Persistent pathologies: The odd coupling of alcoholism and homosexuality in the discourses of twentieth century science.

Abstract

<italic>Persistent Pathologies</italic> tracks the association between homosexuality and alcoholism in research produced by four scientific disciplines throughout the twentieth century: psychoanalysis, psychology, sociology and epidemiology. It examines the constancy of the claim that gay, lesbian and bisexual people experience higher rates of alcohol problems than their heterosexual counterparts. Despite various approaches across different historical contexts, and often against data suggesting otherwise, scientists have maintained, and perpetually revitalized, a correlation between homosexuality and substance abuse. 'Alcoholism,' as the term is now understood in scientific writing, first appeared in research on homosexuality at the turn of the twentieth century. Alcoholism and homosexuality were further drawn together by the psychoanalytic theory suggesting latent homosexuality as the single etiological cause of alcohol disorders. American psychologists tested this theory on treatment populations of alcoholics at mid-century. Not finding a clear association, they shifted attention to 'overt' homosexuals as more likely to evidence alcohol problems, and by the early 1970s, alcoholism emerged as a particular problem for the gay community. In the debates over the inclusion of homosexuality within the <italic>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Diseases</italic>, activists and researchers argued that while some percentage of the gay population suffered from mental disorders, this could not be true of the population as a whole. Following this logic, scientists turned their attention to the prevalence of psychopathology among the gay population, producing research which furthered, rather than disrupted, the longstanding correlation between homosexuality and alcohol addiction. Examined from a historical perspective, the continuity of the alcohol-homosexuality association evidences the presence of a larger, and largely subterranean, structuring frame persistently linking homosexuality to disease, while conversely protecting heterosexuality from any linkage to risk or bad health. <italic> Persistent Pathologies</italic> draws together the history of addiction and historical studies in sexuality, using a theoretical framework from cultural studies, queer theory, the history of sexuality, and the philosophy of science to investigate the effects of depathologization on what homosexuality has come to mean in the discourses of health science. This thesis argues that current conceptions of risk and health used in the health sciences continue to contain homosexuality within a sickness model.