Doesn’t happen often… but I definitely agree with almost every word the Rabbi said. I’ll just qualify it: if there’s no age limit on sex reassignment, there’s no reason there should be an age limit on conversion therapy.
I’m really sick of it, enough with this politically correct stuff! Enough! Conversion therapy is a violation of rights? All in all, the person just wants to be normal like everyone else. Why is treating other illnesses, like intellectual disability with medication or physical disability, not considered a violation?
Sex reassignment because of deviance (all kinds of trans people), with far-reaching consequences, is legitimate, and they even made an educational TV series about it. (It’s called Transkids….)
Oh, and one more thing: you’re afraid of the consequences of the treatments… a published study reveals that two out of three transgender people attempted suicide! Interesting that here the consequences don’t really matter. And of course the guilty ones are us, because we didn’t accept them…
https://mobile.mako.co.il/pride-news/global/Article-5390abc0c168931006.htm

Another thing: LGBT youth have one of the highest rates of suicide attempts.
And over a quarter of transgender youth reported a history of at least one suicide attempt, and in about 40% of them there was a history of self-harming behavior. So let’s say conversion therapy in some cases causes harm, but the current situation isn’t any better!
From Wikipedia https://he.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%90%D7%91%D7%93%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%99_%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%A8_%D7%9C%D7%94%D7%98%22%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D

A generation of idiots: today normal is not normal, because being normal is not normal.
If you’re normal, you’re an anachronism… enough said.

The Rabbi’s last point is interesting: everyone has an agenda… meaning that everything the Rabbi writes about any subject besides mathematics also comes from an agenda.

Tam, just for the record — the rate of suicide attempts among religious gay people is much higher than among secular gay people…

M, that’s only a better reason to do conversion therapy, so that they won’t commit suicide, God forbid.

M, another point: regarding suicide attempts, there’s no full indication, because not everyone who attempts suicide is known about. The only accurate figure is actual suicides, and there one needs to check whether there is a difference. Sometimes suicide attempts are not real attempts but rather a psychological need to receive proper attention from others by inducing guilt. Apparently religious people are counting on the conscience of those around them not to judge them only from the religious angle.
On the other hand, among secular people, “gay” is an insult regardless of religion, and there’s no place for leniency because it’s simply disgusting. For example, if a child leaves religion, people get angry at him mainly because of the religious background, and if he tugs at people’s heartstrings with guilt through a supposed suicide attempt, there’s a chance they’ll accept him and stop bothering him. For a secular person, you’re simply a repulsive person, and their conscience won’t help you much.

I have quite a few problems with what you wrote (both on the methodological level and in terms of the moral way of looking at the situation), but let’s stop here.

Why stop outside, when we’ve cleared out our attention and made room for arguments?

As they say.

Tam, there are a lot of flaws in your comment (both in the methodology and in the conclusions. That’s aside from the fact that I disagree with your opinion).
Members of the LGBT community do not attempt suicide because the attitude toward them is warm and supportive, not because they were accepted by society and then realized they suffer from a psychological problem, and not because of social tolerance toward them.
It is the warped outlook of people around the world that causes the suicides*. In the article you sent, for example, 95% of trans people reported difficulty finding work because of transphobic attitudes (what exactly is the connection? Because people look at them as if they have leprosy and push them away from every possible place, they kill themselves). 43% reported alienation from family.
The conclusion of the discussion was that the attitude toward trans people is different from the attitude directed toward ordinary people, and that is exactly why they prefer to take their own lives. I don’t understand how you arrived at precisely the opposite conclusion.
I think you also understand that the suicides happen mainly in conservative societies, those that do not accept the difference of the person standing before them.

Sabbath peace.

To solve the problem of the high suicide rate among the forcibly converted Jews in Spain, the establishment suggested they convert to Christianity.

Shoel. Hello.
A few things.
A. Homophobia on the eve of homophobia is a fact, and it is not going to change in the next fifty years, may they come upon us for the good, just as peace is not going to arrive in such a negligible period of time.
So one has to be practical, and right now being part of the community carries a big chance of suicide.
B. There is no such creature as forced conversion therapy. We’re talking about people who want to be normal, like the overwhelming majority of human beings. People who have fertility problems go to treatments, sometimes psychological and physiological, and that’s considered legitimate. This whole discourse as if conversion therapy is coercive is a lie and falsehood.
C. You talked about conservative societies with high suicide rates. I’d be happy to get references. By the way, liberal and pluralistic buyers somehow don’t accept conservatives. Tolerance and pluralism only when it concerns the opposite of common sense — that’s not pluralism but fundamentalism. See the book by the local master, Truth and Not Stable.
D. Why are community members called by the name of their sexual inclination at all? If someone loves burgers or, alternatively, skiing as an indulgence, would he be called after his intense cravings for burgers and skiing?! No. The simple point is that members of the community, in their overwhelming majority, are perverse people whose heads are there all day. It defines their identity, and all of us have to suffer from it. I don’t know why pedophiles aren’t in the community groups and instead are thrown into prison with due honor. After all, that’s simply their identity — what do people want from them? Apparently our world is still too conservative regarding pedophiles… Too bad we don’t have the suicide numbers in the “P” community, which will presumably join the LGBT family by the end of this century.
How did the Rabbi put it? Everyone here has an agenda. Not pluralism and not conservatism — one big politically correct bullshit.
Hope you manage to understand my methodology, Mr. Shovel.
Good Sabbath, Tam.

And here we have the first buds.
https://m.ynet.co.il/Articles/3377912

A significant part of the suicidality among LGBT youth stems from the drug parties organized for them in order to ensnare and entice them, because of the aging community’s need for an influx of “young blood.”

The drugs arouse the need for sexual excitement, but the feeling of emptiness at the end of the party intensifies the sense of depression, and once again the young person falls into an inescapable trap, into a vicious cycle of lust, pleasures, and emptiness, over and over again, God forbid.

It was not for nothing that the Sages said about this: “You go astray in it” — wandering and losing one’s way…

Regards, S. Tz.

S.Tz.L., your words are almost a parody of the religious-Haredi attitude toward the phenomenon. Instead of examining the phenomenon, people toss out a little dvar Torah for a sheva berakhot from linguistic nuances in Sefat Emet. Pardon me, but this is really embarrassing.
I understand that religious LGBT youth participate in more drug parties than secular LGBT youth. Now everything is clear.

A. A bizarre claim (I didn’t understand what the claim there even was, you just stated a fact). It doesn’t look like anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, or anti-Judaism are going to disappear from the world anytime soon. So?
(Do you expect gay people to deny themselves? Maybe Jews should only keep commandments within their own four cubits? That seems like it would solve a lot of problems.)

B. It seems to me that children aged 13/14 who go to such treatments are not really exercising free choice. It does indeed sound reasonable to me to allow a person who wants, after age 18, to go to such treatment — to go to such treatment (provided it is supervised).

C. There definitely are references. For example: https://www.kamoha.org.il/?p=10325
You are also invited to read in the second link that you yourself referenced in your previous comment:
According to a number of groups, this is related to heterocentric cultures and institutionalized homophobia, in some cases including the use of LGBT rights issues as a political wedge, as in current efforts to stop the legalization of same-sex marriage.[9][10][11] It has been shown that demoralization, depression, and drug use among LGBT people increased significantly following the enactment of new laws discriminating against those who belong to the gay community.[12]
The article quite unequivocally identifies homophobia and bullying against the LGBT community as a trigger for suicides, not the fact that they are gay or that they are more accepted within the community.
(By the way, I really did read the book Truth and Not Stable. I enjoyed it very much, but I did not come away with the impression that I am the fundamentalist in this discussion.)

D. If I understood the first claim raised here correctly, I completely agree. There is no reason to reduce a person. He is not only gay; that is not what defines him. Whether the act is forbidden or permitted is another question. Once you descend to attacking the person himself and playing in the mud, nothing good comes of it.
As for the claim about pedophiles, it seems that a different attitude toward a pedophilic person is no less horrifying. Openness, acceptance, and understanding toward such people (those with the inclination, not the attackers) — that itself is what would make our society better. If a pedophile were not ashamed of his inclination and could seek treatment, things would be better (and not only for him). A person who assaulted small children, however, assaulted small children. He is judged according to the act and not according to the inclination. That is why pedophilia is not supported: it is not done with the consent of both sides.
(By the way, it is a little strange that you demanded references, and immediately afterward asserted: “The simple point is that members of the community, in their overwhelming majority, are perverse people whose heads are there all day, this defines their identity, and all of us have to suffer from it.”)

There is no doubt that a more coherent line of thought was presented in this message, but still — it is full of mistakes and generalizations (if not outright fallacies).
Love you very much, dear man. Sabbath peace.

I don’t have time right now to expand.
But to bring a reference for a study on suicides among religious gays from the website of religious gays is like bringing evidence against the state from a Satmar website.
Regarding B: why is it accepted, even at those ages, when a little child wants to undergo sex reassignment? See the TV series Transkids. They’re simply brainwashing children to think the opposite!
Love you too, Shabbos.

And with all due respect, Rabbi,
why are you attacking S.Tz.L.? Do you have information that there really are more suicides among religious gays?

S.Tz., what is your opinion about the drug parties in the “Mir yeshiva”?

Tam — I heard about the high suicide rate from two religious psychologists (one of whom is even a rabbi). In fact, it’s not very surprising, given that they are at higher risk anyway, and in religious society they feel more rejection and dissonance. Truly a sad situation…

Tam and S.Tz.L. I suggest you think more about the analogy to the forcibly converted Jews in Spain and what you would have suggested to them (Judaism = LGBT; Inquisition = hostile public attitude intensified by a certain religious outlook; converting to Christianity = giving up an essential component of life). The analogy itself is of course imperfect, but there isn’t much one can try in a situation of sealed, cruel hard-heartedness. I wish both of you that you walk down the street in winter and a car drives by very fast and splashes an entire puddle on you. Amen, amen, forever and ever.

Bunem — this isn’t about wickedness but about a lack of understanding of the situation.
A few years ago, before I studied the subject and encountered religious LGBT people, I too held a different view (though not like the one presented here)…. Only when you meet the people do you understand how much you understood nothing before…

Tam and everyone else — see for example a bit here (as an opening to a somewhat less superficial understanding of the situation):

In my opinion it plays on a feeling of forceful cruelty. People will say I’m getting carried away, but to me it’s reminiscent of the period of slavery. In the sense that the public establishment itself crushes you into the pavement. And every squeezed little jerk thinks he’s something. To hell with them. If my messages get deleted because there are no arguments and there are personal attacks, then let them be deleted. In most discussions I conduct in life I’m usually pretty cool-headed. But this issue gets on my nerves, and I’m already tired of arguing about it. Let whoever still has strength debate, and I’ll mutter curses from the side. I don’t know religious LGBT people. I am, however, a friend of secular LGBT people, and before them I defend, to the limited extent I can, against the attitude of large parts of the environment — especially the attitude of many religious people.

Dear M,
I watched the attached video. Daniel seems like a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy.
Buuut, I’d be glad if you explained to me how a person who tells you he is sexually attracted to his mother, and also to his sisters and the rest of the forbidden relatives, is different. Presumably, if you are truly tolerant, you would send him to treatment in the hope that his severe sexual disorder would get sorted out. Presumably his difficulty is ten times greater than nice Daniel’s; he doesn’t yet have an organization that accepts him, neither religious nor even secular — maybe a closed institution if and when he shows affection to his sister…
I’d be glad if you explained to me how they are different. (I’m not even talking about pedophiles, where if a man is sexually attracted to a 16-year-old girl he is a danger to the public.)

Bottom line:
Whoever is exceptional and endangered needs to be helped, whether by a psychologist or by medication. What’s wrong with that?! Damn it!

Before you get to helping, the question is whether this is a “deviance” or something absolutely negative.
Clearly the Torah forbids the acts — and therefore if a religious person can bring it about that he won’t need this prohibition, then that is what he should do (of course, only so long as it does not endanger him).
However, if there were no religious prohibition, I see no need for him to do that (unless he chooses to), and I certainly do not see this as a “deviance.”

The difference between us is not whether it is right or not right that religious people who have this attraction should try not to need to act on it (if they can, of course), but in two points:
1. You see it as something negative a priori (independent of the Torah prohibition) — and I do not. I see it as sexual attraction and nothing more. Just as one person is attracted to women with curly hair, another to women with straight hair — and another to men. (And by the way — you need to distinguish between attraction to person X or sexual attraction to group X and emotional attraction. These are completely different things. But it doesn’t matter very much for our discussion.)
2. You think that if they go to treatment it will probably help them. My impression is that it won’t help, and historically it has also caused people harm (I do not know what the situation is today. I assume it has improved somewhat.)

Therefore, since I don’t see this as a deviance and I don’t think they have a way out, I certainly won’t get angry at them or hate them. I will see them as people who have a challenge in life that I have no way to get them out of (because halakhically there is a prohibition, even if its precise boundary is not clear).

M, I’d be glad for definitions.

For example, I think “deviance” means deviating from the path of the norm, and therefore a gay person is a deviation from the norm. Someone attracted to a woman is within the norm; indeed, within the spectrum of women there are types — curly-haired, etc.

If conversion therapy were not effective, they would not do it. Let me reveal something to you: a conversion therapy that succeeded presumably remains secret — the person moved on to a new path and prefers not to tell others about his unusual past.

If by the term “deviance” you mean a small portion in the statistics, then statistically you are certainly right. In that context, I hope you are consistent and also call redheads deviants, or those who hold to the religion of Israel, because they too are a small percentage of the world.

However, it is clear to me that in using the term “deviance” you do not mean only percentage of the population, but also a percentage that possesses something “defective,” and if that is so — then we disagree. (And if I am mistaken in my assessment — my apologies. But I hope you will be consistent about this in other areas as well.)

As for treatments — they were conducted even in a period when by everyone’s agreement they were not useful, so that is no proof. The reason they are carried out is first and foremost because of the religious dissonance that demands a prohibition in this topic. Indeed, I believe there has been some improvement, but as one religious professor in the field who himself had treated people told me: “I never succeeded in changing anyone, and I never met anyone else who succeeded or who changed.”
Indeed, all of us (myself included) know people who testify that they changed — but how do you know they were homosexuals to begin with and not (unaware) bisexuals?

In this context I prefer the accepted scientific picture, which unequivocally says that it is impossible to change. Yes, of course the research is ideologically biased, but even in ideologically loaded fields there are studies in both directions (see opponents of vaccines). Only in this case there is not even one study that found these treatments effective. What did it find? That people were badly harmed by them.

As I said, I am not speaking into a vacuum. I studied the issue deeply and broadly as part of a project in which I participated — and these are my conclusions. And yes, I too once thought differently.

(Again, it’s possible that in the last 3 years they invented some innovative treatment out of nowhere and people are no longer harmed by it. I very much doubt that is the case. It certainly is not the case until proven otherwise.)

M,
Tell me, if changing people into transgender people works, why do you think changing a fully normative person (within the norm embedded in the nature of all animals) wouldn’t work?!

Cutting off their organs is not called changing their personality.

Tam, the whole issue of gender is a subject that revolves around social construction (boys usually behave this way or that way, people usually behave this way or that way).
Sexual attraction is not some social construction, but a kind of attraction, one that is embedded in a person. A trans change is simply a social change (to behave the way the other sex behaves in society, dress like it, and sometimes also try to resemble it physiologically). A change of orientation, by contrast, is a change of a nature embedded in a person (do you think you could change your own orientation?). The analogy is puzzling, if not somewhat demagogic.

With God’s help, 7 Av 5780

On the drug parties in LGBT society — see, for example, the articles: “Why does the gay community consume more drugs? The confession of a gay stoner,” on the Kana website. There too the guidance from soft to hard drugs is mentioned; “Gay men use drugs at a rate 25% higher than straight men, lesbian women consume drugs 40% more than straight women,” on the Knesset News website, where Linor from the organization “IGY” writes among other things that drug parties are the “entry ticket” for youth into LGBT society; “Drugs, Parties, and the Gay Community,” on the website of the Association for LGBT people.

In short: the situation there is bleak…

And the solution for a religious young man is to hold fast to the “elixir of life,” to the Torah, which is “a loving hind and a graceful doe,” for the more one engages in it and delights in it, the less one suffers from the provocation of the “sexual impulse.” One whose inclinations are ordinary suffers no less from the “sexual impulse,” and one should not fall into despair; even when one fails, one gets up and goes on. Do not believe those who push you into despair and hopelessness. If the Holy One, blessed be He, placed a difficult trial before you, that is a sign that He believes you have high abilities to cope with it.

Regarding the possibility of effective psychological treatment — there is an article by Dr. Zvi Mozes of the Shiloach Institute available online. He divides into several categories: there are situations where the same-sex inclination is a symptom of another psychological problem, and when that problem is treated, the symptom is resolved as well; there are cases where the same-sex inclination is not clear-cut, and then it is easier to establish a family. The attraction does not cease, but one develops the ability to cope with it. The hardest situations are where the inclination is clear-cut, but even then, someone with strong faith and determined will can cope with the proper professional guidance.

Also known in this field are Rabbi Aharaleh Harel and Dr. Eliyahu Ackerman, from the “Bikdusha” Institute, who deal with the problem with professional knowledge and cautious optimism. After all is said and done, one must know that a psychologist’s treatment is “treatment of awareness,” helping the patient to know himself and to know what strengthens him and what weakens him, and out of the deep acquaintance he develops with his personality, he develops ways of coping with his problems.

Regards, S.Tz.

Paragraph 3, line 7
… but even in this situation, one who has faith…

As long as a person is somewhere on the spectrum, the way out is simpler, since after all one marries only one spouse. Even if a person is attracted 99% to men, but has one percent of capacity for affection toward a woman — he needs only to find one single special woman whom he will love and with whom he will build a family. Then he will filter out all the attractive men, just as every married person has to “filter out” all women except for “his companion and wife of his covenant” (and to some extent it is easier for a man to “filter out” men than to be attracted to them, since they are not dressed in provocative revealing clothing).

The harder problem is when the man is at the end of the “spectrum,” when he is “gynophobic” and unable to feel affection for any woman. Likewise a woman who is at the other end of the spectrum, who is “androphobic” and unable to feel any affection toward any man. Here the story is of course harder, but there is still hope that through deep self-knowledge and with professional counseling, the reason for that terrible rejection, which does not allow a person any feeling of affection for the opposite sex, will become clear, and when the cause of the rejection is found, there is a chance the “ice” will thaw.

That is what seems to me, in my humble opinion, from straightforward analysis, without being a professional.

Regards, S.Tz.

From the Wikipedia entry “Suicidality among homosexual youth,” it emerges that the high percentage of suicidality is among those who define themselves as “LGBT.” By contrast, among those who have opposite-sex inclinations but do not define themselves as LGBT, the rate of suicidality is no different from the rest of the population — implying that self-definition as LGBT, the loss of hope for normal sexuality, is the cause of the suicidality. Indeed, despair is dangerous.

Regards, S.Tz.

Interesting that people don’t discuss the increased drug use in the LGBT population as a factor increasing suicidality, and also do not try to create a connection between LGBT identity and “gynophobia” or “androphobia,” which are known and treated phenomena, and this requires investigation. Apparently “political correctness” has the answers 🙂

With regard to one attracted to both this and that, one must examine whether men and women are for him one kind with changing shades, like a hungry man before whom lie a loaf and a fig-cake, or whether they are two separate kinds for him, a longing for this and a longing for that, like a hungry and thirsty man whom all the loaves in the world will not satisfy. And the practical difference would be, regarding one attracted to both and monogamous to one sex, whether he is like a bachelor with respect to the other sex or like a married man in every regard. And it seems to me that they are separate matters, as is proven from “one liable both to lashes and death.” That is, one liable to lashes is liable to lashes, and that is his punishment. One liable to death is liable to death, and that is his punishment. And one liable to both — why should not his punishment be one punishment of death and lashes, just as forty lashes are one punishment? Rather, “one liable both to lashes and death” teaches us that since this exists without that and that without this, and they happened to coincide by chance, even though the root of their matter is one regarding punishment, they still stand in their own distinct forms (and therefore it is possible to introduce the law there). And so too with the two sexes: he has no remedy except through a dual marriage. And one should not say that this does not approach that, and what has inclination to do with a Talmudic topic? Even though these are matters of reason, still, it is Talmud that I am expounding. And so is the Jewish law, with God’s help. And it seems to me that one attracted to both sexes who cannot align himself according to the law that they are two distinct sexes should go and undergo conversion therapy, and this is obvious.

S.Tz., what nonsense. How can one measure the suicide rate of gay people among those who have not come out of the closet?! I am astonished!

(In any case, I’d be happy for references. In all the articles I have read so far, gay people became depressed / committed suicide etc. because of hiding, lack of acceptance, and bullying against them.)

Correction: the last word is “etc.” and not “against them”

With God’s help, 7 Av 5780

To Shoel — greetings,

Regarding what I wrote — the source is, as I noted, the Wikipedia entry “Suicides among LGBT youth,” next to note 15: “It appears that the rates of suicidality cases and suicide attempts among heterosexual adolescents are more or less similar to those among youth with same-sex inclinations who do not define themselves as LGBT [15].”

Regards, S.Tz.

The explanation for their depression in terms of “minority stress” raises a question: after all, for about 30 years they have enjoyed complete legitimacy and a warm embrace from the establishment, along with persecution and denunciation of anyone who opens his mouth against them. And still they are “unfortunates”? Maybe specifically being the persecutors and denouncers intensifies their “sense of misery”?

The “trick” of demanding that forbidden sexual relations or their accessories be permitted on the basis of medically backed claims that the person will die if he is not given what he wants was already tried in the days of the Sages, and they responded firmly: “Let him die, and she shall not have relations with him,” and even “let him die, and she shall not speak with him behind the fence.” And according to one view, even with an unmarried woman they were stringent, because of family blemish or lest they become promiscuous in sexual matters.

A Jew is required to restrain himself and control his impulses and not stumble in forbidden sexual relations, and when he does so he will discover not only that he is not going to die, but that his life will be better and happier. The sexual impulse was intended to help a person establish a proper family, live lovingly with the wife of his covenant, and lovingly raise their children. The more one blocks lustful desires that do not lead to the repair and settlement of the world, the more the heart opens to proper love.

Regards, S.Tz.

To all the LGBT lovers: how are they different from married guys who want some variety every now and then and find it very hard to make do with the bread already in the basket? Why are they not immoral for having strong urges and occasionally slacking off?

To dear S.Tz., it seems you did not understand what was written in the sentence you sent me. First of all, I recommend reading the study: https://jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567(09)00016-1/fulltext.
It says there that boys who identified as heterosexual *but* had same-sex attractions / same-sex behavior (it happens that completely straight men sometimes have sex with a man or had thoughts about it) are the ones who attempted suicide at a rate similar to heterosexual adolescents.
I, personally, am completely gay. I have never been attracted to a woman, and there are many others like me. I do not “define” myself as gay for the simple reason that I have not come out of the closet, but believe me, life there is not fun at all in a religious society.
You and Tam are ignoring the problem in an almost brutal way. The word “gay” is still considered an insult in most societies today (especially in our society, the religious one); homosexual relationships are forbidden in many countries; children and teenagers are thrown out of their homes because of their inclination, and the hand is still outstretched. To compare this to “a person looking for thrills” or to say they enjoy “full legitimacy in society” is, at best, ignorance.

“Almost”

With God’s help, 8 Av 5780

To Shoel — greetings,

For a believing person, the problem of same-sex inclination is not a problem with “religious society” but a problem that the Holy One, blessed be He, “placed at his doorstep,” for He commanded in His Torah, “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love,” and forbade same-sex marital relations.

A problem created by “society” might perhaps be solved by putting a little pressure on society and everything will work out, but the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot be “bent.”

On the other hand, since the Holy One, blessed be He, “created” the problem, one may assume He also created a solution to the problem, such that the more we toil and search for the solution, the more it will be found, and then a person will emerge from darkness to great light.

Therefore, even if the solution does not seem to be on the horizon right now, our modern world is full of problems that people thought were hopeless — and advanced science found them a remedy.

For now, see the directions I proposed in my comment “Between the Spectrum and the Extremes.” In the first paragraph I proposed a possible direction of solution for one who has even a small percentage of attraction to the opposite sex.

In the second paragraph, I raised the hypothesis that a total lack of attraction to the opposite sex stems, in a man, from a phenomenon of the type of “gynophobia,” a feeling of rejection and revulsion toward women, while in a woman it would involve a type of “androgyny,” rejection and revulsion toward men.

Both “gynophobia” and “androphobia” are known in research, and there is research literature regarding them, and apparently also treatment methods that allow a man or woman to thaw the “ice” that brings about the complete blockage of the possibility of affection toward the opposite sex.

You are, after all, much more familiar than I am with the research literature. Perhaps you will find a practical direction that can help advance you and those who suffer as you do, and enable them to establish family life with members of the opposite sex, as the Creator intended in His Torah.

When a person “asks” and seeks a solution — there is a good chance that God will help him. “If you labored and found, believe.”

Regards, S.Tz. Lewinger

To S.Tz., hello and blessings. Nice to see such a respectful response from you.

I think there’s a good chance* you’re right that at the end of the day, if the Torah forbade it — then the obligation apparently applies to everyone. People with difficult trials remain obligated in the commandments (even a person with one ear is obligated in hearing the section “Remember.” Not a great analogy in this context, but the principle is clear).

The “divine solution” in that sense is simply suppression of the impulse. I say this with great sorrow, because conversion therapy is simply something that does not work (and on the contrary, may aggravate other problems).

*There is a high probability of a similar interpretation to the one found in the Rabbi’s view. The act is forbidden only for one who truly has no attraction to women, for example. This needs deeper examination.

In any case, regarding gynophobia and androphobia (I’ll speak in the next paragraph only about gynophobia, but it seems to me there is a parallel), I think you’re a bit confused (a little ironic that I’m saying this to you, but amusing nonetheless). Gynophobia is an extreme and irrational fear of women. I’m not afraid of women; on the contrary, often conversations with them are actually more pleasant for me. I am repulsed by female sexual organs. I have no hostility/fear/hatred toward them. Just lack of attraction. The only attempt I know of to connect the two is in an article by Havelock from 1896, but really there seems to be almost no research on the subject.
In any case, even if there are isolated men in whom the problem stems from gynophobia, that is not the case in the overwhelming majority of instances (indeed, usually it is easier for gay men to talk with women).

May the fast be meaningful, dear man.

With God’s help, 8 Av 5780

To Shoel — greetings,

“Phobia” can mean “fear” but also “rejection” or “revulsion” (as for example with the concept of “homophobia,” whose main point is more “revulsion”).

In any event, your description raises a very interesting reality… a contrast between the emotional plane, where it is possible to form very deep companionship, even soul-friendship, with a woman, and on the other hand the physical plane, where there is lack of attraction and even partial rejection.

The opening for hope of creating a relationship in such a situation could, in my humble opinion, come when one focuses on the inner beauty of the personality. Then the deep soulful love may dissolve the physical rejection (by the way, this can also happen with a spouse suffering from severe physical injury that produces an off-putting appearance despite a wonderful personality).

So perhaps there is a possibility that great affection for the person’s character will “thaw” the physical rejection?

Regards, S.Tz.

By the way, the aversion to the intimate organs of the opposite sex may be the result of the habit that comes, because of standards of modesty, of recoiling from the intimate organs of the opposite sex. This is a phenomenon from which quite a few young religious couples probably suffer at the beginning of their path, when suddenly after the wedding they have to make a mental “switch” and begin drawing close what they distanced all those years, and there are also recognized and familiar treatments for that.

In short:

There can be a disconnect between the emotional layer, in which a person can have affection for the opposite sex, and the physical layer, in which a person has physical rejection of the opposite sex.

The question that arises is: can professional treatment increase the side of emotional affection and bring about a “thawing” of the physical rejection, and bring a state of “the power of hetero is preferable” 🙂

Regards, S.Tz.

I think it is definitely possible to create a very deep emotional bond.

The questions that arise are:
A. Whether an emotional relationship in which sexuality is not a part is a healthy romantic relationship.
B. How bad it is for a person to suppress his sexual impulse completely.
And it seems that these questions are indeed discussed at length.

Regards, Shoel.

With God’s help, on the eve of the fifth fast may God turn it to joy and gladness

If one has the ability to create a deep emotional bond, it stands to reason that the blockage on the physical plane can be released. Quite a few young religious couples undergo a process somewhat like this at the beginning of married life, needing to release the physical aversion to the opposite sex that was created by the insistence on total distance during the long years of bachelorhood. It is a familiar and known process.

The dissonance a person has between the intellectual-emotional plane and the physical plane sounds like a solvable problem. There is apparently some blockage here that brought about that inner contradiction, and opening blockages is not among the absurd things. In such matters, a patient professional who knows how to convey cautious optimism can be helpful.

With wishes for a good “end of blockage,” S.Tz.

An example from another direction: a person accustomed to satisfying his need for food with junk food rich in sugar, fat, and sodium will naturally feel unsatisfied by vegetables. To one’s surprise, there are situations where, when one reaches a medical “between the straits” in which the “tasty” food is accompanied by acute health risk, one discovers that even a cucumber has taste 🙂

This is not aversion, but lack of attraction. I do not think there is a way to “open” this blockage as you say, but perhaps one can live life without sexuality.

Good luck with the fast ☺️

In the past I was attracted only to men, and today, after a therapeutic process I went through, I am attracted to women. I have been happily married for more than 15 years, and I love my wife very much and am very attracted to her, and things are very good for me.

Some would define the treatment I underwent as conversion therapy; I do not define it that way.

I also have friends who went through a similar process, and they too discovered attraction to women, got married, and started families.
My friends and I are very glad that in those days this coercive law did not exist, because it could have prevented us from getting the help we needed so badly.

Together with them we established a website that tells our stories, and those of thousands of other people around the world who, despite attraction to their own sex, succeeded in changing. It also presents scientific studies on the subject.

The website is called “Let Me Choose — Change of Identity and Sexual Attraction out of free choice,” you are invited to visit:

דף הבית

The peak of malicious, crushing social oppression calls itself “Let Me Choose.” As if anyone chooses conversion of his own free will (why?) rather than as a result of total social pressure. Orwell is delighting in his grave.

With God’s help, 28 Adar 5781

In my comments (to column 225, “On Conversion Therapy and the Problems of the Discourse Around It”) on “the effectiveness of the treatment” and “from the experience of Dr. David Rudi,” I referred to the words of the late Dr. David Rudi and, may he live long, Dr. Zvi Mozes, who clarify the possibilities of professional coping with same-sex inclinations. See their remarks there.

Regards, S.Tz.

It is worth noting that Dr. Rudi was a secular psychologist, one of the fathers of liberal permissiveness. He had no value-based problem with same-sex inclinations, and nevertheless found it right to enable those with the inclination also to awaken the ability to maintain heterosexual relations, in order to allow them stable sexual relationships not accompanied by constant abandonment anxiety.

Uri, very interesting. Definitely a voice that is missing from the discourse.

Thank you very much, Rabbi Michael.
The commenter Yeshay demonstrates what social oppression and social pressure are, when he determines that nobody chose the path I chose of his own free will.
I absolutely chose my path of my own free will, and I am very happy with my choice.
To determine that I chose “not of my own free will,” as opposed to a person who chose to come out of the closet “of his own free will” and without any social bias or direction, is a very problematic argument.

What does that have to do with anything? When there is crazy social pressure that makes same-sex attraction difficult, then the choice to yield to such pressure is no better than “consent” under relations of authority, and is highly dubious.
Obviously, in a corrected world (which will arrive sooner or later) where there is no pressure on same-sex attracted people, then nobody will oppose conversion therapy either, and everyone can do whatever they feel like. The opposition is to a society that pushes people into such treatments, when it is very likely that a significant part are not going because they really want to (I’ve never heard of a heterosexual undergoing conversion therapy to become gay. Why?) but so that the social shoe won’t press on their foot until it rots. The institutionalization and ratification of this option is the way to whitewash such a social crime, as if “it’s not that terrible, they can always convert.”
If I see a society where all options are on the table and in which same-sex attracted people choose of their own free will to undergo conversion therapy (in numbers that are not utterly negligible), then I will change my mind. For the time being, even in the best-case scenario, conversion therapies operate in a society where there is incitement — no less! — against same-sex attracted people. And the point is simple.

With God’s help, 28 Adar 5781

To Uri and Yeshay — greetings,

If the person with same-sex inclination believes in the Torah, then his problem is not “social pressure” but the internal contradiction between his inclination and his faith. As a believing person he will aspire to align his way of life with the demands of his faith, and that faith is also what will give him the ability to cope successfully.

No professional treatment can substitute for a person’s own desire to make a significant change in his way of life. Professional treatment can only give him tools to understand the conscious and unconscious causes that brought about his situation. Understanding enables a person to develop tools and ways of coping that will help him realize his desire to shape his personality in accordance with his faith, and free him from the internal contradiction in which he finds himself.

A prohibition on professionals assisting and giving tools for coping is what will push the struggler toward treatments by people who are not professionals, treatments that could indeed bring despair and suicidality and not help. With all the understanding for the condition of one who has despaired and surrendered to his inclination — he has no right to forbid professionals from helping one who does want to and believes in his ability to repair.

Regards, S.Tz.

Yeshayi, I suggest you browse our site a bit and discover how incorrect your words are.
You can watch the lecture by Prof. Avshalom Elitzur, who talks about secular people growing up in a liberal society, including some who “came out of the closet,” but who nevertheless want to change their attraction because of the difficulties and suffering involved, irrespective of social pressure.
You can also read about Dr. Adir Adler’s study on secular men who chose to marry and build a family with women. And you can find many testimonies from people who sought treatment of their own will and without pressure or coercion.

Today the social pressure is the opposite: both in secular society and in religious society there is steering in the direction of “if you are attracted to men, you need to come out of the closet,” without allowing choice and without presenting the price involved in coming out.
Choosing homosexual life, for the most part, is choosing a life with a great deal of pain and loneliness, without the ability to build a family or find a monogamous relationship. That is the reason many want to change homosexual attraction. That is also the reason a heterosexual would not want to change his attraction, because he does not feel it causes him suffering.

The very frightening expression “conversion therapy” expresses the social pressure, the steering, and the social delegitimization.
And legislation that prevents adult people from receiving treatment they want is already outright coercion and trampling on individual rights.
Even if you think people turn to such treatment because of social pressure, that is still not a reason to outlaw it. There are many things more dangerous than talking to a psychologist that are permitted under the law.