<< Significance of Homosexual Responses >>
For nearly a century the term homosexual in connection with human behavior has been applied to sexual relations, either overt or psychic, between individuals of the same sex. Derived from the Greek root homo rather than from the Latin word for man, the term emphasizes the sameness of the two individuals who are involved in a sexual relation. The word is, of course, patterned after and intended to represent the antithesis of the word heterosexual, which applies to a relation between individuals of different sexes.

The term homosexual has had an endless list of synonyms in the technical vocabularies and a still greater list in the vernaculars. The terms homogenic love, contrasexuality, homoerotism, similisexualism, uranism and others have been used in English (Legman in Henry 1941). The terms sexual inversion, intersexuality, transsexuality, the third sex, psychosexual hermaphroditism, and others have been applied not merely to designate the nature of the partner involved in the sexual relation, but to emphasize the general opinion that individuals engaging in homosexual activity are neither male nor female, but persons of mixed sex. These latter terms are, however, most unfortunate, for they provide an interpretation in anticipation of any sufficient demonstration of the fact; and consequently they prejudice investigations of the nature and origin of homosexual activity.

The term Lesbian, referring to such female homosexual relations as were immortalized in the poetry of Sappho of the Greek Isle of Lesbos, has gained considerable usage within recent years, particularly in some of the larger Eastern cities where the existence of female homosexuality is more generally recognized by the public at large. Although there can be no objection to designating relations between females by a special term, it should be recognized that such activities are quite the equivalent of sexual relations between males.

The inappropriate use of the term homosexual in the literature on animal behavior has led to unfortunate misinterpretations of the data. Thus, for instance, several investigators Ball, Beach, Stone, Young, et al.) have shown that the injection of gonadal hormones may modify the frequency with which an animal shows an inversion of behavior of the sort described above. Among many clinicians this work has been taken to mean that the sex hormones control the heterosexuality or homosexuality of an individual’s behavior. This, of course, is a totally unwarranted interpretation. The animal work merely shows that there may be an inversion of female and male roles as a result of hormonal injections. It points to a relationship between the amount of hormone and the aggressiveness of an individual in approaching other animals for sexual relations. The injection of male hormones quite generally increases the frequency and intensity of an animal’s reactions, but there is no evidence that it affects its choice of a partner in a sexual relation (Kinsey 1941). Beach (1947) makes the significant observation that the males who most often assume the female type of behavior are the ones who “invariably prove to be the most vigorous copulators,” when they assume the more usual masculine role in coitus. There is clinical experience with the human male which similarly shows that the intensity of his sexual activity is increased when male hormones are administered, while his choice of a partner (i.e., his heterosexuality or his homosexuality) is not modified.

If the term homosexual is restricted as it should be, the homosexuality or heterosexuality of any activity becomes apparent by determining the sexes of the two individuals involved in the relationship. For instance, mouth-genital contacts between males and females are certainly heterosexual, even though some persons may think of them as homosexual. And although one may hear of a male “who has sex relations with his wife in a homosexual way,” there is no logic in such a use of the term, and analyses of the behavior and of the motivations of the behavior in such cases do not show them necessarily related to any homosexual experience.

On the other hand, the homosexuality of certain relationships between individuals of the same sex may be denied by some persons, because the situation does not fulfill other criteria that they think should be attached to the definition. Mutual masturbation between two males may be dismissed, even by certain clinicians, as not homosexual, because oral or anal relations or particular levels of psychic response are required, according to their concept of homosexuality. There are persons who insist that the active male in an anal relation is essentially heterosexual in his behavior, and that the passive male in the same relation is the only one who is homosexual. These, however, are misapplications of terms, which are often unfortunate because they obscure the interpretations of the situation which the clinician is supposed to help by his analysis.

These misinterpretations are often encouraged by the very persons who are having homosexual experience. Some males who are being regularly fellated by other males without, however, ever performing fellation themselves, may insist that they are exclusively heterosexual and that they have never been involved in a truly homosexual relation. Their consciences are cleared and they may avoid trouble with society and with the police by perpetrating the additional fiction that they are incapable of responding to a relation with a male unless they fantasy themselves in contact with a female. Even clinicians have allowed themselves to be diverted by such pretensions. The actual histories, however, show few if any cases of sexual relations between males which could be considered anything but homosexual.

Many individuals who have had considerable homosexual experience, construct a hierarchy on the basis of which they insist that anyone who has not had as much homosexual experience as they have had, or who is less exclusively aroused by homosexual stimuli, is “not really homosexual.” It is amazing to observe how many psychologists and psychiatrists have accepted this sort of propaganda, and have come to believe that homosexual males and females are discretely different from persons who merely have homosexual experience, or who react sometimes to homosexual stimuli. Sometimes such an interpretation allows for only two kinds of males and two kinds of females, namely those who are heterosexual and those who are homosexual. But there is only about half of the male population whose sexual behavior is exclusively heterosexual, and there are only a few percent who are exclusively homosexual. Any restriction of the term homosexuality to individuals who are exclusively so demands, logically, that the term heterosexual be applied only to those individuals who are exclusively heterosexual; and this makes no allowance for the nearly half of the population which has had sexual contacts with, or reacted psychically to, individuals of their own as well as of the opposite sex. Actually, of course, one must learn to recognize every combination of heterosexuality and homosexuality in the histories of various individuals.

It would encourage clearer thinking on these matters if persons were not characterized as heterosexual or homosexual, but as individuals who have had certain amounts of heterosexual experience and certain amounts of homosexual experience. Instead of using these terms as substantives which stand for persons, or even as adjectives to describe persons, they may better be used to describe the nature of the overt sexual relations, or of the stimuli to which an individual erotically responds.

Animal Backgrounds
The sexual behavior of any animal depends upon the nature of the stimulus which it meets and which initiates the behavior, its anatomic and physiologic capacities, and its background of previous experience. Unless it has been conditioned by previous experience, an animal should respond identically to identical stimuli, whether they emanate from some part of its own body, from another individual of the same sex, or from an individual of the opposite sex.

The classification of sexual behavior as masturbatory, heterosexual, or homosexual is, therefore, unfortunate if it suggests that three different types of responses are involved, or suggests that only different types of persons seek out or accept each kind of sexual activity. There is nothing known in the anatomy or physiology of sexual response and orgasm which distinguishes masturbatory, heterosexual, or homosexual reactions. The terms are of value only because they describe the source of the sexual stimulation, and they should not be taken as descriptions of the individuals who respond to the various stimuli.

The inherent physiologic capacity of an animal to respond to any sufficient stimulus seems, then, the basic explanation of the fact that some individuals respond to stimuli originating in other individuals of their own sex—and it appears to indicate that every individual could so respond if the opportunity offered and one were not conditioned against making such responses. The data indicate that the factors leading to homosexual behavior are:
    (1) the basic physiologic capacity of every mammal to respond to any sufficient stimulus;
    (2) the accident which leads an individual into his or her first sexual experience with a person of the same sex;
    (3) the conditioning effects of such experience; and
    (4) the indirect but powerful conditioning which the opinions of other persons and the social codes may have on an individual’s decision to accept or reject this type of sexual contact.

The impression that infra-human mammals more or less confine themselves to heterosexual activities is a distortion of the fact which appears to have originated in a man-made philosophy, rather than in specific observations of mammalian behavior. Biologists and psychologists who have accepted the doctrine that the only natural function of sex is reproduction, have simply ignored the existence of sexual activity which is not reproductive. They have assumed that heterosexual responses are a part of an animal’s innate, “istinctive” equipment, and that all other types of sexual activity represent “perversions” of the “normal instincts.” Such interpretations are, however, mystical. They do not originate in our knowledge of the physiology of sexual response, and can be maintained only if one assumes that sexual function is in some fashion divorced from the physiologic processes which control other functions of the animal body. It may be true that heterosexual contacts outnumber homosexual contacts in most species of mammals, but it would be hard to demonstrate that this depends upon the “normality” of heterosexual responses, and the “abnormality” of homosexual responses.

In actuality, sexual contacts between individuals of the same sex are known to occur in practically every species of mammal which has been extensively studied. In many species, homosexual contacts may occur with considerable frequency, although never as frequently as heterosexual contacts. Heterosexual contacts occur more frequently because they are facilitated:
    (1) by the greater submissiveness of the female and the greater aggressiveness of the male, and this seems to be a prime factor in determining the roles which the two sexes play in heterosexual relationships;
    (2) by the more or less similar levels of aggressiveness between individuals of the same sex, which may account for the fact that not all animals will submit to being mounted by individuals of their own sex;
    (3) by the greater ease of intromission into the female vagina and the greater difficulty of penetrating the male anus;
    (4) by the lack of intromission when contacts occur between two females, and the consequent lack of those satisfactions which intromission may bring in a heterosexual relationship;
    (5) by olfactory and other anatomic and physiologic characteristics which differentiate the sexes in certain mammalian species;
    (6) by the psychologic conditioning which is provided by the more frequently successful heterosexual contacts.

Homosexual contacts in infra-human species of mammals occur among both females and males. Homosexual contacts between females have been observed in such widely separated species as rats, mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, porcupines, marten, cattle, antelope, goats, horses, pigs, lions, sheep, monkeys, and chimpanzees.
We have observed homosexual behavior in male monkeys, male dogs, bulls, cows, male and female rats, male porcupines, and male and female guinea pigs. Homosexual activities in other animals are noted by: Karsch 1900:128-129 (female antelope, male and female goat, ram, stallion). Féré 1904:78 (male donkey). Havelock Ellis 1910(1):165 (male elephant, male hyena). Hamilton 1914:307 (female monkey). Bingham 1928:126-127 (female chimpanzee). Marshall and Hammond 1944:89 (doe rabbit). Reed 1946:200 (male bat). Beach 1947a:41 (female cat). Beach 1948:36 (male mouse). Beach in Hoch and Zubin 1949:63-64 (female marten, female porcupine, male lion, male rabbit). Gantt in Wolff 1950:1036 (male cat). Ford and Beach 1951:139 (male porpoise), 141 (lioness, mare, sow, ewe, female hamster, female mouse, female dog). Shadle, verbal communication (male porcupine, male raccoon).

The homosexual contacts between these infra-human females are apparently never completed in the sense that they reach orgasm, but it is not certain how often infra-human females ever reach orgasm in any type of sexual relationship. On the other hand, sexual contacts between males of the lower mammalian species do proceed to the point of orgasm, at least for the male that mounts another male.
Ejaculation resulting from homosexual contact between males of lower mammalian species has been noted in: Karsch 1900:129 (ram and goat). Kempf 1917:134-135 (monkey). Moll 1931:17 (dog). Beach 1948:36 (mouse). Ford and Beach 1951:139 (rat). Brookfield Zoo, verbal communication (baboon). We have observed such ejaculation in the bull.

In some species the homosexual contacts between females may occur as frequently as the homosexual contacts between males. Every farmer who has raised cattle knows, for instance, that cows quite regularly mount cows. He may be less familiar with the fact that bulls mount bulls, but this is because cows are commonly kept together while bulls are not so often kept together in the same pasture.
For the sub-primates, Beach 1947a:40 states that “the occurrence of masculine sexual responses in female animals is more common than is the appearance of feminine behavior in males.” Ford and Beach 1951:143 note, however, that in the class Mammalia taken as a whole, homosexual behavior among males is more frequent than homosexual behavior among females.

It is generally believed that females of the infra-human species of mammals are sexually responsive only during the so-called periods of heat, or what is technically referred to as the estrus period. This, however, is not strictly so. The chief effect of estrus seems to be the preparation of the animal to accept the approaches of another animal which tries to mount it. The cows that are mounted in the pasture are those that are in estrus, but the cows that do the mounting are in most instances individuals which are not in estrus.
Two situations may be involved: (1) the estrual female may be receptive to being mounted and often attempts to elicit such mounting (see Beach in Hoch and Zubin 1949:64; Rice and Andrews 1951:151). (2) If she is not mounted the estrual female may mount another animal of the same or opposite sex. For the latter, see: Beach 1948:66-68 (cow, sow, rabbit, cat, shrew). Ford and Beach 1951:141-142 (rabbit, sow, mare, cow, guinea pig).

Whether sexual relationships among the infra-human species are heterosexual or homosexual appears to depend on the nature of the immediate circumstances and the availability of a partner of one or the other sex. It depends to a lesser degree upon the animal’s previous experience, but no other mammalian species is so affected by its experience as the human animal may be. There is, however, some suggestion, but as yet an insufficient record, that the males among the lower mammalian species are more likely than the females to become conditioned to exclusively homosexual behavior; but even then such exclusive behavior appears to be rare.
Exclusive, although usually temporary male homosexuality is noted in: Hamilton 1914:307-308 (monkey). Beach in Hoch and Zubin 1949:64-65 (lion). Ford arid Beach 1951:136, 139 (baboon and porpoise). Shadle, verbal communication (porcupine). No exclusively homosexual patterns have been reported for female mammals.

The mammalian record thus confirms our statement that any animal which is not too strongly conditioned by some special sort of experience is capable of responding to any adequate stimulus. This is what we find in the more uninhibited segments of our own human species, and this is what we find among young children who are not too rigorously restrained in their early sex play. Exclusive preferences and patterns of behavior, heterosexual or homosexual, come only with experience, or as a result of social pressures which tend to force an individual into an exclusive pattern of one or the other sort. Psychologists and psychiatrists, reflecting the mores of the culture in which they have been raised, have spent a good deal of time trying to explain the origins of homosexual activity; but considering the physiology of sexual response and the mammalian backgrounds of human behavior, it is not so difficult to explain why a human animal does a particular thing sexually. It is more difficult to explain why each and every individual is not involved in every type of sexual activity.

It is unfortunate that the students of animal behavior have applied the term homosexual to a totally different sort of phenomenon among the lower mammals. In most of the literature on animal behavior it is applied on the basis of the general conspectus of the behavior pattern of the animal, its aggressiveness in seeking the sexual contact, its postures during coitus, its position relative to the other animal in the sex relation, and the conformance or disconformance of that behavior to the usual positions and activities of the animal during heterosexual coitus (Ball, var. titles; Beach, var. titles, espec. 1947).

In most mammals the behavior of the female in a heterosexual performance usually involves the acceptance of the male which is trying to make intromission. The female at such a moment is less aggressive than the male, even passive in her acceptance of the male’s approaches, and subordinate in position to him during actual coitus. This means that the female usually lies beneath the male or in front of him during copulation, either submitting from the very beginning of the sexual relation or (as in the cats, ferret, mink, and some other animals) being forced into submission by the assault of the male. In the case of the mink, the female is far from being passive during the initial stages of the contact, and the courting performances involve as strenuous fighting as the most extreme non-sexual circumstances could produce. There is no sexual relation, however, until the female has been sufficiently subdued to allow the male to effect coitus. In the case of the rat, the female which is in heat as the result of the hormones which her ovaries secrete near the time of ovulation, is more readily induced to crouch on the floor, arch her back (in lordosis) so her body is raised posteriorly, and pass into a nervous state which is characterized by a general rigidity of most of the body, but by a constant and rapid trembling of the ears and by peculiar hopping movements. This is the behavior which is characteristic of the female in a heterosexual contact, and this is what the students of animals describe as typically feminine behavior.

Throughout the mammals it is the male which more often (but not always) pursues the female for a sexual contact. In species where there is a struggle before the female submits to coitus, the male must be physically dominant and capable of controlling the female. In the ultimate act it is the male which more often mounts in back of the female and makes the active pelvic thrusts which effect intromission. This is the behavior that students of the lower mammals commonly refer to as typically masculine behavior.

But among many species of mammals and, indeed, probably among all of them, it not infrequently happens that males and females assume other than their usual positions in a sexual contact. This may be dependent upon individual differences in the physiology or anatomy of certain individuals, on differences in hormones, on environmental circumstances, or on some previous experience which has conditioned the animal in its behavior.

In a certain number of cases the assumption of the attitudes and positions of the opposite sex, among these lower mammals, seems to depend upon nothing more than the accident of the position in which the individual finds itself. The same male rat that has mounted a female in typical heterosexual coitus only a few moments before, may crouch on the floor, arch its back, and rear its posterior when it is approached by another rat from the rear. The same female which rises from the floor where she has been crouching in front of a copulating male may bump into another rat as she runs around the cage, rear on her haunches in front of the decumbent partner, and go through all of the motions that a male ordinarily goes through in heterosexual copulation. She may move her pelvis in thrusts which are quite like those of the male. She may strike her genital area against the genital area of the rat in front, quite as she would if she had a penis to effect entrance. And, what is most astounding, she may double up her body as she pulls back from the genital thrusts and manipulate her own genitalia with her mouth (Beach 1947), exactly as the male rat ordinarily manipulates his penis between the thrusts that he makes when he is engaged in the masculine role in the usual type of heterosexual relation.

The assumption by a male animal of a female position in a sexual relation, or the assumption by a female of a position which is more typical of the male in a heterosexual relation, is what the students of animal behavior have referred to as homosexuality. This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the use of the term among the students of human behavior, and one must be exceedingly careful how one transfers the conclusions based on these animal studies.

In studies of human behavior, the term inversion is applied to sexual situations in which males play female roles and females play male roles in sex relations. Most of the data on “homosexuality” in the animal studies actually refer to inversion. Inversion, of course, may occur in either heterosexual or homosexual relations, although there has been a widespread opinion, even among students of human psychology, and among some persons whose experience has been largely homosexual, that inversion is an invariable accompaniment of homosexuality. However, this generalization is not warranted. A more elaborate presentation of our data would show that there are a great many males who remain as masculine, and a great many females who remain as feminine, in their attitudes and their approaches in homosexual relations, as the males or females who have nothing but heterosexual relations. Inversion and homosexuality are two distinct and not always correlated types of behavior.

More recently some of the students of animal behavior (e.g., Beach in later papers) have used the term bisexual to apply to individuals which assume sometimes male and sometimes female roles during sexual activities. This, however, is not a happy correction of the terminology, because the term bisexual has a long-standing meaning in biology which is totally different from the meaning intended here. Moreover, in regard to human behavior, the term bisexual has already been misapplied to persons who include both heterosexual and homosexual activities in their current histories. The student of animal behavior is observing an inversion of behavior patterns, and this is a phenomenon apart from either homosexuality or bisexuality, as those terms have ordinarily been used.

Social Backgrounds
Society may properly be concerned with the behavior of its individual members when that behavior affects the persons or property of other members of the social organization, or the security of the whole group. For these reasons, practically all societies everywhere in the world attempt to control sexual relations which are secured through the use of force or undue intimidation, sexual relations which lead to unwanted pregnancies, and sexual activities which may disrupt or prevent marriages or otherwise threaten the existence of the social organization itself. In various societies, however, and particularly in our own Judeo-Christian culture, still other types of sexual activity are condemned by religious codes, public opinion, and the law because they are contrary to the custom of the particular culture or because they are considered intrinsically sinful or wrong, and not because they do damage to other persons, their property, or the security of the total group.

The social condemnation and legal penalties for any departure from the custom are often more severe than the penalties for material damage done to persons or to the social organization. In our American culture there are no types of sexual activity which are as frequently condemned because they depart from the mores and the publicly pretended custom, as mouth-genital contacts and homosexual activities. There are practically no European groups, unless it be in England, and few if any other cultures elsewhere in the world which have become as disturbed over male homosexuality as we have here in the United States. Interestingly enough, there is much less public concern over homosexual activities among females, and this is true in the United States and in Europe and in still other parts of the world.
For ancient Greece, Rome, and India, female homosexuality is recorded in: Ovid [1st cent. B.C., Roman]: Heroides, XV, 15-20, 201 (1921:183, 195) (Sappho recounts her past loves). Plutarch [1st cent, a.d., Greek]: Lycurgus, 18.4 (1914:(1)265). Martial [1st cent, a.d., Roman]: 1,90(1919(1):85-87; 1921:33); VII, 67 (1919(1) :469-471; 1921:193-194); VII, 70 (1919(1) :47l; 1921:194). Juvenal [lst-2nd cent, a.d., Roman]: Satires, VI, 308-325 (1789:272-275; 1817:239-240). Lucian [2nd cent, a.d., Greek]: Amores (1895:190); Dialogues of Courtesans, V (1895:100-105). Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana [lst-6th cent, a.d., Sanskrit] 1883-1925:62, 124. For additional accounts of Sappho of Lesbos, see; Wharton 1885, 1895. Miller and Robinson 1925. Weigall 1932.

In the course of human history, distinctions between the acceptability of heterosexual and of homosexual activities have not been confined to our European and American cultures. Most cultures are less acceptant of homosexual, and more acceptant of heterosexual contacts. There are some which are not particularly disturbed over male homosexual activity, and some which expect and openly condone such behavior among young males before marriage and even to some degree after marriage; but there are no cultures in which homosexual activity among males seems to be more acceptable than heterosexual activity. It is probable that in some Moslem, Buddhist, and other areas male homosexual contacts occur more frequently than they do in our European or American cultures, and in certain age groups they may occur more frequently than heterosexual contacts; but heterosexual relationships are, at least overtly, more acceptable even in those cultures.
Ford and Beach 1951:130 note that 64 per cent of a sample of 76 societies consider homosexuality acceptable for certain persons.

Records of male homosexual activity are also common enough among more primitive human groups, but there are fewer records of homosexual activity among females in primitive groups. We find some sixty pre-literate societies from which some female homosexual activity has been reported, but the majority of the reports imply that such activity is rare. There appears to be only one pre-literate group, namely the Mohave Indians of our Southwest, for whom there are records of exclusively homosexual patterns among females. That same group is the only one for which there are reports that female homosexual activity is openly sanctioned.
The sexual life of the Mohave was intensively studied by Devereux 1936, 1937.
For ten or a dozen groups, there are records of female transvestites—i.e., anatomic females who dress and assume the position of the male in their social organization—but transvestism and homosexuality are different phenomena, and our data show that only a portion of the transvestites have homosexual histories.

There is some question whether the scant record of female homosexuality among pre-literate groups adequately reflects the fact. It may merely reflect the taboos of the European or American anthropologists who accumulated the data, and the fact that they have been notably reticent in inquiring about sexual practices which are not considered “normal” by Judeo-Christian standards. Moreover, the informants in the anthropologic studies have usually been males, and they would be less likely to know the extent of female homosexual activities in their cultures. It is, nonetheless, quite possible that such activities are actually limited among the females of these pre-literate groups, possibly because of the wide acceptance of pre-marital heterosexual relationships, and probably because of the social importance of marriage in most primitive groups.
Ford and Beach 1951:133, 143, also note that female homosexuality seems less frequent than male homosexuality among pre-literates.

Moral Interpretations
The general condemnation of homosexuality in our particular culture apparently traces to a series of historical circumstances which had little to do with the protection of the individual or the preservation of the social organization of the day. In Hittite, Chaldean, and early Jewish codes there were no overall condemnations of such activity, although there were penalties for homosexual activities between persons of particular social status or blood relationships, or homosexual relationships under other particular circumstances, especially when force was involved.
For the rather broad acceptance of homosexuality in many parts of the ancient Near East, see; Pritchard 1950:73-74, 98-99, for the Gilgamesh Epic (2nd millennium b.c. or earlier) which contains passages suggesting homosexual relations between the heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Homosexuality is not mentioned in the codes of Lipit-Ishtar or Hammurabi, and the injunction in the Hittite code (Pritchard 1950:196) is aimed only at men who have contact with their sons. The Middle Assyrian laws (12th century b.c. or earlier) likewise mention male homosexuality which was punishable by castration (see: Barton 1925: Chapter 15, item 19), but a more modem translation suggests that this punishment was preceded by homosexual contact between the convicted man and his punishers (Pritchard 1950:181). Epstein 1948:135-136 assumes a general taboo on male homosexuality among the ancient Hebrews, but admits that this taboo is not to be found in the Covenant Code or in Deuteronomy, but only in the somewhat later Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. See also Genesis 19:1-25, and Judges 19:17-25, for the protection of a male guest from forced homosexual relations. Deuteronomy 23:17-18 simply prohibits men of the Israelites from becoming temple prostitutes, but goes no further.

The more general condemnation of all homosexual relationships originated in Jewish history in about the seventh century b.c., upon the return from the Babylonian exile. Both mouth-genital contacts and homosexual activities had previously been associated with the Jewish religious service, as they had been with the religious services of most of the other peoples of that part of Asia, and just as they have been in many other cultures elsewhere in the world.
Male homosexual temple prostitutes, “Tcadesh,” were at one time a part of Jewish religion, as may be gathered from II Kings 23:7, and from the warning in Deuteronomy 23:17-18. This is discussed by Westermarck 1917(2):488, and by Epstein 1948:135-136. The subsequent condemnation of homosexuality occurs repeatedly, as in: I Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46. Leviticus 18:22; 20:13. See also the Talmud, Sanhédrin 54a, 78a, 82a. Yebamoth 25a, 54b. Sotah 26b, etc.
In the wave of nationalism which was then developing among the Jewish people, there was an attempt to disidentify themselves with their neighbors by breaking with many of the customs which they had previously shared with them. Many of the Talmudic condemnations were based on the fact that such activities represented the way of the Canaanite, the way of the Chaldean, the way of the pagan, and they were originally condemned as a form of idolatry rather than a sexual crime. Throughout the middle ages homosexuality was associated with heresy.
The condemnation of homosexuality as idolatry is noted by Westermarck 1917(2) :487-488, and by Epstein 1948:136.
The reform in the custom (the mores) soon, however, became a matter of morals, and finally a question for action under criminal law.

Jewish sex codes were brought over into Christian codes by the early adherents of the Church, including St. Paul, who had been raised in the Jewish tradition on matters of sex.
For St. Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality, see: Romans 1:26-27. I Corinthians 6:9. I Timothy 1:10.
The Catholic sex code is an almost precise continuation of the more ancient Jewish code.
The Catholic codes explicitly condemn male and female homosexuality. See such accepted Catholic sources as: Arregui 1927:153. Davis 1946(2):246.
For centuries in Medieval Europe, the ecclesiastic law dominated on all questions of morals and subsequently became the basis for the English common law, the statute laws of England, and the laws of the various states of the United States. This accounts for the considerable conformity between the Talmudic and Catholic codes and the present-day statute law on sex, including the laws on homosexual activity.
For the relationship between Jewish and Catholic codes, and the statute law, see also: Westermarck 1917 (2); 480-489. May 1931: ch. 2, 3.

Condemnations of homosexual as well as some other types of sexual activity are based on the argument that they do not serve the prime function of sex, which is interpreted to be procreation, and in that sense represent a perversion of what is taken to be “normal” sexual behavior. It is contended that the general spread of homosexuality would threaten the existence of the human species, and that the integrity of the home and of the social organization could not be maintained if homosexual activity were not condemned by moral codes and public opinion and made punishable under the statute law. The argument ignores the fact that the existent mammalian species have managed to survive in spite of their widespread homosexual activity, and that sexual relations between males seem to be widespread in certain cultures (for instance, Moslem and Buddhist cultures) which are more seriously concerned with problems of overpopulation than they are with any threat of underpopulation. Interestingly enough these are also cultures in which the institution of the family is very strong.

Legal Attitudes
While it is, of course, impossible for laws to prohibit homosexual interests or reactions, they penalize, in every state of the Union, some or all of the types of contact which are ordinarily employed in homosexual relations. The laws are variously identified as statues against sodomy, buggery, perverse or unnatural acts, crimes against nature, public and in some instances private indecencies, grossly indecent behavior, and unnatural or lewd and lascivious behavior. The penalties in most of the states are severe, and in many states as severe as the penalties against the most serious crimes of violence.
For a convenient and almost complete summary of the statutes concerning homosexuality in the. forty-eight states, see: Cory 1951:appendix B.
The penalties are particularly severe when the homosexual relationships involve an adult with a young minor. For the problem involved in the relationships of adults and minors, see: Gutt-macher and Weihofen 1952:156.
There is only one state. New York, which, by an indirection in the wording of its statute, appears to attach no penalty to homosexual relations which are carried on between adults in private and with the consent of both of the participating parties; and this sort of exemption also appears in Scandinavia and in many other European countries. There appears to be no other major culture in the world in which public opinion and the statute law so severely penalize homosexual relationships as they do in the United States today (1948-1952).

It might be expected that the moral and legal condemnations of homosexual activity would apply with equal force to both females and males. The ancient Hittite code, however, condemned only male homosexual activity and then only when it occurred under certain circumstances, and made no mention of homosexual activity among females. Similarly the references to homosexual activity in the Bible and in the Talmud apply primarily to the male. The condemnations were severe and usually called for the death of the transgressing male, but they rarely mentioned female activity, and when they did, no severe penalties were proposed.
The stringent penalty for homosexuality given in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 applies only to the male. Reference to female homosexuality does not appear until much later: Romans 1:26, where it is considered a “vile affection.” The Talmud is relatively lenient regarding females, stating that female homosexual activity is a “mere obscenity” disqualifying a woman from marrying a priest. See Yebamoth 76a. Maimonides, according to Epstein 1948:138, felt that a female guilty of homosexuality should be flogged and excluded from the company of decent women, which is a penalty far less severe than the death penalty required for the male.

In medieval European history there are abundant records of death imposed upon males for sexual activities with other males, but very few recorded cases of similar action against females.
Such medieval penalties for homosexuality are mentioned, for instance, in: Havelock Ellis 1915(2):346-347. Westermarck 1917(2):481-482. For a case of capital punishment levied on a female, see: Wharton 1932(1):1036-1037.
In modern English and other European law, the statutes continue to apply only to males; but in American law, the phrasing of the statutes would usually make them applicable to both female and male homosexual contacts.
There are specific statutes against female homosexuality only in Austria, Greece, Finland, and Switzerland.
The applicability of the laws to both females and males are also noted in: Sherwin 1951:13. Ploscowe 1951:204. Pilpel and Zavin 1952:220.

The penalties are usually invoked against ‘‘all persons,” “any person,’’ “whoever,” “one who” or “any human being” without distinction of sex. Actually there are only five states in the United States where the statutes do not cover female homosexual relationships, and it is probable that the courts would interpret the statutes in nearly all of the other states to apply to females as well as to males.
The states in which the statutes apparently do not apply to female homosexuality are: Conn., Ga., Ky., S. C., and Wis. Heterosexual cunnilingus has been held not “the crime against nature” in Illinois, Mississippi, and Ohio, and the decisions would supposedly apply to homosexual cunnilingus. In Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska there is also some doubt as to the status of female homosexuality.

These American statutes appear, however, to have gone beyond public opinion in their condemnation of homosexual relations between females, for practically no females seem to have been prosecuted or convicted anywhere in the United States under these laws. In our total sample of several hundred females who had had homosexual experience, only three had had minor difficulties and only one had had more serious difficulty with the police, and none of the cases had been brought to court. We have cases of females who were disciplined or more severely penalized for their homosexual activities in penal or other institutions, or while they were members of the Armed Forces of the United States, and we have cases in which social reactions constituted a severe penalty, but no cases of action in the courts.

Our search through the several hundred sodomy opinions which have been reported in this country between 1696 and 1952 has failed to reveal a single case sustaining the conviction of a female for homosexual activity. Our examination of the records of all the females admitted to the Indiana Women's Prison between 1874 and 1944 indicates that only one was sentenced for homosexual activity, and that was for activity which had taken place within the walls of another institution. Even in such a large city as New York, the records covering the years 1930 to 1939 show only one case of a woman convicted of homosexual sodomy, while there were over 700 convictions of males on homosexual charges, and several thousand cases of males prosecuted for public indecency, or for solicitation, or for other activity which was homosexual. In our own more recent study of the enforcement of sex law in New York City we find three arrests of females on homosexual charges in the last ten years, but all of those cases were dismissed, although there were some tens of thousands of arrests and convictions of males charged with homosexual activity in that same period of time.
New York City data are to be found in the report of the Mayor's Committee on Sex Offenses 1944:75.

It is not altogether clear why there are such differences in the social and legal attitudes toward sexual activities between females and sexual activities between males. They may depend upon some of the following, and probably upon still other factors:

    1. In Hittite, Jewish and other ancient cultures, women were socially less important than males, and their private activities were more or less ignored.
    2. Both the incidences and frequencies of homosexual activity among females are in actuality much lower than among males. Nevertheless, the number of male cases which are brought to court are, even proportionately, tremendously higher than the number of female cases that reach court.
    3. Male homosexual activity more often comes to public attention in street solicitation, public prostitution, and still other ways.
    4. Male homosexual activity is condemned not only because it is homosexual, but because it may involve mouth-genital or anal contacts. It is not so widely understood that female homosexual techniques may also involve mouth-genital contacts.
    5. Homosexual activities more often interfere with the male’s, less often interfere with the female’s marrying or maintaining a marriage.
    6. The Catholic Code emphasizes the sin involved in the wastage of semen in all male activities that are non-coital; it admits that female non-coital activities do not involve the same species of sin.
    7. There is public objection to the effeminacy and some of the other personality traits of certain males who have homosexual histories; there is less often objection to the personalities of females who have homosexual histories.
The statistically unsupported opinion that females with homosexual histories frequently or usually exhibit masculine physical characters, behavior, or tastes appears, however, in such authors as the following: Féré 1904:189. Parke 1906:266, 300-301, 321. Bloch 1908:526. Carpenter 1908:30-31. Talmey 1910:158-161. Freud 1910:11. Havelock Ellis 1915(2):251-254. Krafft-Ebing 1922:336, 398-399. Kisch 1926:192. Kelly 1930:138. Moll 1931:226 ff. Potter 1933:158. Hesnard 1933:186. Caufeynon 1934:132. S. Kahn 1937:69, 134. Hutton 1937:126, 129. Henry 1941(2):1062, 1075, 1081. Deutsch 1944:325. Negri 1949:187. Keiser and Schaffer 1949:287, 289. Bergler 1951:318. Higher “masculinity” ratings on masculinity-femininity tests are reported by: Termàii and Miles 1936:577-578. Henry 1941(2) :1033-1034.
    8. The public at large has some sympathy for females, especially older females, who are not married and who would have difficulty in finding sexual contacts if they did not engage in homosexual relations.
    9. Many heterosexual males are erotically aroused when they consider the possibilities of two females in sexual activities. In not a few instances they may even encourage sexual contacts between females. There are fewer cases in our records of females being aroused by the contemplation of activities between males.
    10. There are probably more males and fewer females who fear their own capacities to respond homosexually. For this reason, many males condemn homosexual activities in their own sex more severely than they condemn them among females.
    11. Our social organization is presently much concerned over sexual relationships between adults and young children. This is the basis for a considerable portion of the action which is taken against male homosexual contacts; but relationships between older women and very young girls do not so often occur.

Basic Social Interests
When a female’s homosexual experience interferes with her becoming married or maintaining a marriage into which she has entered, social interests may be involved. On the other hand, our social organization has never indicated that it is ready to penalize, by law, all persons who fail to become married.

When sexual relationships between adult females do not involve force or undue coercion, and do not interfere with marital adjustments that might have been made, many persons, both in Europe and in our American culture, appear to be fairly tolerant of female homosexual activities. At any rate, many of those who feel that a question of morality may be involved, fail to believe that the basic social interests are sufficient to warrant any rigorous legal action against females who find a physiologic outlet and satisfy their emotional needs in sexual contacts with other females.


In an attempt to secure a specific measure of attitudes toward homosexual activity, all persons contributing histories to the present study were asked whether they would accept such contacts for themselves, and whether they approved or disapproved of other females or males engaging in such activity. As might have been expected, the replies to these questions were affected by the individual’s own background of experience or lack of experience in homosexual activity, and the following analyses are broken down on that basis.

Table 144f. Attitudes of Females Toward Homosexual Activity
Correlation of attitudes with subject’s own homosexual experience
Attitudes Accept
for Self		 Approve
Homosexual Activity		 Would Keep Friends
Who Had Homosexual Experience
For other females For males Female friends Male friends
Subject Subject Subject Subject Subject
With exp. No exp. With exp. No exp. With exp. No exp. With exp. No exp. With exp. No exp.
% % %% % %% %- % %
Yes 181 23 418 4 8855 74 51
Uncertain 20 462 57 6054 8 23 16 23
No 6295 15 3922 42 422 10 26
Number of cases 6834500 653 4758 616 4718 251 941 122 935

Acceptance for Oneself
Of the 142 females in the sample who had had the most extensive homosexual experience, some regretted their experience and some had few or no regrets. The record is as follows:

Regret Percent
None 71
Slight 6
More or less 3
Yes 20
Number of cases 142

Among the females who had never had homosexual experience, there were only 1 per cent who indicated that they intended to have it, and 4 per cent more who indicated that they might accept it if the opportunity were offered.

But among the females who had already had some homosexual experience, 18 per cent indicated that they expected to have more. Another 20 per cent were uncertain what they would do, and some 62 per cent asserted that they did not intend to continue their activity. Some of the 18 per cent who indicated that they would continue were making a conscious and deliberate choice based upon their experience and their decision that the homosexual activity was more satisfactory than any other type of sexual contact which was available to them. Some of the others were simply following the path of least resistance, or accepting a pattern which was more or less forced upon them.

The group which had had homosexual experience and who expected to continue with it represented every social and economic level, from the best placed to the lowest in the social organization. The list included store clerks, factory workers, nurses, secretaries, social workers, and prostitutes. Among the older women, it included many assured individuals who were happy and successful in their homosexual adjustments, economically and socially well established in their communities and, in many instances, persons of considerable significance in the social organization. Not a few of them were professionally trained women who had been preoccupied with their education or other matters in the day when social relations with males and marriage might have been available, and who in subsequent years had found homosexual contacts more readily available than heterosexual contacts. The group included women who were in business, sometimes in high positions as business executives, in teaching positions in schools and colleges, in scientific research for large and important corporations, women physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, women in the auxiliary branches of the Armed Forces, writers, artists, actresses, musicians, and women in every other sort of important and less important position in the social organization. For many of these women, heterosexual relations or marriage would have been difficult while they maintained their professional careers. For many of the older women no sort of socio-sexual contacts would have been available if they had not worked out sexual adjustments with the companions with whom they had lived, in some instances for many years. Considerable affection or strong emotional attachments were involved in many of these relationships.
As examples of the statistically unsupported opinion that homosexuality is more common among females in aesthetic professions, see: Eberhard 1924:548. Rohleder 1925:381-382. Moreck 1929:312. Hesnard 1933:189. Chesser 1947:257. Martinez 1947:103. McPartland 1947:154. Beauvoir 1952:411.

On the other hand, some of the females in the sample who had had homosexual experience had become much disturbed over that experience. Often there was a feeling of guilt in having engaged in an activity which is socially, legally, and religiously disapproved, and such individuals were usually sincere in their intention not to continue their activities. Some of them, however, were dissatisfied with their homosexual relations merely because they had had conflicts with some particular sexual partner, or because they had gotten into social difficulties as a result of their homosexual activities.

Some 27 per cent of those who had had more extensive homosexual experience had gotten into difficulty because of it. Some of these females were disturbed because they had found it physically or socially impossible to continue relationships with the partner in whom they were most interested, and refused to contemplate the possibility of establishing new relationships with another partner. In a full half of these cases, the difficulties had originated in the refusal of parents or other members of their families to accept them after they had learned of their homosexual histories.

On the other hand, among those who had had homosexual experience, as well as among those who had not had experience, there were some who denied that they intended to have or to continue such activity, because it seemed to be the socially expected thing to disavow any such intention. Some of these females would actually accept such contacts if the opportunity came and circumstances were propitious. It is very difficult to know what an individual will do when confronted with an opportunity for sexual contact.

Approval for Others
As a further measure of female reactions to homosexual activity, each subject was asked whether she approved or disapproved or was neutral in regard to other persons, of her own or of the opposite sex, having homosexual activity. Each of the female subjects was also asked to indicate whether she would keep friends, female or male, after she had discovered that they had had homosexual experience. Since the question applied to persons whom they had previously accepted as friends, it provided a significant test of current attitudes toward homosexual behavior. From these data the following generalizations may be drawn:

   1. The approval of homosexual activity for other females was much higher among the females in the sample who had had homosexual experience of their own. Some 23 per cent of those females recorded definite approval, and only 15 per cent definitely disapproved of other females having homosexual activity.
   2. Females who had had experience of their own approved of homosexual activity for males less often than they approved of it for females. Only 18 per cent completely approved of the male activity, and 22 per cent definitely disapproved.
   3. The females who had never had homosexual experience were less often inclined to approve of it for other persons. Some 4 per cent expressed approval of homosexual activity for males, but approximately 42 per cent definitely disapproved. Some 4 per cent approved of activities for females, and 39 per cent disapproved.
   4. Among the females who had had homosexual experience, some 88 per cent indicated that they would keep female friends after they had discovered their homosexual histories; 4 per cent said they would not. Some of these latter responses reflected the subject’s dissatisfaction with her own homosexual experience, but some represented the subject’s determination to avoid persons who might tempt her into renewing her own activities.
   5. Among the females who had had homosexual experience, 74 per cent indicated that they would continue to keep male friends after they had discovered that they had homosexual histories, and 10 per cent said they would not. The disapproval of males with homosexual histories often depends upon the opinion that such males have undesirable characteristics, but this objection could not have been a factor in the present statistics because the question had concerned males whom the subject had previously accepted as friends.
   6. Females who had never had homosexual experience were less often willing to accept homosexual female friends. Only 55 per cent said they would keep such friends, and 22 per cent were certain that they would not keep them. This is a measure of the intolerance with which our Judeo-Christian culture views any type of sexual activity which departs from the custom.
   7. Some 51 per cent of the females who had never had homosexual experience said that they would keep homosexual males as friends, 26 per cent said they would not, and 23 per cent were doubtful. This sort of ostracism by females often becomes a factor of considerable moment in forcing the male who has had some homosexual experience into exclusively homosexual patterns of behavior.

Summary and Comparisons of Female and Male
Homosexual Responses and Contacts
In Female In Male
Physiologic and Psychologic Bases
Inherent capacity to respond to any sufficient stimulus Yes Yes
Preference developed by psychologic conditioning Yes Yes
Mammalian Origins
Among mammals homosexual behavior widespread Yes Yes
Anthropologic Background
Data on homosexual behavior Very few Some
Heterosexual more acceptable in most cultures Yes Yes
Homosexual behavior sometimes permitted Yes Yes
Social concern over homosexual behavior Less More
Relation to Age and Marital Status
Accumulative incidence
Homosexual response, by age 45 28% ±50%
Homosexual experience, by age 45 20% 
Single 26% ±50%
Married 3% ±10%
Previously married 10% 
Homo, exper. to orgasm, by age 45 13% ±37%
Active incidence, to orgasm
Single  
Age 16-20 3% 22%
Age 36-40 10% 40%
Age 46-50 4% 36%
Married 1-2%2-8%
Previously married, age 16-50 3-7% 5-28%
Frequency to orgasm, per week
Single  
Age Adol.-15 0.2 0.1
Age 21-30 0.3-0.4 0.4-0.7
Age 31-40 0.3-0.4 0.7-1.0
Married freq. lower than in single Somewhat Markedly
Percent of total outlet, before age 40
Single, gradual increase 4-19% 5-22%
Married Under 1%Under 1%
Previously married, gradual increase 2-10% 9-26%
Number of years involved
1 year or less 47% 
2 to 3 years 25% 
Number of partners
1-2 71%51%
Over 10 4%22%
Relation to Educational Level
Beginning at this point, the data apply to single females and males only, unless otherwise indicated.
Accumul. incid. to orgasm, by age 30
Grade school 6% 27%
High school 5% 39%
College 10%\
34%
Graduate 14%/
Act. incid. and % of outlet, higher
Before age 20 In less educ. In less educ.
After age 20 In better educ. In less educ.
Frequency to orgasm higher In less educ. In less educ.
Relation to Parental Occupational Class
 Little Little or none
Relation to Decade of Birth
 None Little or none
Relation to Age at Onset of Adolescence
 None Higher incid. and freq. in early-adol.
Relation to Rural-Urban Background
 Little Incid. and freq. higher in urban
Relation to Religious Background
Accum. and act. incid. higher among less dev. Yes Yes
Frequency to orgasm (active median) No relation Little relation
Percentage of total outlet Higher among devout No relation
Techniques in Homosexual Contacts
Essentially same as in hetero. petting Yes Yes
Kissing and general body contacts Extensive  
Genital techniques utilized Later or never Early and ± always
More effective than marital coitus Yes No
Hetero.-Homo. Ratings, e.g., ages 20-35
X : no socio-sexual response  
Single 14-19% 3-4%
Married 1-3% 0%
Previously married 5-8% 1-2%
0 : entirely heterosexual experience  
Single 61-72% 53-78%
Married 89-90% 90-92%
Previously married 75-80% 
1-6 : at least some homosexual 11-20% 18-42%
2-6 : more than incidental homosexual 6-14% 13-38%
3-6 : homo, as much or more than hetero. 4-11% 9-32%
4-6 : mostly homosexual 3-8% 7-26%
5-6 : ± exclusively homosexual 2-6% 5-22%
6 : exclusively homosexual 1-3% 3-16%
Social Significance of Homosexuality
Social concern in Anglo-Amer. culture Little Great
Most exper. indiv. regret least Yes Yes
Intent to have, highest among those with exper. Yes 
Approval for others, most often:
By those with experience Yes Yes
For own sex Yes No
Moral and Legal Aspects of Homosexuality
Injunction against, in:  
Ancient Near Eastern codes No Sometimes
Old Testament No Yes
Talmud Yes Yes
St. Paul and Christian codes Yes Yes
Formerly considered heresy Yes Yes
Death in ancient and medieval history Rarely Yes
For USA as to 1953 year:
Legally punishable in 43 states 48 states
Laws enforced Almost never Frequently

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