This essay offers a brief history of how the stereotype “the female homosexual” was created through three installments of psychoanalytic theorizing, starting with Freud's (1920) case study. A second, brief history presents the various strands of critical theorizing that have identified “the female homosexual” as a stereotype. The essay then makes a contribution to current discussion of female homosexuality by suggesting an instinct theory that features ego instincts and sexual instincts interacting (as Freud's theory did before 1920). Reference is made to Takeo Doi's concept of amae (expectation of affection) and to amae as an ego instinct. This theory then is the framework for a clinical vignette focused on a female homosexual's ego-instinctual needs.