Fathers and their Homosexually Inclined Sons in Childhood

IN A PREVIOUS PUBLICATION (1986B) I HAVE SUGGESTED THAT THE most important erotic object of the homosexually inclined child is his father and not his mother. The homoerotic fantasy or derivatives of this fantasy may be recollected from ages 3 or 4 by some homosexual men. In other cases, early homoerotic fantasies related to the father may not be remembered, but as an analysis or therapy progresses, they appear in the transference and are usually recollected as repression and other defenses lift. I have called this developmental stage with its early homoerotic fantasies the acquisition stage of homosexual identity formation. This paper examines further how this early erotic relationship with the father manifests itself in the analyses of patients and how the defensive distortion of this relationship affects the development of the love life of gay men.

Freud's formulations about homosexuality included both constitutional and environmental or "accidental" factors. He was convinced that homosexuality had a strong organic basis, and that the relative strength of the masculine or feminine disposition decided whether the final outcome of the oedipal conflict was identification with the father or the mother (1923, p. 33). He felt an "obligation" not to lose sight of the contributing factors and mentioned on different occasions both the child's fixation to his mother (1922, p. 230) and the absence of a strong father that may "favour the occurrence" of homosexuality (1905, p. 146). However, Freud's theory of innate bisexuality, his openness to