Sexuality is More Varied Than You Think

Retired neuropsychologist and mother of two gay sons, Olive Skene Johnson, Ph.D. explores gender and sexual orientation in Sexual Spectrum: Exploring Human Diversity.

(PGW: Berkeley, CA) What would you do if you learned that two of your sons were gay? Well, as a parent, youd certainly want to know WHY. And if youre also a psychologist, youd probably turn to science to answer that question.

Thats exactly what Olive Skene Johnson did when she learned that her two older sons were gay. The mother of five adult children, who is also a clinical psychologist, Dr. Johnson was baffled.

I just couldnt understand it," she says now. Id just assumed that our sons would turn out to be straight, like all of our friends sons. I thought at first we must have done something wrong as parents. But if that were true, why were our three younger children -- two daughters and an adopted son -- all straight?"

After reviewing all of the science about homosexuality, Dr. Johnson realized that most peoples sexual orientation appears to be fixed at birth, and that families have little influence on it. The studies that compared families with and without gay children found no differences between them that would explain their childrens different sexual orientations.

But Dr. Johnsons enquiry ended up going far beyond homosexuality. She went on to study all other human sexualities too, and that made her realize how truly diverse human sexuality actually is.

I learned that its not just a matter of a few people being gay or bisexual or transsexual or intersexual, and everybody else being straight," she says. Even among straight people theres enormous variability. Sexuality isnt just about who youre attracted to; its about how you think, how you feel, how you act. The truth is, the range of human sexuality is actually more like a vast spectrum, with each of us occupying our own little niche, regardless of how we label ourselves."

Dr. Johnson realized there was a desperate need for a book that would tell other people how diverse the human species actually is. But when her search for such a book in her local library and bookstores turned up nothing, she realized she would have to write it herself. This was too important to keep to myself," she said. And so, following retirement from her private Psychology practice in her seventies, she wrote The Sexual Spectrum: Exploring Human Diversity ($15.95, 1-55192-681-4, Raincoast/Publishers Group West). Dr. Johnson lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Sexual Spectrum: Exploring Human Diversity
by Olive Skene Johnson
Raincoast • Spring 2005
5 ½ x 8, 276pp
1-55192-681-4• $15.95
Trade Paperback

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