ABSTRACT
Homosexual impulses are abnormal only in relation to our own culture’s standards of correct conduct. The point requiring explanation is not the existence of homo-eroticism, but the inability of a minority to conform with the social taboo against it. Why is it that the majority either lose interest or repress homosexual feelings, whereas a minority, in spite of society’s discouragement, maintain an unshakeable preference for their own sex? According to Freudian theory, this fixed preference becomes established in early childhood through the emotional interaction between the infant and his parents. The life stories of many homosexuals bear witness to the peculiar upbringing to which they have been subjected [235]; but in order to put the matter on a better scientific footing one needs something more than a haphazard collection of individual and possibly unrepresentative case histories.
