Lesbian and Gay Relationships

Public awareness of lesbian and gay couples is growing; attention to homosexuality in the popular media is increasing. Social scientists have also begun to describe and analyze the nature of gay and lesbian relationships. The new scholarship on homosexual relationships is important both to the scientific community and to the general public. For the emerging science of close relationships (Kelley et al., 1983), research on homosexual couples broadens the existing knowledge base by increasing the diversity of types of relationships studied to include same-sex partnerships. In the past, virtually all research on adult love relationships has focused on heterosexual dating and marriage. New studies of homosexual couples expand the range and generality of scientific knowledge about intimate relationships. For the growing research literature on homosexuality, studies of gay and lesbian relationships also represent a new direction. Until recently, scholarship on homosexuality focused primarily on questions of pathology, individual psychological adjustment, and etiology. For example, a recent annotated bibliography included close to 5,000 citations from the social sciences, humanities, and popular press (Dynes, 1987). Only 36 of these entries were classified as dealing with gay or lesbian " couples/' In contrast, there were 207 entries on psychiatry, psychotherapy, "cures/' and related topics, and another 155 entries on the experiences of lesbians and gay men in prison or with the police. For the general public, accurate information about gay and lesbian relationships is also useful. Scientific research can replace biased stereotype$ with factual descriptions of the nature and diversity of homosexual couples. Research can also inform the discussion of new legal and