Homosexuality in Men and Women

What is Homosexuality?

Much of what we covered in the preceding chapter (on Sexual Deviations) may be understood by a person with normal sensibilities. It might, however, be more difficult to assimilate the fact that someone may desire and love (as a sexual companion) a person of the same sex - a man with a man, a woman with a woman. Educational information and influence has led to the thought that homosexual love is something shocking and immoral. Nevertheless, as with other prejudices, feelings and attitudes have little value as arguments against homosexuality as they lack an exact comprehension of this variant of human sexuality. We have to review how homosexuals behave in love and in society, and how one can explain the strange condition of their sexuality.

We did not include homosexuality as a perversion (in the previous chapter) because it does not exclude reciprocal physical and psychological enrichment and satisfaction between two persons. Furthermore, genuine love is to be found among homosexuals.

We must also avoid qualifying someone as homosexual because they have had occasional sexual contact with people of the same sex. Many people recall having had such encounters – some of them intense – with a clear sexual motivation. According to surveys carried out in a number of countries, between 10%-40% of the population said they had had such an experience. This occurs more frequently in young people and with people isolated from the opposite sex – such as in prisons, barracks, ships etc. - and barely influences their future sexual lives. There are also those who are physically bisexual that can find as much from a man as from a woman as an erotic and sexual companion. However, this chapter will only deal with those who are definitively homosexual – in other words, those who prefer a person of the same sex when given the opportunity to choose, or those who can only cohabit with the same. According to a number of surveys carried out in many countries, homosexuals constitute 3%-4% of the total population – that is to say they number about 100 million on the planet. They are to be found in every time period, in every country, and at every level of society. However, the only value of these facts and figures is that they enable a serious study of this particular problem - free of prejudice and scientifically based.

Aside from the direction in which their instincts take them, homosexuals are little different – or indeed show no difference at all - from those people considered to be normal. Scientists have attempted to uncover physical and behavioral peculiarities in homosexuals, but have not been able to reduce these to a common denominator. The typical homosexual does not exist. Nevertheless, some peculiarities in the physical constitution and, above all, in personality characteristics, are more extensive among homosexuals than among heterosexuals (people who experience love toward the opposite sex).

As women are more reserved as to their homosexual inclinations, the majority of research has been carried out with male homosexuals. For a while now, two groups have been identified: one made up of active (“masculine”) men who enjoy assuming the active role in a homosexual relationship. The other, larger, group is made up of “passive” (“effeminate”) men who are more flamboyant. Their walk is odd: small steps accompanied by a swinging of the hips. Many have soft, long hair, delicate skin and relatively thin hips. However, the simple existence of these characteristics is not sufficient to draw the conclusion that someone is homosexual. This alone cannot define for sure what sex that person prefers.

From childhood, effeminate males seek the company of girls more than boys. Later, as opposed to what happens with the masculine, active type of homosexual, they reject contact with women. They feel attracted to mature, strong men. “Oh, if I could only be a woman so I could give myself as I should to my lover!” sighed a young musician, revealing his passion. Sometimes this type of person becomes obsessively clean and vain and enjoys dressing flamboyantly and in mode.

Homosexuals are considered to be very sensitive, easily offended, irritable, unbalanced, easy to influence, nervously unstable, and even neurotic. However, these characteristics often develop as a result of social conflicts due to sexual structure.

Everyone knows the artistic and esoteric talent homosexuals are wont to manifest as well as their cultural achievements, but they are to be found in every profession - among workers, middle management and scientists. Their abilities, achievements and social qualities are on average no better or worse than those of heterosexuals.

Intimate Relations Between Two People of the Same Sex

In what is referred to as love life, homosexual relationships are no different than those between a man and a woman. Homosexuals are denied paternity and the creation of a family, and must worry about not being seen as a “couple” and thus be a target for scorn. Rather than homosexual nature itself, this is probably why they often change lovers and thus, among other factors, have a high occurrence of venereal disease. However, this is not enough to judge homosexuals.

Anonymous surveys indicate that at least half change their lovers with frequency, while others maintain long relationships with their partners. Nevertheless, in comparison with heterosexuals, homosexuals change lovers more frequently. Given that men have a tendency to be more promiscuous, when they make love to each other promiscuity increases. Homosexual women are more likely to maintain long and faithful relationships.

Those homosexuals who prefer adult men are called androphiles – those who opt for young men, efebophiles. These last, with almost no exception, run the risk of engaging in homosexual acts with minors.

Among lesbians – as homosexual women are now called – these age preferences are also manifest, but not so exclusively. Lesbian relationships are not so publicly notorious, because kisses and hugs between women are more common and are viewed with more tolerance than with men, as well as the fact that it is more normal for two women to share a bed. Lesbian love is apparent in those places where many women live together such as in girl’s homes and harems. Today, this is mostly apparent in prisons. Active lesbians sometimes very aggressively conquer and defend their lovers against competitors, and violent scenes of jealousy can be found among homosexual women.

In the same manner that effeminate homosexual men like to have masculine lovers, in lesbian relationships there is always the dominant (“male”) partner while the other behaves as a gentle woman, ready to give herself. These roles are also maintained or preferred in intimate relations. One of the two initiates the act, taking on the active role. The other allows - with as much enjoyment - sexual acts to be performed on their person. However, there is often reciprocity and the roles are reversed.

The question is often asked how homosexuals arrange their lives together. No doubt the anatomical and physiological similarities facilitate an understanding of their desire for one another, but also require them to adopt sexual acts that heterosexuals would find strange. More frequent acts adopted by homosexuals living together relate to manual and oral satisfaction with lesbians also practicing tribadism, which is the act of rubbing the genitals against each other, the most active using – although rarely seen – an artificial penis.

Homosexuals need the same frequency of sexual contact as heterosexuals, however those who do not maintain a stable relationship are sometimes unable to have sex for lack of opportunity. Those homosexuals who cannot repress the anxiety of living in “sexual misery” will go to parks and public restrooms - areas known among them where they may establish “contacts”. Once there, looks and gestures are used to attract other men with similar inclinations, and after some agreement sex acts are performed - sometimes with remarkable speed and little preparation. However, this is also behavior that is typical of men, rather than homosexuals, and lesbians – at least those who are educated – only establish sexual relations after a long friendship.

On Causes of Homosexuality

Among the ill informed the most erroneous opinions still circulate in this regard. To mention just a few, it is still thought that homosexuality is a vice, the result of an individual immoral change, lack of sexual care, the consequence of masturbation, the expression of a defective character, is indecent, and is thought to be the result of the saturation of people of the opposite sex.

All these “theories” – which until recently were supported by some specialists – lack the most basic scientific basis. The last, for instance, is soundly disproved by the fact that saturation of the same sex does not turn a heterosexual into a homosexual. There is a lot be done to complete studies relating to the causes and conditions of this sexual variant, but, in fact, we know to what it is not attributed and that, above all, the above opinions are incorrect.

Some researchers consider that homosexuality is the result of environmental influence - especially unfavorable specific conditions for the psychiatric development of a child or teenager.

According to the oldest of these theories, homosexuality is based on homosexual seductive experience. According to most specialists this theory of seduction is unsustainable. Only a few homosexuals remember such experiences, and these do not count as seduction by itself cannot determine one’s sexual orientation toward someone of the same sex unless one already possessed this orientation – except in the case of the very young who are regularly seduced prior to reaching puberty.

Many psychotherapists consider homosexuality to be a neurosis - a psychological disturbance caused by serious biographical events that have blocked a path to the opposite sex. For example, in the case of a man, a too strong attachment to the mother coupled with bad relations with the father. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to precisely and conclusively demonstrate these interpretations of human feelings.

Researchers who consider that the premise for the development of homosexual instincts are part of the constitution or are innate – in other words are present in the embryo or fetus – have arguments that are far more convincing. This inherent nature occurs throughout the world at a very early age and practically nothing can influence it. Identical twins display it, but not non-identical twins. However, the important biological factors that lead to the development of homosexuality are unknown to date. Research using rats, which was recently completed by Dorner in Humboldt University in Berlin, approximate the causes of this sexual particularity.

Dorner contends that the mating core of the central brain has two parts: one for female behavior and the other for male behavior. One of them must functionally dominate to define, respectively, female or male sexual conduct. In the embryonic stage the testicles provide the blood with the male sexual hormone (testosterone) that increases the activity of the male mating core in such a way that it dominates future life and motivates normal sexual behavior in the male. If, in this early developmental phase, the fetus does not receive testosterone, the female side of the mating core will become dominant. When male rats were castrated immediately after they were born – thus depriving them of testosterone – they exhibited homosexual conduct when they grew to adulthood, even when male hormones were injected into them. Alternately, after receiving male sexual hormones the moment they were born, the female rats became masculine and later behaved like “lesbians”. Stimulation with androgen inhibited the female growth of the mating core and the male side dominated and kept this supremacy in spite of the subsequent administration of hormones. From these observations one can infer that the decision as to future instinctive orientation occurs during the growth stage of the mating core of the brain.

Research carried out in the Berlin-Buch clinic relating to the comparison base between homosexual and heterosexual men, indicates that results obtained in animal experiments can be used to explain human homosexuality.

Currently, the majority of sexologists see the cause of homosexuality in the interaction of many conditions of instinctive and biographical origin. Homosexuality probably originates from a number of both intrinsic and psychogenetic sources, or is acquired in another manner from different origins. They all, however, share the same or similar manifestations.

Treatment Possibilities for Homosexuals

Homosexuality cannot be classified as a sickness, but must be seen as a variant of human sexuality. Its representatives do not “regale” in homosexuality, but rather many suffer by the difficulties that their condition provokes in social life. However, this is their basic nature, independent of its origin. Many seek to lose it for reasons of social prestige.

What perspectives for a cure are there for those seeking treatment? At the level of current science, very little. Huge expense and effort have gone into different treatments – above all psychic (hypnosis, psychoanalysis, aversion therapy, etc.). Aside from few and very controversial exceptions, the results have been that either homosexuals have converted into heterosexuals, they have remained homosexual, or they weren’t homosexual in the first place. In the majority of cases, those men who submit to treatment find they can become heterosexual lovers, but not love their partners. The fact that they marry and have children is not proof of being cured. Religious and even medical figures advise homosexuals to marry and thereby become accustomed to people of the opposite sex. This type of counseling is irresponsible, and the majority of such marriages end in misfortune. In every case the relationship becomes a purely economic one without love, whether or not coitus has taken place. Intercourse is almost only employed for self-satisfaction, and often there is either difficulty in becoming aroused or outright rejection. The suffering of a woman who, lacking love and affection, has just learned her husband is with “his friends”, is very great (although we are not saying that every man who is short on love for his wife is homosexual).

For the bisexual who is able to love in either direction, marriage opens other perspectives, but they also fall into homosexual activity, seeking a substitution that is lacking with the opposite sex. These cases should only risk marriage after consultation with psychotherapists.

Treatment with medication – especially using hormones – only has an opportunity for success when used on bisexuals. Sexual desires cannot be redirected - only reduced so as to facilitate their control. The possibilities of providing therapeutic assistance to homosexuals do not disappear with attempts to convert them to heterosexuals. These efforts may also be directed toward patients who suffer from neurosis, but should only be carried out with young people. Afterwards, there is almost never any success.

In relation to efforts to prevent homosexuality, Dorner’s experiments allow us to suppose that in the near future endocrinological samples taken from pregnant women in the critical phase of the cerebral development of the fetus, may allow for a discovery of potential homosexual risk that might be treated in a prophylactic manner by administering hormonal treatment at the right time.

Although the cerebral mating core has developed to the point where a person is disposed toward homosexual behavior, it would be wrong to suppose that future instinctive orientation would be an irrevocable destiny. Independently of the dominating mating core, the male can be controlled through the nerve processes of the cerebral cortex. These, in turn, are determined by individual education and social environmental factors. If, from a very early age, normal sexuality is directed by means of heterosexual behavioral models within the framework of a satisfactory general education, one can predict any homosexual development.

If there is no doubt that homosexuality is firmly and incurably rooted in the personality, the patient should be helped to come to terms with their sexual characteristics. This should include a life-style that is amenable for the individual and for society. Homosexual relationships can also be solid and responsible, based on love, faithfulness and mutual respect.

Society and Homosexuals

With more frequency than one would desire, the efforts (to understand homosexuals) that we have described, fail due to incomprehension of others. We have helped patients that have complained of being fired from their jobs for the sole reason that their homosexuality was discovered. Naturally, the homosexual must learn to live in a society where 96% of people experience a different sexuality from them, and where all institutions and customs in respect to relations between the sexes, cannot correspond to their interests and inclinations. However, why make it more difficult for them to integrate into society? They cannot choose the direction of their libido. In the case of a man it is not his fault or bad faith that he doesn’t like beautiful women, preferring men. As with heterosexuals, we cannot demand that he simply practice abstinence or satisfy himself by masturbation throughout the course of his life.

Homosexual acts continue to be condemned in many countries where men seeking the company of other men are considered to be in a state of constant arousal, establishing a difference that is completely illogical from the sexological viewpoint. Punishment includes the death penalty that is both imposed and carried out. In Holland, this occurred in the 18th century.

After a palliative “softening” of such punishment, it was taken up again after 1933 under Hitler’s Germany. Nazi jargon characterized homosexuals as “socially imperfect” who needed to be eradicated to protect the German people from degeneration. Thus, even moderate homosexual contact was punished not only by inhuman imprisonment, but also by massive incarceration in concentration camps.

Conventional arguments posited to support the need to apply laws against homosexuals have been utterly refuted by researchers for their lack of solid ground. The supposition that homosexuality places the reproduction of the population in jeopardy has also been demonstrated to be false. Statistical comparisons show that the removal of penalties in relation to homosexuality has no effect on the birth rate.

Religious concepts have influenced public opinion on such sexual practices, especially in the area of Christian religions and their application of the condition of “sin”. Nonetheless, today representatives of both Christian creeds increasingly advocate for tolerance of homosexual behavior.

The fear exists that if laws are relaxed in relation to this sexual variant, then homosexuals will form “cliques” that will increase the danger of their exposure to young people. Such fears have never been proven in any country that tolerates homosexual activity. Quite the contrary, opposition was dissolved and the use of blackmail and taking advantage of situations of dependency based on the knowledge of the homosexuality of the victim was decreased.

The imposition of emotional penalties and prejudices that grandiloquently serve to label such feelings as “against nature” or “against public sensibilities”, cannot be justified either. What two adults do by mutual accord in private does not harm the moral norms of society, and there is no reason to carry out proceedings against them.

Young people with these problems find themselves in agonizing situations. A young person who, after a phase in which they feel a vague sensation of “being different”, become aware of their homosexual feelings and go through a psychological crisis. The dimensions that this may reach depend on the sensibilities of the youth and the reaction of others around them when their homosexual inclinations are made apparent. Insults, derision or even teasing can seriously damage an individual’s drive. The fact that among homosexuals between 18 and 22 years of age, the suicide rate is three times higher than among their heterosexual peers, is indicative of the damage that can be caused.

Indisputably, parents are shocked when they learn of the homosexuality of a son or daughter. They should, however, realize that their child needs their comprehension and assurance at that precise moment, rather than fighting, shame or expulsion from the family unit to be left alone to sort out his or her difficulties. This also extends to teachers and instructors. If society eliminates it’s prejudices regarding this minority and accepts them, then their problems may be resolved with less conflict. Influenced by sex education, every teenager prepares, in one way or another, for married life, often influenced by models provided by cinema, television and literature. So who worries about homosexual youth and ensures they obtain the information they need? Usually, we hear no more than scornful comments about them being “inverted”. They have no more been able to choose their sexual orientation than the color of their eyes. Everyone should think deeply about these issues and place themselves in the position of those affected.

There is absolutely nothing to reproach homosexuals other than that their inclinations are contradictory to those who have normal sexual feelings, and that they are in the minority. This, however, does not constitute a motive to lock them up or criticize them.

Every citizen has the right to live the sexual life that fulfils their needs as long as they hurt nobody, nor force anyone into acts against their will. This applies to deviants and homosexuals as well as to people who practice normal sexual behavior.

As with many other countries – including the German Democratic Republic – these conclusions have been reached after research into homosexuality. The new Penal Code that went into force in June 1968 does not contain paragraphs that threaten homosexual acts with punishment. Nevertheless, young people continue to be protected by the law. Article 151 stipulates “an adult that carries out sexual acts with a young person of the same sex will be condemned to up to three years in prison or be placed under conditional freedom”.

However, impunity is not just a legal question when homosexuals are morally discriminated against, are disparaged, whispered against, maliciously spoken of, or treated as sick. We must respect their inner beings, the means by which they seek companionship and the kind of life they seek. By the same token, they must respect our preferences, as we are all members of society with the same rights. Homosexuals, as with any citizen, have the right to be objectively judged by their achievements and their overall behavior.