to have been a repressed homosexual, who he believed "sublimated" his sexual desires so as to achieve artistic brilliance. However, Freud's ideas about sexual repression have been subject to heavy criticism. According to sex therapist Bernard Apfelbaum, Freud did not base his belief in universal innate, natural sexuality on the strength of sexual desire he saw in people, but rather on its weakness.

In some periods of Indian history, anaphrodisiacs