APA: “stop trying to convert gays”

The American Psychological Association has declared that there is no evidence that changing your orientation is even possible, much less helpful, in reconciling your religious beliefs with your sexual orientation. They are in effect telling religious folks to stop trying to convert gays, as the evidence actually points to such therapies inducing depression and sucicidal tendencies in homosexuals.

Judith Glassgold, a Highland Park, N.J., psychologist who chaired the task force, said she hoped the document could help calm the polarized debate between religious conservatives who believe in the possibility of changing sexual orientation and the many mental health professionals who reject that option.

“Both sides have to educate themselves better,” Glassgold said in an interview. “The religious psychotherapists have to open up their eyes to the potential positive aspects of being gay or lesbian. Secular therapists have to recognize that some people will choose their faith over their sexuality.”

No word yet on whether or not religious institutions like the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (or NAMBLA) will rush to close their doors. Place your bets.

Hat tip to The Good Atheist, who also includes a portrait of a sexy black Jesus in bondage. No seriously.

APA: “stop trying to convert gays”
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Yet another shooting rampage

Misogyny, like other mental constructs wherein there is a “superior” and an “inferior” subdivision of a given population, can occasionally have deadly effects when someone who is subjected to this double-standard thinking is mentally unbalanced. This is outright frightening. Something bothers me even more about this event than the school shooting rampages you hear about practically daily. Maybe it’s because I just joined a gym… or maybe it’s because of the novelty of the location. Either way, this is bound to cause a resurgence in discourse about gun control.

Update: Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting this to have a religious aspect, seriously. People might start thinking I have an axe to grind or something!

Apparently, according to the shooter’s online diary (Google cache as it’s been taken off the web), a pastor convinced him that one can commit mass-murder and still get into heaven:

Tetelestai Church in Pittsburgh, PA – “Be Ye Holy, even as I have been Ye holy! Thus saith the lord thy God!”, as pastor Rick Knapp would proclaim. Holy shit, religion is a waste. But this guy teaches (and convinced me) you can commit mass murder then still go to heaven. Ask him. Call him at (xxx) xxx-xxxx.

More info at Your Religion Is False.

Yet another shooting rampage

Are women evolving to be sexier? Or is there selection bias going on?

A post over at Skepacabra’s reminded me of a TED Talks I’d watched a while back with Dan Dennett, wherein he explains why it is we find things sweet, cute, sexy or funny. There’s nothing intrinsic about those objects that makes them so — but we’re wired to think so, because otherwise how the hell would we be encouraged to eat certain things, take care of our babies, mate with others, or do menial tasks?

Video and more babbling below the fold.
Continue reading “Are women evolving to be sexier? Or is there selection bias going on?”

Are women evolving to be sexier? Or is there selection bias going on?

British scientists discover new way to make sperm

And I really mean “a new way”, not just a novel masturbation technique. Apparently scientists at Newcastle University have figured out a way to coax an embryonic stem cell (and possibly, eventually, adult stem cells) into undergoing meiosis, the process by which a non-asexual animal’s cell divides chromosomally to produce a gamete, whether sperm or egg (or spore in some cases). The end result is that the stem cell becomes an apparently mature, viable swimmer, though its maturity is disputed by some scientists in the BBC article.

Sadly, according to the original press release, they can only produce sperm cells presently using XY chromosome stem cells, as causing XX chromosome stem cells to undergo meiosis seems to only produce a spermatogonia spermatogonium (early stage sperm cell) that never reaches full maturity.

The upshot of this advance is that we can study fertility issues and attempt to rectify them, and we can probably help homosexual women reproduce genetically. Sadly, since we can’t produce egg cells, gay men are out in the cold on this one, for now at least. I’m sure this will lead religious folks to wail and gnash their teeth, once they realize the possibility is now opened. For the moment, they are content with screaming about the destruction of embryos (hilariously, embryos that were already due for destruction but instead were donated to science from fertility treatment centres).

Josephine Quintavalle from Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Corethics) said: “This is an example of immoral madness. Perfectly viable human embryos have been destroyed in order to create sperm over which there will be huge questions of their healthiness and viability.

These perfectly viable human embryos weren’t destined for implantation to begin with, for FSM’s sake! When’s the last time you’ve heard a religious anti-abortion anti-stemcell nutbar complaining about fertility treatment centres?

Anyway, good news all around — science advances, anti-science folks’ feathers are rustled, and we’re probably mere years away from some serious direct benefits of this particular piece of research. Also, this whole thing also opens up a new avenue of answers to the age old question, “how is babby formed.”

British scientists discover new way to make sperm

India legalizes homosexuality

In a fit of humanity and good judgment, a court in India has overturned the 148-year-old law that criminalized homosexuality. This is not the end of the fight, naturally, but it will have a positive effect — for instance,

[“g]ay men can now visit doctors and talk about their problems. It will help in preventing harassment at police stations,”

So now real crimes committed against homosexuals will no longer (necessarily) go unpunished, and gays and lesbians can now discuss medical problems with doctors without fear of getting thrown in the clink. That’s a wonderful and huge step forward.

Doesn’t mean the religious folks necessarily like it, though.

“Our stand has always been very clear. The church has no serious objection to decriminalising homosexuality between consenting adults, the church has never considered homosexuals as criminals,” said Father Emanuel.

“But the church does not approve of this behaviour. It doesn’t consider it natural, ethical, or moral,” he said.

Well, too bad. They’re here, they’re queer, get used to it, as they say.

India legalizes homosexuality

Protip: studying how to get men to wear jimmyhats is not wasteful

Citizens Against Government Waste, an American “government watchdog” group famous for its ties with Jack Abramoff, pro-tobacco-industry lobbying, and pro-Microsoft-lobbying, has apparently fed a story to Fox News regarding the National Institutes of Health having sponsored the Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute for a study about OMG SEX.

Specifically, the study is to figure out why men are not using condoms as much as they should, and how to encourage them to do so and/or fix condoms to eliminate any perceived sensitivity problems. This naturally raised Fox News’ ire and they duly parroted it as being an example of government waste, because obviously enough to any Fox News watching conservative, the real answer to this question is “don’t have sex unless you are married like God says and want teh babiez”.

OMG CONDOMS
OMG CONDOMS

The $423,500 USD price tag, at that, is probably about right for a study “conducted among 500 men aged 18-24, though only 120 subjects will be involved during the laboratory phase, when scientists will conduct neurological exams and “test an instructional method on the correct and consistent use of condoms.” “ I don’t know why I’m not surprised that, with the price tag on the War on Terra which was supposed to pay for itself with the oil reclaimed from Iraq (by the way: 0.8 trillion at last count), that a sum of half a million dollars aimed at preventing a whole lot of social problems is scoffed at, while pouring money into a sinkhole in the Middle East is a laudable and noble endeavour.

OMG SUGGESTIVE BANANA
OMG SUGGESTIVE BANANA

The obvious first impression you’re supposed to be left with is “they’re paying half a million dollars to find out that guys think it doesn’t feel as good with a condom on”, because that’s what all the conservatives hope you’ll think if they just keep repeating how wasteful it is over and over, but that’s honestly not the point of the study. Considering sex ed has been eroded in the States to the point where all you’re basically told is that sex is wrong and never do it, finding out why condom usage is far far lower than it should is not just important, it can provide immediate benefits to the public in STD reduction, reduction in unwanted pregnancies and thus fewer abortions (I thought conservatives WANTED fewer abortions!), and possibly even identifying mitigating factors that decrease pleasure in condoms so that condom manufacturers can improve their designs.

One of the common complaints is that in circumcised individuals, condoms seriously decrease sensitivity. One of the benefits of already having told you that I was brought up Catholic, is the fact that you probably already knew that I was circumcised, and therefore I don’t feel ashamed in bringing up this personal anecdote. Yeah, I’m cut, and I never even got a choice in the matter. Still a bit bitter about that. And I can say that while I’ve never experienced being UNcircumcised while sentient, to compare sensations, I do not feel much difference with a condom on or off. There’s a LITTLE difference, sure. Not enough to change the logistics of the act though.

PS: the trick is to put a drop of lubricant on the inside of the condom. Just a drop though. And make sure it’s water-based, unless you manage to get a hold of a polyurethane condom — oil and latex don’t mix.

Protip: studying how to get men to wear jimmyhats is not wasteful

The stigma of sex

Ktbug LadyDid (what an adorable pseudonym!) muses on the stigma of sex and on how great it is when ambiguity and coyness can be left by the wayside once in a while. This ambiguity is not unique to the States; it’s pretty common throughout most of mankind, anywhere that there’s a patriarchy that puts a premium on males “spreading their seed” and females being pure and chaste until a virile male takes them for procreation. Excellent read, and well worth directing what little traffic I get toward it.

The stigma of sex

Not So Silent

Stephanie Zvan links me, I link her back — not just for reciprocation, but to direct people at the slew of links she put up, pointing us to some excellent reads in the Silence is the Enemy campaign.

Go read. If you aren’t doing anything else actively, devoting some brain-share to the topic is a start. I highly recommend the music post by ScienceWoman, which I will not directly link, because I’m trying to get you to visit Stephanie’s site. Get it yet? Go now!

Not So Silent

Trolling as psychological rape

I want to make one thing perfectly clear, before I even begin to write this post — I do so not to stir the already muddy waters about what constitutes rape (or rather, what SHOULD — remember, “no means no” is an instruction, not a slogan or a rule). Nor do I write this to diminish the psychological and physical trauma that rape victims suffer. Rather, I write this because I’ve just been not only a witness but also a victim of the very real psychological damage that can be done by something as simple, and as common, as your average internet troll.

And the troll in this particular case is a troll par excellence, much as it aggrieves me to have to admit anything he might misconstrue as a compliment..

Continue reading “Trolling as psychological rape”

Trolling as psychological rape

So… sex is just a bunch of math?

While being a computer geek, I have never been terribly good at high-level physics or maths. This post makes me want to change my mind, where it attempts to create a unified quantum theory out of sexuality.

If there is a difference in energy of the basis states a pure |M> state can oscillate between |S> and |G> according to a time-dependent phase factor arising when the two states interfere with each other:

|M(t)>=cosθ|S>exp(-iE1t) + sinθ|G>exp(-iE2t);

(obviously we are using natural units here, so that it all looks cleverer than it actually is). This equation is the origin of the expressions  “it’s just a phase he’s going through” and “he swings both ways”. In physics parlance this means that the eigenstates of the sexual interaction do not coincide with the conventional gender types, indicating that sexual behaviour is not necessarily time-invariant for a given body.

Brilliant, but I’m going to have to do way more research before my eyes don’t glaze over repeatedly. Oh well, anything to self-improve.

Hat tip Phil Plait.

And while we’re talking about sex and geekery, it’s worth mentioning that XKCD had a relevant comic recently (especially the more relevant if you’ve been attempting to follow all these crazy drama threads lately).

So… sex is just a bunch of math?