that "nothing is wrong with me" and "only crazy people go to see psychologists"--is perhaps the most tragic neurotic of all: for absolutely nothing can be done to help him.

Let your homosexuals face it, therefore: all of you, every mother's son of you who is exclusively desirous of homosexual relations, is indubitably neurotic. Those of you-like Cory himself, incidentallywho are capable of being happily married and having heterosexual satisfactions right along with your homosexual affairs may not necessarily be emotionally disturbed (though, on some other count, you may be). But those of you who are disgusted by the mere thought of boy-girl relations; who are more or less impotent in heterosexual affairs; who are potent but unsatisfied by heterosexual relations; who are afraid to make any sexual overtures to members of the other sex; who compulsively engage in homosexual acts even though you find little enjoyment in them; who are unable to love virtually any of your sex partners; who are horrified at the thought of masturbation or other non-homosexual acts; who dogmatically refuse to try any heterosexual participations; all of you are just about as neurotic as you could possibly be, and you had better run, not walk, to the nearest psychotherapist.

Certainly, if you want to say so, innumerable heterosexuals are neurotic and perverted, too. That is their problem. But if you refuse to admit your own emotional disturbance, and try to ape the ostrich by pretending that your neurosis is solely a result of societal ostracism and persecution, you are sadly fooling only yourselves. And that, too, is what neurosis essentially is—illogically, out of some underlying fears, acting in a certain manner, or adopting what we psychologists call a set of neurotic symptoms, in order not to face the facts of the underlying fears or guilts. Those exclusive homosexuals, in other words, who most loudly proclaim that they are not necessarily neurotic are, by their very head-in-the-sand attitudes, conclusively proving how seriously neurotic they actually are.

By all means, then, let us try to see that homosexuals, like all other neurotics, are able to live as happily as possible in this neuroticizing society. By all means let us try to put a halt to the unfair calumny and persecution that now is heaped on them. By all means let us try to change society, and its antisexual attitudes in particular, so that it accepts homosexual acts without encouraging exclusive, obsessive-compulsive homosexuality. But let us not, please, confuse what Dr. Kinsey calls homosexual outlets with what the gay world usually means by homosexuality. The former is a normal biological part of human sex activity; the latter is a fetichistic sickness. To say otherwsie would be to gratify many homosexuals who are desperately trying to deny their own emotional disturbances; but it would be a scientific untruth. I should indeed be a false friend to my many homosexual correspondents, associates, and patients were I not to make this vitally important point. I can only finally repeat: He who engages sporadically or non-exclusively in homosexual acts is not necessarily a pervert or a neurotic. But he who has exclusively inverted desires, or is truly "gay," necessarily is. This is fact; all else is wishful thinking.

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