objective view comes the typical Freudian twist:-"Homosexuality can be visualized as a neurotic disorder characterized by readiness to relinquish the biological or procreative aspects of sex to fulfill a variety of individual needs." The connection, here made, between "neurotic disorder" and "fulfillment of need" seems somewhat ambiguous, since in most psychoanalytic theory, the presence of one means the absence of the other. Perhaps some new principle of neurosis is aborning.
BIEBER'S Freudian bias is well known from his study of homosexuality published in 1962. In Sexual Inversion, he states his general conclusion that "Most men are not latent homosexuals; rather, all homosexuals are latent heterosexuals." However, with the theory of biological bisexuality in the discard, it is difficult to see how the notion of latency in the above statement could be scientifically supported. The bisexuality theory is the only one which could logically admit the assumption of two different sexual orientations, one latent and one actual, coexisting in the same individual. Following classical Freudian lines, BIEBER describes the "homosexual adaptation" as a "consequence of immobilizing fears surrounding heterosexual activity" without, apparently, ever entertaining the possibility that the converse might be equally true, and that heterosexual adaptations may also result from immobilizing fears surrounding homosexual activity. This glaring, and unfortunately typical bias plainly results from (A) the vicious legal-religious bias against homosexuality which influences most modern psychoanalytic thinking, in spite of specious denials, and (B) the failure to account for the same legal-religious (i.e., social) biases and taboos as the source of most of the neuroses associated with homosexuality. These two factors conspire to prevent most modern psychoanalysts from reaching any realistic regard for homosexual or bisexual be-
12
havior as a natural manifestation for some or many individuals within a given ethnological and cultural framework.
The two articles concerned with lesbianism cover very well what is regrettably still a limited field of investigation compared with that of male homosexuality. However, they do not appear to add anything new to existing psychoanalytic theory, in which lesbianism is most commonly ascribed to the influence of an antisexual, perhaps frigid mother who fills her small daughter with fears of men, of heterosexual copulation, of the pangs of childbirth, etc., thus bringing about an eventual rejection of males as sexual partners. Father-fixation, penis-envy, and other possible causes are also cited, but with the general reservation that (as with male homosexuality) the causes are "psychodynamic rather than physiological" (WILBUR). Since woman never depends on physical potency (an erection) to enact a sexual role, active ("butch" or "dyke") and passive ("femme") roles among homosexual women are even more difficult to ac-
for than their counterparts among male homosexuals, it is observed. The involvement of woman with childbearing as an integral part of her sexual role further complicates psychosexual adjustment for the lesbian. Many lesbians definitely seek the sexual fulfillment of motherhood, while at the same time remaining emotionally committed to homosexual attachments. Considering the heavily Freudian undertones, it is predictably concluded that "Female homosexuality is a psychosexual aberration" but that if the lesbian is "incapable of making the transition to heterosexuality, she should gain enough benefit from treatment to lead a productive life, relatively free from anxiety, and to reconcile herself to her homosexual pattern with adequate self-esteem and dignity." (ROMM) Compared with BIEBER, who speaks of "the inevitable emotion-