Biased use of cross-cultural and historical perspectives on male homosexuality in human sexuality textbooks

Consistent with lay and professional views, Masters, Johnson, and Kolodny (1985), in an early edition of their human sexuality textbook, presented man-man sex as normal and acceptable but man-boy sex as pathological and unacceptable Despite drawing these moral distinctions, they used a series of examples of socially sanctioned man-boy sex in other cultures to provide perspective on Western man-man sex, suggesting its normalcy and potential to be socially accepted. They ignored these same examples when discussing Western man-boy sex. This paper examines the biased use of cross-cultural and historical data on homosexuality in a sample of more recent human sexuality textbook (n = 18). A brief review of male homosexuality in other times and places is presented which shows the prevalence of man-boy sex, but the rarity of the Western man-man pattern, cross-culturally and historically. This finding further questions the practice of using man-boy examples for Western man-man, but not man-boy, sex. Seventeen of the textbooks in the current sample exhibited the same biases found in the earlier Masters et al. textbook. Only one used man-boy examples in other societies for perspective on Western man-boy sex. It is argued that these biases hinder rather than advance the objectivity that can result from the proper use of cross-cultural and historical perspective.