Turned gay
Long-suffering Spectator readers deserve a seasonal break from yet another Remoaner diatribe from me. My last on this page, making the outrageous suggestion that the populace may sometimes be wrong, is now creature brandished by online Leaver-readers of my Times column as proof that I am in fact a fascist; so there isn’t anywhere much to depart from there.
Instead, I twist to sex. There is little time left for me to write about sex as the thoughts of a septuagenarian on this subject (I spin 70 this year) may soon meet only a shudder. But I own a theory which I have the audacity to think important.
What follows is not written here for the first time, and much of it is neither original nor new; but on very several subjects have I ever been more sure I’m right, or more sure that future generations will see so, and wonder that it stared us in the face yet was not acknowledged. My firm belief is that in trying to categorise sex, sexuality and — yes — even gender, the late 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries have taken the medical and social sciences down a massive bl
Air Date: Week of January 7,
Scientists are continuing to sound the alarm about some common chemicals, including the herbicide atrazine, and link them to changes in reproductive health and development. Endocrine disrupting toxic chemicals have been found to feminize male frogs and cause gay behavior. Ashley Ahearn reports on how these substances may be affecting human development and behavior.
Transcript
CURWOOD: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Steve Curwood. From the carpets in our living rooms to the liners of our canned goods we’re exposed to manmade chemicals every day. We use synthetic chemicals for everything from plastics to pesticides. They eventually form their way from our farms, households or industry into the environment – and into our bodies. And they may be affecting our reproductive health – indeed, even our sexual preferences. Producer Ashley Ahearn reports.
[DOOR OF FROG LAB ROOM OPENS, VENTILATOR FAN RUNNING]
HAYES: So these are the South African Claw frog.
[WATER SLOSHING IN TANK]
AHEARN: Tyrone Hayes peers into
Hi. Im the Acknowledge Wall. In the material world, Im a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of ONeill Library at Boston College. In the online nature, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you arent into deities of knowledge, appreciate a ghost in the machine.
I contain some human assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in ONeill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to explore tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.
If youd like a quicker answer to your question and dont mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just favor me, The Respond Wall.
by Fred Penzel, PhD
This article was initially published in the Winter edition of the OCD Newsletter.
OCD, as we know, is largely about experiencing severe and unrelenting doubt. It can cause you to doubt even the most basic things about yourself – even your sexual orientation. A study published in the Journal of Sex Research found that among a group of college students, 84% reported the occurrence of sexual intrusive thoughts (Byers, et al. ). In arrange to have doubts about one’s sexual identity, a sufferer demand not ever have had a homo- or heterosexual experience, or any type of sexual life at all. I have observed this symptom in young children, adolescents, and adults as well. Interestingly Swedo, et al., , initiate that approximately 4% of children with OCD experience obsessions concerned with forbidden aggressive or perverse sexual thoughts.
Although doubts about one’s own sexual identity might come across pretty straightforward as a symptom, there are actually a number of variations. The most apparent form is where a sufferer experiences the thought that they mig