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Biased Use of Cross-Cultural and Historical Perspectives on Male Homosexuality in Human Sexuality Textbooks

Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 1998 by Bruce Rind

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Biased Use of Scholarly Reviews of Homosexuality

As discussed previously, scholarly reviews of homosexuality are not reviews of man-man sex. They are reviews of both man-boy and man-man sex across culture and time, with the former type weighing heavily. Hence, using Ford and Beach (1951), Carrier (1980), Gregersen (1983), or others to make the point that homosexuality has been accepted and practiced by many societies is equally appropriate for providing perspective on Western man-boy and man-man sex. Therefore, bias is indicated by using these examples for one but not the other. In the 17 chapters on homosexuality, these reviews were used in 10 cases (58.82%), compared to no uses (0%) in chapters dealing with pedophilia, [chi square] (1, N = 17) = 10, p [is less than] .001, with a large effect size, r = .77, indicating a strong bias.

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Biased Neglect of Transgenderal Homosexuality

In the chapters on homosexuality, transgenderal rather than transgenerational examples should predominate, because the former type is closer to Western gay sexuality because it often involves sexual relations between two adult males (Greenberg, 1988; Williams, 1992). Bias is therefore indicated by a focus on the latter type of examples. All 17 chapters (100%) contained transgenerational examples, but only 7 of these (41.18%) included transgenderal examples. This difference in proportions was statistically significant, [chi square] N = 17) = 10, p [is less than] .001, with a large effect size, r= .77, indicating a strong bias. This underuse of transgenderal examples relative to transgenerational ones occurred despite the availability of numerous examples of the former (cf. Ford & Beach, 1951; Greenberg, 1988).

DISCUSSION

Sharp moral distinctions emerged between man-man sex and man-boy sex in our society in the 1970s. Prior to this time, both forms were reviled and viewed as pathological and criminal. Following gay liberation and the women's movement, however, man-man sex became more tolerated while the urgency to condemn and suppress man-boy sex increased. Consistent with this new view, Masters et al. (1985), in an early edition of their human sexuality textbook, endorsed man-man sex (i.e., homosexuality) but reproved man-boy sex (i.e., pedophilia). In this sense, their writings simply reflected the liberal academic thinking of the day. What was problematic in their treatment, however, was that they concurrently used historical and cross-cultural examples of predominately man-boy sex to provide perspective on Western man-man sex but not on Western man-boy sex. It was the purpose of the current study to investigate the extent of these errors of commission and omission in more recent human sexuality textbooks. Analyses of 18 human sexuality textbooks revealed pervasive bias. As in the Masters et al. textbook, all textbooks in the current sample approved of man-man sex and reproved man-boy sex. Despite this, they all used cross-cultural and/or historical examples of the latter to provide perspective on the former. Only one of the 18 textbooks used these man-boy examples to provide perspective on Western man-boy sex. These biases obfuscate the nature of male-male sex in an ethnocentric fashion.

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Biased Use of Cross-Cultural and Historical Perspectives on Male Homosexuality in Human Sexuality Textbooks

Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 1998 by Bruce Rind

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