ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors explain what new perspectives they can bring to an understanding of sexual culture and lifeways in the United States, especially the development of what they might call a new sexual culture and community of gay men and lesbians in America. However, gays and lesbians are experiencing a growing freedom from oppression, and many hold the view that sexual orientation should be a basic human right to be defended by the courts of the world and championed by such organizations as the United Nations and Amnesty International. Twentieth-century struggles for emancipation of homosexuals in the Netherlands were given shape by the Dutch Society for Integration of Homosexuality/Center for Culture and Relaxation (NVIH/COC). The growing acceptance of bisexual life-style and label within the gay community is evidenced by the number of organizations that have shifted to the more inclusive term "lesbian, gay, and bisexual."
