ABSTRACT
In view of the general confusion, it has seemed to the author worthwhile to review the whole subject, trace the various psychoanalytic ideas about homosexuality, and, finally, describe the status of the concept today. Latent homosexuality apparently exists in everyone, although perhaps the amount varies from one person to another. Sigmund Freud assumes it may either find expression in pathological difficulties or in sublimation. Psychoanalysis has to deal with homosexuality as a problem only in its repressed or overt forms. Freud believed one important distinction between a repressed and an overt homosexual was that the former had a stern superego and the latter a weak superego. The attitude toward homosexuality in Western society may be summed up as follows: in most circles it is looked upon as an unacceptable form of sexual activity.
