ABSTRACT
Deutsch's writing is striking in several ways: her forceful disagreement with the notion that masculine and feminine roles are involved in homosexual relationships, her criticism of the idea that masculinity is a motive for female homosexuality, and the relative openness and vivacity of her descriptions of homosexual love and sex. In her first case history, Deutsch describes how the child's very active masturbation between the ages of three and five was severely punished by her mother, who tied up her hands and feet, and jeered at her. Deutsch's second patient provides much less obvious support for her general claims about masturbation. When masturbation is mutual, or involves another person in some way, it is only the organ in question, the hand, that constitutes the basis for saying that it is masturbation.
