Narratives about sexuality, including those which involve sexual identity labels, are always historically, socially, politically and culturally located (Foucault, 1976; Giddens, 1992; Plummer, 1995; Weeks, 2007). In later life, any older person is likely to have lived through several changes in which sexual identity labels are widely known, which are favoured and which considered insulting. Sex...

There is strong consensus in the research literature that adolescent and adult men who report same-sex sexual orientations, identities, and behaviors are at higher risk for suicide. Recent studies of general adolescent suicide risk have identified developmental trajectories that peak during the teenage years. Because the adolescent years are characterized by the development and heightened aware...

Although youthful homoeroticism has been documented by artisans, poets, and historians for thousands of years, it was not until the early 1970s that American scientists—primarily medical researchers and mental health professionals—began systematically studying a newly recognized clinical group they classified as “gay youth.” Casting doubt on earlier interpretations that adolescent same-sex enco...

Haraway’s “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” marked a turning point in theory analyzing the intersections of machine and body. In the manifesto, she defined a cyborg as “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.” Haraway argued for finding pleasure in the border zone between social and body reality—a zone where post-genderedne...

Because the Israeli kibbutz is innovative in collective ownership, production, consumption, and child care, and in part also because it is erroneously assumed to have once had a gender-egalitarian ideology and structure, it is taken to be a valid test case for many theories explaining or justifying gender inequality or gender equality. This article argues that the kibbutz cannot serve as a test...

Many people believe that sexual orientation (homosexuality vs. heterosexuality) is determined by education and social constraints. There are, however, a large number of studies indicating that prenatal factors have an important influence on this critical feature of human sexuality. Sexual orientation is a sexually differentiated trait (over 90% of men are attracted to women and vice versa). In ...

Most surveys of the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among lesbians and gay men find no increased risk in comparison with heterosexuals. However, the majority of this work has relied on convenience samples drawn from the visible lesbian and gay community. The authors examined differences in 1-year prevalence of six psychiatric syndromes among sexually active individuals in the 1996 National ...

Heteronormativity is the presumption of heterosexuality as the default sexual orientation and can result in discrimination against the lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) population. This study serves as one of the first experimental studies to examine heteronormative perceptions in communication and their effects on practitioner-patient relationships. LGB participants were randomly assigned to re...

search of newspaper stories covering scienti1⁄2c research on homosexuality shows that the popular press has settled on this analytic framework to explain homosexuality: either genes cause homosexuality, or homosexuals choose their lifestyle.1 The mischief that follows such a formulation is broad-based and more than a little pernicious. Religious fundamentalists and gay activists alike use the g...