IF THE CAT CAN LOOK AT THE KING... By Luther Allen

HOMOSEXUALITY: DISEASE OR WAY OF LIFE? Why must it be either the one extreme or the other? Atomosomal may be a business man, a Presbyterian, a Republican, a music lover, a bridge player, a tennis enthusiast, a war veteran (with honorable service, too), and many other things besides being a homosemal. Many are mebands, fathers, and pillars of their communities. Homosexuality is Sex is a way of life for only one element in a total way of life.

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very few people in this world-that goes for homosexals as well as heterosamals. Many scientific studies of homosexuality stress that the homosexual is indistinguishable from other men and women in the great majority of cases. He does not live mich differently from his fellows, he does not exhibit any marked eccentricities. Although in his sex life he is a deviant, he may be and often is an ultra-conformist in all other respects. Nobody would deny that homosexuals are more neurotic than heterosexuals, by and large. Many hazosemals are seriously sick, it's true. But I simply do not believe that homosexuality is the dread disease Dr. Bergler insists that it invariably is. But Dr. Bergler sees everything in extremes, thinks in black-and-white teras. This certainly 31 his book more sensational and dramatic, but I suspect it also dis torts considerably.

Dr. Bergler rejects the popular definition of the homosexual as "a person who derives his sexual excitement and satisfaction from a person of his om sex". He insists upon a definition which will contain a built-in judgment. His first objection to the usual definition is that "It accepts the parity between homosexuals and heterosexuals as a matter of fact, and hence because a useful argument in the homosemals' advocacy of their perversion." Not true! Such a definition does not make any comparison at all. It simply states the one thing which makes a homosexual a homosexual. It im't the function of definitions to make comparisons and pass judgements. Even in defining a crime such as murder wo do not require that the definition contain a judgment or evalustion. I think Dr. Bergler wants to play with a stacked dock.

Dr. Bergler's second and third objections to the popular definition concern the personality and character defects of homosexuals. He wants to include a dissertation on those defects within the definition. Towards the end of the book he shows us that in at least one case he was able to bring about characterological improvements in a patient without eradicating her homosexuality. One suspects that these character defects are not related to the homosexuality like one Siamese twin to the other. Dr. Bergler lists ten factors which are "specifically and exclusively characteristic of homosamals", "some of which have surface reverber ations". Most of the factors Dr. Bergler lists are not exlusive mallachine REVIEW

with homosexuals at all, but are characteristic of social rejects in general. Members of all persecuted minorities tend to become "injustice collectors", tend to retreat into a defensive pretence of superiority as over-compensation for society's insistence upon their inferiority, experience depression and harbor malice and tend to be unreliable. People who took German Jewish refugees into their homes in the years prior to World War II often found these same traits in their unhappy guests developed to an almost pathological degree. Many Negroes in the United States display the same set of characteristics. I do not believe that such factors are intrinsic to homosexuality and belong in any definition of it.

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Dr. Bergler claims that "Without exception, deep inner guilt arising from the perversion is present in homosexuals." der! From his earliest years the homosexual is conditioned to regard persons like himself as either comic or monstrous. He soon learns that he must live in a world in which the law regards him as a criminal and the church as a sinner. Society has its Trojan horse within the minds of most homosexuals. One part of him is identified with his environment and shares its reprobation, turning against the homosexual part of himself and the homosexuality rinths of depth psychology to understand the homosexual's sense of guilt. To return to the question of definition, a sense of guilt may impel a man to murder and it may also be a consequence of the act, but we do not include guilt in a definition of "murderer". Besides, we would have to be able to prove conclusively that a sense of guilt was intrinsic to homosexuality and not an introjection of society's animus before we could even consider including that factor in our definition of "homosexual".

Dr. Bergler writes, "I can say with some justifictation that I have no bias against homosexuals...Still, though I have no bias, if I were asked what kind of a person the homosexual is, I would say: 'Homosexuals are essentially disagreeable people, regardless of their pleasant or unpleasant outward manner." The entire book displays so obvious an animis against the homosexual that one is led to suspect that Dr. Bergler brings out the worst in any homosexeal who comes to him for treatment. It is no wonder that he is convinced that all homosexuals are masochists. What other kind Is it would go to a pan as aggressively anti-hơsosexual as he? remarkable that homosexuals, in analysis with such a person, should became very "disagreeable" in sheer self-defence? Is it pathoDr. Bergler logical for a man to defend himself if under attack? reproaches the homosexual because he lacks a normal live-and-letlive attitude. Does he exemplify this attitude? Does society. where the homosexual is concerned? One thing sure, Dr. Bergler's book is quite as emotional as Donald Webster Cory's defence of homosexuality.

A book of this sort doesn't enhance the reputation of psychoanalysis. If the cat can look at the king, then certainly the "Queen" can look at the psychoanalyst. Dr. Bergler claims many aures, and by cure he means nothing less than the renunciation of homosexuality and the achievement of satisfactory heterosexual marriage. But has anyone verified these claims? Does anyone, over, verify the claims of psychoanalysts? In the case of some scientific discovery like the Salk vaccine, it is subjected to the most careful and exact tests all along the way of its development and the final product is given the most rigorous and obJeative tests of all. Where psychoanalysis is concemed, there are no tests, no proofs.