An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society

by Jennifer Terry

Drawing on original research from medical texts, psychiatric case histories, pioneering statistical surveys, first-person accounts, legal cases, sensationalist journalism, and legislative debates, Jennifer Terry has written a nuanced and textured history of how the century-old obsession with homosexuality is deeply tied to changing American anxieties about social and sexual order in the modern age.

Terry's overarching argument is that homosexuality served as a marker of the "abnormal" against which malleable, tenuous, and often contradictory concepts of the "normal" were defined. One of the few histories to take into consideration homosexuality in both women and men, Terry's work also stands out in its refusal to erase the agency of people classified as abnormal. She documents the myriad ways that gays, lesbians, and other sexual minorities have coauthored, resisted, and transformed the most powerful and authoritative modern truths about sex. Proposing this history as a "useable past," An American Obsession is an indispensable contribution to the study of American cultural history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Queer, Science, Queer Studies, Psychology, LGBT

551 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 1999

About the author

Jennifer Terry is Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Irvine, the author of An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society, and coeditor of Processed Lives: Gender and Technology in Everyday Life and Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture.

Reviews

[Alok Vaid-Menon · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most comprehensive books on the subject out there. Really enjoyed this. Longer report coming.

[Cecillia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent historical overview of the various medical and psychological theories applied to homosexuality in the US from the late 1800's through 1960's placed in their social and cultural context.

[Tamlynem · Rating 2 out of 5]

While there are a few interesting nuggets (Margaret Meads views on homosexuality, some physicians back in the day were way more liberal you'd think, the proliferation of "pansy acts" in the 1920s were frequented by the well-to-do, and the transgender persons in some Native American tribes)this read like a thesis turned into a book. Also the cover is awkward to say nothing of some of the research photos on the inside.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice overview of the medical debates over homosexuality during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Relies heavily on gender theory and Foucault, and is well-researched.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although a bit of a slow read, this book covers well the breadth of scientific and medical views of homosexuality, and the social interplay throughout the 19th/20th centuries.