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Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth
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$ 24.18
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50929 |
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Item Description...
Product Description
A Christian psychiatrist examines the latest research, refuting the alleged genetic basis for homosexuality and assessing the social power homosexuals have gained.
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Item Specifications...
Pages 282
Dimensions: Length: 8.94" Width: 6" Height: 0.69"
Weight: 0.99 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date Jan 1, 1996
Publisher BAKER PUBLISHING GROUP #20
ISBN 080105625X
EAN 9780801056253
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Availability 13 units.
Availability accurate as of Feb 09, 2012 10:47.
Usually ships within one to two business days from La Vergne, TN.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | Utter Drivel Sep 11, 2006 |
Like Satinover, I too am a graduate of Harvard and board certified MD. I found this little gem to be nothing more than Judeo-Christian misinformation. Par for the course. Look at the stratified and out-of-balance world that has developed from these very attitudes.
One reviewer recommends that we follow "4,000 years of Judeo-Christian moral standards that condemn homosexuality". Twaddle! What say we follow the billions of years of nature and physics from which we all sprang? The universe (call it God if you must) does not get things wrong. It is very cheeky to think one can overturn or outthink existence.
It is time for a paradigm change. Books like this feed an individual's ego/self which clings to ridiculous concepts like a child grips its blanket. The future will be a rude awakening for those that adhere too tightly. Creating nonsense like this book - which acts to do nothing more than separate - is antithetic to the great world avatars' message to unify. This is counter-intuitive to me, as some advocates of this book claim to follow Christ's teachings.
I will leave you all to it! It is such a shame to see people hungrily devolve when there are so many opportunities in this life to progress and enjoy unifying consciousness on a deeper level. | | |  | Compassionate and Enlightening Dec 8, 2005 |
I re-read this book recently after first coming across it a few years ago. Reading this marvelous study of homosexuality, one cannot help sense the compassion that Dr. Santinover feels for those who bear the burden of homosexuality. His attitude is compassionate and unpretentious. He begins the book by discussing his experience of treating a fatally-ill young man dying of GRID, or gay-related immune disorder, now known as AIDS in New York in 1981, and the death of another gay man who was a psychiatric patient of his from the same disease.
"To the extent that homosexuals have been victimized, we can only reach out in compassion for the suffering, struggling soul. How can our hearts not go out to the young, prehomosexual boy or girl who is already shy, lonely, sensitive, and who surely suffers taunting rejection and maybe even beatings by the very peers he or she envies and most longs to be with? Can we really blind ourselves to the presence of that still-suffering child within the adult, however bristling and exotic an exterior with which he protects himself?" [21].
In the course of discussing AIDS and the other numerous mental and physical health problems connected with homosexual sex, we do see that he is very angry, not at homosexuals, but at gay-rights activists who carelessly endanger the lives of millions without regard for anyone or anything but the advancement of their political agenda.
"[T]he organizd, political side of the picture is entirely different. Here we too often see on violent display the brute aspcet of human nautre in all its crudity, stupidity, vanity, selfishness, disregard for others, and disregard for truth. Like so many of its predecessors, too often gay activism follows the dictum that desired ends justify all means . . . By deliberately confusing . . . the political and the personal - gay activism has created a dangerous monster . . . The greater danger, by far, is that our justifiable protest will stifle and eventually kill our understanding that "homosexuals" are . . . simply us" [21-2].
"Homosexuals are simply us" is an essential point. Homosexuals are not a group of people in the sense that women or blacks are. This is because homosexuality is NOT genetically-determined. It IS genetically-influenced. This is evident in that the concordance rate of homosexuality between monozygotic twins is below 50%. The concordance rate of "femaleness" or "blackness", if you will excuse the terms, is of course, 100%. Is homosexuality due, in part to genetics? Yes, all behaviors are. But this does not mean we MUST behave in any particular way. People who are born taller than average are more inclined to be basketball players but this does not mean that they have no choice about whether or not to do so. Obvioulsy this is not a perfect analogy but it demonstrates that homosexuality, unlike race and gender, is not unchangeable. In fact, Satinover argues persuasively that homosexuality has very little to do with sex at all, it is in reality a compulsive behavior resulting from emotional anxiety.
Homosexuality is "a loosely defined aspect of the overall polymorphism of human sexuality" [245], and as such, it IS natural. Too often opponents of homosexual sex, such as I did in the past, make the mistake of arguing against homosexuality on the basis that it is not natural. This is incorrect. Human sexuality, especially in the male, is polymorphous. Men have had sex with men, children, a single partner, in large groups, with family, and with animals. They have become aroused by inanimate objects, absuing others or being abused, cross-dressing, and being urinated and defecated on. Each individual's sexuality is the result of "a complex mixture of genetic, intrauterine, and extrauterine biological factors combined with familial and social factors as well as repeatedly reinforced choices" [245]. And they are all natural.
That something is naturally-occuring does not, however, make it healthy, and certainly not moral. For instance, animals eat their offspring, engage in acts of necrophilia and rape. But if someone in society were to do these things one would not argue that they are acceptable because they are natural, as evident in the animal world. Moral commandments are by nature, unnatural, they tell us how we ought to be, not how he are. Moreover, that certain behavior, such as homosexuality or alcoholism, are difficult or seemingly impossible to correct, we are no less bound to strive to correct them. The virtue lies in the effort to be better than we are, and it is proportional to the difficulty of the struggle we face.
In respect to the health issues, Satinover offers some shocking evidence regarding the inherent pernicious of homosexual sex to the human body, including the following:
"[A]mong heterosexuals the risk of AIDS associated with lack of condom use, while not entirely negligible, is so much lower than among homosexuals that the risk of not using a condom in heterosexual sex is vastly smaller than in homosexual sex [in regards to AIDS alone]. This difference reflects the other factors discussed above: Most heterosexuals are in relatively monogamous relationships and engage in anal intercourse infrequently; many homosexuals are in relatively polygamous relationships and engage in anal intercourse frequently . . . The best current [1996, 2002?] estimates hold that about one out of a thousand adult Americans is now infected with HIV. This is 0.1 percent of the adult population. Because roughly half the population is male and 2.8 percent of all males are homosexual, 1.4 percent of the adult population consists of homosexual males, which account for about 30 percent of all AIDS cases. Thus the likelihood of a randomly selected heterosexual man or woman being infected with AIDS is roughly 7 in 10,000 (0.07 percent) . . . 30 percent of all twenty-year-old homosexual males with be HIV-positive or dead of AIDS by the time they are thirty. This means that the incidence of AIDS among twenty-to thirty year-old homosexual men is roughly 430 times greater than among the heterosexual population at large. It is also estimated that a single act of unprotected intercourse (not taking into account whether it is homosexual or heterosexual, anal or vaginal) with a known-to-be-infected male carries with it a transmission risk of roughly 1 in 500. If we multiply this rough measure of the transmissibility of the AIDS virus by the average risk of encountering an HIV-positive heterosexual, this means that in the absence of any information about one's partner's HIV status, age, demographic group, and so on, a single act of heterosexual intercourse of any type carries with it an average risk of roughly 1 in 715,000 (calculated by 7 in 10,000 x 1 in 500 = 7 in 5,000,000). In fact it must be less, as acts of heterosexual intercourse are by far mostly vaginal, and the 1 in 500 transmissibility figure includes acts of anal intercourse as well . . . [A] single act of unprotected intercourse with a twenty- to thirty-year-old male homosexual carries with it a transmission risk of roughly 1 in 165 [56-8].
[T]he gay male life span, even apart from AIDS and with a long-term partner, is significantly shorter than that of married men in general BY MORE THAN THREE DECADES. AIDS further shortens the life span of homosexual men by more than 7 percent [69]."
| | | | Dr. Satinover's book is extremely objective Nov 5, 2005 |
Homosexuality is a subject which I have read a great deal about, having some friends who are homosexual and others who are bisexual. I have had difficulty buying into the idea that, that is a "gay gene" and that is all there is to it. The person is born to be gay; they have had gay fantasies all of their lives; and they are simply behaving in accordance with the way that God made them. Given that some people have become successfully reoriented refutes this claim; and studies even done by homosexual groups refute this claim. For instance, a study of identical twins where one twin is homosexual; 50% of the other twins are homosexual. This is a much higher percentage than is found in families with a homosexual member; and a higher percentage than found in fraternal twins. Therefore, there must be a genetic component--that is undeniable. However, since only 50% of their twin siblings are homosexual, that means that genetics (and family environment) is not a determining factor.
On the other hand, there is the view that homosexual acts are simply a matter of free will and they just need to stop it. The study cited above indicates that there is more to this than a simple free will choice. Furthermore, some, like myself, are not at all tempted by homosexual activity; and that feels inate to me. So, my point in all of this is, it is simply not a simplistic issue with simplistic answers.
Dr. Satinover addresses homosexuality as the complex issue that it is, examines the studies, examines the pyschology, examines the case history records, and presents what appears to be a very accurate picture of who and what homosexuals are.
Now, if you are overly simplistic in nature, and you are the type who would carry a sign, "Homosexual, you are going to hell" or if you are the kind who says, "God made me this way, and that is that" then Satinover's book won't be for you. His reasoning, his examination of the studies, his positions are going to be too complex for you. If, on the other hand, you have an interest in this topic, no matter what your presuppositions are, you are going to find this book to be a fascinating read.
Now Satinover does deal with homosexuality and the Bible in some chapters. If this is not your cup of tea, then you can skip over these chapters and still not lose his train of thought or his reasoning. On the other hand, Satinover does touch on passages in the Bible which, in times past, have not been well-explained, and his approach is quite enlightening on certain passages of Scripture (e.g., Rom. 1:24).
I have done a lot of reading in this area and have several books which deal with homosexuality. I have visited several websites, both pro and con homosexual behavior, and have read their reasons for their positions. None of those logical excursions really resulted in me feeling as though I understood what was going on and what the issues are. Satinover's book is quite the opposite. Now I feel as though I have a much better understanding of my homosexual brethren.
One final point: Many "Christian" websites which deal with this issue leave you with a vague feeling of moral superiority over homosexuals (if you are not a homosexual) and the feeling that, if you are a homosexual, "It's too bad for you, but we will pray for you anyway." Satinover does not leave this sort of taste in your mouth at any point in his book, even when dealing with the Bible.
In an arena where there are high stakes and tremendous emotional issues involved, Dr. Satinover presents the most objective book that I have ever read on this subject. | | | | The Politics of Honesty Oct 26, 2005 |
| Gay and Lesbian rights have made a quantum leap from the unspoken negative Victorian value judgements by keeping this issue in the closet to the positive social activism inspired by gay men like the late Bill Kraus, Paul Popham and numerous others. We have a tendency to forget our humanity when we examine these contentious issues. Dr. Satinover clearly reveals the physiological hazards gay men expose themselves to in the acts of "gay intercourse". Rather than being homophobic he makes a very plausible clinical basis for the septic hazards of male homosexuality. These points are re-affirmed in a medical text edited by none other than Dr. David G. Ostrow. Dr. Ostrow is in a key position to make valid observations about this horrible disease because he was one of the first "gay Doctors" to take up the fight against AIDS for gay men. His participation is clearly documented in the book by the late Randy Shilts "And The Band Played On". HIV infections are increasing again. The HIV virus is capable of very rapid mutations. A magic bullet is not on the horizon, some doubt there ever will be a cure. More young men will die needless horrible deaths. Larry Kramer (A co-founder of the GMHC) once stated that the young men in intensive care would give up sex forever if they could just have their lives back. Homosexuality is not an equal or viable lifestyle with heterosexuality no matter what its political pundits claim. Gay Pride parades are fun, but lets not forget that homosexuality kills young men at an alarming rate. No doubt I will be branded as a psychotic homophobe by the Gay & Lesbian political movement. I am equally surprised that Dr. Satinover's book was never mentioned in John-Manuel Andriote' excellent book "Victory Deferred". As a parting comment, I watched one of my best and dearest friends succumb to this horrible life sucking illness. People should be all to careful for what they wish for...they just might get it! | | | | "Gay change" therapy is just spiritualized denial. Oct 2, 2005 |
Whether drawing from my own very personal journey into, and then out of, the Evangelical Christian closet...OR from five years of doctoral studies in clinical psychology (Psy.D.) and theology (M.A.)...OR from conducting over 30,000 hours of psychotherapy with my clients, I could passionately and authoritatively write volumes to repudiate the many sad layers of ignorance in this book.
However, I want to make just one point very clear:
No "gay change" therapy has ever changed any gay person's sexual orientation. If any group claims to have succeeded in this bogus "therapy", it's due to one or more of these three reasons:
1) they have not defined sexual orientation beyond mere behavior patterns to include all facets of sexual orientation (such as interest, attraction, arousal, and emotional bonding).
2) they have not done detailed (see #1), long-term follow-up beyond one year following their "therapy."
3) they are lying due to religious/political motives (and probably due to lying to themselves via projecting their own unresolved sexual orientation issues).
A recent magazine article highlighted this point. It told of a gay man who had been brain-washed into thinking he'd changed from gay to straight, but who finally accepted nothing had changed after five years of pretense. Several years later, comfortably at peace with himelf as a gay man, this man was shocked to see an old photo of himself included with others who were proclaiming in a "gay change" ad, "We changed and so can you!" Outraged, he pointed out that if these organizations really had a steady stream of success stories, they wouldn't be digging back into the archives for 7-year-old photos of those who had long-ago had seen through all the distorted theology, false promises and bad science offered by the "gay change" therapies.
"You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free"
-- Jesus
"I don't judge people--if you judge people, you don't have time to love them!"
-- Mother Teresa (responding to a question about gays)
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