Would You Turn Straight If You Had the Chance?

It's a question many LGBT folks might ask themselves at some point in their lives. "What if I could just be straight?" Well ... what if?

Say that magic genie comes out of Christina Aguilera's bottle and says that s/he could turn you straight if you'd like. Would you take the plunge?

That's the thrust behind a new survey in the United Kingdom that asked 2,500 gay men whether, if they had the chance, they would switch their lives up and change their sexuality to heterosexual. The results are in, and they might just surprise you.

The study was framed like this: say there's a "medical advancement" that would allow you to change your sexual orientation. Would you head on down to the doctor's office and give it a go?

Three-quarters (well, technically, 74 percent) said they wouldn't. Meaning that if a magic pill existed, it would stay on the shelves. And that's a good thing, according to Mancentral.com, the Web site that conducted the poll. Their spokesman, Lee Martin, said that they hope this survey shows that while many people (gay men) might pine for the social acceptance that straight people get automatically, few gay men are ready to jump ship.

"In recent years, there have been reports of members of the LGBT community seeking to ‘cure’ themselves through various religious and questionably medical means," Martin said. "Whilst we strongly believe that sexuality is innate, and therefore not something that can or should be ‘cured,’ we felt the research would enable the LGBT community to recognize the importance of self-acceptance alongside wider social acceptance."

Now, what I want to see is a poll of "straight" people, asking how many of them would head on over toward the LGBT spectrum if a magic blue pill existed. But who needs magic blue pills when we've got Teletubbies and soy milk to do the job for us.

So the poll was mostly done in jest, by a Web site more interested in allowing folks to find friends or dates or sex partners (rather than a scientific journal), but there's one part of it that might bear some further studying. And that's the percentage of young people, 37 percent, who would change their sexual orientation if it was possible. Sure, that likely has something to do with the coming out experience and the relative newness of expressing or understanding one's own sexuality. But it's a pretty high figure, that might want to get our collective brain cells percolating over ideas about how to make sure recently out folks, especially young adults and teenagers, have the confidence and self-esteem to grow into and be confident about their sexual identity.

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