> Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, a prominent retired psychiatrist, now says
> that
> his results in reparative therapy of homosexuals weren't reliable,
> which has been in the headlines lately. But what about all the other
> research that has been done on conversion therapy of young
> homosexuals? Nicolosi, Byrd & Potts, 'Retrospective Self-Reports of
> Changes in Homosexual Orientation' (1997) present a research with
> 882
> patients. The conversion success was 33%. Masters & Johnson,
> Homosexuality in Perspective (1979), account for a research (with
> follow-up) in which 67 persons partook. The success rate was at
> least
> 43.2%. Mayerson & Lief (Psychoterapy of Homosexuals. In Marmor, J.
> (ed.), Sexual Inversion, p.302 (1965)) account for a study in which
> 19
> exclusive homosexuals were converted to exclusive heterosexuality.
> In
> a follow-up approximately 4.5 years later, 22% remained in an
> heterosexual relationship. Irving Bieber et al., Homosexuality - a
> psychoanalytic study of male homosexuals (1962), account for a
> success
> rate of 27% to exclusive heterosexuality. 106 homosexuals/bisexuals
> took part. In this study 19% of the converted were exclusively
> homosexual. Their conversion was verified in a follow-up study
> several
> years later. There are other results that point in the same
> direction.

> Are these results fabricated or misinterpreted? I no longer know
> what
> to believe. Or are we just now experiencing an overthrow of the
> scientific paradigm?

> Homosexuality among animals is referred to when people try to
> vindicate the notion of homosexuality as natural. But homosexual
> intercourse is extremely uncommon among mammals. Sexual penetration
> does not occur(?). I haven't heard of a single case. The bonobos are
> supposed to represent homosexual behaviour, but they are really
> "shaking hands". Dogs can do the same when they are elated and want
> to
> express their primitive sense of love. They can start to "copulate"
> the human baby, to the owner's embarrassment. But this does not
> represent homosexuality, even if the baby belongs to the same sex.
> No
> penetration occurs, and the dog isn't really sexually excited. The
> feelings are related and thus the sexual behaviour is triggered.
> Animals cannot express themselves as easily as us, so they resort to
> whatever primitive way of expression they are in possession of.

> Bonobos are always very worried that they should become outcasts.
> They
> are quite cruel animals that resort to mobbing. They throw feces at
> specatators and keepers at zoo, so they are diffucult, if not
> impossible, to keep at zoo. They are obscene and extremely nasty.
> That's why every bonobo always runs around psedo-copulating with
> everybody else, to remain on friendly terms with the other members
> of
> the flock. But this is like shaking hands. They are extremely afraid
> that they should become victims of mobbing and be cast out, which is
> an important motif also in human coteries.

> Mats Winther