THEORIES ABOUT HOMO-SEXUALITY.
Some of the greatest sexologists and psychiatrists of modern times have
concerned themselves with the causative factors of homosexuality. So
much new material relating to unconscious mental activities has been
uncovered in recent years, that many of the older authorities, whose
opinions have long carried much weight, are now considered obsolete, at
least in respect to homosexual problems.
Krafft-Ebing, for instance, a widely quoted authority, and still a
factor through his works in influencing both the profession and laymen,
originally conceived homosexuality as the result of a hereditary
transmission. This contention has never been fully corroborated by the
observations of later investigators.
To this extent only is homosexuality an inherited trait beyond fear of
any contradiction: Everybody inherits homosexual _tendencies_.
As we observed in the previous chapter, every child is homosexual in
disposition. Therefore, heredity _per se_ does not give us the key to
the problem, except possibly in those instances where the hereditary
constitution furnishes certain predisposing factors to homosexuality.
And this predisposition may be overcome, wholly or in part, in a
healthy, constructive environment; or it may be cultivated in the
opposite kind of environment.
From this standpoint, heredity may furnish a favorable soil--for almost
anything. The crop that is harvested depends upon the seeds that are
sown, and the care that is given, or the injuries that are sustained,
through environment. Consider for a moment how fertile a breeding
ground for the homosexual disposition is the homelife presided over by
certain types of nervous and psychopathic parents!
Even more in error is Krafft-Ebing in associating homosexuality with
the early habit of masturbation. This is largely confusion of cause
and effect. Perhaps all homosexuals are found to have masturbated
in childhood--ergo, masturbation is a sign of homosexuality! This
explanation, of course, leaves entirely out of consideration the
innumerable persons who have masturbated in childhood and have become
normal heterosexual adults.
“Nothing is more likely,” states Krafft-Ebing, “than masturbation so
to disturb and occasionally thwart all noble emotions at the source
as they arise spontaneously out of the sexual feeling. The habit robs
the nascent feeling of charm and beauty, leaving behind only the husk
of grossly animal craving for sexual gratification. An individual, so
thwarted, attains the age of maturity lacking the esthetic, ideal, pure
and undefiled longing which leads to the other sex. At the same time,
the heat of sensuous passion cools off while the inclination toward
the other sex is significantly weakened. Thus, deficiency embraces the
morals, the ethics, the phantasy and the disposition of the youthful
masturbator as well as his emotional and instinctive life, and holds
true of both sexes, occasionally reducing to zero the yearning after
the opposite sex, so that in the end masturbation is preferred to every
other form of gratification.”
Dr. Stekel has answered this statement very effectively in the
following words (from “_Bi-Sexual Love_,” translated by James Van
Teslaar, M.D.): “This contention is altogether wrong. I have never
seen so many and such pronounced idealists as among masturbators.
Young artists, poets and musicians in particular often show, I have
found, a strong tendency to masturbation, and this agrees with the
pronounced bisexuality of all artists, which has been particularly
pointed out by Fliess. The youths of this type are often so delicate
and sensitive that they see in the sexual act only animal brutality and
hide their own sexuality from the whole world. Among masturbators we
find the champions of truth, the over-moralistic preachers, the ethical
reformers and dreamers.”
If Krafft-Ebing’s theory of masturbation being an index of
homosexuality were true, it might well be set forth as a demonstrable
fact, in the hope that this knowledge would be a stepping-stone to
constructive results in our understanding of the sexual life. However,
in addition to being a fallacious conception, it has the further
discredit of probably having wrought great damage to masturbating
youths in giving them a false and hopeless impression of their
actual situation. If a youth in his effort to overcome masturbation,
believes himself, in addition, to be a predestined victim of
homosexuality--especially with the prevailing social stigma which
that condition carries--the injurious effect may quite conceivably be
disastrous.
Magnus Hirschfeld, one of the greatest of contemporary authorities on
the sex question in all its phases, is convinced that homosexuality
is a normal state, and that genuine homosexuality is always an inborn
condition. His views may be summed up in the statement that there is a
genuine inborn homosexuality which must not be considered a morbidity.
Furthermore, it should not be confused either with bisexuality or with
pseudo-sexuality.
Those who look upon homosexuality from the psycho-pathological
viewpoint are in agreement to this extent--that the homosexual
condition is not a product of degeneration in the ordinary sense, but,
rather, a neurosis.
Stekel states emphatically, “_I have never yet found a homosexual who
was not a neurotic._”
The relationship of neurosis and homosexuality is set forth by the same
authority as follows:
(a) Pronounced physical and mental stigmata of degeneration are
relatively rare among homosexual men and women; at any rate such signs
are not more frequent in proportion to the total number of homosexuals
than among the heterosexuals of both sexes.
(b) On the other hand, we find frequently and not merely as a result
of homosexuality, _a greater instability of the nervous system_
(frequently shown in the periodic character of endogenous temperamental
instability.)
(c) The family of the homosexual often contains a larger number of
nervous persons and such as deviate from the normal sexual type.
This latter observation, of course, tends to give homosexuality an
hereditary aspect, which is Hirschfeld’s opinion. But, when analyzed,
this may mean that a nervous or neurotic disposition is inherited,
which, under certain environmental conditions (the negative attitude of
parents, the dominant mother, etc.) leads to a homosexual goal.
Dr. Iwan Bloch, who has world-wide standing as a sexologist, gives the
following interesting opinion:
1. The so-called “undifferentiated” stage of the sexual instinct is
often eliminated when the instinct becomes directed toward a definite
particular sex among heterosexuals or homosexuals before the advent of
puberty. Homosexuality shows a definite, clear direction of the sexual
instinct towards the same sex long before puberty.
2. A comprehensive theory of homosexuality must also explain the
extreme cases, particularly male homosexuality coupled with complete
virility.
3. Sexual parts and genital glands cannot determine homosexuality
in those possessing typical normal male genitalia and testicles;
neither can the brain itself be the determining factor in genuine
homosexuality, because homosexuality cannot be rooted out by the
strongest conscious and unconscious heterosexual influences brought to
bear upon thought and phantasy,--the condition developing in spite of
such influences.
4. Since as a predisposition (not as sexual instinct) homosexuality
appears long before puberty and before the actual functioning of
the respective genital glands, it suggests that in homosexuals some
physiologic action pertaining to “sexuality,” but not necessarily
related to the functioning of the genital glands, undergoes some subtle
change as the result of which the sexual instinct is turned from its
goal.
5. The condition suggests chemical changes, alteration in the chemistry
of sexual tension, the latter being fairly independent of the activity
of the sexual glands proper, as is shown by the fact that it may be
preserved among eunuchs and others who undergo castration.
Krafft-Ebing, Hirschfeld and Bloch, as well as many other investigators
and writers, have failed to appreciate the psychological factors
involved in homosexuality. Every young individual unconsciously
patterns its conduct, especially in the matter of its attitudes toward
persons of the opposite sex, after some one in the home environment.
When the boy, for instance, is raised under conditions which cause
him to pattern his actions after the mother-model, to _feel_ himself
woman-like, he will unconsciously and automatically imitate feminine
ways and adopt woman’s attitudes, in the sexual sphere as well as
otherwise.
To illustrate this point, if a boy is brought up by a widowed mother,
let us say, in a home environment in which there is no male present,
the young boy, impelled to imitate some one in order to establish
a standard of conduct, copies his mother’s attitude of physical
indifference to women and physical interest in men (if she is a
normally constituted woman). If the mother, or other feminine guardian,
should be homosexually disposed, i.e., showing a physical interest in
women and a physical indifference to men, then, by the same token, the
boy would tend to develop a sexual interest in women, and become a
normal heterosexual man.
Every young boy’s ambition, normally, is to be like his father;
later, it may be to excel the father--but this identification, under
the circumstances, is present. Now, the absence of a father in the
house, or the presence of a father of weak character, who suffers
in comparison with the mother, tends to force the youth to make his
ego-ideal identification with the mother, with results that are not
conducive to normality in the sexual life.
Under the latter condition, the youth associates the mother with
sex domination and personal power--it is a woman-dominated world.
Consequently there is also present the attitude, either of wishing to
be a woman and rule, or of fleeing from woman when she clashes with his
will to power as man.
Anyone who knows the dynamic influence that mental processes,
particularly the unconscious ones, have over the physical organism
and its far-reaching manifestations, will recognize at once the
possibilities that are bound up in this situation.
We see this same principle every day, and in fact apply it (in the
opposite manner to obtain the opposite results), when we inculcate
manly ideas in the minds of our boys and encourage them to conduct
themselves in a manly way, in order to develop in them the attributes
of manliness. With girls, we foster the womanly ideal and encourage
them in the direction of proper feminine conduct to promote the
accredited qualities of womanhood.
We also see evidenced at times the wish to remain a child, and to
retain the privileges and attentions of childhood, which apply to
neurotic persons. This notably interferes with their development and
progress toward adulthood.
Stekel tells us that when a boy acts like a girl, it does not
necessarily mean that he has that kind of a _predisposition_. It may
only signify his identification with his mother or with a sister, whom
he unconsciously accepts as a model to pattern his conduct after.
It is the conviction of Sadger that permanent homosexuality is
established through some significant incident which leads to the
repression of the mother in her role as helper and teacher. Among such
incidents may be death, sudden financial reverses, and consequent
neurosis, making sanatorium treatment necessary, inconsiderate
persecution of the boy on account of masturbation, and similar psychic
shocks. Sadger’s conclusions may be summed up as follows:
(a) The urning is a victim of withdrawal from the mother (the first
caretaker or nurse, respectively), in whom he is himself seriously
disappointed. He represses the mother by identifying himself completely
with her.
(b) The path to homosexuality leads through narcissism--that is, love
of self, as one was, or as one may ideally be.
(c) The sexual ideal of the invert includes not only traits of former
female and male sexual objectives, but also features of one’s own
beloved self.
(d) Being brought up in surroundings exclusively feminine--the father
does not count in such circumstances--fosters homosexuality in the male
as well as in the female, for reasons that are not sufficiently clear
as yet. Moreover, the urning is usually an only child.
(e) Finally, inversion may be fostered by a sort of “latter-day
obedience” to the mother’s commands. I have observed not rarely that
mothers warn their children against harmless, though warm and friendly
contact with the other sex, as something unpermissible and bad and that
the teaching thus instilled may unfortunately increase the disposition
towards one’s own sex through later obedience.
As Stekel has well stated, in commenting upon Sadger’s conclusions,
the first of these is false, because the homosexual is not a victim
of withdrawal from the mother, but rather of a fixation upon her.
Further, one does not repress a person when one identifies one’s self.
Identification is direct love; differentiation means repression. Where
homosexuals (male) identify themselves with the mother--as many of them
do--there may also be present a repression of the father-ideal.
Alfred Adler, whose conception of the neurosis is based on the
hypothesis of “_the male protest_,” also associates homosexuality
with this principle. In his opinion, all reactions and protective
constructions or fixations of the neurotic are based on the wish to
be “_a complete being_,” as he sees it. Homosexuality exemplifies
this protest in a singular form. The homosexual’s ambition is (in its
unconscious implications): _I want to be a woman!_ This, according to
Adler, _is a male protest under the use of female means_. He maintains
that the homosexual attempts by this means to enhance his strength of
personality. The latter turns away from woman because he fears his
inferiority. He fears the sexual partner. Fear, shame, hate and disgust
are the inhibitions which drive the homosexual away from the opposite
sex.
Adler mentions that the over-valuation of the homosexual partner serves
also to raise the neurotic invert in his own estimation. Thus, in
neuroses, homosexuality, even when carried into practice, is always
found to be a symbol by means of which it is sought to place the
individual’s own superiority beyond question. This mechanism is similar
to that of a religious psychosis, in which the fancied nearness to God
has the significance of an elevation. In a sense, the religious fanatic
identifies himself with God, just as the non-religious psychopath may
identify himself with Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander the Great, or some
other character in history whose personality completely dominated its
environment.
_Syphilophobia_ (fear of syphilis) is one of the forms which the fear
of women is especially likely to take. The attitude of such phobists
is usually as follows: They fear that they will not be able to play
a dominating part in regard to women because of some feeling of
inferiority, for which they have all sorts of imaginary foundations,
at times without conscious motivation. In this manner, following the
increasing trend to belittle woman, they arrive at suspicious trains of
thought which are to secure them against sexual relations. Sometimes
a woman is a riddle, sometimes a criminal person, or a shallow
spend-thrift, always thinking of adornment and similar vanities, and
sexually insatiable.
The suspicions constantly arise that woman is a crafty and cunning
being, bent on evil. This conception is universal and is found in
all periods of history. As Adler states, “They emerge in the most
sublime and lowest creations of art, have a place in the thoughts and
efforts of the wisest, and create in man and in society a constant
predisposition which develops suspicious and cautious traits, in order
always to keep in touch with the enemy and to be in good time for the
defense against knavish attacks. It is an error to think that it is
only the man who harbors distrust of the sexual partner. The same trait
is found also in the woman, often less distinct in character, when
fictions of her own strength put a check to the doubt of her own value,
but flashing up most strongly when the feeling of degradation becomes
overpowering.”
The detraction of woman, which recurs so constantly in Jewish,
Christian and Mohammedan religious writings and usages, undoubtedly
has this psychological impulse, behind it. The medieval disputes
as to whether woman had a soul, or, indeed, whether she was really
a human being at all; the hideous persecution and burning of women
as witches and vampires, which was participated in by church, state
and populace,--all of these practices had behind them in some degree
a neurotic fear of woman as the sexual partner. Man feared his
inferiority, and he compensated for that fear by subjecting, and often
eliminating, the object of his phobia. By this irrational gesture, he
symbolically raised himself to a position of greater security.
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895), a brilliant and learned man and
able legal official of Hanover, Germany, for many years expounded and
defended homosexual love. He was himself an invert, and made many
attempts to secure a revision of the legal position of the sexual
invert in Germany.
Ulrichs formulated an elaborate classification of human types, with
an interesting nomenclature, which despite its elaborateness has been
found serviceable.
Among males, he classifies the normal man as the “Dioning,” and the
invert as the “Urning.”[1] Urnings are subdivided into several groups.
First, those who are thoroughly manly in appearance and mental habit
and character (“Mannlings”) and who tend to love softer and younger
specimens of their own sex; second, those who are effeminate in
appearance and cast of mind (“Weiblings”), who love rougher and older
men; third, those who are of medium type (“Zwischen Urnings”) and love
young men.
[1] From _Uranos_, heaven; his idea being that the Uranian love was of
a higher order than the normal attachment.
Then there are “Urano-Dionings,” who have the capacity of love in both
directions, that is, for women and for men. These are generally of a
manly type.
Besides these there are some sub-species, such as the “Uraniaster,” who
is a normal man who has acquired the urning habit; and the “Virilized
Urning,” who is an Urning who has gotten the normal habit, although,
according to Ulrichs’ classification, this is not really natural to him.
A better conception of the whole arrangement may be obtained from the
following table:
{ (a) Normal Man or Dioning--called
{ Uraniaster when he acquires
{ Urning tendencies.
{ { 1. Mannling.
The { { 2. Zwischen-Urning.
Human { (b) Urning { 3. Weibling.
Male { { 4. Also called Virilized
{ { Urning when he
{ { acquires the normal
{ { habit.
{ (c) Urano-dioning.
Edward Carpenter states that if we add to this a corresponding table
for the female, we shall have an idea of the complication of Ulrichs’
system! Yet, complex as it is, and whatever criticisms we may make upon
it, we must allow that it does not exceed the complexity of the real
facts of Nature.
As we observe from the foregoing, there are many and conflicting ideas
regarding homosexuality, but I believe no concept of this phenomenon is
so satisfactory as that based on psychoanalytical data, as developed
from the teachings of Freud.
Taking into consideration the findings of all the analysts, it seems to
me that Stekel’s conception of the problem, summarized as follows, is
pre-eminently the most logical and valid:
“All persons originally are bisexual in their predisposition. There
is no exception to this rule. Normal persons show a distinct bisexual
period up to the age of puberty. The heterosexual then represses his
homosexuality. He also sublimates a portion of his homosexual cravings
in friendship, nationalism, social endeavors, gatherings, etc. If this
sublimation fails him he becomes neurotic, since no person overcomes
completely his homosexual tendencies. Everyone carries within himself
the predisposition to neurosis. The stronger the repression, the
stronger is also the neurotic reaction which may be powerful enough
in its extreme form to lead to paranoia. If the heterosexuality is
repressed, homosexuality comes to the forefront. In the case of the
homosexual, the repressed and incompletely conquered heterosexuality
furnishes the disposition toward neurosis. The more thoroughly his
heterosexuality is sublimated the more completely the homosexual
presents the picture of a normal healthy person. He then resembles
the normal heterosexual. But like the normal heterosexual individual,
even the ‘male hero’ type displays a permanent latent disposition to
neurosis.
“The process of sublimation is more difficult in the case of the
normal homosexual than in the case of the normal heterosexual. That
is why this type is extremely rare and why a thorough analysis
always discloses typical neurotic reactions. The neurotic reactions
of expression are anxiety, fear, shame, disgust and hatred. The
heterosexual is inspired with disgust at any homosexual act. That
proves his affectively determined negative attitude. For disgust is but
the obverse of attraction. The homosexual manifests the same feeling
of disgust for woman, showing him to be a neurotic. (Or else he hates
woman). For the normal homosexual--if there be such a type--would be
indifferent towards woman. These generalizations already show that the
healthy person must act as a bisexual being.”
My only criticism of Stekel’s ideas is to call attention to the fact
that, being a medical psychologist, his whole experience has been
practically with those types whose neurotic tendencies have been
emphasized. There are and have been a great many inverts who have
not only enjoyed average mental and physical health--but have been
versatile and productive in their accomplishments. Chapter V is devoted
to the achievements of the better types of inverts. Many have been
brilliantly endowed, have attained outstanding success in the arts and
sciences, and even in the military field, as well as in other spheres
of activity.