The Student Room Group

Could conversion therapy work?

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Original post by Theloniouss
I'm not talking about religious conversion therapy where some repressed and probably closeted pastor tells you how "the peepee should go in the other butt, I swear!!1!1!" and then you get a real hard-on for Jesus and are saved by God, but a serious attempt to change someone's sexuality based on sensible ideas that have worked elsewhere like classical and operant conditioning.

Would a learned response to a stimulus or personal decision really count as a sexuality, would they be distinguishable and would it be possible to 'unlearn 'your original sexuality?

In my opinion, I don't see a reason why conditioning couldn't cause you to have a sexual response to a given stimulus (there are some pretty hilarious stories where people were inadvertently conditioned to have horny responses to otherwise very un-horny situations) but am not sure whether that could happen to such an extent as to change someone's sexuality, or if any relationship derived from that sort of conditioning could be truly fulfilling.

This has actually been researched extensively, have a google for aversion therapy and appetitive conditioning. It’s interesting stuff but ultimately, no there is no evidence that it is possible to change someone’s sexuality.

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