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by Ed S. Joseph R. Gibson (Author)
Even in view of it as a rising epidemic within the African-American community, homosexuality is psychologically abnormal. Most people, Black or White, are not attracted to those within their same sex. This book does not argue that African-American homosexuality is "a sin before God," "a deviation from Afrocentricity," or a moral deficiency acquired by way of social interaction with and imitation of White people, but it does assert that psychologically it's not the human norm. Trapped in Rainbows proposes that most psychological abnormalities are the result of the employment of a combination of ego defense mechanisms. Ego defense mechanisms are employed by dysfunctional egos that are incapable of successfully dealing with traumatic experiences or perceptions. I don't subscribe to the belief that homosexuals are born that way; consequently, I do accept that same-sex attraction is a symptom, is preventable, and that distinctly traumatized, self-alienated individuals are at-risk, not predestined, to become homosexuals.As will be explained in Chapter 1, the trauma-ego defense-lesbianism matrix is a theory behind the epidemic rise in contemporary African-American lesbianism that basically proposes that African-American lesbianism is ultimately and primarily based on the employment of the devaluation, splitting, and anticipation ego defense mechanisms, in which all males, particularly fathers, boyfriends, and/or husbands who have traumatically abandoned, abused, betrayed, rejected, or sexually assaulted the prospective Black lesbian at least twice in different stages of her ego development, are perceived as "all bad," particularly African-American males, and as terribly undesirable to be involved with in a socio-sexual relationship. There exists an anticipatory anxiety that traumatic experiences will be repeated in future socio-sexual relationships with males, particularly African-American males who have been thoroughly devalued and negatively stigmatized via institutions rooted in White supremacy (i.e., racism).The trauma-ego defense-male homosexuality matrix outlined in Chapter 2 is a theory behind the epidemic rise in contemporary African-American male homosexuality that basically proposes that the anxiety of anticipated behavioral powerlessness associated with inferiorized Black manhood encourages the prospective Black male homosexuality to employ the devaluation, splitting, and suppression ego defense mechanisms, in which all Black men, particularly biological fathers (or other Black men) who have traumatically abandoned, abused, or even sexually assaulted him, are perceived as bad and as undesirable to become. A traumatized son might respond to rejection from his father by rejecting his own masculinity. Moreover, within the psyche of the traumatized son a codependent craving develops toward receiving the male affection negated by his paternal trauma, frequently resulting in the assumption of homosexuality.
