If You Seduce a Straight Person, Can You Make Them Gay?: Issues in Bio

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The debate on whether or not people are born homosexual (biological essentialist theory) or become homosexual during the course of their lives (social constructionist theory) continues as each side claims to prove the truth through research and clinical findings. This breakthrough book shows the fissures in concepts of the gay and lesbian identity and the one-sidedness of both biological... Read more

The debate on whether or not people are born homosexual (biological essentialist theory) or become homosexual during the course of their lives (social constructionist theory) continues as each side claims to prove the truth through research and clinical findings. This breakthrough book shows the fissures in concepts of the gay and lesbian identity and the one-sidedness of both biological essentialist and social constructionist versions of both sexual and gender identity. The editors present an alternative view--sexual and gender expression is a product of complementary biological, personal, and cultural influences in If You Seduce a Straight Person, Can You Make Them Gay?

Through theoretical analysis, ethnographic and empirical data, and case studies, the editors show how the one-sidedness of both biological essentialist and social constructionist versions of sexual and gender identity make it difficult, if not impossible, to conceptually determine the origin of an individual’s sexual expression. This thought-provoking book covers many topics that are sure to cause readers to re-evaluate their thinking about the origins of gay and lesbian identity. Among the topics examined with this fresh perspective are:

Childhood Cross-Gender Behavior and Adult Homosexuality
Gay and Lesbian Teachers and Coming Out
Homosexuality, Marriage, Fidelity, and the Gay Community: Case of Gay Husbands
Can Seduction Make Straight Men Gay?
Gay and Lesbian Identities in Non-industrialized Societies--Surinam (Dutch New Guinea), Turkey, Nicaragua, and Argentina
Political-Economic Construction of Gay Male Identities

Readers will clearly see that the controversy over the being born gay or becoming gay debate is far from resolved. From the beginning, the book explores how human beings are less constrained by biology than many would like to believe. Social circumstances and economics cause some determination of identity, but not exclusively. Theoretical introductions to each chapter attempt to synthesize elements on both sides of this most contemporary debate.

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I. Introduction
A Critique and Synthesis of Biological Essentialist and Social Constructionist Views of Sexuality and Gender
II. Biological Issues in Gender and Sexual Identity
Essentialism, Which Essentialism?: Some Implications of Reproductive and Genetic Techno-Science
Childhood Cross-Gender Behavior and Adult Homosexuality: The Resurgence of Biological Models of Sexuality
Reproductive Strategies and Gender Construction: An Evolutionary View of Homosexualities
The Social Construction of Homosexuals in the Nineteenth Century: The Shift From the Sin to the Influence of Medicine on Criminalizing Sodomy in Germany
III. Politically Incorrect Identities
The Construction of Identities as a Means of Survival: Case of Gay and Lesbian Teachers
Gay Fathers in Straight Marriages
Homosexuality and Marriage
IV. Fluidity of Sexual Identity
Can Seduction Make Straight Men Gay?
The Freudian Construction of Sexuality: The Gay Foundations of Heterosexuality and Straight Homophobia
V. Gay and Lesbian Identities in the Third World
Mati-ism and Black Lesbianism
Homosexuality and Police Terror in Turkey
In Nicaragua: Homosexuality Without a Gay World
Invertidos Sexuales, Tortilleras, and Maricas Machos: The Construction of Homosexuality in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1900–1950
VI. Capitalism and the Gay Identity
Political-Economic Construction of Gay Male Clone Identity
The Mineshaft: A Retrospective Ethnography
Reference Notes Included
Index

Author(s)

Biography

John Dececco, Phd, John Patrick Elia

If You Seduce a Straight Person, Can You Make Them Gay? Issues in Biological Essentialism Versus Social Constructionism in Gay and Lesbian Identities

Description

Table of Contents

Author(s)

Biography

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