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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THE CURRENT STUDY

The errors of commission and omission made by Masters et al. (1985) may be most readily explained as biases stemming from their differing moral positions on Western man-man sex and man-boy sex, respectively. As previously discussed, these differing positions emerged in our society in the 1970s and have become predominant since then. The question arises of how common these biases are in more recent human sexuality textbooks. Rind (1995) demonstrated wide-spread bias among human sexuality textbooks in their coverage of psychological correlates of nonadult-adult sex, in which they typically exaggerated negative correlates and inappropriately generalized from the experiences of girls to those of boys. Based on these results, as well as the strong moral distinctions made between man-man and man-boy sex in the post-1970s era, it was expected that other authors of human sexuality textbooks would also tend to commit errors of commission and omission in their use of historical and cross-cultural perspectives on male homosexuality. It was the purpose of the current study to examine this possibility.

METHOD

Sample of Textbooks Included

Eighteen human sexuality textbooks published in the U.S. were obtained for analysis (see Table 1), including the 14 used in the Rind (1995) study plus 4 new ones (Carroll & Wolpe, 1996; Francoeur, 1991; Greenberg, Breuss, & Mullen, 1993; Zgourides, 1996). Newer editions for half of the original textbooks, as well as the 4 new ones, were obtained from publishers at the 1996 and 1997 Eastern Psychological Association conferences. Dates of publication for the 18 textbooks ranged from 1987 to 1997, with a mean of 1993.5 (SD = 2.79). The distribution of dates was negatively skewed, with most textbooks (72.22%) being published between 1993 and 1997. Although more than 18 human sexuality textbooks were on the market during the period from which the current sample was drawn, the obtained sample contained the most widely used textbooks in colleges and universities, indicating its practical importance.(1)

Table 1. Sample of Human Sexuality Textbooks Analyzed for Use of
Cross-Cultural and Historical Perspective on Homosexuality

Textbook                       Year of       Pages with Examples(a)
                             Publication

Allgeier & Allgeier            1995         14, 21-22, 488-89
  (4th ed.)
Byer & Shainberg               1994         36, 374
  (4th ed.)
Carroll & Wolpe                1996         8-13, 17, 20, 22,
  (1st ed.)                                 247-48, 250-52, 552
Crooks & Baur (5th ed.)        1993         275
Francoeur (2nd ed.)            1991         34, 38-39, 441-44
Greenberg, Breuss,             1993         387
 & Mullen (1st ed.)
Haas & Haas (3rd ed.)          1993         10, 403, 425
Hyde & DeLamater               1997         3, 12, 19, 34,
  (6th ed.)                                 396-97, 526-27
Katchadourian (5th ed.)        1989         368, 573-74, 576
Kelley & Byrne (1st ed.)       1992         12, 199, 320, 325, 331
Kelly (4th ed.)                1994         26, 313-14, 319
Luria, Friedman,               1987         9, 24-26, 436-38
  & Rose (1st ed.)
Masters, Johnson, &            1995         9-10, 373-74, 376-79
  Kolodny (5th ed.)
Rathus, Nevid, &               1997         3, 12-14, 370-71
  Fichner-Rathus (3rd ed.)
Strong & DeVault               1997         25-27
  (2nd ed.)
Turner & Rubinson              1993         12-13, 254
  (1st ed.)
Wade & Cirese (2nd ed.)        1991         16, 552
Zgourides (1st ed.)            1996         122, 131