The Lesbian Personality

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to fill the void in objective investigation into the personality factors of lesbians. Although the subject of male homosexuality has been investigated exhaustively, it was not until relatively recently that studies concerned with lesbianism have been published, beginning with Armon (1960), then Bene (1965), Kaye et al. (1967) and Kenyon's series of articles in 1968. These papers have all attempted to take the subject out of the myth and psychoanalytic theory stages and bring it into the light, to determine whether the many theories, which at times have been based upon knowledge gleaned from male homosexual studies, have any objective, quantifiable basis. For example, one view stated by Caprio (1957) ‘that the vast majority of lesbians are emotionally unstable and neurotic …’ is a view commonly held as true almost by definition in psychiatric circles. It might be that this type of observation has been too subjectively made, on the basis of psychiatric interviews of otherwise neurotic women, who also may have been homosexually inclined.