Perverse Tendencies and Fantasies: Their Influence on Personality*

Persons who suffer from a combination of neurosis and perverse tendencies are quite common in psychiatric practice. This situation has a physiological basis: the biological bisexuality of all human beings, which combines in a single individual the characteristics of both sexes. In the process of growth this is parallelled by a psychological bisexuality.

We all know men and women whose personality traits and peculiarities of character are late manifestations of tendencies which can be considered erotic from both the psychological and biological points of view. Individual development is an expression of both the biological and the psychological, and their interrelationship. The biological effects, beginning prenatally, continue after birth, throughout infancy and later years. The psychological aspects of this inherent bisexuality, in its development from infancy onwards, are known to us by their lasting imprints upon character formation. We can establish a definite relationship between developmental inhibitions in the sexual sphere and later character traits which are recognizable as resulting from the sublimation of unconscious erotic drives.

Sexuality in the infant and child is more bisexual than in the adult. Sometimes developmental difficulties perpetuate these infantile trends in adult life, and by inhibiting the growth of a strong ego, determine the individual's fate. In such an instance the basic bisexuality must be regarded as the source of the trouble. In normal development the passage of time weakens the homosexual phase of the character and strengthens the heterosexual. In some cases, however, untoward childhood experiences may result in the equal strength of both phases, so that a continuous conflict rages within