The New York Times’ John Tierney reports on his blog today that a new book questions whether Masters & Johnson faked the conversion of gays and lesbians into happy heterosexuals. Ex-gay groups, like Exodous International, often use the Masters & Johnson study to say that the ability to turn gays into ex-gays has a scientific basis.
Book author Thomas Maier reports his findings in Scientific American:
“When the clinic’s top associate, Robert Kolodny, asked to see the files and to hear the tape-recordings of these “storybook” cases, Masters refused to show them to him. Kolodny—who had never seen any conversion cases himself—began to suspect some, if not all, of the conversion cases were not entirely true. When he pressed Masters, it became ever clearer to him that these were at best composite case studies made into single ideal narratives, and at worst they were fabricated.”
Does anyone really believe those homo-to-hetero conversion claims? The 'spokesmen' used in their media ads seem just as gay, if not gayer, than most of my friends! The more honest of the 'success stories' have admitted when pressed that their conversion is more about successfully suppressing their homo feelings, rather than converting them into hetero feelings. Do regular old straight people actually believe conversion is possible, or is it 'wishful thinking' on their part?
Crush du Jour: Matt Alber
