One of the aspects of homosexuality in adolescence turns on the axis of the relation to the grandiose father. This alienating representations blocks the subject in a masochist submission leading to infantile auto-erotism. The newness of the arrival of puberty is thwarted in its oedipal expectations : avoidance of castration, the lessening of the symbolic image of the father in games of phallic seduction of the negative Oedipus complex. We offer the hypothesis of an impulse investment of a « maternel father », taking care of the distress of the adolescent, neglected by the mother, by seducting him.
Archives par mot-clé : Homosexuality
Daniel Marcelli: primary narcissim and homosexuality in adolescence
The adolescent regularly shifts between the necessity of self identification and the need for self differentiation : homophilia is set, because of this fact, at the core of this process of adolescence, as we are first reminded. Between homophilia and the « question of homosexuality » the limit is certainly often slight, with the consultant and his patient constanly being confronted by the patient’s diverse variations of a homosexuality whether it be narcissistic, neurotic, perverse, fear of abandonment, etc.
This article focuses more precisely on the narcissistic component of homosexuality, considering the early mother infant relationship and attemps to distinguish the situation of the boy from that of the girl.
Several clinical cases are used as illustrations.
Colette Chiland: transexuality transexualism and homosexuality at puberty
The author treats the question of the relation between homosexuality and the problems of sexual identity at the turning point which marks puberty. Homosexuality doesn’t entail a refusal of the designated sex in the majority of cases. The refusal of the designated sex is often accompanied by the attraction for individuals of the same biological sex but that the subject doesn’t consider as homosexual. This attraction is the consequence of his « true sex » as opposed to his biological sex. The sexual practices of female transsexuals towards males are different from those of female homosexuals ; those of male transsexuals towards females are different from those of passive male homosexuals.
At puberty, the refusal of the designated sex grows or is revealed ; it is also at puberty that homosexuality takes on a more concrete form or appears, although in both cases there are « later callings ».
The etiology of transsexualism as well as that of homosexuality is uncertain. One musn’t hasten to label homosexual an adolescent who has homosexual experiences or operate on an adolescent who expresses this desire.
Jean Bergeret: « homosexuality or « homoerotism » in adolescence »
The notion of « homoerotism » in adolescence since Ferenczi corresponds to the passageby an intermediate stage, still narcissistic and aiming at an object represented ideally in a specular and attractive way. This stage ensures the integration of libidinal autoerotic satisfactions from the distant past and a set of later narcissistic fixations (second chilhood period and latence) at the heart of the libidinal current, truly sexual and object oriented now, which thus, should organize, and in an ideally complete and definitive way, the organizational primacy of the adult personality.
One can therefore consider that only those subjects would be entitled to a status of truly homosexual if they have benefitted from (at the most advanced moment of their affective evolution, therefore after adolescence) , the possibility of reaching a level of elaboration and overall organization of the personality both considered under the genital primacy but which following subsequent severe affective crises, would have undergone serious functional regressions, bringing them back to a mode already gone beyond, to a narcissistic relation aimed at representations of mirror likenesses.
The author then stresses three distinct varieties of homosexualis: of a functional transitory nature, that involved in the narcissistic pathology and finally that affirming a psychotic position.
Philippe Gutton : Homosexual process at puberty
After having studied the discovery of the homosexuality of Mishima in The Confession of a Masque, the author reviews the development of human sexuality in its two stages. He then distinguishes the homosexuality, at puberty, involved in the clinical process of breakdown and those he considers ordinary (or neurotic) which especially engage his writing. He questions the theory of the experienced complementarity of the sexes and studies the concept of contingency of the partial and complete object. The genital choice has less to do with the erotic than with mastery. The flexibility of pubertal transactions entwines homo and heterosexuality in such a way that the author wonders if one’s subsequent choice is determined by one’s capacity to integrate (either in a better or worse way) the sado-masochistic investments. The theory is explained by clinical examples. It takes into account the present day evolution of the ideas concerning sexual minorities
Odile Falque : on hell
Hell is the place of remorse hiding behind the mask of guilt. It stigmatizes the “ anxiety of eternity ”, the lament of the patient Judas sunk in the unrepresentable and the fixity of time. His psychical position is that of a homosexual feminine identification in relation to an archaic mother, a return of death. The eternal hell is immobilized in the control of religious figurations tied to parental imagos in religious culture.
Jean-Marie Firdion : risk of suicide in youngsters with unconventional sexual orientation
Making a synthesis from a recent report, the author presents the hypothesis of an association between suicide attempt, or suicide, among youths and homosexual or bisexual orientation. The consonant findings of North-American epidemiological works, published last years, emphasize the fact that homosexuality, per se, is not a direct causal factor in suicidality among youths. Nonetheless, homosexual or bisexual orientation are factors that increase the risk of suicidal behaviors (with a significant effect). This phenomenon could be related to homophobia and heterosexism, still present in our societies. These conclusions have a strong effect on prevention programs and policies directed to youths. The American research results underscore the need for collecting and analyzing such data in France.
Yvon Brès : isolated and amplified
The “ sexual liberation ” of the sixties gives way, in our time, to equivocal social phenomena : pro-homosexuality propaganda, the tracking down of pedophiles, the dread of sexual harassment. In fact, liberation was sometimes replaced by a militancy ignorant of the real meaning of Freud’s “ sexual theory ”, particularly the idea he expressed in 1895, that some neurotic symptoms result from the “ isolation ” and “ exaggeration ” of components of the “ normal ” sexual act.
Sophie Turcat : almodovar in search of a fraternal phallic penis
While homosexuality among siblings remains one of the last taboo subjects of clinical literature, the work of Almodovar would be a good illustration of it. Between homoeroticism, autoeroticism, incestuous attraction and the fraternal double, the filmmaker artistically tries to solve his own problems, while helping his male characters to conquer the phallic penis that women can so readily adapt themselves to in his universe. An analysis of “ Talk with her ” makes it possible to learn something of Almoldovar’s fantasises of. By lifting its modest veil we can perhaps better understand his view of a subject which is normally kept under silence.
Sophie Turcat : The Bad Upbringing of the Father
Following the extended analysis carried out previously in Talk to her, Pedro Almodovar has furthered the expression of his fraternal fantasies, offering for the first time in The bad education some concrete and autobiographical elements of their origins. He finally gives a powerful place to the male phallic characters and manages to eliminate the female ones almost completely.