ABSTRACT
Theory construction is the operation that most plainly exposes the way in which basic constituents of language have continued to control the formulation of numerous psychoanalytic principles just as they shaped Freud's foundational works. A strong case can be made that the prime vehicle of transmission is language. Language appears to be structured to serve sexual and gender biases. The pressure is toward symmetrical conceptualization, unity, and efficiency: there should be no loose ends, everything in its expected place, and no Oscar Wildes to contend with. Blurred boundaries, unpredictability, and conspicuous deviance in the realm of sex: none of them pleasing or productive. Freud may be viewed as having been working in conformity with the moral, aesthetic, and material, and linguistic dictates of his culture. The idea of perversion is one manifestation of this bias, and homosexuality as arrested development is another.
