uoting Estefania Lim. He is the parent who provides a different element in the overall development of the son. During the son's infant years, he is much attached with his mother. Beginning at about the age of three, the son starts to search for a masculine model on which to build his sense of self. He slowly withdraws himself from his mother and femininity. At some point, he might feel he is encountering a dilemma of losing his mother over identifying himself with his father. The father help lessen such struggle by gently drawing away the son from an overdependence on his mother and into interaction with the world at large. As the son grows into a young adult, the presence or absence of the father will either solidify or confuse his sense of identity, most especially his sexuality. If this is the case, depriving the son of the availability of the father will leave him in a vulnerable position of not having a confident and rich model of manhood, not having a clear and understandable model exemplifying culturally accepted male traits. Many would argue that paternal absence would not necessarily lead to the homosexuality of the son because brothers, male relatives, and peers can also be quite influential in the sex role development of the boy. However, it should be understood that what the boy absorbs primarily from them is psychosexuality, the awareness of being male and masculine, which is often forged by the boy through the messages he perceives from their behavior and attitude. It should be noted that gender identification, which is much deeper than the imitated psychosexuality, is a crucial part of the sex role developmental process. This process requires the nurturance of the father. The physical, as well as the psychological absence of the father would impair this phase of identification, an impairment that could possibly lead to the distortion of the son's sense of sexual orientation.Others may also dispute that ...
