Why Sasuke MAY be gay and other facts about his personality based on psychological analysis To start with, I'm making this post cause I myself am not sure about Sasuke being gay either-not that it matters but just so we can discuss upon his very common nickname 'sasgay' on a serious level. Also, I'm a girl who doesn't watch yaoi but ships Narusasu as a platonic type of thing more than romantic (It's just that I feel Naruto truly feels brotherly love for Sasuke and I like the bible kind of ultimate love being the one you show for a friend without a reward/anything in exchange). BUT I cannot deny that there are many romantic undertones in their relationship that for me they only add more beauty to their unique bond without 'cheapening' it but rather making it poetically beautiful. ​ Let's take Sasuke's family background that it is thoroughly shown to us during his first vote flashback scenes: Sasuke in a few words is: close to his mother, tries to get recognition but ultimately has a poor relationship with his father and desperately tries to reach the high bars his own brother raised far up and above him. Now let's analyse the above data in psychological terms:  According to Freud, during the child's first years (3-6) the Oedipus complex is established where the boy feels sexual desire for his own mother which leads it to feel an emotional rivalry with the father cause the last is the 'privileged one' to sleep with the mother. The boy wants to be united with the mother and on first thought he has the impulse to want to kill the father but on a second thought based on reality knows that the father is stronger and thus instead of the boy wishing his death, he tries to identify with him. During the identification process, the boy internalises the personality characteristics and the masculinity of the father. In identifying with the aggressor-father, the boy diminishes his castration (the father’s ability to render him powerless) and defends himself from the father’s wrath as the two contend for the mother. When the identification process is done successfully the boy establishes a mature sexual behaviour that leads to heterosexuality, whereas failure in resulting the Oedipus complex may lead to homosexuality and thus fixation with identification only with the mother.  In Sasuke's case, Fugaku was a strict father that acknowledged him only when Itachi distanced himself from the clan and his father's opinions/ideologies. Sasuke of course thought about being a mere replacement for their father's once favourite Itachi, and proceeds on revealing his inner thoughts to Mikoto-something that Sasuke didn't do even in front of Itachi. We see that Sasuke is convinced that his father doesn't fully acknowledge him from the heart and he is once more driven closer to his mother for comfort and reassurance. In my opinion, Sasuke's identification with Fugaku miserably fails and it is evident when Fugaku points that Sasuke should stop following in his brother's footsteps, an advice that Sasuke won't ever follow and that's because Sasuke more than Fugaku or the whole Uchiha clan or even I dare to say the Hokage himself, admires his 'ni-ssan'. And that leads us to phychological fact on homosexuality No 2:  Homosexuality is tightly linked to narcissism. The narcissistic behaviour manifests in the child in the appearance of his own sibling. As the child goes out of the 'weaning phase' with the mother, it tries desperately to restore the lost unity(the unity that he once had with his mother being in her body or being fed by her breast, according to Lacan) and it picks a love-object that is similar to itself; its own sibling. The object of love the boy picks is homosexual and leads to passion tied to the image of someone who looks very much like himself. Thus we have the intrusion complex, the complex when the child first begins to recognise with a rival. The identification process begins with sharing even 1 single trait(and later can be expanded upon other traits); In our story Sasuke identifies with Itachi based on their similar position in the family system ('I have the same blood with ni-ssan and I will not lose to him') and of course their similar appearance (the pond scene with Sasuke dropping a rock forming Itachi's face in the ripples of his own image in the river). Sasuke also identifies with Naruto the moment Sakura brings that the former is an orphan-actually even before that as his inner monologue at 478 reveals due to reasons other than living the tragic life of an orphan; pre-massacre Sasuke firstly identifies with Naruto's 'weakness' to desperately want to form bonds. In Lacan's words, 'I identify with someone who resembles the self image I love. I love that person as myself, because at some fundamental level I do not distinguish between myself and this other person'. Freud points at the essence of brotherhood saying 'These people love their delusion as they love themselves'. Sasuke kneels looking at an unconscious Naruto at vote 1 not because he wants to kiss him-let's be serious: Sasuke sees himself in Naruto right there right then. Naruto screams, is naive/doesn't understand the reasons why, cries and feels immense agony that Sasuke is taking the wrong, dark road and that's the same kid Sasuke experienced in front of an Itachi he never knew it existed; he refuses to believe that his ni-ssan would do such thing, he keeps asking why, Itachi calls him foolish and in the end Sasuke is left betrayed and broken from his brother's actions. On the other hand, Itachi both in his fillers and in his novels thinks how much Sasuke is like him and even better: he says that Sasuke doesn't have his wrinkles that Danzo once told him were a sign of his ill-fortune and on top of that Sasuke is pure and naive; a clean slate version may I say of Itachi if he were to live in a peace era not witnessing the brutality of a war.  I can't help but bring Manfred's romantic poem in this one:  ''She was like me in lineaments-- her eyes Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone Even of her voice, they said were like mine; But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty; She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind To comprehend the universe: nor these Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, Pity, and smiles, and tears-- which I had not; And tenderness-- but that I had for her; Humility-- and that I never had. Her faults were mine-- her virtues were her own-- I loved her, and destroy'd her!” ​ From the above poem we see that there is an extreme idealisation of the beloved sister, whom her brother's love converts into an angel, a virgin or a goddess. In our story, early Shippuden Naruto defends Sasuke's beauty and coolness against Sai, Itachi as I typed above firmly believes that Sasuke is a better version of himself both physically and internally and Sasuke finds himself admiring the unattainable -as he says -backs of both Itachi and Naruto. Just like Manfred, Sasuke, Itachi and Naruto have a 'soft spot' for their significant other-the tenderness is exclusively retained for their loved-one while acting cool/distant in other occasions. Manfred as well as Itachi, Sasuke and Naruto refer to their ''identical-others'' as a greater perfection; the beloved object is identical to the subject except more perfect. As far as narcissism goes, the boy's sibling, who he genuinely loves as and more than himself, shows him who and what he is. The sibling acts as a mirror where the boy imitates movements, behaviours and trains of thoughts. The sibling becomes 'the ideal ego'-the image that the boy will strive to grasp and that will be reinforced if the sibling's achievements and overall behaviour is praised by the parents in front of the boy. How many times Sasuke heard 'That's my boy' from Fugaku to Itachi? That right there established the already worshipped image of the big brother-the approval of their father. His mother also points 'That boy is special' and later Sasuke will say in the first vote 'I am more special than you'-(but that's another subject that I'll discuss on a different post-Sasuke's ''self-punishing paranoia'' all the times he inflicted pain on Naruto). ​ Narcissism also goes hand in hand with agressivity. It's what Lacan calls 'The pain of being two'. 'The other both attracts and rejects me. I am indeed nothing but the other, yet at the same time he remains alienus, a stranger. This other who is myself is other than myself' (Lacan). I can't help but to bring the curse casted on Narcissus in his tale: 'Let him know how it feels to yearn without hope'. The image of Sasuke at the pond-same as Narcissus- isn't random in my opinion. Narcissus becomes enamoured with his own image that captivates him ''like a rabbit is by the weasel's mesmerising look''(by the tales own words) and in our story Sasuke(the naive white rabbit) is both 'infatuated' looking at Itachi (the weasel the tale says) and aggressive as he throws himself into the river saying that he will grasp power no matter what. The aggression is manifested due to the subject's frustration that the specular image isn't united with his real body. It's as Kabuto says in 337 that Sasuke never stopped imitating Itachi. Even when the latter played the villain, Sasuke strived to become just like him-Itachi remained through it all Sasuke's ideal image of his own self. At the same time, Itachi keeps thinking even before dying(before giving his crow to Naruto) that Sasuke-the one who defected from Konoha and went to Oro- is still pure. Naruto doesn't even need explanation here-he is the epitome of blind trust and naivety when it comes to Sasuke. The ideal-image once it is established can't ever be undone. Little Sasuke looks at his brother's back growing bigger, farther away from him. He trains night and day to be able to reach him who he is his ideal version of his own self. The same thing is happening to Naruto in regards of Sasuke; he goes one step further in his training trying 'to build a bridge' as he said to Kakashi. The frustration of the siblings is that unity can be achieved only spiritually and not through the bodies as it once were with their mother. In our story the unity happens though parts of the body too(in my opinion to emphasise the desire to fuse, to unite with the other half) :Madara says that he only has his brother's eyes, Sasuke smiles when having his Nissan's eyes transplanted into his own body and Naruto and Sasuke have a chakra combo technique with the Susanoo covering Kurama (a symbolic body fusion). The Mangekyo itself works ONLY between siblings-not even close friends. They all strive to become one with their sibling but what they truly want/seek is the spiritual connection nonetheless. Sasuke and Naruto share an imaginary relation of love and war between equals and the resolution is this: Struggle to the death (one or the other) or coexistence(one and the other). In the end, the latter supersedes the former and hatred turns into deep love. Naruto up until Haku arc thought he hated Sasuke and Sasuke at the end of the story deeply loves his once targets of hatred, Itachi and Naruto. The spiritual connection(and not the 'carnal' one) is what saved all 3 of them; Naruto, Itachi and Sasuke. They are able to truly connect by sharing honest thoughts, words of love and memories of experiences that are familiar to the one another.  ​ As Freud says ''A man can love himself as he is, he can love himself as he was, he can love someone who was once a part of himself, and he can love what he himself would like to be cause the love-object possesses excellences he himself never had''. Sasuke keeps seeing Itachi and Naruto's backs while Itachi and Naruto see Sasuke as Manfred's poem; Sasuke's faults are their own(Itachi entirely blames himself for Sasuke's descend to darkness while Naruto keeps having the deepest regret of his life in not bonding with Sasuke much earlier before even Team 7) and Sasuke's virtues are his own only (Never did we hear Itachi or Naruto downplay Sasuke's accomplishments for example). Also, Sasuke loves Naruto partially because he sees both his little 'foolish little brother' self and Itachi's cool, powerful, wise and kindhearted self in Naruto's existence. On another note, in the history of homosexuals according to Freud, one often hears that the change in them took place after the mother had praised another boy and set him up as a model. The tendency to a narcissistic object-choice was thus stimulated, and after a short phase of keen jealousy, the rival became a love-object. I can't help but bring Mikoto mentioning how special Itachi is and Sakura (the mother figure of Team 7) pointing that Naruto may be stupid but he isn't a coward or later acknowledging that Naruto was the one who saved her from Gaara.  Another aspect of narcissism that leads to homosexuality is the former's reparative concept: Through the narcissistic election of an object of love identical to the subject, satisfaction is achieved by curing the ego-wounding. The ego seeks some kind of repayment for an offense suffered, or for a perceived loss or defect. In simple terms, Sasuke gets to be fully accepted by Naruto who claims him as an equal that he wants by his side. Sasuke's wounded ego by his own family-especially Fugaku and later 'villain' Itachi- is cured by Naruto's paramount love, trust and devotion to him. Is Sasuke secretly in love with Naruto? I cannot answer for sure. And why the 'gay factor' applies only to Sasuke someone may ask? Because Sasuke out of all 3 of them is the one that suffered an inferiority complex and all the above family conditions. Itachi couldn't care less what his parents said about him while Naruto didn't have any parents and later the only times he gets to meet them they both are loving and supporting. Naruto also had the strength to not bring himself down from the villagers' harsh attitudes-that's the inner strength that Sasuke admitted he lacked. But I will end my post with a quote from Musil that I found so fitting for our Narusasu story: ''Great reckless passions all have something to do with the fact that everyone thinks it's his own secret self peering out at him from behind the curtains of a stranger's eyes''.