Part II

By Luther Allen

homosexuality, morality and

This is the second part of an essay, the first part of which was published in the February 1956 issue of the REVIEW. The decision to print the second part was based upon a number of letters received from readers who indicated that the thoughts of the author exactly described concepts they had long believed, but had been unable to put in words.

RELIGION

HE NEW TESTAMENT is full of exhortations to celibacy and asceticism, but that aspect of Christianity I must reject.

Sex is a powerful energy. If it is denied it will take other forms, usually aggressive ones.

In SEXUAL BEHAVIOR IN SOCIETY the English psychiatrist and novelist, Dr. Alex Comfort, writes:

"A large number of popular works contain categorical statements that 'continence is not harmful'... The true answer cannot be given categorically, but a great deal of factual information is accumulating from the study of individual behavior. This suggests that the capacity for abstinence and the resistance to sexual deprivation vary widely in individuals... it has been stated that the most prominent instances of total sexual abstinence without ill effect are, in reality instances of an innately low sexual vitality ... The evidence in most animals, even those who exhibit only infrequent sexual activity, is that the effects of chronic abstinence are harmful and tend to result in manifestations closely similar to human anxiety. No definite evidence is available to prove that sublimation can account for more

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than a part of the total sexual drive, and its results are not in general demonstrably desirable... It seems clear that while some transference of sexual energy to other fields may occur, a complete repudiation of sexual activity is almost as unlikely in practice as a complete repudiation of food, and that the products of such a repudiation are more likely to be pathological than constructive. Its main result is to produce feelings of guilt and shame in regard to sexual activity, rather than to prevent it... It is generally admitted that frustration, or extreme feelings of guilt in sexual matters may lead to the development of a particular form of aggressive conduct that manifests itself in the desire for unlimited authority. There is a growing suggestion in the available evidence that while membership of a ruling class depends upon economic circumstance, the desire to govern, especially in highly centralized communities is a manifestation of this type of aggression."

In a later chapter Dr. Comfort writes, "Like other centralized cultures, our own selects the forms of abnormality and anti-sociality which it will tolerate, and which it will punish. In our laws, as in our society, the sexual manifestation of abnormality is penalized, while its manifestations in power, greed, or irresponsibility are compatable with our standards. In the law itself delinquent impulses may be as strongly entrenched as in the criminals recommended for such treatment."We live in a world of punishing-and-being-punished while we long for a world of loving-and-beingloved.

Is it possible that the celibacy of Christ and his disciples is not the virtuous and innocuous thing we have regarded it these almost 2,000

years? Is it possible that Christ, who possessed so much wisdom, was the victim of an error in this respect? In the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel according to John we read, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." What in all literature is more inspiring than that verse? But then we read, with a shock, "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." Would you or I, reader, define friendship as absolute obedience? Could you or I with a clear conscience make so outrageous a demand upon a friend? Is it possible that God, who is Love, would demand of us an abdication of the will that none of us would dare, ethically, to demand of one another? Or isn't it rather that Christ, through denial of this life and this flesh, betrayed himself into the error which Comfort has described in the paragraphs I have quoted? It seems to me that by renouncing all joyful, physical means of loving-and-being-loved Christ and his followers had no way of expressing and fulfilling love but along sado-masochistic lines. Punishing-and-being-punished became

a substitute for loving-and-beingloved. And throughout the spiritual history of our civilization we have continued with the punishing-andbeing-punished, and we have called it love. It has been a tragic, catastrophic error, I believe.

In regard to the specifically homosexual aspect of this general problem, the pschoanalyst, Sandor Ferenczi, an early colleague of Freud, expressed it well in a paper called the "The Nosology of Male Homosexuality" published originally in 1911. Dr. Ferenczi wrote, "It is in fact astounding to what an extent present-day men have lost the capacity for mutual affection and amiabilty. Instead there prevails among