Is the "homosexual" a type of person that has been with us in various guises throughout history? Is he or she simply a "being" that we are slowly discovering and understanding better? Or is the "homosexual" simply an invention of our century?

The authors of this original and important new work take this last view and argue that although "same-sex" sexual experiences may have existed throughout history, the notion of the "homosexual" is a peculiarly modern idea which has profound consequences in the structuring of recent homosexual experiences. The essays in this book take the contemporary construction of the homosexual as their common concern.