Bi-sexual love; the homosexual neurosisStekel, Wilhelm
Science
Bi-sexual love; the homosexual neurosis
Stekel, Wilhelm
Homosexuality; Neuroses
The man is avowedly bisexual with a strong leaning towards
homosexuality. This homosexual trend was gratified up till that time
through masturbation—as he has pointed out. He sought contact with
fully developed women, to forget man. He wanted a very beautiful wife
because he imagined her beauty would serve to drive away from him
all thought of man and to focus his libido exclusively upon her. He
wanted to have the prettiest woman in the world: Helen. If his wife’s
appearance pleased other men, this so roused the homosexual component
of his libido that he enjoyed sexual intercourse with her more keenly.
Above all he wanted to avoid the thought of man. The anxiety on account
of man came over him particularly before retiring at night and it was a
morbid anxiety over masturbation at the same time. In his head, within
his brain, man was a living thought, something that threatened him and
demanded release. But this was also something his consciousness refused
to recognize and therefore the thought of man tortured him and he could
not fall asleep. He projected this intruder into his room and it led
him to search his empty closets for a non-existent man, as if saying to
himself: I have no trace of any homosexual leaning whatever! That is
what he actually told me when I referred to the homosexual significance
of his compulsory acts: such a Don Juan as I! I have devoted myself
completely to woman. The thought of man is repulsive to me.
I explained to him that disgust is but a hidden form of longing. If he
were indifferent to the thought of man it would be more convincing.
“Well then, I am indifferent to the thought.”
Thus he tried to convince me that he was not homosexual. But we
conceive that the hairs he discovered upon his wife’s body reminded
him of the fatal homosexuality. He felt so unhappy over it he was
considering a separation on that account. Whatever reminded him of man
was painfully unpleasant to him. He threw himself into love adventures
to forget man. He gave up his clubs and male companions because he
wanted to be all the time in the company of his wife.
I pass over for the present the further significance of his neurosis
as disclosed by the analysis of his dreams. I shall only give an
example illustrating how untrustworthy are the statements of those who
attempt to give an account of their lives and insist that they remember
everything accurately. This or that particular kind of incident, they
are sure, has never occurred in their life. Regarding sexual matters
all men lie consciously, unconsciously and half-consciously.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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