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?

Having now completed the psychological analysis of the sexual invert, so

far as I have been able to study him, it only remains to speak briefly of

the attitude of society and the law. First, however, a few words as to the

medical and hygienic aspects of inversion. The preliminary question of the

prevention of homosexuality is in too vague a position at present to be

profitably discussed. So far as the really congenital invert is concerned,

prevention can have but small influence; but sound social hygiene should

render difficult the acquisition of homosexual perversity, or what has

been termed pseudo-homosexuality. It is the school which is naturally the

chief theater of immature and temporary homosexual manifestations, partly

because school life largely coincides with the period during which the

sexual impulse frequently tends to be undifferentiated, and partly because

in the traditions of large and old schools an artificial homosexuality is

often deeply rooted.

Homosexuality in English schools has already been briefly

referred to in chapter iii. As a precise and interesting picture

of the phenomena in French schools, I may mention a story by

Albert Nortal, _Les Adolescents Passionnés_ (1913), written

immediately after the author left college, though not published

until more than twenty-five years later, and clearly based on

personal observation and experience. As regards German schools,

see, e.g., Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, p.

449 et seq., and for sexual manifestations in early life

generally, the same author's _Sexual Life of the Child_; also

Hirschfeld, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. v,

1903, p. 47 et seq., and, for references, Hirschfeld, _Die

Homosexualität_, p. 46 et seq.

While much may be done by physical hygiene and other means to prevent the

extension of homosexuality in schools,[243] it is impossible, and even

undesirable, to repress absolutely the emotional manifestations of sex in

either boys or girls who have reached the age of puberty.[244] It must

always be remembered that profoundly rooted organic impulses cannot be

effectually combated by direct methods. Writing of a period two centuries

ago, Casanova, in relating his early life as a seminarist trained to the

priesthood, describes the precautions taken to prevent the youths entering

each other's beds, and points out the folly of such precautions.[245] As

that master of the human heart remarks, such prohibitions intensify the

very evil they are intended to prevent by invoking in its aid the impulse

to disobedience natural to every child of Adam and Eve, and the

observation has often been repeated by teachers since. We probably have to

recognize that a way to render such manifestations wholesome, as well as

to prepare for the relationships of later life, is the adoption, so far as

possible, of the method of coeducation of the sexes,[246]--not, of course,

necessarily involving identity of education for both sexes,--since a

certain amount of association between the sexes helps to preserve the

healthiness of the sexual emotional attitude. Association between the

sexes will not, of course, prevent the development of congenital

inversion. In this connection it is pointed out by Bethe that it was

precisely in Sparta and Lesbos, where homosexuality was most ideally

cultivated, that the sexes, so far as we know, associated more freely than

in any other Greek State.[247]

The question of the treatment of homosexuality must be approached with

discrimination, caution, and skepticism. Nowadays we can have but little

sympathy with those who, at all costs, are prepared to "cure" the invert.

There is no sound method of cure in radical cases.

At one time the seemingly very radical method of castration was advocated

and occasionally carried out, as in a case I have recorded in a previous

chapter (History XXVI). Like all methods of treatment, it is sometimes

believed to have been successful by those who carried it out. Usually,

after a short period, it is found to be unsuccessful, and in some cases

the condition, especially the mental condition, is rendered worse. It is

not difficult to understand why this should be. Sexual inversion, is not a

localized genital condition. It is a diffused condition, and firmly

imprinted on the whole psychic state. There may be reasons for castration,

or the slighter operation of vasectomy, but, although sexual tension may

be thereby diminished, no authority now believes that any such operation

will affect the actual inversion. Castration of the body in adult age

cannot be expected to produce castration of the mind. Moll, Féré, Näcke,

Bloch, Rohleder, Hirschfeld, are all either opposed to castration for

inversion, or very doubtful as to any beneficial results.

In a case communicated to me by Dr. Shufeldt, an invert had

himself castrated at the age of 26 to diminish sexual desire,

make himself more like a woman, and to stop growth of beard. "But

the only apparent physical effect," he wrote, "was to increase my

weight 10 per cent., and render me a semi-invalid for the rest

of my life. After two years my sexuality decreased, but that may

have been due to satiety or to advancing years. I was also

rendered more easily irritated over trifles and more revengeful.

Terrible criminal auto-suggestions came into my head, never

experienced before." Féré (_Revue de Chirurgie_, March 10, 1905)

published the case of an invert of English origin who had been

castrated. The inverted impulse remained unchanged, as well as

sexual desire and the aptitude for erection; but neurasthenic

symptoms, which had existed before, were aggravated; he felt less

capable to resist his impulses, became migratory in his habits of

life, and addicted to the use of laudanum. In a case recorded by

C.H. Hughes (_Alienist and Neurologist_, Aug., 1914) the results

were less unsatisfactory; in this case the dorsal nerve of the

penis was first excised, without any result (see also _Alienist

and Neurologist_, Feb., 1904, p. 70, as regards worse than

useless results of cutting the pudic nerve), and a year or so

later the testes were removed and the patient gained tranquillity

and satisfaction; his homosexual inclinations appeared to go, and

he began to show inclination for asexualized women, being

specially anxious to meet with a woman whose ovaries had been

removed on account of inversion. (Reference may also be made to

Näcke, "Die Ersten Kastrationen aus sozialen Grunden auf

europäischen Boden," _Neurologisches Centralblatt_, 1909, No. 5,

and E. Wilhelm in _Juristisch-psychiatrische Grenzfragen_, vol.

viii, Heft 6 and 7, 1911.)

More trust has usually been placed in the psychotherapeutical than the

surgical treatment of homosexuality. At one time hypnotic suggestion was

carried out very energetically on homosexual subjects. Krafft-Ebing seems

to have been the first distinguished advocate of hypnotism for application

to the homosexual. Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing displayed special zeal and

persistency in this treatment. He undertook to treat even the most

pronounced cases of inversion by courses lasting more than a year, and

involving, in at least one case, nearly one hundred and fifty hypnotic

sittings; he prescribed frequent visits to the brothel, previous to which

the patient took large doses of alcohol; by prolonged manipulations a

prostitute endeavored to excite erection, a process attended with varying

results. It appears that in some cases this course of treatment was

attended by a certain sort of success, to which an unlimited good will on

the part of the patient, it is needless to say, largely contributed. The

treatment was, however, usually interrupted by continual backsliding to

homosexual practices, and sometimes, naturally, the cure involved a

venereal disorder. The patient was enabled to marry and to beget

children.[248] It is a method of treatment which seems to have found few

imitators. This we need not regret. The histories I have recorded in

previous chapters show that it is not uncommon for even a pronounced

invert to be able sometimes to effect coitus. It often becomes easy if at

the time he fixes his thoughts on images connected with his own sex. But

the perversion remains unaffected; the subject is merely (as one of Moll's

inverts expressed it) practising masturbation _per vaginam_. Such

treatment is a training in vice, and, as Raffalovich points out, the

invert is simply perverted and brought down to the vicious level which

necessarily accompanies perversity.[249]

There can be no doubt that in slight and superficial cases of

homosexuality, suggestion may really exert an influence. We can scarcely

expect it to exert such influence when the homosexual tendency is deeply

rooted in an organic inborn temperament. In such cases indeed the subject

may resist suggestion even when in the hypnotic state. This is pointed out

by Moll, a great authority on hypnotism, and with much experience of its

application to homosexuality, but never inclined to encourage an

exaggerated notion of its efficacy in this field. Forel, who was also an

authority on hypnotism, was equally doubtful as to its value in relation

to inversion, especially in clearly inborn cases. Krafft-Ebing at the end

said little about it, and Näcke (who was himself without faith in this

method of treating inversion) stated that he had been informed by the

last homosexual case treated by Krafft-Ebing by hypnotism that, in spite

of all good-will on the patient's side, the treatment had been quite

useless. Féré, also, had no belief in the efficacy of suggestive

treatment, nor has Merzbach, nor Rohleder. Numa Praetorius states that the

homosexual subjects he is acquainted with, who had been so treated, were

not cured, and Hirschfeld remarks that the inverts "cured" by hypnotism

were either not cured or not inverted.[250]

Moll has shown his doubt as to the wide applicability of suggestive

therapeutics in homosexuality by developing in recent years what he terms

association-therapy. In nearly all perverse individuals, he points out,

there is a bridge,--more or less weak, no doubt,--which leads to the

normal sexual life. By developing such links of association with

normality, Moll believes, it may be possible to exert a healing influence

on the homosexual. Thus a man who is attracted to boys may be brought to

love a boyish woman.[251] Indications of this kind have long been observed

and utilized, though not developed into a systematic method of treatment.

In the case of bisexual individuals, or of youthful subjects whose

homosexuality is not fully developed, it is probable that this method is

beneficial. It is difficult to believe, however, that it possesses any

marked influence on pronounced and developed cases of inversion.[252]

Somewhat the same aim as Moll's association-therapy, though on the basis

of a more elaborate theory, is sought by Freud's psychoanalytic method of

treating homosexuality. For the psychoanalytic theory (to which reference

was made in the previous chapter) the congenital element of inversion is a

rare and usually unimportant factor; the chief part is played by perverse

psychic mechanisms. It is the business of psychoanalysis to straighten

these out, and from the bisexual constitution, which is regarded as common

to every one, to bring into the foreground the heterosexual elements, and

so to reconstruct a normal personality, developing new sexual ideals from

the patient's own latent and subconscious nature. Sadger has especially

occupied himself with the psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality and

claims many successes.[253] Sadger admits that there are many limits to

the success of this treatment, and that it cannot affect the inborn

factors of homosexuality when present. Other psychoanalysts are less

sanguine as to the cure of inversion. Stekel appears to have stated that

he has never seen a complete cure by psychoanalysis, and Ferenezi is not

able to give a good account of the results; especially as regards what he

terms obsessional homosexuality, he states that he has never succeeded in

effecting a complete cure, although obsessions in general are especially

amenable to psychoanalysis.[254]

I have met with at least two homosexual persons who had undergone

psychoanalytic treatment and found it beneficial. One, however, was

bisexual, so that the difficulties in the way of the success--granting it

to be real--were not serious. In the other case, the inversion persisted

after treatment, exactly the same as before. The benefit he received was

due to the fact that he was enabled to understand himself better and to

overcome some of his mental difficulties. The treatment, therefore, in his

case, was not a method of cure, but of psychic hygiene, of what Hirschfeld

would call "adaptation-therapy." There can be no doubt that--even if we

put aside all effort at cure and regard an invert's condition as inborn

and permanent--a large and important field of treatment here still

remains.

As we have seen in the two previous chapters, sexual inversion cannot be

regarded as essentially an insane or psychopathic state.[255] But it is

frequently associated with nervous conditions which may be greatly

benefited by hygiene and treatment, without any attempt at all to overcome

a homosexual attitude which may be too deeply rooted to be changed. The

invert is specially liable to suffer from a high degree of neurasthenia,

often involving much nervous weakness and irritability, loss of

self-control, and genital hyperesthesia.[256] Hirschfeld finds that over

67 per cent. inverts suffer from nervous troubles, and among the cases

dealt with in the present _Study_ (as shown in chapter v) slight nervous

functional disturbances are very common. These are conditions which may be

ameliorated, and they may be treated in much the same way as if no

inversion existed, by physical and mental tonics; or, if necessary,

sedatives; by regulated gymnastics and out-of-door exercises; and by

occupations which employ, without overexerting, the mind. Very great and

permanent benefit may be obtained by a prolonged course of such mental and

physical hygiene; the associated neurasthenic conditions may be largely

removed, with the morbid fears, suspicions, and irritabilities that are

usually part of neurasthenia, and the invert may be brought into a fairly

wholesome and tonic condition of self-control.

The inversion is not thus removed. But if the patient is still young, and

if the perversion does not appear to be deeply rooted in the organism, it

is probable that--provided his own good-will is aiding--general hygienic

measures, together with removal to a favorable environment, may gradually

lead to the development of the normal sexual impulse. If it fails to do

so, it becomes necessary to exercise great caution in recommending

stronger methods. Purely "Platonic association with the other sex," Moll

points out, "leads to better results than any prescribed attempt at

coitus." For even when such attempt is successful, it is not usually

possible to regard the results with much satisfaction. Not only is the

acquisition of the normal instinct by an invert very much on a level with

the acquisition of a vice, but probably it seldom succeeds in eradicating

the original inverted instinct.[257] What usually happens is that the

person becomes capable of experiencing both impulses,--not a specially

satisfactory state of things. It may be disastrous, especially if it leads

to marriage, as it may do in an inverted man or still more easily in an

inverted woman. The apparent change does not turn out to be deep, and the

invert's position is more unfortunate than his original position, both for

himself and for his wife.[258]

It may be observed in the Histories brought forward in chapter iii that

the position of married inverts (we must, of course, put aside the

bisexual) is usually more distressing than that of the unmarried. Among my

cases 14 per cent. are married. Hirschfeld finds that 16 per cent. of

inverts are married and 50 per cent. are impotent; he is unable to find a

single cure of homosexuality, and seldom any improvement, due to marriage;

nearly always the impulse remains unaffected. The invert's happiness is,

however, often affected for the worse, and not least by the feeling that

he is depriving his wife of happiness. An invert, who had left his country

through fear of arrest and married a rich woman who was in love with him,

said to Hirschfeld: "Five years' imprisonment would not have been worse

than one year of marriage."[259] In a marriage of this kind the homosexual

partner and the normal partner--however ignorant of sexual matters--are

both conscious, often with equal pain, that, even in the presence of

affection and esteem and the best will in the world, there is something

lacking. The instinctive and emotional element, which is the essence of

sexual love and springs from the central core of organic personality,

cannot voluntarily be created or even assumed.[260]

For the sake of the possible offspring, also, marriage is to be avoided.

It is sometimes entirely for the sake of children that the invert desires

to marry. But it must be pointed out that homosexuality is undoubtedly in

many cases inherited. Often, it is true, the children turn out fairly

well, but, in many cases, they bear witness that they belong to a neurotic

and failing stock;[261] Hirschfeld goes so far as to say that it is always

so, and concludes that from the eugenic standpoint the marriage of a

homosexual person is always very risky. In a large number of cases such

marriages prove sterile. The tendency to sexual inversion in eccentric and

neurotic families seems merely to be nature's merciful method of winding

up a concern which, from her point of view, has ceased to be profitable.

As a rule, inverts have no desire to be different from what they

are, and, if they have any desire for marriage, it is usually

only momentary. Very pathetic appeals for help are, however,

sometimes made. I may quote from a letter addressed to me by a

gentleman who desired advice on this matter: "In part, I write to

you as a moralist and, in part, as to a physician. Dr. Q. has

published a book in which, without discussion, hypnotic treatment

of such cases was reported as successful. I am eager to know if

your opinion remains what it was. This new assurance comes from a

man whose moral firmness and delicacy are unquestionable, but you

will easily imagine how one might shrink from the implantation of

new impulses in the unconscious self, since newly created

inclinations might disturb the conditions of life. At any rate,

in my ignorance of hypnotism I fear that the effort to give the

normal instinct might lead to marriage without the assurance that

the normal instinct would be stable. I write, therefore, to

explain my present condition and crave your counsel. It is with

the greatest reluctance that I reveal the closely guarded secret

of my life. I have no other abnormality, and have not hitherto

betrayed my abnormal instinct. I have never made any person the

victim of passion: moral and religious feelings were too

powerful. I have found my reverence for other souls a perfect

safeguard against any approach to impurity. I have never had

sexual interest in women. Once I had a great friendship with a

beautiful and noble woman, without any mixture of sexual feeling

on my part. I was ignorant of my condition, and I have the bitter

regret of having caused in her a hopeless love--proudly and

tragically concealed to her death. My friendships with men,

younger men, have been colored by passion, against which I have

fought continually. The shame of this has made life a hell, and

the horror of this abnormality, since I came to know it as such,

has been an enemy to my religious faith. Here there could be no

case of a divinely given instinct which I was to learn to use in

a rational and chaste fashion, under the control of spiritual

loyalty. The power which gave me life seemed to insist on my

doing that for which the same power would sting me with remorse.

If there is no remedy I must either cry out against the injustice

of this life of torment between nature and conscience, or submit

to the blind trust of baffled ignorance. If there is a remedy

life will not seem to be such an intolerable ordeal. I am not

pleading that I must succumb to impulse. I do not doubt that a

pure celibate life is possible so far as action is concerned. But

I cannot discover that friendship with younger men can go on

uncolored by a sensuous admixture which fills me with shame and

loathing. The gratification of passion--normal or abnormal--is

repulsive to esthetic feeling. I am nearly 42 and I have always

diverted myself from personal interests that threatened to become

dangerous to me. More than a year ago, however, a new fate seemed

to open to my unhappy and lonely life. I became intimate with a

young man of 20, of the rarest beauty of form and character. I am

confident that he is and always has been pure. He lives an

exalted moral and religious life dominated by the idea that he

and all men are partners of the divine nature, and able in the

strength of that nature to be free from evil. I believe him to be

normal. He shows pleasure in the society of attractive young

women and in an innocent, light-hearted way refers to the time

when he may be able to marry. He is a general favorite, but

turned to me as to a friend and teacher. He is poor, and it was

possible for me to guarantee him a good education. I began to

help him from the longings of a lonely life. I wanted a son and

a friend in my inward desolation. I craved the companionship of

this pure and happy nature. I felt such a reverence for him that

I hoped to find the sensuous element in me purged away by his

purity. I am, indeed, utterly incapable of doing him harm; I am

not morally weak; nevertheless the sensuous element is there, and

it poisons my happiness. He is ardently affectionate and

demonstrative. He spends the summers with me in Europe, and the

tenderness he feels for me has prompted him at times to embrace

and kiss me as he always has done to his father. Of late I have

begun to fear that without will or desire I may injure the

springs of feeling in him, especially if it is true that the

homosexual tendency is latent in most men. The love he shows me

is my joy, but a poisoned joy. It is the bread and wine of life

to me; but I dare not think what his ardent affection might ripen

into. I can go on fighting the battle of good and evil in my

attachment to him, but I cannot define my duty to him. To shun

him would be cruelty and would belie his trust in human fidelity.

Without my friendship he will not take my money--the condition of

a large career. I might, indeed, explain to him what I explain to

you, but the ordeal and shame are too great, and I cannot see

what good it would do. If he has the capacity of homosexual

feeling he might be violently stimulated; if he is incapable of

it, he would feel repulsion.

"Suppose, then, that I should seek hypnotic treatment, I still do

not know what tricks an abnormal nature might play me when

diverted by suggestion. I might lose the joy of this friendship

without any compensation. I am afraid; I am afraid! Might I not

be influenced to shun the only persons who inspire unselfish

feeling?

"Bear with this account of my story. Many virtues are easy for

me, and my life is spent in pursuits of culture. Alas, that all

the culture with which I am credited, all the prayers and

aspirations, all the strong will and heroic resolves have not rid

my nature of this evil bent! What I long for is the right to

love, not for the mere physical gratification, for the right to

take another into the arms of my heart and profess all the

tenderness I feel, to find my joy in planning his career with

him, as one who is rightfully and naturally entitled to do so. I

crave this since I cannot have a son. I leave the matter here.

"When I read what I have written I see how pointless it is. It is

possible, indeed, that brooding over my personal calamity

magnifies in my mind the sense of danger to this friend through

me, and that I only need to find the right relation of

friendliness coupled with aloofness which will secure him against

any too ardent attachment. Certainly I have no fear that I shall

forget myself. Yet two things array themselves on the other

side: I rebel inwardly against the necessity of isolating myself

as if I were a pestilence, and I rebel against the taint of

sensuous feeling. The normal man can feel that his instinct is no

shame when the spirit is in control. I know that to the

consciousness of others my instinct itself would be a shame and a

baseness, and I have no tendency to construct a moral system for

myself. I have, to be sure, moments when I declare to myself that

I will have my sensuous gratification as well as other men, but,

the moment I think of the wickedness of it, the rebellion is soon

over. The disesteem of self, the sense of taint, the necessity of

withdrawing from happiness lest I communicate my taint, that is a

spiritual malady which makes the ground-tone of my existence one

of pain and melancholy. Should you have only some moral

consolation without the promise of medical assistance I should

feel grateful."

In such a case as this, one can do little more than advise the

sufferer that, however painful his lot may be, it is not without

its consolations, and that he would be best advised to pursue, as

cheerfully as may be, the path that he has already long since

marked out for himself. The invert sometimes fails to realize

that for no man with high moral ideals, however normal he may be,

is the conduct of life easy, and that if the invert has to be

satisfied with affection without passion, and to live a life of

chastity, he is doing no more than thousands of normal men have

done, voluntarily and contentedly. As to hypnotism in such a case

as this, it is altogether unreasonable to expect that suggestion

will supplant the deeply rooted organic impulses that have grown

up during a lifetime.

We may thus conclude that in the treatment of inversion the most

satisfactory result is usually obtained when it is possible by direct and

indirect methods to reduce the sexual hyperesthesia which frequently

exists, and by psychic methods to refine and spiritualize the inverted

impulse, so that the invert's natural perversion may not become a cause of

acquired perversity in others. The invert is not only the victim of his

own abnormal obsession, he is the victim of social hostility. We must seek

to distinguish the part in his sufferings due to these two causes. When I

review the cases I have brought forward and the mental history of inverts

I have known, I am inclined to say that if we can enable an invert to be

healthy, selfrestrained and selfrespecting, we have often done better than

to convert him into the mere feeble simulacrum of a normal man. An appeal

to the _paiderastia_ of the best Greek days, and the dignity, temperance,

even chastity, which it involved, will sometimes find a ready response in

the emotional, enthusiastic nature of the congenital invert. Plato's

Dialogues have frequently been found a source of great help and

consolation by inverts. The "manly love" celebrated by Walt Whitman in

_Leaves of Grass_, although it may be of more doubtful value for general

use, furnishes a wholesome and robust ideal to the invert who is

insensitive to normal ideals.[262]

Among recent books, _Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship_, edited

by Edward Carpenter, may be recommended. A similar book in

German, of a more extended character, is _Lieblingminne und

Freudesliebe in der Weltliteratur_, edited by Elisár von Kupffer.

Mention may also be made of the _Freundschaft_ (1912) of Baron

von Gleichen-Russwurm, a sort of literary history of friendship,

without specific reference to homosexuality, although many

writers of inverted tendency are introduced. Platen's

_Tagebücher_ are notable as the diary of an invert of high

character and ideals. The volumes of the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle

Zwischenstufen_ contain many studies bearing on the ideal and

esthetic aspects of homosexuality.

Various modern poets of high ability have given expression to

emotions of exalted or passionate friendship toward individuals

of the same sex, whether or not such friendship can properly be

termed homosexual. It is scarcely necessary to refer to _In

Memoriam_, in which Tennyson enshrined his affection for his

early friend, Arthur Hallam, and developed a picture of the

universe on the basis of that affection. The poems of Edward

Cracroft Lefroy are notable, and Mr. John Gambril Nicholson has

privately issued several volumes of verse (_A Chaplet of

Southernwood, A Garland of Ladslove_, etc.) showing delicate

charm combined with high technical skill. Some books mainly or

entirely written in prose may fairly be included in the same

group. Such are _In the Key of Blue_, by John Addington Symonds,

and the _Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton_ (published anonymously by a

well-known author, A.C. Benson), in which on somewhat Platonic

lines the idea is worked out that the individual sufferer must

pass "from the love of one fair form to the love of abstract

beauty" and "from the contemplation of his own suffering to the

consideration of the root of all human suffering."

As regards the modern poetic literature of feminine homosexuality

there is probably nothing to put beside the various

volumes--pathetic in their brave simplicity and sincerity--of

"Renée Vivien" (see _ante_, p. 200). Most other feminine singers

of homosexuality have cautiously thrown a veil of heterosexuality

over their songs.

Novels of a more or less definitely homosexual tone are now very

numerous in English, French, German, and other languages. In

English the homosexuality is for the most part veiled and the

narrative deals largely with school-life and boys in order that

the emotional and romantic character of the relations described

may appear more natural. Thus _Tim_, an anonymously published

book by H.O. Sturgis (1891), described the devotion of a boy to

an older boy at Eton and his death at an early age. _Jaspar

Tristram_, by A.W. Clarke (1899), again, is a well-written story

of a schoolboy friendship of homosexual tone; a boy is

represented as feeling attraction to boys who are like girls, and

a girl became attractive to the hero because she is like a boy

and recalls her brother whom he had formerly loved. _The Garden

God: A Tale of Two Boys_, by Forrest Reid (1905), is another

rather similar book, in its way a charming and delicately written

idyll. _Imre: A Memorandum_, (1906), by "Xavier Mayne" (the

pseudonym of an American author, who has also written _The

Intersexes_), privately issued at Naples, is a book of a

different class; representing the frankly homosexual passion of

two mutually attracted men, an Englishman who is supposed to

write the story and a Hungarian officer; it embodies a notable

narrative of homosexual development which is probably more or

less real.

In French there are a number of novels dealing with

homosexuality, sometimes sympathetically, sometimes with artistic

indifference, sometimes satirically. André Gide (in

_L'Immoraliste_ and other books), Rachilde (Madame Vallette),

Willy (in the well-known _Claudine_ series) may be mentioned,

among other writers of more or less distinction, who have once or

oftener dealt with homosexuality. Special reference should be

made to the Belgian author George Eekhoud, whose _Escal-Vigor_

(prosecuted at Bruges on its publication) is a book of special

power. The homosexual stories of Essebac, of which _L'Elu_

(1902) is considered the best, are of a romantic and sentimental

character. _Lucien_ (1910), by Binet-Valmer, is a penetrating and

scarcely sympathetic study of inversion. Nortal's _Les

Adolescents Passionnés_ (already mentioned, p. 325) is a notably

intimate and precise study of homosexuality in French schools. It

would be easy to mention many others.

In Germany during recent years many novels of homosexual

character have been published. They are not usually, it would

seem, of high literary character, but are sometimes notable as

being more or less disguised narratives of real fact. Body's _Aus

Eines Mannes Mädchenjahren_ is said to be a faithful

autobiography. _Der Neue Werther: eine Hellenische

Passions-geschichte_ by Narkissos (1902) is also said to be

authentic. Another book that may be mentioned is Konradin's _Ein

Junger Platos: Aus dem Leben eines Entgbeistes_ (1914). The

German belletristic literature of homosexuality, as well as that

of other countries, will be found adequately summarized and

criticised by Numa Praetorius in the volumes of the _Jahrbuch für

sexuelle Zwischenstufen_. See also Hirschfeld's _Die

Homosexualität_, pp. 47 and 1018 et seq.

It is by some such method of self-treatment as this that most of the more

highly intelligent men and women whose histories I have already briefly

recorded have at last slowly and instinctively reached a condition of

relative health and peace, both physical and moral. The method of

self-restraint and self-culture, without self-repression, seems to be the

most rational method of dealing with sexual inversion when that condition

is really organic and deeply rooted. It is better that a man should be

enabled to make the best of his own strong natural instincts, with all

their disadvantages, than that he should be unsexed and perverted, crushed

into a position which he has no natural aptitude to occupy. As both

Raffalovich and Féré have insisted, it is the ideal of chastity, rather

than of normal sexuality, which the congenital invert should hold before

his eyes. He may not have in him the making of _l'homme moyen sensuel_; he

may have in him the making of a saint.[263] What good work in the world

the inverted may do is shown by the historical examples of distinguished

inverts; and, while it is certainly true that these considerations apply

chiefly to the finer-grained natures, the histories I have brought

together suffice to show that such natures constitute a considerable

proportion of inverts. The helplessly gross sexual appetite cannot thus be

influenced; but that remains true whether the appetite is homosexual or

heterosexual, and nothing is gained by enabling it to feed on women as

well as on men.

A strictly ascetic life, it needs scarcely be said, is with difficulty

possible for all persons, either homosexual or heterosexual. It is,

however, outside the province of the physician to recommend his inverted

patients to live according to their homosexual impulses, even when those

impulses seem to be natural to the person displaying them. The most that

the physician is entitled to do, it seems to me, is to present the

situation clearly, and leave to the patient a decision for which he must

himself accept the responsibility. Forel goes so far as to say that he

sees no reason why inverts should not build cities of their own and marry

each other if they so please, since they can do no harm to normal adults,

while children can be protected from them.[264] Such notions are, however,

too far removed from our existing social conventions to be worth serious

consideration.

The standpoint here taken up, it may be remarked, by no means

denies to the invert a right to the fulfillment of his impulses.

Numa Praetorius remarks, it would seem justly, that while the

invert must properly be warned against unnatural sexual license,

and while those who are capable of continence do well to preserve

it, to deny all right to sexual activity to the invert merely

causes those inverts who are incapable of self-control to throw

recklessly aside all restraints (_Zeitschrift für sexuelle

Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906, p. 726). The invert has the

right to sexual indulgence, it may be, but he has also the duty

to accept the full responsibility for his own actions, and the

necessity to recognize the present attitude of the society he

lives in. He cannot be advised to set himself in violent

opposition to that society.

The world will not be a tolerable place for pronounced inverts

until they are better understood, and that will involve a radical

change in general and even medical opinion. An inverted

physician, of high character and successful in his profession,

writes to me on this point: "The first, and easiest, thing to do,

it seems to me, is to convince the medical profession that we

unfortunate people are not only as sane, but as moral, as our

normal brothers; and that we are even more alive to the supreme

necessity of self-control (necessary from every point of view)

than they. It is not license we want, but justice; it is the

cruelty and prejudice of convention which we wish to abolish--not

the proper and just indignation of society with crimes against

the social order. We want to make it possible for us to satisfy

our inborn instincts (which are not concerned essentially with

sexual acts, so called, alone) without thereby becoming

criminals. One of us who would, under any circumstances, seduce a

person of his own sex of immature age, and particularly one whose

sexual complexion was unknown, deserves the severe punishment

which would be meted out to a normal person who did the same to a

young girl--_but no more_; while, so long as no public offense is

given, there should be _no penalty or obloquy whatever_ attached

to sexual acts committed with full consent between mature

persons. These acts may or may not be wrong and immoral, just as

sexual acts between mature persons of different sexes may or may

not be wrong or immoral. But in neither case has the law any

concern; and public opinion should make no distinction between

the two. It is in the highest degree important that it should be

clearly understood that we want no relaxation of moral

obligations. At present we suffer an inconceivably cruel wrong."

We have always to remember, and there is, indeed, no possibility of

forgetting, that the question of homosexuality is a social question.

Within certain limits, the gratification of the normal sexual impulse,

even outside marriage, arouses no general or profound indignation; and is

regarded as a private matter; rightly or wrongly, the gratification of the

homosexual impulse is regarded as a public matter. This attitude is more

or less exactly reflected in the law. Thus it happens that whenever a man

is openly detected in a homosexual act, however exemplary his life may

previously have been, however admirable it may still be in all other

relations, every ordinary normal citizen, however licentious and

pleasure-loving his own life may be, feels it a moral duty to regard the

offender as hopelessly damned and to help in hounding him out of society.

At very brief intervals cases occur, and without reaching the newspapers

are more or less widely known, in which distinguished men in various

fields, not seldom clergymen, suddenly disappear from the country or

commit suicide in consequence of some such exposure or the threat of it.

It is probable that many obscure tragedies could find their explanation in

a homosexual cause.

Some of the various tragic ways in which homosexual passions are

revealed to society may be illustrated by the following

communication from a correspondent, not himself inverted, who

here narrates cases that came under his observation in various

parts of the United States. The cases referred to will be known

to many, but I have disguised the names of persons and places:--

"At the age of 14 I was a chorister at ---- church, whose

choirmaster, an Englishman named M.W.M., was an accomplished man,

seemingly a perfect gentleman, and a devout churchman. He never

seemed to care for the society of ladies, never mingled much with

the men, but sought companionship with the choristers of my age.

He frequently visited at the homes of his favorites, to tea, and

when he asked the parents' consent for George's or Frank's

company on an excursion or to the theater, and then to spend the

night with him, such request was invariably granted. I shall ever

remember my first night with him; he began by fondling and

caressing me, quieting my alarm by assurances of not hurting me,

and after invoking me to secrecy and with promises of many future

pleasures, I consented to his desire or passion, which he seemed

to satisfy by an attempt at _fellatio_. Was this depravity? I

would say 'No!' after reading his subsequent confession, found in

his room after his death by suicide. This was brought about by

his too intimate relations with the rector's son who contracted

St. Vitus's dance and in the delirium of a fever that followed

from nervous exhaustion told of him and his doings. A thorough

investigation took place and M. fled, a broken-hearted and

disgraced man, who, as the result of remorse, relentless

persecution, and exposure through several years, ended his life

by drowning himself. In his confession he spoke of having been

raised under a very strong moral restraint and having lived an

exemplary life, with the exception of this strange desire that

his will-power could not control.

"The next case is that of C.H. He came of an old family of brainy

men who have, and do yet, occupy prominent places in the pulpit

and the bar, and was himself a gifted young attorney. I knew him

intimately, as for six years he was a close neighbor and we were

associated in lodge-work. He was an effeminate little fellow:

height, 5 feet 2 inches; weight, 105 pounds; very near-sighted;

and he had a light voice, not a treble or falsetto, but still a

voice that detracted materially from the beautiful rhetoric that

flowed from his lips. He had served his country as its

representative in the Legislature and had received the nomination

for senator, over a hard-fought political battle. The last

canvass and speeches were made at a town which was, in

consequence, crowded. That night H. had to occupy a room with a

stranger, named E., a travelling salesman. There were two beds in

this room. Mr. E., on the following day told several people that

during the night he was awakened by H., who had come over to his

bed and had his mouth on his 'person,' and that he had threatened

to kick him out of the room, but that H. pleaded with him and

fell on his knees and swore that he had been overcome by a

passion that he had heretofore controlled, and begged of him not

to expose him. These facts coming to the notice of his opponents,

within twenty-four hours, they hastened to take advantage of it

by placarding H. as a second Oscar Wilde, and stating the facts

as far as decency and the law allowed. H.'s friends came to him

and gave him one of two alternatives: if guilty, either to kill

himself or leave that section forever; if not guilty, to slay his

traducer, E.H. affirmed his innocence, and in company with two

friends, C. and J., took the train for ----. Learning there that

E. was at a town twelve miles east, they hired a fast livery and

drove overland. They found E. at the station, awaiting the

arrival of a train. H., with a pistol, strode forward and in his

excitement said: 'You exposed me, did you?' Being near-sighted,

his aim proved wide of the mark. E. sprang forward and grappled

with H. for possession of the pistol, and was fired upon by C.

and J., who shot him in the back. He expired in a few minutes,

his last statement being to the effect that H. was guilty as

accused. H., C., and J. were sentenced to the penitentiary for

life. During my six years' acquaintance with H. I knew of nothing

derogatory to his character, nor has anyone ever come forward to

say that on any other occasion he ever displayed this weakness. I

know his early life had a pure atmosphere, as he was an only

child and the idol of both his parents, who builded high their

hopes of his future success, and who survive this disgrace, but

are broken-hearted.

"The next case is that of the Rev. T.W., professor at the

University of ----. Mr. W. is a scholarly gentleman, affable in

his address, eloquent in his oratory, and a fine classical

scholar. He was exposed by some of his students, who, to use a

slang phrase, accused him of being a 'head-worker.' At his

examination by the faculty he confessed his weakness, and said

he could not control his unholy passion. His resignation was

accepted both by the church and the college, and he left.

"I know of a few other cases that have their peculiar traits, and

am confident that these persons did not become possessed of this

habit through the so-called 'indiscretions of youth,' as in every

case their early life was freer from contamination than that of

90 per cent. of the boys who, on reaching man's estate, have,

like myself, no desire to deviate from the old-fashioned way

formulated by our ancient sire, Adam."

It can scarcely be said that the consciousness of this attitude of society

is favorable to the invert's attainment of a fairly sane and well-balanced

state of mind. This is, indeed, one of the great difficulties in his way,

and often causes him to waver between extremes of melancholia and

egotistic exaltation. We regard all homosexuality with absolute and

unmitigated disgust. We have been taught to venerate Alexander the Great,

Epaminondas, Socrates, and other antique heroes; but they are safely

buried in the remote past, and do not affect our scorn of homosexuality in

the present.

It was in the fourth century, at Rome, that the strong modern opposition

to homosexuality was first clearly formulated in law.[265] The Roman race

had long been decaying; sexual perversions of all kinds flourished; the

population was dwindling. At the same time, Christianity, with its

Judaic-Pauline antagonism to homosexuality, was rapidly spreading. The

statesmen of the day, anxious to quicken the failing pulses of national

life, utilized this powerful Christian feeling. Constantine, Theodosius,

and Valentinian all passed laws against homosexuality, the last, at all

events, ordaining as penalty the _vindices flammæ_; but their enactments

do not seem to have been strictly carried out. In the year 538, Justinian,

professing terror of certain famines, earthquakes, and pestilences in

which he saw the mysterious "recompense which was meet" prophesied by St.

Paul,[266] issued his edict condemning unnatural offenders to the sword,

"lest as the result of these impious acts" (as the preamble to his Novella

77 has it) "whole cities should perish, together with their inhabitants;

for we are taught by Holy Scripture that through these acts cities have

perished with the men in them."[267] This edict (which Justinian followed

up by a fresh ordinance to the same effect) constituted the foundation of

legal enactment and social opinion concerning the matter in Europe for

thirteen hundred years.[268] In France the _vindices flammæ_ survived to

the last; St. Louis had handed over these sacrilegious offenders to the

Church to be burned; in 1750 two pederasts were burned in the Place de

Grève, and only a few years before the Revolution a Capuchin monk named

Pascal was also burned.

After the Revolution, however, began a new movement, which has continued

slowly and steadily ever since, though it still divides European nations

into two groups. Justinian, Charlemagne, and St. Louis had insisted on the

sin and sacrilege of sodomy as the ground for its punishment.[269] It was

doubtless largely as a religious offense that the _Code Napoléon_ omitted

to punish it. The French law makes a clear and logical distinction between

crime on the one hand, vice and irreligion on the other, only concerning

itself with the former. Homosexual practices in private, between two

consenting adult parties, whether men or women, are absolutely unpunished

by the _Code Napoléon_ and by French law of today. Only under three

conditions does the homosexual act come under the cognizance of the law

as a crime: (1) when there is _outrage public à la pudeur_,--i.e., when

the act is performed in public or with a possibility of witnesses; (2)

when there is violence or absence of consent, in whatever degree the act

may have been consummated; (3) when one of the parties is under age, or

unable to give valid consent; in some cases it appears possible to apply

Article 334 of the penal code, directed against habitual excitation to

debauch of young persons of either sex under the age of 21.

This method of dealing with unnatural offenses has spread widely, at first

because of the political influence of France, and more recently because

such an attitude has commended itself on its merits. In Belgium the law is

similar to that of the _Code Napoléon_, as it is also in Italy, Spain,

Portugal, Roumania, Japan, and numerous South American lands. In

Switzerland the law is a little vague and varies slightly in the different

cantons, but it is not severe; in Geneva and some other cantons there is

no penalty; the general tendency is to inflict brief imprisonment when

serious complaints have been lodged, and cases can sometimes be settled

privately by the magistrate.

The only large European countries in which homosexuality _per se_ remains

a penal offense appear to be Germany, Austria, Russia, and England. In

several of the German States, such as Bavaria and Hanover, simple

homosexuality formerly went unpunished, but when the laws of Prussia were

in 1871 applied to the new German Empire this ceased to be the case, and

unnatural carnality between males became an offense against the law. This

article of the German Code (Section 175) has caused great discussion and

much practical difficulty, because, although the terms of the law make it

necessary to understand by _widernatürliche Unzucht_ other practices

besides _pædicatio_, not every homosexual practice is included; it must be

some practice resembling normal coitus. There is a widespread opinion that

this article of the code should be abolished; it appears that at one time

an authoritative committee pronounced in favor of this step, and their

proposition came near adoption. The Austrian law is somewhat similar to

the German, but it applies to women as well as to men; this is logical,

for there is no reason why homosexuality should be punished in men and

left unpunished in women. In Russia the law against homosexual practices

appears to be very severe, involving, in some cases, banishment to Siberia

and deprivation of civil rights; but it can scarcely be rigorously

executed.

The existing law in England is severe, but simple. Carnal knowledge _per

anum_ of either a man or a woman or an animal is punishable by a sentence

of penal servitude with not less than three years, or of imprisonment with

not more than two years. Even "gross indecency" between males, however

privately committed, has been since 1885 a penal offense.[270] The clause

is open to criticism. With the omission of the words "or private," it

would be sound and in harmony with the most enlightened European

legislation; but it must be pointed out that an act only becomes indecent

when those who perform it or witness it regard it as indecent. The act

which brought each of us into the world is not indecent; it would become

so if carried on in public. If two male persons, who have reached years of

discretion, consent together to perform some act of sexual intimacy in

private, no indecency has been committed. If one of the consenting parties

subsequently proclaims the act, indecency may doubtless be created, as may

happen also in the case of normal sexual intercourse, but it seems

contrary to good policy that such proclamation should convert the act

itself into a penal offense. Moreover, "gross indecency" between males

usually means some form of mutual masturbation; no penal code regards

masturbation as an offense, and there seems to be no sufficient reason why

mutual masturbation should be so regarded.[271] The main point to be

insured is that no boy or girl who has not reached years of discretion

should be seduced or abused by an older person, and this point is equally

well guaranteed on the basis introduced by the _Code Napoléon_. However

shameful, disgusting, personally immoral, and indirectly antisocial it may

be for two adult persons of the same sex, men or women, to consent

together to perform an act of sexual intimacy in private, there is no

sound or adequate ground for constituting such act a penal offense by law.

One of the most serious objections to the legal recognition of private

"gross indecency" is the obvious fact that only in the rarest cases can

such indecency become known to the police, and we thus perpetrate what is

very much like a legal farce. "The breaking of few laws," as Moll truly

observes, regarding the German law, "so often goes unpunished as of this."

It is the same in England, as is amply evidenced by the fact that, of the

English sexual inverts, whose histories I have obtained, not one, so far

as I am aware, has ever appeared in a police-court on this charge.

It may further be pointed out that legislation against homosexuality has

no clear effect either in diminishing or increasing its prevalence. This

must necessarily be so as regards the kernel of the homosexual group, if

we are to regard a considerable proportion of cases as congenital. In

France homosexuality _per se_ has been untouched by the law for a century;

yet it abounds, chiefly, it seems, among the lowest in the community;

although the law is silent, social feeling is strong, and when--as has

been the case in one instance--a man of undoubted genius has his name

associated with this perversion it becomes difficult or impossible for the

admirers of his work to associate with him personally; very few cases of

homosexuality have been recorded in France among the more intelligent

classes; the literature of homosexuality is there little more than the

literature of male prostitution, as described by police-officials, and as

carried on largely for the benefit of foreigners. In Germany and Austria,

where the law against homosexuality is severe, it abounds also, perhaps

to a much greater extent than in France;[272] it certainly asserts itself

more vigorously; a far greater number of cases have been recorded than in

any other country, and the German literature of homosexuality is very

extensive, often issued in popular form, and sometimes enthusiastically

eulogistic. In England the law is exceptionally severe; yet, according to

the evidence of those who have an international acquaintance with these

matters, homosexuality is fully as prevalent as on the Continent; some

would say that it is more so. Much the same is true of the United States,

though there is less to be seen on the surface. It cannot, therefore, be

said that legislative enactments have very much influence on the

prevalence of homosexuality. The chief effect seems to be that the attempt

at suppression arouses the finer minds among sexual inverts to undertake

the enthusiastic defense of homosexuality, while coarser minds are

stimulated to cynical bravado.[273]

As regards the prevalence of homosexuality in the United States,

I may quote from a well-informed American correspondent:--

"The great prevalence of sexual inversion in American cities is

shown by the wide knowledge of its existence. Ninety-nine normal

men out of a hundred have been accosted on the streets by

inverts, or have among their acquaintances men whom they know to

be sexually inverted. Everyone has seen inverts and knows what

they are. The public attitude toward them is generally a negative

one--indifference, amusement, contempt.

"The world of sexual inverts is, indeed, a large one in any

American city, and it is a community distinctly organized--words,

customs, traditions of its own; and every city has its numerous

meeting-places: certain churches where inverts congregate;

certain cafés well known for the inverted character of their

patrons; certain streets where, at night, every fifth man is an

invert. The inverts have their own 'clubs,' with nightly

meetings. These 'clubs' are, really, dance-halls, attached to

_saloons_, and presided over by the proprietor of the saloon,

himself almost invariably an invert, as are all the waiters and

musicians. The frequenters of these places are male sexual

inverts (usually ranging from 17 to 30 years of age); sightseers

find no difficulty in gaining entrance; truly, they are welcomed

for the drinks they buy for the company--and other reasons.

Singing and dancing turns by certain favorite performers are the

features of these gatherings, with much gossip and drinking at

the small tables ranged along the four walls of the room. The

habitués of these places are, generally, inverts of the most

pronounced type, i.e., the completely feminine in voice and

manners, with the characteristic hip motion in their walk; though

I have never seen any approach to feminine dress there, doubtless

the desire for it is not wanting and only police regulations

relegate it to other occasions and places. You will rightly infer

that the police know of these places and endure their existence

for a consideration; it is not unusual for the inquiring stranger

to be directed there by a policeman."

The Oscar Wilde trial (see _ante_, p. 48), with its wide

publicity, and the fundamental nature of the questions it

suggested, appears to have generally contributed to give

definiteness and self-consciousness to the manifestations of

homosexuality, and to have aroused inverts to take up a definite

attitude. I have been assured in several quarters that this is so

and that since that case the manifestations of homosexuality have

become more pronounced. One correspondent writes:--

"Up to the time of the Oscar Wilde trial I had not known what the

condition of the law was. The moral question in itself--its

relation to my own life and that of my friends--I reckoned I had

solved; but I now had to ask myself how far I was justified in

not only breaking the law, but in being the cause of a like

breach in others, and others younger than myself. I have never

allowed the _dictum_ of the law to interfere with what I deemed

to be a moral development in any youth for whom I am responsible.

I cannot say that the trial made me alter my course of life, of

the rightness of which I was too convincingly persuaded, but it

made me much more careful, and it probably sharpened my sense of

responsibility for the young. Reviewing the results of the trial

as a whole, it doubtless did incalculable harm, and it

intensified our national vice of hypocrisy. But I think it also

may have done some good in that it made those who, like myself,

have thought and experienced deeply in the matter--and these must

be no small few--ready to strike a blow, when the time comes,

for what we deem to be right, honorable, and clean."

From America a lady writes with reference to the moral position

of inverts, though without allusion to the Wilde trial:--

"Inverts should have the courage and independence to be

themselves, and to demand an investigation. If one strives to

live honorably, and considers the greatest good to the greatest

number, it is not a crime nor a disgrace to be an invert. I do

not need the law to defend me, neither do I desire to have any

concessions made for me, nor do I ask my friends to sacrifice

their ideals for me. I too have ideals which I shall always hold.

All that I desire--and I claim it as my right--is the freedom to

exercise this divine gift of loving, which is not a menace to

society nor a disgrace to me. Let it once be understood that the

average invert is not a moral degenerate nor a mental degenerate,

but simply a man or a woman who is less highly specialized, less

completely differentiated, than other men and women, and I

believe the prejudice against them will disappear, and if they

live uprightly they will surely win the esteem and consideration

of all thoughtful people. I know what it means to an invert--who

feels himself set apart from the rest of mankind--to find one

human heart who trusts him and understands him, and I know how

almost impossible this is, and will be, until the world is made

aware of these facts."

But, while the law has had no more influence in repressing abnormal

sexuality than, wherever it has tried to do so, it has had in repressing

the normal sexual instinct, it has served to foster another offense. What

is called blackmailing in England, _chantage_ in France, and _Erpressung_

in Germany--in other words, the extortion of money by threats of exposing

some real or fictitious offense--finds its chief field of activity in

connection with homosexuality.[274] No doubt the removal of the penalty

against simple homosexuality does not abolish blackmailing, as the

existence of this kind of _chantage_ in France shows, but it renders its

success less probable.

On all these grounds, and taking into consideration the fact that the

tendency of modern legislation generally, and the consensus of

authoritative opinion in all countries, are in this direction, it seems

reasonable to conclude that neither "sodomy" (i.e., _immissio membri in

anum hominis vel mulieris_) nor "gross indecency" ought to be penal

offenses, except under certain special circumstances. That is to say, that

if two persons of either or both sexes, having reached years of

discretion,[275] privately consent to practise some perverted mode of

sexual relationship, the law cannot be called upon to interfere. It should

be the function of the law in this matter to prevent violence, to protect

the young, and to preserve public order and decency. Whatever laws are

laid down beyond this must be left to the individuals themselves, to the

moralists, and to social opinion.

At the same time, and while such a modification in the law seems to be

reasonable, the change effected would be less considerable than may appear

at first sight. In a very large proportion, indeed, of cases boys are

involved. It is instructive to observe that in Legludic's 246 cases

(including victims and aggressors together) in France, 127, or more than

half, were between the ages of 10 and 20, and 82, or exactly one-third,

were between the ages of 10 and 14. A very considerable field of operation

is thus still left for the law, whatever proportion of cases may meet with

no other penalty than social opinion.

That, however, social opinion--law or no law--will speak with no uncertain

voice is very evident. Once homosexuality was primarily a question of

population or of religion. Now we hear little either of its economic

aspects or of its sacrilegiousness; it is for us primarily a disgusting

abomination, i.e., a matter of taste, of esthetics; and, while unspeakably

ugly to the majority, it is proclaimed as beautiful by a small minority. I

do not know that we need find fault with this esthetic method of judging

homosexuality. But it scarcely lends itself to legal purposes. To indulge

in violent denunciation of the disgusting nature of homosexuality, and to

measure the sentence by the disgust aroused, or to regret, as one English

judge is reported to have regretted when giving sentence, that "gross

indecency" is not punishable by death, is to import utterly foreign

considerations into the matter. The judges who yield to this temptation

would certainly never allow themselves to be consciously influenced on the

bench by their political opinions. Yet esthetic opinions are quite as

foreign to law as political opinions. An act does not become criminal

because it is disgusting. To eat excrement, as Moll remarks, is extremely

disgusting, but it is not criminal. The confusion which thus exists, even

in the legal mind, between the disgusting and the criminal is additional

evidence of the undesirability of the legal penalty for simple

homosexuality. At the same time it shows that social opinion is amply

adequate to deal with the manifestations of inverted sexuality. So much

for the legal aspects of sexual inversion.

But while there can be no doubt about the amply adequate character of the

existing social reaction to all manifestations of perverted sexuality, the

question still remains how far not merely the law, but also the state of

public opinion, should be modified in the light of such a psychological

study as we have here undertaken. It is clear that this public opinion,

molded chiefly or entirely with reference to gross vice, tends to be

unduly violent in its reaction. What, then, is the reasonable attitude of

society toward the congenital sexual invert? It seems to lie in the

avoidance of two extremes. On the one hand, it cannot be expected to

tolerate the invert who flouts his perversion in its face, and assumes

that, because he would rather take his pleasure with a soldier or a

policeman than with their sisters, he is of finer clay than the vulgar

herd. On the other, it might well refrain from crushing with undiscerning

ignorance beneath a burden of shame the subject of an abnormality which,

as we have seen, has not been found incapable of fine uses. Inversion is

an aberration from the usual course of nature. But the clash of contending

elements which must often mark the history of such a deviation results now

and again--by no means infrequently--in nobler activities than those

yielded by the vast majority who are born to consume the fruits of the

earth. It bears, for the most part, its penalty in the structure of its

own organism. We are bound to protect the helpless members of society

against the invert. If we go farther, and seek to destroy the invert

himself before he has sinned against society, we exceed the warrant of

reason, and in so doing we may, perhaps, destroy also those children of

the spirit which possess sometimes a greater worth than the children of

the flesh.

Here we may leave this question of sexual inversion. In dealing with it I

have sought to avoid that attitude of moral superiority which is so common

in the literature of this subject, and have refrained from pointing out

how loathsome this phenomenon is, or how hideous that. Such an attitude is

as much out of place in scientific investigation as it is in judicial

investigation, and may well be left to the amateur. The physician who

feels nothing but disgust at the sight of disease is unlikely to bring

either succor to his patients or instruction to his pupils.

That the investigation we have here pursued is not only profitable to us

in succoring the social organism and its members, but also in bringing

light into the region of sexual psychology, is now, I hope, clear to every

reader who has followed me to this point. There are a multitude of social

questions which we cannot face squarely and honestly unless we possess

such precise knowledge as has been here brought together concerning the

part played by the homosexual tendency in human life. Moreover, the study

of this perverted tendency stretches beyond itself;

"O'er that art

Which you say adds to Nature, is an art

That Nature makes."

Pathology is but physiology working under new conditions. The stream of

nature still flows into the bent channel of sexual inversion, and still

runs according to law. We have not wasted our time in this toilsome

excursion. With the knowledge here gained we are the better equipped to

enter upon the study of the wider questions of sex.

FOOTNOTES:

[243] In this connection I may refer to Moll's _Sexual Life of the Child_,

to the writings of Dr. Clement Dukes, physician to Rugby School, who fully

recognizes the risks of school-life, and to the discussion on sexual vice

in schools, started by an address by the Rev. J.M. Wilson, head-master of

Clifton College, in the English _Journal of Education_, 1881-82.

[244] With regard to the importance of the sexual emotions generally and

their training, see the well-known book by Edward Carpenter, _Love's

Coming of Age_; Professor Gurlitt ("Knabenfreundschaften,"

_Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1909) also upholds the intimate friendships of

youth, which in his own experience have not had even a suspicion of

homosexuality.

[245] Casanova, _Mémoires_, vol. i (edition Garnier), p. 160. See also

remarks by an experienced master in one of the largest English public

schools, which I have brought forward in vol. i of these _Studies_,

"Auto-erotism," 3d ed., 1910.

[246] See, e.g., Professor J.R. Angell, "Some Reflections upon the

Reaction from Coeducation," _Popular Science Monthly_, Nov., 1902; also

Moll's _Sexual Life of the Child_, ch. ix, and for a general discussion of

coeducation, S. Poirson, _La Coéducation_, 1911.

[247] Bethe, "Die Dorische Knabenliebe," _Rheinisches Museum für

Philologie_; vol. lxii, Heft 3, p. 440; cf. Edward Carpenter,

_Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk_, ch. vi.

[248] Schrenck-Notzing, _Die Suggestionstherapie bei krankhaften

Erscheinungen des Geschlechtsinnes_, 1892. (Eng. trans. _Therapeutic

Suggestion_, 1895.)

[249] Raffalovich, _Uranisme et Unisexualité_, 1896, p. 16. He remarks

that the congenital invert who has never had relations with women, and

whose abnormality, to use Krafft-Ebing's distinction, is a perversion and

not a perversity, is much less dangerous and apt to seduce others than the

more versatile and corrupt person who has known all methods of

gratification.

[250] See, e.g., Moll, _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, ch. xi; Forel,

_Die Sexuelle Frage_, ch. xiv; Näcke, "Die Behandlung der Homosexualität,"

_Sexual-Probleme_, Aug., 1910; Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xxii.

[251] Moll, _Zeitschrift für Psychotherapie_, 1911, Heft 1; id., _Handbuch

der Sexualwissenschaften_, 1912, p. 662 et seq.

[252] This is also the opinion of Numa Praetorius, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle

Zwischenstufen_, Jan., 1913, p. 222.

[253] See, especially, Sadger, _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Heft

12, 1908; also _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix, 1908;

Sadger's methods are criticised by Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch.

xxii, and defended by Sadger, _Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche

Psychoanalyse_, July, 1914, p. 392. For a discussion of the psychoanalytic

treatment of homosexuality by a leading American Freudian, see Brill,

_Journal American Medical Association_, Aug. 2, 1913.

[254] _Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Psychoanalyse_, March,

1914.

[255] This is now generally recognized. See, e.g., Roubinovitch and Borel,

"Un Cas d'Uranisme," _L'Encéphale_, Aug., 1913. These authors conclude

that it is today impossible to look upon inversion as the equivalent or

the symptom of a psychopathic state, though we have to recognize that it

frequently coexists with morbid emotional states. Näcke, also, in his

extensive experience, found that homosexuality is rare in asylums and

slight in character; he dealt with this question on various occasions;

see, e.g., _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906.

[256] Krafft-Ebing considered that the temporary or lasting association of

homosexuality with neurasthenia having its root in congenital conditions

is "almost invariable," and some authorities (like Meynert) have regarded

inversion as an accidental growth on the foundation of neurasthenia.

[257] Féré expressed himself concerning the general treatment of

homosexuality in the same sense, and even more emphatically (Féré,

_L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1899, pp. 272, 286). He considers that all forms of

congenital inversion resist treatment, and that, since a change in the

invert's instincts must be regarded rather as a perversion of the invert

than a cure of the inversion, one may be permitted to doubt not only the

utility of the treatment, but even the legitimacy of attempting it. The

treatment of sexual inversion, he declared, is as much outside the

province of medicine as the restoration of color-vision in the

color-blind. The ideal which the physician and the teacher must place

before the invert is that of chastity; he must seek to harness his wagon

to a star.

[258] I have been told by a distinguished physician, who was consulted in

the case, of a congenital invert highly placed in the English government

service, who married in the hope of escaping his perversion, and was not

even able to consummate the marriage. It is needless to insist on the

misery which is created in such cases. It is not, of course, denied that

such marriages may not sometimes become eventually happy. Thus Kiernan

("Psychical Treatment of Congenital Sexual Inversion," _Review of Insanity

and Nervous Diseases_, June, 1894) reports the case of a thoroughly

inverted girl who married the brother of the friend to whom she was

previously attached merely in order to secure his sister's companionship.

She was able to endure and even enjoy intercourse by imagining that her

husband, who resembled his sister, was another sister. Liking and esteem

for the husband gradually increased and after the sister died a child was

born who much resembled her; "the wife's esteem passed through love of the

sister to intense natural love of the daughter, as resembling the sister;

through this to normal love of the husband as the father and brother." The

final result may have been satisfactory, but this train of circumstances

could not have been calculated beforehand. Moll is also opposed, on the

whole (e.g., _Deutsche medicinische Presse_, No. 6, 1902), to marriage and

procreation by inverts.

[259] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xxi. It might seem on

theoretical grounds that the marriage of a homosexual man with a

homosexual woman might turn out well. Hirschfeld, however, states that he

knows of 14 such marriages, and the theoretical expectation has not been

justified; 3 of the cases speedily terminated in divorce, 4 of the couples

lived separately, and all but 2 of the remaining couples regretted the

step they had taken. I may add that in such a case even the expectation of

happiness scarcely seems reasonable, since neither of the parties can feel

a true mating impulse toward the other.

[260] Hirschfeld also notes (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 95) that women often

instinctively feel that there is something wrong in the love of their

inverted husbands who may perhaps succeed in copulating, but betray their

deepest feelings by a repugnance to touch the sexual parts with the hand.

The homosexual woman, also, as Hirschfeld elsewhere points out with cases

in illustration (p. 84), may suffer seriously through being subjected to

normal sexual relationships.

[261] Féré reports the case of an invert of great intellectual ability who

had never had any sexual relationships, and was not averse from a chaste

life; he was urged by his doctor to acquire the power of normal

intercourse and to marry, on the ground that his perversion was merely a

perversion of the imagination. He did so, and, though he married a

perfectly strong and healthy woman, and was himself healthy, except in so

far as his perversion was concerned, the offspring turned out

disastrously. The eldest child was an epileptic, almost an imbecile, and

with strongly marked homosexual impulses; the second and third children

were absolute idiots; the youngest died of convulsions in infancy (Féré,

_L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 269 et seq.) No doubt this is not an average case,

but the numerous examples of the offspring of similar marriages brought

forward by Hirschfeld (op. cit., p. 391) scarcely present a much better

result.

[262] It is scarcely necessary to add that the same principle is adaptable

to the case of homosexual women. "In all such cases," writes an American

woman physician, "I would recommend that the moral sense be trained and

fostered, and the persons allowed to keep their individuality, being

taught to remember always that they are different from others, rather

sacrificing their own feelings or happiness when necessary. It is good

discipline for them, and will serve in the long run to bring them more

favor and affection than any other course. This quality or idiosyncrasy is

not essentially evil, but, if rightly used, may prove a blessing to others

and a power for good in the life of the individual; nor does it reflect

any discredit upon its possessor."

[263] The existence of an affinity between homosexuality and the religious

temperament has been referred to in ch. i as recognized in many parts of

the world. See, for a more extended discussion, Horneffer, _Der Priester_,

and Bloch, _Die Prostitution_, vol. i, pp. 101-110. The psychoanalysts

have also touched on this point; thus Pfister, _Die Frommingkeit des

Grafen von Zinzendorf_ (1910), argues that the founder of the pietistic

sect of the Herrenhuter was of sublimated homosexual (or bisexual)

temperament.

[264] Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 528. Such ideas are, of course,

often put forward by inverts themselves.

[265] Roman law previously seems to have been confined in this matter to

the protection of boys. The Scantinian and other Roman laws against

paiderasty seem to have been usually a dead letter. See, for various notes

and references, W.G. Holmes, _The Age of Justinian and Theodora_, vol. i,

p. 121.

[266] Epistle to the Romans, chapter i, verses 26-7.

[267] In practice this penalty of death appears to have been sometimes

commuted to ablation of the sexual organs.

[268] For a full sketch of the legal enactments against homosexual

intercourse in ancient and modern times, see Numa Praetorius, "Die

straflichen Bestimmungen gegen den gleichgeschlechtlichen Verkehr,"

_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. i, pp. 97-158. This writer

points out that Justinian, and still more clearly, Pius V, in the

sixteenth century, distinguished between occasional homosexuality and

deep-rooted inversion, habitual offenders alone, not those who had only

been guilty once or twice, being punished.

[269] The influence of the supposed connection of sodomy with unbelief,

idolatry, and heresy in arousing the horror of it among earlier religions

has been emphasized by Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of the

Moral Ideas_, vol. i, p. 486 et seq.

[270] "Any male person who in public or private commits, or is a party to

the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by

any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person,

shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, being convicted thereof, shall be

liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term not

exceeding two years, with or without hard labor."

[271] This point is brought forward by Dr. Léon de Rode in his report on

"L'Inversion Génitale et la Législation," prepared for the Third

(Brussels) Congress of Criminal Anthropology in 1892. The same point is

insisted on by some of my correspondents.

[272] It is a remarkable and perhaps significant fact that, while

homosexuality is today in absolute disrepute in France, it was not so

under the less tolerant law of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Duc de Gesvres, as described by Besenval (_Mémoires_, i, p. 178), was

a well-marked invert of feminine type, impotent, and publicly affecting

all the manners of women; yet he was treated with consideration. In 1687

Madame, the mother of the Regent, writes implying that "all the young men

and many of the old" practised pederasty: _il n'y a que les gens du commun

qui aiment les femmes_. The marked tendency to inversion in the French

royal family at this time is well known.

[273] A man with homosexual habits, I have been told, declared he would be

sorry to see the English law changed, as then he would find no pleasure in

his practices.

[274] Blackmailing appears to be the most serious risk which the invert

runs. Hirschfeld states in an interesting study of blackmailing (_Jahrbuch

für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, April, 1913) that his experience shows that

among 10,000 homosexual persons hardly one falls a victim to the law, but

over 3000 are victimized by blackmailers.

[275] Krafft-Ebing would place this age not under 16, the age at which in

England girls may legally consent to normal sexual intercourse

(_Psychopathia Sexualis_, 1893, p. 419). It certainly should not be lower.

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A.

HOMOSEXUALITY AMONG TRAMPS.

BY "JOSIAH FLYNT."

I have made a rather minute study of the tramp class in the United States,

England, and Germany, but I know it best in the States. I have lived with

the tramps there for eight consecutive months, besides passing numerous

shorter periods in their company, and my acquaintance with them is nearly

of ten years' standing. My purpose in going among them has been to learn

about their life in particular and outcast life in general. This can only

be done by becoming part and parcel of its manifestations.

There are two kinds of tramps in the United States: out-of-works and

"hoboes." The out-of-works are not genuine vagabonds; they really want

work and have no sympathy with the hoboes. The latter are the real tramps.

They make a business of begging--a very good business too--and keep at it,

as a rule, to the end of their days. Whisky and _Wanderlust_, or the love

of wandering, are probably the main causes of their existence; but many of

them are discouraged criminals, men who have tried their hand at crime and

find that they lack criminal wit. They become tramps because they find

that life "on the road" comes the nearest to the life they hoped to lead.

They have enough talent to do very well as beggars, better, generally

speaking, then the men who have reached the road simply as drunkards; they

know more about the tricks of the trade and are cleverer in thinking out

schemes and stories. All genuine tramps in America are, however, pretty

much the same, as far as manners and philosophy are concerned, and all are

equally welcome at the "hang-out."[276] The class of society from which

they are drawn is generally the very lowest of all, but there are some

hoboes who have come from the very highest, and these latter are

frequently as vicious and depraved as their less well-born brethren.

Concerning sexual inversion among tramps, there is a great deal to be

said, and I cannot attempt to tell all I have heard about it, but merely

to give a general account of the matter. Every hobo in the United States

knows what "unnatural intercourse" means, talking about it freely, and,

according to my finding, every tenth man practises it, and defends his

conduct. Boys are the victims of this passion. The tramps gain possession

of these boys in various ways. A common method is to stop for awhile in

some town, and gain acquaintance with the slum children. They tell these

children all sorts of stories about life "on the road," how they can ride

on the railways for nothing, shoot Indians, and be "perfeshunnels"

(professionals), and they choose some boy who specially pleases them. By

smiles and flattering caresses they let him know that the stories are

meant for him alone, and before long, if the boy is a suitable subject, he

smiles back just as slyly. In time he learns to think that he is the

favorite of the tramp, who will take him on his travels, and he begins to

plan secret meetings with the man. The tramp, of course, continues to

excite his imagination with stories and caresses, and some fine night

there is one boy less in the town. On the road the lad is called a

"prushun," and his protector a "jocker." The majority of prushuns are

between 10 and 15 years of age, but I have known some under 10 and a few

over 15. Each is compelled by hobo law to let his jocker do with him as he

will, and many, I fear, learn to enjoy his treatment of them. They are

also expected to beg in every town they come to, any laziness on their

part receiving very severe punishment.

How the act of unnatural intercourse takes place is not entirely clear;

the hoboes are not agreed. From what I have personally observed I should

say that it is usually what they call "leg-work" (intercrural), but

sometimes _immissio penis in anum_, the boy, in either case, lying on his

stomach. I have heard terrible stories of the physical results to the boy

of anal intercourse.

One evening, near Cumberland, Pennsylvania, I was an unwilling witness of

one of the worst scenes that can be imagined. In company with eight

hoboes, I was in a freight-car attached to a slowly moving train. A

colored boy succeeded in scrambling into the car, and when the train was

well under way again he was tripped up and "seduced" (to use the hobo

euphemism) by each of the tramps. He made almost no resistance, and joked

and laughed about the business as if he had expected it. This, indeed, I

find to be the general feeling among the boys when they have been

thoroughly initiated. At first they do not submit, and are inclined to run

away or fight, but the men fondle and pet them, and after awhile they do

not seem to care. Some of them have told me that they get as much pleasure

out of the affair as the jocker does. Even little fellows under 10 have

told me this, and I have known them to willfully tempt their jockers to

intercourse. What the pleasure consists in I cannot say. The youngsters

themselves describe it as a delightful tickling sensation in the parts

involved, and this is possibly all that it amounts to among the smallest

lads. Those who have passed the age of puberty seem to be satisfied in

pretty much the same way that the men are. Among the men the practice is

decidedly one of passion. The majority of them prefer a prushun to a

woman, and nothing is more severely judged than rape. One often reads in

the newspapers that a woman has been assaulted by a tramp, but the

perverted tramp is never the guilty party.

I believe, however, that there are a few hoboes who have taken to boys

because women are so scarce "on the road." For every woman in hoboland

there are a hundred men. That this disproportion has something to do with

the popularity of boys is made clear by the following case: In a gaol,

where I was confined for a month during my life in vagabondage, I got

acquainted with a tramp who had the reputation of being a "sod"

(sodomist). One day a woman came to the gaol to see her husband, who was

awaiting trial. One of the prisoners said he had known her before she was

married and had lived with her. The tramp was soon to be discharged, and

he inquired where the woman lived. On learning that she was still

approachable, he looked her up immediately after his release, and

succeeded in staying with her for nearly a month. He told me later that he

enjoyed his life with her much more than his intercourse with boys. I

asked him why he went with boys at all, and he replied: "'Cause there

ain't women enough. If I can't get them I've got to have the other."

It is in gaols that one sees the worst side of this perversion. In the

daytime the prisoners are let out into a long hall, and can do much as

they please; at night they are shut up, two and even four in a cell. If

there are any boys in the crowd, they are made use of by all who care to

have them. If they refuse to submit, they are gagged and held down. The

sheriff seldom knows what goes on, and for the boys to say anything to him

would be suicidal. There is a criminal ignorance all over the States

concerning the life of these gaols, and things go on that would be

impossible in any well-regulated prison. In one of these places I once

witnessed the fiercest fight I have ever seen among hoboes; a boy was the

cause of it. Two men said they loved him, and he seemed to return the

affection of both with equal desire. A fight with razors was suggested to

settle who should have him.[277] The men prepared for action, while the

crowd gathered round to watch. They slashed away for over half an hour,

cutting each other terribly, and then their backers stopped them for fear

of fatal results. The boy was given to the one who was hurt the least.

Jealousy is one of the first things one notices in connection with this

passion. I have known them to withdraw entirely from the "hang-out" life

simply to be sure that their prushuns were not touched by other tramps.

Such attachments frequently last for years, and some boys remain with

their first jockers until they are "emancipated."

Emancipation means freedom to "snare" some other boy, and make him submit

as the other had been obliged to submit when younger. As a rule, the

prushun is freed when he is able to protect himself. If he can defend his

"honor" from all who come, he is accepted into the class of "old stagers,"

and may do as he likes. This is the one reward held out to prushuns during

their apprenticeship. They are told that some day they can have a boy and

use him as they have been used. Thus hoboland is always sure of recruits.