Note 49 — Chapter VIII · THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SEXUALITY AND SEX IN RELATION TO UNIFICATION AND ORGANIC MATING

In a recent meeting of psychopathologists a paper was presented which described the results of a questionnaire that had been distributed among the students of one of our prominent American universities, the object of which was to learn the nature of the sexual life of the college students. The figures compiled from the answers submitted showed in the author’s view a surprisingly high percentage of masturbation and homosexuality. But what is of interest is the fact that in the interpretation of the author of the paper, as well as in that of every member who participated in the discussion, the concept of masturbation was restricted solely to personal practices on the part of the single individual, while the concept of homosexuality was confined entirely to the manifestation of sexual interests or activities occurring between persons of the same sex! Apparently it was not suspected that these manifest expressions of autoerotism or homosexuality are the least widespread or significant forms of its occurrence, that the really important and far-reaching expression of these disorders of instinct occurs in the latent form represented in the symbolic substitutions of heterosexuality as commonly practised, for example, in houses of prostitution. Yet these latter expressions were avowedly regarded as real expressions of heterosexuality and, accordingly, its devotees were naïvely interpreted as presenting a psychological adaptation which showed a frank contrast to that of their “homosexual” confrères! It is hopeless to expect any scientific understanding of anomalies of reaction that pertain to our subjective life as long as scientists themselves persist in confusing the objective appearances under which these anomalies are disguised for the subjective actuality of these anomalies themselves.