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Discussion of "three oh two point zero" cropped up on another thread, but I think it's important so I'm replying here.
accam said "So we no longer think homosexuality is a disease (though I am appalled to hear that being unhappy to be gay is still thought to be a disorder. Is being unhappy to be straight a disorder, I wonder?"
The 'good' news is that being unhappy to be straight is considered the same disorder. The International Classification of Diseases (version 10) gives it as "Ego-dystonic sexual orientation". This is described as "The gender identity or sexual preference (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or prepubertal) is not in doubt, but the individual wishes it were different because of associated psychological and behavioural disorders, and may seek treatment in order to change it."
(I'm a little concerned that "pre-pubertal" is in that list, and astonished that it doesn't include "asexual").
I think it's a fair enough position to take. Obviously, approaches can - in the West, usually do - focus on helping someone become happy about their sexuality rather than changing it. There are plenty of entirely heterosexual people who are very messed up about the whole subject of sex and sexuality!
[Updated on: Thu, 04 December 2008 12:05]
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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Yes, and unless I've missed something the important distinction between having sexual feelings for people of the same sex and wanting to be the other sex hasn't been adequately made there. I do think that they are totally different.
I know three trans-sexuals and I don't have any of those feelings and can't understand. It's even difficult for me to sympathise. I am a man and I'm sexually attracted to other men. I CERTAINLY don't want to be a woman.
I'm sure you are right about heterosexuals quite often being messed up. To start with they expect to fall naturally into the right mould. Most men begin their sex life in ignorance of a woman's anatomy and needs. Most of them never get to talk about it and when, in middle age, something goes wrong with them or their wife or their relationship, if Viagra won't put it right they stop having sex. My parents retired to a house in the country and fifteen years later, my mother (rather tiddley at the time) complained to me that George hadn't made love to her since moving to the country!
Homosexuals have to think a lot about sex to find out just how they are different. They look a lot more up. They don't assume it will all come naturally - indeed everyone else thinks they are unnatural! They have to negotiate what a partner will do and have done to him and vice versa. And even if they don't talk about it they begin knowing what gives them good feelings.
And gay pornography is more adventurous than straight (and I like it better!)
Does the inclusion of 'prepubertal' in that list mean they have a classification of people fixated on small children? I think it does and that they are the much reviled paedophiles. I'm afraid I have known some of those too. And, of course, asexual is omitted because we are concerned here with 'disorders' of sexual desire or identity.
And if you were implying that it is a disorder to be asexual then I have to agree with you. It certainly would be a disorder if I were put off sex, but I have known some people like that too - in the days when I wouldn't have dared to talk about sex with a colleague at work.
But in most of the civilised world (outside churches and chapels and synagogues and mosques) it is agreed that homosexuality occurs naturally and (except for a few bisexuals) is not a matter of choice and occurs in more or less all known species that are sexually differentiated and in a proportion that doesn't vary much however repressive or cruelly the regime may treat them.
Love,
Anthony
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acam wrote:
> Yes, and unless I've missed something the important distinction between having sexual feelings for people of the same sex and wanting to be the other sex hasn't been adequately made there. I do think that they are totally different.
I can't find a link to ICD-10, but the previous version ICD-9 is at http://psyweb.com/ICD/ICD9/icd9cm.jsp for "mental disorders" - I see that it does give "trans-sexualism as #302.5 I'm very uncertain about this, but I think I rather see transexuality as a *physical* disorder (ie being trapped in the "wrong" body), rather than a mental one.
(Snip)
> And if you were implying that it is a disorder to be asexual then I have to agree with you.
I wasn't really implying that - more that (as with homo- and hetero- sexuality, being deeply distressed by being it would be a disorder. While I haven't known any asexual in the realworld (that I know of), I have chatted to a couple on-line. It does rather seem to me that there probably are people who genuinely have just never been concerned about sex, and that it's possible for them to be perfectly well adjusted to that. Of course, there may be people who have been put completely off sex by upbringing or early unpleasant experiences ... I don't think they are asexual, any more than I think that a gay guy who has been made to feel sick and guilty if he has sex with guys, so has sex with women as best he can, is therefore "straight".
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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Dear NW, I guess it was a bit unfeeling of me to say being asexual is a disorder. It would be for me, but it's well established that I am weird (just ask Anna).
Of course it is perfectly well possible for such people to be well-adjusted to the society they live in.
I was never made to feel sick or guilty by my sexuality but I didn't want to be gay and as I was bi enough to get married I did and had a family and it was actually the best thing I did.
But, after forty or more years of being married and faithful, I found I was impelled to feel gay again and that's why I'm here. And I'm still faithful after about 46 or 47 years!
I sometimes wonder whether I'm even stranger than Anna thinks I am.
Love,
Anthony
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