I WAS astonished to read of the research programme on aversion therapy for homosexuality at the Health Psychology Unit at Hong Kong University (Sunday Morning Post, January 8).
This treatment is anachronistic to current thinking and seriously lacks an empirical rationale. The reasoning behind this programme also proposes a reductionist and unacceptable view of homosexuality in the 1990s. The idea of using supposedly titillating pictures of scantily clad men or women to arouse sexual interest panders to the myopic view that homosexuality can be explained simply in terms of sexual acts between people of the same sex. Homosexuality is a lifestyle. It represents a physical, emotional, social and spiritual experience, much like heterosexuality. It is not an illness. It needs no cure.
The desperation of Dr Peter Lee Wing-ho's clients has probably less to do with their being homosexual and more to do with the prejudice they may face when acknowledging their sexual preference. He could plug them into the national grid for 24 hours per day and it would do little to assuage their feelings.
Your editorial put it most succinctly when it recommended extensive counselling for people troubled by their sexuality. However this will only be successful if there exists concomitant support and understanding from the society in which they have an inalienable right to live.
PATRICK CALLAGHAN Sha Tin
