Bringing together research from the UK, USA, Europe and Australasia, this innovative collection rethinks traditional methodologies, creating new epistemologies and applying new approaches, whilst critically examining key issues, including communities, identities, relationships, sexualities, homosexual parenthood, fostering, civil marriage, and politics. As such, it will be of interest to researchers, scholars and students across the social sciences and health professionals.
After widespread neglect over many years, the study of human sexuality has recently come to the forefront of many of the most important debates in contemporary society and culture. This book addresses seriously the issue of how to improve the methodological basis of research into non-heterosexual sexualities, exploring the key question of what different methodological and theoretical uses of intersectionality contribute to our understandings of non-heterosexual sexualities. Bringing together research from the UK, USA, Europe and Australasia, this innovative collection rethinks traditional methodologies, creating new epistemologies and applying new approaches, whilst critically examining key issues, including communities, identities, relationships, sexualities, homosexual parenthood, fostering, civil marriage, and politics. As such, it will be of interest to researchers, scholars and students across the social sciences and health professionals.
After widespread neglect over many years, the study of human sexuality has recently come to the forefront of many of the most important debates in contemporary society and culture. This book addresses seriously the issue of how to improve the methodological basis of research into non-heterosexual sexualities, exploring the key question of what different methodological and theoretical uses of intersectionality contribute to our understandings of non-heterosexual sexualities. Bringing together research from the UK, USA, Europe and Australasia, this innovative collection rethinks traditional methodologies, creating new epistemologies and applying new approaches, whilst critically examining key issues, including communities, identities, relationships, sexualities, homosexual parenthood, fostering, civil marriage, and politics. As such, it will be of interest to researchers, scholars and students across the social sciences and health professionals.
Is love “blind” when it comes to gender? For women, it just might be. This unsettling and original book offers a radical new understanding of the context-dependent nature of female sexuality. Lisa M. Diamond argues that for some women, love and desire are not rigidly heterosexual or homosexual but fluid, changing as women move through the stages of life, various social groups, and, most important, different love relationships.This perspective clashes with traditional views of sexual orientation as a stable and fixed trait. But that view is based on research conducted almost entirely on men. Diamond is the first to study a large group of women over time. She has tracked one hundred women for more than ten years as they have emerged from adolescence into adulthood. She summarizes their experiences and reviews research ranging from the psychology of love to the biology of sex differences. Sexual Fluidity offers moving first-person accounts of women falling in and out of love with men or women at different times in their lives. For some, gender becomes irrelevant: “I fall in love with the person, not the gender,” say some respondents.Sexual Fluidity offers a new understanding of women’s sexuality—and of the central importance of love.
At a time when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals-often referred to under the umbrella acronym LGBT-are becoming more visible in society and more socially acknowledged, clinicians and researchers are faced with incomplete information about their health status. While LGBT populations often are combined as a single entity for research and advocacy purposes, each is a distinct population group with its own specific health needs. Furthermore, the experiences of LGBT individuals are not uniform and are shaped by factors of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographical location, and age, any of which can have an effect on health-related concerns and needs. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People assesses the state of science on the health status of LGBT populations, identifies research gaps and opportunities, and outlines a research agenda for the National Institute of Health. The report examines the health status of these populations in three life stages: childhood and adolescence, early/middle adulthood, and later adulthood. At each life stage, the committee studied mental health, physical health, risks and protective factors, health services, and contextual influences. To advance understanding of the health needs of all LGBT individuals, the report finds that researchers need more data about the demographics of these populations, improved methods for collecting and analyzing data, and an increased participation of sexual and gender minorities in research. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People is a valuable resource for policymakers, federal agencies including the National Institute of Health (NIH), LGBT advocacy groups, clinicians, and service providers.
Human sexuality researchers often find themselves faced with questions that entail conceptual, methodological, or ethical issues for which their professional training or prior experience may not have prepared them. The goal of this handbook is to provide that guidance to students and professionals interested in the empirical study of human sexuality from behavioral and social scientific perspectives. It provides practical and concrete advice about conducting human sexuality research and addresses issues inherent to both general social scientific and specific human sexuality research. This comprehensive resource offers a unique multidisciplinary examination of the specific methodological issues inherent in conducting human sexuality research. The methodological techniques and advances that are familiar to researchers trained in one discipline are often unfamiliar to researchers from other disciplines. This book is intended to help enrich the communication between the various disciplines involved in human sexuality research. Each of the 21 self-standing chapters provides an expert overview of a particular area of research methodology from a variety of academic disciplines. It addresses those issues unique to human sexuality research, such as: * how to measure sexuality variables; * how to design studies, recruit participants, and collect data; * how to consider cultural and ethical issues; and * how to perform and interpret statistical analyses. This book is intended as a reference tool for researchers and students interested in human sexuality from a variety of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, family science, health communication, nursing, medicine, and anthropology.
"Sexuality Counseling: Theory, Research, and Practice is an important resource for mental health practitioners. Sexuality is complex and rather than attempting to simplify, this book works within that complexity in a well-organized and comprehensive way." - Alexandra H. Solomon, Northwestern University Providing a comprehensive, research- and theory-based approach to sexuality counseling, this accessible and engaging book is grounded in an integrative, multi-level conceptual framework that addresses the various levels at which individuals experience sexuality. At each level (physiological, developmental, psychological, gender identity and sexual orientation, relational, cultural/contextual, and positive sexuality), the authors emphasize practical strategies for assessment and intervention. Interactive features, including case studies, application exercises, ethics discussions, and guided reflection questions, help readers apply and integrate the information as they develop the professional competency needed for effective practice.
This pathbreaking volume brings together a diverse body of sexual, behavioral, and social science research on bisexuality. Arguing for a clear, evidence-based definition of bisexuality and standardized measures for assessing sexual orientation, it spotlights challenges that need to be addressed toward attaining these goals. The book’s deep trove of findings illuminates the experiences of bisexual men and women in key aspects of life, as well as common mental health issues in the face of stigma, prejudice, and outright denial from the heterosexual and homosexual communities. Throughout, contributors examine the paradoxical invisibility of bisexuality even as society and science have become more inclusive of lesbians and gay men, and emphasize the critical role of thoughtful, respectful support across societal and mental health domains. Among the topics covered: Defining bisexuality: challenges and importance of and toward a unifying definition. Plurisexual identity labels and the marking of bisexual desire. Binegativity: attitudes toward and stereotypes about bisexuals. Female bisexuality: identity, fluidity, and cultural expectations. Romantic and sexual relationship experiences among bisexual individuals. Bisexuality is a substantial reference for psychologists, scholars and graduate students in LGBTQIA+ studies, and clinicians seeking both theoretical and applied perspectives on the research into bisexuality. It also offers instructors a supplemental research-based textbook option for teaching courses related to sexuality and bisexuality.
Women's health, as a field of study, is a developing discipline. Health theories in general have been based on studies of men. However, in recent years, more attention has shifted to women's health, realizing the disparities between men and women in relation to their health. During the last two decades, a similar shift has occurred for a group of womenâ€"lesbian womenâ€"to further identify and specify their health needs. Over the past decade, lesbians have organized to call for attention to the health issues of this community, resulting in several federally funded research initiatives. This book offers a comprehensive view of what is known about lesbian health needs and what questions need further investigation, including: How do we define who is lesbian? Are there unique health issues for lesbians? Are lesbians at higher or lower risk for such health problems as AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, breast cancer, mental disorders, and substance abuse? How does homophobia affect lesbian health and the funding of research on lesbian health? How do lesbian health needs fit into the health care system and the larger society? What risk and protective factors shape the physical and mental health of lesbians? The book discusses how to determine which questions to ask about sexual orientation, the need to obtain information without violating privacy, the importance of considering racial and ethnic diversity in the study of lesbians, strategies for exchanging information among researchers and disseminating findings to the public, and mechanisms for supporting greater numbers of researchers. Lesbian Health takes a frank look at the political pressures, community attitudes, and professional concerns uniquely affecting the study of lesbian health issues. The book explores many other issues including the potential for transferring findings in this field to other population groups, including other rare populations and women in general.
A different look at heterosexuality in the twenty-first century A straight white girl can kiss a girl, like it, and still call herself straight—her boyfriend may even encourage her. But can straight white guys experience the same easy sexual fluidity, or would kissing a guy just mean that they are really gay? Not Gay thrusts deep into a world where straight guy-on-guy action is not a myth but a reality: there’s fraternity and military hazing rituals, where new recruits are made to grab each other’s penises and stick fingers up their fellow members’ anuses; online personal ads, where straight men seek other straight men to masturbate with; and, last but not least, the long and clandestine history of straight men frequenting public restrooms for sexual encounters with other men. For Jane Ward, these sexual practices reveal a unique social space where straight white men can—and do—have sex with other straight white men; in fact, she argues, to do so reaffirms rather than challenges their gender and racial identity. Ward illustrates that sex between straight white men allows them to leverage whiteness and masculinity to authenticate their heterosexuality in the context of sex with men. By understanding their same-sex sexual practice as meaningless, accidental, or even necessary, straight white men can perform homosexual contact in heterosexual ways. These sex acts are not slippages into a queer way of being or expressions of a desired but unarticulated gay identity. Instead, Ward argues, they reveal the fluidity and complexity that characterizes all human sexual desire. In the end, Ward’s analysis offers a new way to think about heterosexuality—not as the opposite or absence of homosexuality, but as its own unique mode of engaging in homosexual sex, a mode characterized by pretense, dis-identification and racial and heterosexual privilege. Daring, insightful, and brimming with wit, Not Gay is a fascinating new take on the complexities of heterosexuality in the modern era.
