You can often hear the false claim that Freud allegedly approved of homosexuality and believed that all people are “bisexual from birth.” Let's figure it out.

In his work Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, analyzing the hypothesis of biological predisposition to homosexuality (and ultimately declaring it untenable), Freud mentions Fliess's theory of "constitutional bisexuality" (that is, organic bisexuality) of people. However, we are talking about their physiology, not sexual attraction. This is the theory anatomicalrather than psychological bisexuality. Both sexes have rudimentary characteristics of the opposite sex: nipples in men, clitoris in women, both female and male hormones are produced in the body of both, and so on. Freud believed that the individual is a “merger of two symmetrical halves, one of which is purely masculine, and the other purely feminine,” and therefore everyone can exhibit both female and male characteristics or needs. However, pointing to the obvious psychological factors of homosexuality, Freud completely carries the biological hypothesis and says:

"It is impossible to demonstrate a close connection between hypothetical mental hermaphroditism and established anatomical ... There is no need or justification for replacing the psychological problem with anatomical ... The assumption that nature, being in some bizarre mood, created the 'third sex' does not stand up to scrutiny."^[1]

With regard to sexual attraction, Freud believed that at first it was unfocused. Children are very vaguely aware of the differences not only between the sexes, but also with any sexual objects in general, and attach equal importance to them (Freud called it "polymorphic perversion"). While indifference to sexes is natural for children, in an adult such infantile tendencies will indicate a violation of psychosexual development, since its ultimate goal is heterosexuality. As Freud wrote:

“Homosexuals were unable to complete the individual stages of normal sexual development.”^[2]

Freud wrote that any development process carries within itself the seed of pathology, which can manifest itself and disrupt it.

"The disturbed process of the development of sexual function, among other abnormalities, can lead to perversions, including homosexual activity, which in certain circumstances can be intensified to exceptional homosexuality."^[3]

As a rich clinical and empirical experience shows, a person for a number of reasons can get stuck in the intermediate stages of development without developing his heterosexual potential. Reasons for this may include unresolved psychological conflicts, molestation, rejection by peers, unfavorable family dynamics, too close relationships with a domineering and overly custody mother, and a weak, indifferent or absent father. According to Freud:

"The presence of a strong father will provide for the son  right the choice of a sexual object, namely, a person of the opposite sex. ”^[4]

There are three main stages of psychosexual development:

1) Narcissistic (children are focused on themselves).

2) Same-Sex (children prefer their own gender - boys play with boys, girls with girls).

3) heterosexual (final stage of development of a mature person who has successfully completed the previous stages).

Homosexuality is a fixation at the primitive stages of development, somewhere between infantile narcissism and mature heterosexuality, is inherently closer to narcissism, since the object of attraction is chosen for similarity with itself. According to Freud:

“We found that people with impaired sexual development, such as perverts and homosexuals, choose objects of their love through a narcissistic attraction. They take themselves as a model. ”^[5]

That is, with an unfavorable development of events, the autoerotic phase is partially preserved, and the libidinal interest in external objects (object cathexis) occurs at the narcissistic level. As a result, a man is looking for an object of love that represents himself, which, like himself, is obliged to possess male genitalia. Thus, the individual is sexually connected with himself and with his own genitals in the form of another man, symbolizing himself.

The most common cause of male homosexuality, according to Freud, is an unusually long and intense fixation on the mother in the sense of the Oedipus complex. When at the end of puberty comes the time to replace the mother with another sexual object, the young man, instead of moving away from the mother, identifies himself with her. Psychologically, he himself transforms into it and begins to look for objects that can replace his ego and provide the love and care that he experienced from his mother.^[6]

By identifying with the mother, he may try to play her role through the receptive act. If identification with the father is stronger, he will expose other men to a passive role, symbolically transforming them into women and at the same time covertly expressing hostility towards them as men. Homosexuality, therefore, becomes one of the ways to overcome rivalry with the father and satisfy sexual desire at the same time.

Freud attributed homosexuality to Perversions^[7] (perversions), he also used the term - "inversion"^[8] (reversal), attributed it to “Aberrations”^[8] (deviations from the norm), called “Fatal deviation”^[9] и “A mistake in choosing a sexual object”. He also said that homosexuality is linked to paranoia.^[10] and aggression^[11].

Where did the fallacy come from that Freud “approved” homosexuality?

We are talking about the following incomplete quote:

“Homosexuality is undoubtedly not an advantage, but neither a reason for shame, nor a vice or degradation. It cannot be classified as a disease. We believe that this is a variation of sexual function ... "

Interrupting this statement at a glance, LGBT activists bring it to their defense, they say, Freud himself said that this is a variation, not a disease. This incomplete quote was even used by APA in the Lawrence v. Texas lawsuit, which led to the repeal of sodomy laws in the 14 states. However, the whole phrase sounds like this:

“We believe that this is a variation of sexual function caused by a certain stopping sexual development ”. 

That is, this PATHOLOGY is a painful deviation from a normal state or development process.

This quote is not related to Freud’s work. She was taken from the response letter of 1935 of the year to one mother who asked him to save her son from homosexuality. At that time, psychiatry did not yet know an effective method of treating homosexuality, and therefore, for lack of better, Freud did what the representative of his profession should have done - he alleviated the suffering of the unfortunate mother, assuring her that there was nothing wrong with her son. However, what he really thinks of homosexuality is evident from his writings.

20 years later, Freud's successor psychiatrist Edmund Bergler wrote the following:

“10 years ago, the best science could offer was reconciliation of a homosexual with his“ fate ”, in other words, elimination of a conscious guilt. Recent psychiatric experience and research has unequivocally proven that the supposedly irreversible fate of homosexuals (sometimes even attributed to non-existent biological and hormonal conditions) is in fact a therapeutically altered unit of neurosis. The therapeutic pessimism of the past is gradually disappearing: today psychoanalytic psychotherapy can cure homosexuality. ”^[12]

You can read about hundreds of cure examples. here.

Let us also analyze the so-called “psychoanalytic hypothesis of homophobia”, according to which “latent homosexuality”, which means suppressed homosexual tendencies of an individual, is transformed under the action of the defense mechanism of “reactive formation” into dislike of homosexuals. The authorship of this hypothesis does not belong to Freud, as it is mistakenly believed, but to the British parapsychologist, criminologist and homosexual Donald West, who first described it in 1977. This fantasy is nothing more than a rhetorical ploy designed to confuse opponents of the homosexual movement.

And although in individual cases, deliberately ostentatious hostility towards homosexuals can actually be used to create a personal alibi, we are talking about conscious tactics, while “reactive formation” occurs unconsciously.

The author of the term “latent homosexuality”, Sigmund Freud, himself understood by it the inherent permanent homosexual component of constitutional bisexuality inherent in each individual, displaced into the unconscious during normal psychosexual development.

“The driving force of repression in every person is the struggle between two sexual characters. The dominant sex of a person who is more strongly developed displaces the mental manifestation of the subordinate sex into the unconscious. ”^[13]

Below is an example of a real public service advertisement from the 80s from the American press on the topic of “latent homosexuality”:

In 1996, an attempt was made at the University of Georgia to give an empirical basis for the West hypothesis, which however did not yield conclusive results and was refuted by a series of subsequent studies.

 

Source	Sample, number of men(I.e. and women♀	Hetero ratiosexual individuals,%	Method for assessing hypothetical hidden homosexual interest	Method for assessing the degree of critical attitude to same-sex activity	Can the results testify in favor of psychoanalysis? hypothesis?
Adams 1996	64♂	100	Plethysmography	Hudson xnumx	Yes, conditionally
Mahaffey 2005a	87♂   91♀	100	Blinking Acoustic Starting Reflex	Gentry xnumx	No
Mahaffey 2005b	49♂	100			No
Mahaffey 2011	104♂	100			Counternice results
Steffens xnumx	32♂48♀	80	TSA	Herek 1994	No
Meier 2006	44♂	100	The speed of the task and the duration of viewing images	Hudson xnumx	No
Weinstein xnumx	27♂62♀	94	TCA using hidden primers	Wright xnumx	Yes, conditionally
	68♂114♀	90			No
	35♂154♀	94			Conflicting results
	44♂140♀	not specified		LaMar 1998	Conflicting results
MacInnis and Hodson 2013	85♂152♀	90	TSA	Herek 1988	No
Lazarevic 2015	122♂155♀	100	TSA	Jankovic 2000, Živanoviс 2014	No
Cheval 2016a	38♂	100	The speed of the task and the duration of viewing images	Morrison xnumx	Conflicting results
Cheval 2016b	36♂	100	Pupillary reaction	Morrison xnumx	No
Roberts 2016	37♂	100	Plethysmography	Herek 1988, Morrison xnumx	No

 

Sources:

1-11,13. Freud - Complete Works by Ivan Smith: 2000, 2007, 2010.

12 . Bergler, E. Homosexuality: disease or way of life? New York, NY, US: Hill & Wang.