I'm working on a story set in the future.
I'm assuming they have brain chemistry figured out more than now.
so.
They have created a drug that, after puberty and if taken daily, will cause a gay man to be sexually attracted to women, for as long as he takes it. I can easily imagine situations where a gay man would take the drug to pass in society, or because he was in love with a woman.
(And when I use the term man, it also works for women)

Conversely,
They have also created a drug that, after puberty and if taken daily, will cause a straight man to be sexually attracted to men, for as long as he takes it. I can imagine situations where a straight man would take because he was in love with a gay man, through sadly, it's not as likely.

I find this idea fascinating because the drugs might decimate the gay community.
It it took effect almost instantly, would it be something guys would casually try at frat parties?
Guys would likely smuggle the stuff into prison.
Would a gay man who took this, be self loathing, or pragmatic?
Would a straight man who took this, be a freak or a romantic?

If this set of drugs existed, how else would it change American culture, what other fun and interesting ramifications might happen, that I'm not thinking about?

If it didn't have lasting side effects, I'd probably experiment and try it at least once, see what the other team seems so obsessed over, but it wouldn't be a long term thing. How about you?

If you're thinking of experimenting with a drug that makes you gay for a day, you probably don't need any medication of the sort.

Well, as the joke goes.... that's called Alcohol(grin!). As in "Man, we were soooo drunk last night. I cannot believe we [Fill the blank]."

I don't quite understand the premise. If you're straight, you're unlikely to fall in love with somebody of the same sex and therefore unlikely to need the drug in the first place. Similarly, if you're gay you'd be unlikely to fall in love with someone of the opposite sex. As a voluntary drug, I suspect its practical applications in society would be very limited.

I could see more sinister uses for it, however. If someone who's straight (male or female) fell in love with someone who wasn't, then they might want to administer it to the other person. The same motivation could apply to someone who's gay but who fell in love with someone who's straight.

I could also see groups of friends using it on unsuspecting colleagues for a joke.

Or, in a society where the number of women to men is significantly out of balance (plus or minus!), an unscrupulous government might choose to "convert" a portion of the population to ensure a roughly 50/50 ratio is maintained. Alternatively, if the drug only worked on straight individuals, it could be used to turn a sufficient number gay in order that the number of men and women seeking straight partners remained in balance. This kind of application would presumably be geared to population control.

In the workplace, it could be used to ensure that, for example, doctors specialising in gynaecology are always straight women or gay men in order to reduce the likelihood of abuse. The opposite could apply to doctors working with men's issues.

Depending on the world you're building, the attitude of the military would be interesting, too. Do you ensure none of the soldiers are gay, or do you ensure that they all are to protect local populations from rape etc.

Overall, I think the story potential is far greater for a drug which people do not want to take, rather than it is for one that they do!

I agree, in our society, that's unlikely, but not impossible.


This is why I posted the question. That is a take on this idea, that I never considered. You have won the "mind like a box of snakes" award.

You just reminded me of the the Forever war, where the earth was overpopulated so the powers that be, forced MOST everyone be gay, to get the population down, humanely.

WHAT?

Humm. Maybe it wasn't chemically induced. It was written back when the straight's understanding was that it was a chosen behavior.

Let's see, given a choice of mass starvation or just simply shooting people, it seems like a better way to get the population down.
Trust me, being gay is NOT a fate worse than death.

I'd much rather just stay straight but be temporarily sterilized. Makes a helluva lot more sense. And I'd agree with what DAJB said earlier, that it's just waaaay unlikely that a straight man would fall in love with another man, largely because there is such a huge sexual component to what we call "love." Think about it, what's the difference between the relationship you have with your "significant other" and your normal friends? Other than the fact that you and her/him are having sex, not a whole lot.

While I strongly doubt any pharmaceutical company would be willing to put in the necessary investment to create such a drug, I'd say that Version B of the drug would probably not be very popular, because (sorry) I just can't imagine somebody wanting to be gay. And besides, plenty of perfectly straight men are already quite capable of enjoying homosexual intercourse when necessity dictates, such as in prisons and in the military for instance. As for Version A, I could imagine that many homosexuals would take it in order to fit in, but I'd also imagine they would eventually find that there was more than just a physical component to their homoerotic feelings and would find heterosexual love unfulfilling.

My point exactly! If there wasn't for the cultural taboo, you would have more guys using it,cause they had the great friendship, just not the sexual attraction. So why not add it, and be a couple.

Still, given your comments, for my gentler uses of the drug to work, our culture would have to relax a lot.

I love the idea that the male men's health doctors and boy scout leaders might have to take the make-straight version. And the male Jr-high girl's volleyball coach would have to take the make-gay version.

And what would they do with ice skating?

The current military would go all straight, of course.

Why would you want to screw up your friendships by turning them all into one big orgy? Seriously, that does not sound like something any sound-minded human being would consider. I have plenty of female friends who I'm not in any way interested in having sex with, and frankly I do not believe turning those into sexual relationships would be beneficial. You don't have to have sex with everyone you like, in order to show you like them, and there are plenty of fish in the sea to find a sexual partner without having to take a pill that turns your buddies into candidates. Nobody's that desperate. I suppose it could work, in a wacky fictional sci-fi setting, but I just keep running into walls when I try to imagine any real-world applications. Neat idea, though. Weird, but neat.

I would have to agree there. An gay person who weren't happy with who (s)he was, would most likely take the drug than an gay person who was completely comfortable with who (s)he was.

They also might be the type to be the self-loathing type.

And... I'm just wondering...

what about Bisexuality and Asexuality??

Bisexual people also can't help being attracted to both sexes at all.... and although they have this illusion of "having a choice",they don't. they could easily fall in love with both an guy and a woman at the same time and then have this huge difficulty being able to choose because of that love for both genders.

And then there's Asexuality. those are people with very extremely low sex drives, and their sexual orientation is pretty much zero. that is, they aren't attracted to ANY genders at all... and for some, they find the idea of sex repulsive. They can enjoy relationships though... but just don't expect them to actually ENJOY sex. They can't help it, it's just how they were wired, usually.

So... what if there were also pills that caused Asexuality? probably would be way more ideal for priests, the military, etc.

Ohhh. Great idea for the priests.
I'm not sure the military would go for it. I think being asexual would make them less aggressive, less fighter material. How many fights are over a woman, and how many eunuchs have you heard of fighting over ...well anything?

When I think of Asexuality, I think of being less aggressive. That sex and competition for sex, makes us all do stupid things, or at very least, get distracted.
Would teenager be forced to take the Asexuality pills, till they got out of high school?
People who wanted to focus in group settings, would take the Asexuality pills. Want to work at our corporation, you have to take these pills.

actually.... I have a few friends who are actually asexual, and I have to tell you-- not true at all.

they were very extremely competitive when it came to things they wanted, and they had the ability to completely focus on the goals they desired without other things like dating and the like getting in the way. In fact this one asexual guy was an football player in high school at the same school I went to, believe it or not. He was an very mellow guy off the playing fields... but when he put on that football helmet... oh boy. watch out!

He was also very studious, since he didn't bother worrying about being popular with the girls or the boys.

That's why I said I could see it working for the military-- no raping of women/men etc... all they will think of is the goals they've been told to complete.


I can see it being used for Teenagers though... LOL! relive the parents from worrying about having to talk to them about the birds and the bees, about safe sex.... and then no more sex education in school unless it's just talking about how the body works :p

in fact, move sex education up to college level, when the Teenagers are now legal adults by then in terms of 18-19 years old....

Man, being gay isn't a choice but... I dunno, I king of like being gay! All the sex I want without worry of unplanned pregnancies, low risk of STD transference between females, ladies already know how my biology works. When I was younger I might have taken the straight pill, but not anymore.

It is possible for a straight person to fall in love with someone of the same sex, or a gay person to fall in love with someone of the opposite sex. Often, though, it's just too hard to get over the sexual incompatibility, and a relationship doesn't work, despite both people being in love with each other. So straight guys could possibly fall in love with each other, and then "turn gay" for each other.

And I agree that an asexuality pill would work great for the military. Also in prisons. Rather than turn all the guys in prison gay so they enjoy having sex with each other, why not turn them all asexual? Because even if all the guys in there were gay, it doesn't mean Jim necessarily wants to have sex with Bubba. (Though prison rape, as with any rape, is more about power than sex, it would help to cut down the prisoners' sex drives until their release date.)


As far as using this for a plot, this isn't so much a plot as it is a situation. Keep that in mind when you write this. It's interesting, but not interesting enough to base the whole story on.

Being gay seems to have more in common with the physical structure of the brain rather than the chemical. And certain chemicals could only really have an effect in utero at a certain stage in foetal development. So drugs would most likely not have an effect or at least not an immediate one.

However, a more likely solution would be to create a drug that makes people asexual. As it's a lot easier to reduce or remove libido altogether than to change it's preffered target.

But whether both are possible or not, a story about that kind of topic has to take into account the psychological affects of being unsure whether your sexuality is yours or because of some drug slipped into your water supply. It has to be realistic in at least some way in order to stand out among the hordes of similar storylines.

I'd say that it's possible, although bloody hard, to make some sort of medicine that alters your sexual preferences and it wouldn't be 100% effective. It's part biology and part mind. Most of us a raised with the notion that homosexuality is wrong and even if we don't believe it, we may still find the idea of being with someone of the same sex to be considerably revolting. This if someone would start spiking my food with medicine that should make me gay I'd subconsciously fight the urge just like many real gays do for years before finally coming out of the closet if they do it at all.

Lust is biological and love is psychological. The pill would affect the lust factor. It would do it gradually and confuse the shit out of the person taking the drug. The person would feel him/herself being sexually attracted to individuals that s/he felt nothing for before.

It couldn't function as a 24 hour pill that works instantaneously, it just wouldn't work. For something to mess up with your hormones that fast would probably make you insane at the same time.

It's also probably possible to make drugs that could make you asexual. Basically it would be a sexual urge suppressant. It would require many years of extensive testing just like the "gay cure" before the FDA would even consider allowing it to be tested on human subjects. Many possible side effects could be depression, sloth and other similar ones I'd wager.

Then you'd need to consider the human rights value. Gay right movements would be in uproar if someone would market something like this as a cure for gay.

All in all I'd say it's a terrible idea that would only be considered by a society that wants to get rid of homosexuality in a "humane" manner.

This is a common story idea?

I don't have clue about what makes one person gay or the next person straight and the third person bisexual. It's just an interesting plot idea if it could be temporarily changed. I bet they were writing speculative fiction 110 years about women having the right to vote. Or better, we don't have clue how superheroes powers could exist, but we write stories about them all the time.

I'm trying to imagine a world where the make-gay, make-straight, make-asexual drugs were commonplace. How could it be used for good, how could it be used for bad. So far, I"m getting some interesting ideas for a couple of fun and scary variations.

Did you ever read the book? It was presented that the government not only encouraged but bred the people to become gay. Afterall they were totally capable of regrowing severed limbs etc. They all dressed like 18th Century fops.

The capacity for controlling someone's sexual preference would just be too much. I'd imagine government enforced morality. If they could control sexual preference they could probably also finally efffectively eliminate all sexual desire and render certain members of society "sexless"

Or how about something to hype up the libido? Turn the asexual into a crazed sex fiend. Very effective for control. Increased or decreased Sex drive could be used as the carrot and stick. The studies on asexuality aren't in yet and it may not be wired, but a condition. Unless of course it's another method of sexual selection for our species. Let's see take out X% gay, X% asexual... no wonder monogamy doesn't seem to be the norm, there's a shortage of sex partners out there!

As for doing it to the military; tsk, tsk, sexually active soldiers are very effective terror weapons. They'd probably have specific battalions with an enhanced libido. Also if you took out all the sexual desire among military types they'd all be drunks and gamblers. Perpetually broke and drunk.

Maybe do that to people they don't want reproducing?

As for who "they" is let your imagination run wild.

About 25 years ago, so large parts of it are hazy.


If you had a very long lived society and not a lot of resources, and access to these drugs, I'd think a pragmatic society would go mostly be-gay, allowing for a lottery or merit system for the lucky few allowed to be-straight and have just enough kids to keep the population from imploding or over breeding.
Why be-gay? Cause I think society as whole is better with couples, more than a bunch of asexual individuals. Look how hard gay people are trying to get the rights of marriage. You take that need for many (not all) people to couple up, and I think society as whole is worse off.


That would just be nasty. Probably would be used, but nasty. It would fit with some of the terror methods used to demoralize a community.

I agree. That would be a bleak unpleasant world, at least in my point of view.

That leads to an obvious bad pun story called "Learner's Permit".

Not really in the Christian faith. Taking the vows of the priesthood is more a test of one's faith. If God gives you a test, it's usually not the best idea to cheat. I could see Buddhist priests using it, though.

As for the effectiveness of such a drug, I think the biological impulse only goes so far. At some point in your life, your life experience and personal prejudices take over. My father's best friend is gay, but he never really knew it until he was over 50. He was raised Catholic and always believed himself to be straight. He even married and had two kids. Over the years he and his wife grew more and more distant and after a great deal of therapy, he eventually came to the conclusion that he was really a closet gay. Now if the mind is powerful enough to override biological urges, I seriously doubt a simple change in body chemistry could in fact alter one's personal views of their sexuality. At least not in such a short period of time. I really think it would require at the very least months, if not years, of therapy in conjunction with that kind of drug to reverse a person's sexuality. Such a thing would be a bit dodgy as it borders on brainwashing, much like those Christian groups that try to "cure" gays.

Perhaps if the drug worked in concert with some sort of psychotropic or narcotic? It's not that difficlt to alter the way someone thinks.
Perhaps if we ever reach the level of sophistication with drugs that freefall speculates on then we'll be able to use other psychotropics or narcotic to go the extra mile...?

But then who knows how much is "nature" and how much "nurture"? It seems like an extremely complicated mixture and very likely not the same for everyone.

Perhaps a placebo would be almost as effective in many cases? That'd be a very interesting study.
-Failure or success, it'd be just as fascinating.

Oh I love placebo stories. There was one where this convicted killer was secretly executed but instead he was put into a project where they were conducting illegal drug test on him and other prisoners. The medicine was supposed to grant people who were practically incapable of feeling remorse some "conscience". This was a guy who was colder then everything and didn't care for any of the stuff he'd done. Shortly afterward he starts feeling horrible for his crimes and starts crying at night. His sense of right and wrong became so strong and his personality completely changes. They take it to the next lever where they let him go while keeping him heavily monitored to see if he can function under society while taking the drug. He get's a job, girlfriend, everything looks great for him.

Long story short it turns out that he was part of the control group. He was taking placebos while everyone who took the real drug died from the side effects.

Something very like it has been done before at least. I saw an article somewhere about the topic being used in a few 20th century novels when I was doing research on the sexuality of one of my own characters. I can't remember the names of the books or the URL of where I saw the descriptions of these books but I definitely saw them.
I'll try looking again and see if I can find them.

I remember a mediocre sci fi book from the 90s? where everyone in the world got inoculated with an experimental vaccine or they would have died of a virulent HIV strain. A side effect was the kids born from the vaccinated parents switched genders every month. I forget the exact time period, but for at least 5 days a month, they changed. I don't remember if there was an ability to choose what gender they wanted to be, most of the time. They stayed female if pregnant.
It lead to a gender neutral utopia, of course, as all the gender issues of the world were equalized since everyone experienced life as the opposite gender for a while.

The Simpson also did a joke about this. Bart and Lisa were watching their own future and in it, Smithers was taking a drug to cure his gay. I think he needed to take an injection ever 10 minutes or so.

It's in this episode although the scene isn't presented.

I saw that episode years go. He injects himself on screen and then yells "I LOVE BOOBIES!" if I can remember correctly.

Looks like someone writing the script or something read one of those books and thought the idea was good enough to parody.

Mind you, there are a lot of discussions I've read about homosexuality on the internet that is there was a pill to make someone straight that they would take it. And I've even seen some parody videos and stuff about the creation of a pill to make people gay. So the idea is not already used in just literature. It's an idea that's been around for a while now.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/928566/the_gay_pill/
Even this video got released a few years ago.

And it's not just pills that are discussed. I saw a parody webpage of a "gay away" patch kinda like a nicotine patch.

You remembered correctly. :Ð