ONTOGENESIS OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR 



1427 



Several investigators have studied homo- 

 sexuality from the hereditary point of view. 

 Lang (1940) reported findings which sug- 

 gested to him that male homosexuals were 

 genotypically female; he considered such 

 individuals to be "male sex intergrades 

 which are genetically female but have lost 

 all morphologic sex characteristics except 

 their chromosome formula." Kallman 

 (1952a, b, 1953) expressed himself as sub- 

 stantially in agreement with this, basing 

 his agreement on his findings in twin stud- 

 ies that 60 per cent of the co-twins of homo- 

 sexuals displayed no evidence of homo- 

 sexual behavior, whereas 100 per cent of 44 

 pairs of one egg twins were concordant "as 

 to overt practice and quantitative rating of 

 homosexual behavior after adolescence." 

 Kallman thus concluded that homosexuality 

 is "a gene controlled disarrangement be- 

 tween male and female maturation (hor- 

 monal) tendencies," and that "overt homo- 

 sexual behavior in the adult male may be 

 viewed as an alternative minus variant in 

 the integrative process of psychosexual 

 maturation, comparable in the sexually re- 

 productive human species to the develop- 

 mental aspects of left handedness in a pre- 

 dominantly right-handed human world." 



Pare (1956), using Barr's technicjue for 

 the identification of the sex chromatin pat- 

 tern of cells, adduced strong evidence 

 against Lang's theory that male homosexu- 

 als are genotypically female. In a series of 

 50 markedly homosexual men (average 

 rating on the Kinsey 6-point rating scale 

 was 4.5), the sex chromatin pattern was 

 male in all cases and the incidence of sex 

 chromatin spots did not differ from that of 

 normal male controls. Barr and Hobbs 

 (1954) reported similar findings in a series 

 of transvestites ; the sex chromatin pattern 

 was always in accord with the external 

 genital morphology. The studies of Bleuler 

 and Wiedemann (1956), Hal)Och (1957), 

 and Raboch and Nedoma <1958) are in 

 agreement with these other investigations. 

 Thus the case is clear that, so far as homo- 

 sexuality and transvestism are concerned, 

 there is no correlation with the sex chroma- 

 tin pattern of the body cells. Admittedly, it 

 can still be argued that sex chromatin de- 

 terminations give no direct information re- 

 garding genes and further t'lucidation of 



this aspect of the problem must await fur- 

 ther developments in cytologic techniques. 



In the past several years there is increas- 

 ing evidence from psychiatric and psycho- 

 logic research to support a view that homo- 

 sexuality and certain other disorders of 

 psychologic sex have their origins in social 

 learning. The phenomenon of gender role 

 inversion mentioned earlier provides some 

 insight into some of the factors influencing 

 such atypical and disordered learning. 

 Brown (1958a), for example, postulated 

 that males disj^laying gender role inversion 

 the early years of life characteristically "in- 

 volve a father who is psychologically in- 

 effective and socially distant so far as the 

 boy is concerned; or a father who is chroni- 

 cally abusive and cruel to the boy. In addi- 

 tion such a family constellation will involve 

 a mother or a mother substitute who is 

 'idolized' by the boy and to whom he is ex- 

 cessively close and attached." Brown fur- 

 ther postulated two additional parent-child 

 relationships which could provide the basis 

 for inversion: (1) "a family in which the 

 same-sex parent himself or herself is i)re- 

 dominantly or considerably inverted in sex- 

 role structure, thus exposing the child to a 

 distorted model with which to identify," and 

 (2) "a family in which the parent or parents 

 actually encourage and rear a child of one 

 biologic sex to feel and think and behave 

 like the opposite sex." 



The clinical findings of Kolb and John- 

 son (1955) and of Litin, Giffin and Johnson 

 (1956), although couched in the loosely de- 

 fined language of psychoanalysis, are in es- 

 sential agreement with Brown's view. These 

 authors explain deviant sex behavior such 

 as homosexuality in terms of "subtle atti- 

 tudes within the family" developing from 

 "unconscious or, less frequently, conscious 

 fostering of deviant sexual behavior early 

 in life within the family setting." 



It is the opinion of the authors of this 

 chapter that neither the purely genetic ex- 

 planation nor the purely environmental ex- 

 planation supplies all the answers to the 

 questions loosed by the disorders of psycho- 

 logic sex. Certainly the evidence of human 

 hermaphroditism points strongly to the tre- 

 mendous influence of rearing and social 

 learning in the establishment of normal 

 gender role (i)sychologic sexj and, by anal- 



