What is homosexuality? Is it curable? Some recent misleading propaganda
alleges that homosexuality is an incurable, hereditary condition, and
that the homosexual way of life is therefore “normal” for an
unspecified proportion of the population. This view has had an assist
from Kinsey statistics on the frequency of homosexual acts in youth. Not so says Manhattan Psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler. In Homosexuality:
Disease or Way of Life? , published last week, he
swiftly demolishes some popular misconceptions. The common definition
of a homosexual as one who “derives his sexual excitement and
satisfaction from a person of his own sex” is less than a half-truth,
says Bergler, because 1> it accepts a kind of parity between
homosexuals and heterosexuals, “and hence becomes a useful argument in
the homosexuals' advocacy of their perversion”; 2> it ignores the fact
that certain personality traits, partly or entirely psychopathic, are
specifically and exclusively characteristic of homosexuals. Injustice Collector. Homosexuality, says Analyst Bergler, is neither a
“biologically determined destiny, nor incomprehensible ill luck.” In
Freudian terms he traces a complicated pattern of the development of
homosexuality from infantile frustrations, through “pleasure in
displeasure.” to unconscious psychic masochism. The full-grown
homosexual, as Bergler sees him, wallows in self-pity and continually
provokes hostility to ensure himself more opportunities for self pity
he “collects” injustices—sometimes real, often fancied; he is full of
defensive malice and flippancy, covering his depression and guilt with
extreme narcissism and superciliousness. He refuses to acknowledge
accepted standards even in nonsexual matters, assuming that homosexuals
have a right to cut moral corners as compensation for their
“suffering.” He is generally unreliable, in an essentially psychopathic
way. To Bergler. who has treated plenty ot homosexuals , the most striking feature of this galaxy
of homosexual traits is its universality—”regardless of the level of
intelligence, culture, background or education, all homosexuals possess
it.” Along the way, Bergler takes a roundhouse swing at what he considers
another myth—bisexuality. This, he says, “has no existence beyond the
word itself—[it] is an out-and-out fraud, involuntarily maintained by
some naive homosexuals, and voluntarily perpetrated by some who are not
so naive. The theory claims that a man can be—alternately or
concomitantly—homo-and hetero-sexual. The statement is as rational
as one declaring that a man can at the same time have cancer and
perfect health. Some homosexuals are occasionally capable of lustless
mechanical sex with a woman . . . They tend to marry as a means of
proving . . . that they are completely normal.”
