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Originally posted by FoolThemAll
No. I believe it's a possibility that it should be curbed. I don't believe that anyone's disproven it. Honestly, I lean toward your position. That's my intuition.
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Funny thing is that you can "cure" anyone of anything depending on the method used. If you wanted, I could cure you of your will to eat through shock therapy. Funny aside, 13 methods have been developed to cure homosexuality. I like methods 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 for curing homosexuals.
"Thirteen Theories to "Cure" Homosexuality
by Don Romesburg
from Out in All Directions: An Almanac of Gay and Lesbian America
Since the late nineteenth century doctors and religious leaders have been attempting to cure the desire for same-sex intimacy. The desire to "cure" homosexuality comes from societal discomfort with same-sex love rather than from any real pathology on the part of lesbians and gay men. Despite claims to the contrary, none of these "cures" work.
1. Prostitution Therapy (late nineteenth century): Through sex with prostitutes, "inverted men" would experience co-gender sexual desire. Famous sexologist Havelock Ellis noted that "the treatment was usually interrupted by continual backsliding to homosexual practices, and sometimes this cure involved a venereal disorder."
2. Marriage Therapy (late nineteenth century): When presented with the option of courting and marriage, the "deviant" would naturally go "straight." Dr. William Hammond, a New York medical researcher, prescribed a gay man "continuous association with virtuous women, and severe study of abstract studies (like math)."
3. Cauterization (late nineteenth century): Dr. Hammond also suggested that homosexual patients be "cauterized [at] the nape of the neck and the lower dorsal and lumbar regions" every ten days.
4. Castration/Ovary Removal (late nineteenth century): In a pre-Hitler world, the medical community did not consider castration particularly horrific. Aside from believing that removal of the testes would eliminate the sexual drive of the homosexual, many doctors also thought homosexuality to be hereditary.
5. Chastity (late nineteenth century): If homosexuality could not be cured, then homosexuals had no moral choice but to remain chaste. Catholic doctor Marc-Andre Raffalovich confessed that "the tendencies of our time, particularly the prevalent contempt for religion, make chastity more difficult for everyone."
6. Hypnosis (late nineteenth/early twentieth century): New Hampshire doctor John D. Quackenbos claimed that "unnatural passions for persons of the same sex"--like nymphomania, masturbation, and "gross impurity"--could be cured through hypnosis.
7. Aversion Therapy (early to mid twentieth century): Reward heterosexual arousal and punish homosexual attraction, often through electric shock. In 1935, New York University's Dr. Louis Max said of a homosexual male patient that "intensities [of shock] considerably higher than those usually employed on human subjects definitely diminished the value of the stimulus for days after each experimental period."
8. Psychoanalysis (early to mid twentieth century): With Freud came a whole new discussion of possible cures through a psychoanalytic approach. In the 1950s, Edmund Berger, M.D., spoke of homosexuality as a kind of "psychic masochism" in which the unconscious sets a person on a course of self-destruction. Find the cause, such as resentment toward a domineering mother, and you find the cure.
9. Radiation Treatment (early to mid twentieth century): X-ray treatments were believed to reduce levels of promiscuous homosexual urges brought on by glandular hyperactivity. In 1933, New York doctor La Forest Potter lamented Oscar Wilde's being born too soon, because if he were still alive, "we could [have] subjected the overactive thymus to X-ray radiation, atrophied the gland, and suppressed the overactivity of its function."
10. Hormone Therapy (mid twentieth century): If homosexual men are too effeminate and lesbians are too masculine, steroid treatments would theoretically butch up the boys and femme out the girls. Prolonged use also had effects such as sterility and cancer.
11. Lobotomy (mid twentieth century): By cutting nerve fibers in the front of the brain, homosexual drives (indeed, most sexual and even emotional reaction capabilities) were eliminated. Lobotomies for homosexuality were performed until the 1950s in the U.S.
12. Psycho-Religious Therapy (mid twentieth century): Religious doctors and therapists combined religious teachings with psychoanalysis to inspire heterosexuality. Man on a Pendulum (1955) written by rabbi/psychoanalyst Israel Gerber, is the "true story" of such a treatment.
13. Beauty Therapy (mid twentieth century): All a butch lesbian needs is a good make-over. In Is Homosexuality a Menace? (1957), Dr. Arthur Guy Matthew tells of how he cured a lesbian by getting her hair "professionally coiffured," teaching her to apply cosmetics--"which she had never used in her life"--and hiring "a fashion expert (not a male homosexual) who selected the most elegant feminine styles for her to bring out the charm and beauty in her body."
Quote:
Originally posted by FoolThemAll
Kleptomania is something that should be treated, because the behavior that it can lead to is immoral.
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Why must it be treated and why is it immoral ?
Quote:
Originally posted by FoolThemAll
Homosexuality might fit in the same category. It depends on whether the behavior that it can lead to is immoral. If you have some method of demonstrating that it's morally okey-dokey, then the analogy will be defeated.
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I'm pretty sure that any behavior can lead to immorality, however you choose to define that, and no behavior can be cleared against immorality. In essence, homosexuality is no more moral or immoral than any other activity on the face of the earth, including posting on the TFP.