Bi-sexual love; the homosexual neurosisStekel, Wilhelm
Science
Bi-sexual love; the homosexual neurosis
Stekel, Wilhelm
Homosexuality; Neuroses
This remarkable case is as clear as a school problem and richly
illustrates the various factors which determine a person’s attitude
regarding sexual matters. The subject is a simple man who has not
yet mastered completely the German language and he has repressed but
little. His youth and his sexual struggles apparently stretch before
his memory like an open book. He has had many dreams and remembers
them well. We note the genuine religious background. He is no longer
pious and does not care to go to church service. Nevertheless it ought
not to be difficult to perceive that back of his fear of immoral acts
stands the fear of divine punishment,—a consequence of his early
moral training. This man has been brought up with fear in his heart.
This breeding of the germ of fear in his soul was responsible for his
anxiety neurosis. Witches appeared to admonish him, in the school he
was spurred on by dire threats to do his best. Then there was his
powerful sexual craving which he, nevertheless, found possible to
withstand. Whence did he acquire the strength to keep away from his
girl cousin, although she so warmly attracted him and even encouraged
him? Was it the proximity of his sister who occupied the same room?
Some occurrences between him and that sister he had overlooked in his
voluntary account of his life, otherwise fairly accurate. He avoided
incest, but besides the moral and religious inhibitions, there must
have been something more to keep him so effectively away from women.
His trouble which asserts itself before keeping a secret appointment
is nausea. Dislike and fear are protective defences against sinning.
We recognize readily this disgust for woman, so strongly emphasized by
most genuine homosexuals. We know that this aversion covers a repressed
craving, a craving which is unbearable to consciousness for one reason
or another and therefore breaks out in the negative form as disgust.
The latter serves as defence and protection against the very tendencies
which generate the powerful cravings.
The disturbance is a cover for the incest motive. He cannot approach
a woman because he sees in her the grandmother, the mother, or the
sister, a fact of which he was often fully aware. _Quo me vertam?_
There is open before him the homosexual path, since the road to woman
is closed. The episode with the teacher, the “vile doings” with his
school companions were a sort of initiation.... Here repression sets
in. He knows nothing about his homosexuality. But the dream betrays
and tells more than the subject is prepared to see as yet. We shall
therefore begin the analysis with an analysis of the dream.
_That Night’s Dream._
I stand before the door of a dwelling in my home town and gaze upon the
surrounding landscape.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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