Notes on a Case of Male Homosexuality

The psycho-analytical study of homosexuality took as its starting point the discovery that the developing human being makes its choice of love-objects independently of their sex under the pressure of internal and external factors. In a footnote to the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality Freud1 said that the exclusive choice of a heterosexual love-object needs an explanation in the same way as does the choice of a homosexual love-object. The sex of the love-object is not the only aspect of homosexuality. The choice of a love-object has to be distinguished, as Freud also pointed out, from the mixture of the sexual characteristics of the subject. It must, however, not be assumed that the sexual characteristics are irreversible, or rigidly fixed by constitution. They, as well as the sex of the love-object, may change during analysis. Although opinion may be divided as to the extent of constitutional factors in an individual case, the approach to the problem is ground common to all psycho-analytical work on homosexuality, and our problem is to formulate the psychological factors which influence, or determine, the sex of the love-object and the mixture of the sexual characteristics in the subject.

Among the many factors that determine the sexual development of the growing individual and its choice of love-objects2 the anxiety-situations are of first importance, as Melanie Klein has pointed out.3 This paper is devoted to a case of a young man who first had symptoms of breathlessness and choking. After losing these symptoms he became a passive homosexual. During analysis his passive rôle turned into an active one, and finally, at the age of thirty-two, he made his first heterosexual contact. The change in his sexual development was accompanied by a marked change in his general development and attitude to life in general.

Because, for reasons of discretion, a full account of this case cannot be given, I shall confine myself to describing the various anxiety-situa