ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: REFLECTIONS ON THE VIEWS OF DE CECCO AND MEYER-BAHLBURG.

Perper, Timothy

The article presents a reply to an article on homosexuality written by H.F.L. Mayer-Bahlburg and J. P. De Cecco. De Cecco and Meyer-Bahlburg are talking past one another like people screaming in a storm. In part, each is correct but each believes that the fields they represent are enemies. In the author's opinion, it is time to stop this screaming in the storm. It is De Cecco's viewpoint that the job of science, particularly in the hormonal research is to investigate any serious departures from the sex dimorphic model to find ways of keeping people in their assigned social niches and to stigmatize those who wiggle and escape them. By contrast Meyer-Bahlburg believes that it is a moral imperative for an empirical scientist to avoid any substantive presuppositions unless they are empirically well justified and that the scientific method provides the tools to examine preconceived notions and prevailing prejudices. For De Cecco science has a social function to support and reinforce prevailing prejudices and, presumably their socially evil, expressions. In metaphor, De Cecco thinks scientists are a kind of Orwellian thought police whose mission is repression and repression alone.

HOMOSEXUALITY; MEYER-Bahlburg, H. F. L.; DE Cecco, J. P.; SEXUAL orientation; HUMAN sexuality; GAY people

Journal of Sex Research, 1987, Vol 23, Issue 1, p127

0022-4499

Academic Journal

10.1080/00224498709551350