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

Journal of Sex Research,  Nov, 1998  by Bruce Rind

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Among the 10 most commonly used societies or groups of related societies, nine were of the man-boy type while only one was of the man-man type. Sometimes the use of man-boy sex in other societies was appropriate, as in examining the origins of a homosexual orientation. Most uses, however, were inappropriate, given the moral distinctions that authors drew between man-man sex and man-boy sex in our society. Most uses of man-boy sex in other places and times had as their purpose to show that homosexuality, as opposed to pedophilia, can be and often has been accepted as normal, thus challenging deeply-ingrained Western views of man-man sex. The extent of bias, aside from its pervasiveness, is indicated by the effect sizes in the statistical analyses. Averaging across the effect sizes associated with the biased use of transgenerational examples, the overall index of appropriateness of use, the biased use of scholarly review citations, and the biased use of transgenerational rather than transgenderal examples, the mean effect size based on Fisher z transformations (Rosenthal, 1984) was huge, r = .80.

Illustrations of Biased Use of Perspective

Although the statistical analyses demonstrate pervasive and strong bias, it is instructive to review several specific examples to illustrate the internal inconsistencies to be found in the current sample of textbooks. In their chapter on homosexuality, Hyde and DeLamater (1997) discussed ritualized homosexual behavior in Melanesia. They quoted an anthropologist who observed:

   When a boy is eleven or twelve years old, he is engaged for several months
   in homosexual intercourse with a healthy older man chosen by his father....
   Men point to the rapid growth of adolescent youths, the appearance of peach
   fuzz beards, and so on, as the favorable results of this child-rearing
   practice (p. 397).

They commented that we would surely term this behavior "homosexual," and added that it "is fortunate that anthropologists were able to make their observations over the last several decades to document these interesting and meaningful practices before they disappear" (p. 397). In a later chapter, when discussing such relations in our society, their language switched to terms such as "child sexual abuse," "victims," and "perpetrators." They no longer characterized these practices as interesting and meaningful, but as psychologically damaging in most cases, leading to extreme reactions such as posttraumatic stress disorder. In their chapter on homosexuality, in order to illustrate that "society's response to homosexual behavior and to the rights of homosexuals has had a long history of alterations between tolerance and persecution" (p. 325), Kelley and Byrne (1992) listed two tolerating examples from history, both of which were of the man-boy type: ancient Greece and Western Europe until the 13th century. In their chapter covering pedophilia, these historical examples were not used to provide perspective. Instead, sensationalistic examples of sex murderers were used, such as John Wayne Gacy, prominently shown in a photo wearing a clown's outfit, who murdered 32 young males (mostly older teenagers and young men in their 20s), and a man in China who murdered a 2nd grade boy by piercing his eardrums and veins with needles. In his chapter on homosexuality, Zgourides (1996) discussed pederasty in ancient Greece at length to provide perspective on homosexuality. He later speculated that many instances of homophobia in our society stem from our condemnation of homosexual acts, particularly anal intercourse. To argue that Westerners' disgust at anal intercourse is a cultural trait, he pointed out that "[b]oys and men of the Siwan of Africa practice it, as do the boys and men of the Kiraki [sic] of New Guinea" (p. 131). When discussing pederasty in our society, he did not mention Greek pederasty or cite the practices of the Siwans or Keraki; instead, his discussion was now on homosexual male pedophiles who "victimize" boys usually through anal intercourse, wherein the "harmful effects ... on the victim are many" (p. 346).