ABSTRACT
Emile Durkheim is well known for his study Suicide, which presents a sociological perspective on suicide rates. Durkheim takes the stance that suicide rates are social facts, which vary from one society to the next and from one time period to the next and tell us something about the social world. In the realm of sexuality, popular culture is becoming a vehicle for new ways to think about sexual orientation. The new visibility of gay characters and artists is providing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youths with more images of people like them. The emergence of gay- and lesbian-themed culture happened much earlier in the music industry, even if that industry still struggles to bring queer culture into the mainstream. On rare occasions the corporations of the culture industry play a direct role in identity politics. Google is one company that has chosen to weigh in on gay politics, at the risk of alienating more conservative customers.
