Homosexuality

FROM THE PSYCHIATRIC VIEWPOINT

By W. Lindesay Neustatter, M.D., B.Sc. (Psy.), M.R.C.P., Physician in Psychological Medicine, the Royal Northern Hospital, London. Reprinted from MAN AND SOCIETY, 32 Shaftesbury (Room 29), London, W.1. PREJUDICE ABOUT HOMOSEXUALS has existed for a long time, and it is necessary to study the psychology of the homosexual in conjunction with with the psychology of those prejudiced against him, since the interaction between the two itself constitutes part of the homosexual problem. Representative of the intolerant and inaccurate views expressed about homosexuality are statements like: "homosexuality is an unnatural vice," "it is a dreadful disease." As prejudice is usually not founded on fact or logic, the answer to these assertions must invoke both.

Whether or not homosexuality is a vice lies outside the doctor's field, but, to those with a scientific training, it seems pertinent to ask why this particular type of vice is to be punished by Draconian penalties, as Mannheim puts it, when the heterosexual philanderer, who brags about illegitimate births, and who may infect an unborn child with syphilis, goes unpunished. There is no logical reply to this question, and the fact that the courts seem to be using imprisonment much less is no mitigation, for the maximum penalties still exist. is

How far it is unnatural is a question of definition. How far is a deviation from the usual unnatural? That homosexuality only exists in humans is not supported by facts: animals will indulge in homosexual practices. Homosexual inclinations are found in some individuals from the earliest stirrings of sex, which may occur in infancy. According to the view of the Wolfenden Committee it is not a disease, an opinion founded chiefly on the fact that, apart from their sexual deviation, many homosexuals show no abnormality of character or personality, though of course they react to the knowledge that they seem 'queers' to those heterosexually inclined. The view that homosexuality is a kind of mental illness probably arises as much as anything because it may be associated with psychopathy. But in psychopaths homosexuality is only one facet of a generally disordered and anti-social personality, and it is because these individuals are psychopaths, not because they also happen to be homosexuals, that they are fundamentally disordered.

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The causes of homosexuality are obscure. There is evidence to suggest a genetic predisposition, as Kallman's work on identical twins seemed to show-namely, that there is a far greater coincidence of homosexuality in uniovular than in biovular twins. (Interestingly, the skin cells of certain individuals are those of the opposite sex, though there seems to be no correlation between this and homosexuality). There may well be a glandular basis, but in our present state of knowledge this is speculative. Rare cases of change of sexual drive in women associated with suprarenal tumours have been reported, but otherwise there is nothing factual to go on.

Various psychological theories of causation are held, for example, over mothering: bringing up children, especially boys, as if they were of the op posite sex. Freud postulates that inhibitions cause a hold up in psycho-sexual development, when it is passing through a latent, and sometimes overt, homosexual stage, round about puberty. Stekel believes that the boy who feels rejected by his mother may develop a hatred of women, and a consequent switch of love to his own sex.

Seduction in youth is often put forward as a cause. Hubert and East found that seduction had often occured, but it so often turns out that it is because the boy is a willing victim, that it cannot be regarded as truly causal. That of course is not to say that the seduction of children, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is not most undesirable, as it may have a permanently harmful effect. Sometimes the harm is that a taste for such behavior is acquired or emphasized. In other cases the harm springs from the guilt which such an experience engenders, and, where the child has been sexually assaulted, i it is most important to treat the incident in a matter of fact way, and to try and dissipate guilt and alarm.

Clinically, homosexuals vary considerably. Some are very masculine in appearance, others feminine both in appearance and manner. Clifford Allen insists that these types are not anatomically different, but different in their mannerisms. Some homosexuals are active, some are passive. They cannot easily be distinguished, and the most masculine looking men often prove to be passive, and vice versa, the same applies in reverse to lesbians. Homosexuals are to be found in all strata of society. They may be intelligent, they may be dull, they are often artistic. Some are chaste, some are promiscuous, some may indulge in mutual masturbation, some may be sodom ists. As so much prejudice surrounds the practice of sodomy, it is worth reminding the reader that the Wolfenden Committee found no significant superabundance of "degeneracy" in sodomists.

Kinsey drew up a scale of sexuality, ranging from complete heterosexuality to complete homosexuality, with intermediate positions. Therapeutically, the differentiate of the 100% homosexual and the bisexual is important, as