Discussion

First of all I want to say that I felt overwhelmed by the material, both by the quantity and by the quality. This is a response induced in us by the patient, which I'll say more about later. I would like first to make a very general statement about homosexuality because the patient is, in a word, homosexual. In France, and perhaps to a greater degree in the United States, homosexuality has been decreed to be normal. But in my opinion nothing like this can be decided by a decree, because an outcome in science is not decided simply by decree.

To begin with, we cannot speak of “homosexuality” but must rather use the plural “homosexualities,” because in fact there is a broad spectrum which encompasses different kinds of homosexualities. We will speak of male homosexuality first, because this is the case with Mr. B. Personally I have always wondered how to decide if male homosexuality is a perversion or if it is not. In Freud you can find both answers. Sometimes he considers it as a perversion, sometimes not. My own view is that perversion cannot be defined only by overt behavior. More crucial are the dynamics behind the behavior. I believe that dynamically perversion is connected with destructiveness, so that when the instinctual aim is to destroy the adult sexual world, I think we are in the realm of perversion.

I have some patients who although overtly homosexual may be closer to the neurotic than to the perverse because their aim is not that much focused on destruction. But many, many homosexuals have as their most important aim the destruction of the genital adult world.

Homosexuality in men is clearly connected, as I think is very easy to perceive in this material, with a lack in the ego, with something missing. It is clear that in this case, as in most such cases, the crucial issue is the patient's not having a father. There was a lost biological father who has not been replaced by another father, a real father