Freud to a mother: "homosexuality is not something to be ashamed"

Text published on the Pijama Surf (Mexico) website on September 28, 2014, freely translated by Paola Maiorano

In 1935, Sigmund Freud replied with a letter to a mother worried about the supposed homosexuality of her son; The writing is a lucid defense of love outside the dominion of morality and psychoanalysis as a method to achieve love itself.
One of the great qualities of psychoanalysis is the possibility of considering a topic outside the domain of morality. And it is in this that it stands out from many scientific practices such as medicine, and religious such as the rite of the confession of Catholicism. The psychoanalyst listens without judging and speaks without pontificating or advising; In a nutshell he keeps himself on the margins.

This position, if necessary, is liberating, since it allows the analyzed subject to tell his life like this, freely, without there being someone (with the exception of himself) willing to approve or disapprove, from a moral point of view, the his words or actions they represent.
It is from there, for example, that from psychoanalysis one could speak of a perversion, but not with a "moral evaluation". This is what Freud does, among the different moments of his work, in his autobiographical presentation, a text of considerable introductory value for those who want to start knowing this discipline. Here perversion means how the natural course of libidinal development, which leaves genital origin to seek pleasure in other places.
This, in very general terms, is a perversion, from which it is deduced that in reality we are all perverse, starting with children, those "polymorphic perverse". Why? Because culturally (in a wide notion of culture, also as an evolutionary resource) leads us to extract pleasure from the genitals to move it to something else, a process that is not entirely strong -willed nor conscious that it transits for many stages, some more pleasant than others , which in turn ends up determining our choice of object.
In the case of homosexuality, Freud perceived it as a kind of stage of these studies, so he could ensure that in every person, at a certain moment, "you can discover [...] a fragment of choice of homosexual object".

With this preamble we now share a letter written in 1935. It is the answer to a mother worried about the supposed homosexuality of her son, and yet, unable to appoint her as such.
The letter can be seen as a defense of homosexuality against moral repression which, in almost all moments of the modern era, has been exercised on people who sexually identify in this way. However, it is possible that his most interesting topic is another: the role of psychoanalysis in the face of this choice of object.
Freud is sincere, almost hard sincere, and says he cannot promise anything to the lady, or at least nothing as to his request to "adjust" his son. But on the contrary, it speaks of something much more sensitive and transcendent: harmony and peace for itself. Freud senses that the man is tormented and inhibited, even disheartened, and the alternative it offers is to put an end to this suffering.
In this sense, he confirms one of the least known notions of psychoanalysis: that this is, above all, a discipline and a method to learn to love.

April 9, 1935

Egregia Ms [Canceled]
From his letter I deduce that his son is homosexual. I am surprised by the fact that in the letter she does not mention this term. Can I ask them why did he avoid it? Certainly homosexuality has no advantage, but it is not even something that one must be ashamed of; It is not a vice, nor a degradation; And it cannot be classified as a disease.
We consider it a variation of sexual function, caused by a certain brake in sexual development. Many individuals worthy of respect for the past and present have been homosexual, among them many great men (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as if it were a crime, and it is also cruelty. If he doesn't believe me, read the books of HaveLock Ellis.

Asking me if I can help you, she wants to say, I suppose, if I can revoke homosexuality and ensure that heterosexual normality take its place. The answer is that, in a general sense, we cannot promise to succeed. In some cases we obtain that the seeds blurred of heterosexual tendencies develop, which are present in all homosexuals; But in most cases this is not possible. This is a question of the quality and age of the individual. The result of the treatment is unpredictable.

What the analysis can do for his son runs on a distinct track. If he is unhappy, neurotic, if he feels demolished for his conflicts, if his social life is inhibited, the analysis will probably offer him harmony, serenity, full efficiency, whether or not he remained homosexual.
If he decides that he must be analyzed by me -but I hope you don't think this -, his son must come to Vienna. I have no intention of getting out here. Whatever decides, he doesn't stop answering me.

Sincerely, with best wishes

Freud

Original text: La Homosexualidad no es nada de lo cual avegonzarse ": Freud to a pre -conscious mother