Biology, ideology, and the reification of developmental stages in the study of homosexual identities.

This paper examines the biological underpinnings of theories of homosexual identity formation by focusing on the developmental model of Minton and McDonald (1983/1984). Several problems stemming from the use of biologically derived models are identified: (a) stages, which are researchers' constructs rather than reflections of the subjects' perceptions, become reified; (b) moral assumptions embedded in biologically derived models become incorporated in sociopsychological theories of identity, without ever being acknowledged; and (c) the models tend to be constructed in a linear fashion, causing the researcher or theorist to ignore possible alternative paths.

On "doing" and "being" gay: sexual behavior and homosexual male self-identity.

The possible relationships between sexual behavior and homosexual male self-identity are examined within a symbolic interactionist frame-work. The presence or absence of definitions of homosexuality, the nature of these definitions, and the rules learned by the individual for their application to himself and others determined how he perceived his feelings, his behavior, and his sexual identity. The identity histories of the men illustrate how the peer groups in which they were socialized and the behavior of their friends prevented them from defining their behavior in terms of the "homosexual pattern." They began to reinterpret their behavior as "homosexual" when they perceived changes in the behavior and definitions of their behavior by their friends, or when they came into contact with self-defined homosexuals.

Sadism and masochism: sociological perspectives.

This paper represents an initial attempt to provide theoretical structure for the sociological study of sadomasochism. Sadomasochistic behavior, like human behavior in general, is most fully understood within a social context. To understand "what is going on" within an S&M episode, one must know something about the culture of the group and how it defines and categorized people and behavior. This is where frame analysis is helpful. Frames are central components of the culture of the group, through which its members interpret the world. To a great extent the frame itself is structured by the language of the groups, which serves to explain to its members what is happening and to justify their desires, motives, and behavior. Frames tell people what is and what is not proper, acceptable, and possible with their world. They define and categorize for their members situations, settings, scenes, identities, roles, and relationships. When people join sadomasochistic groups, or any other kind of group, they are taught not only frames, but also the conceptual tools or "keys" for defining, applying, transforming, and limiting them. Frame analysis helps make sense of findings that might otherwise be difficult to explain. For example, the apparently puzzling existence in the S&M subculture of "dominant" women and "submissive" men when the larger society to which these individuals also belong prescribes aggressiveness for males and passivity for females may be explained in terms of makebelieve, fantasy, and the theatrical frame. Lack of generalization into the larger world of roles and relationships developed within the sadomasochistic subworld is explained in terms of how behavior is "keyed". A number of areas that have not been fully developed here could be profitably explored. For example, although we have attended to the structuring and limiting of S&M frames, we have not explored misframings, miskeyings, breaking frame, and other errors and their consequences for interactants. Hollander, for instance, provides an example in which an S&M episode was miskeyed with disastrous results. Another issue for further exploration involves the ways in which the language of S&M structures the relations between participants in the world by building in notions of activity and passivity and tying these to particular roles in the interaction. The specific identities of people as "dominant" or "submissive", the ways in which they arrive at a recognition of these self-identities, and the stability of these orientations await investigation.