“A fairly typical example of aversion therapy is provided in a case study reported by N.I. Lavin and colleagues (1961). They used aversion therapy to treat a married man who was sexually aroused by dressing in women’s clothing. His interest in cross-dressing began when he was 8 years old; in adolescence, his masturbation always accompanied cross-dressing fantasies. Even after marrying, he continued to seek sexual stimulation by dressing in women’s clothing. He sought treatment at age 22 after his wife discovered his idiosyncrasy and urged him to get help. He was also worried that others might discover his secret.
When he asked for help, the therapists began by taking photographs of him in female dress. Next they gave him an emetic drug, and just as it began to make him feel nauseated, they had him look at the slides of himself in women’s clothing. He also heard a tape of himself, recorded earlier, in which he described what the slide showed. The slides and recorded voice were repeatedly paired with nausea. As the training sessions proceeded, cross-dressing had less and less appeal. After six days of very intensive treatment, the young man showed no further interest in cross-dressing. A follow-up several years later found no evidence of a recurrence of the problem.”
- Learning and Behavior, Paul Chance
okay. there are so many problems with this. SINCE WHEN DOES SCIENCE HAVE A RIGHT TO USE MORALITY TO “TREAT” A SUPPOSED “PROBLEM”? i can’t even believe that this is real and that the author of my textbook had the audacity to use it as an example for aversion therapy. why paraphilia is even in this book, i don’t know. i understand the idea that he is trying to show that you can be unconditioned from something, but to use this as an example is appalling to me.
- what is wrong with cross-dressing? so what if someone wants to dress up in clothing of the opposite sex and masturbate. if it isn’t causing a functional impairment or detriment to their life, then who cares.
- in this case, his wife could have just accepted him for who he was and adapted to it. i feel we are entitled to our sexual preferences, especially ones that begin so early in childhood (in which you could debate that they are innate feelings).
- what bothers me the most about this is the language in the presentation of the information. talk about using conditioned word associations. here we have words and phrases such as “even after marrying” (as if marriage automatically provides peak sexual stimulation or is supposed to?) and then “his wife discovered his idiosyncrasy” (how did she not know before? why does it have to be peculiar?) “he was also worried that others might discover his secret” (the fact that he was made to feel ashamed by his sexual preference/habits is sickening. who was he hurting?)
- and the treatment itself is questionable. i can’t imagine what he endured during “six days of very intensive treatment”. whose to say the treatment itself was so traumatizing that he decided to never go near women’s clothing again because of how he was treated?
i understand other sexual social taboos such as pedophilia, but there is solid reasoning behind that. pedophilia is detrimental to a child’s emotional development and is always harmful. a social taboo like that is useful to keep whatever urges a person might have towards children (or animals?). but cross-dressing is not harmful to anyone, and if the wife in this case argued that it was harmful then shame on her for being so socialized and lacking tolerance for the man she married.
obviously there are very fine lines when it comes to what is both sexually and socially acceptable, but this is just ridiculous. textbooks shouldn’t fiddle with people’s personal lives, at least not with such a moral objective. science is supposed to be neutral, or that is what it supposedly aims towards.
behaviorism really gets under my skin.
