Homosexuality: Changes on the Way

Abstract

At the beginning of this century, most experts believed homosexuality a strictly constitutional disorder. Since it was possible to induce sexual aberrations in animals by implanting sex glands from animals of the opposite sex, homosexuality in humans was likewise regarded as a glandular imbalance. As recently as 1952, Dr. Franz Kallman published a study of male homosexual twins, in which he reported that twins born from a single zygote were significantly more similar in their patterns of homosexual behavior than were fraternal twins. His study has been criticized, but not refuted; no one else has undertaken a comparable study. Dr. Kallman's findings, nevertheless, do not imply that a constitutional factor is a prerequisite to the development of homosexuality. Generally, scientists interpret such evidence to mean that an inherited physical disposition can play a role in the cultural shaping of a homosexual. If a boy happens to look effeminate, or a girl happens to look masculine, says Dr. John Adams of the National Institute of Mental Health in Chevy Chase, Md., may be treated as if they were homosexual, and of course the way they are treated will influence their It is now orthodox to believe that homosexuality is a mental rather than a physical disease. Freud defined mental health partly in terms of normal sexual functioning; abnormal sexuality was by definition evidence of emotional sickness. The psychological investigation of homosexuals would, he felt, invariably uncover unrealistic fears and anxieties originating in early childhood experiences, which blocked heterosexual growth. The most exhaustive psychiatric survey of homosexuals that has so far been performed was done by Dr. Irving Bieber and other members of the Society of Medical Psychoanalysts between 1952 and 1957. It supports the Freudian notion of homosexuality as a mental illness. The families of children who later became homosexuals were strikingly different from normal families, according to the survey. The mothers of homosexual sons managed to be seductive and antisexual at the same time; they made confidants of their sons and openly preferred them to their husbands, while simultaneously crushing any signs of ordinary masculine independence. The fathers of male homosexuals either ignored their sons or competed with them for the mothers' affections, the result naturally being to discourage the children from identifying with their fathers. The survey concluded that homosexuals in truth were latent heterosexuals, whose parents had frightened them away from the ordinary course of development. The Freudian hypothesis, nevertheless, remains unproved. The Bieber survey included only 106 male homosexuals, all from the New York area. The survey questionnaires were filled out, not by the homosexuals, but by When homosexuals picketed the White House recently, passersby seemed to regard the demonstration as a joke.