Despite more than two centuries of research and theory regarding the nature of sexual identity-in religion, medicine, philosophy, sociology, psychoanalysis, law, anthropology, sociobiology, psychology, and myriad other fields-no unambiguous, universally adopted conceptual or operational definition, no objective way of assessing, sexual orientation has ever existed, nor does one exist today. Is real or perceived sexual behavior identity? When people discriminate against those they identify as "homosexual" or "bisexual," what is the nature of the "identity" to which they object? Little or no methodological examination of the beliefs and attitudes that inform research and theory on sexual identity has been postulated. This book is a sweeping analysis and critique of research and writing on sexual identity, on the historical and cultural processes that have contributed to the toxication and detoxication of "homosexual identity," and on the "normalization" of sexual relationships-from the nineteenth-century roots of the conceptualization of sexual identity to the end of the twentieth century.