Being Discovered: A Study of Homosexuals in the Military

Current conceptions of deviance have placed less emphasis on the role played by the deviant himself in being assigned a deviant label. To examine the role of the deviant, a sample of male homosexuals who had received less than honorable discharges from the military for homosexual conduct (LHD group) were compared with a sample who had received honorable discharges (HD). It was found that, compared to the HD group, the LHD group was more likely (a) to have been engaging in homosexual sex more frequently before induction, (b) to have experienced more frequent homosexual sex while in the service, and (c) to have had predominately other servicemen as homosexual partners. Further examination of the data showed how these factors specified the manner in which members of the LHD group were discovered.