One purpose of this primarily exploratory study was to explore whether differences in beliefs about the etiology of homosexuality exist between homosexuals and nonhomosexuals. Another purpose was to investigate whether differences exist between groups in the extent to which they feel that it is appropriate to manifest homosexual behaviors in public. Finally, this study examined the question of whether a relationship exists between one's perception of the cause of homosexuality and the degree to which that person felt it was appropriate to manifest homosexual behaviors.

This study attempts to provide pertinent insights into the experiencing of black South Africans who are gay or lesbian. The aims of the investigation were to provide more holistic information on the gay and lesbian worldview in general; to provide a conceptualisation of the ontology of black gay and lesbian individuals in South Africa within a psychosocial context, and to explore the effects of a dual oppressive system related to race and sexual identity. Of 150 questionnaires distributed to black gays and lesbians, 23 were completed. Although frequency tables were utilised to organise the responses to the 73 items on the questionnaire, a phenomenological approach was adopted in interpreting responses. Within this paradigm, the initial focus was on the exposition of individual responses and thereafter, on the contextualisation of common themes in the perceptions of black gays and lesbians as a group. The study generated pertinent insights into the experiences and perceptions of black gays and lesbians, related to the lifespan development processes (early childhood to ageing) and relevant socio-political factors. In this regard the study highlighted issues that need to be addressed by black gays and lesbians in their acknowledgement of sexual identity; concerns the participants experienced as children; issues regarding relationships, parenting and old age, and the influence of religious, legal, social and political factors on their worldview. Among the most significant findings generated by this investigation, is that of the adoption of society's homonegative attitudes by gays and lesbians themselves at almost every level of their psychosocial development. Respondents also tended to emphasise oppression with regard to being gay or lesbian, than with being black. Recommendations for future research have been identified for the purposes of generating further insights into the experiencing of black gays and lesbians in South Africa. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1996.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- La Trobe University, 2007. / "A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, [to the] School of Public Health, (The Australian Research Centre in Sex, health and Society), Faculty of health Science, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria." Research. Includes bibliographical references (p. 244-261). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tenn., 1996. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-117).

Thesis (M.F.A) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (June 30, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Dawn Baunach, committee chair; Elisabeth Burgess, Toshimasa Kii, committee members. Electronic text (152 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed October 10, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-130).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Auckland, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 378-429). Also available electronically via World Wide Web in PDF format.

The study explored the psychological role of homoeroticism in the spiritual growth of priests, using Grounded Theory and James Fowler’s stages of faith development as the basis for the research methodology. Three Anglican priests were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format. The research interview combined Fowler’s Faith Development Interview Guide and a semi-structured interview in order to ascertain the priests’ level of spiritual development, as well as to explore their experience of the homoerotic component to their sexuality, and its influence on their spiritual growth. The interviews and iterative analysis focussed on four major questions: (1) Are priests who experience and actively work at integrating the homoerotic aspect to themselves assisted thereby in their spiritual growth, and if so, how might this be accounted for?; (2) Following Fowler’s model of spiritual development, what processes characterise each priest’s approach to meaning-creation in their lives?; (3) Following Fowler’s model, can the psychological work of engaging with and accepting homoeroticism be conceived of as serving an initiatory function in the emergence of new processes of meaning-creation?; (4) What role does homoeroticism serve in the spiritual growth of priests? The interpretative phase consisted of three stages. A grounded theory analysis of each interview was undertaken, developing a model for understanding the role of homoeroticism in spiritual growth. In the second stage, the priest’s level of spiritual development was ascertained, using Fowler’s Faith Development Guide. The third stage linked each participant’s level of spiritual development (in Fowler’s terms) with their core stories regarding experiences, meanings, and roles of homoeroticism. Finally, an integrative theory of the role of homoeroticism in spiritual growth was developed, using Jungian and post-Jungian theory as a basis for the discussion. The results suggested that homoeroticism did not play any role in spiritual growth and individuation separate to the manner in which it was experienced as having been constructed by society and the Church, and separate to the manner in which each priest in the study expressed, experienced, or engaged with it. In this context the experience of homoeroticism appeared to play a diversity of roles, including representing the collective and personal shadow, the archetypal anima/animus, the archetypal puer/senex constellation, the transcendent function, and thereby, as an expression of these roles, contribute to the emergence of new processes of meaning-creation in the spiritual growth and individuation of priests.

This thesis is concerned with lifestyles in Japan that have hitherto remained largely unreported. The main research categories are gay men, lesbian women, single men and women, and feminist men and women. In addition attention is given to transvestites, transsexuals and hermaphrodites. The main aim of the thesis is to provide an ethnography of the lives of the various categories, which is a new angle from which to view Japanese society. The research methods consist of participant observation and indepth open-ended free attitude interviews. Participant observation in this case includes all aspects of people's life: personal relationships and reading what people from the categories say they read. In addition I developed experiential research, i.e. experiencing what informants may experience. The major question from which the research started out is that of how people whose feelings, ideas or lifestyles do not agree with heterosexual marriage cope with life in a society in which everyone is expected to marry. In this sense the research goes a step beyond what much of anthropology does: establishing what are more or less standard lifestyles in a particular culture. After discussing the position of marriage in Japanese society in chapter three, including political and legal aspects, this thesis discusses how people of the various research categories may try to fit in with the idea that one should marry by entering marriage and the problems this may give in chapter four. In chapter five alternative lifestyles are discussed and in six ways of dealing with an outside world that has little understanding ~ people with alternative lifestyles, feelings, or ideas. In chapter seven ways in which the various categories are regarded and relate to each other, especially the relations between gender and sexuality and discourses of sex and sexual activites are investigated, as well as debates within and between individual and circles consisting of people from the various categories. In conclusion four themes, that played a role in the background throughout the ethnographic body of the thesis, are drawn together: 1) space, gender and sexuality, 2) constructions of homosexuality, .3) selves, and 4) changes: developments that took place while the research was conducted and have continued since.

This thesis is concerned with lesbian identity and community, with a specific focus on lesbians' own experiences, their accounts of the decision to identify as lesbian to themselves and possibly to other people, and their 'explanations'of their lesbianism. Studies of lesbians by feminist social scientists since the 1970s have provided a major corrective to the earlier medically-orientated literature which pathologised lesbianism. Challenging the demonisation of lesbians, they presented lesbianism as a politicised choice or as one of a range of equally valid sexual identities, and proposed typologies based on women's own accounts of their lives and experiences. However, as these studies were mostly based on a small number of informants,drawn from homogeneous social groups in terms of age, social class and education, their utility as generally applicable models or frameworks for understanding lesbians'experiences was compromised. Informed by feminist theory and methodology, this study seeks to test the validity or limitations of these earlier typologies, Focus groups were conducted with five groups of women in order to establish what lesbians themselves considered to be the key aspects of their identity. These topics were further explored in interviews with 65 self-identified lesbians from a wide range of backgrounds in terms of age, education, occupation and location,to examine the similarities and differences in the life-stories of women who wish to engage in relationships with other women, or who are doing so or have done so. Lesbians' accounts of their decisions about their 'sexual' identity and their own explanations of lesbianism demonstrate how both heterosexual hegemony and (ironically) also lesbian subcultural'norms' may restrict their choices in various aspects of their lives. The intention of this study was not only to provide an academic review of the accuracy and utility of earlier studies of lesbians' lives, but also to give lesbian women a voice, as a political act. It found that lesbians' accounts of their lives can indeed be classified into various categories on the basis of women's differing explanations of their lesbianism, as earlier studies had proposed. However, these studies were overly rigid and simplistic, doing scant justice to both the complexity of lesbians' experiences and their own explanations of their identity.