... that most certainly does not explain everything, but it does explain a lot. I, for one, have never for a moment believed in "gay-brain" spurious theories - nor in the "homosexuality-as-choice" advocated by Christian rightists, for that matter.There may be other causes, of course, but as far as this particular issue is concerned, certain mothers can indeed be fatal to their sons.
A sensitive boy is born into a family of jocks. He is shy and dreamy from the start. His father is uncomfortable with him, and his brothers are harsh and impatient. But he is his mother's special favorite, almost from the moment he is born. He and she are more alike. Repelled by male roughhousing, he is drawn to his mother's and sisters' quietness and delicacy. He becomes his mother's confidant against her prosaic husband, a half-eroticized relationship that may last a lifetime and block the son from adult contacts with women.
He is fascinated by his mother's rituals of the boudoir, her hypnotic focus on the mirror as she applies magic unguents from vials of vivid colour, like paints and palette. He loves her closet, not because he covets her clothes but because they are made of gourgeous, sensuous fabrics, patterns, and hues denied men in this post-aristocratic age. Later, he feels like an outsider in the schoolyard. There is no male bonding; he tries to join in but never fully merges with the group. Masculinity is something beautiful but "out there"; it is not in him, and he knows he is feigning it. He longs for approval from the other boys, and his nascent sexual energies begin to flow in that direction, pursuing what he cannot have. He will always be hungry for and awed by the masculine, even if and when, through bodybuilding and the leather scene, he adopts its accoutrements.
Thus homosexuality, in my view, is an adaptation, not an inborn trait. When they claim they are gay "as far back as I can remember," gay men are remembering their isolation and alienation, their differentness, which is a function of their special gifts. Such protestations are of little value in any case, since it is unlikely that much can be recalled before age three, when sexual orientation may be already fixed. Heaven help the American boy born with a talent for ballet. In this culture, he is mocked and hounded and never wins the respect of masculine men. Yet this desperation deepens his artistic insight and expressiveness. Thus gay men create civilization by fulfilling the pattern of Coleridge's prophesying, ostracized poet, dancing alone with "flashing eyes" and "floating hair."
Other patterns of homosexual ethiology certainly exist, including one of hatred toward and revulsion from women. But that ambivalence may already be built into the story I have sketched, since the mother who turns away from her dull spouse to make a subliminally incestuous marriage with her sensitive son may be suffocating the boy and stunting his development.
He is fascinated by his mother's rituals of the boudoir, her hypnotic focus on the mirror as she applies magic unguents from vials of vivid colour, like paints and palette. He loves her closet, not because he covets her clothes but because they are made of gourgeous, sensuous fabrics, patterns, and hues denied men in this post-aristocratic age. Later, he feels like an outsider in the schoolyard. There is no male bonding; he tries to join in but never fully merges with the group. Masculinity is something beautiful but "out there"; it is not in him, and he knows he is feigning it. He longs for approval from the other boys, and his nascent sexual energies begin to flow in that direction, pursuing what he cannot have. He will always be hungry for and awed by the masculine, even if and when, through bodybuilding and the leather scene, he adopts its accoutrements.
Thus homosexuality, in my view, is an adaptation, not an inborn trait. When they claim they are gay "as far back as I can remember," gay men are remembering their isolation and alienation, their differentness, which is a function of their special gifts. Such protestations are of little value in any case, since it is unlikely that much can be recalled before age three, when sexual orientation may be already fixed. Heaven help the American boy born with a talent for ballet. In this culture, he is mocked and hounded and never wins the respect of masculine men. Yet this desperation deepens his artistic insight and expressiveness. Thus gay men create civilization by fulfilling the pattern of Coleridge's prophesying, ostracized poet, dancing alone with "flashing eyes" and "floating hair."
Other patterns of homosexual ethiology certainly exist, including one of hatred toward and revulsion from women. But that ambivalence may already be built into the story I have sketched, since the mother who turns away from her dull spouse to make a subliminally incestuous marriage with her sensitive son may be suffocating the boy and stunting his development.
Camille Paglia, 'No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality', in Vamps & Tramps: New Essays (London: Viking, 1995), pp. 75-76.
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