What are we? Do we have a biological function and purpose? If not, is reproduction the only criterion for judging the individual? One of our readers gives you her well considered answer.

The Human Hybrid

Psychological science as a science has evolved rather rapidly and close behind it have come the other ologies of the past half century. Unfortunately each scientist treats a subject from his orientation only and sometimes this interpretation is too narrow for ultimate social application. So it is with homosexuality. There is so little understanding of what it constitutes, so many versions of its cause and treatment, if any, by scientific and legal representatives, that an individual is at a loss to evaluate its true significance. Since neither natural selection, legislation nor prejudice has significantly affected its incidence, it is perhaps logical and necessary to presume a purpose in its persistent existence.

Developmental sex theories have come about full circle and it now appears well established that virtually all individuals encounter some form of the homosexual development stage, and that it is passed by most without permanent effect. What of those who do not abandon this manifestation as a growth stage but seem to evidence a pre-disposition to homosexuality? The mere biological fact that there is represented in life the egg and sperm forms does not preclude the existence of other evolutionary forms of equal importance. Within the two biological separations of male and female arise many hybrids, with no sexual representation pure in the scientific sense. The primary divisions of male and female exist for the purpose of propagation, and since secondary sexual characteristics have no direct role in reproduction, the only real

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sex division is in the primary characteristics. All others then have no true sex determinism save what societies have placed upon them. The homosexual represents simply the individual in whom the secondary characteristics of sex, all sex, are manifested to the apparent exclusion of the primary sexual characteristic of reproduction. This does not conclude that all individuals who do not reproduce are homosexual. What it does conclude is that although the attractions of sexual experience and expression do exist for the homosexual, they are not limited or confined to a rigid male-female definition. As reproduction is incidental to a sexual relationship, so is male-female determination incidental to sex, even though much of the world lives out its social patterns playing strict roles as man or

woman.

What is the ultimate objective of social integration of homosexuals? Is the homosexual problem singular or merely one obvious example of a society whose entire sexual pattern needs examining? Since it has been established that western society pays lip service to one type of sexual behavior while in practice indulging in quite another sort, it is obvious some reconciliation must be effected between the two patterns. Dispensation of the homosexual by his society has always been influenced by a more or less universal determination to consider homosexuality at best an anomoly within, again, the accepted male-female sexual doctrines. Analysed and considered within these confines it does and always

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