The Tantalus Ratio

Personality core dynamics and predisposition towards homosexuality

“…Because of her frustrations she projects on the young male child her craving for an ideal male partner. At a very plastic early oral stage where symbolic communication is not possible, we have hypothesized (Shoham, 1977 ; Shoham, 1 9 7 8~) that mother-child communication of early orality is a direct intuitive and an extremely potent manner of non-verbal communication. Consequently, the newborn male child incorporates at this stage of early orality his mother's craving for the ideal male; he internalizes very deeply within his impressionistic and fastly developing self-core, and introjects within his personality structures and motivations, a lifelong quest of the ideal male image transmitted over to him by the mother.…”

“…the time of fixation: whether it has taken place in early orality or in later orality, after the separate self has been crystallized and separated from the pantheistic mass of early orality (Shoham, 1977). The more active homosexual would have been fixated after the differentiation between self and object, whereas the more passive homosexual would have been fixated at early orality .…”

“…age of three but are more specific in relating it to the oral stage and to our wider personality theory (Shoham, 1977). The passive type of homosexual conveys characteristics of our Tantalic personality type whereas the active homosexual would not be an extreme separant Sysiphean type but he would be significantly more separant than the passive homosexual.…”

“…( I ) Oral fixations produce various types of personality, as we have elaborated elsewhere (Shoham, 1977). Homosexuality differs from other types of oral fixation by being related to a sexually and/or emotionally dissatisfied mother, who projects her desire for a satisfying male partner on to her male child.…”

“…If the traumas fixate the personality after the coagulation of the self the separant or the Sysiphean type is bound to emerge. We have developed this typology fully in a volume length exposition (Shoham, 1977).…”