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November 14, 1961. STRUCTURAL CONSIDERATIONS IN OVERT MALE BISEXUALITY. Philip Weissman, M.D.
Dr. Weissman presented three cases of overt male bisexuality as a framework for his discussion of the significant structural and genetic variations which may be found in the analysis of such behavior. To understand overt bisexuality, in which both heterosexual and homosexual wishes and activities are gratified, it is necessary to determine the origin of the passive homosexual wishes which come to expression.
Two cases were described as representative of heterosexual men who, under certain conditions, manifested homosexual activity with a real but regressive object as a result of superego pressure for a negative expression or solution of unconscious heterosexual Oedipal conflicts. These patients, essentially heterosexuals with pseudohomosexuality, are termed overt Oedipal bisexuals, since the homosexuality, as well as the heterosexuality, originates in the Oedipal period. In contrast, another group of bisexuals was described—perversionistic homosexuals forced by the superego and the ego ideal to manifest heterosexual activity. Since their homosexual wishes and activities derive from preoedipal identifications which are carried over as such into the Oedipal period, and their heterosexuality is a pseudoheterosexuality stemming more from superego demands than from true Oedipal wishes, they are termed overt preoedipal bisexuals.
In a detailed case presentation illustrating this latter type of bisexuality, Dr. Weissman sought to show how such patients are still able to gratify the homosexual aim by way of their heterosexual activity. The patient presented, Y, showed a psychosexual development typical of preoedipal homosexuals with early preoedipal identifications with the mother, and an arrest of his object relations on the narcissistic level. During the phallic phase he endowed his mother with a penis in his own image, and in the Oedipal period, primarily on the basis of hi