ABOUT THE INTERVIEWS:
The stories in this book are those of 70 gay and lesbian people who volunteered to talk about their lives as they live and feel them. They are distilled from interviews conducted by Liz Sherblom between February and June of 1993 in the Northeastern United States.
Although they have been edited for brevity and narrative focus, they are in the participants' own words. We have made every effort to maintain the spirit of each person and the context of their words.
Each chapter represents an individual interview and has been approved for inclusion in the book by the participant(s). Some names have been changed for the sake of privacy; others, following the participant's preference, have not.
We met these people through networks of friends and acquaintances who knew people interested in being interviewed. We knew one or two gay people in several different geographic locations in the northeastern United States and interviewed them. They, in turn, talked to people they knew, who talked to people they knew, and those who were interested called us requesting an interview.
We interviewed all those who called, until we had reached the number we felt we could reasonably include in the book. With one exception, all the participants were caucasian but ranged in age from their early twenties to nearly eighty years old. They came from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, from poverty to wealth and from relatively uneducated to highly educated.
In addition to the 70 gay people interviewed, two "straight" twin brothers of two participants were interviewed with their brothers. People were interviewed individually or as couples, according to their choice. Most of the interviews lasted between two and four hours, and most were completed in one session. Participants were asked to just talk about their lives from earliest memories to the present in whatever order and in whatever way felt most comfortable to them.
The narrative was to be on the entirety of their lives, with sexual orientation included only as it affected that story. In most cases, however, because of the cultural environment in which we live and because that was the basis on which they were being interviewed, that was a prominent part of their stories.
Much More Than Sexuality is intended to allow people of all sexual orientations to get to know a number of "ordinary" gay people--people whose lives and values are no different from those of most others in our society today, people who could be and are our sons or daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, parents, friends, partners, colleagues, or even ourselves. We hope to achieve a greater appreciation of the basic humanity we all share, so we can begin to dismantle the barrier of otherness based upon sexual orientation.
ABOUT THE EDITORS: Liz Sherblom conducted the interviews for the book. Her professional experience includes eight years as a market research analyst. John Sherblom is an Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism at the University of Maine.