Homosexuality and Science
A Guide to the Debates
Published on 8. April 2002
336 pages
978-1-57607-743-6 (ISBN)
Description
This comprehensive resource explores the role of science and scientific discovery in the nature versus pathology debate surrounding homosexuality.
Homosexuality and Science is the compelling history of this intense, ongoing scientific controversy. The story begins in the Victorian era, when doctors were horrified to discover that homosexuality, which they called "sexual perversion" was widespread-probably the result of childhood masturbation, they theorized, and sure to result in mental weakness and blindness for generations to come. The story progresses to a world where gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual scientists are involved in sexuality research, but where the AIDS pandemic has given rise to "reparative therapy" and ministries that claim to "cure" homosexuality.
This high-interest title shows how our understanding of homosexuality has been shaped not only by theories of evolution, eugenics, endocrinology, neurobiology, molecular biology, psychology, genetics, anthropology, and sexology, but also by the values of the times.
Homosexuality and Science is the compelling history of this intense, ongoing scientific controversy. The story begins in the Victorian era, when doctors were horrified to discover that homosexuality, which they called "sexual perversion" was widespread-probably the result of childhood masturbation, they theorized, and sure to result in mental weakness and blindness for generations to come. The story progresses to a world where gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual scientists are involved in sexuality research, but where the AIDS pandemic has given rise to "reparative therapy" and ministries that claim to "cure" homosexuality.
This high-interest title shows how our understanding of homosexuality has been shaped not only by theories of evolution, eugenics, endocrinology, neurobiology, molecular biology, psychology, genetics, anthropology, and sexology, but also by the values of the times.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Interest Age: From 7 to 17 years
Illustrations
40 bw illus
File size
4,99 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-57607-743-6 (9781576077436)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Book
04/2002
ABC-CLIO
€105.30
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Persons
Content
- Cover
- Homosexuality and Science
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Victorian Doctors Tackle Onanism and the Sexual Perversions
- Does Masturbation Cause Homosexuality?
- Humoral Theory: Impotence and the Squandering of Seminal Liquor
- The Shocking Discovery of the Sexual Perversions
- Masturbation, Hereditary Degeneration, and Inversion
- Neural Sex Changes
- Phylogenetic Mechanisms: Genetic Degeneration, Sexual Atavism, and Psychosexual Arrest
- Social Trouble and Sexual Trouble
- 2 Turn-of-the-Century Sexual Inverts
- The Discovery of American "Erotopaths"
- A Case of "Sexual Contrariety"
- The Biology and Politics of Sexual Intermediates
- The Psychoanalysis of Inversion
- The Debate over Homosexual Analysts
- Inversion: Genetic or Psychogenic?
- 3 From the Gay Twenties to Homosexual Panic
- "Does the 'Fairy' or 'Fag' Really Exist?"
- Nature's Sex Stepchildren
- Psychoanalytic Readjustment
- The Psychoanalysis of Lesbianism
- Universal Homoeroticism
- Schizophrenia and Homosexuality
- Sex Fiends
- The Committee for the Study of Sex Variants
- From Permissiveness to Punishment
- 4 Screening Out Homosexuals
- Morals and Morale in Wartime
- Homosexuality and Paranoia
- Reconciling Diverse Treatment Options
- Somatic "Cures"
- Radical Cures: Lobotomy and Shock Therapy
- 5 The Cold War and the Sexual Revolution
- The Kinsey Reports
- Edmund Bergler and the Psycho-Persecution of Homosexuals
- Aggressive Psychoanalysis
- Homosexuality beyond the Couch
- Transsexualism
- The Decline of Somaticism
- The Pinko Peril
- The Psychiatric Response
- Moving from Reaction to Revolution
- 6 The Triumph and Decline of Psychiatric Models
- Validating the Psychoanalytic Approach
- The Emergence of Lesbians
- Tackling Sissies and Tomboys
- Aversion Therapy
- Group Therapy
- Professional Unorthodoxy: The NIMH Task Force on Homosexuality
- Antipsychiatry and the Myth of Diagnosis
- The Patients Revolt
- 7 "Off the Couches, into the Streets!"
- Keeping Homosexuals on the Couch
- Storming the APA
- A Tidal Change in Professional Opinion
- The Battle in the APA
- The Varieties of Homosexual Lifestyles
- 8 From Gay Pride to the Gay Plague
- The Emergence of Gay-Related Immunodeficiency
- The Politics of Sex
- Coping with AIDS
- On Being Gay across the Lifespan
- The Dark Side of Gay Life
- 9 Millennial Queers
- The Backlash: Ex-Gay Ministries and "Reparative" Therapy
- Evolving Professional Attitudes
- Gay Twins
- The Sexual Orientation of the Brain
- Maternal Transmission of Male Homosexuality
- Lesbians and the Health Care System
- Gay and Lesbian Health Professionals
- Gay-Affirmative Psychotherapy
- Reexamining Other Nonheterosexual Identities: Bisexuality
- The Transgender Phenomenon
- Hermaphrodites with Attitude
- A Queer Century?
- Conclusion
- Documents
- Gynomania (1881)
- In Defense of Cross-Dressing (1884)
- Alice Mitchell of Memphis: A Case of Sexual Perversion or "Urning" (a Paranoiac) (1892)
- Sexual Inversion in Men (1896)
- Effeminate Men and Masculine Women (1900)
- Homo Sexual Complexion Perverts in St. Louis: Note on a Feature of Sexual Psychopathy (1907)
- The Psychology of the Acute Homosexual Panic (1921)
- The Biological Sport of Fairie-ism (1934)
- Why Do Homosexuals Undergo Treatment? (1934)
- Psychogenic Factors in Overt Homosexuality (1937)
- Can Homosexuality Be Cured? (1951)
- It Is Natural After All (1958)
- Does Research Into Homosexuality Matter? (1965)
- Homosexuality and Cultural Value Systems (1973)
- Chronology
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
