[HN Gopher] Body integrity identity disorder patient satisfactio...
___________________________________________________________________
Body integrity identity disorder patient satisfaction after surgery
(2014) [pdf]
Author : freemint
Score : 47 points
Date : 2022-07-24 09:55 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (opus.bsz-bw.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (opus.bsz-bw.de)
| amin wrote:
| Fascinating. This is about people who have a strong desire to
| have a their own (perfecly functioning) limb amputated.
|
| It concludes: "None of the patients regretted the surgery and a
| change for the better was seen in almost all areas of life".
| [deleted]
| lin83 wrote:
| The survey was just 21 people "exclusively contacted in BIID
| internet forums". How many people who cut off a limb and
| regretted it would stick around the forum that fed their
| compulsion to do it?
| freemint wrote:
| > How many people who cut off a limb and regretted it would
| stick around the forum that fed their compulsion to do it?
|
| Maybe many more then you would think. First of all of there
| are others with regrets they are most likely also found
| there. Second to warn others. Thirdly to vent.
|
| I agree that the evidence is not the highest quality but i
| have a hard time imagining a more involved study design that
| would pass by any ethic board.
| shanusmagnus wrote:
| I wonder if it's similar to Amazon ratings, where review
| distributions seem to skew toward people who either love
| the thing, or hate it? Presumably there's actual research
| on this. ... Okay here's something about the J-shaped
| distribution (mostly 5 stars, some 1 stars, little in
| between) in reviews [1]. (Edit: here's another, more recent
| summary [2] of polarity in reviews.)
|
| Would we expect the same in something as intimate as
| amputating pieces of your own body? Hmmm.
|
| [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1562764.1562800
|
| [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022243720
| 94183...
| t-3 wrote:
| Off-topic, but I think the effect is even more pronounced
| with a binary rating (thumb up/thumb down) vs a 1-5 star
| rating. I've noticed that really bad or mediocre games
| will take advantage of the upvote tendency by advertising
| "90% positive reviews" in an attempt to trick people into
| thinking they're good.
| MrPatan wrote:
| > Maybe many more then you would think. First of all of
| there are others with regrets they are most likely also
| found there. Second to warn others. Thirdly to vent.
|
| And how would you find those posts after they were banned
| and deleted?
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Google tends to cache pages for a long time, banned users
| usually leave a long trail (and post on sites where they
| will not get banned) and deleted posts can be resolved by
| finding and asking the user in question. And usually
| people with regrets tend to be very, very loud in
| scenarios like this.
| lin83 wrote:
| > First of all of there are others with regrets they are
| most likely also found there. Second to warn others.
| Thirdly to vent.
|
| I don't find that the least bit credible. The proposition
| forum administrators would tolerate someone "warning
| others" against the core uniting aspect of their community
| is not realistic. Generally anyone who questions orthodoxy
| in such niche communities face vitriol and get banned
| quickly. Apostates do not hang around religious conversion
| forums talking about deconversion, gender transition
| desisters are not welcome on transgender support forums
| etc.
| freemint wrote:
| Then one could surely find multiple occurrences of
| externally archived but deleted forum post showing just
| that. You are implicitly asking for proof of absence of
| such censorship. This is an unreasonable standard.
|
| Preventing motivated people from harassing others on a
| forum is impossible if anyone can join the forum.
| throwaway4bid wrote:
| oh, I've run into one. a very unpleasant and mentally unwell
| person - I think his motivation was purely sexual, and not
| identity-driven. he creeped me out.
|
| I personally know two, one who used the dry ice method to
| destroy their legs, and another who achieved paralysis. both
| are quite happy now, except for the pain and suffering they
| went through (particularly the person who paralyzed herself,
| since she caused meningitis which led to horrid nerve pain -
| but even then, months later, she's happier now that it's
| done.)
| jasonhansel wrote:
| If I'm reading this right: one of the subjects (#18) is 27 years
| old now, and had a "friend" perform an amputation on him in
| 2008...when he was about 13. Yikes.
| throwaway89201 wrote:
| No, it's a 2014 study. So he was 21.
| freemint wrote:
| Trigger warning: Contains references to voluntary disfigurement
| and mental health.
| political12345 wrote:
| recuter wrote:
| 3.2. Erotic Component
|
| Several, but not all subjects wrote they feel an erotic component
| as e.g.:
|
| "In puberty there came an additional sexual component of about
| 50% weight."; "In addition the stump is erotic.";
|
| "When my first wife suffered from an osteo-sarcoma and lost her
| left leg, my life was perfect. The stump became part of our
| sexual satisfaction.";
|
| "There is an aesthetic sexual complex, in addition I find the
| kind of walking very erotic.";
|
| "The otherness, the stump stimulated me. Pretending always
| resulted in masturbation"
| techdragon wrote:
| I'll be brutally honest, I'm no longer shocked by this sort of
| thing. I personally don't get it, but I get how it's their
| thing.
|
| It took just a few years exposure to the internet of the late
| 90s and early 00s to open my eyes to the simple psychological
| truth that the parts of our brain wired up to pass on our genes
| are some of the most powerful and fascinatingly flexible.
|
| The ample documentation on the development of so many different
| fetishes all following similar phases from expose through
| formative experiences to focus and on to full blown
| fetishisation. It's the sort of thing that made me consider
| psychology as a career. The human mind is fascinating.
|
| When I read accounts like this it's like watching a remake of a
| classic movie or a cover of a song, there's always new bits,
| but you can see the classic parts like landmarks along a trail.
| recuter wrote:
| > I personally don't get it, but I get how it's their thing.
|
| There is really nothing to get, some people just sexually
| identify as pirates and won't feel complete without the
| necessary body modifications. I knew I wanted to be one at
| five years old for example.
|
| Without the life saving surgery bestowing unto me a peg leg,
| hook arm, and glass eyeball I'd be a very sad panda. From now
| on you must refer to me as 'Yaaaaar', 'Matey' or 'Ahoy'.
|
| I hope Treasure Island becomes mandatory viewing in
| kindergarden along with puffy shirt sensitivity training so
| other privateers won't have to endure the same pain as I did.
| Your own children might be destined for the high seas and you
| must not hold them back.
|
| (I couldn't resist this most obvious of jokes)
| poszlem wrote:
| This type of "treatment" is an utter failure and surrender of the
| fields of psychology, psychiatry, and neurology. The way we used
| to think was - a sex change surgery used to only be performed
| because we could not fix the mental problem (patient being
| unhappy with their body). Now the whole script has flipped and we
| are talking about how a "transwoman has always been a women" and
| a "transman has always been a man", which is the newest version
| of "if theory conflicts with the facts, so much the worse for the
| facts". Now we actually ponder cutting off people's arms and
| legs, which is so incredibly bizarre.
|
| Not to mention how this opens a huge pandora's box of
| "recognising" "transabled" people, "transracial" people (see Oli
| London, Rachel Dolezal, or Martina Big) as, for the lack of a
| better word - "healthy".
|
| As a bisexual dude I suspect a lot of that has to do with the
| stigma around "conversion therapies", but I worry that term
| suffered from some really heavy "scope" creep.
| treffer wrote:
| I skipped right to the conclusion, as I wanted to see what the
| document says, and it kicks of with "where no other treatment
| exists", and to prevent self-inflicted amputations. Plus it
| acknowledges that these people potentially need help _now_,
| before we find better solutions in the other fields.
|
| I can highly recommend to give the conclusion section a read. I
| think the authors are well aware of these issues, to the point
| that this scoping (no other treatment available right now /
| other options exhausted + person needs help right now) makes me
| slightly supportive.
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _type of "treatment" is an utter failure and surrender of the
| fields of psychology and psychiatry_
|
| I, too, have an emotional response. But let's be scientific. If
| the counselling shows middling success, and the amputation
| 90%+, why do our feelings, as third parties, overrule the
| person whose body it is?
| Teever wrote:
| Well in many countries with socialized medicine it's society
| paying for the procedure, and in many countries with a social
| safety net it will be society paying the disability payments
| for someone who has compulsively had their legs cut off or
| their eyes blinded with acid.
|
| Let's run with your idea, if a vast majority of people felt
| compelled to do these things would society be better off?
| poszlem wrote:
| I don't say this should be forbidden for consenting adults. I
| am saying that it should not be sold as "the treatment" but
| as "we don't have anything better for now, we are working on
| it, if you can't wait, you can do it".
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > it should not be sold as "the treatment" but as "we don't
| have anything better for now, we are working on it, if you
| can't wait, you can do it"
|
| It's not sold as the treatment.
|
| And to your comparison to trans folks, top and bottom
| surgery is not easy to access (and getting harder by the
| day!). Talk to any trans person and ask them all the things
| they needed to do and go through to prove to their doctors
| that they're trans enough. Besides there not being another
| option, gender affirming surgery works! The patients are
| largely satisfied with their outcomes! Why do we need to
| complicate this with suggesting how they _should_ feel or
| think?
|
| But moreover, who the fuck cares? I had gynocomastea
| surgery (after years of bodybuilding) and all I had to do
| was sign a form. Women can elect to get breast augmentation
| with no evaluation. Why should a trans person have to prove
| that they deserve a cosmetic surgery that anyone else can
| get--so long as the outcome is gender conforming? I can get
| anything I want tattooed on my face today, but someone else
| can't get their chest flattened for months because...some
| lab coats don't think they deserve it enough?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it should not be sold as "the treatment" but as "we
| don't have anything better for now, we are working on it,
| if you can't wait, you can do it"_
|
| Isn't this true of all treatments? It's the best we've got.
| It seems to work. It has downsides. We're looking for
| better options.
|
| We start with the least invasive option. But we don't stop
| midway because something better might one day turn up.
| poszlem wrote:
| Not really - we now create stable identities from what is
| essentially a form of mental illness. We no longer say
| that someone suffers from "body dysmorphia", instead we
| say that they were "assigned the wrong body at birth".
| It's similar to those deaf parents of deaf children who
| are against giving them a cochlear implant lest they lose
| their "deaf culture".
| freemint wrote:
| > We now create stable identities from what is
| essentially a form of mental illness.
|
| Yes. And? A stable identity is preferable for the
| sufferers. Can you explain the problem with that?
| poszlem wrote:
| The problem with that is the same as we would get if we
| decided that the way to treat anorexia is by allowing the
| patients to starve themselves to death. They would die
| thin and happy, but I don't think many people would agree
| with it being the "preferred solution to that problem".
| fzeroracer wrote:
| You're comparing apples and oranges though. We know that
| anorexia can generally be treated with cognitive therapy
| and help restore people to a healthy and comfortable body
| weight. Those same treatments fail when applied to people
| with BIID. And they way they cause harm is different as
| well, since failing to treat anorexia results in
| starvation. While refusing to treat BIID results in
| people taking dangerous risks to amputate themselves.
|
| I don't see much of an actual solution to these issues in
| your arguments other than some hand waving about politics
| as some sort of root cause.
| freemint wrote:
| I fail to see the parallel. Anorexia as "starving
| themselves to death" is not a stable identity, it is an
| identity in decline with ongoing suffering and temporary
| highs.
|
| Should taking of legs be the first treatment option? No.
|
| Should people get therapy, medication and other
| treatment? Yes.
|
| Should those treatments be refined and improved,
| sufferers of BIID experimented on to improve treatments?
| Yes.
|
| If society is unable to come up with a treatment that
| works for years should society deny sufferers this
| radical treatment forever? No. That is imposing the
| majority world view on a minority when the difference in
| world view poses no harm. Yes, society would need to
| address potential cognito hazards/memes and make sure
| there are no people doing this for economic incentives or
| other mental illnesses for which treatments exists.
|
| If society would let people get the treatment, that would
| not be capitulation. That would be acknowledging that
| while society has interest in being able to treat that,
| that interest can not forever outweigh the benefits the
| radical operation has for the sufferer. Capitulation
| would be if society stops trying to find a treatment
| besides radical operation and handed operations out
| without scrutiny.
| freebreakfast wrote:
| How does one distinguish between a stable identity and an
| identity in decline?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _we are now creating stable identities from what is
| essentially a form of mental illness_
|
| Defining mental illness is imprecise. We've gotten it
| horribly wrong before, from diagnosing intelligent women
| as hysterics to gay men and women as deviants. We also
| have a long, failed history of well-meant prohibition.
|
| If we're seeing preliminary evidence that a surgery makes
| miserable people happy, I say we follow the lead without
| prejudice. Maybe we find these peoples' bodies are
| picking up on precancerous signs? (Airball.) Probably, we
| don't. But my peers' botox has visibly reduced their
| faces' expressiveness; is that mental illness?
|
| Out of all of our emotions, I trust my sense of social
| disgust least. The world in which it evolved is no more.
| If I can't find reason beyond discomfort to question
| someone's decisions about themselves, I broadly tend
| towards letting them be.
|
| (Side note: appreciate the discussion.)
| [deleted]
| curious-im wrote:
| All things you write - looks like you getting you data
| from conservative media. "assigned the wrong body at
| birth" - even in trans community considered huge
| simplification and wrong narrative. It's used only to
| explain the feeling to people who knows nothing about the
| issue.
|
| Gender dysphoria - yes, people suffer form it. Transition
| is the way to lower this suffering. That's the 'cochlear
| implant' equivalent from your example.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _looks like you getting you data from conservative
| media_
|
| Not OP. But this seems unfair. Not only does the language
| surround trans persons vary from decade to decade, city
| to city, it's also--understandably--guarded.
|
| Someone far from knowing "nothing about the issue," and
| moreover, wishes to learn more, could innocuously use
| language that is offensive in some circles but tolerated
| --even encouraged--in others.
| curious-im wrote:
| > "learning how to live as a deaf person"
|
| This is what repression looks like. Before coming out,
| while you try to live as you assigned gender - that's
| living as a deaf person, pretty literally as
| derealization and depersonalization are kind of
| 'deafining'. As with deaf kid - you fix the body, not the
| mind, so with gender dysphoria you fix the body first.
|
| Maybe it's just me, but fixing identities scares me much
| more than fixing the body. There was studies in which
| trans people were asked if they would want to be consent
| with their assigned sex (i.e. trans woman to be happy as
| a man) - most don't. After transition almost none would
| agree to change it for 'no dysphoria, assigned sex at
| birth'. 'Fixing' such people sounds like a very cruel and
| scary idea.
| Teever wrote:
| But sometimes deafness is the result of defects in the
| structure of the ear and sometimes it's the result of
| defects in the auditory nerve, or other structures in the
| brain.
|
| In some instances we provide a prosthetic that overcomes
| the defects of the ear, like a traditional hearing aid,
| or surgery that corrects those defects, and in others we
| augment the person with a cochlear implant that bypasses
| the issue with the nerve. We don't yet have the ability
| to directly modify the brain with surgery or implants for
| deafness but I'm sure that we would if we could.
|
| It's interesting that we're talking about deafness
| because there are many instances of deaf people with
| heredity causes for their deafness opposed to testing
| their children with new, effective treatments like
| cochlear implants because they view it as impinging on
| their deaf culture.
|
| I think that there are many parallels between this and
| the developing trans culture which will result in trans
| people being resistant to more effective, less invasive
| treatments to cure them of their affliction.
|
| Why do certain maladies develop strong identity politics
| while others don't? There isn't a diabetic identity, or a
| halitosis community, so why these ones?
| curious-im wrote:
| I guess my problem with your view of 'transness' is that
| you view it as illness or dysfunction. And it's not that.
| Turning transwoman to a man is equivalent of turning man
| to opposite gender in a bad case of gynecomastia. That's
| not the mind that is a problem, I hope you understand my
| point.
|
| Dysphoria goes deeper than just bodily dysmorphia, it's
| about how you see yourself, not only your body. So
| changing my mind to make me something I'm not (a man)
| sounds like a horror - some kind of upgraded lobotomy.
| That's much more invasive than any surgery. And it's not
| about culture, it's about understanding that people
| identities is not a part that you can/should fix.
|
| And speaking about data and science, there is pretty
| clear evidence that trans people who receive proper care
| (hormones) and accepted by society live normal happy life
| as the rest of the people.
| Teever wrote:
| Well... it is an illness and dysfunction.
|
| That's why people are treated by medical experts for it.
|
| We're merely discussing the best form of treatment.
| poszlem wrote:
| I am sorry, but no, that's not coming from the
| conservative media.
|
| See for example "sex assigned at birth" https://service-
| manual.nhs.uk/content/inclusive-content/sex-... as an
| example from a mainstream medical institution, the
| British National Health Service.
|
| And transition is not "the cochlear implant", the implant
| would be "an implant that makes you not dysphoric".
| Transition is "learning how to live as a deaf person".
| pmyteh wrote:
| That NHS data collection recommendation says nothing
| about "wrong body", though. They're trying to elicit
| accurate information about something potentially
| medically relevant (assigned biological sex). Their
| concern is that if you ask a trans person simply "male or
| female" you'll get an answer that either reflects the
| gender someone is living in, or the sex on their birth
| certificate. The former is useless if you're trying to
| assess the risk of chromosomal disorders, the latter if
| you're trying to work out how to politely address them.
| anaisbetts wrote:
| The visceral discomfort you feel about having a surgery to
| change your body, how uncomfortable and wrong that feels, and
| how unhappy you would be if someone did that to you?
|
| The feeling that you're having, is _gender dysphoria_. That 's
| what trans people feel _all the time_ , every single fucking
| minute of their lives, every time they look down getting a
| painful reminder that their body isn't Right; until they fix it
| - which is a capital-C Cure. Problem solved, forever.
|
| That sounds pretty fucking great to me. Why wouldn't you let
| people live how they want to?
| NewEntryHN wrote:
| OP doesn't question the issue nor the necessity to fix it. He
| questions the solution.
| Teever wrote:
| Here's a thought experiment. What if we had a simple,
| effective, and side-effect free pharmacutical treatment for
| BIID? what if someone could take a cheap pill every morning
| and they suddenly felt fine with their leg that they would
| otherwise be compelled to cut off?
|
| This would obviously be better than hobbling someone with
| crutches or a wheel chair and a disability cheque, better for
| society abd the individual too.
|
| Now what if a doctor decided one day to test this treatment
| on someone with gender dysphoria and lo and behold it worked
| just as well for them? The patient suddenly felt great about
| their body, great about their appearance and they stopped
| obsessing about changing it with risky and painful surgeries.
|
| This cheap and effective pharmacuticial treatment would
| instantly become a first line treatment for gender dysphoria,
| right?
|
| That sounds pretty fucking great to me. Why wouldn't you want
| people to live their life how they were born to?
| curious-im wrote:
| I guess because they feel that they feel like they born to
| be their preferred gender. The idea that there will be a
| treatment that will make me feel like a gender I'm not
| sounds pretty f-cking terrible to me.
|
| Try this experiment on yourself and think that there is a
| treatment to make you think you are woman/man. How's it
| make you feel? And together with that, reflect on what
| exactly make you be a man/woman - your body or your psyche.
|
| There is a lot parallels between gender dysphoria and BIID,
| but GD is bit more than just 'this is not my body'.
| anaisbetts wrote:
| > That sounds pretty fucking great to me. Why wouldn't you
| want people to live their life how they were born to?
|
| People have an inherent, fundamental Right to their own
| body, to mold it into the image that _they_ choose. If they
| want to take your magic pill? They have every Right to,
| good on 'em. But if they want their body to be a certain
| way, they have that Right too.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Maybe, maybe. If they're willing to foot the bill and if
| nobody has to be coerced into performing the surgery. Oh,
| and they sign a "no regrets, tough shit" contract.
|
| Right now the NHS is dealing with a "Why didn't anyone
| stop me? All I got was positive support!" situation from
| someone who is detransing.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Why don't we expand your thought experiment? What if said
| pill also cured homosexuality? If it made bisexual people
| straight? This treatment would instantly become highly
| valued for all sorts of religious groups and families. And
| if they're perfectly happy after the treatment, what's the
| problem? Why don't you want people to live as 'nature'
| intends?
|
| What your arguing for in your thought experiment is,
| effectively, treatment designed to radically change
| someone's sense of identity without side effects. It's a
| thought experiment that falls apart once you expand it to
| other things that were once commonly thought of as mental
| illness.
| Teever wrote:
| It's simple. Being bisexual or homosexual doesn't
| intrinsically cause any physical or mental anguish for
| people in that state.
|
| People with BIID and Gender dysphoria will kill
| themselves if they don't receive treatment, and will
| otherwise ha e poor life outcomes due to the adjacent
| side effects like depression and self harm that comes.
|
| The only negatives that being bisexual and homosexual
| have come from external sources as you state.
|
| In other words bisexual and homsexuao people are in a
| state of homeostasis while people with BIID and Gender
| dysphoria are not.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| I mean as a bisexual male, I can definitely state I've
| had my fair share of mental anguish over having a thing
| for men in the past so I don't exactly buy your post
| about being in 'homeostasis' as you've described. That
| feels more like post-hoc rationalization for a terrible
| thought experiment than anything else. Especially since
| people that suffer from gender dysphoria tend to have
| worse outcomes due to external sources and lack of
| validation, much like what would happen to severely
| repressed gay people in religious communities.
|
| And to further play the devils advocate there were plenty
| of people at the time that believed gay people were a
| blight on society for multiple reasons. Hence why
| conversion camps were a thing.
| Teever wrote:
| but is the source of the mental anguish that you've
| experienced internal or external?
|
| Like if you were born in a society where religious
| zealots who espoused bisexual bigotry just didnt exist,
| toxic masculinity wasnt a thing and there was a bunch of
| bisexual representation in media would you have had that
| anguish? very unlikely.
|
| People with gender dysphoria face the same negative
| external influences as you do, arguably worse (lets be
| real, much much worse) but if it would be removed and
| they lived in a world without it they would still be
| discontent with their state, to the point of depression
| which would result in a poor quality of life and for many
| suicide.
|
| Thats the hallmark of the disorder. thats what gender
| dysphoria is.
|
| Lets do another thought experiment, what if we lived in a
| society where gender reassignment surgery was impossible.
| like lets ssay we just didnt have the advancements in
| surgical techniques necessary, but we had much better
| pharamcuticals. If surgery was impossible, but giving
| someone a pill like I described in the first thiufht
| experiment was possible that would be the morally correct
| thing to do as opposed to doing nothing, right?
| fzeroracer wrote:
| To address your final thought experiment: In a vacuum?
| Maybe. But there's a simple and easy response to your
| second thought experiment that completely blows it apart,
| and that's lobotomies.
|
| Lobotomies were used as a cure for all kinds of different
| things. If you knew something was a problem and lobotomy
| was the only thing that seemed to cure it, is it morally
| correct to do so as opposed to doing nothing? That's why
| these simplistic thought experiments are bad because
| there are examples of what happens when you take it to
| their logical (and often sadly real) conclusion.
| Teever wrote:
| Is your issue with lobotomies is that they are a crude,
| irreversible surgery that doesn't always work?
|
| Now you understand the reticence towards gender
| reassignment surgery and why someone would be looking for
| much lower risk pharmaceutical treatments for gender
| dysphoria, which is exactly what we ended up doing with
| brain disorders?
|
| It's worth noting that we still do brain surgery on
| people, and that we're even moving towards using implants
| to modulate how the brain functions, as opposed to the
| crude technique of severing parts their brain with rods
| jammed into their noses or holes drilled into their
| heads.
|
| I have a feeling that we'll look back on this time when
| we cut off penises and inverted them into crude vagina
| like canals, jammed silicon bags full of salt water into
| chests and pumped people full of hormones as barbaric as
| the lobotomy era.
|
| They're things that we do out of convenience because
| they're the best that we have, not because it's what we
| want to do.
| anaisbetts wrote:
| > It's simple. Being bisexual or homosexual doesn't
| intrinsically cause any physical or mental anguish for
| people in that state.
|
| I'm pretty sure this is 100% false. If in doubt, ask your
| local Catholic priest about it.
| freebreakfast wrote:
| > treatment designed to radically change someone's sense
| of identity without side effects
|
| To what extent is "sense of identity" innate, and to what
| extent is it culturally shaped?
|
| For example, "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" were
| not something common before the late 19th century. While
| people still engage in sexual acts with the same and/or
| opposite sex, such acts did not play a role in their
| identity.
|
| This is evident as far back as ancient Rome.[0]
|
| > Homosexuality in ancient Rome often differs markedly
| from the contemporary West. Latin lacks words that would
| precisely translate "homosexual" and "heterosexual". The
| primary dichotomy of ancient Roman sexuality was
| active/dominant/masculine and
| passive/submissive/feminine.
|
| To the ancient Romans, sexual acts with someone of the
| same sex wasn't viewed like we do today. They wouldn't
| have spoken about themselves as "gay" or "straight."
| Rather, they would have spoken about themselves as
| "dominant" or "submissive."
|
| This concept runs counter to the way we think about
| sexual identity today, but it demonstrates that there is
| far more nurture in the mix than we often like to admit.
|
| And, please note, this is not a judgment on people who
| identify as homosexual or heterosexual. It is also not a
| claim that we can "change" someone's orientation. It's
| simply pointing out that sexual identity is not
| necessarily something which is purely innate (nature).
| This is something we tend to take for granted and without
| much thought in contemporary Western society.
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient
| _Rome
| ncmncm wrote:
| That is what we do for people with anxiety disorder. They
| often resist treatment, are finally persuaded to try it,
| and almost all are afterward regretful that they did not
| get treatment years earlier.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I wonder if these folks are then eligible for disability. This
| never seems to be addressed in any of the breathless articles
| around this phenomenon.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| It's extremely hard to imagine a meager disability benefit (if
| any) outweighs the surgery and recover and then living without
| the limb indefinitely. If you were really in it for the money,
| would you then hang out on a forum talking about the surgery
| and not the money? Why would you have a whole arm or leg
| removed when you could simply have a hand or some fingers
| removed?
|
| Even if they were eligible for the disability, the implication
| that this isn't a real disorder ignores almost every aspect of
| its reality.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Thinking of the healed leper in "Life of Brian".
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| There's a story from Oliver Sacks (Maybe in TMWMHWFAH [1]) where
| a patient wakes up after a head trauma or stroke and screams at
| his leg - "Get rid of it! Cut it off". IIRC, the dysphoria was
| acute or somehow treated, so that might suggest there's a good
| prognosis with neurological intervention.
|
| [1] "The Man Who Mistook Hos Wife For A Hat"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_f...
| throwaway4bid wrote:
| That actually wasn't BID, it was another condition called
| somatoparaphrenia. They might be linked, but no treatment short
| of surgery for BID has ever demonstrated efficacy.
| drummer wrote:
| curious-im wrote:
| Ive read stories from people with BIID and in many ways it's
| similar to gender dysphoria. The way they feel it, all the things
| around it, fantasies, dreams, etc.
|
| Gender affirming surgeries have success rate of 95%+. No surprise
| that BIID people have no regrets after all.
| bradwood wrote:
| Since when was "wannabes" a medical/academic term?
| throwaway4bid wrote:
| "wannabe" was the in-group term used inside the BID community,
| back in the '00s. It's fallen out of favor as a pejorative
| lately.
| throwaway4bid wrote:
| I have this condition (Body Integrity Dysphoria), along with a
| fairly intense physical disability that I did not choose (genetic
| disorder), and along with being trans, so I can answer any
| questions you'd like to ask.
|
| I became aware of my BID at age 6. I specifically want paralysis,
| which is ironic now that I'm showing neurological symptoms from
| the genetic condition. There is a sexual component for me, but
| it's not my main motivation, and the sexual aspect has reduced as
| the pure dysphoria intensifies.
|
| The physical dysphoria is fairly similar to the gender dysphoria
| I've experienced, but the social aspects, identity and tradeoffs
| are completely different.
|
| I've tried antidepressants, therapy including traditional
| psychoanalysis, IFS, CBT, ACT, etc. Nothing has put a dent in the
| dysphoria, only helped me move on despite it. I know two people
| who've successfully achieved their disability, and they're much
| happier now. I would if I were not so terrified of the risks of
| DIY.
| shrubble wrote:
| Was treatment with pimozide ever attempted?
| freemint wrote:
| I am aware that hypnosis can be used to induce temporary
| paralysis in targeted body regions. Have you experimented with
| that and does it offer a temporary reprieve from at least one
| of your sources of disphoria?
| mgsk wrote:
| There's a great long-form article about this:
| https://medium.com/matter/8476df17bddf
| shanusmagnus wrote:
| Ugh, that's heart-wrenching. Curious, did you know about this
| phenomenon already, and thus remember the article? Or did you
| find it just now?
| implements wrote:
| > "The tension that had lined his face was gone. I sensed
| relief, happiness. David's leg had plagued him for much of his
| life. He was free of it, and now he seemed whole."
|
| This type of 'cure' for dysmorphia is _not_ something to be
| celebrated.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| ...why not? Italicizing "not" isn't much of an argument.
| implements wrote:
| His fixation with amputating his leg started at four years
| old, it has an admitted sexual element, and now he has a
| permanent life-altering disability - all this for the want
| of proper psychological treatment.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| The study deals with this though. The people that have
| BIID do go through psychological treatment, seek therapy,
| medication etc which don't seem to blunt the issue.
|
| But ultimately the end result seems to be that they will
| eventually, one way or another, find a way to get the
| surgery they desire. I don't know what your solution
| would be in that scenario other than to criminalize it
| and even then, there's reports of people doing home made
| amputations by sitting on rail tracks or whatever else
| you can think of.
| throwaway4bid wrote:
| I have BID. I've been in therapy for more than a decade.
| Therapy has not done anything whatsoever for my
| dysphoria.
|
| I'm convinced that my overall quality of life would
| improve if I got the disability I desire. The mental
| anguish is simply more intense than the consequences of
| physical limitation. I personally know others who have
| "gone through with it" and they really are happier now.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > proper psychological treatment
|
| And that is....? There is no psychological treatment that
| cures BIID and the patient here seems very happy. Is it
| really better and "proper" to give someone treatment that
| doesn't solve their problem and leaves them upset?
| filoleg wrote:
| I think the main idea of a proper psychological treatment
| is that it wont "leave them upset".
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