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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sexual Preference (book) | 11/14 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Preference_(book) | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T08:55:27.778790+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Other evaluations, 1981–1987 === The gay rights activist Dennis Altman noted that Bell et al.′s conclusion that there is a powerful link between gender nonconformity and the development of homosexuality depended on the memories of their respondents, who were likely to have been influenced by social expectations about how homosexuals should conform to gender roles. He observed that Bell et al.′s data was collected in 1969 and 1970, prior to the "growth of the modern gay movement and the development of the macho style among gay men", and criticized them for confusing "social roles with what is inborn", thereby underestimating the extent to which masculinity and femininity are social constructs. The psychologist William Paul and the sex researcher Weinrich maintained that Sexual Preference documented social diversity well and was the largest study conducted specifically on homosexuality, but that it was limited by the problems Bell et al. encountered in trying to obtain a representative sample. They suggested that because Bell et al. collected their data in 1969, they may have missed "cultural developments in the gay younger generation of the late 1960s and early 1970s." The gynecologist William Masters, the sexologist Virginia E. Johnson and the physician Robert C. Kolodny suggested that Sexual Preference was probably the most extensive study of homosexuality and maintained that it provided no support for Bieber's theory of homosexuality. Daniel Rancour-Laferriere credited Bell et al. with helping to support the idea that adult sexual preference has a biological basis, and with showing that a biological basis for homosexuality probably accounts for gender nonconformity as well as sexual orientation. He endorsed their view that the unfavorable relationships homosexual men tend to have with their fathers could be as likely to result from "the homosexual predisposition" of the child as the father's behavior. Weeks described Sexual Preference as "the Kinsey Institute's final publication on homosexuality". He suggested that like sociobiologists and others who have attempted to find a biological explanation for social behavior Bell et al. had an "urge to fill a conceptual gap" stronger than their "adherence to theoretical consistency and political judgment". He wrote that while Bell et al. carefully explored the evidence for the aetiology of homosexuality, unlike Kinsey they failed to consider that homosexuality might not be a single phenomenon with a single explanation. He criticized them for concluding that if a social or psychological explanation of homosexuality cannot be found then a biological explanation must exist, deeming the argument "a rhetorical device" that results in "an intellectual closure which obstructs further questioning." The sociologists Frederick L. Whitam and Robin Mathy criticized Bell et al. for reporting mainly on their white subjects. The sexologist Richard Green described Sexual Preference as one of several studies, including Bieber et al.′s Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals, to have found strained relationships between fathers and homosexual sons. He added that an unresolved question in such studies is what percent of heterosexuals give answers more typical of homosexuals and what percent of homosexuals give answers more typical of heterosexuals, and that such "contradictory" outcomes require explanation.