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This book is described as the 'only comprehensive and objective study of male homosexual relations which approaches the subject as a fact of life rather than as a sin, crime or disease'. Animal studies and the study of cultures other than our own support the thesis that homosexual activity is frequent and not necessarily evidence per se of serious pathology. The author offers a scale, varying from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual, and points out that most of the population falls between these extremes. From this he concludes that any view of homosexuality as a pathological disarrangement of development is false.
Churchill also points out that heterosexual activity can be maintained by neurotic fears just as homosexuality can. The bias that heterosexuality is 'normal' he feels derives from the belief that it is 'instinctual in nature'; therefore the sexual drive is innately directed toward heterosexual aims and objects and monogamy. He describes this as the psychoanalytic view and sees it as a value judgment, culturally approved but without scientific justification. This line of reasoning is typical of the book, which sets up strawmen and then knocks them down.
In his argument it seems likely that Churchill is quarreling with an early but valuable formulation of Freud's—genital primacy. This concept suggests that in an average expectable environment, given fortunate constitutional endowment, heterosexual genital union will be in most instances the likely outcome of sexual development. The goal of reproduction is guaranteed by the greater potential pleasure inherent in the fulfilment of the 'grand biological design'. This does not 'judge' homosexual activity, which is seen as a frequent variant. The concept is a general biological view, supported by observation. Even this early formulation, in essence a generalization at the biological and developmental level, would not include expectations of