In Quest to Normalize Polyamory American Psychological Association Loses All Credibility
 
In Quest to Normalize Polyamory American Psychological Association Loses All Credibility
Written By Laurie Higgins   |   07.08.19
Reading Time: 5 minutes
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***UPDATED with new information***

“Impedimenta: objects, as provisions or baggage, that impede or encumber”

No one with an iota of integrity, a morsel of morality, or a pittance of professionalism should ever cite the American Psychological Association (APA) again. Why not, you may be wondering. Well, the APA has a special area called Division 44 (kind of like Nevada’s Area 51). Division 44 is also called “The Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity (SPSOGD).” Division 44 was founded “in 1985 by a group of pioneering LGB psychologists and their allies,” and one of its primary purposes is to “promote the development and delivery of affirmative psychological services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender and gender nonconforming and queer people.” In the service of this purpose, last year Division 44

formed a task force on consensual non-monogamy (CNM), in recognition of relationship diversity, which intersects with sexual/gender identities in interesting ways. 

“Consensual non-monogamy” is a euphemism for adultery, sexual infidelity, or polyamory. Leftists must paint sexual immorality with a glossy finish if they’re going to deceive people and advance their socially destructive ideology.

And make no mistake, the CNM Task Force is hell-bent on advancing their ideology using precisely the same tactics that homo-activists and “trans”-activists use. They are portraying polyamorists and other sexually unfaithful persons as victims and cultural disapproval as an unmitigated evil, known in the dystopian “progressive” world as “discrimination”:

[T]here is clearly a stigma attached to practicing consensual non-monogamies. Forthcoming research by Ryan Witherspoon, PhD, a project lead of the CNM task force, indicates that more than half of CNM-identified individuals have experienced anti-CNM discrimination in some form, despite frequently concealing their CNM practices. 

To Leftists, there is nothing shameful but shame itself—oh, and conservative moral positions on sexuality. Those are totally shameworthy and to be stowed away in closets.

According to the APA,

Division 44’s Consensual Non-Monogamy Task Force promotes awareness and inclusivity about consensual non-monogamy and diverse expressions of intimate relationships. These include but are not limited to: people who practice polyamory, open relationships, swinging, relationship anarchy and other types of ethical non-monogamous relationships.

The Consensual Non-Monogamy Task Force is co-chaired by perversion advocate and University of California, Berkeley licensed counseling psychologist Heath Schechinger and perversion advocate Amy Moors, who is an associate professor of psychology at Chapman University where she “examines diverse expressions of sexuality, including how stigma affects well-being among sexual minorities and people engaged in consensually non-monogamous relationships.”

She and Schechinger are both connected to the Kinsey Institute, she as a research fellow and Schechinger as an advisor to the Kinsey Institute’s Kenneth R. Haslam Collection on Polyamory, named after Dr. Kenneth Haslam who self-identifies as a “Golden Age polyamory activist. Long retired anesthesiologist. Gadfly. Troublemaker. Heretic. Single but not alone. Sex positive. Unitarian Universalist.”

Schechinger is particularly excited about a letter he co-wrote asking the task force to “be inclusive of non-monogamy and kink.” In the letter, there is a link to a petition which includes a request to  include consensual non-monogamy as a protected class.” (No one can honestly say they weren’t warned about the dangers of adding “sexual orientation” to anti-discrimination policies and laws.)

The Consensual Non-Monogamy Task Force’s Advisory Board includes the following:

  • Cunning Minx, “a poly and kinky sex-positive educator and activist” and a “kinky boobiesexual.”
  • Charles Moser, Ph.D. M.D., a “sex educator, sex researcher, clinical sexologist, and sexual medicine physician, who practices in San Francisco” and focuses on those “who identify as a sexual or gender minority, those who practice (or hope to practice) an alternative sexual or relationship lifestyle, and those who engage in nonconforming sexual or gender behaviors.”
  • Dossie Easton, a California marriage and family therapist who says this on her website: “Since 1969, I have lived and worked in sexual minority cultures. I am dedicated to feminist, polyamorous, BDSM [Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, Masochism], spiritual, gender-diverse, and LGBTQ individuals and communities. I explore, with my clients and in my own life, new paradigms of gender, sexuality, and relationships.”
  • Elisabeth Sheff, PhD., “an expert on polyamory and sexual minority families with children” who writes a blog on Psychology Today’s website titled, “The Polyamorists Next Door: Exploring the world of consensual non-monogamy”
  • Jes Matsick, PhD., Penn State U. “Assistant Professor of Psychology and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies,” Matsick’s “research program is at the intersection of gender, sexuality, and prejudice…. Her… approaches to research often prioritize the perspectives and experiences of stigmatized groups (e.g., … people in nontraditional relationships).”
  • John Sakaluk, Ph.D. associate professor of psychology at the University of Victoria in Canada, and co-accomplice author (along with Schechinger and Moors) of a paper titled “Harmful and helpful therapy practices with consensually non-monogamous clients: Toward an inclusive framework.” Any guesses as to what constitutes harmful, “inappropriate” therapy practices”? Yep, therapies that are not “affirming” of “consensual non-monogamy” are deemed harmful and inappropriate, while those that affirm sexual profligacy are deemed “exemplary.”
  • Justin Lehmiller, Ph.D., social psychologist, prolific writer on sex, and research fellow at the Kinsey Institute who offers lectures and workshops that provide “science-backed tips for maintaining happy and healthy relationships, whether you want to be monogamous, polyamorous, or something in between.”
  • Susan Wright, M.A., “founded the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom in 1997, a national advocacy organization for the BDSM, swing and polyamory communities, and currently serves as spokesperson for the organization. She chaired the successful DSM-5 Revision Project, and coordinated the [Sadomasochism] Policy Reform Project for the National Organization for Women (NOW) which resulted in rescinding their anti-BDSM policy at their national conference in 1999. Susan has published over 30 books including kinky romance novels.”
  • Richard A. Sprott Ph.D., a lecturer in the Department of Human Development and Women’s Studies at California State University, East Bay, who views BDSM as a “sexual orientation” and cultural disapproval of sexual perversion as unhealthy stigmatization. Sprott has more than an academic interest in BDSM. He’s also a practitioner. This past April Sprott led a workshop titled “Scat: Beyond Brown” at a homosexual BDSM convention in Cleveland. “Scat” refer to “feces play.” (In what world is playing with feces [i.e., coprophilia] psychologically healthy?) He’s also the chair of the Children, Youth and Families Committee of Division 44.

Kind of an ideologically non-diverse task force, wouldn’t you say? I guess ideological diversity would fly in the faces of devotees of diversity. Can’t have that, say the tolerant among us.

We should expect nothing other than ideological uniformity, confirmation bias, and moral vacuity from this task force.

In the Great Awokening that really got churning in the late 20th Century, woke people increasingly abandoned Scripture, common sense, and even hard science as arbiters of morality, truth, and reality. Village wokesters filled the knowledge gap with ideological impedimenta from the pseudosciences, also known as the soft sciences.

“Progressives,” impelled by a self-centered obsession with sexual autonomy and absent a commitment to objective truth or the notion of a public good, have long abused the woefully unstable social sciences to advance their libertine goals. They will exploit methodologically flawed pseudoscience and hijack mental health organizations to defend and promulgate their subversive sexual philosophy. When exploited research is exposed as deeply flawed, the foolish but powerful among us just move on knowing that Americans have short memories and atrophying powers of coherent thinking, and that the mainstream media are loathe to expose anything that undermines the continuing sexual revolution.

The American Psychological Association’s sexual bias and ignorance are showing. The APA is a tool for sexual deviance advocacy. Time for the morally and intellectually slumbering masses who’ve been massively duped by wokesters to wake up.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:



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Laurie Higgins
Laurie Higgins was the Illinois Family Institute’s Cultural Affairs Writer in the fall of 2008 through early 2023. Prior to working for the IFI, Laurie worked full-time for eight years in Deerfield High School’s writing center in Deerfield, Illinois. Her cultural commentaries have been carried on a number of pro-family websites nationally and internationally, and Laurie has appeared on numerous radio programs across the country. In addition, Laurie has spoken at the Council for National Policy and educational conferences sponsored by the Constitutional Coalition. She has been married to her husband for forty-four years, and they have four grown children...
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