The Gay World: Male Homosexuality and the Social Construction of Evil

by Martin Hoffman

Describes the homosexual's institutions, relationships and activities, and analyzes the sociological and psycho-dynamic factors which lead to gay behavior

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction

212 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1968

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 2 out of 5]

A PSYCHIATRIST WRITES A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY SURVEY (circa 1968)

Psychiatrist Martin Hoffman wrote in the Introduction to this 1968 book, "This book arises out of two experiences on the part of the author. For the past several years (1965-1968) I have been engaged in a scientific study of the male homosexual community in the San Francisco Bay Area... The more I have studied male homosexuality the more I have become impressed with its seriousness as a social problem; it is perhaps the most serious undiscussed problem in the United States today... The second factor ... was the course about sexual deviation which I taught... it became apparent that there was no satisfactory literature on the problem of male homosexuality... I decided... it would be useful to write a general survey ... from a multi-disciplinary point of view." (Pg. 1-2)

He observes, "The baths as a social system are only possible because of the strong tendency to sexual promiscuity among male homosexuals, and it is simply not conceivable that lesbians, for example, would ever be able to develop such an institution." (Pg. 48)

He argues, "putting out as decoys police officers who are young, attractive, and seductively dressed, and who engage in enticing conversations with homosexuals, is itself an outrage to public decency. Since practically no homosexual arrests involve complaints from anyone, it is a very good question just why public funds are being expended for this purpose." (Pg. 85)

He recounts, "If I had to judge solely from my own psychiatric practice, I would have come to the same conclusions as [Irving] Bieber and [Samuel B.] Hadden. None of the homosexuals I have treated has been mentally healthy; they were all sick. What I have refused to do, however, is to assume that my patients were the only kind of homosexuals that there are." (Pg. 157)

He strongly rejects Bieber's notion of a psychoanalytic "cure": "This is so absurd a notion that I hesitate to take the reader's time to discuss it at any length. Is it really possible to conceive that a problem involving so many millions of men can be solved through individual treatment methods which were designed for an entirely different class of individuals, for neurotics, who felt a desire for a radical change in their life situations and who voluntarily sought psychiatric attention?" (Pg. 194)

This book may be of some interest to people studying the history of psychoanalytic attitudes toward this issue.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earlier this year, I read Someone You May Know by Konraad, which discusses the gay community in Los Angeles in 1965. The Gay World, which discusses the gay community in San Francisco in 1968, is an amazing foil to that. Konraad may see himself as progressive on the issue, but comes and goes with incredible ignorance and in doing so writes one of the most insane books I've ever read (check out my review). By contrast, Hoffman has written a book so prescient that much of what it says (maybe even most) still feels relevant today. Despite his attachment to the psychoanalytic methods which were prevalent at the time (now regarded as pseudoscientific) he makes a lot of really interesting points.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

slay queen

[Richard Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martin Hoffman, an American psychiatrist, wrote about the "gay world" just before the birth of the gay liberation movement, which is generally considered to have begun with the Stonewall riots of 1969. Read from the perspective of the late 1960s, it was a progressive, open-minded look at homosexuality in modern society. Hoffman insisted that gay and lesbian Americans were not (necessarily) suffering from any mental disease, and that there were many happy and healthy gay people. He refuted popular and influential fellow psychiatrists of his time, in particular Dr. Irving Bieber (1909-1991), who wrote that homosexuality was inherently dysfunctional and believed homosexuals could be "cured" with proper psychoanalytic treatment. Hoffman also supported decriminalizing homosexual conduct and removing other then-common legal obstacles to living an open life.

Read the perspective of 2022, however, the book will no doubt strike many readers as puzzling or even insulting, in particular its section on the origin of same-sex desire. Hoffman believed that sexual orientation is not inherent but acquired through early socialization experiences, and offers multiple explanations for the origins of homosexuality of different classes of patients. Some of his sociological/ethnographic theories, such as that gay men desire to perform oral sex as a kind of ritualized seeking of male potency, will find few adherents today. He also gives serious consideration to the hoary cliché that same-sex attracted men avoid intimacy with women because of Freudian castration anxiety dating from early childhood. Also, while he acknowledges that bisexuality is a separate orientation from homosexuality, his analysis effectively collapses the two in analysis of same-sex desire, muddying an important distinction.

Hoffman's analysis is important for students of gay history precisely because it offers a sort of analytical bridge between the homosexuality-as-illness consensus of the mid-20th century and the movement for born-this-way gay acceptance that was just starting to accelerate and break into the mainstream as he wrote. Within five years, his colleagues in the American Psychiatric Association would vote to stop classifying homosexuality as a mental illness, a move that represented a major milestone in acceptance of gay and lesbian people in American public life. For people born after many of those changes occurred (Millennials and Zoomers), the book represents a fascinating look into a not-too-distant past that will nevertheless likely feel quite alien.