Posted: May 15, 2017 2:38 pm
Cito di Pense wrote:Matthew Shute wrote:A state that murders its citizens, for the sake of witless dogmas about an imaginary tyrant, is the problem.
"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail." I think Gore Vidal is often credited with that one.
There's no "must" about it, though, at least with respect to the point you're replying to. The number of countries with a death penalty for gay sex is 10. It's 10 too many, but it's an improvement on hundreds. The closer it gets to 0, the fewer cases of anyone furnishing us with that style of spectacular failure. Best case scenario: no such monstrous failures. It's hardly a utopian vision. Plenty of states already reached the lofty heights of not murdering their gay citizens.
Of course, the less success you have, the more failure you have to generate to make it appear as if you've succeeded grandly.
Proponents of SOCE also have trouble defining what constitutes real versus apparent success, versus abject failure. They, too, get confused as to where responsibility lies for generating a failure. Is there something wrong with gay people, that needs to be changed? Or is there some sinister drivel influencing both the SOCE therapist and the one seeking conversion therapy to fix a problem invented by peddlers of sinister drivel? As far as forum discussions go, and on the tentative supposition that I'm more-or-less reading your post correctly, is there anything wimpier than using vague insinuations, that never need to be substantiated because they're deliberately lacking in specificity, to snipe at interlocutors? Be specific, be brave, anonymous internet denizen!
Keep It Real wrote:Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Keep It Real wrote: The criteria are detailed in the study.
Finally, several people, including myself, have already pointed out the flaws in that particular claim:
1. Being self-reportive and biased.
2. Abstaining from gay sex not being the same as changing one's sexuality.
3. The failure to test on those who do not view their sexuality as a problem, adding to the bias and unreliable results of this study.
The study was biased against SOCE by design - the authors state that they are affiliated with LGB acceptance groups, so this is hardly surprising. Nevertheless they found a 42% success rate for psychotherapeutic SOCE.
Success defined as what? Are you claiming that 42% of the group permanently stopped being attracted to people of the same sex, for example? Be exact, denizen of RatSkep!
You've said that one of your main concerns here is for homosexuals stuck in places where they're being persecuted due to their sexuality. At the cost of potentially tipping off those who want to persecute them, it seems that you'd recommend they go through a process that might provide a 42% chance of them claiming a shift in their orientation, in the short term. Oh, but it's okay to take this chance, since as long as they stay abstinent from that point onward they won't be harmed. Says you. I'll say it again: that's some remarkably lousy advice.
The real success rate could be much higher.
It could also be much lower, or in fact zero; it rather depends on what you're measuring and how you're measuring it.
Why would somebody who doesn't view their sexuality as a problem engage in SOCE?
I thought you gave a possible reason, a reason that I and others were skeptical about, earlier in the thread. That is, your claim that SOCE might save gay people from state persecution, as opposed to just painting red bullseyes on their backs.