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Somewhere downthread, or perhaps last week, conversion therapy was described as akin to the Ludovico treatment from A Clockwork Orange. Let's say that this assessment is plausible. Why hasn't an effective version been developed for some (not necessarily gay male) sexual preferences? Surely there is no shortage of adults who would like to reprogram themselves but lack the means to do so.
Some of this probably reflects a lot of conversion/reparative therapy being based on largely outdated and not-especially-brilliant psychological theories to start with : Ludovico's bad enough, but a Ludovico approach driven by shoddy Freudian psychoanalysis manages to often be worse, creepier, and more prone to abuse.
There's been some efforts toward 'bihacking', for a (weakly) less controversial approach using somewhat more updated techniques, although I (and Ozy) both caution that it's not been hugely successful and even those who do end up bi often find themselves unsure whether they 'changed' or just started noticing better or being more comfortable with it.
((Uh, alternatively alternatively, some people just go in the furry fandom for long enough, but that's probably a different selection effect.))
Internally, though, I don't think the model underlying the whole CBT is right (in the cognitive-behavioral therapy sense, though I expect the nutbusting one doesn't work either). I get why people think of sexuality as parallel to how salvatory glands work, and there's probably some component of that there. But sexuality has enough counter-inductive things backed into it that trying to Pavlov's going to feel incomplete.
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