ALL THE SEXES

By George W. Henry

NY, Rinehart, 1955

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The author of this work, George W. Henry, is associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Cornell University Medical College and is in charge of the George W. Henry Foundation.

He has used case histories to illustrate the five parts of the book dealing with Causes and Conditions, Personality Development, Social Problems, the Law, and the Past and Present of sexual variation. These section headings would indicate a thorough treatment of the subject of sexual variation. However, the book fails to prove this to the reader.

Unavoidably, Mr. Henry must be called on his statistical sample. His observations are based on a sample of 4040 male variants and a smattering of females. All of these cases were associated with the George W. Henry Foundation as patients. They had been either in trouble with civil authorities and referred to the foundation, or socially maladjusted and in therapy. He uses this sample as the foundation for his generalizations on all sexual variants, i.e. bisexuals and homosexuals. His interpretations and generalizations based on these case histories are as peripheral to sexual variation as his sample is statistically unsound. Unfortunately, he presents a skewed generalization of sexual variation.

There is an abundance of case histories included in the work. Although they are shortened the important outline is included. They are easily the most interesting part of the book.

Henry, in light of the whole book, unwittingly or courageously includes a short discussion of research done by Frank A. Beach on A Cross-species Survey of Mammalian Sexual Behavior. This research by Beach is part of a larger work, Psychosexual Development in Health and Disease, edited by Paul H. Hoch, NY, Grune & Stratton, 1949.

After citing evidence from mammalian sub-species, Beach concludes, "The results of a comparative survey tend to favor the belief that exclusively heterosexual or homosexual behavior in human beings is a product of individual experience and learning. It appears probable that in the absence of cultural channelization many if not all men and women would possess the capacity for complete erotic response to members of either sex.

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Henry finds it necessary to reply as follows. "It may be true that all humans, in the absence of cultural patterns would possess the capacity for bisexual response, but it is unlikely that there would be a preference for bisexuality on the part of the majority as long as there was adequate opportunity for heterosexual relations. The survey of mammalian sexual behavior shows increasing flexibility and freedom in sexual adaptation with ascent in the scale terminating with the manifold sexual potentialities in humans. Nevertheless, there is no certain evidence that the majority prefer bisexual to heterosexual adaptation."

The Beach reference and one other are the only ones in the book citing actual research on sexuality. Henry's other references are strongly religious. This lack of reference to other research is the book's most serious shortcoming. His work lacks the information to stand alone as material to be seriously considered. It suffers from the author's set of mind which is more religious than scientific. Henry asks the reader to listen to him as an authority when in fact he is no authority. His writings are popularizations based on inadequate research. It seems he is the defender of the sexual status quo.

J. G.