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Parkinsons patient wins lawsuit over treatment that turned him into a gay sex addict
- Thread starter ComputerMKII
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If you dont have an aversion to being with another dude sexually, then I'd argue you had homosexual tendencies to begin with.
The brain can be altered in all kind of ways and much more profoundly than simply sexual preference (be it through diseases or drugs of whatever). And since when is sexuality set in stone anyway?
Oppo
Member
Damn you. Was just about to post that.
Surely research will now resume on the new and improved gay + gambling bomb. It will be the funnest bomb ever conceived. They'll call it the SODOM-1.
Since when isn't it?
Show me studies of where sexual preference is changed through drugs, please.
I was speaking generally, you know, people have been known to change.
Anyway, everything the brain does is chemistry and it's a very plastic organ. It's also very individually shaped and different things affect people in different ways. Drugs can completely change a person. I see no reason why sexuality is different than anything else.
A drug inducing hypersexuality changing sexual behaviour isn't exactly far fetched.
CornBurrito
Member
Err, no.
Chemical changes can cause shifts in behavior. Unless you're assuming that everyone can generate equal amounts of "willpower" to overcome these changes then he isn't at fault.
How do you know it is "all on him."
This is like saying that PCP won't make you eat people's faces off, unless the impulse had been there before.
There are drugs known to cause hypersexuality and increase the occurrence of risky behaviors such as gambling. Drugs can heavily impact behavior.
Perspicacity
Banned
17% is a HUUUGE number for something like this isn't it? But I guess Parkinsons is bad enough to make it worth it...
SnakeswithLasers
Member
RadioLab had a really interesting episode about a woman who was on a Parkinson's medication (maybe the same one), who became addicted to gambling and basically lost everything because of it. Once they figured out the connection and she quit, the impulse to gamble was just gone. It was a really heartbreaking story.
Medications that fuck with dopamine are very unpredictable.
Edit: Wow at how unsurprised I am by the comments in here.
Medications that fuck with dopamine are very unpredictable.
Edit: Wow at how unsurprised I am by the comments in here.
Sickboy007
Member
Hormone replacement therapy in transgender individuals. It's actually pretty common.
you don't really have a lot of options when you have parkinson.
Bomber Bob
Banned
he was gay from the beginning
CornBurrito
Member
1. Prove it. I don't see why a drug affecting sexual desire is unthinkable.
2. Bisexuality exists.
3. Even if he was gay/bisexual to start with, I don't see how that changes anything. The drug still drastically altered his behavior and no side-effect warning was given.
So you're saying that it IS possible for gay people to become straight? Those bible thumpers were right all along?
Ravensmash
Member
Why is so hard to believe that an experimental drug could potentially alter brain chemistry in such a profound way?
Even if he was subconsciously gay or something before taking this, the issue is that this drug caused his behaviour to change in a pretty extreme manner.
CornBurrito
Member
Bible thumpers tend to argue it is a conscious choice, which isn't the case even if sexuality can be altered by chemical means. Meanwhile the treatments proposed by places like Exodus International have proven ineffective.
But given that sexual desire is affected by hormones and the like (castrate male rats for example, and they cease to give a fuck about female rats because they no longer produce testosterone), I think it is possible that a drug that affects brain chemistry could alter sexuality. At least on a short term basis.
I just don't see how dopamin should alter his sexual orientation.
I'm not arguing that he has no right to sue. I'm just saying that there's some drug that magically turns people gay seems unlikely.
Sickboy007
Member
The bible thumpers say you can CURE homosexuality, which is nonsense because it's not an illness. What he's saying is that since it's innate, it's biological in nature, and since it's biological it can be partly modified, distorted, or influenced by other biological factors.
I don't care about political BS when discussing science.
The brain is plastic enough for pretty much any change to be possible especially when factors like diseases or strong drugs (or both) are involved. Doesn't mean we understand it or that we are able to control what happens.
We don't actually understand a whole lot about brain chemistry and it's effects on behaviour yet, and the brain is very individual, the exact same thing can have wildly different consequences depending on the person.
Its not hard to believe necessarily, I've just never heard of it happening and didn't know we were far enough along in science to be able to do it. Maybe I'm just ignorant on the subject, though?
I dont think anyone is arguing that.
I'd argue that it's a hell of a lot higher than that. My dad is on the medications and he is extremely obsessive compulsive now. It's been hard seeing his personality and life take such a swing due to the medications. Unfortunately there isn't many other options for him because if he doesn't take the medications he is basically crippled and can't move at all.
It's very very common for this side effects though and there is a lot of support groups of Parkinson's patients dealing with the gambling, hyper sexuality etc etc
Sexuality is not binary, and it's not wholly genetic either (there are identical twins with different sexual preferences). Throw some weird shit into the system and of course you can get some weird results.
It's not like this drug flipped some kind of switch from on to off, it's clearly more complicated than that.
Dopamin positively rewards behaviour, any behaviour. You can bring a person to mutilate themselves and they will feel good while doing it. Hell, they will even want to do it.
considering all the chemicals involved in sexual behaviour and it would be strange if you couldn't affect if with drugs (and there's a lot of drugs that do affect sexual behaviour).
Jackben
bitch I'm taking calls.
You are right, I don't know, but neither does anyone here. I believe the "gay" part of the "gay sex addcit" is probably more sensationalism on part of the journalist for this article than how it relates to reality. I believe the drug pushed him to experience gambling addiction and other risk-seeking behaviors like hypersexuality. I do not believe the drugs cause him to radically alter his sexual preference in way the headline for this article suggests. Is it possible? Perhaps. Plausable in this case? I don't believe so.
Besides some people being selective with their quotes I don't see anything in here that has been negative to the extent of warranting this reaction.
Great post.Sexuality is not binary, and it's not wholly genetic either (there are identical twins with different sexual preferences). Throw some weird shit into the system and of course you can get some weird results.
It's not like this drug flipped some kind of switch from on to off, it's clearly more complicated than that.
I guess I've just always thought that sexual preference IS something thats basically set in stone.
SnakeswithLasers
Member
It's not altering sexual orientation, it's altering reward and pleasure centers in your brain. It didn't 'turn him gay,' it made his brain addicted to the rewards of gay sex. Not every gay person has sexual addiction that makes them fiend uncontrollably after sex to the point of ruining their lives.
If medication is used to chemically treat mental illnesses and change behavior entirely to what we think is normal, why isn't it able treat a physical illness and change behavior entirely to what some may think is abnormal? Much of our behavior and preferences/personality is regulated and maintained through chemical reactions, so how could such a stark disruption of that not cause anything to happen?
freenudemacusers
Member
I doesn't say anything about him bottoming.
Obviously the gay sex had to come first before his brain rewarded him for it, though, right?
You cant be a meth addict without actually having tried meth, after all.
I'm not sure i understood your post correctly but mental ilnesses are actually a physical thing. Meaning a person undergoing a depression for example is actually physically ill. We wouldn't be able to treat them with drugs otherwise.
I don't see why that would be the case. For example people tend to develop different fetishes as they mature, and that becomes incorporated into their sexuality. I wasn't always into BDSM but now it's difficult for me to get off without it. That change occurred without any need for experimental drugs.
I'm sorry I kinda just woke up so I'm ass backwards right now. You're right though.
We know it causes hypersexuality so I don't think it's a stretch to say that he was craving sex at one point and maybe gay sex was the only option or easiest option at the time. His brain is rewarding him for any sex I don't think he was nessarily gay.
yes
SnakeswithLasers
Member
It's not 'obvious' at all actually. It's a neuroscience issue, not a common sense binary as you're phrasing it.
You're operating on assumptions that there are always clear and easily understood causal relationships from A to B. That's not the case, especially when dealing with brain chemistry. Your associative biases are discounting that we aren't talking about a normal brain anymore.
I think people underestimate that part. If you're essentially a junkie, you likely stop caring where you get your fix.
Exactly. Having first hand knowledge of the lengths these medications push people towards I don't think this guy cared what kind of sex he was having or who it was with. He was getting his addiction satisfied.
So I can become addicted to things I've never even done before?
Yea, I'm not understanding that at all.
And you guys keep saying he just wanted 'sex', but why couldn't he have just jacked off if 'getting a release' was his only desire?
astroturfing
Member
reminds me of a normal dude turned mass murderer who suddenly just couldn't control his urge to kill, like he had lost his ability for self-control... and it turned out he had a brain tumor pressing on important parts of the brain that deal with self-control.
this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
Zoe
Member
A man doesn't have to be gay to enjoy getting it in the pooper.
i'm pretty sure he was having sex before he took the drugs. and you don't need first had experience to be turned on.
Autoerotic asphyxiation?
BannedEpisode
Member
Impulse and inhibition are all controlled through chemical signaling in the brain.
It is very possible that these factors can be altered through brain damage or chemical alteration. This case sounds ridiculous but it is completely plausible.
Hell, my mother suffered a stroke 3 years ago and while she is more or less the same personality wise, her impulsiveness is extreme. She has no function in her left leg and arm and she would attempt to drive to the mall and spend every last cent she had if she had the opportunity.
Having sex with other dudes? You guys act like there's no difference! lol
I just dont buy that he was perfectly straight before, sorry. If we're talking about impulse control, it seems to me the more logical explanation was that he already had gay tendencies before and he now just got rid of the inhibitions that stopped him from acting on it before. It explains it perfectly and fits with his other impulse control problems.
Are there other reports of people that were previously straight getting involved in gay sex because of the drug?
there's nothing logical about atraction. If the hormones and receptors in your brain tell you you are turned on/attracted to something, you are. There are people that get off fucking their car.
You are not dealing with a healthy brain. It was already damaged because of parkinson and the drugs can heavily alter behaviour. You don't need to be sectretly gay to enjoy sex with a man. Pleasure is just that, pleasure.
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