Bi-sexual love; the homosexual neurosis

by Wilhelm Stekel

At this time he confesses to me that he was about to get married once before. It was in Berlin, shortly after the homosexual relations with the young boy. He became acquainted with a girl who kept up intercourse with him. This girl he wanted to marry and his father went through the same trial with him. He could not think of a greater revenge. Such subjects show this trait again and again. It is not the only case of the kind that I have met. The occurrence is common and every experienced nerve specialist is called in consultation over similar problems several times in the course of a year. That girl was the Frenchwoman who introduced him to all forms of paraphiliac practices. The father, naturally indignant, threatened to disinherit the son. That was precisely what our patient was looking for. He was afraid only of a soft-hearted father and he managed always to rouse his anger as a sort of protective screen between himself and his father. The patient also felt that his father scorned him. During the Berlin episode he clung to his Frenchwoman, did not rest until his father met her, wanted always to keep in her company and was afraid of being alone with his father.

At this point the subject’s journey to Thuringen with his father came up through numerous associations. He accompanied on that journey not his uncle, but his father, and he now recalls that during the trip he frequently occupied one bed with his father, and that it made him happy to think that his father took him along instead of his mother.

It will be recalled that previously he remembered only the incident of slipping on a stone. That is really a “Deckerinnerung.” The fall covers other incidents: It stands for a fall into sin. I must point out that the subject also links the return of the trouble and its aggravation to an alleged fall. The accident happened in a merry go round. He fell unconscious but after a short time came fully to himself and returned to the sport. The accident could hardly have been a serious one. At any rate the riddle of a fall belonged to the fancies with which he had beclouded his journey to Thuringen. The fiction established itself in his mind through his occupying one bed with his father in the course of that journey and his substituting the father for the mother. His dreamy mind conceived the companion as a woman, as the mother, and added the fiction of a fall into sin, symbolically represented by the trivial incident of an actual fall.

He now finds himself in a new homosexual danger. I see him daily and he tries by various tricks to induce me to give him a physical examination and to show me his penis. He thinks he has again gonorrhea, perhaps he has phthiriasis, I ought to examine him, it would be foolish for him to go to another physician for that. I explain these symptoms and the man confesses that he has indulged also openly in fancies in which I played a role. And now he takes revenge by telling me about his bride and dwelling on her tenderness for hours. He has no other theme for talk. He must always have her near him to feel quiet. She must not leave him for a moment. Day and night he wants to hold her hand ... thus he insures himself against homosexuality.

Finally I tell him I shall give up the psychoanalysis if there is nothing else to come up. Then, lo! his talk turns to other matters. He knows now that his engagement is a defence measure against his homosexuality and his filthy onanistic acts. But he also sees that in his bride he has found a surrogate for his mother. He surrounds her with tenderness like a man who truly loves, and presently his psychic intoxication turns into a deep and true affection. He still has serious quarrels with his bride. He still storms against his father and against all authority. He is an anarchist at war with all authority and assumes an obstinate attitude towards everybody. But his father, apprised by me of the true situation, keeps his temper and thus disarms his son. Thus the engagement no longer serves the object of worrying the parents. His parents apparently let him have his own way, insisting only that he should go to work. I doubt his ability to get to work and express to him my sympathy. He wants to show me that he can work. At every opportunity I sympathize with his bride, a quiet, brave little woman. He will surely abandon her. He cannot keep true. Not so! he declares. He is going to show me that he can be true.

In a few weeks he finds a position and does his work so carefully and diligently that his condition is greatly improved. Then he marries and in every sense of the word becomes a new man.

But there was a great deal more to do. His paranoiac notions of grandeur, his feeling that he could do anything which others may not, his obstinacy and his rebellion against all authority were gradually replaced by social tendencies. He became modest and agreeable....

His complete recovery, he learned early, depended on his keeping away from his parents. A short stay in the old home roused all the old antagonisms and he resolved to stay away so as to keep on friendly terms with his parents.

At first all his affection was centered on his bride and he did not wait for the marriage ceremony.... He attained unbelievable accomplishments.... But this did not continue for long and soon he quieted down and had intercourse with his wife at regular intervals.... Pregnancy and childbirth made it necessary for him to keep away from her for a time and he did so easily enough, without being untrue to her.

I do not know how long this improvement will last. He has kept his place for the past three years with dignity and honor, and is today a quiet, brave man who shudders when he thinks of his past. His parents have reconciled themselves to his marriage and the birth of two grandchildren has ratified in their eyes the inevitable fact.