Toward improved interpretation and theory building of African American male sexualities.

Significant growth in the study of human sexual behavior has occurred over the past 20 years, with a heavy emphasis on determinants of sexual risk behavior and with populations (e.g., self-identified gay men, men who have sex with men [MSM]) that have previously been neglected in sex research (Parker & Aggleton, 1999; Parker, Herdt, & Carballo, 1991). Several populations disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic including ethnic minority heterosexual women have formed the central focus of this growth and have been the subject of an increasing body of research. However, heterosexual men in general and heterosexual African American men in particular have been largely neglected in this new growth of sexuality literature, with implications for public health, sexual health, and sexual science (Exner, Gardos, Seal, & Ehrhardt, 1999).

We take the position that an understanding of the range of male African American sexualities in a variety of contexts is important. We believe that tying together multiple behaviors and contexts into a conceptual whole for analysis and theory building should be the goal of sexual science in this domain. A social constructionist perspective informs our work in this area; we do not believe there is an essential African American sexuality if, as DeLamater and Hyde have described, essential sexuality is natural, universal, and biologically determined (DeLamater & Hyde, 1998). Rather, we believe that similarities in African American males' sexual lives are more likely due to similar social constructions and/or social experiences faced by African Americans in particular social and historical milieus.

It is important to note that the research literature concerning African American women's sexuality is sparse (Reid & Bing, 2000; Reid & Kelly, 1994), although advances have been made, particularly in exploration of women's conceptions of their own sexualities (e.g., Tolman, 1996, 2001). Many of the challenges for research about African American male sexualities therefore apply to research with African American women as well as other ethnic minority group members. We have chosen to focus our examination of these issues within the context of African American men's lives, while realizing that sexuality does occur for many African American men in the context of male-female relations.

CHALLENGES TO UNDERSTANDING AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE SEXUALITIES

From our reading of the sex research literature examining the sexual behavior of African American men and the critical literature concerning this work, we have synthesized five significant challenges to an understanding of African American male sexuality useful to sexual science research. These challenges are as follows: (a) incorrect assumptions of homogeneity of sexual behavior in African American men; (b) lack of appreciation of the dynamic nature of sexuality in general, thus assuming little developmental change in male African American sexuality across the lifespan; (c) a focus on description of behavior, ignoring contexts in which behavior must occur for African Americans (e.g., racism, high rates of HIV); (d) a focus on overt sexual behaviors (e.g., sexual debut, condom usage) as opposed to the meaning of sexual behaviors from the perspective of the actors; and (e) lack of a compelling theoretical grounding for African American sexuality in general.

Incorrect Assumptions of Homogeneity

Incorrect assumptions of homogeneity in behavior are a problem endemic to social science investigations of ethnic minorities in general, not just the study of African American sexuality (McLoyd & Randolph, 1985; Sue, 1999; Wyatt, 1994). The use of the term Black, a racial signifier, masks the range of diverse ethnic groups of African descent under one banner. It is necessary to define who we are talking about when we use such terms as Black or African American. We use the term African American here to identify persons who self-identify with African ancestors who were involuntary immigrants to the United States (Ogbu, 1990). This is in contrast to voluntary immigrants such as Afro-Caribbeans, who were involuntary immigrants to their own country but who have immigrated to the U.S. voluntarily. This distinction is especially important because some Afro-Caribbeans hold themselves in contradistinction to African Americans, who are perceived as morally suspect, lazy, and sexually undisciplined (Kasinitz, Battle, & Miyares, 2001; Ulysse, 2001; Waters, 1999). Cultural differences abound across groups that may be perceived as racially monolithic but are ethnically and thus culturally diverse. However, when discussing research findings and theories, we will use the terms that are used by the source cited (e.g., Black feminist theory).

We also believe that both ethnic and racial group terms are useful and have relevance both inside and outside social science research. For example, there is evidence that the use of racial or ethnic terms such as Black or African American helps to organize political and social identities for persons of African descent (Philogene, 1999, 2001). Race, as the organizing variable in race-based discriminatory practices, is still an important variable to consider when examining sexual beliefs and behaviors. Thus, we use the term White to refer to the diverse, overarching category of European Americans and the race-based privilege this group as a whole enjoys, while recognizing that there is considerable variation in the amount of privilege that White-identified individuals hold.

Socioeconomic status (SES) is also an important confounder in social science research with ethnic minority samples. When studying ethnic minority adults, researchers have recruited samples largely from low-SES populations and have generalized results to the behavior of all members of the group under study (S. Graham, 1992; Jones, 1991). Middle-class African Americans are not usually the subjects of any studies on African Americans, much less the subjects of studies on sexuality (Bynum, 2001; Reid, 1993). Our social science and indeed our broader cultural understanding of African Americans is based on African Americans living in poverty. A substantial proportion of African Americans live in poverty (22.1% in 2000; U.S. Census Bureau, 2001), but an African American elite has existed since before the end of slavery (L. O. Graham, 1999). Wyatt (1997) recounted the effect of racial stereotypes on many (middle-class) African American women, who resisted notions of Black female sexual voracity by constraining their sexual expression. If social class is a possible indicator of differences in sexual behavior (Santelli, Lowry, Brener, & Robin, 2000), then the sexual beliefs and practices of African Americans of differing SES may also vary in important ways.

There may also be much variation in sexual behavior and meanings within similar socioeconomic strata. Anderson (1993, 1997) explored the differences between "decent" people living in poverty and "street" people living in the same urban, Northeastern U.S. neighborhood; Anderson's use of the terms decent and street was not judgmental and was based on the self-description of persons in the community. "Decent" people were persons characterized by relatively more engagement with values of family cohesion, legally sanctioned work, and education and rejection of criminal acts such as drug dealing as valued ways to gain success. "Street" people were persons who tended to reject legal work and education, whose families tended to show less cohesion, and who often engaged in criminal acts to survive. Anderson (1997) characterized the interaction between street men and women as combative; street men tended to measure masculinity by counts of sexual partners and sexual assertiveness whereas street women tended to report narratives of relationship. There was an element of trickery or gamesmanship as street men and women maneuvered to fulfill their expectations around sexual activity. Although Anderson stated that sexual codes were similar between street and decent persons, decent persons tended to avoid playing this game because their future plans could be derailed by pregnancy or other consequences. Thus, we see that researchers collecting data in the same neighborhood may get very different results depending on their recruiting methods, and without expectation of heterogeneity of sexual beliefs and practices, may believe they have adequately sampled the target population.

One possible reason for homogeneity in the research literature may have to do with common methodologies or analytic strategies. Social scientists may have an interest in obtaining data at the racial or ethnic group level because they believe, a priori, that these groups are a salient level of organization for the design of interventions. Or perhaps they may wish to engage in racial or ethnic group comparisons. Therefore, in data analysis, researchers may look for shared group characteristics and disregard within-group variance as "noise" or hope that through various controls they can minimize this variance to increase statistical power. Thus, when faced with heterogeneity in sexual behavior in low-SES or ethnic minority samples, researchers may question the data rather than question their assumptions about the urban poor or urban ethnic minority persons.

Demographic categories such as race, ethnicity, or gender lose their usefulness if they are not tightly defined or if they serve as proxy variables for other associated variables such as social class or social stigma. Demographic variables are also multidimensional, and some aspects may be responsible for statistically significant relationships between variables. For example, Sellars and his colleagues posited that racial identity has four dimensions: racial salience, racial centrality, racial ideology, and racial regard (Sellars, Smith, Shelton, Rowley, & Chavous, 1998). Salience refers to the importance of racial membership to a person's self-concept at a particular moment, while centrality refers to the importance of racial membership to a person's self-concept across time. Racial ideology is the set of expectations and beliefs a person has about his or her racial group, and regard is a person's affective judgment of his or her racial group (Rowley, Sellers, Chavous, & Smith, 1998). African American gay men who have a strong sense of themselves as African American and as gay men (i.e., higher racial and sexual identity salience) have higher levels of self-esteem and HIV prevention self-efficacy and stronger social supports than do low-salience African American gay men (Crawford, Allison, Zamboni, & Soto, 2002). In the context of the significant challenges documented for African American and other ethnic minority gay men (e.g., higher rates of anxiety disorders, higher rates of depression, increased sense of fatalism), it is important to highlight the aspects beyond group membership that are responsible for these challenges (Diaz, 1997; Richardson, Myers, Bing, & Satz, 1997). Ideally, we would suggest that researchers specify those aspects of racial or ethnic status or other demographic characteristics that are responsible for the sexuality outcomes under study (e.g., SES, type and strength of racial identity, resistance to stigma) and operationalize those aspects in a valid fashion (Sue, 1999).

Another reason for the belief in homogeneity of African Americans may be the belief in an essential African American (hetero)sexuality. This belief may be held explicitly, as in Afrocentric-oriented psychological research, which posits a shared, African psychosocial essence for all persons of African descent (Azibo, 1989). This is a positive depiction of the African worldview and personality structure that can be juxtaposed against the largely implicit belief in a deficient African American culture and worldview found in disparate sources such as government documents (Moynihan, 1967) and social science research (Rushton, 1997). Unfortunately, the deficit model applied to African Americans and their sexuality has a long history in psychological literature as well as in broader American culture (D'Emilio & Freedman, 1997)

In summary, it is important to resist treating researcher-organized groupings as essential categories defining sexuality for particular groups, even if those groupings resemble those found within society. The shared group characteristics found in sexual science data for African Americans (i.e., higher rates of adolescent pregnancy, early sexual debut) may be responses to commonly shared experiences (e.g., poverty, racism), but not all African Americans have the same experiences or respond to these experiences in the same way. It may seem paradoxical to stress the importance of examining the lives of African American men while seemingly mitigating the importance of the category. However, we believe it is important for sexual scientists to define narrowly and clearly, when possible, racial and ethnic status or other demographic variables within sex research.

Lack of Appreciation of the Dynamic Nature of Sexuality

In examining the research literature, we found that there is a relative lack of normative developmental research on African American male sexuality, one possible measure of dynamic change in sexual expression over time. Bowser (1994) discussed the lack of appreciation of the dynamic nature of sexuality in the context of beliefs of the monolithic nature of African American sexual behavior. He questioned whether researchers believe that African American male sexuality changes from one context to the next or even if one can change aspects of one's sexual behavior. We see a number of ways that dynamic change can occur in the context of sexuality: ontogenetic change, or intraindividual developmental change that occurs through normative social, physical, and emotional processes from childhood to adulthood and beyond; socio-historical cohort effects, which are individual differences in age cohorts due to cultural or social changes in sexually oriented beliefs and practices; or microgenetic change, referring to individual differences in sexual beliefs and behaviors due to changes in levels of sexual experience (Werner & Kaplan, 1963). The examination of developmental change in sexual behavior, particularly in regard to ontogenetic change, has not been systemically integrated into sex research to produce a single accepted theoretical approach (Serbin & Sprafkin, 1987). Investigations of sexual development seem to be domain specific (e.g., adolescent pregnancy, early sexual debut) while employing a variety of methodologies in their analyses of development and dynamic change (Serbin & Sprafkin, 1987). Many of these studies incorporate cross-sectional methods, which are of limited utility in describing developmental change (Magnusson, 1993).

Longitudinal studies are the gold standard in the examination of developmental change (Magnusson, 1993); unfortunately there are few longitudinal studies that focus on normative African American sexual development in childhood and adolescence and no studies of African American sexual development across the lifespan per se. There is some research on African American gay and lesbian development at various points across the lifespan, including studies with older African American gay men (e.g., Adams & Kimmel, 1997), older lesbians (e.g., Greene, 2002), and adolescents (e.g., Dube, Savin-Williams, & Diamond, 2001). The connections between these developmental periods have not been made empirically for any group, but we do know that when comparisons are made within a developmental period, ethnic group differences are found within developmental pathways. Among heterosexual White adolescents, Smith and Udry (1985) found an ordering of precoital activity from kissing to sexual touching outside of clothing to sexual touching underneath clothing and then to vaginal intercourse. Smith and Udry (1985) found that Black adolescents did not report this ordering, and many had engaged in vaginal intercourse first, a significant difference that does not bode well for cross-ethnic equivalence in sexual development trajectories. Large probability sample surveys such as the National Survey of Adolescent Males (Sonenstein, Ku, Lindberg, Turner, & Pleck, 1998) and the National Health and Social Life Survey (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994) that include African American respondents provide a cross-sectional snapshot of sexual behavior and attitudes across age cohorts, and can provide some knowledge of changes across cohorts.

The National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health; Resnick et al., 1997), an influential school-based survey of over 90,000 7th to 12th graders, provides useful information on transformations in sexual activity due to developmental change and other influences. However, one limitation of this very rich data set is that individuals within this national survey are only interviewed twice at a 1-year interval, thus providing information on short-term dynamic change in sexual activity only. Another limitation is Add Health's focus on adolescents; preadolescent influences on adolescent sexuality and developmental transitions to early adulthood can only be inferred at present.

Bowser (1994) presented intriguing data concerning cohort effects between African American heterosexual men raised in the 1960s and 70s and young African American men interviewed in the late 1980s. Bowser found differences in microgenetic progression of sexual behavior; men raised in the 1960s and 1970s showed a slower progression from kissing to touching genitalia to penile-vaginal intercourse than did young men raised in the 1980s. This means that men in the 1960s to 1970s cohort took a longer time to progress to penile-vaginal intercourse. The young men raised in the '80s showed a steeper progression, moving from thinking about sexuality to full engagement in sexual intercourse soon afterward. For the 1960s to 1970s cohort, this progression resulted in vaginal intercourse between the ages of 14 and 18, whereas the 1980s cohort engaged in intercourse at an earlier age, between 13 and 15 years. This was a small qualitative study, and follow-up studies have not been published, but Bowser's data suggests sociohistorical cohort effects on microgenetic production of individual sexual behavior; these data should be replicated and extended.

Focus on Description Rather Than Causes

A focus on description of sexuality rather than exploration of causal explanations has been an issue in sexuality research in general (Stevenson, 2002; Wiederman, Maynard, & Fretz, 1996). The work in sexual science is also largely descriptive with respect to African American males and their behavior (sexual debut, condom use, etc.; Abramson, 1990; Bolton, 1992).

One possible explanation for this focus is the difficulty in establishing internal validity (causal change in dependent variables due to independent variables) both in sexuality research (Whitley, 2002; Wiederman, 2002) and in ethnic minority research (Sue, 1999). Test-retest reliability (Carballo-Dieguez, Remien, Dolezal, & Wagner, 1999), self-report and recall, and imprecise operational definitions are some challenges to maximizing internal validity (see Wiederman, 2002, and Whitley, 2002, for a review of validity in sexuality research). Challenges in ethnic minority research include uncertainty about the shared meaning of empirical constructs (Helms, 1992), appropriateness of psychological measures and questionnaires not validated with the population under study (Sue, 1999; see also Green, 1987; Gynther, 1972), and difficulty recruiting ethnic minority research participants (Sue, 1999). All of the above issues contribute to an inability to control for extraneous variables and their impact on dependent variable change.

The purposes for which research is undertaken may also influence focus. Within sex-related HIV research, a problem-centered approach to African American sexuality has focused on proximal relationships between risk behavior and HIV prevention rather than underlying causes for risk behavior (Quimby, 1992). Researchers have been much more concerned about maximizing condom use in African American communities than about basic research into African American sexuality, which was understandable in light of urgent public health issues. However, this focus has led to growth in problem-centered knowledge of sexuality rather than knowledge of normative development, leaving researchers and policy makers with a skewed view of African American sexual lives.

In addition, by conducting research almost exclusively with urban African American samples living in poverty, researchers risk associating risk behavior solely with ethnicity rather than social context and social policy. The work of Rodrick Wallace (Wallace, Fullilove, & Flisher, 1996; Wallace & Fullilove, 1999) provides a positive example of examination and model building of sexual behavior of ethnic minority persons living in inner-city communities with high levels of HIV seroprevalence and poverty. Wallace and his collaborators have proposed that for persons living in densely populated urban communities with high levels of poverty, sexual behavior may serve as a means of communicating status within the community. Wallace posited that the attributes of population density, decaying housing stock, and governmental policies of community "renewal" and "reform" that break down neighborhood cohesion and increase unemployment are variables that increase the probability of using sexual risk behaviors (large numbers of partners, infrequent use of condoms) as communications about status. These structural attributes also increase the difficulty of fostering enduring behavior change within communities with these attributes. Research like this challenges the connection between identification as an African American and sexual behaviors that place one at risk for HIV infection. Because Wallace has moved beyond description and begun to examine community-level and social policy influences on sexual behavior, his work allows sexual scientists to begin to parse the connections between larger social forces and individual behavior.

In summary, descriptive research is necessary to begin theory building about the phenomena under study. If the purpose of science is to describe, explain, predict, and control, then perhaps the sexual scientific investigation of African American sexualities is in its infancy. In this case, it is doubly important to extend our scholarship, and to move past simple description to begin principled explanation of the full range of African American sexualities, especially from the perspectives of African Americans themselves.

Meaning Versus Behavior

Much of the research on African American sexuality in general has addressed sexual behavior, especially problematic sexual behavior as defined by policy makers, research communities, and commentators on African American culture (Anderson, 1993; Wilson, 1980, 1997). Data concerning adolescent reproductive behavior such as contraception use, pregnancy, abortion, and childrearing and data on adult condom use and sexual practices dominate this literature. Large national representative sampling surveys such as the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health and the National Survey of Adolescent Males have provided much descriptive and correlational data on African American adolescent and adult sexual behavior. Consequently, there is relatively useful data about how some African Americans engage in sexual behavior; much less is known about the meanings attached to sexual behavior.

Questions of meaning have been an integral part of the social constructionist study of sexuality, and an emphasis on behavior rather than meaning has been a key criticism by social constructionists of psychological and biomedical treatments of sexual science (Simon, 1996; Vance, 1991). Cross-cultural analyses of meanings of sexuality have been a part of the anthropological record from Mead (1934/1959) to Herdt (1987), among many others. Historical analysis points to the shifting sociohistorical nature of sexuality (Weeks, 1985); for example, even in our own lifetimes there has been a transformation in the meaning of homosexuality from psychopathology to (relatively) protected cultural identity for many Americans.

Consider the possible differences that may exist in the meaning of same-sex sexual activity for gay-identified African American men, heterosexual-identified African American MSM, and homothugz, defined as self-described "same-sex loving" young urban African American men living in a hypermasculinized, hip hop music-oriented subculture (Trebay, 2000). For some gay-identified men, same-sex sexual relations may be experienced within a normalized, affectionate union: romantic, loving, and publicly celebrated. For heterosexual-identified MSM, same-sex relations may be experienced as a considerable source of shame, while for the homothug these relations may be an expression of masculinity or a sociopolitical act of rebellion. Each of these may change historically and also within an individual's own life course; the identity of homothug seems to be of recent origin, interwoven as it is with hip hop culture. The important implications here are that the meanings that persons place on their behaviors are intrinsically important, and these meanings are historically and culturally situated. The meanings of sexuality for a cultural group are not static but change as time passes. We are not suggesting that all members of a group will feel the same about particular sexual activities, but that an investigation based solely on behavior will miss important data on intraindividual and intragroup variations in meaning. By focusing on decontextualized counts of sexual behavior, present analyses of African American male sexualities do not take into account these implications.

By way of contrast, feminist analyses in sex research have done a much better job of fostering the inclusion of voices of those who have been traditionally silenced about their own sexual behavior and the meanings they ascribe to behavior; such groups include ethnic minority women (Fine, 1988; McCormack, 1996). These analyses have been critical of the overwhelming emphasis on descriptions of sexual behavior from the perspective of academic researchers rather than on the lived experiences of research participants, expressed in their own words (Franklin, 1997; Holland, Ramazanoglu, Sharpe, & Thomson, 1999). In Black feminist theory, much scholarship has been dedicated to understanding men, masculinity, and sexuality, particularly in social constructionist accounts of the meaning of sexuality to African American men themselves (Carbado, 1999; Carby, 1994), but this has not translated into empirical research in this area. In general, feminist methodologies have focused on the social construction of meaning and the subjective experiences of sexuality (Bohan, 1997; Holland et al., 1999; Miles, 1997)and have been primarily focused on women.

In sex research, a major focus of feminist analyses has been adolescent girls. Important sex research focusing on girls in general and girls of color in particular has started to enter the literature (Thompson, 1995; Tolman, 1996). Such research has allowed us to understand better how girls negotiate their sexual development and the meanings their sexuality holds for them. Unfortunately, to date, few if any studies have used this approach with adolescent boys or men in general. Several investigators in adolescent sexuality research have called for the inclusion of phenomenological experience to increase the long-term effectiveness of HIV interventions as well as our understanding of adolescent sexuality in general (Brooks-Gunn & Graber, 1999; Brooks-Gunn & Paikoff, 1997; Fine, 1988; Tolman, 1996).

We see the importance of including phenomenological accounts of experience in the study of African American men. Behaviors that are seen as self-destructive, such as lack of condom use with casual sexual partners by gay men of color, may follow from the logic of lives lived in a racist and homophobic society. Such a society can generate feelings of fatalism and vulnerability for gay men of color that lead to unsafe sexual practices in casual relationships (Diaz, 1997). Wallace's work also points out that such feelings of fatalism and vulnerability may be experienced by members of disempowered groups across racial, ethnic, sexuality and gender lines (Wallace et al., 1996). When phenomenological accounts of African American men are elicited, the resulting narrative can challenge commonly held views. For example, in the qualitative work of the first author of this paper (Lewis, 2003), a prominent theme in interviews with African American and Latino adolescents between 14 and 18 years old was the importance of trust and emotional warmth in relationships. This should not be a surprising finding, but often when the sexual behavior of African American and other ethnic minority adolescents is examined, nonromantic and nonemotional aspects are highlighted (Coates, 1999).

Lack of a Compelling Theoretical Grounding

In summary, the scientific study of African American male sexualities has substantial challenges to overcome in providing a veridical analysis of the phenomena. The challenges are not insurmountable, and researchers have done good descriptive work that has advanced knowledge to this point. But for continued advancement of the understanding of African American sexualities, it is also necessary to advance theory. Theory organizes research questions, generates testable hypotheses and the methodologies used to answer questions, and provides a meter to assess supportive and nonsupportive results. An effective theory of African American male sexuality can help address all of the above issues.

Given the importance of theory in integrating research focus, methodology, and evaluation of results, sexual scientists have called for stronger and more direct connections between empirical research and theory in sexual science in general (Bowser, 1994; Weis, 1998, 2002). However, the question of theory has not been addressed for sexuality research with ethnic minority populations. Do extant theories of sexuality have relevance for understanding African American male sexualities? What should a theory of African American sexualities include? A content analysis of research focusing on ethnic minority status in published sex research (Wiederman et al., 1996) did not code for theoretical orientation, and an informal examination of The Journal of Sex Research from 1990-2000 by this study's first author found few articles explicitly applying any theoretical model to African American male sexuality (e.g., application of sexual scripting theory in Gilmore, DeLamater, & Wagstaff, 1996).

Postmodernist and postpositivist perspectives inform us that there is always a "theory" driving research; the question becomes whether theory is implicitly or explicitly discussed (Simon, 1996). An important reason for making theory explicit is to allow for critical review and evaluation of theory and collection and interpretation of data. Social science research using comparative models contrasting ethnic minority and White samples have drawn fire for implicit use of a deficit model, which assumes heterosexual middle-class European American behavior as the norm and ethnic minority deviations from this norm as deficient (Graham, S., 1992; Jones, 1991). Other authors have seen similar applications of a deficit model in sexuality research (Bowser, 1994; Weinstein, Goodjoin, Crayton, & Lawson, 1990).

This work occurs in a climate where much is presumed to be known about African American sexual behavior but little is known about its causes. Such a vacuum invites research which is intuitively appealing to our conscious and nonconscious preconceptions and stereotypes concerning others; this is particularly dangerous in the strongly racialized societies in which present sexual science is conducted (e.g., Rushton, 1997; Rushton & Bogaert, 1989). Explicit description of theory in theory-driven research allows us to assess the efficacy of our explanatory models of sexuality and to examine them in the context of negative and positive attitudes held toward social groups. In the balance of this paper, we address critical elements we believe necessary for effective theory development and examine potentially useful theories already present in sex research.

TOWARD AN EFFECTIVE UNDERSTANDING OF AFRICAN AMERICAN SEXUALITIES

An effective theory must account in some way for the effect on African American sexuality of living in a racialized society, a society that emphasizes race as a major organizer of life experiences and places increased significance on practices and discourses that refer to race (Goldberg, 1993). These requirements can be met with attention to the following criteria.

Critical Elements

Multiple levels of organization. In focusing on African American sexualities in general, effective theory must focus on multiple, integrative levels of organization from the multicultural to the individual to the biological. The levels approach is borrowed from comparative and developmental psychology; a level is comprised of interacting entities that share certain characteristics that in turn determine the nature of the specific level (Lerner, 1995; Tobach, 1987, 1995). Each level is analytically distinct from other levels so that one level is irreducible to another. In fact, different processes are thought to be at work at differing levels such that theory pitched at one level may be consistent with but not reducible to adjacent levels. However, events occurring at one level of organization may affect events at another level.

For example, the multicultural level is comprised of racial and/or ethnic social groupings and the relations among these groups. It is clear that the effects of living in a racialized society on African Americans are found at multiple levels. James' work on John Henryism--prolonged active coping with systemic social and economic distress by African Americans and its relationship to cardiovascular disease--highlighted the connection between societal-level stressors such as racism and poverty and physiological outcomes (James, Harnett, & Kalsbeek, 1983).

Sexual behaviors and beliefs held by Whites as a group about African Americans as a group have been affected by historical relations between these groups at the multicultural level. These beliefs also have had an effect on the sexual behavior of individual Whites and African Americans. The lynching of African American men at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century often occurred because of imagined or actual transgressions of beliefs held by Whites concerning Black-White sexual interactions (Irvine, 1994; Staples, 1995). Constrained sexual behavior by African American women (Wyatt, 1997) may seem ineffable or tied to individual factors such as sexual experience unless examined as resistance by women against racial stereotypes of sexual promiscuity. Sexuality appears to be a protean, shifting concept because it is instantiated at multiple levels. Depending on what aspect of sexuality is under study, focus should shift up and down the scale, but focus should never fall on just one level.

Analysis that proceeds at a single level may misrepresent the experiences of African Americans. By disconnecting the multicultural from other levels of organization, one may conflate membership in an ethnic or racial group with the historical relations that group has experienced. For example, Rushton, in positing evolutionary biological factors as the cause of increased risk of HIV infection for "Negroids" versus "Causcasoids" and "Mongoloids," ignored the effects of poverty, prior colonization, and present racism among other factors on transmission of HIV in various communities (Rushton, 1997; Rushton & Bogaert, 1989).

Wallace's analysis of sexual behavior as a communication about status is an example of an appropriate multilevel analysis of behavior (Wallace et al., 1996; Wallace & Fullilove, 1999). Population density, housing stock, and governmental policies are societal-level variables that influence individual sexual behavior. If risk is primarily associated with environmental conditions rather than ethnic minority status, then perhaps structural interventions may be a more powerful way of transforming sexual practices. Principled connections between structure and individual may also assume increased prominence in theorizing about sexual beliefs and behavior.

Phenomenological experience. Effective theory must also account for the meanings, cognitions, and emotions surrounding sexual behavior of African American men, for these are as important as behavior itself. Many of the important psychological theories applied to sexual behavior-the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) and the health beliefs model (Becker, 1974), for example--posit a relationship between intention and action, although none were designed to examine ethnic minority sexual behavior (Wyatt, 1994). Sexually oriented intentions are formed within the context of beliefs, meanings, and emotions placed on sexual behaviors by actors and the persons around them (Belgrave, Van Oss Matin, & Chambers, 2000; Wyatt, Forge, & Guthrie, 1998).

If we accept that African American men's meanings, beliefs, and emotions are in part affected by their racial and cultural background and experiences related to their background, then it is vital to allow their voices to guide interpretation of their actions. Clearly, any survey of attitudes or beliefs examines some aspects of phenomenological experience of African Americans; the more open-ended the question, the more the voices of participants may emerge. In this sense there are many studies that are centered in cognitively oriented domains such as attitudes toward safer sex techniques that evoke phenomenological experiences (e.g., Kalichman, Cherry, & Browne-Sperling, 1999; Mahay, Laumann, & Michaels, 2001). However, the extent to which participants choose from experimenter-determined responses rather than open responses may limit the authenticity of the voice of participants. The meaning of items within a survey may not hold from researcher to participant within a cultural group, much less cross-culturally, thus reducing the answers of participants to the meanings held by the designers of the survey (Knight & Hill, 1998). For example, constructions of "real" sex that exclude oral and anal sex are prevalent among adolescents as well as many adults (Remez, 2000). Unless careful attention is paid to the design of questionnaires and interviews to account for these constructions, researchers may be misled by adolescent reports of sexual behavior. As a second example, U.S. President Bill Clinton's construal of "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky as excluding oral sex nearly cost him the Presidency in 1998 amidst questions of perjury during his deposition in another legal case. This debate illustrates the difficulty of assuming shared meanings of sexual behaviors.

Other aspects of phenomenological experience are less often explored, such as emotions and meanings around sexual behavior. For example, there is little sense in the literature of positive reasons for African American men's engagement in sexual behavior, such as physical pleasure, emotional connectedness, or romance. Feelings of self-efficacy and personal agency are cited as possible reasons for sexual activity by African American adolescents living in poverty (Anderson, 1997; Hannerz, 1969), but with equivocal empirical support (Mahay et al., 2001).

For African Americans, continuing racial prejudice, racialized exclusions, and attempts at retrenchment of gains from the Civil Rights Movement form the cultural backdrop for developing African American sexualities. African American men must contend with media presentations of criminal celebrities such as O. J. Simpson and Mike Tyson, whose behavior is unfairly generalized to all African American men. Given these social currents, phenomenological approaches are needed to ask how African American men negotiate the largely negative cultural beliefs about their sexuality.

Developmental and dynamic change. Effective theory should also explicitly explore developmental and dynamic change in African American sexualities. One area in which one might expect change is the relationship between levels of organization and developmental period. For example, one might expect the relationships between individual adolescents, peers, and parents to change as youth grow older, with adolescents paying more attention to parents when younger and becoming more attuned to peer approval of sexual behavior with increasing age (Langer, Zimmerman, Warheit, & Duncan, 1993).

Another area of developmental and dynamic change may lie in ethnic identity development. Cross' work on nigrescence (Cross, 1991; Cross & Vandiver, 2001), or the process of becoming Black, highlights a developmental progression from a non-Black identified assimilationist type to a strongly engaged, internalized Black identity. While Cross' work does not explicitly focus on sexuality, different identities may be expected to beget different beliefs about appropriate sexual partners, sexual practices, and engagement with Black-focused cultural beliefs such as the myth of Black male sexual superiority. Research with urban African American adolescent girls has shown a relationship between higher levels of ethnic affiliation and belongingness and less risk-oriented sexual attitudes (Belgrave et al., 2000). Further research in this area is warranted.

Unfortunately, researchers may find it difficult to combine phenomenological research with a developmental focus because of training within their home disciplines. In our experience, when researchers investigate meaning in sexuality through qualitative methods, there is almost never a longitudinal investigation of developmental change in meaning over time. In part, this lack of a developmental lens in qualitative research may be a result of disciplinary focus, as many qualitative researchers are trained in sociology and anthropology, fields that do not typically contain a developmental component. It may also be a theoretical blind spot; symbolic interactionist approaches, which are influential theories in the sociological study of sexuality, often posit that human action is caused by interpretation of the situation and social interaction at the moment of decision (Blumer, 1996; Charon, 1992). As a developmental psychologist, the first author received very little exposure to symbolic interactionist approaches during his graduate training.

No one researcher or research project will equally address and incorporate all of these critical elements. There is also no one best way to integrate all of the elements into one's research program. Interdisciplinary training or collaboration may help in avoiding blind spots in method or theorization.

Candidate Theories

Social exchange theories. Present theories in sexual science do effectively address some aspects of African American male sexualities, but may not capture all aspects discussed above. For example, social exchange theories, which are theoretical approaches that focus on the exchange of material or symbolic resources between sexual partners (Sprecher, 1998), have the potential to inform sexual science of various aspects of African American partnering, including partner selection, evaluation of relationship satisfaction, and extradyadic sexual relations (Gaines, Buriel, Liu, & Rios, 1997). Social exchange theories are rational choice models in which a person calculates the costs and rewards of interaction with another person. As rational actors, people use a calculus of value to determine relative cost and reward; knowledge of a person's calculus would allow prediction of that person's behavior within a relationship. Actors act to maximize self-interest, profit, or utility (Sprecher, 1998).

Some social exchange theorists posit that cultural background may influence values and the calculus of costs and rewards. For example, core values of collectivism for African Americans and spirituality for Asian Americans have been advanced as influences on perception of costs and rewards for ethnic minority individuals in relationships (Gaines et al., 1997). However, we believe that the explanatory principles of exchange theories seem to better explain individual-level differences in interactions than broad group differences.

As a category, African American group identity may not be constructed like a classical set, in which all members of that set share the defining characteristics of the set (Lakoff, 1987). In this type of set, all African Americans might be expected to be collectivist, and collectivist values would affect perceptions of costs and rewards in all African American relationships. African American identity may be constructed as a set using "family resemblances" in which members only share some of the defining characteristics and no individual is expected to have all of the defining characteristics (Lakoff, 1987; Wittgenstein, 1953). In this type of set, some African Americans may be religious, others may share a collectivist orientation, and others may enjoy elements of popular culture associated with African Americans. Enough variation would make it difficult to generalize about African American relationships and force social exchange theorists to rely on individual analyses of core values. Given these caveats, social exchange theories may not be appropriate for a general theory of sexuality spanning different levels of analysis.

Symbolic interactionism. As a family of theoretical frameworks, symbolic interactionism emphasizes the social construction and maintenance of meaning (Christopher, 2001; Hewitt, 2000). In sex research, symbolic interactionist approaches have primarily focused on sexual identity formation and socialization into sexual cultures or on the effects of social structures on the construction of sexual meanings (Longmore, 1998). Symbolic interactionist approaches address many of the challenges to understanding African American male sexualities outlined earlier. For example, they address meaning as opposed to behavior and may address factors that influence the creation of meaning, rather than focusing on description. By addressing the complexity of how social conduct and meaning are learned, symbolic interactionism can provide a more dynamic understanding of sexuality (Hewitt, 2000).

Symbolic interactionist approaches are heterogenous and can include both large-scale quantitative investigations of structural influences on sexual behavior and beliefs (Lanmann et al., 1994) and smaller, qualitative investigations of individual sexual subjectivities (Whittier & Simon, 2001) or investigations of "sexual stories" (Plummer, 1995). The very heterogeneity of symbolic interactionist approaches makes it difficult to determine whether these approaches incorporate any of the critical elements outlined above. For example, some approaches may be consistent with a focus on ontogenetic development, while others may explicitly reject connections between past learning, preexisting psychological structures or developmental influences, and human action (Blumer, 1966; Warriner, 1970). Given this heterogeneity, we chose to focus on sexual scripting theory (Gagnon & Simon, 1973) as one of the most influential symbolic interactionist approaches in sexuality research.

Sexual scripting theory. Sexual scripting theory, as conceived of by Gagnon and Simon, is firmly nested in a social constructionist and symbolic interactionist approach (DeLamater & Hyde, 1998; Gagnon & Simon, 1973; Simon, 1996). As a social constructionist approach, sexual scripting theory posits that sexuality is formed and transformed by individuals within a social context, with no "natural" form or essence that is invariant across historical time or culture. Sexual scripting theory probably comes closest to addressing the challenges we have outlined in prior research and has the potential to provide effective theorization of African American male sexualities.

Although a review of sexual scripting theory is beyond the scope of this paper, we wish to highlight characteristics relevant to our main points. Sexual scripts are frameworks of meanings and behaviors built by cultural or social groups and transformed by persons in order to contextualize their (sexual) experiences. Sexual scripts are not limited to sexual behavior; they also include the meaning of the behavior to the individual, thus addressing the challenge of understanding the meanings of sexual behavior for African Americans. Sexual scripts are held at three differing levels of organization: the cultural level, where cultural scenarios are found; the interpersonal level, where interpersonal scripts are located; and the intrapersonal level, where intrapsychic scripts are compiled. Each of these levels is analytically distinct yet inextricably linked to the other. Sexual scripting theory is useful here because it requires inspection of interconnections between these multiple levels of analysis. Because it includes intrapersonal scripts, sexual scripting theory allows for the examination of how individuals organize and construct their own sexual behaviors and meanings, thus allowing the phenomenological voice of participants to emerge. Because sexual scripting theory requires examination of intrapersonal scripts in the context of interpersonal and cultural scripts, it allows for questions such as the relationships between cultural and social constructions of sexuality and the negotiation of these constructions in creating an individual's own sexuality. For example, the cultural scenario of "cool pose" is a script associated with African American men; this script prescribes stoicism in the face of danger, heightened attention to pride, and disdain for subjugation and skill in verbal and nonverbal expression (Majors & Billson, 1993). African American men may adhere to this script when interacting with other men (interpersonal script) to achieve and maintain status, but may discard or minimize it when interacting with a sexual or romantic partner. However, the extent to which the cool pose script or other cultural scripts are internalized or resisted by individual men may differ by age or ethnic origin (e.g., Jamaican, African American; Seal & Ehrhardt, in press).

Although there seems to be a natural fit between a scripting approach and examination of African American male sexualities, there are few studies that employ a scripting approach. Mahay et al. (2001), using National Health and Social Life Survey (Laumann et al., 1994) data, operationalized cultural scenarios, interpersonal scripts, and intrapsychic scripts as answers to sexual attitude questions, sexual behaviors, and personal sexual preferences respectively, and examined racial and ethnic group variations in these scripts. They found intergroup variation but also found that racial and ethnic groups shared many scripts. For example, White, African American, and Mexican American participants shared similar (negative) attitudes toward adolescent sex and same-gender sex. After controlling for age, educational level, marital status, and family composition at age 14, Mahay et al. found significant variation in personal sexual preferences toward fellatio and cunnilingus and in interpersonal scripts regarding relations between partners (e.g., African Americans were more likely to report they were not in love with their first sexual partner), among other variables. This study was largely descriptive; cross-sectional data collection left little opportunity for investigation of possible causes of or reasons for sexual behaviors or beliefs. There was little examination of relationships between levels of scripts or of the meanings particular sexual acts held for participants.

Gilmore et al. (1996) conducted an exploratory focus group study of 27 economically disadvantaged African American heterosexual adolescents. These youth, a convenience sample of clients of social service agencies, provided much information about the roles of sexual scripts in sexual decision making, although the authors did not examine or differentiate between levels of scripts. The authors' report of the adolescents' beliefs and decision making about sexual behavior was primarily focused at the level of cultural scenario scripting. For example, many of the quotes about sexual decision making told us what these young men thought should be taken into account when making decisions about sexual behavior or what men do hypothetically: "If it's your girl, you make sure she got a way home.... If it's some trick in the street you wouldn't give a fuck if she got home or not" (Gilmore et al., 1996, p. 368). The focus group method, because of possible male adolescent reluctance to disclose closely held thoughts and emotions in front of other males, may have garnered relatively more cultural scenarios, which may be less threatening to disclose because "everyone" knows them.

Both studies described above may be considered sexual scripting studies although they have very different methodologies with concurrent strengths and weaknesses. Because sexual scripting was created as a framework to guide inquiry (Simon, 1996) rather than a strong theoretical statement of specific mechanisms, processes, and/or structures producing sexualities, it is difficult to find systematic operationalization of sexual scripts in the sexual science literature. Because of the multiple methods used to assess sexual scripts and differences in operationalization, it is difficult to assess the relationship between levels of scripts and to advance theorization accordingly.

Weis (1998) provides the beginning of an empirical theory of sexual scripting by examining possible mechanisms from the psychological literature: reinforcement, rehearsal, and social learning of scripts. All of these mechanisms are deployed to explain the movement of scripts from the cultural to interpersonal and intrapsychic, and are a useful start to a broader theory of sexual scripting. However, Weis' approach, as with sexual scripting theory in general, does not directly examine ontogenetic developmental change. Both social learning theory and reinforcement may be better models to explain microgenetic developmental change, as persons become more familiar with and experience more sexually oriented behavior, than ontogenetic change.

Finally, it is important to note that a sexual scripting framework only serves to explain the phenomenological experience and construction of sexuality. Sexual scripting begins to explain how urban adolescents' experiences of structural influences such as income, wealth, and population density might impact symbolic representations of sexuality and the adolescents' consequent behavior. It does not directly explain the effects of these factors on sexual expression of urban adolescents.

CONCLUSION

There is a surprising lack of theoretical models extending an understanding of African American male sexualities despite advances in the field of sexuality and the important public health implications of knowledge concerning the sexuality of all adults, including a greater awareness of inter- and intragroup differences in designing health interventions. We hope that we have stated the case for the importance of a reexamination of African American male sexualities within a broader investigation of the impact of cultural and historical forces on sexual expression. The present state of ethnic minority sexuality research in general, and of African American male sexualities in particular, tell us more about researchers' own cultural scenarios of African American male sexualities than what African American males think about their own sexuality. Given our discussion above, it is apparent that ethnic minority sexualities can offer unique challenges; these challenges should not be deterrents against research in this area.

A sexual scripting theoretical approach provides a useful framework for the development of stronger theorization followed by empirical analysis, but other theories may also prove useful. Effective use of multiple levels of organization, attention to (developmental) change over time, and analysis of meanings held by African American men about sexuality should help in addressing the significant challenges that must be overcome, as well as provide a deeper appreciation of the richness of African American men's lives as expressed in the realm of sexuality.

In closing, we believe that future research and theory building should consider the existing deficiencies and critical elements in the conceptualization and measurement of African American male sexualities that have been discussed in this paper. A "best practices" approach will consider these elements, although differing research questions require different answers to the challenges we have posed in this paper. We believe that as researchers, if we undertake the serious challenge of rethinking our understanding of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, then "best practice" will become obvious in the context of our own research programs.

Table 1. Critical Elements for Analysis of African American
Sexualities

Element                                  Examples

Levels of
  organization
  Global             Worldwide economic trends, multinational
                     conflicts, global communications and travel,
                     influence of Western culture
  Societal           Regional/national conflicts, economic trends,
                     governmental policy
  Multicultural      Interethnic relations, racially/ethnically
                     organized beliefs about sexuality, civil wars
  Community          Neighborhood economic trends, population
                     density
  Social networks    Family, work, peers
  Individual         Individual sexual behavior, sexual self-identity,
                     sexual beliefs, fantasies, and practices
  Biological         Biochemical functions (e.g., hormonal effects
                     on organ function)
Phenomenological     Meaning of sexual 'risk' behavior, romantic
  experience         attachments to individual
Developmental/
  dynamic change
  Ontogenetic        Traditional developmental change (e.g.,
                     cognitive development, pubertal changes in
                     body structure)
  Cohort change      Historical changes in individual's sexual
                     identity as a result of the Gay Liberation
                     Movement in the 1960s and 1970s
  Microgenetic       Changes that occur with sexual experience
                     (e.g., skill in using condoms)

REFERENCES

Abramson, P. R. (1990). Sexual science: Emerging discipline or oxymoron? The Journal of Sex Research, 27, 147-165.

Adams, C. L., & Kimmel, D. C. (1997). Exploring the lives of older African American gay men. In B. Greene (Ed.), Ethnic and cultural diversity among lesbians and gay men: Psychological perspectives on lesbian and gay issues (pp. 132-151). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Anderson, E. (1993). Sex codes and family life among poor inner city youths. In W. J. Wilson (Ed.), The ghetto underclass: Social science perspectives (pp. 59-78). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Anderson, E. (1997). Code of the street. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Azibo, D. A. (1989). African-centered theses on mental health and a nosology of Black/African personality disorder. Journal of Black Psychology, 15, 173-214.

Becker, M. H. (Ed.). (1974). The Health Belief Model and personal health behavior San Francisco: Society for Public Health Education.

Belgrave, F. Z., Van Oss Marin, B., & Chambers, D. B. (2000). Cultural, contextual, and intrapersonal predictors of risky sexual attitudes among urban African American girls in early adolescence. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, 6, 309-322.

Blumer, H. (1966). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bohan, J. S. (1997). Regarding gender: Essentialism, constructionism, and feminist psychology. In M. M. Gergen & S. N. Davis (Eds.), Toward a new psychology of gender (pp. 31-48). New York: Routledge.

Bolton, R. (1992). Mapping Terra Incognita: Sex research for AIDS prevention--An urgent agenda for the 1990s. In G. Herdt & S. Lindenbaum (Eds.), The time of AIDS: Social analysis, theory and method (pp. 124-158). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Bowser, B. P. (1994). African-American male sexuality. In A. S. Rossi (Ed.), Sexuality across the life course (pp. 127-150). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Brooks-Gunn, J., & Graber, J. A. (1999). What's sex got to do with it? The development of sexual identities during adolescence. In R. J. Contrada & R. D. Ashmore (Eds.), Self social identity and physical health: Interdisciplinary explorations (pp. 155-182). New York: Oxford University Press.

Brooks-Gunn, J., & Paikoff, R. (1997). Sexuality and developmental transitions during adolescence. In J. Schulenberg, J. L. Maggs, & K. Hurrelmann (Eds.), Health risks and developmental transitions during adolescence (pp. 190-219). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Bynum, M. S. (2001, April). Maternal sexual socialization in middle-class African American adolescent women: A preliminary investigation. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minneapolis, MN.

Carbado, D. W. (1999). The construction of O. J. Simpson as a racial victim. In D. W. Carbado (Ed.), Black men on race, gender and sexuality: A critical reader (pp. 159-193). New York: New York University Press.

Carballo-Dieguez, A., Remien, R. H., Dolezal, C., & Wagner, G. (1999). Reliability of sexual behavior self-reports in male couples of discordant HIV status. The Journal of Sex Research, 36, 152-158.

Carby, H. V. (1994). Race men. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Charon, J. M. (1992). Symbolic interactionism: An introduction, an interpretation, an integration (4th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Christopher, E S. (2001). To dance the dance: A symbolic interactional exploration of premarital sexuality. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Coates, D. L. (1999). The cultured and culturing aspects of romantic experience in adolescence. In W. Furman, B. B. Brown, & C. Feiring (Eds.), The development of romantic relationships in adolescence (pp. 330-363). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Crawford, I., Allison, K. W., Zamboni, B., & Soto, T. (2002). The influence of dual-identity development on the psychosocial functioning of African American gay and bisexual men. The Journal of Sex Research, 39, 179-189.

Cross, W. E., Jr. (1991). Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Cross, W. E., Jr., & Vandiver, B. J. (2001). Nigrescence theory and measurement: Introducing the Cross Racial Identity Scale (CRIS). In J. G. Ponterotto, J. M. Casas, L. A. Suzuki, & C. M. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural counseling (2nd ed., pp. 371-393). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

DeLamater, J., & Hyde, J. S. (1998). Essentialism vs. social constructionism in the study of human sexuality. The Journal of Sex Research, 35, 1 0-18.

D'Emilio, J., & Freedman, E. B. (1997). Intimate matters : A history of sexuality in America (2nd ed.). New York: Harper & Row.

Diaz, R. M. (1997). Latino gay men and HIV: Culture, sexuality and risk behavior New York: Routledge.

Dube, E. M., Savin-Williams, R. C., & Diamond, L. M. (2001). Intimacy development, gender, and ethnicity among sexual-minority youths. In A. R. D'Augelli & C. J. Patterson (Eds.), Lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities and youth: Psychological perspectives (pp. 129-152). New York: Oxford University Press.

Exner, T. M., Gardos, P. S., Seal, D. W., & Ehrhardt, A. A. (1999). H1V sexual risk reduction interventions with heterosexual men: The forgotten group. AIDS & Behavior, 3, 347-358.

Fine, M. (1998). Sexuality, schooling, and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire. Harvard Educational Review. 58(1), 29-53.

Franklin, M. B. (1997). Making sense: Interviewing and narrative representation. In M. M. Gergen & S. N. Davis (Eds.), Toward a new psychology of gender (pp. 99-116). New York: Routledge.

Gagnon, J. H., & Simon, W. (1973). Sexual conduct: The social sources of human sexuality. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co.

Gaines, S. O., Jr., Buriel, R., Liu, J. H., & Rios, D. I. (1997). Culture, ethnicity, and personal relationship processes. Florence, KY: Taylor & Francis/Routledge.

Gilmore, S., DeLamater, J., & Wagstaff, D. (1996). Sexual decision making by inner city Black adolescent males: A focus group study. The Journal of Sex Research, 33, 363-371.

Goldberg, D. (1993). Racist culture. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

Graham, L. O. (1999). Our kind of people. New York: Harper-Collins.

Graham, S. (1992). "'Most of the subjects were White and middle class": Trends in published research on African Americans in selected APA journals, 1970-1989. American Psychologist, 47, 629-639.

Green, R. L. (1987). Ethnicity and MMPI performance: A review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 497-512.

Greene, B. (2002). Older lesbians' concerns and psychotherapy: Beyond a footnote to the footnote. In F. K. Trotman & C. M. Brody (Eds.), Psychotherapy and counseling with older women: Cross-cultural, family, and end-of-life issues (pp. 161-174). New York: Springer.

Gynther, M. D. (1972). White norms and Black MMPIs: A prescription for discrimination. Psychological Bulletin, 78, 386-402.

Hannerz, U. (1969). Soulside: Inquiries into ghetto culture and community. New York: Columbia University Press.

Helms, J. E. (1992). Why is there no study of cultural equivalence in standardized cognitive ability testing? American Psychologist, 47, 1083-1101.

Herdt, G. (1987). The Sambia: Ritual and gender in New Guinea. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Hewitt, J. P. (2000). Self and society: A symbolic interactionist social psychology. Boston: Allyn, Bacon.

Holland, J., Ramazanoglu, C., Sharpe, S., & Thomson, R. (1999). Feminist methodology and young people's sexuality. In R. Parker & P. Aggleton (Eds.), Culture, society and sexuality: A reader (pp. 457-472). London: UCL Press.

Irvine, J. M. (1994). Cultural differences and adolescent sexualities. In J. M. Irvine (Ed.), Sexual cultures and the construction of adolescent identities (pp. 3-28). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

James, S., Hartnett, S., & Kalsbeek, W. (1983). John Henryism and blood pressure differences among black men. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 6, 259-278.

Jones, J. M. (1991). The concept of race in social psychology: From color to culture. In R. L. Jones (Ed.), Black psychology (3rd ed., pp. 441-467). Berkeley, CA: Cobb & Henry Publishers.

Kalichman, S. C., Cherry, C., & Browne-Sperling, F. (1999). Effectiveness of a video-based motivational skills-building HIV risk-reduction intervention for inner-city African American men. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 67, 959-966.

Kasinitz, P., Battle, J., & Miyares, I. (2001). Fade to Black? The children of West Indian immigrants in southern Florida. In R. G. Rumbaut & A. Portes (Eds.), Ethnicities: Children of immigrants in America (pp. 267-300). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Knight, G. P., & Hill, N. E. (1998). Measurement equivalence in research involving minority adolescents. In V. C. McLoyd & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Studying minority adolescents: Conceptual, methodological and theoretical issues (pp. 183-210). Mahwah, N J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Langer, L. M., Zimmerman, R. S., Warheit, G. J., & Duncan, R. C. (1993). Decision-making orientation and AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of Hispanic, African-American, and White adolescents. Health Psychology, 12, 227-234.

Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T., & Michaels, S. (1994). The social organization of sexuality: Sexual practices in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lerner, R. M. (1995). The integration of levels and human development: A developmental contextual view of the synthesis of science and outreach in the enhancement of human lives. In K. E. Hood, G. Greenberg, & E. Tobach (Eds.), Behavioral development: Concepts of approach-withdrawal and integrative levels (pp. 421-446). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Lewis, L. J. (2003). [Semi-structured interviews with African American and Latino adolescent males]. Unpublished raw data.

Longmore, M. A. (1998). Symbolic interactionism and the study of sexuality. The Journal of Sex Research, 35, 44-57.

Magnusson, D. (1993). Human ontogeny: A longitudinal perspective. In D. Magnusson & P. Casaer (Eds.), Longitudinal research on individual development. Present status and future perspectives (pp. 1-25). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Mahay, J., Laumann, E. O., & Michaels, S. (2001). Race, gender and class in sexual scripts. In E. O. Laumann & R. T. Michael (Eds.), Sex, love and health in America: Private choices and public policies (pp. 197-238). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Majors, R., & Billson, J. M. (1993). Cool pose: The dilemmas of black manhood in America. New York: Lexington Books.

McCormack, N. B. (1996). Our feminist future: Women affirming sexuality research in the late twentieth century. The Journal of Sex Research, 33, 99-103.

McLoyd, V. C., & Randolph, S. M. (1985). Secular trends in the study of Afro-American children: A review of Child Development, 1936-1980. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 50, 78-92.

Mead, M. (1959). Coming of age in Samoa: A psychological study of primitive youth for Western civilization. New York: Modern Library. (Original work published 1934)

Miles, L. (1997). Women, AIDS and power in heterosexual sex: A discourse analysis. In M. M. Gergen & S. N. Davis (Eds.), Toward a new psychology of gender (pp. 479-502). New York: Routledge.

Moynihan, D. P. (1967). The Negro family: The case for national action. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

Ogbu, J. U. (1990). Cultural model, identity and literacy. In J. W. Stigler, R. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural psychology (pp. 520-541). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Parker, R., & Aggleton, P. (1999). Introduction. In R. Parker & P. Aggleton (Eds.), Culture, society and sexuality: A reader (pp. 1-10). London: UCL Press.

Parker, R. G., Herdt, G., & Carballo, M. (1991). Sexual culture, HIV transmission, and AIDS research. The Journal of Sex Research, 28, 77-98.

Philogene, G. (1999). From Black to African American: A new social representation. Westport, CT: Greenwood-Praeger.

Philogene, G. (2001). From race to culture: The emergence of African American. In K. Deaux & G. Philogene (Eds.) Representations of the social: Bridging theoretical traditions. (pp. 113-128). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Plummer, K. (1995). Telling sexual stories: Power, change and social worlds. New York: Routledge.

Quimby, E. (1992). Anthropological witnessing for African Americans: Power, responsibility and choice in the age of AIDS. In G. Herdt & S. Lindenbanm (Eds.), The time of AIDS (pp. 159 184). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Reid, P. T. (1993). Poor women in psychological research: Shut up and shut out. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 17, 133-150. Reid, P. T., & Bing, V. M. (2000). Sexual roles of girls and women: An ethnocultural lifespan perspective. In C. B. Travis & J. W. White (Eds.), Sexuality, society and feminism (pp. 141-166). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Press.

Reid, P. T., & Kelly, E. (1994). Research on women of color: From ignorance to awareness. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18, 477-486.

Remez, L. (2000). Oral sex among adolescents: Is it sex or is it abstinence'? Family Planning Perspectives, 32, 298-304.

Resnick, M. D., Bearman, P. S., Blum, R. W., Bauman, K. E., Harris, K. M., Jones, J., et al. (1997). Protecting adolescents from harm: Findings from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health. JAMA, 278, 823-832.

Richardson, M. A., Myers, H. F., Bing, E. G., & Satz, P. (1997). Substance use and psychopathology in African American men at risk for HIV infection. Journal of Community Psychology, 25, 353-370.

Rowley, S. J., Sellers, R. M., Chavous, T. M., & Smith, M. A. (1998). The relationship between racial identity and self-esteem in African American college and high school students. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 74, 715-724.

Rushton, J. P. (1997). Race, evolution and behavior: A life history perspective. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Rushton, J. P., & Bogaert, A. F. (1989). Population differences in susceptibility to AIDS: An evolutionary analysis. Social Science Medicine, 28, 1211-1220.

Santelli, J. S., Lowry, R., Brener, N. D., & Robin, L. (2000). The association of sexual behaviors with socioeconomic status, family structure, and race/ethnicity among US adolescents. American Journal of Public Health, 90, 1582-1588.

Seal, D. W., & Ehrhardt, A. A. (In press). Masculinity and urban men: Perceived scripts for courtship, romance, and sexual interactions with women. Culture, Health and Sexuality, 5.

Sellers, R. M., Smith, M. A., Shelton, J. N., Rowley, S. A. J., & Chavous, T. M. (1998). Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity: A reconceptualization of African American racial identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 18-39.

Serbin, L. A., & Sprafkin, C. H. (1987). A developmental approach: Sexuality from infancy through adolescence. In J. H. Geer & W. T. O'Donohue (Eds.), Theories of human sexuality (pp. 163-196). New York: Plenum Press.

Simon, W. (1996). Postmodern sexualities. New York: Routledge.

Smith, E. A., & Udry, J. R. (1985). Coital and non-coital sexual behaviors of White and Black adolescents. American Journal of Public Health, 75, 1200-1203.

Sonenstein, E L., Ku, L., Lindberg, L. D., Turner, C. F., & Pleck, J. H. (1998). Changes in sexual behavior and condom use among teenaged males: 1988 to 1995. American Journal of Public Health, 88, 956-959.

Sprecher, S. (1998). Social exchange theories and sexuality. The Journal of Sex Research, 35, 32-43.

Staples, R. (1995). Stereotypes of Black male sexuality: The facts behind the myths. In M. S. Kimmel & M. A. Messner (Eds.), Men's lives (3rd ed., pp. 375-380). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Stevenson, M. R. (2002). Conceptualizing diversity in sexuality research. In M. W. Wiederman & B. E. Whitley, Jr. (Eds.), Handbook for conducting research on human sexuality (pp. 455-478). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Sue, S. (1999). Science, ethnicity, and bias: Where have we gone wrong? American Psychologist, 54, 1070-1077.

Thompson, S. (1995). Going all the way: Teenage girls' tales of sex, romance and pregnancy. New York: Hill & Wang.

Tobach, E. (1987). Integrative levels in the comparative psychology of cognition, language, and consciousness. In G. Greenberg & E. Tobach (Eds.), Cognition, language and consciousness: Integrative levels (pp. 239-267). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Tobach, E. (1995). One view of the concept of integrative levels. In K. E. Hood, G. Greenberg, & E. Tobach (Eds.), Behavioral development: Concepts of approach/withdrawal and integrative levels (pp. 399-414). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Tolman, D. L. (1996). Adolescent girls' sexuality: Debunking the myth of The Urban Girl. In B. J. Ross Leadbeater & N. Way (Eds.), Urban girls: Resisting stereotypes, creating identities (pp. 255-271). New York: New York University Press.

Tolman, D. L. (2001). Female adolescent sexuality: An argument for a developmental perspective on the New View of women's sexual problems. In E. Kashak & L. Tiefer (Eds.), A new view of women's sexual problems (pp. 195-210). New York: The Haworth Press.

Trebay, G. (2000, February 8). Homothugz blow up the spot: A gay hip-hop scene rises in the Bronx. The Village Voice, 45(5). Retrieved April 24, 2003, from http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0005/trebay.php

Ulysse, T. (2001). Social and academic adjustment of Haitian immigrant children. Unpublished master's thesis, Sarah Lawrence College, New York.

U.S. Census Bureau (2001). Poverty in the United States: 2000 current population reports series P60-214. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

Vance, C. S. (1991). Anthropology rediscovers sexuality: A theoretical comment. Social Science and Medicine, 33, 875-884.

Wallace, R., Fullilove, M. T., & Flisher, A. J. (1996). AIDS, violence, and behavioral coding: Information theory, risk behavior and dynamic process on core-group sociogeographic networks. Social Science and Medicine, 43, 339-352.

Wallace, R., & Fullilove, R. (1999). Why simple regression models work so well describing 'risk behaviors' in the U.S.A. Environment and Planning A, 31, 719-734.

Warriner, C. K. (1970). The emergence of society. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.

Waters, M. C. (1999). Black identities: West Indian immigrant dreams and American realities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Weeks, J. (1985). Sexuality and its discontents: Meanings, myths and modern sexualities. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Weinstein, M., Goodjoin, R., Crayton, E., & Lawson, C. (1990). Black sexuality: A bibliography. Sage Race Relations Abstracts, 15.

Weis, D. L. (1998). Conclusion: The state of sexual theory. The Journal of Sex Research, 35, 100-114.

Weis, D. L. (2002). The need to integrate sexual theory and research. In M. W. Wiederman & B. E. Whitley, Jr. (Eds.), Handbook for conducting research on human sexuality (pp. 2-24). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Werner, H., & Kaplan, B. (1963). Symbol formation: An organismic-developmental approach to language and the expression of thought. New York: Wiley.

Whitley, B. E., Jr. (2002). Validity in research. In M. W. Wiederman & B. E. Whitley, Jr. (Eds.), Handbook for conducting research on human sexuality (pp. 51-81). Mahwah, N J: Lawrence Erbaum Associates.

Whittier, D. K., & Simon, W. (2001). The fuzzy matrix of "my type" in intrapsychic sexual scripting. Sexualities, 4, 139-165.

Wiederman, M. W. (2002). Reliability and validity of measurement. In M. W. Wiederman & B. E. Whitley, Jr. (Eds.), Handbook for conducting research on human sexuality (pp. 25-50). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Wiederman, M. W., Maynard, C., & Fretz, A. (1996). Ethnicity in 25 years of published sexuality research: 1971-1995. The Journal of Sex Research, 33, 339-342.

Wilson, W. J. (1980). The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing American institutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wilson, W. J. (1997). When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor New York: Vintage Books.

Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. New York: Macmillian.

Wyatt, G. E. (1994). The sociocultural relevance of sex research: Challenges for the 1990s and beyond. American Psychologist, 49, 748-754.

Wyatt, G. E. (1997). Stolen women: Reclaiming our sexuality, taking back our lives. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Wyatt, G. E., Forge, N. G., & Guthrie, D. (1998). Family constellation and ethnicity: Current and lifetime HIV-related risk taking. Journal of Family, Psychology, 12, 93-101.

We would like to thank Lucia O'Sullivan, Heino Meyer-Bahlburg and the HIV Center postdoctoral fellows for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This research was supported by Grant No. P50 MH43520 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the H1V Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, Anke A. Ehrhardt, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, and NRSA Grant No. T32 MH13939, Behavioral Sciences Research Training in HIV Infection, Anke A. Ehrhardt, Ph.D., Program Director.

Address correspondence to Linwood J. Lewis, HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, 1051 Riverside Dr. Unit 15, New York, NY 10032; e-mail: [e-mail].

Linwood J. Lewis

Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College

Robert M. Kertzner

Columbia University

Manuscript accepted July 21, 2003