ABSTRACT
Homosexuality created an irresolvable theoretical dilemma for Freud who
argued against those who wanted to ‘abolish’ it. Writing to James Jackson
Putnam, an American colleague who wanted analysts to take a strong moral
line with patients, Freud said, ‘Sexual morality as society – and indeed
American society – defines it, seems very despicable to me. I stand for a
much freer sexual life’ (Dollimore 1991: 172). Freud and his early
followers tended to have a liberal cosmopolitan stance towards
homosexuality, placing great emphasis on the cultural and artistic
achievements of homosexual scholars and thinkers throughout the
centuries. Sandor Ferenczi campaigned for the legalisation of
homosexuality (Stanton 1990) and in 1935 Freud wrote a ‘Letter to an
American Mother’ in which he said, ‘Homosexuality is . . . no vice, no
degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a
variation of the sexual function. . . . It is a great injustice to persecute
homosexuality as a crime – and a cruelty too’ (Freud 1935b).
