In this connection I may, perhaps, mention a moral quality which is very often associated with dramatic aptitude, and also with minor degrees of nervous degeneration, and that is vanity and the love of applause. While among a considerable section of inverts it is not more marked than among the non-inverted, if not, indeed, less marked, among another section it is found in an exaggerated degree. In at least one of my cases vanity and delight in admiration, both as regards personal qualities and artistic productions, reach an almost morbid extent. And the quotations from letters written by various others of my subjects show a curious complacency in the description of their personal physical characters, markedly absent in other cases. It is suggested by Alexander Schmid, on the basis of Adler's views, that this vanity, which sometimes in the inverted artist becomes an exalted pride, as of a guardian of sacred mysteries, may be regarded as an effort to secure a compensation for the consciousness of feminine defect.[222] The extreme type of this preoccupation with personal beauty is represented by the history of himself sent by a young Italian of good family to Zola in the hope--itself a sign of vanity--that the distinguished novelist would make it the subject of one of his works. The history is reproduced in the _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_ (1894) and in _L'Homosexualité et les Types Homosexuels_ (1910) by "Dr. Laupts" (G. Saint-Paul). I quote the following passage: "At the age of 18 I was, with few differences, what I am now (at 23). I am rather below the medium height (1.65 metres), well proportioned, slender, but not lean. My torso is superb; a sculptor could find nothing against it, and would not find it very different from that of Antinotis. My back is very arched, perhaps too much so; and my hips are very developed; my pelvis is broad, like a woman's; my knees slightly approximate; my feet are small; my hands superb; the fingers curved back and with glistening nails, rosy and polished, cut squarely like those of ancient statues. My neck is long and round, the nape charmingly adorned with downy hairs. My head is charming, and at 18 was more so. The oval of it is perfect and strikes all by its infantine form. At 23 I am to be taken for 17 at most. My complexion is white and rosy, deepening at the faintest emotion. The forehead is not beautiful; it recedes slightly and is hollow at the temples, but, fortunately, it is half-covered by long hair, of a dark blonde, which curls naturally. The head is perfect in form, because of the curly hair, but on examination there is an enormous protuberance at the occiput. My eyes are oval, of a gray blue, with dark chestnut eyelashes and thick, arched eyebrows. My eyes are very liquid, but with dark circles, and bistered; and they are subject to slight temporary inflammation. My mouth is fairly large, with thick red lips, the lower pendent; they tell me I have the Austrian mouth. My teeth are dazzling, though three are decayed and stopped; fortunately, they cannot be seen. My ears are small and with very colored lobes. My chin is very fat, and at 18 it was smooth and velvety as a woman's; at present there is a slight beard, always shaved. Two beauty spots, black and velvety, on my left cheek, contrast with my blue eyes. My nose is thin and straight, with delicate nostrils and a slight, almost insensible curve. My voice is gentle, and people always regret that I have not learned to sing." This description is noteworthy as a detailed portrait of a sexual invert of a certain type; the whole history is interesting and instructive.
Certain peculiarities in taste as regards costume have rightly or wrongly been attributed to inverts,--apart from the tendency of a certain group to adopt feminine habits,--and may here be mentioned. Tardieu many years ago referred to the taste for keeping the neck uncovered. This peculiarity may occasionally be observed among inverts, especially the more artistic among them. The cause does not appear to be precisely vanity so much as that physical consciousness which is so curiously marked in inverts, and induces the more feminine among them to cultivate feminine grace of form, and the more masculine to emphasize the masculine athletic habit.
It has also been remarked that inverts exhibit a preference for green garments. In Rome _cinædi_ were for this reason called _galbanati_. Chevalier remarks that some years ago a band of pederasts at Paris wore green cravats as a badge. This decided preference for green is well marked in several of my cases of both sexes, and in some at least the preference certainly arose spontaneously. Green (as Jastrow and others have shown) is very rarely the favorite color of adults of the Anglo-Saxon race, though some inquirers have found it to be more commonly a preferred color among children, especially girls, and it is more often preferred by women than by men.[223] The favorite color among normal women, and indeed very often among normal men, though here not so often as blue, is red, and it is notable that of recent years there has been a fashion for a red tie to be adopted by inverts as their badge. This is especially marked among the "fairies" (as a _fellator_ is there termed) in New York. "It is red," writes an American correspondent, himself inverted, "that has become almost a synonym for sexual inversion, not only in the minds of inverts themselves, but in the popular mind. To wear a red necktie on the street is to invite remarks from newsboys and others--remarks that have the practices of inverts for their theme. A friend told me once that when a group of street-boys caught sight of the red necktie he was wearing they sucked their fingers in imitation of _fellatio_. Male prostitutes who walk the streets of Philadelphia and New York almost invariably wear red neckties. It is the badge of all their tribe. The rooms of many of my inverted friends have red as the prevailing color in decorations. Among my classmates, at the medical school, few ever had the courage to wear a red tie; those who did never repeated the experiment."
MORAL ATTITUDE OF THE INVERT.--There is some interest in tracing the invert's own attitude toward his anomaly, and his estimate of its morality. As my cases are not patients seeking to be cured of their perversion, this attitude cannot be taken for granted. I have noted the moral attitude in 57 cases. In 8 the subjects loathe themselves, and have fought in vain against their perversion, which they often regard as a sin. Nine or ten are doubtful, and have little to say in justification of their condition, which they regard as perhaps morbid, a "moral disease." One, while thinking it right to gratify his natural instincts, admits that they may be vices. The remainder, a large majority (including all the women) are, on the other hand, emphatic in their assertion that their moral position is precisely the same as that of the normally constituted individual, on the lowest ground a matter of taste, and at least two state that a homosexual relationship should be regarded as sacramental, a holy matrimony; two or three even regard inverted love as nobler than ordinary sexual love; several add the proviso that there should be consent and understanding on both sides, and no attempt at seduction. The chief regret of 2 or 3 is the double life they are obliged to lead.
When inverts have clearly faced and realized their own nature it is not so much, it seems, their conscience that worries them, or even the fear of the police, as the attitude of the world. An American correspondent writes: "It is the fear of public opinion that hangs above them like the sword of Damocles. This fear is the heritage of all of us. It is not the fear of conscience and is not engendered by a feeling of wrongdoing. Rather, it is a silent submission to prejudices that meet us on every side. The true normal attitude of the sexual invert (and I have known hundreds) with regard to his particular passion is not essentially different from that of the normal man with regard to his."
It is noteworthy that even when the condition is regarded as morbid, and even when a life of chastity has, on this account, been deliberately chosen, it is very rare to find an invert expressing any wish to change his sexual ideals. The male invert cannot find, and has no desire to find, any sexual charm in a woman, for he finds all possible charms united in a man. And a woman invert writes: "I cannot conceive a sadder fate than to be a woman--an average woman reduced to the necessity of loving a man!"
It will be seen that my conclusions under this head are in striking contrast to those of Westphal, who believed that every invert regarded himself as morbid, and probably show a much higher proportion of self-approving inverts than any previous series.[224] This is largely due to the fact that the cases were not obtained from the consulting-room, and that they represent in some degree the intellectual aristocracy of inversion, including individuals who, often not without severe struggles, have found consolation in the example of the Greeks, or elsewhere, and have succeeded in attaining a _modus vivendi_ with the moral world, as they have come to conceive it.
FOOTNOTES: [183] The following analysis is based on somewhat fuller versions of my Histories than it was necessary to publish in the preceding chapters, as well as on various other Histories which are not here published at all. Numerous apparent discrepancies may thus be explained.
[184] This frequency of nervous symptoms is in accordance with the most reliable observation everywhere. Thus, Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 177) states that of 500 inverts, 62 per cent. showed nervous symptoms of one kind or another: sleeplessness, sleepiness, tremors, stammering, etc.
[185] Hirschfeld finds that 54 per cent, of inverts become conscious of their anomaly under the age of 14. The anomaly may, however, be present at this early age, but not consciously until later. Hence the larger percentage recorded above.
[186] In this connection I may quote an observation by Raffalovich: "It is natural that the invert should very clearly recall the precocity of his inclinations. In the existence of every invert a moment arrives when he discovers the enigma of his homosexual tastes. He then classes all his recollections, and to justify himself in his own eyes he remembers that he has been what he is from his earliest childhood. Homosexuality has colored all his young life; he has thought over it, dreamed over it, reflected over it--very often in perfect innocence. When he was quite small he imagined that he had been carried off by brigands, by savages; at 5 or 6 he dreamed of the warmth of their chests and of their naked arms. He dreamed that he was their slave and he loved his slavery and his masters. He has had not the least thought that is crudely sexual, but he has discovered his sentimental vocation."
[187] Leppmann mentions a case (certainly extreme and abnormal) of a little girl of 8 who spent the night hidden on the roof, merely in order to be able to observe in the morning the sexual organs of an adult male cousin (_Bulletin de l'Union Internationale de Droit Pénal_, 1896, p. 118).
[188] I fully admit, as all investigators must, the difficulty of tracing the influence of early suggestions, especially in dealing with persons who are unaccustomed to self-analysis. Sometimes it happens, especially in regard to erotic fetichism, that, while direct questioning fails to reach any early formative suggestion, such influence is casually elicited on a subsequent occasion.
[189] I may add that I see no fundamental irreconcilability between the point of view here adopted and the facts brought forward (and wrongly interpreted) by Schrenck-Notzing. In his _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Conträrer Sexualempfindung_ (Vienna, 1895), this writer states: "The neuropathic disposition is congenital, as is the tendency to precocious appearance of the appetites, the lack of psychic resistance, and the tendency to imperative associations; but that heredity can extend to the object of the appetite, and influence the contents of these characters, is not shown. Psychological experiences are against it, and the possibility, which I have shown, of changing these impulses by experiment and so removing their danger to the character of the individual." It need not be asserted that "heredity extends to the object of the appetite," but simply that heredity culminates in an organism which is sexually best satisfied by that object. It is also a mistake to suppose that congenital characters cannot be, in some cases, largely modified by such patient and laborious processes as those carried on by Schrenck-Notzing. In the same pamphlet this writer refers to moral insanity and idiocy as supporting his point of view. It is curious that both these congenital manifestations had independently occurred to me as arguments against his position. The experiences of Elmira Reformatory and Bicêtre--not to mention institutions of more recent establishment--long since showed that both the morally insane and the idiotic can be greatly improved by appropriate treatment. Schrenck-Notzing seems to be unduly biased by his interest in hypnotism and suggestion.
[190] "If an invert acquires, under the influence of external conditions," Féré wrote with truth (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 238), "it is because he was born with an aptitude for such acquisition: an aptitude lacking in those who have been subjected to the same conditions without making the same acquisitions."
[191] One of my subjects writes: "Inverts are, I think, naturally more liable to indulge in self-gratification than normal people, partly because of the perpetual suppression and disappointment of their desires, and also because of the fact that they actually possess in themselves the desired form of the male. This idea is a little difficult of explanation, but you can readily imagine to what frenzies of self-abuse a normal man would be impelled supposing that he included in his own the form of the female."
[192] I do not here enter upon the consideration of the normal prevalence and significance of masturbation and allied phenomena, as I have dealt with this subject in the study of "Auto-erotism," in volume i of these _Studies_.
[193] Hirschfeld also finds, among German inverts (_Die Homosexualität_, ch. iii), that the majority (though a smaller majority than I find in England and the United States) have not had intercourse with women; 53 per cent., he states, including a few married men, have never even attempted coitus, and over 50 per cent, are presumably impotent. The number of inverted women who have never had intercourse with men is still larger.
[195] Erotic dreams have been discussed in "Auto-erotism," vol. i of these _Studies_, and the wider bearings of the subject in another work, _The Study of Dreams_. Many references to the extensive literature will be found in both these places.
[197] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 71 et seq. Hirschfeld considers that the dreams of the inverted fall into two groups: one in which the dreamer imagines he is embracing a person of the same sex, and another in which he imagines that he is himself of the opposite sex. The latter class of dreams, constituting a pseudo-heterosexual group, seems to me to be rare, and they may, moreover, occur in heterosexual persons.
[198] See Thoinot and Weysse, _Medico-legal Aspects of Moral Offenses_, pp. 165, 291, etc.
[199] _Pedicatio_ (or _pædicatio_) is the most generally accepted technical term for the sodomitical intromission of the penis into the anus. It is usually derived from the Greek _pais_ (boy), but some authorities have derived it from _pedex_ or _podex_ (anus). The terms "paiderastia" and "pederast" are sometimes used to indicate the same act and agent. This use, however, is undesirable. It is best to confine the word "paiderastia" to its proper use as the name of the special institution of Greek boy love. It may be added that the Greeks themselves had many names (as many as 74) for paiderastia. See, on this subject of nomenclature, Iwan Bloch, _Der Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, pp. 527, 563.
[200] It is the grosser forms of perversion which are first revealed in every field. In the first edition of this Study the predominance of _pedicatio_ was still greater; it is not practised by any of the subjects of the Histories added to the present edition, though several see no objection to it.
[203] "Men," remarks Q., "tend to fall in love with boys or youths, boys or youths with grown men, feminine natures with virile natures and _vice versâ_, and different races with each other."
[204] Stubbes, in his _Anatomy of Abuses_, affirmed that "players and play-haunters in their secret conclaves play the Sodomites," and refers to some recent examples of men who had been desperately enamoured of player-boys thus clad in women's apparel, so far as to solicit them by words, by letters, even actually to abuse them. Later on, in 1633, Prynne, in his _Histrio-Mastix_ (part 1, p. 208 et seq.), strongly condemned "this putting on of woman's array" by actors on the same ground, and adds that he has heard credibly reported of a scholar of Balliol College that he was violently enamoured of a boy-player. In Japan, again where, as in China, woman's parts on the stage are taken by men (not always youths), the homosexuality of these players became, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so notorious that they constituted a class requiring special regulation as Joro, or prostitutes.
[205] This was remarked by even the earliest modern writers on homosexuality, like Hössli. See Hirschfeld, "Vom Wesen der Liebe," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906, p. 124 et seq.
[206] Similarly Numa Praetorius asserts (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, p. 732) that even the most virile homosexual men exhibit feminine traits, and adds that we could scarcely expect it to be otherwise when we find how constantly homosexual women show masculine traits.
[207] Näcke, "Die Diagnose der Homosexualität," _Neurologisches Centralblatt_, April 16, 1908.
[208] So also among American boarding-school girls. Thus Margaret Otis (_Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, June, 1913) has described the attraction which negro girls exert on white girls at school. The correspondence of these lovers, and sometimes their method of sex gratification, may occasionally be of an even coarsely passionate nature.
[209] See "Sexual Selection in Man," vol. iv of these _Studies_.
[210] Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 283) found that 55 per cent. of inverts are attracted to qualities unlike their own, and 45 per cent. to qualities resembling their own, without regard to whether these qualities belonged to the secondary sexual sphere. It may be added that as regards the age of the persons they are attracted to, Hirschfeld (p. 281) admits two main groups, each including about 45 per cent. of the homosexual; _ephebophils_, attracted to youths between 14 and 21, and _androphils_, attracted to adults in the prime of life. This division, as may be seen from the histories included in the present volume, seems to hold good of British and American inverts.
[212] Krafft-Ebing tells of an inverted physician (a man of masculine development and tastes) who had had sexual relations with 600 more or less inverted men. He observed no tendency to sexual malformation among them, but very frequently an approximation to a feminine form of body, as well as insufficient hair, delicate complexion, and high voice. Well-developed breasts were not rare, and some 10 per cent, showed a taste for feminine occupations.
[213] A similar condition of gynecomasty has been observed in connection with inversion by Moll, Laurent, Wey, etc. Olano ("La Secrecion Mamaria en los Invertidos Sexuales," _Archivos de Criminologia_, May, 1902, p. 305) further observed a certain amount of mammary secretion in an inverted man, 20 years of age, in Lima.
[214] Hirschfeld finds. 7 per cent, inverts left-handed, and 6 per cent, partly so. Fliess attaches special importance to left-handedness in inversion, believing that in left-handed men feminine secondary sexual characters are marked, and in left-handed women masculine sexual character (_Der Ablauf des Lebens_, 1906). I am not prepared to deny this statement, but, more evidence is needed.
[215] This point has been discussed by Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, pp. 156-8.
[216] Bloch (_The Sexual Life of Our Time_, p. 500) attaches importance to this peculiarity, but it must be remembered that a high-pitched voice occurs frequently in undoubtedly heterosexual men in whom it seems often associated with high intellectual ability (Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, p. 200).
[218] On the general signs of these conditions, see, e.g., H. Meige, "L'Infantilisme, Le Féminisme et les Hermaphrodites Antiques," _L'Anthropologie_. 1895; also Hastings Gilford, "Infantilism," _Lancet_, February 28 and March 7, 1914.
[219] Merzbach has dealt with the tendency of inverts to adopt special professions: "Homosexualität und Beruf," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iv, 1902.
[220] Moll's experience in Germany also reveals the prevalence of inversion among literary men, though, of all occupations, he found the highest proportion among actors. Jäger has referred to the frequency of homosexuality among barbers. I have been told that among London hairdressers homosexuality is so prevalent that there is even a special attitude which the client may adopt in the chair to make known that he is an invert. Dr. Kiernan informs me that in Chicago, also, inversion is specially prevalent among barbers, and he adds that he is acquainted with two cases among women-barbers, a relatively large proportion. It is not difficult to understand this, bearing in mind the close physical association between the barber and his client. "W.G. was a barber's assistant," writes one of my subjects, "and I took an immense fancy to him at first-sight. He used to lather me, and the touch of his fingers was a delight. Later on he shaved me and I always looked forward to going to the barber's. If he were not able to attend to me I felt an incredible sinking of heart. The whole day seemed dull and useless. I used to make a mark in my pocket-diary every time he shaved me."
[221] See, e.g., "Vom Weibmann auf der Bühne," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iii, 1901, p. 313. It is curious to find a medico-legal record of this connection long before inversion was recognized. In June, 1833 (see _Annual Register_ under this date), a man died who had lived as a kept woman under the name of Eliza Edwards. He was very effeminate in appearance, with beautiful hair, in ringlets two feet long, and a cracked voice; he played female parts in the theater, "in the first line of tragedy," and "appeared as a most lady-like woman." The coroner's jury "strongly recommended to the proper authorities that some means may be adopted in the disposal of the body which will mark the ignominy of the crime."
[223] See for a summary of various statistics in several countries, Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 5th ed., 1914, p. 174; also ib., "The Psychology of Red," _Popular Science Monthly_, August and September, 1900.
[224] The proportion is not so large, however, as Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 314) now finds in Germany, where inverts are better informed on the subject of this anomaly, for here 95 per cent. regard their feelings as natural.
CHAPTER VI.
THE THEORY OF SEXUAL INVERSION.
What is Sexual Inversion?--Causes of Diverging Views--The Theory of Suggestion Unworkable--Importance of the Congenital Element in Inversion--The Freudian Theory--Embryonic Hermaphroditism as a Key to Inversion--Inversion as a Variation or "Sport"--Comparison with Color-blindness, Color-hearing, and Similar Abnormalities--What is an Abnormality?--Not Necessarily a Disease--Relation of Inversion to Degeneration--Exciting Causes of Inversion--Not Operative in the Absence of Predisposition.
The analysis of these cases leads directly up to a question of the first importance: What is sexual inversion? Is it, as many would have us believe, an abominably acquired vice, to be stamped out by the prison? or is it, as a few assert, a beneficial variety of human emotion which should be tolerated or even fostered? Is it a diseased condition which qualifies its subject for the lunatic asylum? or is it a natural monstrosity, a human "sport," the manifestations of which must be regulated when they become antisocial? There is probably an element of truth in more than one of these views. Very widely divergent views of sexual inversion are largely justified by the position and attitude of the investigator. It is natural that the police-official should find that his cases are largely mere examples of disgusting vice and crime. It is natural that the asylum superintendent should find that we are chiefly dealing with a form of insanity. It is equally natural that the sexual invert himself should find that he and his inverted friends are not so very unlike ordinary persons. We have to recognize the influence of professional and personal bias and the influence of environment.
There have been two main streams of tendency in the views regarding sexual inversion: one seeking to enlarge the sphere of the acquired (represented by Binet,--who, however, recognized predisposition,--Schrenck-Notzing, and recently the Freudians), the other seeking to enlarge the sphere of the congenital (represented by Krafft-Ebing, Moll, Féré, and today by the majority of authorities). There is, as usually happens, truth in both these views. But, inasmuch as those who represent the acquired view often deny any congenital element, we are called upon to discuss the question. The view that sexual inversion is entirely explained by the influence of early association, or of "suggestion," is an attractive one and at first sight it seems to be supported by what we know of erotic fetichism, by which a woman's hair, or foot, or even clothing, becomes the focus of a man's sexual aspirations. But it must be remembered that what we see in erotic fetichism is merely the exaggeration of a normal impulse; every lover is to some extent excited by his mistress's hair, or foot, or clothing. Even here, therefore, there is really what may fairly be regarded as a congenital element; and, moreover, there is reason to believe that the erotic fetichist usually displays the further congenital element of hereditary neurosis. Therefore, the analogy with erotic fetichism does not bring much help to those who argue that inversion is purely acquired. It must also be pointed out that the argument for acquired or suggested inversion logically involves the assertion that normal sexuality is also acquired or suggested. If a man becomes attracted to his own sex simply because the fact or the image of such attraction is brought before him, then we are bound to believe that a man becomes attracted to the opposite sex only because the fact or the image of such attraction is brought before him. Such a theory is unworkable. In nearly every country of the world men associate with men, and women with women; if association and suggestion were the only influential causes, then inversion, instead of being the exception, ought to be the rule throughout the human species, if not, indeed, throughout the whole zoölogical series. We should, moreover, have to admit that the most fundamental human instinct is so constituted as to be equally well adapted for sterility as for that propagation of the race which, as a matter of fact, we find dominant throughout the whole of life. We must, therefore, put aside entirely the notion that the direction of the sexual impulse is merely a suggested phenomenon; such a notion is entirely opposed to observation and experience, and will with difficulty fit into a rational biological scheme.
The Freudians--alike of the orthodox and the heterodox schools--have sometimes contributed, unintentionally or not, to revive the now antiquated conception of homosexuality as an acquired phenomenon, and that by insisting that its mechanism is a purely psychic though unconscious process which may be readjusted to the normal order by psychoanalytic methods. Freud first put forth a comprehensive statement of his view of homosexuality in the original and pregnant little book, _Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_ (1905), and has elsewhere frequently touched on the subject, as have many other psychoanalysts, including Alfred Adler and Stekel, who no longer belong to the orthodox Freudian school. When inverts are psycho-analytically studied, Freud believes, it is found that in early childhood they go through a phase of intense but brief fixation on a woman, usually the mother, or perhaps sister. Then, an internal censure inhibiting this incestuous impulse, they overcome it by identifying themselves with women and taking refuge in Narcissism, the self becoming the sexual object. Finally they look for youthful males resembling themselves, whom they love as their mothers loved them. Their pursuit of men is thus determined by their flight from women. This view has been set forth not only by Freud but by Sadger, Stekel, and many others.[225] Freud himself, however, is careful to state that this process only represents