ABSTRACT
"Queer theory", can illuminate how sexual orientation influences personal identity together with a good historical grasp, a theoretical perspective is essential to good teaching and counseling about homosexuality. This chapter probes the difference between experiencing gendered erotic attractions and developing an identity based on feelings—a distinction that informs an important contemporary scholarly debate. Extreme social constructionists argue that every aspect of sexuality is a cultural imposition. They hold that sexual desire is an intrapsychic product of one's interaction with the environment—that people start out virtually blank and must be taught both how and what to want sexually. Social constructionists concur with Sigmund Freud's position that the Greeks honored the (male) sexual instinct in all its forms with no regard for the sexual object. Essentialism supports the assertion of a "new ethnicity", used to obtain benefits in a multi-ethnic society.
