Freud is a strange guy. I remember that immediately after finishing, I had the idea that he had some valid points, but looking back I'm unable to find any. But whenever I have this attitude about one of the authors, the next class period always makes me realize I stupidly overlooked something pointful in the reading, so I'll do my best with Freud.
Freud is at his best when he is breaking traditional stereotypes, and at his worst when he is perpetuating them. Admittedly, this is a rather quick and easy judgment to make, but I think it's at least partially sensible. For instance, much of his stuff about homosexuality is very good. On page 10, he points out the flaws in the traditional perception of homosexuals as "female men," as it were, female brains in a male body. By contrast, many homosexuals are just as likely to be masculine in action, merely differing in their choice of sexual partners. This is good. This works. But when Freud is trying to draw any sort of conclusions about women, he seems perfectly willing to discard all logic and make the wildest assertions. Page 57 seems to show he is apparently is under the impression that most women are, or practically are, prostitutes. Equally ridiculous is his famous assertion on 61 that little girls all have penis envy and want to be little boys instead. Where Freud gets these notions from, I'm not sure. They seem almost totally unnecessary to the rest of his theories, even contradictory, yet he maintains them despite this. For the same person who asserted that "perversion" and normality lie on a continuum, or that homosexuality is also not a black-and-white issue, to strike such a harsh division between the genders seems absurd. Especially absurd, given his own statements that sexuality is not confined to the genitalia, and thus there seems to reason to make a division strictly based on those organs.
Also, I think Freud is perhaps too eager to apply his theories to everywhere. As the phrase goes, "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." But even so, I don't think it's necessary to assume that little boys want to grow up to be train conductors because they are aroused by the motion of the train (p 68). I would even go so far as to say that I think he thinks sex is the root cause of problems far more often than it actually is. Although current society certainly has an unhealthy view of sex, this view is part of a whole interleaving network of views, and to isolate sexuality as the central cause seems to be over-simplifying.
His theories are not entirely without value for the modern-day world. For instance, he points out several distinct sorts of "inverts" on pages 2 and 3. Among them is the "contingent invert," someone who is basically heterosexual in actions but occasionally has same-gendered sex. This distinction might seem an easy one, but there are certainly large numbers of people who would assert that because many child molesters are males who rape boys, therefore they are homosexuals, therefore all homosexuals are like this and child molestation is exclusively the province of homosexuals, etcetera, etcetera. People who draw these sorts of conclusions could do worse than to read Freud's discussion of the issue.
I think I've demonstrated that I basically disagree with Freud. But, I think he had some useful concepts, and it's a pity they were often buried under silly stereotypes and sillier theories.