Hypo: You Are Gay

[God the Father]

It is the near future. Drug company scientists have developed a once-yearly, pain-free injection that will make you straight. The treatment is expensive, but trollish conservative advocates receiving cartoonish sums of PAC money have successfully invoked the timeless comical liberal tenet that [i]every[/i] kind of pharmaceutical concoction [i]must[/i] be covered by health insurance (which is, naturally, also mandatory) so the cost-to-end-user is nominal.

 

There are no acute side effects. The drug does not appear to affect non-sexual behavior, so if you are a man, you will still be the sharpest dresser in your office, and if you are a woman, you will still be partial to cutting your own hair in the style of Brian Bosworth. The only change you will experience as a direct result of the shot is that the gender to which you feel a sexual attraction will be reversed.

 

The treatment is too modern for the medical community to be aware of long term side effects, or to fully understand the consequences of stopping treatment after taking it routinely for many years.

 

Describe your reaction.

[veritasluxmea]

I'd be suspicious of of a drug with unknown long-term side effects. Isn't that illegal to sell to the masses, at least in the US? I know someone who did receive cancer treatment with unknown side effects, but that was in a desperate situation as a last resort to buy time. If a shot can may someone un-gay, then the causes of homosexuality are much different than we thought. 

[God the Father]

 Isn't that illegal to sell to the masses, at least in the US?

 

The answer to this irrelevant-to-the-hypo question is no. To my knowledge, clinical trials max out at 8 years.

 

All posters this net, be advised, the facts described in the hypo are to be taken at face value. Condensed for simplicity: Drug company develops once-yearly effective gay shot, and it is available to you for low-cost, and  you are gay. Describe your reaction.

Edited September 6, 2014 by God the Father

[Not The Philosopher]

1. I am already gay
2. I feel a positive call to celibacy (i.e., even if I were straight, I doubt I'd be hitting up the dating scene)
3. I don't like the idea of being on meds that are not strictly necessary for my day-to-day functionality, least of all ones whose effects are not entirely understood

 

So I would be hesitant to use it on myself, but not opposed to the idea in principle.

 

[John Ryan]

Such a mind altering substance is a bestial affront to our human dignity. 

[Not The Philosopher]

Also: commence Gay Drama Thread in 3...2....

[IcePrincessKRS]

Dairygirl, is that you? :huh:

[PhuturePriest]

Such a pill would not be morally obligated upon gay people unless the pill made them have my personality, in which case the Church would most certainly make this a requirement for everyone to take.

[marigold]

Much like Not The Philosopher, I would still enter the convent.

[Ash Wednesday]

I'm just here for the Bosworth reference.

 

 

Okay. Bye.

[Fidei Defensor]

Nope. I like me as me.

[Clare Brigid]

Describe your reaction.

 

Too late.  

[Clare Brigid]

:hehe2:  

 

Edited September 6, 2014 by Clare Brigid

[Aloysius]

I imagine things would go down a lot like in X-men The Last Stand... probably because that was clearly a veiled reference to this exact scenario... though probably with less of the fighting and such, just the protests and outrage and the mixed responses of those who choose to take it and those who choose not to.  Likely younger homosexuals would be more likely to go in for the drug.. both through family pressure, and because it is common for them to go through some phase of wishing they could be 'normal' or whatever around that time, at least in our society.  older ones who already made peace with themselves would likely be outraged by this trend and be among most of the protesters against the drug.  I'm sure the fundamentalist churches would embrace the drug without reservation and even push it as a moral obligation for people... given the numbers they can already corral into dubious change-therapy camps and such, it's likely there'd be quite a lot of people getting corralled into doing this. the Catholic Church would likely be more cautious about it, but I imagine individual bishops might start endorsing the idea... the USCCB bio-ethics committee would almost certainly have a quite heated debate over it...

 

would I take it?  very interesting question.  at certain points in my life i'd have said yes, at certain points I'd have said definitely not.   I really don't imagine such a drug that was so clear-cut as described in the hypothetical could ever exist... what would it do to someone who is bi, anyway?  I assume the hypothetical assumes it would make such a person straight as well.  I guess I'd redirect the hypothetical to this: if there was a drug to make a man not be attracted to any other woman on the planet except his wife, should he take that?  should we start bio-engineering attraction in this manner, even if it is to bio-engineer it along the lines of our moral system?  

 

personally, the idea makes me uncomfortable, that is, the idea of bio-engineering attraction based upon our moral systems.  I think it gets dangerous.  I realize that for those who think of homosexuality as a psychological disorder, a medicinal approach to it might make sense to them...but I'm not so sure about that kind of thing.  it's tough to say whether someone should or shouldn't do it if it were available as the hypothetical describes though... assuming that a person was not coerced, then perhaps they should have the right to take that pill... but you know freedom of choice in that regard would be a politically heated issue at least when it first came out.... 

[Luigi]

If I'm having difficulty with chastity in my hypothetically gay condition, I take the shot.

 

If the shot helps me with my chastity challenges, I continue taking the shot.

 

If the shot only shifts the focus of my chastity challenges, I don't take the shot next year because by now I know that the problem is chastity rather than to whom I am sexually attracted.