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Chapter 3 (continued)
Father and Son (cont.)
Detached Fathers
The detached fathers in Bieber’s study were classified as being detached in various ways. Fifty-five percent were considered detached and “hostile.” These fathers were contemptuous and humiliating toward their sons, who generally responded by hating and fearing their fathers. Twenty-three percent of the detached fathers were considered “indifferent.” These fathers interacted very little with their sons, leading to emotionally shallow relationships. Eighteen percent of the detached fathers were ambivalent. These fathers were sometimes affectionate and rarely contemptuous or humiliating, but they spent little time with their sons. The last four percent of the detached fathers were considered “dominating” and exploitative.” These fathers were PURITANICAL, demanding of their son’s attention, and unaffectionate. Their sons were fearful and submissive.8(p91-102)
A detail from the Bieber study suggests that the father’s detachment may be a particularly significant component of homosexuality. The sons of those fathers who were not detached or absent—although their fathers manifested a range of other problems—showed higher probability of change in therapeutic treatment. Seven of the 13 men (54%) with non-detached fathers became heterosexual through treatment. This was the highest rate of change in sexual orientation seen in any of the sub-groups considered. Bieber suggests that, even when the father has other problems, if he is not detached he still introduces something into the father-son relationship that favors recovery from homosexuality.8(p117)
More than half (54%) of the men in Bieber’s non-homosexual control group also reported having detached fathers. Why did these men not become homosexual? It appears that the problems in these father-son relationships may have contributed to other psychological problems (all were receiving psychoanalysis) although not to homosexuality. Bieber states that close comparisons between the fathers of homosexuals and those of the control group shows “consistently less detachment and hostility among the [control group] fathers.” They conclude that “the extent of detachment and the intensity of hostility apparently play a determining role in the sexually adaptive outcome.”8(p116)
Sons of detached fathers may react to the unfulfilling relationship in various ways. They may be consciously aware of the lack of affection and interest, they may feel rejected, or they may simply feel an indistinct yearning for something they can’t explain. But however they experience it, the relationship will be traumatic.8(p114) W. Fairbain wrote the following regarding sons of rejecting fathers: “frustration of his desire to be loved and to have his love accepted is the greatest trauma that a child can experience; and indeed this is the only trauma that really matters from a developmental standpoint.”10(p83)
In response to this traumatic lack of need fulfillment, the boy may search elsewhere for attachments,8(p114) or he may simply withdraw into himself. Perhaps those boys with detached fathers who grow up heterosexual differ from their homosexual counterparts mostly in their ability to find attachments with males other than their father where their needs can be fulfilled nonsexually. Moberly’s statement that “the homosexual condition does not involve abnormal needs, but normal needs that have, abnormally, been left unmet in the ordinary process of growth”6(p18) makes a great deal of sense in this context.
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PURITANICAL: “extremely or excessively strict in matters of morals and religion.”11(p1464)