Psychology and Sexual Orientation

Coming to Terms

Janis S. Bohan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1996
• Print ISBN: 9780415915137
• eBook ISBN: 9781135235956
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Psychology and Sexual Orientation strives to "come to terms" with lesbian, gay and bisexual life and with the controversial scientific and sociocultural theories and arguments on the origin and meaning of homosexuality and queer life in the US. Janis M. Bohan disrupts conventional psychological perspectives on queer life and identity and animates the ongoing debate between essentialism and constructionism. Bohan discusses the meaning of sexual orientation; lesbian, gay and bisexual identity development and stigma management; diversity in experiences; partners and parenting; and lesbian, gay and bisexual communities.

PART I
Conceptual Frameworks

CHAPTER ONE
The (Uncertain) Meaning of Sexual Orientation

AS SUGGESTED IN THE INTRODUCTION, the concept of sexual orientation is not as straightforward as everyday conversations, media accounts, and political slogans would imply. Rather, the topic is fraught with vagaries, the terminology is ambiguous and ill-defined, and the apparently exclusive and stable categories commonly employed actually disguise complex dimensionality and fluidity. The aim of this chapter is to explore in some depth the uncertain meaning of sexual orientation, and in the process to destabilize the simplistic understandings we tend to carry regarding this topic.

Cultural and Historical Contexts

As preface to this discussion, recall the social constructionist suggestion that what we take as truth is actually a situated understanding, whose content is shaped by the context in which it was developed. From our shared perspective, these mutually constructed understandings seem to be not constructions but self-evident descriptions of reality. It follows that our present understanding of sexual orientation is inextricably rooted in our own context, is a culturally and historically specific concept. We grant a particular meaning to this group of experiences that in other places and in other times have been understood quite differently because those understandings evolved in differing contexts. In Blumenstein and Schwartz’s (1990) words, “desire is created by cultural context. Sexuality emerges from the circumstances and meanings available to individuals; it is the product of socialization, opportunity, and interpretation” (p. 310). A few examples will illustrate this point.

Cultural Variations

First, let us consider the cultural specificity of the notion of sexual orientation as we understand it. A great deal of anthropological research has explored behaviors and experiences that we regard as manifestations of sexual orientation and has convincingly demonstrated the diversity of meanings that can be attributed to these phenomena, and the variety of categories that can be created to accommodate them. The literature on this topic is now vast, and only a few illustrations will be offered to demonstrate the concept.

In many Melanesian cultures, for example, homosexual activity between male youths and adult men is an integral aspect of young males’ growing into men. While there are variations among these societies in the specific elements of underlying beliefs, at the core is the assumption that a boy achieves manhood by ingesting the semen of older men. Thus, homosexual activity is essential to rather than a threat to masculinity. Once thus initiated, this younger man will, in turn, become a source of manhood for youth who come of age later. He will also move on to form heterosexual relationships. At no time is this behavior seen as defining a man’s identity; no label “homosexual” is applied to the act or the individual. Behaviors that to us bespeak a homosexual or bisexual identity are simply manifestations of this people’s cultural beliefs and practices that identify one’s membership in the group and in no sense speak to the individual’s core sexual identity (e.g., Adam, 1986; Herdt, 1984).

In Mexico, it is common for men to engage in what we would term bisexuality, that is, having both male and female sexual partners. However, having sex with another man is only viewed as an indication of nonheterosexuality for the partner who is the recipient of the sexual act (or “passive”); such receptivity is seen as “feminine” and therefore as an abdication of heterosexuality. For the active partner, there is no such approbation, because his behavior is seen as appropriately “masculine” (e.g., Carrier, 1976, 1989; Taylor, 1986). This perception of sexuality as defined in terms of activity-passivity rather than the sex of partner may have an impact on identity formation for Mexican/Latin American men (Almaguer, 1993). In some Brazilian cultures, a parallel distinction is made between passive (“feminine”) and active (“masculine”) roles in male-male sex. However, the term “homosexual” as referring to an individual who prefers relationships with members of his own sex fits neither of these roles, which are both internally complex and sometimes reciprocally interchangeable (e.g., Fry, 1986; Parker, 1986). In each case, in contrast to our own understandings, only in limited circumstances is identity defined by the sex of one’s partner, and even then, the categories do not correspond to our own.

In a number of African cultures, same-sex relationships are common among women, particularly among cowives in polygynous societies; some of these relationships even include formalized commitment ceremonies. These women are not considered homosexual or lesbian, and their involvement in traditional heterosexual practices is not in question. These relationships are fully integrated into the cultural norms of their society, and may be more or less formal and more or less acknowledged, depending at least in part on the class structure of the society. But in no case are relationships with other women considered definitive of these women’s sexuality or core identity (e.g., Blackwood, 1986a; Wieringa, 1987).

As late as the mid 1930s, some Chinese women joined together in the “marriage resistance movement,” forming sisterhoods that served as extended families for these women who chose not to marry. Often, close relationships, including sexual intimacy, formed among pairs or small groups of these women (Blackwood, 1986a; Sankar, 1986; Wieringa, 1987). In Lesotho, close friendships between adolescent girls and young women, referred to as “mummy-baby” relationships, frequently include an element of sexual intimacy (Gay, 1986). In neither case does an identity as homosexual coalesce around these relationships.

In many Native American tribes, some men and women assumed cross­gender roles, participating in the dress, activities, and roles usually assigned to members of the other sex. This cross-gender role frequently involved taking a same-sex spouse; thus men would take husbands, and women, wives. However, neither the cross-gender individual nor the partner was seen as homosexual. Rather, the cross-gender individuals, often designated by the generic term, berdache,¹ were often viewed as blessed, as merging feminine and masculine energies, as “two-spirited.” In none of the instances where this pattern has been identified have the berdache traditionally been considered homosexual, nor have they been viewed as deficient, demented, or disturbed (e.g., Allen, 1986; Blackwood, 1984, 1986b; Roscoe, 1987; Weinrich & Williams, 1991; Whitehead, 1981; Williams, 1986b).

With the encroachment of other cultures, these traditional values have often been displaced, so that in many cases current attitudes within these groups have come to match our own. Williams (1986a), for instance, wrote of the discrepancy between the high regard accorded the Winkte (the Lakota term for biologically male berdache) and the comparative disdain expressed toward contemporary “gay” Lakota members. This transformation in meaning illustrates the initial point: the significance given to particular behaviors and experiences is a product of context. In this case, the importation of European attitudes acted to alter the understandings of the Lakota, so that their perspective now reflects European beliefs rather than those of their Lakota ancestors.

Historical Variations

The cultural distinctiveness of our particular understanding of sexual orientation is matched by its historical specificity. Focusing on our own, western cultural tradition, we discover that the very notion of sexual orientation as “the distinguishing characteristic of a particular kind of person” (Weeks, 1981, p. 81) is a recent construct.² Let us trace major steps in the journey to our current conceptions.

In ancient Greece, it was accepted—indeed, expected—that men would have male youths as sexual partners. These same-sex relationships existed in addition to rather than instead of heterosexual marriage, and were so integrated an aspect of society that there were protocols for their proper conduct. This behavior was not taken as a manifestation of sexual orientation but as an expression of power and status—variables that also legitimized the rape of vanquished enemies and sex with women and with servants. Thus, having same-sex sex did not define one’s identity but merely served as the expression of cultural norms.

During the emergence and then the dominance of Christianity in Europe and in the early United States, same-sex sexual activity came to be seen as a sin against God and, eventually, a crime against the state. However, until at least the 18th century, homosexual acts were seen simply as acts, and not as defining one’s identity. They were condemned and punished as sins or as crimes, just as adultery or bestiality were sanctioned. But there was no attribution of a distinctive identity to the person performing these acts.

Even into the nineteenth century, intimate relationships or “romantic friendships” between women were common, often expressed in poetry and in correspondence that can only be described as love letters. As some women gained access to higher education and became able to support themselves without marriage, these relationships sometimes evolved into shared lives, or “Boston marriages.” Yet no category of lesbian or homosexual was invoked to define these bonds, nor were they stigmatized by society. Indeed, romantic friendships often existed side by side with heterosexual marriage and family, and were seen as complementary to those relationships. In other cases, women “passed” as men, sometimes taking wives. Ultimately it was the gender violation inherent in this lifestyle rather than the implied or potential lesbianism, per se, that was the focus of the rhetoric that condemned these women.

Beginning in the nineteenth century, however, acts were transmuted into identities. A growing interest in sex, heightened by Freud’s focus on sexuality as central to human development and experience, spawned the new science of sexology, which granted a central role to sex in characterizing individual personality and identity. As sexologists began to describe and catalogue the range of human sexuality, they employed Freud’s distinction between the object of sexual expression and the aim of that expression; a preference for a same-sex rather than other-sex object thus defined a major axis of sexual identity.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, a group of sexologists undertook to investigate and explain what Karl Ulrichs termed “the riddle of love between men” (Kennedy, 1980); others prominent in this field included Magnus Hirschfeld, Richard Krafft-Ebing, and Havelock Ellis. The then-prevalent understanding of “homosexuality,” a term first used in 1869, was most often expressed by the term “inversion.” This condition was believed to represent cross-sex identity, a third sex, “a woman’s soul in a man’s body.” The biological determinism of the time, a product of Darwin’s pervasive influence, led these writers to postulate a biological origin for homosexuality. They were convinced that such an explanation would end the legal and religious discrimination against homosexuality that had long dominated western culture.

By the twentieth century, sexuality had come to be seen as core to personality, and categories of sexual practice and object were construed as central to and consubstantial with identity. The term homosexual now designated an entire individual (“the homosexual”), and that individual’s own private experience was inevitably shaped by this new conception. Thus, in D’Emilio’s words, the “transformation of homosexuality, both conceptually and in its actual expression, from a sexual act to a personal identity” was complete (1983, p. 5; italics mine). Heterosexuality, which was simply that form of sexuality left over after the “perversions” were catalogued, was taken as normative. The movement toward biological and, ultimately, medical explanations of all non­heterosexual identities led to homosexuality’s being considered a medical “condition,” a form of pathology amenable to “treatment.”

Psychology’s Role. Psychology’s formal participation in the matter of homosexuality begins here, as early psychiatrists and psychologists accepted this disease model of homophilia and contributed their own variations on the theme. Freud’s followers in the psychoanalytic tradition, particularly in America, took the professional lead in the movement to pathologize homosexuality (Abelove, 1993; Lewes, 1988; Morgan & Nerison, 1993). Psychoanalytic psychiatry’s attitudes were transplanted to psychology largely intact.

Early research supported the view that homosexuality was related to mental illness. Since samples for this research came from among prisoners and patients in psychotherapy, it is not surprising that these individuals were found to be less well adjusted than the average person. In the name of curing this condition, individuals diagnosed as homosexuals (especially men) were subjected to all manner of treatment. Long-term psychotherapy was perhaps the least aversive of these, but even this approach undoubtedly caused tremendous pain, as it reinforced the client’s perception of himself (or, more rarely, herself) as diseased. More damaging still were various biological treatments: chemically induced seizures (to “free energy” to its proper use), castration and clitoridectomy, implanting of “normal” testes, administration of estrogen (to decrease “abnormal” sex drive) or androgens (to increase “normal” sex drive), and even lobotomies. Numerous forms of behavior therapy were also invoked, such as aversion therapy (associating electric shocks or nausea-inducing substances with homosexual stimuli or fantasies), and orgasmic reconditioning (associating heterosexual stimuli or fantasies with masturbation) (Coleman, 1978; Haldeman, 1991; Martin, 1984; Silverstein, 1991).

Such treatments were justified by the consensus that homosexuality was a treatable disorder. The original 1952 issue of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the approved listing of mental disorders, listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disorder. Beginning in the 1950s a series of research projects, especially the work of Evelyn Hooker, began to dismantle the contention that homosexuality was intrinsically pathological. Hooker (1957) compared heterosexual men with a sample of well-functioning (rather than imprisoned or disturbed) homosexuals and found that there was no difference in their adjustment. In her research, experts in the field of personality testing were unable to distinguish between the responses of homosexual men and their straight peers. However, the 1968 edition of DSM still listed homosexuality as a mental disorder, not as sociopathic but as a “sexual deviation.” Subsequent research activities continued to yield results corroborating Hooker’s work, and psychiatry and psychology were ultimately persuaded to rethink this position (e.g., Siegelman, 1972a, 1972b; Thompson, McCandless, & Strickland, 1971).

On the basis of empirical evidence, and having been stimulated to action by the emerging gay rights movement (discussed below; also see chapter 8), the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 removed homosexuality from the DSM. In 1975, the American Psychological Association (APA) issued a resolution of agreement with this stance, further urging that “homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgement, reliability or general social and vocational capabilities … [and mental health professionals should] take the lead in removing the stigma of mental illness long associated with homosexual orientation” (Conger, 1975, 633; see also Bayer, 1981; Gonsiorek, 1991).

Still included in DSM, however, was the diagnosis “egodystonic homosex uality,” a term referring to cases where individuals are distressed about their homosexual identity—that is, experience it as incompatible (or dystonie) with the ego (or sense of self). Thus, while homosexuality itself was not seen as intrinsically pathological, discomfort with and a desire to modify it was. This diagnosis allowed mental health professionals to continue treating dissatisfied homosexuals, using “reparative” therapies to attempt to alter homosexual orientation in order to resolve this dystonia or discomfort.

Gradually, as the understanding of homosexual experience was transformed, due in large part to scholarly work motivated by the burgeoning gay rights movement, an alternative view evolved, namely that the problem was not the individual’s displeasure with her or his identity but the societal attitudes that condemned that identity and thereby made its adoption painful.

Also, emerging models of LGB identity development (see chapter 4) indicated that a period of doubt and discomfort is a common developmental phenomenon as individuals come to terms with an identity stigmatized by society. Thus, a period of “ego dystonia” is an understandable part of the evolution of LGB identity, and should be seen as a normal aspect of the process of managing denigrating attitudes. It is those attitudes, not the identity, that need to be “repaired.”

Psychologists were challenged to consider the ethics of “conversion” therapies, even where discomfort accompanied LGB identity. Egodystonic feelings, it was argued, are actually internalizations of society’s condemnation of homo-philia, and addressing them therapeutically only reinforces the perception that homophilia is a disorder whose correction is a legitimate aim of psychology. Furthermore, such therapy detracts from the needed focus on modifying the prejudicial attitudes that result in internalized homophobia (e.g., Begelman, 1977; Haldeman, 1994; Halleck, 1971; T. Murphy, 1992). By 1987, psychologists were urged by the APA not to use the diagnosis of egodystonic homosexuality, and in the 1987 revised edition of the DSM, the diagnosis was removed (Morin & Rothblum, 1991).

Also contributing to psychology’s gradual rejection of reparative therapies was the mounting evidence ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Glossary
• Introduction: Coming to Terms
• Part I: Conceptual Frameworks
• Part II: Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Identity
• Part III: Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Relationships
• References
• Index