of “a female mind in a male body,” as in the Introduction to Eekhoud’s
“Escal Vigor.” The subject of this novel, as well as Oscar Wilde, whose
case evidently forms the theme of the book, were not such instances.
Theirs were cases of innate and therefore irresponsible sexual
perversion rather than of inversion. They were “urnings.” “Escal Vigor”
is of value as portraying the development and inner life of the urning,
while this autobiography deals with the passive invert, or “the invert”
properly speaking. The urning or active pederast loves an adolescent as
a normal man loves a woman, and desires active pædicatio or else mutual
onanism. The passive invert loves the adolescent as a woman loves a man,
and desires fellatio, or occasionally the part of the pathic in
pædicatio.
While reading “Escal Vigor” many years ago, your author was convinced
that the book was primarily written by Oscar Wilde and based on his own
life experience. This suspicion is confirmed by the name of the book,
the two words having the same length as those of the name of the
individual; the second and third letters of the first name being the
same in both, as well as the second letter of the surname; while the
initial V is the French equivalent of the English W, the novel having
been first published in French. I have myself built a pseudonym on my
baptismal name in similar fashion. The suspicion is further confirmed by
the rumor of 1918 that Wilde is still alive.
[Sidenote: _Inversion Is Not Sodomy._]
There occur homosexual practices which are really due to moral depravity
or to the absence of the opposite sex. This is the true sodomy, an
entirely different phenomenon than is present in the case of the
congenital invert and urning. Knowledge of the history of the particular
individual will readily determine to which of the three categories he
belongs.
The author’s criticism of Havelock Ellis’s theory ‘that a condition of
diffused minor abnormality in physical structure, consisting in approach
to the feminine type, is the basis of congenital inversion; that
inversion is bound up with a modification of the secondary sexual
characters’ is that in my own case the attraction toward the male sex
was powerful as early as the age of three, when there is probably no
difference between the physical type of the normal and of the inverted
male. This indicates that there is no cause-and-effect relation between
the feminine secondary sexual characters and the love for the male sex,
but that they are twin effects of a common cause, namely, the presence
in the male body of the particular kind of governing corpuscles or germs
ordinarily found only in the protoplasm of females.
The girl-boy with diffused minor abnormality in physical structure,
consisting in approach to the feminine type, is rather a female who has,
along with some other male structures, developed testicles and penis in
place of the usual ovaries and cunnus. Here it is not so much a case of
a female brain in a male body, but of the female brain in a _female_
body with various abnormal developments along the line of male
structure. A girl-boy is sometimes even physically perhaps more a female
than a male, although the primary sexual determinants and some of the
secondary sexual characters are those of the male sex.
[Sidenote: _Sex Psychical Rather Than Physical._]
In a manner similar to that described by Kurella, the author believes
the invert is a transitional form between the complete male or the
complete female and the sexually undifferentiated homo seen in the early
fœtus.
Practically it is all right, but medico-legally it is wrong, to make the
genitals the universal criterion in the determination of sex.
Medico-legally, sex should be determined by the psychical constitution
rather than by the physical form. There are thousands of physical
females who feel themselves to be men and have the mental traits of men,
and there are thousands of physical males who feel themselves to be
women and have the mental traits of a woman. Should any blame be
attached to such individuals when they conduct themselves according to
their psychical sex? The writer, much against his will, was brought up
as a boy, and after becoming adult continued in every-day life to
identify himself with the male sex because of his beard and masculine
voice, and because of the advantages of passing as a male; but in spite
of himself he was occasionally compelled to go off on a
female-impersonation spree.
* * * * *
Men call the invert’s instincts vice. The invert has just as much reason
for calling the normal man’s instincts vice when they are not exercised
solely in order to create a new human being. It is only a case of the
pot calling the kettle black. In the eyes of the Supreme Being, with
whom innate and unreasoning disgust is not a factor, the instincts of
the normal man and of the invert are on a par morally and æsthetically.
There is no ground for the charge that the passive invert’s practices
are aimed at the very existence of the race. In the first place, Nature
made him psychically impotent from birth. In the second place, his
practices could not be spread by example. They are regarded by all
normally constituted males with such disgust and aversion that
practically no one would stoop to them except those born with the
peculiar cravings. And why place a heavy penalty on one particular
practice which might prevent a few births, and give large liberty to
other practices with a hundred and a thousand fold more power to
diminish the birth rate? The author was addicted to sensuality more than
the vast majority of inverts. Nevertheless, if he had never yielded to
instinct, there would not be today a single human being more in the
world than there are. None of his intimates were given to begetting
children, at least on the threshold of manhood, which was the age at
which they consorted with him.
[Sidenote: _Ethics of Inversion._]
The invert’s harmless instinctive sexual conduct (generally fellatio,
seldom pædicatio) is today regarded as a felony almost throughout
Christendom. France, Italy, and Holland are the only Christian nations
which have entirely repealed the laws enacted against these unfortunates
during the Dark Ages. Old English law provided that the guilty one be
burnt alive, while other statutes of the same law condemned him to be
buried alive. In the reign of Richard III, he was hanged. The death
penalty was not abolished until after the reign of George IV. At the
present time in England, the maximum penalty is penal servitude for
life, and the minimum, ten years imprisonment. In the United States the
penalty is from five to twenty years imprisonment. Is it not unjust to
keep on the statute books these laws against an unfortunate and harmless
class?
[Sidenote: _Legal Penalties._]
I am here reminded of two conferences with Mr. Anthony Comstock, because
part of his business while alive was that of hunting down inverts and
haling them off to prison. By the irony of fate, I was during my college
days nicknamed after this gentleman because on hearing an obscene remark
by a fellow student, my features involuntarily expressed shock and
disapproval, probably due to my having the mind of a woman. But in 1900,
as soon as I had this autobiography ready for publication, I submitted
it to Mr. Comstock in order to ascertain whether it could be circulated.
He was then a Post-Office Department inspector, with power to prosecute
for shipping “obscene” matter by common carrier. He read considerable of
the manuscript of this book, and stated on handing it back that he would
have “destroyed” it but for the fact that I impressed him “as a person
not having any evil intent.”
In words which I wrote down immediately after leaving his presence, he
declared: “These inverts are not fit to live with the rest of mankind.
They ought to have branded in their foreheads the word ‘Unclean,’ and as
the lepers of old, they ought to cry ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ as they go
about, and instead of the law making twenty years imprisonment the
penalty for their crime, it ought to be imprisonment for life. Are they
assaulted and blackmailed? They deserve to be. Krafft-Ebing and Havelock
Ellis know nothing about them if they say they are irresponsible. They
are wilfully bad, and glory and gloat in their perversion. Their habit
is acquired and not inborn. Why propose to have the law against them now
on the statute books repealed? If this happened, there would be no way
of getting at them. It would be wrong to make life more tolerable for
them. Their lives ought to be made so intolerable as to drive them to
abandon their vices.”
[Sidenote: _Prevalent Lay Opinion on Inverts._]
This attitude of mind is a proper one toward possible male filles de
joie who are fundamentally normal in their sexuality, but who through
cupidity, or with the purpose of blackmailing those who seek them, offer
themselves to take the passive rôle in pædicatio. Your author doubts
whether any such males ever lived. But the true invert belongs to a
different class, and should have the same standing before the law as the
normal individual. He even should be dealt with more leniently, because
his passion is often abnormally intense, and his mental eccentricities
sometimes lead him into unwise though little harmful, or not at all
harmful, acts.
* * * * *
In this autobiography, I may sometimes refer to myself as “Ralph
Werther.” At the beginning of my career as “Jennie June,” when asked for
my real name, I answered “Raphael Werther,” since I did not wish to
bring disgrace on my family name. I adopted the name “Raphael” because
of its euphony and glorious associations; the name “Werther,” because
like Goethe’s hero I was doomed to great sorrow through the passion of
love. During my first two years in college, when I often meditated
suicide, and was by far the unhappiest person in the college community,
Goethe’s “Sorrows of Werther,” the romance of suicide, had a peculiar
fascination for me. Later I substituted “Ralph” for “Raphael” since I
found the latter sounded too “stagey” to be believed.
[Sidenote: _Choosing Aliases._]
The author may be accused of copying the pen-name of Mrs. Croly in the
name that he gave himself when undertaking the role of a girl. But I was
not conscious of the existence of this pen-name until after I had
selected “Jennie June.” In early childhood I had called myself “Jennie,”
always my favorite girl’s name. It has always seemed to me the most
feminine of names. I adopted the name “June” because of the
alliteration, the beauty of the word, and its agreeable associations. It
was first suggested to me while reading one of Cooper’s novels, where it
appears as the name of a gentle, extremely feminine squaw. It was
suggested to me secondly by my seeing it appear as a surname on the sign
of a business house.
At the beginning of my career as a fairie, I debated for some time
whether the name of my feminine personality should be “Jennie June,”
“Baby,” “Pussie,” or the name of a particular one of the foremost prima
donnas of history. I enjoyed hugely being called “Baby” by young men. A
strange young ruffian one day passed me on the street, and addressed me
jocularly: “Hello Pussie!” I cannot express how much it pleased me, and
I longed to be called “Pussie” always. As to my impulse to copy the name
of the prima donna, I would have day dreams of being such a personage.
At the opera I would imagine myself as identified with the leading
soprano—that I was she. As is usual with professional fairies, I sought
to cultivate a soprano singing voice, though singing a baritone when in
my every-day circle.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Year 1874—Birth and Parentage._]
The fourth child of my mother’s eleven children, I was born and passed
my first sixteen years of life in the most refined section of a large
village within fifty miles of New York City. At the time of my birth,
each parent was about thirty years of age. My mother appears to have
married for money rather than for love. My parents, and indeed all
adults who had a molding influence over my early life, were eminently
respectable religious people.
I know the history of my stock for several generations back. No member
of any of the several families whose blood is mingled in my veins was
ever arrested. With the exception of several black sheep, the several
families have been composed of exceptionally pious people.
Both my paternal and maternal stock have been very prolific. No relative
has ever distinguished himself by reason of his intellect or otherwise,
the men having been exclusively farmers or retail merchants. I am
perhaps the most intellectual individual that has appeared in the
several families. My father was the shrewdest man and the most
successful at making money of any member of these several families.
[Sidenote: _Abnormal Relatives._]
The following are the only bad strains which I have been able to find in
my blood: A maternal great-great-great uncle was half-witted. A maternal
great-great uncle was a worthless character, but a good singer, going
around from tavern to tavern singing for his grog. Perhaps that is the
development a fairie took in his environment. A maternal great uncle,
though a good business man, became intoxicated occasionally. A paternal
great uncle was half-witted. A maternal second cousin was mildly insane
for at least several years. A paternal and also a maternal uncle,
besides being extreme dipsomaniacs, lacked the energy to earn their own
living, and also never married. The fact that the paternal uncle used to
fondle me excessively while I was a boy ten to twelve years of age and
hold me clasped in his embrace in such a way as would at the present
writing suggest to me that he entertained thoughts of pædicatio,
indicates that he was possibly an active pederast. The maternal uncle
was known, while in his early twenties, to have indulged in solitary
onanism before boys around the age of twelve, but all his adult life he
appeared to be unusually attracted toward girls aged from ten to twelve,
but I do not believe he ever corrupted any, as he was always popular in
his community.
A female first cousin is a psychical hermaphrodite, and while married to
a man, has always retained a woman sweetheart, who has evidently
occupied a place in my cousin’s affections much above the husband. From
my close observation of this case for over thirty years, I am convinced
that normal women succumb more readily to the advances of a gynander
than do normal men to those of an androgyne. The cousin is decidedly
masculine both physically and psychically. No offspring resulted from
her marriage.
[Sidenote: _Fellatio ex Instinctu Infantili._]
The question has been much discussed as to whether sexual inversion is
congenital or acquired. In my own case—as well as in that of my female
cousin—it is indubitably congenital. The full evidence, in addition to
my decidedly feminine anatomy and her decidedly masculine, may not be
presented here out of regard for others.
* * * * *
My very earliest memories are those of following out my strong baby’s
instinct for the nipple—immediately after I was weaned—by making use of
the best substitute that came in my way. Pueri, atque puellae, several
years older than myself, with whom I was intimately thrown every day,
furnished me with what nature craved. The infant’s nursing instinct
unfortunately did not die out in me as in the normal individual, but has
continued powerful all my life, though with transferred object. Once
after I had grown up—much to my shame—my mother remarked before a small
family gathering that until I was quite a large boy (perhaps nine years
of age) I would in my sleep go through imbibing motions, like an infant
at the nipple.
[Sidenote: _Infantile Sexual Precocity._]
My earliest memory of all of this perversion of the nursing instinct and
its transformation into a perverted sexual instinct is the following: A
large carpet hung over a line. Several girls around eleven years of age
sat down inside and exposuerunt pudenda. The conversation was about the
boys, who they wished might come in. I was hardly more than a baby and
was undoubtedly thought too young to understand or disclose their
conduct. I crept from one to another, os cunnis earum. I was too young
to know that it was the organ of micturition, or to distinguish between
it and the breast. My instinct was sugere when the latter was presented
to me, and I did the same to it. Possibly the girls told me to.
Only on one other occasion, at the age of six, did I have such relations
with a female. The girl, of my own age, begged it of me, much to my
disgust. But I had innumerable relations cum pueris. The earliest
remembered occurred when I was three-and-a-half years old. A boy of nine
had myself, a brother of five, and another of fifteen months sugere
penem erectum. For several years he sought me occasionally for the same
purpose. My two brothers complied only a few times, while I eagerly
grasped every opportunity. They developed into strong, virile, six-foot
men, husbands and fathers.
One other boy, a year older than myself, became an even greater
favorite. From my fifth to seventh year, our relations were almost as
intimate as those of a husband and wife. We used to play “husband and
wife,” although the fact of conjugal relations was the farthest from our
thoughts. When I reached the age of seven, our relations ceased, since
we were sent to different schools and he began to play with normal boys,
while I henceforth shared the pastimes of the little girls and had them
almost exclusively for my companions. In subsequent years of our
boyhood, he asked for fellatio several times, but I refused through
shame.
[Sidenote: _Age Four to Seven._]
My addiction was common knowledge among the boys, and others sought it.
While engaged in games with boys, sometimes fellatio would occur every
few minutes. Before reaching the age of seven, I had doubtless had more
than one thousand such experiences. I of course always took the more
humiliating part. Only once in my life, at the age of thirty-six, has
another taken that part with me, much to my disgust. Out of nearly 800
intimates during my life-time, only one ever sought to take that part.
I told these boy playmates to call me “Jennie,” and encouraged them to
use sexual argot to me. I instinctively hid all my sexual experiences
from everybody except my boy intimates, though some of them proclaimed
my addiction abroad in my hearing and much to my shame. Only once my
mother questioned me suspiciously as to why I entered an outhouse every
little while with my boy friend, but I counteracted her suspicion.
I was decidedly the greatest cry-baby of my mother’s eight children who
survived infancy, as well as the most weakly. I was the only child of
the neighborhood subject to convulsions, but these were not more than
half a dozen in number and occurred before the age of six. As early as
the age of three I suffered from occasional melancholia, and would bang
my head on the floor and express the wish that “I was dead.” A girl-boy
acquaintance committed suicide at the age of twelve by swallowing rat
poison.
[Sidenote: _Girl-boy Playmates._]
I was the only girl-boy of my immediate neighborhood, and from the
seventh to the twelfth year of my life, was looked upon by all the other
children as more girl than boy. When, after the age of seven, I made
acquaintances farther off than in my own block, I became acquainted with
three other girl-boys on three adjacent blocks, and a number of others
in the village. It was common knowledge among the boys of the school.
After they became adults, three became notorious among the sporting
adolescents of the village, as I learned through a brother who belonged
to that class.
The only one with whom I was intimate became, between the ages of
fifteen and twenty, a regular fille de joie. A coterie of particularly
virile adolescents who had no other means of satisfying their libido,
and who were disinclined to visit an evil resort, had recourse to him
regularly that he might take the humiliating role in fellatio. Young
inverts who do not repress their instincts have relations ordinarily
with their young male friends. I was an exception in this respect, as
well as in respect to conscientious scruples against following instinct.
My other two girl-boy playmates became, respectively, an organist and an
orchestra leader by profession when they became adult. During their late
teens and early twenties, they had many liaisons (fellatio) with
sport-loving young men—according to my brother—but having more money
than the invert just described, they played the wooer, being the seeker,
and choosing their intimates, instead of being sought out by the many.
They spent a considerable part of their earnings on their beaux. I know
nothing about the sexual conduct of any of these three inverts after
they passed the age of twenty-five. But the first mentioned developed
into a notorious dipsomaniac toward middle age, and the other two, when
past the age of forty, are healthy, prosperous, and I believe well
esteemed in their community. Most of their business associates have
never heard anything against them. Of course none of the three ever
married a _woman_.
[Sidenote: _Inversion Promotes Music._]
Of this group of passive inverts who grew up together, I alone had the
scholarly instinct and was unusually religious. Of the six who lived to
be adults, three—including the organist and the orchestra leader—had
extraordinary talent as musicians. No growth of beard ever showed itself
on the face of one of the three, and he looked remarkably like a woman.
My knowledge of these inverts leads me to remark at this point that in
general those who have relations with a passive invert are normal young
men who later marry a woman, but in whom the fire of lust has been
kindled by nature subsequent to puberty and for whom circumstances
prevent marriage between eighteen and twenty-five years of age.
Every large city block and almost every small village of the world has
its girl-boy, so far as my wide observation goes. After a life extending
over nearly half a century and spent in many countries of the world, it
is my own careful estimate that approximately _one physical male in
three hundred_ is born with this nature.
[Sidenote: _Frequency of Androgynism._]
Physicians possibly have not discovered inverts in such numbers: First,
because the majority of the medical profession have been in almost
entire ignorance of the existence of this variety of the _genus homo_,
and have therefore neglected to search around for them; and secondly,
because of the fact that through humanity’s misunderstanding and
persecution of them, these inverts hide their idiosyncrasies and secret
practices as no other class of mankind. They can be discovered only by
careful search, and recognized only by those having an intimate
knowledge of the invert’s character and habits. They are often
unsuspected even by their own families.
In a class of fifty boys in a school, there was one passive invert. In
another class of forty, there were two. In a club of thirty young men,
there were two. In an office staff of fourteen, there were two. In a
community of twelve hundred inhabitants, six were known to your author.
Havelock Ellis has stated that among the professional and most cultured
classes of England, the number of “homosexualists”—which term includes
active pederasts as well as passive inverts—may rise as high as one in
twenty. Moll has stated that he knew of from 850 to 1,050 in Berlin
alone, which would make the ratio one to every 1,666 inhabitants. Of
course Moll could know of only a small proportion of the total number in
Berlin.
[Sidenote: _Author’s Rather Diminutive Size._]
All inverts do not give way to their instincts, since the strength of
these instincts varies in different individuals, as does the degree of
effeminacy, just as there are corresponding differences in normal
individuals. Your author’s is an extreme case of passive inversion. His
case is also unusual because of the strange combination of appetencies
in one individual: the instincts of the fairie, the thirst for knowledge
of the savant, the yearning after God and holiness of life of the
zealot, and the impulse toward altruism of the missionary. My intention
from the age of fifteen to nineteen to pass my life as a foreign
missionary and preacher of the Gospel was relinquished because
inconsistent with the much stronger appetency of the fairie, which
finally carried all good resolutions before it.
* * * * *