Sex-role identity and male and female homosexuality

The incidences of sex-role outcome within homosexual and heterosexual male and female young adult samples were compared using a fourfold typology (both masculine and feminine, masculine, feminine, neither masculine nor feminine). Sex-role identity disparities between the female groups were more clear-cut; the most striking difference was the high incidence of masculinity (60%) within the homosexual female group. No significant differences for males were found, although a trend was noted toward higher incidence of femininity and lower incidence of masculinity in homosexuals. The second purpose of the study was to search for possible developmental antecedents to heterosexual deficit in unselected college samples. The same key pattern of psychometric indices was identified for males and females. Low heterosexuality and the closest approximation to the modal sex-role identity among homosexuals of their sex were found in females primarily identified with masculine fathers and low in role consistency and in males primarily identified with feminine mothers and low in role consistency.     

Growing up hidden: notes on understanding male homosexuality

Beginning with Freud and briefly reviewing some contemporary approaches to the treatment of gay men, this paper explores theoretical attempts to understand and explain homosexuality. The author finds covert and not-so-covert remnants of pathologizing in most theoretical approaches that contribute to the phenomenon of being hidden even in psychoanalysis. Further, the author emphasizes the nonmonolithic structure of homosexuality and the consequent need to look at each case individually. The author advocates a nonjudgmental, sustained empathic approach to the understanding and treatment of gay men. Clinical examples illustrate the individual meanings of homoerotic longings.     

Validity of projective drawing indices of male homosexuality

We investigated the hypothesis that certain signs in the Draw-A-Person projective technique reflect male homosexuality. Human figure drawings from gay and 88 heterosexual men, with no clinical psychological symptoms, were submitted to trained raters who were blind to the purpose of this research. The raters independently judged whether 21 signs, previously referenced in the literature as suggestive of male homosexuality, were present in the figure drawings. Only two signs, hair and hips, differentiated between groups. Results were interpreted in the light of changing social attitudes towards homosexuals and methodological problems of prior studies.     

Attitudes toward male and female homosexuality and sex-role stereotypes in Israeli and American students

Although the legal and psychiatric status of homosexuals has drastically changed, public prejudice about homosexuality has not disappeared. Former studies have developed the idea that homophobia is closely related to conservatism in sex-role polarization. The present research investigated sex differences in attitudes toward male and female homosexuality and sex-role polarization in a cross-cultural perspective, comparing young, educated Israelis and Americans. One-hundred seventy students participated in the study, completing a sex-role survey, an attitude toward homosexuality questionnaire, and a social desirability scale. The results indicated that Israelis were more homophobic and more conservative in their sex-role polarization than Americans. Men were more homophobic and more generally conservative in sex-role orientation than women. A positive relationship was found between sex-role polarization and rejection of homosexuality within each of the samples. The results could not be attributed to social desirability. The significance of these findings is discussed in the context of sex differences and differences between Israeli and American cultures.The research reported here was conducted for an M.A. thesis of the second author under the supervision of the first author (in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree in psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem).     

Comments on female homosexuality

The author explores to what extent the first gender-identical love between mother and daughter shapes female self representation and becomes influential for later homosexual relations among women. Literary examples and case vignettes illustrate the connection.     

The overstimulation of everyday life: I. New aspects of male homosexuality.

Western heterosexual culture surrounds the homosexually inclined boy in a climate of erotic overstimulation that powerfully affects his development and adult sexual adaptation. This assertion is illustrated through a case presentation of a homosexual man who shared a bed with his brother from childhood into adolescence. Analysis of the patient's transference enactment--repeatedly falling asleep on the couch--gradually revealed the psychic impact of this everyday overstimulation: the creation of a tantalized inner world of longing. The regular occurrence and developmental understanding of adolescent homosexual boys' unrequited love affairs with adolescent heterosexual boys are described and explored. Finally, the overstimulation of everyday life is proposed as a new model for understanding certain behavioral aspects of male homosexuality, such as the avoidance of rough-and-tumble play in childhood and homosexual cruising.