FEMALES’ SEXUAL PREFERENCE: MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS
According to classic psychoanalytic theory, the sexual orientation of a female is largely determined by the way she copes with childhood antagonism toward her mother. In this theory, a young girl feels that her mother has shortchanged her by not providing her with a penis and devalues her mother because she, too, lacks a penis. Further, the daughter is thought to be jealous of the affection her mother receives from her father, wishes to supplant her mother in his eyes, and at the same time fears that as a result of this rivalry her mother might abandon her. According to this view, the young girl eventually represses both her erotic feelings toward her father and her wish to take over her mother’s privileged position with him. Instead, it is thought, she comes to identify with her mother and begins to anticipate personal fulfillment through a rewarding relationship with a male (whom some theorists see as a father-substitute). In her attachment to this more-eligible male, according to psychoanalytic theory, the woman vicariously acquires a penis, and when she gives birth to a child—ideally a son—this important quest finally comes to an end.
Since it is supposed that the transition just described is most likely to occur within the context of a mother-daughter relationship characterized by warmth and a mutual respect, many theorists portray homosexuality in females as resulting in large part from an unloving mother-daughter relationship. According to this view, a female’s homosexuality represents an unconscious effort to obtain from other women the love and understanding she wanted but did not receive from her mother; thus her homosexual partners are viewed as mother-substitutes from whom she seeks maternal nurturance.
Numerous empirical studies have found a tendency for homosexual women to have had poorer relationships with their mothers than did heterosexual women. The mothers of homosexual women have also been described as overburdened with responsibilities and unable to establish rapport with their daughters; the daughters, in turn, have been described as feeling unloved, unwanted, and neglected. Another report describes the mothers of adolescent lesbians as openly resentful and jealous of their daughters.
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Tags: Women’s Health