Bi-sexual love; the homosexual neurosis

by Wilhelm Stekel

It takes a long time for the original love of the father to come to the surface, back of this thick cover of hatred and jealousy. But the masking layer melts, surely though slowly, and meanwhile explanations for which the subject is as yet unprepared would do more harm than good. The art of analysis consists in showing up only so much as reveals itself from time to time. Our subject is not yet prepared to see that he is in love with his father. Nevertheless he begins to talk about his father’s preeminence and other favorable sides, the man’s knowledge, his great library, etc.

Gradually the father’s picture looms up in terms more and more favorable. The subject relates pleasant episodes from youth, when he botanized along with his father who introduced him to the science; he withdraws his murder notion, admitting at last that it was only part of his over-heated fancy. At this stage when he takes me for the locum tenens of his father, he assumes an aggressive attitude towards me and uses an expression which amounts to an insult. I had already made clear to him that he sees his father in me. Now he undertakes to treat me as he would his father. At once I break up the analysis. Three days later he returns remorsefully and begs forgiveness. It will not happen again, I must not leave him in the lurch, he cannot stand this condition any longer, and I must save him. That was the only conflict I ever had with him; after that he behaved well and to this day he shows himself appreciative and filled with gratitude. He was ready to recognize how strongly his homosexuality determined his attitude towards his superiors, towards his father, as well as towards me. He now sees it clearly. He admits he practically fell in love with his last chief and that is why he had to quit the place. He relates a dream which he had kept to himself till then, and which shows his homosexual attitude towards me, and admits that during childhood he had idealized his father and loved him deeply.

We learn more than that. We find out what brought on his turn for the worse at Berlin. At his lodging house there was a young boy 14 years of age, very attractive, whom he coached evenings. He began to play with that boy. He masturbated him and was masturbated by the boy in turn. The relationship kept up for about three months. These were the first three months of his stay in Berlin. Then he felt remorse, sought a quarrel with the landlady and moved out. From that moment began his insatiable craving for women. It was his last homosexual period. He had led astray other boys before that one and always gladly introduced them to the habit. A court case in which the defendant was sentenced for a similar offence decided him to give up the homosexual practices. He never repeated them after that Berlin episode.

His satyriasis developed on account of the repression of his homosexual tendencies. Back of his morbid passion for woman stood his ungratified longing for man.

The subject now sees clearly that he carried on with the boy the act which he expected of his father. His hatred of the father is reversed love. In the chapter devoted to sadism we will describe more fully this relationship between father and son.

Our subject expected his father to do with him what he did with the boy. It shows how little credence we should lend a patient’s first statements. Presently numerous similar episodes come to the forefront and soon we learn that his greatest desire at one time was to procure a pretty boy for himself and that boys roused him more than girls. He seeks the company of women to forget all about his inclination towards boys and hopes to overcome his homosexual tendencies through excessive heterosexual experiences. His craving for women, his obsessive thinking about them, serves only as a means to prevent his mind from reverting to the other sex. Compulsory thoughts often serve the purpose of preventing other thoughts from intruding. This is the law of resistance which plays such a tremendous role in the mental life of neurotics. In the course of treatment he transfers upon me all his passion—as was to be expected. He has some dreams,—which he relates with great difficulty,—during which he sees me naked and handles my penis or even carries out fellatio. He now recalls passionately watching his father, also how happy he was to go bathing with him, and how he liked to hide in order to see his father’s phallus. The dissolution of this transference and reference back to his father he does not like at first, but it becomes more and more pronounced as we proceed. He is now abstinent for a week at a stretch and no longer chases after women although I gave him no particular advice on this point. The consciously acknowledged homosexual leaning has no need for this cover. As leaning comes to surface openly it is openly overcome. He again experiences anxieties. His landlady tells that he is heard tossing and groaning and even crying out in his sleep. He is now sentimental and soft, becoming greatly changed in character, to his advantage. Again he goes to the theatre and reads books,—things he had not done for years. His letters to his father are more quiet in tone and sympathetic. He becomes economical and spends less than his father sends him.

Then something happens which promises to mark a new epoch in his life. It is a typical experience of these men during treatment. As the infantile ties are loosened in the course of the analysis they fall in love.[17]

Our subject is in a state of highest preparedness towards love. His homosexuality, which had been completely repressed—he no longer took any interest in boys—was again manifest. He now played his trump card. He fell in love with a girl who was to replace for him all other women as well as all thought of man. This happened in so remarkable and typical a manner that it is worth while to report fully the occurrence.

He was still in the habit of accosting girls on the street, even if for no other object than sheer amusement. One evening he came across a demure little girl who looked rather like a young boy, boldly spoke to her and fell deeply in love with her on the spot. In three days he declared himself her beau and six days later they became engaged. He thought of nothing else but his sweetheart. As if bent on revenging himself on me and on his father he spoke of nothing else but his love and his new found happiness. The satyriasis was replaced by a psychic intoxication even more powerful. He picked up a girl belonging to an ordinary family to punish his parents. He chose that girl although she was no longer virgo intacta (because this did not interest him). He told that to his parents and it was, he felt, the strongest revenge and punishment he could bring upon them. They thought a great deal of their social position; and now, their son was marrying the daughter of a motorman, a girl without any education and who served as clerk in some store. And he threatened his parents that he would take his life unless he could marry the girl. He would marry her without their consent. His love was so great,—such a love never had its equal in the world! The very thought that his father might try to prevent the marriage made him raving mad and he talked of violence and murder.

I advised the father to disarm the son by placing no opposition in his path. He should make but one condition: the son must support himself and his wife. Only a man capable of maintaining a wife has the right to marry. I took the same attitude explaining to the young man that he must make himself independent of his father through his own labor. He perceived plainly that the idea of maintaining himself through his own labor did not appeal to him. His greatest pleasure was the thought that his father had to pay every time he went out with a woman and that he was squandering his father’s money.