Being Homosexual
Gay Men and Their Development
-
-
4.2 • 6 Ratings
-
-
- $10.99
-
- $10.99
Publisher Description
A compassionate and powerful resource for gay men—now revised and updated for the 21st century.
Richard Isay was the first person to challenge the homophobia of the psychoanalytic community and prove, through his own story and those of his patients, that homosexuality is an innate characteristic rather than a learned pathology. Now revised and updated for the 21st-century, the groundbreaking Being Homosexual carries the reader through the main developmental stages in the gay male's life cycle from the initial awareness of same-sex impulses to coming out, forming friendships with other gay men, and a mature integration of one's sexual identity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Many psychiatrists still tend to view homosexuality as an emotional disturbance arising from unsatisfactory childhood relations with parents. Disputing them, Isay, a psychiatrist who has treated gay men for more than 20 years, views his patients' homosexual orientation as totally normal, nonpathological and constitutional in origin. In this succinct, clearly written volume, he maps the developmental stages in the gay male's life cycle, from the small boy's awareness of same-sex impulses to ``self-labeling,'' coming out, homosocialization (forming friendships with other gay men) and mature integration of one's sexual identity. Isay is especially good at showing how a rejecting father and a close-binding or denigrating mother can damage the gay male's sense of self-worth. He brings a liberal, liberating, neo-Freudian perspective to a discussion of gay relationships, homoerotic fantasies, bisexuality, the effects of the AIDS epidemic and society's increasing homophobia on gay men's emotional development.
