You've got to be Crazy Baby

[Shana A]

Thursday, 7 May 2009
You've got to be Crazy Baby
Zoe Brain

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/05/youve-got-to-be-crazy-baby.html

From Feministing on the proposed changes to the "Psychiatrist's Bible" - the DSM:

    First, Blanchard is proposing a significant expansion of the DSM's definition of "paraphilia" to include:

    "any intense and persistent sexual interest other than sexual interest in genital stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically normal, consenting adult human partners."


Blanchard's proposals can be found in his presentation "Paraphilias vs. Paraphilic Disorders, Pedophilia vs. Pedo- And Hebephilia, and Autogynephilic vs. Fetishistic Transvestism" given at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research (SSTAR), April 3, 2009, Arlington, Virginia.

[NicholeW.]

Just a thought, but one that strikes me as possibly being true. Both Zucker and Blanchard are being harnessed on their home ground at CAMH. They are in a political battle there about their treatment of transsexuals and other transgender people. Given their bile about Lynn Conway and Andrea James and others who have "dared criticize them" I'd imagione that they are feeling pretty upset at being questioned about their behaviors in their own labs and clinics.

Both seem to be very much impressed with their own abilities and thought-experiments, to the point of trying to invalidate by word-of-mouth all actual bio-research into what they term cross-gender behaviors.

Their previous MO in such cases is to attack, even viciously. I actually have no doubt that Zucker particularly would love to see the Blanchard proposal accepted for inclusion in the DSM-V. I expect he would see that as "good enough" for people who dare to defy his "expertise and stature." (The behavior is rather common in academic/intellectual circles, spend some time with university profs and see. It can be exceedingly vicious, moreso in it's own way than a street-fight between gangs.)

So, I expect to see them completely and imperiously overplay their hand trying to make a paraphilia so overwhelmingly general and expansive that their colleagues are going to be embarrassed to 1) realize just how vicious they are willing to be and 2) to overrule this "total war" against not only transsexuals and transgender folk, but even, as the article points out, on everyone who doesn't have sex in Z & B's preferred fashion. Anyone who doesn't have sex for procreational purposes through missionary position intercourse is gonna be a paraphiliac.

Now just how ridiculous are the APA gonna be? I think given the current pushes that what we'll actually see is a lot of someone's at the APA taking some discreet actions to rein-in this lot before they manage to finally completely discredit the standing of the DSM as making diagnoses that are totally political and used to muzzle anyone and everyone who rouses the pique of Dr. Zucker and Dr. Blanchard.

Perhaps I give more credit to the sanity and understanding of the body as a whole than I should. But as the implications of their over-reaching desire to "stick it to those nasty people who try to besmirch me" becomes more and more evident to rational human beings I suspect that what we may well see is that the entire "thought-experiment & religious morality" basis for diagnoses like "transvestic fetishism," " ->-bleeped-<-" and some of those other paraphilias that the Feministing blogger mentioned that these bad boys are not just gonna lose the point, but that they will lose game, set and match.

At some point one might expect that a bunch of "sane" shrinks are gonna realize that these two are simply pissed-off academics who want to "slay" those who dare disagree or don't fit their pre-conceived notions of how deft their ideas about other humans are.

Keep it up guys, make your points so blaringly ridiculous that you'll be shown to be on the level of the purveyors of the this nonsense: She's a witch!

Science and research indeed!

Nothing like the hubris of people who find their own ideas inviolate to bring them down. Perhaps at some point both Z & B will be able to say: "Weeeeellll, I got better" and will realize just how much everyone else believes that they have been turned into newts!  

[tekla]

I always thought it more along the lines of this classic Python bit.

The Dinosaur Sketch from "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "Monty Python's
Previous Record"

Television Host (Graham Chapman): Good evening.  Tonight - dinosaurs. I have
                                  here sitting in the studio next to me an elk.
                                  Aaagghhhh!  Oh, I'm sorry, Anne Elk, Mrs Anne
                                  Elk.
Miss Elk (John Cleese, as a very prim lady): Miss.
Host: Miss Anne Elk, who is an expert on the...
Elk:  No, no, no, Anne Elk.
Host: What?
Elk:  Anne Elk, not Anne Expert.
Host: No, no, I was saying that you, Miss Elk, were an, A.N.  not A.N.N.E.,
      expert...
Elk:  Oh!
Host: ...on elks - I'm sorry, on dinosaurs.
Elk:  Yes, I certainly am, Chris, how very true, my word yes!
Host: Now, Miss Elk - Anne - you have a new theory about the brontosaurus.
Elk:  Could I just say, Chris, for one moment that I have a new theory about the brontosaurus?
Host: Er... exactly.  What is it?
Elk:  Where?
Host: No, no, no.  What is your theory?
Elk:  Oh, what is my theory?
Host: Yes.
Elk:  Oh what is my theory, that it is.  Yes, well you may well ask, what is my theory.
Host: (slightly impatient) I am asking.
Elk:  And well you may.  Yes my word you may well ask what it is, this theory of mine.  Well, this theory that I have--that is to say, which is mine-- ...is mine.
Host: (more impatient) I know it's yours.  What is it?
Elk:  Where?  Oh, what is my theory?
Host: Yes!
Elk:  Oh, my theory that I have follows the lines I am about to relate.
      (Coughs) Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.
Host: Oh God.
Elk:  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem.  Ahem. Ahem.  Ahem.  [Impatient noises from Host] The Theory, by A. Elk. That's A for Anne, it's not by a elk.
Host: Right....
Elk:  This theory which belongs to me is as follows.  Ahem.  Ahem.  This is how it goes.  Ahem.  The next thing that I am about to say is my theory. Ahem.  Ready?
(Host moans)
Elk:  The Theory by A. Elk brackets Miss brackets.  My theory is along the following lines.
Host: Oh God.
Elk:  All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much MUCH thicker in the middle, and then thin again at the far end.  That is the theory that I have and which is mine, and what it is too.
Host: That's it, is it?
Elk:  Right, Chris.
Host: Well, Anne, this theory of yours seems to have hit the nail on the head.
Elk:  And it's mine.
Host: (ironical) Thank you for coming along to the studio.
Elk:  My pleasure, Chris.
Host: Er...Britain's newest wasp farm...
Elk:  It's been a lot of fun.
Host: ...opened last week...
Elk:  Saying what my theory is.
Host: Yes, thank you.
Elk:  And whose it is.
Host: Yes.  ...opened last week...
Elk:  I have another theory.
Host: Not today, thank you.
Elk:  My theory number two, which is the second theory that I have.  Ahem!
      This theory...
Host: Oh look...shut up!
Elk:  ...is what I am about to say...
Host: Oh please shut up!
Elk:  ...which, with what I have said, are the two theories that are mine and belong to me.
Host: Look, if you don't shut up I shall shoot you.
Elk:  Ahem!  My brace of theories, which I possess the ownership of, which belongs to me...

Elk:  Ahem. The Theory the Second by Anne...