SCIENCE AND HOMOSEXUALITY

I found some of the implications in Judd Marmor’s review of Kenneth Lewes’ “Psychoanalytic Theory of Male Homosexuality” (Book Review, Feb. 19) as interesting as the review itself. Science should not be a hostage to politics or the public taste. The question of whether or not homosexuality is to be regarded as a psychiatric disorder should be left to scientists unmoved by picketing and political acts of those who disagree with the classification. Edmund Bergler’s quoted statements do generalize from the particular and are intemperate. However, his point was that homosexuality, impotence, and frigidity were counterfeit sex: Sexual behavior used to express and disguise other non-sexual needs and drives. Modern psychotherapy recognizes that the symptom not only expresses an internal conflict, but also communicates a social statement. Marmor wishes to ignore that possible social message by implying that homosexuals are “born that way” due to biochemistry. Any message of rebellion against a heterosexual society or family is then erased. More than this, Marmor defends homosexuals by implying that their sexual object is not chosen by homosexuals as a preference or an existential option, rather, they are victims of conditions in utero, which determine their wants and behavior. He thereby acknowledges that homosexuals would be heterosexual if they could. He denies a psychiatric disorder to arrive at a biological disorder without recognizing his own bias that homosexuality is a dysfunction of the sexual drive.

RICHARD T. MORRISON

SOUTH PASADENA