Thank you Darth Ender, Ryan, DominicCobb, and everyone for your very interesting conversation here.
Obviously this affects me personally so I might as well take a stab at offering my POV.
The first thing I want to think about is if it was ever right to call homosexuality a psychological problem?
It almost seems like when people used to think psychological problems were all just caused by demons. It was a messy way of solving the unknown to people and everyone was for a while right on board.
I sort of think that the declassification of homosexuality as being a psych problem is the same thing. People are kind of realizing that it is maybe not so much an abnormality as it is a different branch of normal thinking.
It is kind of like if conservative people might have created a psychological condition for being a liberal and then been surprised when there was pressure to remove it.
What I am trying to say is that while I think homosexuality (or bi-sexuality) probably is a psychological situation, is it or is it not a disorder rather than just a different branch of normal? I mean is it any more a difference in psychology than people who like to watch horror movies might have from those who couldn't bear the sight of blood? Isn't everything we do that is different from another one of us just a difference in psychology at some point?
So to get to the main question, were they right to remove it from a diagnostic handbook? Probably. But then I completely agree with Ender that they should then remove Pedophelia and Zoophila. I don't think the deep-seated longing to reach out and touch another is necessarily an illness. I think it is normal. What I think they should study instead is why one goes down one path instead of another.
In other words, I think they should stop labeling people as having a disorder, but instead have tools ready to explain to people why they are attracted to the things that they want to have a relationship with.
For example, if someone came to me and said I had a disorder I would say fuck you buddy, but if that same person came to me and said, "Science has found that the reason you like other men your own age is because when you were an early adolescent you had a really close friend and that relationship was ended in trauma with unresolved feelings so you keep trying to re-create it in order to have closure."
I would say, wow, that is really interesting. I've never thought of that. Let's see if I am interested in going where that leads. I might then come back to them with the theory that having had a really close relationship with someone your own gender as an adolescent can be one of the best things a guy can experience and so I'm glad I had that chance and would never want it any other way. The feelings are resolved now because I know what they are, and I'm glad that path and way of thinking and feeling is open to me where it is closed to so many others.
I mean I don't see that as any different from getting old and dressing up a dog in human clothes to stand in for a child I might have lost or never had. If someone says I have a mental problem they are not going to be invited over as often as the one who says, hey I know what you're doing there and it is really interesting that not having a child can make you be so much more in love with your dog. It shows that people need to feel needed in one way or another. It is something a lot of us share.
Same thing with a Pedo. I mean, if a guy gets infatuated with another kid his age when he is young (let's say he really has a rousing sexual adventure with a neighbor when he's 8) is it really so surprising that he might pine for that same kind of pure experience later in life? I mean isn't that what a lot of us do on other fronts? Don't we all re-imagine what it was like to be young from time to time? Well what if that imagining might bring you back to your first slumber party where things were getting naughty in an innocent kind of way? Can you really recreate that experience with adults? It is not possible so is it so surprising that some might still want to do it anyway even though having an adult at that same slumber party would have removed the very thing (the innocence of the moment) that made it a thing to remember fondly to begin with (which is why it doesn't actually work to actually re-enact it in real life)? Kind of like when an older woman tries to force herself into clothes she wore when she was in her twenties. It is not a pretty sight and society will want to talk you out of it.
So in other words, if I am labeled as being sick I will push you away, but if you just explain why I think the way I do I'd be more OK with that. The one suggests a sort of judgement and the other is simply a fascination exploration into what make all of us different. Both mean that the topic has to be studied though, and both mean that there need to be words to describe the set of symptoms that might lead us down the same path. Just only one way does not approach the topic with a view to cure the patient, but to instead just give him insight.
I mean in human sexual relationships aren't we all just trying to get close to someone else (I know the biological urge is for procreation, but if we are able to just isolate the basic feeling from the natural imperative doesn't it suddenly just make sense)? Sometimes the motivations are different but the bottom line is the same. We're all in the same boat, but we might be using different oars to get to where we want to go.
Peace buddies. And by the way I love you guys for wanting to talk about this. I sometimes think we have made the very topic a taboo because we don't want to offend, but really guys I am as interested in finding out why I like chocolate over vanilla as the next guy so carry on!