Gender Role, SEXUAL IDENTITY, Gender Identity, Sexual Object Choice
A single homosexual act is far more common and should be distinguished from exclusive homosexuality, which is an enduring pattern of sexual acts and fantasies involving only members of one's own sex. About 4 percent of men in the United States are exclusively homosexual and about 4 percent are mostly homosexual (Kinsey et al., 1948, 1953; Gagnon, 1977; Bell and Weinberg, 1978; McCary, 1978; Rozin, 1978).
Homosexuality has usually been deplored in our society. Not so any more! It is a crime in some states, and in past psychiatric classifications, it has been called a "disorder." American attitudes toward homosexuality are shifting, however. In 1978 around 50 percent of Americans believe homosexuality should not be a crime, with white-collar workers more approving than blue-collar workers, and younger people more approving than older people. More than 60 percent of introductory college students approved of homosexual activity (Rozin, 1978). DSM-III has eliminated the classification of homosexuality as a disorder. Only ego-dystonic homosexuality, or homosexuality in which the sexual preference is unwanted and a source of strong distress, has been classified as a sexual "disorder" by DSM-4.
Individuals who are neither exclusively heterosexual nor exclusively homosexual are called bisexual. The number of American bisexuals is large: about 15 percent of men and 10 percent of women. Among bisexuals, the preference for partners of their own sex varies in all possible ways. Some bisexuals have sex with members of their own sex about as often as with members of the opposite sex, others have relations with members of their own sex the vast majority of the time, but the majority have sex with members of their own sex only a small percentage of the time (McCary, 1978).
Masturbation and premarital intercourse, as well as oral sex and extramarital intercourse, are common practices in our society. Homosexuality, while not nearly as common, is widespread, and the absolute number of homosexuals is large indeed. One major criterion for calling a practice "abnormal" is rarity, and none of these forms of sexuality is rare today. What seems to have made these sexual behaviors unacceptable in the past was society's attitude about them, and not any physiological or psychological anomaly.
SEXUAL IDENTITY The rearing of a child includes the passing on to the child of a sense of sexual identity and a notion of what is acceptable sexual behavior in today's world. Sexual identity has three aspects: object choice, gender identity, and gender role. Gender identity is the awareness of being male or female. Gender role is the public expression of gender identity, what an individual says or does to indicate that he is a man or she is a woman. Sexual object choice consists of the types of persons, parts of the body, and situations that are the objects of sexual fantasies, arousal, and sexual preferences.
How does gender role come about? By age two, children are able to distinguish between males and females. By three, they can identify gender differences, and they understand that certain behaviors are appropriate to their gender role. By school age, they understand that a person's gender will not change, even if aspects of the person's appearance or behavior do change. Because parents and others in society respond differently to girls and boys from birth onward, taking on a gender role begins immediately.
The process of taking on a gender identity-feeling like a boy or a girl-is more mysterious than the process of taking on a gender role. Identification and internalization and imitation of parents each probably play some role. Fear of the same-sex parent or desire for the parent's resources or emotional bonding with the same-sex parent all lead to identification with the samesex parent, and they lead the young child to imitate the parent's behavior and attitudes, including the parent's sexual behavior and attitudes. The child will then internalize these behaviors and attitudes. Biological processes are important as well; for example, the balance of hormones the fetus is bathed with in utero contribute to sexual identity (Money and Ehrhardt, 1972). However it is accomplished, the process of taking on a gender identity is complete by age two, at which time the child feels like a male or female; this identity will never change.
Sometime in the first fifteen years of life, individuals acquire their sexual object choices, and this preference is likely to stay with them for the rest of their life. For most men, the objects of sexual choice are women; for most women, the objects of sexual choice are men. There is a very large range of situations that men and women find sexually arousing: holding a member of the opposite sex in their arms, dancing, seductive conversation, being ca~ ressed by a member ofthe opposite sex, seeing a member of the opposite sex naked, and the like. Being aroused in real life and in fantasy by these sexual object choices facilitates affectionate sexual activity between human beings.