1 - What Is Homosexuality?

Those who are halves of a male whole pursue males, and being slices, so to speak, of the male, love men throughout their boyhood, and take pleasure in physical contact with men. Such boys and lads are the best of their generation, because they are the most manly.

—PLATO, The Symposium

Homosexual men have a predominant erotic attraction to others of the same sex. Their sexual fantasies are either entirely or almost entirely directed toward other men, and have been so since childhood. Because sexual behavior may be inhibited by societal pressure or by internal conflict, a man need not engage in sexual activity to be homosexual. Those who have homo- sexual contacts but, because of censorious social pressures, intrapsychic conflict, or both, are unable to accept that they are gay are also homosexual. There are others who may not even have conscious access to their homoerotic fantasies because they repress, suppress, or deny them. Their fantasies become more available to them during a properly conducted analysis or therapy, and I also consider them to be homosexual.

The seven-point scale (0–6) of Alfred Kinsey and his associates emphasizes the behavior and conscious sexual interest of their respondents.2 Fives and sixes on Kinsey’s scale indicate those with exclusive or nearly exclusive homoerotic behavior. I have found sexual fantasy to be a more clinically useful way of defining homosexuality than behavior. Just as a man would be considered heterosexual even if he was constrained from expressing or elected not to express his sexuality for reasons of age, circumstance, or vocation, I am taking into account that some gay men may not express their homoe...