Encyclopedia of Sociology

ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLES

and birth rates are low. The cohort age eighty-five
or older, in fact, is the fastest-growing cohort in the
United States. The question remains: Who will
care for the elderly? Some Western European
countries provide a variety of services to assist
elderly persons in maintaining their independence
within the community as long as possible. But
social policies in other countries, including the
United States, rely heavily on adult children to
provide needed care to elderly parents. Formal
support services, when available, tend to be
uncoordinated and expensive. The question of
who will provide that needed care to the large
numbers of adults who are predicted to have no
children has yet to be answered.

GAY AND LESBIAN RELATIONSHIPS

Not long ago homosexuality was viewed by many
professionals as an illness or a perversion. It was
only as recently as 1973, for example, that the
American Psychiatric Association removed homo-
sexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders. To-
day, due in large part to the efforts of researchers
such as Kinsey and associates (1948, 1953), Mas-
ters and Johnson (1979), and to organizations such
as the Gay Liberation Front during the late 1960s,
homosexuality is slowly but increasingly being
viewed as a lifestyle rather than an illness. The
work of Kinsey and associates illustrated that a
sizable minority of the population, particularly
males, had experimented with same-sex sexual
relationships, although few considered themselves
exclusively homosexual. Thirty-seven percent of
males, they reported, had experienced at least one
homosexual contact to the point of orgasm, al-
though only 4 percent were exclusively homosexu-
al. Among females, 13 percent had a same-sex
sexual contact to the point of orgasm, while only 2
percent were exclusively homosexual in their
orientation.

Obviously not all people who have had a ho-
mosexual experience consider themselves to be
gay or lesbian. Most do not. One national proba-
bility sample of adult males interviewed by tele-
phone found that 3.7 percent reported to have
either a homosexual or bisexual identity (Harry
1990). Others suggest that the percentages are
higher, that perhaps 3 to 5 percent of adult women
and 5 to 10 percent of adult men are exclusively
lesbian or gay (Diamond 1993).

Cross-cultural evidence suggests that the ma-

jority of cultures recognize the existence of homo-

sexual behavior, particularly in certain age catego-

ries such as adolescence, and most are tolerant

of homosexual behavior. Culturally speaking, it

is rare to find an actual preference for same-sex

relations; a preference tends to occur primari-

ly in societies that define homosexuality and

heterosexuality as mutually exclusive, as in many

industrial countries.

There still remains a tremendous degree of

hostility to homosexual relationships by large seg-

ments of society. Many regions in the United

States, particularly in the South and in the West,

still have laws barring homosexual activity among

consenting adults. The results of national polls

indicate that the majority of adults believe that

homosexuals should still be restricted from cer-

tain occupations, such as elementary-school teach-

er, and should not be allowed to marry. Gays and

lesbians report that their sexual orientation has

caused a variety of problems in securing housing

and in the job market. They often report that

negative comments or acts of violence have been

levied on them in public.

This contrasts sharply with the view toward

homosexuality in the Scandinavian countries. In

1989 Denmark lifted the ban on homosexual mar-

riages, the first country to do so. Norway and

Sweden followed suit in the 1990s. These changes

extend to gays and lesbians the advantages that

heterosexual married couples experience with re-

spect to inheritance, taxation, health insurance,

and joint property ownership.

There is a growing amount of research illumi-

nating various aspects of homosexual relation-

ships, such as gender roles; degree of commit-

ment; quality of relationships; and the couples’

interface with other relationships, such as child-

ren, ex-spouses, or parents. However, because of

unique historical reactions to gays and lesbians,

and the different socialization of men and women

in our society, it is important to explore the nature

of lesbian and gay male relationships separately.

Gender differences emerge in homosexual rela-

tions within a variety of contexts; for example,

lesbians are more apt to have monogamous, stable

relationships than are gay men, although the popu-

lar stereotype of gays as sexually ‘‘promiscuous’’