Chapter 10 – Gays and Other Targets of Stigma

Myths About Homosexuality

• Many people believe that gay men are feminine and gay women are masculine but that is often not the case (Dunkle and Francis 1990: Marcus 1993).
• There can be the misbelief that gay men are more prone to pedophilia, but it is more likely for a straight man to be a pedophile than and gay man (marcus 1993).
• People think that gay couples only fulfill one role on the bedroom and the relationship. Instead they are more likely to have equal roles in both (Peplau 1981).
• Many people believe that homosexuality is a mental illness, when it is not (Socarides 1997).
• People believe that homosexuals cannot have a good sex life because it is unnatural, when in reality they have the same level of satisfaction as heterosexuals (Masters and Johnson 1979).
• People believe that gay couples are obsessed with sex, but when compared to straight couples men have the amount of sex per week and gay women have less than straight women (Blumstein and Schawrtz 1990).
• People also believe that you are also completely gay or completely straight when in reality all people cannot be placed in two categories (Kinsey 1948).

Gays and Other Targets of Stigma

• Sexuality cannot be put into two groups and is on a spectrum that differs based on the person.
• Around 2.5 percent of people refer to themselves as exclusively homosexual (Voeller 1990) and six percent of men and four percent of women have “same sex feeling” (Micheal 1994).
• Gay men are more men are now more likely to be monogamous compared to the 1960’s when they were more likely to be looking for casual sex. This is because since the outbreak of aids/HIV people are less likely to take risks with a lot of partners (Feldman 1985).
• A Majority of gay couples are in long term relationships and experience a high level of happiness. They experience this happiness when they are in in an egalitarian relationship (Peplau and Cochran 1990).
• Lesbians are less likely to have “hookups” and “one-night stands” and only have sex after they have built up a trusting relationship (Nicholas 1990).
• Many gay women have an easy time passing as straight and as a result fit into many heterosexual groups that do not know they are gay and this can sometimes lead to them to “slip” into the straight sex scene as well (Nicholas 1990; Rust 1995).
• More than 2/3 of women have “partial bisexual style” and 2/3 are attracted to men (Nicholas 1990; Rust 1995).
• Lesbians are just as likely to be mothers as heterosexual women (Henry 1993; Kantrowitz 1996).
• 67% of gay women are mothers and 27% of gay men are fathers (Levay and Nonus 1995).
• Gay women are more likely to reject the role of a “traditional” female (Saghir and Robins 1980).
• Many gay teenagers are not certain they are gay like their straight friends know that they are heterosexual (Simon and Gagnon 1974).

Coming Out 

• In the gay community “coming out” means becoming openly gay and taking on the label

Gays and Lesbian Lifestyles

• Family and Children
  • It is difficult for most gay and lesbian individuals to come out and openly express their sexuality to their friends, parents, and people around them mainly because of the fear of alienation, judgment, and rejection.
  • It is not a secret that people in the lesbian and gay community experience the same form of prejudice as other minority groups with one main difference.
  • The main difference is that gay and lesbian individuals are very often alienated in their own families and do not share the same issues with their parents, whereas an African American has African American parents.
  • This scenario is also present the other way around where parents happen to be gay and the children turn out heterosexual and have to learn to accept their parents sexuality

Dating and Marriage

• Dating and Marriage also turns out to be an issue for some gay and lesbian individuals living in small town simply because there is a very small pool to choose from.
• For the simple reason of diversification, gay and lesbian individuals find relationships much easier in larger cities.

Politics, Education, and Religion

• For political reasons and because the democratic party has very often sided with the rights of the LGBTQ community, most gay and lesbian individuals lean towards the left of the political spectrum simply because that is the team fighting for their rights.

Theories of Homosexuality 

• Biological Theories
  • There are three factors that affect same sex biological orientation, hormones, genes, and the brain.
• Hormone Theory – gay men have less male sex hormones than straight men and lesbians have less female sex hormones than straight women. However, critics disagree with this theory (Burr, 1996; Porter, 1996).
• Genetic Theory – suggested that it is nature that makes a person gay or lesbian and not nurture. Studies identified identical twins are more likely than fraternal twins to become gay or lesbian, due to identical twins being more alike than fraternal (nature). However, critics believe that identical twins are more likely to have the same reaction to the way they are raised (like boys or girls) than fraternal twins (nurture) (Alissio, 1996; Santtila et al., 2008; Wickelgren, 1999).
• Brain Theory – Simon LeVay (1996) studied the brains of deceased gay and straight men. He found there was difference in brain size in the hypothalamus (the area of the brain that controls sex drive and body temperature), gay men had smaller hypothalamus compared to straight men, thus making a man gay or straight. However, critics concluded that AIDS (which had killed all the gay men in the study) had shrunk the hypothalamus of the gay men. A research in Sweden found that gay men and straight women had the same brain size, whilst lesbians and straight men had the same brain size (Park, 2008b).

Psychiatric Theories

• Prior to 1973, same sex orientation was considered to be a disorder, however after 1973, APA accepted that homosexuality is normal. However, there are some homosexuals that suffer from sexual orientation disturbance. Most psychiatrists help gay men accept their orientation whilst others try to cure them. The psychiatrists that try to cure gay men believe that it is caused from fear of the opposite sex (Berger, 1994; Socarides et al., 1997).
• Fear of the opposite sex is developed in childhood, when a mother is domineering, overprotective or seductive, and the father is weak, detached, or hostile. Thus, the boy becomes gay when he grows up (Herman and Duberman, 1995; Socarides et al., 1997).
• A lot of psychiatrists found that many of their gay patients had a complicated parents/sons relationship, however there are gay men who had the similar childhoods as straight men.

Sociological Theories

• The issue with biological theory is that not all societies have the same incidence of gays and lesbians. In fact, in some societies, male teenagers sleep with other men, then when they become men, they marry women and have babies (Herdt, 1990).
• Sociologists don’t believe that hormones, genes, or brain size makes a person gay or lesbian. However, they do believe that there is a biological predisposition which gives a person a higher chance of becoming more attracted to the same sex (Bem, 2008; Bullough, 1993; Dickermann, 1995; Rieger et al., 2008).
• Socialization can play a role in a person’s sexual orientation, especially during birth – 3 years old. The mothers kissing, touching and caressing her daughter more than her son, influences both the son and daughter to become heterosexual. There are some parents who intentionally raise their children to be homosexual or neutral. However, most parents raise their children to be heterosexual and that’s why there are more heterosexuals in the world than homosexuals (Fleishman, 1983).
• Sociologists that are positivists consider homosexuality real and therefore, study and explain it, whilst constructionists are not interested to study or justify homosexuality.  

Same – Sex Practices among Straight and Bisexuals 

• Kensey explains that people who identify themselves as heterosexual sometimes have same sex activities.
• Trades
  • Traders are men which identify themselves as straight, they are usually married or have been married in the past. They like men to go down on them, however, they do not go down on other men as they see themselves as masculine heterosexuals. Traders feel the need to be with other men to release tension. They usually from the lower class and find their male friends in public restrooms or public parks (Laud Humphreys 1970).
• Street Hustlers
  • Street Hustlers are all teenage boys, they are usually straight from a lower class. Hustler usually allow other older men to go down on them and take money for it, however, they do not do the same thing. Street Hustlers usually have had untypical childhoods. They usually do not continue the activities when they are adults, unless they are gay (Luchenbill, 1986, 1985).
• Situationals
  • Situationals can be male or female, they identify themselves as straight. However, they engage in homosexual activities only in certain situations. Situationals are usually prison inmates, priests, stripteasers and others who occasionally have homosexual activities. They usually stop the homosexuality when they can. Sometimes situationals are married, however, not contented with their spouses love and therefore, seek homosexuality to release tension. 
  • Nowadays, situational lesbians are very common in colleges, in fact, it is called LUG (lesbians until graduation). Some situationals choose this path due to fear of AIDS from the other sex, if they know a family member who was straight and died of AIDS (Francis, 2008).
• Bisexuals
  • Bisexuals are men and women who have interests in both same sex and other sex equally. Most bisexuals get married to the opposite sex and only the husband or wife is bisexual. The bisexual partner still has sexual relationships with the same sex outside of their marriage. Sometimes, both the husband and wife are bisexuals, which is termed as a flexible marriage (Toufexis, 1992a).
  • Bisexuals usually see themselves as a unique sex (neither homosexual or heterosexual), legitimate and healthy identity (Leland, 1995; Rust, 1995). Bisexuals are sensitive and empathic lovers because they can relate to both sexes equally.
  • Bisexuals usually don’t have sexual relationships with other bisexuals. Although, the bisexual community could be stronger like the gay and lesbian community if they sleep together. Thus creating their own unique sexual identity and live in harmony in the multicultural society (LeVay and Nonas, 1995).

Homophobia 

• The word homophobia originally meant only the fear of same-sex orientation, but now it refers more broadly to antigay prejudice and discrimination.

The Homophobic View of Homosexuality 

• Most homophobes today presumably would not go that far by interpreting Bible so literally. If they do, they would have to condemn many heterosexuals to death for committing adultery, having sex with a menstruating woman, telling fortunes, or cursing one’s parent.
• In 1996, the Hawaiian legislators who opposed same sex marriage argued that marriage is “intended for the propagation of the human race by man-woman units. “Same-sex marriage “ is inherently incompatible with our culture’s understanding of the institution
• Among the married heterosexuals who violate the reproductive norm are not only average couples but also infertile or childless couples, couples who marry past childbearing age, couples who use birth control methods, and couples who engage in oral or other non-reproductive sex.

The Nature and Extent of Homophobia

• Homophobia is both a negative attitude toward gays and lesbians and an unjust action against them. As an anti-gay attitude, homophobia is, therefore, covert and invisible.
• Antigay discrimination, however, is overt and observable, in the form of an unfair action against the sexual minority.
• In short, U.S society is deeply ambivalent about it’s sexual minority, torn between an uneasy feeling about their same sex orientation and a domestic tolerance for them as citizens.

A Social Profile of Homophobes

• Less educated and less well-off
• More conservative – socially, politically, religiously, and sexually
• More negative toward racial and ethnic minorities
• Less likely to know someone who is gay or lesbian
• More likely to be man than woman

The Impact of Homophobia

• Social Problems
  • Homophobia strongly affects virtually all aspects of gay and lesbian life.
  • The social problems caused by anti-gay forces in the lives of gays and lesbians include that gays and lesbians cannot legally get married.
  • Most gay teens today do not see themselves as merely being gay, in the same way as their peers do not see themselves as merely being straight
• Psychological Problems
  • Homosexuality does not cause mental health problems, just as heterosexuality does not. But the homophobic nature of society does make lesbians and gays more likely to develop some psychological problems, such as tension, self-hatred , and or depression.
  • Raised in a predominantly heterosexual and homophobic society, gays and lesbians, like straights, usually grow up identifying themselves as loving sons or daughters to their heterosexual parents, as fun-to-be with persons to their heterosexual friends and as productive or respected members to various heterosexual groups
• AIDS, Gays and Straights
  • When AIDS first broke out in the early 1980s, virtually all the victims were gay man. Today, notably, gay man are much less likely to get AIDS, thanks to dramatic increase  in safer sex practices such as monogamy and condom use.
  • The general public has become less condemnatory toward gays and more sympathetic to those with AIDS.
  • Most states have passed laws protecting AIDS victims against job discrimination.
• Fighting Homophobia
  • For more than 60 years now, gays and lesbians in the United States have been fighting for equal rights in a homophobic society.
  • The gay rights movement began in the late 1940s with the discovery among many individual gays and lesbians that they were not alone

A Global Perspective on Homophobia

• Homophobia in United States makes life difficult for gays and lesbians.
• The problems created by homophobia are even more serious in less affluent societies.
• The international Gay and Lesbian human rights commission has documented

Other Victims of Social Stigma 

• Transgenderists: Transsexuals, Intersexuals, and Transvestites
  • Transgenderism is a new concept; emerged in the 1990s and refers to those having characteristics of both sexes (aka transpeople)
  • Transsexuals feel like members of the opposite sex
  • There are more male-to-female trassexuals;
  • Attributed to women being the primary socializer of children in most families; The boy’s strong bond with mother might encourage him to become transsexual because mother is of the opposite sex.
  • Go through a “rite of passage”; feelings of femininity emerge, gradually increase and become more and more certain about being female, finally they identify as female undergoing hormone treatments and sex-change operations.
  • Intersexuals (hermaphrodites) have simultaneously male and female organs
  • Forced to become either male or female when infants by pediatric surgeons; most end up changing them into females because of convenience.
  • With the rise of Transgenderism as a social movement, sex-reassignment surgery is now more client-centered and less determined by medical profession.
  • Transvestites (crossdressers), sporadically or permanently wear clothes of the opposite sex
• People with Physical Disabilities
• Studies on stigma of physical disabilities tend to distort reality by assuming that people with disabilities are always less desirable than “normal” people
• The essence of stigma is not the disability itself, but the judging of the disability by using criteria of competence that are biased in favor of so-called normal people
• Literature on disabilities also tend to give the impression that the disability of the person is everything that they are, but there is more to the person than his or her disability; In other words, the person shouldn’t be defined by his or her disability.
• Some erroneous assumptions about disability include:
  • Disability resides solely in biology or the body
  • The disabled person’s problems result from the disability-produced impairment
  • The disabled person is a victim of the disability