Martin S Weinberg

• PhD
• Professor Emeritus at Indiana University Bloomington

For the past two generations, extensive research has been conducted on the determinants of homosexuality. But, until now, scant attention has been paid to what is perhaps the most mysterious--and potentially illuminating--variation of human sexual expression, bisexuality. Today, as ignorance and fear of AIDS make greater awareness of all forms of s...

Bisexuality is a complex phenomenon involving fluidity in the sex/gender of desired partners and an identity label that is poorly recognized and understood. This contributes to misconceptions that feed into questioning the existence of bisexuality, whether bisexuals are hypersexual, and the extent to which they transmit sexually transmitted infecti...

This research investigates the sexuality of trans women (individuals who were assigned male status at birth who currently identify as women), by focusing on the "bodily techniques" (Crossley, 2006) they use in "doing" sexuality. The "doing sexuality" framework not only is modeled after the "doing gender" approach of West and Zimmerman (1987), but a...

This article examines the experiences of 25 persons who were assigned female status at birth but do not wish to live as women and take on a masculine or queer gender identity. We employ the concept of “gendered embodiment” and introduce the concept of “sexualized embodiment” to highlight what is involved in this process. We ask how experiencing a m...

Background: Current practices regarding HIV prevention often group together non-heterosexual men into a single category of MSM. Grouping men this way limits our ability to explore sexual behaviors between groups of men within this categorization in a nuanced and thoughtful manner. Methods: A cross-sectional survey utilizing community-based method...

Opponents and proponents of erotic representations (referred to hereafter as "pornography") have described the effects of pornography from their perspective. Little, however, has been done in the way of research to investigate these claims from the consumer's point of view. This especially has been so regarding the positive impact of such consumpti...

This article examines the role of nude embodiment as it affects sexuality, intimacy, and pleasure when people seek to align their nude body with cultural values. This research, based on open-ended and closed-ended data from 184 young heterosexual adults attending a large Midwestern university, finds the experience of nude embodiment and its effects...

This article extends research on transgenderism by providing a sociological study of men who are sexually interested in transwomen (MSTW; viz., genetic males who use estrogen to feminize their body but retain their penis). We conducted fieldwork in a bar catering to transwomen and the men who were sexually interested in them, and did on-the-spot in...

Cultural sociology agrees that meanings attributed to objects vary depending upon the cultural competencies of viewers, but tends to ignore the role of identities in interpretation. This article argues that both identities and competencies influence interpretation. Through an analysis of how 307 undergraduate students at a Midwestern state universi...

This article examines fecal matters—namely, the social concerns that can accompany defecation and flatulence. Researching 172 university students, we show how aspects of the socio-cultural context as “embodied” in four groups of participants (heterosexual women and men and non-heterosexual women and men) mediate the operation of the “fecal habitus”...

This article presents a study of 114 self-defined zoophile men who were researched primarily through the use of an on-line questionnaire. We describe how the participants acquired the identity label of zoophile, what it meant to them, and their relationships among themselves. Also examined are how they eroticized animals and how human and feral cha...

Sex workers have their perspective on HIV transmission, claiming that in general they are more similar than different from other people in HIV status and the practice of safe sex. Such an assertion of similarity goes against public and professional opinion that prostitution is a major vector in the spread of AIDS. Taking the sex workers' similarity...

In the framework of a constructionist approach, a life-course point of view, and traditional concepts borrowed from identity theory, the authors report on a study of fifty-six San Francisco bisexuals. The data show that by midlife, changing life commitments among the participants were associated with a decrease in sexual involvement, a move toward...

In a 1980 publication, Ira Reiss proposed a set of theoretical statements concerning gender roles and sexual customs in Sweden and the United States. He stated that, in comparison to the United States, sexual attitudes are more permissive in Sweden and that factors accounting for these differences include country variations in religiosity and attit...

The variable "gender" rarely appears in prostitution research. Its inclusion raises the same questions brought up with respect to other areas of work: Is there a gendered perspective with respect to the work and are gender inequalities reflected in it? This study examines gender differences in the work of 140 sex workers in the San Francisco Tender...

Attitudes toward sex and condoms in the U.S. are more negative and less monolithic than in Sweden. We investigated the possible effect of this on AIDS prevention strategies by comparing women and men who were heterosexual university students in the two countries (Sweden: n = 570; U.S.: n = 407). Using self-administered questionnaires, subjects were...

To further the understanding of the relationship between social class and sexual attitudes and behavior, we present data from a study of undergraduate students. We look at the education of students' fathers and how it relates to students' sexual profiles. Among the men, some traditional social class differences are found, indicating that class diff...

Sociocultural theorists, including feminist theorists, propose that the prevalence of sexual coercion in a society is related to male dominance in the social structure and a culture that sustains it. Other theorists also propose that the prevalence of sexual coercion is directly related to the general level of violence in a society. Numerous studie...

Theories of human sexuality have proposed that two factors reduce the double standard of sexuality and lead to a convergence of male and female sexual behavior: the degree of social benefits and amount of power women have in basic societal institutions and the extent to which a society accepts permissive sexual norms. As these factors increase, the...

This study of 262 respondents from an organization for homosexual and bisexual foot fetishists provides information from a broader sample than clinical cases and was guided by major ideas found in the literature on sexual fetishism. Some researchers see fetishism as the product of early learning experiences. Results of this study showed such experi...

262 respondents from an organization for homosexual foot fetishists provide information from a broader sample than clinical cases and allow examination of the effects of sexual preference on fetishism. Data show a wide range of feet/footwear objects to be arousing. Such interests were often associated with particular types of men, yet interests wer...

For the past two generations, extensive research has been conducted on the determinants of homosexuality. But, until now, scant attention has been paid to what is perhaps the most mysterious--and potentially illuminating--variation of human sexual expression, bisexuality. Today, as ignorance and fear of AIDS make greater awareness of all forms of s...

Earlier we described patterns of bisexual activity, notably the mix of opposite-sex and same-sex partners, opposite and same-sex sexual behaviors, and the sexual problems that can ensue. Here we compare these patterns with those of heterosexuals and homosexuals. Thus we ask such questions as: Are there differences in the number of sexual partners b...

Although most of the bisexuals we interviewed were in a significant relationship or looking for one, nonmonogamy was a common aspect of these relationships. It took various forms: swinging, sexual triads, group sex parties, multiple involved partners, casual sex with friends, and anonymous sex at such places as gay bath houses or through pick-ups a...

How did the sexual preference of the bisexuals we interviewed change over five years? In our original study, about 40 percent of the bisexuals said a change in their self-definition was possible, but most of them thought it was unlikely (Chapter 3). Compared with heterosexuals and homosexuals, however, the bisexuals in our comparative study seemed...

In the last chapter, we argued that people become bisexual by developing an “open gender schema” that allows for the eroticization of both sexes. Further, for some persons, this form of sexual attraction can be organized around an identity-”bisexual.” But the links between the gender schema, sexual preference, and sexual identity are still not comp...

Whether an explanation for sexual preference is biological, psychological, or sociological, the basic presumption usually is that sexual preference is set early and changes little through life. In this view, any changes in sexual feelings, sexual behaviors, or romantic feelings are especially unlikely after adulthood. Further, it would be sexual fe...

For the past two generations, extensive research has been conducted on the determinants of homosexuality. But, until now, scant attention has been paid to what is perhaps the most mysterious--and potentially illuminating--variation of human sexual expression, bisexuality. Today, as ignorance and fear of AIDS make greater awareness of all forms of s...

We have already seen in this study that sexual preference is not always fixed but can be extremely malleable for some people. The bisexuals we studied often changed their behavior and feelings in response to changing circumstances, a fact that led us to emphasize environmental over internal factors in the construction of a bisexual preference. Like...

The transsexuals in our study not only had problems with their sexual identities (how they defined their sexual preference), but far deeper problems with their gender identities (their claims to being a man or woman). As we saw earlier, many of them relied on their sexual behaviors to establish their identities; to prove she was “really” a woman, t...

Sexual preference cannot be separated from involved relationships, because it is often through these relationships that sexual feelings and behaviors are realized and sexual identity maintained. The importance of significant others-in distinction to more casual sex partners-is often ignored in studies of sexual preference; sexual preference is cons...

Quarantine and its moral equivalent, stigmatization, function to maintain a boundary we find essential to our psychological wellbeing. We feel the need to separate ourselves not only from sickness and death, but from the perils of what has been called the “spoiled identity”-the fall from grace, the contagion of dirt. AIDS patients attract fear and...

In our earlier discussion of the emergence of sexual identity (Chapter 3), we outlined a pattern of sexual development among bisexuals. We saw an initial confusion over feelings, attractions, and behaviors, and we saw how bisexuals resolved this confusion by finding and applying a label for their sexual identity. Not all bisexuals settled into an i...

For the past two generations, extensive research has been conducted on the determinants of homosexuality. But, until now, scant attention has been paid to what is perhaps the most mysterious--and potentially illuminating--variation of human sexual expression, bisexuality. Today, as ignorance and fear of AIDS make greater awareness of all forms of s...

Bisexuality consists of a mingling of sexual feelings, behaviors, and romantic inclinations that does not easily gel with society’s categories of typical sexuality. But just how different is bisexuality from other forms of sexual attraction? What is sexual attraction, and how do we learn to be attracted to one sex or the other, or both? Ideas about...

For the past two generations, extensive research has been conducted on the determinants of homosexuality. But, until now, scant attention has been paid to what is perhaps the most mysterious--and potentially illuminating--variation of human sexual expression, bisexuality. Today, as ignorance and fear of AIDS make greater awareness of all forms of s...

Whether people label themselves as bisexual, gay, lesbian, or simply think of themselves as heterosexual, the acquisition of a sexual identity is obviously a pivotal aspect of sexual preference. There is, however, more to sexual preference than self-definition. What exactly underlies the labels people adopt for themselves, and what implications doe...

The Bisexual Center was established in the mid-1970s by a group of friends in San Francisco. The founders wanted to provide a safe haven for people who were interested in being sexual with both men and women and who wanted to get together and talk about their sexual preference. These first members met at various locations throughout the San Francis...

Under what circumstances can marriage and bisexuality coexist? How can the bisexual partner sustain a marriage without compromising on his/her sexual preference? Can disclosing bisexuality have positive consequences for a marriage or only negative ones? These are important questions, as many of the bisexuals we interviewed were married. Even among...

For the past two generations, extensive research has been conducted on the determinants of homosexuality. But, until now, scant attention has been paid to what is perhaps the most mysterious--and potentially illuminating--variation of human sexual expression, bisexuality. Today, as ignorance and fear of AIDS make greater awareness of all forms of s...

The way bisexual desires are realized raises interesting questions, especially because our society places great value on heterosexuality and monogamy, and the homosexual subculture embraces gender exclusiveness. Can bisexuals be truly committed to more than one partner or to partners of different sexes? How does the knowledge of same-sex relationsh...

In 1991 the New York Times and other media gave extensive coverage to a research report that suggested an answer to the question: How do people become homosexual?1 The researcher, the neuroscientist Simon LeVay, claimed to have found anatomical differences between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men and concluded that sexual preference is...

In the last chapter, in examining the development of sexual preference, we found that there is a considerable period of time between a person’s initial sexual attraction to and behavior with members of both sexes and his or her self-labeling as bisexual. Yet the label bisexual can mean very different things to different people. For example, as note...

Sociologist Erving Goffman describes a stigma as “an attribute that is deeply discrediting,” a social status that marks those who carry it as being “of a less desirable kind,” or an associated condition that transforms its owner “from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one.”1 Certainly many of the people in our study had been treated...

Up to this point we have presented a portrait of how bisexuals cope with the problem of personal identity and how they struggle with intimate relationships. But bisexual people, like others, live and work in a wider community, one that is not particularly accepting of the sexually unconventional. Since what they often consider a private matter can...

We have seen how bisexuals give meaning to their dual attractions. In this chapter, we examine how this relates to their sexual behaviors. We look at a variety of issues. First, what is the mix of opposite and same-sex patterns in bisexuals’ sexual lives. This will tell us just how loose the link between sex and gender is for them. Also, by looking...

For the past two generations, extensive research has been conducted on the determinants of homosexuality. But, until now, scant attention has been paid to what is perhaps the most mysterious--and potentially illuminating--variation of human sexual expression, bisexuality. Today, as ignorance and fear of AIDS make greater awareness of all forms of s...

For the past two generations, extensive research has been conducted on the determinants of homosexuality. But, until now, scant attention has been paid to what is perhaps the most mysterious--and potentially illuminating--variation of human sexual expression, bisexuality. Today, as ignorance and fear of AIDS make greater awareness of all forms of s...

Because of AIDS, bisexuals confronted a different world in 1988 than they had in 1983. Earlier, their major concern had been dealing with how others reacted to their sexual behavior. Now they also had to address the growing belief that bisexuals were carriers of HIV. Not only did this reinforce the conception that many lesbians had about bisexuals;...

While our interviews provided us with a rich look at the experience and reality of being bisexual, they could not show how bisexuals lived their sociosexual lives compared with homosexuals or heterosexuals. The bisexuals themselves raised a number of questions of this nature. Were bisexuals more or less likely to feel confused about their sexual id...

We began the book by posing a riddle: how can current theories of exclusive homosexuality, with their emphasis on fixed biological characteristics, explain bisexuality? It did not seem feasible to us that these theories could do justice to the complexity of a sexual preference in which people engage in sex with both same- and opposite-sex partners...

During our original round of interviews in 1983, we found that most of the bisexuals had a clear idea of the relationships they ideally wanted. The most common ideal was to have two primary relationships (one heterosexual and one homosexual). The second most commonly desired arrangement was one primary relationship (heterosexual) with a secondary (...

In recent years pornography has become a controversial political/moral issue sparking intense debate among a variety of groups. The purpose of the research carried out in 1988 and reported here was to examine attitudes about and exposure to sexually explicit materials for a representative sample of predominantly Caucasian students at a state univer...

This study examines a telephone switchboard that provides sex information to anonymous callers. Telephone volunteers undergo a training program in which they are taught a philosophical charter about sex that they are expected to follow in handling calls. Once working the telephone, volunteers creatively apply this charter to make sense of the calls...

Testing the theoretical statements of Alfred Kinsey and James Coleman regarding racial differences in sexual experience (Coleman, 1966; Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948), data from three samples, covering the period 1938–70, are brought to bear on the following hypotheses: (a) Black men and women are more sexually permissive than white men and women...

Social events in the sixties prompted some sociologists to anticipate substantial increases in the sexual activity of young people, especially college youth. Not until the seventies, however, could such marked changes be found. We propose that the need for the development of sexual scripts accounts for this lag. In general, women had had no sexual...

Traditional conceptions of sadomasochism are misleading. This is because they are not based on close examination of what the majority of SM participants actually do and how they interpret their own behaviors. Over a period of eight years, we interviewed a variety of SM participants and observed their behavior in many different settings. We found th...

Sex and marriage manuals contain sexual scripts about female sexuality and the role of women in heterosexual relationships. As attitudes change, new scripts become marketable; and as manuals articulate new scripts, they legitimate a redefinition of women's sexuality and roles. This paper looks at 49 manuals published in the United States from 1950...

Using the idea of "embourgeoisment," as it appears in stratification literature, that working-class people are increasingly adopting middle-class values and behaviors, this paper examines changes in the relationship between social class and sexual behavior over the last thirty years. Comparing data collected in 1938-63 with data collected in 1969-7...

The conditions described by males as ideal for impersonal sex include protection; ample, accessible opportunities; a known, shared, and organized reality; bounding of the experience; congeniality; and a comfortable physical setting. This paper examines gay baths in relation to these conditions. It also develops—from the male participants' perspecti...

As a continuation of the work of Schwartz, Fearn, and Stryker (1966), the following hypothesis, and a number of causal models associated with it, are tested: commitment to a deviant identity is positively correlated with (a) psychological adjustment, and (b) a report of significant others supportive of that identity. Data from 2,497 male homosexual...

Current conceptions of deviance have placed less emphasis on the role played by the deviant himself in being assigned a deviant label. To examine the role of the deviant, a sample of male homosexuals who had received less than honorable discharges from the military for homosexual conduct (LHD group) were compared with a sample who had received hono...

The folk view of age and the male homosexual is that the older the homosexual the less his sociosexual contact with other homosexuals due to a premium on youth in the homosexual world; and that the “old” homosexual is lower in psychological well being as a result of this sociosexual situation. The data reported in this paper support the social, but...

The authors describe the procedure by which men charged with homosexuality are classified as one of three organizationally recognized classes of homosexuals and processed to dishonorable," undesirable," or general" discharges usually correlated with such classifications. (DB)

Ph.D. (Sociology)--Northwestern University, 1965.

The responses of the Jewish residents of a New Jersey community to religious allegations that arose in the course of a local election were investigated by means of a questionnaire mailed to all known Jewish families in the community. The data indicated that Jewish participation and identity were positively related to a response of increased ethnoce...

Research of the Little People of America reveals the problems faced by stigmatized persons and how social organization can help to alleviate these problems. Important effects of membership in the L.P.A. include opportunities for social participation and mate selection, and the facilitation of psychological and role adjustments. A finding of the stu...

This paper deals with the generic process that underlies embarrassment in an attempt to understand its variable and invariable aspects. The theoretical framework is examined with data from nudist camps. The data show that the meaning of situations and the situational relevance of embarrassment are to specific social establishments. A similar type o...

This paper examines changes in the structure of the medical profession in Finland. Using questionnaire data from 93 per cent of the total population of Finnish physicians, the consequences of these changes, both for the physicians and for the country as a whole, are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the modes of behavior, demographic composition, social structure, and paths of mobility that characterize organized nudism. The data come from three sources : ( 1 ) two successive summers of participant observation in camps in the United States and Europe, (2) interviews with 101 nudists from the Chicago are...