Gay Conversion Therapist Outted For Soliciting Sex On Gay-Dating App

You can't make this up!

You'd think that the Larry Craigs of the world would have learned from his debacle, but noooooo.

This time, a rabid gay conversion therapist and advocate has been outted by two different sources as being someone who solicits gay sex on those dating apps/website.

Norman Goldwasser, by day, is an Orthodox Jewish therapist at Horizon Psychological Services who compares homosexuality to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and misleads clients by claiming that their sexual orientation can be changed with his special brand of quack therapy, which is rejected by every respected medical and mental health association. By night, an undercover investigation by Truth Wins Out has found, he solicits sexual partners on Manhunt, a gay dating App, using the profile “Hotnhairy72.” During our operation, Goldwasser, going by the pseudonym “Dave”, offered to meet for sex with our operative, “Brandon,” at a Fort Lauderdale motel room. Goldwasser also had a profile on Bear Nation by the same name.

It didn't say whether "Brandon" sacrificed himself and did the dirty deed with "Dave". :)

This would have been hysterically funny if it weren't so downright repugnant and serious. And if this destroys this type of quack organization, then it can't come any sooner. Gay conversion therapy should be outlawed already!

Zz.

Religious Children Are More Selfish?

Well, this is an interesting revelation, no pun intended.

A new study published in Current Biology has found that children who are supposedly brought up in a religious environment are more selfish than children without any religious affiliation.

Decety’s team of psychologists assessed altruism using ‘the dictator game’: each child was given 30 stickers and told to choose how many to share with an anonymous child from the same school and similar ethnic group. This task reflects choices in ecology – allocating limited resources – and the results were used to calculate a ‘generosity score’. The researchers looked at 1170 children aged 5-12 years old, from six countries (USA, Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey and South Africa). Most kids came from households that identified as Christian (24%), Muslim (43%) or not religious (28%). (Small numbers from Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and agnostic homes weren’t compared.)

The results revealed that secular children shared more stickers. Muslim children appear to be less generous than Christian kids, but this is not statistically significant (labelled ‘ns’ in the bar chart below). All three groups became less altruistic with age, though religious kids had lower generosity, suggesting that longer exposure to religion leads to less altruism.

This result, of course, goes against the prevailing and unproven notion that religion makes one more "moral".

Parents were also asked to score their children according to a sense of empathy and sensitivity to injustice. This subjective self-reporting showed that religious adults think their children have strong moral tendencies, contradicting objective assessments of altruism (generosity and moral sensitivity).

Why are religious people less moral? One factor is a psychological phenomenon known as ‘moral licensing’: a person will justify doing something bad or immoral – like being racist – because they’ve already done something ‘good’, such as praying. “It’s an unconscious bias,” Decety explains. “They don’t even see that’s not compatible with what they’ve been learning in church.”

History backs-up the scientific evidence that secular people are more moral, as reviewed by Israeli psychologist Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi. Most white supporters of the US Civil Rights Movement were non-religious, for example, while the apartheid regime in South Africa was led by devout Christians and opposed by atheists.

All interesting and eye-opening stuff. This again reinforces my point that just because Talking Heads that you listen too says such-and-such, it doesn't mean that it has been socially or culturally verified to be true!

The source paper can be obtained (at least for now) from here.

Zz.

Conversion Therapy Does Not Work!

And now we have the most extensive review of all the evidence that shows this.

The report, released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, reviewed the scientific evidence on conversion therapy and concluded that the practice is not effective and is often harmful.

An expert panel convened by the American Psychological Association also published in the report a consensus statement warning of the dangers of conversion therapy and confirming that variations in sexual orientation are normal.

The SAMHSA report can be obtained here.

Will this stop all these conversion therapy? Of course not. After all, there are still people  who believe the universe is only 6000 years old, despite all the physical evidence. So why would something like this change their minds? The only way to stop  this is to make it illegal in each state or country. Do you think politicians, or your politician, care about scientific evidence?

Zz.

Homophobic People May Have Psychological Issues

Well, this is certainly a major turn-around, isn't it?

Until the 60's or 70's, being gay was considered to be a psychological defect, that there was something wrong with you. It was only till then that professional psychological organizations sought to remove such standing, and removing homosexuality as being a psychological disorder.

But now, the shoe it seems is on the other foot! A new study seems to suggest that very homophobic people may tend to have psychological issues themselves!

This doesn't mean that homophobic people are psychotic; rather, psychoticism is a personality trait marked by hostility, anger and aggression toward others. But the study does suggest that people who cling to homophobic views have some psychological issues, said lead researcher Emmanuele Jannini, an endocrinologist and medical sexologist at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.

You may read the paper itself here (not sure if it is available at this link in perpetuity).

So, how do you like them apples?

Zz.

Do You Have A Song Stuck In Your Head?

They have done a scientific research, and here's how you can get rid of that tune that's stuck in your head.

The trick, it seems, is to solve puzzles -- sudoku, for example. But by far the most effective puzzle was five-letter anagrams.

The reason for this, the researchers say, is that puzzles engage the brain just enough. The abstract from the study "Going Gaga: Investigating, Creating and Manipulating the Song Stuck in My Head" states:
"The return of intrusive songs depended on cognitive resources: people reported that intrusive songs returned during low cognitive load activities, and we found that overloading the cognitive systems with challenging activities increased intrusive song frequency." 

So if I start humming "It's A Small World", you now know what to do.

Zz.