REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS 183 band has erectile problems.After taking a brief initialgeneral physical sexual history, without an examination,the physician importanceof referralto a explainsto the couplethe with "Certified"{qualified) sexologist. the sexologist,the patient is Upon meeting has to explainedthe possible undergoin order to properly diagnostictests he thorough This document containsevaluate Clarence his Tripp's sexual problem. sexologicalexam with complete After a nation,the patientreview of Sexual Preference:blood Its works and hormonal is subjectedto specialsexual determi- pressure,doppler Developmentflow in Men and Women.diagnostic It was tests: penileblood studies, and nocturnalpenile toringin a sleeppublished laboratory inwith the Journal of Sex Research,tumescence(NPT) moni- Afterthe vol. 18, no. 2 (May(EEG) 1982).electroencephalographic aboveassessment the sexologist recordings. exactdiagnosis explainsto the patient/couple and refers him back to his the management. primaryphysician for further Although the intraurethraltemperature recentdiagnostic determinationis not includedin the is armamentarium,the overallsexual sufficientenough to excludeany dysfunctionevaluation This film is organiccauses of impotence. an excellentteaching material tionerswho deal recommendedfor generalpracti- extensivelywith sexual problems practicingsexologists. and a refreshercourse for Medical,paramedical, and graduate studyinghuman sexuality would studentswho are PartII also benefitfrom this timely depictsthe classicprocess of information. Theinitial sex therapyfor psychogenic processincludes the usualoffice impotence. nationof the sex therapy couple/patientinterview and expla- therapyis well process-assignments.The step by step processof illustratedin the homesetting; sex andsexual fromsensate focus, pleasuring, * techniques * . for erectionmaintenance, to pemslntercourse. the "finale"of vaginal- Overall this film is another superb psychologistswho teaching aid for physicians practicesex counselingand and coursefor therapyand also as a refresher sexologistsand students of sexuality. Jose FloranteJ. Leyson,M.D. Directorof Sex Clinic East OrangeVeteran's Administration MedicalCenter East Orange,NJ 07019 SEXUALPRI£}'ICRENCE: ITS (vol. DEVELOPMENTIN MEN AND I);SEXUAL PRI£b'SRENCE: WOMEN Alan P. Bell, STATISTICALAPPENDIX (vol. MartinS. Weinberg,& Sue II). ington:Indiana KieferHammersmith. Bloom- UniversityPress, 1981;Vol. I: 321 pages;$20.00. 242 pages;$15.00; Vol. II: Topeople who for someyears have been berg& lookingforward to this Bell, Hammersmithstudy of the origins of Wein- likelyto be a shockand a ,the result is tribution disappointment.For despite the study's in one area,it so backs off definitecon- Kinseyas to fromboth the methodsand makean ironyof its billingas findingsof sexuality."In "TheNew KinseyStudy on contrastto Kinsey'swarning Homo- carefulfirst-hand to avoidtheory and to try to observationsof whateveris to make be understood,the authorsdo 184 REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS an about-face into a conventional hypothesis-testing program designed check out the to possible validity of many armchairtheories that, over the have been years, contrived by various psychoanalysts and sociologists. Using a questionnaire of more than 500 items they obtained answers and self-ratings from 979 homosexual and 477 heterosexual men and women, white and black, whose responses were then compared via elaborate statistical pro- cessing lprimarily path-analysis). The hypotheses they chose to test were mainly the Freudianand sociological family-basedtheories: The effects Xifany) of close-bindingand other odd mothers, and/orof weak or cold fathers, on their sons; the influence of various mother-daughterand father-daughterrelation- ships on girls; the effects of various mother-fatherrelationships; the effects of "identification"with same-sex vs. opposite-sex parents; the possible effects of mothers' and fathers' personal traits on their children;the effects of early sex experiences,seduction, dating experiences, and rejection by opposite-sex part- ners;the consequences of birth-order,sibling constellations, and sibling sex- play; relations with peers; 'shappiness" and self-esteem measures; various gendertraits ("conformist"& "nonconformist"};differing patterns of develop- ment in effeminate men and masculine women, bisexuals, homosexuals-in- therapy,etc. There is a note of gratification and more than a little pain in all this. Quite understandablyin the case of each variable such as "Mothers," "Fathers," "Mother-Father Relationships," etc., the authors, before discussing their own findings,review the whole conglomeration of psychoanalytic dogma from the "Oedipal struggle" up through BieberSs close-binding mother/weak father/wronglyidentified son (or daughter), etc. For trained observers who maynot have waded through these swamps in some time, there is shock anew at the deja vu of just how much stereotypy there really is in all these stereotypes.But on another level, too, it's a painful voyage. For in retrospect, itmakes one realize how costly these notions have been to the field, not just in thevacuousness of their main themes, but also in the promulgation of their underlyingassumptions: that [being "instinctive"] can be takenfor granted and thus its development need not be accounted for; that homosexualityarises from factors other than those which are also involved in heterosexuality;and, worst of all, that a preferenceof any kind can ever rest on anegative base. (A person likes what he likes because of its rewards, not becausehe hates or fears something else.) One sees the these diverting power of underlying assumptions in the case at hand. For while it is Bell, unlikely that Weinberg & Hammersmith personally believed in all the theyset out stereotypes to test, the fact is that they tested nothing else. Thus, asit seems, astonishing they too fell victim to the underlying assumptions hypotheses of their and thus dared to seek the "development of sexual without preference" mentioning, let alone testing, a single fundamental factor in selection,nor sexual exploring so much as a single positive motivation. Thenwhere is the note of gratification? It's in the fact that at last all the old stereotypeshave been subjected to formal analysis; it's a valuable service. For whilemany of these notions have long since lost credibility among profes- REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS 185 sionals, they very much live on in popularthinking where they satisfy continueto the curiosityof the unwary.The authors deserve credit for so frankly this, andfor concluding,"We considerone of the majorcontributions of presentstudy to be the the lack of supportit gives to manyof the traditionalno- tions aboutthe causes and developmentof homosexuality." Havingtested theirbatch of traditionalpsychoanalytic and sociologicideas and foundthem lacking(and after makinga handfulof very modestobserva- tions of theirown, suchas "By the timeboys andgirls reach , their sexual preferenceis likely to be alreadydetermined . ."), what the authors thendo is remarkable.They act as if this is all that modern vast psychologyand the fieldof sociallearning have to offerand proceed to throwthe over into wholeissue biology-saying, in effect, that the developmentof humansexual preferencesmust somehowspring in various[unspecified] ways and fromgenetic hormonalfactors. This is astoundingenough at first blush, dred but it is a hun- times moreso whenit is realizedthat in orderto makethis tialleap giant inferen- the authorshad to ignore(or be unawareof) manyrelevant tions,those contribu- of FrankBeach, for example,who is not cited at all. And extrafillip to as an makematters worse, the citationsthey do give areextremely level.There are a low few very dubious,never-replicated "hormone" papers along with a numberof statements of support from various psychiatrists and psychotherapists{some are still worse:citation #91 turns out to be from named"experts" un- quotedin an Ann Landersnewspaper column), not a single oneis of basic or fundamentalimportance. Here again, what would have important(though been it would have underminedtheir whole casepis Kinsey's specificallyrelevant paperin this area,"Criteria for a HormonalExplanation ofthe Homosexual," plus his eight "Conditions"for any acceptablehereditary evidenceof homosexuality(Kinsey et al., Vol. I, pp. 662-663). Since the whole hereditaryissue is of some importance,and the makesuch loud authors speculationsabout it, it mightbe worthanother question here: Whatif their evidenceor argumenthad seemedstronger; been wouldit then have safe to entertainnotions of a genetic/hormonalorigin for inthe homosexuality face of what is alreadyknown? Hardly-at this stage in humangene-pools evolution, are astonishinglyhomogenous throughout most of the world(enough so to stabilizeleft-handedness, for instance,at around5 to 7 percentwherever it has been measured)and yet the frequencyof homosexu- alityvaries radically from one societyto the next. Or,to lem attackthe sameprob- fromthe otherdirection, most Americanblacks are of West a Africanstock, racial/culturalarea in which the indigenoushomosexuality hovers as zeroas has ever near been discoveredanywhere, yet the frequencyof homo- sexualityamong their offspring,American blacks, is now fromthat indistinguishable of our white population.Farewell to genes, and all that. Timeafter time in Bell,Weinberg & Hammersmith,one of encountersthe sorts errorsand misinterpretationswhich, at first glance, may mere seem logical or oversightsbut which,in fact, are majormistakes that obscure sometimes central, pivotal issues on which Kinsey and Beach spent countless exploring,isolating, hours and then thoroughlyinvestigating. For instance, we read 186 REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS here (pp. 111-112),"It has been argued [by Kinsey]that those [boys]who mature earliest are more likely to eroticizetheir relationshipswith other males,simply because at earlyages boys associatemore with one another than with girls."But Kinseynever said any such thing,nor did he thinkit. On the very day that his early-/higher-homosexualityfinding turned up, there happenedto be some prominentvisitors present,and one of them IYerkesor Dickinson?)said somethinglike, "Oh,that makessense; an early-pubertyboy is not yet of datingage, so of coursehomosexuality is encouraged."But Beach immediatelysaid, "That's just the kind of item we have to be especially carefulwith; I'll have it checked[at Yale]."In due coursethe resultscame in. It turnedout that the same thing is true in rats-that is, that those who matureeven slightly aheadof the othersshow a markedproclivity to more,as wellas, earliersex, to a greaterinversion-readiness, and thus to more[active as well as submissive]homosexual contacts (and conversely, that those who are slightly late in maturingare markedlydisinclined to eitheraccept or to insti- gate homosexualcontacts). In fact, it was largelyfrom these startlingobser- vations that Kinseyand Beach,together, arrived at a majorrealization: that muchin sexualdevelopment is affectedby severalclosely related items-early puberty,high androgenlevels that invigoratethe sexualsubstrate both early andthoughout life) and, from the beginning,boost its inversion-readiness.It is of far-reachingsignificance that inversionrides on the crest and not on the troughof the androgencurve, and that in groupdata on homosexualitythere turnout to be importantcorrelations between the timeof puberty,the amount of sex, particularmasturbatory patterns, and even penis size. How in the worldcould the present authorshave ignoredand missed so much?(It is clearhow they missedthe earlypuberty differentials in theirown work;they didn'tcompile any tabulationsfor 11- and 14-year-olds,and they groupedtogether their 12- and 13-year-olds,thus wipingout the data on the veryages betweenwhich the sharpestdifferences occur [Kinsey et al., Vol.I, p. 317].)But howcould they have missedthe basicissues and,thus, all the rest? Did they simply not read their own librarythat lies "amouldering"on the shelf?(It almost seemsworse to supposethey did readit and couldstill have turnedout this product.)In any case the finalpicture presents an excruciating irony.Certainly, Kinsey could not haveimagined in his wildestdreams Znight- mares!) that anyoneclaiming to carryforth the torchhe lit couldhave so reck- lessly cast asideboth the letter and the spiritof all his work(forsaking induc- tive for deductivemethods in the process)and offerin theirplace the trivial, startingassumptions of psychiatryas the be-alland end-allof sex research. C. A. Tripp,PhD SouthBoulevard at Tweed Nyack,NY 10960

A COMMENT ON TRIPP'S REVIEW

We are most concernedabout factual errors and misrepresentationsin ClarenceTripp's review of ourreport on the developmentof sexualpreference.