...And Then I Became Gay"": Young Men's Stories

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Routledge, Sep 5, 2013 - Family & Relationships - 272 pages

"...And Then I Became Gay is about the lives of young men who express the complications, adversities, and satisfactions of being a sexual outsider in North America during the 1980s and 1990s. Consisting of narratives which chronicle developmental progression from first memories of being attracted to other males to a subsequent integration of their sexual identity with a personal identity, this book is also unique in its cross-section of men from different ethnic backgrounds. Although each story in this volume has a personal meaning to the individual youth disclosing it, aspects of these narratives can express a normative experience growing up gay or bisexual during the past two decades. For many of the contributors and readers, these stories may prove to be not only ones of coming out, but coming of age.

 

Contents

1 Personal Stories and Sexuality
1
Memories of SameSex Attractions
21
3 Labeling Feelings and Attractions
47
4 First Gay Sex
67
5 First Heterosexual Sex
97
6 Labeling Self as Gay or Bisexual
121
7 Disclosure to Others
141
8 First Gay Romance
159
9 Positive Identity
181
10 Ethnic Youths
203
11 The Diversity of Gay Youth
221
Notes
235
Copyright

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About the author (2013)

Ritch C. Savin-Williams is Professor of Clinical and Developmental Psychology at Cornell University. He is co-editor of The Lives of Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals: Children to Adults (1996).

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