A.

SEX-GUILT IN ADOLESCENCE....and ADULTHOOD

Recently, we received in our office the following request: "I am particularly interested in obtaining information on how the subject (homosexuality) should be explained to young teen-agers who should have some knowledge of this social phenomenon."

As to how the subject of sex, in general, and homosexuality, in particular, should be explained to teenagers is highly controversial. This is unfortunate, as the teen-ager usually ends up deriving his information from very innaccurate sources. The hesitancy of adults to come to the point about sex with the young is responsible for a great deal of apprehension, as the youngster senses the guilt of the parent. It has been traditional to avoid the issue by declaring that sex, per se, is sinful. This conflicts with the youngster's biological drives, and he is made to feel guilty not only for his sexual expressions, but also for his sexual impressions; the latter being completely beyond his control. The intensity of this conflict in those young men who are possessed of both a strong sexual urge and a prohibitive religious background may well be the greatest single cause in the evolution of juvenile delinquency. This comes

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editorial

more clearly into mind if we remember that the sexual desire in the male is greatest in the late teens. It is not unusual in the annals of psychiatric literature to find the knife, gun, or club replacing the penis in the mind of the patient who has been deeply indoctrinated in the superstitious ethic of complete abstinence.

If the youngster is made to feel guilty about his heterosexuality, he is made to feel doubly so about his homosexuality, and let's stop telling ourselves that homosexuality is the exception.

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Sex-guilt during adolescence is undoubtedly one of the most difficult problems one is called upon to face in life. But that is only the minor aspect of the situation. The major one is that adolescent sexguilt is a problem which has taken its toll from the minds of all of todays adult citizens. It is a mental cancer which derives its first nourishment from the old stork story and those other platitudes which derive from the dogmas of sexual abstinence.

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Itis ironical that this predicament should have arisen from those very doctrines which were devised to save our souls.

mattachine REVIEW

LC

DR. ELLIS RAISED A STORM OF COMMENT

In the June issue of the REVIEW, a critique of the transcript of a radio broadcast, "The Homosexual in Our Society," was printed. It was written by Albert Ellis, Ph.D., of New York, one of the most outspoken of modem-day sexologists, and a psychologist whose views are definite, even though they do not coincide with those held by many of his contemporaries. In this issue, some of the criticisms of Dr. Ellis are presented. More will follow in the next issue, not in the intention of picking anyone apart, but in the spirit of stirring serious thought on a subject not yet completely understood.

DAVID BELL, Ph. D., Los Angeles,

says let's don't confuse 'psychological jargon and pseudo-biology' on the one hand with scientific thinking on the other...

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SCIENCE & Dr. Ellis

r.

"

....

In the last paragraph of his critical comments on the broadcast, "The Homosexual in Our Society" (MATTACHINE REVIEW, June 1959), Dr. Ellis anticipates all kinds of highly emotionalized, and largely irrelevant, protests". (p. 28) Unlike Dr. Ellis, I would not be put off by emotional protests to his article so long as their substance was actually relevant; certainly the arguments and assertions made by Dr. Ellis ought arouse any'one concerned with the decencies

of scientific method.

Dr. Ellis' central thesis is that ".. fixed or exclusive homosexuals are invariably neurotic." (p. 26; cf. passim) The crucial premise upon which his thesis rests is that ". general neurosis and sexual deviation can only be meaningfully defined by using some criterion of illogicality, irrationality, childishness, fixation, fetichism, inflexibility, rigidity, or exclusivity." (idem) It should be noticed that Dr. Ellis' thesis logically follows from

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