HOMOSEXUALITY Gregory M. Herek, Ph.D. Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis

To appear in: A.E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association & Oxford University Press.

Homosexuality encompasses a variety of currently experiencing such attraction. Because phenomena related to a same-sex sexual of the stigma historically associated with orientation. Although definitions of the term homosexuality, some respondents who had often focus mainly on sexual acts and attractions experienced such desires probably did not report between persons of the same biological sex, it to researchers. Thus, this figure – like other homosexuality also refers to patterns of same- percentages derived from self-reports about sex romantic and emotional bonding, identities homosexuality – most likely underestimates the and communities based on same-sex desires and actual prevalence of adult homosexual relationships, and the shared culture created by attraction. those communities. Ongoing attractions are often consistent with Homosexuality is usually understood as the sexual behaviors, but this is not always the case. counterpart to heterosexuality, with bisexuality Many people with primary attractions to others applied to individuals who manifest both of their own sex have heterosexual experiences, heterosexual and homosexual behavior or and many people with heterosexual preferences attraction. Such labels, however, represent an engage in homosexual activity at some time in oversimplification. Not all people display their lives. When homosexual behavior is consistency among their sexual feelings, stigmatized, as in the United States, people are behaviors, and identity; some experience probably less likely to act on homosexual considerable fluidity in their sexuality attractions than heterosexual attractions. Some throughout their lives. Nevertheless, most adults do not engage in sexual behavior at all, in the United States report that they never made regardless of their attractions. In the 1992 a conscious choice about their sexual orientation survey mentioned above, for example, it was not and that they have always felt the same type of uncommon for women and men to report same- sexual attractions and desires. They experience sex desire without having had same-sex their sexuality as a deeply-rooted and relations. unchangeable part of themselves. Some Sexual Behavior research data suggest that this pattern is more Sexual acts between people of the same common among men, with women somewhat biological sex occur commonly in human more likely to perceive their sexuality as fluid societies and, indeed, in most other animal and involving some degree of choice. species for which data are available. In some Components of Homosexuality cultures, homosexual behavior is accepted or Sexual Attraction and Desire even expected at particular stages of the life cycle or under certain circumstances. In the At some time in their lives, many people United States and most other industrialized experience feelings of sexual attraction toward Western societies, however, adults are expected persons of their own sex or toward the idea of Pre-Publicationto engage in heterosexual Draft behavior. engaging in homosexual acts. One survey Nevertheless, homosexual conduct occurs not conducted in the United States in 1992, for infrequently. Large-scale surveys conducted in example, found that nearly 8% of adults reported North America and Europe throughout the

1 1980s and 1990s indicated that roughly 1-10% about people who are gay. Many gay men and of men and 1-6% of women (depending on the lesbians seek the help of a therapist or counselor survey and the country) reported having had in the course of coming out, and many sexual relations with another person of their own psychotherapists now devote special attention to sex since puberty. Such behaviors were helping their gay clients overcome this especially common during adolescence and early internalized homophobia. Self-help groups now adulthood. exist in most cities and on many college Identities campuses through which gay men and lesbians share their coming out experiences and develop Another aspect of homosexuality is the positive feelings toward their sexuality. Because development of an identity or sense of self that of society’s assumptions that everyone is is defined in terms of one’s homosexual heterosexual, most gay people find that they attractions, behavior, and relationships. In the must repeatedly come out whenever they meet United States, people who have developed such new people. Thus, coming out is usually a life- an identity typically refer to themselves as gay, long process. with many women preferring the term lesbian. People display considerable variation in self- Very little research is available to indicate labeling, however, with some preferring how many people define their identity as gay or homosexual, queer, or another term for lesbian. The few large-scale surveys conducted themselves. in the United States that have asked this question have found that roughly 2-6% of adult People arrive at a homosexual identity respondents describe themselves as gay, lesbian, through various developmental routes. Many homosexual, or bisexual. Men are more likely first become aware of their homosexual than women to report that they self-identify as attractions in early adolescence, have a sexual homosexual, a finding that is consistent with experience with someone of the same gender, research showing that heterosexuals are and subsequently enter an ongoing romantic considerably more likely to know a gay man relationship and develop a gay or lesbian than a lesbian. As with other estimates based on identity. Others, however, form such an identity self-reports, these figures probably understate without ever engaging in homosexual behaviors the actual proportion of gay people in the US or having a same-sex romantic relationship. Not population. all people with homosexual attractions develop a gay or lesbian identity, and not all individuals Relationships and Families who identify themselves as gay engage in For the most part, gay and lesbian homosexual acts. Some regularly have sex with relationships are not legally recognized in the others of their own sex but never label United States, although they do enjoy themselves as gay or bisexual, and others recognition in some other countries. A growing develop a lesbian or gay identity primarily on number of US employers, organizations, and the basis of political or esthetic values rather local governments, however, have begun to offer than erotic attractions. same-sex “domestic partners” some of the same The process of defining one’s homosexual benefits that they give heterosexual married identity – acknowledging to oneself one’s sexual couples. and romantic attractions, accepting them, Despite the fact that societal stigma has often disclosing this information to others and, in restricted opportunities for people of the same many cases, becoming part of the gay sex to form a committed relationship, a large community – is often termed coming out of the proportion of gay and lesbian people are in such closetPre-Publication (coming out for short). It can be especially relationships. No reliable Draftdata are available difficult for those who have internalized from population surveys, but studies with society’s negative attitudes toward nonprobability samples have reported that homosexuality and who believe false stereotypes approximately 40-60% of the gay men and 60-

2 80% of the lesbians surveyed were currently in a Communities relationship. Many gay men and lesbians who In the United States and many other are currently single nevertheless report that societies, homosexuality also can connote having a steady love relationship is important to membership in a minority group community. them. Throughout the United States and many other The psychological dynamics of heterosexual countries, most large and even medium-size and homosexual relationships are highly similar. cities have a visible gay community with No consistent differences in psychological institutions such as newspapers, churches, clubs, adjustment or satisfaction have been observed social and political organizations, and between homosexual and heterosexual businesses. Belonging to a gay community is relationships. As with heterosexual similar in many ways to the experience of relationships, same-sex partnerships vary widely belonging to ethnic or religious minority groups. in their duration, with relationships lasting 20 Gay men and lesbians typically have a sense of years and longer not uncommon. the community’s boundaries and share common Despite the similarities, some differences symbols, myths, rituals, and holidays; they have been observed between heterosexual and mutually influence each other and are influenced homosexual relationships. Partners in same-sex by the community as a whole; community relationships may be less likely than those in membership serves individual needs; and heterosexual couples to assume gender-typed community members share an emotional roles. Another difference is that same-sex connection, often on the basis of sharing a sense couples may be more likely than heterosexual of the community’s history, spiritual bonds, and couples to directly discuss and negotiate the humor. Community involvement can be an issue of sexual monogamy. Lesbian couples important source of social support and may appear more likely to be sexually exclusive than contribute to a gay man or lesbian’s heterosexual couples, who in turn are more psychological well-being. likely than gay male couples to be sexually Homosexuality and Mental Health monogamous. The fact that within heterosexual For much of the twentieth century, American couples, men are more likely than women to psychiatry and psychology regarded have outside sexual relationships, suggests that homosexuality as a form of mental illness. It was gender may have a stronger relationship to included in the first Diagnostic and Statistical sexual exclusivity than does sexual orientation. Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric In the 1990s, an unprecedented number of Association, published in 1952. Labeling lesbians and gay men chose to become parents, homosexuality as a form of psychopathology often in the context of a committed same-sex reflected psychiatrists’ value assumptions relationship. Whereas many homosexual men derived from longstanding religious and legal and women had been parents before this time, traditions, as well as their clinical impressions of their children usually were conceived in a homosexuals who were seeking psychiatric heterosexual marriage. Lesbian and gay male treatment or were incarcerated. The diagnosis parents have often met with hostility from was not based on empirical data from conservative segments of society, and have even homosexual people who were functioning well been denied custody of their own children in in society, however. many cases. Despite the claims of those who Once the scientific method was used to oppose gay parents, empirical studies do not assess the appropriateness of the illness model, show that having a gay male or lesbian parent is the weakness of that model soon became deleterious to children. Consequently, a growing Pre-Publicationapparent. The first published Draft study comparing number of courts regard sexual orientation as the psychological functioning of a non-clinical irrelevant to a parent’s ability to provide a good sample of homosexuals with comparable home and upbringing for his or her children. heterosexuals was conducted by Evelyn Hooker

3 and published in the Journal of Projective resolutions supporting equal rights for lesbians Techniques (1956). She administered projective and gay men in employment (including teaching tests to men who were members of a and military service), child custody, and access homosexual organization in southern California, to services. Similar stances have also been and to a sample of heterosexual men matched adopted by many other professional and for age, education, and IQ. A panel of experts, academic groups. unaware of each participant’s sexual orientation, Origins judged most men in both groups to be free from psychopathology. Using Rorshach protocols, Because of the stigma historically attached to they could not differentiate the homosexual men homosexuality and the long-prevailing from the heterosexuals at a level better than assumption that it was an illness, posing the chance. Hooker concluded from her study that question of why a person becomes homosexual homosexuality did not constitute a clinical entity often carried a value assumption, namely, that and that it was not inherently associated with discovering the “cause” of homosexuality would pathology. facilitate its “cure.” Today, however, scientific inquiry focuses on the broader question of the Hooker’s findings were subsequently beginnings of sexual orientation, whether replicated in numerous empirical studies of men homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual. The goal and women. By 1973, the weight of empirical is no longer to change sexual orientation, but data, coupled with changing social norms and rather to understand it. Because the term the development of a politically active gay encompasses many distinct phenomena, community in the United States, led the Board however, attempting to identify the origins of of Directors of the American Psychiatric homosexuality – and, more broadly, sexual Association to remove homosexuality from the orientation – is a difficult task. DSM. That decision was subsequently ratified by the Association’s members. In 1986, the last Debate about the roots of sexual orientation remnant of homosexuality’s status as a clinical has pitted those who consider it to be a universal diagnosis was eliminated when “ego-dystonic human characteristic (some have also extended homosexuality” – a diagnosis applied to patients the concept to other species) against those who who reported persistent distress from a sustained regard all aspects of human sexuality as socially pattern of unwanted homosexual arousal – was constructed within a particular cultural context. dropped from the revised DSM. Proponents of the former viewpoint have hypothesized biological (e.g., genetic and Nevertheless, some psychotherapists and hormonal factors, the intrauterine environment religious counselors continue to try to change of the developing fetus) or environmental gay people into heterosexuals. The effectiveness (infant-caretaker interactions, learning, social of their techniques, however, has not been interactions over the life span) determinants of proved and the ethics of their therapies have sexual orientation. Social constructionists, in been sharply questioned by many mental health contrast, have argued that although people professionals and human rights advocates. The engage in homosexual and heterosexual acts in dominant approach among mainstream all societies, such behavior does not necessarily psychotherapists is to attempt to help lesbian endow an individual with an identity or social and gay clients to adjust successfully to their role that corresponds to modern Western notions sexual orientation, to develop meaningful of “heterosexuality” and “homosexuality.” They intimate relationships, and to cope with societal often give primacy to historical and cultural stigma. analysis of categories such as “homosexual” or Pre-PublicationThe movement to declassify homosexuality “heterosexual,” and the waysDraft that individuals as a diagnosis has been strongly supported by understand their own experiences in terms of the American Psychological Association (APA). those categories. Since 1974, the APA has passed numerous A kind of middle ground between these two

4 perspectives suggests that commonalities exist public continued to regard homosexual behavior across cultures in patterns of sexual behavior as immoral, that majority was shrinking. and attraction, which have a biological basis to Sodomy laws had been abolished and legal at least some extent. However, the meanings protections from discrimination on the basis of associated with these patterns vary widely sexual orientation had been adopted by Canada, among cultures, and the differences must be the European Union, the Republic of South understood in order to recognize which aspects Africa, and other countries, as well as by many of human sexuality are universal and which are states and municipalities in the United States. culturally specific. In other words, Despite this shift in attitudes, many gay men “heterosexuals” and “homosexuals” may not and lesbians – as well as heterosexual and exist in all human societies in the way that bisexual people who are perceived to be residents of the United States understand these homosexual – continue to be the targets of concepts; but some (as yet unspecified) aspects ostracism, discrimination, and even physical of “heterosexuality” and “homosexuality” attack. A significant number experience hate probably are universal. crimes – beatings, sexual assaults, and even No compelling evidence has yet been offered murder because of their sexual orientation. to demonstrate clearly the origins of adult Fearing such attacks, many gay men and sexuality. It seems likely that a wide variety of lesbians restrict their public activities to reduce biological, psychological, social, and cultural their risk. In concert with members of racial and variables that contribute to sexual orientation religious minorities, who also experienced an will eventually be identified, with different apparent upsurge in hate crime victimization in individuals arriving at their adult orientation in the 1980s and 1990s, members of the gay different ways. community lobbied state and congressional representatives to enact legislation to counteract Sexual Prejudice the violence. In response, the federal Prejudice against lesbians and gay men government adopted laws supporting collection because of their sexual orientation is often of data on hate crimes and many states imposed referred to as homophobia. This term can be enhanced penalties for hate crime perpetrators. misleading, however, because it suggests that Empirical research has identified several hostility toward gay men and lesbians represents consistent correlates of heterosexuals’ prejudice a clinical pathology rather than a social against lesbians and gay men. In contrast to phenomenon similar to racism and antisemitism. those with favorable attitudes, individuals with Other terms, such as heterosexism, have also more negative feelings are likely to be older, less been used to describe these attitudes. educated, male, rural and residents of the Strong cultural sanctions against Midwestern or southern United States. They are homosexuality – including religious, legal, and more likely to attend religious services medical – existed throughout much of the frequently, and to hold traditional beliefs about twentieth century, and were manifested in the social roles of men and women and hostile attitudes toward homosexuality among restrictive views about sexual behavior. They most heterosexuals. However, the latter part of also are less likely to have had a close the century was marked by a dramatic shift in relationship with an openly gay person. Indeed, these attitudes, spurred by the development of heterosexuals with close friends who have movements for the civil rights of minority disclosed that they are lesbian or gay are among groups in the United States and other countries. those most likely to have positive and supportive By the end of the millennium, it appeared that attitudes toward gay people generally. sexualPre-Publication prejudice was dramatically diminishing. Draft In the United States, growing numbers opposed Conclusion discrimination in employment on the basis of Psychology regards homosexuality as an sexual orientation. Although a majority of the alternative form of sexuality that is not

5 associated with pathology. Psychology also D’Augelli, A.R. & Patterson, C.J. (Eds.).(1995). recognizes the considerable diversity that exists Lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities across the life among gay men and lesbians, and seeks to span: Psychological perspectives on personal, address the problems they face as a result of the relational, and community processes. Cambridge, MA: Oxford University Press. stigma historically associated with homosexuality. D’Emilio, J. (1983). Sexual politics, sexual communities: The making of a homosexual minority in the United States, 1940-1970. Chicago: Bibliography University of Chicago Press. Duberman, M.B., Vicinus, M., & Chauncey, G., Bayer, R. (1987). Homosexuality and American Jr. (1989). Hidden from history: Reclaiming the gay psychiatry: The politics of diagnosis (2nd Ed.). and lesbian past. New York: New American Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Library. Bell, A.P., & Weinberg, M.S. (1978). Garnets, L. & Kimmel, D. (Eds.).(1993). Homosexualities: A study of diversity among men Psychological perspectives on lesbian and gay male and women. New York: Simon & Schuster. experiences. New York: Columbia University Press. Bérubé, A. (1990). Coming out under fire: The Gonsiorek, J.C., & Weinrich, J.D. (Eds.) history of gay men and women in World War II. Homosexuality: Research findings for public policy. New York: Free Press. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Bohan, J. S. (1996). Psychology and sexual Herek, G.M., & Berrill, K. (Eds.) (1992). Hate orientation: Coming to terms. New York: Routledge. crimes: Confronting violence against lesbians and Boston Lesbian Psychologies Collective. (Eds.) gay men. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. (1989). Lesbian psychologies: Explorations and Herek, G.M., Kimmel, D.C., Amaro, H., & challenges. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Melton, G.B. (1991). Avoiding heterosexist bias in Boswell, J. (1980). Christianity, social psychological research. American Psychologist, 44 tolerance, and homosexuality. Chicago: University (9), 957-963. of Chicago Press. Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T., & Cabaj, R.P. & Stein, T.S. (Eds.).(1996). Textbook Michaels, S. (1994). The social organization of of homosexuality and mental health. Washington, sexuality: Sexual practices in the United States. DC: American Psychiatric Press. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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