Should gay conversion therapy be banned in Ireland?

....... wrote: »

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It is hard for them to even describe it - so I am not really in a position to do it any better than they already struggle to. But they certainly say that the feelings it brings do not in any way match feelings of more base-basic sexual attraction they might feel for me - or for some guy model in a particularly attractive photo shoot or anything else. And they feel nothing of this sort for any other female before or since.

They basically describe it as powerful and mostly emotional - as if it is going through all the brain centres except the ones associated or normally triggered by sexual orientation.

Rather it is a sexual attraction based solely in emotion. A culmination and mix of emotions and feelings that leads them to want to express that for each other in many intimate ways - including sexually.

kunst nugget wrote: »

Can we stop with the semantics about what words mean versus what I want them to mean is what they really mean and get back to sending the quares to the re-education camps!!!

I mostly agree but it seems for the most part everyone is agreed on that. And the few users like Graces7 who are in disagreement do not seem to want to come back and make it clear why.

But there are a few - - -

daheff wrote: »

Why should it be banned? As long as its consensual then I don't see the problem.

Because it does not appear to _at all_ do what it claims to do. Which puts it into a dodge category to start with. The same kind of category that homeopathy is in for example which many people also want to see banned.

But further it seems to have harmful side effects and be harmful to the well being of the people who attempt it. So that puts it on a worse plane than things like homeopathy.

And on top of all that it invents the disease as well as the cure. Which homeopathy does not do. While homeopathy might not cure your headache or your depression it does not pretend headaches and depressions warrant curing. Where as "therapy" of this sort suggests that homosexuality is something to be cured.

Wibbs wrote: »

You don't say. Which doesn't negate my point.

So you have completed the shift of ignoring parts of my post and making it about me to now ignoring pretty much every point in my post and talking solely about me. Nice - I am flattered. But while it might not negate your point it proves mine which was that the description is over stated and erroneous.

However the main point was not about it being overstated - it was about the linguistic simplicity you operate under as if there is "normal" and "other" and all the "other" simply fits in that box together to the point you essentially call people liars if they say that have no "skin in the game" on a particular topic. Because - to you - if they are sexually alternative at all they have skin in the game in anything sexually alternative.

daheff wrote: »

Effectively this is what we are talking about...brainwashing people to become 'straight'

From reading about the "therapy" and what it entails I can not even claim that they are even doing that. What they appear to be doing is little more than aversion torture to stop people who are homosexual from wanting to have sex at all.

They are not at all making them straight from what I have read - which is only a little so far I admit - so much as erring them towards being functionally - if not sexually - asexual.

daheff wrote: »

of course it is. If i decide I want to like men i can like men. If i decide i want to like women I can like women. If i decide I want to like animals....thats alright as long as i keep it platonic

If this is true you would certainly be the first person I have ever met who can do that. While you can choose to have sex with men - women - or animals - I have yet to meet a person who can choose to actively be attracted to them.

I - for one - can not stand at all the flavour of tomato sauce baked beans. I can choose to eat them. And I have done in the past for reasons of sheer desperation. But not once have I ever managed to choose to like the flavor. And short of eating so much of them that I desensitise myself to the flavor I do not think I ever will/can.

To be honest I can not say I feel any different about sexual orientation. I could choose to have sex with a man tonight. I can not even imagine how I would start to go about choosing to find him attractive though. Let alone choose to find men generally attractive so as to be bi or homosexual. And I even more certainly can not imagine being able to choose to stop being attracted to women. Cos I really _really_ am.

So if you genuinely believe you have the ability you have then there are likely a multitude of scientists who would love to have you in all kinds of scanners

Sorry I dropped out of the conversation. I do not usually do that - though I do not expect anyone even noticed I was gone

Life went _mad_ there for awhile. And a couple of Russian guys I once met and had all but forgotten about suddenly contacted me out of the blue and insist I go to Russia at their expense and accommodation for the entirety of the world cup.

Been back in Ireland a little while but recovery from a trip that long and life changing in some ways took some time. My head is in a weird place at the moment. So apologies for the etiquette there.

B0jangles wrote: »

taxAHcruel, do your partners know just how much you talk about them

They are boards lurkers and occasional posters yes. One of them works in law so posts quite often in that area of boards.ie. Though I dont think anyone has linked her to me yet.

But we are very activist on some issues - though not others despite certain people thinking I by default must have a dog in races I literally have no interest in - and they see discussion of our relationship as one of many aspects of consciousness raising we engage in. We were on both FM104 and 98FM for example discussing it in the past - though those late night talk shows did churn out much of the car crash results you might expect but much of it was useful too.

So all in all yea they are both aware of and supportive of discussion of such things. And anyone who knows us well enough to identify us probably knows most of the stuff I discuss here anyway. But I do not think anyone really cares enough in the locality to be bothered by it. It is interesting in it's own way in certain contexts - but in general people in modern Ireland care less and less about such things which in many ways is a great thing.

Near the beginning of my time on boards.ie for example one guy PMed me with death threats should I ever become a parent in my relationship. Now years later people barely bat an eyelid at the concept. Is this progress of a sort? I think in ways it is. Depends whether it is acceptance - understanding - or just complacency I guess.

....... wrote: »

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There is a sweet called clove rock that I love to eat on rare occasions. I will settle down with it and enjoy relaxing and having it alone with my thoughts.

I actually hate both the smell and taste of those sweets. Very much.

My occasional enjoyment of them however comes from a few other things. Mostly memory. It links me back to the days my dad used to take me to Croke Park to watch GAA. Or to Parnell Park to watch St Vincents who he used to play for.

When people really enjoy a food - to the point of making a whole ceremony out of having it - tea and coffee a big one here - it almost always starts with them loving the taste of the food. So people look at me funny when I say I hate the taste of my go to ceremony food.

It is hard for them to sit with the notion that my connection with the food did not pass through the logic-gateway (programmer speak sorry ) of taste first before everything else - let alone not to have passed through it _at all_.

Yes they are attracted to each other - I never suggested otherwise. I am just saying that gender had nothing to do with it. It was despite gender - not because of it - just like my relationship with my comfort food is despite the taste not because of it.

And I can genuinely entirely see how odd that appears (both the sex thing and the clove rock thing) to the 99% of people who do go through the same logic gate way as everyone else. It is hard to imagine people getting to the same place by a different path.

But so it is. People can reach the same place in life by different paths - even if 99.99999% of people before and after them reach that point the same way.

So that is what I mean - falsely labeling their sexuality is not going to indicate their sexual attractions from the past or the future. It is a label that simply would not correctly inform you about anything about them as individuals which is what I feel labels should do.

Wibbs wrote: »

It won't cure a headache save through the placebo effect(which is a strong effect to be fair) because homeopathy has absolutely zero evidence for efficacy. It's pseudo science and quackery. The second part of that sentence reads oddly. Surely if it pretends to treat headaches and depressions by definition it considers them conditions that warrant and have "cures"?

100% agree with your opening there but that is not even tangential to what I was saying. I will try to make clearer what I mean by the bit you think reads weirdly.

I was just pointing out the difference between a therapy that does nothing - but is claiming to influence an actual problem or condition that warrants curing - and one that does nothing but also pretends that the thing it is targetting is actually a problem to be cured in the first place when it is not.

I see three tiers here. The first is good - the second bad - and the third possibly worse but certainly equivilant:

1) Things that claim to cure something that is real and a problem.
2) Things that claim to cure something that is real but only the people offering the cure act like it is a problem.
3) Things that claim to cure something that they have made up and is not even a thing let alone a problem.

I think homeopathy is tier 1 in that list. I think Gay Conversion therapy is tier 2 there. Certain aspects of religion for example would be in tier 3 where they often invent the problem and the cure in parallel.

Feisar wrote: »

I was coming at it from the POV that what someone else wants to do with themselves is up to them.

A POV I share with you quite strongly. However I also come from the POV of seeing a difference between a therapy that claims there is something wrong with you that needs to be cured - and one that helps you realize your true self without telling you anything is wrong with it.