Behavior, and Not a Person

Chapter 2 The 1860s to the 1940s

Larry Houston — 2012-11-17T07:00:00Z

Chapter 2 The 1860s to the 1940s

The actual term, homosexuality, comes from the late 18th century, when it was first used. The word itself is a unitary construct that is derived from the Greek term “homos” or same. Sexual is related to the Medieval Latin word “sexualis” Thus making reference to physical sexual acts with members of the same sex or gender, i.e. male with male, or female with female. It is quite interesting that different sources trace the origins of this word to a medical background or a criminal code use. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs first wrote about the concept of homosexuality in 1864, and Karoly Maria Kertbeny coined the actual word in 1869. The word “homosexual” was coined and used in what may be seen as a struggle for “homosexual rights” in Germany to eliminate state proscriptions against homosexual practices. The word was first used by homosexuals themselves, and then by the medical community to describe what they were seeing in individuals. Homosexuality originated not as a medical term, but rather as a neutral, legal, scientific term for the emancipation of homosexuals. Those who coined and first used the term “homosexual” were lawyers and writers. They saw homosexuality as inborn, natural and congenital. The medical community began using a “medical model” of homosexuality, which emphasized “perversion, sickness and deficiency”. In was during this same time period that a new field of study began, “sexology” to study sexuality and specifically homosexuality. Beginning in the 1860s homosexuals advocating for legal rights, and sexologists espoused the idea to see homosexuality not as a sin or a crime, but to recast it primarily in medical terms.

“Ulrich's goal was to free people like himself from the legal, religious, and social condemnation of homosexual acts as unnatural. For this, he invented a new terminology that would refer to the nature of the individual, and not to the acts performed.” (Kennedy, “Karl Heinrichs Ulrichs: First Theorist of Homosexuality,” p. 30 in Science and Homosexualities, editor Vernon A. Rosario)

“The study of homosexuality began in Germany, where it was intertwined with the struggle to eliminate state proscriptions against homosexual practices.” (Dean, Sexuality and Modern Western Culture, p. 22)

“Sexology's legacy for homosexual rights was a mixed bag. On the one hand, it offered promise in terms of naturalizing homosexuality as a biologically based or developmentally determined variation of human sexuality. It therefore followed that homosexuals should be accorded equal rights. Indeed, medical specialists generally supported homosexual rights activists in campaigning for repeal of penal laws against homosexuality. On the other hand, biologizing and pathologizing homosexuality established a distinct medical classification, akin to categorization of physical and mental diseases. And medical nosologies were created to identify disease entities that, once differentiated, would lead to appropriate treatment. . . . Moreover, biological and psychological reductionism masked the cultural, social, and historical contexts of homosexuality. . . . The sexological discovery of homosexuality was both a response to and a source of constructing gay and lesbian identities. Self-defined homosexual men and woman existed before the sexologist labeled them. In fact, physicians appropriated the label “homosexuality” put forth by Kertbeny in 1869. The sexologists learned about homosexuality from what they observed in their patients and read about in police reports, judicial proceedings, and newspaper accounts. The medical classification, in turn, produced effects on the people who were objects of inquiry. The very act of classification reinforced the grassroots sense of group identity among those who were part of the growing gay and lesbian communities of the late nineteen and early twentieth centuries. Not only did the work of the sexologists reify existing identities and cultural patterns, but it also served as sources for redefinition and resistance. Sexual subjects used the scientific discourse for their own purposes.” (Minton, Departing From Deviance p.13)

“The terms homosexual and homosexuality did not exist until the second half of the 1860s when they first appeared in Central Europe. They were invented by a German-Hungarian publicist and translator who opposed German sodomy laws, K. M. Benkert.

Writing under the noble name of his family, Karoly Maria Kertbeny, he first used the term homosexual in private correspondence in 1868 and in two anonymous German pamphlets in 1869 (Herzer, 1985). He invented this term to distinguish those who participated in same-gender sexual behavior from those who engaged in male-female sexual behavior. He associated "homosexuality" with sickness and deviance but not with sin or criminal behavior (Bullough, 1994; Donovan, 1992). Kertbeny also invented the term heterosexuality in 1869 (Herzer, 1985). The contrasting pair of words, heterosexual and homosexual, were not popularized, however, until the 18805. Krafft-Ebing (1892) adopted and popularized the term homosexual. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, both terms moved from German to other European languages (Dynes, 1990c). They were introduced into the English language in 1897 (Bardis, 1980). In the early years of the twentieth century, the popularity of the term homosexual escalated through its use by Havelock Ellis (1942) and Magnus Hirschfeld (1948).” (Hunter, Shannon, Knox, and Martin, Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youths and Adults, p. 7)

· Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

One gay author, Gilbert Herdt in his book, Same Sex, Different Cultures, credits the concept of homosexuality to a German medical doctor, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) in 1869, where it was discussed within a series of books he wrote. His account disagrees with most other authors who generally agree on the following account. Ulrichs was an early theorist and activist for legal and social rights of homosexual persons. He was the first person to write about the concept of homosexuality and has been called “the grandfather of gay liberation”. He was a German lawyer, writer and a homosexual himself. Ulrichs' writing under his own name and the pseudonym, Numa Numantius, generated a series of five pamphlets about homosexuality, “Researches Into the Riddle of Love Between Men, beginning in 1865. He eventually expanded them into twelve pamphlets by 1879. These were first written to argue against state proscriptions towards homosexual practices in the emerging country of Germany. Ulrichs wrote interpreting homosexuality in a naturalistic manner. It was explained to be a benign, inborn anomaly, linked to an organic congenital predisposition or to evolutionary factors. He first located this trait in the brain, and in his later writings in the testicles. Homosexuality was a condition of inborn sexual inversion, which caused homosexuals to be neither truly male nor female, but to have characteristics of the opposite sex. For the homosexual man, he had a “feminine soul or mentality confined within a masculine body.” Ulrichs used the nomenclature of a “third sex” which he called “urning”, and he derived this term from an illusion to Uranus in Plato's Symposium. In his life Ulrichs served in the government as a lawyer, but quit under mysterious circumstances. He was also imprisoned for his out spoken views on homosexuality. Ulrichs eventually left his native country of Germany and spent the last fifteen years of his life in Italy. Although Ulrichs was unable to gain much support for his theory, he did contribute to the growing perception in the nineteenth century of the homosexual as a distinctive type of person. He died a poor broken man, virtually forgotten by his peers in the struggle for the emancipation for homosexuals.

“The word homosexuality did not exist prior to 1869, when it appeared in a pamphlet that took the form of an open letter to the German minister of justice (the German word is homosexualitat). A new penal code for the North German Federation was being drafted, and a debate had arisen over whether to retain the section of the Prussian criminal code which made sexual contact between persons of the same gender a crime. The pamphlet's author, Karl Maria Kertbeny (1824-82), was one of several writers and jurists who were beginning to develop the concept of sexual orientation. This idea-that some individuals' sexual attraction for members of the same sex was an inherent and an unchanging aspect of their personality -was radically new. Thousands of years of record history and the rise and fall of sophisticated and complex societies occurred before homosexuality existed as a word or even as an idea.” (Monimore, A Natural History of Homosexuality, p.3)

“Until roughly 1900 the dominant explanation of male homosexuality, proposed by the homosexual lawyer and classicist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in the 1860's, was that homosexual men had a “women's soul enclosed in a male body [anima muliebris in corpore virili inclusa] (Hekma, 178).” Ulrichs defined male homosexuality as an inborn trait located in the brain (and in later works, in the testicles). The Berlin psychiatrist Karl Westphal dubbed this phenomenon “sexual inversion” and defined it as a psychopathological condition. This view of male homosexuality was widely influential.” (Dean, Sexuality and Modern Western Culture, p. 22)

“In his published writings on homosexuality, Ulrichs posited the existence of a “third sex” whose nature was inborn. The essential point in his theory of homosexuality is the doctrine that the male homosexual has a female psyche, which he summed up in the Latin phrases: anima muliebrir virili corpore inclusa (a female psych confined in a male body)” (Kennedy, “Karl Heinrichs Ulrichs: First Theorist of Homosexuality,” p. 27 in Science and Homosexualities, editor Vernon A. Rosario)

· Karoly Maria Kertbeny

It was Karoly Maria Kertbeny (1824-1882) who first coined the word “homosexual” in a private draft of a letter to Karl Heinrichs Ulrichs in 1868. Kertbeny was a German-Hungarian writer, translator, and journalist. He bore the surname Karl Maria Benkert until 1847, when he was authorized by the police of his native city of Vienna to use the Hungarian noble name of his family as his sole name, Karoly Maria Kertbeny. In 1869 Kertbeny wrote two pamphlets that were published anonymously, demanding freedom from penal sanctions for homosexual men in Prussia and the Prussia-dominated North German Confederation. It was in these pamphlets that the word “homosexual” was substituted for the word “urning” that Ulrichs had used in 1864. Though Kertbeny closely followed Ulrichs theory of homosexuals being a third-sex, he saw it as a biologically based type of sexual pathology. His chief emphasis for the emancipation of the homosexual was for the modern constitutional state to extend to homosexuals its principle of non-interference in the private life of its citizens. He asserted the right of all human beings to engage in homosexual activity, rather then for exclusive homosexuals to be free of legal hindrances. This was on the basis of the liberal doctrine that the state itself has no right to interfere in such a private matter as sexual behavior. There is little known about his life, but he was suspected to be secretly homosexual. Kertbeny died from syphilis.

“In 1869, the Hungarian writer-journalist Karoly Maria Kertbeny apparently used the term “homosexual” for the first time in an anonymous report calling for the abolition of criminal laws on “unnatural acts,” addressed to Dr. Leonhardt, Prussian Minster of Justice. Even if it took several decades before the term stuck, this date, for many historians, marks a turning point in time, clearly distinguishing the sodomite (who offended God) and the homosexual (who offended society). In fact, the years 1869-1919 can be regarded as a major watershed in the history of homosexuality and as the foundation upon which the homosexual “liberation” of the 1920s was built.” (Tamagne, A History of Homosexuality in Europe Berlin, London, Paris 1919-1939, p. 18)

“Despite nearly a century and half of study and debate, there still is no universally accepted definition of homosexuality among clinicians and behavioral scientists - let alone a consensus regarding its origins. The idea that it derives from moral degeneracy has long been discounted by scholars, many of whom have argued for the primacy of either biologic or psychosocial influences.” (Bryne and Parsons, Sexual Orientation: The Biologic Theories Reappraised,” p.228)

· Richard von Kraftt-Ebing

Richard von Kraftt-Ebing (1840-1902) is another prominent German sexologist. He was a German Professor of Psychiatry and in 1886 wrote Psychopathia sexualis, an encyclopedic compendium of sexual pathologies. Kraft-Ebing subverted Ulrichs theory of homosexuality. Though he too believed homosexuality was inborn, he saw it as an inborn constitutional defect that manifested itself in sex-inverted characteristics and in overall degeneracy. Homosexuals were arrested at a more primitive stage of evolutionary development then normal people, i.e. heterosexuals. Krafft-Ebing thought the sexual instinct was lodged in psychosexual centers of the cerebral cortex and located next to the visual and olfactory centers. So in the homosexual these psychosexual centers were congenitally diseased, and relayed inappropriate messages for sexual instinct. So with Krafft-Ebing the theory for homosexuality went from one of “natural and congenital” to a criminal medical model which emphasized “perversion, sickness, and deficiency.”

“Kraft-Ebing defined homosexuality not as a set of sexual acts but as “the determination of feeling for the same-sex” (Kraft-Ebing 1922, 286), a determination brought about by either genetic or situational factors.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual, p. 29)

“In other words, Kraft-Ebing saw homosexuality as a degenerative condition.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual, p.30)

“Although Kraft-Ebing was not a gay rights advocate, his theories of homosexuality are similar to those of Hirschfeld and Ulrichs. He imagined that homosexuality is both a biological and psychological manifestation.” (Brookey, Reinventing the male Homosexual, p.30)

· Magnus Hirschfeld

Another early German leader for the emancipation of homosexuals was Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935). Of the early homosexual rights advocates, Hirschfeld's career and legacy presents in retrospect as many errors and failures to be shunned as achievements to emulate. He was homosexual himself like many of the other early advocates for homosexual rights. His view of homosexuality was similar to that of Ulrichs. Homosexuality was innate and biological in nature. Homosexuals were a third sex, resulting from a hormonal cause. It resulted in a preponderance of the female in the male and the male in the female. Hirschfeld never put forth a coherent scientific explanation of homosexuality and his works were rejected. He helped to organize the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in 1897 and establish the first institute where research and therapy took place.

“He believed that male homosexuals were physically different from male heterosexuals and that these differences were the products of hormones secreted by the gonaads (Hirschfeld, 1944). These hormones not only influenced sexual orientation but were also responsible for gender differences between heterosexuals and homosexuals. He imagined homosexuality to be an intermediate gender between the feminine and the masculine. Although male homosexuals had the phyical bodies of men, Hirschfeld argued they had the sex drive and emotions of the opposite sex.” ( Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual, p.28)

“The committee was established on the assumption, which Hirschfeld took from his sexologist predecessors, that homosexuality is biological, the homosexual a type.” (Archer, The End of Gay and the death of heterosexuality, p.75)

“Hirschfeld's two ultimate justifications for his organization and his activist tactics and pursuits also bore a striking resemblance to those used in continuing the fight he started. The first was to establish as scientific fact that the homosexual was born, not made, and so was beyond the scope of a legal system that could punish people for what they did, not who they were. The second was to prevent teenage suicide.” (Archer, The End of Gay and the death of heterosexuality, p.76)

In 1933 the Nazis burned his works and research. Hirschfeld' legacy was tarnished by serious lapses of professional ethics. He was accused of selling worthless patented medicines. The most serious lapse was the allegations that he extorted money from some famous Germans who had in good faith furnished him with materials revealing the intimate (and incriminating) sides of their lives. Hirschfeld also conducted two polls of high school boys and male factory workers. The poll of the high school boys resulted in legal troubles for Hirschfeld.

“Though his findings were greatly overshadowed by a lawsuit brought by six students who charged him with obscenity (he was found guilty and made to pay a fine and costs) he managed to conduct the first large-scale gay survey, the scientific technique upon which the gay movement was to continually re-establish its credentials with increasing frequency and specialization over the next century.” (Archer, The End of Gay and the death of heterosexuality, p.76)

· Havelock Ellis

Outside of Germany, Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) was an early homosexual rights advocate from England. Ellis was medically trained, and the author of a six volume Studies in the Psychology of Sex published from 1897 to 1910. He was the first to study homosexuals outside of prisons, asylums, and clinics. Ellis viewed homosexuality neither as a disease or a crime. Homosexuals suffered from arrested development, and inborn sexual inversion. Homosexuality was the result of a congenital organic variation; individuals had both male and female sexual instincts. The invert lacked the ability to see and feel normal emotional desires toward the opposite sex. Ellis popularized the idea of homosexuality as an inversion, an inborn non-pathological gender anomaly.

“The sexological ‘discovery' of the homosexual in the late nineteen century is therefore obviously a crucial moment. It gave a name, an aetiology, and potentially the embryos of an identity. It marked off a special homosexual type of person, with distinctive physiognomy, tastes and potentialities. Did, therefore, the sexologists create the homosexual? This certainly seems to be the position of some historians. Michel Foucault and Lillian Faderman appear at times to argue, in an unusual alliance, that it was the categorisation of the sexologists that made ‘the homosexual' and ‘the lesbian' possible. Building on Ulrichs belief that homosexuals were a third sex, a woman's soul in a man's body, Westphal was able to invent the ‘contrary sexual feeling' Ellis the ‘invert' defined by a congenital anomaly, and Hirschfeld the ‘intermediate sex'; the sexologists definitions, embodied in medical interventions, ‘created' the homosexual. Until sexology gave them a label, there was only the half-life of an amporphous sense of self. The homosexuality identity as we know it is therefore a production of social categorisation, whose fundamental aim and effect was regulation and control. To name was imprison.” (Weeks, Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities, p.92-93)

· Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was one of the first to challenge the entire construction of a sexual instinct as Ulrichs and others had commonly conceived it. Freud considered homosexuality to be a perversion of the sex drive away from the normal object of desire (i.e. the opposite sex) toward a substitute object, including someone of the same sex. Freud disagreed with Ellis and the other sexologists view of homosexuality by seriously questioning the idea of gender inversion as well as congenital homosexuality. Instead Freud viewed it as a sexual object choice, and generally regarded homosexuality as a psychogentically outcome of early childhood experiences. Homosexuality was an arrested psychosexual development and was purely the result of fixation in an infantile stage of sexual development provoked by the action or inaction of the parents. He saw environmental influences rooted in family dynamics such as a seductive mother and a weak father. This resulted in the compulsive quest of the male that was caused by their restless flight from the female. Homosexuality no longer incorporated the broad meaning of sex-role deviation; instead it referred specifically to aberrant sexual behavior. Homosexuality was acquired and pathological. Because it was not until between the two world wars that Freud's work would have its greatest impact, gender inversion remained the dominant theory of homosexuality for many years to come.

“Only Freud, with whom Ellis disagreed with, seriously questioned the paradigm of gender inversion (as well as congenital homosexuality) by distinguishing between sexual object and aim. Freud, in contrast to the medical men - Moll, Bloch, and others - who influenced his work, challenged the entire construction of a “sexual instinct” as it had been commonly conceived since Kraft-Ebing. In arguing that relation between object and aim was the outcome of the struggle he would later term the Opedius complex, Freud assumed that reproductive heterosexuality was not a natural instinct: instead, it was the product of a successful psychic struggle in which one identified with (and introjected) the same-sex parent.” (Dean, Sexuality and Modern western Culture, p, 25)

“Freud's theories of sexuality take several forms, but certain elements remain fairly constant. He argued that the child is born into a state bisexuality, an innate sexual instinct that he referred to as “polymorphous perversity.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 30)

“Freud theorizes male homosexuality in several ways, but he often imagines the child adopting a feminine identity.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 31)

“Although Freud offers alternative theories, they all play off the male child's disrupted relationship with the mother. In many cases, these theories suggest that the male homosexual adopts a feminine sexual identity, and in this process he enters into a state of arrested sexual development.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 31)

Even still today there are those who hold to a psychoanalytical model or view of homosexuality. In doing so they continue to see homosexuality as pathological. “Among the numerous claims supporting the pathology thesis of male homosexuality there seems to be an essential core of four basic propositions. Analysts assert that homosexual men suffer a form of developmental arrest caused by (1) early narcissistic fixations; (2) disturbed family relationships; (3) an underlying disturbance of male gender identity and finally, (4) pathological defenses against a biologically primary heterosexuality.” (Friedman, “The Psychoanalytic Model of Male Homosexuality: A Historical and Theoretical Critique,” p.511)

Friedman further goes on to write, that a psychoanalytic model is only a theory, among the other theories of homosexuality. Yet it is one that continued to be held by some.

“In this paper I have hoped to demonstrate that the analytic model of male homosexuality is a scientific paradigm with cultural origins and a historical place in the world of sex research that is not absolute.” (Friedman, “The Psychoanalytic Model of Male Homosexuality: A Historical and Theoretical Critique,” p.515)

“Through their contradictory logic, the early theories of male homosexuality struggled to ascertain the relationship between sex and gender. Sexologists and homosexual rights advocates both insisted and denied that homosexuals were different: if they were morally, emotionally, and (at least in appearance) physically like heterosexuals, how could doctors account for their congenital difference? And if they were not congenitally different, than how were they different (in the case of Brand and Friedlander, the most “manly” men)?” (Dean, Sexuality and Modern Western Culture p.25)

Sexology after Freud had very little new to say about homosexuality until Kinsey published his study in 1948, although homosexuals continued to be apart of the emerging modern culture. In Europe and the United States the two world wars, especially WW II was important. What they did was to bring individuals, from primarily an agriculture culture, together to fight a war. Many of these individuals who thought they were unique, now were introduced to others who were just like themselves. After fighting the wars many men remained in the large American and European cities.

“Between the 1850s and the 1930s a complex sexual community had developed in many American as well as European cities, which crossed class, racial, gender and age boundaries, and which offered a focus for identity development. Since the Second World War the expansion of these subcultures has been spectacular, with one of these unlikely heroes of this growth being the gay bar.” (Weeks, Sexuality and Its Discontents, p.192)

Bibliography

Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality). Thunder's Mouth Press. New York, 2002.

Brookey, Robert Alan. Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene. Indiana University Press. Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2002.

Byne, William MD, PhD, and Bruce Parsons, MD, PhD. “Human Sexual Orientation: The Biological Theories Reappraised.” Archives of General Psychiatry. March 1993. Vol.50, 228-239.

Dean, Carolyn J. Sexuality and Modern Western Culture. Twayne Publishers. New York, 1996.

Friedman, Robert M. “The Psychoanalytic Model of Male Homosexuality: A Historical and Theoretical Critique.” The Psychoanalytic Review. Winter 1986, Vol.73, No.4, 483-519.

Hunter, Ski, Coleen Shannon, Jo Knox and James I. Martin. Lesbian, Gay, and BisexualYouths and Adults: Knowledge for Humans Services Practice. Sage Publications. Thousand Oaks, CA, 1998.

Kennedy, Hubert. “Karl Henrich Ulrichs: First Theorist of Homosexuality.” p. 26-45 in Science and Homosexualities edited Vernon A Rosario. Science and Homosexualities. Routledge. New York and London, 1997.

Minton, Henry L. Departing From Deviance. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago and London, 2002.

Mondimore, Francis Mark. A Natural History of Homosexuality. The John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore and London, 1996.

Rosario, Vernon A. editor. Science and Homosexualities. Routledge. New York and London, 1997.

Tamagne, Florence. A History of Homosexuality in Europe Berlin, London, Paris 1919-1939. Algora Publishing. New York, 2004.

Weeks, Jeffery. Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1988.

Chapter 1 Who or What

Larry Houston — 2012-10-10T18:32:00Z

Chapter 1 Who or What

Who one is, a homosexual or what one does, homosexuality. The support is greatest for the latter.

Homosexuality and the ‘homosexual' have a history. The history of the ‘homosexual' began during the 1860s in Germany. While homosexuality, same-sex sexual behavior has been apart of all most every culture and society throughout history. The majority of the following quotes are by those advocating for homosexuality or who self-identify as a homosexual. Three exceptions are from Mondimore's book, The Natural History of Homosexuality, Kronmeyer's book Overcoming Homosexuality and the article by Byne and Parsons, “Human Sexual Orientation.”

It is easy to determine homosexuality, homosexual behavior. But who is a homosexual? This is a question that cannot be answered. And there is a simple reason, there is no homosexual as a distinct person, only behaviors and physical sexual acts that a person commits. There are people who during their lifetime often change their sexual behavior, and this makes it impossible to state that a particular set of behaviors defines a person as a homosexual. Also there is no one set of sexual desires or self-identification that uniquely defines who a homosexual is. Throughout history sex acts have contained directional qualities and they are divided into active and passive roles. Even in cultures and societies today the individual who takes the active role in sexual acts between two members of the same sex is not seen as a homosexual. Also in history, many cultures and societies did not have the modern concept of gender, masculine and feminine, but they did have the concept of sex, male and female. And there were often specific roles according to sex, male and female.

Up until the 1860s the concept of homosexuality was seen as a sin or a crime. Then it began to take on medical and scientific concepts. Within these concepts there rest the premise of biological or organic causes for homosexuality. I want to talk about what one does, ‘homosexuality' over and above the idea of a ‘homosexual' who one is. Throughout history in all most every culture and society it was homosexuality, homosexual behavior that may be seen and in some instances it is was apart of carefully structured roles. The norm has always been marriage, male and female relationships for procreation. There are historically significant events that may be marked in the development of the concept of the ‘modern homosexual' as a distinct person.

“The history of homosexuality has to consider the distinction between homosexual conduct, which is universal, and homosexual identity, which is specific and temporal. Homosexuals do not necessarily define themselves as such, even if they find people of their own sex attractive or have sexual relations with them. By the same token, society will not necessarily distinguish an individual in terms of his sexual practices.” (Tamagne, Florence. A History of Homosexuality in Europe Berlin, London, Paris 1919-1939 Volume I, p.6)

“Historical and anthropological research has shown that homosexual persons (i.e. people who occupy a social position or role as homosexuals) do not exist in many societies, whereas homosexual behavior occurs virtually in every society. Therefore we must distinguish between homosexual behavior and homosexual identity. One term refers to one's sexual activity per se (whether casual or regular); the other word defines homosexuality as a social role, with its emotional and sexual components.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and Perversity, p.37)

“Anthropology has shown that people who erotically desire the same gender sufficiently to organize their social lives around this desire come in all genders, colors, political and religious creeds, and nationalities. There is no special kind of person who is homosexual; and much as we might expect, there is no single word or construct, including the western idea of “homosexuality,” that represents them all. To make matters even more complicated, the local term in each culture or community that classifies the homoerotic act or role is not always positive; indeed, in the western tradition it is usually negative.” (Herdt, Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians Across Cultures. p.3)

“We should employ cross-cultural and historical evidence not only to chart changing attitudes but to challenge the very concept of a single trans-historical notion of homosexuality. In different cultures (and at different historical moments or conjunctures within the same culture) very different meanings are given to same-sex activity both by society at large and by the individual participants. The physical acts might be similar, but the social construction of meanings around them are profoundly different. The social integration of forms of pedagogic homosexual relations in ancient Greece have no continuity with contemporary notions of homosexual identity. To put it another way, the various possibilities of what Hocquenghem calls homosexual desire, or what more neutrally might be termed homosexual behaviors, which seem from historical evidence to be a permanent and ineradicable aspect of human sexual possibilities, are variously constructed in different cultures as an aspect of wider gender and sexual regulation. If this is the case, it is pointless discussing questions such as, what are the origins of homosexual oppression, or what is the nature of the homosexual taboo, as if there was a single, causative factor. The crucial question must be: what are the conditions for the emergence of this particular form of regulation of sexual behavior in this particular society?” (Weeks, Against Nature, p. 13-14)

“However, as an individual property of a minority, the concept of homosexuality is neither timeless nor universal, although historians fail to agree on when and how a homosexual social category and identity came into being. Subcultures in the form of illicit networks, clubs, and meeting places of sodomites have been documented from the fifteen century on in Italian towns and from the seventeenth on in urban centers of northwestern Europe. Although the legal and religious definition of sodomy referred to only certain sexual acts, especially anal intercourse, of which anyone in theory, was regarded as being capable, within urban subcultures in Britain, France, and the Netherlands, a more specific sodomitical role evolved as early as the first half of the eighteenth century. After 1700 the behavior of some sodomites began to perceived more and more as part of being “different,” of effeminate proclivities, of a sinful orientation, or of a particular hedonistic lifestyle.” (Oosterhuis, Stepchildren of Nature: Kraft-Ebing, Psychiatry, and the Making of Sexual Identity, p.241)

“To combat this homophobia, over past 125 years homosexualists have invented a countermadness known as the homosexual or gay identity. Taking its cue from psychiatry, a fictional “condition” has been transmuted into a “person”. Although this person is detoxicated, purged of mental pathology (there still is the smelly residue of prenatal physical pathology), the basic premise is the same: the homosexual is a special species of humankind. As in the psychiatric nomenclature, the labels change with the arrival of new exemplars, beginning with Urning and homosexual to today's lesbian, bull, dyke, gay, queer, fag, fairy, queen, schwule, flikker, mariacon, and recently in Berlin, warme.” (De Ceeo,“Confusing the Actor With the Act: Muddled Notions About Homosexuality”, p.410).

“It may be argued that “homosexuals” didn't exist until about 150 years ago. Homosexuality certainly did, as our historical survey showed, but individuals who fell in love with members of their own sex weren't thought to be a particular kind of person. Some societies, such as classical Greece, didn't feel the need to label the phenomenon and had no words for homosexuality. Same-sex eroticism was something a few individuals seemed to prefer more than their fellows, but it wasn't thought to be a characteristic worth inventing a name for. Often, the gender of one's sexual partners was less important than attributes like their age and social status. This being the case, homosexuality was in a sense “submerged” within these cultures – attracting no special notice.” (Mondimore, Mark. A Natural History of Homosexuality, p.247)

“The ancient Greek and Latin languages have no word that can be translated homosexual, largely because these societies did not have the same sexual categories that we do. Our concepts and categories of sexual expression are based on the genders of the two partners involved: heterosexuality when the partners are of the opposite sex, and homosexuality when the partners are of the same sex. In other times and among other peoples, this way of thinking about people simply doesn't seem to apply-anthropologists, historians, sociologists have described many cultures in which same-sex eroticism occupies a very different place than it does in our own. . . . Just as the Greeks and Romans had no words for our sexual categories, the Native American societies described by explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists from the seventeenth onward had sexual categories for which we have no words. Consequently, in the sections that follow- an exploration of attitudes and customs of ancient peoples toward same-sex eroticism- the modern concepts of “homosexuality” or sexual orientation” will be conspicuous by their absence. Within these cultures, sexual contact between persons of the same sex is not necessarily seen as characteristic of a particular group or subset of persons, there is no category for “homosexuals”. On the contrary, in some cultures, same-sex eroticism was an expected part of the sexual experience of every member of society, which would seem to argue against the existence of “homosexuality” as a personal attribute at all.” (Mondimore, A Natural History of Homosexuality, p.3-4)

“For several hundreds of years, the institutions of the majority considered homosexuality something a person did and called it sodomy, buggery, or a crime against nature. During the nineteenth century, a conceptual shift occurred, and a few individuals began to talk about homosexuality as something a person was. A new vocabulary was invented for these persons. Urning, invert-homosexual.” (Mondimore, A Natural History of Homosexuality, p. 248)

“A second assumption is that homosexuality is a unitary construct that is culturally transcendent. However, a wealth of cross-cultural evidence points to the existence of numerous patterns of homosexuality varying in origins, subjective states, and manifest behaviors. In fact, the pattern of essentially exclusive male homosexuality familiar to us has been exceedingly rare or unknown in cultures that required or expected all males to engage in homosexual activity.” (Byrne and Parsons, “Human Sexual Orientation: The Biological Theories Reappraised”, p.228)

“Although same-sex attractions and sexual behavior have undoubtedly occurred throughout history, lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities are relatively new (D'Emilio, 1983). The contemporary notion of identity is itself historically created (Baummeister, 1986). The concept of a specifically homosexual identity seems to have emerged at the end of the nineteen-century. Indeed, only in relatively recent years have large numbers of individuals identified themselves openly as gay or lesbian or bisexual. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual public identities, then, are a phenomenon of our current historical era (D'Emilio, 1983; Faderman, 1991).” (Patterson, “Sexual Orientation and Human Development: An Overview,” p.3)

“While homosexual behavior can be found in all societies, though with very different cultural meanings, the emergence of ‘the homosexual' as a cultural construct can be traced to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century in urban centers of north-west Europe (Trumnach 1989a, 1989b) and also linked with the rise of capitalism (D'Emilio 1983) medical and psychiatric discourses provided the concept and labels of homosexuality and inversion from the 1860s, . . .” (Ballard, “Sexuality and the State in Time of Epidemic,” p.108 in Rethinking Sex: Social Theory and Sexuality Research by Connell and Dowsett)

“Historians underscore an important distinction between homosexual behavior and homosexual identity. The former is said to be universal, whereas the latter is viewed historically unique. Indeed, some historians hold that a homosexual identity is a product of the social developments of late nineteen-century Europe and the United States. Any event, it seems fair to say that a unique construction of identity crystallized around same-sex desire between 1880 and 1920 in America.

The modern western concept of the homosexual is, according to some historians, primarily a creation of late nineteenth-century medical-science discourses. In the context of elaborating systems of classification and descriptions of different sexualities, as part of a quest to uncover the truth about human nature, the homosexual is said to have stepped forward as a distinct human type with his/her own mental and physical nature.” (Seidman. Embattled Eros: Sexual Politics and Ethnics in Contemporary America, p.146)

“Since at least the eighteenth century, and increasingly codified from the nineteenth century (Trumbach 1998, 1999; Sedgwick 1985, 1990), the execrated category of ‘the homosexual' has served to define the parameters of what is to be ‘normal' that is heterosexual. The fact the boundaries between the two have always been permeable, as countless histories have revealed, and for the long ambiguous category of ‘the bisexual' underlined (Garber 1995), made little difference to popular beliefs and prejudices or the legal realities. The divide between homosexuality and heterosexuality seemed rooted in nature, sanctioned by religion and science, and upheld by many penal codes.” (Weeks, Jeffery, Brian Heaphy and Catherine Donovan. Same Sex Intimacies Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments. Routledge. London and New York, 2001.p.14)

“Homosexual identity emerged reactively to the new claims of late nineteenth century science, and the state, in relation to the classification and management of human sexuality as a whole.” (Watney, “Emergent Sexual Idenitties and HIV/AIDS” in Aggleton, Davies, and Hart, AIDS: Facing the Second Decade, p. 14)

“In modern western history the category of the homosexual originates primarily from late-nineteenth-century notions, derived from medicine, that defined same-sex desire as the product of disease, degeneracy, and moral inversion. These notions created an imagine of a woman trapped in a man's body or of a male body with female brain – a third sex apart from the rest of humanity.” (Herdt, Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians Across Cultures. p.18)

“In the late nineteen-century avatar homosexuality was a psychological and medical phenomenon with pathological mental and physical underpinnings. From the turn of the century, Freudian psychology and American psychoanalysis portrayed it as a mental state caused by early childhood trauma, one that led to the individual's failure to achieve adult genital heterosexuality. With the advent of gay, lesbian and bisexual studies, particularly in the last two decades, homosexuality has been investigated as a historical, political, social, and cultural phenomenon. More recently, as seen in the articles in this collection, it has been revisited as biological state.” (De Cecco, and Parker, editors. Sex, Cells, and Same-Sex Desire: The Biology of Sexual Preference, p. 19)

“We tend to think now that the word ‘homosexual' has an unvarying meaning, beyond time and history. In fact it is itself a product of history, a cultural artifact designed to express a particular concept.” (Weeks, Coming Out, p. 3)

“The focus of historical inquiry therefore has to be on developing social attitudes, their origins, and their rational, for without these discussions homosexuality becomes virtually incomprehensible. And as a starting-point we have to distinguish between homosexual behavior, which is universal, and a homosexual identity, which is historically specific - and a completely recent phenomenon in Britain.” (Weeks, Coming Out, p.3)

“Homosexuality has everywhere existed, but it is only in some cultures that it has become structured into a sub-culture. Homosexuality in the pre-modern period was frequent, but only in certain closed communities was it ever institutionalized - perhaps in some monasteries and nunneries, as many of the medieval penitentials suggest; in some of the knightly orders (including the Knights Templars), as the great medieval scandals hint; and in the courts of certain monarchs (such as James I of England, William III). Other homosexual contacts, though recurrent, are likely to have been casual, fleeting, and undefined.” (Weeks, Coming Out, p. 35)

“The sexological ‘discovery' of the homosexual in the late nineteen century is therefore obviously a crucial moment. It gave a name, an aetiology, and potentially the embryos of an identity. It marked off a special homosexual type of person, with distinctive physiognomy, tastes and potentialities. Did, therefore, the sexologists create the homosexual? This certainly seems to be the position of some historians. Michel Foucault and Lillian Faderman appear at times to argue, in an unusual alliance, that it was the categorisation of the sexologists that made ‘the homosexual' and ‘the lesbian' possible. Building on Ulrichs belief that homosexuals were a third sex, a woman's soul in a man's body, Westphal was able to invent the ‘contrary sexual feeling' Ellis the ‘invert' defined by a congenital anomaly, and Hirschfeld the ‘intermediate sex'; the sexologists definitions, embodied in medical interventions, ‘created' the homosexual. Until sexology gave them a label, there was only the half-life of an amorphous sense of self. The homosexual identity as we know it is therefore a production of social categorisation, whose fundamental aim and effect was regulation and control. To name was to imprison.” (Weeks, Jeffery. Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities. p.92-93)

“In sum, homosexuality is not one but many things, many psychosocial forms which can be viewed as symbolic mediations between psychocultural and historical conditions and human potentials for sexual response across the life course. Societies vary greatly in their attitudes toward same-sex response. Homosexual acts are probably universal in humans but institutionalized forms of homosexual activity are not; and these depend, to a great extent, upon the specific historical problems and outlooks of a culture.” (Herdt, “Cross-cultural issues in the development of bisexuality and homosexuality”, p. 55)

“As a means of categorizing and regulating particular types of sexual behavior and people, both homo- and heterosexuality are relative late comers to everyday discourse.” (Adams, The Trouble with Normal: Postwar Youth and the Making of Heterosexuality, p.7)

“Homosexual” and “heterosexual behavior may be universal; homosexual and heterosexual identity and consciousness are modern realities. These identities are not inherent in the individual. In order to be gay, for example, more then individual inclinations (however we might conceive of those or homosexual activity is required; entire ranges of social attitudes and the construction of particular cultures, subcultures and social relations are first necessary. To “commit” a homosexual act is one thing, to be a homosexual is something entirely different.” (Robert Padgug, “Sexual Matters: Rethinking Sexuality in History” in Hidden From History Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, p.60)

“Several years ago my colleagues and I reported the overwhelming definitional and sampling confusion that pervaded research on homosexuality (Shively et al, 1984). That confusion only deepens the farther research on homosexuality moves away from homosexual acts and continues to engage in the futile task of searching for the “causes” of a defective condition or a status or a personal identity or an enduring, ineffable emotional inclination revealed in fantasy, none of which is accessible to observation. Once we understand that the biomedical and psychological research is looking for the cause of “acts”, which are largely circumstantial, then its futility is clear. If we return to the focus on homosexual acts, as in the original Kinsey reports, then we can arrive at some agreements as to what “it” is that we are attempting to describe or explain - an ancient axiom of historical and scientific research.” (De Cecco, “Confusing the Actor With the Act: Muddled Notions About Homosexuality,” p. 412)

“Only in the twentieth century, through mass media and political rhetoric, has the explicit terminology of “homosexuality/heterosexuality” been widely applied to people and acts and events, typically to contain and control all sexual behavior. Only as wide-scale sexual liberation movements gained steam in the 1960s did people who desire the same gender begin to call themselves “lesbian” or “gay.” Since that time these identity systems have been exported to other cultures, which has created controversies in developing countries that previously lacked these concepts, having neither the history nor the political traditions that bought them about. No wonder it seems strange but also familiar to hear of gays and lesbians” from societies that previously denied having “homosexuality” at all.” (Herdt, Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians Across Cultures, p.7)

“Language has been an important weapon in the gay movement's very swift advance. In the old days, there was “sodomy”: an act. In the late 19th century, the word “homosexuality” was coined: a condition. A generation ago, the accepted term became “gay”: an identity. Each formulation raises the stakes: One can object to and even criminalize an act; one is obligated to be sympathetic toward a condition; but once it's a fully fledged 24/7 identity, like being Hispanic or Inuit, anything less than wholehearted acceptance gets you marked down as a bigot.” (Steyn, “There's No Stopping Them Now,” p.35)

“Steyn explains that historically, moral concern for sexual activity between two persons of the same sex was identified as sodomy, an act. And an act is what it is. You can either think it is a good idea or you can think it is bad. Either way, it's very objective. It's what someone does. Then, Steyn explains, in the late nineteen century the act was described as condition of certain persons, and it was termed “homosexuality” - a condition a person is in. Next, a few decades ago homosexuality got upgraded again, now referring to a person's very identity, so that we now identify people as being or not being “gay.” Now it describes who a person is.” (Stanton and Maier, Marriage on Trial; the Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting, p. 15)

“The greatest single victory of the gay movement over the past decade has been to shift the debate from behavior to identity, thus forcing opponents into a position where they can be seen attacking the civil rights of homosexual citizens rather attacking specific and (and as they see it) antisocial behavior.” (Altman, The Homosexualization of America, The Americanization of the Homosexual, p. 9)

“There is another historical myth that enjoys nearly universal acceptance in the gay movement, the myth of the “eternal homosexual.” The argument runs something like this: Gay men and lesbians always were and always will be. We are everywhere; not just now, but throughout history, in all societies and all periods. This myth served a positive political function in the first years of gay liberation. In the early 1970s, when we battled an ideology that either denied our existence or defined us as psychopathic individuals or freaks of nature, it was empowering to assert that “we are everywhere.” But in recent years it has confined us as surely as the most homophobic medical theories, and locked our movement in place. Here I wish to challenge this myth. I want to argue that gay men and lesbians have not always existed. Instead they are a product of history, and have come into existence in a specific historical era. Their emergence is associated with the relations of capitalism; it has been the historical development of capitalism-more specifically, its free-labor system-that has allowed a large numbers of men and women in the late twentieth century to call themselves gay, to see themselves as part of a community of similar men and women, to organize politically on the basis of that identity.” (D'Emilio, Making Trouble Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University, p.5)

“I have argued that lesbian and gay identity and communities are historically created, as a result of a process of capitalist development that has spanned many generations. A corollary of this argument is that we are not a fixed social minority composed for all time of a certain percentage of the population. There are more of us than one hundred years ago, more of us than forty years ago. And there may very well be more gay men and lesbians in the future. Claims made by gays and nongays that sexual orientation is fixed at an early age, that large numbers of visible gay men and lesbians in society, the media, and the schools will have no influence on the sexual identities of the young are wrong. Capitalism has created the material conditions for homosexual desire to express itself as a central component of some individuals' lives; now, our political movements are changing consciousness, creating the ideological conditions that make it easier for people to make that choice.” (D'Emilio, Making Trouble Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University, p.12)

“It isn't at all obvious why a gay rights movement should ever have arisen in the United States in the first place. And it's profoundly puzzling why that movement should have become far and away the most powerful such political formation in the world. Same gender sexual acts have been commonplace throughout history and across cultures. Today, to speak with surety about a matter for which there is absolutely no statistical evidence, more adolescent male butts are being penetrated in the Arab world, Latin American, North Africa and Southeast Asia then in the west. But the notion of a gay “identity” rarely accompanies such sexual acts, nor do political movements arise to make demands in the name of that identity. It's still almost entirely in the Western world that the genders of one's partner is considered a prime marker of personality, and among Western nations it is the United States - a country otherwise considered a bastion of conservatism - that the strongest political movement has arisen centered around that identity. We've only begun to analyze why, and to date can say little more then that certain significant pre-requisites developed in this country, and to some degree everywhere in the western world, that weren't present, or hadn't achieved the necessary critical mass, elsewhere. Among such factors were the weakening of the traditional religious link between sexuality and procreation (one which had made non-procreative same gender desire an automatic candidate for denunciation as “unnatural”). Secondly, the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the United States, and the West in general, in nineteen century weakened the material (and moral) authority of the nuclear family, and allowed mavericks to escape into welcome anonymity of city life, where they could choose a previously unacceptable lifestyle of singleness and nonconformity without constantly worrying about parental or village busybodies pouncing on them.” (Duberman, Left Out, p. 414-415.)

“Thus ‘gay' has become a sexual orientation (a particular kind of homosexuality), a social identity and a political movement. It should be clear that ‘gay' is a new form of homosexual practice, which in its fullest sense is unique in human history. The psychosocial condition of being gay today must therefore be understood in their own place and historical time. Being gay or lesbian is a kind of ‘commentary' on the dualistic tendency of Western society to dichotomize body and mind, masculinity and femininity, homosexual and heterosexual, as noted below. The modern gay movement both reflects and mediates these dualisms, indicating that social and erotic transformation is a part of human potential, as Freud suggested.” (Herdt, “Cross-cultural issues in the development of bisexuality and homosexuality”, p. 54)

“It allows us, in short, to imagine there's a connection between action and identity, to imagine an equal sign between the verb ‘kill' and the noun ‘killer'.

Sexual identity is a new addition to the identity portfolio, and we can see in recent history, and to a large extent even within living memory, the process of its accretion. That's just plain interesting, I think, like being able to watch a pearl form in front of our eyes. Why not take a look, since we are able to. It can't help but give us a better, perhaps more profound view of ourselves.

But I'd say it's most important because sexual identity, like that equal sign between verb and noun, is in the end a house built on sand, the living in which makes us more, through omission rather than commission more anxious, less happy people than we might otherwise be.” (Archer, The End of Gay and the Death of Heterosexuality, p.27)

“We are learning that ‘sexual identities' are social constructs which come and go in different shapes and sizes. Beneath them are behaviors which defy easy categorization.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p.f)

“What these examples illustrate is that homosexual and heterosexual are socially constructed categories. There are no objective definitions of these words; there is no “Golden Dictionary in the Sky” that contains the real definitions. These are word categories we made up.” (Muehlenhard, “Categories and Sexualities,” p. 102-103)

“Through an examination of certain historical structures of sexual dimorphism, I have come to conclude that identity categories “homosexual/heterosexual” in the nineteenth century and “gay/straight” in the twentieth century should be understood not as universal but as suggestions of common themes around the world (Herdt ed. 1994).” (Herdt, Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians Across Cultures, p.xvi)

“The basic distinction between behavior and identity has to be constantly stressed: people are not simply ‘homosexual'; rather, many people engage in homosexual acts- and many, not always the same ones, experience homosexual fantasies- which for a minority becomes a basis for a concept of homosexual (lesbian/gay) identity. As Pateman put it: ‘The self is not completely subsumed in its sexuality, but identity is inseparable from the social construction of the self' (Pateman 1988, see ch. 7). The distinction between homosexual behavior and identity, first identified in sociological literature by McIntosh at the end of the 1960s (McIntosh 1968), is the basis for the modern idea of the ‘gay community' (or lesbian/gay community) in which ethnic model of identity became the basis for social, cultural, and political organization around sexual preference (Epstein 1987).” (Altman, “AIDS and the Discourses of Sexuality,” p. 36 in Rethinking Sex: Social Theory and Sexuality Research by Connell and Dowsett)

“Another aspect of the development of sexual orientation and identity which would seem to require investigation is the reduction of the percentage of men and women engaging in homosexual behavior with age. A significant percentage of the medical students and male twins investigated by McConaghy and colleagues (1987, 1994) reported that they were not currently aware of homosexual feelings they experienced in adolescence indicating homosexual feelings diminished or disappear with age in a proportion of the population.” (McConaghy, “Unresolved Issues in Scientific Sexology,” p. 300)

“Lesbian and gay historians have asked questions about the origins of gay liberation and lesbian feminism, and have come up with some surprising answers. Rather than finding a silent, oppressed, gay minority in all times and all places, historians have discovered that gay identity is a recent, Western, historical construction. Jeffrey Weeks, Jonathan Katz and Lillian Faderman, for example, have traced the emergence of lesbian and gay identity in the late nineteenth century. Similarly John D'Emilio, Allan Berube and the Buffalo Oral History Project have described how this identity laid the basis for organized political activity in the years following World War II. The work of lesbian and gay historians has also demonstrated that human sexuality is not a natural, timeless “given”, but is historically shaped and politically regulated.” (Duggan & Hunter, Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture, p.151-152)

“For not until he sees homosexuals as a social category, rather than a medical or psychiatric one, the sociologists can begin to ask the right questions about the specific content of the homosexual role and about the organization and functions of homosexual groups. All that has been done here is to indicate that the role does not exist in many societies, that it only emerged in England towards the end of the seventeenth century, and that, although the existence of the role in modern America appears to have some effect on the distribution of homosexual behavior, such behavior is far from being monopolized by persons who play the homosexual role.” (McIntosh, “The Homosexual Role”, p.192)

“With rare exceptions, homosexuality is neither inherited nor the result of some glandular disturbance or the scrambling of genes or chromosomes. Homosexuals are made and not born ‘that way'. From my twenty-five years' experience as a clinical psychologist, I firmly believe that homosexuality is a learned response to early painful experiences and that it can be unlearned. For those homosexuals who are unhappy with their life and find effective therapy, it is curable.” (Kronmeyer, Overcoming Homosexuality, p. 7)

“Homosexuality is commonly and widely understood to describe sexual attraction for those of one's own sex. There does not seem to be anything problematic or uncertain in such a definition. Nevertheless, the theoretical enterprise of deciding exactly what constitutes homosexuality- or, more pragmatically, who is homosexual-is far from self-evident. While there is a certain population of men and women who may be described more or less unproblematically homosexual, a number of ambiguous circumstances can cast doubt on the precise delimitations of homosexuality as a descriptive category.” (Jagose, Queer Theory, p.7)

“Although theories concerning the formation of modern homosexuality differ, there is significant agreement that homosexuality, as it is understood today, is not a transhistorical phenomenon. With the exception of Faderman, all theorists discussed so far make crucial the distinction between homosexual behaviour, which is ubiquitous, and homosexual identity, which evolves under specific historical conditions.” (Jagose, Queer Theory, p.15)

“Phrases such as ‘homosexuality in the modern sense' or ‘homosexuality as it is understood today' effectively draw attention to the paradigm shift from sexual acts to sexual identities, and to the problems inherent in assuming continuity between current and historic remote same-sex acts. Unfortunately, however, such phrases imply that modern homosexuality, unlike its predecessors, is coherent, certain, and known. Much is invested culturally in representing homosexuality as definitionally unproblematic, and maintaining heterosexuality and homosexuality as radically and demonstrably distinct from one another. Yet modern knowledges about the categories of sexual identification are far from coherent.” (Jagose, Queer Theory, p.18)

Bibliography

Adams, Mary Louise. The Trouble with Normal: Postwar Youth and the Making of Heterosexuality. University of Toronto Press. Toronto, 1997.

Altman, Dennis. The Homosexualization of America, The Americanization of the Homosexual. St. Martin's Press. New York, 1982.

Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality). Thunder's Mouth Press. New York, 2002.

Byne, William MD, PhD, and Bruce Parsons, MD, PhD. “Human Sexual Orientation: The Biological Theories Reappraised.” Archives of General Psychiatry. March 1993. Vol.50, 228-239.

Connell, R. W. and G. W. Dowsett. Rethinking Sex :Social Theory and Sexuality Research. Melbourne University Press. Melbourne, 1992.

De Cecco, John P. “Confusing the Actor With the Act: Muddled Notions About Homosexuality.” Archives of Sexual Behavior. 1990. Vol.19, No.4, 409-412.

De Cecco, PhD., John P. and David Allen Parker, MA editors. Sex, Cells, and Same-Sex Desire: The Biology of Sexual Preference. Harrington Park Press, New York, 1995.

D'Emilio, John D. Making Trouble Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University. Routledge. New York & London, 1992.

Duberman, Martin. Left Out. South End Press. Cambridge, MA, 2002.

Duggan, Lisa & Nan D. Hunter. Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture. Routledge. New York & London, 1995.

Herdt, Gilbert. Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians Across Cultures.

Jagose, Annamarie. Queer Theory. Melbourne University Press, 1996.

Kinsey, Alfred C., Warren B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin and Paul H. Gebhard. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Indiana University Press. Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1998.

McConaghy D.Sc., M.D., Nathaniel. “Unresolved Issues in Scientific Sexology.” Archives of Sexual Behavior. 1999, Vol. 28, No. 4, 285-318.

McIntosh, Mary. “The Homosexual Role.” Social Problems. 1968, 16, 182-192

Mondimore, Francis Mark. A Natural History of Homosexuality. The John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore and London, 1996.

Muehlenhard, Charlene L. “Categories and Sexuality.” Journal of Sex Research. May 2000, Vol. 37, No. 2, 101-107.

Oosterhuis, Harry. Stepchildren of Nature: Kraft-Ebing, Psychiatry, and the Making of Sexual Identity. Univernisty of Chicago Press. Chicago, 2000.

Patterson, Charolette J. “Sexual Orientation and Human Development: An Overview.” Developmental Psychology.1995, Vol. 31, No.1, 3-11.

Padgug, Robert “Sexual Matters: Rethinking Sexuality in History” in Hidden From History Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus & George Chauncey, Jr. Meridan. New York, 1990.

Seidman, Steven. Embattled Eros: Sexual Politics and Ethnics in Contemporary America. Routledge. New York, 1992.

Steyn, Mark. “There's No Stopping Them Now.” Chicago Sun-Times. July 13, 2003, p.35.

Stanton, Glen, T. and Bill Maier. Marriage on Trial: the Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting. Intervarsity Press. Downers Grove, 2004.

Tamagne, Florence. A History of Homosexuality in Europe Berlin, London, Paris 1919-1939 Volume I. Algora Publishing. New York, 2004.

Watney, Simon. “Emergent Sexual Idenitties and HIV/AIDS” p. 13-27 in AIDS Facing The Second Decade. Peter Aggelton, Peter Davies and Graham Hart, editors The Falmer Press. London, New York and Philadelphia, 1993.

Weeks, Jeffrey. Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain, from the Nineteenth Century to the Present. Quartet Books. London, Melbourne, & New York, 1977.

Chapter 4 World War II to the 1960s

Larry Houston — 2009-11-30T03:22:00Z

Chapter 4 World War II to the 1960s

The “homosexual” as a distinct person, which was first advocated in Germany during the 1860s by homosexuals themselves seeking legal rights, was next adopted by sexologists and then by psychiatrists. But it was the American military during World War II with the psychiatric profession that was to play a leading role in defining the ‘homosexual' as a character type, who was sick that persisted until the early 1970s.

“Examining the evolution of gay and lesbian identity shows that two pivotal periods in history were essential to the establishment of the gay rights movement in the 1950s. Sexologists in the nineteen century argued that sexual orientation is a core trait that defines the essence of human beings. Under their influence, those who were attracted to people of the same gender began to think of themselves as homosexuals. Following this change in personal identity, homosexuals had the opportunity to form communities during World War II, when the crisis afforded them chances to meet others like themselves and develop networks. For the first time in history, gay men and lesbians could share their stories and find like-minded friends and partners.” (Burns, Editor, Gay Rights, p.21)

“In 1940, in conjunction with the peacetime draft, the military adopted psychiatric screening. One of the chief proponents of screening, Henry Stark Sullivan, was himself homosexual and believed that homosexuality in itself should not bar a potential recruit from military service.” (Edsall, Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World, p.262)

“The status of homosexuals changed around the time of World War II. Prior to this point, identifications with homosexuality were primarily individual experiences. The identification of homosexuals as a group was given impetus by the actions of the military and the federal government who attempted to identify homosexuals and remove them from military positions. Early in the war effort, discovered homosexuals were given dishonorable discharges by the thousands. Later, those who had served in the war were given a newly created category of discharge - a “general” discharge which was neither honorable or dishonorable (Licata, 1980). The labeling and singling out of these individuals by the government helped to create minority status of homosexuals as group and to promote discrimination against them.” (Heyl, “Homosexuality: A Social Phenomenon, p. 341 in Human Sexuality: the Societal and Interpersonal Context, edited by Kathleen McKinney and Susan Sprecher)

“Over the course of the 1940 build-up, all the backing and forthing between the military and the burgeoning psychiatric community, and than, once when war was declared, all that psychiatric screening, in whatever its final form created in the mind of huge portions of the general population a picture of the a character type known as ‘the homosexual'.” (Archer, The End of Gay and the death of heterosexuality, p.106)

“What the military did in its rough and ready way was to mush all these things together into one character type – the homosexual. The homosexual was now, for all the world to see an effeminate man (and after the war, a masculine woman) who had sex with members of the same sex, and was either passively or actively pathological.” (Archer, The End of Gay and the death of heterosexuality, p.105)

“While the discussion of such things as the relationship to gender to sexuality was limited to scientific, literary, intellectual, and interested circles – as it was, mostly from the nineteen century through the Second World War – the link was not firmly or especially popularly made. Many pieces of what would eventually be the popular conception of the early-modern homosexual (which let's say dates from the Second World War to about 1969) were floating independently between sexologists and psychiatrists. There was the effeminate man or pansy, there was the pervert and/or psychopath who could be expected to commit violent crimes of a sexual nature on any sort of person at all, and there was the man or woman, not much spoken of in polite company, who had a tendency to have sex with others of the same sex. When this was spoken of, it was in purely non-sexual terms, like the partners on ranches that Front Runner author Patricia Nell Warren remembers her father mentioning in Montana when she was a child in the late thirties and forties, or those urban bachelors and the ubiquitous maiden aunts and their companions.” (Archer, The End of Gay and the death of heterosexuality, p.105)

“Despite this modicum of sympathy initially extended to “sexual perverts,” the military categorically declared homosexual behavior and “proclivities” as incompatible with military service. Historian Allan Berube (1990) has documented the ill effects of this military ban on those who managed to stay in the service and those given dishonorable discharges simply for being homosexual. The psychiatric profession that dedicated itself to screening out homosexuals also promised to treat the “problem of homosexuality” as it was perceived to affect the individuals discharged and the society that would receive them.” (Rosario, Homosexuality and Science A Guide to the Debates, p. 89)

This military ban on homosexuals was a result but not the intent of two psychiatrists. President Roosevelt received a memo from Harry Stack Sullivan and Winfred Overholser suggesting a screening process for identifying potential soldiers who may later suffer from mental health issues. Their intent was to help prevent a situation that occurred after World War I, in which men by the thousands required treatment for mental health issues, including hospitalization that resulted in a tremendous financial cost and burden. President Roosevelt accepted this idea and had these two psychiatrists draw up guidelines, which became known as Medical Circular Number One. But within one year, both the army and navy had revised the guidelines, adding homosexuality to the list of deviations Sullivan and Overholser had said should disqualify those from military service. This revision resulted in the military for the rest of the war and decades thereafter, referring to men and women who engaged or were prone to homosexual activity as sexual psychopaths. This military ban on homosexuals was the unintended result of the actions by psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan, who was a homosexual himself. One interesting part of Sullivan's life was his relationship with, James Inscoe, who was 20 twenty years younger than Sullivan. When they meet in 1927 Sullivan was 35 and James was 15 years old.

“As I said earlier, Sullivan's standing in psychiatric history is not quite what it was. This is, in part, due to rumors that he was as one colleague said upon hearing of his death, “a homosexual, an alcoholic, and a paranoid schizophrenic.” (Allen, “Sullivan's Closet: A Reappraisal of Harry Stack Sullivan's Life and His Pioneering Role in American Psychiatry,” p.5)

“Sometime in 1927, he met a young man named James Inscoe. Jimmie who later took Sullivan's surname, was about 15 or 16 years old at the time. Although Helen Perry wrote that nobody would tell her how Harry met Jimmie, she confessed to me when we met one quiet fall afternoon in her Cambridge, Massachusetts, apartment, that Jimmie had been a “male hustler” in Washington D.C. Shortly thereafter, Jimmie who was to become Sullivan's secretary, housekeeper, officemanager, and longtime companion, moved into Sullivan's surban Maryland home. Harry and Jimmie made a home together in Maryland and in New York City, for twenty-years, until Harry's death in 1949. Jimmie's place in Sullivan's life was complex and ambiguous; to Sullivan's colleagues, he was “Harry Stack's foster son,” although they had no official or legal relationship; among Sullivan's friends. Jimmie was known simply as “the man who came to stay” (Perry, 1983).” (Allen, “Sullivan's Closet: A Reappraisal of Harry Stack Sullivan's Life and His Pioneering Role in American Psychiatry,” p.9)

“Not all soldiers who experienced homoerotic feelings toward other soldiers or who even engaged in sex with other men were gay. Often heterosexual men engaged in “situational homosexuality,” having sex with other men only to attain a level of physical intimacy deprived by the war experience. It was not uncommon for men to dance together at canteens, to share beds at hotels when on leave, or to share train berths while in transit. The critical point is not the Second World War led to an increase in the number of homosexuals; such a statement can be neither confirmed nor denied. Rather, the war created a sexual situation where individuals with homosexual feelings or tendencies could more readily explore them without the absolute fear of exposure.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.23)

“The decisions of particular men and women to act on their erotic/emotional preference for the same sex, along with the new consciousness that this preference made them different, led to the formation of an urban subculture of gay men and lesbians. Yet at least through the 1930s this subculture remained rudimentary, unstable, and difficult to find. How, then, did the complex, well-developed gay community emerge that existed by the time the gay liberation movement explored? The answer is to be found during World War II, a time when the cumulative changes of several decades coalesced into a qualitatively new shape.

The war severely disrupted traditional patterns of gender relations and sexuality, and temporarily created a new erotic situation conducive to homosexual expression. It plucked millions of young men and women, whose sexual identities were just forming, out their homes, out of towns and small of cities, out of the heterosexual environment of the family, dropped them into sex-segregated situations as - GIs, as WACs and WAVEs, in same-sex rooming houses for women workers who relocated to seek employment. The war freed millions of men and women from the settings where heterosexuality was normally imposed. For men and women already gay, it provided an opportunity to meet people like themselves. Others could become gay because of the temporary freedom to explore sexuality that the war provided.” (D'Emilio, “Capitalism and Gay Identity” p. 471-472)

“Men and women who were aware of same-sex attraction, but had not acted upon it, could explore it in a relatively safe environment. Individuals already aware of their homosexuality could meet others, embark on relationships, and build further ties to help foster the development of a gay community. The point is not that the war experience fostered homoerotic feelings and a rise in homosexuality. Rather, the disruption in the social environment caused by the war provided the opportunity for homosexuals to meet, to realize others like themselves existed, and to abandon the isolation that characterized the homosexual lifestyle of the pre-war period.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.23-24)

“The war functioned as an opportunity to promote homosexual visibility in a variety of ways. First, by asking recruits if they have had felt any erotic attraction for members of the same sex, the military ruptured the silence that shrouded a tabooed behavior, introducing some to the concept for the first time. Furthermore, the act of considering a homosexual unfit for service illustrates both a sharp shift in the language of military policy as well as a change in the common perception of the homosexual. Previously the sexual act was the problem; individuals discovered in sexual relations with a member of the same sex were punished accordingly through the military's criminal justice system. Yet, the drafting procedure initiated by the Second World War viewed the person as mentally ill. In an interesting parallel to Foucault's argument, the sexual act was not banned, rather the homosexual himself was banned. Second, the war functioned to bring previously isolated homosexuals together. Given that the recruits could merely lie about their sexual inclinations and that the draft preferred young and single men, it was likely that the armed forces would contain a disproportionately high percentage of gay men. Third, soldiers often resorted to antics which exaggerated common homosexual stereotypes to alleviate sexual tension.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.22)

“The Second World War coupled with the Kinsey studies of the late 1940s created the opportunity for men and women unsure of their sexual orientation or already aware of their homosexuality or bisexuality to meet others like themselves and realize their commonality.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.29)

“Nevertheless, the juxtaposition of the opportunity provided by the Second World War for gay men and lesbians to explore their identity and the subsequent repressive environment of the 1950s fostered a dissonant atmosphere from which the first politically active gay and lesbian organizations emerged.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.29)

It was as a result of this military response to homosexuality and after the war a similar response to homosexuality adopted by the federal government that led to homosexuals beginning to organize themselves. Harry Hay and other male homosexuals founded one such group, the Mattachine Society in 1951 in Los Angeles. The Daughters of Bilitis founded in 1955 was a similar organization of female homosexuals. The term ‘homophile' was chosen by the homosexuals who founded these groups to be used in describing these groups so as to de-emphasis the difference between homosexuals and other members of society, that is the difference of sexuality, i.e. who one had sex with.

“In November of the previous year, 1950, five men had met at the home of Harry Hay in Los Angeles, and out of that meeting grew the first substantial and lasting homophile organization in American history, the Mattachine Society.” (Edsall, Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World, p.269)

· Homophile Movement

“The emphasis on self-education, minority-group distinctiveness, and community organizing evident in the statement of missions and purposes prepared by the founders of the Mattachine Society stood in marked contrast to the ideas aired by Donald Webster Cory in The Homosexual in America. Cory argued that prejudice was responsible for negative stereotyping and discrimination, and he maintained that the public had to be taught that homosexuals were in important respects like heterosexuals and were therefore worthy of equal opportunity and a place in the mainstream. These ideas bespoke the world view of liberals and civil rights leaders who believed that America was an admirable melting pot and that progressives should be concerned with acculturating and integrating members of excluded minority groups. But Hay and his followers held the Marxist view that capitalism required the oppression of minorities. They believed that homosexuals had to organize so that they could explore their sexuality, become aware of how it equipped them to contribute to a more humane society, and prepare to join with other organized minorities in the struggle to replace capitalism with socialism.” (Moratto, The Politics of Homosexuality, p. 9-10)

“They had, in fact, what is here called the basic homophile outlook-the belief that prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination were the source of the homosexual's problems and that education, policy reform, and help for individual homosexuals would bring about the recognition of basic similarity, equality of treatment, and integration that were tantamount to social progress.” * (Moratto, The Politics of Homosexuality, p.11)

“*During the 1950s, the term homophile was used as a euphemism for homosexual by those who wanted to combat the stereotype that homosexuals were obsessed with sex. The suffix –phile was suppose to suggest that homosexuality was more an emotional than a sexual attraction and that homosexuals, like respectable heterosexuals, were interested in love more than sex. Early in the 1960s, Mattachine leaders in the east suggested that the word homophile be used to refer to their movement to secure rights and status for homosexuals. The term is used here both to identify the ideas about gay political activity that predominated before the gay liberation movement and to characterize the groups, leaders, and activities that were guided by these ideas.” (Moratto, The Politics of Homosexuality, p.11-12)

“Homosexuals begin to speak for themselves in the language of civil rights and social inclusion in the post-World War II period. Initially, the war spawned urban networks of among homosexuals; the antihomosexual politics of the 1950s and 1960s in the midst of general liberalization of society and the materialization of homosexual life in urban areas provided a favorable context for movements of homosexual empowerment. By the early 1970s a self-identified, self-accepting homosexual population had swelled, and a collective homosexual life developed in the exclusively gay bars, social clubs, friendship networks, and political organizations that cropped up across the urban landscapes of America. Skirmishes between a new militant, self-respecting homosexual and the guardians of heterosexual privilege broke out in bars, the courts, and in the worlds of science, literature, and art. In particular, these emerging gay subculture gave birth to a cultural apparatus that challenged religious and scientific-medical definitions of homosexuality as an illness or sin. Discourses issued forth the gay culture that projected new, affirmative identities: homosexuality was reconfigured as a natural human expression, as a basis for a new minority, as an alternative lifestyle, and as a political rebellion against patriarchy and heterosexism. Symbolic of this change was the substitution by the homosexual community of the term “gay” for “homosexual”. Whereas the latter term carried resonances of deviance, disease, and destruction, and gave the legal, medical and scientific institutions control over individuals' lives, “gay” signified dignity and personal integrity; it framed homosexuality as a social identity. Self-identification as gay symbolized a community that was intent on taking control of its own lives.” (Seidman, Embattled Eros, p.147-148)

“A historical sketch of American gay and lesbian movement reveals that the movement's guiding ideology exhibits a bipolar pattern exacerbated by gender-based rifts. Movement philosophy tends to swing between periods of moderation or assilimationism on one side and militancy and liberationism on the other. These seemingly oppositional ideologies have divided the movement throughout the post-war era. The homophile movement, initiated in 1951 with the formation of the first modern gay rights organization, the Mattachine Society, illustrates the effect of these conflicting ideologies on mobilization. The history of the Mattachine Society specifically, and of the homophile movement in general, follows a pattern of brief militancy followed by long period of assimilation and moderate leaders leading to a crescendo of renewed radicalism climaxed by the Stonewall riots.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.30)

“Founded by Harry Hay in April 1951 in Los Angeles, and modeled after the communist party, the Mattachine Society became the first organization of what would become the homophile movement. The secret hierarchical and cell-like organization adapted from the communist party was necessitated, according to the founders, by the oppressive environment fostered by McCarthyism. Yet, Mattachine drew on the communism for more than just a structural guide; Marxist ideology functioned as a means to mobilize a mass homosexual constituency for political action. Utilizing a Marxist understanding of class politics, that is, a class as merely a socioeconomically determined entity until it gains consciousness enabling recognition of its inherent political power, Hay and the other founding members theorized that homosexuals constituted a similarly oppressed minority group. Homosexuals, like members of the proletariat, were trapped in a state of false consciousness purported and defended by the heterosexual majority which maintained homosexuality to be a morally reprehensible individual aberration. Hence, the early Mattachine attempted to promote a measure of cognitive liberation and homosexual collective identity. During a time when both religion and law condemned homosexuality, and medicine viewed it as an individual psychological abnormality, the Mattachine Society was advocating the development of a group consciousness similar to that of other ethnic minority groups in the United States.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.30)

“Since not only Hay but two others of the original five had been Communist Party members, the society inevitably reflected party doctrine in its ideology and to some extent in its structure. They defined homosexuals as a distinct cultural minority schooled in the values of the dominant heterosexual culture but not, of course, able to fit into that cultural except at great personal and social cost. They therefore saw the first task f the new society as raising consciousness, not, as in the Communist Party, of class, and through increased self-awareness as a group to install pride and solidarity and ultimately to inspire political and social action.”(Edsall, Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World, p.273)

“By asserting that homosexuals constituted a minority comparable to other ethnic groups, Mattachine defined itself rather being defined by the dominant culture: homosexuality was distinct from and morally equivalent to heterosexuality. Self-definition is a recurring theme in the attempts to create a validating and positive collective identity, and the sexual minorities community continued the trend with the adoption of “gay” in the 1970s and less widespread adoption of “queer” in the 1990s. Furthermore, the comparison to ethnic minorities provided a model for action; homosexuals should follow the lead of other groups and politically organize for equal civil rights.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.31)

“In order to help develop the homosexual consciousness, the Mattachine Society coordinated public discussion groups. By late 1951, approximately twelve discussion groups existed throughout southern California; Mattachine billed these events as positive alternatives to the anonymous sexual encounters fostered by the bar and bathhouse subculture.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.31-32)

“In order to mitigate some of the growing dissension, the original five members called for a convention in April 1953 to convert the Mattachine Society into an above-ground organization. However, rather than ameliorating tension, the conference merely exacerbated the rift between moderate and militant perspective. Chuck Rowland and Harry hay were confronted by the demands of Kenneth Braun, Marilyn Reiger, and Hal Call. The former individuals stressed the need to build an ethical homosexual culture and to end prejudice that privileges heterosexuality as morally superior. Burns, Reiger, and Call took the opposite stance. They emphasized assimilation and suggested that homosexual behavior was a minor characteristic that should not foster a rift with the heterosexual majority.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.32)

“Even so, for the sake of unity and to free the society from the imputation of Communist ties, the founders as a body decided to bow out of the leadership. Gradually they drifted away as the moderates took over. Activism, the questioning of majoritarian values, and the raising of gay consciousness gave away to a policy of accommodation in which homosexuals were urged to adopt “a pattern of behavior that is acceptable to society in general and compatible with recognized institutions . . . of home, church and state” and to pursue a program of working with experts in the medical and scientific community to educate and change public perceptions and gain creditability.” (Edsall, Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World, p. 281)

“Abandoning its communist-based ideology, the post-convention Mattachine Society no longer sought to promote a homosexual culture or mass movement. Instead, it established an assimilationist tendency emphasizing homosexuality as primarily an individual problem, and it turned to psychology to provide theories on homosexuality. The new leadership proposed, and members endorsed, an elimination of any mention of “homosexual culture” from the statement of purpose. Indeed, the statement no longer even identified the Mattachine Society as a homosexual organization; the word “homosexual” was eliminated form the passage altogether.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.33)

It was this ‘homosexual' that was popularly known and accepted until the late 1960s when once again homosexuals themselves begin speaking for themselves and defining themselves. It is was this new generation of homosexual activists, who differed from the previous generation of homosexual activist who comprised the homophile movements of the 1950s and early 1960s. Stonewall is often cited as the beginning of this transition. Whereas members of the homophile groups worked together with the psychiatrists, this new generation of homosexual activists tactics were to protest and fight against psychiatrists. While homosexuals seemed to gain control of their lives and their destinies which was the commercialization of homosexuality and the adoption of gay and lesbian as defining terms/identities. The result was AIDS.

Bibliography

Allen, PhD. Michael S “Sullivan's Closet: A Reappraisal of Harry Stack Sullivan's Life and His Pioneering Role in American Psychiatry.” Journal of Homosexuality. 1995, Vol. 29 (1), p.1-18.

Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality). Thunder's Mouth Press. New York, 2002.

Burns, Kate. Editor. Gay Rights. Greenhaven Press/Thompson Gale. Farmington Hills, MI, 2006.

D'Emilio, John. “Capitalism and Gay Identity, p. 467-476 in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader by Henry Abelove, Aine Barale, and David Halperin. Routledge. New York and London, 1993.

Edsall, Nicholas. Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World. University of Virginia Press. Charlottersville & London, 2003.

Engel, Stephen M. The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, UK, 2001.

McKinney, Kathleen and Susan Sprecher editors. Human Sexuality: The Societal and Interpersonal Context. Ablex Publishing Corporation. Norwood, New Jersey, 1989.

Moratto, Toby. The Politics of Homosexuality. Houghton Mifflin. Boston, 1981.

Rosario, Vernon A. Homosexuality and Science A Guide to the Debates. ABC-CLIO. Santa Barbara, CA, Denver, CO & Oxford, England, 2002.

Seidman, Steven. Embattled Eros: Sexual Politics and Ethnics in Contemporary America. Routledge. New York, 1992.

Chapter 3 Alfred Kinsey

Larry Houston — 2009-11-29T17:16:00Z

The book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, by Alfred Kinsey published in 1948 is also historically significant in the development of the concept of the “modern homosexual”. Kinsey's study was once considered the "defining study of homosexuality" but which has now been shown to be otherwise. Kinsey in his study saw not a homosexual person, but homosexual acts. He wrote about the physical sexual acts a male did, and it was based on the orgasms he achieved. It was from Kinsey's study that the popular myth, 10% of the population is homosexual was taken from. Kinsey earned a PhD at Harvard and became a biology professor at Indiana University where he wrote biology textbooks and a book about gall wasps. He was an entomologist by training, a foremost authority on gall wasps. It was at Indiana University that Kinsey's interest in sex research arose after he was asked to participate in a sex education course. This course was to prepare students for fulfilling marriages. Kinsey's liberal attitudes and open support for contraception resulted in his being quickly replaced by the university administration in teaching the sex education class. Yet Kinsey's interest in sex research grew and he begins the research that eventually led to the formation of the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University. It was through this institute that he published in 1948 the book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.

Time has not served Kinsey and his study well. The criticism he initially received over the publication of his study has continued to grow over the years. Even in his day the study was questioned about its scientific value and the scientific standards he imposed in undertaking his study. It was believed at the time Kinsey was a scrupulous and disinterested scientist during sex research. Time and study of Kinsey, and of the Institute for Sex Research has shown other wise. Besides looking critically at his research and how it was conducted, there are question's about Kinsey's own sexually and sexual life. Questions are raised about Kinsey being a homosexual himself, and he has at least been labeled a bisexual. Two areas of Kinsey's study receiving closer attention is how he chose those who were to be apart of the study and the age of some of those included in the data.

Kinsey in his book, Sexual Behavior of the Human Male, was supposedly based on a representative sample of males in the US at the time. A contemporary of Kinsey's, renowned psychologist, Abraham Maslow, pointed out the concern of “sampling” when using individuals on a clearly “volunteer basis”. They are not a representative sample of the general population. Kinsey rejected Maslow's concern. But his sampling techniques based on today “sampling standards” have raised serious scientific concerns. The findings of his study were terribly flawed by the methodology that was used to collect the supposedly representative sample of the U.S. population. His study had more college graduates, than was the normative for that period; most people were not college graduates at the time. He included more Protestants than Catholics; the latter were being less likely to engage in "unusual sexual practices.” Approximately 25% of the 5,300 participants in the study were prison inmates. Moreover, Kinsey especially sought out those prisoners who were sex offenders. Of this large percentage of the individuals studied, 44% of these inmates had their homosexual experiences while in prison. Kinsey, himself, admitted to including “several hundred male prostitutes.” Finally, he sought out "militant gays" and members of gay affirming organizations.

“The starting point for discussions of systematic sampling error in sexuality surveys is the studies by Kinsey and colleagues from the 1940s and 1950s (see Brecher & Brecher, 1986; Cochran, Mosteller, & Tukey, 1954; Laumann et al., 1994). In Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin's (1948) landmark survey of 5,300 males, there was no systematic random sampling. Rather, 163 separate groups were approached, including college students and staff, seven groups of institutionalized males, (juvenile delinquents, adult prisoners [including many male prostitutes], and one group of mental patients), and assorted others including high school students, speech therapy patients, conscientious objectors (for army service), hitch hikers, and people from three rooming houses. A serious limitation of the sample was the overreliance on college students. Kinsey estimated that about half of his personal histories were from people recruited following the attendance of “tens of thousands” of people at several hundred college and public lectures given by him and his colleagues (Cochran et. Al., 1954).” (Wiederman and Whitley editors, Handbook for Conducting Sex Research on Human Sexually, p.86-87)

“Once published, it elicited a number of critical reviews from statisticians and 1950 the National Research Council committee that had been funding Kinsey's research requested the American Statistical Association to evaluate Kinsey's methodology. After a long period of assessment, involving many meetings with Kinsey and his team, a detailed report by the review group of three-Cochran, Mosteller and Tukey-was published.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p.b)

“The more serious criticism centered on what were perceived as the three chief weaknesses of the research. They were the lack of an adequate sample, too broad projection from the date to a larger population, and the use of a mechanistic “orgasm-counting” approach to the sexual experience.” (Christenson, Kinsey: A Biography, p. 143)

The book, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male is the report published in its entirety of a American Statistical Association committee. Three of the authors were appointed as a committee of the Association's Commission on Statistical Standards. The committee had the cooperation of Kinsey, which included visits to the Institute of Sex Research, Inc. University of Indiana. Also the authors went through the interviewing process that Kinsey used in gathering the data for his book.

Sampling

“ There is now general agreement in the scientific community that Kinsey's method of obtaining a sample of Americans did not met today's standard of survey sampling.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p.b)

“The critics are correct in their statements about sample size. The implication that conclusions should have been drawn more hesitatingly is also sound.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p.149)

“Many of KPM's findings are subject to question because of a possible bias in the constitution of the sample." (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p.2)

“KPM had to choose the population to which this study should apply. This decision does not seem to have been made clearly. From the basis for the “U. S. Corrections” (p.105) we should infer it to be “all U.S. white males.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p.10)

“The criticism is well-taken that KPM gave inadequate information about what was done. We cannot tell how big the samples were, what groups went into what cells, or just how the sampling was done, in fact we cannot even make a good stab at guessing the sampled population to which KPM's sample might reasonably apply.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p.65)

“In the case of homosexuality, we are chiefly concerned about possible bias in the sample, although cover-up may also be a factor.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p.150)

“The defects of this work are widely known: for example, respondents were disproportionately drawn the Midwest and from college campuses, and the research did not use probability sampling.” (Turner, Miller, and Moses, Editors. AIDS Sexual Behavior and Intravenous Drug Use, p.9)

“Both Jones and Gathorne-Hardy agree his sample was distorted with Indiana furnishing the greatest number of subjects, but he also had a disproportionate number of homosexuals.” (Bullough, The Kinsey Biographies,”p.20-21)

“It has long been recognized that one of the greatest faults of the Kinsey research was the way in which the cases were selected: the sample is not representative of the entire U.S. population or any definable group in the population. This fault limits the comparability and appropriateness of the Kinsey data as a basic for calculating the prevalence of any form of sexual conduct.” (Turner, Miller, and Moses, Editors. AIDS Sexual Behavior and Intravenous Drug Use, p.82)

Infant and young male child sexual behavior (Chapter 5, “Early Sexual Growth and Activity)

Three of Kinsey's books were reprinted at the same time, in 1998, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Of interest, printed in only one, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female was a new introduction by John Bancraft the current director of the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research. This introduction included a section about the information that was originally presented in Chapter 5 of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. It was this chapter that Kinsey included information about infant and young male child sexual behavior.

Some of the data on the sexual response of children came from one individual who has now been identified, Kenneth Braun. His interview by Kinsey included the notes he recorded of his personal sexual experiences with family members, animals, male and female children as young as infants.

“I decided to check on the sources of this information and found that, without any doubt, all of the information reported in Tables 31-34 came from the carefully documented records of one man. From 1917 until the time that Kinsey interviewed him in the mid-1940s, this man kept notes on a vast array of sexual experiences, involving not only children but adults of both sexes. Kinsey was clearly impressed with by the systematic way he kept his records, and regarded them as of considerable scientific interest. Clearly, his description in the book of the source of this data was misleading, in that he implied that it had come from several men rather than one, although it is likely that information elsewhere in this chapter, on the descriptions of different types of organisms, was obtained in part from some of these other nine men. I do not know why Kinsey was unclear on this point; it was obviously not to conceal the origin of the information from criminal sexual involvement with children, because that was already quite clear. Maybe it was conceal the single source which otherwise might have attracted attention to this one man with possible demands for his identification (demands which now have occurred even though he is long dead). It would be typical of Kinsey to be more concerned about protecting the anonymity of his research subjects (and convincing the reader of the scientific value of the information) than protecting himself from the allegations that eventually followed.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p.k)

“Both Jones and Garthorne-Hardy point out the data was mostly dependent upon the notes taken by a pedophile although Kinsey tried to cover this up by attributing it to varying sources.” (Bullough, “The Kinsey Biographies.” p.22)

Time and time again it is most interesting to read what homosexuals and those advocating for homosexuality write in their numerous publications. The criticisms leveled against each other are far from what is presented in the more popular media. This may be seen now in the criticism of Kinsey, from a book by Bert Archer, The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality). Archer is a self-identified homosexual. Kinsey's sexuality

“Both Jones and Garthorne-Hardy believe that Kinsey was driven by his own sexual needs.” (Bullough, “The Kinsey Biographies,” p.21)

“No one knew at the time, of course, Alfred Kinsey's impetus for embarking on his monumental and epoch-shifting study of human sexuality came from a desire to justify his own sexual thoughts and practices.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality), p.116)

In his book Archer writes twice and with a footnote that Kinsey used his data gathering trips to have sex with other men. “Things were effected somewhat by the fact Kinsey used these trips to have sex with men.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality), p.117) Archer uses a footnote, number 66, to support this statement. “Whether he had sex with any of the men he also interviewed is not entirely clear, but we do know, as of 1997, have testimony, albeit anonymous, from a contemporary friend of Kinsey that he did have sex with men on these trips.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality), p.242) Archer on page 124 states this again, “Not only did he use his data-gathering trips to get sex . . .”

“It is true that Kinsey himself experimented with sex and, among other things, engaged in considerable homosexual activity not only with his assistants, but with others.” (Bullough, “The Kinsey Biographies”, p.19)

“As a result of his own irregular sexual interests and practices, including being married to the one woman, having a long-term simultaneous affair with a man (upon whose death he took up with another), and a rather enthusiastic interest in the sadomasochistic sides of sex, he was not that fond of the sexual theorists of his day, not to mention popular opinion, all of which look disparagingly for one reason or another on the things he enjoyed.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality), p.116)

Kinsey's interpretations and opinions

“But the fact that the complier of all this data (he eventually interviewed about twelve thousand white men) was out to make a point, was out, in fact, to bring the world's view of human sexuality more in line with his own (which of course was based in intuition, formed as it was before he began his study), is of enormous significance.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality), p.117)

“The second, not unrelated point is that Kinsey was not merely presenting data in his first Report - he was making a point, a point he himself was clear about long before he handed out his first questionnaire. This colors things.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality), p.124)

“The most visible trademark of the Kinsey style was an ostentatious avowal of both disinterestedness and incompetence wherever matters of ethics were at issue. “This is first of all a report on what people do,” he wrote of the Male Volume, “which raises no question of what they should do.” In reality, Kinsey held strong opinions about what people should and should not do, and his efforts to disguise those opinions were only too transparent.” (Robinson, The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, p.49-50)

“At the same time, heterosexual intercourse suffered a relative eclipse simply because of the prominence Kinsey assigned to masturbation and homosexuality, both of which were objects of his partiality.” (Robinson, The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, p.64)

“But though scientists may avoid explicit moral judgments, research is implicitly striated with values and biases. In fact, Kinsey's values permeate his work.” (Irvine, Disorders of Desire: Sex and Gender in Modern American Sexology, p.37)

“Although Kinsey was often critical of those who made assertions about sexual behavior without revealing the evidence on which their assertions were based, Kinsey indulged in a fair amount of this ‘editorializing' in the Male volume.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p. n)

“Although Kinsey claimed to have been completely neutral and detached in gathering and tabulating his data and to have “avoid[ed] social or moral interpretations of the facts,” the Report is peppered with commentary and interpretation that reveal Kinsey's strong biases.” (Lewes, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Male Homosexuality, p. 125)

“Kinsey, however, did not limited himself to simply reporting his data, but readily offered interpretations and inferences. The Report includes a long section describing checks that performed on the sample and interviewing technique, and concluded that the figures on the frequency of homosexual activity “must be understatements.” (Lewes, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Male Homosexuality, 128)

Scientific value and scientific standards of Kinsey's work

“He was clearly a stubborn man with strongly held opinions. He needed to be in control, making it less likely that he would accept the advice of others, and this resulted in his taking some wrong directions.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, pg. p)

“Nevertheless, given the potential for selection bias that his method did involve, the review group were critical of his lack of caution in interpreting his findings, and his incorrect use of statistical procedures (e.g., the weighting procedure to produce ‘US corrections')." (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p.b)

“KPM's interpretations were based in part on tabulated and statistically analyzed data, and in part on data and experience which were not presented because of their nature or because of the of space limitations. Some interpretations appear not to have been based on either of theses. ... However, KPM should have indicated which of their statements were undocumented or undocumentable and should have been more cautious in boldly drawing highly precise conclusions from their limited sample.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p.2)

“By the way of summary, the general statement that much of the writing in the book falls below the level of good scientific writing seems justified.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p.150)

“The critics are justified in their objections that many of the most interesting and provocative statements in the book are not based on data presented therein, and it is not made clear to the reader on what evidence the statements are based. Further, the conclusions drawn from the data presented in the book are often stated by KPM in much too bold and confident a manner. Taken cumulatively, these objections amount to saying that much of the writing in the book falls below the level of good scientific writing.” “In the case of homosexuality, we are chiefly concerned about possible bias in the sample, although cover-up may also be a factor.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p.152)

“In reality he limited his research to Americans and Canadians, and he also excluded black histories from his tabulations. Thus by his own admission his generalizations extended only to the white population of North America, despite his inclusiveness of his titles.” (Robinson, The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, p.53)

Homosexual: 10% Myth

“I think it worth noting two major points about the quoted section from the men's report. The first is that, as I've indicated, what Kinsey said and what we have come to believe Kinsey said are two different things, He did not say that 10 percent of the male population was homosexual. In fact , he said there was no such thing as a homosexual. He was quite explicit on the subject.” (Archer, The End of Gay and the death of heterosexuality, p.123)

“From all of this, it becomes obvious that any question as to the number of persons in the world who are homosexual and the number who are heterosexual is unanswerable.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 650)

Kinsey and homosexuals

“It would encourage clear thinking on these matters if persons were not characterized as heterosexual or homosexual, but as individuals who have had certain amounts of heterosexual experience and certain amounts of homosexual experience. Instead of using these terms as substantives which stand for persons, or even as adjectives to describe persons, they may better be used to describe the nature of the overt sexual relations, or of the stimuli to which an individual erotically responds.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 617)

“Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual.”(Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 639)

“From all of this, it should be evident that one is not warranted in recognizing merely two types of individuals, heterosexual and homosexual, and that the characterization of the homosexual as a third sex fails to describe any actuality.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 647)

Bibilography

Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality). Thunder's Mouth Press. New York, 2002.

Bullough, Vern L. “The Kinsey Biographies.” Sexuality and Culture. Winter 2006. Volume 10, Number 1, p. 15-22.

Christenson, Co rnelia V. Kinsey: A Biography. Indiana University Press. Bloomington and London, 1971.

Cochran, William G., Frederick Mosteller, John H. Tukey and W. O. Jenkins. Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. The American Statistical Association. Washington D.C., 1954.

Irvine, Janice M. Disorders of Desire: Sex and Gender in Modern American Sexology. Temple University Press. Philadelphia, 1990.

Kinsey, Alfred C., Warren B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. W. B. Saunders Company. Philadelphia and London, 1968.

Kinsey, Alfred C., Warren B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin and Paul H. Gebhard. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Indiana University Press. Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1998.

Lewes, Ph.D., Kenneth. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Male Homosexuality. Simon and Schuster. New York, 1988.

Robinson, Paul. The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson. Cornell University Press. Ithaca, New York, 1989.

Turner, Charles F., Heather G. Miller, and Lincoln E. Moses, Editors. AIDS Sexual Behavior and Intravenous Drug Use. National Academy Press. Washington, D.C., 1989.

Wiederman, and Whitley editors. Handbook for Conducting Sex Research on Human Sexually. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Mahwah, NJ and London, 2002.

Chapter 5 Stonewall to the 1980s

Larry Houston — 2007-05-27T02:45:00Z

Chapter 5 Stonewall to the 1980s

· Stonewall

“In short, the political and cultural environment had undergone a liberalizing shift which had created the opportunity for the emergence of a mass homosexual movement.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p.38)

“Ironically, when the uprising finally occurred, many people failed to recognize its significance. Looking back, however, there is no denying that what began as a skirmish at a Greenwhich Village bar became the harbinger of a new movement of human rights. Detailed accounts of Stonewall have taken on the quality of myth, as more people remember being thee that could have possibly have fit in the tiny grimy bar. It is generally accepted that a diverse group of bar patrons, led by drag queens who were Stonewall regulars, spontaneously began to fight back during a police raid. The resistance turned into a riot, which lasted for several days.” (Kranz & Cusick, Gay Rights: Revised Edition, p. 35)

“The years leading up to Stonewall saw a breach in the assimilationist attitudes of the docile homophiles of the previous generation in favour of more revolutionary ones of people who craved more purely sexual freedom.” (Archer, The End Gay, p.91)

“But in the 1960s and 1970s, the gay movement broke decisively with the assimilationist rhetoric of the 1950s by publicly affirming, celebrating, and even cultivating homosexual difference.” (Chauncey, Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality, p.29)

An event that took place on June 12, 1969, in New York City at a gay bar called, the Stonewall Inn, had great social and cultural historical significance in the development of the concept of the “modern homosexual” who soon adopted what is known as a “gay” identity. This was an act of resistance, a riot by drag queens mourning the death of Judy Garland. It was a group of effeminate men, wearing women's clothes resisting police authority, during a raid on the gay bar. What started out as a typical raid by the police, a shake down for bribery from a gay bar turned out much differently. This event is often linked with the beginning of the “gay liberation movement.” It should be noted that it was a fringe group of homosexuals, and not representative individuals of the homosexual community at large who displayed this physical resistance.

“Stonewall was an act of resistance to police authority by multiracial drag queens mourning the death of Judy Garland, long divinized by gays. Therefore Stonewall had a cultural meaning beyond the political: it was a pagan insurrection by the reborn transvestite priests of Cybele.” (Paglia, Vamps and Tramps, p. 67-68)

“In the 1970s gay liberation was the name of a major theoretical challenge to assimilation as well as minoritization. Early activists and writers argued that gay liberation could transform all sexual and gender relations; they argued against marriage and monogamy and against existing family structures (Altman 1981); Jay and Young (1972).” (Phelan, Sexual Strangers: Gays, Lesbians, and Dilemmas of Citizenship, p. 108-109)

“Gay liberation had somehow evolved to the right to have a good time-the right to enjoy bars, discos, drugs, and frequent impersonal sex.” (Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, p.445)

· American Psychiatric Association

Another historically significant event in the development of the concept of the “modern homosexual” occurred in the early 1970s. This was the decision in 1973 by the APA, American Psychiatric Association, to remove homosexuality from the lists of sexual disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Homosexual advocates acknowledge the hijacking of science for political gain.

“Of course, to mount this counterattack, gays and lesbians must challenge authority of scientists, and that is exactly what gay rights activists did when they campaigned to have homosexuality removed from the APA's list of mental disorders. In fact, those activists argued that homosexuality is not a disease but a lifestyle choice. Although that argument was successful in the early 1970s, the political climate has changed in such a way that gay rights advocates no long want homosexuality to be considered a choice.Instead, they want homosexuals to be thought of as an immutable characteristic, and the gay gene discourse helps them in this effort.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 43)

“In 1973, by a vote of 5,854 to 3,810, the diagnostic category of homosexuality was eliminated from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association (Bayer 1981).” (O'Donohue & Casselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional , and Value Issues, p. 66 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm editors Rogers H.Wright, and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“The decision of the American Psychiatric Association to delete homosexuality from its published list of sexual disorders in 1973 was scarcely a cool, scientific decision. It was a response to a political campaign fueled by the belief that its original inclusion as a disorder was a reflection of an oppressive politico-medical definition of homosexuality as a problem.” (Weeks, Jeffery. Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities, p. 213)

“Perhaps the greatest policy success of the early 1970s was the American Psychiatric Association's 1973-74 decision to remove homosexuality from its “official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual list of mental disorders.” This decision did not come about because a group of doctors suddenly changed their views; it followed an aggressive and sustained campaign by lesbian and gay activists.” (Rimmerman, From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States, p. 85-86)

“Writing about the 1973 decision and the dispute that surrounded it, Bayer (1981) contended that these changes were produced by political rather than scientific factors. Bayer argued that the revision represented the APA's surrender to political and social pressures, not new data or scientific theories regarding on human sexuality.” (O'Donohue & Casselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional , and Value Issues, p. 66 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm editors Rogers H.Wright, and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“The APA's very process of a medical judgment arrived at by parliamentary method set off more arguments than it settled. Many members felt that the trustees, in acting contrary to diagnostic knowledge, had responded to intense propagandistic pressures from militant homophile organizations. “Politically we said homosexuality is not a disorder,” one psychiatrist admitted, “but privately most of us felt it is.” (Kronemeyer, Overcoming Homosexuality, p.5)

The removing of homosexuality as a sexual disorder was as a result of a three year long social/political campaign by gay activists, pro-gay psychiatrists and gay psychiatrists, not as a result of valid scientific studies. Rather the activities were public disturbances, rallies, protests, and social/political pressure from within by gay psychiatrists and by others outside of the APA upon the APA. The action of removing homosexuality was taken with such unconventional speed that normal channels for consideration of the issues were circumvented. This action taken in the APA had dramatic consequences on psychosexual life according to Charles Socarides in a article published in The Journal of Psychohistory, “Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic: The Issue of Homosexuality.” Socarides writes the removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual was a false step with the following results.

“This amounted to a full approval of homosexuality and an encouragement to aberrancy by those who should have known better, both in the scientific sense and in the sense of the social consequences of such removal.” (Socarides, Charles W. “Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic: The Issue of Homosexuality,” p.320-321)

In this article he described a movement within the American Psychiatric Association that through social/political activism resulted in a two-phase radicalization of a main pillar of psychosocial life. The first phase was the erosion of heterosexuality as the single acceptable sexual pattern in our culture. This was followed by the second phase the raising of homosexuality to the level of an alternative lifestyle. As a result homosexuality became an acceptable psychosocial institution alongside heterosexuality as a prevailing norm of sexual behavior.

“In essence, this movement within the American Psychiatric Association has accomplished what every other society, with rare exceptions, would have trembled to tamper with, a revision of the basic code and concept of life and biology: that men and women normally mate with the opposite sex and not with each other.” (Socarides, Charles W. “Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic: The Issue of Homosexuality,” p.321)

The hijacking of science in the APA by those advocating homosexuality has now taken a very interesting twist. Thirty years later after this decision by the APA, Robert L. Spitzer, M.D. who was instrumental in the removal of homosexuality in 1973 from the lists of sexual disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is once again facing the anger of others. The first time was by those who opposed the normalization of homosexuality. Now after publishing the results of a study showing that some people may change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual, it is those advocating for homosexuality. Dr. Spitzer's study and peer commentaries have just been published in the October 2003 issue of the “Archives of Sexual Behavior.”

“An additional personal parallel-the anger that has been directed towards me for doing this study reminds of a similar reaction to me during my involvement in the removal of the diagnosis of homosexuality from DSM-II in 1973.” (Spitzer, “Reply: Study Results Should Not be Dismissed and Justify Further Research on the Efficacy of Sexual Reorientation Therapy”, p. 472)

· Circuit Parties

Circuit parties are unique to the homosexual community, but are similar to other parties called “raves” and can be traced back to the popularity of disco music in the 1970s. The popularity of these “circuit parties” has grown tremendously over the past 10 years. There is no uniform definition of a “circuit party”, because these parties continue to evolve.

“However, a circuit party tends to be a multi-event weekend that occurs each year at around the same time and in the same town or city and centers on one or more large, late-night dance events that often have a theme (for example, a color such as red, black or white)." (Mansergh, Colfax, Marks, Rader, Guzman, & Buchbinder, “The Circuit Party Men's Health Survey: Findings And Implications for Gay and Bisexual Men.” p.953)

“Circuit Parties are weekend-long, erotically-charged, drug-fueled gay dance events held in resort towns across the country. There's at least one party every month somewhere in the U.S.-New York's “Black Part,' South beach's “White Party,” Montreal's “Black and Blue Party,” and son- and people travel far and wide to take part.” (Ghaziani, “The Circuit Part's Faustian Bargin,” p.21)

Because these “circuit parties” are unique to the homosexual community, it is from the media of this community itself that most of the information about these parties comes from. Although there has been a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, which is quoted from above. I have also found an article form USATODAY.com, “Worries crash ‘circuit parties', 06/20/2002. The information that is coming from all sources is strikingly similar. That is the high prevalence of drug use and sexual activity, including unprotected anal sex.

“The circuit-with its jet set “A-List” of well-heeled and muscular gay men- had actually been in existence in the pre-AIDS time, albeit it was small and very exclusive. It consisted in the late 1970s into the early 1980s mostly of a about thousand men who flew back and forth between New York and Los Angeles, going from the famous parties at the Flamingo and the Saint in New York to the ones at the Probe in L.A. But in the 1990s the circuit grew to consist of parties all around the country, indeed around the world-from Miami to Montreal, Vancouver to Sydney-with tens of thousands of men who regularly attend events. In the early 1990s there were only a handful of events; by 1996, according to Alan Brown in Out and About, a gay travel newsletter, there were over 50 parties a year, roughly one per week. Typically these are weekend-long events, more a series of all-night (and daytime) parties stretching over a few days, often taking place in resort hotels, each punctuated by almost universal drug use among attendees." ( Signorile, Life Outside, p.64-65)

“Every party has a similar format, with loud music and dancing at its core, spiced with live entertainment from popular singers and scantily-clad male dancers. Circuit parties began in the mid-1980's as part of an effort to raise gay men's awareness of AIDS as well as to raise funds to combat the disease and help its victims. To this day, many circuit parties HIV/AIDS charity events, benefiting a variety of nonprofit organizations.” (Ghaziani, “The Circuit Part's Faustian Bargin,” p.21)

According to health officials, Palm Springs, CA has developed one of the highest per capita rates of syphilis in the nation, driven mostly by gay and bisexual men. Palm Springs is where the White Party is held annually in April. The 2003 party raised concerned among public health officials and some gay leaders that the event would feed the spread of syphilis.

Some charities - along with public health officials and many gay rights leaders - are increasingly uncomfortable with what has become the dark side of circuit parties: widespread drug use and random, unprotected sex that some charities say is just the type of behavior they discourage. (“Worries crash ‘circuit parties'.” www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/06/20/circuit-parties-usat.htm

“This seems harmless enough, but there is also a flipside. While the evidence to date is inconclusive, circuit parties may ironically be a potential site for HIV infection. The irony is that circuit parties began as vehicles for HIV awareness and fundraising.” (Ghaziani, “The Circuit Part's Faustian Bargin,” p.22)

“It is well known, both anecdotally and through research that drug use is wide spread at circuit parties. Studies indicate that club drugs are consumed by by about 95 percent of party attendees (Mansergh, 2001). Indeed drug use is incorporated into the setting as an intergal part of circuit culture.” (Ghaziani, “The Circuit Part's Faustian Bargin,” p.22)

“Research revels an abundance of sexual activity during party weekends.” (Ghaziani, “The Circuit Part's Faustian Bargin,” p.22)

But one national gay organzation in September of 2004 appears not to be concerned with this dark side of circuit parties. The NGLTF (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) has purchased the rights and assets to the Winter Party held in Maimi, FL. A Washington Blade online article (Friday, September 09, 2004) quotes the executive director of the NGLTF, who sees no problem with being a sponsor of a ‘circuit party'. He goes on to call it a dance event.

“Foreman said he sees no problem with the Task Force becoming associated with a circuit party.”

“We're very proud to have acquired the Winter Party,” Foreman said. “Having a dance event where people come together and have a good time is a good thing.” (“Task Force to take over Winter Party”, Washington Blade online, Friday, September 03, 2004)

· Gay Male Clones

Throughout history the male homosexual was often based on non-gender conformity, that is the effeminate male. Although this still continues today, a rejection of this stereotyping is seen in the “gay male clone”. There are two books written by homosexuals themselves that defines this “gay male clone”. Michelango Signorileis is the author of the book, Life Outside. Signorileis writes about gay men, masculinity, the “gay male clone”, and “circuit parties”. Martin Levine was a sociologist, and university professor. The book, Gay Macho, is an edited version of Levine's doctoral dissertation. He died from complications of AIDS at the age of 42. The gay male clone was not a representative homosexual, but only one of many groups among the “modern homosexual” gays, lesbians, queers, and homosexual.

“Clones symbolize modern homosexuality. When the dust of gay liberation had settled, the doors to the closet were opened, and out popped the clone. Taking a cue from movement ideology, clones modeled themselves upon traditional masculinity and the self-fulfillment ethic. (Yankelovitch 1981) Aping blue-collar workers, they butched it up and acted like macho men. Accepting me-generation values, they searched for self-fulfillment in anonymous sex, recreational drugs, and hard partying. Much to activists' chagrin, liberation turned the “Boys in the Band” into doped-up, sexed-out, Marlboro men. The clone in many ways was, the manliest of men. He had a gym-defined body; after hours of rigorous body building, his physique rippled with bulging muscles, looking more like competitive body builders than hairdressers or florists. He wore blue-collar garb-flannel shirts over muscle T-shirts, Levi 501s over work boots, bomber jackets over hooded sweatshirts. He kept his hair short and had a thick moustache or closely cropped beard. There was nothing New Age or hippie about this reformed gay liberationist. And the clone lived the fast life. He “partied hard,” taking recreational drugs, dancing in discos till dawn, having hot sex with strangers. Throughout the seventies and early eighties,clones set the tone in the homosexual community (Altman 1982, 103; Holleran 1982). Glorified in the gay media, promoted in gay advertising, clones defined gay chic, and the clone life style became culturally dominant. Until AIDS. As the new disease ravaged the gay male community in the early 1980s scientist discovered that the clone life style was “toxic”: specific sexual behaviors, even promiscuity, might be one of the ways that the HIV virus spread in the gay male population. Drugs, late nights, and poor nutrition weakened the immunity system (Fettner and Check 1984)” (Levine, Gay Macho, p.7-8)

“The clone role reflected the gay world's image of this kind of gay man, a doped-up, sexed-out, Marlboro man. Although the gay world derisively named this social type the clone, largely because of is uniform look and life-style, clones were the leading social within gay ghettos until the advent of AIDS. At this time, gay media, arts, and pornography, promoted clones as the first post-Stonewall form of homosexual life. Clones came to symbolize the liberated gay man.” ( Levine, “The Life and Death of Gay Clones.” p.70-71 in Gay Culture in America: Essays from the Field editor Gilbert Herdt.)

"Four features distinguished clones: (1) strongly masculine dress and deportment; (2) uninhibited recreational sex with multiple partners, often in sex clubs and baths; (3) the use of alcohol and other recreational drugs; and (4) frequent attendance at discotheques and other gay meeting places. Clone culture with its pattern of sexual availability, erotic apparel, multiple partners, and reciprocity in sexual technique became an important organizing feature of gay male life during the 1970s. It also became a seedbed for high rates of sexually transmitted diseases as well as frequent transmission of the hepatitis B virus. Many treated sexually transmitted diseases as a price that had to be paid for a life style of erotic liberation." (Jonsen and Stryker, editors, The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States, p. 261-262)

“A key factor in the formulation and promulgation of the cult of masculinity that also dismayed the gay liberationist was that the dominant gender style was now supermasculine. It was as if the 1960s and the counter culture androgyny never occurred. Gay male culture was still reeling from the crisis of masculinity that had affected homosexuals for decades. Gay men, attracted to the masculine ideas they'd cultivated in the furtive days prior to Stonewall, seemed now institutionalize and exaggerate a heterosexual-inspired, macho look. The 1970s clone was born, and his look exploded on the streets of rapidly growing gay ghettos in dozens of American cities.” (Signorile, Life Outside, p.51-52)

“A whole industry was sprouting from and glorifying this male culture, with clothing stores like All American Boy on Castro Street, a gym called Body Works, and dozens of sex clubs and baths, with names like Animals. The sex clubs catered to every to every imaginable sexual taste: the leather set; men who enjoyed being tied up; men who wished to be urinated on. The bathhouses had once been seen as an expression of gay liberation, at least among those who equated gay liberation with sexual abandon. Now, they were celebrating and enforcing the values that Evans saw parading down the Castro every day: The Premium was put on physical appearance and conformity.” (Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, p.445)

For the “gay male clone” what resulted was not “gay liberation” or freedom from alienation by society, but was bondage into the enforced cult of modern homosexuality.

"For a great many gay men in the urban centers-the majority of which, some studies since the 1970s have shown, have hundreds of partners throughout their lives-living the fantasy has of course all been under the guises of liberation. Perhaps there is no such thing as true liberation. When we break from one rigid system, we often create another. Its true that most gay men in urban America are not having a life of enforced heterosexuality, as gay liberationist might call it, with a driveway, a picket fence, and children to nurture. Many are, however, instead living a life of enforced cult homosexuality, with parties, drugs, and gyms ruling their lives." (Signorile, Life Outside, p.26-27)

In New York City, San Francisco, and other large cities many gay and lesbians had formed large “gay communities.” So it was now possible to live, work, and socialize in what became “gay gehettos.” The following quote is making reference to the opening of, The Saint, a large disco for gay males in New York City.

“It was mailed only to Mailmans' friends and their friends, a self-selected group that formed the base of The Saint's membership of three thousand. Anyone who wanted to join had to be referred by a member to the membership office for screening. The clientele reflected the screening process: nearly all white, professional in their twenties and thirties, most good-looking and muscled, with the mustaches and short hair that were the style of the time.” (Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, p.442-443)

“The streets of San Francisco offered, in theory at least, a cross-section of America's male homosexual community, but, Evans thought, one would never know it to walk down Castro Street. All these men looked identical, with their short haircuts, clipped mustaches and muscular bodies, turned out in standard-issue uniforms of tight faded blue jeans and polo shirts. The image was one part military, one part cowboy, one part 1950s suburbia and conformity, and they swaggered down the street, many aloof and unfriendly, as if their affected distance enhanced their masculinity.” (Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, p.444)

Bibliography

Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality). Thunder's Mouth Press. New York, 2002.

Bayer, Ronald. Homosexuality and the American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis. Basic Books. New York, 1981.

Brookey, Robert Alan. Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene. Indiana University Press. Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2002.

Chauncey, George. Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality. Basic Books/Perseus Books Group. New York, 2004.

Clendinen, Dudley and Adam Nagourne. Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. Simon and Schuster. New York, 1990.

Engel, Stephen M. The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, UK, 2001.

Ghaziani, Amin. “The Circuit Party's Faustin Bargain.” The Gay & Lesbian Review / Worldwide. July-August, 2005, Volume XII, Number 4, p. 21-24.

Jonsen, Albert R. and Jeff Stryker. The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States. National Academy Press. Washington D.C., 1993.

Konemeyer, Robert. Overcoming Homosexuality. Macmillan. New York, 1980.

Kranz, Rachel and Tim Cusick. Gay Right: Revised Edition. Facts on File, Inc. New York, 2005.

Levine, Martin P. Gay Macho. New York University Press. New York and London, 1998.

Levine, Martin P. “The Life and Death of Gay Clones.” p. 68- 86 in Gay Culture in America: Essays from the Field editor Gilbert Herdt.

Mansergh, Gordon, PhD, Grant N Colfax, MD, Gary Marks, PhD, Melissa Rader, MPH, Robert Guzman, BA, & Susan Buchbinder, MD. “The Circuit Party Men's Health Survey: Findings And Implications for Gay and Bisexual Men.” American Journal of Public Health. June 2001, Vol. 91, No. 6, 953-958.

Paigila, Camille. Vamps & Tramps. Vintage Books. New York, 1994.

Phelan, Shane. Sexual Strangers: Gays, Lesbians, and Dilemmas of Citizenship. Temple University Press. Philadelphia, 2001.

Rimmerman, Craig A. From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States. Temple University Press. Philadelphia, 2002.

Signorile, Michelangelo. Life Outside. HarperCollins Publishers. New York, 1997.

Socarides, Charles W. “Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic: The Issue of Homosexuality.” The Journal of Psychohistory Winter 1992, 19 (3), 307-329.

Spitzer, M.D., Robert L. “Reply: Study Results Should Not be Dismissed and Justify Further Research on the Efficacy of Sexual Reorientation Therapy.” Archives of Sexual Behavior October 2003, Vol. 32, No. 5, 469-472.

Weeks, Jeffery. Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1988.

Wright, Rogers H. and Nicolas A. Cummings. Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. New York and Hove, 2005.

Chapter 7 A Homosexual Agenda?

Larry Houston — 2007-05-26T16:21:00Z

Chapter 7 A Homosexual Agenda?

Is there or was there ever a homosexual agenda? Today there are many local, regional, and national homosexual organizations. In addition homosexuals have a very prominent written media presence. There is the Journal of Homosexuality, a magazine the Advocate, newspapers, the Blades in Washington DC and New York along with other popular media publications and a large internet presence. How closely do all these various “homosexual enterprises” work together as a unified entity speaking as one voice for homosexuals? It is hard to tell, it may not be as unified as some may think to portray. But it does speak well for the democratic capitalist society that America is today.

The homosexual rights movement itself speaks of following upon and learning from the earlier civil rights and feminist's movements. For without them there would be no homosexual rights movement today. But one parallel to these two previous movements cannot be made; they were about equality, racial and gender, for two distinct classes of individuals. There is no “homosexual” as a distinct class of individuals. “Homosexuals” are a group of individuals who self-identity by the behaviors they commit. It is these behaviors, particularly sexual behaviors that are committed and that are detrimental to the individuals who commit them and to the society as a whole. Yet the homosexual rights movement is well on its way to changing our society in greater ways then perhaps the combination of these two previous movements together. Homosexuals have been very successful in shifting the discourse from “behavior” to “rights.” The homosexual rights movement is a attempting to bring about change in our culture and society that is unprecedented in all of history, particularly in redefining gender and marriage. But when it all said and done, as the homosexuals say and write in their books it is about societal approval for homosexual behavior. It is all about same-sex physical sex acts. The following quotes are by two homosexual historians.

But the notion of a gay “identity” rarely accompanies such sexual acts, nor do political movements arise to make demands in the name of that identity. It's still almost entirely in the Western world that the genders of one's partner is considered a prime marker of personality, and among Western nations it is the United States - a country otherwise considered a bastion of conservatism - that the strongest political movement has arisen centered around that identity.

We've only begun to analyze why, and to date can say little more then that certain significant pre-requisites developed in this country, and to some degree everywhere in the western world, that weren't present, or hadn't achieved the necessary critical mass, elsewhere. Among such factors were the weakening of the traditional religious link between sexuality and procreation (one which had made non-procreative same gender desire an automatic candidate for denunciation as “unnatural”). Secondly, the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the United States, and the West in general, in the nineteen century weakened the material (and moral) authority of the nuclear family, and allowed mavericks to escape into welcome anonymity of city life, where they could choose a previously unacceptable lifestyle of singleness and nonconformity without constantly worrying about parental or village busybodies pouncing on them.” (Duberman, Left Out, 414-415.)

“I have argued that lesbian and gay identity and communities are historically created, the result of a process of capitalist development that has spanned many generations. A corollary of this argument is that we are not a fixed social minority composed for all time of a certain percentage of the population. There are more of us than one hundred years ago, more of us than forty years ago. And there may very well be more gay men and lesbians in the future. Claims made by gays and nongays that sexual orientation is fixed at an early age, that large numbers of visible gay men and lesbians in society, the media, and schools will have no influence on the sexual identities of the young, are wrong. Capitalism has created the material conditions for homosexual desire to express itself as a central component of some individuals' lives; now, our political movements are changing consciousness, creating the ideological conditions that make it easier for people to make that choice.” (D'Emilio, “Capitalism and Gay Identity, p. 473-474 in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader by Henry Abelove, Michele Aine Barale and David M. Halperin)

The following information in this paper is taken from a book written by two homosexuals, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, and a law review article, “Selling Homosexuality to America” written by a senior sales marketing management professional.

“The campaign we outline in this book, though complex, depends centrally upon a program of unabashed propaganda, firmly grounded in long-established principles of psychology and advertising.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.xxvi)

“But from here on, this book is devoted to the one scheme that would, if correctly administered, radically hasten and broaden the spread of tolerance for gays in straight society.

We have in mind a strategy as calculated and powerful as that which gays are accused of pursuing by their enemies-or, if you prefer, a plan as manipulative as that which our enemies themselves employ. It's time to learn from Madison Avenue, to rollout the big guns. Gays must launch a large-scale campaign-we've called it the Waging Peace campaign-to reach straights through the mainstream media. We're talking about propaganda.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.161)

“This article explores how gay rights activists use rhetoric, psychology, social psychology, and the media - all the elements of modern marketing - to position homosexuality in order to frame what is discussed in the public arena and how it is discussed. In essence, when it comes to homosexuality, activists want to shape “what everyone knows” and “what everyone takes for granted” even if everyone does not really know and even if it should not be taken for granted.” (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America,” p. 443-444)

The book After the Ball was published in 1989 and the law review article was published in 2002. One may perhaps wonder after reading both of them and noting how the homosexual rights movement today has affected our society that there is perhaps some validity to the idea of a thoughtful and organized homosexual agenda.

“When, in a 1985 Christopher Street article, we presented a blueprint for a national propaganda effort, doubters derided the proposal as irrelevant or impotent, the methods as demeaning and fraudulent, and our intent as reactionary. In February 1988, however, a "war conference" of 175 leading gay activists, representing organizations from across the land, convened in Warrenton, Virginia, to establish a four-point agenda for the gay movement. The conference gave first priority to "a nation-wide media campaign to promote a positive image of gays and lesbians," and its final statement concluded:

We must consider the media in every project we undertake. We must, in addition, take every advantage we can to include public service announcements and paid advertisements, and to cultivate reporters and editors of newspapers, radio, and television. To help facilitate this we need national media workshops to train our leaders. . . . Our media efforts are fundamental to the full acceptance of us in American life.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.162-163)

The strategy adopted at this “war conference” was to undertake in a carefully calculated public relations campaign to shift the public's focus from “homosexual behavior” to the idea of “gay rights.”

“When you're very different, and people hate you for it, this is what you do: first get your foot in the door, by being as similar as possible; then, and only, then - when your one difference little is finally accepted - you can start dragging in your other peculiarities one by one.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.146)

“So when we say ‘talk about homosexuality,' we mean talk about gay rights issues and nothing more: be single minded.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.180)

“This potent weapon was recognized in the formulation of the gay rights campaign when it was strategized that the gay “campaign should not demand explicit support for homosexual practices, but should instead take antidiscrimination as its theme.” ” (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America,” p.468)

Up until that time, 1988, homosexuals attempted to gain public acceptance based on their behavior. Typical was the idea of “Gay Pride” and the celebration of being different based on sexual behavior. But this was successful only to the point of a limited tolerance of homosexuality by society. Often those who opposed homosexuality easily reversed the small gains made by homosexual activists in many instances. An example of this was in Florida with Anita Bryant's Save Our Children campaign where voters repealed a Dade County's human rights ordinance in 1977. So at the time the idea of “gay rights” was radical shift from how many homosexuals were attempting to gain public acceptance. Unfortunately time has shown that this was a wise course of action. After this “war conference” was held two different strategies on how to totally repackage “homosexual behavior” as a “gay rights” was unveiled to the homosexual community in 1989.

1. “Pederasts, gender-benders, sado-masochists, and other minorities in the homosexual community with more extreme “peculiarities” would keep a low profile until homosexuality is in the tent. Also, common homosexual practices such as anal-oral sex, anal sex, fisting, and anonymous sex - that is to say what homosexuals actually do and with how many they do it - must never be a topic.” (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America,” p.459)

2. “America takes pride in being a country where tolerance for others and individual freedom is held in high regard. It is both part of our laws and our culture. Today's homosexual marketer has properly recognized this environment and has aggressively followed these strategies in promoting the idea “homosexuality” by directing the consumer away from the specifics of (especially male) homosexual behavior while also advertising that the choice to pursue such behavior is normal, innate, unchangeable, and prevalent. It is even healthy and desirable so it deserves protection as a right.” (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America,”p.460)

This new campaign was only made possible by an event that took place more then 15 years earlier. This event took place in 1973 and was the redefining of homosexuality from abnormal to normal. It was the decision of the APA, American Psychiatric Association, to remove homosexuality from the lists of sexual disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The removing of homosexuality as a sexual disorder was as a result of a three year long social/political campaign by homosexual activists, pro-homosexual psychiatrists and homosexual psychiatrists, not as a result of valid scientific studies. Rather the activities were public disturbances, rallies, protests, and social/political pressure from within by homosexual psychiatrists and by others outside of the APA upon the APA. The action of removing homosexuality was taken with such unconventional speed that normal channels for consideration of the issues were circumvented. Jeffrey Weeks is a homosexual historian from England and his comments are readily acknowledge by other homosexuals and advocates for homosexuality.

“The decision of the American Psychiatric Association to delete homosexuality from its published list of sexual disorders in 1973 was scarcely a cool, scientific decision. It was a response to a political campaign fueled by the belief that its original inclusion as a disorder was a reflection of an oppressive politico-medical definition of homosexuality as a problem.” (Weeks, Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities, p. 213)

This new campaign for “gay rights” has been successful as long it has been able to keep the focus off of homosexual behavior. It should be noted that in the beginning of this new campaign an understanding of this was needed, so definite actions were to be taken and were taken to make sure the focus was on “gay rights and not homosexual behavior. But this was to be done at the expense of some in the homosexual community in the short term to gain benefits for the majority of homosexuals in the long term.

“After the Ball has now detailed a comprehensive public relations campaign that should go a long way toward sanitizing our very unsanitary image. But we can't hide forever beneath a coat of whitewash; we have to step out from behind the façade eventually, and unless we've made some real changes by the time we do, people will see that we're still the same old queers. Straights hate gays not just for what their myths and lies say we are, but also for what we really are; all the squeaky-clean media propaganda in the world won't sustain a positive image in the long run unless we start scrubbing to make ourselves a little sqeakier and cleaner in reality. And as it happens, our noses (and other parts) are far from clean. In one major aspect, America's homohaters have, like the proverbial blind pig, rooted up the truffle of truth: the gay lifestyle - not our sexuality, but our lifestyle - is in the pits. This chapter will tell you what's wrong with a lot of gays, why its wrong, and how you can dance the new steps . . . after the ball.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 275-276)

“In short, the gay lifestyle - if such a chaos can, after all, legitimately be called a lifestyle - it just doesn't work: it doesn't serve the two functions for which all social framework evolve: to constrain people's natural impulses to behave badly and to meet their natural needs. While it's impulse to provide an exhaustive analytic list of all the root causes and aggravants of this failure, we can asservative at least some of the major causes. Many have been dissected, above, as elements of the Ten Misbehaviors; it only remains to discuss the failure of the gay community to provide a viable alternative to the heterosexual family.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.363)

“The main thing is to talk about gayness until the issue becomes throughly tiresome.

And we say talk about homosexuality, we mean just that. In the early stages of the campaign, the public should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex per se should be downplayed, and the issue of gay rights reduced, as far as possible, to an abstract social question. As it happens, the AIDS epidemic - ever a curse and boon for the gay movement - provides ample opportunity to emphasize the civil rights/discrimination side of things, but unfortunately it also permits our enemies to draw attention to gay sex habits that provoke public revulsion.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.178)

The negative effects of the homosexual lifestyle have been written about in many books and articles written by homosexuals themselves. They are addressed and written to homosexuals but when those who oppose homosexuality attempt to raise this issue they are strongly attacked. What's even more alarming is that many more in the public at large side with the homosexuals choosing to ignore them or insists that a discussion should not even take place. Yet it is these negative consequences of homosexual behavior that affects everyone. Of particular is AIDS, a sexually transmitted disease that in America was and still is primarily confined to homosexual behavior. There is a concern of a possible second AIDS epidemic among homosexuals in America. What should be very alarming is that homosexuals to gain unprecedented support for “gay rights” used AIDS, which affected primarily homosexuals. It allowed them to foster to a greater advantage the idea that they are “victims.” The idea of homosexuals as “victims” was to be a critical component in the carefully calculated public relations campaign to make “gay rights” movement to be successful.

· Homsexuals as victims

“In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to adopt the role of protector.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gay's in the 90s, p.183)

“The purpose of victim imagery is to make straights feel very uncomfortable; that is, to jam with shame the self-righteous pride that would ordinarily accompany and reward their antigay belligerence, and to lay groundwork for the process of conversion by helping straights identify with gays and sympathize with their underdog status.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay;s in the 90s, p.183)

“Now, two different messages about the Gay Victim are worth communicating. First, the public should be persuaded that gays are victims of circumstance, that they no more chose their sexual orientation than they did, say, their height, skin color, talents, or limitations. (We argue that, for all practical purposes, gays should be considered to have been born gay - even though sexual orientation, for most humans, seems to be the product of a complex interaction between innate predispositions and environmental factors during childhood and early adolescence.)” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay;s in the 90s, p.184)

“Second, gays should be portrayed as victims of prejudice. Straights don't fully realize the suffering they bring upon gays, and must be shown: graphic pictures of brutalized gays, dramatizations of job and housing insecurity, loss of child custody, public humiliation, etc.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gay's in the 90s, p.184)

· Proectors a just cause

To go along with the idea of “homosexuals as victims” there was idea to give potential a protectors a just cause.

“The Waging Peace media campaign will reach straights on an emotional level, casting gays as society's victims and inviting straights to be their protectors.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.187)

“Thus, our campaign should not demand explicit support for homosexual practices, but should instead take antidiscrimination as its theme. Fundamental freedoms, constitutional rights, due process and equal protection of laws, basic fairness and decency toward all of humanity - these should be the concerns brought to mind by our campaign.

It's especially important for the gay movement to hitch its cause to pre-existing standards of law and justice, because its straight supporters must have at hand a cogent reply to the moralistic arguments of its enemies.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.187)

· Make Homosexuals look good

Not only were homosexuals to be portrayed as “victims” but homosexuals also had to be made to look good.

“In order to make a Gay Victim sympathetic to straights, you have to portray him as Everyman. But an additional theme of the campaign will be more aggressive and upbeat. To confound bigoted stereotypes and hasten the conversion of straights, strongly favorable images of gays must be set before the public. The campaign should paint gay men and lesbians as superior - veritable pillars of society.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 187-188)

“Famous historical figures are especially useful to us for two reasons: first, they are invariably dead as a doornail, hence in no position to deny the truth and sue for libel. Second, and more serious, the virtues and accomplishments that make these historic gay figures admirable cannot be gainsaid or dismissed by the public, since high school history textbooks have already set them in incontrovertible cement. By casting its violet spotlight on such revered heroes, in no time a skillful media campaign could have the gay community looking like the veritable fairy godmother to Western civilization.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gay's in the 90s, p. 188)

· Make “victimizers” look bad

Finally there was there a plan on how to deal with the “victimizers.” That is to make them look bad.

“Our primary objective regarding diehard homohaters of this sort is to cow and silence them as far as possible, not to convert or even desensitize them.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.176)

“The real target here is not victimizers themselves but the homohatred that impels them.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 189)

“The objective is to make homohating beliefs and actions look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from them. This, of course, is a variant on the process of jamming.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 189)

“With the help of the media, they portray those who refuse to buy, and especially any who dare to publicly oppose (competitively react to), the gay rights idea as bigots, homophobes, heterosexists, ignorant, hateful, intolerant, and so on. They position the accused in the same category as racists, sexists, elitists, and other pejorative classes.” (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America,” p. 464)

The plan for making the “victimizers” look bad also included a way of dealing with the issue of homosexuality and morality.

“Second, gays can undermine the moral authority of homohating churches over less fervent adherents by portraying such institutions as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings of psychology. Against the atavistic tug of Old Time Religion one must set the mightier pull of Science and Public Opinion (the shield and sword of that accursed ‘secular humanism).” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 179)

We have looked at how the ideas to shift the focus from homosexual behavior to “gay rights” and to portray homosexuals as “victims” was to be instrumented, what follows is a look at the foundations for the calculated public relations campaign itself. The core of this campaign was to be through mainstream media by the use of propaganda.

“We have in mind a strategy as calculated and powerful as that which gays are accused of pursuing by their enemies - or, if you prefer, a plan as manipulative as that which our enemies themselves employ. It's time to learn from Madison Avenue, to rollout the big guns. Gays must launch a large - scale campaign - we've called it the Waging Peace campaign-to reach straights through the mainstream media. We're talking about propaganda.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 161)

“How could a movement ever penetrate a market that consists of the hearts and minds of an entire society? The key was to consider first and foremost the media in everything the homosexual movement did - to control information and images. Only by controlling the information could they saturate important centers of influence and thus avoid or the information could they saturate important centers of influence and thus avoid or beat other ideas in the market.” (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America, p. 466)

“ The term ‘ propaganda' applies to any deliberate attempt to persuade the masses via public communications media. Such communication is everywhere, of course, being a mainstay of modern societies. Its function is not to perpetrate, but to propagate; that is, to spread new ideas and feelings (or reinforce old ones) which may themselves be either evil or good depending on their purpose and effect. The purpose and effect of progay propaganda is to promote a climate of increased tolerance for homosexuals. And that, we say, is good.

Three characteristics distinguish propaganda from other modes of communication and contribute to its sinister reputation. First, propaganda relies more upon emotional manipulation than upon logic, since its goal is, in fact, to bring about a change in the public's feelings. Bertrand Russell once asked, "Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feelings?" The answer is that the public is more eager to hate than to love, especially where outgroups are concerned; and that, knowing this, propagandists have seldom attempted to elicit friendly feelings or dampen hatred. This time, however, we gays will attempt precisely that. And we'll be more successful than before because we can base our efforts on techniques (desensitization, jamming, and conversion) derived directly from a solid understanding of the psychology of homhatred.

The second sinister characteristic of propaganda is its frequent use of outright lies, a tactic we neither need nor condone. In the long run, big fat lies work only for the propagandists of totalitarian states, who can make them stick by exercising almost complete control over public information. But in pluralistic societies, such as ours, chronic liars on controversial subjects are invariably found out and discredited in the press by their opponents. (There is, alas, an exception: certain lies become hallowed public myths, persisting for as long as the public chooses to believe them. Need we mention the Big Lie?)

Third, even when it sticks to the facts, propaganda can be unabashedly subjective and one-sided. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this. Propaganda tells its own side of the story as movingly (and credibly) as possible,sinceitcan count on its enemies to tell the other side with a vengeance. In the battle for hearts and minds, effective propaganda knows enough to put its best foot forward. This is what our own media campaign must do.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 1662-163)

* Densenitize, Jam, and Conversion

“Generally speaking, the most effective propaganda for our cause must succeed in doing three things at once.

· Employ images that desensitize, jam, and/or convert bigots on an emotional level. This is by far, the most important task.

· Challenge homohating beliefs and actions on a (not too) intellectual level. Remember, the rational message serves to camouflage our underlying emotional appeal, even as it pares away the surrounding latticework of beliefs that rationalize bigotry.

· Gain access to the kinds of public media that would automatically confer legitimacy upon these messages and, therefore, upon their gay sponsors. To be accepted by the most prestigious media, such as network TV, our messages themselves will have to be - at least initially - both subtle in purpose and crafty in construction.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 172-173)

“The groups used by homosexual activists to distribute the homosexual idea and gay rights issues were those that touched the most Americans and had the highest source of creditability. Just like the tremendous leverage they achieved by co-opting the mental health professions who would then become disseminators of the homosexual agenda through actions and programs, it was planned that the media, the government, educators, and liberal, “less fervent” churches would be forced on board. Each of these “channels” carries its own authority and credibility.” (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America, p. 467)

Underlying the core of the campaign, the use of propaganda dissimilated through the use of mainstream media was to be firmly grounded in three long-established principles of psychology and advertising . They are desensitization, jamming, and conversion.

1. Desensitation

“We can extract the following principle for our campaign: to desensitize straights to gays and gayness, inundate them in a continuous flood of gay-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion possible. If straights can't shut off the shower, they may at least eventually get use to being wet.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 149)

“Desensitization aims at lowering the intensity of antigay emotional reactions to a level approximating sheer indifference; . . .” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 153)

“The third principle is our recipe for desensitizing Ambivalent Skeptics; that is, for helping straights view homosexuality with neutrality rather than keen hostility. At least at the outset, we seek desensitization and nothing more. You can forget about trying right up front to persuade folks that homosexuality is a good thing. But if you can get them to think it is just another thing - meriting no more than a shrug of the shoulders - then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 177)

2. Jamming

“Jamming makes use of the rules of Associative Conditioning (the psychological process whereby, when two things are repeatedly juxtaposed, one's feelings about one thing are transformed to the other) and Direct Emotional Modeling (the inborn tendency of human beings to feel what they perceive others to be feeling).” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 150)

“. . .Jamming attempts to blockade or counteracts the rewarding ‘pride in prejudice' (peace, Jane Austen!) by attaching to homohatred a preexisting, and punishing, sense of shame in being a bigot, a horse's ass, and a beater and murder.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 153)

3. Conversion

“We mean conversion of the average American's emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 153)

“In Conversion, we mimic the natural process of stereotypelearning, with the following effect: we take the bigot's good feelings about all-right guys, and attach them to the label 'gay,' either weakening or, eventually, replacing his bad feelings toward the label and the prior stereotype.

Understanding Direct Emotional Modeling, you'll readily foresee its application to Conversion: whereas in Jamming the target is shown a bigot being rejected by his crowd for his prejudice against gays, in Conversion the target is shown his crowd actually associating with gays in good fellowship.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 155)

· Coming Out

Kirk and Madsen in their book, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, took the concept of “coming out” and applying the three long-established principles of psychology and advertising desensitization, jamming, and conversion to it explaining how it would greatly advance the “gay rights” movement. “Coming out” is the concept whereby one punlicly accepts and/or adopts the identity of being a homosexual.

“First coming out helps desensitize straights. As more and more gays emerge into everyday life, gays as a group will begin to seem more familiar and unexceptional to straights, hence less alarming and objectionable.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 167)

“Second, coming out allows more jamming of the reward system for homohatred. Jamming, you'll recall, means interrupting the smooth workings of bigotry by inducing inconsistent feelings in the bigot.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 167)

“Third, coming out is a critical catalyst for the all-important ‘conversion' process, as well. Conversion is more than merely desensitizing straights or jamming their homohatred: it entails making them actually like and accept homosexuals as a group, enabling straights to identify with them.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 168)

“Finally, in addition to making desensitization, jamming, and conversion possible, coming out is the key to sociopolitical empowerment, the ability of the gay community to control its own destiny. The more gay individuals who stand up to be counted, the more voting and spending power the gay community will be recognized to have. As an inevitable result, politics and business will woo us, the press will publicize our concerns and report our news, and our community will enjoy enhanced prestige.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 168)

What is the goal of the “gayrights” movement? Whether there is an “homosexual agenda” that is an organized attempt by homosexuals to advance homosexual rights Kirk and Madsen in their book, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, certainly attempt to imply that one is needed and it would be good for both homosexuals and society at large.

“Specifically, we want straights to believe that we no more choose gayness than they do straightness; that it's a valid and healthy condition; and that, when treated with respect and friendship, we're happy and psychologically well adjusted as they are. We want them to realize that we look, feel, and act just as they do; we're hard-working, conscientious Americans with love lives exactly like their own. We want to be seen as the brothers and sisters, daughters and sons, friends and co-workers, and - yes - fathers and mothers of straight Americans: a valued part of American society, a part whose culture, heroes, and news are worthy of attention and respect.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p. 379-380)

The following comments are from Rondeau's article “Selling Homosexuality to America” and one who opposes homosexuality writes this article. His article was published in 2002; thirteen years after Kirk and Madsen published their book After the Ball. His comments show just how successful homosexuals have been with the carefully calculated public relations campaign to shift the public's focus and the discussion of homosexuality from “homosexual behavior” to the idea of “gay rights”.

“Homosexual activists now routinely name themselves as often and as publicly as they wish to be drfined.” (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America,” p. 462-463)

“Concepts introduced through the media, education, government, and courts by the homosexual movement theme have shaped our discourse; homophobia, heterosexism, tolerance and hate speech are now mainstream vernacular.” (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America,” p. 483)

“The current debate, then, is framed differently by both sides. Is homosexual behavior normal or abnormal? Are the maladies commonly associated with the homosexual condition (depression, AIDS, suicide, cancer) caused by the behavior itself or society's reaction to it? Are homosexuals just the same as heterosexuals? Should science or society determine the acceptability of “gayness”?

If history repeats itself, the point of view that holds sway in America's courts will first hold sway in the minds and hearts of individual citizens, judges, and lawmakers. And the heart and mind of society is the target market that the gay rights campaign means to capture in order to win in courts.” (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America,” p. 452)

“This explains why the gay rights movement often focuses on negative labeling (bigot, ignorant, intolerant) in the marketplace of competing ideas; a social environment is created that is unfriendly to anti-homosexual speech. Like Chinese water torture rather than brute force, only socially enforced public compliance at a minimum level, through continued application, can ultimately change the privately held attitude or belief.

Thus, to psychologically propel societal attitude change regarding homosexuality, America is deluged with pro-homosexual messages, education campaigns, positive images, and sympathetic news in the media creating an antecedent condition that can be called societal dissonance." (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America,” p. 456)

“Today, homophobes and heterosexists are proclaimed to be the problem. Hate crimes and gay rights legislation are proposed as the solution.

Yet, the purpose of law is to discriminate against certain behaviors. It even discriminates against those with real pathological behaviors, i.e., alcoholics who drive drunk. Laws discriminate against parents who believe it is normal to exploit their children, companies who justify making false promises or dangerous products, citizens who believe that they should not have to pay higher taxes, incompetent doctors, drug dealers, and ticket scaplers.

The debate is not about the persecution of a political minority but is about the state's right and its duty to regulate against behaviors that are unhealthy and destructive to society at large. "If at the level of civil politics there are homosexual people who do not want to be known solely through what sex they have or where and with how many they have it, it is nonetheless absurd to claim that sex is merely ancillary to the gay . . . agenda.”

Gay rights is not about the attainment of truth nor social justice but the achievement of power. The battle centers on the control of public discourse through marketing and persuasion, to shape what society thinks about and how they think about it. Homosexual activists envision that a decision is ultimately made without society ever realizing that it has been purposely conditioned to arrive at a conclusion that it thinks is its own.

Perhaps with the application of common sense, the balance can be regained between right and rights and thereby not only will the few be protected from the whims of the masses but the masses can be saved from the excesses of the few." (Rondeau, “Selling Homosexuality to America,” p. 484-485)

Bibliography

Abelove, Henry, Michele Aine Barale and David M. Halprin. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Routledge. New York and London, 1993.

D'Emilio, John. “Capitalism and Gay Identity, 467-476, in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader by Henry Abelove, Michele Aine Barale and David M. Halperin. Routledge. New York and London, 1993.

Duberman, Martin. Left Out. South End Press. Cambridge, MA, 2002.

Kirk, Marshall and Hunter Madsen Ph.D. After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s. Doubleday. New York, 1989.

Rondeau, Paul E. “Selling Homosexuality to America.” Regent University Law Review. Spring 2002, Vol. 14, No. 2, 443-485)

Weeks, Jeffery. Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities. Routledge and Kegan Paul. London, 1988.

Chapter 6 Assimilation or Liberation

Larry Houston — 2007-05-26T14:32:00Z

Chapter 6 Assimilation or Liberation

Assimilation or liberation is one of two discussions that take place mainly among homosexuals themselves. The other discussion is that of essentialism versus social constructionism in the etiology of homosexuality. A better and more accurate way of framing this second discussion is ‘who one is, a homosexual' or ‘what one does, homosexuality'.

The homosexual as a distinct person, which was first advocated in Germany in the 1860s by homosexuals themselves seeking legal rights, was next adopted by sexologists and then by psychiatrists. But it was the American military during World War II with the psychiatric profession that was to play a leading role in defining the homosexual in the United States as a character type, who was sick that persisted until the early 1970s. The Stonewall Riots in June of 1969 sparked a change, resulting in homosexuals beginning to speak for themselves. No longer would they allow others in society to define what it meant to be a homosexual. By many Stonewall was said to be the beginning of “Gay Liberation”. Before Stonewall the homosexuals' emphasis was on assimilation in their relationship to the society at large. After Stonewall homosexuals' emphasis was sexual liberation in relationship to the society. But AIDS that begin among male homosexuals in the late 1970s, resulted in the death of many those homosexuals advocating for sexual liberation.

“While the discussion of such things as the relationship of gender to sexuality was limited to scientific, literary, intellectual, and interested circles - as it was, mostly from the nineteen century through the Second World War - the link was not firmly or especially established popularly made. Many pieces of what would eventually be the popular conception of the early-modern homosexual (which let's say dates from the Second World War to about 1969) were floating independently between sexologists and psychiatrists. There was the effeminate man or pansy, there was the pervert and/or psychopath who could be expected to commit violent crimes of a sexual nature on any sort of person at all, and there was the man or woman, not much spoken of in polite company, who had a tendency to have sex with others of the same sex. When this was spoken of, it was in purely non-sexual terms, like the partners on ranches that Front Runner author Patricia Nell Warren remembers her father mentioning in Montana when she was a child in the late thirties and forties, or those urban bachelors and the ubiquitous maiden aunts and their companions.

What the military did in its rough and ready way was to mush all these things together into one character type - the homosexual. The homosexual was now, for all the world to see an effeminate man (and after the war, a masculine woman) who had sex with members of the same sex, and was either passively or actively pathological.” (Archer, The End of Gay and the death of heterosexuality, p. 105)

· Homophile Movement

“In its early manifestations, the homophile movement embraced liberationist principles through the Mattachine Society, founded in Los Angeles in 1951.” (Rimmerman, From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States, p. 20

“Homosexuals themselves were divided over what their emerging sense of “group consciousness” meant.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and Perversity, p. 41)

“From their early group discussions, these Mattachine members concluded that homosexuals were an oppressed cultural minority.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and Perversity, p. 41)

“The cultural minority thesis argued that homosexuals had developed differently because they had been excluded from dominant heterosexual culture. The “secondary socialization” of homosexuals into distinct subculture helped them to develop appropriate new values, relationships, and cultural forms because homosexual life “did not fit the patterns of heterosexual love, marriage, children, etc. upon which the dominant culture rests.” The proponents of the cultural minority thesis recognized that homosexuals also internalized the dominant culture's view of themselves as aberrant and were often force by social stigma to lead lives of secrecy, hypocrisy, and emotional stress. These proponents therefore emphasized the need for a critique of this internalized self-oppression and the development of “an ethical homosexual culture.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and Perversity, p. 42)

A difference in ideology that continues even today quickly emerged in the Mattachine Society, assimilation verses liberation, in how homosexuals interacted with society. The assimilation' strategy encouraged the homosexual to “act normal and fit in” with other members of society. This continued the historical concept of “passing”, where a homosexual would be thought of as a heterosexual in their outward appearance and behaviors. Whereas a liberation strategy is to encourage the homosexual to “come out” acknowledging his homosexuality for all others to see. A movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, “Gay Liberation” adopted this strategy.

· Homosexuality in the 1950s: Assimilation

“The split that ultimately occurred between the organization's founders and its newer members reflected serious disagreements over assimilation and liberation, conflicts that have plagued the movements over the years. The Mattachine founders envisioned a separate homosexual culture while other members worried that such a strategy would only increase the hostile social climate. Instead, they called for integration into mainstream society. (D'Emilio 1983, 81).” (Rimmerman, From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States, p. 21)

“The alternative “assimilationist” position sought to achieve societal acceptance of homosexuals by emphasizing the similarities between homosexuals and heterosexuals. Proponents felt that the “secondary socialization” of homosexuals resulted from a life given over to hiding, isolation, and internalized self-hatred. For this reason, homosexuals should adopt a “pattern of behavior that is acceptable to society in general and compatible with [the] recognized institutions . . . of home, church, and state,” rather than creating an “ethical homosexual culture,” which would only accentuate the perceived differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals and provoke continued hostility. The “cultural minority” analysis was hotly debated in the early years of the Mattachine Society, but after many battles, marked by also by anticommunism, the assimilationists thesis prevailed and served as the ideological basis for homosexual rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and Perversity, p. 42)

“With the adoption of a civil rights strategy as early as the creation of the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis in the 1950s, lesbian and gay movements embraced a “minority rights" approach to political and social change. They framed specific issues by emphasizing the importance of equality for all human beings as they identified themselves as a distinct minority group. They presented lesbians and gays as ordinary people, eschewing an identity based on behavior.” (Rimmerman, From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States, p.49)

· Homosexuality in the 1960s: Liberation

“Yet the rights-based strategy associated with the civil rights, women's and homophile movements came under increased scrutiny and criticism in light of Stonewall. The modern gay liberation movement was soon born, built on some of the same ideas that undergirded the original Mattachine Society almost twenty years earlier. For those who embraced gay liberation, a rights-based strategy was far too limited. In their view, the goal should be to remake society, not merely reform it. (Loughery 1998, 323).” (Rimmerman, From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States, p. 23-24)

· “Gay Liberation”

“For many homosexuals, gay liberation - and what it means to be gay - was inextricably linked to sexual freedom. The right to have sex anytime, anywhere, and with anybody they choose was, for them, inalienable.” (Andriote, Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America, p.73)

“In the 1960s and 1970s, the gay and lesbian movement had pursued many goals - the right to be open about sexual orientation and the right to be equal in the eyes of religious bodies and the law. But one of its earliest and most basic objectives, especially for gay men, was sexual freedom: the right to have sexual lives that were untrammeled by the conventions and limits of social norms.” (Allen, The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present, p. 125)

“ It is well to remember that AIDS was presaged by prior epidemics of herpes simplex, Chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis. The Stonewall riots in New York City, the 1969 crucible from which the movement for gay liberation was cast, created another social revolution that is no exception to the medical rule. “Coming out of the closet” has altered not only our social perception of homosexuality but its medical face as well.

The sociological manifestations of homosexuality have changed radically in the recent past. As Jonathan Weber noted, the incidence of syphilis a few decades ago was almost exactly equal between men and women but is now found mainly in homosexual men. Since homosexuality is almost surely as old as humanity and is present in almost every society, the unusually high incidence of syphilis among homosexual men today cannot be ascribed to homosexuality per se but to significant changes in homosexual behavior in the recent pasts. New expressions of homosexuality concomitant with the gay liberation movement have created an unusual and new disease profile for gay men.

The medical literature is quite explicit about some of these new manifestations of gay male life.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 282)

“HIV truly strikes where we live. Its mean of transmission - sex - is the very thing that to many of us define us as gay men, drives our politics and our erotics, gives us our modern identity, provides the mortar of much of our philosophy and community, animates much of our lives.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 5)

· Male homosexuals

“Indeed, there is no record of any culture that accepted both homosexuality and unlimited homosexual promiscuity. Far frome being the universal default mode of male homosexuality, the lifestyle of American gay men in the seventies and eighties appears unique in history.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 225)

“The extensive casual networks of gays engaging in sex apparently for the sole purpose of sensuous pleasure, and in so many different ways, went far beyond anything that had occurred before in the United States or elsewhere or that anyone could have imagined just a few years previously. Without question, “the sexual style of gay communities in the 1970s and early 1980s was a specific historic phenomenon” (Bateson and Goldsby, 1988:44)” (Rushing, The AIDS Epidemic Social Dimensions of an Infectious Disease, p. 27)

“When AIDS hit the homosexual communities of the US, several studies were conducted by the vigilant CDC to determine what it was in the homosexual lifestyle which predisposed to this immunosuppressive condition. There were really only two things which distinguished the homosexual lifestyle: the promiscuous sex and the extensive use of recreational drugs.” (Adams, AIDS: The HIV Myth, p.127)

“In sum, gay sex institutions and the sexual activity in them became the functional social equivalent of family, friends, and community: They promoted social bonds that gave gays a sense of belonging and social support.” (Rushing, The AIDS Epidemic Social Dimensions of an Infectious Disease, p. 30)

“Other men who had participated enthusiastically in the life of the ghetto had grown tired of its anonymity and inverted values. They questioned why membership in the gay community had come to require that one be alienated from his family, take multiple drugs and have multiple sex partners, dance all night at the “right” clubs, and spend summer weekends at the “right” part of Fire Island. Rather than providing genuine liberation, gay life in the ghettos had created another sort of oppression with its pressure to conform to social expectations of what a gay man was “supposed” to be, believe, wear, and do.” (Andriote, Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America, p.24)

“Gay historian Dennis Altman notes that in the “liberated” seventies, when promiscuity was seen as a virtue in some segments of the gay community, “being responsible about one's health was equated with having frequent checks for syphilis and gonorrhea, and such doubtful practices as taking a couple of tetracycline capsules before going to the baths.” To gay men for whom sex was the center and circumference of their lives, their only real health concern was that illness would prevent them from having sex - which, to their way of thinking, meant they would no longer be “proudly” gay.” (Andriote, Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America, p.37)

“The complex research agenda that characterized the period from the early 1970s to the beginning of the AIDS epidemic reflected major changes within the gay and lesbian communities themselves. The decision by a large number of people to openly label themselves gay men and lesbians changed the experience of same-gender sexuality. From a relatively narrow “homosexual” community based primarily on sexual desire and affectional commitment between lovers and circles of friends, there emerged a community characterized by the building of residential areas, commercial enterprises, health and social services, political clubs, and intellectual movements.” (Turner, Miller, and Moses, Editors. AIDS Sexual Behavior and Intravenous Drug Use, p.127)

“These observations of new syndromes associated with a very active male homosexual life-style suggests that both the type of sexual activity and the extent of promiscuity associated with it changed markedly during the 1970s.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 285-286)

A change in who homosexuals actually have sex with, became more significant during the 1960s and resulted in new sexual behaviors among male homosexuals. Prior to the 1960s homosexual men had sex with heterosexual men who were called "trade". The latter was the passive partner in a sex act. But as the stigma against homosexuality increased heterosexual men became frightened that they too might be labeled homosexual and thus were no longer willing to be passive participates in sexual activity with homosexual men. This resulted in more homosexual men having sex with other homosexual men and the specific sexual behaviors themselves also changed. This change in male homosexual behavior also resulted in the changes in some of the specific diseases that effected male homosexuals and dramatic rates in the instances of sexually transmitted diseases among male homosexuals.

· Behaviors among male homosexuals

“In the 1070s an extraordinary proliferation of clubs, bars, discotheques, bathhouses, sex shops, travel agencies, and gay magazines allowed the community to "come out" and adopt a whole new repertorie of erotic behavior, out of of all measure to any similar past activities.” (Grmek, History of AIDS, p.168-169)

“Furthermore, in previous periods in history when homosexuality had been widely accepted socially, as, for example, in classical Greece, there had been no sexual practices remotely resembling those associated with the gay subcultures of the 1970s and 1980s.” (Rushing, The AIDS Epidemic Social Dimensions of an Infectious Disease, p. 27)

“We don't know, in real quantitative terms, what really changed in homosexual behavior in the 1970s, but it is possible to identify three major areas of change: the expansion of homosexual bathhouses and sex clubs, which facilitate numerous sexual contacts in one night (by 1984 one bathhouse chain included baths in forty-two American cities, including Memphis and London, Ontario), the emergence of sexually transmitted parasites as a major homosexual health problem, especially in New York and California, and a boom in “recreational drugs” - that is, the use of chemical stimulants such as MDA, angel dust, various nitrates, etc. - in conjunction with what came to be known as “fast-lane sex.” These three elements would all be linked to various theories about AIDS during the 1980s.” (Altman, AIDS in the Mind of America, p. 14)

“Evidence convincingly argues that before the middle of the century gay sexual behavior was vastly different from what it was to become later, that from mid century onward there were fundamental changes not only in gay male self-perceptions and beliefs, but also in sexual habits, kinds and numbers of partners, even ways of making love. These revolutions reached a fever pitch just as at the moment HIV exploded like a series of time bombs across the archipelago of gay America. When gay experience is viewed collectively, it appears that the simultaneous introduction of new behaviors and a dramatic rise in the scale of old ones produced one of the greatest shifts in sexual ecology ever recorded. There is convincing evidence that this shift had a decisive impact on the transmission of virtually every sexually transmitted disease, of which HIV was merely one, albeit the most deadly.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 39)

“As the gay version of the sexual revolution took hold among certain groups of gay men in America's largest cities, it precipitated a change in sexual behaviors. Perhaps the most significant change was the fact that some core groups of gay men began practicing anal intercourse with dozens or even hundreds of partners a year. Also significant was a growing emphasis on “versatile” anal sex, in which partners alternately played both receptive and insertive roles, and on new behaviors such as analingus, or rimming that facilitated the spread of otherwise difficult-to-transmit microbes. Important, too, was a shift in patterns of partnership, from diffuse systems in which a lot of gay sex was with non-gay identified partners who themselves had few contacts, to fairly closed systems in which most sexual activity was within a circle of other gay men. Also important was a general decline in “group immunity” caused by repeated infections of various STDs, repeated inoculations of antibiotics and other drugs to combat them, as well as recreational substantive abuse, stress, and other behaviors that comprised immunity.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 57-58)

“The primary factor that led to increase HIV transmission was anal sex combined with multiple partners, particularly in concentrated core groups. By the seventies there is little doubt that for those in the most sexually active core groups, multipartner anal sex had become the main event. Michael Callen, both an avid practitioner and a careful observer of life in the gay fast lane, believed that this was a “historically unprecendented aspect” of the gay sexual revolution.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 75)

“In the middle of the century, and particularly in the sixties and seventies, gay men began doing something that appears rare in sexual history: They began to abandon strict role separation in sex and alternately play both the insertive and receptive roles, a practice sometimes called versatility.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 76)

“ “It was an historic accident that HIV disease first manifested itself in the gay populations of the east and west coasts of the United States,” wrote British sociologist Jeffrey Weeks in AIDS and Contemporary History in 1993. His opinion has been almost universal among gay and AIDS activists even to this day. Yet there is little “accidental” about the sexual ecology described above. Multiple concurrent partners, versatile anal sex, core group behavior centered in commercial sex establishments, widespread recreational drug abuse, repeated waves of STDs and constant intake of antibiotics, sexual tourism and travel -these factors were not “accidents.” Multipartner anal sex was encouraged, celebrated, considered a central component of liberation. Core group behavior in baths and sex clubs was deemed by many the quintessence of freedom. Versatility was declared a political imperative. Analingus was pronounced the champagne of gay sex, a palpable gesture of revolution. STDs were to be worn like badges of honor, antibiotics to be taken with pride.

Far from being accidents, these things characterized the very foundation of what it supposedly meant to experience gay liberation. Taken together they formed a sexual ecology of almost incalculably catastrophic dimensions, a classic feedback loop in which virtually every factor served to amplify every other. From the virus's point of view the ecology of liberation was a royal road to adaptive triumph. From many gay men's point of view, it proved a trapdoor to hell on earth.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 89) “Anal sex had come to be seen as an essential - possibly the essential - expression of homosexual intimacy by the 1980s.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 101)

“Another relative novelty was the increasing flexibility of sex roles. Homosexuality in more traditional cultures had typically followed rigid patterns: certain men were the insertive partners in oral and anal intercourse, others the receptive ones. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, American gay men often took both insertive and receptive roles. Rather than serve as cul-de-sac for the virus, as heterosexual women often did, gay and bisexual men more often acted as an extremely effective conduit for HIV.” (Allen, The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present, p. 125-126)

“These data demonstrate definitively that the gay liberation movement resulted in a great increase in promiscuity among gay men, along with significant changes in sexual practices that made rectal trauma, immunological contact with semen, use of recreational drugs, and the transmission of many viral, amoebal, fungal, and bacterial infections far more common than in the decades prior to 1970. The same data strongly suggest that recent changes in sexual and drug activity played a major role in vastly enlarging the homo- and bisexual male population at risk for developing immunosuppression. Since promiscuity, engaging in receptive anal intercourse, and fisting are the three highest-risk factors associated with AIDS among gay men and since each of these risk factors is correlated with known cases of immunosuppression, they represent significant factors in our understanding of why AIDS emerged as a major medical problem only in 1970.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 290-291)

“Whatever the cause of AIDS, single or multi-factorial, it is certain that the promiscuous homosexuals of the late seventies and early eighties were fertile ground for an epidemic.” (Adams, AIDS: The HIV Myth, p.131)

· Diseases among male homosexuals

“In medical terms the almost immediate result was an increase in the “classic” sexually transmitted diseases, notably syphilis and gonorrhea; of certain viral disease, such as hepatitis, herpes, and cytomegalovirus; and internal parasites such as amebiasis. Skin disorders of an otherwise relatively rare nature, and chronic diarrhea, became the daily lot of homosexuals. The rise in these disorders preceded the AIDS outbreak, and already indicated the point at which the epidemiological situation was ready to explode.” (Grmek, History of AIDS, p. 169)

“The appearance of a multitude of epidemic diseases almost immediately after gay men had carved out zones of sexual freedom has opened up the grim, almost unthinkable possibility that for gay men, sexual freedom leads inexorably to disease. As time goes on and the epidemic continues to rage among gay men while largely sparing the rest of the population, that nightmare grows only more plausible. It was one thing to believe we were accidental victims who would soon be joined in our sorrow by everyone else. It is quite another to discover that we will not be joined, that we stand almost alone, consumed with disease.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p.18)

“And so, without most gay men knowing it,a revolution in disease transmission began almost as soon as the steady disco beat filled the air. The rise of gay core groups in which men combined anal sex with very large numbers of partners profoundly altered the microbial landscape and created entirely new opportunities for a host of diseases that until then hadbeen held in check.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 57)

“The combination of multiple sex partners and anal sex in relatively intense core groups had already created an unstable sexual ecology for some gay men even before Stonewall. An article in the American Journal of Tropical Medical Hygiene published in 1968 noted that certain pockets of Manhattan's growing gay community had begun to display the medical profiles of a Third World slum or a “tropical island,” with far higher than average rates of traditional STDs and gastrointestinal parasites. After Stonewall this process sharply accelerated, creating a radical new medical situation in the gay world.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 66-67)

“The incidence of venereal diseases has long been recognized to be a sensitive indicator of levels of promiscuity. Rates of venereal diseases began a noticeable climb during the mid-1950s, as advances in birth control became widely available, and they skyrocketed during the 1970s. Whereas the increase was found among both men and women during the 1950s and 1960s, the vast increase in new cases of venereal diseases during the 1970s was found almost entirely in homosexual and bisexual men and has been directly attributed by the medical community to the consequences of gay liberation. The title of an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1977 by Dr. S. Vaisrub said it all: “Homosexuality- a risk factor in infectious diseases.”

Analysis of the increases in specific venereal diseases provides a detailed look at the growth of homosexual promiscuity.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 287-288)

“Some gay men became unwitting guinea pigs for the elucidation of how various diseases were transmitted. Diseases such as amebiasis, shigellosis, and giardiasis were not known to be transmitted sexually prior to 1970. Their sexual transmission was first documented in gay men, and they are now known to be associated with anal intercourse and anal-oral contact. Once again, these diseases therefore provide measures of increases in these types of gay sex.

All these disease were rare in the United States and England prior to the 1970s, with outbreaks almost always associated with fecal contamination and poor public hygiene. This picture changed dramatically in the aftermath of gay liberation.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 289)

“Some physicians saw what was happening even as it happened. Dr. H. Most and Dr. B. H. Kean, for example, noted that the Manhattan homosexual community had begun to display the unusual disease profile typical of “a tropical isle” or Third World country beginning about 1968.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 290)

“Urban gay American men were affected with diseases that were previously considered problems only in the poor, undeveloped areas of the world. After repeated bouts of these diseases, treatment with increasingly powerful antibiotics, and use of the recreational drugs that were for many were just another “ normal” part of ghetto life, the immune systems of many gay men were suppressed to dangerously low levels.” (Andriote, Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America, p.39)

“During the 1960s and 1970s,US doctors reported sexually transmitted diseases as the rate of 5-7 million cases per year. Thus the CDC knew the dramatic increase of chlamydia and the high rates of infertility that it causes. It knew of the increase of syphilis and of STDs that previously were rare. It was especially concerned about the spread of hepatitis B, which clustered in gay populations. It enrolled a cohort of 7000 gay men to study their lifestyle and viral load in connection with the search for a vaccine. From this study it knew that syphilis, gonorrhea, and hepatitis B were endemic in the gay populations of the cities. Parasitic infections of the colon, known as ‘gay bowl', were also endemic. It was found that the annual hepatitis infection rate among gays was an astonishing 12%, as against a 1% lifetime rate for the general population. The stage was set for rapid transmission of unusual pathogens.

Thus on the eve of AIDS, the CDC was fully-aware of the increase of sexually transmitted disease and the possible bacterial and viral ‘bomb' that the sexual revolution had planted.” (Caton, The AIDS Mirage, p.25-26)

“HIV aside, there are powerful additional reasons why we need to face the facts of why AIDS happened to gay men. Almost every researcher studying the epidemic is convinced of one overarching fact: that if gay men ever re-create the sexual conditions of the seventies, the same kind of thing will happen again with other microbes. There are already drug-resistant or incurable diseases circulating in the gay population - things like hepatitis C, antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, various strains of herpes - and they all stand poised to sweep through the gay population the moment we provide them an opportunity to spread.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 7)

“If we now go back and ask why AIDS emerged as a problem for gay men only in the past decade or so, despite the acknowledged antiquity of homosexuality itself, the answer becomes clear: AIDS became a problem for homosexual men only when rampant promiscuity, frequent anal forms of intercourse, new and sometimes physically traumatic forms of sex, and the frequent concomitants of drug use and multiple concurrent infections paved the way. As Mirko Grmek has concluded, “American homosexuals created the conditions which, by exceeding a critical threshold, made the epidemic possible.” This conclusion stands regardless of whether one wishes to interpret the social revolution of gay liberation as the means by which HIV has spread, the vehicle for transmitting HIV with all of its necessary cofactors, or the direct cause of the immunosuppressive habits that have medically debilitated so many gay men.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 291-292)

· Who gets AIDS?

“ From Stonewall to the first AIDS alert was only twelve short years. In the Eighties and early Nineties, displaced anxiety over the horrors of AIDS turned gay activists into rampaging nihilists and monomaniacs, who dishonestly blamed the disease on the government and trampled on the rights of the gay majority, and whose errors of judgement materially aided the rise and consolidation of the far right. AIDS did not appear out of nowhere. It was a direct result of the sexual revolution, which my generation unleashed with the best intentions, but whose worse effects were to be suffered primarily by gay men. In the West, despite much propaganda to the contrary, AIDS is a gay disease and will remain one for the foreseeable future.” (Paglia, Vamps and Tramps. p.68)

“From its very beginnings the most striking features of the AIDS epidemic in the USA and in Western countries was its dominance in the male homosexual population. It was therefore logical to search for clues for the cause of the disease among practices or characteristics of this lifestyle.” (Schoub, AIDS and HIV in Perspective, p. 4)

“AIDS in America has two primary sources at present: unprotected anal intercourse, which is associated with gay male behavior and which probably accounts for the bulk of the existing cases nationwide; and intravenous drug injection with virus-contaminated needles, which is currently the major source of new cases and is likely to be the source of most cases within a few years.” (Perow and Guillen. The AIDS Disaster: The Failure of Organizations in New York and the Nation, p.55)

“The disease first became evident among male homosexuals and intravenous drug users, and in the United States it remains disportionately concentrated in these two populations.” (Rushing, The AIDS Epidemic: Social Dimensions of an Infectious Disease, p.1)

“AIDS, however, has remained absolutely fixed in its original risk groups. Today, a full decade after it first appeared, the syndrome is diagnosed in homosexuals, intravenous drug users, and hemophiliacs some 95 percent of the time, just as ten years ago. Nine out every ten AIDS patients are male, also just as before. Even the very existence of a “latent period” strongly suggests that years of health abuse are required for such fatal conditions. Among most AIDS patients in the United States and Europe, one extremely common health risk has been identified: the long-term use of hard drugs (the evidence for this new AIDS hypothesis will be presented in chapter 8 and 11). AIDS is not contagious nor is it even a single epidemic.” (Duesburg, Inventing the AIDS Virus, p. 217)

“Any, or all, of these possibilities would explain why AIDS has remained almost completely within the originally defined high-risk groups rather than spreading, as other venerable diseases had done, to low-risk groups as well.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 114)

“It is, of course, always dangerous to generalize about any group of people, and people with AIDS are no exception. And yet certain generalizations about who is most likely to contract AIDS have proved to be useful from a medical perspective. We recognize that the vast majority of people with AIDS are gay men /or intravenous drug abusers. These generalizations provide clues about what may cause AIDS, what may dispose people to contract the syndrome, and how the disease may spread.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 224)

“Some people are far more susceptible to AIDS than others, and the reasons are from mysterious: immunological exposure to semen, blood, or other alloantigens; multiple, concurrent infections; prolonged medical or illicit drug use; malnutrition; and so forth. None of these risk factors is new, however. Why, then, has AIDS become epidemic only recently?

The recent spread of AIDS can be understood only in terms of one of the most basic principles of epidemiology: disease that are transmitted by exposure to blood or by sexual means are social diseases. It is impossible to understand such diseases from a purely medical, biological, or laboratory perspective.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 281)

· Homosexuality in the 1980s: A Return to Assimilation

“The belief in a predetermined sexual orientation is most visible in the emerging conservatism in the gay rights movement. Although the concept of conservatism seems antithetical to the cause of gay rights, it has been expressed recently as an effort to assimilate gays and lesbians into the mainstream heterosexual culture. The assimilationist is not so much a challenge to conservatives as an effort as an effort at accommodation. Whereas as conservatives have portrayed homosexuality as a threat to traditional values, assimilationists attempt to show that homosexuals can embrace the same values they are supposed to threaten.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 137)

“The push for assimilation, however, is not new. The original homophile organizations of the 1950s, such as the Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis, and One, Inc., adopted a policy of assimilation.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 137)

“The contemporary assimilationist movement resembles Mattachine's policies in two important ways.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 138)

“First, it is designed to deny any attempts to challenge the heterosexual norms of society.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 138)

“The current assimilationist movement, like the older Mattachine Society, has deferred to the authority of science.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 139)

· Assimilation or Liberation

Whether by assimilation or liberation the merits of homosexuality are very weak and detmintral for both the individuals invovled in homosexuality and for society at large. Both statgeies are aimed at the legitmatization and normalization of homosexuality, homosexual behavior. But it is much more than about a specific behavior, homosexuality, it is about how society defines those essential factors which give a society meaning and provides for a healthy society gender, the family, and community. These last quotes are by those self-identify as homosexuals themeselves.

“Gay and lesbian identity politics is, only in part, about the social status of self-identified homosexuals; it is also about the meaning of sexuality, gender, the family, and even community in our society.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and Perversity, p. 225)

“The lesbian and gay communities, however, have considerable ambivalence toward the campaign for citizenship, because the outlaw status of homosexuals is historically very significant.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and Perversity, p. 225)

“In short, the gay lifestyle - if such a chaos can, after all, legitimately be called a lifestyle - just doesn't work: it doesn't serve the two functions for which all social framework evolve: to constrain people's natural impulses to behave badly and to meet their natural needs. While it's impossible to provide an exhaustive analytic list of all the root causes and aggravants of this failure, we can asservative at least some of the major causes. Many have been dissected, above as elements of the Ten Misbehaviors; it only remains to discuss the fail of the gay community to provide a viable alternative to the heterosexual family.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.363)

Bibilography

Abelove, Henry, Michele Aine Barale and David M. Halprin. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Routledge. New York and London, 1993.

Adams, Jad. AIDS: The HIV Myth. MacMillian London, Inc., London, 1989.

Aggelton, Peter, Peter Davies and Graham Hart, editors. AIDS Facing The Second Decade. The Falmer Press. London, New York and Philadelphia, 1993.

Allen, Peter Lewis. The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago and London, 2000.

Altman, Dennis. AIDS in the Mind of America. Anchor Books. Garden City, New York, 1987.

Andriote, John-Manuel. Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago and London, 1999.

Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality). Thunder's Mouth Press. New York, 2002.

Brookey, Robert Alan. Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene. Indiana University Press. Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2002.

Caton, Hiram. The AIDS Mirage. University of New South Wales Press LTD. Sydney, 1994.

D'Emilio, John. “Capitalism and Gay Identity, 467-476, in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader by Henry Abelove, Michele Aine Barale and David M. Halperin. Routledge. New York and London, 1993.

Duesburg Dr., Peter. Inventing the AIDS Virus. Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington, D.C., 1996.

Ellison, George, Melissa Parker, and Catherine Campbell, Editors. Learning From HIV and AIDS. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2003.

Escoffier, Jeffrey. American Homo: Community and Perversity. University of California Press. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1998.

Heyl, Barbara Sherman. “Homosexuality: A Social Phenomenon.” 312-349 in Human Sexuality: The Societal and Interpersonal Context. Kathleen McKinney and Susan Sprecher editors. Ablex Publishing Corporation. Norwood, New Jersey, 1989.

Kirk, Marshall and Hunter Madsen Ph.D. After the Ball How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s. Doubleday. New York, 1989.

McKinney, Kathleen and Susan Sprecher editors. Human Sexuality: The Societal and Interpersonal Context. Ablex Publishing Corporation. Norwood, New Jersey, 1989.

Paigila, Camille. Vamps & Tramps. Vintage Books. New York, 1994.

Perow, Charles and Mauro F. Guillen. The AIDS Disaster: The Failure of Organizations in New York and the Nation. Yale University Press. New Haven and London, 1990.

Root-Berstein, Robert S. Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus. The Free Press. New York, 1993.

Rotello, Gabriel. Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men. A Dutton Book. New York, 1997.

Rimmerman, Craig A. From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States. Temple University Press. Philadelphia, 2002.

Rosario, Vernon A. Homosexualities and Science: A guide to the Debates. ABC-ClIO. Santa Barbara, CA, 2002.

Rushing, William A. The AIDS Epidemic Social Dimensions of an Infectious Disease. WestviewPress. Boulder, CO, 1995.

Schoub, Barry D. AIDS and HIV in Perspective. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge UK, 1999.

Turner, Charles F., Heather G. Miller, and Lincoln E. Moses, Editors. AIDS Sexual Behavior and Intravenous Drug Use. National Academy Press. Washington, D.C., 1989.

Watney, Simon. “Emergent Sexual Identities and HIV/AIDS.” 13-27 in AIDS Facing The Second Decade. Peter Aggelton, Peter Davies and Graham Hart, editors. The Falmer Press. London, New York and Philadelphia, 1993.

Chapter 11 Homosexual Parenting Myth

Larry Houston — 2007-05-26T14:24:00Z

Chapter 11 What About the Children? A Review of Homosexual Parenting Studies

Advocates for legalizing same-sex relationships by civil unions, gay marriages or domestic partners, often say these relationships have no bearing on the well being of children. They claim that numerous studies support such an outcome. But in the five articles reviewed below, other researchers say this is not the case; rather that the studies are biased and contain fatal flaws and limitations. Stacy and Biblarz are sociologists who favor homosexual parenting, and even they admit, “the sexual orientation of these parents matter somewhat more for their children than the researchers claimed.” Children raised by homosexual parents differ in their family relationships, gender identity, and gender behavior from children raised by heterosexual parents. There are also differences in sexual behavior and practices by children raised by homosexual parents. They follow the role modeling of their parents in homosexuality.

1. “A Review of Data Based Studies Addressing the Affects of Homosexual Parenting on Children's Sexual and Social Functioning.” Philip A. Belcastro, Theresa Gramlich, Thomas Nicholson, and Richard Wilson. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage. 1993, Vol. 20(1/2), p.105-122.

All of the authors are associated with universities, Belcastro at the University of New York (Department of Health and Physical Education), Gramlich with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and the other three with the Western Kentucky University (Department of Public Health).

Fourteen studies were reviewed. Studies were selected based upon the following criteria.

1. data based 2. post-1975 publication 3. independent variable - homosexual parent 4. dependent variable - some aspect of the reared child's sexual and /or sexual functioning

“Each study was evaluated according to accepted standards of scientific inquiry. The most impressive finding was that all of the studies lacked internal validity, and not a single study represented any sub-population of homosexual parents. Three studies met minimal or higher standards of internal validity, while the remaining eleven presented moderate to fatal threats to internal validity. The conclusion that there are no significant differences in children reared by lesbian mothers versus heterosexual mothers is not supported by the published research data base.” (Belcastro et al. “A Review of Data Based Studies Addressing the Affects of Homosexual Parenting on Children's Sexual and Social Functioning.” p.105-106.)

2. “The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting on Children.” Lynn D. Wardle. University of Illinois Law Review. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Law. Champaign, IL. 1997, Vol. 1997, No. 3, p. 833-920.

Wardle is a law professor at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University. His article was published in a law journal addressing legal issues. His concern is the misuse of social science studies comparing the effects of homosexual parenting to heterosexual parenting. In his article, Wardle cites the study by Belcastro et al. discussed above.

“Thus, collectively, the social sciences studies purporting to show that children raised by parents who engage in homosexual behavior are not subject to any significantly enhanced risks are flawed methodologically and analytically, and fall short of the standards of reliability needed to sustain such conclusions.” (Wardle, “The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting on Children.” p. 852)

3. “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” Judith Stacy and Timothy J. Biblarz, American Sociological Review. April 2001, Vol. 66, No. 2, p.159-183.

The authors are sociology professors at the University of Southern California. In their article they acknowledge their bias in support of homosexual parenting.

Twenty-one psychological studies published between 1981 and 1998 were reviewed. They were selected by the following criteria. The studies: 1. included a sample of gay or lesbian parents and children and a comparison group of heterosexual parents and children 2. assessed differences between groups in terms of statistical significances 3. included findings directly relevant to children's development.

The studies reviewed compared relatively advantaged lesbian parents (18 studies) and gay male parents (3 studies) with roughly matched samples of heterosexual parents.

“Echoing the conclusion of meta-analysts Allen and Burell (1996), the authors of all 21 studies almost uniformly claimed to find no differences in measures of parenting or child outcomes. In contrast, our careful scrutiny of the findings they report suggests that on some dimensions - particularly those related to gender and sexuality - the sexual orientations of these parents matter somewhat more for their children than the researchers claimed.” (Stacy & Biblarz. “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” p.167)

4. “No Basis: What the Studies Don't Tell Us About Same-Sex Parenting”. Robert Lerner, Ph.D., and Althea K Nagai, Ph.D. http://www.marriagewatch.org/publications/nobasis.htm

Lerner and Nagai are professionals in the field of quantitative analysis. In their article they evaluated 49 empirical studies on same-sex (or homosexual) parenting. Each study was evaluated based on how they carried out six key research tasks: 1. formulating a hypothesis and research design 2. controlling for unrelated effects 3. measuring concepts (bias, reliability, and validity) 4. sampling 5. statistical testing 6. addressing the problem of false negatives (statistical power)

“Lerner and Nagai found at least one fatal research flaw in all forty-nine studies. As a result, they conclude that no generalizations can reliably be made based on any of these studies. For these reasons the studies are no basis for good science or good public policy.” (Lerner & Nagai. “No Basis: What the Studies Don't Tell Us About Same-Sex Parenting”. p.3)

5. “Studies of Homosexual Parenting: A Critical Review.” George Rekers and Mark Kilgus Regent University Law Review. 2001-2002, Vol. 14, No. 2, 343-382.

Rekers PhD is a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. He is the author of over 100 journal articles, invited book chapters, and nine books. Rekers has given invited expert testimony to numerous federal government agencies and presented invited papers to academic meetings in 24 countries. Agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health have supported his work through fellowships, contracts, and grants. Kilgus, M.D. Ph.D. is a board certified child and adolescent psychiatrist. He was also affiliated with the University of South Carolina School of Medicine at the time of co-authoring the article.

“The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the methodology and possible limitations of existing research studies on the effects of homosexual parenting studies upon child development in order to assist lawyers, legislators, and judges to identify politically-motivated assertions regarding so-called “research findings” that are not, in fact, substantiated by adequate scientific research.” (Reckers and Makigus, “Studies of Homosexual Parenting” A Critical Review,” p. 346)

Reviewed were 35 of the best currently available homosexual parenting studies published in refereed (peer reviewed) academic journals.

“This article discovered that with very few exceptions, the existing studies on homosexual parenting are methodologically flawed and they should be considered no more than exploratory pilot work which suggest directions for rigorous research studies.” (Reckers and Makigus, “Studies of Homosexual Parenting” A Critical Review,” p. 345)

“At best, the scientist must still consider this body of published articles to be suggestive of possible leads to be systemically researched in future rigorous controlled research studies. At worst, these methodologically flawed studies are misleading, biased, politically motivated forms of propaganda, which irresponsibly assert conclusions which are not scientifically warranted.” (Reckers and Makigus, “Studies of Homosexual Parenting” A Critical Review,” p. 375)

Limitations and flaws of the homosexual parenting studies reviewed.

“We have identified conceptual, methodological, and theoretical limitations in the psychological research on the effects of parental sexual orientation and have challenged the predominant claim that the sexual orientation parents does not matter at all.” (Stacy & Biblarz. “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” p.176)

1. Samples

Size: Marginally acceptable sample sizes. Numbers varied from 5 in one study to a few dozen. Frequently 10 to 40 subjects were studied. Samples are too small to yield meaningful results.

“Sample of convenience”: subjects are self-selected, or at least not randomly selected. Recruited through advertisements in homophile publications. “Participants who recruited other participants.” Educated, economically stable white lesbians are typically over-represented.

2. Control Groups

Some studies had no control groups.

Seldom compared to married heterosexual families. Often compared to single heterosexual parents and their children

Cohabitation: Most of the lesbian mothers were cohabiting with a partner, while heterosexual mothers were single parents not cohabiting with partners.

3. Data

Data collection: In some studies the homosexual parents were interviewed in person, while the heterosexual parents' data was collected by mail in response.

Analysis of the data: Broad over-generalizations abound, especially in extrapolating the results to the general population. Some studies had missing or inadequate statistical analysis of the data. There was a general inaccurate reporting of the data that was expressed through illegitimate generalizations or unwarranted conclusions.

“Finally, based upon the researchers' interpretations of the data, and at least in one case censorship of the data, most were biased towards proving homosexual parents were fit parents. A disturbing revelation was that some of the published works had to disregard their own results in order to conclude that homosexuals were fit parents. We believe that the system of manuscript review by peers, for minimum scientific standards of research, was compromised in several of these studies.” (Belcastro, et al. “A Review of Data Based Studies Addressing the Affects of Homosexual Parenting on Children's Sexual and Social Functioning.” p. 117)

3. Longitudinal studies

This is a new area of research. There is very little data available on the adult children of homosexuals.

“Social desirability” bias: “Both researchers and respondents perceive that within society, or at least the subgroup of society with which they identify, it is deemed desirable, progressive, and enlightened to support one particular outcome - in this case, that homosexual parenting is just as good as heterosexual parenting.” (Wardle, “The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting on Children.” p. 848

“Another mutual limitation of many of the studies was one identified by Rees (1979), namely, lesbians' political and legal desire to present a happy, well-adjusted family to the world.” (Belcastro et al. “A Review of Data Based Studies Addressing the Affects of Homosexual Parenting on Children's Sexual and Social Functioning.” p.116.)

What the homosexual parenting studies do show:

“What is possible, given the collective limitations of these three studies, is to conclude that there appears to be some significant differences between children raised by lesbian mothers versus heterosexual mothers in their family relationships, gender identity, and gender behavior.” (Belcastro et al. “A Review of Data Based Studies Addressing the Affects of Homosexual Parenting on Children's Sexual and Social Functioning.” p.119.)

“The author suggests that these studies have ignored significant potential effects of gay childrearing on children, including increased development of homosexual orientation in children, emotional and cognitive disadvantages caused by the absence of opposite-sex parents, and economic security.” (Wardle, “The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting on Children.” p.833)

“Even in a utopian society, however, one difference seems less likely to disappear: The sexual orientation of parents appears to have a unique (although not large) effect on children in the politically sensitive domain of sexuality. The evidence, while scanty and underanalyzed, hints that parental sexual orientation is positively associated with the possibility that children will be more likely to attain similar orientation - and theory and common sense also support such view.”(Stacy & Biblarz. “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” p.177-178)

It is the two sociologists, Stacy and Biblarz, who acknowledge their bias in that they support homosexual parenting. Stacy and Biblarz admit that there are flaws in the homosexual parenting studies, “We have identified conceptual, methodological, and theoretical limitations in the psychological research on the effects of parental sexual orientation . . .” They believe it is homophobia and heterosexism that prevents homosexual parenting from being on par with heterosexual parenting. So for them it is not homosexuality itself that prevents good parenting, but the society and culture, even though our society and culture today allows unprecedented historical acceptance of homosexuality. What is most surprising of all, are their comments that “social sciences research” is not grounds for determining the effects of homosexual parenting on children in the political consideration of granting parental rights for homosexual parenting. They are sociologists themselves.

“We agree, however, that ideological pressures constrain intellectual development in this field. In our view, it is the pervasiveness of social prejudice and institutionalized discrimination against lesbians and gay men that exerts a powerful policing effect on the basic terms of psychological research and public discourse on the significance of parental orientation. The field suffers less from overt ideological convictions of scholars than from the unfortunate intellectual consequences that follows from implicit hetero-normative presumptions governing the terms of the discourse - that healthy child development depends upon parenting by a married heterosexual couple.” (Stacy & Biblarz. “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” p.160)

“On contrary, we propose that homophobia and discrimination are the chief reasons why parental sexual orientation matters at all.” (Stacy & Biblarz. “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” p.177)

“Even were heterosexism to disappear, however, parental sexual orientation would probably continue to have some impact on the eventual sexuality of children.” (Stacy & Biblarz. “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” p.178)

“Thus, while we disagree with those who claim that there are no differences between children of heterosexual parents and children of lesbigay parents, we unequivocally endorse their conclusion that social science research provides no grounds for taking sexual orientation into account in the political distribution of family rights and responsibilities.” (Stacy & Biblarz. “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” p.179)

Chapter 10 Homophobia Myth

Larry Houston — 2007-05-26T14:17:00Z

Chapter 10 Homophobia Myth

The information being present here is to bring clarity and understanding to a word that has been coined by those advocating for homosexuality. Along with many other things associated with homosexuality, “homophobia” immediately places us in a quandary. One such quandary is holding to a position that there is a “homosexual” who is a distinct person. This is a concept, a “homosexual” as a distinct person that those advocating for homosexuality themselves cannot agree upon. It is seen in the framework of the philosophical discussion of “social constructionism” and “essentialism.” The prevailing view held today by many of those advocating for homosexuality is a “social constructionist” viewpoint. There is no “homosexual” as a distinct person, only individuals who self-identify by those behaviors or acts they commit, same-sex sexual acts. In the United States and other western societies this identity has taken on a very strong political connotation. A group of people self-identifying by their behavior or the acts they commit seeking legal sanctioning of their behavior in a “political rights” context. To be homosexual or gay today can best be seen as a “political identity”. How can there be “homophobia” if the “homosexual”, as a distinct person does not exist? The creating of homophobia is another example of “myth making” the continual portrayal of a “victim status” by a group of individuals who self-identify by their behavior or the acts they commit. The “political homosexual” is not a “representative group” of homosexuals and they fail by any measure to qualify for “victim” status.

“Difficulties with defining homophobia are not confined to whether or not it is a true phobia. The term involves implicit reference to homosexuality, which also has inherent definitional problems. There has been considerable debate in recent years over whether “homosexuals” are universal across different cultures or whether “the homosexual” is an identity that can only be legitimately discussed in relation to Westernized cultures.”(Plummer, One of the Boys: Masculinity, Homophobia, and Modern Manhood, p. 6)

“Consistent with the political and social climate of the United States during the second half of the 1960s, the issue of homosexuality became politicized. There was a movement by an increasing number of gay activists to promote the civil and political rights of homosexuals inasmuch as homosexuality was beginning to denote minority status with regard to political and civil rights rather than a category of deviance. Psychiatry, which had previously defined homosexuality as a disease and diagnosed homosexuals as mentally ill, was considered a formidable but politically and strategically important obstacle in the struggles of homosexuals for social and politiical status. In the late 1960s homosexuals in the United States forged a potent movement to depathologize homosexuality.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 67 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

In the following quote, the “nosological revision” being referred to is the decision in 1973 to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association

“Shortly after the nosological revision, there was a significant shift in the focus of the research related to homosexuality. Rather than focus on the “etiology” and “cure” of homosexuality, theorists and researchers in psychology began to suggest that negative attitudes toward homosexuals, rather than homosexuality itself, cause many of the difficulties that homosexuals face (Smith, 1971). Many of these researchers rejected what they referred to as the “victim analysis,” and redirected their empirical pursuits toward the possible victimizers, more specifically, toward the attitudes of nonhomosexuals toward homosexuals and homosexuality (MacDonald, Huggins, Young, and Swanson, 1972). Homosexuality was now regarded as a normal, healthy, lifestyle choice. Thus, new questions arose: what are the etiology and associated features of individuals who have negative attitudes and reactions toward homosexuals and homosexuality? What is the cure for this attitude?” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 68 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“The declassification of homosexuality as a disease by the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 generally fueled the gay movement not only in the United States but also in other countries. Until 1970 all basic issues of same-gender attractions, roles, and relationships were classified as a disease under the general diagnosis of “homosexuality.” It was about this time that the explicit concept of “homophobia” – the conscious and unconscious fear and hatred of homosexuality and lesbians/gays – was coined in social study. The concepts marks a turning point not only in scientific attitudes about homosexual mental health but also in the increasing self-esteem of many gays and lesbians, as noted in mental health studies during and since that time. Generally, the stigma and prejudice inherent in antihomosexual activities, such as queer-bashing, were implicitly accepted by society and sanctioned through the disease label. In many ways they still are (Herek 1993).” (Herdt, Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians Across Cultures, p.56)

Homophobia is a “medical condition” coined by those advocating for homosexuality to be used to describe the “attitudes and actions” of those whose oppose homosexuality. Homophobia as originally defined was the “dread or fear of being in close contact with homosexuals.” There is some confusion as to where this word “homophobia” actually originates. Two views can be found in articles and books that discuss homophobia. “The word, which may have been coined in the 1960s, was used by K.T. Smith in 1971 in an article entitled “Homophobia: A Tentative Personality Profile.” (Fone, Homophobia A History, p.5) Others write that George Weinberg in his 1972 book, Society and the Healthy Homosexual introduced homophobia into literature about homosexuality.

What is clear, that this word “homophobia” is a poor choice of a word to use for describing the attitudes and actions by those who oppose homosexuality. The attitudes and actions are not a phobia in the clinical sense. This word fails to clearly describe what the attitudes and actions towards homosexuality are. But for gaining acceptance of homosexuality and for political considerations the word has strong advantages. Much of the information that follows comes from those advocating for homosexuality.

· Defining “Homophobia”

“Homophobia is a problematic term, particularly when taken literally.” (Plummer, One of the boys: Masculinity, Homophobia, and Modern Manhood, p. 4)

“Literally, the irrational fear of homosexuals; used more widely to denote hatred for gay men and lesbians and the view that they are somehow inferior to heterosexuals.” (Kranz and Cusick, Gay Rights, p. 155)

“It appears that during the past two decades, the term homophobia has been generalized to denote any negative attitude, belief, or action toward homosexuals (Haaga, 1991; Fyfe, 1983).” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 68 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“Homophobia was a convenient term designed to interpret cultural restrictions on homosexual behavior, but become a catchall political concept used to refer to any nonpositive attitude gays. However, the descriptions of the concept and the research used to support the theories show neither irrational fear nor a specific reaction toward “homosexuals”.” (Nungessor, Homosexual Acts, Actors, and Identities p.162)

“Other variants of the more general definition of homophobia included Colin's (1991) description of homophobia as any antihomosexual bias and discriminatory behavior.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 69 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“There were still other definitional attempts. Morin and Garfinkle (1978) characterized the homophobic as an individual who does not value a homosexual lifestyle equally with a heterosexual lifestyle” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 69 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“Bell (1991) considered homophobia to be the equivalent of homonegativity, which refers to any negative feelings or thoughts about homosexuals and homosexuality.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 69 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“Reiter (1991) defined homophobia as antihomosexual prejudice, a complex phenomenon whose roots have been traced to a cultural context.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 69 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“The term “homophobia” is now popularly construed to mean fear and dislike of homosexuality and those who practice it.” (Fone, Homophobia A History, p.5)

“ ‘Homophobia' has become popular as a descriptor of a wide range of negative emotions, attitudes, and behaviors toward homosexual people.” (Haaga, “Homophobia”?, p. 171)

“As the word “homophobia” gained currency, it began to be widely used by professionals and non-professionals to indicate any negative attitude, belief, or action directed against homosexual persons, with the result that the term has lost much of its original precision.” (Hudson and Ricketts, “A Strategy for the Measurement of Homophobia,” p.357)

“Homophobia is mainly a category accusation because it is primarily directed at acts and what acts represent in fantasy, and only secondarily at the people who commit those acts, even though this century has given those people a distinct name. This is the one ideological prejudice that aims at doing, not being.” (Young-Bruehl, The Anatomy of Prejudices, p. 143)

· “Homophobia” is not a phobia”

A phobia in its clinical sense is an irrational fear of something; an individual who has a phobia tries to avoid that which triggers this fear. If they cannot avoid the object of their phobia, it is endured with great anxiety and distress.

“A phobia is a mainly irrational fear of something. It is not an illness. It is not a mental disorder.” (www.pe2000.com/phobiawhat.htm)

“A phobia is a persistent, excessive, unrealistic fear of an object, person, animal, activity or situation. The phobic individual either tries to avoid the thing that triggers the fear, or endures it with great anxiety and distress.” (www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW00/9339/9475.html)

So using the definitions and descriptions of homophobia above, which are used by those advocating for homosexuality we have the misuse of a word.

· Comparing a phobia to a prejudice

“In sum, “homophobia” seems, at least descriptively, more like a prejudice than like a phobia.” (Haaga, “Homophobia”?, p.172)

Below in a chart is what Haaga uses to support the idea that homophobia is a prejudice and not a phobia as defined in a medical clinical sense. The person who suffers from a phobia is anxious about it, sees his fears as excessive, avoids something, and he is the one that must change. But the one who is prejudiced is angry towards another, justifies his anger, use aggressive behavior in discriminating against someone, and it is the person who is prejudiced and who discriminates must change.

Phobia Prejudice (homophobia)

Problematic emotion anxiety anger

Judgement of ones's emotions excessive or unreasonable seing one's anger as justified

Problematic emotion avoidance aggression

Political agenda regarding target no target discrimination against targets

Locus of motivation for change "themelves" are motivated to change

targets the people holding such attitudes

· Measuring Homophobia

Five studies by researchers attempting to measure homophobia are reviewed here. The first was by Kenneth T. Smith in 1971, using a nine-item Homphobia Scale (H-Scale) and was reported in the journal, Psychological Reports.

1. Smith 1971

“One of the earliest attempts to measure homophobia consisted of an effort to discover psychosocial correlates of individuals reporting negative attitudes toward homosexuals (Smith, 1971. Smith developed a twenty-four-item self-reporting questionnaire, which consisted of a nine-item Homophobia Scale (H-Scale) and fifteen items assessing attitudes related to a diverse set of topics, such as patriotism, materialism, sexuality, religion, and traditional sex roles.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 70 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

Smith's study to measure homophobia was conducted at the State University College at Fredonia. The participants in his study were 130 students in psychology classes. He used a twenty-four self-reporting questionnaire, and only nine questions were directly related to the measurement of homophobia.

“The questionnaire was administered to a group of undergraduate psychology students. Of the ninety-three returned questionnaires, those with the twenty-one highest and twenty-one lowest scores on the H-Scale comprised the homophobic and nonhomophobic groups.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 70-71 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

Smith's study contained parts that should be of concern and the researcher acknowledged them in his reporting of the study. Not only was the H-Scale based on a small number questions, but his questionnaire did not truly represent a scale. Smith's arbitrary choosing of the lowest and highest twenty-one scores in determining his H-Scale is perhaps the most questionable part of his study in attempting to measure homophobia.

“Smith conceded that the questionnaire did not truly represent a “scale” because it used a forced-choice response format rather than a continuum.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 70 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“The psychometric properties of the H-Scale and the remaining items were not reported in this study. It appears that no reliability measures of the H-Scale or the measures of the personality variables were obtained. Moreover, it is unclear whether using the twenty-one lowest scores constituted an adequate method of determining cutoff scores for categorization. It is possible that this group might have had a truncated range and not scored in a sufficiently extreme manner to warrant classification as either “homophobic” or “nonhomophobic.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 71 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“Thus, Smith's H-Scale (1971) is a psychometrically questionable measure of homophobia. If psychometric properties were evaluated, they were not reported by the author. There were no established norms or acceptable validity for the H-Scale, rather arbitrary cutoffs were designated based on the twenty-one lowest scores in the sample.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 71 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

2. Lumby 1976

In 1976, Lumby reported in the Journal of Homosexuality his study to measure homophobia. He conducted the study on the campus of the Southerna Illinois University at Carbondale. The research participants were 120 middle-class Causasian male subjects who came from metroplitan, urban, and rural areas within the state of Illinois. There were 60 homosexual subjects and 60 heterosexual subjects. Lumby in his study converted Smith's H-Scale by using a Likert index, with ratings from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”).

“Lumby (1976) converted Smiths's H-Scale to a Likert index, with ratings from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”), and conducted a study that purportedly assessed the validity of the measure.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 71 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

Lumby just like Smith, acknowledges basic flaws in his study. They begin with an assumption Lumby made in conducting his study. Lumby using his Likert index fails to significantly improve the measurement of homophobia.

“Lumby assumed that if the H-Scale actually measured homophobia in nonhomosexuals, there would be significant differences between the responses of homosexuals and those of heterosexuals. The glaring flaw in the logic of this assumption is that although any valid measure of homophobia would be expected to discriminate between homosexuals and heterosexuals, it does not follow that a measure that discriminates between these two groups necessarily is a valid measure of homophobia. In fact, all that could be concluded from such a measure is that certain response patterns correlate positively or negatively with heterosexuality.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 71 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“Lumby, however, reported that the scale cannot be considered a valid measure of homophobia because it failed to meet the minimal Guttman Scalogram requirements. This finding was attributed, in part, to the ambiguity and awkwardness of the wording of many items.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 71 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“Although Lumby remedied the difficulties resulting from Smith's (1971) forced-choice format, his Likert index does not represent a significant improvement in the measurement of homophobia.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 72 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

3. Milham, San Miguel, and Kellogg 1976

A second study attempting to measure homophobia was also reported in the same 1976 issue of the Journal of Homosexuality, which contained Lumby's study. This was a study conducted at the University of Houston by Milham, San Miguel, and Kellogg. The study participants were a pool of 795 subjects in introductory psychology classes. Like the other two studies to measure homophobia these researchers used a quetionaire format. They had 38 belief statements where responses were made in a true-false format. There were 38 belief statements for each male homosexuals and female homosexuals for a combined total of 76 items.

“The 76 items were administered to a pool of 795 subjects drawn from a population of undergraduate psychology students.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 76 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“Thirty-eight belief statements were generated that which reflected a wide spectrum of opinions concerning homosexuals.” (Milham, San Miguel, and Kellogg, “A Factor - Analytic Conceptualization of Attitudes Toward Male and Female Homosexuals,” p.4)

“These researchers developed a questionnaire consisting of thirty-eight items designed to survey a broad range of attitudes and beliefs toward homosexuality.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 75 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“Responses were in a true-false format. All items were duplicated to refer separately to male and female homosexuals.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 76 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

Of the 3 studies conducted up until 1976, of instruments to measure homophobia Milham, San Miguel, and Kellogg's may be considered the most methodologically sound.

“Prior to the development of the IHP, Milham, San Miguel, and Kellogg (1976) conducted what appears to be the most methodologically sound investigation of attitudes toward homosexuality.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 75 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

4. Hudson and Ricketts 1980

Hudson and Ricketts'instruement for measuring homophobia is the one that is most widely used. Their study was conducted at the University of Hawaii at Manoa among students in the departments of social work, sociology, and psychology. 300 usable responses were obtained among participants on a voluntary, non-random basis. Hudson and Ricketts instrument to measure homophobia is a scale, the Index of Homophobia (IHP), consisting of 35 items with a Likert response scale.

“During the fall of 1977 a brief questionnaire and three scales were administered to students in the departments of social work, sociology, and psychology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on a voluntary, non-random basis. A total of 300 usable responses were obtained, and, while an exact record was not kept, the response rate was well over 80%.” (Hudson and Ricketts, “A Strategy for the Measurement of Homophobia,” p.362)

“The most widely used measure of homophobia was constructed by Hudson and Ricketts (1980). These researchers attempted to combine items that assessed attitudinal dimensions of homophobia, as well as affective components of the homophobic response.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 72 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings

“The scale, titled the Index of Homophobia (IHP), consists of twenty-five items with a Likert response scale.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 75 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

The IHP scale besides being the most widely used instrument for measuring homophobia, is also the most empirically and psychometrically sophisticated. But questions still remain over whether this scale actually measures homophobia or a reaction to homosexuality.

“Overall the developers of the IHP used a somewhat more empirical and psychometrically sophisticated approach than previous researchers who produced instruments to measure homophobia. The internal consistency of the scale was evaluated, and some validation issues were addressed by the researchers. However, significantly more research is needed before conclusions can be made about the reliability and the validity of inferences from this scale. Questions remain about whether this scale actually measures homophobia or a reaction to homosexuality.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 75 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

5. Logan 1996

The Journal of Homosexuality printed in a 1996 issue another study measuring homophobia. As with all the other studies and scales attempting to measure homophobia beginning in with Smith in 1972, Logan's study shows that the use of the term “homophobia” to describe ant-homosexual behavior is inaccurate and inappropriate. Logan's study was conducted at the University of Virginia. The study sample comprised 207 females and 177 males from the Mental Health Adjustment and the Personality and Personal Adjustment courses. The author developed a 28-item Gay and Lesbian Response Scale (GLRS). Responses to the statements from Gay and Lesbian Response Scale (GLRS) were indicated using a 5-point Likert scale, a number 1 response was “strongly agree” and a number 5 response was “strongly disagree.”

“The GLRS included statements indicative of a phobic response to gays and lesbians, and statements indicative of prejudicial responses to gays and lesbians as measured by affectual statements, stereotypical beliefs, and opinions regarding active discrimination against gays and lesbians.” (Logan, Homophobia? No, Homopredjudice, p. 40)

“In conclusion, the findings of this study indicate that the broad application of the term “homophobia” to describe anti-homosexual response is inaccurate and inappropriate and should only be used to describe those few individuals who demonstrate a true phobic response to gays and lesbians. Further, this study strongly suggests that most anti-homosexual responses fall into the category of prejudice and the use of the term “homoprejudice” to describe such responses is recommended.” (Logan, Homophobia? No, Homopredjudice, p.50)

· Limitations of homophobia

Advocates for homosexuality acknowledge the limitation of the word “homophobia” itself. Most problematic is that many of the inferences reachers made based on these instruments to measure homophobia are invalid due to the numerous psychometric problems with each of these homophobia scales. The word homophobia is still used because other means of expressing the “concept of homophobia” with more accurate words to describe what it really is, a prejudice, have failed to catch on.

“Perhaps the most serious psychometric flaw involving the validation of all scales of homophobia is the absence of a pre-existing, behaviorally referenced criterion group. The validation of the homophobia instruments examined involved a criterion group designated by scores on measures of some construct that was believed to be related to homophobia, such as sexual conservatism, religiosity, or maladjustment. This defect might have been remedied by using a criterion group such as individuals who have engaged in hate crimes against homosexuals.

Thus, given the numerous psychometric problems with each of these scales, many of the inferences researchers make based upon instruments to measure the homophobia construct are invalid.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 77 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“Existing psychometric measures of homophobia have been inadequate and therefore it is not clear currently whether this construct can be accurately measured. The development of the construct of homophobia appears to be in its infancy. It is of paramount importance to establish a consensus on a clear univocal definition of this term. A family of related terms could range from the very general (e.g., “homonegativity), referring to any negative attitude or behavior, to the more specific. In addition, it could carve out subsets of this domain such as homophobia (e.g., an irrational fear and avoidance) or homoaggressiveness (e.g., individuals who commit illegal acts that hurt homosexuals.)” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 82 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“From now on, therefore, when we really do mean ‘fear of homosexuals,' ‘homophobia' it will be; when we are talking about hatred of homosexuals, we'll speak (without the hypen) of ‘homohatred,' homohating,' and ‘homohaters.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s, p.XXIII)

“Homophobia is a mobile polymorphous prejudice that incorporates a range of meanings, many which are nonsexual. This makes it difficult to assign a satisfactory name to homophobia.” (Plummer, One of the boys Masculinity, Homophobia, and Modern Manhood, p. 305)

“Clearly, previous attempts to conceptualize the congnitive dimension of reactivity toward homosexuality by means of one all-inclusive, bipolarly valenced continuum are inadequate. It would appear that heterosexuals make greater distinictions and discriminations in conceptualizating homosexuality than has been assumed previously.” (Milham, San Miguel, and Kellogg, ““A Factor - Analytic Conceptualization of Attitudes Toward Male and Female Homosexuals,” p. 9)

“The results of the present study lend support to multidimensional conceptualization of responses to homosexuality.” (Milham, San Miguel, and Kellogg, ““A Factor - Analytic Conceptualization of Attitudes Toward Male and Female Homosexuals,” p. 10)

Critics of homophobia have also observed that homophobia is problematic for at least two reasons.

“First, empirical research does not indicate that heterosexuals' antigay attitudes can reasonably be considered a phobia in the clinical sense. Indeed, the limited data available suggest that many heterosexuals who express hostility toward gay men and lesbians do not manifest the physiological reactions to homosexuality that are associated with other phobias (see Shields & Harriman, 1984). Second, using homophobia implies that antigay prejudice is an individual, clinical entity rather than a social phenomenon rooted in cultural ideologies and intergroup relations. Moreover, a phobia is usually experienced as dysfunctional and unpleasant. Antigay prejudice, however, is often highly functional for the heterosexuals who manifest it.” (http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/prej_defn.html)

· An enemy becomes a friend

Perhaps one may find interesting that those advocating for homosexuality use the concept of “homophobia”. Within this concept of homophobia, it is an illness that is observed and there is need for psychological help for the one who suffers from homophobia. In a political context there is also the idea of discrimination. Up until 1973 the view was commonly held that it was a homosexual who was ill and in need of psychological help. In 1973 those advocating for homosexuality through a three year long social/political campaign by gay activists, pro-gay psychiatrists and gay psychiatrists, not as a result of valid scientific studies was able to change the view of homosexuality as an illness. This event was the removal of homosexuality from the APA's (American Psychiatric Association) lists of sexual disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

“In 1973, by a vote of 5,854 to 3,810, the diagnostic category of homosexuality was eliminated from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association (Bayer 1981).” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 66 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

“Writing about the 1973 decision and the dispute that surrounded it, Bayer (1981) contended that these changes were produced by political rather than scientific factors. Bayer argued that the revision represented the APA's surrender to political and social pressures, not new data or scientific theories regarding on human sexuality.” (O'Donohue, and Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,” p. 66 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.)

Those advocating for homosexuality have taken that who once was an enemy and used them as an ally. There was an exchange in roles, the idea that homosexuality was an illness, needing a mental health cure, and creating a condition of “homophobia” an illness suffered by those opposing homosexuality and who are in need of a mental health cure.

Who is a homosexual? What is homophobia? Those advocating for homosexuality cannot agree on answers to these questions among themselves. But recently a new concept has arisen that of “gay fatigue”. There was a recent article in a Dallas newspaper about “gay fatigue”. The author was writing about the constant bombardment for the propagandizing of a behavior, attempting to portray it in the best light possible. While ignoring for the most part the negative consequences, the growing rates of sexually transmitted diseases among homosexuals and men who have sex with men. The loudest cry of warning about the growing possibility of a second AIDS epidemic is coming from some homosexuals themselves. Who is heeding this cry?

· Warnings by homosexuals themselves of a possible second AIDS epidemic.

“Is the badge of the “sexual outlaw” killing us?” www.advocate.com/html/stories/900/900_actup.asp

“Never Again” www.advocate.com/html/stories/840/840_aids_cohan.asp

“A midlife HIV crisis” www.advocate.com/html/stories/852/852_midlifehiv.asp

Bibliography

Fone, Byrne. Homophobia A History. Metropolitan Books. New York, 2000.

Friedman, Richard C. M.D., and Jennifer I Downey, M.D. “Homosexuality.” The New England Journal of Medicine Oct. 6, 1994, Vol. 331, No. 4, 923-930.

Haaga, David A. F. “Homphobia”? Journal of Social Behavior and Personality. 1991, Vol. 6, No. 1, 171-174.

Kantor, Martin. Homophobia Description, Development, and Dynamics of Gay Bashing. Praeger. Westport, Connecticut and London, 198.

Kranz, Rachel and Tom Cusick. Gay Rights. Facts on File, Inc. New York, 2000.

Kirk, Marshall and Hunter Madsen Ph.D. After the Ball How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay's in the 90s. Doubleday. New York, 1989.

Herdt, Gilbert. Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians Across Cultures. WestviewPress. 1997.

Hudson, PhD., Walter and Wendell A. Ricketts. “A Strategy for the Measurement of Homophobia.” Jornal of Homosexuality. Summer 1988, Vol. 5 (4), 357-372.

Lumby, PhD., Malcom E., “Homophobia: The Quest for a Valid Scale.” Journal of Homosexuality. Fall, 1976, Vol. 2(1), 39-47.

Logan, PhD, Colleen R. Homophobia? No, Homopredjudice. Journal of Homosexuality. 1996. Vol. 31(3), 31-53.

Miguel, MS, Christopher L. and Jim Milham, Phd. “The Role of Cognitive and Situational Variables in Aggression Toward Homosexuals.” Journal of Homosexuality. Fall 1976, Vol. 2 (1), 11-27.

Milham, PhD., Jim, Christopher L. San Miguel, MS. And Richard Kellogg. “A Factor - Analytic Conceptualization of Attitudes Toward Male and Female Homosexuals.” Journal of Homosexuality. Fall 1976, Vol. 2 (1), 3-10.

Nungessor, Lon G. Homosexual Acts, Actors, and Identities. Praeger. New York, 1983.

O'Donohue, William T. and Christine E. Caselles. “Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues.” P. 65- 83 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm Edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings. Routledge. New York and Hove, 2005.

Patterson, Charolette J. “Sexual Orientation and Human Development: An Overview.” Developmental Psychology 1995, Vol. 31, No.1, 3-11.

Plummer, PhD, David. One of the boys Masculinity, Homophobia, and Modern Manhood. Harrington Park Press. New York, London and Oxford, 1999.

San Miguel, MS., Christopher L. and Jim Milham, PhD., “The Role of Cognitive and Situational Variables in Aggression.” Journal of homosexuality. Fall 1976, Vol.2 (1), 11-27.

Smith, Kenneth T. “Homophobia: A Tentative Personality Profile.” Psychological Reports. 1971, 29, 1091-1094.

Wright, Rogers H. and Nicolas A. Cummings. Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. New York and Hove, 2005.

Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth. The Anatomy of Prejudices. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996.

http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/9339/9475.html

http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis/p20 an04.html

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/prej_defn.html

Chapter 9 Gay Teen Suicide Myth

Larry Houston — 2007-05-26T14:14:00Z

Chapter 9 Gay Teen Suicide Myth

There are an overwhelming range of emotions and feelings when discussing suicide. It is even more disturbing when suicide becomes apart of a political agenda. The idea that gay teens are at a higher risk for suicide may be seen in this context. The following is written to help explain with clarity and a purpose to meet the needs of all of the youth who struggle with suicide.

“Suicide is usually a story of misperceptions and misunderstandings, of feelings of despair and lack of control; it cannot be attributed simply to having a difficult life. And it has no place on anyone's political agenda, no matter how worthy.” (Schaffer, “Political Science,”p.116)

“High-quality care depends on sound scientific research to determine the causes of suicide and to determine effectiveness and safety interventions. Research on the relationship between sexual orientation and suicide, however, is limited both in quantity and quality.” (Muehrer, “Suicide and Sexual Orientation: A Critical Summary of Recent Research and Directions for Future Research,” p.72)

Defining terms

One of the largest concerns in studies of suicide is the defining of terms associated with suicide. This is also a problem in homosexual studies. People are homosexual, gay, and queer. Each term has different meanings when used by individuals in various contexts. At one time those advocating for homosexuality used sexual “preference” and now it is sexual “orientation” to describe erotic attraction between individuals. Whether the attraction is between members of the same sex or to the opposite sex.

Studies and discussion of suicide are hampered by the lack of a standard nomenclature, i.e. definition of terms. There is a no question understanding the meaning of suicide. Nor is there confusion with suicide ideation, thinking about suicide. But there is a problem with determining the seriousness of these thoughts, because they are self-reported. In between these two terms are the ideas of suicidal threats, behavior, acts, and attempts. Again questions arise concerning the seriousness of these actions, for example a suicide attempt resulting in no injuries and an attempt resulting in injuries. Both are suicide attempts, but in the reporting of them may be of concern. Attempts often are self-reported and without injuries requiring intervention by others may lead to questions of the validity of the attempt. Many people, who only desire attention, may use suicide as a way of receiving attention. Suicide, from ideation to completion is difficult for those seeing it as a possible solution to a problem, and equally difficult for the ones seeking to help.

Historical Perspective

“Though his findings were greatly overshadowed by a lawsuit brought six students who charged him with obscenity (he was found guilty and made to pay a fine and costs), he managed to conduct the first large-scale gay survey, the scientific technique upon which the gay movement was to continually re-establish its credentials with increasing frequency and specialization over the next century. Hirschfeld's two ultimate justifications for his organization and his activist tactics and pursuits also bore a striking resemblance to those used in continuing the fight he started. The first was to establish as scientific fact that the homosexual was born, not made, and so was beyond the scope of a legal system that could punish people for what they did, not who they were. The second was to prevent teenage suicide.” (Archer, The End of Gay and the death of heterosexuality, p.76)

The idea of a ‘homosexual' being a distinct type of a person was first advocated in the 1860s in Germany. It was by those advocating for legal rights for ‘homosexuals'. One early German leader for the emancipation of homosexuals was Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935). Of the early ‘homosexual' rights advocates, Hirschfeld's career and legacy presents in retrospect as many errors and failures to be shunned as achievements to emulate. He was ‘homosexual' himself like many of the other early advocates for ‘homosexual' rights. His view of ‘homosexuality' was similar to that of Ulrichs. ‘Homosexuality' was innate and biological in nature. ‘Homosexuals' were a third sex, resulting from a hormonal cause. It resulted in a preponderance of the female in the male and the male in the female. Hirschfeld never put forth a coherent scientific explanation of ‘homosexuality' and his works were rejected. In 1933 the Nazis burned his works and research. Hirschfeld' legacy was tarnished by serious lapses of professional ethics. He was accused of selling worthless patented medicines. The most serious lapse was the allegations that he extorted money from some famous Germans who had in good faith furnished him with materials revealing the intimate (and incriminating) sides of their lives. Hirschfeld also conducted two polls of high school boys and male factory workers. The poll of the high school boys resulted in legal troubles for Hirschfeld.

One researcher over time changed his mind about homosexual youth and suicide.

Savin-Williams from Cornell University in two articles published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the first in 1994 and the second in 2002 comes to opposite conclusions as to the relationship between sexual orientation and suicide. In his second article he no longer concludes that homosexual youth are at an increased risk for suicide. Note the titles of the two articles also. Below are quotes, including titles from the two articles.

1994: “The empirical documentation is of one accord: The rate of suicide among gay male, bisexual, and lesbian youths is considerably higher than it is for heterosexual youths.” (Savin-Williams, “Verbal And Physical Abuse as Stressors in the Lives of Lesbian, Gay Male and Bisexual Youth: Associations With School Problems, Running Away, Substance Abuse, Prostitution, and Suicide.” p. 266).

2002: “Consistent with previous findings, results from the studies indicate that sexual - minority youths report higher suicide attempts than do heterosexual youths. However, because many of these reports were false and because life - threatening true attempts did not vary by sexual orientation, the assertion that sexual - minority youths as a class of individuals are at increased risk for suicide is not warranted.” (Savin-Williams, “Suicide Attempts Among Sexual - Minority Youths: Population and Measurement Issues.” p. 989)

Source of the Gay Teen Suicide Myth 1989 Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide and Paul Gibson

The gay teen suicide myth controversy began with this government task force formed to gather papers on youth suicide. There were 50 background papers addressing a very broad range of issues related to youth suicide and suicidal behavior. Two of them by Gibson and Harry addressed the issue of sexual orientation. The authors of these two papers were not employed by the federal government and neither of these papers presented any original research on completed suicides and sexual orientation. Gibson's paper was not based on an actual study but rather on a review of non-probability (non-random) studies and agency reports of lesbian and gay adolescents and adults conducted between 1972 and 1986. In formulating his conclusions Gibson took from Kinsey's study that 10% of the American population is homosexual, which itself is a myth, acknowledged even by homosexual advocates. The views in the papers were of the authors. There have been questions raised as whether the papers submitted by Gibson and Harry were accepted by the task force and included in the final recommendations of the task force. Also it has been noted that these two papers were not submitted for the rigorous peer review that is required for publication in a scientific journal.

Gibson's most often cited claims are: (1) 30% of the youth suicides are homosexual. (2) Homosexual youths are 2 to 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. (3) Suicide is the leading cause of death of among homosexual youth. (4) Gay suicide is caused by the internalization of ‘homophobia' and violence directed towards homosexual youth.

“In my psychiatric practice I have found that the “government” statistics so frequently cited were not prepared by the government and are not statistics. They are estimates based on a projection in a paper prepared for the task force report. The paper was never subjected to rigorous peer review that is required for publication in a scientific journal, and contained no new research findings. The estimate that as many as thirty percent of youth suicides are gay was based on the results of several studies that reported high rates of suicidal feelings and behavior by gays and on Kinsey's conclusion that gays make up ten percent of the population.” (Schaffer, “Political Science.” p.116)

There are homosexual advocates who also acknowledge the shortcomings presented by Gibson in his paper.

“Although this information has been reported in many articles and texts about lesbian and gay youth, it is not based on an actual study but rather on a review of non-probability (non-random) studies and agency reports of lesbian and gay adolescents and adults conducted between 1972 and 1986. The review was done by Paul Gibson, a clinical social worker, as one of 50 papers or studies commissioned by the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide, which was established in 1985 in response to growing rates of youth suicide and concluded its work in 1987.” (Ryan and Futterman, Lesbian and Gay Youth, p.61)

“Unfortunately, Gibson's conclusions were based on very limited empirical data, and rely heavily on reports from organizations that may draw individuals with mental health problems.” (D'Augelli and Hershberger. “Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth in Community Settings: Personal Challenges and Mental Health Problems.” p.424)

Governor Weld of Massachusetts by executive order in 1992 established the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. He did so using this information in Gibson's paper. The Massachusetts Safe Schools Project, Gay and Straight Alliances in schools are also a result of this faulty information on homosexual youth suicides.

Studies report that homosexuality per se is not directly related to suicide.

“In this sample, bisexuality or homosexuality per se was not associated with self-destructive acts. Most of the subjects did not attempt or plan suicide.” (Remafedi MD, MPH, Gary, James A Farrow, MD and Robert W Deisher, MD. “Risk Factors for Attempted Suicide in Gay and Bisexual Youth.” p.495)

“Of the ten studies, 6 explored risks for suicide by comparing attempters and nonattempters. They found that suicide attempts were neither universal nor attributable to homosexuality per se, but were significantly associated with gender nonconformity, early awareness of homosexuality, stress, violence, lack of support, homelessness, substance abuse, or other psychiatric symptoms.” (Remafedi, Gary, MD, MPH. “Sexual Orientation and Youth Suicide,” p.1291)

"It is important to note that suicide risk among homosexual students was not attributed to homosexuality per se, on the basis of the absence of such association in the females." (Remafedi, "The Relationship Between Suicide Risk and Sexual Orientation: Results of a Population-Based Study," p. 59)

“However, it seems clear that only a small portion of suicides were openly gay. We found no evidence that the risk factors for suicide among gays were any different from those among straight teens.” (Shaffer, Fisher, Hicks, Parides, and Gould, “Sexual Orientation in Adolescents Who Commit Suicide.” p.70)

“The findings in this study suggest that there may be few if any differences between young gay and straight males who commit suicide.” (Rich, Fowler, Young, and Blenkush, “San Diego Suicide Study: Comparison of Gay to Straight Males. p.452)

“In the present study, the researchers examined factors related to depression, hopelessness, and suicidality in gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents, compared with demographically similar heterosexual adolescents. Sexual minority adolescents reported greater depression, hopelessness, and past and present suicidality than did heterosexual adolescents. However, when controlling for other psychosocial predictors of present distress, significant differences between the 2 samples disappeared." (Safren and Heimberg. “Depression, Hopelessness, Suicidality and Related Factors in Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Adolescents,” p.859)

“In the few studies examining risk factors for suicide where sexual orientation was assessed, the risk for gay or lesbian persons did not appear any greater than among heterosexuals, once mental and substance abuse disorders were taken into account.” (National Institute of Mental Health web site, www.nimh.nih.gov/research/suicidefaq.cfm)

Limitations in the research literature

"This critical summary has identified several limitations in the research literature on suicide and sexual orientation: a lack of consensus on definitions of fundamental terms such as "suicide attempt" and "sexual orientation," uncertain reliability and validity of measures for these terms, nonrepresentative samples, and a lack of appropriate control groups, among other limitations. These limitations prevent accurate conclusions about: (1) completed or attempted suicide rates among gay/lesbian youth in the general population or in clinical populations, (2) comparsions of completed or attempted suicide rates between gay/lesbian youth and nongay youth in the general poulation, (3) the potential role that sexual orientation and related factors may play in suicidal behavior independently of well-established risk factors such as mental and substance abuse disorders." (Muehrer, "Suicide and Sexual Orientation: A Critical Summary of Recent Research and Directions for Future Research, p. 79)

What the studies do report about homosexual youth and suicide.

Those homosexual youth who do attempt suicide:

(1) Express more gender nonconformity i.e. feminine gender role concepts. (2) Became aware of their same-sex attractions at an early age. (3) Labeled themselves as homosexual and had their first sexual experiences at younger ages than their peers. (4) Homosexual and heterosexual youth who attempt suicide are comparable in the following ways: (a) Both have family problems. (b) Both report drug and alcohol abuse. (c) Both have conflicts with the law and have been arrested. (d) Both suffer from depression or other mental illness issues. (e) Both experience either physical or sexual abuse. (f) Both have family members or friends who attempted or committed suicide.

"Prior studies of bisexual/homosexual male adolescents have found that increased rates of suicides attempts were not universal, but were associated with particular risk factors, such as self-identification as a homosexual at younger ages, substance abuse, female gender role, family dysfunction, interpersonal conflict regarding sexual orientation, and nondisclosure of sexual orientation to others." ( Remafedi, "The Relationship between Suicide Risk and Sexual Orientation," p. 59)

Remafedi from the University of MN who is a homosexual advocate, in a 1991 study with others found this relationship between homosexual self-labeling and suicide.

“For each year's delay in bisexual or homosexual self-labeling, the odds of a suicide attempt diminished by 80 percent. These findings support a previously observed, inverse relationship between psychosocial problems and the age of acquiring a homosexual identity.” (Remafedi, Farrow, Deisher, “Risk Factors for Attempted Suicide in Gay and Bisexual Youth.” p.495)

This relationship should remain foremost in out attempts to provide school based sex education and meeting the needs of young people struggling with both gender identity confusion and same-sex attractions.

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