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This article aims to complement two earlier ones by Theo van der Meer and Joke Swiebel in the previous issue of this journal (Swiebel, 2019; Van der Meer, 2019) on the history of homosexuality's criminalisation in the Netherlands by exploring the same theme from a Belgian perspective. Whereas article 248bis of the Dutch penal code raised the age of consent for homosexual relations from 1911 to 1971, its highly similar Belgian counterpart, article 372bis, was only adopted in 1965 and repealed again in 1985. The analysis will not only devote attention to this striking chronological divergence, but also point to important parallels and cross-border connections. While, individually, this contribution is primarily an attempt to tentatively contextualise homosexuality's legal history in Belgium, it may be hoped that, together with Van der Meer's and Swiebel's, it may serve as a call for more much-needed comparative research on the history of (homo)sexuality in the Low Countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, almost three decades after consensual sodomy was declared a crime in the USSR, voices began to speak out in favor of its decriminalization. This article traces the history of the ensuing debate on this issue, conducted between Soviet criminologists and legal academics in the period from 1965–75. Through a close reading of the related texts, I explore the evolution of the different positions put forward. These fall into two camps: on the one hand, legal scholars who, together with their graduate students, made the case for decriminalization, and on the other, criminologists affiliated with the Interior Ministry, who opposed their views. The article provides the first detailed historical account of this extraordinary discussion and contributes to expanding our scant knowledge on the history of homosexuality in the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Spatial abilities are generally hypothesized to differ between men and women, and people with different sexual orientations. According to the cross-sex shift hypothesis, gay men are hypothesized to perform in the direction of heterosexual women and lesbian women in the direction of heterosexual men on cognitive tests. This study investigated sexual orientation differences in spatial navigation and strategy during a virtual Morris water maze task (VMWM). Forty-four heterosexual men, 43 heterosexual women, 39 gay men, and 34 lesbian/bisexual women (aged 18-54 years) navigated a desktop VMWM and completed measures of intelligence, handedness, and childhood gender nonconformity (CGN). We quantified spatial learning (hidden platform trials), probe trial performance, and cued navigation (visible platform trials). Spatial strategies during hidden and probe trials were classified into visual scanning, landmark use, thigmotaxis/circling, and enfilading. In general, heterosexual men scored better than women and gay men on some spatial learning and probe trial measures and used more visual scan strategies. However, some differences disappeared after controlling for age and estimated IQ (e.g., in visual scanning heterosexual men differed from women but not gay men). Heterosexual women did not differ from lesbian/bisexual women. For both sexes, visual scanning predicted probe trial performance. More feminine CGN scores were associated with lower performance among men and greater performance among women on specific spatial learning or probe trial measures. These results provide mixed evidence for the cross-sex shift hypothesis of sexual orientation-related differences in spatial cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual minorities are stigmatised in much of sub-Saharan Africa, restricting their access to sexual health services and undermining their mental health. Although public attitudes and social representations inform the experience of sexual stigma, little is known about how young Africans make sense of sexual diversity. We conducted a thematic analysis of 56 texts contributed by young people from 10 countries in response to a prompt in a scriptwriting competition inviting participants to ‘tell a story about someone who is attracted to people of the same sex’. We analysed accounts of the origins of same-sex attraction, a prominent theme in the narratives. Two-thirds of the texts provide an explicit or implicit explanation, presenting same-sex attraction as innate (15/38) and/or the consequence of environmental influences (32/38), including parental behaviour, gender separation, trauma, foreign influences and evil spirits. Expressions of the potential to avert or cure same-sex attraction are common. Young people’s sense-making around sexual diversity draws on available sociocultural and symbolic resources, some of which may be highly stigmatising, and reflects local, national and transnational influences. The need to explain same-sex attraction and the preponderance of harmful explanatory frameworks compounds sexual minority youth’s vulnerability to sexual stigma, harmful coping strategies and mental health challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research paper aims to analyze the self-long-suppressed segments of society which is now gaining recognition worldwide, but still facing problems when it comes to social acceptance. LGBT community these days are now receiving proper media coverage and various literature books dying to prove that homosexuality is not imported from West but it existed in India. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, has decriminalized homosexuality, and made it possible for Indian citizens to be his or her own self according to th eir iden tity of 'themselves vis-a-vis gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the response of the church and society about homosexuality in Iceland. Topics include the insights of former professor of biblical interpretation Walter Wink regarding the issue of homosexuality and controversy caused by slavery, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland (ELCI), and same sex marriages.

In the first part of this article I summarize the ongoing historiographical debate over Michel Foucault's theory of the nineteenth-century medical 'invention' of homosexuality, as it was formulated in the 1976 first volume of The History of Sexuality, The Will to Knowledge. Starting from the now-outdated conflict between 'essentialists' and 'social constructionists', I underline the 'blind spots' of the Foucauldian narrative as highlighted by postcolonial, feminist and queer criticisms. In the second part, I shift to the historiography of the early modern Iberian and Colonial world. Even though a lot of work in this field has already been done, I think that a full comprehension of the connections between this research and the international debate on the history of gender and sexual transgressions is still lacking. Through the analysis of this literature, I propose a revision of Foucault's account, questioning the idea of the nineteenth-century 'great paradigm shift'. On the one hand, these studies address the long-term genealogy of issues that has fully ripened in the nineteenth century. On the other, they confirm the coexistence in past societies of a multiplicity of understandings of sexual behaviors that questions the hypothesis of a succession of coherent and homogeneous epistemological patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I draw on observations from sexual health workshops in an elementary school classroom in Vancouver, Canada and friendship pair interviews with four boys who attended the workshops. I examine how the educators organising the workshops constructed sexual health, highlighting their reliance on both a ‘gay is okay’ and a scientific discourse. I argue that by locating their discussion of homosexuality within a values framework and striving to depict gay relationships as acceptable, they simultaneously constituted homosexuality asrequiringacceptance. Likewise, by subsuming references to heterosexuality within their lesson on (hetero)sexual reproduction, they framed heterosexuality as an always already accepted scientific fact. Having set the scene in this way, I then explore the ways the boys both took up and deviated from these discourses when constructing their own narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Through a meta-literature review, this paper examines the changing contours of Chinese sociology of homosexuality in contemporary China. It unfolds the different theoretical orientations and methodologies that construct the modern male homosexual subject under major socio-economic and political changes. Chinese sociology of homosexuality started in the reform era and has been dominated by Western knowledge production and the political ideology of the communist party-state. Fused with the bio-medical model and the state's modernization project in the 1980s-1990s, the sociological study adopted a functionalist and positivistic approach with survey-based methodology in the main which focused on the etiology of homosexuality. A new transnational knowledge production of sociology of homosexuality has formed since the 2000s which has shifted towards a constructivist/ post-structuralist approach and reflexive qualitative methodology. The new sociological study examines the rise of male (as well as female) homosexual identity in China, questions the hetero/homosexual binary and discusses how an individual makes sense of homosexual identity to form same-sex intimate relationships. By tracing the epistemology of homosexuality in contemporary China, this paper rethinks the dominance of the Western construction and the role of the state in shaping the knowledge of homosexuality and proposes alternative spaces for theorizing Chinese sexual identities, desires and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history behind the homophile organisations of the U.S. like the Mattachine Society who while striving to remove homophobia from the U.S. were unable to bring in racial diversity in their organisation which was mostly white. Topics include the role of people of color in the homophile movement especially in Washington (D.C.), and the social and political conditions of homosexuals in the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s.

Objectives: To inform church-based stigma interventions by exploring dimensions of HIV stigma among African American and Latino religious congregants and determining how these are related to drug addiction and homosexuality stigmas and knowing someone HIV-positive.Method: In-person, self-administered surveys of congregants 18+ years old across 2 African American and 3 Latino churches (n = 1,235, response rate 73%) in a western U.S. city with high HIV prevalence. Measures included 12 items that captured dimensions of HIV stigma, a 5-item scale that assessed attitudes toward people who are addicted to drugs, a 7-item scale assessing attitudes toward homosexuality, and questions regarding sociodemographics and previous communication about HIV.Results: Of the survey participants, 63.8% were women, mean age was 40.2 years, and 34.4% were African American, 16.8% were U.S.-born Latinos, 16.0% were foreign-born, English-speaking Latinos, and 32.9% were foreign-born, Spanish-speaking Latinos. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified 4 dimensions of HIV stigma: discomfort interacting with people with HIV (4 items, α = .86), feelings of shame "if you had HIV" (3 items, α = .78), fears of rejection "if you had HIV" (3 items, α = .71), and feelings of blame toward people with HIV (2 items, α = .65). Across all dimensions, after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and previous communication about HIV, knowing someone with HIV was associated with lower HIV stigma, and greater stigma concerning drug addiction and homosexuality were associated with higher HIV stigma.Conclusions: Congregation-based HIV stigma reduction interventions should consider incorporating contact with HIV-affected people. It may also be helpful to address attitudes toward drug addiction and sexual orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between the Left in American culture and homosexuality. Topics include the opposition to gay life by the Communist Party in the U.S., the Red taboo' presence in gay and lesbian historiography, and the politicization of homosexuality and a call for leftist existence to racism and homophobia.

Copyright of Psicoespacios is the property of Institucion Universitaria de Envigado and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article propose to analyze the senses and the meanings of homosexuality for college students at a public Institute of Superior Studies (ISS) from Manaus -AM. It was conducted an exploratory research with a qualitative approach. 52 people from 04 undergraduate courses participated in the research. Focus groups were used to collect the data, preceded by the use of the technique of brainstorming regarding three scenes from films about homosexuality. The data was analyzed in an interpretative manner, with the theoretical basis of the Socio- Historical Psychology School and conceptual aspects of sexuality and homosexuality as a social and cultural construct. The results evinced discursive formations permeated by intolerance to diversity, whether in a sexual, cultural and / or religious context. The training in ISS undergraduate courses investigated seems not to be aligned with current public policies on sexual diversity and appear not to be contributing to the promotion of democratic school contexts, where the expression of multiplicities is possible. It is inferred that it is necessary to seek the rupture of inequalities implanted on the process of historical and cultural significance of homosexuality. In order to do this is proposed the creation of reflective spaces in initial and continuing teachers education, that takes as theoretical basis the evolution of educational theories and the current educational goals coadunate with the gains of LGBT social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which addresses human dignity for gay men and women, social stigmas, and the author's experiences as a lesbian in America, and it mentions the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the 2015 case Obergefell v. Hodges which deals with the legal rights of LGB (lesbian, gay, and bisexual) people. Self-respect and social views about homosexuality in America are examined, along with U.S. jurisprudence and the case Bowers v. Hardwick which deals with sodomy laws.

The author focuses on the reasonable sense against nature associating with intelligible but reasonable aspects. The author highlights the action of sodomy used in traditional moral sense involving copulation with an undue sex in homosexuals such as males with males or females with females. The author also examines the sense of mother nature and its significant laws to prevent violations.

The author examines the effect of perverted faculty argument as defense against homosexual sex. The author highlights the natural law theory with heavy emphasis on the body as well as the capacity for reason grounds moral obligation. The author also emphasizes the objective standard of evaluation by natural law theorists and homosexual activity critics.

Our article is about the new relevance of the category of 'the homosexual' in immigration policies. This novelty is paradoxical: while homosexuality had previously been defined exclusively in negative terms, from the point of view of the State, it has now assumed a positive value in the West-since it can be invoked to justify asylum seeking. The argument has two prongs. On the one hand, taking homosexuality into account for immigration control implies a definition of gay identity. On the other, the objects of these policies are also subjects: their own identity is caught up in this transnational process of identification. Fieldwork for this article was conducted in France on bi-national same-sex couples. However, the new categorization of homosexuality extends far beyond-in Europe and throughout the world. We argue that the politics of identity are not just, and not primarily about identity politics; they have to do both with politics in general and policies in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our aim was to gain an understanding of adolescents' experiences of disclosing their sexual orientation as lesbian or gay to their parents. In order to capture these experiences, we conducted interviews with 6 people who had told at least 1 parent of their sexual orientation as lesbian or gay. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis we identified 4 themes from the emotions described by the respondents when they disclosed their sexual orientation to their parents. These 4 themes were feelings of alienation, uneasiness and fear, self-acceptance and being comfortable with one's sexuality, and feeling whole. The conclusion we drew from the accounts of the people we interviewed is that disclosing one's sexual orientation to one's parents is liberating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented concerning the homosexuality. Topics discussed include Cuban politics, values, and human rights, an interview with National Center for Sexual Education director Mariela Castro by French journalist Salim Lamrani concerning the social status of homosexuals, and the detention of homosexuals at the Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP) agricultural labor camps in Cuba in 1965.

The article examines two sex scandals that occurred among the social elite in Spain, the first of which occurred between 1881 and 1882 and the second of which happened in 1898. An analysis of these scandals explores the relationship between homosexuality and scandal, as well as their social and political implications.

Copyright of Revista Estudos Feministas is the property of Revista Estudos Feministas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The ex-gay movement in the United States has, for the last three decades, argued that there can be "freedom from homosexuality." We draw from eighteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews with individuals seeking help from an ex-gay ministry for same-sex attractions. We argue that the testimonies that "ex-gays" or "strugglers" we spoke with represent a distinct genre of story, what Kenneth Plummer would call a "sexual story," such as, for example, lesbian and gay coming out narratives. We find that elements of each type of narrative are flexible and culturally resonant across subcultures, demonstrating the creativity with which social movements and individuals construct and reconstruct themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to examine the roles of value predispositions, communication, and third person perception on public support for censorship of films with homosexual content in Singapore. Findings from a nationally representative telephone survey of adults showed that the majority of Singaporeans supported stricter censorship of films with homosexual characters. Conformity to norms, intrinsic religiosity, and Asian orientation were positively associated with public support for censorship. Media exposure and perceived negative media effects on self were negatively associated with public support for censorship. Our results supported the perceptual component but not the behavioral component of the third person effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Economic Studies is the property of University of the West Indies - Mona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay brings to bear insights from continental philosophers Michel Foucault and Judith Butler on the science of (homo)sexuality and, more importantly, the desire to use such science to resolve contemporary conflicts over homosexuality's acceptability. So-called 'queer science' remains deeply beholden to modern notions of sex, gender, and sexuality, the author argues, a schematic that its premodern (Christian) roots further denaturalize. The philosophical insights drawn from this analysis are then applied to the controversy over homosexuality within global Christianity that often pits the 'backward' former colonies against the 'modern' west. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conducts a mixed semiotics of unsafe homo passional assemblages. It begins with an exposition of Deleuze and Guattari's instructions for mapping the multidimensional circuitry of assemblages along the generative and transformative poles. Unsafe sex is a line of desiring movement involving expressive matter from the pick-up machine. After HIV/AIDS, the pick-up machine's de-territorialised movements have been problematised, their a-semiotic matter becoming a testimony to the limits of the imperative to practice safe sex. These assemblages have been overcoded as being unconscious and ineffable; however, this paper traces their mixed semiotics involving the a-signifying particle-signs of the pick-up machine as well as conscious lines of desiring movement involving the segmentarity and mirror vision of a recognisable social identity as a gay man. In all of these passional assemblages the pick-up machine's nomadic movements have become buckled by a number of sovereign, consuming microfascisms. The lines of movement have reached their threshold limit, weakening their capacity for making new connections for new lines of becoming and creative mutation. Throughout the paper it is argued that the macropolitics of safe sex has failed to grasp the possibilities for new passages that can be drawn from the molecular soup of the pick-up machine and its micropolitics of perception, affection and conversation. It is not necessary to prohibit its lines of movement as new possibilities for homo sexual culture will emerge by drawing on affective potentials drawn from the pick-up machine in conjunction with new affective material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination of the artistic representation of homosexuality and gay culture in the United States following World War II. The article examines works that depict members of the military, notably sailors, by artists such as Michael Miksche, Norman Rockwell, Marsden Hartley and Charles Demuth that provide insight on the extent to which homosexuality existed among members of the military. The article also explores how sailors dealt with their own sexuality and how they viewed their sexual identity.

The denomination "homosexual" or "homosexualism" remit us to the conception and representation of homogenital sexual practices as pathological, perverse, and diverted. Many authors prefer the notion of "homoeroticism" because of the major clarity of this term, since it better describes the plurality of practices and wishes of men oriented towards the same sex. Homoeroticism moves away from the possibility of association with illness, divergence, anormality or pervertion. It denies the idea that there exists something like a "homosexual substance," organic or psychiatric, that is common to all men with homoerotic tendencies. Moreover, the term does not have a noun form which indicates identity, as is the case of homosexualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Queer theory is the theoretical development of sexual dissidence and the deconstruction of stigmatized identities, which, through re-signification of the insult, reaffirms that different sexual options are a human right. Peripheral sexualities are those that diverge from the imaginary circle of "normal" sexuality and exercise their right to proclaim their existence. This article deals with topics like "let him/her be," the right to love, and social roles and tries to explain the causes and consequences of a social system based on separating people and not on what they have in common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the commercial and social aspects of music videos shown in gay bars. The social, erotic, and political atmosphere in gay-themed venues is examined, with particular emphasis on the video entertainment provided at the venues. The constant mutation of audience within a bar is described, noting the changing nature of demographic represented by the group of individuals present at any given moment. The role of social interaction in the formation of commercial interests and marketing within the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community is discussed. The political potential and possible problems with capitalizing upon a gay audience are also explored.

This article draws on field theory to explain why leftist parties in Brazil first broached debates on homosexual liberation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The concept of a cultural field allows one to bring together both an institutional and a cultural analysis of changing debates in the left, casting light on processes of contestation often obscured in the institutionalist party literature. Electoral institutional changes and the emergence of a new generation of cadres, particularly from the student movement, fundamentally changed who and what were representable in the field. The emergence of a youth counterculture also expanded the discursive repertoire available to activists and their party allies, supported by debates in Marxist circles occurring internationally. This conjuncture of forces ultimately allowed party militants to contest meanings historically attached to the body, sexuality, the political, and everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Lesbian existence" is still invisible in Japanese society, although Japan is portrayed as being "tolerant" toward homosexuality. However, there is strong activism that tries to make lesbians visible. An example is Christian women's activism against homophobic discourses in the United Church of Christ in Japan (UCCJ/Kyodan) which is a denomination of Protestant Churches in Japan. This case helps us analyse the positionality of lesbians in the discourses of Christianity in a non-Christian society, Japan. Introduced to English-speaking audiences for the first time, this case shows clearly that the forces which produce the exclusion of lesbians and gays do not only have a religious origin but also a social background. This particular religious-social context sets the gay men as the object of discrimination but brings forth resistance activism by women-lesbians, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. Such women's activism against homophobia is analyzed as an example of the "lesbian continuum" (Adrienne Rich) and the possibilities and limitations of the continuum are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Features gay psychiatrist John E. Fryer. Experience as a medicine intern; Background on his homosexual life; View on being a gay psychiatrist.

The article discusses lesbian and gay studies in anthropology. Studies of dance, political relations, gender, sexuality, life histories and myth now incorporate material on homosociality, transgendering, and homosexuality. The studies in this field include same-sex relationships among Southern African miners, formation of gay subcultures outside the West, ritualized homosexuality in New Guinea, presence of a boy's father in sleeping arrangements, and gender crossing in North American Indian societies.