page_title: Aesthetic Realism
section_title: Aesthetic Realism and homosexuality
hierarchical_section_title: Aesthetic Realism / History / Aesthetic Realism and homosexuality
caption_attribution_description: Sheldon Kranz and Anne Fielding
context_page_description: Aesthetic Realism is a philosophy founded in 1941 by the American poet and critic Eli Siegel. He defined it as a three-part study: “[T]hese three divisions can be described as: One, Liking the world; Two, The opposites; Three, The meaning of contempt.”
  Aesthetic Realism differs from other approaches to mind in identifying a person's attitude to the whole world as the most crucial thing in his or her life, affecting how one sees everything, including love, work, and other people. For example, it says racism begins with the desire to have contempt for what is different from oneself. The philosophy is principally taught at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, an educational institution based in SoHo, New York City.
  In the 1980s the Foundation faced controversy for its assertion that men changed from homosexuality to heterosexuality through study of Aesthetic Realism. In 1990, it stopped presentations and consultations on this subject.
context_section_description: A controversial aspect of the philosophy concerns the assertion that men and women could change from homosexuality through studying its principles. In 1946 writer and WW II veteran Sheldon Kranz (1919–1980) was the first man to report that he changed from homosexuality through Aesthetic Realism.   Kranz said that as his way of seeing the world changed, his sexual preference also changed: from a homosexual orientation (he was no longer impelled toward men) to a heterosexual one that included love for a woman for the first time in his life. Kranz was married for 25 years (until his death) to Obie award-winning actress Anne Fielding.
  In keeping with its general approach, Aesthetic Realism views homosexuality as a philosophic matter. A fundamental principle of the philosophy is that every person is in a fight between contempt for the world and respect for it.   Siegel stated that this fight is present as well in homosexuality. In the field of love and sex, a homosexual man prefers the sameness of another man while undervaluing the difference of the world that a woman represents. This undervaluing of difference is a form of contempt for the world; therefore, as a man learns how to like the world honestly, his attitude towards difference changes and this affects every area of his life, including sexual preference.
  Beginning in 1965 supporters of the philosophy began an effort to have press and media report on the change from homosexuality through Aesthetic Realism.  In 1971 men (including Kranz) who said they changed through Aesthetic Realism were interviewed on New York City's WNET Channel 13 Free Time show  and the David Susskind Show, which had a national syndication.  The book The H Persuasion, published that year, contained writing by Siegel detailing his premise about the cause of homosexuality, transcripts of Aesthetic Realism lessons, and narratives by men who said they changed, describing both why they changed and how.  In response to requests from men and women wanting to study Aesthetic Realism, Siegel designated four consultation trios, one of which, Consultation With Three, was for the purpose of teaching men who wanted to change from homosexuality.  In 1983, five other men who said they had changed from homosexuality were interviewed on the David Susskind Show. The transcript of this interview was published in the 1986 book The Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel and the Change from Homosexuality.
  With the exception of a brief 1971 review calling The H Persuasion "less a book than a collection of pietistic snippets by Believers,"  the New York Times never reported that men said they changed from homosexuality through Aesthetic Realism. Students of the philosophy who said they changed from homosexuality or in other large ways accused the press of unfairly withholding information valuable to the lives of people. In the 1970s they mounted an aggressive campaign of telephone calls, letters, ads, and vigils in front of various media offices and at the homes of editors. Many wore lapel buttons that read "Victim of the Press".
  In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder. In 1978, ads were placed in three major newspapers stating "we have changed from homosexuality through our study of the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel." They were signed by 50 men and women. With few exceptions, the press in general either ignored or dismissed the assertion of persons who said they changed.
  The gay press and gay reporters were generally hostile to Aesthetic Realism.   A 1982 Boston Globe article written by "the first openly gay reporter" on its staff, interviewed primarily gay therapists and then reported that the "assertion" of change through Aesthetic Realism was "a claim staggering to psychiatrists and psychologists."  About 250 people protested the article on the Boston Common.  The Globe’s ombudsman later wrote in his column that the article was biased against Aesthetic Realism and that it contained "strong, negative words without attribution" and "inaccuracies".
  Some gay advocacy group
caption: Sheldon Kranz and Anne Fielding (1980)
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