by Kevin Hague
Great to see researchers interested in human sexuality research are keen to do a better job of including and understanding sexual orientation, identity and behaviour as separate categories. As those of us who know the field well know, however, it is fraught with both methodological and political difficulties.
The political difficulties arise from the desperation of some to find evidence to support their religious view that gay, lesbian and bisexual people are not part of God’s plan, and that we can be “cured”. Sigh. Researchers from Otago University who have just published an interesting study based on the NZ Mental Health Survey are about to find out about this.
They have chosen to lead their press release about the study (or maybe it was the University’s PR Department; wouldn’t surprise me) with the most sensational “finding” from the survey: there is a correlation between those who report same-sex attraction or behaviour and those who report childhood traumatic events (like abuse or witnessing domestic violence). This will be used by some to say: “See? The same sex behaviour was caused by the childhood trauma, so good therapy can make them normal again”.
Well it’s a good size survey, and it does indeed find some statistically significant (though weak) associations. But there is no plausible mechanism to link the two causally that is consistent with other research findings. Instead the much more likely explanation for the finding is an association between reporting: perhaps (and I use the word with a slightly sarcastic emphasis) those who are prepared to tell a face-to-face interviewer about a sensitive subject like their same-sex attraction and behaviour might also be more likely than other members of the sample to be prepared to tell the interviewer about other sensitive subjects like traumatic childhood experiences?
The damage may be done now – media around the country are likely to take their lead from the point emphasised by the University’s media release (though good coverage by Kate Newton, in this morning’s DomPost). Let the misplaced sensationalism begin!
Published in Health & Wellbeing | Society & Culture by Kevin Hague on Fri, July 23rd, 2010
Tags: gay, Kevin Hague, Media, research
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Oh dear …what can I say …..except refute it from my own experience…makes me want to scram,,cheers for sharing Kevin ..love your work ..:-)
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I was very surprised to read their take on it this morning and thought there would be a blog from Kevin today
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So what if some of these findings are legitimate? Sorry but I just don’t believe that Otago university is going to have any religious axe to grind!!
If anything you would expect the opposite.
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One thing that really pisses me off are these people, mostly gay themselves, who insist on sexuality being almost entirely genetic; there is certainly a large genetic component but socialisation is incredibly important too. I understand why they do this, but its really a disservice.
They need not be religious, the results are correlational, they are hardly suggesting a causal relationship; blame the media, naive and agenda driven! Sexuality, as remarked, does have a large genetic component and there are a good number of differences between people with different orientations; it could just be that those differences manifest, in some individuals, as traits that a red-blooded white male may find threatening in his offspring and as a result of this abuse happens. There could be any number of mechanisms, really.
One problem with the media freedom is media accountability; a pity really.
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I wondered when reading about the report if they had thought of the possibilty that some abuse may have occured because of the child’s sexuality. I thought most children have some awareness of their sexuality from a very early age. I also wondered if they could come up with similar findings if they applied the theory to hetrosexuals, you could probably find many children could recall some form of abuse or traumatic event. It’s a little like saying if the child’s family owned a white car there would a greater likelyhood of them being gay.
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Just in terms of countering the religious argument: http://www.jmmsweb.org/issues/volume4/number2/pp66-81
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It’s a little like saying if the child’s family owned a white car there would a greater likelyhood of them being gay.
You have got to be kidding.
There really is a double standard in society, namely you can never comment on gay issues unless you are in total agreement with gay “theology”.
It is completely reasonable to expect that heterosexual children could have their true sexual identity messed up through abuse, it is not only gay kids that get abused.
This blinkered logic astounds me.
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Shunda- You have misinterpreted what I was attempting to point out. Research is often about interpretation, for instance we are often told that those who drink moderately live longer than nondrinkers, but why should it be assumed that the alcohol consumption is the main contributor? It’s maybe just that those who drink the odd glass of wine often have a balanced outlook on life and good self control. Because white is a very common colour for cars you could easily find evidence that a certain group of society is more likely to have one. The most important thing is to prove relevance to the link and while abuse may distort a person’s sexual behaviour it’s quite a leap to claim it creates their sexuality. There is some scientific evidence to show that an individual’s brain function can be directly related to their sexual leanings and this is something that is created at birth.
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Sprout wrote: “I also wondered if they could come up with similar findings if they applied the theory to hetrosexuals”
actually, they did. The discovery that attracted all the attention was that 15% of people who reported childhood abuse identified as gay or bi, and only 5% of those who didn’t report abuse identified that way. In other words, they found a statistical correlation between identifying as queer and reporting childhood abuse.
I don’t think they got into theories about why they were correlated.
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Thanks for putting me right, kahikatea, how big was the participating group?
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Kahikatea,
I could not find the story when I went to look again, would you happen to have a link or a reference to the paper? Was this an analysis from the Christchurch Longitudinal?
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