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“We are all more simply human than otherwise.” This observation of Sullivan has made a lasting impression on me. For years I have tried to convey to students that to report “I have a schizophrenic ….” “I'm working with an alcoholic who …,” “This homosexual I see in the clinic …,” is to reduce a human being to a category. To think one knows that particular person if he knows the commonly accepted stereotypes and to base an encounter and treatment plan with that person on one's preconceptions is to do a grievous injustice to the multiplicity of ways a person evolves and responds to internal and external stresses. There are human beings who react to life's stresses in a manner that we call schizophrenic. There are human beings who deal with anxiety arising from conflicts with the use of alcohol even when the use of alcohol has become a problem in itself. There are people who relate sexually to members of the same sex. Whether latter are relating out of preference or are driven to do so for a variety of psychodynamic reasons is not in the purview of this paper. The concern here is the way some adults in their middle years, from 40 to 60, who relate predominantly homosexually live their lives.
When the Bell and Weinberg book, Homosexualities (1978), came out, many of us said, “Of course!” because for years we had known that there have been a variety of social, sexual, and psychological life-styles among homosexuals with different men showing different needs, sensitivities, inhibitions, and values. Salzman (1977), for one, has written that homosexual activity is not a single discrete symptom, syndrome, or disease. It is a form of