Article Is there a “gay gene"? Both genes and conditions in the womb play a role in sexuality

[Magical Realist]

Of course there are immoral sexual desires. Pedophilia, beastiality, necrophilia, etc., etc..

Not so much immoral as pathological and indicative of mental illness. There is no concept of sin in science.

[Syne]

Of course there are immoral sexual desires. Pedophilia, beastiality, necrophilia, etc., etc..

Not so much immoral as pathological and indicative of mental illness. There is no concept of sin in science.

Who said everything in human experience operates solely by science?
And I'm happy to say some sexual desires are pathological and indicative of mental illness. Present company exemplar.

[confused2]

If you can't suss out which branch of science is qualified to assess genetics, I'm sure nothing I could say would help you.

I think you imagine that geneticists (for example) predicted which genes would cause breast cancer - in reality it is the other way round - geneticists looked for features women with breast cancer had in common and only after some were found could anything approaching a prediction be made. It seems to be an American thing to compare religions that start with a book of 'truth' to 'science' that is nowhere near finishing any book on any subject - and probably never will be.

[Syne]

If you can't suss out which branch of science is qualified to assess genetics, I'm sure nothing I could say would help you.

I think you imagine that geneticists (for example)  predicted which genes would cause breast cancer - in reality it is the other way round - geneticists looked for features women with breast cancer had in common and only after some were found could anything approaching a prediction be made. It seems to be an American thing to compare religions that start with a book of 'truth' to 'science' that is nowhere near finishing any book on any subject - and probably never will be.

Where do you come up with this stuff? Who said anything about geneticists predicting anything?
You're really just talking to some caricature of me your head, mate.
Try responding to things I actually say.

[Magical Realist]

Of course there are immoral sexual desires. Pedophilia, beastiality, necrophilia, etc., etc..

Not so much immoral as pathological and indicative of mental illness. There is no concept of sin in science.

Who said everything in human experience operates solely by science?
And I'm happy to say some sexual desires are pathological and indicative of mental illness. Present company exemplar.

Learn a little history why don't you:

"In the 1950s and 1960s, some therapists employed aversion therapy of the kind featured in A Clockwork Orange to "cure" male homosexuality. This typically involved showing patients pictures of naked men while giving them electric shocks or drugs to make them vomit, and, once they could no longer bear it, showing them pictures of naked women or sending them out on a "date" with a young nurse. Needless to say, these cruel and degrading methods proved entirely ineffective.

First published in 1968, DSM-II (the second edition of the American classification of mental disorders) listed homosexuality as a mental disorder. In this, the DSM followed in a long tradition in medicine and psychiatry, which in the 19th century appropriated homosexuality from the Church and, in an élan of enlightenment, promoted it from sin to mental disorder.

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) asked all members attending its convention to vote on whether they believed homosexuality to be a mental disorder. 5,854 psychiatrists voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, and 3,810 to retain it.

The APA then compromised, removing homosexuality from the DSM but replacing it, in effect, with "sexual orientation disturbance" for people "in conflict with" their sexual orientation. Not until 1987 did homosexuality completely fall out of the DSM.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) only removed homosexuality from its ICD classification with the publication of ICD-10 in 1992, although ICD-10 still carries the construct of "ego-dystonic sexual orientation." In this condition, the person is not in doubt about his or her sexual preference, but "wishes it were different because of associated psychological and behavioural disorders."

The evolution of the status of homosexuality in the classifications of mental disorders highlights that concepts of mental disorder can be rapidly evolving social constructs that change as society changes. Today, the standard of psychotherapy in the U.S. and Europe is gay affirmative psychotherapy, which encourages gay people to accept their sexual orientation."----
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/...l-disorder

[Syne]

Any therapy, including aversion, without the will and consent of the patient is doomed to failure. You could also force a depressive into unwilling therapy and find it equally a failure. Does that then mean that depression isn't a mental disorder? Of course not. It means that you're simply using an ineffective method of therapy.

The fact that psychiatry has always drawn practitioners more mentally ill than their own patients, doesn't lend much credence to a "let's vote if something is or is not a mental illness" scheme. No actual science operates by voting on "facts."

[Magical Realist]

Any therapy, including aversion, without the will and consent of the patient is doomed to failure

LOL So are you actually defending aversion therapy? Can you quote any studies showing this godawful form of medieval torture actually works?

The fact that psychiatry has always drawn practitioners more mentally ill than their own patients,

LOL Stats please...

[Syne]

Any therapy, including aversion, without the will and consent of the patient is doomed to failure

LOL So are you actually defending aversion therapy? Can you quote any studies showing this godawful form of medieval torture actually works?

So I say it doesn't work, and you somehow hear that as a defense of it?
What is wrong with you?

The fact that psychiatry has always drawn practitioners more mentally ill than their own patients,

LOL Stats please...

A recent Medscape survey found high rates of burnout among medical practitioners, including 42% of psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Depression is also extremely common in physicians, who have a suicide rate higher than that of the general population, and even higher than that of other academics. There is also a high suicide rate in psychologists, with some studies suggesting that close to 30% have felt suicidal and nearly 4% have made a suicide attempt. One study of more than 1000 randomly sampled counseling psychologists found that 62% of respondents self-identified as depressed, and of those with depressive symptoms, 42% reported experiencing some form of suicidal ideation or behavior.
- https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/home/t...l-illness/


Writing in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 1967, A’Brook, Hailstone, and McLauchlan observed, ‘in view of the important implications of the subject, it is surprising that there have been so few studies of psychiatric illness within the medical profession’. Fifty years on, the mental health of doctors has been extensively studied. Despite there being the medical specialists in mental health, the mental health of psychiatrists specifically has been studied far less so. Psychiatrists show significantly raised mortality overall compared with other doctors (Carpenter, Swerdlow, & Fear, 1997) and have been shown to be more likely than doctors from other specialties to suffer from a range of mental health problems (Firth-Cozens, 2007).
...
Walton and Last (1969) found psychiatrists to be more open and agreeable, although less conscientious and with higher amounts of neurosis and more severe depression.
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...4017726347

[Magical Realist]

A recent Medscape survey found high rates of burnout among medical practitioners, including 42% of psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Depression is also extremely common in physicians, who have a suicide rate higher than that of the general population, and even higher than that of other academics. There is also a high suicide rate in psychologists, with some studies suggesting that close to 30% have felt suicidal and nearly 4% have made a suicide attempt. One study of more than 1000 randomly sampled counseling psychologists found that 62% of respondents self-identified as depressed, and of those with depressive symptoms, 42% reported experiencing some form of suicidal ideation or behavior.
- https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/home/t...l-illness/


Writing in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 1967, A’Brook, Hailstone, and McLauchlan observed, ‘in view of the important implications of the subject, it is surprising that there have been so few studies of psychiatric illness within the medical profession’. Fifty years on, the mental health of doctors has been extensively studied. Despite there being the medical specialists in mental health, the mental health of psychiatrists specifically has been studied far less so. Psychiatrists show significantly raised mortality overall compared with other doctors (Carpenter, Swerdlow, & Fear, 1997) and have been shown to be more likely than doctors from other specialties to suffer from a range of mental health problems (Firth-Cozens, 2007).
...
Walton and Last (1969) found psychiatrists to be more open and agreeable, although less conscientious and with higher amounts of neurosis and more severe depression.
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...4017726347

None of which supports your claim that psychiatrists are more mentally ill than their patients. I'm beginning to think you just pulled that claim out of your ass. Tsk tsk..

[Syne]

Between having a higher suicide rate than the general population and [i]ndependent, isolated therapists are probably at greatest risk for having undetected and untreated problems of their own, there's reason to expect the rates of mental illness among mental health professions is even higher than reported.

Admittedly, it's anecdotal that they are worse than their patients, but you tout purely anecdotal evidence all the time.