[Clinical comments on female homosexuality]

In psychoanalytic theory, homosexual women are regarded as being possessed by violent hatred of the mother. They are held to identify with the male or the phallic and to display an absence of "normal" femaleness. Their attendant immaturity makes them incapable of love. The author takes issue with the assumption that normality is synonymous with mature, reciprocal heterosexuality. With reference to a case study of a homosexual woman, she traces the structure of a lesbian love relationship. The patient is the involuntary witness of sexual intercourse between the parents. The mixture of alarm and excitement which this arouses sparks off female desires that revive early libidinous experiences with the mother. The girl desires her mother, without however identifying with the father. In her later relationships with women she does not relate to her partners as a disguised man but as a woman. Identification with the father serves as a defence against the desire for-and the fear of-identification at a female level.