Heterosexuality, Male Diminance, and the Father Image.

In this paper I try to substantiate, by examining studies that compare, homosexuals and heterosexuals, that the father image is more pivotal to sexual preference in both sexes than is the mother image. Beyond this I develop an argument about why becoming heterosexual for both sexes would involve establishing a solidary (but not seductive) relationship with the lather or a father figure. Translating psychoanalytic theory into more social-structural terms, I argue that the Oedipal period may be understood as the time at which the power of the father representing the system of male dominance is substituted for the power of the mother in the mother-infant dyad. For the girl, becoming heterosexual then involves adding on a love for her lather to her initial love for the mother in a relationship in which the lather is dominant by virtue of] both his sex and his generation. For the boy, becoming heterosexual involves reclaiming the heterosexuality he learned in infancy in a context in which he himself is dominant. In both cases, it is the lather image, not that of] the mother, that figures most prominently in the transition, This analysis in essence makes explicit what the psychoanalytic descriptions I drew upon assumed, namely: the nuclear family, female responsibility for infants, male dominance and homophobia. Finally, I suggest that there is likely no inherent connection between male dominance and heterosexuality and that heterosexual relations to the extent that they serve to break up the male peer group may actually mitigate this dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]