FEM 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Michael Messner, Heterosexuality, Sexually Transmitted Infection

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Women's Studies
• Course: FEM 1100
• Professor: Mythili Rajiva

Document Summary

Research on sexuality & sport has been dominated by how do people become gay? . This normalizes heterosexuality; it is always invisible, left un-examined or analyzed. He and 4 male colleagues (3 straight, 2 gay) examined their own biographical experiences to uncover how, when & why they became heterosexual or didn"t. Methodology used: frigga haug"s memory work : use of researcher"s memories of a particular subject, which is written about & then analyzed by the group in terms of the connection between the biographical & historical (personal & political) Unconventional, many researchers argue it"s not objective, can"t generalize from the stories to a larger population. strengths of the method: objectivity isn"t the point. And understanding is gained through systematic analysis of the experiential some psychological studies argue that even for self-identified heterosexual men, it"s natural part of development to go through bisexual or. Homosexual stages of life (kinsey, freud) author initially disagreed, saw himself as 100% heterosexual.