Homosexuality is a topic that has been discussed and debated for many years. There are several different viewpoints as to the origin of homosexuality, and as to the way in which homosexuals should be treated in the general society. Two distinguished authors that discuss homosexuality and it's relation to the surrounding world are Steven Epstein and Lillian Faderman. In Epstein's article "Gay and Lesbian Movements in the United States" and in Faderman's book Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers there are many distinguishing characteristics between there styles of writing. Although different in style both of the writings prove to be useful in understanding the ways in which the homosexual community was founded and the direction that the movement underwent.The first chapter of Faderman's book is devoted to examining the beginnings of the lesbian community in the end of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century. It begins, for middle-class women with the start up of female colleges in America, where "ambitious women...could go to college, educate themselves for a profession, earn a living in a rewarding career, and spend their lives with they women they loved"(Faderman 12). The start of the colleges allowed, for the first time, an opportunity for women to meet other women with interests similar to theirs, outside of the family unit. Faderman states that it was not what the women learned in college, "it was that the young women's relationships with one another while away at college helped to make them new people" (19). After leaving college the women were granted 1economic freedom from men, and therefore could continue to live the lives that they wanted to live with women. These "romantic friendships"(15) allowed women to live in same-sex households known as "Boston marriages"(15) and continue with the lives that they desired. In the second chapter of her book, Faderman begins to discuss the works of sexologists and the ...
