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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sexual Preference (book) | 5/14 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Preference_(book) | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T08:55:27.778790+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Conclusions === Bell et al. rejected many accepted ideas about the development of homosexuality. They concluded that psychodynamic theories exaggerate the role of parents in the development of their sons' sexual orientation, and that the psychoanalytic model that attributes male homosexuality to dominant mothers and weak fathers is inadequate. They found the idea that "cold, detached" fathers and poor father-son relationships predispose boys toward homosexuality more plausible, but emphasized that these factors have only an indirect connection to sexual preference. They suggested that relationships with parents might play a greater role in the development of female homosexuality, although they found having a cold or distant father less significant as a cause of female than of male homosexuality. They also rejected sociological theories such as the idea that homosexuality results from labeling by others. Overall, they concluded that sexual preference is likely to be already determined by the time boys and girls reach adolescence, and that there is a powerful link between gender nonconformity and the development of homosexuality in both sexes, but especially in men. Although stressing that their model "applies only to extant theories and does not create new ones", they wrote that they had identified "a pattern of feelings and reactions within the child that cannot be traced back to a single social or psychological root". Different kinds of homosexuals were compared. The "Identification with Father" variable appeared to be important in the development of homosexuality among effeminate white homosexual men. Bell et al. noted that failure to identify with the father might encourage effeminacy, but that it was also possible that boys who were effeminate for other reasons might find it difficult to identify with their fathers. Pre-adult homosexual behavior was more important among men who were not effeminate. Bell et al. suggested that for effeminate males early homosexual feelings were the only important predictor of adult homosexuality, while other males were influenced by a combination of homosexual feelings and other factors. They found that sexual preference was much less strongly connected with pre-adult sexual feelings for white bisexual men than it was for white homosexual men. They concluded that exclusive homosexuality tends to emerge from a "deep-seated predisposition" but that bisexuality is "more subject to influence by social and sexual learning." Exclusively homosexual white men tended to report that they had not identified with their fathers, but there was no significant tendency for white bisexual men not to identify with their fathers. Only white homosexual men who had undergone psychotherapy had "paternal variables" that were consistent with what clinicians had considered typical of homosexual males. Among whites, gender nonconformity appeared to be important in the development of homosexuality among masculine homosexual women, but not among homosexual women who were not masculine, while adolescent homosexual involvement was important for non-masculine homosexual women but not masculine homosexual women. Bisexual women appeared to be more influenced by involvement in homosexual genital activities in childhood than exclusively homosexual women, but unlike exclusively homosexual women, their homosexual preference did not appear related to inability to experience heterosexual arousal in childhood. Childhood gender nonconformity appeared more significant for exclusively homosexual women than for bisexual women, and more significant for women who had been in psychotherapy than for women who had not. Bell et al. briefly reviewed the ideas of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, the physician Havelock Ellis, and the psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. They wrote that while there was an ongoing debate over the origins of homosexuality, there is evidence supporting the view that homosexuality has a biological basis, and that hormonal factors could be involved. They could not explain how sexual preference might be related to biology, but considered their findings consistent with what one would expect to find if it had a biological basis. They suggested that biological factors have a more powerful influence on exclusive homosexuals than on bisexuals, and that if there is a biological basis to homosexuality, it accounts for gender nonconformity as well as sexual orientation. They also proposed that the "familial factors commonly thought to account for homosexuality" may actually result from the way parents react to their prehomosexual children. They argued that demonstrating that homosexuality is biologically innate would lead to greater social tolerance, and help to relieve parents of gay people of guilt. They expressed hope that researchers would eventually produce more definitive answers about the origins of homosexuality.
== Background and publication history == Together with its separately published Statistical Appendix, Sexual Preference was the concluding volume of a series of books including Homosexuality: An Annotated Bibliography (1972) and Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (1978), both authored jointly by Bell and Weinberg. The study was supported by the United States National Institute of Mental Health, Indiana University, the Institute for Sex Research, and the Glide Foundation. Persons assisting the study included the gay rights activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the sociologists John Gagnon and William Simon, and the anthropologist Paul Gebhard. Bell wrote that in the study he had "borrowed heavily from the psychodynamic view of sexual development", while his sociologist co-authors had ensured that the study's data could be used to evaluate conditioning and labeling theory.
The study's data were derived from interviews conducted in 1969 and 1970 with "979 homosexual and 477 heterosexual men and women living in the San Francisco Bay Area." Homosexuals were recruited from a variety of locations while heterosexuals were obtained through random sampling. The interview schedule included approximately 200 questions. Most offered respondents a limited number of possible answers, though some allowed respondents to answer as they wished. Bell et al. maintained that since most of their heterosexual respondents were exclusively heterosexual, and most of their homosexual respondents predominantly or exclusively homosexual, the classification of respondents into heterosexuals and homosexuals represented "a natural division". Sexual Preference was first published in 1981 by Indiana University Press. The same year, Bertelsmann published the book in German translation as Der Kinsey Institut Report über sexuelle Orientierung und Partnerwahl.