The Desire for Parenthood Murphy, Dean A.
Journal of family issues,
08/2013, Volume:
34, Issue:
8
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Gay men are becoming increasingly involved in reproduction despite significant barriers limiting their access to reproductive technologies or legal parentage in many jurisdictions. Based on in-depth ...interviews with gay men in the United States and Australia who have become parents through surrogacy, I explore how gay men understand their desire to have children and what frames their parenthood experiences. The notion of choice is widespread in understandings of gay parenthood and family formation. Most of the men in this study did not develop a “procreative consciousness” as a result of sexual and fertility-related events. The majority also initially accepted the notion that homosexuality was synonymous with childlessness. Awareness of the possibilities for parenthood emerged over time through the promotional activities of surrogacy agencies, through media, peers, and relationship partners. Additionally, men played with the symbols of kinship to negotiate and obscure biogenetic paternity.
Relationship arrangements about sex with outside partners are common among gay couples, and meaningful distinctions in psychological and behavioral health correlates have been found among ...nonmonogamous agreement types. The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between sexual agreements and partners' sexual relationship quality. Data were collected from both members of 161 gay male couples (n = 322 individuals). Couples were categorized as monogamous (52.8%), open (13.0%), monogamish (14.9%), and discrepant (19.3%). We used the actor−partner interdependence model (APIM) to assess associations of relationship arrangement with four aspects of sexual relationship quality: sexual satisfaction, sexual communication, sexual jealousy, and the occurrence of at-least weekly sex between main partners. We found that sexual arrangements were not associated with sexual satisfaction, communication, or frequency. However, monogamous men reported significantly higher levels of sexual jealousy. Our findings indicate that gay men engage in a range of relationship agreements, and nonmonogamous agreements are associated with levels of sexual relationship quality equivalent to monogamous agreements.
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Oropharyngeal lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV) is an uncommon presentation and mainly consists of either asymptomatic infections or enlarged cervical lymphadenopathy. According to cross-sectional ...studies, the prevalence of pharyngeal LGV among men who have sex with men (MSM) seems to be very low. Tissue tropism could explain the difference between rectal and oral mucosa infection frequencies. This paper reports the singular case of an oral ulcer caused by LGV in an MSM who had also an asymptomatic rectal infection. Given the increasing number of cases of LGV, unusual presentations such as oral ulceration may be seen more frequently.
Until December 2017, there were no legal provisions within the Commonwealth of Australia for same-sex couples to marry in the same sense that their heterosexual friends and family can. Civil unions ...provide similar legal protections as marriage, but many argue that this is not enough - that same-sex couples occupy a 'second-class' citizen status in relation to marriage. Many jurisdictions globally recognise marriage equality: the UK, New Zealand, Canada and the USA, to name but a few globally, and those societies most similar to Australia's. This article explores the attitudes towards elements of marriage equality among a group of gay men in Australia. Despite the 'yes' vote for marriage equality polling about two-thirds of eligible voters, a slew of symbolically violent messages appeared, including 'Vote No' skywritten across the emblematic Sydney Harbour, and 'Vote no to faggots' graffiti etched across Sydney train carriages. The importance of love is key in defence against this symbolic violence.
No published data is currently available on mental health symptoms and suicidality in Iranian gay men - a population facing serious legal threats including capital punishment.
The present study ...provides initial data on this topic by assessing mental health symptoms (SCL-90) and suicidality (BSSI) in N = 213 gay men in Tehran, Iran.
Last-week mental health symptoms were severe in 4.2% of gay men, moderate in 7.5%, minor in 27.7%, and absent in 61.6% of Iranian gay men. Regarding last-week suicidality: 1.9% were highly likely to attempt suicide, 7.5% reported having threatened to commit suicide, 19.7% reported suicidal ideation, and 80.28% revealed no suicidality. Last-week mental health symptoms and last-week suicidality were correlated in gay men to a high degree.
When descriptively comparing the SCL-90 and BSSI scores with those in the general Iranian population reported in previous studies, gay men reported more serious mental health symptoms, and more suicidal ideation, threats, and attempts. The decriminalization of same-sex sexual encounters and accepting social attitudes towards gay men are needed in Iran to help improve this population's mental health and reduce their suicidality.
Since the end of the nineteenth century, the Korean people have faced successive waves of foreign domination, authoritarian regimes, forced dispersal, and divided development. Throughout these ...turbulent times, “queer” Koreans were ignored, minimized, and erased in narratives of their modern nation, East Asia, and the wider world. This interdisciplinary volume challenges such marginalization through critical analyses of non-normative sexuality and gender variance. Considering both personal and collective forces, the contributors extend individualized notions of queer neoliberalism beyond those typically set in Western queer theory. Along the way, they recount a range of illuminating topics, from shamanic rituals during the colonial era and B-grade comedy films under Cold War dictatorship to female masculinity among today’s youth and transgender confrontations with the resident registration system. More broadly, Queer Korea offers readers new ways of understanding the limits and possibilities of human liberation under exclusionary conditions of modernity in Asia and beyond.Contributors. Pei Jean Chen, John (Song Pae) Cho, Chung-kang Kim, Todd A. Henry, Merose Hwang, Ruin, Layoung Shin, Shin-ae Ha, John Whittier Treat
La marcha por el Orgullo Lésbico, Gay, Bisexual y Transgénero se realiza cada año en Santiago de Chile y aglutina a minorías sexuales, pero también a heterosexuales que asisten para apoyar a dicha ...población en la reinvindación de sus derechos. Específicamente, el propósito del estudio realizado fue describir a gay y lesbianas participantes en la Marcha del Orgullo desde el punto de vista de la discriminación y la victimización. Se centró solo en dicha población ya que mayoritariamente es la que asiste a la marcha y porque no existen estudios previos que comparen en el país a ambos grupos. Además, tuvo como objetivo mostrar que los hombres gay sufren más discriminación y victimización que las lesbianas. La muestra consistió en 203 gay y lesbianas mayores de 18 años. Con respecto a los resultados, la proporción de gay que reportaron haber percibido eventos de discriminación fue igual al 72.7% y 79.6% en las lesbianas. Asimismo, el 81.8% del total de los gay reportaron eventos de victimización y un 75.3% del total de las lesbianas. Se observan diferencias significativas entre gay y lesbianas, afectando solo a las últimas, en la prohibición de entrada o permanencia en lugares de entretención, discriminación ejercida por agentes de seguridad y discriminación laboral. Entre los eventos de victimización, gay informaron más burlas que las lesbianas. Se concluye que hay similaridades en los eventos de discriminación y victimización percibidos por gay y lesbianas, pero también algunas diferencias. La existencia de un patrón diferenciado entre gay y lesbianas deberá ser confirmada en futuros estudios. Palabras clave: Hombres gay; Lesbianas; Discriminación; Victimización; Chile. The Lesbian, Gay men, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Parade takes place in Santiago (Chile) every year. It gathers sexual minorities and also heterosexuals who attend to support LGBT population rights vindication. Specifically, the objective of the study was to describe gay men and lesbians who participate in the LGBT Pride Parade, from the viewpoint of discrimination and victimization. In this sense, this study is innovating because it is based on questionnaires administered in the context of LGBT Pride Parades. In Chile, data on this issue are scarce. There are few previous studies on the topic, revealing that many LGBT people report discrimination and victimization in different situations and contexts. Nevertheless, these studies have not clearly stated the existing differences in the patterns of discrimination and victimization events that affect the different groups (for example, those that affect gay men and lesbians). So, the study focused only on this population for two reasons: first, mainly LGBT subjects attend the parade and secondly, there were no previous studies to compare both groups in the country. Second, the study also aimed at showing that gay men suffer greater discrimination and victimization than lesbians. A non-probabilistic sample of 343 participants was collected. From this sample, 140 subjects were excluded as they did not identify themselves as gay men or lesbians, thus totaling a sample of 203 participants. There were a total of 110 gay men (54.2%) and 93 lesbians (45.8%), aging from 18 to 53 years (M = 24.62 and SD = 6.62). Concerning results, 72.7% of gay men reported discrimination events perceived, as compared to 79.6% of lesbians. In addition, 81.8% of gay men reported victimization events, while lesbians reported 75.3 %. Significant differences are observed between gay men and lesbians, affecting only the latter in: prohibition to enter or stay in entertainment venues, discrimination by security guards, and discrimination at work. Among victimization events, gays reported more mockery than lesbians. This study has various implications. One of them is the fact that an important place where gay men and particularly lesbians are discriminated is their workplace. Future studies will have to focus on investigating the impact of discrimination due to sexual orientation in a work context. In addition, future studies should further examine whether verbal mockery-type victimization and its impact on the gay men population is a common pattern of victimization toward the country's LGBT population. Likewise, it would be necessary to study whether other relevant dimensions in the country, such as social class and religion, contribute to experiencing this type of victimization. Also, there are therapists in Chile who consider homosexuality as an illness and apply reconversive therapies, thus contributing to stigmatization and violence toward sexual minorities. Therefore, this study may contribute to the training of future therapists and health personnel assisting gay men and lesbians since sexual minorities have reported that they face various barriers that prevent them from having equal access to health services, a fact that could have a great impact on their quality of life. Finally, considering the differences in discrimination and victimization found between gay men and lesbians in Chile: Do gay men experience more discrimination and victimization events than lesbians? Are there two different patterns of discrimination and victimization or, instead, a general one that affects both gay men and lesbians in Chile? Data are not conclusive. They indicate that there are many similarities in the discrimination and victimization events perceived by gay men and lesbians, but they also reveal two different patterns. Therefore, the existence of a differentiated pattern of discrimination and victimization between gay men and lesbians should be confirmed by future studies. Key words: Gay men; Lesbians; Discrimination; Victimization; Chile.
INTRODUCTION:HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has been increasingly adopted by gay and bisexual men (GBM). Little is known about whether individual GBM change their sexual behavior after PrEP ...initiation.
METHODS:Following Lives Undergoing Change (Flux) is a national, online, prospective observational study among Australian GBM. Using McNemar statistics, we compare rates of sexual behaviors before and coincident with PrEP initiation among 1518 non–HIV-positive men recruited between August 2014 and July 2017 who had not commenced PrEP at baseline and who completed at least one 6-monthly follow-up surveys by July 2018.
RESULTS:The proportion of men using PrEP rose to 24.2% over time. In total, 348 men initiated PrEP during follow-up. PrEP initiators were more likely to report particular sexual behaviors during the follow-up period that they commenced PrEP compared with the period immediately priorreceptive condomless anal intercourse with casual partners increased from 31.0% to 48.9% (McNemar < 0.001); mean partner number increased from 21.96 partners to 34.55 partners (p-trend < 0.001). Among the 1170 men who did not initiate PrEP, prevalence of these behaviors remained lower and stable. Sexual sensation-seeking and gay social engagement were both higher among men who commenced PrEP.
CONCLUSIONS:GBM tended to increase their engagement in “adventurous” sexual behaviors after PrEP initiation. Sexual behaviors among men who did not initiate PrEP were less common and did not change over time.
Objectives: Studies have shown that grit-defined as perseverance and passion for achieving one's long-term goals-is associated with improved health outcomes, including lower levels of psychological ...distress. However, the psychometric properties of the original Grit Scale (Grit-O Scale) has not been validated among sexual minority men (SMM). The present study aimed to validate the Grit-O Scale among a sample of older SMM and assess the relationships between the Grit-O Scale factors and symptoms of psychological distress.
Method: We used data from a single visit of participants in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) Healthy Aging longitudinal study. The sample included 981 older SMM (mean age = 61, SD = 8.5) with and without HIV. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to identify the two factors of the Grit-O Scale: consistency of interest and perseverance of effort. We also conducted a latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify distinct profiles of psychological distress from self-reported scales of depression, anxiety, and perceived stress.
Results:The Grit-O Scale showed acceptable reliability estimates for the items with Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients ranging from 0.77 to 0.82. The CFA identified the two factors of the Grit-O Scale with acceptable model fit (root mean square error of approximation = 0.058 95% CI = 0.050, 0.067, comparative fit index = 0.95, Tucker-Lewis Index = 0.93, standardized root mean square residual = 0.07). The LPA yielded three mutually exclusive profiles of psychological distress (profile 1: low stress, anxiety, and depression; profile 2: high stress and depression and low anxiety; and profile 3: high stress, anxiety, and depression). In adjusted multinominal logistic regression analysis, we found that both higher levels of consistency of interest and perseverance of effort factors of the Grit-O Scale were significantly associated with decreased odds of being in profiles 2 and 3 compared with being in profile 1.
Conclusion: Our findings support the use of the Grit-O Scale among older SMM. Grit factors could explain variability in the negative psychological symptoms among older SMM and warrant further investigation.
Supplemental data for this article is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2022.2032594
In this rich ethnography of Oaxaca, Mexico, the authors look at the lives of people that are often marginalized: the urban poor, transvestite and female prostitutes, discapacitados (the physically ...challenged), gays and lesbians, and artists and intellectuals.
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