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The term homosexuality designates a [[sexual ]] orientation in which a person of the same sex is the [[object]].

The term was apparently coined in 1869, from the Greek homos ("same"), by K. M. Benkert, a writer who published his works under the pseudonym Kertbeny Karoli. He was a defender of sexual rights, and he used the term "[[homosexual]]" during discussions on whether to [[change ]] paragraph 143 of the Prussian [[Constitution ]] of April 14, 1851, which punished [[acts ]] of "unnatural indecency" committed between men, or between a man and an [[animal]].

It is highly surprising that [[Freud ]] took no interest in this manifestation of sexual [[life ]] during the first years of [[psychoanalysis]], despite the abundant [[literature ]] on the topic by such writers as Jean-Martin Charcot, Valentin Magnan, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Albert Moll, Magnus Hirschfeld, and [[others]]. Though Freud views [[neurosis ]] as the "[[negative ]] of [[perversion]]" (without mentioning homosexuality), this is because he supposes that [[psychic ]] [[processes ]] do not undergo [[repression ]] in the "[[pervert]]." Moreover, the [[theory ]] of bisexuality (Freud-[[Fliess]]) introduces the question, albeit under the [[veil ]] of [[biology]]. However, Freud did undertake to analyze a homosexual [[patient ]] at the end of the nineteenth century, but the patient concerned apparently committed [[suicide ]] at Trafoi.

The arrival of Isidore Sadger in Freud's circle in 1906 was to be decisive. As dialogue between him and Freud led to the laying down of an "etiological [[formula]]": [[masculine ]] homosexuality results from a boy's [[childhood ]] repression of the [[existence ]] of a "strong" [[mother ]] and a weak or [[absent ]] [[father ]] (Freud, 1910c). In the debate with Sadger, who adhered to the [[seduction ]] theory, Freud proposed etiological variants in which the boy's arousal is transposed from the mother onto men (1905d [1910]), or else there is [[identification ]] with the mother, [[hatred ]] towards boys is converted into [[love]], there is a "[[narcissistic]]" [[fixation ]] on the [[penis]], or we see identification with the mother leading to repression of love for the mother (Nunberg, Federn, 1962-75). The theory of [[narcissism ]] that developed in tandem with that of homosexuality opened up a path that Freud [[left ]] relatively unexplored: the transmission of narcissism. Thus, Freud's descriptions in "[[On Narcissism]]: An Introduction" (1914c)—"A person may love . . . according to the narcissistic type . . . (a) what he himself is (i.e., himself), (b) what he himself was" (p. 90)—could be supplemented by [[formulae ]] such as "a person [[loves ]] that which the [[other ]] wants him to be" and, eventually, "a person loves in himself that which the other would have liked to have or to be" (p. 90).

The other area barely outlined by Freud in the discussions of the [[Vienna ]] [[Psychoanalytical ]] [[Society ]] is that of the passage from [[autoeroticism ]] to narcissism: "In general, man has two original sexual [[objects ]] and his later life depends on the one upon which he remains fixated. These two sexual objects are, for each [[individual]], the [[woman ]] (the mother, the [[children]]'s nurse, etc.) and his own person. It is a question of getting rid of both of [[them ]] and not lingering over them. One's own person is the one which, most often, is replaced by the father; the latter soon enters the hostile [[position]]. Homosexuality bifurcates at this point. The homosexual is unable to detach himself from himself so soon" (1914c). This heavily significant [[appearance ]] of the father-[[figure ]] was not followed up in the etiology of masculine homosexuality but it was later to be found in the [[analysis ]] of [[male ]] [[paranoia ]] (the [[Schreber ]] [[case]], reported in "[[Psycho]]-[[Analytic ]] [[Notes ]] on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia [[[Dementia ]] Paranoides]": 1911c [1910]), in which a pathological [[defense ]] against homosexuality develops, though the [[role ]] of the father is never specified. Is he an [[agent ]] of [[culture ]] because he brandishes [[castration ]] in the [[name ]] of the law that forbids [[masturbation ]] and the mother? Might he not also fill a role as seducer?

In 1910, homosexuality was defined by the characteristics of the object or the [[subject]], but in 1915, in [[place ]] of this [[distinction]], Freud returned to the conception he had earlier developed with Fliess: the object is merely the [[reflection ]] of the bisexual [[nature ]] of the subject ("[[Three ]] Essays on the Theory of [[Sexuality]]," 1905d [1915]).

Homosexuality in [[women ]] would remain less well explored ("The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman," 1920a), because the transposition of the etiological formula for men—specifically, excessive love for the father—often works less well.

As Sándor Ferenczi remarked in 1914, drawing a distinction between "subject homoerotism" and "object homoerotism" ([[Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality]], note added in 1920, p. 147), psychoanalysis relied [[right ]] from the start on a [[model ]] of the "[[feminine ]] man" and thus neglected the [[masculinity ]] [[present ]] in other homosexual men, just as it ignored the [[femininity ]] of certain lesbians.

Since the 1970s, as homosexuality became more openly discussed, several authors (Chasseguet-Smirgel, J., et al., 1964; Isay, R. A., 1986) have communicated [[clinical ]] observations that [[suggest ]] other etiologies. But the [[psychoanalytic ]] perspective has again become clouded by the way the question of "[[gender]]" has been biologized (Robert Stoller). Gays themselves have embraced theories of innate or [[physiological ]] homosexuality in [[order ]] to [[defend ]] themselves against the inquisitorial [[persecution ]] long meted out to them by justice, [[medicine]], and even psychoanalysis.

Nonetheless, a first step towards the lessening of [[homophobia]], on a basis other than that of [[moral ]] principles, was taken by Freud, who put forward the [[idea ]] that a [[manifest ]] sexual tendency ([[heterosexuality]], for [[instance]]) could conceal [[another]], opposite tendency that remains [[latent ]] (such as homosexuality). However, although Freud went along with increasingly progressive attitudes in society, he remained just as reserved as did society—witness society—[[witness]] this rather ambiguous and nuanced [[letter ]] that he wrote in 1935 to the mother of a homosexual, whose sexuality he did not view as an [[illness ]] but as a case of arrested [[development ]] (while only heterosexuality is treated as normal): "Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is [[nothing ]] to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the [[sexual function]], produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern [[times ]] have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them. ([[Plato]], [[Michelangelo]], [[Leonardo ]] [[da Vinci]], etc.) It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime—and a [[cruelty]], too. . . . By asking me if I can [[help]], you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The answer is, in a general way we cannot promise to achieve it. In a certain [[number ]] of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs of heterosexual tendencies, which are present in every homosexual; in the majority of cases it is no more possible" (Letters of [[Sigmund Freud]], 1856-1939, p. 423). However, such [[permissiveness ]] was contradicted by the fact that from 1920 onwards many psychoanalytic societies refused to admit openly homosexual candidates.

The response to the [[theoretical ]] and [[practical ]] debate around homosexuality was nevertheless present, in embryonic [[form]], in Freud's conceptualization of the sexual [[instinct ]] in 1905. Indeed, at the beginning of the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality following Charcot and Magnan, he used the highly inappropriate [[word ]] "[[inversion]]" to prove demonstrate that the instinct has no predefined object.

See also: [[Activity]]/passivity; [[Alcoholism]]; Anality; [[Dark continent]]; [[Eroticism]], [[anal]]; [[Female ]] sexuality; [[Fetishism]]; Heterosexuality; Identification; "[[Leonardo da Vinci ]] and a [[Memory ]] of His Childhood"; [[Libido]]; Narcissism, secondary; Neurosis; Paranoia; [[Paranoid ]] position; Persecution; Perversion; [[Phallic ]] mother; [[Projection]]; [[Psychology ]] of Women, The: A Psychoanalytic [[Interpretation]], Psycho-pathologie de l'échec ([[Psychopathology ]] of Failure); Sadger, Isidor Isaak; Suicide; Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality.