ABSTRACT
This chapter explains not only the narratives of immaturity, pathology, and normal variants, but also the morality tales that underlie them as well. Narratives of immaturity regard homosexuality as a normal step toward the development of adult heterosexuality. Sigmund Freud saw homosexuality primarily as a developmental arrest, a fixation, or a sign of psychological immaturity. The most renowned tale of immaturity in psychoanalysis is found in “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality”. Although some claim to know what causes either homosexuality or heterosexuality, the origins of human sexual attraction remain an unsolved mystery. As the patient’s experience illustrates, embedded within etiological theories are moral concerns about the meaning of homosexuality. In fact, the idea that too much closeness to mothers “causes” boyhood gender nonconformity is rather common in the general population. Although Freud rejected Krafft-Ebing’s pathologizing in favor of a theory of immaturity, neofreudian analysts repathologized homosexuality.
