ABSTRACT
In the United States, one of the most publicized issues of postrevolutionary life in Cuba has been the treatment of homosexuals, and to it Americans have responded with a gamut of reactions, from disappointment to rage. Within the Cuban culture of machismo, the whole issue of homosexuality appears as one of male identity. The popular literature of a nation reflects prevailing attitudes toward sex and homosexuality. The relegation of women as secondary, lesser "others" is also apparent in the almost total absence of lesbianism from official and social concern over homosexuality. The "new man" was to be not only a person of high morals but a strong and virile revolutionary, in contrast to the "weak" homosexual. A movement away from psychoanalytic approaches began soon after the Revolution, when different advocates in the Cuban Psychiatric Society championed their particular orientation toward mental health treatment.
