Homosexuality: A Subjective and Objective Investigation

THIS book includes a number of autobiographies,letters and caserecordsof homosexuals,followed in the secondpart by papers, mostly reprints, by medical contributors. The late Dr. M. Hirchfeld argued for a "deeply underlying constitutional predisposition" and called attention to the strength of the homosexual urge in the face of cultural infiuences towards heterosexualityand social prohibitiuns. He held that genuine homosexualitycould not be acquired through external conditions and discounted the effects of early seduction of children by adult inverts. C. Bergler criticizes the Kinsey report for neglect of the dynamic unconscious. He maintains that unconsciousfactors determined the volunteersand their friends to come forward and give evidence,which is not to be regardedas reliable in all cases. According to Bergler, psychoanalyticallythe homosexual is to be regardedas a "frightened fugitive from the misconceptions he unconsciously builds about women". Kinsey pleaded for acceptanceof homosexualityas a biological fact, whereasBergler regardsit as a neuroticdisease remediableby psychoanalysis. Kinsey for his survey introduceda rating scaleof six degreesbetweenexclusiveheterosexualityand homosexuality. G. S. Spraguein "Varieties of HomosexualManifestations"describeseleventypes, including the "Don Juans who seek by over-compensationto avoid disquieting self-discovery"._In a commenton this paperK. Menninger stressesthe need to distinguish between overt homosexuality, which can be exposed under various conditions, and the internal trendswhich are "necessaryto the organism". Clara Thompson,in contrastto views expressed by several other contributors with psychoanalyticleanings, regardshomosexualityas a manifestationof a more general characterproblem. It may be latent-universaland not necessarily pathological-repressedor overt. Different origins are to be sought in different cases. C. Berg, in his editorial foreword, contributes an admirable survey of the problem,and his co-editor, A. M. Krich, concludesby stating that "the beginning of Knowledge is to know what we do not know".