Samegender sexuality

1
Same-gender sexuality

• Orientation
• Desire and Identification
• Behavior

2
Terms

• Homosexual, heterosexual
• Gay, Lesbian
• Inversion, perversion
• Orientation, choice, and lifestyle
• Effeminacy, masculinity
• Slang terms

3
Historical perspectives

• Judaism and the holiness code
• Genesis 191-13 Judges 19
• Leviticus 1822, 2013
• The other nations
• The Greeks
• India and the Kama Sutra

4
Pauline Christianity

• Romans 1 18-32
• Two sin lists I Corinthians 6 9-10 and
  I Timothy 1 8-11
• Valuing singleness and celibacy as a virtue
• Purity vs. sexual fallenness Ephesians 5 3-7
• Connection of sexual expression with marriage

5
The early church

• Boswell (1980, 1994) The Christian church
  accepted homosexual behavior prior to the 13th
  century.
• Neuhaus (1996) Did not!
• Wright (1990) Boswells book provides...not one
  firm piece of evidence that the teaching mind of
  the early church countenanced homosexual
  activity.

6
A loaded question

• Most of the literature on the homosexual
  represents either a polemic against the heinous
  abnormality of such activity, or a biased
  argument in defense of an individuals right to
  choose his patterns of sexual behavior (Kinsey,
  1948).
• The polarization of the debate has changed little
  in 58 years.
• Should we care about causes?

7
The source(s) of homosexuality

• Biology (Neuro)Anatomy is destiny
• LeVay (1991) and hypothalamus structure
• Hamer (1993) and the argument from genetics (vs.
  Rice et al., 1999, and Sanders, in Rice.)
• Prenatal hormone imbalance (Meyer-Bahlburg,
  1995) DES exposure and lesbian identity
• Butch lesbians have higher salivary
  testosterone and higher waist-hip ratios, levels
  typical of males.

8
More background factors

• Gender nonconformity (Bailey Zucker, 1995)
• There is a tendency to gender non-conformity in
  gay men and lesbian women, but there is much
  variability. Stereotypes go too far.
• Gender nonconformity is present in childhood of
  gay males Opposite-sex-typed play, male
  avoidance of competitive sports, injury, or
  fights, feeling different as early as age 3 or
  4 Critical thinking time.
• Gender nonconformity found in butch lesbians
• Birth order and equilibrium reproduction
  economics (Miller, 2000)
• Is the goal reproduction or gratification?

9
Other etiological theories

• Lack of opportunity
• Prison vs. free behaviors
• Seduction or experimentation and reinforcement
• Family dynamics Polymorphous perversity and
  homoerotic fixation (Freud)
• Failure to resolve Oedipus or Electra complex
• Dominant, overprotective mother
• Detached, passive, or hostile father
• Father fails to buffer the mothers influence
• But is it the fathers or the sons reaction?

10
And some more theories

• Social constructionism
• Daryl Bem The exotic is erotic
• Choice
• Joseph Nicoli An interactionist explanation
• Genetic influence is on temperament
• Peer culture rejects boys with a sensitive,
  artistic temperament and girls with athletic,
  assertive temperament (less so).
• Mothers over-protect sensitive sons who in turn
  have difficulty relating to fathers who have a
  different temperament.

11
Is it abnormal?

• It depends on the definition of abnormal.
• In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association
  voted to remove homosexuality from its list of
  mental disorders.
• Subsequent research found no correlation between
  homosexuality and mental disorders.
• But the most recent studies show homosexual
  people to experience anxiety, depression,
  suicide, and (for gay males) eating disorders
  more than the straight population.
• Are there third variable explanations?

12
The Kinsey Scale Attraction and experience

• 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Equally heterosexual and homosexual
Predominately heterosexual incidentally homosexual
Predominately homosexual, incidentally
heterosexual
Exclusively homosexual, no heterosexual actions
or desire
Predominately homosexual, more than incidentally
heterosexual
Exclusively heterosexual, No homosexual actions
or desire
Predominately heterosexual, more than
incidentally homosexual
13
Analysis of the Kinsey model

• Remember models of gender.
• Is erotic orientation bipolar, or bidimensional?
• If it is bidimensional, is it orthogonal or
  oblique?
• Lippa Arad (1997) found that men tend to fit
  the bipolar model, women the bidimensional model.

14
Bisexuality

• Attraction to both male and female people.
• Approximately the same percentages of men and
  women identify as bisexual (bisexual attraction (about 4).
• Note the consistent finding that the percentage
  of the population that is bisexual is lower than
  the percentage that is homosexual.
• Bisexual people have been criticized by both
  heterosexual and gay people.
• Bisexual males can live happily in heterosexual
  marriage (Edser Shea, 2002).

15
Is change possible?

• Until 1973, psychiatry said Yes.
• Over the past quarter century, the view that
  change is not possible has been asserted more and
  more strongly.
• Therapists who offer change services, or who even
  cooperate with patients who express a wish to
  change, have been called unethical.

16
Is change possible?

• However, the American Psychological Association
  has voted down motions to make such judgments
  (1995), although the governing council (1997)
  emphasized the need to communicate honestly the
  research on expectations that change therapies
  work.
• Essentialist heterosexism, essentialist
  homosexism, and sexual preference
• Another interactionist model Meyer-Bahlburg et
  al, 1995.
• Udry Chantala (2005) found that only 11 of
  adolescent males who were romantically attracted
  to other males reported the same feelings one
  year later. An additional 6 reported attraction
  to both sexes.

17
Is change possible in adulthood?

• Is it doomed to failure?
• Is change in adulthood evidence of bisexuality?
• In Diamonds (2003) study, 27 of lesbian women
  stopped identifying as lesbian or bisexual over a
  five-year period.
• Of those 27, half identified as heterosexual
  the rest declined to identify at all.
• Spitzer (2001) reported interviews with 200
  people who had changed attraction from homoerotic
  to heteroerotic and maintained the change for
  five years.

18
What is the role of choice?

• Is choice ever etiological?
• For some, an undetermined proportion, who have
  chosen heterosexuality (Baumrind, 1995)
• Can choice affect the brain?
• Can choice affect self-concept?
• Can choice affect behavior?

19
The Kinsey Results

• Frequency estimates
• 37 of men, 13 of women had at least one
  same-gender experience to the point of orgasm
  since adolescence
• BUT only 9.13 overall had more than incidental
  experiences
• AND Sample not representative
• Later studies show much lower rates for all
  measures

20
NHSLS (1994) 3 aspects

• Desire 6 of men, 4 of women
• Behavior 4 since age 18
• Identification 2.8 of men, 1.4 of women