Another prevalent theory has to do with certain patterns in a person’s family back­ground. Psychoanalytic theory implicated both childhood experiences and relation­ships with parents. Sigmund Freud (1905/2000) maintained that one’s relationship with one’s father and mother was crucial. He believed that in "normal" development, we all pass through a “homoerotic” phase. Boys, he argued, could […]

Some people believe that young women and men become homosexual because they have been seduced by older homosexual people or because they have been "turned" by someone else—particularly a well-liked and respected teacher who is homosexual. Contrary to these myths, research indicates that sexual orientation is most often estab­lished before school age and that most […]

Psychosocial explanations of the development of a homosexual orientation versus a heterosexual orientation relate to life incidents, parenting patterns, or psychological attributes of the individual. Psychosocial Theories Bell and his colleagues (1981) conducted a comprehensive study about the develop­ment of sexual orientation. They used a sample of 979 homosexual men and women matched to a […]

Numerous studies over the years have attempted to establish the percentage of men and women who are homosexual, and the percentages vary from study to study. As noted earlier in the chapter, the 2011 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), based on in-person interviews of 13,495 individuals ages 15 to 44, found that 1.1% of […]

Professor Breanne Fahs, author of Performing Sex: The Making and Unmaking of Women’s Erotic Lives, characterizes heterosexual-identified women who interact sexu­ally with other women for the purpose of pleasing and arousing men as engaging in "performative bisexuality." In performative bisexuality, women are not being sexual with other women from feelings of inherent desire and intrinsic […]

Both heterosexual and homosexual individuals are sometimes judgmental toward those who identify themselves as bisexual and would feel more comfortable if bisexu­als adhered to a single orientation (Baumgardner, 2008). In addition, gay men and lesbians sometimes view a bisexual person as someone who is really homosexual but lacks the courage to identify himself or herself […]

The parameters for bisexuality can be difficult to establish. At present "no scien­tific or popular consensus exists on the precise cluster of experiences that qualify an individual as lesbian, gay, or bisexual [or heterosexual] instead of just curious, confused, or experimenting" (Diamond, 2008a, pp. 26-27). As seen in Table 9.1, 3.5% of women and 1.1% […]

According to the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, "An asexual is someone who does not experience sexual attraction. Unlike celibacy, which a person can choose, asexuality is an intrin­sic part of who we are’" (Asexual Visibility and Education Net­work, 2009, p. 1). The Asexual Visibility and Education Network, founded in 2001, has 35,000 members worldwide, […]

The Kinsey scale may be interpreted incorrectly to indicate that all people have a fixed, stable sexual orientation. In fact, sexual orientation is more accurately determined by patterns over time rather than at any given point in time (Baumgardner, 2007). Psychologist and researcher Lisa Diamond (2008a) uses the term sexual fluidity to describe variability in […]

We begin this chapter with a discussion of the continuum and characteristics of sexual orientations. Homosexuality, bisexuality, heterosexuality, and asexuality are words that identify various sexual orientations. Multidimensional components indicate a specific sexual orientation and can include whether an individual: 1. Engages in sexual behavior with men, women, both, or neither. 2. Feels sexual desire […]