Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (1978) is a book by the psychologist Alan P. Bell and the sociologist Martin S. Weinberg in which the authors argue that homosexuality is not necessarily related to pathology and divide homosexuals into five types. Together with Homosexuality: An Annotated Bibliography (1972), it is part of a series of books that culminated in the publication of Sexual Preference in 1981. The work was a publication of the Institute for Sex Research.
The book received much attention and mixed reviews. It received praise for its authors' attempts to discredit stereotypes about homosexuals, became influential, and has been seen as a classic work. However, it was criticized for its authors' sampling methods and their typology of homosexuals, which has been seen as arbitrary and misleading. Commentators also questioned Bell and Weinberg's presentation of the work as a definitive study of homosexuality. Some commentators suggested that some of Bell and Weinberg's findings were obvious and that their study was not needed to establish them, and critics charged that they drew conclusions not justified by their data. Some of Bell and Weinberg's findings, such as those about gay men's sexual behavior, have become dated due to social changes since the 1970s, such as those brought about by the AIDS epidemic and the progress of the gay rights movement.
Summary
Discussing the background to Homosexualities, Bell and Weinberg write that the sex researcher Alfred Kinsey had intended to publish a study of homosexuality to complement the two volumes of the Kinsey Reports, but died before being able to produce such a volume. Following Kinsey's death, the Institute for Sex Research became involved in other projects and did not focus its attention on homosexuality again until the late 1960s. Stanley Yolles of the National Institute of Mental Health established the National Institute of Mental Health Task Force on Homosexuality, which held its first meeting in 1967, and decided that further research into homosexuality was needed. The NIMH Task Force invited the Institute for Sex Research to submit a proposal for a comprehensive study of the development of homosexuality. The Institute's proposal, based upon many of the NIMH Task Force's recommendations, was modified after consultation with NIMH officials. The book's direct predecessor was Patterns of Adjustment in Deviant Populations, a 1967 survey of white gay men in Chicago designed by Bell and Gebhard and funded by NIMH. This pilot study contained many questions identical to those used in Homosexualities.
Bell and Weinberg, during the initial stages of their work, consulted with numerous experts on homosexuality who often held views quite different from theirs. Those listed as contributors to the study include the ethologist Frank A. Beach, the psychoanalyst Irving Bieber, Wainwright Churchill, the psychologist Albert Ellis, the anthropologist Paul Gebhard, the psychologist Evelyn Hooker, the sociologist Laud Humphreys, the psychiatrist Judd Marmor, the sexologist Wardell Pomeroy, the sociologist Edward Sagarin, the psychiatrist Robert Stoller, the psychologist Clarence Arthur Tripp, and the sociologist Colin J. Williams. Bell and Weinberg comment that, "Our correspondence and personal meetings with these individuals were of great help to us in constructing a viable interview schedule. While the final instrument, devised over many meetings of various Institute personnel, did not entirely please or represent the views of any one person associated with it, the interview schedule in its final form was the result of endless discussions and sometimes painful compromise on the part of many highly committed people."
Bell and Weinberg write that their study has several purposes, including describing homosexual sexual behavior, examining stereotypes about homosexuals, and exploring "the relationship between homosexuals' sexual life-styles and their social and psychological adjustment". They note that their work is based on a nonrepresentative sample, and argue that a representative sample is unnecessary for their purposes. They also argue that several different types of homosexual should be distinguished. They write that Homosexualities is part of a series of books that resulted from what Bell and Weinberg called the San Francisco Study.
Publication history
Homosexualities was first published by Simon & Schuster in 1978. The book was also published by the Macmillan Company of Australia Pty Ltd in 1978.