ABSTRACT
Having oriented the new research to psychoanalytic positions, authors review what evidence there is of a category of aberration that is not perversion. Regardless of whether the organism is genetically male or female, if androgens are not present at the appropriate periods prenatally, masculine behavior will not occur. In such cases, aberrant erotic or gender behavior is, thus, the result of brain function determined primarily before birth. A nice example-especially because it is used polemically so often these days-is the matter of homosexuality in ancient Greece. Effeminacy played no part; only the man who could not do other than love men was considered homosexual in derogatory sense. In asking that we talk of variants or deviations rather than perversions, sex experts, allied with others fighting for sexual civil rights, use observations of animal behavior.
