Archive for the ‘Non-Scientist Attacks on and Interpretations of Sex Science’ Category

Dr. Judith Reisman is not actually a doctor in science or medicine. Her doctorate is in communications. She has no formal scientific training, nor has she done peer reviewed research. Except once. She got money from the federal government to prove a link between Playboy magazine and pedophilia. Her research was so poorly done that the sponsoring university refused to publish it.

Social conservatives love her. They consider her the leading expert on obscenity in the country, an expert on sex education, and an expert on the crimes of Alfred Kinsey. She’s testified before Congress and consulted for the Justice Department.

Her views are those of the classic pseudoscientist, who believe they have special access to knowledge and understanding that lesser mortals do not. She believes that sex education is morally wrong. She believes that the entire field of sexology and sex research is a fraud, and morally wrong. She’s the leading critic of sex research pioneer Alfred Kinsey, equating him to Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. She accuses him of being a child molester, and just about anything else bad she can think of. She has made a crusade and mini-career out of attacking him and the Kinsey institute, unburdened by the old fashioned tradition of actually providing proof.

Homophobia is not a strong enough term to describe how she feels about gays. She believes that since they can’t have children, they have to aggressively recruit children. If not stopped, she says, some 30 percent of the population will become gay. She has her own version of Holocaust denial- she claims that gays were not killed by the Nazis, and in fact, the Nazi movement itself was actually a gay conspiracy. That’s why she claims that gay youth support groups are equivalent to Hitler youth.

She accuses Jews of leading the abortion industry, despite being Jewish herself. She’s testified as an expert witness that photographer Robert Mapplethorpe was a “fascist” whose pictures were “not art” because he did not show faces. She compared the book “Harmful to Minors” with “Mein Kampf,” admitting she had read neither.

She presents herself as a researcher, although she has no background in science, medicine or research. She testified before Congress that, “Pornography triggers myriad kinds of internal, natural drugs that mimic the ‘high’ from a street drug. Addiction to pornography is addiction to what I dub ‘erototoxins’–mind-altering drugs produced by the viewer’s own brain.” She admits that no scientific research was done to develop her theory. Actual scientists don’t even accept the idea of porn addiction, let alone her notion of it being more powerful than cocaine and making permanent harmful changes to the brain. Her point, though, is to have pornography reclassified as a drug, thus allowing the federal government to control it, and skirt around that pesky first amendment.

Oklahoma Senator and doctor Tom Coburn consistently holds extremist out of the mainstream opinions on everything having to do with sex. Coburn opposes abortion, even in the case of rape, and has called for the death penalty for abortion doctors. He condemned NBC’s showing of Schindler’s list because it encouraged “irresponsible sexual behavior”. He made the false claim that breast implants make you healthier, and then single-handedly blocked the 2006 Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act. Apparently, the real solution to breast cancer is not research, but for women to get bigger breasts

He is a leading opponent of birth control, and wants to allow health insurance companies to opt out on paying for birth control on moral grounds. He believes in teaching only abstinence and not birth control or safer sex to our youth. He put political pressure on the National Institutes of Health to do a condom study, and then when their reported results showed that condoms were very effective in preventing the spread of disease, he misstated the study and said that condoms don’t prevent the spread of HPV, something the study did not say. He also claimed that the FDA overstates condom protection against disease and cervical cancer. Then he tried to get warning labels put on condoms. He sponsored a bill to require minors to wait five days and have their parents notified before receiving contraception, which would dramatically reduce access to birth control. He also introduced an amendment to a bill that would prohibit the FDA from testing, researching, developing, or approving any drug that induces an abortion, which is even more restricting when you understand that he considers common birth control methods such as the IUD and Depo-Provero to be forms of abortion. He opposed the FDA’s decision to make Plan B available over the counter, and criticized the FDA’s research.

Coburn is one of the most notorious homophobes on the Hill, who believes the gay agenda is America’s greatest threat and is leading to the destruction of America and is the rationalization for abortion and multiple sex partners. He falsely accused schools in southeast Oklahoma of having so many lesbians that they would only allow one girl at a time into the bathrooms.

There is also serious evidence to indicate that in private practice he sterilized a 20 year old woman against her will and illegally billed Medicaid for the procedure. And most to the point, when Bush appointed him as co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS, Coburn stated, “I will challenge the national focus on condom use to prevent the spread of HIV.”

It seems to me a statistical probability that some people are going to be unhappy about their sex change operation. Feminist author Julie Bindel is trying to persuade doctors that sexual reassignment surgery is unnecessary and simply mutilation. Having looked into the medical research on transsexualism herself, she claims there is a lack of science behind the diagnosis, no satisfactory research into the outcomes for patients and individual stories of post-operative regret.

I was unaware that there was a movement in radical feminism that objects to the claim that you can be born into the wrong sex. Their argument is that feelings and behaviors that are considered typically masculine or typically feminine are purely socially conditioned.

Here are some pertinent comments I received, but sadly, I lost their name:

This one always bugs me. I, myself, am a transsexual. I had SRS on June 19, and I count it as one of the happiest days of my life. I get very upset when people like this claim that I’m not ‘really’ a girl, and that my surgery wasn’t needed. While I can’t say I wouldn’t be here without it, I know plenty of people who really wouldn’t.

I have not encountered many, if any, person who has had SRS and regretted it. There are some who have had absolute butchers for doctors (Such as pretty much anyone getting it in the UK or Australia), but even they are thrilled.

Is there a lack of research on transsexual treatment? Very much so! It’s a rarified population to begin with, and double blind tests are a hard sell. There is also a lot of misinformation, even amongst the medical community. As well, there are a lot of practices that are followed because it’s The Way It’s Done.

Hormone treatment is one of those areas with very little research, and ingrained habits that doctors follow for lack of options. Most doctors and endocrinologists rely on blood tests, and aim for testosterone and oestrogen similar to that of a post-menopausal woman. There is a growing sentiment in the community, which I myself agree with and follow, that this is quite backwards.

We expect breast growth and feminisation similar to that of puberty (which is itself a misnomer, but neither here nor there), but aim for hormone levels similar to a woman late in life; that makes no sense to many. Instead, some of us are choosing to go with much higher hormone levels, closer to what a pubescent girl would have.

Still, many feel blood tests are not a good guide. I am unconvinced either way on that point; while I understand there is a subjective aspect of seeing where each individual body responds, I am myself uncomfortable with not having some solid data of where I am and how things are going.

So far, though, people seem to be getting better, more consistent results with these higher levels. I have only been on them a few weeks myself; pre-srs I was taking oral hormones (the pill), which are fairly ineffective to begin with as much of the benefit is lost on a first-pass through the liver. I stopped for SRS, as the increased risk of DVT with the surgery, plane flight to Thailand (Did I mention the lack of good SRS surgeons in the world?

The best to be had is in Thailand. There is nothign /wrong/ with that, mind you, but ask the general person what they think about going to Thailand for surgery and see the replies you get! After Suporn in Thailand, the best are in the US and Canada. The UK and Australia, well… Unspeakable, at worst, un-noteworthy at best.

Now that I am back, I have started on injectable hormones. These are absorbed better, and the compound is generally more effective on the body. Or, so it seems; as I said, much subjectivity is there, and little hard research on it.

I know this has strayed a lot, but it’s a topic I feel part of a small minority qualified to pontificate on.