never had the courage to look them up, fearing that I would be
recognized, that I would be put to shame and that I should lose my means
of subsistence. I am particularly pained at the thought that I must pass
for an inferior dissolute type while millions and millions of
insignificant tramps are placed on a higher level in the eyes of the
law, enjoy life and are even honored and respected while I, in spite of
possessing the qualities of a truer manhood, must waste my life in
joyless existence. Two women came into my life with whom I became
somewhat intimate, _one attracting me temporarily because her physical
appearance was like that of a boy underdeveloped, the other, because I
was at the time under the influence of alcohol_. But I noticed in
connection with those two experiences that I felt no particular
satisfaction during bodily contact with the women or while kissing them,
_in fact, many women cause me nausea if I so much as take food out of
their hand_. Several _puellæ publicæ_ have tried to rouse my sexual
feelings (_lambentes glandem membri_), but in spite of erection I felt
no particular pleasure, and the act was always followed by a feeling of
despair—the same old story. Sometimes in my anguish I sought the church
and there I broke into tears and I yearningly clasped my hands in prayer
without being a believer at heart. Ofttimes I thought my mind must be
affected and thought I had to go to an asylum for the insane but it
would make my trouble known to do so and I feared I should have to
forego contact with men forever after that. Occasionally _I dreamed also
of women_, but without any particular feelings, while if I dreamed of
clasping in a warm embrace or only touching or even merely looking at a
boy, or at an elderly man, I felt great pleasure. I dreamed of contact
with the lips. Something more about the family: On account of father’s
strict discipline _I inclined more to mother who was more indulgent_.
One of four sisters is married, also both brothers, happy and satisfied,
I believe. (I am very bashful with all my relations, old and young.) One
uncle only showed eccentricities and he remained single. All my other
habits of life are not unlike those of any normal young man, I have
friends who are married and who are unaware of my condition. But time
after time I am tremendously agitated on account of my mental struggle.
Finally, to conclude: my dear doctor, you cannot prevail upon me again
to try to look you up at your office because the penetrating look of
your office girl inspires me with the fear that my condition is
recognized and diagnosed at a glance. If you feel inclined to advise me
how best to withstand this craving or to mention some country where I
may go, I should be very grateful to you—if not, I have learned to bear
defeat.”...
One of the usual confessions, overlooking most important features. The
self-incriminating feeling of the masochist who has “learned to bear
defeat,” is indicated by the ridiculous fear of the “penetrating look”
of my office girl. This fear would probably be traced through analysis
to his sadistic attitude towards women. There are a number of other
interesting statements. He belongs to a family of many children, a
severe father, a negligent mother, he is jealously envious of his
sisters. A large number of homosexual episodes are related about his
childhood and his habit of putting on women’s clothes. That shows
clearly the tendency to identify himself with the mother or sister. But
why did he want to be a woman? Why did he want to assume the rôle of
mother? He wanted to supply a woman, to substitute the mother to his
father. Here it was _the strong father_ who so attracted the boy that
the latter wanted to be everything to him; Subsequently he falls in love
repeatedly with elderly men who stand for substitutes of his father. The
elderly man is always the _Imago_ of the father. During the homosexual
episodes with elderly men, either actual or occurring merely in the
boy’s fancy, he finds himself still a child towards whom the father
displays tenderness and who is permitted by the father to carry on
_fellatio_ upon the latter. He is also drawn to young boys. There he
plays the rôle of the father while the boy supplies the picture of his
own youth.
Interesting is his distinct disgust at women which disappears after
alcoholic drinks enough so as to enable him to carry out coitus. He was
also near falling in love with a girl who had a boyish appearance. That
betrays certain relations between boy and girl. The boys are loved when
they show the traits of a beloved sister, the old men when they recall
the father.
His path towards woman is blocked. Disgust and fear of infections cover
more significant motives bearing a religious coloring. Every prostitute
becomes the sister, a younger edition of the mother. Without analysis
the genesis of this paraphilia cannot be understood. He avoids me
because he is unwilling to discover the truth. The over-severe father
seems to have roused in him the yearning for a kindlier one and to have
determined the development of his feeling-attitude. An attachment to the
sister seems also clearly discernible.
63. Mr. T. D., 26 years of age, has struggled vainly for years against
his homosexual disposition. He is attracted to old, gray-bearded men,
who always represent to his mind an erotic ideal, and loves to be in
their company, go on walks with them, play cards or perform music, and
loves also the company of very simple fellows, preferably sailormen,
plasterers, and soldiers, and among the latter prefers artillerists. His
sexual activity consists in holding the friend’s _membrum virile_ in his
hand and giving his own to be held by the other likewise. Orgasm follows
rapidly at that. After the deed, regrets and strong avowals never to
repeat it. The last time he tried it a watchman caught him in the act
and brought him together with his companion, a workingman, to court.
Analysis discloses the following facts: He has repeatedly tried to have
intercourse with women but each time great fear and disgust prevented.
Strong erections, but before _immissio penis_, the _membrum_ turns soft
and useless. Accomplishment of the orgasm through manual friction of the
organ by the woman’s hand is possible, but is followed by a powerful
feeling-attitude of disgust and he must leave immediately. He has had
various opportunities to become intimate with certain women and girls,
they have even incited him to it, but he does not feel tempted.
His family history is as follows: He is the only son of a very kindly
man who died four years previously. The mother died at his birth and
that has established in his mind an intimate association between coitus
and death. He cannot help thinking of that association when with women.
His father was extraordinarily tender with him, and for his sake never
married again. When he was still young his father always played with
him, devoting to him all his spare time. Later their relationship became
even more intimate. There was a sort of marriage situation with his
father.
He began to masturbate at a very early age and claims to have indulged
in phantasies only about common men, imagining they were handling his
_membrum virile_.
His attachment to his father was decidedly morbid. If the father stayed
away from the house a quarter of an hour longer than usual, he began to
cry and could not be consoled. The whole object of his life was to bring
joy to his father and to replace in the latter’s life the lost mother.
When the father fell ill he took it so much to heart that it was feared
his mind would break down. After the death of his father he attempted
suicide and was thwarted in the act by his father’s faithful servant. He
made all sorts of resolutions, among others, not to masturbate during
the year of mourning. He did not live up to that.... At first he is
unable to recall heterosexual episodes from his childhood and his memory
fails him equally regarding homosexual facts. But suddenly the cloud
which seemed to cover his childhood lifts and a vast number of
reminiscences come to surface, showing the developmental course of his
homosexual tendency. His father had always been a strong admirer of the
other sex and even as a child he had observed that the father was
maintaining intimate relations with the nurse, the cook, as well as with
the maid servant. Once he surprised his father in the act of embracing
the cook while the two were alone in the room. The irate father boxed
his ear because he entered without knocking at the door. That was one of
the rare occasions on which his father punished him. He also overheard
at night how his father crawled into the nurse’s bed, who was still very
young and pretty at the time and carried on all sorts of doings with
her. Later he received private instruction from a male tutor who
conformed to the _genius loci_ and was also intimate with the servant
girl. As a child he often wished he were a woman so as to take the
cook’s place in gratifying his father. The father seemed to fear that
the boy might fall into the women’s hands and did not delay warning his
son with appropriate teachings. At 12 years of age his father instructed
him frankly about the dangers of masturbation, with the result that he
struggled hard against the habit without, however, overcoming it. A few
years later his father spoke to him about the terrible dangers of
venereal diseases, warning him against prostitutes. He was told he must
watch out, for he would have frequently occasion to go through the city,
and the prostitutes are always eager to seduce such innocent young boys
so that many a one is ruined for life.
It is significant also that at 5 years of age he played with a girl from
the neighborhood, trying to imitate the father. He must have hurt the
girl for she cried out, the nurse rushed in, a serious scene ensued, and
he was severely chastised by the nurse.
An ugly impression was produced on him when he witnessed a terrible
quarrel between their cook and the nurse who were jealous of each other
on account of the father’s attentions. They grabbed each other by the
hair and the whole household was in an uproar. The cook had to leave the
house at once. He believes that after that incident his father gave up
all intimate relations with the women in the house. At 19 years of age
he fell in love with the cashier of a coffee house and would have very
much liked to possess her. But his father, to whom he told everything,
warned him against all cashier women because they are usually diseased
and infected. As a warning he told him that in his youth he once
suffered very unpleasant consequences as the result of an affair with
that kind of a woman and was even subjected to blackmail.
He filled his heart with a gruesome fear of woman. In addition to that
he placed in his hands a book relating all about the evil consequences
of sexual diseases, so that after that he did not dare come near a woman
without the protection of a condom. After intercourse, which consisted
merely of digital manipulations in his case, he had to bathe at once and
to wash his genitals with soap several times. After homosexual acts he
did not feel the compulsion to carry out these ablutions.
We now come to the analysis of his acts, which show themselves veritable
compulsive manifestations. Suddenly he becomes restless, energetically
tries to control himself, then paces back and forth for hours, until he
falls into the hands of one of the male prostitutes who easily recognize
their prospective victims. But as he never mentioned any name and never
established any lasting intimate relations, he escaped blackmail. Once
he thought that a certain masseur had studied his physiognomy and had
later recognized him. He saw that fellow a few times in front of his
home. Immediately he left Vienna and undertook an extensive journey
which kept him for some months in foreign countries.
In the act he tried to find the love caresses of his father. He split
love into its well recognized two components. The erotic side he
reserved for elderly men, physicians, and the faithful elderly
friends,—while for sexuality proper he turned exclusively towards men of
low rank. Similarly he divided his father’s personality into two parts,
the high-striving, intellectual, lofty-minded father, and the woman
fancier, the lover of ordinary servant girls. He was still playing the
rôle of a male but during the act he regressed back to childhood,
becoming again a child who longs for the father’s tender love squandered
on servant girls. Moreover the ordinary males also had the traits of
servants, they were of the servant class.
We have here an instance of the transposition of the love of servant
girls to males. He had always a weakness for servant girls and since he
feared he might yet get tangled up in marriage with a cook, he tried to
keep away from them. Only once in the home of a friend he embraced
suddenly a cook and passionately kissed her. “I could have without a
doubt cohabited with her,” he told me. But he soon quit visiting that
particular friend....
He identified himself completely with the father. He lived in his own
house, acted like the father, had the same kind of wardrobe, although
his father had aged a great deal. But in one respect he wanted to be
different. He engaged therefore a male servant and always took his meals
outside, so as to have no cook in the house. But that servant he kept
always at a certain distance. He did not care to have any love affairs
with servants in the house, like his father.
The analysis disclosed his repressed sadistic attitude towards woman.
His first attempts at intercourse with women failed him and he was able
to carry out coitus successfully only under the influence of alcohol.
Later he did recall a single successful coitus without that aid. The
girl had roused his anger with the remark that he was merely an insolent
fellow. He jumped at her, ready to strike her, and was tremendously
excited. In that roused state he carried out coitus. _But he would have
rather strangled her._
He showed an idiosyncrasy against certain female occupations. Nurses in
their garb he would have gladly torn to pieces. He also hated all nuns.
It was not well for any woman to rouse his anger. He could be very
dangerous when roused. He confesses entertaining as his favorite
phantasy the thought of tearing to pieces a woman.
The reason for this sadistic attitude: His _infantile jealousy_ of all
women since woman had robbed him of his father’s love. Among them was
also a nurse who had taken care of the father during a prolonged
illness.
That hatred of women made him impotent and drove him into the homosexual
path. For he was afraid of himself when finding himself alone in the
presence of a woman. He rushed away from houses of prostitution
suddenly, as if a thousand demons were after him.
I succeeded in convincing him that this sadistic attitude was a rudiment
of his early feelings, that he was really fighting against ghosts which
he had long since dispelled. Now it was up to him to avow consciously
his criminal tendencies and to render them innocuous through meeting
them in the open. Presently he began having intercourse with _puellæ
publicæ_, before the analysis was ended, and even undertook to carry out
coitus _lege artis_. He forced himself to do it because he no longer
cared to incur the risk of coming into conflict with the law. (The legal
case against him was squashed because there had been committed no overt
act and such manipulations ordinarily are unpunished in Austria, if they
cause no open scandal.) Later he chose a sweetheart who accompanied him
on his travels and whom he suddenly abandoned. He had meanwhile met a
woman who captivated him mentally and spiritually. Two years later I
received their engagement card. In this case the analysis accomplished a
complete recovery.
Here we found a complete fixation on the father, which had to be
overcome first in order to free the path to woman which had become
obstructed by all sorts of infantile imperatives. Neither the mother nor
the persons who trained him during his earlier years play any rôle in
the psychogenesis of his homosexuality; on the other hand there was his
strong sadistic attitude towards women which showed itself in a
personally baffling fear of women.
This case shows how one-sided _Sadger’s_ explanation is of
homosexuality, when he traces its psychogenesis solely to the relations
with the mother and overlooks entirely the rôle of the father.
We must also bear in mind that many children gravitate to the mother
only because they feel themselves neglected by the father, because they
hate the father, and are unable to attain a proper feeling-attitude
towards him. Precisely that overstressed love of the mother and the
obvious antagonism against the father adroitly covers the fixation on
the father.
I will now report three similar cases from my own practice, relating
only the important details:
64. Mr. S. L. has not worked as bank employee for the past three years
or more. Three years ago he began to complain of various nervous
ailments and was granted a leave of absence to recover his health. That
leave proved his undoing. He did not improve; instead, he became totally
unable to work and is now no longer able to return to his duties. His
father always maintained that the whole trouble was imaginary, and
wanted to hear nothing of a prolongation of the leave. But the man’s
suffering became gradually worse. Out of spite for his father’s attitude
he at first simulated the aggravation of his trouble and his condition
in the end actually grew so much worse that it shattered him to pieces
and he lost control over himself. He experienced attacks of dyspnea so
severe that he could not talk. The dyspnea occurred in paroxysms. After
one year he lost his position with the bank and, reduced to want, he
appealed to his well-to-do father for aid. The father denied him any
assistance because he did not consider the son unable to work; he
thought the son was simulating so as to impose on him. S. L. sued his
father for sustenance and won, aided by the testimony of a number of
physicians who certified that his case was one of severe neurasthenia,
so that his father had to give him a monthly allowance. Father and son
broke all personal relations so that the payment was made through an
attorney. Thereafter S. L. was inspired by no other thought than revenge
on his father. He was very clever in thinking out new legal issues and
additional suits against him. Finally he came to the conclusion he was
not the rightful son of his father and threatened a law suit which only
his love for his mother prevented him from actually starting. She was
revolted at the son’s terrible accusation but so strongly under his
influence that she did not have the will power to break with him. She
met him clandestinely, placing money into his hands. He loved his mother
above all else and urged her to leave the father. He put detectives on
his father’s trail, hoping to be able to fasten against him the
accusation of being untrue to the mother. He always spoke of his father
as “the old rascal,” “the old scamp,” “that miserable, quarrelsome
rake.” “Should I see him today writhe in agony it would be the best and
most pleasant day I ever had.” I had never seen before so bitter a
hatred of the father.
He was a confirmed homosexual, hating all women with the exception of
his mother, whom he held in divine veneration. The alleged breach of
faithfulness which he alleged her to have committed with a person of
high position (the well-known family romance of the neurotic) he excused
as natural for it would have been a miracle for that noble soul to have
remained true to so terrible a man. The father compelled her to coitus
with brute force. He was the offspring of such a coercion, etc.... He
loved only younger men, even boys, and he was fairly brutal towards
them. Occasionally he carried on deeds with older men towards whom he
then preserved an attitude of submissiveness and passivity, trying to
please them in every way. He permitted pederasty on his person and did
not shrink from _fellatio_.
The analysis showed a passionate love of the father, a feeling which on
account of its unattainable aspect turned into bitter hatred. He thought
the father was partial to the other sons and fled to the mother to whom
he often complained about the father’s severity and lack of affection.
In his homosexual acts he played actively the rôle of the father,
becoming at such times very severe and almost cruel, passively he
carried out the act as if he were with the father, being then very
submissive, and thus allowing his whole repressed love to outflow as if
bent on showing him: _that is how loving I would be with you always if
you only were agreeable!_ Cruel phantasies revolving around revenge upon
the father as the central theme were confessed under strong resistances.
Several times he came near shooting his father. He often fancied himself
in situations in which his father depended altogether on his compassion
and magnanimity. For instance, he would imagine his father had committed
some great fraud. He himself had become a millionaire through an
ingenious invention of his own. His father comes begging at his feet and
is refused any aid. His favorite reading is books describing cruel
punishments, the inquisition tortures, etc. The well-known work of
_Octave Mirbeau_, “_Le jardin des supplices_,” threw him into ecstasy.
The other roots of this subject’s homosexuality I do not dwell upon
because I am concerned here only with the rôle of the father....
The next case shows a very similar situation:
65. Mr. G. Z. for some years has had intimate relations with an elderly
man, an artist, whose studio is the meeting place of a number of young
men exclusively. He is not a musician like the others, but a jurist, and
had met incidentally Mr. X, his fatherly friend, as he calls the man.
Before that time he had been entirely abstinent. He became Mr. X’s
friend only at the age of 21. The friendship was wholly platonic until
they undertook a journey together. At Salzburg they occupied together
the same room, because the hotel was filled. They carried on intercourse
(_coitus inter femora_), he playing the female rôle on that occasion as
well as subsequently. G. Z.’s relations with his father are very
stressed. They hardly speak to each other. He is employed in his
father’s office, but has only business relations with him. His whole
spare time he devotes to his mother. One day he surprised his mother
with the information that he had had his father watched and found out
that the father maintained clandestine relations with a number of women.
He requested his mother to break with the father. He raised a terrible
row with his father, ordering the father to withdraw from the office and
leave the business entirely to him, and at that the father showed him
the door. A letter from the mother convinces him that he is not the son
of his father; thereupon he locks himself in the room and commits
suicide by shooting himself.
Jealousy of the father had driven him to suicide. During the acts with
the fatherly friend he played the rôle of the son replacing the women in
the life of the father.