University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Some personality variables in pvert female homosexuality

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Some personality variables in pvert female homosexuality

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Content SOME PERSONALITY VARIABLES
I N OVERT FEMALE HOMOSEXUALITY
by
Virginia Armon
A Dissertation Presented to the
FA CULTY OF THE G DUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Psychology)
June 1958
J'his dissertation) 1oritten by
__________ _ _ _________________ y_~~g~-~~-~---A~~- ~- ------ - - -- ---- - - - -- --- - - - ----
und er the direction of her Guidan ce Comn,ittee)
and approved by all its menibers) has been pre
sented to and accepted by th e F acuity of the
Graduate School) in partial fulfill1n in t of re
quire1nents for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPI-IY
Date __ __ _______ _ __ ______ ~ __ l.9$8. ___________ _ _
(_
I
I
1
• • •
lll
ACKNOWLEOOMENTS
In completing this study I look back with a deep
sense of obligation to the many people who, in manifold
ways, contributed to its progress. First of all, I am
grateful for my good fortune in having the scholarly
direction and sustaining encouragement of Dr. Georgene
Seward, Chairman of my Committee. I have a l so benefitte d
from the constructive suggestions of Dr. Mortimer Meyer
and Dr. D. Welty Lefever.
I am indebted to a number of individuals for their
assistance. Special mention should be made of the tireless
and capable work of Mr. Howard Russell in administering the
tests, and of the statistical assistance of Mr. Philip
Merrifield. For their contribution t o the objectivi t y and
reliability of this study, my gratitude must be expressed
to my colleagues in the field of psychology: Mrs. Mi l dred
Malm, Mrs. Geraldine Korda, Mr. Steven Howard, and Dr.
Harvey Mindess. A ppreciation is due to Dr. Vita Sommers
for her stimulation and assistance in getting this proj ect
under way.
This study would not have been possible without the
cooperation of the Mattachine Society; s pecial thanks go
to the Research Committee for their liaison work with the
iv
members of the experimental group. Entr~e to a suitable
group of control subjects was provided through Mrs. Richard
Morgan, Director of Parent-Child Observation Classes. Her
key position and established rapport with the group was of
the utmost value in establishing favorable relations.
Words can never fully express my appreciation to
the subjects of this study who contributed so much of their
time, their psychic content and their emotional energy to
the cause of science.
This study is dedicated to my husband and child, who
shared its burden.
TABLE O F CONTENTS
C HAPTER
I .
II.
I I I .
IV.
Vo
VI.
VII .
VII I .
IX .
x.
XI .
THE PROBLEfll
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
THEORETIC AL SETTI NG •.•..........
THE D EVELOPi v'.LENT OF PSYC HOANALYTIC THEORY - .
RELATED STUDIES
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
THE HYPOTHESES A D THEIR RATIONA LE
• • • • •
METHODOLOGY ••.•.•.
STA TI STIC AL METHODS ...
• • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • •
RESULTS ...•.•.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
ANALYSI S AND I N TERPRETATION OF RESULTS
• • •
IMPLIC A TIONS OF THE PRESENT STUDY .
• • • • •
SlMMARY AND CONC LUSIONS
• • • • • • • • • • •
REF. ERENCES
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
APPENDIX A. Rating Scale for Rorschach Content
Themes . . .
• • • • • • • • • • • •
APPENDIX B. Swenson Sexual Differentiation
Scale for Figure Drawing ..
• • • •
PAG E
1
9
21
34
52
63
115
126
134
173
181
186
202
213
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE
1. Comparison of Homosexual and Heterosexual
Groups in Age , Education , Socioeconomic
Status and Acculturation ....... .
2. Comparison of Control (Heterosexual ) Group
Scores on the Terman-Miles M -F Test with
• •
Other Female N orms ....
• • • • • • • • •
3. Significance of Differences between Homosexual
and Heterosexual Groups on Rors chach
Measures .
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
4. Significance of Differences between Homosexual
and Heterosexual Groups on Figure Drawing
5.
6.
M easure s . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . .
Comparison of Homosexual and Heterosexual
Groups on Rorschach Sexual Responses ..
Comparison of Homosexual and Heterosexual
Groups on Some Rorschach Formal Scores .
• •
• •
• •
PAGE
75
82
127
128
138
142
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
The occurrence of overt homosexuality, with its
deviation in choice of sexual object and associated
variations in sexual role and expression, presents a
challenging condition for exploration of sexual patterns
and their relation to personality develo ment. Forays
into the field of sex psychology by such notable pioneers
as Havelock Ellis, Freud, and, more recently, Kinsey, have
awakened humanity to conscious awareness of the importance
of sexual forces in personal and social life. Their
contributions have been supplemented by an increasing fund
of knowledge from physiology, anthropology, and the
psychological sciences. We are now in a position to
appreciate some of the broad relationships between sexual
response and its physiological roots, its cultural
determinants, and its role in personality development.
Establishing demonstrable relations between personality
variables and patterns of sexual behavior is the province
of psychology, where an understanding of such relations is
crucial to personality theory.
2
The apparent lack of scientific curiosity about
homosexuality in women reflects the prevailing social, and
even legal, disregard of this deviation. Problematic as
is our knowledge and understanding of homosexuality i n men,
this condition has received more scientific attention than
has female homosexuality. Many barriers, culturally
determined and interculturally prevalent, make acce s s to
the arcanum of feminine psychology difficult in any case;
it is not surprising that femal e homosexuality has also
proved elusive to psychologi cal investigation. Bell (14)
has pointed up the restriction of populations with which
research psychologists work. Unlike male deviants, female
homosexuals are rarely on hand for psychological investiga
tions, either in private practi ce or in cli ni c, hospital,
or prison populations . The result is t hat t he psychologist,
whether interested primarily in theoretical formulation or
in practical problems of diagnosis and treatment, leans
upon assumptions of parallel etiology and makes analogi c
deductions from studies of male personality development.
Even cursory acquaint ance with the probl em of female
homosexual i t y stimulates speculation about differences
from the male in etiology and current characteristics of
this condition. It is readily apparent tha t homosexuality
in women merits independent scrut iny .
3
Importance of the Problem
The demonstration of relationships between overt
homosexuality and personality characteristics may con
tribute to the affirmation, modification, or extension of
psychoanalytic and related theoretical concepts of person
ality. According to the Freudian theory of psychosexual
genesis, character structure has its roots in the sexual
drives, and character traits are seen as continuations of,
sublimations of, or reaction formations against sexual
impulses. An integral relation between sexual patterns
and character is maintained by those psychoanalytic
revisionists influenced by Harry Stack Sullivan, although
we find a different explanation given. Discarding the
libido theory, they no longer look on character as rooted
in sexual drives, but view sexual behavior as the expres
sion of character as evolved in the matrix of interpersonal
relations. Even among psychologists not identified with a
psychoanalytic viewpoint, psychogenic explanations of
homosexuality have found wide acceptance, and homosexual
ity is commonly associated with psychosexual immaturity,
with fixation at a "homosexualu stage of development, and
with arrested development of love r elationships.
Current theories of the interrelationships of
personality and sexual expression embrace major
4
disagreements. Controversy over the association of homo sexuality with personality disturbance is reflected in the
title of Bergler's (22) book, Homosexuality: Disease or
Way of Life ? The orthodox psychoanalytic position, from
the early paper of Freud (60) to this recent tendencious
publication by Bergler, has been that in female homosexual
ity regression and personality disorder were expected to
be even more pronounced than in the male homosexual . On
the basis of his research, Kinsey (96) concludes that
psychoanalyti c theories of causation and interpretations
of homosexuality as neurotic or psychopathi c behavior are
not supported by the findings. Hooker's (85) recent
research on male homosexuals challenges the assumption
that homosexuali t y is necessarily associated with per sonality disturbance. At present, research findings are
more in keeping with the viewpoint of Sullivan and
Thompson, who reject the concept of homosexuali t y as a
clinical entity.
Despi t e the wide accept ance of a psychogenic basis
for homosexualit y , infl uenced by psychoanalytic theory ,
research effort toward substantia t ing the supposed rela
tionships between homosexuality an . other personality
variables, particularly in women , has remained peculiarly
dormant. We are confronted not only with a diversity of
5
opinion on the signifi cance of supposed relationships, but
the question whether any suggested relations can be shown
to have a useful degree of generality. These questions
wait for the development of extensive and systematic
studies of personality functioning in homosexuals, male
and female. Such findings must provide the basis for
rejecting, confirming, or clarifying the many hypotheses
proposed by psychoanalysts on the basis of clinical
insights.
Although the flagrantly unscientific feature s of
much psychoanalytic theorizi ng arouse withdrawal mechan
isms in many experimentally trained psychologists, produc
tive research has emanated from those who have recognized
the responsibility of subjecting propositions generated by
psychoanalysis to verification . In studying the personal
ity characteristics of homosexual women we can attempt to
test some of the propositions currently i ncluded in
psychoanalysis. Finding s in this specific area have
implications for the general usefulness and adequacy of
the psychoanalytic theory of psychosexual genesis.
The examinati on of deviant conditions has often in
the past led t o unforeseen insights ab out "normal"
psycholo y. Trenchant thinkers have observed that
heterosexuality is as much in need of explanation as
6
homosexuality. Today there is much concern about changing
masculine-feminine roles in our society (29). Any remote
promise of highlighting the essence of feminine hetero
sexual adaptation is worth pursuing.
Although the primary purpose of this investigation
is the extension of knowledge about personality, a study
which uses projective test responses as the predicted
variables also serves a secondary purpose in validating
components of projective test technique. Deplorable as
it may seem to employ techniques of questionable validity,
one must recognize that these problems are not exclusive
to projective test techniques (as one might assume from
some of its critics), but are generally prevalent in
methods of personality research. As Mary Ainsworth states,
"It therefore seems reasonable to take the viewpoint that
validation of the tools should proceed with and through
the basic research in which they are used." (2:492) Since
most validation studies of projective test criterion are
based on males, the distinctly feminine aspects of experi
ence are generally neglected. Concerning female homo
sexuality, a search of the literature revealed only one
paper (64), and that a study of one case, dealing with
projective test response of the female homosexual. It is
hardly extreme to say that there is a crying need for
7
information on projective test characteristics associated
with female homosexuality.
Statement of the Problem
The purpose of the present study waR to investigate
the psychodynamics of female homosexuality by comparing
certain aspects of personality functioning as revealed
in projective test performances of overt female homosexuals
and of heterosexual women. For the psychologist interested
in personality research, the possibilities of isolating
and manipulating fundamental personality variables are
limited. Where we cannot create the desired condition,
we are restricted to studying things as t hey are. Through
selection from natural variations the requirements of the
experimental method can be met by exploiting differences
already in existence. For this problem, it is possible
to distinguish by behavioral cr·teria homosexual and
heterosexual groups which are comparable in other signifi
cant aspects. Those personali t y variables in which the
two groups ar e expec t ed to differ are derived largely
from psychoanalyti c propositions about personalit y char
acteristics of homosexual won1en . Projective te s t perform
anc e was selected as the behavior for comparison on the
assumption that such response can be relat ed to the
8
intervening personality variables. The constructs in the
study are psychoanalytic, the techniques are clinical, and
the method experimental.
For the purposes of this study, the general
hypothesis adopted was that overt homosexual women will
differ from women with a heterosexual mode of life in cer
tain personality characteristics. The specific hypotheses
developed do not presume to cover all potential differ
ences, but to tap some of those areas highlighted by
psychoanalytic theory : briefly, the nature of fixated
"libidinal" aims, attitudes toward male and female proto
types, conflicts regarding sex role identifications, and
personality immaturity. Statement of the subsidiary
hypotheses, their rationale, and the specific predictions
in terms of correlates in projective test performance will
oe presented later in this paper.
9
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL SETTING
DefiPitions
"Homosexuality" can be used to blanket diverse
kinds of behavior, including childhood experimentations,
isolated or chance experiences, substitutive arrangements
while removed from opportunity for heterosexual contacts,
and all forms of emotional attachment to one's own sex.
We have no standard definition or classification of
homosexuality. Freud (61, 63) originally distinguished
between latent, repressed and overt homosexuality;
Ferenczi (50) found a differentiation into subject and
object types to be more meaningful than the usually
designated active and passive types; Henry (79) subdivided
his sample of sex variants into narcissistic, homosexual
and bisexual groups; Sprague (139), in describing homo
sexual manifestations, lists eleven different patterns by
which patients deal with their homosexual urges; Kir.sey
(95, 96) found it expedient to rate his subjects on a six
point hetero-homosexual scale according to their psycholog
ic reactions and amount of overt experience. The lamentable
result of di sparate classifi cations is the
incommensurability of the i m pressions , findings, and
deductions report ed .
10
Thompson (151 ) discusses the confusions around the
meaning of the t erm "homosexuality" in psychoanalytic
literature. Berg argues against various extensions of the
term and claims: " ... the diagnosis has to be based on
conscious and manifest trends in the patient 's behavior.
This level alone is appropriate for the clinical diagnosis
of conditions which derive their name from a form of
expression." (20 :66) In an investigation of an unexplored
population such as female homosexuals, the obvious group
to select for c ompar at ive study should be those who are
activel y and consistently homosexual by preference. The
significance of the deviation should be less equivocal than
in the more questionable or at t enuated homosexual manifes tations.
In the present research homosexuality is a
behavioral diagnosis , which applies to mental attitud~ ,
not physi cal constit ution , and to preferred object choice,
not to masculine or feminine identification . Sexual
experience need not be exclusively homosexual , but must
include homosexual relations on an overt level of expressim
as t he preferred and predominant pattern. Similarly ,
heterosexuality must be defined on a behavioral level .
11
Since we do not know what normal psychosexual development
is, nor what constitutes mature heterosexual adjustment,
we have no better criterion for selecting a heterosexual
group than the acceptance and maintenance of the conven
tional social role of wife and mother. Submission to social
pressures may push many women into the conventional
"feminine" role despite contrary proclivities; we must
expect a heterosexual choice to mask heterogeneous sexual
patterns . Nevertheless , the choice between the conven tional pattern and a homosexual life i s a critical one ,
and we can logi cal l y seek some determinant s of this choice
in intrapsychic conditions .
Constitutional Factors
Until the advent of psychoanalysis homosexuality was
generally considered a biological abnormality~ Early
psychoanalyst s were not challenging the existence of
biological influences , but in directing attention to
psychological aspects they drove an entering wedge which
has done much to dislodge belief in an exclusively con stituti onal origin . In the past several decades the major
research eff orts of experiment al psychologists have been
concentrat ed in the area of biogeni c drives and learning
processes . The theoretical resultants have accustomed us
12
to thinking of sexual drives in the human being as
energizing and activating processes whose steering pro
perties have been acquired by learning in the course of
socialization. Our wider acquaintance with the vagaries
of sexual expression confirms this view.
The issue of constitutional determination is not
dead, as attested by such recent research as Kallmann's
(92) on homosexuality in twins. Kallmann's research
methods on other geneti c relationships have been the
object of well-considered adverse criticism (120), and
his findings conflict with some other studies (102). The
material relevant to the controversy over constitut ional
factors has been ably reviewed by many writers, notably
Seward (134), Ford and Beach (58 ), Kinsey (95, 96), and
Berg (19). Of particular interest as a test of the impor
tance of physical factors in directing choice of sex
object is the "experiment in nature' provided by
hermaphroditism. A review of the literature of human
hermaphrodites by Albert Ellis (41) in 1945, and the
recent reports (114, 115) from Johns Hopkins, show how
little somatic characteristics influence sexual choice
when they are in contrast with psychological upbringing .
These findings do not even give much support to the
expectation that physiological deviations which hamper
13
confident own-sex identification would indirectly favor
homosexual development.
Intricate relations may exist between constitutional
factors and homosexuality, so that correlations when they
are present may be explained on non-constitutional grounds .*
The actual findings that such correlations are low or
non-existent not only discredit constitutional explana
tions of homosexuality , but suggest that physical devia
tion from the cultural sex stereotype is rarely an
important factor in the development of homosexuality. e
need to keep clearly in mind that physical and psychologi cal masculinity and femininity are not closely related,
and that psychological masculinity and femininity are not
necessarily allied with appropriate choice of love-object .
It is the deviation in object-choice whi ch defines
homosexuality.
External Influences
If constitutional forces are considered relatively
unimportant, the extent to which external or accidental
*See discussion by Margaret Mead (112:128-142) on
the psychological effects of deviation toward the
expected physique of the opposite sex, which may favor
inversion.
14
factors are responsible for overt homosexuality in women
needs to be evaluated. That social and economic forces
provide a more or less favorable environment for develop
ing or making manifest a predilection to homosexuality
must be granted. Variation in the incidence of overt
male homosexuality in different cultures and periods in
history is well established, and it is suggested that
corresponding relations exist for female nomosexuality,
where records are so scanty, historically and anthropologi
cally. According to Ford and Beach (58:129) prevalence of
homosexuality in a society is related to that society's
permissiveness. Seward states
0
cultures that fail to
provide acceptable outlets for sex deviates, and at the
same time stereotype personality along sex lines, pay a
heavy price in homosexuality.'' (133:123) Kardiner (93 :
160-192) interprets the relation between social conditions
and male homosexuality in our present society in terms of
stresses around social role-expectations, while Horney
believes that "flight into the male role may be reinforced
and supported by the actual disadvantages under which
women labor in social life ." (86 :351)
Among American women overt homosexuality was found
by Davis (33) in a study of college-educated women to be
common among t he unmarried, the employed, and the highly
15
educated women. Kinsey ' s (96) survey, on a sample where
undereducated and older age groups are inadequately
represented, also indicates that homosexual experience is
rarely reported by married women, mo~e frequently by the
unmarried, and is positively correlated with amount of
education. Preexisting homosexual tendencies might deter
mine gravitation toward careers instead of marriage for
some women. However , only 11 per cent of Davis' group
admitting overt homosexual experience believed that such
experience had played an important part in preventing
marriage for them.
Regardless of homosexual inclination, limitations
for women in marital choice because of age , physical
unattractiveness or superior education may make substitutive
homosexual relations a more normal solution for women than
for men, as Clara Thompson (151) suggests . In such a situa
tion certain personality traits may facilitate acceptance
of homosexual activity. In a study by Maslow (111),
dominance as a personality trait, lack of inhibition, and
willingness for sexual experimentation (including homo
sexuality) were found to be associated . In Davis' study
we find that those unmarried women who accepted homosexual
experiences were also more likely to have sought hetero
sexual experience . What these findings suggest is that if
16
conventional channels of sexual expression are not avail
able, acceptance of homosexual relations may be due to
lack of sexual inhibition rather than to a genuine
divergence in object choice.
These observations are pertinent for the understand
ing of the variegated forms of homosexuality that are
encountered. Nevertheless, overt homosexuality in women
remains an exceptional rather than a characteristic choice
even under external favoring conditions. Among the single ,
well-educated, mostly professional women in Davis' group
only 6 per cent were currently involved in homosexual
relations; Kinsey estimated that 2 to 6 per cent of his
group of single women were "more or less exclusively
homosexual."
Psychogenic Theories
A variety of psychological factors has been sug gested as contributing to female homosexuality. Early
sexual trauma or shocks (as witnessing parental coitus or
being the object of sexual aggressions) , and heterosexual
traumas and disappointments in adult life, have been seen
as diverting the individual from "normal" relationships .
Some observers have been impressed with the general
immaturity or inadequacy of homosexuals in facing adult
17
responsibilities, ioe., fears, of pregnancy, of the
responsibilities of parenthood, of the intimacy of close
sustained relationships , may~ avoided by subscribing to
the less demanding homosexual role. Others have stressed
the positive conditioning effects of pleasurable homo
sexual relations.
Among psychogeni c explanations of homosexuality we
can distinguish t wo contrasting points of view. Kinsey
(96:447) represents a position which emphasi zes the extern al influences and actual experiences to w hich the person is
exposed in the process of learning and growth . In contrast,
the psychoanalytic point of view has been that homosexual
ity is internally determined by a preexisting personalit y
structure, that i s, by needs and conflicts engendered dur
ing the very early years of life. Both points of view may
attempt to develop genetic explanations in rapprochement
with learning theory.
Kinsey would not deny the importance of learning in
the early years of life, but contends that Freudian theory
minimizes the effects of later experience and overempha
sizes the importance of early fixations and of parent child attachments in determining adult sexual patterns .
One might sketch Kinsey's formulations in thi s way: in
infancy the child learns that there are satisfactions in
18
physical contact with other human bodies; in childhood he
learns of the rewards and penalties of sexual experimenta
tion and acquires certain attitudes toward socio-sexual
matters which will limit the forms of sexual behavior he
considers acceptable; later, specific sexual experiences
and their conditioning effects will establish the patterns
of sexual behavior preferred. The accidental chance of
sexual experience with the same sex, the kind of person
who introduces the experience, the gratifications obtained,
and the technical facility in this kind of behavior, are
the important factors in determining sexual choice, rather
than the preexisting personality structure.
Although homosexual seduction during childhood or
adolescence might appear at first glance to be of major
importance in determining the course of sexual development,
most experienced observers have discarded this explanation,
primarily because so many children and adolescents go
through sexual experiences and emotional "crushes" with
members of their own sex without becoming sex variants.
No really satisfactory evidence of the effects of such
experience has ever been published. Landis and his
collaborators (101: 56) were impressed with the evidence
that crushes between adolescent girls were almost univer
sal, but estimated that only about one girl in thirty-four
19
remained fixed at this level and become overtly homosexual.
All investigators have found that only a minority of those
individuals, male or female, who have had homosexual
experience, adopt it as a permanent pattern.
While Kinsey apparently feels that homosexual
preference can be adequately explained on the basis of
learned social attitudes, positive homosexual experience,
and limitations of heterosexual opportunity, most psycholo
gists have been influenced by Freudian formulations of the
internal dynamics which can lead to such preference. An
exposition of homosexual development in the male by
Dollard and Miller (38:143-148) prov. ides an example of
an attempted rapprochement between learning theory and
psychoanalysis. They explain failure to develop appropri ate sex typing and the development of fear attached to
heterosexual approach responses in terms whi ch reconcile
psychoanalytic explanations with learning principles .
A homosexual solution is dependent upon the degree of
anxiety in approaching a heterosexual goal , with relative
ly less anxiety attached to homosexual contacts. The
weakness or strength of the drive is also a factor, as is
the poor labeling of events which hampers rational
discrimi nations . In psychoanalytic theory, homosexuality
is more a result of anxie t y in reaction to objects of the
20
opposite sex than of conditioning to positive gratifica
tions with one's own sex.
21
CHAPTER III
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ?SYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
Psychogenetic Theories of Female Homosexuality
The Masculinity Complex and Homosexuality
Freud's (60) classic paper on a case of female homo
sexuality, published in 1920, was the first attempt to
interpret the psychogenesis of female homosexuality accord
ing to psychoanalytic theory. In this paper Freud points
out many interacting factors which have been given varying
emphasis in subsequent writings. At this time he consid
ered female homosexuality the result of an Oedipal regres
sion wherej_ n the girl identifies with the father and seeks
as love objects women resembling the mother. In this case
the crucial precipitating factor was the disappointment of
the girl's feminine wishes in relation to the father dur
ing adolescence. An earlier penis-enry of unusual strength
helped to determine the direction her reaction took, and
secondary gains of revenge on the father and avoidance of
competition with the mother reinforced her response.
Freud even notes in passing how the unconscious response
of the parents played a role, particularly the mother's
tacit encouragement of the homosexual bent. The relation
22
22
between the parent's unconscious desires and the child's
acting out of homosexuality was to be elaborated much
later by Johnson and Szurek (90).
Freud's conception of a bisexual libido led him to
picture the libido as flowing in two streams, in. this case
the homosexual one, an unchanging continuation of an
infantile mother fixation, had been especially strong
through the course of his patient 's development. The
material presented by later investigators led Freud (62)
to shift more emphasis to factors in preoedipal develop
ment in women as preeminent in determining later hetero
sexual and homosexual adjustments.
Among the earlier psychoanalysts who gave special
attention to female sexual development, Abraham (1) ela
borated the manifestations of the female castration com
plex. In his view female homosexuality is a reaction to
the castration complex; if the girl interprets lack of
a male genital as castration by the father she desires to
revenge herself on all men.
Horney (86 ) attacked these interpretations of the
female castration complex as a naive revelation of the
nmasculinity complex" of male analysts, and put forward
some feminine insights on female sexual development. With
a different evaluation of the genital response of the
23
female child, Horney stressed, as the source of hetero
sexual aversion, neurotic fears of vaginal penetration and
of internal damage which developed from incestuous fan
tasies. Female homosexuality was still considered a
reaction to Oedipal conflict by identifying with the
father; a fiction of maleness offered escape from a
femininity burdened with guilt and anxiety and effective
ly denied libidinal wishes and fantasies in relation to
the father.
Predoedipal Fixation and Object Choice
Although more faithful to orthodox Freudian formu
lations than was Horney, Helene Deutsch (34, 35) derived
new conceptions from the analysis of eleven cases of female
homosexuality. She distinguishes homosexual object choice
definitely from a masculinity complex, with the former
being determined by the early mother-fixation .
The sense of guilt for hatred toward the
mother and the need to reconcile herself with
the mother strengthen the attraction of the
mother's magnetic field. Love for the mother
must be accompanied by an excess of infantile
regressive elements or hate components to
become pathologically distorted in homosexual
directions. (35 :338)
The urge to union with the mother , or mother-figure , is
primary but is usually strengthened by other factors.
Most important among these is the influence of the
24
relation with the father: the girl may reject him, and
consequently other males, because of fear, disappointment,
etc.
The contribution of Deutsch to understanding of
female homosexuality lies in the clearer perception of
the influence of the mother-child relationship and in the
reemphasis of the distinction between masculine strivings
and homoerotic attraction, with the latter as the decisive
factor in homosexuality. The relative independence of
these factors finds support in Maslow's (110, 111) studies
of dominance feelings in women, which seemed unrelated to
their enjoyment of heterosexuality, and Seward's (133)
study of attitudes toward the conventional feminine role,
where no correlation was found between rejection of the
stereotyped feminine social role and acceptance of the
biological feminine role. Linton (103:101-106) points
out that culturally incorporated homosexuality is usually
not associated with reversal of social sex role. Moreover,
in cultures which make provisions for adoption of the
opposite sex social role, change in sex object is not
necessarily concomitant.
Other modern psychoanalysts, particularly those
influenced by Melanie Klein, go even deeper into the
preoedipal phase of libidinal development in an attempt to
25
identify the precursors of homosexuality. After analysis
of five female homosexuals Ernest Jones (91) presented
these conclusions. He found no consistency in conscious
attitudes toward the parents, but unconscious attitudes
toward both parents were strongly ambivalent. In all
cases there was an unusually strong infantile fixation to
the mother, this bein
0
definitely connected with the oral
stage,followed by a strong father fixation. Like Horney,
Jones rejected penis envy as a primary factor and con
siders the switch to identification with the father as
constituting the most complete denial possible of harbor
ing guilty feminine (heterosexual) wishes. The necessity
for this denial he finds in the preexisting personality
structure, namely, the unusual intensity of oral sadism.
Here, Deutsch and Jones are in agreement.
Jones points out several possible relationships
between intense oral-erotic-sadistic fixation and later
homosexuality in women. First, the adoption of sexual
aim (emphasis on oral sexual pract5.ce) and sexual object
(female) is favored by fixation on the mother in the oral
phase. Second, strong oral-sadistic impulses color
interpretation of sexual activity, so that there is an
exaggerated evaluation of the sadistic advantages of an
active, penetrating male organ. This valuation of the
26
male organ engenders fear of similar attack on her own
body and imbues male - female relations with excessive
anxiety. Finally, women with a strong ambivalent tie to
the mother cannot tolerate being sexually rivalrous with
women, and therefore renounce masculine love objects .
The Melanie Klein school does not totally ignore
the reinforcing or counteracting effects of later influ
ences and experiences . In their conception, undue oral
stimulations and frustrations in infancy give rise to
intensified oral-aggressive, cannibalistic fantasies, which
in turn stimulate anxiety . Increased anxiety amplifies the
drive for oral solace . In this vicious circle the chains
of oral fixation are forged . The f i nal outcome is , how ever , the result of a long drawn-out process of
fluctuations between various positions (97:299). In this
view it would be incomplete to say that elements of early
orality are displaced to later levels; rather, oral aims ,
fantasies and anxieties are said to remain active on an
unconscious level, working to promote or deter favorable
genital experience .
Whether or not the Kleinian r econstruction of early
psychosexual development i s completely accepted, it has
worked w i th other trends to fix attention on the influence
of the first object-relation with the mother . Earlier
27
psychoanalytic formulations of female homosexuality had
emphasized revengeful feelings toward men, stemming from
penis-envy, anger over fantasied castration by the father,
hostility to the father because of rejection and disappoint
ment of Oedipal wishes. Later, masculine identification
and possible homosexual choic e were traced to guilt and
anxiety over incestuous fantasies during the Oedipal
phase, from which the girl could escape in a ,rflight from
femininity." A clearer recognition that masculine identi fication and homosexual object choice were not inextricably
interwove led to further examination of fixation on the
mother and experiences of the preoedipal stage. We find
Fenichel (49:338-341 ) reducing factors influential in
female homosexual development to (a) the intensity of the
early fixation on the mother, and (b) the special configur
ation of the castration complex. In keeping with the
general trend of psychoanalytic interest there has been a
closer scrutiny of the early mother-child relationship in
a search for the elements of homosexuality. Many analytic
writers express the view that, while an adult homosexual
pattern in women gratifies needs and defends against
anxieties at various levels, the choice of a female love
object by women expresses denial mechanisms and restitu tive measures instigated by anxiety over hostility to the
28
mother. Kardiner (93:174) epitomizes this trend in per ceiving homosexuality as a self-preservative device, a
protective measure against the fear of annihilation by
mother-figures.
Homosexuality and Character Development
Levels of Psychosexual Devel opment
The identification of the psychodynamics of homo sexuality has been the major concern of psychoanalytic
writers . The conclusions that deficiencies in char acter
format i on would be associated with homosexual i t y is a
consequence of their conception of the psychodynamic
etiology . Freud (61 , 63) had felt that ac centuation of
infanti le narcissism attended a homosexual patt ern . · mere
sexual energy remained largely invested in self-love , a
homosexual choi ce was favored since it was easier to feel
sexual attraction to a person similar t o one ' s self .
Homosexual development always involves some degree of
regress i on to a more infantile level , and Freud (60 )
expected r egression to be more pronounced i n the female
than in the male . Feni chel (49:340) attributes "a more
archaic i mprint" to a relationship whi ch revives the
behavior patterns of t he earlier years . Burrow (25 )
speaks of female homosexuality as inseparable from
29
infantilism. Solomon speaks of "the archaic thinking
forms" (138:93) which accompan· y· the homosexual attitude,
and considers homosexuality as irreconcilable with mature
love relationships (138:178). The sado-masochistic qual
ity of homosexual love between women has been emphasized
by many writers, notably, Jones (91), Deutsch (34, 35) and
Bergler (21, 22). According to psychoanalytic theory, the
female homosexual is chained to infantile aims and love
objects, driven by hostility, fear, and guilt in her
erotic pursuit, and would not be capable of mature inter
personal relationships.
Ego Psychology
The contributions of Erikson (46) and Hartmann
(77) to the development of psychoanalytic ego psychology
have led to consideration of homosexuality in terms of
ego identity and ego integration. For the ego to function
as an integrated, workable unit, it is necessary to come
to terms with one's own body and many facets of outer
reality. During adolescence various motivations and
orbits of identity must be reconciled in accordance with
changing physical pressures and an expanding social field.
This process culminates in the form ation of a sense of
ego identity as the unifying center of the integrative
processes. Ego identity, considered the dominant
achievement of late adolescence, is defined by Erikson
(132:18) as "a sense of being identical with one's own
self and also of being identical with a workable role
provided for one in one's own culture."
Solomon (138) sees this accomplishment as
especially difficult when there is excessive confusion
30
or conflict in identities. The homosexual solution
involves a great deal of internal juggling and the
sacrifice of aspects of identity in order to achieve a
degree of self-unification. Solomon sees overt homo
sexuality as an ego failure in adolescence which involves
"total distortion of integration leading to peculiarities
of characterological development." (138:161 ) A homosexual
identity is accepted as the best possible adaptation to
harmonize conflictful areas" •.• but still leaves within
the organism the imageries of the painful emotions as
ingredients of a distorted total identity." (138:162)
The Sullivan School
A review of psychodynami c theories of homosexual
ity should not overlook the divergent trend represented by
Sullivan and Clara Thompson. Discarding the libido theory,
they are less concerned with the biological and infantile
roots of personality development, and question whether
homosexuality can be related to a definite personality
structure or to specific historical antecedents in
psychological development. Sullivan says:
That's what this homosexual problem means to
me--just 'something.' The real problem ...
is what stands in the way of making the conven
tional, and therefore the comparatively simple,
adjustment which is regarded as normal. In
other words, I don't treat any alleged entities
such as homosexuality . I have come to recognize
homosexuality as a developmental mistake, dic
tated by the culture as substitutive behavior
in those instances in which the person cannot do
what is the simplest thing to do.* (144:237)
31
The rejection of homosexuality as a clinical entity,
arising from definite predetermining factors and associated
with a definite personality structure is most ably justi
fied by Clara Thompson (151), in her article Changing Cop-
cepts of Homosexuality. Here, homosexuality is presented
as ua symptom with different meanings in different person ality setups.' (151:185) Thompson analyzes the diversity
of relationships and meanings associated with homosexual
ity, and declares that if it is caused by some one speci fic situation or combination of circumstances, that has
yet to be discovered. In interpreting Thompson's position,
one should take into consideration that she is attacking
*Sullivan's italics .
32
t he rigid , prejudicial , preconceived formulae which
hamper a psychotherapeutic approach to homosexuality . In
taking a broader view she does not reject psychogenic
causation , but assigns more importance to situational
factors and acknowledges the possibly constructive as
well as des t ructive role which overt homosexuality may
play in solving an individual ' s problems . Although
Thom pson eschews commitment to concepts of any spe cific
relationships she does discuss homosexual choice in rela ti on to personali t y damage . Profound insecurity and low
self- esteem f avor '
1
clinging to the known" and avoidi ng
t he greater demands of a heterosexual role . Homosexual ity may be a compromise which "attracts people who fear
int imacy and yet are equally afraid of loneliness .
11
(151:1 88 )
Although Thompson ' s liberality may have had s ome
i nfluence in tempering psychiatri c opinion, the prevail ing view of homosexuality as a symptom of profound
personality disturbance seems quite firmly established .
O n the other hand , most psychoanalysts recognize the
complexity of factors which interact to produce a homo sexual outcome , although some venture predictions about
i m portant relati onships . In his early paper on female
homosexuality, Freud spoke of the limitations of
33
psychoanalysis which, ad hoc, can identify etiological
factors in homosexuality "whereas a prediction of it by
synthesis is impossible." (60:226)
34
CHAPTER IV
RELATED STUDIES
Psychological surveys of female sexual adjustment
have contributed some objective information relating to
homosexuality among American women. The pioneering study
of Katherine Davis (33), centering around 1900, collected
information by anonymous questionnaire on sexual history
and experience from 2200 college-educated women, married
and unmarried. This investigator compared reports from
312 single women who admitted overt homosexual experience
with the remaining single women without such experience.
In investigating factors related to marital happiness,
Terman (149) obtained, from a large sample of married
couples volunteering from public lecture groups , self
ratings on many aspects of their experience, including
ratings of homoerotic attraction. Hamilton's (75 ) more
intensive study by directed personal interview of 100
married women included none currently having homosexual
relations but investigated homosexual feeling and
experience. Dickinson's (36, 37) series of interviews
with women drawn from his bynecological practice included
a small group with admitted homosexual experience, although
35
they were chiefly bisexual. Landis' (101) interviews with
295 women included eight overt homosexuals and 73 classi
fied as homoerotic. Kinsey's (96 ) recent survey reports
personal questioning of 9,940 women, including 142 women
with extensive homosexual experience.
In all of these surveys, variatior1s in samples, in
procedures, and in classification of date limit the
comparability and generality of the findings. Generally,
the higher economic and social levels were unduly repre
sented in these samples, and there is little information
on manifestations of homosexuality in the lower brackets
of society. The influence on the results obtained in
these studies of such factors as volunteer versus captive
subjects, and of questionnaire versus interview methods
demands sophisticated evaluation (42, 43, 89) . What
restricts the comparability of the findings even more
seriously is the difference in behavior dealt with as
"homosexuality. " Terman•s and Landis' material pertains
largely to latent homosexual tendencies, very ambiguously
defined, while Kinsey was largely occupied with counting
overt homosexual acts.
Studies focussing on homosexual development in
women are the report by Terman and Miles (145 ) on the case
histories and Masculinity-Femininity tests of eighteen
36
overt homosexual women, and Henry's (78, 79, 80) studies,
one of which was based on sixteen psychotic female homo
sexuals and the other on forty female sex variants who
volunteered for study. Bender and Paster (18) report
findings in the histories of a small group of homosexual
children. The common weakness of these studies is the
lack of adequate control groups for comparison. The num
ber of subjects is small, and where a larger group was
available, as in Henry's study, the unsystematic methods
of analysis and report restrict the meaningfulness of the
material. These studies rely largely on historical
information obtained by interview. Extensive diagnostic
psychological testing at three stages in the psychotherapy
of one female homosexual has been reported by Fromm and
Elonen (64) and integrated with the case history material
and course in therapy . These authors present a stimulating
analysis and discussion of female homosexuality, but their
study deals with but one caseo No other studies of female
homosexuals with projective test methods were found.
The paucity of scientific sources of information on
female homosexuality has been indicated. Utilization of
what data is available must be hedged about with limita
tions. For what background it does provide for the present
investigation, a summary of the data from previous studies
follows.
37
Frequency
Most studies of female homosexuality are in agree
ment in reporting a lower incidence of overt sexual rela
tionships than among males . Ford and Beach (58) discuss
the rarity of this phenomenon in the animal world and in
other cultures. Predictions about the extensiveness of
female homosexuality in western civilization have var ied .
Havelock Ellis (45) , Freud (60) and Bergler (22), among
others, theoretically expected homosexuality to be as
prevalent among women as among men. However, all objec
tive studies re ort overt homosexual experience to be
lower for women. Kinsey ' s (96) estimate that 2 to 6 per
cent of unmarried women and 1 per cent of married women
are more or less exclusively homosexual agrees well with
other studies (33, 36, 37 , 101) . From within the male
homosexual world Cory (28) estimates that male homosexuals
outnumber females by three or four to one. The agreement
obtaine d from a variety of methods and sources suggests
that these estimates are fairly reliable . Since in most
of the groups studied the higher educational and social
levels were overly represented , over-rather than under estimation of incidence is the more likely .
There are some indications that women may be freer
to admit intense emotional relationships or homoerotic
38
feelings than are men (75, 149), although they are less
frequently involved in overt sex relations. Reports on
the incidence of homosexuality may refer to intense emo
tional attachment, to an incidental experience at some
time in the individual's life, or to an overt and consis
tent homosexual pattern. When no relation is found between
admission of attraction to one's own sex and marital
dissatisfaction (75, 149); or to preference for the single
state (33), the distinction between their definition of
homosexual feelings and an overt persistent homosexual
preference should be remembered.
The material available indicates that overt homo
sexual relationships are dominant in less than 1 per cent
of married women and in 2 to 6 per cent of unmarried women,
depending on the nature of the sample. Lower incidence in
comparison with men is associated with lower incidence of
other types of overt sexual activity and deviations, and
is interpreted by Kinsey (96) as due primarily to
physiological differences in the male and female, and by
Ford and Beach (58) as due to physiological differences,
more repressive training in the female, and greater
dependence on interpersonal relations for sexual reactiv
ity.
39
Family Stability
Henry (80) consolidates his impressions of the
family background of the homosexual women in his study in
the statement that, while a few families were rigid and
conventional, more often families were characterized by
promiscuity, emotional instability and discord, and the
child was neglected. Bender and Paster (18) from a study
of homosexual children, also emphasized disturbed and
disorganized family life. Parents of these homosexual
children were emotional and unstable with much strife
between them. Some of the intensively studied cases of
female homosexuality published (24, 64, 141) reveal such
chaotic and disturbed families.
Sex Role Patterns
Identification with the parent of the same sex is
generally considered important for normal psychosexual
adjustment, and likely to have gone awry in a homosexual's
development. Terman and Miles (149) observed that passive
male homosexuals are overattached to their mothers and
distant from their fathers, but found no consi stent pat
tern for female homosexuals. Henry 's ( 80) findings are
essentially the samej i t seemed difficult to f i nd any
consistent pattern of attachment or identification for
his group of homosexual women.
40
Henry attempted to go further in his analysis of
this problem by studying family patterns of dominance and
submission through several generations . He concluded that
children growing up in families where a high proportion of
adults show reversal of the expected sex role characteris
tics were likely to be come sex variants . Disturbance in
sex role concepts was ascribed more to faulty learning
than to heredity. It is interesting to find corroborative
evidence in a study by Smith (136 ) of sorority girls.
Using a free-association test, he found that parents who
showed high conformity to their own sex roles tended to
have daughters with highly feminine scores.
The parents• preference as to the child's sex has
also been considered influential in acceptance of own
sex role. Henry found that 30 per cent of the parents had
wanted a boy rather than a girl , in the lmowledge of his
homosexual women subjects. He was not impressed with this
incidence being higher than usual , but he did notice an
interesting difference between the male and female homo
sexuals. Among male homosexuals many of the mothers
encouraged femininity in their sons , while the fathers
deplored it, but among the homosexual women it was more
likely to be the father who encouraged development of
masculine traits in their daughters.
41
In Henry's group 40 per cent remembered wishing to
be boys. This is not strikingly higher than the 30 per
cent of married women in Terman•s study, who recalled
such wishes. (They did occur more frequently among the
unhappy than the happy wives.) This comparison does not
take into account the quality and intensity of the protest,
which we sometimes see as very extreme in the history of
homosexual women. An occasional resentful wish to be a
boy is quite common, but a determined effort to "pass ,t as
a boy, or a persistent conviction that a penis will grow
and one's right sex be recognized, as some homosexual
women relate, is more unusual. While such striking
instances occur, there are many homosexual women who do
not reveal masculine aspirations.
Results of the Terman-Miles masculinity-femininity
test are reported on male and female homosexuals by
Terman and Miles (150) and by Henry (79). In the former
study, sex variants were separated according to active
and passive roles, and test scores were found to conform
to such roles. Thus "active
0
female homosexuals scored
in a masculine direction, while "passive it female homo
sexuals were close to the norm in femininity . Henry found
42
it difficult to classify the women in his group as to
masculine or feminine types, but reports a mean score of
-25.62, which would be significantly lower in femininity
than the general norm for women. Although there is this
tendency for some female homosexuals to approximate
masculine interests and attitudes according to this test,
Terman and Miles clearly make the point that a high
masculine score for a woman is not incompatible with
heterosexual interests and adjustments. In their break down of subcategory s cores we see that in some categories
the homosexual group were feminine, even excessively
feminine, in score, but reached the masculine score peak
in activity choice . Re cent comparison (153 ) of different
measures of sex identification have shown little correla
tion between them. Sex role identification apparently has
many aspects which cannot clearly be related to hetero
sexual adjustment.
Parent -Child Relationships
Bender and Paster (18) have emphasized disturbance
in parent-child relations for their homosexual children .
Parents of the same sex were absent , negative , or grossly
abusive; parents of the opposite sex were dominant , or
oversolicitous, even seductive . P esumably s uch a pattern
43
would tend to discourage identification with the same-sex
parent, and to intensify attachments, particularly inces
tuous ties, to the opposite-sex parent.
Henry (80) had found f ew close attachments to either
parent among homosexual women. Many had been unwanted and
neglected, so that they were insecure and mistrustful of
any relationshi p . Toward the mother some women showed a
devotion to the point of worship , while others were
extremely hosti le, but in either case they continued to
seek mothering. It was Henry's impression, however, that
the relationshi p to the father more often than to the
mother played the decisive part in the course of the
daughter's sex life. The father was often inadequatej
only one was referred to as unselfish; none was considered
affectionate. The father was likely to be given an
extreme in emotional value , with the daughter either
overattached or rejecting . In his earlier study of
psychotic wom en with homosexual manifestations Henry (78)
considered two-thirds of t he group either passive or
devote d to the mother, with a prolonged close affectional
relation with the mother .
Hamilton (75 ) describes a syndrome selected by
pattern analysis from intensive studies of homosexual
women. In this syndrome the subjects had been unusually
44
fond of fathers and jealous of mothers in childhood.
Henry and Galbraith (81) describe a similar pattern among
eight homosexual women. Landis (101) had concluded that
"homoerotic" women were usually fonder of one parent than
the other in childhood.
Using self-ratings of attachments to parents
Terman (149) had found little or no difference between
the sexes, with both showing great er attachment to the
mother. This finding has been supported by subsequent
studies (116, 138). In a group of homosexual women Terman
and Miles (150) found no relationship between homosexual
ity and conscious parent preference. Psychoanalysts would
not expect that statements of attitudes on a conscious
level be consistent with unconscious preference. Ernest
Jones (91) in reporting on the female homosexuals he
analyzed has made the point that there was no consistency
in conscious attitudes toward parents, but all showed
strongly ambivalent attitudes toward both parent s . However,
convincing evidence of any consis t ent pattern of parent
preference does not emerge from Henry's ( 80 ) more intensive
studies of homosexual women .
45
Sexual Trauma
An explanation of homosexuality as a defense
against guilt and fear associated with incest or incestu ous longings has been frequently advanced . Hamilton has
been one of the most forceful advocates of this theory:
Overt homosexuality has a complex and variable
determination, but there is one factor which , I
have begun to suspect, is invariably present: I
have not yet made an intensive study of an overt
homosexual who has failed to tell me , without
leading or other kinds of suggestive questioning,
that he, or she, was conscious of having been
eroti~ally loved by a ~arent or sibling of the
oppos~te sex.* (74 :222)
According t o ps ychoanalytic theory incestuous
wishes toward the opposite sex parent play a part in
normal development. Where there is gratification or
overstimulation of such wishes , exceptional efforts may
be required to deny them. One of the most effective
defense measures is homosexuality as a denial of sexual
interest in the opposi te sex . Such events have been
convincingly annotated in some of the published cases of
female homosexuality (24, 141). However , in the only
sizable group of homosexual women studied, Henry ( 80 )
does not appear to be particularly i mpressed with the
*Hamilton's italics.
46
frequency of this kind of situation. In the recorded
interview material (79) we find only a few women in this
group consciously aware of the father's erotic interest
in them, and no cases of actual incest. The information
on the extent of actual advances from fathers in this
group is not detailed enough to permit comparison with
Kinsey's figures on his total sample, where such advances
were reported by half of 1 per cent.
A study by Sloane and Karpinski (135 ) of the
effects of incest upon the participants suggests that
incestuous experience after adolescence has more critical
effects than does prepubertal experience. Of five girls
who had had such experience in adolescence only one made a
normal adjustment, but promiscuity rather than homosexual
ity was the outcome.
Some investigators have felt that early sexual
aggressions may contribute to deviant sexual development.
Landis (101) reports that 73 homoerotic women more frequent
ly related childhood sexual experiences or aggressions, and
of the eight overt homosexuals six reported childhood sex
aggressions. Henry (80) concluded that experiences of
violent sexual aggression, when they occurred , had serious
effects on heterosexual adjustment. Hamilton (75) had
reported a significant correlation with orgasm inadequacy
47
in marriage. Terman•s (149) findings have an interesting
correspondence to thos e of Sloane and Karpinski (135 ) in
showing no relation between sexual shock and mari tal
adjustment unless the experience occurred after adoles cence.
Closer examination of childrens' sexual experience
with adults (16, 17) have made us more aware of the child ' s
role in such experiences, and of the importanc e of the
child's personal stability and the way the s i tuati on is
handled by parents and authorities in determining whether
harmful effects will be experience d (73). Traumatic
sexual experiences may occur more frequently in the his
tories of homosexual women, although the evidence for this
is not conclusive. Subjective factors in such reports
make interpretation difficult in any case. Such experience
may have exaggerated impact on an already disturbed per sonality, or may be exaggerated in recollection to justify
adult homosexual status.
Personality Disturbance
Homosexuality is commonly associat ed with personal
i t y disorder, in the opinion of the psychologically
sophisti cated as well as the general public. Kinsey (96:
447 , 450-451) has made it clear that he considers such
48
opinion narrowly ethnocentric and without scientific
basis, but his published empirical data have no bearing
on this question. In Davis' (33) study there was no
significant difference between heterosexual and homosexual
groups in regard to happiness or success, or psychopathic
symptoms, as stated by the informants. However, there was
a slightly higher incidence of nervous breakdowns reported
for the past by the overt homosexuals.
In his study of homosexuality among the mentally
ill, Henry (78) compared sixteen psychotic female homo
sexuals with a smaller group whose heterosexual adaptation
was reasonably satisfactory. The heterosexual group were
depressed and none had paranoid tendencies, while the homo
sexuals tended to be paranoid and schizophrenic. The
inference is that homosexual symptoms are related to more
severe mental illness, but the nature of the causal rela
tionship is unclear. After more extensive experience in
studying homosexuals Henry's opinion is that" •.. most
sex variants find ways of living which do not require the
escape and defense of a neurosis of psychosis. Only a
small proportion of sex variants need the help of an
emotional disorder to deal with internal conflict."
(80:xiv)
49
According to psychoanalysis female homosexuals are
more regressed than male homosexuals, and therefore pre
sumably more disturbed and inadequate. Henry (80) was
able to compare grossly comparable groups of homosexual
men and women, and his findings do not support this con
tention. He collected data on neurotic symptoms and
behavior problems throughout life, and found the males far
exceeding the females in such traits with the exception of
aggressive outbursts and fighting. The females had less
difficulty than the males in making an adjustment on their
first venture from home to school. Although Henry suggests
that female sex variants were more often neglected and
unwanted children than were the male, they apparently dis
play fewer signs of emotional disorder.
The study of Hooker ( 85 ) on the adjustment of the
male homosexual raises grave doubts as to whether homo
sexuality in the male is necessarily a symptom of psycho
pathology . This experimental investigation was designed
to avoid errors of theoretical bias in judgment and of
slanted subject selection which picks up the disturbed
fringe of the homosexual group, and used a heterosexual
group matched for age, education and IQ as a basis for
comparison. With many of the sources of error of previous
studies eliminated, projective tests did not reveal more
50
disturbance in the homosexual group, nor could homosexual
records be successfully differentiated from heterosexual
records by expert judges. If such relationships cannot
be established for male homosexuals, one might expect they
would prove equally elusive in a study of female homo
sexuals.
Summary
From a review of the empirical evidence we can
garner few well-established facts about overt homosexuality
in women. Contemporary opinion discounts constitutional
factors. Responsible informants can offer little informa
tion about occurrence in different cul tures, except that
there is variance in the frequenc y and form of expression.
It has been suggested that such variance is related to the
permissiveness of the cultu1>e, and to rigid sex-typing with
concomitant stresses around conformity to sex role. It
seems clear that overt homosexuality occurs much less fre
quently among women than among men, and is more likely to
occur among the unmarri ed, well-educated and economically
independent. Many such adjustments could be the result of
restriction of heterosexual opportunity .
Investigati ons of homosexuality i n women have
suffered from methodological defi ciencies, either with
51
limited n1.nnber of subjects, superficiality of informa
tion obtained, or the absence of adequate controls. They
have tended to indicate that there is ground for greater
disturbance in sex identification and in personal rela
tionships. Unstable, disorganized families have not pro vided prototypes for conventional sex identification and
conforming social adjustment. Disturbed parent-child
relationships and exposure to traumatic sexual experience
may be found more frequently in the history of homosexual
women. However, studies have not clearly identified any
particular pattern of conflict or adjustment, and evalua
tions of the degree or prevalence of personality
disturbance have been inconclusive.
2
CHAPTER V
THE HYPOTHESES AND THEIR RATIONALE
A review of the literature on homosexuality has
contributed to some expectations of how homosexual women
may differ in personality characteristics from women who
have accepted the heterosexual pattern of life. The pur pose of this study is to investigate the hypothesized
differences by predicting from them specific differences
in Rorschach records and Figure Drawings produced by these
behaviorally disparate groups .
Hypothesis 1
Homosexual women would be expected to show a
stronger Dependency Orientation than do heterosexual
women. Dependency Orientation is defined as preoccupation
with supply and demand, or fixation on oral-receptive and
oral-aggressive modes of response. ithin this category,
dependency demand might be expected to take precedence
since it reflects feelings of deprivation and hostility,
on an infantile level.
This hypothesis has been derived from the theory
that homosexual women have suffered early severe
53
deprivation and frustration in the early relationship
with the mother, resulting in preoccupation with
dependency needs and hostility over deprivation. Freud
(60) and Fenichel (49) are representative of many psycho
analysts in emphasizing the regressive aspects of the
female homosexual pattern, which "revives" the satisfac
tions and conflicts found in the mother-child relationo
They particularly emphasize the pressure to gratify
dependency needs. Such psychoanalytic writers as Helene
Deutsch (35), Ernest Jones (91), and Melanie Klein (97)
have emphasized the hostility and guilt engendered in the
early relation to the mother which serves to tie the girl
to the mother, and to subsequent mother-substitutes.
In investigating Dependency Orientation, therefore,
we are expecting to find evidence of greater fixation in
or regression to an noral stage," a stage of dependency on
nurturing figures and of preoccupation with supply and
demand. If homosexuality represents in women primarily a
regression to early pleasures in a dependency relation,
passive receptive themes should be given greater emphasis.
To support the theory of "oral-sadisti c fixation," themes
of deprivation and hostility should be predominant.
54
Hypothesis 2
Homosexual women will perceive women and feminine
relationships with a hostile-aggressive cathexsis, which
should not be as pronounced in heterosexual women.
This expectation has the same theoretical basis as
the expectation of fixation on oral-sadistic modes of
response. The inference is that a disturbed relation with
the mother in early life is retained to the present, and
revealed in perceptions of women as frightening and
threatening figures, prone to destructive action and
aggressive and competitive interaction. We would expect
to find a strong affective charge in their reaction to
women, not merely mildly critical attitudes, if early
conflicts are currently active and motivating their
reactions to women.
Hypothesis 3
Homosexual women would be expected to show a more
rejecting (disparaging and attacking ) attitude toward men
than do heterosexual women.
This hypothesis is based on the assumption that
homosexual women currently feel strong hostility toward
men, expressed in deriding and attacking attitudes . In
55
analyzing the dynamics of female homosexuality, Freud
(60), Abraham (1), and Fenichel (49) have emphasized the
importance of strong penis envy and the castration complex
in the genesis of such attitudes toward men. Jones (91),
Horney (86), and Klein (97) would view penis envy and
rivalry with men as a secondary consequence of the ''flight
from femininity'' because of fear, guilt, or disappointment
in the Oedipal relation to the father. To clarify the
origin of the hostility to males would require more
intensive and intricate analysis than will be attempted
here, where the aim is simply to confirm or reject the
hypothesis that current attitudes of homosexual women
toward men are more disparaging and attacking than are
those of heterosexual women.
Hypothesis 4
Homosexual women stress the aggressive feature s of
the masculine role more than do heterosexual women.
This hypothesis evolves from the theory that
homosexual women fear being the recipient of a masculine
sexual approach which they conceive of as being dangerous
and destructive. Experiences of earl y sexual aggressi on
have been suggested by several surveys as a possibly
significant i nfluence in diverting women from heterosexual
56
objects (74, 80, 101). Among psychoanalytic writers,
Jones (91), Deutsch (35), and Klein (97) postulate for
female homosexuals a fear of masculine sexual approach
into which has been projected their own unusually strong
aggressive drives developed in reaction to early depriva
tion of needed satisfactions from the mother. Theoreti
cally, the deprived and angry infant wishes to attack the
mother and obtain by force what is withheld . The superior
-
aggressive potential of masculine attributes become desir-
able for this purpose , and in fantasy would be used to
such destructive ends. In consequence, being the recipi
ent of such aggressive drives is feared, and a passive
role in relation to a man is refused.
Whether as an effect of experiencing frightening
I
sexual aggression, or as the result of projecting their
own aggressive drives, we might expect that for homosexual
more than for heterosexual women perceptions of men and of
masculine sexuality would be imbued with aggression and
threat.
Hypothesis 5
Homosexual women show more confusion and confli ct
about sexual role, and rejection of feminine identification,
than is found in heterosexual women.
57
This hypothesis expresses the assumption that homo
sexual women do not ma. ke a firm feminine identification.
This would seem quite obvious in many cases, but there are
complex patterns of identification and relationship. Among
women who engage in homosexual activities are those who
are bisexual, those who accept sexual activity only with
women but play a more "masculine" or more "feminine" role
with different partners or at different periods. There
are women whose masculine identification appears as the
dominating theme of their lives, and women who placidly
speak of themselves as the nwife" in a homosexual rela
tionship and consider themselves feminine in every way.
There are others who reject the concept of "masculinity"
or "femininity" and refuse to think of themselves as
"either man or woman.it Some psychoanalysts emphasize
that what really is enacted is a mother-child relationship
rather than a husband-wife relationship. We can easily
recognize that homosexuals are not immune to the influence
of stereotyped cultural concepts of heterosexuality (44,
84), and therefore underlying emotional needs may be dis
torted to fit stereotyped social and sexual roles. The
majority of the homosexual women in this study came as
"couples"; some of these more stable alliances do imitate
the stereotyped husband-wife roles of our culture.
58
The homosexual subjects of this study were ques
tioned regarding their concept of their role. Among the
most determinedly masculine women, some had accepted a
submissive role in the early stages of their homosexual
experience, when they were more unsure of themselves.
Usually those who claimed the masculine role did not
equivocate; it was among the "feminine" partners that we
find denial of the concept of "masculinity" or' femininity"
and a reluctant and evasive acceptance of the "feminine"
position, usually because they are less dominant or
effective than their partners. Evaluation of these per
sonal reports does suggest that most of the homosexual
women in this study are rejecting of femini ne identifica
tion.
One psychoanalytic theory is that the girl aives
up the father as a love object, but identifies with him.
Ernest Jones (91) found it practicable to divide female
homosexuals into two groups, according to the degree in
which they had renounced feminine w i shes, but he
unequivocally states that all female homosexuals make an
identification with the father. In order to maintain this,
he excludes as not truly homosexual those women who accept
their passive feminine wishe s and role but must substitute
a woman for a man as a sexual partner.
59
Helene Deutsch (35) distinguished a masculinity
complex from homosexual object choice. Masculine tendencies
may be very strong in heterosexual women; they do not
necessarily lead to homosexual object choice. In her
interpretation, what is enacted in female homosexuality
is the mother-child relationship; masculine identification
is not a necessary accompaniment.
Although homosexuality and masculine tendencies in
women are not necessarily conjoined, we would expect more
confusion about sex role in homosexual women. Even if
this does not arise in a strong masculine identification,
subscription to an unconventional life pattern might con
tribute to insecure and conflicting role concepts.
Under this hypothesis are subsumed several types
of reaction that are presumably related to rejection of
feminine identification. Studies of male homosexuals
have suggested that such confusion occurs in identifying
the sex of figures (23, 39, 160) and in graphic depiction
of human figures (8, 65 , 109) . Other aspects of the sub
jects' perceptions and interpretations generally inter preted as reflecting dissatisfaction with femininit y will
be investigated .
60
Hypothesis 6
Homosexual women show more limitations in personal
social adjustment than do heterosexual women.
This hypothesis attempts to deal with some central
aspects of personality structure. The theory that female
homosexuality requires considerable regression would imply
that interpersonal relationships are formed on an immature,
inadequate level. Clara Thompson (151) has discussed the
possible importance of general characteristics of personal ity, such as low self-esteem and fear of interpersonal
relationships, as favoring acceptance of a homosexual
pattern. She observes that homosexuals are often people
who seem "to fear intimacy and to fear lonelinessnj (151:
188) homosexuality is less demanding and frightening than
heterosexuality but offers some form of human relationship.
A group of male homosexuals were given the Chicago Inven
tory of Beliefs by Hooker (83), who suggests that male
homosexuals are more likely to involve themselves in
abstract interests and to maintain minimal personal rela
tionships.
One aspect of limitations in personal-social adjust ment might be the inability to maintain warm, close, per sonal relationships with people . Features of the Rorschach
performance which expres~ such limitations might be the
61
substitution of unreal or remote beings for ordinary human
figures (possibly an indication of deficiency in empha
thetic interpersonal relations), the perception of images
in which the emotional tone projected is one of coldness,
loneliness, and isolation, or in a restriction of emotional
responsiveness to the environment.
Difficulties in ego integration represents another
aspect of limitations in personal-social adjustment which
might be associated with homosexuality, as has been sug
gested by Solomon (138). Ego integrative processes oper
ate throughout the life span to bring the basic drives
into alignment with the individual's endowments and
reality opportunities. As the ego passes through phases
of differentiation and reorganization we can speak of
the emergence of increasing levels of ego integration.
Conflicts between basic drives, superego pressures and
ego aims, or between incompatible or conflict-laden
identities may i nterfere with the achievement of "ego
identity," a sense of the unity of one's self and one's
role in society, which Erikson (132) considers the
criteria of ego integration in adolescence. Not only
previous development but the opportunities offered by the
culture may be advantageous or deleterious in the formation
of ego identity. If a sense of ego identity is not
62
achieved, an effective balance against excessive conflict
is lacking, and regressive reactions accompanied by
archaic forms of thinking result.
In the Rorschach responses disturbances in inte
gration might be revealed in the necessity of disguising
the expression of drives and wishes, or in illogical
combinations in perceptions of living fi gures. The
graphic presentation of the body image, as in Figure
Drawing, might reveal inadequate or disturbed development
of the self concept, which might be related to difficulty
in ego integration.
CHAPTER VI
METHODOLOGY
Problems and Aims
Psychological investigation of female homosexuality
has been very limited indeed, so that we find no study on
this subject comparable to the one attempted here. Some
information has become available from psychoanalytic
reports of a limited number of cases and from surveys on
the psychosexual life of women. The more extensive
psychological research on male homosexuality, including
the use of projective methods, may help to guide our
present endeavor.
Review of the literature has helped to bring into
focus some of the special problems of research in this
area. Inadequate sampling procedures and absence of con
trol groups reflect the very real difficulties in obtaining
subjects. Henry's ( 80 ) study, the most complete on female
homosexuality, has no control group, and the basis of his
selection for the homosexual group is unclear . Apparentl y
his sample represented forty "most informative" volunteers
from a much larger pool .
64
In the psychological research on homosexual men,
subjects have usually come from such specialized groups
as prison, hospital, and clinic populations. Wheeler
(160) has critically evaluated previous studies on homo
sexuality using Rorschach content analysis, and has
emphasized the absence of control groups, lack of uniform
testing procedure, lack of safeguards against subjectivity
of judgment, failure to clearly define indices, and
inadequate statistical treatment. "Wheeler endeavored to
guard against these defects in his own study.
The presence of homosexuality in W heeler's sub
jects, derived from patients receiving psychotherapy in
an outpatient Veterans Mental Hygiene Clinic was determined
by their therapists' ratings, based on the patient's
sexual experiences, appearance, and posited dynamics.
The resulting group of sixty considered "homosexual"
consisted predominantly of suppressed or repressed homo
sexuals (with only four rated novert") who were contrasted
with a group of forty rated as not having homosexual con
flict or tendencies. Wheeler had selected twenty signs,
carefully defined as to the kind of content and usually
related to specific card locati ons, for which he checked
the Rorschach responses, examined "bli nd" and i ndependent
of the total record. The Rorschach signs whi ch met
65
standards of internal consistency were retained. External
consistency was then established between the judgment by
Rorschach criteria and the therapists' judgments of homo
sexuality.
Unfortunately, there are methodological aspects of
Wheeler's research which render the results questionable.
Only a few of the subjects were overt homosexuals; rather,
they are disturbed individuals who evidence homosexual
conflicts or tendencies to their therapists. Patients in
psychotherapy are in any case an atypical group whose
projective test res ponses cannot justifiably be considered
representative of the larger homosexual population. There
is a very large questi on about what the selective methods
really selected. It is a logical expectation that where
clinic patients are rated for homosexual tendencies by
therapists primarily of ps ychoanalyt i c ori entation, the
"homosexualn group would be weighted with borderline or
ambulatory schizophrenics wherea s more benign disorders
would predominate in the group rated as without homosexual
tendencies. The Rorschach signs whi ch distingui sh the two
groups could conceivably do so because they are signs of
more severe personali ty disturbance r ather than because
they are signs for homosexuality. In a study by Groh (72)
on identification and the TAT, the Wheeler signs
66
correlated .65 with severity of psychiatric disorder, .75
with general sexual maladjustment, but had no significant
relationships with opposite sex or ambiguous sex identifi
cations on the TAT. A study by Davids (32), using more
comparable groups of homosexual, neuroticmd normal college
students corroborated only four of Wheeler's signs. Again
the homosexual group consisted of a clinic population in
which homosexual tendencies constituted the pr imary source
of stress. Aronson (7) applied Wheeler's signs to
Rorschach records of psychotics and normals, and found
eight of Wheeler's signs responded to by half, or more,
of the paranoid group . These signs appear to be better
aides in distinguishing paranoids from other groups than
in identifying homosexuality as such.
Hooker (85) recognized the necessity of preventing
subjective errors of judgment due to theoretical preconcep tions, of using a sample of overt homosexuals making an
average adjustment in the community, and of obtaining a
comparable control group . In a study well-designed to
cope with these problems , ratings by judges and a large
numbe r of statistical computations failed to uncover clear
ly significant differences between the two groups in
Rorschach performance. Such results suggest that homo
sexual signs proposed on the basis of previous studies
may be spurious .
67
We are justified in dismissing prison and clinic
populations as a source for a representative sample of
homosexuals. One can anticipate the difficulties of
obtaining as subjects homosexual women who have no partic
ular reason for presenting themselves to a psychologist.
In the use of volunteers lies the risk of overweighting
the data with more aggressive and dominating individuals
or with those of higher levels of education and sophisti cation. Some of these considerations also apply to the
control group . Kinsey 's sample has demonstrated that
outside of the higher educational levels women are chary
of participating in investigations of their sexual lifeo
Another difficulty is the establishing of prac ticable and definitive criteria for the two groups. It
is easier to establish objective standards for'overt
homosexuality , " but "overt heterosexuality," as the
socially conforming pattern, is likely to mask a variety
of inner meanings . However , there is no common agreement
on practicable criteria for heterosexual adjustment better
than acceptance of the conventional feminine role of
marriage and motherhood.
A further complication is the recognition that
homosexuality as a sexually deviant pattern assigns to
homosexuals a mi nority group status and psychology .
68
Evidences of social anxiety and feelings of persecution
might be a reaction to current ostracism and threat rather
than a reflection of life-long difficulties in personal
social adjustment.
Some of the special complexities involved in a
personality study of a syndrome such as homosexuality
have been indicated. Recognition of the errors and
limitations of previous studies has, in many instances,
to be weighed against reality limitations. Frorn sifting
through the various possibilities of approach, the follow
ing aims emerged:
1. To assemble a more genuinely representative
sample of the homosexual population and to
establish more adequate controls.
2. To limit and define the sample through adher ence to clear-cut behavioral criteria for the
syndrome under investigation and for the con
trol group to which it is compared.
3. To hold experi mental and control groups
generally comparable in age , education, and
socio-economic status .
4. To utilize methods of recruiting designed to
lessen the "volunteer error .u
5. To maintain adequate safeguards against
subjectivity of judgment and against "halo
effect" between the two projective methods .
69
Beyond these, we find that coping with the problems of
comparability of conditions and maintenance of objec t ivity
necessitates a more detailed consideration of the research
instruments to be employed.
Increasing sophistication in clinical research and
in the special problems of research with projective methods,
particularly the Rorschach , taxes present resources for
dealing with the methodologi cal problems involved . There
is no evading the reality that we are faced with a multi plicity of i nterrelated and interdependent variables .
In the past few years research has succeeded in
delineating some of the factors other than stabl e personal ity factors which can influence Rorschach results . Impor tant among these is mental set towar d the test. Instruc tions to simulate abnormality (47) , to make a good or bad
i mpression (59, 26) or to follow cert ain 'tips' as to how
to do well (87 ), 27) have all demonstrably altered test
performance. Feldman pointed out that attempt s to appear
abnormal particularly affected response content . Al t era tions in test conditions such as privacy (94 ) or experi ences of approval of disapproval (105) also may signifi cant ly influence performance . The examiner ' s personality (105 )
70
was shown to be more influential in eliciting characteris
tic forms of Rorschach response than was altering test
atmosphere. The effect of examiner's personality on
Rorschach scores was also demonstrated by Baughman (9)
and by Sanders and Cleveland (128) . Sex of the examiner
has been shown to make a difference in the production of
sex response on the Rorschach (31, 6) . Schachtel (129)
has pointed out the impossibility of controlling subjective
definition of the test situation, and Schafer (130) has
discussed the different meanings of similar responses in
differing life context.
These considerations suggest the advisability of
adding further to our aims:
6. To minimize variability due to influence of
sex and personality of the examiner .
7. To strive for standard instructions, te t
atmosphere , and administrative techniques.
8. To equalize motivation as far as possible for
the two groups .
The factors of different life context may be
minimized somewhat by constancy of age , sex, economic
status and geographical locale for the two groups .
Potent influences could remain , which cannot be entirely
obviated because of their integral relat ion to our
71
independent variable, homosexuality. The controls have
different life conditions ; they are involved in homemaking
and rearing of children while the homosexual women usually
hold jobs and rarely have children.
Subjects
The H~mosexual Group
The experimental population in this research con
sists of thirty overt female homosexuals provided through
the Research Committee of the Mattachine Society in Los
Angeles, an organization for the study of sexual deviation.
The "volunteers" were therefore members and friends of
this society, which has as one of its aims the encourage
ment of legitimate research in the field of sexual devia
tion. The author of this study, and associates, met with
the Research Committee and spoke at several meetings.
Announcement that such a study was in progress was made in
the publications of the society.
The dJject of the study was presented as "pure"
scientific research into the personality development of
"normal" homosexual women . Recognizing the validity of
the criticism voiced by many homosexuals that psychological
studies are usually based on deviates of their own group ,
we emphasized that we were interested in obtaining a
72
cross-section of the homosexual community that was not in
legal difficulties or seeking psychological help, but that
it would also be atypical if we looked only for the best
adjusted. It was announced that our interes t was primar ily in general personality development, attitudes and
interest, and not in detailed examination of sexual experi
ence and that subjects would be asked to participate in
an interview and some interesting personality tests. It
was explained that no individual interpretations or advice
would be given .
The Research Committee served as a go-between in
interpreting our aims , in encouraging volunteers and in
making arrangements for appointments to insure the pro
tection of anonymity to the subjects. In this set-up the
Research Committee might tend to screen sub jects, and if
so we can assume this would operate toward bringing in
those individuals who appeared socially to be making a good
adjustment. The Research Committee reported that they
found women much more reluctant than the men had been in
volunteering for psychological study, and that considerable
social pressure and persuasive skill had to be utilized.
To a certain extent subject s who had participated encour
aged others to volunteer, but they had been asked not to
discuss the procedure . We had expressed a preference for
73
homosexual couples, and in the majority of cases if one
member could be interested she succeeded in persuading her
partner to accompany her. (Eight of the thirty subjects
came individually, without a partner.) The conditions here
described seemed to us to mitigate somewhat against the
selection of only the more sophisticated or aggressive
members of a group. It needs also to be pointed out that
the volunteers do not come from any close-knit social
group. Most of them were not known to each other.
Other social conditions had a selective influence:
several teachers and civil service employees refused
participation because at this time there was much feeling
of insecurity because of government investigating commit
tees.
A stated requirement for our subjects was that
they be overt homosexuals and expect to continue the
homosexual pattern. Three subjects were excluded after
interview because there was some question as to their
homosexual preference. All but four of the women in this
study were commi tted to a homosexual alliance with one
other woman at the time of the study. Length of relation
ship varied from a couple months to as long as six years;
the average length of present relationship was about two
years. The majority of women in this group state their
74
desire to maintain a stable exclusive relationship with
one other woman; only three are consistently promiscuous.
While only nine ·women have maintained one relationship for
five years or more, this needs to be evaluated in terms of
present age. Almost half of this group are under 30 years
of age.
All of the homosexual women in this study were
making an adequate adjustment to the community (aside from
their homosexuality) at the time of study. Two are
ex-alcoholics, currently sober, self-supporting, and
active in AA. Three others had previously had suicidal
depressions requiring hospitalization, but have been
adjusting since then for several years without help.
These are the only instances of recognized mental illness.
One subject had obtained brief psychotherapy during a
crisis in a love relationship; none of the other women
had previously seriously considered psychotherapy.
Other characteristics of this group , such as age,
educational level, economic status, and acculturation are
presented in Table 1 in comparison with the control group .
In the personal histories of homosexual women
cultural differences were noted as appearing to be of
importance to those of different background . However , the
incidence of forei gn -born and irst generation turned out
75
Table 1
Comparison of Homosexual and Heterosexual Groups
in Age, Educa t ion, Socioeconomi c Level
and Cultural Status
Age
Average year s
Standard Deviation
Educational Level
Average years
Standard Devia t ion
Socio-Economi c Status
(Warner)
Levels
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
Unclassifie d
Cul tu~ ral Status
Foreign born
First generat ion
Homo sexuals
30 . 60
7 . 85
13 . 60
1. 86
5
5
11
5
1
1
2
3
8
Hetero sexuals
32 . 13
5 . 71
13 . 30
1. 81
6
5
11
4
3
1
0
3
9
t . 85
F 1. 89
t 0. 0
F 1. 06
Proba
bility
NS
. 10
N S
NS
76
to be approximately the srune in the control group. There
were differences in the country of national origin,
apparently as a result of drawing the control group from
certain circumscribed neighborhoods. More of the homo
sexual group came from foreign language backgrounds, and
expressed more feeling around acculturation conflict. So
far as direct cultural influence in producing deviant
projective test content is concerned, there should not be
enough difference between the two groups to be significant.
Socioeconomic status appears to have some influences
on projective test performance (52, 154), so that it was
necessary to take it into account in the present study.*
Ratings of socioeconomi c status had to be based primarily
on comparison of occupational class of the homosexual
women and of the husbands of the married women. Warner's
(156 ) class grouping of occupations was used . Despite
expected differences due to the husbands' being older
and having male economic advantages, classifications
correspond closely and are predominantly middle-class
*Equivalence in socioeconomic status is also
important because different attitudes toward sex
might be a result of class differences. Kinsey (95 , 96)
had found important relationships between social class
and sexual attitudes and behavior in men, but in the
later study of women he concluded that social factors were
of minor significance in determining female patterns of
sexual behavior .
77
(see Table 1, page 75). Hollingshead
1
s ( 82 ) standards,
omitting residential area , gave essent ially the same
distribution.
In most male homosexual groups artistic and
creative occupations have been said to be highly repre
sentedj this was also reported in Henry's (80) and in
Terman•s (150) groups of female homosexuals. Breakdown of
occupation classifi cations for this group sugges t s that
attracti on to artistic occupations may not be as t ypical
for homosexual women as had been thought. Selective fac
tors in different samples are apparently responsible for
these differences . Only a few of the women in this group
had ever sought out definitely mas culine oc cupations . The
present distribution of occupations seemsqui t e ordi nary for
any group of female metropolitan workers .
The Heterosexual Group
Having determined that acceptance of the conven
tional role of marriage and motherhood was the most feasi
ble criteria for our control group , we sought women who
had a seemingly stable marriage and at least one chi ld.
Because of the relative youth of t he experimental group,
we needed to reach the younger mothers, in order to
minimize age dis crepancy between the two group s~ It was
decided to approach the Parent-Observation Classes offered
78
by the Los A ngeles Board of Education to mothers of pre school children. This program offers a weekly participa tion in a nursery school experience to the children and
group meetin s for mothers to discuss child development.
Areas were selected which drew largely from lower-middle
class residential population, to aid in maintaining con
formity to our experimental group .
Their Director introduced the author to these
groups as a psychologist engaged in a research project
studying t he atti t udes and interests of married women.
The value of psychologi cal research and the contribution
they could make to our understanding of feminine psychol
ogy wereinterpreted to these women. Emphasis was placed
on the need for "average" or "typical" subjects versus
ideally-adjusted subjects . They were offered only an
"interesting experience" in learning what modern personal ity test s are like, were assured they would not be asked
to give information about their personal lives , and that
test results would be kept anonymous and confidential,
and were warned that no individual interpretations or
advice could be given .
The methods and requirements were explained to the
groups and a brief written statement passed out to each
member. This included an application to sign with
identifying information if they wished to volunteer.
This restated the requirements as follows:
79
1. They are married at the present time and have
children.
2. They feel their marriage is as satisfactory
as the average.
3. They expect their marriage to be a lasting one.
4. They are not at present receiving psychotherapy
or psychiatric treatment.
In order that others present need not know who had or had
not volunteered, everyone was asked to return their forms
in the closed envelope provided . They were told that out
of every three who volunteered, only one would be selected
by chance, and contacted for an appointment.
Privacy of volunteering was felt to be important
so that women would not feel obliged to volunteer to
avoid suspicion of marital difficulties. Emphasis on the
chance factor might tempt more timid women to "take a
chance" of not being called. Since women of average edu
cational status are so reluctant to volunteer personal
information, intensive personal interview was dropped in
order that we might at least obtain projective test
material from a representative group of women. With these
methods eighty-two women volunteered. This was 85 per
80
cent of those in attendance at meetings.
From the volunteers thirty women were selected by
pulling from the larger group those who matched most
closely the homosexual group in age and educational level.
After checking both groups for comparability of socio
economic status and national birth and origin, only a few
substitutions were necessary. The object was not paired
matching but general comparability of the group for these
factors. (Statistical comparisons are shown in Table 1,
page 75).
Our experimental group was weighted in the 20-30
age group, and the control group in the latter 20's and
30's. This was inevitable because of the requirement for
the control group of marriage and at least one child old
enough for preschool attendance. Although a few years'
seniority had to be permitted to some i ndividuals in the
control group, the final result i s an average discrepancy
of less than two years in average age. Educational leve l
is the same for both groups.
None of the women in the control group are regular
ly employed, although more than half have had outside
emplo~rment before or aft er m arriage. Only one had any thing amounting to a career, which she definitel y gave up
after marriage. A minor i t y ar e leaders in church, school ,
81
or civic affairs. Most of these w omen are very much
wrapped up in family life during this period when there
are young children in the home.
Further measures were utilized to evaluate the
representativeness of our control group. Partly as a check
on their conformity in "femininitylT of attitudes and inter
ests the Terman-Miles Attitude-Interest Test was adminis
tered to members of the control group. Their average is
quite close to the averages reported by Terman on other
comparable groups of women (see Table 2), which would
suggest that in this kind of measure of psychological
femininity the control group conforms to the expected
values. Both Terman and Miles (150) and Henry (79) have
reported scores for homosexual women on this test which
fall much lower on the f emininity scale. Analysis of the
results in our group in relation to educational level
indicates that the influence of education on scores is
ml:ich more extreme than one would expect from Terman' s
results. This leaves considerable uncertainty about what
the test is measuring .
Summar~r
The experimental group is defined as a group of
overt homosexual women who are currently making an ade
quate social adjustment in the community (aside from their
Table 2
Comparison of Control (Heterosexual) Group
Scores on the Terman-Miles M - F Test
with Other Female Norms
82
Mean scores
Control (Heterosexual) Group
• • • • • • • •
College education (1-6 years)
High School education or less
Normal Population: Terman-Milesa
Total Adult Female Population
Housewives • .
• • • • • • • •
• • • • • •
• • • • • •
• • • • • •
• • • • • •
Female Adults , College education .
• • • •
Female Adults , High School education .
• •
Female Homosexuals
Active (Mas culine): Terman-Miles a
• • • •
Undifferentiated type: Henryb . . . .
• •
78 .4
51 . 2
110. 1
80 . 8
82 . 0
74 . 6
84 .5
25 . 62
Note: The influence of educational level on test
scores in the control group is much more extreme than one
would expect from Terman ' s norms .
aL. M. Terman, and Catherine Miles , Sex and
Personalit~ (New York : McGraw-Hill , 1936) .
bG. W. Henry, Sex Variants: Studies of the Homo sexual Patterns (New York: Roeber , 1941), 2 vols .
83
homosexuality) . The control group is composed of women
who in behavioral terms have made a heterosexual object
choice , fulfill the conventional functions of marriage and
motherhood , and are not acutely dissatisfied with their
marriage . Such characteristics , of course , do not insure
firm feminine identification and genuine heterosexuality
to our control group . The one clear distinction between
our two group s is that on a behavioral level the control
group h a s conformed to the s ocially accepted heterosexual
pattern and the experimental group ha s deviated in pre ferring a homosexual object - choice . In other respects
fact ors known to influence projective test results such
as age , educational level, socioeconomic status , and
acculturation ha ve been equated for the two groups . There
is a further effor t to chock on h ow t ypical the composi tion of the control group is by comparing their test
scores on the Terman-M iles Attitude Interest test wi t h
the results on other comparable groups .
Instruments
The ors chach M ethod
Ther e i s a gr eat ne e d for an experimentally
ace pt able method of r ecording personality functionin .
A mon· many pro ·ective methods d signed to meet this need,
84
the Rorschach is the most prominent. During the past
decade Rorschach research has been subjected to intensive
critical evaluation, and its shortcomings and misdirections
exposed to scrutiny. The problems of Rorschach validation
and experimental use, which are beyond the scope of the
present study, have been summarized by Rosvold (127),
Thurstone (152) , and Mary Ainsworth (2). What we have
learned from past failures and disappointments in the
employment of the Rorschach as an experimental technique
has helped to develop definite guides for renewed efforts .
The Rorschach has not been displaced from its leading
position as a method of personality analysis .
Many clinicians not only accept the Rorschach as
the best "global method"of assessing personality but place
considerable reliance on it for the detection of latent
and overt homosexuality. The studies of Bergmann (23),
Due and Wright (39) and VJheeler (160), proposing various
"signs" for detecting male homosexuality from the
Rorschach, have had considerable influence . Hooker has
not yet reported in detail her data on Rorschach indices
of homosexuality, but states: "At a minimum, healthy
skepticism about many (but not all) so-called homosexual
signs in the Rorschach is, I think, called for . " (85 :23)
In employing the Rorschach method to invest·gate
some aspects of female homosexuality, i t was decided to
85
concentrate primarily on response content in the Rorschach.
In the previous studies on male homosexuality emphasis
has been on content. More influential, however, was the
fact that use of content has emerged more creditably than
other scoring methods from the critical analysis of
Rorschach research, and is advocated by experienced
researchers such as Zubin (166 ), Symonds (148), and
Ainsworth (2).
Differences in the method of content rating have
arisen. Schafer (130) advocates the use of content themes
throughout the record, while Wheeler (160) has argued
against such equivalence of content meaning regardless of
location. In actuality, use of content themes doesnot
entirely exclude considerations of location and statisti
cal frequency.
Schafer has recently devised a system of content
categorization, described as "merely a tentative list that
seems to help organize experience meaningfully." (130:130)
It was decided to follow Schafer's (130:131-138) classifi
cation system as a model in this study. From this compre
hensive system of categories, classes of themes pertinent
to the hypotheses of this study can be selected . Schafer's
system is formulated within one theoretical framework, th.e
psychoanalytic. The hypotheses advanced in this study
86
evolved largely from psychoanalytic theory and have been
formulated in such a manner that they can, for the most
part, be linked up with Schafer's categories of thematic
analysis.
It should be made clear that although Schafer's
thematic analysis has served as a guide , all of his
recommendations as to use in research have not been
followed. He advocates using, as our research units,
"interpretationsu based on simultaneous consideration of
scores, content, test attitudes, and complex patterns of
variables. In this study we have concentrated almost
entirely on content alone. W ithout denying Schafer's
contention that such scoring means "minimal analysisu and
that complex interpretative categories are more comparable
to complex psychic functioning, it seemed preferable in
the interests of objectivity to proceed at this stage with
simpler response units. MacFarlane has written skeptical
ly of the use of general interpretative categories:
Since these are molar rather than molecular cate
gories, they are theoretically better capable of
expressing organizing aspects of personality, but
they depend heavily upon the subjective judgment
of the scorer and his theoretical orientation.
(107:38)
Alice Bell has also warned:
Translation from test performance into inter pretations of personality structure or nature of
emotional conflict should not be done except as
an exploratory procedure, until significant
differences in test performance for the
•experimental group' have been established.
The report should make clear the bases in
the raw data for the inferences concerning
personality structure or emotional conflict.
(12:58)
87
As Schafer recognizes, the relationship between
concrete images and classes of content, and between
classes and general categories of content, varies in the
directness or closeness of their connections. In many
instances the validity of the relationships is purely
hypothetical. By retaining the simpler response units
of content classes rather than more general interpreta
tions, the number of inferences are reduced and connec
tions are traceable. Where the validity of relationships
in the system of classification have not been firmly
established, it is imperative that the links between
general categories , subclasses, and raw data oe clearly
identifiable. We need to be concerned not only with how
our two groups compare on general scores, but we should
critically analyze the raw data, i.e., the kind of images
that are contributi ng to each class and category score.
Where Schafer' s classification failed to correspond
adequately to the hypotheses under investigation, modifi
cations and additions were made which will be clearly
specified. In addition, weightings of content were
88
established. The range of weighting varied with the
likely range and variety of response in a particular
category or class but did not exceed a 3-point scale.
Conventions of Rorschach i nterpretation determined the
weighting: in general, the more unusual or personally
determined the response, the more primitive or crude,
and/or the more emotionally charged, the higher would be
the weighting.
The Rating Scale as applied in this investigation
is presented in detail in the appendix . In relation to
each hypothesis, the general categories and classes of
content classification with the rationale on which they
are based are presented here .
Hypothesis 1
Homosexual women have a stronger
dependency orientation than do
heterosexual women
Content Classification
I Dependency Orientation
A. Supply (Oral
Rece~tive Orienta
tion)
B. Demand (Oral
Aggressive Orienta
tion)
Dependen9y Orientation would be expressed in
Rorschach content in preoccupa tion with oral demands and
supplies, with modes of oral gratification or oral attack ,
and with themes of dependency or deprivation. This
general category is separated into two main divisions ,
Supply, which emphasizes passive-receptive themes and
89
includes the pleasures and needs of taking in or receiving
from others, and Demand which emphasizes deprivation and
attack and includes oral - aggressive devouring or attacking
themes, expressions of the denial or the projection on to
others of these attitudes , or feelings of deprivation and
perceptions of depriving figures and objects.
The many subclasses vary in the directness of their
relation to the general category . Many draw primarily
from primitive oral preoccupations such as images of food
or of open attacking and devouring activities , while others
have a more remote connection. Perception of supplicating
or nurturing figures or symbols may express attitudes of
passive - dependence on a more civilized level , or good
luck symbols may express hopes of magic provision , all of
which are asswned to be derived from strong oral needs .
Other connections are more complex . For instance , per
ception of engulfing , overwhelming figures and objects
might be the result not only of early frustrations from
parental figures but might reflect projection of the
subject's own engulfing , oral - aggressive drives . Again ,
such needs might be denied and the denial expressed in
concepts of "Impaired or Denied Oral Capacity. '
1
Such classes are by no means "pure , " nor do
images have an invariant meaning . Content scored as
90
"oral eroticism," for example, might reflect primitive
oral pleasures or more mature capacity to express affec tion; content scored as "burdens" might show reaction to
a currently pressing life situation, or mirror permanent
attitudes of feeling "drained or sucked dry . ,r
In this area we look first for a general summation
of noral themestr such as would be expressed in the Total
Dependency Score , and next for a relative emphasis on
Supply or Demand as they reflect receptive or aggressive
trends.
Hypothesis 2
Homosexual women will perceive
women, and relationships
between women, with a hostile
aggressive cathexis .
Content Classification
II Hostile - Aggressive
Cathexis of Female
Figures
Hostile-Aggressive Cathexis of Female Figures is a
category added by the writer . Several of Schafer ' s cate
gories draw on such attitudes , but either in an over inclusive or too-fragmented manner for the purpose for
which this category is intended . Dependency Orientation
is assumed to stem from an unsatisfactory mother- child
relationshi p . Such problems might also be expected to be
manifest in currently negative attitudes toward women .
In theorizing about female homosexuality it has been
repeatedly emphasized that there is basically a hostile,
91
fearful guilty attachment to a mother-figure. The present
category attempts to segregate intense fearful and aggres
sive affects associated with women. Therefore, it
includes such content as "a frightening woman," "two
women fighting," or "two women tearing something apart,rr
while milder expressions of negative feeling , such as
describing women as silly, ugly, weak , etc. or such com
mon references as nwitch," if unelaborated with hostile
or fearful content, were not included .
Hypothesis 3 Content Classification
Homosexual v1omen would be expected III Disparagement ( sym
bolic castration) of
to show a more rejecting attitude men.
A. Disparagement of
toward men than do heterosexual Male Figures
B. Disparagement of
women. Phallic Symbols
C. Castrating Sym
bols
D. Castrating Verbal
izations
Disparagement (symbolic castration) of Men can be
expressed in perception of male figures as immature ,
insignificant or ridiculous, or as deficient in more
specific terms if parts of the fi gure are missing , deformed,
or in the wrong placeo These perceptions are grouped
together under the first subclass as (A) Disparagement of
Male Figures, and have the most direct and obvious rela tionship to attitudes toward men . However, it is also
92
assumed that derogatory attitudes toward the usual male
sex symbols might also reflect a disparaging of "maleness"
and these attitudes and perceptions are grouped under the
second subclass, as (B) Disparagement of Phallic Symbols.*
This category was expanded to include other expres sions of a castrating attitude . One class was added to
take care of interpretation of usual female sexual areas
in terms of (C) Castrating Symbols. It may be quite
erroneous to assume that overt female homosexuals would
wish to use feminine sexuality in a ucastrating " way ;
different attitudes toward female sexual areas may be
more dominant. Investigation of content in this area is
worthwhile in order to determine whether such symbolization
does occur.
The last subclass, (D) Castrating Verbalization.s,
has a sounder rationale. Such a class does not include
specific images, but takes in the associations to mascu
line images which reflect aggression-laden verbalizations
of cutting , slicing, and chopping .
Again, while we are interested in the summation of
scores in this category, independent consideration of the
subclass is required because of underlying differences in
rationale.
*see Schafer (130:125) for discussion of sex differ
ences in interpretation of "castration" symbols.
Hypothesis 4
Homosexual women stress the
aggressive features of the
masculine role more than do
heterosexual women .
93
Content Classifi cati on
IV Hostile-Fearful Concep t i on of the Mas culine
Role (Phallic - Aggressive
Ernphasis)
A. Phallic-Aggressive
Objects
B. Phallic - Aggressive
Animals
C. Phallic-Aggressive Men
D. Sexual Responses with
Destructive Content
Category IV includes, under Classes (A) and (B),
perception of objects and of animals commonly assumed to
symbolize mas culine sexual aggression , because of t he
expectation that fear of masculine sexual aggression would
increase preoccupat ion with such percepti ons. Such fear is
most di rectly expresse d in Clas s (c), the perception of
masculine figures as attacking or potentially threatening
or overpowering. Perception of "phallic-aggressive"
animals and objects may be contaminated by impulses from
other sources . A consistent emphasis on all three classes
of response would strengthen the i m pr ession that fear of
men is directly associated with fear of sexual attacko
The final sub class in this grou~ (D) Sexual Responses
with D estruct· ve Content, aims directly at fear of sexual
dama e to the female .
The four subclasses should be considered separately
because of the ossible difference in the validi t y of the
94
relationship of each class to the general category.
Hypothesis 5
Homosexual women show more
confusion and conflict
about sexual role , and
rejection of feminine
identification than do
heterosexual women .
Content Classification
V Rejection of Feminine
I dentifi cation
Confusion in Human Sex
Identification
Confusion in Identi
fication of Sexual
Areas
B. t1as culine Emphasis
C. Reference to Perversions
Do Warding off Intrusion
E. Rejecting Att itude
Toward Conventional
Feminine Role
F. Castratior1 Emphasis
G. Sensuous Attention to
Physical Feminine De tail or Homoerotic
Arousal
H. General Increase in
Sexual Anal and Oral
Imagery
In Schafer ' s organization this category, Rejection
of Feminine Identification, subsume s many subclasses
including the previous Categories III and IV which we have
considered here separately, not so much because of any
disagreement in rationale but because they have been
selected for special emphasis . These categories , relat ing to negative attitudes toward men , would reasonably be
assumed to accompany problems about heterosexuality but
they are less directly related t o problems about
feminine identity .
95
The first subclass here , which embraces various
expressions of Confusion in Human Sex Identification has
been more extensively explored than any other category ,
but in relation t o male homosexuality (23 , 32, 39, 123, 125,
160). The relative importance of these signs of confusion
has not been firml y established, and different shades of
meaning have been as cribed t o responses which may signify
confusion in cultural role and confusion in biologi cal
role. It was decided to give weightings to these response s
in the following manner :
1. A rating of one was given to a sexual figure
or fi gures with blurred sexual distinction .
Such response s evade sexual ident ification , but
may be preferred because of other types of
problems in identifying with people . If inci
dental but not essential attributes of the
opposite sex were assigned to a figure , the
score was one. Such perception s may be highly
blot-determined and of questionable importance
to the subject. Activit y usually associated
with the opposite sex was given a similar rat
ing since such responses may reflect sexual role
diffusions common t o our culture and of super ficial significance .
96
2. A score of two was given if there was a reversal
of the usual sex identification of a figure, if
there were alternate interpretations of the sex
of the same figure, if symmetrical fi gures were
seen as one male and one female, or if the sub
ject was somewhat uncertain about the sex of
the figure. All of these reactions are believed
to reflect ambivalence and conflict about
sexual identification.
3. A score of three was given where the subject
was obviously disturbed about the sexual
identification of the figure so that she was
unable to decide the sex of the figure, or
where the subject gave bizarre sexual combina
tions (as a figure with sex organs of both
sexes or with the sex organs misplaced on the
body). Such responses were felt to reflect the
most severe problems ab out sexual identifica
tion.
While all responses of the kinds described are con
ventionally believed to reflect confli ct in sexual identi
fication, examination of such responses on these three
levels may enable us not onl y to determine whether these
signs differentiate between homosexual and heterosexual
women, but may add to our knowledge of the relative
significance of such signs.
97
It has generally been assumed that deviation in
the usual Identification of Sexual Areas is an indication
of confusion in sexual identification, perhaps even more
significant than such deviation in the identification of
human figureso Pascal (119) has established t he relative
incidence of identification of certain areas as male or
female by men and w omen . Responses to those areas most
reliably assigned to a particular sex by Pascal' s female
subjects were scored in this investigation as follows :
1. A score of one was given for absolut e denial
or refusal to accept the usual sex percept i on
for the two male and two female symbols with
the highest agreement .
2. A score of two were given for a misidentifica
tion of any of these sexual areas .
Refusal to identify was scored less as a possible effect
of inhibition due to many kinds of sexual confli ct ; mis
identification should be more specifically related to
confusion and conflict about sexual identification .
The next sub class in this category, Masculine
Emphasis, taps interest in masculine objects or activities ,
which would be expected to occur more frequently if there
98
is masculine identification.
Reference to Perversions would reflect concern with
deviation in sexual relations .
Warding-off Intrusion includes symbols of prevent
ing vaginal entrance as a rejection of male sexual approach.
Rejecting Attitude toward Conventional Feminine
Role and Status includes such disparagements as "typical
housewives" or descriptions of women as petty, gushy , cheaA
etc. Such content was scored one point , while two points
were given for revulsion to menstruation or vaginal images,
presumably stemming from deeper affects .
Castration Emphasis as a class of content presents
particular problems, since it is difficult to distinguish
between fears of castration to the self and castrating
impulses toward others. Schafer's (130:125) rationale was
followed in including in this category those responses
which refer to general weakness, deficiency or damage to
women, and general preoccupation with themes of incomplete
ness and damage. The category was divided into three
classes: Implements of Castration, Objects of Castration,
and General Weakness or Impotence, since it is conceivable
that one or the other of these classes might have a valid
relationship to the concept while others did not .
Sensuous Attention to Physical Feminine Detail was
enlarged to include a theoretically related type of
response , H omoeroti c Arousal . Such content would be
assumed to be stimulated by interest in the physi cal
attractivene s s of women or to express such attractions
between w omen .
99
Gener al Increase in Sexual , Anal , and Crude Oral
Imagery i s presumed to be related to preoccupation wi t h
variet ie s of sensual experience and a reflection of sexual
r ole di f fusion (128 :136) . Preoccupation with sexual
imager y in the Rorschach has been found in many groups
who pr esent varied sexual problems . Emphasis on anal
imagery ha s been reported for male homosexuals (32, 158) ,
but since the rationale concerning the dynamics of female
homosexuality is different , excess weighting would not
ne cessaril y be expected in this area . Crude oral imagery
would be in ac cord with the assumption of oral fixation .
I n addi t ion , the nature of sexual interaction bet een
hom osexual women would contribute to erotization of mouth
and breast symbols .
I n considering this class of response , we should
be concer ned not only with weighting in this general are~,
but wi t h t he special incidence of any particular kind of
sexual ized response among the homosexual women .
•
Hypothesis 6
Homosexual women show
more limitations in
personal-social adjust
ment than do hetero
sexual women.
Content Classification
VI Limited Personal-Social
Relations
100
A. Distanciation in Hu.man
Identifications
B. Emotional Relationship
Unsatisfactory (Content
Mood Tone)
C. Emotional Relationship
Unsatisfactory (Emotion al Reactivity)
D. Difficulties in Ego
Integratior (Humaniza
tion of Animal Figures)
E. Difficulties in Ego
Integration (Human
Animal Combinations)
Limited Interpersonal Relations is a category
devised by the writer in an attempt to reach some central
aspects of personality development . It is generally
accepted that homosexuality reflects a personal i t y distur bance, and that the capacity for object relations is
deficient among homosexuals as compared to heterosexuals .
The aim here is to tap a few of the possible areas of
such difficulties in Rorschach performance. The first
subclass used i s (A) Distanciati on in Human Identi fica
tions (preference for fantasy over real figures, or for
figures distant in race, culture , or period from the
subject, or for symbolizations of concealment and disguise ).
Under the second subclass, Emotional Relati onships
Unsatisfactory, we attempt first to measure (B) ~ood Tone
through content . Such content as deserts , islands , snow,
rocks, etc . is generally held to reflect feelings of
isolation and loneliness and an expectation that the
environment is cold, harsh and unrewarding .
101
Essential t o capacity for mature object relations
is (C) Emotional Reactivity . While the way human figures
are seen relates more to capacity for identification and
empathy, reactivity to color is considered indicative of
the capacity to respond emotionally and to relate to the
environment and other people . For this one measurement
it was deemed necessary to depart from content categories .
Sum C and Color Ratio are two different techniques for
measuring color r esponse productivity . Inhibition and
cautiousness in emotional response and the tendency to
avoid emotional involvement in relations with others would
be expected to reduce reactivity to col or, producing a
lower Sum C and Color Ratio .
While the first thre e classes of response have
been related to difficulties in r elating to other people,
the last two classes were selected as possibly indicative
of difficulties in relationship to the self, or Difficul
ties in Ego Integration . Resistance to consciously
accepting certain inner motivations might be expressed in
Rorschach content by disguising human activities i n animal
forms. Such responses were compiled under class (D),
102
Humanization of Animal Figures. Inability to reconcile
opposing forces or to successfully defeat or repress one
side of a conflict, might be expressed in (E) Human-
Animal Combinations. It has been claimed that such
mixed-species figures are associated with homosexual
tendency in males (160) and that they reflect conflicts
over sexual identificati on. However , such images along
with other combined images are generally assumed to repre
sent contradictory elements in the self (130:135) .
Klopfer and Spiegelman (99:284) accept the irrationality
of such responses as an extension of poetic license, but
Beck (10:58-59) classes such responses as "contaminations,"
and points out their archaic regressive quality. Both
would agree that they are often symbolic and expressive
of personal needs.
Summary
This categorization of Rorschach content themes
and scores attempts to organize in a meaningful way
responses presumed to be related to personality varlables
on the basis of psychoanalytic personality theory, clinical
experience and/or research finding so The validity of the
relationshi p between various subdivisions and general
categories of content has not been empirically verified,
nor the hierarchial relationships justified. For this
103
reason, the various subdivisions require independent
statistical evaluation. While composite scores for a
general category merit our interest, they may obscure
meaningful relationships or be misleading if the contribu
tion of the various parts is not analyzed .
The Figure-Drawing Method
The Figure-Drawing Test is a widely used clinical
device for assessing personality and is considered partic ularly pertinent in studying problems of sexual identifica
tion. In the clinical literature, case reports frequently
include analyses of performance on this test, and it has
been employed in many studies to measure changes in per sonality functioning , whether as a function of age , of
psychological or medical therapies, of hypnotic regres
sions or recovery from regressed states, or various other
agents. Schilder's (131) theories of the body image have
contributed to the rationale for using this technique to
study personality, and Lauretta Bender (15) has helped to
verify and exemplify this application in research with
children. In Personality Projection in the Drawing of the
Human Figure and subsequent writings Karen Machover (108 )
has pushed further the rationale and analysis of this
projective method. Since drawing s of the human figure are
considered to depict the body and self-image, such a
technique would be almost universally accepted by
clinicians as pertlnent to the investigation of such
aspects of personality as identifications, role, and
ego -integration .
104
The reliability and validity of Goodenough
1
s Draw
A-Man test in studies with children and its use in
comparison of different clinical groups have been reported
by Goodenough and Harris (68 ). They concluded from these
studies with children that self-correlations of drawings
were not high enough to permit exact comparisons . Other
studies with adults , however , have offered evidence that
fundamental personality traits as reflected in the human
figure drawing tests do not vary appreciably . Hammer
and Piotrowski found that ''correlations ranging between
.74 and . 84 suggest a reasonably high degree of reliabil
ity among clinicians rating qualitative factors such as
hostility and/or aggression on the basis of the H-T . P. "
(76:214) Further evidence of validity and reliability is
contributed by Fisher and Fisher (55) . A recent study by
Graham justified the conclusion that "the Human Figure
Drawin s continued to reflect a consi stent picture of the
self-image despite attempts on t e part of subjects to
disguise or conceal what they knew or imagined to be
105
significant details relative to the weakness of their own
personalities." (70:386)
In her review Goodenough (68) maintains that,
flimsy as many of the studies are , the accumulated evi
dence suggests that the basi c concept of figure - drawing
tests is sound, i . e ., that such drawings do reflect deep
seated and lasting characteristics of personality . Part
of the reason why the Figure -Drawing test has remained
poorly validated in many respects has been the inconsis tency in the formal elements studied and in differing
definitions of these elements, as can be seen in the review
of such studies reported in Bell ' s Projective Techniques
(13) .
In this investigation, the Figure Drawing test was
selected as a technique which could evoke responses
directly referrable to our hypothesis concerning sex al
identification.
Hypothesis 5 Content Classification
Homosexual women show more con- V. Rejection of Feminine
Identification .
fusion and conflict about sexual I . Opposite sex
drawn first
role, and rejection of feminine J . Lower Sexual Dif-
ferentiation
identification than is found in Ratio
heterosexual women .
106
Beginning with a study by Geil (65), on the use of
Figure Drawing to reveal male homosexuality, this method
has been widely used to evaluate sexual identification and
maturation. A comparison of drawings of homosexuals and
nonhomosexuals in an army setting by Baker, Mathias and
Powers (8) did not find significant differences except for
delay in identification of the self-sex figure and for
distortions of the female figure.
Many studies substantiate the belief that the
majority of people will draw their o~m sex first. Propor tions vary, however, and among women the proportion who
draw their ovm sex first is lower. This brings into ques
tion the use of such performance as a valid differential
between homosexuals and nonhomosexuals. Granick and
Smith (71) found no relation between sex sequence of
figures drawn by men and the MMPI M-F Scale. As a con
sequence of several studies on sexual differentiation ,
Swenson (146) has emphasized that the characteristic of
sex sequence shows no regular relation to chronological
age and does not correlate with other criterion of sexual
differentiation.
Swenson (1 45 ) developed a Sexual Differentiation
Scale which would differentiate between in- and out
patients within a psychiatric service, and on which the
107
score did increase regularly when groups from first grade
through college were studied. In another study of rela
tionships among sexual characteristics of figure drawings,
Swenson (147) found that women who drew the more feminine
figures of women also rated higher in sexual differentia
tion and that there is a significant tendency for women
to draw more feminine figures of women than do men .
Femininity in the drawing of a female figure by
women has been explored by Fisher and Fisher (56) in
relation to several indices of style of sexual adjustment .
They found that ratings of femininity of drawings corres
ponded more to the acceptance of the conventional feminine
role in life than to other behavioral data of sex adjust
ment. Moreover, what their results seemed to indicate was
that an average rating on the femininity of drawing cor
responded to more normal sexual functioning and capacity
for sexual satisfaction, whereas excessive feminization
of the female drawing was associated with promiscuity.
Those who rated low in femininity of drawing, however,
also tended to rate low in capacity for sexual satis
faction, in somatic sexual dysfunction, and in sexual
symptomatology connected with the onset of personality
disturbance. Although there is room for further explora
ticn and clarification, the studies thus far reported
108
establish that relationships do exist between drawings of
the human figure and sexual identifications and adjustment&
Swenson's (145) Sexual Differentiation Scale was
selected as the method of measuring Rejection of Feminine
Identification because of its apparent validity in
discriminating this dimension, the good reliability of
rating reported, and its relative simplicity in use .
"Sexual differentiation," of course, involves several fac
tors. It involves the masculinity of the male fi gure, the
femininity of the female figure, and the difference between
the two."* The scale is reproduced in the appendix .
Because of the suggested relations between Figure
Drawing and the self-image, quali t y of performance on this
test should be related to our last hypothesis concerni ng
personal-social adjustment .
Hypothesis 6
Homosexual women show more
limitations in personal social adjustment than do
heterosexual women.
Content Classification
VI Limited Personal-Social
Relations
D. Lower Goodenough
scores on drawing of
the same - sex figure .
E. Lower Goodeno· ugh scores
on drawing of the head
and face of the same sex figure .
Using Goodenough's (67) scoring many investigators
*Personal communication from the author .
109
have found lowered scores to be associated with personal
ity maladjustments . Essentially , low scores on this test
reflect a neglec t of mature form principles and elabora tions. In a study (154 ) which indicated that psycholo gists could discriminate on a group basis bet ween more and
less popular children by examining their figure drawings ,
the formal characteristics which most influenced judgments
were size, posi t ion and proportioning of figures, and de gree of integration and detailing . Using the Goodenough
scoring , Fingert, Kagan and Schilder (53 ) found that
steady improvement in scores accompanied behavioral
improvement in schizophreni c s following metr azol or
insulin shock . Modell (113) made qualitative judgments
of body image maturation and of sex maturation in a series
of drawings , and found such judgments significantly reli able and successful in differentiating between unrecovered
patients and patients recovering from regressed states .
The concept of body image maturation is based on principles
very similar to those underlying Goodenough s coring .
Another interesting study by Fiedler and Siegel (51) com
pared f igure drawings of patients judged least and most
improved followin
6
psychotherapy . Using Goodenough ' s
criteria , higher scores on the face and head seemed to be
the differentiat ing factor for the improved group . The
110
scoring of head and facial detail was not related to edu
cational l evel , nor to scores on the rest of the drawing .
It was concluded that the facial area correlates with the
social features of personality , and that neglect of this
area is associated with evasion of interpersonal relation
ships . This is in accord with Machover's interpretation
that the face is the most important center of c ommunica
tion, and that when facial features are omitted in a
drawing of a person ,
11
superficiality , caution, and hostil
ity may characterize the social contacts of such an
individual.' (108 :41)
Although originally devised as a test of intelli
gence the Goodenough measurement of figure-drawing per formance seems to reflect not only intellectual develop ment but personality maturation. Whitmyre (161) has
shown that high scores are unrelated to artistic excel
lence. Considerable effort was expended in attempting to
devise methods of rating the extent to which subjects
attempt and succeed in drawing a realisti.c, integrated,
mature portrayal of a person . It was the suggestion of
Dr. Mortimer Meyer* that the Goodenough test actually per forms this task and has the advantage of long clinical use.
*Personal communication.
111
High scores on the Goodenough test theoretically would
depend on such qualities as a realistic and integrated
self-concept and capacity for interpersonal relations.
Since our hypothesis is that homosexual women show limita
tions in personal-social development, we would predict that
low Goodenough scores would be more frequent among homo
sexual than among heterosexual women. Since Fiedler and
Siegel (51) conclude that low scores on the face and head
area correlate with evasion of interpersonal relations
we would also predict that the homosexual women would more
frequently score low on this area of the scoring.
Procedure
Because of the necessity for blind analysis, the
tests were administered by a person other than the writer.
The same administrator, a man, did all the testing with
both groups.
Two subjects usually came together for the testing
sessions, but a few individuals in each group were seen
independently . The session began with a brief preliminary
meeting between the subjects, the writer, and the test
administrator. This gave a further opportunity to explain
the purposes and the procedures of the study. vith the
homosexual subjects parti cularly , an attempt was made to
112
interpret our motivation in carrying out this study and
the importance of being neither partisan nor prejudiced.
We tried to deflect attention from sex habits as such to
more general aspects of personality adjustment and devel
opment; with the control roup there was no mention of a
"sex study." The subjects were encouraged to ask any
questions or raise any issues they wished. The principal
purpose of this initial phase was to reduce anxiety and
to establish rapport.
The subjects took the Rorschach and the Figure
Drawing tests with the test admi nistrator. The experi
mental group went through a lengthy i nterview with the
writer, while the control group had a brief interview and
took the Terman-Miles Attitude Interest test. The sequence
was reversed for every other member of the group. The
male administrator never met with the subjects without
being accompanied by the writer, a woman. The actual
testing or intervi ewing was always done in separate rooms,
insuring privacy.
A brief post-session permitted some ventilation and
relaxation. Subjects were encouraged to express their
reactions to the experience . This was sometimes a touchy
situation since interpretation or commitment to opinions
had to be avoided. While some w omen were pleasantly
113
stimulated by the testing experience, others did feel
anxiety and/or hostility. Women from the control group
more often brought up anxious reactions to Testing the
Limits for sex response in the Rorschach procedure,
fearing that they were over-inhibited for not having given
such responses spontaneously.
The Klopfer {98) method of Rorschach administration
was followed. Hutt•s {88 ) instructions for Testing the
Limits at three levels were followed by certain selected
human figures and for identification of sexual areas.
With the Figure-Drawing the usual procedure was followed
of asking the subject to draw a whole human fi gure, and
then a figure of the other sex. There was no questioning
except to clearly identi fy the sex of the figures drawn.
All test records were coded by the test adminis
trator; the Rorschachs and Figure Drawings were separated
to avoid "halo effectrr from test to test. Upon conclusion
of all the testing the administrator removed identifying
information and turned over the test records to the writer
for analysis. All Rorschach records were scored by
Klopfer•s system, then scored for the established Content
Categories. The results were tabulated before decoding .
With the Figure Drawings, the sex of the first drawn
figure was recorded, the female figure was scored by the
114
Goodenough (67) scoring system, and Swenson's (145) Scale
for Sexual Differentiation was used for rating both human
figures together.
115
CHAPTER VII
STATISTICAL IvIETHODS
Preliminary Considerations
Before separating the experimental and control
records and inspecting for differences between them, it
is necessary to select the most revealing statisti cal
methods. A test of the null hypothesis, rather than
estimates of the probable degree of relationship, seems
indicated because of the small number of cases , and the
probably low degree of relationship , if any , between the
behavioral criterion of overt homosexuality, t he postu lated personality variables, and the categories of projec
tive test response. Where differences in projective
test response do occur between the two groups , we seek to
determine whether these may be significant differences, or
whether they could have arisen merely by chance.
The Rorschach Method
It has proved difficult to adapt existing statis tical methods to treatment of projective tests. The
Rorschach instrument present s peculiar and bafflin prob
lems. Cronbach (30) has provided the most extensive and
116
authoritative analysis of statistical methods applied to
the Rorschach. He points out that the difficulties which
make choice of procedures a problem arise from three
causes: the skewness of Rorschach scores, the complica
tions introduced by ratio scores, and the dependence of
Rorschach scores on the total number of responses . Be cause of the skewness of the distributions and the
inequality of units for Rorscha ch scores , additive proce dures such as the mean are inappropr i ate, and the use of
counting procedures is preferable .
Chi-square is generally useful for small samples,
with the proper applic ation of corrections when cell
frequencies are ·1ow . Counting of f requencies makes no
assumptions ab out scale uni t s , and chi-square weights
equally a l l scores below or above t he cutting point. C om parison of the total number of responses of a given t ype
is unsound, s i nce the responses, many of which may be
given by the same person , ar e not independent uni t s .
Sinc e cases, not responses, are the basis of the sampl ing ,
the N used must be cases falling above or below a certain
cutting point . In selecting a cutting score , Cronbach
recommends that it represent a oint toward the center,
e . g., the median . Be cause of the extreme skewness of the
distribution in many of the categories of content s cores ,
117
where the large majority of cases may have zero scores,
the median may not always be a meaningful point of separa
tion. Inspection of the distribution of scores may indi
cate that other cutting points are preferable . However,
trying out different cutting points in order to determine
what point will yield the highest significance is bad
procedure because it may take advantage of chance fluctua
tions and because it contributes to the inflation of
probabilities. Therefore it is advisable to follow some
logical procedure, not dictated solely by fluctuations of
the data, in establishing the cutting point . In this case
we can decide beforehand to use the median as a cutting
point whenever possible, or quartile points where scores
occur only toward one extreme or the other. In those
instances where occurrence of a score is very rare, a
cutting point between the zero scores and positive scores
may be justified. What is of primary importance is that
the cutting point be set up on inspection of the distribu
tion for the total group combined, before examining the
differences in distribution of scores between the groups .
Cronbach considers the Rorschach test particularly
prone to the inflation of probabilities , because of the
large number of significance tests usually made on the
data. How many of these significant differences arise by
118
chance cannot be determined since the tests are not
experimentally independent. We can only recognize that
as the number of significance tests increase so does the
probability of chance "significant" differences, so that
the relative value of the level of significance is
diminished. Since we need to know the total number of
tests carried out and the number of hypotheses rejected
by inspection, all such procedures should be reported.
Wittenborn (160) also stresses the importance of not
discarding unsuccessful parts of the research.
In the present study, six hypotheses have been
set up concerning expected personality differences between
homosexual and heterosexual women on the projective tests.
On the Rorschach test we are looking for significant dif
ferences in six component categories and in twenty-four
subclasses of content categories. Thus far, we would be
comparing thirty predicted differences.
The possibility of curvilinear relationships
presents a complicating factor. Smith and Coleman (137)
found a curvilinear relationship between hostile content
on the Rorschach and overt hostile behavior. It is gen erally recognized that the failure of a Rorschach variable
to appear may indicate either its unimportance or the
repression of the presumed corresponding dynamic need.
119
Other studies have indicated that sometimes different
groupings of content data will yield evidence of meaning ful relationships . For instance, Weiner (159) compared
neurotic depressives and alcoholics , both presumably
'
1
oral characters," and found different distributions of
oral content in terms of oral -receptive , oral-aggressive,
and oral-neutral themes.
In the light of these considerations , it would seem
naive to postulate only direct relationships between inci
dence of Rorschach content and personality variables,
without differentiating such aspects as intensity vs .
neutrality in all categories, or without allowing for
curvilinear relationships . At the present state of our
knowledge, however, the first, preliminary step is to
establish the validity of predictions in terms of either
high or low content frequency . As Wittenborn (162:36 )
says, nif the null hypothesis cannot be rejected, the
negative statement is not necessarily true, it simply
means that the observations we have employed have failed
to challenge a negative statement of the hypothesis under
consideration.' After the predicted differences have been
subjected to tests for significance, examination of the
results and further statistical tests may suggest the
presence of curvilinear relationships , differences in a
120
direction opposite to that predicted, or that regroupin s
of content categories might yield significant results.
Such exploratory measures can suggest the methodological
changes which may be more fruitful in future studies.
One of the advantages of chi-square is that it can be used
to test for differences bet·ween groups in both nhigh" and
"lowu directions or in curvilinear versus centrally
weighted distributions.
Because of the small N' s usually used and the com
plexity of the relationships , orschach criteria have
often failed to hold up under what may be unduly rigorous
tests. Cronbach (30:408) suggests that a chi-square test
may be supplemented by a contingenc y coefficient, not to
determine significance, but to express the magnit ude of
the relationship , as a way of demonstrating whether the
relationship may warrant further investigation . Wittenborn
(162) also criticizes ignoring the strength of the trend.
He contends that it is not enough to state merely whether
there is a significant difference, but that the strength
of the trend, and whether the relationship is continuous
or discontinuous, or whether it i s a curvilinear or a
logarithmic function, should be reported . Accordingly in
the present investigation, where the results warrant it,
contingency coefficients and the nature of the distribution
121
will be reported.
Both Cronbach (30) and Wittenborn (162, 163) dis
cuss the problems involved in the use of composite scores.
As Wittenborn puts it, rrthe statistically significant
trend may be ascribable to certain component variables
only." (162:35) Essentially the same problem is encoun
tered in dealing with categories of Rorschach content.
-
As has been pointed out earlier, a general content cate-
gory, such as Dependency Orientation, is made up of many
different subclasses of content where the validity of the
relationship between the general category and the more
concrete response has not been firmly established. A
statistically significant trend may be established, but
more refined analysi s of the data reveal that one or more
of the variables included may contribute nothing or even
tend to cancel the influence of other variables which are
contributing positively. Similarly, lack of significant
differences may be seen to result from canceling out of
the differences by divergent trends. It is for this
reason that it is emphasized that differences should be
compared not only in the general categories but in the
various subclasses down t o the most concrete examples.
Otherwise , the statistical results, even though they be
significant, may not reflect the real meanin
0
of the data.
122
It is necessary to consider another problem that
arises in the use of the Rorschach; that is, the influence
of the number of res ponses in a record on the incidence of
particular scores. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that
many differences in scores between groups are dependent
upon B. (number of responses). The effect of B. upon content
scoring is obvious; frequency of any kind of content would
be expected to increase with more responses, but in addi
tion, the expectation of more fully elaborated responses,
of responses involving human activity, of original and
unusual res ponse, including sex responses, is heightened
with productivity. Where R differs for the two groups to
be compared, partialing out of differences in R becomes
mandatory . In this investigation mean E. was 27.8 for the
control group, 29.1 for the experimental roup . This is
not a significant difference. Presumably, differences in
incidence of content categories between the two groups
would not be significantly influenced by differences in
R especially as the distributions of Rare comparable .
-
However, similar considerations can well arise in
relation to other factors than total R. One can see, for
instance, that if one roup tended to gi ve significantly
more color responses than the other group , comparison for
a particular kind of color response might not be independent
123
of total CR. More pertinent to this study, if one group
is significantly freer in giving responses involving human
content they might receive higher scores for a particular
kind of human content, say, for threatening female figures.
The higher score in this kind of content might be simply a
function of higher 1f per cent. Controlling for B_ may not
in itself be sufficient. Where such overlapping of vari
ables is conceivable, the suspected variable must be
examined as well, and, if overweighted in the same direc
tion, allowance for this influence must be made or
measures for control taken before interpreting positive
results.
The meaningfulness of differences in response which
may occur between the two groups is also dependent upon
the reliability of the judgment of these responses. The
testing of the reliability of Rorschach ratings presents
serious problems to the researcher because of the time
consuming aspects of the task. It is apparently for this
reason that many such studies have been reported without
reliability ratin s (7, 125, 143, 160). Other researchers
have met economy demands by checkin reliability on only
a sample of the total records (137), or on only thos e
responses placed in a "doubtful'' category (32). "Where
reliability of content rating has been more thoroughly
124
measured (40, 54 , 164) , reliability coefficients have been
respectably high (above . 80 ).
In this study we employ a large number of Rorschach
content categories. It is recognized that the validity
of the relationships between response raw data and these
categories, and between the content categories and the
hypotheses,
•
is , for the most part, on a speculative level .
Under such circumstances many negative results would be
anticipated. To avoid much pointless labor , it was decided
to determine reliability through ratings by a second
judge only for thos e categories which appeared promising
after being rated by the first judge . With this method ,
negative findin s may be insufficiently explored , but at
least any positive findings are confirmed or rejected in
terms of the reliability of ratings .
Figure Drawing
The first response measure used on tne Figure
Drawing Performance is whether the subjects drew their
own sex first . This is a simple yes -no rating, easily
evaluated by a chi-square test of the significance of
the difference between the two groups . The other two
respons e measures, the Goodenough scoring and the Swenson
Sexual Differentiation Scale, contain more units of
measurement, permitting a wider distribution of scores,
125
so that at-test of the difference between means might be
-
employed to determine if there is a significant differ
ence between the two groups. As a more sensitive statis
tic, the !_-test is to be preferred to chi-square, but we
need to be alert to how the scores are distributed, since
the t-test assill1es that the variances within the groups
are approximately equal and that the measures are normally
distributed.
126
CHAPTER VII
RESULTS
Measures of categories of Rorschach content,
Rorschach color scores, and Figure Drawing characteris
tics provided thirty-four statistical measures for com
parison of the performance of a group of homosexual women
with a group of heterosexual women . Chi-square, or a
t-test of the difference between means , was applied to
the scores obtained to determine whether there were
sufficient differences between the two groups to warrant
rejecting the null hypothesis, thereb y confirming the
predictions that differences in res ponse would be greater
than chance. These results are summarized in Tables 3 and
4, pages 127 and 128 . Probability values above the .10
level are reported, and contingency coefficients give
further indication of the degree of relationship . Since
it could be anticipated that the presence of any percepti ble difference could be rejected on inspection for many of
the classes of response , reliability of scoring was checked
only where some trend was suggested . Those reliability
coefficients that were computed accompany the results
shown in Tables 3 and 4.
Table 3
Significance of Differences i n Rorschach Measures
between Homosexual and Heterosexual Groups
Response category
I . Dependency Ori ent at i on
Tot al Score Absolut e
% of R
.A . Supply
B. Demand
II . Hostile -Aggressive Cathexis
of Female Figures
III . Disparagement of Men
A. Disparagement of Male
Figures
B. Disparagement of Phallic
Symbols
c. Castrating Symbols
D. Castrating Verbalization
IV. Hostile - Fearful Conception
of Male Role
A. Phallic Men
B. Phallic Animals
c. Phallic Objects
D. Destructive Sex Content
v. Rejection of Feminine
Identifi cation
A1 .
Confusion in Human Sex
Identification
A2 .
Confusion in Ident ification
of Sexual Areas
B. Masculine Emphasis
c. Reference to Perversions
D. Warding- off Intrusion
E. Rejection of Conventional
Feminine Role and Status
F. Castration Emphasis
G. Sensuous F•eminine Detail
and Homoeroti c Arousal
H. Increase in Open O ral, A nal
and Sexual Imagery
VI . Limitati ons in Personal-Social
Adjustment
A. Di s t anciation in Human
Identi f icat i ons
B1.
M ood Tone in Content
(negative)
B2.
Restri ction i n Emoti onal
Response:
Sum C
Color Ratio
C1.
Humanization of A nimal
Figures
C2.
H uman-A ni mal Com binati ons
NS--N ot signi ficant
NS(I)--Not significant on i nspecti on
Difference
in expected
directi on
Yes
Y e s
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
None
None
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
,
N o
Yes
None
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Y es
Yes
Yes
Yes
None
Yes
Chi
squar e
1. 668
3.270
1.072
0. 600
13 . 416
6. 667
3.270
--
4. 320
o. 068
3. 292
0. 600
0. 600
0. 600
2.777
0. 600
11.380
3. 270
--
5.964
Proba
bility
NS
. 10
NS
NS( I)
. 01
. 05
. 10
NS fI~
NS I
. 05
NS
.10
NS ~I ~
NS I
NS I
NS
NS I
NS I
NS I
NS I
NS(I)
NS
NS (I)
. 10
N S
NS(I)
• 01
.08
N S(I)
.02
Contingency
coeffi
ci ent
. 23
. 47
. 33
. 27
.44
.23
.29
Phi
coeffi
cient
. 96
. 72
.97
. 95
128
Table 4
Significance of Differences in Fig re Drawing
Measures between Homosexual and
Heterosexual Groups
esponse measure
0ppos te Sex
Drawn First
Swenson Sexual
Differentiation
Scale
Goodenough :
Low Total Score
Low Facial
Detail Score
Difference
in expected
direction
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
NS-- Not significant
')'
X- 2 . 124
t - 1 . 765
t- 3 . 25
t - 1 . 662
NS (I)--Not significant on inspection
Proba bilit y
. 10
NS
. 01
NS
Phi
coeffi
cient
c-. 93
E-. 81
c-. 94
E-. 95
129
Hypothesis 1 , rtHomosexual women would be expected
to show a stronger Dependency Orientation than do hetero sexual women' was exp essed in the prediction that in
Rorschach content high scores in dependency (orality)
themes would occur more frequently in the homosexual group .
Subdivisions of Dependency Orientation under Supp l y (Oral Receptive Orientation ) and Demand (Oral -Aggressive Orienta tion) were expected , independently, to score higher in the
homosexual group .
ve find a few more subjects from the homosexual
group scoring above the median in Dependency Orientation-
Total Score than we do from the heterosexual group , but
the number is not enough to be significant even at the . 10
level . Since a slight trend in the expected direction as
indicated , Dependency Ori entation scores were also computed
as the percentage of total response in each individual
record , presumably a more valid method of measurement .
ith these scores , the indicated t rend emerged more
strongly, but was still significant only at the . 08 level .
This is not a high enough confidence level to justify
rejection of the null hypothesis . The tendency or homo sexuals to rate higher than the heterosexuals was even
slighter under the Supply (Oral- eceptive) subclass , and
the trend was revered , if anything, for Demand (Oral -
130
Aggressive ) s cores . Since none of the three response
measures of Dependency Orientation predicted differences
significantly better than chance , the hypothesis is not
confirmed .
Hypothesis 2, "Homosexual ·women will perceive
w omen, and relationships between women , with a hostile aggressive cathexis , which should not be so dominating in
heterosexual women" led to the prediction that projection
of intense fearf 1 and hostile affects into the female
figures perceived in the Rorschach would be more charac t eristic of the homosexual than of the heterosexual
group . Responses in this class , Hostile - Aggressive
Cathexis of Female Figures, were contributed almost
exclusively by the homosexual group . fuen rated by ano ther judge , reliabilit of judgment was high (. 96) . The
difference between the two groups is highly significant ,
above t he . 01 level , and the hypothesis is confirmed .
Hypothesis 3, "Homosexual women v..rould be expected
to show a more rejecting (disparaging and attacking )
attitude toward men than do heterosexual women , " is
expressed in a prediction that scoring of Rorschach
responses classed as Disparagement (SYP1bolic Castration)
of Men would result n higher scores in the homosexual
group . This prediction was confirmed at the . 05 level of
131
confidenc e . Reliability of the judgments of ratings was
satisfactory (. 72 ). Subclasses of this response category
were not independently discriminating except in the sub class, castr ating verbalizations , which also showed a
significant difference at the . 05 l evel of confidence .
Another subclass, disparagement of male figur es , showed a
difference i n t he expected direction whi ch was not signifi cant.
Hypothesis 4, 'Homosexual vvomen stress the aggres s i ve f eat ures of the masculine role more than do hetero sexual w omen," is tested through the prediction that more
of the homosexual women will score higher in Rors chach
content classed as Hostile - Fearful Conception of the Mascu line Role (Phallic-Aggressive Emphasis) . There is no
significant diff erence between the t wo groups in this
gener al ca t egory . However , the subclass , phallic-aggres sive men, shows a tendency in the expected dire ction ,
signifi cant a t above the . 10 level . The results do not
support this hypot hesis .
Hypothesis 5, "Homosexual ·women show more confusion
and conf li ct about sexual role , and rejection of feminine
i dent ifi ca t ion t han do heterosexual women , u led to a num ber of spe cifi c pr edictions about differences in Rorschach
content and differences in sexual differentiation in
132
Figure Drawing . None of these predictions was supported
by clearly significant differences between the two groups .
In Rorschach content an increase in open oral , anal and
sexual imagery in the homosexual records was significant
at above the .10 level. In Figure Drawing , more of the
homosexual women drew the Opposite Sex First; this differ ence was above the . 10 level of confidence . The more
important measures , as confusion in human identifications
and confusions in identification of sexual areas in
Rorschach content, and the Swenson Scale for Sexual Dif
ferentiation in Figure Drawing , were not discriminating .
The response measures used to t est this hypothesis failed
to reveal any significant differences , and the hypothesis
is not confirmed .
Hypothesis 6, "Homosexual women show more limitations
in personal-social adjustment than do heterosexual women, "
was related to several kinds of Rorschach and Figure
Drawing response presumably reflecting different aspects
of inter- and intra -personal adjustment . It was predicted
that the homosexual women would show more of a tendency to
distanciation in human identifications in Rorschach
responses . This prediction was not supported by the
results . It was predicted that more of the homosexual
women would evidence unsatisfactory emotional relationships
133
in Rorschach content in mood tone (loneliness , isolation ,
barrenness), and in r estrictio~ of color r esponse . Scores
in mood tone showed no differences between the homosexual
and heterosexual women . Scores of color response ( Sum C
and Color Ratio) did show signifi cant differences in the
expected direction, and for Sum C the differences was
highly signi ficant .
It was further predicted that difficulties in ego
integration would be revealed in Rorschach content n
humanization of animal figures and human- animal combina tions, and in the Figure Drawing in Low Goodenough scores .
Humanization of animal figures was not a discriminative
index, but human- animal combinations were more frequently
employed by homosexual women , with a difference significant
a t the .02 level . More of the homosexual women also
scored lower on the Goodenough; the significance of this
difference was better than the . 01 level .
The findin s are not consistently positive , but
we can say tentatively that the resul t s support in part
the hypothesis that homosexual women show limitations in
personal - social adjustment . More of the homosexual women
ar e restr · cted in orschach color response , prone to use
human - animal combinations in Rorschach content , and to
obtain low Goodenough scores in Figure Drawing .
134
CHAPTER IX
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATIO N OF RESULTS
Dependency Orientation
The measures of Dependency Orientation in Rors chach
content give inadequate evidence to support the predictions
of a stronger dependency orientation in homosexual women .
When all the dependency scores are taken together there
is a very slight tendenc y in the expected direction, which
is maintained to some extent when only Supply (Oral - Recep tive ) scores are considered , but is not consistent in
Demand (Oral - Aggressive ) scores . The distribution of
scores in each class is greatly skewed toward low or zero
scores . Under the Demand classification there appears to
be some difference between the two groups of women, in the
distribution of high- and low- scoring subjects. Ne find a
tendency for the scores of members of the experimental
group to spread out more toward the extremes--to compose
more of the very high or ver low scores . If we cut the
total distribution of Demand scores at a favorable point
to compare the extremes with the central grouping , we
could show that this difference probably is signifi cant at
the . 05 level . Since a procedure which may take
135
advantage of chance fluctuation is not justifiable, and
the tendency in any event is slight, there is not much
likelihood that this is a meaningful deviation . The
notation of such a com plication does direct attention to
some of the factors which affect the distribution of
Rorschach scores, and which need to be considered in the
interpretation of Rorschach research results .
Problems concerning the relation between orschach
variables and personality functioning have been mos t
extensively i nvestigated in studies of hostility (40, 54 ,
117, 124, 137) . Findings of studies in this area bear out
the interpretation of high hostility s cores as indi c a t ive
of a high level of hostile tension; whether the hostilit y
is acted out overtly is dependent on other personality
factors. However, it appear s that low hostility scores
may reflect either lack of hostility , or repression . Such
relationships seem to hold not only for hostility, but for
other drives as well .
I n this study , results in the Demand category pro
vide an instance where there is a slight t endency for more
of the homosexual women to obtain very high or very low
scores . This could mean that there is more of a problem
with hostility in this group , but the degree of self accept ance of hostility is variable (115 ). Although the
136
obtained material leaves the meanin
0
of low scores
ambiguous, and the trend is too slight in any case to
warrant such interpretation, this theoretical possibil ity must be left open .
Subclasses of Oral Content
An examination of the more specific classes of
response under Dependency Orientat ion and the images that
contribute to them give s further opportunity to evaluate
the coherenc e of the results .
It does not appear that there is any tendency for
the experimental group to a ccumulate scores in the more
directly oral response classes than in those classes which
reflect dependency needs inferre d to have an oral basis .
The weighting of responses made it easy to explore further
the continuum of "depth" a s defined by Schafer (128:149-
153) by comparing the two groups on the i ncidence of
crude, primitive , and intense oral responses. The results
were negative.
Under the subclass , Food Organs, tv1ice as many
experimental as control subject s did give responses with
particular emphasis on open mouths , tongue or throat.
Furthermore, under the subclass , Food Sources , examination
of the responses showe d that homosexual women more often
earned higher score s here by spontaneously reporting
137
breast images. Thus, images of the breast and the oral
cavity and apparatus do figure more often in the
responses of homosexual women. Since these organs are
important in the sexual practi ces of homosexual women,
such images are not, per se, evidence for any genetic
theory of oral fixation. The i ncidence of such responses
is reported in Table 5. Although the differences are
probably si nificant, occurrence of such responses is not
frequent enough to be of any individual predic t ive value .
Although differences are too small to be taken
very seriously , there is a slight tendency for more of
the homosexua l women t o score in the Supply subclasses,
Supplicants, and Nurturers and Protectors , while a reverse
tendency from that predicted appears when more of the
heterosexual women score under the subclass Oral Eroti cism .
In neither group do individuals give the more malignant
types of oral-erotic response, but the heterosexual women
more often score with such responses as baby animals
nuzzling , or people kissing . It may be more important
that such responses can reflect positive feelings about
affectional and dependency needs, t han that they be
ascribed to oral fixation . Similarly , in the kinds of
res ponses expressing dependency themes, heterosexual
women more often express posi t ive oral gratifications in
A l
Confusion
A2
Confusion
H Open Oral ,
Table 5
Compari son of Homosexua l and Heterosexual Groups
in Rorschach Sexual Response
Class of Response Content
in Sexual Ident ificat ion of Human Figure s
• • • • • •
(or Re j ection)
.
I denti f icati on of Usual Sexual Areas in
Anal or Sexual Imagery
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Response Char acteristi cs
Sexual Identification of Human Figures
1) Asexual , bl urred figure s
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
2) Reversal , al ternati on , etc.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
3)
Disturbance , bizarre re sponse
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
N o confusion in Human Fi gure Sexual Identi f i cation
N o confusion in Ident i f i cat i on of Sexual Areas ..
Identifi cat i on of Sexual Areas
• •
• •
• • • • • •
• • • • • •
Card II, fema l e i n l ower center d :
Card II, male in upper center d :
Card I V, femal e in upper center d :
Card VI, mal e i n upper center d :
Cor rect
Incorrect
Cor rect
Incorrec t
Cor rect
I ncorrec t
Correct
Incorr ect
• • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • •
Card VII, fema l e in l ower center d: Correct .....••.•
Incorrect
• • • • • • • •
O pen Sexual Imagery
Oral Imagery
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Anal Imagery .
• • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Sexual Imagery •.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Male Sexual Organs . . • • • • . . • • • .
• • • • • • • •
Female Sexual Organs.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Female Breasts
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
No. of casesa
E
17
15
17
14
14
8
4
1 2
23
2
18
5
24
4
25
7
22
1
10
4
10
5
8
4
C
13
18
3b
13
15
8
6
21
3
21
9
19
4
23
4
22
0
11
3
4
2
2
0
aFor A1 and A2 number of cases expresses the number falling above the median;
otherwise it refers to the number of cases that obtained scores for this characteristic.
bsignificant at above the .10 level.
csignificant at above the .05 level.
139
images of babies nursing or animals eating , while many
more homosexual women express dependency yearnings which
are not being gratified as in seeing pitiful figures ,
animals begging , and , especially, images of "reaching" for
something . The Deprivation class of response is not sensi t ive to this kind of difference . On the contrary , we find
the heterosexual women more often scoring here because of
more frequent use of such symbols as skulls , bones , and
skeletons , which may not truly reflect deprivation feel ings .
In interpreting the nature of oral images as they
occur in these two group s of women , we must consider the
differences in life experiences . The heterosexual women
have the security of marriage and a home, and are involved
in the nurturing of young children , in whose dependency
experiences they partici ate . Feminine psychology has
been so neglected that we have little material on personal
ity changes as an erfect of bearing and rearing children.
e might expect that women actively engaged in this phase
of their life cycle would be preoccupied with oral and
dependency themes . The i m pression obtained from the
Rorschach responses is n ot so much of stron
6
er oral fixa
tion i n one group than the other , as of a more ac cept ing
and pos tive expression of dependency gratification on the
140
part of the heterosexual women , while the homosexual
women more often express unsatisfied dependency yearnings .
The psycLoanalyti c generalization that homosexual
women function on a regressed oral level is not supported
by this analysis of oral content in the Rorschach. No t
only do scores on a compilation of dependency themes fail
to discriminate signi ficantl y between homosexual and hetero sexual women , but various measures of the extent and depth
of more directly oral preoccupations do not uncover any
distinct·ve differences . Positive evidence for the psycho
analytic emphasis of oral - sadistic fixation in female homo sexuality i s lacking . In the Demand category , whi ch is
pr imarily although not purely a measure of oral hostility ,
a tendency to deviate to the extremes in scores could be
suspected. Considerations pertinent to the relations
between personality and hostile content point up the
possibility that repression might operate to complicate
the findin So riore definitive research is needed in this
area.
Although homosexual women did not seem to express
dependency needs in more open oral responses t han did the
heterosexual women , analysis of the responses su gest that
a difference might exist on a positive -negative continuum .
The class i fications used here are not sensitive to such
141
differences. It is suggested that a measure of oral and
dependency themes in Rorschach content in terms of expres
sion of gratific ation versus unsatisfied need might be
rewarding .
Hostile-Aggressive Cathexis of Female Figures
At least half of the homosexual group gave scorable
res onses in this area in contrast to the very rare appear ance of such responses in the records of heterosexual
women . The possibility that this difference might be a
derivative of higher human response content is remote ,
since there is no significant difference in R for the two
groups . Nevertheless we could investigate li per cent and
n1, unber of N for the two groups (see Table 6). These were
compared without finding any significant differences .
The more frequent perception of female figures as aggres
sive or frightening can also e compared with similar
perceptions of male fi gures to see whether this is a
reflection of generalized hostility, or whether it has a
more specific application to feelings about women . A
similar category for male fi gures has been scored under
Phallic - Aggressive Men , where no significant difference
was found between the responses of homosexual and of
heterosexual women . It is evident that while almost as
Table 6
Comparison of H omosexual and Heterosexual
Groups on Some Rors chach Formal Scor es
R
M
Fc+c
Sum C
Homo
sexual
29.17
5. 6
4.3
1. 08
21. 5
Mean
NS--Not significant
Hetero sexual
27 . 87
4. 1
3. 7
3 . 05
21 . 4
NS(I)--Not significant on inspection
Chi
square
0. 612
0. 068
0 . 000
13. 360
1. 067
142
Proba bility
NS
NS
NS
. 01
NS
143
many heterosexual as homosexual women perceive aggressive
and/or frightening male figures , such perception of
feminine figures is very unusual for them . The differ
ential condition for female homosexuality appears to be
the association of feminine action and interaction with
hostility and aggression .
Perception of aggressive feminine figures can be
interpreted as identification with an aggressive role .
Illustrating the actual nature of these responses may give
a more meaningful picture . The most frequent type of
response involves hostile interaction between women , as:
"Fighting femalesn; nwitches throwing a curse on one
another"j nTwo women arguing , each trying to outdo the
other"; ·while the next most frequent expresses fear, as:
"A frightening woman, reminds me of my mother; perhaps she
fri ghtened me by her absence"; nA strange woman ' s face ,
Oriental-looking; the eyes frighten me . " Heterosexual
women may perceive female figures as dominating, or in
critical or disparaging ways , but practically never are
their perceptions of women imbued with active hostility
and fear. Outside of this area, we have not found such
marked differences in expression of hostility between the
two groups . Such fantasies not only imply an aggressive
self-concept, but that interrelations with women are
144
laden with hostility and fear .
This category , Hostile-Aggressive Cathexis of
Female Figures, like the Demand category, was deduced from
the psychoanalytic theory that homosexual women have had
a deprived and hostile relation to the mother in early
life. Psychoanalytic theory pr~dicts that the residue of
infantile feelings for the mother is currently active in
female homosexuality, but that guilt and anxiet y motivate
choice of a homosexual love object as a denial of such
feelings. We have already considered in relation to oral aggressive impulses that denial might rest on such deep
repression as to result in extreme avoidance of aggressive
responses in Rorschach content. ether or not such opera-
tions are affecting oral-aggressi ve i mpulses, they are not
readily apparent as restricting hostility in human inter action. There is no differenc e between the homosexual
and heterosexual groups in complete avoidance of percep tion of feminine figures, but there is clearly a differ
ence in whether feminine figures are interpreted as
threatening or actively aggressive . To conclude that such
perceptions are an end result of an oral-sadistic tie to
the mother goes beyond the evidence . We mightspeculate
that the more directly the hostility of women, and between
women, is perceived , the more likely i t is , not only that
145
hostile conflict with important female figures have been
important in the life experience of the individual, but
that such conflict has been on a conscious levelo A study
by Murstein (117) suggests that, under ordinary conditions,
there is a relationship, in hostile subjects, between
insight and strong projection of hostility in Rorschach
content. Expression of hostility in human figure
responses, rather than in primitive oral-aggressive con
cepts, might mean that, if such affects stem from early
conflicts, they are expressed in more mature, reality
oriented derivatives rather than experienced on an archaic,
primitive level.
The reliable and highly significant deviation in
this category of Rorschach response warrants some degree
of generalization about homosexual women as a group. A
more hostile conception cf feminine action and interaction
does seem to be a common characteristic. Interpretation
must be limited at this point , but a promising area for
more intensive research into individual relationships has
been defined.
Disparagement of Men
The rejection of men as love objects by homosexual
women is often buttressed, in their own reports, by
146
expressions of aversion, repulsion, and contempt for
men. Some theorists have considered such attitudes rela
tively superficial, serving primarily as a defense against
heterosexual temptation and/or as a rationalization for
homosexual preference . Others have associated variation
in the strength of such feelings with different types of
female homosexuality . One development of psychoanalytic
theory considers the desire for revenge against men as the
primary motivating force i n determining female homosexual
ity. Such a desire for revenge would be expected to
express itself in Rorschach content in a need to belittle
and attack masculine figures and symbols.
The distribution of scores under the general cate
gory, Disparagement of M en, did pr ovide some support for
the prediction that dispara
0
ing and attacking attitude s
toward men would be stronger in the homosexual group .
l tJhen perception of male fi gures is considered independent
l y , this tendenc y was not pronounced enough to attain the
.05 level of significance . Comments, not responses, in
regard to m ale figures and symbols also contributed
positively to the general category . Such verbalizations
of the homosexual women were significantly more often
couched in attacking or disparaging terms, but occurred
infrequently (in l ess than one-third of the homosexual
147
group). Interpretations of male and female sex symbols
were scored for expression of disparaging or castrating
imp11lses but did not discriminate between the two groups.
If we study the responses to male figures scored
as disparaging we see that quite a few heterosexual women
refer to men as inadequate or comical, but rarely with
strong affect. Not only are disparaging responses given
more often by homosexual women, but with stronger expres
sion, and sometimes with marked ambivalence--that is, a
prestige figure is attacked and derided. Interpretation
of phallic symbols did not show any consistent differences,
perhaps because discomfort in dealing with sexual symbols
in both groups produces ambiguous results. The
0
castrat
ing1' verbalizations which are more typical of the homo
sexual group amplify the evidence that more hostility is
stirred up in the homosexual women in response to mascu
line symbols. Hostile feelings find outlet in such
expression as: "Chop this off here"; "Cut them off at
the legs"; and more directly, "If you ta. ke off this penis ,
the card looks better."
Symbols of castrating impulses, such as: "Two
animals gnawing on a piece of wood" or "vagina dentata
11
responses are comparatively infrequent in these records,
but it is clear that they are as likely to be produced by
148
the heterosexual as by the homosexual women .
This category might have been more discriminating
if the classes of response which were not discriminating
were dropped. As it is, the statistical results suggest
that there probably is a significant difference between
the two groups , with the homosexual group showing more
rejection of men. The intensity of affect, and the strong
ambivalence, often expressed toward men by the homosexual
women suggests that at least some of the group have had
~
traumatic experiences in their relations to men.
Hostile-Fearful Conception of the Masculine Role
The predictions that a phallic-aggressive emphasis
would more frequentl y be pronounced in the Rorschach
records of homosexual than of heterosexual women were not
borne out by the results . There is a slight tendency for
more of the homosexual women to interpret masculine
figures as phallic-aggressiveo This is not sufficient to
be considered a significant difference . It is further
mitigated by the slight tendency , also not statistically
significant, for homosexual women to give more human
response content. There is little difference apparent in
the other areas examined, i . e. Phallic Animals, Phallic
Symbols, or Sexual esponses with Destructive Content .
149
What should be noted here is that perception of men or of
animal figures as phallic-aggressive is not infrequent in
the homosexual group , since both occur in more than half
of the records, but that such perceptions also occur
quite often in the heterosexual group . Apparently many
heterosexual women also conceive of masculine figures as
threatening and overpowering without this precluding
heterosexual object choice.
Homosexual women often forcibly express fear or
aversion to sexual domination by men . Sometimes this is
ascribed to frightening experiences in the past, perhaps
specifically early sexual aggression, but some psycho
analysts have interpreted it as a consequence of the
projection of their own aggressive drives . Whatever the
individual dynamics involved, the expected result would
be the projection in the Rorschach material of an exag gerated concept of the aggressive and threatening quali ties of masculinity . The results obtained here do not
deny that such conceptions exist , but merely that they
do not appear to be a differentiating feature in the
acceptance of a homosexual or a heterosexual way of life .
150
Rej ecti on of Feminine Identifi cation
Under this category many different classes of
Rorschach content and several ratings of performance on
the Figure Drawing test were examined . These response
measures appeared too diversified t o yield a meaningful
total score in t his area ; moreover , some of t he clas ses
of responses ar e of special importance in themsel ves as
generally accept ed criteria for judging sex identificat ion .
Therefore, t he subdivisions of this category wil l be di s
cussed i ndependent ly .
Rorschach Response
Confus i on in Human Sex I dentifi cat ion whi ch has
been considere d in sever al previous investigat i ons of
male homosexuality as indicat ive of homosexuality, di d
not hol d up as a means of dis criminating be t w een hom o sexual and heterosexual w omen in this s t udy . Responses
were weighte d for the degree of disturbance concerni ng
sexual i denti ic at ion of the human figures seen in the
Rorschach car ds . Scores of one point , whi ch were given
for asexua l and blurred figures , and scor es of t wo
points, w hi ch were given for reversals , alternation ,
uncertainty , and identification of symmetrical figur es
as male and female , occurred in approximately half the rec
ords of both groups . Only the score of three point s ,
151
given for bizarre sex responses, persistent refusal to
identify the sex of any figure, or marked subjective
disturbance over uncertainty of identification was dis criminating . This difference was significant at the . 05
level. The two subjects in the heterosexual group who
scored at all at this level did so with borderline
responses, which would accentuate the significance of the
more disturbed responses given by the homosexual women .
However , such disturbed response cannot be considered
generally characteristic of homosexual women , nor are
they of much diagnostic value , since they were given by
less than one-third of the homosexual group .
The inability to find differences between the two
groups in sexual identification of human fi gures can
also be demonstrated by comparing responses to some of
the commonly perceived human fi gures . The popular figures
in Card III were identified as men either in the Perform ance Proper or the Inquiry by fifteen of the heterosexual
women and eleven of the homosexual women . The central
figure in Card I, and t he figures in Card VII (seen in
either direction) , were more frequently called feminine
in both groups; their perception as masculine, though
rarer, did not occur more frequently in one group than in
the other. The large figure in Card IV, when seen, was
152
identified as masculine except by one member of the homo
sexual group .
The next class of response, Confusion in Identifi
cation of Sexual Areas, did not discriminate between the
two groups. The results, shown in Table 5, page 138,
were analyzed in several ways . The responses of homo sexual and heterosexual women showed no significant dif ferences in correct identification of the usual sexual
areas (whether given spontaneously in the Performance
Proper or Inquiry , or in Testing the Limits), or in either
actual confusions or inability to perceive the usual sex
responses . Pascal's norms (119) were used as the standard,
and were confirmed by our results which showed the major ity in both groups r e sponding in the expected manner . The
usual assumption is that deviations from the normal mode
of response indicate deviations in sexual adjustmento
Pascal and Herzberg (118) were able to demonstrate that
pedophiliacs and homosexuals gave more deviant responses
than do either controls or rapists in Testing the Limits
for sex response. Pascal cautions against generalization
from this study of male prison inmates until more diver sified populat ion samples have been studied . This caution
should be heeded, since it is evident in this comparison
of homosexual and heterosexual women that deviation in
identifying sexual areas is not a meaningful index of
sexual deviation.
153
Other classe s of content examined : Masculine
Emphasis; Reference t o Perversions; Warding-off Intrusion;
Rejection of Conventional Feminine Role and Status;
Sensuous Attention to Feminine Detail and Homoerot ic
Arousal; and Castration Emphasis , revealed no significant
trends in either direction .
One class of response , Increase in Crude Oral ,
Anal, and Sexual Imagery showed a difference at better
than the .10 level of confidenceo It has been frequently
reported that various groups with sexual problems give
more frequent and open sex responses . Higher incidences
of sex responses reflecting the parti cular sex practices
or sex object preferred have also been noted (39, 118) .
In this study t he differences between the two groups
occurred in the area of Sexual Imagery , since there were
no signifi cant differences in Oral or in Anal Imagery .
These frequencies are reported in Table 6, page 142 . We
find that one -third of t he homosexual group do give open
sexual response s while only one - fifth of the control
subjects do so . Perception of female sex organs,
especia~ly, is higher in the homosexual group . Only a
minority of homosaxual w omen give such responseQ, but they
154
are extremely rare in the control group . We see here that
female homosexuals are more likely to perceive breast and
femal e sex organs, and we recall the higher incidence of
open mout h , throat and tongue responses . The different
direction of sexual aim and object may account for these
images occurring more frequently in the homosexual group.
Figure Drawing Perform~nce
Under the category of Re jection of Feminine Identi ficat i on, Figure -Drawing performance should also be
evaluated. It was expected that more members of the
heterosexual group , presumably with a more definite
identification with their own sex, would draw their own
sex fi r st . e find that twenty-two (73 per cent) of the
heterosexual women and sixteen (53 per cent) of the homo sexual group drew their own sex first . Thi s difference is
signific ant only at the . 10 level . Although the percent
age is lower for the homosexual group , more than half of
that group also draw their own sex first .
As another measure of confusion in sexual identi
fication, Swenson's Sexual Differentiation Scale was applied
to the drawings of the subjects of four raters . Reliabil i t y of rat i.ng is high, particularly for t he control group .
Oc currence of more at ypical drawings in the homosexual
group seemed t o cause more problems , and therefore more
155
divergence in ratings , but reliability was still respect ably high in this group . Variances in scores was not
sufficient to discredit the t-test . Using the average of
the combined ratings a ,i-test of the difference between
means for the t wo groups did not show a significant dif ference. There is a tendency for the very low scores to
be assigned primarily to the homosexual group. Although a
few more in the homosexual group make drawings which are
very atypical or difficult to different iate as to sex, the
majority could not be distinguished by such a scale .
The problems encountered in rating were enlighten ing, however. The raters had difficulty in rating sets of
drawings where one of the two drawings showed good sex
differentiation, while the other did not . At the same
time that the Swenson r atings were done , the author clas
sified the drawing s on some other pertinent characteris tics. The observed differences between t he two groups
may be suggestive of response measures which could be
profitably used in research .
One member of the homosexual group drew a complete
ly masculine f igure which was called a woman , while for a
man she drew an undifferentiated s t ick figure . Such an
extreme deviation in sex role representation is most
remarkable . Ei ht of the sets of drawin s were notable in
156
that the man drawn looks extremely masculine but the
woman is also depicted as masculine. Four of the sets of
drawings were outstanding because of the excellent sex
differentiation of the female figure, while the male
figure looks like a woman in men's clothing. Such draw
ings were difficult to rate on the Swenson Scale because
credit had to be given for the excellent sex differentiat:ion
of one figure, while the opposite sex fi gure showed at
least the conventional sex differences despite the general,
inappropriate, masculinization or feminization of the
figure. Rating s of such drawing s therefore di verged
toward the mean and covered up these differences. These
unusual types of drawings were m ade exclusively by the
homosexual women.
Drawings where sex role di s t inctions are somewhat
blurred, because of oversimplifi ca t i on, or some over
lapping of masc uline and fem i nine characteristics, were
as likely to occur in one group a s the other. In fact,
they were characteristi c of at least one-third of the
married women. Such indi cat i ons of rol e diffusion, i f
such we cons i der them, are ap arently not parti cularly
meaningf ul of de vi ant object choi ce .
Part of the di ffi culty i n making j udgments of
fi gure dr awi n s i s t he lac of normat ive dat a , particul ar ly
157
for women. From this sample of married women we find many
inadequate and simple drawings with little detail and
therefore minimal sex differentiation. Quite often the
figures look immature in relation to the age of the sub
jects, and particularly is this true for the male figure.
Although some women did obtain high scores on feminine
differentiation, these were not drawings of the extremely
narcissistic, overelaborate type . We have noted that,
according to Fisher and Fisher (56 ), women with better
sexual adjustment did not make excessively feminized -
figures of a narcissistic t ype . In the heterosexual
group the predominant tendenc y seems to be to make a
better drawing of a woman than of a man , with better
sexual differentiation, and to repre s ent the male as
relatively immature and passive . Swenson (147) has
reported for women i n outpat ient cli nic roups that those
who draw feminine females differentiate the sexes better
than do men who draw masculine males, but they tend to
render the male fi gure in a l es s masc uline manner than
men do. This coincides with the impression from the
drawings of this group of women, who generally dis t inguish
conventionally between the sexes in their drawin s, are
successful in making the female drawing feminine, but
feminiz e somewhat their drawings of men . We may find that
158
this is "typical" of conventionally adjusting women in
our culture.
Other differences noted were that nude figures
and obviously uncompleted figures were more frequent among
the drawings of homosexuals . It is true that obviously
disturbed drawin
0
s were not uncommon in the control group .
For instance, some figures with only the cutline drawn or
other atypical methods of representation were encountered
in the control group . Drawin s of children were also
made more frequently by the heterosexual women.
These observations suggest that differences do
exist in the drawings of the two groups , but these dif ferences are difficult to measure in jud ments of the
degree of sexual differentiation of both figures . The
significance of the suggested deviat:ons needs to be
verified in other studies . One possibility is that the
results of gross group comparisons between homosexual and
heterosexual ·women on sexual differenti at ion are blurred
by t he operation of other variables such as degree of
disturbance in the self concept , and the sex role prefer ence of homosexual women . Individual relations between
drawings and clinical material is often very strikin .
The only homosexual woman who drew a completely masculine
figure and identified it as female is the only one who
159
really accepts a delusional fantasy of physiologi cal sex
changes in herself as responsible for her homosexuality .
Another woman, who did not deny the real i t y of her sex ,
had lived in fantas y as a jungle boy like Tarzan and had
prayed and expected to change into a boy . She drew first
an excellent masculine drawing of Tarzan, and secondly she
drew a very feminine versi on of Jane, in the explorer's
clothing appropriate for her. The homosexual woman whose
feminine identification is most convincing clinically drew
a very feminine woman, but a man indistinguishable from a
woman except for the indication of trousers . Such examples
could be multiplied to illustrate individual relations
between drawings and the self concept, and the variations
which make group comparisons difficult. This does not
deny that in most instances i t is impossible at present t o
recognize through drawings overt homosexuality in women .
Summary
In summarizing the group comparisons of homosexual
and heterosexual women on deviation in sexual identifi ca tion as revealed in projective tests, we can only conclude
that the usual diagnostic criteria are not substantiated
by objective results . Therefore, the predictions about
rejection of feminine ident ification and confusion in
sexual ident ification were not confirmed. Consistent for
160
both Rorschach and Figure Drawing measures of sexual
identification of human figures was the finding that homo
sexual women contributed more often to the very disturbed
responses in this dimension. Such disturbed res ponse is
characteristic of only a minority of the homosexual women-
a somewhat larger minority than in the heterosexual group ,
it is true--but the majority showed the same range of
variation as the heterosexuals in measures of sexual
differentiation.
Like other sexually disturbed and deviant groups,
a few more individuals give open sexua l responses, and
responses related to the different direction and mode of
their sexual interest as in perceptions of female sex
organs, breasts and the oral apparatus. The absolute and
the relative frequency of s uch responses are too low to
be of individual predictive value.
Only severe objective or subjective disturbance
about sex identification of Rorschach human fi gures would
merit suspicion of overt homosexuality in women. Some
observed deviations in fi gure drawing show promise of
discrimination of homosexual patterns, but require
further verification. Certainly there i s n o consistent
relation between overt homosexuality and deviation in the
sexual differentiation of human fi gure drawings. While
161
strong masculinization of both male and female drawings
may occur somewhat more frequently in the homosexual group,
concepts of sex role among female homosexuals appear to
be quite heterogeneous .
Analysis of projective test performance of the
heterosexual women indicates that they do not accentuate
the differences between male and female in Rorschach
and figure drawing performance to the extent that would be
generally assumed. Outside of this study we know little
about how women well-adjusted to their sex role in our
culture express this in projective test performance.
Failure to maintain pronounced and clear-cut distinctions
index role may be a reflection of sex role diffusion in
our contemporary culture .
Limitations in Personal-Social Adjustment
Scattered finding s and reflections on homosexual
ity i n the literature suggest that homosexuality may
accompany disturbance in the development of the self concept and j_ n capacity to relate to others . A definitive
analysis of so com plex an area is beyond the scope of this
research, but the opportunity of examining some potentially
meaningful relations through projective test performance
was intri uin.
162
Ror schach Variab l es Rela t ed to Personal - Social Ad j ustment
It ha s been hypothesized that Distanci~tion in
Human Identi f i cations is relat ed to inability to accept
and identify closely wi t h other peopl e (although lack of
self-accept anc e may be the more fundamental problem) .
There were no signi f i cant differences between the two
groups in this ca t egory of response . Fantasy figures,
culturally remote figures, and hooded and masked figures
were commonly used in both groups . Hooded and masked
fi gure s can be int erpreted as indicating attitudes of
concealment and distrust , suggestive of paranoid feelings .
Such res ponses , along with similar content such as
isolated masks and isolated eyes, were no more common in
the homosexual roup .
The attempt to measure unsatisfactory emotional
rela t ionships through mood tone , as reflected in content
suggesti ng feelings of loneliness and barrenness , revealed
no si gni f i cant trends . However, the measures of color
res ponse reve al a freer reactivity in the heterosexual
women. I f Sum C ls less than three there seems too little
re sponsiveness to influences from the environment . Table
6 , page 142 , shows that the mean Sum C of the heterosexual
group ts 3. 05 , and of the homosexual group 1. 08 . Chi
square for the distribution of Sum C scores showed a
163
di f ference between the two groups which was highly
signifi cant . Since Color Ratio is another means of
measuring essentially the same phenomena one would
expe ct results to be similar . Strangely , the level of
confidence for a difference in Color Ratio was only . 08 .
Examination of the distribution for Color Rat io does
reveal marked differences at the extremes, where the
homosexual women score much lower , but the middle half
of the distribution tends to nullify the differences . If
another chi - square test is applied , measuring combined
differences in the first and fourth quartiles versus the
middle half of the distribution , the difference is signifi cant at better than the . 01 level (X
2
= 8. 07) .
That low Sum C scores are characteristic of the
homosexual group but not of the control is perhaps best
indi cated by this comparison: two -thirds of the homo
sexual group have Sum C scores of less than 2 . 0, while
only 7 out of the heterosexual group scored this low . If
we accept the relation between col or response and emotional
r e activity, the obvious interpretation of such emotional
restriction would be that it represents a prot ective with drawal because of previous unhappy emotional experiences .
We need to take into account other Rorschach variables .
Since and Mare relatively higher in the homosexual group ,
- -
164
the records are not generally less expressive. There is
no significant difference in such shading scores as Fc+c
between the heterosexual and homosexual records. For the
homosexual group a mean Fc+c of 4.5 in relation to the
mean Sum C of 1 .08 certainly suggests that achromatic
responses predominate over chromatic responses, although
these ratios have not been worked out on an individual
basis, and tested for significance. The Rorschach inter
pretative hypothesis for such a situation is: "Where the
achromatic responses outnumber the chromatic responses by
two to one, the person's responsiveness to outside stimu
lation has been interfered with by some kind of traumatic
experience and withdrawal has resulted.'' (3:293) The
implication is that the need for affection and response
from others is strong , but that previous rejections have
led to an overt overcautiousness in emotional contacts.
The argument could be advanced that emotional
cautiousness res ults from the particular problems homo
sexuals must encounter in facing social disapproval and
i n maintaining permanent love relationships . However,
thus far, studies of male homosexuals have indicated no
greater degree of emotional restraint, ye t male homo
sexuals bear t he brunt of society ' s disapproval and their
love relationshi p s are even more likely to be fleeting .
165
Another possibility, in view of the stereotyped associa tion of emotionality with femininity, is that inhibition
of overt emotionality could reflect rejection of
femininity and emulation of masculine patterns .
The natural tendency would be to ascribe the over
cautiousness in emotional contacts to the effect of
unsatisfactory early relationships w i th the parents .
This interpretation can only be suggested very tentatively,
since the results of this study cannot provide sufficient
evidence for such genetic reconstructions.
In relation to ego integration, the class of
response which did show a significant difference (.02)
between the homosexual and heterosexual roups was Human-
Animal Combinations . Responses combining human and animal
parts in the same percept were given by over one-third of
the homosexual group. Such responses were not only rare
in the control group but were more conventional . Comments
that human figures in Card III have a "bird's head" or
"bird beak" have less personal meaning because they are
common ones. In contrast, responses from the experimental
group were more unusual, and therefore more personally
determined, such as nA man with the face of a dog," "Part
woman, part-rabbit, with a poodle body," and "an acrobat
with a dragon head.'' vJe are reminded by the instances of
166
unusual male-female combinations in one percept, which
also occurred occasionally in the experimental group .
Since such combinations do not occur i n reality, their
acceptance as Rorschach percepts takes liberties with
reality and implies some degree of submission to autistic
processes. The question arises whether we are seeing here
one indication of generalized thinking disorder, or
whether such responses occur because of s ome s pecific
significance.
Watkins and Stauffacher (157) have devised an
Index of Pathological Thinking for the Rorschach, which
has been cross- validated in r esearch by Power and Hamlin
(122). Since it seemed necess ar y to the interpretation of
the finding s to have some idea of the comparative degree
of pathological thi nking in both groups, the author under
took to judge the Rorschach content w i th this Index.* In
each of the fifteen categories it was obvious on inspec
tion that neither group scored significantly more than
the other, so t hat this effort was not pursued f urther.
*It should be made clear that total patholo ical
index was not computed or compared for the two groups;
such an inquiry would be worthwhile to determine whether
there are more disturbed individuals in one group than
the other, but was not germane to the point under dj_scus
sion here.
167
It was clear t hat in no single category did the homosexual
group exceed t he heterosexual group to the extent found
under Human-Animal Combinations. Therefore, this type of
response may have a particularly meaningful relation t o
homosexual conflict . What really seems to happen is that
incongruous combinations are not rejected , even though the
incongruity is recognized , because of some strong convic
tion of the emotional validity of the symbol . However ,
reality principles are not necessarily overthrown , since
che irrational element s can be excused in some fashion .
Wal t er Klopf er (100) interprets the use of fantasy
and culturally distant figures , of humanized animals , and
of part-animal figures as a means of expressing impulses
in a manner that is somewhat removed from the self . In
this study the homosexual group showed no significant
preference for such distanciated responses as remote and
unreal fi gures or humanized animals, as they did for
human-animal combinat ions . ith the former t ypes of
response, the subject can maintain a rather detached and
distant attitude toward wish activity that i s not full y
acceptable to t he self, and thus avoid conflict . Such
usage may reflec t a more benign , stable , and successful
defense. On t he interpr etation of defenses , Schafer
(130 :181 ) wri t es :
With defenses working well and adaptability
not highly restricted, the patient will more or
less successfully rationalize or weed out the
frequent, almost inevitable ... incongruous
elements of his images ... .
Poor integratedness of the elements of an
image often involves expression of the defense
on one hand and the defended against on the
other in a way that might be characterized as
a •returning of the repressed ' and a failure of
adaptation. (130:1 81)
168
Human-animal and male - female combinations in one percept
seem to be such an instance of poor integration of image
components . Such responses reflect defense instability
in permitting the intrusion of conflicting elements at
the expense of logic and consistency. The inability to
ma~ntain internally consistent human images suggests that
disharmony within the self is a conscious experience , a
condition that may be associated with an uncertain sense
of ego identity .
Figure-Drawing Performance in Relation to Personal
Social Adjustment
The Goodenough score on the Figure Drawing test
was employed in this study as presumably having a relation
to the variable of ego integration as a measure of a
realistic and integrated self concept . The reliability of
the judges' scorin
0
was high (.95 for the homosexual and
.94 for the heterosex~al group) . The F-test applied to
169
the data showed that the samples were not homogeneous.
For both raters the variance in scores for the homosexual
group is significantly larger than that for the control
group. The t-test assumes homogeneous variances in the
-
two samples. However, using the larger of the two sample
variances as the best estimate of the population variance
gives a very conservative test of the difference between
the two means. The t-test based on the larger population
variance is 3.25 (with the smaller variance the results
would be 4. 85) , which is significant a t the .01 level.
This measure should be satisfactory since i t is , if any thing , an underestimate of the difference between the
two groups .
Scores on Facial Detail alone , in which low scores
were interpreted by Fiedler and Siegel (51) to indicate
evasion of interpersonal relations, were not significantly
lower in the homosexual group.
The distribution of scores in the two groups tells
us that scores in the homosexual group scatter more
toward the extremes ; that is, a few more homosexual women
attain high scores for excellent representations of the
human figure, and considerably more contribute to the low
end of the scale. (In the group that have Goodenough
scores below 20 are two controls and 10 homosexuals.)
170
In discussing the characteristics of drawings under
Sexual Differentiation, the higher incidence of incomplete
drawings was mentioned. Such drawings would score low.
The inability to finish figures may reflect most directly
an acute anxiety concerning the body image: conflict
which is too disruptive to permit formation of an internal
ly clear, complete, consistent self image. In fact, poor
figure-drawing performance may reflect the same difficulty
that underlies combinations of male-female and human
animal percepts.
Excessive conflict expressed in figure drawing and
in use of human-animal combinations in the Rorschach are
often taken as indications of conflict in sexual identity .
It is interesting that in this investi atian the more
direct indices of difficulti~s in sexual identification in
the Rorschach and in the Figure Drawing test did not dif
ferentiate between the homosexual and heterosexual groups
as successfull as did the measures of a general kind of
difficulty in ego integration. These deviations may have
a broader base than doubts about sexual identity alone .
The indications obtained in t his study of difficul ties in ego integration in the homosexual women might be
associated with the lack of or breakdown of ego identity .
Freud (60) and Helene Deutsch (35 ) have both em phasized
171
that adolescence is the "turning point" when the pre dominance of homosexual or heterosexual goals is deter
mined. Erikson (132) emphasizes that the principal task
of the integrative process in adolescence is the formation
of ego identi t~y along lines which. will reconcile various
identities, harmonize various conflictful areas, and
achieve a sense of belonging in society. Doubts about
sexual identity would hamper the formation of ego identity ,
and weaken the confidence on which it rests . Moreover , the
homosexual may have approached adolescence with more
conflict-laden past identifications , a feeling of differ
ence from others, and handicaps in fitting into the roles
provided by society .
Difficulties in the integration of diverse and
ambivalent identi f i cati ons or in the alignment of basic
drives with ego aims , or in the inability to relate oneself
to society, may contribute to a homosexual outcome. When
a homosexual identity is accepted as the best solution ,
difficulties in ego identity are to be expected since the
individual ' s own identification and concept of role are
not consonant with the role provided by society . It is
difficult to m a i ntain a f irm sense of ego identity without
social support . An ego identity which is weak and incon
sistent cannot act as a successful safeguard against
172
childhood conflicts and yields to regressive reactions.
The indications obtained in this study of difficulties
in ego integration in the homosexual women might be asso
ciated with the lack of or breakdown of ego identity .
Summary
The hypothesis that homosexual women would show
more evidence of limitations in personal-social adjustment
led to certain predictions about Rorschach and Figure
Drawing performanc e which have been supported in part .
The markedly reduced color reactivity of the homosexual
Rorschach records in comparison with greater color
responsiveness in the heterosexual records would be
interpreted as evidence of reduced emotional responsive ness in relationships with others . The more frequent use
of human-animal combinations in the Rorschach responses
and the higher incidence of inferior drawin s of the human
figure in the homosexual group suggest that difficulties
in ego integration (expressed in a poorly integrated
self concept or weak ego identity) may be more often
associated with homosexuality than with heterosexuality
in women .
173
CHAPTER X
IMPLICATIONS OF PRESENT STUDY
The personality variables selected for exploration
in this study were primarily derived from psychoanalytic
theory, and the finding s should have some implications in
relation to psychoanalytic concepts of female homosexual
ity. Psychoanalysis asserts that homosexual women function
on a regressed oral level, and particular emphasis is
placed on oral-sadistic fixation as the fundamental char
acteristic of homosexual women . Examination of Rorschach
content does not produce convincing evidence that homo
sexual women are more preoccupie with orality and with
dependency needs than are heterosexual women . Those
slight and ambiguous differences which appear among the
various measures of Dependency Orientation might indicate
that this area is worthy of further scrutiny . Comparative
analyses of oral and de pendency images in the Rorschach
material suggest that in the homosexual group more individ uals give expression to unsatisfied de pendency needs in
contrast to the more positive express i on of oral and
dependency gratifi cations in the heterosexual roup . If
homosexual women are more likely to be dominated by
174
unsatisfied cravings, we do not know whether this is a
reflection of realistic difficulties in obtainin
0
adequate
gratification and affectional security as a homosexual or
whether it originates in frustrations in early relation
ships.
Further study might also clarify the operation of
oral-aggressive components, but at the mo . ent it seems
unlikely that clear-cut differences in oral-sadistic fixa
tion could exist without some more definite trends appear ing in the search of this area .
If oral regression is a significant differential
condition for female homosexuality, Rorschach records
sh·')uld be overrun with images pertaining to primitive oral
impulses and conflicts . In this study , "deep oral themes
clearly do not characterize more of the homosexual records.
A dominating interpretation in the psychoanalytic
theory of female homosexuality i s that the presumed oral
sadistic fixation to the mother is expressed i~ the present
fixation on a female love object, as a denial of hostility
and a continued effort to seize gratifications denied in
the mother-child relationship. The finding s here reveal
that homosexual women do differ from het erosexual women
in their perceptior of women , and ~nject strong affects of
hostility and fear in fantasy m aterial usin female figures.
175
The findings strongly suggest that a hostile-fearful
conception of women does influence most homosexual women,
and is very rarely so pronounced in women who accept the
conventional feminine role. As we have seen, oral-sadis
ti.c fixation was not established; it is possible that
subsequent experiences which determine the direction of
hostility may be more important than the quantitative
degree of the oral-aggressive drive.
Some psychoanalytic writers have given precedence
to fearful, hostile, or revengeful attitudes toward men
as determining influences in female homosexuality. No t
surprisingly, the tendency to attack and disparage mas
culinity is somewhat more pronounced in the Rorschach
response, but neither in this way nor in their perception
of male figures as aggressive and threatening, do tney
differ so markedly from many of the heterosexual women.
Fromm and Elonen (64) have suggested for confirma
tion by future research depreciation of human figures in
general and of figures of the opposite sex in particular
as possible signs of homosexuality. In comparing
Rorschach responses of the homosexual with the hetero
sexual women it appears that the hostile-fearful concep
tion of women is a much more singular finding for homo
sexuality. Homosexual women do att ack and depreciate
176
males, and perceive them as aggressive, but so do many
other women who have not renounced their heterosexual
role. The observation that many homosexual women empha
size the phallic-aggressive threat of ~asculine sexuality
has been interpreted by some psychoanalysts as the result
of projection of their oral-sadistic drives. This
research produced no support for such a concept. The
implications of the findings are more in keeping with
the statement of Kardiner (93:174) that the homosexual
female believes she is running from the dangerous male to
the protecting female, but the real danger was originally
the mother, and she rejects rnen to avoid rivalry with the
mother and to be insured her protection. Thus homosexual
ity is a self-preservative device inspired by fears of
annihilation by the mother.
The general absence of gross and dramatic differ
ences between the performance of the homosexuals and
heterosexuals on projective tests should influence the
conception of homosexuality as necessarily associated with
deep regression and concordant limitations in personality
functioning. The conception of female homosexuality as
necessarily associated with marked personality disturbance,
to which many· psychoanalysts subscribe, finds little
support in the f i ndin s here. In none of the areas
177
investigated were regressed content, thought disorders ,
or defects of intellectual control found to be prevalent
in this homosexual group . This study did not aspire to
thoroughly test the comparative level of general adjustment.
Incidental observations suggest that gross deviations do
not characterize the homosexual group . Here and there a
tendency to more disturbed responses was noted in the
homosexual group, but would occur in only a few cases.
The impression is that the homosexual group contains a
larger fringe element who give deviant responses , but that
it would be difficult to distinguish the majority of the
homosexuals on their projective test performance.
Reduced emotional reactivity was one of the few
characteristics which one might consider typical of most
of the homosexual group . Whatever the causal factors
underlying the restriction of affective expression , this
condition, in relation to other Rorschach factors, does
have certain implications in regard to personality func
tioning in homosexual women. Since no deficiency was
noted in human movement, in shading responses, or in
intellectual control, the evidence is on the side of the
theory that most homosexual women have developed the bas i c
capacities for relationshi p to other people, but are
restricted in emotiona l involvement ecause of past
178
traumas. In Thompson's (151) discussion of homosexuality ,
she mentions that many homosexuals "fear intimacy and
fear loneliness," a condition which might be expressed in
the relative proportions of M , Fc+c, and Sm C in the
homosexual Rorschach record (see Tabl e 6, page 142) .
The failure to find many clear-cut differences w hich
are consistent for the majority of the group would suggest
that homosexuali t y is not a clinical entity . The only
interpretations tha t could have any widespread appli cation
relate to the reduced emotional responsiveness and the
hostile-fearful concepti on of women . That disturbances
in ego integration are more likely to be encountered in
homosexual women is suggested by the disturbance in
figure drawing and the tendency to us e combinations of
human-animal and male-female in Rorschach i mages . However ,
figure drawings sho a wide qualitative range and the com
bined Rorschach image s occur in less than hal f of the
homosexual group .
On the basis of present indications it would seem
unwise to make generalizations about homosexuals as 2
group or to assume that homosexuality is necessarily
associated with gross p rsonal i ty disturbance . To reach
a better understanding of homosexuality in women the most
fruitful lines of investigation would appear to be further
179
exploration of the development of the hostile-fearful
conception of women and of the difficulties in establish
ing a secure ego identity.
The negative findings in regard to confusion in
sexual identification and rejection of feminine identifi
cation in Rorschach and Figure Drawing performance require
special comment. The results of this investigation
clearly indicate that the usual signs of confusion in
sexual identification have no validity as indicators of
'
overt homosexuality in women. As a basis for clini cal
predictions such signs would be useless. It seems
unlikely that any characteristics of sexual identification
in the projective test response could be established for
female homosexuals as a group , but the possibilities of
establishing relationships between particular patterns of
identification, as evidenced in the life history, and forms
of projective test expression should be explored . Homo
sexual women may ac cept a
11
m _ 2sculine n or a '' feminine n
role, or refuse to recognize differences in sex role as
important. The coherency of the identification might have
considerable effect on the nature of projective test
expression.
It has already been pointed out that sex role
identification presents many aspects which cannot c early
180
be related to heterosexual or homosexual object choice.
Such a conclusion has been independently arrived at from
psychoanalytic study of individual dynamics (35), and
from cross-cultural comparisons by anthropologists (103),
while psychologists have found little correlation between
different measures of sexual identification (153). In
this instance as well, our f i ndings support discrimina
tion between social sex role i dentifications and sexual
object choice. The operations involved in relating sex
identity, nature of sexual expression, and direction of
object choice are obviously complex and remain undefined.
Basic research on the characteristics of sexual identifica
tion, their projective test correlate s , and their relation
to heterosexual adjustment j n the 11ormal population is
clearly needed. The observations from this study on
projective test performance of the heterosexual women,
who accept the conventional role of wife and mother and
consider their marriages stable, suggest that "normal"
women in our culture do show considerable :sex role
diffusion.
181
CHAPTER XI
SUfv'Il\'1ARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The present investigation represents an attempt to
examine certain personality variables in homosexual women,
as compared with heterosexual women , through the medium of
projective test performance. Rorschach and Figure Drawing
~ests were administered individually to thirty overtly
homosexual and thirty overtly heterosexual women . The
experimental and control groups were comparable in age,
education, socioeconomic status and acculturation . Par
ticular categories of Rorschach and Figure Drawing
response are tied to the hypotheses of predicted personal
ity differences between the two groups. These categories
are defined and measured through quantification of s pe
cific formal scores and content themes on the Rorschach
and of ratin s of Figure Drawings . This crude level of
response measurement was undertaken as fundamental to more
precise PYld complex forms of measurement.
Blind analysis and scoring of the individual
records of the combined groups were carried out independent l y for the two tests used. Statistical comparisons were
made between the reconstituted groups in order to determine
182
if there were any significant differences in the number of
individuals from each group who scored high or low in tr1e
various categories, and whether these differences appeared
in the expected direction. Measures of the reliability of
the judges in rating were carrie d out selectively , but
were generally satisfactory and in most instances very
high.
In the thirty-four measures obtained by these methods,
three confirmed predictions at bett er than the . 01 level of
confidence, and one confirmed a prediction at the . 02 level.
The hypothesis whi ch obtains the stronges t s t atistical
support states that homosexual women perceive women and
feminine relationships with a hostile-aggressive cathexis ,
which will be reflected in Rorschach images of fe male
figures as frightening and/or aggressive . Thi s finding
would tend to support the int erpre t ation of homosexuality
in women as a defense agains t hostility , fear, and guil t
in relation t o women (pres umably derived from the relation
with the mother).
Some of the predictions based on the expectation
that homosexuals would show more limitations i n personal
social adjustment than other women were borne out by the
results. A highly significant differenc e in color
reactivity on the Rors chach suggests that affective output
183
is reduced in the majority of homosexual women , and
implies that they exparience less emot ional securi t y and
gratification in their relations with other people . Cer tain res ponse measures presume d to be related to di t urb ance in ego integration were determi ned to have a signifi cantly higher incidence in the homosexual group . Lower
Goodenough scores on figure drawings and· more frequent
human-animal combination in one Rorschach percept could
be indicative of disturbance in the organi zation of the
self.
Consideration of inflatior1 of probability, while
not judged unreasonably high , temper the confidence with
which differences at the . 05 level and below are accepted .
Among thes e differences a tendency for more of the homo
sexual women t o display an atta cking and disparaging
attitude toward men was suggested by the nature of their
Rorschach percepts.
A stronger dependency orientat ion in homosexual
women was hypothesized but found no s t able support in the
results of this study . The hypothesis that homosexual
women would display a more hostile, fearful conception of
the male role than would he t erosexual women was not sub stantiated . The last conclusion does not belie the fre
quent ex ression of such conce tions in Rorschach material ,
184
but they were not significantl y more predominant in the
homosexual than in the heterosexual group .
Failure to find any consistent patterns of response
associated with confusion in sexual identification or
rejection of feminine identification in the homosexual
group must be conceded . The usual Rorschach and Figure
Drauing criteria were equally unproductive in this regard .
Some indications of difference in response are of interest,
but could characterize but a fraction of the homosexual
group , nd would have little predictive value . As in other
deviant groups , there is somewhat more frequent occurrence
of open sexual imagery in the Rorschach . In the homo
sexual women there is some redilection for Rorschach
perception of female sex organs, of female breasts, and
of the oral cavity , which is comprehensible in relation
to the deviation in sexual interest .
The negative findings atteBt only to a failure to
refute the null hypotheses through the methods employed
in this study . Negative findin s could be a consequence
of the lack of sensitivity and validity of the scale
employed , some aspects of which have been taken up in the
discussion of results . Limitations must be acknowledged
in the use of specific response measurements, which can
not take into account the variability of s ecific
indicators nor permit evaluation of relationships
between variables.
185
R E F E R E N C E S
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201
A P P E N D I C E S
APPENDIX A
RATING SCALE FOR RORSCHACH CONTENT THEMES
I. Dependency Orientation*
A. Supply (Oral-Receptive Orientation)
Score
1. Food
( 1)
(2)
(3)
2. Food Sources
( 1)
(2)
(3)
3. Food objects
Examples
Common and more blot-determined
responses as cooked lobster
(Card II, l.c.D), peppermint
stick candy (Card II, l.c.dd),
drumstick (Card V, side exten
sions).
Cooked meat, vegetables, candy,
ice cream, cake, bottle of wine,
etc.
Raw meat, spilled juice; food
content as a W response; food
content affectively stressed.
Cornfield, fertile valleys,
fruit trees.
Female figures with marked
breast emphasis.
Breast or nipple responses
isolated.
(1) Syrup jar, frying pan, eating
utensils, etc.
*This entire category follows Schafer's (130:130-
139) classification but examples are expanded and weighted
and are intended to provide guides for rating. In any
instance, special elaboration or affective intensity may
increase by one point the score ordinarily given.
203
4. Food Providers
(1) Waiters (Card III).
(2) Baker, cook, mother bird with
worm.
5. Pas~ive Food Receivers
(3)
6. Food organs
( 1)
(2)
(3)
7. Supplicants
( 1)
(2)
(3)
Fat person, pig.
Person eating or drinking; ani
mals eating, chicks with open
beaks.
Lambs nursing, birds in nest
clamoring for food, babies
sucking, foetus.
Hu.man or animal face in which
mouth, lips are emphasized, as
"With full lips," "mouth open,"
"drooling," "tongue hanging out."
Stomach, oesophagus, throat,
navel.
Isolated "mouth" or ''inside the
throat."
Beggar, person praying, hands
raised pleading.
Hands reaching for something,
begging.
Baby with outstretched arms.
dog
8. Nurturers, protectors
(1-2) Benevolent authority figure,
protective angel, good fairy;
cow, mother hen; house harbor.
(3) Figures where comforting, nurtur
ing, protecting activity is
strongly developed.
9. Gifts, givers
(1) Christmas tree, Christmas stock
ing, Santa Claus, gifts.
204
10. Good luck
(1) Horseshoe, wishbone (other than
popular on Card X)
11. Oral eroticism
(3)
Animals rubbing noses.
Figures smoking, kissing, or
nuzzling.
Lips, lipstick as isolated
responses.
B. Demand (Oral-Aggressive Orientation)
1. Devourers
(1) Spider or crab (other than popu
lar and near popular in Card X),
tomato worm, spider web, birds
or lions with mild oral aggres
sive implication.
(2) Birds, beasts a Jd persons or
prey, or their oral and clawing
parts.
(3) Isolated teethj responses as in
(2) with oral-aggressive potential
emphasized.
2. Devouring
Crab eating.
Animals clawing, biting, stalking;
hands grabbing.
A partially devoured carcass;
animals eating a carcass.
3. Engulfing, overwhelming figures and objects
( 1)
(2)
(3)
Witch (Card IX); Large figure
(Card IV)
Other frightening, large figures,
as witches, magicians, monsters;
pit, trap, crushing mechanism.
Overwhelming figures or objects
bearing down on the subject.
4. Depriving figures and objects.
205
(2) Skinny, sour-faced women; misers;
breastplates; figures refusing or
snatching something away.
5. Deprivation
Near popular skull or skeleton
( Card VIII).
Other skulls, skeletons, bones .
Piteous figures, beggars, emaci ated or starved figures; waste-
land, desert.
6. Impaired or denied oral capacity.
(1) Mouthless face, toothless face
(2) False teeth, dentist drill or
tools
7. Oral, verbal assault
( 1)
(2)
8. Burdens
Figures arguing , sneering , yell ing, sticking out tongues, dogs
barking.
Figures spitting, grinding t eth,
blowing fire, snarling .
Ox, camel, mule
Figures weighed dov1n with heavy
burdens
II. Hostile-Aggressive Cathexis of Female Figures*
-MJI'his category is rnost similar to one of
Schafer's subclasses, Hostile, Fearful and Rejecting
Characterizations of Women (130:136), which is , however,
more general and includes varied and remote images. The
category as defined and used here is much more exclusive,
since it does not include merely negatively toned images ,
but only highly charged and active expressions of fear and
aggression directly associated with feminine fi gures.
Such a category seemed needed to tap underlyi.ng hostile aggress i ve perceptions of female or mother-figures.
206
(1) Frightening female figures des
cri.bed with fearful affectj aggres sive female figures in hostile
interaction (glaring , competing,
or fighting with each other) or
engaged in destructive activity
(including the usual female
figures in Card VII seen as in human or animal figures in such
acti vi t;/.
III. Disparagement (Symbolic Castration) of Men*
A. Disparagement of Male Figures
(1-3) Boys , little men (where fi gures
are usually seen as men), gnomes,
dunces, dandies, men with chicken
heads or pointed heads, silly
looking menj male figures with
parts missing, deformed or in the
wrong place . (Weight from 1 to 3
depending on the degree of
derision or damage expressed.)
B. Disparagement of Usual Phallic Symbols
(1) Usual phallic symbols seen as
tree stumps.
(2) Usual phallic symbols seen as
silly-looking vvorms, snails, or
looking dead, stuffed, stupid ,
aplit or damagedj also derogatory
remarks about Card IV or the top
of Card VI as "nothing interest
ing about that ."
(3) Male sex organs described in a
derogatory way as small, limp , or
deformed {including Testing the
Limits)
~his categor y has been expanded beyond the limits
of Schafer's similar category, in that classes of response
expressive of sexually attacklng, "castrating" feminine
attitudes have been added as possibly especially applicable
to a female group (see Classes C and D) . In addition n· -
paragement of Male Figures and Disparagement of Phallic
Symbols were separated to facilitate independent consider ation .
207
C. Castrating Symbols
(2) Teeth, hooks, claws, guns or
knives seen in usual vaginal areasj
attack on usual phallic symbol s
as ttinsects chewing the stalk of
a plant."
D. Castrating Verbalizations
(1-2) Verbalizations of cutt~.ng , s i ci ng ,
splitting the blot material in
reference to perception of male
figures or to usual male symbol s
as "cut tl1e head off" or u chop off
the extens: ons."
IV. Hostile Fearful Conception of the Masculine Role
(Phallic-Aggressive Emphasis)
A. Phallic Objects
(1) Inanimate objects as arrow, s pear,
knife, drill, gun, club.
(2) Such objects in action as guns
shooting, arrow in fli ght, or
elaboration as "used for destruc
tion."
B. Phallic A nimals
C. Phallic Men
( 1)
(2)
(3)
Animal parts as hooves, stinger,
tusks seen alone or as an empha
sized part of the animalj string rays, scorpions.
Snakes, dragons, animals f ighting ,
with horns or tusks.
Such animals c oming at the sub ject.
(1) Human parts a s giant's fe et,
boots, jagged nose.
(2) Cavemen, mil i tary f igures , Rus sians, savages, demons, devi l s ,
King Kong , part men-par t animal,
men dueli ng or shooting .
208
(3) Frightening , aggres sive male
fi gures coming a t the subject .
D. Sexual responses with destructi ve cont ent
(2) Gigant i c penis , bleeding hymen,
painful intercourse .
V. Rejection of Feminine Identification*
A. Sexual Confusion
1 . Confusion in sexual identification of human
figures (as perceived i n the Performance
Proper, or in Testing the Limits)
( 1)
(2)
Asexual figures or f igures wi t h
blurred distinctions , as angel ,
hooded or cloake d figure , chi l dren of uns ec i f ied sex , elves ,
men with high heels or women in
slacks, or figures in activity
usually associated with the op posite se as a male cook or a
woman orchestra le ader.
Reversal of the usual sex of com monly perceived figures (Center
D, Card Ij W , Card IVj Popul ar
fi gures in Card III , and the t wo
f igures in Card VII , /\ or V . ) j
alternations of sexual identifica tion of the s ame figure; ymmetri
cal fi gures seen as one male and
one female; some expressed uncer tainty about the sex of a fi gure .
*Under this category , Schafer includes , in addi tion to the cl asses of response su.bsumed here, the
previous two categories , Disparagement of Men and Hostile
Fearful Conception of t he M asculine Role . They have been
considered independently here in order t o more convenient
l y relate them to the hypothesis to whi ch each directly
pertains .
209
(3) Refusal to state or inability to
decide sex of figures with sub
jective disturbance; combinations
of male and female and other
bizarre sexual confusions4
2. Confusion in Sex Organ Identification (in
Performance Proper or in Testing the Limits)
(1) Absolute denial through Testing
the Limits for female sex organ
in lower center details of Card
II and Card VII, and of male sex
organ in the top center small
detail in Card II and the top
center large detail in Card VI.
(2) Reversal of usual sex identifica tion of female sex organ in lower
center detail of Card II, in the
upper center detail of Card IV,
and in the lower center of Cards
VI, VII, VIII and IX, of the male
sex organ in the lower center
small detail in Card I, in the top
center small detail of Card II, in
the top center large detail of
Card VI and of Card X.
B. Masculine Emphasis
(1) Mechanical objects such as a jet
plane or a governor , army insig nia, athletic objects or f·g ures,
clenched fists, rough outdoor men.
C. Reference to Perversions
(3) Lesbians embracing , men embracing ,
women masturbating men, frank
transvestism as man with cosmetics
on.
D. Wardir.g - off Intr·usion
(1) Zippers, hin es , locks, barred
gate or door, argoyles over
doorway .
210
E. Rejecting Attitude toward Conventional Feminine
Role and Status
( 1)
(2)
Women engaged in trivial gossip ,
described as cheap, gushy or
silly looking .
Revulsion in response to female
sexuality as menstruation, or
images or) expressions of revuls; on
to usual vaginal areas .
F. Castration Emphasis
1. Implements of castration
(1) Nutcrackers, scissors , pliers .
2. Objects of castration
( 1)
(2)
Tree stumps , dead branch, i ncom plete fi gures (not including no
head on center figure in Card I)
Amputated , crippled, deformed
female fi gures or female figures
with missing parts; parts removed
from the body; damaged female sex
organs , crippled or damaged ani mals; cuts , wounds and scars.
3. General weakness or impotence
(1-2) Descriptions of being weak ,
warped, frea~ish, worn, ragged ,
or badly constructed.
G. Sensuous Attention to Physical Feminine Detail
and Homoerotic Arousal*
*This class of res ponse has been expande d to
nclude associations suggestive of "hon-ioerotic arousal ,
11
whi ch carries its meaning somewhat further than the more
limited category as described by Schafer .
211
(1) Descriptions of attractiveness of
dress , body and skin of female
figur es; suggestive mention of
"lacen panties , transparent skirts ,
homoerotic symbolization as "vomen
going toward each other , " "Women
standing hand i n hand," nTwo vJomen
--something drawing them, magnet ism in between."
H. General Increase in Sexual, Anal , and Oral
Imagery
(1) O pen sexual or anal imagery as
£enis, testicles, womb , inter course, anus , or colon, or crude
oral imagery as open mouth , food,
breasts , eating or devouring .
VI. Limi t ed Interpersonal Relations*
A. Distanciation in Human Identifications
1. Fantasy figures
(1 ) vitches , demons , gods , monsters ,
giants, angels , pixies , Santa
Claus , Uncle Sam , s acemen, and
any inhuman, dream -like fi gur es .
2. Different race, culture or period
(1 ) Kings , Napoleon , ussians ,
Orientals, natives , colored
pe ople , Colonial , Ancient times .
3. asked or hooded fi ures
(1) Masks , masquerade figures , hooded
figures .
*For t his category it was necessary to depart
from Schafer ' s classification of content themes , which
as not readily adaptable to the purposes of this
.category .
212
B. :Emotional Relationships Unsatisfactory
1. Content reflecting feel i ng s of isolation
and loneliness
(1) deserts, islands, wastelands,
rocks (W) , snow, ice, loneliness.
2. Reduced emotional responsiveness
a. Lower Sum C
b. Lower color ratio
C. Difficulties in Integrat i on
1. Cartoon A~imal characters, animals in human
activity
(1 ) Tweedy-bird, animated Disney
charact ,r , ducks beating a dru~ ,
bug s arguing .
2. Combinations of human and animal
(1) r1an with the face of a dog ,
acrobat with dragon head, elves
with chicken tails, little
people with feelers for legs .
APPENDIX B
SWENSON SEXUAL DIFFERENTIATION SCALE FOR
THE ' DRAW-A-PERSON TEST
1. Little or no sexual differentiation
3. Poor sexual differentiation (Longer hair on female
and slight su gestion of difference in clothing
and/or body contour)
5. Fair sexual differentiati on (Definitely longer hair
on female; clear difference i n body contour as
rounded hips or breasts or both; difference in
clothing.)
7. Good sexual differentiation (Longer hair on female;
rounded vs. angular contour; breasts and/or rounded
hips; clear differer1ce in blothing ; maybe minor
details as eyelashes, lips, etc.)
9. Excellent sexual differentiation (Hair longer and
definitely feminine hair styling ; Male angular,
female rou. nded with breasts and hips both present;
definitely masculine or feminine clothing ; Minor
details such as eyes, mouth, jewelry clearly
appropriate)

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Asset Metadata

Creator Armon, Virginia (author)

Core Title Some personality variables in pvert female homosexuality

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Psychology

Degree Conferral Date 1951-06

Publication Date 06/01/1951

Defense Date 06/01/1951

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Digitized from microfilm by the USC Digital Library in 2023 (provenance)

Advisor Seward, George H. (committee chair)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113174080

Unique identifier UC113174080

Identifier Ph. D. Ps '58 A733 (call number),etd-ArmonVirginia-1958.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-ArmonVirginia-1958

Document Type Dissertation

Format theses (aat)

Rights Armon, Virginia

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20230616-usctheses-microfilm-box8 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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