Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2005. / Title from PDF title page screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 66-82)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2005. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-228). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNR11554

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1986. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [229]-240.

No description available.

‘Gay identity’ is an often taken-for-granted concept in research. When researchers refer to gay men’s identities, the term is used in relation to sexuality, as a labelling process, and operationalised through reference to homosexual relationships. But what do those relationships mean to gay men? What does ‘being gay’ mean to gay men? Those questions, for the most part, remain unaddressed. My review of literature shows that ‘being gay’ has been commonly equated to ‘being homosexual’ and, although sexual relationships are one of the most common themes in research about gay men, studies often investigate them from epidemiological perspectives. In this thesis, I draw attention to the limits of those perspectives and explore the contributions that sexual, erotic, and romantic connections make to gay men’s sense of identity. From a narrative approach, this thesis is concerned with how self-identified gay men give meanings to their romantic, erotic, and sexual relationships and how those meanings become entangled with their sense of who they are. To conduct this study, I interviewed ten gay men of different ages and backgrounds living in the United Kingdom, each of whom provided narrative data during unstructured one-to-one, one-off interviews. Drawing upon a narrative structural analysis, my findings are presented in two ways: first in the form of idiographic narratives concerning five participants and, secondly, as an overarching analysis with central themes identified across participants’ narratives. My findings show that gay men construct a sense of identity through their sexual, erotic, and romantic relationships and that being gay pervades the self in a way that affects their entire life stories. This study concludes by challenging the conception of ‘being gay’ as a sexual orientation because it describes in sexual terms an identity that is not only, not always, and not predominantly sexual.

No description available.

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.

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.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [144]-169). Also available on the Internet.