Homosexuality (male).

Definition. Homosexuality refers to sexual behaviors and desires between males or between
females. Gay refers to self-identification with such practices and desires, like homosexual,
both terms mostly used only for men. Lesbian is its female counterpart. Such definitions have
run into major problems, and nowadays the concept “queer” is used to indicate the fluency of
sexual practices and gender performances.

Sociological context. Since the 1970s, homosexuality has become the topic of an
interdisciplinary specialization variously called gay and lesbian, queer or LGBT studies
(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender to which sometimes are added QQI: Queer,
Questioning and Intersexual). The field is far removed from traditional sexology that has its
base in psychology, medicine and biology, and is closely linked to what once were called
minority (black and women’s) studies and now gender studies. Most of the disciplines
involved belong to the humanities and social sciences: language and literature, history,
cultural and communication studies, sociology, anthropology and political sciences,
philosophy. Sociology had a late start although some of the key figures in the field were
sociologists (Mary McIntosh, Ken Plummer, Jeffrey Weeks), but their work was seen as
primarily historical. Michel Foucault made a major imprint with the first volume of his
Histoire de la sexualité (1976). Other major sociologists contributed to or supported the field,
for example Pierre Bourdieu (1998), Michel Maffesoli (1982), Steven Seidman (1997, 1998).
Notwithstanding its important intellectual proponents, the field has a very weak base in the
universities and departments of sociology where few tenured staff have been nominated
anywhere specifically for the field, not even for the sociology of sexuality. Most often tenured
staff started to work on homosexual themes because of personal and social interests. Gay
studies has kept a strong interdisciplinary quality, often with close cooperation between
sociology, history, anthropology and cultural studies.

History. The words homosexual and heterosexual were invented in 1868 and first put in print
in 1869 by the Hungarian author Károly Mária Kertbeny (1824-1882). In 1864, the German
lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) had come up with the words “uranism” and
“uranian” to describe a similar social reality while “philopedia” was created by the French
psychiatrist C.F. Michéa in 1849. These words no longer referred to sexual acts that were sins
and crimes and were called sodomy, unnatural intercourse, pederasty and so forth, but to
sexual identities and desires that were deeply imbedded in persons. Ulrichs and Kertbeny
were predecessors of the gay rights movement and wrote mainly against criminalisation of
sodomy. They spoke largely from personal experiences and historical examples. Most medical
authors who started to use the new terminologies, discussed mainly the causes of such
identities and desires and the question whether they were pathological or normal. They set the
standards for the search of a biological basis that continues to this day (“gay gene”). Most
physicians started to believe that homosexuality was an innate condition (but not the
Freudians) and took the position that it was a disease or abnormality that should be healed and
prevented. The early research by psychiatrists was mainly based on case histories of what they
called “perverts”. They not only began to discuss homosexuality, but other perversions as well
that got new names such as masochism, sadism, fetichism, exhibitionism, necrophilia,
zoophilia and so forth. The centers of research were on the European continent: Berlin, Paris,
Vienna.
The early medical research had several sociological angles. Ulrichs and Magnus
Hirschfeld, the founder of the first homosexual rights movement in 1897, came with the first
statistics on the numbers of homosexuals that closely resemble the data of today. While
Ulrichs thought his uranians were less than 1% of the population, an anonymous Dutch adept
of him estimated it in 1870 at 2% as Hirschfeld later did. The Dutch physician and
homosexual rights activist Lucien von Römer worked with Hirschfeld on sexual statistics. In a
survey of 308 Amsterdam students done in 1904, he not only counted the men who identified
as homosexual (2%) and bisexual (4%), but as well those who had gay sex during puberty
(21%) or homosexual fantasies (6%). In the first Dutch gay novel that appeared this same
year, the author Jacob Israël de Haan told how he as a student made fun answering the
questions. He already made clear how unreliable such data often are.
Hirschfeld also came with the first urban geography, “Berlin’s Third Gender” (1904)
in which he described the city’s gay subculture of bars and parks and the elaborate world of
male prostitution. Mainly German books on the history of sexual morality
(“Sittengeschichte”) that often included chapters on homosexuality, preceded and influenced
the work of later sociologists and historians, like Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault. The
work of these psychiatrists who started to give names, definitions and identities to disease,
crime and perversion, made possible the work of sociologists creating labeling theory. In
many ways, this early research paved the way for what would become a sociology of
(homo)sexuality (Schmeidler 1932). The enormous body of work, available mainly thanks to
early, prewar German sexology, was largely forgotten when the main location of sex research
after World War II moved to another language, English, and to another country, the United
States.
Most of the scholarly work on homosexuality remained focussed on psychiatry, both in
Europe and the United States. The major sociological breakthrough came from Alfred Kinsey
(1894-1956). Although he himself was a biologist specialized in wasps, Kinsey is generally
considered to be the founder of the sociology of (homo)sexuality through his two fat books on
the sexual behavior of the US male and female (1948, 1953). Although these studies have
been criticized for methodological weaknesses and the reduction of sexuality to only
“outlets”, this work has been pivotal to put sexuality on the agenda of the social sciences.
Kinsey was the first to come up with more or less reliable statistics on sexual behavior, and
placed them in the larger contexts of biology and history. From his research stem ideas that
37% of US-men ever had homosexual experiences and 4% exclusively and lifelong while
50% had at some point same-sex fantasies. He was as well a man with a mission who did not
hide his political agenda. He stressed time and again that the large majority of the citizens
would have to go to prison if the US-laws were applied rigorously, indicating that it was a
better idea to change the laws. He did much to normalize taboo acts such as homosexuality,
masturbation, premarital sex, adultery and prostitution. His important data on child sexuality
have become controversial due to the moral panic around pedophilia.
Kinsey established an institute for sex research in Bloomington, Indiana, that has
become one of the world’s most important archives on sexual behavior and culture. At the end
of his life, Kinsey had seen enormous successes but as he was so controversial, he lost most
of his financial backing. Without resources, his successors were unable to continue his
important work. They could have contributed in a major way with their research to the
subsequent sexual revolution of the 1960s, but did so largely in retrospect as the major work
of the sociologists connected to the Kinsey Institute (John Gagnon, William Simon, George
Weinberg) was published in the 1970s and after.
Kinsey offered a sociological instead of a psychological perspective on the topic. In
his footsteps and in the wake of the nascent homosexual right movement in the US and the
UK, sociologists Edward Sagarin and Michael Schofield (1965) started to write on
homosexuality from a social perspective, using the pseudonyms Donald Webster Cory (1951,
1956) and Gordon Westwood (1960). Cory’s books gave an overview of what was known on
the topic while Westwood interviewed 127 homosexuals on their sexual life. Especially
Cory’s work had a wide readership among gay men. These works changed the focus from the
aberrant homosexual who had gender identity problems or abused boys, to the society that
discriminated against homosexuals and largely contributed to their problems (see Minton
2001 for an overview of early sociological research in the US). The Dutch psychiatrist Tolsma
who earlier believed homosexuality was pathological and homosexuals recruited boys for
their rangs, did research on its origins and discovered in 1957 that no gay man had become
this way through seduction (Hekma 2004).
In the footsteps of Kinsey and Schofield, more surveys were done among gay men in
the 1970s, in Germany by Dannecker and Reiche (1974), in France by Bon and d’Arc (1974)
and in the USA by Harry and De Vall (1978) and Bell and Weinberg of the Kinsey Institute
(1978). Whitam and Mathy (1986) did a survey in four countries and found effeminacy in gay
men in all four locations which suggested innateness. The homosexual behavior of many non-
homosexual men in these societies was explained as a secondary sexual outlet. Other
de/constructivist perspectives would later change this line of thinking. Surveying quickly
developed in the wake of aids (see below).
Other centers of research and theorizing took over in the 1950s from the Kinsey
Institute and independent gay researchers. The Chicago School of urban sociology started to
include sexual variation in its agenda and to study urban gay subcultures. Maurice Leznoff
and William A. Westley were the first to write on “The Homosexual Community” (1956) “in a
larger Canadian city”. The topics range from cliques, their gossip and incest taboos, being
secret or overt and professions (many hairdressers). The topics are still very close to those of
psychiatry. Later work discusses the gay bar and the gay gettho in a more sophisticated way
(Achilles 1967, Levine 1979, Reade 1980). Manuel Castells wrote a landmark study on
geographical distribution, community organizing and political activity of San Francisco gays
and lesbians, a chapter in his T he City and the Grassroots (1983). San Francisco also was the
topic of an ethnographical study by Alain Dreuilhe (1979). The concept of the “gay gettho”
was introduced in the article of the same title by Martin Levine in the collection he edited
Gay Men. The Sociology of Male Homosexuality (1979). This was the first article on gay
geography and included maps of several gay vicinities that had come into visible existence
since the late 1960s. After the queer turn of the 1990s, several books on space and sexuality
appeared that were more cultural studies but still included sociological material (Whittle
1994; Bell & Valentine 1995; Ingram 1997) while the field of gay urban histories boomed
(Chauncey 1994; Higgs 1999). Armstrong (2002) produced a study of gay and lesbian
movements in San Francisco that she divided in three stages: the more prudent homophile
movement before 1969, a short interlude of the radical gay movement that connected gay and
left interests and since the early 1970s the identity and one-issue gay (and lesbian) movement.
1969 is the year of the Stonewall rebellion when fairies, butch lesbians and drag queens
resisted a police raid in the bar of the same name in New York (Duberman 1993; Carter 2004).
That event is nowadays globally commemorated.
The major concept of the 1970s was stigma. It fitted well with the change from
psychology to sociology, from pathology to activism. Symbolic interactionism was added to
urban sociology. What homosexual men suffered from, was not their innate abnormality or
viciousness, but social rejection. At the time that activists asked for removal of homosexuality
from psychiatric classifications such as DSM, and came out of the closets into the streets,
sociologists started to discuss sexual stigma (Plummer 1975). A landmark study was Sexual
Conduct (1973) by John Gagnon and William Simon who developed the concept of sexual
script(ing). Their script was what others later named narrative or story (Plummer 1995).
Gagnon and Simon wanted to turn away from biological and Freudian perspectives to a
sociological one that combined the social and the individual. Persons become sexual beings in
an interaction between both. With many examples, they indicate how the social influences the
sexual and the reverse. Theories that focus on instincts and impulses proved to be less helpful
to explain erotic experience. Other work engaged with the homosexual “coming out” in which
the various stages of this process such as sensitivation, resistance, acceptance, integration
were studied and demarcated (Dank 1971; Weinberg 1983; Troiden 1988). Other sociologists
engaged with the theme of gay and lesbian youth and their organizations (Harry 1982; Savin-
Williams 1990; Herdt & Boxer 1993) or sexual education (Irvine 2002; Levine 2002). An
early and most controversial contribution in the *symbolic-interactionist tradition was
Tearoom Trade by Laud Humphreys (1970) on casual homosexual encounters in a public
toilet. The debate was both on the topic and on the ethics of the research method. Humphreys
had used the number plates of the cars of men visiting tearooms to arrive at additional
information, without their knowledge. So he came to know that visitors often were married
and highly conservative men.
The major line of research became since the late 1970s historical-sociological. In
1967, Mary McIntosh wrote a first promising article in this direction suggesting that a
homosexual role had only come into existence in the eighteenth century. The major work were
Michel Foucault’s three volumes Histoire de la sexualité (1976, 1984, 1984). The first volume
La volonté de savoir was the founding work of “social constructionism”, a word Foucault
himself never used. In this work he remarks on the change from the legal concept of sodomy,
an act, to the medical one of homosexuality, an identity that will be insistently researched as
part of the politics of the body. His work is a strong critique of the idea of sexual liberation,
then prominent on the social and scholarly agenda through the work of Wilhelm Reich and
Herbert Marcuse. He showed how discourses of sexual liberation had been around since the
eighteenth century and mainly contributed to stricter controls of sexuality. His theory of an
omnipresent power that used such ideologies to get a firmer grip on sexual practices, spurred
a new generation to engage with sexual history, also because sexuality was reconceived as
something that changed over time and may in fact not have existed as a special social reality
before the rise of sexual sciences. Movements of resistance that were included in his theory of
power, played an ambivalent role as they largely contributed to the innovation of body
politics. Although the work of Foucault deals with sexual culture in general, his leading theme
may well be said to have been homosexuality (see Eribon 1989; Halperin 1995). His studies
extended the realm of Gagnon and Simon from micro- to macrolevel and gave it a historical
twist.
The main sociologist who works in the same vein as Foucault and whose first studies
on sexuality appeared around the same time, is Jeffrey Weeks. He first started with works on
the development of the homosexual rights movement in England and continued with a general
history of sexuality (1977, 1981, 2000). His later work is about sexual ethics (1985, 1995)
while he recently took to research on intimate relations of gay men (2001). The Foucauldian
approach came at the same time as the establishment of gay and lesbian studies and inspired
the first international conference (Aerts 1983). Most new work was based on the idea of “the
making of the homosexual” (Plummer 1981; Dannecker 1981). Social constructionism was
opposed to essentialism that sees sexual preferences as innate. Few people in gay and lesbian
studies defend that position while most of the biologists who research gay genes, brain parts
and hormonal systems, are unaware of this critique. Stein (1990; 1999) and Lancaster (2003)
analyzed the debates and the various positions. A main theme became the development of
essentialist sexual sciences (Hekma 1987; Irvine 1990; Oosterhuis 2001).
The rise of aids stimulated research on several aspects of gay life, especially on sexual
and preventive practices. The main aim was to impede risky behaviors. The positive side was
that it produced much information on gay sex and created greater openness. But too often the
research neglected the social context, once more focussing strongly on sexual outlets of “men
having sex with men” (MSM). Some sociologists produced more nuanced work (Pollak 1988,
1992, 1994; Davies 1993; Dowsett 1996). Many countries saw major surveys on sexual
behavior (Zessen 1991; Spira 1992; Wellings 1994; Laumann 1994) while efforts were made
to compare the results on a European scale (Bozon & Sandfort 1998). The outcome of these
surveys surprised the gay movement because the attested numbers of gay men were
everywhere lower than those found by Kinsey in the 1940s. Stuart Michaels who wrote the
chapter on homosexuality in Laumann (1994) found that the higher numbers of gay men in
cities can not fully be explained by their migration to the more gay friendly towns, as was
expected, but that cities as well produce more men identifying as homosexuals.

Special topics
With the development of gay and lesbian, and later queer studies, the research specialized.
Apart from gay bars and urban cultures, particular groups started to receive attention. Very
popular became male prostitutes that already were the object of Reiss (1961). These studies
discussed the pay, the sexual identity of the hustlers who often are straight, their age and
sexual techniques, the locations where they work, their drug use, ethnicity and class (see
Harris 1973; Schmidt-Relenberg 1975; Hennig 1978; Schickedanz 1979; Poel 1991; West
1992; McNamara 1992; Gelder 1998; Aggleton 1999). It is a circuit where the ganymedes,
sexually unsure and unprofessional, rob and murder their clients (Gemert; ). Later bisexuals
(Weinberg 1994; Mendès-Leité 1996; Storr 1999; Angelides 2001), drag queens (Newton
1972; ), transsexuals (Hausman 1995; Prosser 1998), transgenders (Herdt 1994, Kulick 1998),
intersexuals (Kessler 1998; Preves 2003) and sm (Weinberg & Levi Kamel 1983; Thompson
1994) emerged. A very controversial issue is pedophilia that is, unjustly, often seen as a gay
issue (Sandfort ;Lautmann). Anonymous sex on the streets (Delph 1978; Leap 1999; Delany
1999; Proth 2002) and other places (Dangerous Bedfellows 1996) was studied. Other topics
varied from gay men in ethnic groups (Hawkeswood 1996; Pettiway 1996; Manalansan 2003)
friendships (Nardi 1999), sururban gay lives (Brekhus 2003) to violence (Comstock 1991;
Herek), suicide (Remafedi 1994) and aging (Berger 1982). Masculinity became a topic
(Connell 1995), sometimes with a focus on the leather scene (Levine 1998).
With the start of discussions on homosexuality and the army (Williams & Weinberg
1971; Ketting & Soesbeek 1992; Rimmerman 1996) and same-sex marriage these issues also
came on the sociological agenda. The discussion on intimate relations was started by Weston
(1991). Later studies showed opposite results. While Weeks and others (2001) underlined the
transgressiveness of same-sexual families that were more open to others and educated
children in various social constellations, Carrington (1999) stated that the couples he
researched, largely imitated straight codes when it came to the gendered division of labour,
household tasks and financial arrangements. It is likely that these opposite results could be
explained by different samples (Gabb 2004). Patrick Moore (2004) suggested to revive the
culture of the 1970s, before the times of aids, when gay men developed a patchwork of sexual
situations, passions, love relations and friendships that bridged the gap between single and
couple. They felt culpable for the epidemic, but with the knowledge of safe sex it is possible
to recreate this culture “beyond shame”.

Current emphases (see above)

Methodological issues
The main question in gay research is the definition of what is the object of study. Most
research is dependent on self-identication of the interviewees who may be unwilling to
disclose their sexual interests. There are no objective criteria to define the homosexual.
Kinsey (1948) therefor developed a homo-heterosexual scale from 0-6 in which he integrated
sexual practices and sexual fantasies. Other authors created layered scales that included more
facets or developments in time as some men move between sexual identifications during their
life. Aids-research put a strong focus on sexual practices, while some opposed this perspective
because behavior is strongly connected to personal identities and social contexts.
Another major stumbling block in research is the absence of representative groups.
Most research uses the snowball-method. Gay men are invisible so researchers depend in
surveys on their self-disclosure. Several techniques have been developed to circumvene this
problem, for example rather asking “how often did you have sex with men” than “are you
gay”, or embedding the question in a series that deals with heterosexual experiences. The
terminological changes pose another problem, every new generation creating a new concept
for its same-sexual experiences. They moved from uranian, homosexual, homophile, gay to
LGTBQQI and queer while these vocubalaries always give different meanings to the various
terms, while translations into other languages pose their own problems.

Future directions
Some of the research is driven by social developments so it can be expected that controversial
issues such as same-sex marriage, homosexuals in the army, violence against LGBT-people or
discrimination in various situations such as in offices or sports will remain high on the
agenda. The same regards sexual education and queer initiation. Specific groups such as
elderly, ethnic minority and questioning young gays will receive more attention. The turn
from biology to sociology in gay research means that attention will shift from genes and
identities to space and time as context for the development of gay identifications and queer
cultures.
The worst developed terrain of research is sexual pleasure both in its individual
developments and social locations. The sex research being done in the context of aids-
prevention has been weak on this issue while it has been otherwise largely neglected. The
scripting Cruising regrettable mainly from a literary perspective (Turner 2003)
Bech
Sexual citizenship

Bibliography
Nancy Achilles, “The Development of the Gay Bar as an Institution” (1967), in: Dynes &
Donaldson 1992, pp. 2-18.
Mieke Aerts a.o., (eds) Among men, among women. Sociological and historical recognition of
homosocial arrangements, Amsterdam: UvA, 1983
Peter Aggleton (ed), Men Who Sell Sex. International Perspectives on Male Prostitution and
HIV/AIDS, London: UCL Press, 1999.
Steven Angelides, A History of Bisexuality, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Forging Gay Identities. Organizing Sexuality in San Francisco,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
Henning Bech, When Men Meet. Homosexuality and Modernity, Cambridge: Polity, 1997.
Alan P. Bell & Martin S. Weinberg, Homosexualities. A Study of Diversity Among Men &
Women, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978.
David Bell & John Binnie, The Sexual Citizen. Queer Politics and Beyond, Cambridge: Polity,
2000.
-, & Gill Valentine (eds), Mapping Desire. Geographies of Sexualities, London/New York:
Routledge, 1995.
Raymond M. Berger, Gay and Gray. The Older Homosexual Man, Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1982.
Michel Bon & Antoine d’Arc, Rapport sur l’homosexualité de l’homme, Paris: Editions
universitaires, 1974.
Dabiel Borrillo & Pierre Lascoumes, Amour égales? Le Pacs, les homosexuels et la gauche,
Paris: La Découverte, 2002.
Pierre Bourdieu, “Quelques questions sur le mouvement gay et lesbien”, in his La domination
masculine, Paris: Seuil, 1998, pp. 127-134.
Michel Bozon, Nathalie Bajos & Theo Sandfort (eds), Sexual Behaviour and HIV/AIDS in
Europe, London: UCL Press, 1998.
Wayne H. Brekhus, Peacocks, Chameleons, Centaurs. Gay Suburbia and the Grammar of
Social Identity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003
Christopher Carrington, No Place Like Home. Relationships and Family Life among Lesbians
and Gay Men, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
David Carter, Stonewall. The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution, New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 2004.
Manuel Castells, T he City and the Grassroots, Berkeley: University of California Press,
1983.
George Chauncey, Gay New York. Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male
World 1890-1940, New York: Basic Books, 1994.
Gary D. Comstock, Violence Against Lesbians and Gay Men, New York: Columbia University
Press, 1991.
R.W. Connell, Masculinities, Oxford: Polity Press, 1995
Donald Webster Cory (pseudonym of E. Sagarin), The Homosexual in America. A Subjective
Approach, New York: Greenberg, 1951.
- (ed), Homosexuality. A Cross Cultural Approach, New York: Julian Press, 1956.
Dangerous Bedfellows (eds), Policing Public Sex. Queer Politics and the Future of Aids
Activism, Boston: South End Press, 1996.
Barry Dank, “Coming out in the gay world” (1971), in: Dynes & Donaldson 1992, pp. 60-77.
Martin Dannecker & Reimut Reiche, Der gewöhnliche Homosexuelle. Eine soziologische
Untersuchung über männliche Homosexualität in der Bundesrepublik, Frankfurt: Fischer,
1974.
- (1978), Theories of Homosexuality, London: GMP, 1981
Peter M. Davies, Ford C.I. Hickson, Peter Weatherburn & Andrew J. Hunt, Sex, Gay Men and
AIDS, London: The Falmer Press, 1993.
Samuel R. Delany, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, New York: New York University
Press, 1999.
Edward W. Delph, The Silent Community. Public Homosexual Encounters, Beverly Hills, CA:
Sage, 1978.
Gary W. Dowsett, Practicing Desire. Homosexual Sex in the Era of AIDS, Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1996.
Alain Dreuilhe, La société invertie ou les gais de San Francisco, Paris: Flammarion, 1979.
Marin Duberman, Stonewall, New York: Dutton, 1993.
Wayne R. Dynes & Stephen Donaldson (eds), Sociology of Homosexuality, New
York/London: Garland, 1992
Didier Eribon, Michel Foucault (1926-1984), Paris: Flammarion, 1989.
Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité. 1: La volonté de savoir, Paris: Gallimard, 1976; 2.
Paris: Gallimard, 1984; 3: Le souci de soi, Parijs: Gallimard, 1984.
Jacqui Gabb, “Critical Differentials. Querying the incongruities within research on lesbian
parent families", in: Sexualities 7:2 (2004), pp. 167-182
John Gagnon and William Simon, Sexual Conduct. The Social Sources of Sexual Meaning,
Chicago: Aldine, 1973.
Paul van Gelder, Kwetsbaar, kleurig en schaduwrijk. Jongens in de prostitutie: een
verschijnsel in meervoud, Amsterdam: Thela Thesis, 1998.
Frank van Gemert, *, in: Journal of Homosexuality
David Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality, Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1988.
David Halperin, Saint Foucault. Towards a Gay Hagiography, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995.
Mervyn Harris, The Dilly Boys. Male Prostitution in Piccadilly, London: Croom Helm, 1973.
Joseph Harry, Gay Children Grown Up. Gender Culture and Gender Deviance, New York:
Praeger, 1982.
- & William B. De Vall, The Social Organization of Gay Males, New York: Praeger, 1978.
Bernice L. Hausman, Changing Sex. Transsexualism, Technology and the Idea of Gender,
Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.
William G. Hawkeswood, One of the Children. Gay Black Men in Harlem, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1996
Gert Hekma, Homoseksualiteit, een medische reputatie, Amsterdam: SUA 1987.
-, Homoseksualiteit in Nederland van 1730 tot de moderne tijd, Amsterdam: Meulenhoff,
2004.
Jean-Luc Hennig, Garçons de passe. Enquête sur la prostitution masculine, Paris: Hallier,
1978.
Gilbert Herdt (ed), Third Sex, Third Gender. Beyond Sexual Dimorphism, New York:Zone
Books, 1994.
- & Andrew Boxer, Children of Horizons. How Gay and Lesbian Teens Are Leading a New
Way Out of the Closet, Boston: Beacon, 1993.
David Higgs (ed), Queer Sites. Gay Urban Histories since 1600, New York: Routledge, 1999.
Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade. A Study of Homosexual Encounters in Public Places,
London: Duckworth, 1970.
Gordon Brent Ingram a.o. (eds), Queers in Space. Communities, Public Places, Sites of
Resistance, Seattle: Bay Press, 1997.
Janice M. Irvine, Disorders of Desire. Sex and Gender in Modern American Sexology,
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.
-, Talk about Sex. The Battles over Sex Education in the United States, Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2002.
Suzanne J. Kessler, Lessons from the Intersexed, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,
1998.
Evert Ketting & Klaas Soesbeek (eds), Homoseksualiteit & Krijgsmacht, Delft: Eburon, 1992.
Alfred Kinsey a.o., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Philadelphia: Saunders, 1948.
Alfred Kinsey a.o., Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953.
Don Kulick, Travesti. Sex, Gender and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Roger N. Lancaster, The Trouble with Nature. Sex in Science and Popular Culture, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2003.
Ed Laumann, John Gagnon, Robert T. Michael and Stuart Michaels, The Social Organization
of Sexuality. Sexual Practices in the USA, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Rüdiger Lautmann, Die Lust am Kind. Portrait des Pädophilen, Hamburg: Klein 1994.
-, Soziologie der Sexualität, Weinheim/München: Juventa, 2002.
William Leap (ed), Public Sex, Gay Space, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors. The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Martin P. Levine (ed), Gay Men. The Sociology of Male Homosexuality, New York: Harper &
Row, 1979.
-, Gay Macho. The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone, New York: New York University
Press, 1998.
Maurice Leznoff and William A. Westley, “The Homosexual Community” (1956), in: Dynes
& Donaldson (1992), pp.
Michel Maffesoli, L’ombre de Dionysos. Contribution à une sociologie de l’orgie, Paris:
Méridiens/Anthropos, 1982.
Martin F. Manalansan IV, Global Divas. Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora, Durham: Duke
University Press, 2003.
Mary McIntosh, “The homosexual role” (1967), in: Plummer (1981) and Dynes & Donaldson
(1992), pp. 226-236.
Robert P. McNamara, The Times Square Hustler. Male Prostitution in New York City, New
York: Praeger, 1992.
Rommel Mendès-Leité, Bisexualité, le dernier tabou, Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1996.
Henry Minton, Departing from Deviance: A History of Homosexual Rights and Emancipatory
Science in America, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Patrick Moore, Beyond Shame. Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay History,
Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.
Stephen O. Murray, Social Theory, Homosexual Realities, New York: Gay Academic Union,
1984.
Peter M. Nardi, Gay Men's Friendships. Invincible Communities, Chicago/London: University
of Chicago Press, 1999.
- & Beth E. Schneider (eds), Social Perspectives in Lesbian and Gay Studies, London/New
York: Routledge, 1998.
Harry Oosterhuis, Stepchildren of Nature. Krafft-Ebing, Psychiatry and the Making of Sexual
Identity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001
Richard G. Parker & John H. Gagnon (eds), Conceiving Sexuality. Approaches to sex
research in a postmodern world, London: Routledge, 1995.
Leon E. Pettiway, Honey, Honey, Miss Thang. Being Black, Gay, and on the Streets,
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996
Ken Plummer, Sexual Stigma, London: Routledge, 1975
- (ed), The Making of the Modern Homosexual, London: Hutchinson, 1981.
-, Telling Sexual Stories, London: Routledge, 1995.
-, “Mapping the Sociological Gay”, in: Theo Sanfort c.s. (eds), Lesbian and Gay Studies,
London: Sage, 2000, pp. 46-60.
Sari van der Poel, In de bisnis. Professionele jongensprostitutie in Amsterdam, Arnhem:
Gouda Quint, 1991.
Michael Pollak, Les homosexuels et le sida. Sociologie d’une épidemie, Paris: Metaillé, 1988.
-, AIDS. A Problem for Sociological Research, Lodnon: Sage, 1992.
-, The Second Plague of Europe. AIDS Prevention and Sexual Transmission Among Men in
Western Europe, New York: Haworth, 1994.
Sharon E. Preves, Intersex and Identity. The Contested Self, New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 2003.
Jay Prosser, Second Skins. The Body Narratives of Transsexuality, New York: Columbia
University Press, 1998.
Bruno Proth, Lieux de drague. Scènes et coulisses d’une sexualité masculine, Toulouse:
Octarès, 2002.
Kenneth E. Reade, Other Voices. The Style of a Male Homosexual Tavern, Novato CA:
Chandler & Sharp, 1980.
Gary Remafedi (ed), Death by Denial. Studies of Suicide in Gay and Lesbian Teenagers,
Boston: Alyson, 1994.
Craig A. Rimmerman (ed), Gay Rights, Military Wrongs. Political Perspectives on Lesbians
and Gay in the Military, New York: Garland, 1996
Ritch C. Savin-Williams, Gay and Lesbian Youth. Expressions of Identity, New York:
Hemisphere Publishing, 1990.
Hans-Joachim Schickedanz, Homosexuelle Prostitution, Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 1979.
Heinz Schmeidler, Sittengeschichte von heute. Die Krisis der Sexualität, Dresden: Reissner,
1932.
Michael Schofield, Sociological Aspects of Homosexuality, Boston: Little, Brown, 1965.
Steve Seidman, Difference Troubles. Queering Social Theory and Sexual Politics, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1997.
-, (ed), Queer Theory/Sociology, London: Blackwell, 1998
-, Beyond the Closet. The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life, New York/London:
Routledge, 2002.
Alfred Spira a.o., Les comportements sexuels en France, Paris: La documentation française,
1993.
Edward Stein (ed), Forms of Desire. New York: Garland, 1990.
-, The Mismeasure of Desire. The Science, Theory and Ethics of Sexual Orientation, New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Merl Storr (ed), Bisexuality: a critical reader, London and New York: Routledge, 1999
Bill Thompson, Sadomasochism. Painful Perversion or Pleasurable Play?, London: Cassell,
1994
Richard R. Troiden, Gay and Lesbian Identity. A Sociological Analysis, Dix Hills NJ: General
Hall, 1988.
Mark W. Turner, Backward Glances. Cruising the Queer Streets of New York and London,
London: Reaktion Books, 2003.
Jeffrey Weeks, Coming Out. Homosexual Politics in Britain, from the Nineteenth Century to
the Present, London: Quartet, 1977.
-, Sex, Politics and Society. The regulation of sexuality since 1800, London: Longman, 1981.
-, Sexuality and Its Discontents, London: Routledge, 1985.
-, Invented Moralities, Cambridge: Polity, 1995.
-, Making Sexual History, Cambridge: Polity, 2000.
-, Brian Heaphy and Catherine Donovan, Same Sex Intimacies. Families of Choice and Other
Life Experiments, London & New York: Routledge, 2001.
Martin S. Weinberg, Collin J. Williams & Douglas W. Pryor, Dual Attraction. Understanding
Bisexuality, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994
Thomas S. Weinberg, Gay Men, Gay Selves. The Social Construction of Homosexual
Identities, New York: Irvington Press, 1983.
-, & G.W. Levi Kamel (eds), S and M. Studies in Sadomasochism, New York: Prometheus,
1983.
Kaye Wellings a.o., Sexual Behaviour in Brittain. The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes
and Lifestyles, London: Penguin, 1994.
D.J. West, Male Prostitution. Gay Sex Services in London, London: Duckworth, 1992.
Kath Weston, Families We Choose. Lesbians Gays Kinship, New York: Columbia University
Press, 1991.
Gordon Westwood (pseudonym of Michael Schofield), A Minority. A Report on the Life of the
Male Homosexual in Great Britain, London: Longmans, 1960.
Vera Whisman, Queer by Choice. Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Politics of Identity, New York:
Routledge, 1996.
Stephen Whittle (ed), The Margins of the City. Gay Men’s Urban Lives, Aldershot: Arena,
1994.
Frederick L. Whitam & Robin M. Mathy, Male Homosexuality in Four Societies. Brazil,
Guatemala, the Philippines, and the United States, New York: Praeger, 1986.
Collin J. Williams & Martin S. Weinberg, Homosexuals and the Military. A Study of Less
Than Honorable Discharge, New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Gertjan van Zessen & Theo Sandfort (ed), Seksualiteit in Nederland. Seksueel gedrag, risico
en preventie van Aids, Amsterdam/Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1991.