How to turn gay to straight
by Fred Penzel, PhD
This article was initially published in the Winter 2007 edition of the OCD Newsletter.
OCD, as we know, is largely about experiencing grave and unrelenting uncertainty. It can lead to you to uncertainty even the most basic things about yourself – even your sexual orientation. A 1998 examine published in the Journal of Sex Research found that among a community of 171 college students, 84% reported the occurrence of sexual intrusive thoughts (Byers, et al. 1998). In command to have doubts about one’s sexual identity, a sufferer need not ever have had a homo- or heterosexual experience, or any type of sexual experience at all. I have observed this symptom in young children, adolescents, and adults as skillfully. Interestingly Swedo, et al., 1989, establish that approximately 4% of children with OCD experience obsessions concerned with forbidden aggressive or perverse sexual thoughts.
Although doubts about one’s have sexual identity might seem pretty straightforward as a symptom, there are actually a number of variations. The most obvious form is where a sufferer experiences the reflection that they might be of a different sexual orientation than they formerly believed. If the su
'I can make you straight in three months': Inside India's gay conversion industry
Widely discredited around the world, conversion therapy - which aims to change someone's sexual orientation - is still legal in India but the practice of it by doctors is banned.
Above a second-hand car shop on a bustling Delhi street, sits the office of the Indian capital's self-proclaimed "best sexologist".
Dr Shriyans Jain is smartly dressed in a crisp light shirt and ebony waistcoat with a jet black moustache adorning his upper lip. His stout, dark hair is swept across his forehead. I'm going undercover to inspect claims he proposals gay and female homosexual people a treat for their sexuality.
He is trained in modern medicine (MBBS qualified) but also practises ayurvedic medicine (a traditional type of Indian medical system). He's also registered with the Delhi Medical Council. His website proudly trumpets his credentials, and lists several of the conditions he treats with herbal medicine. They include premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction and even infertility. But the service he offers gay and lesbian patients doesn't appear to be advertised.
Widely discredited around the world, con
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Some Gays Can Go Straight, Examine Says
May 9 -- Can queer men and women become heterosexual?
A controversial new study says yes — if they really crave to. Critics, though, say the study's subjects may be deluding themselves and that the subject group was scientifically invalid because many of them were referred by anti-gay religious groups.
Dr. Robert Spitzer, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University, said he began his study as a skeptic — believing, as major mental health organizations do, that sexual orientation cannot be changed, and attempts to do so can even cause harm.
But Spitzer's analyze, which has not yet been published or reviewed, seems to indicate otherwise. Spitzer says he spoke to 143 men and 57 women who say they changed their orientation from queer to straight, and concluded that 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of women reached what he called nice heterosexual functioning — a sustained, loving heterosexual relationship within the past year and getting enough emotional satisfaction to rate at least a seven on a 10-point scale.
He said those who changed their orientation had satisfying heterosexual sex at least monthly and never or rarely thoug