Discusses gender identity, homosexuality, as arrested development, sexual preference, character pathology, masochism, sexual fantasy, and psychoanalysis
This landmark book is the first and only historical, cultural, and theoretical account of how male homosexuality has been viewed--and frequently misconstrued and distorted--by the psychoanalytic tradition from Freud through the 1980s. In this groundbreaking survey, Kenneth Lewes shows how the original psychoanalytic ideals of understanding and compassion were betrayed by later psychoanalytic clinicians and theorists. Reconsidering Freud and his early followers in a new light, Lewes shows how they posited a model of psychological development that included homosexuality as one of its natural variants. But psychoanalysis, in its later attitudes toward homosexuality, soon changed from an open-minded and humane discipline into an insular and calcified orthodoxy. Exposing the basis of the acrimony and alienation that have characterized relationships between homosexuals and psychoanalysis, Psychoanalysis and Male Homosexuality is a sometimes shocking account of intolerance, hostility, and close mindedness. But it also carefully and fairly documents a parallel story of unexpected sensitivity as it explores the future possibilities--as well as the limits--of psychoanalysis as a humane science. This twentieth anniversary edition includes a new introduction by the author, in which he reflects on the changes that have occurred in the past twenty years between the psychoanalytic establishment and people who are homosexual. It also includes two forewords by prominent analysts, Gilbert Cole and Donald Moss, who discuss the personal and historical importance of Lewes's work.
Compare worldwide religious regulations involving gay sex and masculinity! Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods: An Exploration into the Religious Significance of Male Homosexuality in World Perspective is an eye-opening look at the traditions of particular religions and their edicts concerning gay sex. This book examines the origins of holy directives involving homosexuality—whether forbidden, tolerated, or mandatory—and establishes a link between theology, sex roles, and the sensitive issue of masculinity. This text draws a parallel between homosexuality and the idea of religion, suggesting that gay rights can be understood as a freedom of religion issue. While most readers are familiar with the traditional Islamic, Christian, and Hebrew prohibitions against sex between two males, this book also reveals other historic religions from around the world that neither opposed nor looked down on homosexuality. Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods argues that masculinity is the universal theme that formed historical interpretation—warriors and men of high status could not be sexually receptive or “feminine” and still be called “men.” This intriguing text shows how the modern homophile movements are in effect redefining masculinity to obliterate the stigma of being a sexually receptive man. Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods examines the significance of homosexuality in such religions as: the Sambians of New Guinea the Taoists of Ancient China Plato and the later Stoics Islamic Sufism Native American culture Hebrew Scriptures early Christianity Buddhism Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods is an enlightening book that honors homosexual claims to moral integrity and appreciates religion and religious figures without rancor. Easy-to-read and free of technical language, this volume is for anyone who has an academic, professional, or personal interest in theology and homosexuality. The author is available for speaking engagements and can be contacted at [email protected]
Looks at the wide range of contrasting images of the gay male body in Japanese popular culture, both mainstream and gay, and relates these images to the experience of an interview sample of Japanese gay men.
Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene examines the assumption that embracing the biological research on homosexuality is a viable political strategy for the gay rights movement. The biological argument for gay rights is treated as a "bio-rhetoric," a means of incorporating scientific research into public debates. The book investigates the biological research on which this gay rights argument is based, and explores how male homosexuality is conceptualized in the fields of behavioral genetics, neuroendocrinology, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology. Robert Alan Brookey demonstrates that most biological research begins with the assumption that male homosexuality is a state of physical effeminate pathology. Although biological research may seem to support a pro-gay rights agenda, the same research can actually be used to support conservative political interests.
This book explores the experiences, meanings and identities of young same-sex attracted men in rural Thailand. It is based on a study of 25 young rural Thai men who were each interviewed three times within a two-year period while they were aged 18–20, uncovering significant fluidity, variety and change.
Whisnant argues that the period after Nazism was more important for the history of homosexuality in Germany than is generally recognized. Gay scenes resurfaced; a more masculine view of homosexuality also became prominent. Above all, a public debate about homosexuality emerged, constituting a critical debate within the Sexual Revolution.
In his 1908 cultural and historical study of homosexuality titled The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life, Edward Irenæus Prime-Stevenson includes a section on homosexual juvenile fiction, perhaps the first attempt to identify a body of children’s literature about male homosexuality in English. Known for pioneering the explicitly gay American novel for adults, Stevenson was also one of the first thinkers to take seriously the possibility and value of homosexual children, whom he called "young Uranians." This book takes as its starting point Stevenson’s catalog of homosexual boy books around the turn of the century and offers a critical examination of these works, along with others by gay writers who wrote for children from the mid-nineteenth century through the end of World War I. Stevenson’s list includes Eduard Bertz, Howard Sturgis, Horace Vachell, and Stevenson himself—to which Horatio Alger, John Gambril Nicholson, and E.F. Benson are added. Read alongside major developments in English- and German-language sexology, these boy books can be understood as participating in the construction and dissemination of the discourse of sexuality and as constituting the figure of the young Uranian as central to modern gay identity.
Experts explore the relationship between homosexuality and sex roles in this highly important book. A distinguished roster of scholars reevaluate what is known about the biological, psychological, familial, and societal factors involved. They challenge previously held assumptions about the relationships between homosexuality, masculinity, and femininity, and examine the more subtle aspects of the relationship, generating further hypotheses for empirical investigation.
Some biological correlates of homosexuality can be dismissed with little difficulty but others are hard to explain away. Some specific family environments and childhood experiences have been reported as more common among homosexuals than heterosexuals. Homosexual behaviors or interests tend to be unstable in some individuals and this has been interpreted as suggesting that some people chose to be homosexual. Additionally, homosexuality in some contexts was socially tolerated and not extremely uncommon, as in classical Greece, Tokugawa Japan, and some other societies, i.e., homosexuality could be socially constructed. Given diverse potential sources of homosexuality, is a parsimonious explanation of what makes one a homosexual possible?