Queer Man on Campus: A History of Non-Heterosexual College Men, 1945-2000 (review)

Through Dilley's research, Queer Man on Campus provides a new perspective on male sexual identity and challenges the notion of fixed identities as it relates to non-heterosexual males in his study. Dilley's use of queer theory and its postmodern focus provides a refreshing view of the men whose voices provided the data for his ultimate typology. The typological terms and their connected definitions were generated by men who had attended college during the second half of the twentieth century and incorporate their experiences, feelings, and words in a historical context.

Chapter 1, "Calling Names, Naming Tales," reviews the various terms Dilley uses in his research and the manner in which he defines them. Homosexual, gay, and queer each have corresponding years when the terms were used most frequently, and "normal," closeted, parallel, and denying which seem to be present throughout all decades researched. The definitions are generally the voices of Dilley's subjects or historical references.

Chapter 2, "Queer Theory, Identity Development Theories, and Non-Heterosexual Students," provides an overview of current theories of identity development models and previous research on non-heterosexual students. Dilley specifically reviews Chickering's and Reisser's (1993) vectors of identity development and several gay identity models including Cass (1979), Savin-Williams (1998), and D'Augelli (1994). This chapter also provides an overview of queer theory and its relationship to gay identity development.

Chapters 3, 4, and 5 provide insight into the typological categories that were generated through Dilley's research. Chapter 3, "Tearooms and No Sympathy: Homosexuals and the Closet," reviews those individuals termed homosexuals and closeted. For this book Dilley selectively chooses particular voices which he calls narrators to clearly exemplify the terms and their meanings. These narrators are a subset of his overall research population who best articulate the concepts discussed. Chapter 4, "From the Margins to the Ivory Tower: Gay and Queer Students," in a similar manner to Chapter 3, reviews the terms gay and queer. Chapter 5, "Beyond the Textbook Definitions: 'Normal' and the Parallel Students," reviews the terms "normal" and parallel.

Chapter 6, "Collegiate Non-Heterosexual Identities, 1945-2000," and Chapter 7, "On the Fluidity of Identity", provide the connections of the terms presented in the earlier chapters and illustrate an insightful typology and the historical context in which each term falls. The author addresses the term denying and connects it less with what his participants expressed, but more with the writing of Holloran (1997). The chapters also support his research on the fluid nature of sexual identity through the numerous environments/experiences an individual must address while in college. Evans and Broido (1999) and Stevens (2004) also address the environmental influence in their research. Specifically, Dilley discusses the following impacts: the general campus environment, gay student organizations, fraternity life, sexual activity, the goals of being "normal," emotional attractions, and media influences (p. 198).

The author creates plausible concepts for other researchers and practitioners to consider when exploring sexual identity formation and provides a new understanding to the complexity of sexual identity and the importance of terms and how they may be interpreted. He provides more details regarding these socially constructed terms and how/why they were used historically. As with any qualitative study, the work is done to provide an understanding and while the resulting terms and their definitions are to some extent intuitive, it is important that the reader determine the transferability of this study to other environments. Dilley's appendix provides details of his participants and his ethnographical methodology.

In this review the term non-heterosexual was used, and was probably the most challenging concept to overcome throughout the book. As Dilley talks about his use of queer theory and its postmodern perspective of looking from the edges of "normal," it was often difficult to use the term non-heterosexual. This term perpetuates the concept of inferiority or "less than" that I did not hear in the voices...