>IIRC Burroughs said he wrote Naked Lunch in part to
>exorcise himself of his 'addiction to homosexuality,'
I don't think this is quite right. Here's something Ginzburg said at the trial:
http://realitystudio.org/texts/naked_lunch/trial
DE GRAZ1A: Mr. Ginsberg, have you read the book entitled NAKED LUNCH by William Burroughs?
ALLEN GINSBERG: Yes.
Q. More than once?
A. Yes a number of times.
Q. Would you specify before me, for the Court, a few examples or illustrations of ideas having social importance which you feel are expressed in this book?
A. Yes. Well, there are a great number of ideas in it that have social importance; and they are all interrelated in the presentation of the book. One of the main ideas is a theory of junk addiction or a theory of heroin addiction applied as a model for addiction to many other things besides drugs. It is usually referred to in the book as "The Algebra of Need," and the other addictions which are mentioned in the book, here treated dramatically addiction to homosexuality, which is considered by Burroughs also a sort of addiction, and on a larger scale what he conceives of as the United States addiction to materialistic goods and properties. Addiction to money is mentioned in the book a number of times; and most of all, an addiction to power or addiction to controlling other people by having power over them. So throughout the book there are dramatic illustrations of people whose composition or lust is for control over the minds and hearts and souls of other people.