Homosexuality

Since its coining, the term homosexuality has acquired multiple meanings. In the original sense, it refers to a sexual orientation characterized by aesthetic attraction, romantic love, and sexual desire exclusively for members of the same sex or gender identity. It can also refer to the manifestation of that orientation in the identity of an individual, which may or may not be at odds with that person's sexual behavior. Finally, it can refer to sexual relations with another of the same sex regardless of one's sexual orientation, self-identification or gender identity.

Taxonomy

Humans are all bisexual

Various psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists, including Sigmund Freud, Margaret Mead, and Michael Foucault have held that all humans by nature are bisexual. In the same vein, writer Gore Vidal once remarked that "there is no such thing as a homosexual or heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices, and what anyone does with a willing partner is of no social or cosmic significance".

Related Topics:
Sigmund Freud - Margaret Mead - Michael Foucault - Gore Vidal

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The lesbian-feminist movement has historically held the position that sexual orientation is socially and psychologically created, and has openly encouraged women to choose lesbianism over "compulsory heterosexuality" (as Adrienne Rich called it in her 1980 essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence") for the sake of women's liberation.

Related Topics:
Adrienne Rich - Women's liberation

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In context of what has been said above, their essential position is that all human beings have some capacity to find sexual satisfaction with members of both sexes, and would do so in proportion if not for intervening social forces that inhibit one or the other side of each individual's attractions.

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See also: monosexuality.

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Humans are all heterosexual

:Main articles: reparative therapy, National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, Exodus International

Related Topics:
Reparative therapy - National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality - Exodus International

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Some Abrahamic congregations interpret their sacred texts as holding homosexuality to be unnatural and only heterosexuality to be a natural orientation. Some of these groups attempt to cure what they see as a medical disorder. Reparative therapy is psychotherapy aimed at the elimination of homosexual attractions and is employed by people who reject the idea that homosexuality is one variation within human sexual orientation, but rather believe homosexuality to be a disorder. While reparative therapy relies on secular methodologies, transformational ministry believes that homosexual attraction is essentially a sin that can be reversed through a religous approach employing repentance and faith, usually in Jesus.

Related Topics:
Transformational ministry - Jesus

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Three sexual orientations

:Main article: Kinsey Reports.

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Many modern studies, most notably the Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and the Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) by Alfred Kinsey have found that the majority of humans have had homosexual experiences or sensations and are bisexual. Only a minority of people were found (5-10%) to be exclusively heterosexual or homosexual. Conversely, an even smaller minority of people appear to have had equal sexual experiences with both genders indicating an attraction scale or continuum.

Related Topics:
1948 - 1953 - Alfred Kinsey - Heterosexual

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Other studies have disputed Kinsey's methodology and have suggested that these reports overstated the occurrence of bisexuality and homosexuality in human populations. "His figures were undermined when it was revealed that he had disproportionately interviewed homosexuals and prisoners (many sex offenders)."{{fn|1}} {{fn|2}}

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However, his idea of a sexuality continuum still enjoys broad acceptance today and is supported by findings in the human and animal kingdoms including biological studies of structural brain differences between those belonging to different sexual orientations. His notable finding that four percent of humans are homosexual was replicated during the 2000 US elections in which four percent of voters identified as homosexual.

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The Roman Catholic Church accepts the three distinct orientation findings and requires homosexuals to practice chastity in the understanding that Christian scripture forbids non-procreative intended sex, calling it a "cross that must be borne". It insists that all are expected to only have heterosexual relations and only in the context of a marriage, describing their homosexual attractions as a disorder and "a trial". (see http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm).

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Sexologists have attributed discrepancies in some findings to negative societal attitudes towards homosexuality, for example, people may state different sexual orientations depending on whether their immediate social environment is public or private. Reticence to disclose one's actual sexual orientation is often referred to as "being in the closet". Individuals capable of enjoyable sexual relations with both sexes may feel inclined to restrict themselves to heterosexual relations in societies that stigmatize same-sex relations.

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Although the concept of three basic sexual orientations is widely recognized, a small minority maintain that there are other legitimate sexual orientations besides homosexuality, bisexuality and heterosexuality. These may include significant or exclusive orientation towards a particular type of transsexual or transgender individual (e.g. female-to-male transsexual men), intersexed individuals, or those who identify as non-gendered or other-gendered.

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Biology, psychology and malleability

:Main articles: Sexual orientation, Homosexuality and medical science, Nature versus nurture

Related Topics:
Sexual orientation - Homosexuality and medical science - Nature versus nurture

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Considerable debate exists over what biological and/or psychological factors produce sexual orientation in humans. Candidates include genes and the exposure of fetuses to certain hormones (or levels thereof). Freud and many others psychologists, particularly in psychoanalytic or developmental traditions, speculate that formative childhood experiences help produced sexual orientation. Other scientists and medical professionals, particularly those in biology-oriented disciplines, tend to believe that in-born factors—whether genetic or acquired in utero—produce characteristically homosexual childhood experiences (such as atypical gender behavior experiences), or at the least significantly contribute to them.

Related Topics:
Genes - Hormones

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The Endocrine Society found that eight percent of sheep are homosexual, and this behavior is correlated with physiological brain structures; some scientists report comparable distinctions in human populations.

Related Topics:
Endocrine Society - Comparable distinctions

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Most specialists, in any case, follow the general conclusion of Alfred Kinsey regarding the sexual continuum, according to which a minority of humans are exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, and that the majority are bisexual. The consensus of psychologists is that sexual orientation, in most individuals, is shaped at an early age; and is not voluntarily changeable.

Related Topics:
Heterosexual - Bisexual

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Kinsey himself—along with current queer activist groups— focus on the historicity and fluidity of sexual orientation. Kinsey's studies consistently found sexual orientation to be something that evolves in many directions over a person's lifetime; rarely, but not necessarily, including forming attractions to a new gender. Rarely do individuals radically reorient their sexualities rapidly—and still less do they do so volitionally—but often sexualities expand, shift, and absorb new elements over decades. For example, socially normative "age-appropriate" sexuality requires a shifting object of attraction (especially in the passage through adolescence). Contemporary queer theory, incorporating many ideas from social constructionism, tends to look at sexuality as something that has meaning only within a given historical framework. Sexuality, then, is seen as a participation in a larger social discourse, and, though in some sense fluid, not as something strictly determinable by the individual.

Related Topics:
Queer activist - Kinsey's studies - Social constructionism

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Most individuals, both straight and LGB-identified, report that they discovered their orientation at an early age (often in pre-adolescence). In the case of gay youth, many report initial distress in response to this realization. Their claims are consistent with statistics showing that LGB-identified youth are several times more likely than non-gay youth to attempt suicide.

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Apart from the issue of the malleability of an underlying orientation, the manifestation of sexual orientation is subject to a considerable variability. Thus it is common for homosexual individuals in hetero-normative societies to love, marry, and have children with individuals of the opposite sex, a practice that may be done primarily for social reasons in intolerant environments, as a cover for one's orientation (such relationships are known as "beards"). The opposite situation seems to obtain in homo-normative societies, where men whose primary attraction may be to the opposite sex nonetheless engage in —and enjoy— the homosexual practices prescribed by their respective culture. Both of these adaptations are forms of situational sexual behavior. A further, and extremely common, manifestation of situational sexual behavior involving homosexuality is seen in prisons and other environments where individuals only encounter members of their own sex for long periods of time. (See prison sex.)

Related Topics:
Situational sexual behavior - Prison sex

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Biological causative explanations

:Main article: Fetal hormones and sexual orientation.

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One recently researched hypotheses on the formation of sexual orientation is the prenatal hormonal theory. It holds that as prenatal exposure to particular levels of circulating sex hormones determines whether a fetus will acquire male or female traits, so similar exposure determines sexual orientation.

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