Need help dating an issue.
- Thread starter Doug C
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I've read that prior to the 1970s it was treated as a mental illness. Sometime in the 70s, the industry group for mental health removed it from their official list of illnesses.
It's hardly the "status quo" or "norm" for human behaviour, since only about 10% of people have homosexual tendancies.
Edit: Here's a link: http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html
It's hardly the "status quo" or "norm" for human behaviour, since only about 10% of people have homosexual tendancies.
Edit: Here's a link: http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html
Cougar Allen
Buccaneer (ret.)
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The issue in defining homosexuality as a mental illness or not is about insurance coverage. Large numbers of people go to psychiatrists asking to be "cured" of their homosexual desires. During periods when the psychiatrist's association officially defines homosexuality as an illness they can bill insurance companies for treating those people, and some of them pay. During periods when they don't, they can't. I believe it's currently a mental illness again -- was the last I heard.
The idea of defining the desire to want to be cured of your sexual desires, in whatever form they happen to take, as a mental illness doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone.
The idea of defining the desire to want to be cured of your sexual desires, in whatever form they happen to take, as a mental illness doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone.
I've actually heard of and met people who say they were 'trained' to be right-handed in school. Usually older people. Makes it difficult on the rifle range because many of them are left eye dominant, but want to shoot right handed as they've been 'trained'. Simplest solution, have them close their dominant left eye.
-Bob
-Bob
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More and more scientific studies especially some very interesting brain studies show that homosexuality is something that a person is born with. It is not a learned behaviour and certainly not a 'choice' . BTW for those who haven't figured it out yet those brain studies show that brain function of men and women is different and that of homosexuals different again !!!
A genetic link has also been shown, by studying identical twin girls who were seperated at birth. Same genetics, different environments. If one twin was lesbian, the other had a 50% chance of also being lesbian, much higher than the standard 10% chance.
Beats me why you guys are fascinated by this stuff...
-Bob
