Men in Love

Just as there are many types of heterosexualities (Platonic, erotic, fraternal, repressed, master-slave), there are many types of homosexualities: the "typical" homosexual does not exist. In this beautifully written volume, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Vittorio Lingiardi traces the journey of gay people and the search for spirituality from early Greek times to contemporary culture via the myths, poems and symbols of male homosexualities throughout the centuries. From the Greek myth of the rape of Ganymede to Roman and Nazi eagles, Michelangelo's loves to the voice of Maria Callas, the relationship of Batman and Robin to the letters between Freud and Jung, this voyage into our collective unconscious reveals much about the way we all - gay or straight - feel about the range of relationships between men. Lingiardi argues that sexuality and spirit are complexities that risk being impoverished by the language of science. Recent writings about homosexuality have been split between dry, clinical metaanalyses and mass market self-help books. However, the mystery of human sexuality cannot be completely summed up using only psychoanalytic or biological models. Any comprehensive discussion of sexuality must include an acknowledgment of the poetic roots of eros.