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Chodorow points out that a great amount of information has been accumulated about homosexuality and the perversions, but that there is a dearth of information about normal heterosexuality in both men and women. Further, she notes that in studies of homosexuality and the perversions, the focus is exclusively on sexuality, while in accounts of normal heterosexuality something “larger than” sex is meant, such as passion, object love, or genital love. We are therefore in need of more attention to the development of passion or love in homosexuals as well. After pointing out the contradiction and flaw in the view that heterosexuality is biologically ordained in men and women, Chodorow reviews Freud's position on the development of sexual orientation with his emphasis on the centrality of the oedipal constellation and castration fantasies. Examining the views of other theorists, she finds that the interpersonal account does not stand up to close scrutiny. Noting that since Freud the dominant psychoanalytic understanding has moved toward treating only deviant sexualities as problematic, she focuses on modern theorists who conclude that heterosexuality, like homosexuality and the perversions, is a compromise formation and in some sense “symptomatic,” or a “disorder,” or has defensive features. Chodorow concludes that, whatever one's theoretical approach, sexual development and orientation, fantasy, and eroticism need explaining in the individual clinical case.