Bi-sexual love; the homosexual neurosisStekel, Wilhelm
Science
Bi-sexual love; the homosexual neurosis
Stekel, Wilhelm
Homosexuality; Neuroses
We observe inwardly a strong “will to power” and formally a decidedly
feminine attitude; the orgasm occurs while he plays the role of woman;
but the highest gratification always depends on the most powerful
inner forces. He does not avoid women because he fears defeat, for
he has repeatedly proven his _potentia_ through intercourse with
prostitutes and feels supremely confident that he could master any
situation involving no moral scruples. What hinders him seems to be the
association of his sister with all decent girls, and of his mother with
all married women. His homosexuality is inhibited by his fixation on
the father. And back of all inhibitions there stands his overstressed
religiosity, which he had cultivated for years although he had
apparently outgrown it. He intended to embrace a religious career but
gave up the idea when he was 14 years of age. It is very likely that
most of his troubles will disappear after marriage, if he should break
away from the parental circle.
I believe that even one who is inexperienced in dream analysis will
readily recognize a phallic symbol in the perolin sprayer which gives
forth a soapy fluid. It was natural that at 16 years of age he should
fall in love with a colleague who resembled a sister. The obvious
incest thoughts kept him from the girl. All girls of good family were
sisters; he treated them like sisters. The prostitutes were not in
the same class with his sister and he could be potent with them. The
homosexual path was closed to him also on account of his sister. In all
young men he saw his sister with a phallus.
It is significant that further analysis discloses a fixation upon
the father to an extent I had not quite suspected before. Back of
the apparent scorn of his father, underneath his tendency to speak
lightly of him there was an unquenchable love which nothing could quite
gratify. The ugly example given by his teacher suggested intimacies
possible only in the realm of phantasy. (His subsequent dreams placed
him with me in a similar situation.) Thus he vacillated between
homosexuality and Don Juanism.
Why do these men hesitate in the end and why do they not become
genuine Don Juans? In large measure this is due to the inner religious
scruples. These rudimentary types are weighted down by an excess of
morality. They like to play at immorality but very carefully see to it
that morality wins in the end.
I wish to add a few remarks about the religious significance of the
dream. It is remarkable that all dream interpreters have overlooked
the obvious import of dreams, from the religious standpoint, in spite
of the fact that they are aware of the great role which religion plays
in man’s mental life and must appreciate that such a force necessarily
finds expression through the dream.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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