SPHR 1072 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Gay Bashing, Kinsey Reports, Heterosexism
15 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Homosexuality
• Homosexual: lexical roots 1860s german medical writing
• Definitions: sexual inversion, someone attracted to members of the same sex
• Labeled as a
o Mental illness
o Deviant behavior
o Cure and adjustment therapy: castration, sterilization, electric shock
• Negative labels pose a challenge to heterosexual assumption
o All people were born hetereosexual
o Natural to be attracted to opposite sex partners
• Challenges to deviant theories
o Cure illusive: castration, sterilization, electric shock and occasional lobotomies
o Krafft ebing argued that homosexuality was a condition, mental defect that could
be cured
o Reports of homosexuality throughout history
o Kinsey reports of 1948 and 1963
▪ Sexual orientation is not a singular phenomenon but a continuum of
possibilities
▪ Challenged general assumption that all human being possessed a
heterosexual orientation
▪ Ranges defined by endpoints of exclusive in small percentages
▪ Most were Bisexual with a bias: one gender
• 1956 research report led to 1973 decision to remove mental illness designation
• Heterosexism: oppression or exploitation of human beings not biologically heterosexual
• Cultural heterosexism: dominant culture defining heterosexuality as the norm and
anything else deviant
• 2008- twin study
• Historical events timeline
o Love and sexual desire between men was accepted and widely practiced in
ancient greece
o Catholic church denounced homosexuality and regarded it as a sin
o Medieval churchmen executed both male and female homosexuals
o Harvey milk: openly gay candidate was selected san francisco city supervisor in
1977
o Recognition of gay rights in us: 2015 gay marriage
• Barriers
o Church
▪ Catholic church accepts homosexaulity as natural predisposition but
continues to denounce homosexual activity as a sin
▪ Protestant theologians continue to condemn homosexuality
o Aids epidemic
▪ Many blamed homosexual behavior for causing this gay disease
• LGBT community
o Sex and gender definitions
o Sex: biologically based on anatomy
o Gender: cultural set of learned behaviors
• Transgender umbrella term
• Individual heterosexism:
o Negative attitudes and behaviors based on the belief that sexual oreintations
other than heterosexual are unnatural
▪ Led to gay bashing
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