LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Gay 'n Gray |
by John Siegfried |
"All the News That's Fit to Print" and Some That Isn't
I'm an avid reader of the New York Times. But I'm frequently distressed that the Times fails to live up to their stated motto of printing "all the news that's fit to print." Usually this isn't their failure of omitting news worthy of publication, but, rather, of publishing as news that which is neither news nor print worthy. A case in point is their recent headline "Scientist Says Study Shows Gay Change Is Possible." They were reporting on results of a study headed by Dr. Robert Spitzer at Columbia University and presented at the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) annual meeting in New Orleans. Spitzer is a respected psychiatrist, who in 1973 lobbied within the APA to remove homosexuality from the APA's manual of diagnostic terms. In this so-called study, Spitzer and his team conducted 45-minute telephone interviews with 143 men and 57 women who had sought help to change their sexual orientation. According to the Spitzer scorecard 66% of the men and 44% of the women had achieved "good heterosexual functioning," which was defined as "having been in a loving and emotionally satisfying heterosexual relationship in the year leading up to the interview, having engaged in satisfying heterosexual sex at least monthly and having never or rarely thought of same-sex partners during heterosexual sex." Of course, that also means 44% of the men and 66% of the women did not achieve the Spitzer standard. Spitzer says that, "If somebody wants to change and it's not because they are just responding to pressure, it shouldn't be automatically assumed that it's irrational or giving in to society." He also acknowledges that most of the people he interviewed were referred to him by Exodus or other "ex-gay ministries" and that the group he studied was "highly motivated" toward change. I tried to get a copy of the Spitzer study only to find that it hasn't been published yet, in fact hasn't been submitted for publication. My guess is that it will never see the light of day in any serious scientific journal because this is junk science at its worstand yet it gets a headline in the New York Times. Go figure! As one who has reviewed and analyzed hundreds of medical and scientific studies in my professional career the flaws of this reported study, to name only a few, are obvious and easy to identify. 1. The sample size, that is the number of people interviewed, is too small to prove anything. 2. The bias in selecting only subjects who were "highly motivated" distorts any possible conclusion. Some sort of control group is needed. 3. The criteria for "good heterosexual functioning" is very subjective and questionable to say the least and one that few heterosexuals would ascribe to. 4. The follow-up period is too short to draw any meaningful conclusions. And that doesn't begin to get into the problems inherent in telephone interviews and the validity, or lack thereof, of phone responses. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that in telephone interviews the subjects tend to give the response he or she feels the interviewer is looking for. Simply put, the interview subject wants to please the authority figure. Had Spitzer included questions on the type of underwear worn and the selection preference of fragrance, the headline might have read "Scientist Shows Men in Boxers Wearing Brut Show Change is Possible." Well, I hope so, because I hate boxers and I hate Brut. There was a time in my life when I could have been a part of that study and its unsound conclusions. I was motivated to changeso motivated that I embraced years of psychotherapy, years of religious experience, and years of marriagewith better heterosexual function than the Spitzer study required. During those years there were long periods of time, longer than Spitzer's one-year requirement, when, under the pressure of a well meaning therapist, or clergyman, or self-imposed pressure, I abstained from gay sex and limited my activity to my marriage relationship. So, yes, I can attest to the fact that behavior can change, but that doesn't change the sexual orientation of the individual. The fact that the interviewees were "highly motivated" to change suggests deep personal distress and unhappiness with internal, if not external, pressure to change. To confuse behavioral change with change of orientation is poor logic and worse science. Within the past year one of the ex-gay ministry's head honchos, on a visit to Washington, stopped by Mr. P's, a D.C. gay bar of long standing, to use the men's roomone that's had a variety of uses over the years. The behavioral lapse resulted in an organizational demotion. He was no longer the ex-gay ministry poster boy and he certainly wouldn't have made it into the Spitzer study. But, change is certainly possible. He's now been reconverted and restored to his leadership position. That's why I'll wait for "Gay Change IIthe Twenty-Year Follow-up." It'll make a great porn flick. I want to know how behavior vs. orientation plays out for this distorted sample population twenty years down the line. And my money's on orientation as the winner. But, more importantly, "WHO CARES!" Of course change is possible. Anything is possibleand it doesn't require a pseudo-scientific study as proof. Nor does it deserve a headline in the New York Times. "Change is possible" is common sense, not news. And so I'm left wondering why did Spitzer do the "study" and report it at the APA meeting when he himself has to be aware that it's valueless. And why did the Times choose to report this as news fit to print? Perhaps I lived in spin city, our nation's capital, too long to accept that this was presented to the APA because of its scientific interest or value. Psychiatrists know better than that. In fact, psychiatrists, of all medical personnel, are best trained to sift through conscious behavior to subconscious cause. And perhaps the more important question is, "Why would any well adjusted gay man or lesbian woman, or for that matter, any well-adjusted straight man or straight woman, want to change in the first place?" The desire for change reflects the societal, family, religious, and ultimately personal desire for conformity to a nebulous norm. By all means, let anyone who wants to change their behavior, whether it's smoking, eating, burping, or sexchange. Priests, nuns, and members of religious orders (well most of them) have changed their sexual behaviors for centuries. But don't interview them by phone and cloak that as science, and certainly not as news. John Siegfried, a retired association executive, resides in Rehoboth Beach and Ft. Lauderdale. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 7, June 15, 2001 |