Homosexuality is universal -- as universal as man himself. The practice has been recorded in the literature of most societies. Although homosexuality has at times been accorded a place of special respect, occasionally regarded as the prerogative of a particular class, more frequently it has been subjected to societal punishment. This study analyses the pattern of social relationships among homosexuals under conditions of repression characteristic of American urban society. It is the object of his sexual drive that distinguishes the homosexual from other men. Society condemns such behaviour and subjects the sexual deviant to severe social sanctions. Thus the homosexual finds himself defined as a criminal by the law makers, as a perpetrator of unnatural and ungodly acts by the churches, and a pervert by the ordinary men and women of society. These evaluations of his behaviour create the particular set of social problems which confront the homosexual. The general vulnerability of his position within society imposes the limitations upon his activities and determines to a great extent the type of adjustment which he is able to make to the larger social environment. In an attempt to solve his social problems. the practising homosexual has become involved in a distinctive, separate, and somewhat secret set of social relationships which we shall call “homosexual society”. This distinctive society is a response to the need to communicate with others for the satisfaction of sexual drives under conditions of social repression. The emergence of homosexual society is therefore an adaptation to the limitations and restrictions imposed by the larger heterosexual culture. [...]

This study explored the experience of what it is to be a gay man and to live in a rural community. It sought to understand why gay men would want to live in places that are said to have a reputation for hostility towards them. The empirical data from the semi-structured interviews with twenty-one gay men living in fifteen small-town locations across New South Wales, Australia, was analysed using a qualitative method derived from phenomenology, ethnography and modified grounded theory. The distinctive findings of this thesis centre on these men???s desire and determination to stay in the bush. They chose to stay in rural locations and effectively employed a diverse range of strategies to both combat the difficulties of rural life and enhance its advantages. The bush was the place in which these men could find themselves, be themselves and also find others like themselves. The space and the isolation of the bush gave them the latitude and the scope to live gay lives. This is why they stayed. By staying, they were also able to live out both the homosexual and rural components of their personal and social identity. Building on a brief look at the Australian rural past, the conceptual framework utilises notions of ???the stranger??? and draws on resilience, agency and resistance theory to understand these men???s ability to live in an unwelcoming place. Resilience allowed these men to cope and deal with the difficulties they faced. Human agency, the individual's capacity to exert autonomy over his life, is used to restore prominence to resistance theory. Agency is the catalyst to resistance and resistance fuels an individual???s, and sometimes a collective, opposition to the dominant social forces that inhibits one???s agency. These men???s desire to live in a rural place can be understood through theoretical considerations of place, the freedom of place and queer theory. Their satisfaction with life can be theorised through the application of a concept new to theory in gay literature - thriving. This thesis documents a largely unreported aptitude and proficiency by rural gay men to live in the bush. It suggests that their close affinity with place gives them a sense of belonging that, when combined with their concept of a gay lifestyle, effectively queers the places in which they live. That gay men can live fulfilled lives in the very places they are said to have fled evokes an innovative perspective together with an appreciation of what it is to be gay in the bush.

This qualitative research study examines the stories of five men's lived experiences of violence and violation. It is derived from conversations with the men that have been taped and transcribed. These in turn have been categorised into key existential themes and interpreted by myself as the researcher. The process of data collection, transcription and analysis has been performed under strict adherence to the tenets of a rigorous, ethical and trustworthy qualitative approach to undertaking research. Participant's revelations of their unique experiences of violence have been carefully and sensitively interpreted and given meaning through the lens of my personal worldview informed by a philosophical perspective. I have fully acknowledged my own influences upon the proceedings. The methodology that has informed this undertaking is based upon Martin Heidegger's (1927/1962) hermeneutic phenomenology. Phenomenology emphasises the search for raw experience buried in the text and takes me to the heart of men's lived reality of violence. Hermeneutics offers me a way of making meaning out of the subtext concealed within men's stories of violence. Heidegger's philosophy offers me a particular approach for understanding human experience. Van Manen's (1990) existential life world structures guide me towards violence as it is lived rather than as it is thought to be. As such this study emphasises ontological understanding over epistemological examination. The intention of this work is produce an understanding of the impact of violence on people's lives from the unique perspective of those who have experienced it. Its ultimate goal is to use this information to better understand the aetiology of male violence, and, more specifically, five men whose lives have been situated in the world of violence, so that it may be more effectively prevented.

This dissertation investigates how masculinities are understood and practiced through the body and how such practices are shaped and limited by modernist theories about gender. The research argues that postmodern theory allows for a greater inclusivity of genders and bodies otherwise marginalised by modernity. A qualitative postmodern and poststructural methodology, combined with a research method involving the collection of all data via an on-line questionnaire, disrupts modernist, dualistic thinking about the body and gender. By distancing the physical body from the research method, and thus separating, temporarily, discourses of gender which inhabit the body, this research creates counter-hegemonic spaces to re-articulate masculine identities and practices within the postmodern condition. Furthermore, the postmodern theory and methodology informing this work unsettles the belief that physical bodies can be counted on to reveal consistent truths. The contextualisation of this work includes a chapter that recounts various historical moments where technological advancements made way for the re-consideration and re-negotiation of gender and bodies. The intersections of technology and modernity are examined along with the rise of the postmodern condition and the advancement of computer technologies. Shifts in understanding, influenced by postmodern theory and human-computer interaction, are discussed in relation to their challenges to modernist boundaries of ?the real? and, in turn, the possibilities of gender articulations. Additionally, a chapter containing critical researcher reflexivity through an autobiographical account of masculinities and schooling acts to illustrate some of the complexities, contradictions, privileges and counter-hegemonic possibilities of masculinities and bodies. Although the majority of the research participants identified as ?male?, some identified as ?female? and others identified as ?intersex?. The geographic identities of the respondents included Australia, The United Kingdom, Ireland, The United States, and Japan. The data were analysed using postmodern and poststructural theory. The subjectivity and the role of the researcher in the analysis of data were interrogated alongside the words of the participants. The responses were grouped into four areas: Being and Knowing; The Body Engendered; Bodies On-Line and On the Line, and New Articulations. In all four areas the participants? words demonstrate tensions between modern and postmodern understandings of bodies and genders. Computer technologies often replicate modernist images of gender and bodies, yet at the same time they provide a postmodern space of multiplicity, fluidity, and hybridity, where rigid modernist configurations cannot hold. The analysis illuminates, diffracts, disrupts, and highlights disjunctures and new possibilities for gender and bodies mediated by contemporary computer and Internet technologies. Lastly, Benjaminian dialectical images were used to transform fixed modernist beliefs about gender and bodies and to move the reader toward alternative ways of understanding gender which are not body dependent. / thesis (PhDEducation)--University of South Australia, 2002.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Feb. 28, 2008). Directed by Hephzibah Roskelly; submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-144).

Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / 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 April 9, 2009) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 290-329.

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois, 1996. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-100).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, 1995. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 254-278).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, August, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.