On the Oral Basis of a Case of Male Homosexuality1

The patient who is to be the subject of my report—let us call him L—came under my treatment three years ago after having been analysed for two years by a colleague of mine who had to give him up on account of his emigration to the U.S.A. The patient, a chemical worker at the beginning of his thirties, was born in one of the countries neighbouring on Austria. He came in the course of the war to Vienna, where he studied chemistry against the will of his father, who was a farmer. The only member of L's family still living, apart from himself, is his much older unmarried sister who, as we shall see, played a most decisive part in the patient's life.

L is physically healthy, complains of inhibitions, feelings of inferiority and guilt, has not yet got out of the habit of masturbating, and suffers now and again from premature ejaculation. He can recall many memories of his childhood days and exhibits an unusually rich dream-life.

One of his earliest recollections is of his mother crying in the bedroom at night, which he most probably misunderstood. At the age of six he was in any case a witness of the primal scene. He made attempts to disturb his parents, complaining of an acute itching in his penis, at which his father said to his mother: 'We will cut off his penis for him.' At this period of his life the child entertained thoughts hostile to his father, whom the patient describes as being a brutal man who used to beat his wife in just the same way as he did his horses, gulped his food down and imposed upon himself not the slightest constraint with regard to anal functions. Once the father even threatened to shoot the patient's mother. L always sought protection from his father in his sister, who incited the boy against him. The patient revenged himself upon his father by ill-treating dogs which, in his eyes, represented the father.

L's original attitude towards his father, however, was different; this is shown by very early memories in which he remembered himself