More and more often, in clinical practice, it happens to meet patients who turn to us in the hope of finally being able to understand what theirs is true sexual orientationsince they are attacked by doubts relating to their preferences and that no longer find any security in the relationships and type of attraction lived.
The first and most important (for them) question they ask us is: “But according to her, I am a latent homicxual? “,“ Maybe I have a form of repressed homosexuality“.”
Since the time of the ancient Greeks, in fact, the conviction has been affirmed that a heterosexual desire and a homosexual desire could coexist in a body. In more recent times, the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, said that one congenital bisexuality is present in all human beings. Another psychoanalyst, Georg Groddeck, is also of the opinion that no heterosexual really removes their homosexual desires completely.
Nowadays, especially by browsing the Internet, let’s see how easily the expression is used “latent homosexuality” or “Repressed homosexuality” To indicate mostly an homosexuality that is not aware of. Often, even, erroneously or confused with the so -called “repressed homosexuality”, in which the subject deliberately decides to deny his homosexual orientation, that is, to repress themselves, despite being aware of it.
On the contrary, thelatent homosexuality It is proposed as a phenomenon that would operate at the level of subconscious, that is, below the levels of consciousness, and which would manifest itself through a series of alleged symptoms. This generates confusion and fears in those people who self -analysis and interpret how signs of latent homosexuality (or repressed homosexuality) of the phenomena that have nothing to do with sexual preferences.
This can happen to men and women who present a decrease in sexual desire for more or less long periods, the difficulties in exciting themselves in the presence of heterosexual stimuli that at other times would have excited, the difficulties of male or “frigidity” female erection, etc. (with a reasoning of the type: “since I no longer feel attraction for the other sex, or I no longer try it as before, then I could be a latent homosexual”).
This is the case, for example, of the person (usually with obsessive-compulsive problems) who has always been perceived as heterosexual, who has exclusively heterosexual relationships (perhaps who is engaged or married), and who suddenly begins to try the recurring doubt or the fear of being able to have fantasies or sexual desires towards a person of his own sex.
His initial reaction is often disorientation, fear and above all of negation; Then begins an inner dialogue with herself, a sort of more or less constant brood, to the search for reassurances regarding one’s sexual orientation And of alternative explanations to those phenomena that he feels not belonging to them and that frightened it. With the result that the doubt about sexual orientation, the fear of repressed homosexualityfeeds and becomes obsessed and anguished.
It is very frequent that people who fear latent homosexuals They have very rigid ideas on what is right or wrong for a heterosexual, and that therefore are subject to confusion very easily as soon as they feel only one of these rules that are part of their background (e.g., “a heterosexual trial attraction exclusively for people of the opposite sex, therefore it must not feel any pleasure in the face of homosexual stimuli”).
Ultimately it is true that in literature (especially psychoanalytic) the concept of latent homosexuality It has been proposed, although without any experimental feedback, but it is equally true that it often creates useless confusion and alarmism, especially in people with obsessive tendencieswho hook there to “justify” their fears, interpreting any phenomenon as a signal of an unaware homosexual orientation.
It is therefore advisable to contact specialists who are able to help us better understand what effective meaning have those phenomena that lead us to consider the possibility of being latent homosexualsInstead of continuing to navigate the internet, going to bother concepts like this that have little scientific value and that can feed unfounded anxieties.
