Search

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]

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]

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]

The authors discuss the effect of child abuse on same-sex sexual orientation in response to a commentary about their article about the use of childhood adversity as a determinant of same-sex sexual attraction, partners and identity. They conducted simulations to test the hypothesis that a genetic factor predicts parental difficultues such as divorce, mental illness, poverty and drug use. They emphasize the impact of childhood adversities as non-normative controls.

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]

Homosexual nursing staff (n = 21) from different parts of Sweden were interviewed about experiences from their psychosocial work environment and about what they consider important points to communicate about lesbians and gay men in nursing. The findings show that most of the informants were partly open about their sexual orientation at work, the women less so than the men. All informants spoke of the fear of being socially excluded. Reported negative experiences included being neglected, harassment, and verbal discomfort based on sexual prejudices. The informants regarded responsibility, the need for knowledge, the consequences of invisibility, and the lesbian's specific situation, important points to communicate regarding homosexuality and nursing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion about this paper insets the medical practice and its position coping with homosexuality in the field of the processes about cultural building. An overview from the main groundings of the sociological currents is made. It looks up an entail between homosexuality and medicine, taking in count: a) the different world visions that the different currents impose; b) how these currents influence over medical knowledge and its rules; c) what is the interpretation each one of them makes about the sexual alterity. The text builds up the process by meanings and acts which worth the homosexual sexual practices pass from the lay prejudice to the scientific "true". By a bibliographic researching, the principal traits which characterize changes made by the modernism in West respect homosexuality are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents commentary by several authors on the essay "Growing Up Gay in China," by Rodge Q. Fann and the article "Difficulties Japanese Gay Youth Encounter," by Akihiko Komiya. Chinese and Japanese literature featuring homosexual themes; Homosexuality among the social history of both countries; Opinion of the articles by LGBT Americans reflecting on gays in a foreign country; Homophobia in foreign countries; Gay and lesbian life in Zimbabwe.

This article explores the absence of dialogue about bisexuality in South Africa and in the African continent. While South Africa's new Constitution explicitly vouchsafes protection on the grounds of "sexual orientation," leaders in a number of other African countries have called homosexuality un-African. I discuss the lack of a bisexual discourse in South Africa, and the prejudices and hostility directed towards bisexuals by lesbians and gays. I also examine a recent text, Boy-wives and female husbands: Studies of African homosexualities, edited by Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, which debunks the myth that same-sex behavior is alien to Africa. There, bisexuality is treated dismissively despite the fact that those who have same-sex relations are frequently heterosexually married. I discuss the text as a feminist literary critic, commenting on the "techniques of neutralization" it employs. I argue that a sensitive definition of bisexuality would disrupt the impasse of binary categories while it would provide an appropriate framework to analyze sexualities in Africa and to better explore the experience of black women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a case which illustrates the professional ignorance and prejudice about sexual orientation in the older population. Reluctance to investigate cases where violence, abuse or negligence may be perpetuated on older lesbians or gays; Importance of knowledge about past and present insensitivity, antagonisms and discriminations to serve the needs of older lesbians and gay men.

Focuses on the scientific contributions make by comparativists to our understanding of both same-sex eroticism and sexual intolerance. The need for social and behavioral scientists to give higher priority to research on controversial subjects on applied problems and on issues of human rights and social justice, including those related to sexual orientation; References.

This article deals with sexual motives within the sociology of homosexuality. Research problems associated with the empirical study of pederasty suggests that an initial alternative approach via the sociology of motives may be useful in correcting this behaviorist imbalance. The suspicion which has prompted the particular direction of enquiry in this paper is that not only do definitions of socio-sexual situations vary according to the presence or absence of situational factors, but that the socio-cultural matrix within which the attribution of pederasty /homosexuality to precisely acknowledged areas of sexual activity makes sense, is itself in a process of continuous flux. Granting this suspicion, it might be considered that specific areas of sexual activity might, at particular historical junctures, and in particular cultural enclaves, be exempt from attribution and acceptance of prevailing definitions of stigma and taboo. An examination of stated motives for engagement in such sexual activity formulated by individuals within such enclaves provides some possible clues to the more general question of the structure and alteration of homosexual and pederast motivational vocabularies.

The article presents the author's views regarding the article "Evolution of Human Homosexual Behavior," by R.C. Kirkpatrick, which has been published within the issue. Kirkpatrick's paper establishes the homosexual orientation of humans in an evolving scaffold. The author criticizes Kirkpatrick's projection of homosexual behavior as beneficial for alliance formation.

Focuses on medical responses to homosexuality throughout history. Notion of so-called life-cycle homosexuality as practiced in ancient Greek civilization; Classification of homosexuality as a disease and a psychiatric condition.