Moral Clouds Blot Objective Science..........

SIN v. CRIME

By Norman Reider, M. D.

The fallacy of regarding homosexual acts as a crime instead of sin is only one of the strong points made by the author in the following ariicle. This paper was published in CALIFORNIA MEDICINE, June 1957, under the title, "Problems of Homosexuality," and is reprinted here in full with the permission of both that journal and the writer. Dr. Reider is on the staff of the Department of Psychiatry, Mt. Zion Hospital, San Francisco. He presented the accompanying paper be. fore the California Academy of General Practice, Los Angeles, on October 14, 1956. Mattachine Review is grateful for the opportunity to present Dr. Reider's viewpoints to its readers, and requests that other professional persons in contact with the homosexual problem submit their findings in articles such as these.

HARDLY ANY MEDICAL SUBJECT is more ambiguous and confused than that of homosexuality, and it is a most difficult subject for the clinician to delineate in a scientific or even empirical way. For centuries homosexuality has been more a moral and legal than a medical concern. Throughout the ages people have tried to make criminal law enforce their ambitions regarding moral law, especially in their attempts to control sexual behavior. Among sex laws, nöne are so punitive or inequitable as those concerning homosexual acts, particularly male homosexual activities.

Religious traditions and attitudes against homosexuality have thus been extended into substantive law out of all proportion to the social damage involved in most homosexual acts. Sin is confused witr crime, and vague laws about sexual behavior give law enforcement officers a dangerous discretionary power. Sexual acts are not differentiated from criminal acts. Of course there are sexual acts that harm others and against which society must protect itself. But these are not clearly differentiated from sexual behavior that merely "tends to affront certain people"; and men are imprisoned for acts that did no damage to another person.

The great majority of homosexual acts do not endanger the social structure or disrupt the family. No doubt many early societies considered homosexual activity a threat to family and societal solidarity and taboos arose; but when these are examined they can be seen as 14

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¶ Moral, religious and legal attitudes in attempts to control sexual behavior have interfered with a clear view of the medical and psychological aspects of homosexuality. This phenomenon is probably much less destructive of social aspects of our society and culture than is generally believed, since it is actually more widespread than is generally acknowledged.

Homosexuality probably has hormonal and undoubtedly social and psychological factors, the latter of which are the only ones which can be worked with successfully in our present state of knowledge. A general practitioner's task is to aid those who wish and need help with this problem in finding psychiatric treatment in the same way that persons with any other emotional disturbance are referred. This should be carried out without bias just as with any other emotional disturbance.

part and parcel of man's fears of his own impulses drives for which he sought controls. Modern studies like those of the late Dr. Kinsey and his associates serve to show that society has little to fear from homosexual activity.

Yet the fear remains, in that a homosexual person continues to be the object of extraordinary punishment or the butt of derisive jokes and contempt. We should remember, when we participate in such attacks, that we follow the age-old formula of trying to fight off or laugh off something that we either do not understand or fear. This extension of old taboos into moralistic and legal attitudes still muddles the issue of what is essentially a biological and psychological phenomenon and only secondarily a social one.

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THE EXTENT OF HOMOSEXUALITY

The problem of homosexuality is even more extensive than the Kinsey data showed. According to Kinsey, about a third of white males between adolescence and old age have had some type of liomosexual contact to the point of orgasm, but only four or five percent are exclusively homosexual. A much smaller proportion of females at any age are primarily or wholly homosexual; and very few continue their homosexual activities as long as do men. Men are Jikely to be far more promiscuous than are women; only about half restrict their relationship to a single partner or two, as compared to three-fourths of the women. These and other Kinsey data point to a greater extent of homosexuality than is commonly believed.'

CLINICAL VIEW OF HOMOSEXUALITY

The Kinsey studies reported the amount of homosexual behavior in various persons, but did not determine clinically who was a homosexual. Are all 37 percent of males who have had at least one homosexual contact homosexuals or just the 4 percent who have only homosexual outlets? If we define a group midway between these extremes as homosexual, we ignore the fact of a gradation of sexual activity, interest and preoccupation that ranges from one to the other extreme. We overlook the historical and developmental ap15