Posted on 05/12/2009 6:32:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The causes of homosexuality continue to both fascinate and divide people. Recently, in London, a conservative group of Anglicans, called the Anglican Mainstream hosted a conference to discuss the causes of homosexuality and promote change from gay to straight. Featured at the conference was American psychologist, Joseph Nicolosi. Dr. Nicolosi stirred much controversy when he said, without research support, that most of his clients show some degree of change in their sexual orientation.
Nicolosi's views regarding causes of homosexuality are also controversial. In response to a question about the existence of a gay gene, Nicolosi said:
In other words, that fact remains that if you traumatize a child in a particular way you will create a homosexual condition. If you do not traumatize a child, he will be heterosexual. If you do not traumatize a child in a particular way, he will be heterosexual. The nature of that trauma is an early attachment break during the bonding phase with the father.
In a popular book written with his wife, A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, Nicolosi pegs the "crucial period" for bonding between father and son at "between one and a half to three years." Elsewhere, Nicolosi argues that fathers of homosexual sons are unavailable, detached and/or hostile. To fathers in London, he advised, "If you don't hug your sons, some other man will," suggesting that male homosexual attraction is a search for a father's love.
The father-deficit theory is considered outdated by mainstream sexuality researchers, but is popular among conservative Christians. This evangelical acceptance has always puzzled me because Nicolosi's statements regarding the origins of homosexuality can be discounted not only by research but by common experience. His theory is contradicted in at least two ways. The first way should be quite obvious to Nicolosi's audiences: there are many men who experienced poor fathering not only during the first six years of life but throughout childhood and are nonetheless, exclusively heterosexual.
Since many in Nicolosi's audiences are either unhappy with their homosexual attractions or do not know many secure gay people, the second problem might not be so clear. In contrast to Nicolosi's depictions of the typical family of gay males, many such men experienced loving, close relationships with their fathers throughout childhood with no break in attachment. Listen to one such father who spoke to me recently about his gay son.
When my son was 18 months to 3 years old (and on into childhood), we enjoyed a wonderfully close relationship. We explored the world behind the YMCA and called it travelling, looking for creatures in nooks and crannies. When it would snow, we bundled up and follow the same path. We hunted for snakes together in the creek, built a swamp world for various amphibians and generally loved each others' company. Wherever I was, there was my son; as my wife would say, we were like "Peel and Stick."
As he got older our relationship changed, but in a way that it should change. It matured into a friendship as father and son. After our son came out to us, our relationship did not change.
Does this sound like an uninvolved, detached father? This man's son concurs with his dad's assessment of the relationship. They were and are close, with no breaks during the period Nicolosi theorizes should cause homosexuality.
Devout Christians, the family attended conferences put on by conservative Christians who believed parental deficits were responsible for homosexuality. The answers they heard were very much like what Dr. Nicolosi promotes. These parents also took their son to a reparative therapist (i.e., counselor who holds to Nicolosi's theory) who evaluated the potential for sexual orientation change. The father reported that it wasn't helpful.
Not understanding the nature of his condition, we did take our son to a counselor. After several weeks of "therapy," our counselor told our son that he didn't know what to do. None of the stereotypes fit. Our son told his counselor that he had a wonderful and close relationship with his father and mom.
Although the parents maintain the traditional Christian, non-affirming view of homosexual behavior, parents and son have maintained their relationship. What they all do much less often now is become preoccupied over causes and self-blame. The father sees a bigger picture.
Dr. Nicolosi gets it wrong to reduce the thorns in our sides/lives to a human event where we have but one chance to get it right. Does that sound like the relationship we have with our heavenly Father? God has allowed all of us to experience thorns, some painfully obvious, others less so. No doubt the thorns God allows are refining our character and leading us back to Him.
In fact, sexual orientation is quite complex. Most likely, multiple pre-and post-natal factors are involved in different ways for different people. One size does not fit all. What this means for Christian groups, however, is the stuff of controversy. For some, it means that homosexuality should be affirmed and Scripture reframed. For others, it does not lead to a change of orthodoxy, but rather to greater humility regarding the need for spiritual support to live a different and often difficult calling. What is not needed is adoption of simple, but misleading, answers.
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Warren Throckmorton, PhD is Associate Professor of Psychology and Fellow for Psychology and Public Policy at Grove City College (PA). He can be contacted through his blog at www.wthrockmorton.com.
If you look at all the male children born to unwed mothers in the ghetto and see that they all grow up to sire even more unwanted children, it is very easy to conclude that this premise is false.
What's not seen is all the black men "on the downlow". Many Fatherless men will eventually grow up to either be effeminate or promiscuous. We all know what happens to the effeminate ones, but promiscuous men eventually dabble into homosexuality because the thrill of women will eventually fade.
I say who knows blaming the parents has gotten old
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
A liar and an imposter desires to reframe scripture.
I don’t agree with this guys theory, but I will do agree that one of the contributing factors to homosexuality, particularly male homosexuality is the relationship with the father. THe bulk of homosexual men I have dealt with have one of 3 common threads in their lives.
1) A troubled or horrible relationship with their father, or loss of their father at a relatively young age.
2) A hyper overbearing mother or mother figure in their lives.
3) Were abused by a homosexual at some point in their lives, generally at a young age.
Certainly not every homosexual has that background, but in my experience its a very very large percentage.
I don’t know what causes homosexuality, but I do know that boys who have a father involved in their lives are so much better off than the ones who don’t in a nearly unlimited number of ways. My son is middle-school aged and I’m involved with middle school aged kids through Scouts, Robotics, PTO and athletics. Almost without exception, the problem boys are kids who either have no father at home, or have a father who does his own thing and never shows up at the kid’s events. Boys whose fathers care about them enough to show up are almost without exception good kids who are going somewhere with their life. Even if the father is overbearing or a jerk, if he cares enough to show up, the kid is going to turn out OK.
I personally cannot imagine what fathers who don’t look after their kids are thinking, because the joy and fun of seeing kids grow into successful young people is much more satisfying than careers or partying.
Interesting theory. Here’s mine:
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2228855/posts
Yup. Any of those three can be the cause, though the homosexual abuse as a child one depends on the type of abuse: Violent v. persuasive.
There is another cause: The young boy who is bullied in general because of a fear and intense revulsion to violence.
However, it is obvious that certain traumas can block heterosexual orientation and lead to homosexual orientation. Perhaps some predisposition must exist in the victim, but perhaps not. Certainly a childhood of brutalization and/or molestation by a parent of the opposite sex could predispose someone to homosexuality. Another thing that might do it would be a same-sex parent who compulsively steals attention from the child.
I think that the causes are multiple and that the predispostion forms a statistical bell curve.
I know 3 gay men. A classmate in HS, my cousin and sister in-laws' brother were gay and all had very hostile fathers who traumatized them.
The article mentioned the fathers who traumitzed their son's at a young age, impressionable age. "In other words, that fact remains that if you traumatize a child in a particular way you will create a homosexual condition"
Black fathers are absent from their lives.
I don’t know many gay men but the ones I do know fit into one of your 3 scenarios.
One thing my daughter points out is that her generation seems to be more “noncomitted”...kids who want the freedom to switch their preference at the drop of a hat.
I have found that most gay men had a distant relationship with their father. My brother is gay and that was true whereas I was closer to my dad.
I am very close with both my kids.
Nah. I had fraternity brothers like that. They would screw anything. Male, female, whatever. That was during the heyday of AIDS so it was a real problem.
Girls are more likely to play Lesbian these days to get attention.
I tend to agree with you. Some percentage of gay men (10-15%?) are simply born that way. Others are created from a variety of psychosocial and biological factors.
I wonder if there are differences between male and female homosexuals. I have known several lesbians, all of whom were molested early in puberty. One was a childhood friend who tried to be heterosexual, but it just did not work for her. None of the lesbians I have known believed that they were born that way.
A single exception doesn’t blow a theory out of the water.
And anyone familiar with Nicolosi’s thinking knows that he holds that some boys are more easily traumatized than others. The same father can raise several sons, and traumatize only one of them. And many fathers relate well to several sons, but reject one son—the “sissy,” in particular—which ends up reinforcing the very traits the father dislikes.
Anybody who has raised cattle or studied the sexual behavior of jailbirds can tell you that, yes, it is not unusual to see bulls (or jailbirds) mounting each other when no females are available. This behavior, however, mysteriously vanishes once they become available.
If it was inbred, as the homo lobby claims, it would remain constant regardless of the presence or absence of members of the opposite sex. The homo lobby would also not go to extraordinary efforts to promote, teach and proselytize it were it inbred and innate as they claim.
The evil of homosexuality lies in the act and not the orientation. You don’t need to be a Biblical literalist to see that the act is something that should be strongly discouraged.
Been counseling for 20 years and never met anyone engaged in homosexual behavior that hadn’t been raped or sodomized by a significant adult of the same gender.
“The sins of the father are passed onto the children and onto the 3rd and 4th generation.”
Sarcastic fathers usually raise sarcastic children.
Hurt fathers hurt their children.
Children learn from their parents, they copy their behaviors, and they teach their children to behave in a likewise fashion.
Judaism’s Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected Homosexuality
Dennis Prager
Biblically, the premise is false as well.
Romans chapter 1 clearly teaches that homo-s is a result of atheism.
Of course, am not schooled in making such judgments, but do come away with the opinion stated.
I thought that was a dominance thing and not a provaclivity towards homosexual behavior.
Last week I was talking with the grandmother of a six year old and she was complaining about the boy constantly using profane language. I asked if he was picking it up at school. Her reply was that he learns it at home.
I have a relative who is a lesbian, and I doubt anything like molestation in her past. She tried heterosexuality, but it didn't work for her. A long-term lesbian relationship did.
The homosexuals who seem to be most angry and hostile, it seems to me, are likely basically heterosexual but forced somehow into a homosexual orientation, perhaps by some trauma-induced psychosexual block. I can spot an anthropophobic lesbian (or man, for that matter) fast, and I don't like being around them, for obvious reasons, but there are many homosexual women and men who are relaxed and fun to be with, as long as their orientation (or mine) doesn't get in the way.
There wouldn't necessarily have to be a gay gene for this to be true. It could have to do with something that happens during development in the womb, perhaps some sort of hormonal exposure. The fact that the probability a given male is gay is correlated with the number of older brothers indicates that something that happens with the mother's body may play a role.
1. I lost my father at 4 years old (although probably had a close relationship while he was alive)
2. Had a controlling mother and older sister.
3. Had a couple of experiences with an older boy which could be called “abuse” and then later had guilt and revulsion.
I am most definitely heterosexual!
I think that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice that occurs maybe before we are capable of making mature choices. I think that maybe if our earliest sexual experiences have an element of pleasure (whether our own or the other person’s) we have more of a chance of incorrect sexual “imprinting”.
I also think that our earliest learning about morality plays a part in it, we may have an experience but if we are taught that “that’s dirty” then we have a better chance of turning away from it.
If there is no God sitting in judgment of our sins then we can freely explore to whatever lust we might dare. I have spoken with several men who have struggled with heterosexual lust and porn, etc and come to the agreement that if you continue looking for the “next big high” then why stop with the opposite sex?
Homosexuality is just another sexual sin, it has just risen to political power now. I fear that all sin will rise to that same level of power.
God save us........
I would suggest the following, with regard to your “clown” theory.
Yes, as far back as western culture has had “clowns”, as represented in entertainment and art, there have no doubt been, and at times obviously, “gay” men who involved themselves in “clown culture”.
However, it is an erroneous leap to then posit that either the “clown culture” is a dominantly gay creation - which would need to imply it is dominated, in its population by “gays”, for which there is no foundation, or that something called “the gay culture” has been cross-fertilized by the “clown culture”.
There is too much diversity of persons in the clown culture and the “gay” culture, as well as too much diversity of social lifestyle in either group to posit either one as THE dominant influence on the other.
Is there one thing that “gays” and clowns DO share, in what has contributed to either their personality (gay) or the stage persona of a practicing clown. Yes - the “other”, the “estranged”, the “outcast”, the “different one”. That may have attracted a number of “gays” into the “clown societies”, but it’s doubtful that made those societies gay-dominant and from modern evidence, modern society, the diversity of lifestyles among gays shows no dominance of the attributes of “clowns” - though popular, media manufactured stereotypes and impressions certainly would lead one to think so.
The clown theory, I believe, does not hold up because it, in its own way, represents a stereotype, not an analysis, and people, and their personality development, are more complex than our stereotypes.
I believe that most were molested but I also believe that homosexuality is a direct disobedience to God, weather they know they are doing it for that reason or not. I think they need alot of physotherapy.
ARE born that way, or just believe they are born that way?
If you look at all the male children born to unwed mothers in the ghetto and see that they all grow up to sire even more unwanted children, it is very easy to conclude that this premise is false.
The idea is more of an abusive or strained relationship, not a non-existent one. There does seem to be a correlation there.
If there is a gay gene in nature, we should see gay dogs, gay cats, gay lions, gay deers. Been around animals a bit, never saw a male dog hump a male dog. Nor male ape hump a male ape. So what is the story with man???
I don’t trust Throckmorton, and his comments about mainstream researchers on sexuality (as if psychology were a science) might as well be the professional “insights” of a phrenologist. This entire field is compromised by sodomite partisans, economic opportunists, and cowards. That is, of course, before we get to the question of whether psychology is just a way of making an income in search of a rationale. A good counselor can help people, but the effectiveness of the counseling itself depends on skills unique to the counselor rather than immersion in the “flavor of the day” theory of psychology (Freud, Watson/Skinner, Rogers, etc.).
By the way, the “gay gene” position became the new orthodoxy of homosexual activists after they lost Bowers v. Hardwick. The reason was that they wanted to argue next that homosexual behavior was really just like being black. This is a convenient argument for the culture war and is why homosexuals use it. Before Bowers, the main party line was that sexual orientation was socially constructed.
It should be pointed out that a father’s presence is not required if the father’s memory is moral and/or heroic. Children growing up without dads who were good men at the time of their death do equally well as children growing up with good men.
Or at least programmed from their earliest memory. If the cause of their homosexuality is an abusive, distant or absent father, an overbearing mother, or child abuse, the cause could be misconstrued as genetic.
Not only that, but if there indeed was a “gay gene”, there certainly would be found a way to cure it or correct it at the body function level. Do they really want to go there? Rush even talked about this some years ago, how some parents, if it were true that there was an identifiable “defect” of this nature found, would abort their child. Sad, but true.
I have an opinion that gay men don’t want to be bothered with seducing women. It’s too much trouble for them. They want quick, impersonal sex, anytime, anywhere.
Of all the explanations that I've heard over the years, I think that one is the most likely, that the levels of hormones during fetal development can result in different sexual orientations if too low or too high.
And then we have the cultures where male/male relationships have been different than in the modern Western societies. There were several articles after the invasion of Afghanistan about the practice of men seeking relationships with teen aged boys, especially around Kandahar. When women are less attainable, habits of the male often change.
It's not simple, and as some have said, the youth of today are more "flexible", even those who eventually marry the opposite sex.
Probably party nature and part nurture and part current fads.
Neither of which I was suggesting. Rather, I was saying that there is something in human society that calls for and finds social utility for a subcultural phenomenon, such as clowns; and that gays are invading that niche in large numbers nowadays. Maybe because we're too sophisticated for clowns and decadent enough to let gays take that position.
Dr. Nicolosi is a highly-respected, well-educated, Dare to Speak the Truth man. I wonder what THIS guy’s agenda is that he takes him on?
HJay, I agree. I have found these same things. Huge problems with mother/ women, too.
If a “gay gene” exists, would not a gay person’s natural state to be void of the desire to procreate? If an individual’s natural state makes it impossible to procreate, then why is the gay community so desirous of changing society to allow for gay “parenting” and gay “marriage?” Both of these desired societal changes are in direct conflict with the natural state presented by a “gay gene.”
If one’s nature causes the desire to nuture, then how is it possible for the same nature to make it impossoble to fullfill that desire?
“Anybody who has raised cattle or studied the sexual behavior of jailbirds can tell you that, yes, it is not unusual to see bulls (or jailbirds) mounting each other when no females are available.”
That is not a function of sexual desire/orientation. It is simply a function of establishing dominance over the weaker members of the group.
I am sure there are many valid ‘causes’ for homosexuality. I had a professor friend who was gay. His mother was ‘seductive’, his sister was promiscuous and his father had always been distant or remote.
It may not be enough for the father to be unengaged, but an over involved mother (with he son) with no psychological boundaries can also play a major part....(in my humble opinion). The seductive aspects of a mother can also terrify a young boy. Mothers sleeping (not sexually) with young sons can confuse the ‘sexual identity’ of a young boy. He can come to identify with her especially with an unengaged or absent father.
If it is genetic, where did it come from? Pioneer families didn’t have the familial dynamics to set up these predisposing circumstances.
There needs to be more research in this area, examining ‘historical’ gays, family dynamics. England sure produced a bunch but only in the ‘boarding school’ classes. Working class yobs just didn’t grow such a crop of them.
Oh, well....it is fascinating for sure.
“Rather, I was saying that there is something in human society that calls for and finds social utility for a subcultural phenomenon, such as clowns; and that gays are invading that niche in large numbers nowadays. Maybe because we’re too sophisticated for clowns and decadent enough to let gays take that position.”
I think you still have it backwards. I do not think the human finds a “social utility for a subcultural phenomenon”; I think “subcultures” are a natural element, a natural development of “culture” of humanity, because the higher intelligence plus genetic diversity plus diversity of circumstances plus individual choice and “value” decisions inbred into the human individual CANNOT create a monolithic culture that can contain all the satisfying elements for all individuals.
It is ONLY HUMAN, due to “human nature” that human society is composed of many sub-cultures; and some of them will always seem more “outside” the rest.
The fact that such sub-cultures exist is not part of a rational societal choice, to induce their creation, but the net affect of millions of individual choices.
My late brother was abused by a pedophile [.....] when he was in grade school. Our father was cold and distant when he was sober and mean and irrational when he was drunk every evening. I used to think that my brother was born homosexual, but my mind has been changed by this and other theories like it. Well, that and my sister’s informing me about the pedophile — as the “baby” of the family, those sorts of things were kept from me. By the time I was seven, all the other people in my family were adults.
Throckmorton is attacking what virtually is a strawman version of Nicolosi’s theory. Nicolosi is speaking of the most common case he sees, a situation which can (but need not necessarily) lead to homosexuality and other family relation dysfunctions. Had Nicolosi documented this better at his talk, even a statistics head would be able to see these common issues.
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