The male homosexual is a masochistically regressed individual with a unique and specific elaboration of the unconscious masochistic preoedipal conflict with the mother. Wilde's marriage was one of his unsuccessful attempts to escape this masochistic attachment to the image of the mother as a cruel, self-willed giantess. Having in Salome proved to himself that women are cruel, Wilde thereafter felt free to turn entirely to homosexuality. Evidence is adduced to demonstrate the powerful drive to destroy himself: he clearly paved the way for his ultimate doom by taking certain steps that must inevitably lead to it. When he once said, 'The burnt child loves the fire', he was talking about himself.