The article has three major purposes. First, it adumbrates four contexts within the discourse on sexual identity has been carried on: the historical, bisexual, homosexual, and biological. Within these contexts sexual identity has been conceived in three general forms: the biological, psychological, and socio-cultural. The biological form is the most basic since all conceptualizations of sexual identity make the biological sex of partners in sexual relationship the criteria distinction. Second, the article addresses problems that have arisen in each of the contexts, the incorporation of unacknowledged moral judgments, and the misapplication of the scientific method. Third, it identifies conceptual, methodological, and moral advantages in redirecting the discourse on sexual identity so that the focus of inquiry is on sexual relationships: (a) the focus is shifted form isolated individuals to their mutual association. (b) Social scientist could conceive of sexual relationships in other than biological terms or metaphors. (c) The shift would capitalize on the advantages of the psychoanalytic method (the exploration of personally constructed meaning) and symbolic interactions (the identification of socially contracted meanings) while avoiding the pitfalls of relying on one of these approaches to the exclusion of the other. (d) The shift would allow investigators to view sexual relationships form the vantage point of a morality of individual choice rather than a traditional morality of externally imposed obligation.
Tijdschrift beschrijving