Page:Homo-sexual Life by William John Fielding (1925).pdf/5



It has been stated that a person normally goes through three stages in the course of his sexual development—which are represented by the following dominant characteristics, in the order given: Autosexuality, Homosexuality, and Heterosexuality.

Each is normal at a certain stage of life. Circumstances, hereditary or environmental, or a combination of both (there is a vast amount of controversy about this phase of the subject), may halt the course of development at either the first or second stage, so that the final evolution of sexual life may never be realized.

This refers to the psychological and emotional aspects of sexual development, rather than the purely physical, as it is the former that sustains the shocks in the difficult process of the individual's social adjustment.

While there is a great deal of theoretical abstraction in such a broad survey of the sexual life, nevertheless, there are enough concrete facts at hand to make the conclusions as accurate and serviceable as any that are to be obtained within the realm of actual clinical practice. The sexual urge is by no means a simple, direct manifestation, but consists of many partial and often conflicting impulses, with ramifications that extend into every channel and byway of life.