The night in June that gay men fought police raiding the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village marked the beginning of wider acceptance of male homosexuals. Homosexuality has not been considered pathological by mainstream psychiatry since the s, and in the years that followed, gay couples have begun to acknowledge their partnerships publicly. Isay, M. Many gay men are still suffering, however, said Isay. The main, though not the only, source of their distress, he thinks, lies in the ways their parents treated them as children. Mothers who enjoy the sensitivity and shared interests of gay sons may lean too much on them, using them to fulfill their unmet emotional needs. Isay believes that these dynamics can prevent adult gay men from forming long-term romantic bonds.

Over the last quarter century the incest model, with its image of helpless victims exploited and traumatized by powerful perpetrators, has come to dominate perceptions of virtually all forms of adult—minor sex. Thus, even willing sexual relations between gay or bisexual adolescent boys and adult men, which differ from father—daughter incest in many important ways, are generally seen by the lay public and professionals as traumatizing and psychologically injurious. This study assessed this common perception by examining a nonclinical, mostly college sample of gay and bisexual men.

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