I am Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited.

Research failed to find any substantive difference between the psychological makeup of a narcissist who happens to have homosexual preferences and a heterosexual narcissist.

There is, however, one element which might be unique to homosexuals, the fact that their self-definition hinges on their sexual identity.

Heterosexuals usually would not use their sexual preferences to define themselves almost fully. Homosexuality has been inflated to the level of a subculture, separate psychology or a myth.

This is typical of persecuted minorities.

However, it does have an influence on the individual.

Reoccupation with body and sex makes most homosexual narcissists somatic narcissists.

Moreover, the homosexual makes love to a person of the same sex. In a way, he makes love to his reflection.

And in this respect, homosexual relations are highly narcissistic and autoerotic affairs.

The somatic narcissist directs his libido, his sex drive, at his own body. The cerebral narcissist concentrates on the intellect. The somatic narcissist cultivates his body, nourishes, nurtures it, often is often a hypochondriac, dedicates an inordinate amount of time to the needs of his body, both real and imaginary.

It is through his body that the somatic narcissist tracks down and captures his sources of narcissistic supply. The supply that the somatic narcissist so badly requires is derived from his shape, from his build, from his muscles, from his profile, from his beauty, from his physical attractiveness and irresistibility, from his health or from his age.

The somatic narcissist downplays narcissistic supply, directed at other traits of his, even at his intellect.

The somatic narcissist uses sex to reaffirm his prowess, his attractiveness, his resistibility, irresistibility, his youth. Love to him is synonymous with sex.

And the somatic narcissist focuses his learning skills on the sexual act, on the conquest, on the foreplay, and the quartal aftermath.

Seduction becomes addictive because it leads to a quick succession of narcissistic supply sources.

Naturally, boredom, a form of transmuted self-aggression, boredom sets in once the going gets routine. Routine is counter-narcissistic by definition because it threatens the narcissist’s sense of uniqueness.

An interesting side issue relates to transsexuals.

Philosophically, there is little difference between a narcissist who seeks to avoid his true self and positively to become his false self and a transsexual who seeks to discard his true gender and positively become a member of another gender.

But this similarity, though superficially appealing, is questionable.

People sometimes seek sex reassignment because of advantages and opportunities which they believe are enjoyed by the other sex.

This rather unrealistic fantastic view of the other is faintly narcissistic. It includes elements of idealized overvaluation of self-preoccupation and of objectification of one’s self. It demonstrates a deficient ability to empathize in some grandiose sense of entitlement.

Most transsexuals say, I deserve to be taken care of or of omnipotence. Some of them say I can be whatever I want to be despite nature and God, in defiance of nature and God.

This feeling of entitlement is especially manifest in some gender dysphoric individuals who aggressively pursue hormonal or surgical treatment. They feel that it is their inalienable right to receive such treatment on demand and without any strictures or restrictions.

For instance, some transsexuals refuse to undergo psychological evaluation or treatment as a condition for the hormonal or surgical treatment.

It is interesting to note that both narcissism and gender dysphoria are early childhood phenomena. This could be explained by problematic primary objects, parents, dysfunctional families, or a common genetic or biochemical problem. It is too early to say which the research is meager.

As yet, there isn’t even an agreed topology of gender identity disorders, let alone an in-depth comprehension of their sources.

A radical view preferred by Ray Blanchard seems to indicate that pathological narcissism is more likely to be found among non-core, egodystonic, autogynephilic transsexuals, and among heterosexual transvestites. It is less manifest in core egosyntonic homosexual transsexuals.

Autogenophilic transsexuals are subject to an intense urge to become the opposite sex and thus to be rendered the sexual object object of their own desire. In other words, they are so sexually attracted to themselves that they wish to become both lovers in the romantic equation, the male and the female.

Becoming a male or a female is the fulfillment of the ultimate narcissistic fantasy with the false self as a fetish, a narcissistic fetish.

The transsexual, by transforming himself into the opposite sex, provides himself with a closed space, closed universe in which he, and he alone, is the lover of himself in his role as male and female.

Autogenophilic transsexuals start off as heterosexuals and end up as either bisexual or homosexual.

By shifting his or her attentions to men, the male autogenophilic transsexual proves to himself that he has finally become a true and desirable woman.

A narcissistic aspiration if we ever heard one.