Richard Isay Being Homosexual Isay claims son may develop characteristics of mother to attract father's attention (a la heteros boy patterning himself after father to gain his mother's attention) ie lack of aggressiveness, greater compassion, sensitivity, aesthetic sensibility though this may lessen with peer pressure [maybe this is merely natural character development reflecting true nature of the (gay) youth] -gay boy has special need for closeness and erotic attachment to father. Father may withdraw out of fear of their own homoerotic desires. -gay has underlying bond with women based on mutual attraction to other men, a bond initially shared with the mother. Gay's description of mother as overbearing or binding stems from anger at and envy of her closeness to the father. -Ben filled with self-loathing when he grew close to a man after years with only hustlers. The closer he felt, the more disgusted with his sexual feelings. Resonding to his anxiety over early erotic attachment to father. Any close (passive) relation made him feel 'feminine'. Any dependency feeling seems 'feminine'. -mother/ father attachments determine ability to form stable attachments for BOTH straight/ gay -mother - 1/ denigrating father -> problem in identifying positively with father they love (-> low self-esteem and for gays, contempt for self and other men); 2/ close binding, seeing son as extension of herself -> son identified with narcissistic needs of mother (rather than the mother meeting the early narcissitic demands of child) and have little sense of himself or his desires S(-> feel worthless unless meeting the needs of the mother, have no emotional centre of their own, are enraged, feel enslaved to mother, develop masochistic tendencies because of inability to tolerate this rage, constantly in search of their true selves, and thus have difficulty forming lasting relationships, fearing they will be engulfed like they were with the mother, anyone who offers him comfort and gratification become object of contempt and scorn) -father - 1/ rejecting son -> low self esteem, if gay then rejecting of others (to avoid their possible rejection or out of revenge), loving men who will reject (compulsion); 2/ terrorizing son - masochistic relation to men, castration complex, fear of intimacy -mother and father - indifferent, cold, unloving => inability to love or be intimate -both gay and str can u enact revenge by spitefully withholding pleasure from himself, the fantasy being that if he suffered, they suffered. -gay means adding social rejection to equation. Father rejection most common but it is RESULT of seeing feminine in son (and fearing it in himself). None of the above CAUSES homos, but these factors all make it extra difficult to ever form stable loving relations which include sex (can't love self, hence can't love others). And AIDS-induced homophobia. Society's view as sexual outlaw => self-view as not able to form (standard) sexual/ loving relationship. And then there's PEER rejection, making gay wary of any relationship. -Plato's Symposium: originally there were three sexes - m, f, hermaphrodite, each bisected by Zeus as punishment for man's pride. The sex of the loved one is dictated by the nature of the whole to which that individual originally belonged. Each half yearns for the half from which he has been separated. LOVE is longing for a lost attachment (and feeling of eternity). For gay men, that is usually for the father. [Jim rejected father, hence is freer from him and can form relation with other gay man. I can't since this would constitute a betrayal of father] -successful gay relationship based on difference in partners in age, race, social status, or personality which provides complementarity and thus allows for tension of sexual desire and emotional space for couple to grow in. Continual renewal from trying to meet each other's needs. Becoming Gay David sought dangerous anonymous sex as punishment for his rage, and contracting AIDS represented the long-sought destruction of his mother, whom he identified with and held responsible for his unhappiness. His illness protected him from fear of his mother's rage - he had inflicted on himself what he feared she would eventually do to him. Arnold used anonymous sex to limit gratification (masochistically from guilt) to keep him from loving and feeling loved. With AIDS they were able to permit themselves gratification of a long-sought but heretofore elusive love. (previously repressed and unknowable desire)