STORY PROMPT #10: The Cure

[nolan]

There are a number of groups that have claimed that sexual orientation is a choice and that it is possible to change. The prevalent scientific view is that sexual orientation is fixed with a heavy genetic component and, in most cases, it can not be changed. Either way, issues regarding gay rights have been quite contentious in a number of places over the last 30 years or so.

Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men and the third X-Men film dealt with a similar idea of a "cure" for mutants. And a number of comparisons have been drawn between mutants and gays in the X-Men comics.

In this prompt, you are to write a story about a world where a drug has been discovered that can "cure" homosexuality and make gay people straight.

What happens then?

Some questions you may want to think about when you are working on this prompt:

1. Is the cure forced on people?
2. What are the side effects?
3. How does the cure work?
4. How widely available is it?
5. What is the reaction from the gay community?
6. What is the reaction from the other side--the homophobes?
7. Do families try to force it on relatives?
8. Are there physicians who refuse to use this medicine?
9. What is the reaction of heterosexuals to this?
10. Is there a difference in reaction between gay men and lesbians to this announcement?

[jayvee]

You might flip the concept, too, Devil's advocate style.

Whaddya mean, a "cure" for heterosexuality?!?

[nolan]

True. The heterosexual angle would work too.

And this could go a lot of different directions.


Maybe it doesn't matter how it works and whether it affects cells in some part of the brain, it just makes you straight. And the story is really about a family conspiring to force a relative to do it.