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"Homosexuality is a psychological and psychiatric disorder, there is no question about it. It is a purple menace that is threatening the proper design of gender distinctions in society." - Dr. Charles Socarides
Dr. Charles W. Socarides, a well-known psychoanalyst who maintained that homosexuality was a a sickness that could be cured, died on Sunday at Metropolitan Hospital Center in New York. He was 83.
This is a man who hurt a lot of people, ruined lives and helped spawn a fraudulent industry of ex-gay quack "cures." He was bitter because in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association took homosexuality of the list of mental disorders. This decision unraveled his life's work. His anger about this decision caused him to team up with the religious right to demean and dehumanize gay people.
He was a frequent guest on television programs and wrote a half-dozen books about homosexuality. They included "The Overt Homosexual" and "Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far" and "A Psychoanalyst Answers 1,000 Questions About Causes and Cure and the Impact of the Gay Rights Movement on American Society." In 1992, Dr. Socarides helped found the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality 9NARTH).
Our condolences go to his family. His son Richard Socarides is openly gay and was an adviser to the Clinton White House on gay and lesbian issues. Richard is a very nice man and we send him our thoughts and prayers in this time of mourning.
15 Comments:
There's something karmic about him having a gay child, just like phyllis schlafly, dick cheney and probably countless others on the fascist right do. Sounds like Dr. S forgot his hippocratic oath --first, do no harm! Gary (NJ)
posted by Anonymous, at
12/28/2005 12:21 PM
ps...what the hell is a "purple menace"? I doubt if you'd find that in the Merck Manual. Gary (NJ)
posted by Anonymous, at
12/28/2005 12:26 PM
The only time we're purple is if our cockrings are too tight.
posted by Anonymous, at
12/28/2005 12:27 PM
I guess no one told the gay penguins, lesbian seagulls et. al. about the "proper design of gender distinctions.."
posted by Anonymous, at
12/28/2005 2:57 PM
If someone doesn't want to be gay, why shouldn't they be able to learn about the roots of their sexuality and if there's any way to change it?
Sounded like Socarides and his son were working to try and talk as father and son rather than adversaries, and for that they're both to be commended.
posted by Anonymous, at
12/28/2005 4:51 PM
The problem is that the horse shit preached by Socarides did not teach about the "roots" of anything. It was pure, unadulterated shit that he pulled out of his ass. The "roots". How ignorant are you to say that?
All I can hear in my head is 'ding dong the witch is dead ... the wicked witch is dead' ... I feel pity for the son - that his father was such an unadulterated asshole.
I say good ridens! Sorry but he did more harm than good while he was alive...
posted by Anonymous, at
12/29/2005 1:54 PM
I am sitting shiva for Dr. Charles W. Socarides, M.D. However, I must note that Socarides admitted to desiring homosexual sex in his 1995 book, "Homosexuality A Freedom Too Far," on pp. 251-252:
The book is written as series of questions, both asked and answered by Dr. Socarides. In response to his own question about gay tutors at Harvard, Dr. Socarides wrote:
"I can only think back on my first years at Harvard. What if I'd been told by a gay tutor, 'Try it, you'll like it?' I was as horny then as any shy young man of 18 from a small town in Massachusetts, and had had my eye on a sophisticated beauty from Manhattan who was attending Radcliffe. At the time, I was trying, in vain, to figure out ways of approaching this girl, who then seemed so unapproachable. What if I'd taken the easy road to orgastic relief - acceded to the suggestion of my gay tutor that I try anal or oral sex with a male classmate?"
"You might have liked it?"
"Who knows? There's not a gene that tells you how to experience orgastic relief. Anyone can indulge in anything. It would have been all too easy, back then. Instead of going off to a football game on Saturday afternoon, and scheming on ways to approach my dream girl from the halls of Radcliffe, I could have settled in for an afternoon of oral sex in Dunster House. And become an optional homosexual - a much easier way to go, but one that would have affected my future functioning as a man."
Dr. Socarides homophobic fears are consistent with the findings of several homophobia research studies, which found that homophobes often get erections while watching homosexual pornography. One theory is that homophobes bash gay people in an attempt to suppress their own sexual desires.
I also find it despicable that he was married four times, yet wanted to deny gay people the right of being married even once.
posted by Anonymous, at
12/29/2005 6:17 PM
While it is difficult to celebrate one's death (a life is usually celebrated upon death to recognize the many ways a person touched and benefited his/her loved ones and the world at large), I cannot feel sad when a person of such heinous character passes. Sure, he was the husband of 3-4 women and had children, I mourn their loss. This man is the root of the culture of hate and lies that is perpetuated by NARTH and the religious right today. That is an unforgiveable legacy indeed.
posted by Anonymous, at
12/29/2005 10:02 PM
Let's face it, guys..the homophobe was married 4 times and admitted to being attracted to a man in his book. Don't you think he was getting a little man-nookie on the side? To "top" (yeah, that's an intentional pun) it all off, he "fathered" a gay son.
Seems to me his estate sould be leaving something major to the Human Rights Campaign.
Oh, and I just wonder if he died before reading "Born Gay": The Psychobiology of Sexual Orientation by Dr. Glenn Wilson and Dr. Qazi Rahman. In which we have conclusive evidence from scientists and DNA experts around the world that our orientation is formed in the mother's womb and us in the DNA genetic code for each of us. I also wonder if he knew that all human fetus's start out as..female. So much for the "submission and prejudice against women based on "gender superiority".
My sympathies to his son, not for the son's loss but for what the son had to endure while the homophobe was alive.
Jack
Ps: I wonder if on his death bed he was calling out "Tom, Dick or Harry?"
posted by Anonymous, at
1/01/2006 3:56 PM
