This American Life: 81 Words

As the hour of last week’s This American Life was coming to close, I realized how Foucauldian this story was.  “81 Words” is about how the American Psychiatric Association came to the decision to remove homosexuality as a disease from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973.  This tale not only deals with power -relations among the board, but primarily with the profound effect scientia sexualis has on the way we view others and ourselves.

LISTEN: This American Life: “81 Words”

(http://thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=204)

During yesterday’s discussion I thought about my first entry on this blog, the Fresh Air podcast about childbirth, and how Professor Quinby had commented about being careful not to impose our contemporary understanding of medicine, etc. on events in the past.  “81 Words” is another good example of when seemingly good intentions in history are either misunderstood or backfire due to social circumstance–a lot of what is said on the show seems shocking now.  A case in point, according to doctors from the show: Around 1973, the majority of psychiatrists, including those identifying themselves as gay, thought that homosexuality was pathological.  Today, this is the reverse.