally discount external influences (”well, if you removed them then our notion of desire would change very much”) Of course that would happen. But in the real world, we can’t very well change these external influences quickly and easily, so we have to live with them or work around them.
Whether men’s sexuality is more strongly determined biologically, or more socially policed, is an open question in my book. I lean toward the bio side, myself, because I’m aware that (e.g.) almost all people diagnosed with paraphilia are men.* This and a few other things (e.g., some of the findings that have to do with laterality and sexual orientation identity) suggest to me that biology is strongly involved with men’s sexual orientation. It’s not the only thing, but I do think it’s one of the things.**
The intellectual quarrel I have with the social-constructionist crowd pretty much boils down to this: Just because you can think of, or make up, a social effect, that doesn’t obviate a role for biology. Most of the time, people who talk about biological substrates of social or psychological phenomena are smart enough and careful enough not to suggest that the biology’s the whole story. Reductionism, after all, works both ways.
*(I am NOT suggesting a direct connection between men loving men and men loving shoes. I’m just being brief.)
**Simon LeVay has a pretty good rundown of all the biological research into sexuality at http://www.simonlevay.com/the-biology-of-sexual-orientation
Luis, as soon as you start talking about “sides” and painting it as biology versus social behavior, you’re not talking about science anymore.
Maybe it is just the male paraphiliacs that get caught, and the women are better at keeping under cover?
I understand there’s a lot more men into watching 2 women, than women into watching 2 men. But I don’t recall the last place I read that, or when, or the exact percentages–or if they’ve changed lately. And how much of it, anyway, would be influenced by women being not expected to have desires at all, at least for anything except one man? If more of them got to really find what they like, and come clean about it, I suspect we’d see some more female paraphilias out there.
I adduce the objectum-sexual community; the last time I checked the [private] forum thereof, it was more than half women that’d come out of that particular closet. They tend to talk in a sort of romantic tone, and a few are even asexual, but this sector of female paraphilia does seem to be out there, and the courage of one pioneer brought it into the public eye some years back and caused like minds to build a community. There is a whole separate group of mostly men who are into cars, and so far no interaction between the two groups, but I feel confident that there is more going on out there than what a lot of us know.
Especially when you count those people who have decided it isn’t anyone else’s business, and carry their secrets to the grave.
Just the other week, Dan Savage’s column was saying something about whatever you are you can’t change it, and too bad if you are something illegal. This really annoyed me, because 30 years back I had asked doctors for something to wipe out physical responses that did not match the rest of me (not illegal, just not ME.) And they said they couldn’t do anything then, and I was kind of hoping that in 30 years someone’d clue up and find a cure for urges that are truly problematic. Me, age and bad health have made it pretty much moot now, but if I had a nickel for every time the medical profession has let me down, I could buy a ticket to Berlin for the next objectum-sexual meetup. Don’t get me started on that; back on track, I can only say there is more “weird” stuff going on than any of us suspect.
I understand there’s a lot more men into watching 2 women, than women into watching 2 men.
Two words: Yaoi fangirls. There are lots of women who fantasize about two men together, just like there are men who aren’t into watching two women. Quite a few men would freak out if they found out they were thought of in that way though.
I lean toward the bio side, myself, because I’m aware that (e.g.) almost all people diagnosed with paraphilia are men.* This and a few other things (e.g., some of the findings that have to do with laterality and sexual orientation identity) suggest to me that biology is strongly involved with men’s sexual orientation.
I’m little confused, so you’re really going to have to expand on this, Luis. How does this prove or disprove men’s sexual orientation? Like I noted in the link above, online dating women are disposed significantly towards white men, so does that mean women’s sexuality is also biologically oriented?
I hadn’t heard of the yaoi deal, but am not surprised to hear of its existence. It kind of proves my point that female sexuality might be varied too, and said variations are starting to come out of the woodwork.
“the last quarter-century has seen the hegemony of the evolutionary psych crowd, the sort who insist that virtually every aspect of our identity is coded in our genes and driven by our hormones. In the nature v. nurture debate, the trendy thing to believe now is that nature has won in a cakewalk.”
Hugo, I understand your point — or think I do! — but the above attack on evolutionary psychology is discomfiting. Surely you don’t mean the psychologists, biologists, anthropologists, etc. who take an evolutionary approach? The trendy thing in ‘pop evo psych’ may be to point and exclaim “Ha! My genes made me do it!”, but you aren’t going to hear that from the lips of any evolutionary psychologists or human behavioral ecologists. The current college curriculum emphasizes the interactions between genes and environment. Dawkins and Ridley (and others, I’m sure) have written books on the subject. Pointing out similarities that are consistently present in diverse countries and ethnic groups and suggesting that there is an evolutionary basis for the mechanisms that drive them (such as object location memory and mental rotation tasks) does not mean that “nature has won in a cakewalk.”
Honestly, I’m more familiar with the HBE approach. Wikipedia’s human behavioral ecology page states that “HBE examines the adaptive design of traits, behaviors, and life histories of humans in an ecological context… One aim of modern human behavioral ecology is to determine how ecological and social factors influence and shape behavioral flexibility within and between human populations.” Basically, HBEists look at how we (as a species) respond to our environment.
Okay, my tirade is over. I just feel like the poor EPers are being victimized and nobody bothered to tell them.
I have to say that I see little reason to be preoccupied with the whence and whither of basic human sexual desires (as distinguished from acting out specific behaviors) other than in service of efforts to police those desires, or to defend against such attempts. Consequently, aside perhaps from the efforts of the medical community and law enforcement in dealing with those few legally proscribed proclivities aimed at other than consenting adults, I can’t help but question the motives of people who are so preoccupied. I can see only two reasons for such a fixation: being convinced that one is oneself somehow sexually flawed and wishing to be otherwise, which is sad; or being convinced that other people are and wishing that they were otherwise, which is obnoxious.
Elle - no, not so much. There are certainly scientists studying evolutionary biology who are trying to figure out what pressures our genes exert, but you also have luminaries of the field like David Buss, who threw a tantrum and called another group “fifth columnists” for publishing a study questioning his conclusion that men and women experience jealousy differently.
Interesting. The human mind is quite malleable. There are limits, of course. It would be great if teachers could mold retarded students into Rhodes candidates. Hugo is living proof of the malleable nature; he’s a vegan in a meat-based culture. I have friends who are vegan. Some them still hanker for animal based products, but they choose not to abstain. Some of them still struggle with their desires. One of my friends asked me to please NOT cook any more frozen cheese pizzas when she comes to visit.
As for as the ethics of “reparative therapy,” it really depends on the individual. Some individuals do not want the the desires that they have. It is extremely arrogant of us to disrespect their desires about their own desires, if such desires are authentic. (Why should we only respect the cognitive and not respect the metacognitive?)
As for the efficacy of “reparative therapy,” there are some people who say that it has worked for them. I have an acquaintances who says that he still has some homosexual desires, but that he has also acquired heterosexual desires. He now says that he has a choice. It is this choice that fits with his chosen worldview. It is the height of arrogance for me to discount his personal experience.
That’s a rather big “if” in your second paragraph there, davev.
“Reparative therapy”, as the name rather gives away, is not a neutral process designed to help people shift or expand their desires in a way that meets up with their intellectual choices. “Reparative therapy” does not encourage heterosexual women to become lesbians, or heterosexual men to expand their choices so that they’re bisexual. It takes the view that homosexuality is a deliberate and immoral choice and that people can be talked out of it. There’s a reason that “reparative therapy” is derisively referred to as “pray the gay away.”
It’s pretty disingenuous to try to shut down debate about a very homophobic, one-sided approach by accusing people of being arrogant for daring to question it.
mythago, congratulations on not reading my comment.
Mythago-
It’s not just a big “if,” it’s they KEY “if.” Above all, we should respect the desires of the individual. No one should be FORCED into therapy. However, individuals should be allowed to choose the therapy they want. I really do believe in the agency of the individual.
Thanks, mythago.
I have long suspected that if knowledge about how to actually control one’s body’s responses is found, it might fall into the wrong hands, and this seems to be happening. Instead of finding out how to help a decent-spirited man who doesn’t want to be bothered with pedophile desires, who hasn’t done anything wrong yet but fears he might–the subject of that Savage column–or just free someone who is tired of being a different thing every day of the week, isn’t sure what they are and doesn’t want anymore to be sexual at all–these people are just trying to make gay people straight. I find myself strangely comforted by how it seems that in a lot of cases they just wind up bi. So far as I know; I must admit I haven’t RTFA yet. But I don’t like this “steering” any more than I did 35 years ago.
I find myself comparing what I’ve heard of to genetic engineering–is that golden rice really going to save lives, or will it just line the pockets of the patent holders while the farmer next door can’t even make it on his/her own? That sort of thing. Whose hand holds the key, and just what do they have in mind for the rest of us?
And same thing with EP. Are its proponents serious about helping us find our way around damaging and limiting behavior patterns inherited from beasts, and become truly ourselves, or are they using their reported findings to justify existing crappy behavior and dscourage us who want a better world? Who really stands to profit here, and how?
I really believe in the agency of the individual too. But I want to make sure that agency is genuine, not swayed by the blandishments of a homophobic culture, or egged on by folks who say it’s hardwired anyway (or stomped on by the same folks saying it’s the latest version of abnormal, if it doesn’t fit their theories).
What Tom said, above. As long as no one unconsenting gets interfered with, and the individual is happy with their body, hands off. And when there’s *real* problems, fix those, and leave the gays alone.
davev, you’re conflating respect for an individual’s choice with respect for a particular kind of faux-therapy.
Luis, sorry, you lost me.
Mythago-
I’m not conflating anything. If someone says that it worked to a certain degree, who am I to call him a liar? I can’t climb inside his head and determine whether or not he is lying. I think it’s best to respect his opinion.
davev,I think what happened to the satisfied customer you mention is known as the placebo effect. It can help people sometimes but other times it won’t. And not every placebo is going to work for everyone. I for one would want more choices than having to settle for those “reparative” folks, who seem less concerned with helping individuals make the best of unique circumstances, than with just standardizing everyone.
So one person’s sexual horizons get widened, that’s just dandy for them, but the rest of us are still trying to find a cure for hate and injustice. Trying to make gay people straight isn’t going to help with that.
All I have to say, is that some of the “science” behind this finding sounds dodgy – basically, the only reference is to a popular science book in which a psychologist gives scientific-sounding explanations for his patients (real or imagined) porn addiction problems.
More generally, I think one needs to have a look at the particular blogger (who goes only by the name “Reuniting”) who wrote the post Hugo links to:
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/blog/reuniting
Its pretty clear that this blogger has a pretty weird agenda around sex. She seems to be pretty anti-masturbation as well, and quite against anything that she perceives as leading one astray from single-minded attraction to a monogamous life partner. Now while this might dovetail neatly into Hugo’s radical monogamy ideology, I think other readers might regard Reuniting’s agenda with a tad more suspicion.
Also, I really have to question ScienceBlog itself, since it features a number of bloggers who’s scientific knowledge is suspect at best, and who are often simply spouting either pop psychology or ideologically motivated pseudoscience. Basically, ScienceBlog seems to be more in the tradition of Psychology Today or The Discovery Channel than a more solid popular science sources like, say, Scientific American or New Scientist.
I guess I should have checked Google first on just who “Reuniting” is. Here’s Reuniting’s website, with the same posts found on ScienceBlog:
http://www.reuniting.info/
Basically, its a site on sexuality that bases its “facts” on a mix of pop science and New Age woo. Not a credible source in my book.
Hmm, she does seem to treat abstinence from orgasm as a panacea (e.g. objections to porn that focus on the orgasm aspect of it, as opposed to other aspects, along with advice to married couples that suggests having sex in a way that involves having orgasm be a rare event). I’m all in favor of monogamous life partners, but skeptical of the value of having orgasms only every few weeks or so.
I’m all in favor of monogamous life partners, but skeptical of the value of having orgasms only every few weeks or so.
Indeed, Lynn. I respond with visceral (and intellectual and spiritual) approval to the notion of the malleability of desire, but see no particular benefit in advocating for a one-size-fits-all vision of marital sex. I also draw a bright line between a discomfort with pornography and a hostility towards masturbation. The liberating and life-affirming benefits of the latter seem clear to me; of the former, considerably less so. Any vision of sexuality that insists that we can only be sexual with others and never with ourselves is a vision of the self as invariably incomplete without a partner — and that strikes me as anti-modern, anti-feminist, and deeply irrational.
Look, I have a fondness for homeopathy, astrology, and assorted forms of woo. But my woo has its limits.
davev, if a friend of mine said that her parents vicious sexual abuse as a disciplinary tool when she was growing up and it actually helped her to grow up and be a decent person, would you agree with me that we can’t then criticize sexual abuse of children by their parents? I mean, she says it worked, and who am I to call her a liar, right?
Yeah, and Mussolini made the trains run on time. Good one, Mythago…
Thanks to Anon E for alerting us to a dodgy source. I too have my woo tolerance limits, and one size definitely does not fit all.
Placebos should be harmless. Abetting the idea that gayness is somehow wrong is not harmless. Making anyone feel bad because they aren’t monogamous, or they pleasure themselves, that isn’t harmless either, whatever new-age-ery it is wrapped in.
Porn, now, that’s expensive and is said to carry viruses, and I am real glad I never needed anything but my good old imagination…
I’m pretty sure that you aren’t going to get a virus from a paperback copy of Letters to Penthouse XXXIV.
Mythago-
Your analogy is fundamentally flawed. Obviously, there is a huge difference between an ADULT who CHOOSES therapy of some sort and someone (A CHILD in your hypothetical example) who is the victim of sex abuse. I believe that we should respect the choices of the individual. Do you respect the right of someone to have a sex change?
davev - but we’re talking about an ADULT who, looking back at her parents’ abuse, says that she AS AN ADULT approves of what they did. Who are you to question her? Isn’t the proof of the pudding, in your eyes, that the person thinks it was a good thing and helped them to be happier today? You’re the one claiming that as long as one person says “hey, it helped me” that everybody else in the world is forbidden from questioning its methods.
You also seem to ignore the fact that plenty of CHILDREN who DON’T CHOOSE “reparative therapy” are forced into it by their families; one of the witnesses who testified at the Proposition 8 trial was in this category.
But by all means, let’s talk about adults. Imagine a relationship where one person is violently and irrationally jealous; where their partner is forbidden to talk to members of the opposite sex socially, on pain of having their cellphone destroyed and being ‘grounded’; where the jealous person reads every e-mail and listens in on every phone call made by their SO and plants a GPS in their car.
Now, most of us would say that this is very clearly abusive. Does that mean that if Bob says “Hey, my wife is like this and you know, I’m cool with that because it just shows that she loves me, and it does keep me faithful to her” that a) we are dissing Bob as a person if we doubt he is 100% correct about this, and more to the point of your argument, that b) we can never, ever characterize this as abuse because Bob’s in such a relationship and he likes it?
That’s the argument you’ve been making, after all; because you have a single friend who managed to come through reparative therapy ‘more bisexual’ rather than ‘purely heterosexual’, that it must be an OK thing and we have to STFU about it.
Mythago-
I’m not saying that you should STFU. Hugo’s post is about “the plasticity of desire.” I’m making one argument: Respect the choices of the individual. Obviously, there is a huge difference between an adult choosing his/her own course and a child who is forced to do something.
–No viruses, but I did get a paper cut one time when I was a kid. (Not Penthouse, but something equally un-edifying)