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That all homosexuals are not the same and that they are not homosexual in the same way seems as if it should be a self-evident truth. However homosexuals have only been grouped under this term for little more than a century and scholarly attention thus far has been limited and too frequently polemical. Awareness of differences and refinements of distinctions among gay men has been a recent development. Dr. Lingiardi, limiting his discussion to male homosexuality, tells us from the outset that his purpose in ‘Men in Love’ will be to pay ‘special attention to the universe of personal and collective fantasies and myths attached to this form of sexuality’.
So much of this field remains new and explosive. It is only 30 years since the American Psychiatric Association saw fit to de-list ‘Homosexuality’ as constituting, in and of itself, a pathological disturbance. Many analytic communities have waited far longer to come to this conclusion. In the public sphere, as recently as May, 2003, the third-ranking Republican in the United States Senate, Rick Santorum, felt free to compare homosexuality to bigamy, incest and adultery. Not only was he not censured for his remarks, but also Republican Congressional leaders gave him strong backing for his ‘very courageous and moral position’ (New York Times, 4/30/03).
Dr. Lingiardi operates from the post-modern idea that ‘sex and gender have to be seen as socially constructed and individually moulded’. Because we all evolve in individualized circumstances and each of us relates differently to the sexual impulse, he asks us to think in terms of ‘homosexualities’ rather than using the singular form of the word. He pursues his subject by offering a review of early philosophers, particularly the Neo-Platonist Marsilio Ficino. The work of this Renaissance writer prefigures many Jungian notions including a belief in the reality of the psyche and the idea that love is