CHAPTER I.

STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME II

Sexual Inversion

by

HAVELOCK ELLIS

1927

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

It has been remarked by Professor Wilhelm Ostwald that the problem of

homosexuality is a problem left over to us by the Middle Ages, which for

five hundred years dealt with inverts as it dealt with heretics and

witches. To regard the matter thus is to emphasize its social and

humanitarian interest rather than its biological and psychological

significance. It is no doubt this human interest of the question of

inversion, rather than its scientific importance, great as the latter is,

which is mainly responsible for the remarkable activity with which the

study of homosexuality has been carried on during recent years.

The result has been that, during the fourteen years that have passed since

the last edition of this _Study_ was issued, so vast an amount of work has

been carried on in this field that the preparation of a new edition of the

book has been a long and serious task. Nearly every page has been

rewritten or enlarged and the Index of Authors consulted has more than

doubled in length. The original portions of the book have been still more

changed; sixteen new Histories have been added, selected from others in my

possession as being varied, typical, and full.

These extensive additions to the volume have rendered necessary various

omissions. Many of the shorter and less instructive Histories contained in

earlier editions have been omitted, as well as three Appendices which no

longer seem of sufficient interest to retain. In order to avoid undue

increase in the size of this volume, already much larger than in the

previous editions, a new Study of Eonism, or sexo-esthetic inversion, will

be inserted in vol. v, where it will perhaps be at least as much in place

as here.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

It was not my intention to publish a study of an abnormal manifestation of

the sexual instinct before discussing its normal manifestations. It has

happened, however, that this part of my work is ready first, and, since I

thus gain a longer period to develop the central part of my subject, I do

not regret the change of plan.

I had not at first proposed to devote a whole volume to sexual inversion.

It may even be that I was inclined to slur it over as an unpleasant

subject, and one that it was not wise to enlarge on. But I found in time

that several persons for whom I felt respect and admiration were the

congenital subjects of this abnormality. At the same time I realized that

in England, more than in any other country, the law and public opinion

combine to place a heavy penal burden and a severe social stigma on the

manifestations of an instinct which to those persons who possess it

frequently appears natural and normal. It was clear, therefore, that the

matter was in special need of elucidation and discussion.

There can be no doubt that a peculiar amount of ignorance exists regarding

the subject of sexual inversion. I know medical men of many years' general

experience who have never, to their knowledge, come across a single case.

We may remember, indeed, that some fifteen years ago the total number of

cases recorded in scientific literature scarcely equaled those of British

race which I have obtained, and that before my first cases were published

not a single British case, unconnected with the asylum or the prison, had

ever been recorded. Probably not a very large number of people are even

aware that the turning in of the sexual instinct toward persons of the

same sex can ever be regarded as inborn, so far as any sexual instinct is

inborn. And very few, indeed, would not be surprised if it were possible

to publish a list of the names of sexually inverted men and women who at

the present time are honorably known in church, state, society, art, or

letters. It could not be positively affirmed of all such persons that they

were born inverted, but in most the inverted tendency seems to be

instinctive, and appears at a somewhat early age. In any case, however, it

must be realized that in this volume we are not dealing with subjects

belonging to the lunatic asylum, or the prison. We are concerned with

individuals who live in freedom, some of them suffering intensely from

their abnormal organization, but otherwise ordinary members of society. In

a few cases we are concerned with individuals whose moral or artistic

ideals have widely influenced their fellows, who know nothing of the

peculiar organization which has largely molded those ideals.

I am indebted to several friends for notes, observations, and

correspondence on this subject, more especially to one, referred to as

"Z.," and to another as "Q.," who have obtained a considerable number of

reliable histories for me, and have also supplied many valuable notes; to

"Josiah Flynt" (whose articles on tramps in _Atlantic Monthly_ and

_Harper's Magazine_ have attracted wide attention) for an appendix on

homosexuality among tramps; to Drs. Kiernan, Lydston, and Talbot for

assistance at various points noted in the text; and to Dr. K., an American

woman physician, who kindly assisted me in obtaining cases, and has also

supplied an appendix. Other obligations are mentioned in the text.

All those portions of the book which are of medical or medico-legal

interest, including most of the cases, have appeared during the last three

years in the _Alienist and Neurologist_, the _Journal of Mental Science_,

the _Centralblatt für Nervenheilkunde_, the _Medico-legal Journal_, and

the _Archivo delle Psicopatie Sessuale_. The cases, as they appear in the

present volume, have been slightly condensed, but nothing of genuine

psychological interest has been omitted. Owing to some delay in the

publication of the English edition of the work, a German translation by my

friend, Dr. Hans Kurella, editor of the _Centralblatt für

Nervenheilkunde_, has already appeared (1896) in the _Bibliothek für

Sozialwissenschaft_. The German edition contains some matter which has

finally been rejected from the English edition as of minor importance; on

the other hand, much has been added to the English edition, and the whole

carefully revised.

I have only to add that if it may seem that I have unduly ignored the

cases and arguments brought forward by other writers, it is by no means

because I wish to depreciate the valuable work done by my predecessors in

this field. It is solely because I have not desired to popularize the

results previously reached, but simply to bring forward my own results. If

I had not been able to present new facts in what is perhaps a new light, I

should not feel justified in approaching the subject of sexual inversion

at all.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

Homosexuality Among Animals--Among the Lower Human Races--The

Albanians--The Greeks--The Eskimos--The Tribes of the Northwest United

States--Homosexuality Among Soldiers in Europe--Indifference Frequently

Manifested by European Lower Classes--Sexual Inversion at

Rome--Homosexuality in Prisons--Among Men of Exceptional Intellect and

Moral Leaders--Muret--Michelangelo--Winkelmann--Homosexuality in English

History--Walt Whitman--Verlaine--Burton's Climatic Theory of

Homosexuality--The Racial Factor--The Prevalence of Homosexuality Today.

CHAPTER II.

THE STUDY OF SEXUAL INVERSION.

Westphal--Hössli--Casper--Ulrichs--Krafft-Ebing--Moll--Féré--Kiernan--

Lydston--Raffalovich--Edward Carpenter--Hirschfeld.

CHAPTER III.

SEXUAL INVERSION IN MEN.

Relatively Undifferentiated State of the Sexual Impulse in Early Life--The

Freudian View--Homosexuality in Schools--The Question of Acquired

Homosexuality--Latent Inversion--Retarded Inversion--Bisexuality--The

Question of the Invert's Truthfulness--Histories.

CHAPTER IV.

SEXUAL INVERSION IN WOMEN.

Prevalence of Sexual Inversion Among Women--Among Women of

Ability--Among the Lower Races--Temporary Homosexuality in Schools,

etc.--Histories--Physical and Psychic Characteristics of Inverted

Women--The Modern Development of Homosexuality Among Women.

CHAPTER V.

THE NATURE OF SEXUAL INVERSION.

Analysis of Histories--Race--Heredity--General Health--First Appearance of

Homosexual Impulse--Sexual Precocity and Hyperesthesia--Suggestion and

Other Exciting Causes of Inversion--Masturbation--Attitude Toward

Women--Erotic Dreams--Methods of Sexual Relationship--Pseudo-sexual

Attraction--Physical Sexual Abnormalities--Artistic and Other

Aptitudes--Moral Attitude of the Invert.

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.

CHAPTER VII.

CONCLUSIONS.

The Prevention of Homosexuality--The Influence of the

School--Coeducation--The Treatment of Sexual

Inversion--Castration--Hypnotism--Associational

Therapy--Psycho-analysis--Mental and Physical Hygiene--Marriage--The

Children of Inverts--The Attitude of Society--The Horror Aroused by

Homosexuality--Justinian--The _Code Napoléon_--The State of the Law in

Europe Today--Germany--England--What Should be our Attitude Toward

Homosexuality?

APPENDIX A.

Homosexuality Among Tramps.

APPENDIX B.

The School-friendships of Girls.

INDEX OF AUTHORS.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

SEXUAL INVERSION.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

Homosexuality Among Animals--Among the Lower Human Races--The

Albanians--The Greeks--The Eskimos--The Tribes of the Northwest United

States--Homosexuality Among Soldiers in Europe--Indifference Frequently

Manifested by European Lower Classes--Sexual Inversion at

Rome--Homosexuality in Prisons--Among Men of Exceptional Intellect and

Moral Leaders--Muret--Michelangelo--Winkelmann--Homosexuality in English

History--Walt Whitman--Verlaine--Burton's Climatic Theory of

Homosexuality--The Racial Factor--The Prevalence of Homosexuality Today.

Sexual inversion, as here understood, means sexual instinct turned by

inborn constitutional abnormality toward persons of the same sex. It is

thus a narrower term than homosexuality, which includes all sexual

attractions between persons of the same sex, even when seemingly due to

the accidental absence of the natural objects of sexual attraction, a

phenomenon of wide occurrence among all human races and among most of the

higher animals. It is only during recent years that sexual inversion has

been recognized; previously it was not distinguished from homosexuality in

general, and homosexuality was regarded as a national custom, as an

individual vice, or as an unimportant episode in grave forms of

insanity.[1] We have further to distinguish sexual inversion and all other

forms of homosexuality from another kind of inversion which usually

remains, so far as the sexual impulse itself is concerned, heterosexual,

that is to say, normal. Inversion of this kind leads a person to feel like

a person of the opposite sex, and to adopt, so far as possible, the

tastes, habits, and dress of the opposite sex, while the direction of the

sexual impulse remains normal. This condition I term sexo-esthetic

inversion, or Eonism.

The nomenclature of the highly important form of sexual

perversion with which we are here concerned is extremely varied,

and most investigators have been much puzzled in coming to a

conclusion as to the best, most exact, and at the same time most

colorless names to apply to it.

The first in the field in modern times was Ulrichs who, as early

as 1862, used the appellation "Uranian" (Uranier), based on the

well-known myth in Plato's _Banquet_. Later he Germanized this

term into "Urning" for the male, and "Urningin" for the female,

and referred to the condition itself as "Urningtum." He also

invented a number of other related terms on the same basis; some

of these terms have had a considerable vogue, but they are too

fanciful and high-strung to secure general acceptance. If used in

other languages than German they certainly should not be used in

their Germanized shape, and it is scarcely legitimate to use the

term "Urning" in English. "Uranian" is more correct.

In Germany the first term accepted by recognized scientific

authorities was "contrary sexual feeling" (Konträre

Sexualempfindung). It was devised by Westphal in 1869, and used

by Krafft-Ebing and Moll. Though thus accepted by the earliest

authorities in this field, and to be regarded as a fairly

harmless and vaguely descriptive term, it is somewhat awkward,

and is now little used in Germany; it was never currently used

outside Germany. It has been largely superseded by the term

"homosexuality." This also was devised (by a little-known

Hungarian doctor, Benkert, who used the pseudonym Kertbeny) in

the same year (1869), but at first attracted no attention. It

has, philologically, the awkward disadvantage of being a bastard

term compounded of Greek and Latin elements, but its

significance--sexual attraction to the same sex--is fairly clear

and definite, while it is free from any question-begging

association of either favorable or unfavorable character. (Edward

Carpenter has proposed to remedy its bastardly linguistic

character by transforming it into "homogenic;" this, however,

might mean not only "toward the same sex," but "of the same

kind," and in German already possesses actually that meaning.)

The term "homosexual" has the further advantage that on account

of its classical origin it is easily translatable into many

languages. It is now the most widespread general term for the

phenomena we are dealing with, and it has been used by

Hirschfeld, now the chief authority in this field, as the title

of his encyclopedic work, _Die Homosexualität_.

"Sexual Inversion" (in French "inversion sexuelle," and in

Italian "inversione sessuale") is the term which has from the

first been chiefly used in France and Italy, ever since Charcot

and Magnan, in 1882, published their cases of this anomaly in the

_Archives de Neurologie_. It had already been employed in Italy

by Tamassia in the _Revista Sperimentale di Freniatria_, in 1878.

I have not discovered when and where the term "sexual inversion"

was first used. Possibly it first appeared in English, for long

before the paper of Charcot and Magnan I have noticed, in an

anonymous review of Westphal's first paper in the _Journal of

Mental Science_ (then edited by Dr. Maudsley) for October, 1871,

that "Conträre Sexualempfindung" is translated as "inverted

sexual proclivity." So far as I am aware, "sexual inversion" was

first used in English, as the best term, by J.A. Symonds in 1883,

in his privately printed essay, _A Problem in Greek Ethics_.

Later, in 1897, the same term was adopted, I believe for the

first time publicly in English, in the present work.

It is unnecessary to refer to the numerous other names which have

been proposed. (A discussion of the nomenclature will be found in

the first chapter of Hirschfeld's work, _Die Homosexualität_, and

of some special terms in an article by Schouten,

_Sexual-Probleme_, December, 1912.) It may suffice to mention the

ancient theological and legal term "sodomy" (sodomia) because it

is still the most popular term for this perversion, though, it

must be remembered, it has become attached to the physical act of

intercourse _per anum_, even when carried out heterosexually, and

has little reference to psychic sexual proclivity. This term has

its origin in the story (narrated in Genesis, ch. xix) of Lot's

visitors whom the men of Sodom desired to have intercourse with,

and of the subsequent destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This

story furnishes a sufficiently good ground for the use of the

term, though the Jews do not regard sodomy as the sin of Sodom,

but rather inhospitality and hardness of heart to the poor (J.

Preuss, _Biblisch-Talmudische Medizin_, pp. 579-81), and

Christian theologians also, both Catholic and Protestant (see,

e.g., _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iv, p. 199,

and Hirschfeld, _Homosexualität_, p. 742), have argued that it

was not homosexuality, but their other offenses, which provoked

the destruction of the Cities of the Plain. In Germany "sodomy"

has long been used to denote bestiality, or sexual intercourse

with animals, but this use of the term is quite unjustified. In

English there is another term, "buggery," identical in meaning

with sodomy, and equally familiar. "Bugger" (in French,

_bougre_) is a corruption of "Bulgar," the ancient Bulgarian

heretics having been popularly supposed to practise this

perversion. The people of every country have always been eager to

associate sexual perversions with some other country than their

own.

The terms usually adopted in the present volume are "sexual

inversion" and "homosexuality." The first is used more especially

to indicate that the sexual impulse is organically and innately

turned toward individuals of the same sex. The second is used

more comprehensively of the general phenomena of sexual

attraction between persons of the same sex, even if only of a

slight and temporary character. It may be admitted that there is

no precise warrant for any distinction of this kind between the

two terms. The distinction in the phenomena is, however, still

generally recognized; thus Iwan Bloch applies the term

"homosexuality" to the congenital form, and

"pseudo-homosexuality" to its spurious or simulated forms. Those

persons who are attracted to both sexes are now usually termed

"bisexual," a more convenient term than "psycho-sexual

hermaphrodite," which was formerly used. There remains the normal

person, who is "heterosexual."

Before approaching the study of sexual inversion in cases which we may

investigate with some degree of scientific accuracy, there is interest in

glancing briefly at the phenomena as they appear before us, as yet

scarcely or at all differentiated, among animals, among various human

races, and at various periods.

Among animals in a domesticated or confined state it is easy to find

evidence of homosexual attraction, due merely to the absence of the other

sex.[2] This was known to the ancients; the Egyptians regarded two male

partridges as the symbol of homosexuality, and Aristotle noted that two

female pigeons would cover each other if no male was at hand. Buffon

observed many examples, especially among birds. He found that, if male or

female birds of various species--such as partridges, fowls, and

doves--were shut up together, they would soon begin to have sexual

relations among themselves, the males sooner and more frequently than the

females. More recently Sainte-Claire Deville observed that dogs, rams, and

bulls, when isolated, first became restless and dangerous, and then

acquired a permanent state of sexual excitement, not obeying the laws of

heat, and leading them to attempts to couple together; the presence of the

opposite sex at once restored them to normal conditions.[3] Bombarda of

Lisbon states that in Portugal it is well known that in every herd of

bulls there is nearly always one bull who is ready to lend himself to the

perverted whims of his companions.[4] It may easily be observed how a cow

in heat exerts an exciting influence on other cows, impelling them to

attempt to play the bull's part. Lacassagne has also noted among young

fowls and puppies, etc., that, before ever having had relations with the

opposite sex, and while in complete liberty, they make hesitating attempts

at intercourse with their own sex.[5] This, indeed, together with similar

perversions, may often be observed, especially in puppies, who afterward

become perfectly normal. Among white rats, which are very sexual animals,

Steinach found that, when deprived of females, the males practise

homosexuality, though only with males with whom they have long associated;

the weaker rats play the passive part. But when a female is introduced

they immediately turn to her; although they are occasionally altogether

indifferent to sex, they never actually prefer their own sex.[6]

With regard to the playing of the female part by the weaker rats it is

interesting to observe that Féré found among insects that the passive part

in homosexual relations is favored by fatigue; among cockchafers it was

the male just separated from the female who would take the passive part

(on the rare occasions when homosexual relations occurred) with a fresh

male.[7]

Homosexuality appears to be specially common among birds. It was among

birds that it attracted the attention of the ancients, and numerous

interesting observations have been made in more recent times. Thus Selous,

a careful bird-watcher, finds that the ruff, the male of the _Machetes

pugnax_, suffers from sexual repression owing to the coyness of the female

(the reeve), and consequently the males often resort to homosexual

intercourse. It is still more remarkable that the reeves also, even in the

presence of the males, will court each other and have intercourse.[8] We

may associate this with the high erotic development of birds, the

difficulty with which tumescence seems to occur in them, and their long

courtships.

Among the higher animals, again, female monkeys, even when grown up (as

Moll was informed), behave in a sexual way to each other, though it is

difficult to say how far this is merely in play. Dr. Seitz, Director of

the Frankfurt Zoölogical Garden, gave Moll a record of his own careful

observations of homosexual phenomena among the males and females of

various animals confined in the Garden (_Antelope cervicapra, Bos Indicus,

Capra hircus, Ovis steatopyga_).[9] In all such cases we are not concerned

with sexual inversion, but merely with the accidental turning of the

sexual instinct into an abnormal channel, the instinct being called out

by an approximate substitute, or even by diffused emotional excitement, in

the absence of the normal object.

It is probable, however, that cases of true sexual inversion--in which

gratification is preferably sought in the same sex--may be found among

animals, although observations have rarely been made or recorded. It has

been found by Muccioli, an Italian authority on pigeons, that among

Belgian carrier-pigeons inverted practices may occur, even in the presence

of many of the other sex.[10] This seems to be true inversion, though we

are not told whether these birds were also attracted toward the opposite

sex. The birds of this family appear to be specially liable to sexual

perversion. Thus M.J. Bailly-Maitre, a breeder of great knowledge and a

keen observer, wrote to Girard that "they are strange creatures in their

manners and customs and are apt to elude the most persistent observer. No

animal is more depraved. Mating between males, and still more frequently

between females, often occurs at an early age: up to the second year. I

have had several pairs of pigeons formed by subjects of the same sex who

for many months behaved as if the mating were natural. In some cases this

had taken place among young birds of the same nest, who acted like real

mates, though both subjects were males. In order to mate them productively

we have had to separate them and shut each of them up for some days with a

female."[11] In the Berlin Zoölogical Gardens also, it has been noticed

that two birds of the same sex will occasionally become attached to each

other and remain so in spite of repeated advances from individuals of

opposite sex. This occurred, for instance, in the case of two males of the

Egyptian goose who were thus to all appearance paired, and always kept

together, vigorously driving away any female that approached. Similarly a

male Australian sheldrake was paired to a male of another species.[12]

Among birds generally, inverted sexuality seems to accompany the

development of the secondary sexual characters of the opposite sex which

is sometimes found. Thus, a poultry-breeder describes a hen (colored

Dorking) crowing like a cock, only somewhat more harshly, as a cockerel

crows, and with an enormous comb, larger than is ever seen in the male.

This bird used to try to tread her fellow-hens. At the same time she laid

early and regularly, and produced "grand chickens."[13] Among ducks, also,

it has occasionally been observed that the female assumes at the same time

both male livery and male sexual tendencies. It is probable that such

observations will be multiplied in the future, and that sexual inversion

in the true sense will be found commoner among animals than at present it

appears to be.

Traces of homosexual practices, sometimes on a large scale, have been

found among all the great divisions of the human race. It would be

possible to collect a considerable body of evidence under this head.[14]

Unfortunately, however, the travellers and others on whose records we are

dependent have been so shy of touching these subjects, and so ignorant of

the main points for investigation, that it is very difficult to discover

sexual inversion in the proper sense in any lower race. Travellers have

spoken vaguely of crimes against nature without defining the precise

relationship involved nor inquiring how far any congenital impulse could

be distinguished.

Looking at the phenomena generally, so far as they have been recorded

among various lower races, we seem bound to recognize that there is a

widespread natural instinct impelling men toward homosexual relationships,

and that this has been sometimes, though very exceptionally, seized upon

and developed for advantageous social purposes. On the whole, however,

unnatural intercourse (sodomy) has been regarded as an antisocial offense,

and punishable sometimes by the most serious penalties that could be

invented. This was, for instance, the case in ancient Mexico, in Peru,

among the Persians, in China, and among the Hebrews and Mohammedans.

Even in very early history it is possible to find traces of homosexuality,

with or without an implied disapproval. Its existence in Assyria and

Babylonia is indicated by the Codex Hamurabi and by inscriptions which do

not on the whole refer to it favorably.[15] As regards Egypt we learn from

a Fayum papyrus, found by Flinders Petrie, translated by Griffiths, and

discussed by Oefele,[16] that more than four thousand years ago homosexual

practices were so ancient that they were attributed to the gods Horus and

Set. The Egyptians showed great admiration of masculine beauty, and it

would seem that they never regarded homosexuality as punishable or even

reprehensible. It is notable, also, that Egyptian women were sometimes of

very virile type, and Hirschfeld considers that intermediate sexual types

were specially widespread among the Egyptians.[17]

One might be tempted to expect that homosexual practices would be

encouraged whenever it was necessary to keep down the population.

Aristotle says that it was allowed by law in Crete for this end. And

Professor Haddon tells me that at Torres Straits a native advocated sodomy

on this ground.[18] There seems, however, on the whole, to be little

evidence pointing to this utilization of the practice. The homosexual

tendency appears to have flourished chiefly among warriors and warlike

peoples. During war and the separation from women that war involves, the

homosexual instinct tends to develop; it flourished, for instance, among

the Carthaginians and among the Normans, as well as among the warlike

Dorians, Scythians, Tartars, and Celts,[19] and, when there has been an

absence of any strong moral feeling against it, the instinct has been

cultivated and, idealized as a military virtue, partly because it

counteracts the longing for the softening feminine influences of the home

and partly because it seems to have an inspiring influence in promoting

heroism and heightening _esprit de corps_. In the lament of David over

Jonathan we have a picture of intimate friendship--"passing the love of

women"--between comrades in arms among a barbarous, warlike race. There is

nothing to show that such a relationship was sexual, but among warriors in

New Caledonia friendships that were undoubtedly homosexual were recognized

and regulated; the fraternity of arms, according to Foley,[20] complicated

with pederasty, was more sacred than uterine fraternity. We have,

moreover, a recent example of the same relationships recognized in a

modern European race--the Albanians.

Hahn, in the course of his _Albanische Studien_ (1854, p. 166),

says that the young men between 16 and 24 lore boys from about 12

to 17. A Gege marries at the age of 24 or 25, and then he

usually, but not always, gives up boy-love. The following passage

is reported by Hahn as the actual language used to him by an

Albanian Gege: "The lover's feeling for the boy is pure as

sunshine. It places the beloved on the same pedestal as a saint.

It is the highest and most exalted passion of which the human

breast is capable. The sight of a beautiful youth awakens

astonishment in the lover, and opens the door of his heart to the

delight which the contemplation of this loveliness affords. Love

takes possession of him so completely that all his thought and

feeling goes out in it. If he finds himself in the presence of

the beloved, he rests absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, he

thinks of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears, he

falls into confusion, changes color, turns alternately pale and

red. His heart beats faster and impedes his breathing. He has

ears and eyes only for the beloved. He shuns touching him with

the hand, kisses him only on the forehead, sings his praise in

verse, a woman's never." One of these love-poems of an Albanian

Gege runs as follows: "The sun, when it rises in the morning, is

like you, boy, when you are near me. When your dark eye turns

upon me, it drives my reason from my head."

It should be added that Prof. Weigand, who knew the Albanians

well, assured Bethe (_Rheinisches Museum für Philologie_, 1907,

p. 475) that the relations described by Hahn are really sexual,

although tempered by idealism. A German scholar who travelled in

Albania some years ago, also, assured Näcke (_Jahrbuch für

sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix, 1908, p. 327) that he could

fully confirm Hahn's statements, and that, though it was

difficult to speak positively, he doubted whether these

relationships were purely ideal. While most prevalent among the

Moslems, they are also found among the Christians, and receive

the blessing of the priest in church. Jealousy is frequently

aroused, the same writer remarks, and even murder may be

committed on account of a boy.

It may be mentioned here that among the Tschuktsches,

Kamschatdals, and allied peoples (according to a Russian

anthropological journal quoted in _Sexual-Probleme_, January,

1913, p. 41) there are homosexual marriages among the men, and

occasionally among the women, ritually consecrated and openly

recognized.

The Albanians, it is possible, belonged to the same stock which produced

the Dorian Greeks, and the most important and the most thoroughly known

case of socially recognized homosexuality is that of Greece during its

period of highest military as well as ethical and intellectual vigor. In

this case, as in those already mentioned, the homosexual tendency was

frequently regarded as having beneficial results, which caused it to be

condoned, if not, indeed, fostered as a virtue. Plutarch repeated the old

Greek statement that the Beotians, the Lacedemonians, and the Cretans were

the most warlike stocks because they were the strongest in love; an army

composed of loving homosexual couples, it was held, would be invincible.

It appears that the Dorians introduced _paiderastia_, as the Greek form of

homosexuality is termed, into Greece; they were the latest invaders, a

vigorous mountain race from the northwest (the region including what is

now Albania) who spread over the whole land, the islands, and Asia Minor,

becoming the ruling race. Homosexuality was, of course, known before they

came, but they made it honorable. Homer never mentions it, and it was not

known as legitimate to the Æolians or the Ionians. Bethe, who has written

a valuable study of Dorian _paiderastia_, states that the Dorians admitted

a kind of homosexual marriage, and even had a kind of boy-marriage by

capture, the scattered vestiges of this practice indicating, Bethe

believes, that it was a general custom among the Dorians before the

invasion of Greece. Such unions even received a kind of religions

consecration. It was, moreover, shameful for a noble youth in Crete to

have no lover; it spoke ill for his character. By _paiderastia_ a man

propagated his virtues, as it were, in the youth he loved, implanting them

by the act of intercourse.

In its later Greek phases _paiderastia_ was associated less with war than

with athletics; it was refined and intellectualized by poetry and

philosophy. It cannot be doubted that both Æschylus and Sophocles

cultivated boy-love, while its idealized presentation in the dialogues of

Plato has caused it to be almost identified with his name; thus in the

early _Charmides_ we have an attractive account of the youth who gives his

name to the dialogue and the emotions he excites are described. But even

in the early dialogues Plato only conditionally approved of the sexual

side of _paiderastia_ and he condemned it altogether in the final

_Laws_.[21]

The early stages of Greek _paiderastia_ are very interestingly

studied by Bethe, "Die Dorische Knabenliebe," _Rheinisches Museum

für Philologie_, 1907. J.A. Symonds's essay on the later aspects

of _paiderastia_, especially as reflected in Greek literature, _A

Problem in Greek Ethics_, is contained in the early German

edition of the present study, but (though privately printed in

1883 by the author in an edition of twelve copies and since

pirated in another private edition) it has not yet been published

in English. _Paiderastia_ in Greek poetry has also been studied

by Paul Brandt, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vols.

viii and ix (1906 and 1907), and by Otto Knapp

(_Anthropophyteia_, vol. iii, pp. 254-260) who seeks to

demonstrate the sensual side of _paiderastia_. On the other hand,

Licht, working on somewhat the same lines as Bethe (_Zeitschrift

für Sexualwissenschaft_, August, 1908), deals with the ethical

element in _paiderastia_, points out its beneficial moral

influence, and argues that it was largely on this ground that it

was counted sacred. Licht has also published a learned study of

_paiderastia_ in Attic comedy (_Anthropophyteia_, vol. vii,

1910), and remarks that "without _paiderastia_ Greek comedy is

unthinkable." _Paiderastia_ in the Greek anthology has been fully

explored by P. Stephanus (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_,

vol. ix, 1908, p. 213). Kiefer, who has studied Socrates in

relation to homosexuality (O. Kiefer, "Socrates und die

Homosexualität," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix,

1908), concludes that he was bisexual but that his sexual

impulses had been sublimated. It may be added that many results

of recent investigation concerning _paiderastia_ are summarized

by Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, pp. 747-788, and by Edward

Carpenter, _Intermediate Types Among Primitive Folk_, 1914, part

ii; see also Bloch, _Die Prostitution_, vol. i, p. 232 et seq.,

and _Der Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, p. 564.

It would appear that almost the only indications outside Greece of

_paiderastic_ homosexuality showing a high degree of tenderness and

esthetic feeling are to be found in Persian and Arabian literature, after

the time of the Abbasids, although this practice was forbidden by the

Koran.[22]

In Constantinople, as Näcke was informed by German inverts living in that

city, homosexuality is widespread, most cultivated Turks being capable of

relations with boys as well as with women, though very few are exclusively

homosexual, so that their attitude would seem to be largely due to custom

and tradition. Adult males rarely have homosexual relations together; one

of the couple is usually a boy of 12 to 18 years, and this condition of

things among the refined classes is said to resemble ancient Greek

_paiderastia_. But ordinary homosexual prostitution is prevalent; it is

especially recognized in the baths which abound in Constantinople and are

often open all night. The attendants at these baths are youths who

scarcely need an invitation to induce them to gratify the client in this

respect, the gratification usually consisting in masturbation, mutual or

one-sided, as desired. The practice, though little spoken of, is carried

on almost openly, and blackmailing is said to be unknown.[23] In the New

Turkey, however, it is stated by Adler Bey that homosexual prostitution

has almost disappeared.[24]

There is abundant evidence to show that homosexual practices exist and

have long existed in most parts of the world outside Europe, when

subserving no obvious social or moral end. How far they are associated

with congenital inversion is usually very doubtful. In China, for

instance, it seems that there are special houses devoted to male

prostitution, though less numerous than the houses devoted to females, for

homosexuality cannot be considered common in China (its prevalence among

Chinese abroad being due to the absence of women) and it is chiefly found

in the north.[25] When a rich man gives a feast he sends for women to

cheer the repast by music and song, and for boys to serve at table and to

entertain the guests by their lively conversation. The boys have been

carefully brought up for this occupation, receiving an excellent

education, and their mental qualities are even more highly valued than

their physical attractiveness. The women are less carefully brought up and

less esteemed. After the meal the lads usually return home with a

considerable fee. What further occurs the Chinese say little about. It

seems that real and deep affection is often born of these relations, at

first platonic, but in the end becoming physical, not a matter for great

concern in the eyes of the Chinese. In the Chinese novels, often of a very

literary character, devoted to masculine love, it seems that all the

preliminaries and transports of normal love are to be found, while

physical union may terminate the scene. In China, however, the law may be

brought into action for attempts against nature even with mutual consent;

the penalty is one hundred strokes with the bamboo and a month's

imprisonment; if there is violence, the penalty is decapitation; I am not

able to say how far the law is a dead letter. According to Matignon, so

far as homosexuality exists in China, it is carried on with much more

decorum and restraint than it is in Europe, and he thinks it may be put

down to the credit of the Chinese that, unlike Europeans, they never

practice unnatural connection with women. His account of the customs of

the Chinese confirms Morache's earlier account, and he remarks that,

though not much spoken of, homosexuality is not looked down upon. He gives

some interesting details concerning the boy prostitutes. These are sold by

their parents (sometimes stolen from them), about the age of 4, and

educated, while they are also subjected to a special physical training,

which includes massage of the gluteal regions to favor development,

dilatation of the anus, and epilation (which is not, however, practised by

Chinese women). At the same time, they are taught music, singing, drawing,

and the art of poetry. The waiters at the restaurants always know where

these young gentlemen are to be found when they are required to grace a

rich man's feast. They are generally accompanied by a guardian, and

usually nothing very serious takes place, for they know their value, and

money will not always buy their expensive favors. They are very

effeminate, luxuriously dressed and perfumed, and they seldom go on foot.

There are, however, lower orders of such prostitutes.[26]

Homosexuality is easily traceable in India. Dubois referred to houses

devoted to male prostitution, with men dressed as women, and imitating the

ways of women.[27] Burton in the "Terminal Essay" to his translation of

the _Arabian Nights_, states that when in 1845 Sir Charles Napier

conquered and annexed Sind three brothels of eunuchs and boys were found

in the small town of Karachi, and Burton was instructed to visit and

report on them. Hindus, in general, however, it appears, hold

homosexuality in abhorrence. In Afghanistan homosexuality is more

generally accepted, and Burton stated that "each caravan is accompanied by

a number of boys and lads almost in woman's attire, with kohled eyes and

rouged cheeks, long tresses and hennaed fingers and toes, riding

luxuriously in camel paniers."

If we turn to the New World, we find that among the American Indians, from

the Eskimo of Alaska downward to Brazil and still farther south,

homosexual customs have been very frequently observed. Sometimes they are

regarded by the tribe with honor, sometimes with indifference, sometimes

with contempt; but they appear to be always tolerated. Although there are

local differences, these customs, on the whole, seem to have much in

common. The best early description which I have been able to find is by

Langsdorff[28] and concerns the Aleuts of Oonalashka in Alaska: "Boys, if

they happen to be very handsome," he says, "are often brought up entirely

in the manner of girls, and instructed in the arts women use to please

men; their beards are carefully plucked out as soon as they begin to

appear, and their chins tattooed like those of women; they wear ornaments

of glass beads upon their legs and arms, bind and cut their hair in the

same manner as the women, and supply their place with the men as

concubines. This shocking, unnatural, and immoral practice has obtained

here even from the remotest times; nor have any measures hitherto been

taken to repress and restrain it; such men are known under the name of

_schopans_."

Among the Konyagas Langsdorff found the custom much more common than among

the Aleuts; he remarks that, although the mothers brought up some of their

children in this way, they seemed very fond of their offspring. Lisiansky,

at about the same period, tells us that: "Of all the customs of these

islanders, the most disgusting is that of men, called _schoopans_, living

with men, and supplying the place of women. These are brought up from

their infancy with females, and taught all the feminine arts. They even

assume the manner and dress of the women so nearly that a stranger would

naturally take them for what they are not. This odious practice was

formerly so prevalent that the residence of one of these monsters in a

house was considered as fortunate; it is, however, daily losing

ground."[29] He mentions a case in which a priest had nearly married two

males, when an interpreter chanced to come in and was able to inform him

what he was doing.

The practice has, however, apparently continued to be fairly common among

the Alaska Eskimos down to recent times. Thus Dr. Engelmann mentioned to

me that he was informed by those who had lived in Alaska, especially near

Point Barrow, that as many as 5 such individuals (regarded by uninstructed

strangers as "hermaphrodites") might be found in a single comparatively

small community. It is stated by Davydoff, as quoted by Holmberg,[30] that

the boy is selected to be a _schopan_ because he is girl-like. This is a

point of some interest as it indicates that the schopan is not effeminated

solely by suggestion and association, but is probably feminine by inborn

constitution.

In Louisiana, Florida, Yucatan, etc., somewhat similar customs exist or

have existed. In Brazil men are to be found dressed as women and solely

occupying themselves with feminine occupations; they are not very highly

regarded.[31] They are called _cudinas_: i.e., circumcized. Among the

Pueblo Indians of New Mexico these individuals are called _mujerados_

(supposed to be a corruption of _mujeriego_) and are the chief passive

agents in the homosexual ceremonies of these people. They are said to be

intentionally effeminated in early life by much masturbation and by

constant horse-riding.[32]

Among all the tribes of the northwest United States sexual inverts may be

found. The invert is called a _boté_ ("not man, not woman") by the

Montana, and a _burdash_ ("half-man, half-woman") by the Washington

Indians. The _boté_ has been carefully studied by Dr. A.B. Holder.[33]

Holder finds that the _boté_ wears woman's dress, and that his speech and

manners are feminine. The dress and manners are assumed in childhood, but

no sexual practices take place until puberty. These consist in the

practice of _fellatio_ by the _boté_, who probably himself experiences the

orgasm at the same time. The _boté_ is not a pederast, although pederasty

occurs among these Indians. Holder examined _boté_ who was splendidly

made, prepossessing, and in perfect health. With much reluctance he agreed

to a careful examination. The sexual organs were quite normal, though

perhaps not quite so large as his _physique_ would suggest, but he had

never had intercourse with a woman. On removing his clothes he pressed his

thighs together, as a timid woman would, so as to conceal completely the

sexual organs; Holder says that the thighs "really, or to my fancy," had

the feminine rotundity. He has heard a _boté_ "_beg_ a male Indian to

submit to his caress," and he tells that "one little fellow, while in the

agency boarding-school, was found frequently surreptitiously wearing

female attire. He was punished, but finally escaped from school and became

a _boté_, which vocation he has since followed."

At Tahiti at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Turnbull[34] found

that "there are a set of men in this country whose open profession is of

such abomination that the laudable delicacy of our language will not admit

it to be mentioned. These are called by the natives _Mahoos_; they assume

the dress, attitude, and manners of women, and affect all the fantastic

oddities and coquetries of the vainest of females. They mostly associate

with the women, who court their acquaintance. With the manners of the

women they adopt their peculiar employments, making cloth, bonnets, and

mats; and so completely are they unsexed that had they not been pointed

out to me I should not have known them but as women. I add, with some

satisfaction, that the encouragement of this abomination is almost solely

confined to the chiefs."

Among the Sakalaves of Madagascar there are certain boys called _sekatra_,

as described by Lasnet, who are apparently chosen from childhood on

account of weak or delicate appearance and brought up as girls. They live

like women and have intercourse with men, with or without sodomy, paying

the men who please them.[35]

Among the negro population of Zanzibar forms of homosexuality which are

believed to be congenital (as well as acquired forms) are said to be

fairly common. Their frequency is thought to be due to Arab influence. The

male congenital inverts show from their earliest years no aptitude for

men's occupations, but are attracted toward female occupations. As they

grow older they wear women's clothes, dress their hair in women's fashion,

and behave altogether like women. They associate only with women and with

male prostitutes, and they obtain sexual satisfaction by passive pederasty

or in ways simulating coitus. In appearance they resemble ordinary male

prostitutes, who are common in Zanzibar, but it is noteworthy that the

natives make a clear distinction between them and men prostitutes. The

latter are looked down on with contempt, while the former, as being what

they are "by the will of God," are tolerated.[36]

Homosexuality; occurs in various parts of Africa. Cases of _effeminatio_

and passive sodomy have been reported from Unyamwezi and Uganda. Among the

Bangala of the Upper Congo sodomy between men is very common, especially

when they are away from home, in strange towns, or in fishing camps. If,

however, a man had intercourse with a woman _per anum_ he was at one time

liable to be put to death.[37]

Among the Papuans in some parts of New Guinea, as already mentioned,

homosexuality is said to be well recognized, and is resorted to for

convenience as well, perhaps, as for Malthusian reasons.[38] But in the

Rigo district of British New Guinea, where habitual sodomy is not

practised, Dr. Seligmann, of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to

Torres Straits, made some highly important observations on several men and

women who clearly appeared to be cases of congenital sexual inversion with

some degree of esthetic inversion and even some anatomical

modification.[39] These people, it may be noted, belong to a primitive

race, uncontaminated by contact with white races, and practically still in

the Stone Age.

Finally, among another allied primitive people, the Australians, it would

appear that homosexuality has long been well established in tribal

customs. Among the natives of Kimberley, Western Australia (who are by no

means of low type, quick and intelligent, with special aptitudes for

learning languages and music), if a wife is not obtainable for a young man

he is presented with a boy-wife between the ages of 5 and 10 (the age when

a boy receives his masculine initiation). The exact nature of the

relations between the boy-wife and his protector are doubtful; they

certainly have connection, but the natives repudiate with horror and

disgust the idea of sodomy.[40]

Further light is thrown on homosexuality in Australia by the supposition

of Spencer and Gillen that the _mika_ operation (urethral subincision), an

artificial hypospadias, is for the purpose of homosexual intercourse.

Klaatsch has discussed the homosexual origin of the _mika_ operation on

the basis of information he received from missionaries at Niol-Niol, on

the northwest coast. The subincised man acts as a female to the as yet

unoperated boys, who perform coitus in the incised opening. Both informed

Klaatsch in 1906 that at Boulia in Queensland the operated men are said to

"possess a vulva."[41]

These various accounts are of considerable interest, though for the most

part their precise significance remains doubtful. Some of them,

however,--such as Holder's description of the _boté_, Baumann's account of

homosexual phenomena in Zanzibar, and especially Seligmann's observations

in British New Guinea,--indicate not only the presence of esthetic

inversion but of true congenital sexual inversion. The extent of the

evidence will doubtless be greatly enlarged as the number of competent

observers increases, and crucial points are no longer so frequently

overlooked.

On the whole, the evidence shows that among lower races homosexual

practices are regarded with considerable indifference, and the real

invert, if he exists among them, as doubtless he does exist, generally

passes unperceived or joins some sacred caste which sanctifies his

exclusively homosexual inclinations.

Even in Europe today a considerable lack of repugnance to homosexual

practices may be found among the lower classes. In this matter, as

folklore shows in so many other matters, the uncultured man of

civilization is linked to the savage. In England, I am told, the soldier

often has little or no objection to prostitute himself to the "swell" who

pays him, although for pleasure he prefers to go to women; and Hyde Park

is spoken of as a center of male prostitution.

"Among the working masses of England and Scotland," Q. writes,

"'comradeship' is well marked, though not (as in Italy) very

conscious of itself. Friends often kiss each other, though this

habit seems to vary a good deal in different sections and

coteries. Men commonly sleep together, whether comrades or not,

and so easily get familiar. Occasionally, but not so very often,

this relation delays for a time, or even indefinitely, actual

marriage, and in some instances is highly passionate and

romantic. There is a good deal of grossness, no doubt, here and

there in this direction among the masses; but there are no male

prostitutes (that I am aware of) whose regular clients are manual

workers. This kind of prostitution in London is common enough,

but I have only a slight personal knowledge of it. Many youths

are 'kept' handsomely in apartments by wealthy men, and they are,

of course, not always inaccessible to others. Many keep

themselves in lodgings by this means, and others eke out scanty

wages by the same device: just like women, in fact. Choirboys

reinforce the ranks to a considerable extent, and private

soldiers to a large extent. Some of the barracks (notably

Knightsbridge) are great centres. On summer evenings Hyde Park

and the neighborhood of Albert Gate is full of guardsmen and

others plying a lively trade, and with little disguise, in

uniform or out. In these cases it sometimes only amounts to a

chat on a retired seat or a drink at a bar; sometimes recourse is

had to a room in some known lodging-house, or to one or two

hotels which lend themselves to this kind of business. In any

case it means a covetable addition to Tommy Atkins's

pocket-money." And Mr. Raffalovich, speaking of London, remarks:

"The number of soldiers who prostitute themselves is greater than

we are willing to believe. It is no exaggeration to say that in

certain regiments the presumption is in favor of the venality of

the majority of the men." It is worth noting that there is a

perfect understanding in this matter between soldiers and the

police, who may always be relied upon by the former for

assistance and advice. I am indebted to my correspondent "Z" for

the following notes: "Soldiers are no less sought after in France

than in England or in Germany, and special houses exist for

military prostitution both in Paris and the garrison-towns. Many

facts known about the French army go to prove that these habits

have been contracted in Algeria, and have spread to a formidable

extent through whole regiments. The facts related by Ulrichs

about the French foreign legion, on the testimony of a credible

witness who had been a pathic in his regiment, deserve attention

(_Ara Spei_, p. 20; _Memnon_, p. 27). This man, who was a German,

told Ulrichs that the Spanish, French, and Italian soldiers were

the lovers, the Swiss and German their beloved (see also General

Brossier's Report, quoted by Burton, _Arabian Nights_, vol. x, p.

251). In Lucien Descaves's military novel, _Sous Offs_ (Paris,

Tresse et Stock, 1890), some details are given regarding

establishments for male prostitution. See pages 322, 412, and 417

for description of the drinking-shop called 'Aux Amis de

l'Armée,' where a few maids were kept for show, and also of its

frequenters, including, in particular, the Adjutant Laprévotte.

Ulrichs reports that in the Austrian army lectures on homosexual

vices are regularly given to cadets and conscripts (_Memnon_, p.

26). A soldier who had left the army told a friend of mine that

he and many of his comrades had taken to homosexual indulgences

when abroad on foreign service in a lonely station. He kept the

practice up in England 'because the women of his class were so

unattractive.' The captain of an English man-of-war said that he

was always glad to send his men on shore after a long cruise at

sea, never feeling sure how far they might not all go if left

without women for a certain space of time." I may add that A.

Hamon (_La France Sociale et Politique_, 1891, pp. 653-55; also

in his _Psychologie du Militaire Professional_, chapter x) gives

details as to the prevalence of homosexuality in the French army,

especially in Algeria; he regards it as extremely common,

although the majority are free. A fragment of a letter by General

Lamoricière (speaking of Marshal Changarnier) is quoted: _En

Afrique nous en étions tous, mais lui en est resté ici_.

This primitive indifference is doubtless also a factor in the prevalence

of homosexuality among criminals, although, here, it must be remembered,

two other factors (congenital abnormality and the isolation of

imprisonment) have to be considered. In Russia, Tarnowsky observes that

all pederasts are agreed that the common people are tolerably indifferent

to their sexual advances, which they call "gentlemen's games." A

correspondent remarks on "the fact, patent to all observers, that simple

folk not infrequently display no greater disgust for the abnormalities of

sexual appetite than they do for its normal manifestations."[42] He knows

of many cases in which men of lower class were flattered and pleased by

the attentions of men of higher class, although not themselves inverted.

And from this point of view the following case, which he mentions, is very

instructive:--

A pervert whom I can trust told me that he had made advances to

upward of one hundred men in the course of the last fourteen

years, and that he had only once met with a refusal (in which

case the man later on offered himself spontaneously) and only

once with an attempt to extort money. Permanent relations of

friendship sprang up in most instances. He admitted that he

looked after these persons and helped them with his social

influence and a certain amount of pecuniary support--setting one

up in business, giving another something to marry on, and finding

places for others.

Among the peasantry in Switzerland, I am informed, homosexual

relationships are not uncommon before marriage, and such relationships are

lightly spoken of as "Dummheiten". No doubt, similar traits might be found

in the peasantry of other parts of Europe.

What may be regarded as true sexual inversion can be traced in Europe from

the beginning of the Christian era (though we can scarcely demonstrate the

congenital element) especially among two classes--men of exceptional

ability and criminals; and also, it may be added, among those neurotic and

degenerate individuals who may be said to lie between these two classes,

and on or over the borders of both. Homosexuality, mingled with various

other sexual abnormalities and excesses, seems to have flourished in Rome

during the empire, and is well exemplified in the persons of many of the

emperors.[43] Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero,

Galba, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Commodus, and

Heliogabalus--many of them men of great ability and, from a Roman

standpoint, great moral worth--are all charged, on more or less solid

evidence, with homosexual practices. In Julius Cæsar--"the husband of all

women and the wife of all men" as he was satirically termed--excess of

sexual activity seems to have accompanied, as is sometimes seen, an excess

of intellectual activity. He was first accused of homosexual practices

after a long stay in Bithynia with King Nikomedes, and the charge was

very often renewed. Cæsar was proud of his physical beauty, and, like

some modern inverts, he was accustomed carefully to shave and epilate his

body to preserve the smoothness of the skin. Hadrian's love for his

beautiful slave Antinoüs is well known; the love seems to have been deep

and mutual, and Antinoüs has become immortalized, partly by the romance of

his obscure death and partly by the new and strangely beautiful type which

he has given to sculpture.[44] Heliogabalus, "the most homosexual of all

the company," as he has been termed, seems to have been a true sexual

invert, of feminine type; he dressed as a woman and was devoted to the men

he loved.[45]

Homosexual practices everywhere flourish and abound in prisons. There is

abundant evidence on this point. I will only bring forward the evidence of

Dr. Wey, formerly physician to the Elmira Reformatory, New York.

"Sexuality" (he wrote in a private letter) "is one of the most troublesome

elements with which we have to contend. I have no data as to the number of

prisoners here who are sexually perverse. In my pessimistic moments I

should feel like saying that all were; but probably 80 per cent, would be

a fair estimate." And, referring to the sexual influence which some men

have over others, he remarks that "there are many men with features

suggestive of femininity that attract others to them in a way that reminds

me of a bitch in heat followed by a pack of dogs."[46] In Sing Sing prison

of New York, 20 per cent, of the prisoners are said to be actively

homosexual and a large number of the rest passively homosexual. These

prison relationships are not always of a brutal character, McMurtrie

states, the attraction sometimes being more spiritual than physical.[47]

Prison life develops and fosters the homosexual tendency of criminals; but

there can be little doubt that that tendency, or else a tendency to sexual

indifference or bisexuality, is a radical character of a very large number

of criminals. We may also find it to a considerable extent among tramps,

an allied class of undoubted degenerates, who, save for brief seasons, are

less familiar with prison life. I am able to bring forward interesting

evidence on this point by an acute observer who lived much among tramps in

various countries, and largely devoted himself to the study of them.[48]

The fact that homosexuality is especially common among men of exceptional

intellect was long since noted by Dante:--

"In somma sappi, che tutti fur cherci

E litterati grandi, et di gran fama

D'un medismo peccato al mondo lerci."[49]

It has often been noted since and remains a remarkable fact.

There cannot be the slightest doubt that intellectual and

artistic abilities of the highest order have frequently been

associated with a congenitally inverted sexual temperament. There

has been a tendency among inverts themselves to discover their

own temperament in many distinguished persons on evidence of the

most slender character. But it remains a demonstrable fact that

numerous highly distinguished persons, of the past and the

present, in various countries, have been inverts. I may here

refer to my own observations on this point in the preface.

Mantegazza (_Gli Amori degli Uomini_) remarks that in his own

restricted circle he is acquainted with "a French publicist, a

German poet, an Italian statesman, and a Spanish jurist, all men

of exquisite taste and highly cultivated mind," who are sexually

inverted. Krafft-Ebing, in the preface to his _Psychopathia

Sexualis_, referring to the "numberless" communications he has

received from these "step-children of nature," remarks that "the

majority of the writers are men of high intellectual and social

position, and often possess very keen emotions." Raffalovich

(_Uranisme_, p. 197) names among distinguished inverts, Alexander

the Great, Epaminondas, Virgil, the great Condé, Prince Eugène,

etc. (The question of Virgil's inversion is discussed in the

_Revista di Filologia_, 1890, fas. 7-9, but I have not been able

to see this review.) Moll, in his _Berühmte Homosexuelle_ (1910,

in the series of _Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens_)

discusses the homosexuality of a number of eminent persons, for

the most part with his usual caution and sagacity; speaking of

the alleged homosexuality of Wagner he remarks, with entire

truth, that "the method of arguing the existence of homosexuality

from the presence of feminine traits must be decisively

rejected." Hirschfeld has more recently included in his great

work _Die Homosexualität_ (1913, pp. 650-674) two lists, ancient

and modern, of alleged inverts among the distinguished persons of

history, briefly stating the nature of the evidence in each case.

They amount to nearly 300. Not all of them, however, can be

properly described as distinguished. Thus we end in the list 43

English names; of these at least half a dozen were noblemen who

were concerned in homosexual prosecutions, but were of no

intellectual distinction. Others, again, are of undoubted

eminence, but there is no good reason to regard them as

homosexual; this is the case, for instance, as regards Swift, who

may have been mentally abnormal, but appears to have been

heterosexual rather than homosexual; Fletcher, of whom we know

nothing definite in this respect, is also included, as well as

Tennyson, whose youthful sentimental friendship for Arthur Hallam

is exactly comparable to that of Montaigne for Etienne de la

Boëtie, yet Montaigne is not included in the list. It may be

added, however, that while some of the English names in the list

are thus extremely doubtful, it would have been possible to add

some others who were without doubt inverts.

It has not, I think, been noted--largely because the evidence was

insufficiently clear--that among moral leaders, and persons with strong

ethical instincts, there is a tendency toward the more elevated forms of

homosexual feeling. This may be traced, not only in some of the great

moral teachers of old, but also in men and women of our own day. It is

fairly evident why this should be so. Just as the repressed love of a

woman or a man has, in normally constituted persons, frequently furnished

the motive power for an enlarged philanthropic activity, so the person

who sees his own sex also bathed in sexual glamour, brings to his work of

human service an ardor wholly unknown to the normally constituted

individual; morality to him has become one with love.[50] I am not

prepared here to insist on this point, but no one, I think, who studies

sympathetically the histories and experiences of great moral leaders can

fail in many cases to note the presence of this feeling, more or less

finely sublimated from any gross physical manifestation.

If it is probable that in moral movements persons of homosexual

temperament have sometimes become prominent, it is undoubtedly true,

beyond possibility of doubt, that they have been prominent in religion.

Many years ago (in 1885) the ethnologist, Elie Reclus, in his charming

book, _Les Primitifs_,[51] setting forth the phenomena of homosexuality

among the Eskimo Innuit tribe, clearly insisted that from time immemorial

there has been a connection between the invert and the priest, and showed

how well this connection is illustrated by the Eskimo _schupans_. Much

more recently, in his elaborate study of the priest, Horneffer discusses

the feminine traits of priests and shows that, among the most various

peoples, persons of sexually abnormal and especially homosexual

temperament have assumed the functions of priesthood. To the popular eye

the unnatural is the supernatural, and the abnormal has appeared to be

specially close to the secret Power of the World. Abnormal persons are

themselves of the same opinion and regard themselves as divine. As

Horneffer points out, they often really possess special aptitude.[52]

Karsch in his _Gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Naturvölker_ (1911) has

brought out the high religious as well as social significance of castes of

cross-dressed and often homosexual persons among primitive peoples. At the

same time Edward Carpenter in his remarkable book, _Intermediate Types

among Primitive Folk_ (1914), has shown with much insight how it comes

about that there is an organic connection between the homosexual

temperament and unusual psychic or divinatory powers. Homosexual men were

non-warlike and homosexual women non-domestic, so that their energies

sought different outlets from those of ordinary men and women; they became

the initiators of new activities. Thus it is that from among them would in

some degree issue not only inventors and craftsmen and teachers, but

sorcerers and diviners, medicine-men and wizards, prophets and priests.

Such persons would be especially impelled to thought, because they would

realize that they were different from other people; treated with reverence

by some and with contempt by others, they would be compelled to face the

problems of their own nature and, indirectly, the problems of the world

generally. Moreover, Carpenter points out, persons in whom the masculine

and feminine temperaments were combined would in many cases be persons of

intuition and complex mind beyond their fellows, and so able to exercise

divination and prophecy in a very real and natural sense.[53]

This aptitude of the invert for primitive religion, for sorcery and

divination, would have its reaction on popular feeling, more especially

when magic and the primitive forms of religion began to fall into

disrepute. The invert would be regarded as the sorcerer of a false and

evil religion and be submerged in the same ignominy. This point has been

emphasized by Westermarck in the instructive chapter on homosexuality in

his great work on Moral Ideas.[54] He points out the significance of the

fact, at the first glance apparently inexplicable, that homosexuality in

the general opinion of medieval Christianity was constantly associated,

even confounded, with heresy, as we see significantly illustrated by the

fact that in France and England the popular designation for homosexuality

is derived from the Bulgarian heretics. It was, Westermarck believes,

chiefly as a heresy and out of religious zeal that homosexuality was so

violently reprobated and so ferociously punished.

In modern Europe we find the strongest evidence of the presence of what

may fairly be called true sexual inversion when we investigate the men of

the Renaissance. The intellectual independence of those days and the

influence of antiquity seem to have liberated and fully developed the

impulses of those abnormal individuals who would otherwise have found no

clear expression, and passed unnoticed.[55]

Muret, the Humanist, may perhaps be regarded as a typical example of the

nature and fate of the superior invert of the Renaissance. Born in 1526 at

Muret (Limousin), of poor but noble family, he was of independent,

somewhat capricious character, unable to endure professors, and

consequently he was mainly his own teacher, though he often sought advice

from Jules-César Scaliger. Muret was universally admired in his day for

his learning and his eloquence, and is still regarded not only as a great

Latinist and a fine writer, but as a notable man, of high intelligence,

and remarkable, moreover, for courtesy in polemics in an age when that

quality was not too common. His portrait shows a somewhat coarse and

rustic but intelligent face. He conquered honor and respect before he died

in 1585, at the age of 59. In early life Muret wrote wanton erotic poems

to women which seem based on personal experience. But in 1553 we find him

imprisoned in the Châtelet for sodomy and in danger of his life, so that

he thought of starving himself to death. Friends, however, obtained his

release and he settled in Toulouse. But the very next year he was burnt in

effigy in Toulouse, as a Huguenot and sodomist, this being the result of a

judicial sentence which had caused him to flee from the city and from

France. Four years later he had to flee from Padua owing to a similar

accusation. He had many friends but none of them protested against the

charge, though they aided him to escape from the penalty. It is very

doubtful whether he was a Huguenot, and whenever in his works he refers to

pederasty it is with strong disapproval. But his writings reveal

passionate friendship for men, and he seems to have expended little energy

in combating a charge which, if false, was a shameful injustice to him. It

was after fleeing into Italy and falling ill of a fever from fatigue and

exposure that Muret is said to have made the famous retort (to the

physician by his bedside who had said: "Faciamus experimentum in anima

vili"): "Vilem animam appellas pro qua Christus non dedignatus est

mori."[56]

A greater Humanist than Muret, Erasmus himself, seems as a young man, when

in the Augustinian monastery of Stein, to have had a homosexual attraction

to another Brother (afterward Prior) to whom he addressed many

passionately affectionate letters; his affection seems, however, to have

been unrequited.[57]

As the Renaissance developed, homosexuality seems to become more prominent

among distinguished persons. Poliziano was accused of pederasty. Aretino

was a pederast, as Pope Julius II seems also to have been. Ariosto wrote

in his satires, no doubt too extremely:--

"Senza quel vizio son pochi umanisti."[58]

Tasso had a homosexual strain in his nature, but he was of weak and

feminine constitution, sensitively emotional and physically frail.[59]

It is, however, among artists, at that time and later, that homosexuality

may most notably be traced. Leonardo da Vinci, whose ideals as revealed in

his work are so strangely bisexual, lay under homosexual suspicion in his

youth. In 1476, when he was 24 years of age, charges were made against him

before the Florentine officials for the control of public morality, and

were repeated, though they do not appear to have been substantiated. There

is, however, some ground for supposing that Leonardo was imprisoned in his

youth.[60] Throughout life he loved to surround himself with beautiful

youths and his pupils were more remarkable for their attractive appearance

than for their skill; to one at least of them he was strongly attached,

while there is no record of any attachment to a woman. Freud, who has

studied Leonardo with his usual subtlety, considers that his temperament

was marked by "ideal homosexuality."[61]

Michelangelo, one of the very chief artists of the Renaissance period, we

cannot now doubt, was sexually inverted. The evidence furnished by his own

letters and poems, as well as the researches of numerous recent

workers,--Parlagreco, Scheffler, J.A. Symonds, etc.,--may be said to have

placed this beyond question.[62] He belonged to a family of 5 brothers, 4

of whom never married, and so far as is known left no offspring; the fifth

only left 1 male heir. His biographer describes Michelangelo as "a man of

peculiar, not altogether healthy, nervous temperament." He was indifferent

to women; only in one case, indeed, during his long life is there evidence

even of friendship with a woman, while he was very sensitive to the beauty

of men, and his friendships were very tender and enthusiastic. At the

same time there is no reason to suppose that he formed any physically

passionate relationships with men, and even his enemies seldom or never

made this accusation against him. We may probably accept the estimate of

his character given by Symonds:--

Michelangelo Buonarotti was one of those exceptional, but not

uncommon men who are born with sensibilities abnormally deflected

from the ordinary channel. He showed no partiality for women, and

a notable enthusiasm for the beauty of young men.... He was a man

of physically frigid temperament, extremely sensitive to beauty

of the male type, who habitually philosophized his emotions, and

contemplated the living objects of his admiration as amiable, not

only for their personal qualities, but also for their esthetical

attractiveness.[63]

A temperament of this kind seems to have had no significance for the men

of those days; they were blind to all homosexual emotion which had no

result in sodomy. Plato found such attraction a subject for sentimental

metaphysics, but it was not until nearly our own time that it again became

a subject of interest and study. Yet it undoubtedly had profound influence

on Michelangelo's art, impelling him to find every kind of human beauty in

the male form, and only a grave dignity or tenderness, divorced from every

quality that is sexually desirable, in the female form. This deeply rooted

abnormality is at once the key to the melancholy of Michelangelo and to

the mystery of his art.

Michelangelo's contemporary, the painter Bazzi (1477-1549), seems also to

have been radically inverted, and to this fact he owed his nickname

Sodoma. As, however, he was married and had children, it may be that he

was, as we should now say, of bisexual temperament. He was a great artist

who has been dealt with unjustly, partly, perhaps, because of the

prejudice of Vasari,--whose admiration for Michelangelo amounted to

worship, but who is contemptuous toward Sodoma and grudging of

praise,--partly because his work is little known out of Italy and not

very easy of access there. Reckless, unbalanced, and eccentric in his

life, Sodoma revealed in his painting a peculiar feminine softness and

warmth--which indeed we seem to see also in his portrait of himself at

Monte Oliveto Maggiore--and a very marked and tender feeling for

masculine, but scarcely virile, beauty.[64]

Cellini was probably homosexual. He was imprisoned on a charge of

unnatural vice and is himself suspiciously silent in his autobiography

concerning this imprisonment.[65]

In the seventeenth century another notable sculptor who has been termed

the Flemish Cellini, Jérôme Duquesnoy (whose still more distinguished

brother François executed the Manneken Pis in Brussels), was an invert;

having finally been accused of sexual relations with a youth in a chapel

of the Ghent Cathedral, where he was executing a monument for the bishop,

he was strangled and burned, notwithstanding that much influence,

including that of the bishop, was brought to bear in his behalf.[66]

In more recent times Winkelmann, who was the initiator of a new Greek

Renaissance and of the modern appreciation of ancient art, lies under what

seems to be a well-grounded suspicion of sexual inversion. His letters to

male friends are full of the most passionate expressions of love. His

violent death also appears to have been due to a love-adventure with a

man. The murderer was a cook, a wholly uncultivated man, a criminal who

had already been condemned to death, and shortly before murdering

Winkelmann for the sake of plunder he was found to be on very intimate

terms with him.[67] It is noteworthy that sexual inversion should so often

be found associated with the study of antiquity. It must not, however, be

too hastily concluded that this is due to suggestion and that to abolish

the study of Greek literature and art would be largely to abolish sexual

inversion. What has really occurred in those recent cases that may be

studied, and therefore without doubt in the older cases, is that the

subject of congenital sexual inversion is attracted to the study of Greek

antiquity because he finds there the explanation and the apotheosis of his

own obscure impulses. Undoubtedly that study tends to develop these

impulses.

While it is peculiarly easy to name men of distinguished ability who,

either certainly or in all probability, have been affected by homosexual

tendencies, they are not isolated manifestations. They spring out of an

element of diffused homosexuality which is at least as marked in

civilization as it is in savagery. It is easy to find illustrations in

every country. Here it may suffice to refer to France, Germany, and

England.

In France in the thirteenth century the Church was so impressed by the

prevalence of homosexuality that it reasserted the death penalty for

sodomy at the Councils of Paris (1212) and Rouen (1214), while we are told

that even by rejecting a woman's advances (as illustrated in Marie de

France's _Lai de Lanval_) a man fell under suspicion as a sodomist, which

was also held to involve heresy.[68] At the end of this century (about

1294) Alain de Lille was impelled to write a book, _De Planctu Naturæ_, in

order to call attention to the prevalence of homosexual feeling; he also

associated the neglect of women with sodomy. "Man is made woman," he

writes; "he blackens the honor of his sex, the craft of magic Venus makes

him of double gender"; nobly beautiful youths have "turned their hammers

of love to the office of anvils," and "many kisses lie untouched on maiden

lips." The result is that "the natural anvils," that is to say the

neglected maidens, "bewail the absence of their hammers and are seen sadly

to demand them." Alain de Lille makes himself the voice of this

demand.[69]

A few years later, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, sodomy was

still regarded as very prevalent. At that time it was especially

associated with the Templars who, it has been supposed, brought it from

the East. Such a supposition, however, is not required to account for the

existence of homosexuality in France. Nor is it necessary, at a somewhat

later period, to invoke, as is frequently done, the Italian origin of

Catherine de Medici, in order to explain the prevalence of homosexual

practices at her court.

Notwithstanding its prevalence, sodomy was still severely punished from

time to time. Thus in 1586, Dadon, who had formerly been Rector of the

University of Paris, was hanged and then burned for injuring a child

through sodomy.[70] In the seventeenth century, homosexuality continued,

however, to flourish, and it is said that nearly all the numerous

omissions made in the published editions of Tallement des Reaux's

_Historiettes_ refer to sodomy.[71]

How prominent homosexuality was, in the early eighteenth century in

France, we learn from the frequent references to it in the letters of

Madame, the mother of the Regent, whose husband was himself effeminate and

probably inverted.[72] For the later years of the century the evidence

abounds on every hand. At this time the Bastille was performing a useful

function, until recently overlooked by historians, as an _asile de sureté_

for abnormal persons whom it was considered unsafe to leave at large.

Inverts whose conduct became too offensive to be tolerated were frequently

placed in the Bastille which, indeed "abounded in homosexual subjects," to

a greater extent than any other class of sexual perverts. Some of the

affairs which led to the Bastille have a modern air. One such case on a

large scale occurred in 1702, and reveals an organized system of

homosexual prostitution; one of the persons involved in this affair was a

handsome, well-made youth named Lebel, formerly a lackey, but passing

himself off as a man of quality. Seduced at the age of 10 by a famous

sodomist named Duplessis, he had since been at the disposition of a number

of homosexual persons, including officers, priests, and marquises. Some of

the persons involved in these affairs were burned alive; some cut their

own throats; others again were set at liberty or transferred to the

Bicêtre.[73] During the latter part of the eighteenth century, also, we

find another modern homosexual practice recognized in France; the

rendezvous or center where homosexual persons could quietly meet each

other.[74]

Inversion has always been easy to trace in Germany. Ammianus Marcellinus

bears witness to its prevalence among some German tribes in later Roman

days.[75] In mediæval times, as Schultz points out, references to sodomy

in Germany were far from uncommon. Various princes of the German Imperial

house, and of other princely families in the Middle Ages, were noted for

their intimate friendships. At a later date, attention has frequently been

called to the extreme emotional warmth which has often marked German

friendship, even when there has been no suspicion of any true homosexual

relationship.[76] The eighteenth century, in the full enjoyment of that

abandonment to sentiment initiated by Rousseau, proved peculiarly

favorable to the expansion of the tendency to sentimental friendship. On

this basis a really inverted tendency, when it existed, could easily come

to the surface and find expression. We find this well illustrated in the

poet Heinrich von Kleist who seems to have been of bisexual temperament,

and his feelings for the girl he wished to marry were, indeed, much cooler

than those for his friend. To this friend, Ernst von Pfuël (afterward

Prussian war minister), Kleist wrote in 1805 at the age of 28: "You bring

the days of the Greeks back to me; I could sleep with you, dear youth, my

whole soul so embraces you. When you used to bathe in the Lake of Thun I

would gaze with the real feelings of a girl at your beautiful body. It

would serve an artist to study from." There follows an enthusiastic

account of his friend's beauty and of the Greek "idea of the love of

youths," and Kleist concludes: "Go with me to Anspach, and let us enjoy

the sweets of friendship.... I shall never marry; you must be wife and

children to me."[77]

In all social classes and in all fields of activity, Germany during the

nineteenth century produced a long series of famous or notorious

homosexual persons. At the one end we find people of the highest

intellectual distinction, such as Alexander von Humboldt, whom Näcke, a

cautious investigator, stated that he had good ground for regarding as an

invert.[78] At the other end we find prosperous commercial and

manufacturing people who leave Germany to find solace in the free and

congenial homosexual atmosphere of Capri; of these F.A. Krupp, the head of

the famous Essen factory, may be regarded as the type.[79]

In England (and the same is true today of the United States), although

homosexuality has been less openly manifest and less thoroughly explored,

it is doubtful whether it has been less prevalent than in Germany. At an

early period, indeed, the evidence may even seem to show that it was more

prevalent. In the Penitentials of the ninth and tenth centuries "natural

fornication and sodomy" were frequently put together and the same penance

assigned to both; it was recognized that priests and bishops, as well as

laymen, might fall into this sin, though to the bishop nearly three times

as much penance was assigned as to the layman. Among the Normans,

everywhere, homosexuality was markedly prevalent; the spread of sodomy in

France about the eleventh century is attributed to the Normans, and their

coming seems to have rendered it at times almost fashionable, at all

events at court. In England William Rufus was undoubtedly inverted, as

later on were Edward II, James I, and, perhaps, though not in so

conspicuous a degree, William III.[80]

Ordericus Vitalis, who was himself half Norman and half English, says that

the Normans had become very effeminate in his time, and that after the

death of William the Conqueror sodomy was common both in England and

Normandy. Guillaume de Nangis, in his chronicle for about 1120, speaking

of the two sons of Henry and the company of young nobles who went down

with them, in the _White Ship_, states that nearly all were considered to

be sodomists, and Henry of Huntingdon, in his _History_, looked upon the

loss of the _White Ship_ as a judgment of heaven upon sodomy. Anselm, in

writing to Archdeacon William to inform him concerning the recent Council

at London (1102), gives advice as to how to deal with people who have

committed the sin of sodomy, and instructs him not to be too harsh with

those who have not realized its gravity, for hitherto "this sin has been

so public that hardly anyone has blushed for it, and many, therefore, have

plunged into it without realizing its gravity."[81] So temperate a remark

by a man of such unquestionably high character is more significant of the

prevalence of homosexuality than much denunciation.

In religious circles far from courts and cities, as we might expect,

homosexuality was regarded with great horror, though even here we may

discover evidence of its wide prevalence. Thus in the remarkable

_Revelation_ of the Monk of Evesham, written in English in 1196, we find

that in the very worst part of Purgatory are confined an innumerable

company of sodomists (including a wealthy, witty, and learned divine, a

doctor of laws, personally known to the Monk), and whether these people

would ever be delivered from Purgatory was a matter of doubt; of the

salvation of no other sinners does the Monk of Evesham seem so dubious.

Sodomy had always been an ecclesiastical offense. The Statute of 1533 (25

Henry VIII, c. 6) made it a felony; and Pollock and Maitland consider that

this "affords an almost sufficient proof that the temporal courts had not

punished it, and that no one had been put to death for it, for a very long

time past."[82] The temporal law has never, however, proved very

successful in repressing homosexuality. At this period the Renaissance

movement was reaching England, and here as elsewhere it brought with it,

if not an increase, at all events a rehabilitation and often an

idealization of homosexuality.[83]