ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud described a developmental task requiring the unification of affectionate and sensual currents into a libido that could love its sexual objects. The extension of his ideas to the psychic experiences of gay men was virtually lost to psychoanalysts. Traditionally, analysts began with a belief that the etiology of homosexual orientation is pathological, and then understood all difficulties that gay men experienced as secondary to this pathology. His 1912 ideas about difficulties with integration of the affectionate and the sensual are useful across social contexts and aid our understanding of the influence of the environment on psychic development. Freud’s ideas about how the environment’s opposition to a youth’s sexual objects results in a barrier between sex and love are useful for understanding some of the difficulties in sex and love for gay men, who almost always grow up in an environment that opposes their sexual objects.
