Author's Response

As was to be expected, the discussion and even more this response to it are hampered by the paper's “hermaphroditic” character, that is to say: by the combination of the late Paul Moses' material (note, Dr. Socarides!) with my functions as a writer-editor and commentator. Of course, Dr. Stoller knew this best through his personal acquaintance with both authors, and thus avoided the difficulty by making cogent comments of his own. He confuses me, however, when he considers concern over the pillengendered heterosexual freedom parodoxical alongside the panic created by the assumption that the loss of hetero—i.e., differentiating—appearance represents rampant homosexuality. It suggests a common denominator for pill and homosexuality: they can reduce the birth rate and deprive the concerned parent generation of posterity. Although I am not defending a universal hermaphroditic ideal, but rather questioning it, I nevertheless also question the meaning and significance of the attempt at homotypical appearance.

A hermaphroditic ideal—be it defensive or primary, vocal or a myth—could be striven for in two ways: Along Plato's concept of a perfect union between a man and a woman with momentary loss of body-ego boundaries—or in the fantasy that all physiological characteristics become combined in one individual. That the larynx would belong here as a secondary sex organ, was Dr. Moses' idea. I do not believe that Dr. Moses meant that “everyone wishes to express his hermaphroditism through the vocal apparatus” (Dr. Socarides), but that the professional vocal productions of an era reflect that era's hermaphroditic ideal (unconscious, I presume!) The “son” of Hermes and Aphrodite was a myth like his parents. Very likely, his name was arrived at in conjunction with the myth

of his being fused with the nymph Salmacis. Both name and myth reflect that period's hermaphroditic ideal. On rereading the paper, I must agree with Dr. Socarides that “the contributions of each author are” not