the idea that science has shown that you can't change your sexual orientation is a very nice example of the fact that academic social science is often mere political ideology. really scientists of whatever sort might work at a university, but their results on this matter are exactly as empirical as lady gaga's, though infinitely less compelling and well-written. they will demonstrate to be true whatever helps their bit of the political spectrum, or whatever people like themselves say they believe this week. actually, offhand, until i have overwhelming reasons to do otherwise, i would accept anyone's account of her own sexuality, and you should think about what taking the opposite approach - though of course only with regard to people whose story is politically inconvenient - has actually done to people who are not straightforwardly, as it were, heterosexual. so you tell me you're bisexual. i have a theory according to which that's impossible, complete with brain scans or questionnaires; it really pisses me off that you can't make up your mind, etc. or: no one is really homosexual; their natural heterosexuality has gotten screwed up by their moms.
this approach, where someone is telling you what his experience is and you're waving around your diploma and telling him that that's scientifically impossible, is just exactly the same. and the evidence for it - which will appear very compelling to people who who are already entirely certain because that's what everyone they know says - is just going to be laughably inadequate.
anyway, maybe homo and hetero are going to turn out to be in your genes or your brain, though that strikes me as extremely unlikely. (but i imagine the nazi regime would have been happy to find a genetic marker, for example.) perhaps human sexuality is actually quite fluid and complex, and we won't actually know anything about it unless we listen to people, even christians. geez don't y'all remember what the scientific establishment said about these things twenty, or forty, or eighty years ago? how'd that shit turn out? twenty years ago, if anyone brought up what they said forty years ago, they just blandly believed of themselves that they had it right now. at every stage they drove a political/religious/aesthetic agenda in the baldest way, and only the next generation became aware of it, which is a pretty large failure of basic self-awareness and self-criticism, if you ask me. just because it's swung left doesn't mean it's gotten any truer. anyway, if you take seriously anyone's claim to have any science on this, you need to stop being bewildered by people's academic degrees and job titles; stop the irrational deference and show some gumption; haven't you learned anything by now?
we may eventually reach the point at which gay folks can say something better than 'it's not my fault,' and very suddenly science will reach startlingly different conclusions. indeed, many gay people say much better or much else, the reason for which, whatever his drawbacks, we need more david halperins.
perhaps today's social scientists accept a particular version of the pragmatist theory of truth? that is, whatever leads to desirable social transformations (an end to bullying, e.g.) is true. to turn this from an insane abstract theory of truth to a practically useful insane theory of truth you need the premise that what people like me think is a desirable social transformation is, beyond the possibility that a good objection might someday arise, a desirable social transformation. now, the way to create the desirable social transformation is by manipulating people into believing whatever would help, which has the added benefit of making it impossible for such objections to be raised. so, whatever sentences you produce that would serve to manipulate people into doing what you want them to do are also true. very possibly this is the most ridiculous series of thoughts that has ever occurred to a human being. also it is evil. but it is very inspiring!
