We must now pass from the normal or hetero-sexual to the second-class of
sex-temperament. This is the homosexual--that in which the individual's
sex attraction is directed towards the same sex. And here it will be
necessary to utter a note of warning. The sex instinct lies so deep in
human nature that many men are incapable of regarding sex characteristics
save through their own temperamental colour. Normal men are frequently
found, for instance, of such underdeveloped mental faculties that they
start out with an immense sex prejudice against the homosexual. Without
being able to consider the question impartially they abhor this variety as
an unspeakable evil. It is essential that we should place such critics
outside the area of practical investigation. The homosexual tendency may
be as evil as they imagine it to be, but we must only arrive at that
conclusion as a result of impartial and incontestable reason. And any man
who cannot undertake that inquiry is as valueless for our purpose as are
his prejudicial opinions; he must simply go back to the nursery.
Let us therefore, as far as is individually possible, attempt to treat
this question with an open mind. And accordingly we shall find it most
convenient first to consider the various attitudes which have been taken
up with regard to this difficult problem.
The legal or State attitude we have already to some extent anticipated.
The State looks with suspicious eyes on any influence which tends to
sterilize the birth-rate. Accordingly, in England, homosexuality is
branded as a crime for which a heavy sentence can be pronounced. It is
true that legally this sentence, under the Criminal Amendment Act, can
only be inflicted for the physical sex-act itself; but this includes any
assault or any behaviour which may be construed as an attempt to lead up
to the commission of the act. And, accordingly, any man is legally under
suspicion if he is thought to be homosexual, even though no perpetration
of the physical offence can be alleged against him. The hideous system of
blackmail is thus encouraged by the law. Once a man is understood to be
subject to these proclivities, it is assumed that sooner or later he will
commit the offence, and he is watched, if not by the over-busy police, by
those idle persons who trade upon the legal attitude toward this problem.
Any conversation or literature on the subject is suppressed, so far as is
possible, by the State, because the physical expression being a crime, all
that may become an incentive to the crime is itself criminal.
We have already mentioned the basic fallacy of the legal attitude. It does
not follow that because a line of conduct may decrease the birth-rate, it
is therefore wrong. Celibacy, as we have seen, may be an actual virtue.
But in this particular instance there is a still more serious error. The
English law, by branding homosexuality as a crime, assumes that it is a
deliberate perversion; for it would be obviously ridiculous to punish a
man for doing what he could not help doing. Even the law is not so
illogical as to sentence a madman to penal servitude because he insists on
being mad. No, the State regards the homosexual as one who has of his own
choice assumed this form of sex temperament, in the same way as a man
decides to rob or forge a signature. The legal attitude _must_ rest on
this supposition, for otherwise its policy would be flagrantly unjust. And
accordingly we find the law classifying this family of behaviour as
"unnatural."
Now, if there is one fact which is clear from an investigation of the
problem, it is that this supposition is as false as it is possible for
any supposition to be. Let it be granted that a certain number of
homosexual offences are committed by persons who are sexually normal in
temperament. There remains the whole body of homosexuals, of those, that
is to say, in whom the homogenic attraction is as integral a part of their
nature as the appreciation of music or the love of colour. Abundant proof
of this contention is to hand. There have been thousands of individuals in
every age, including the present, who have never heard of
homosexuality,[16] have never met other homosexuals, or come into contact
with anything approaching homosexual practice; and yet they have been
homosexual all their lives. I have known persons who believed that no one
else in the world shared their aspirations, and also have suffered
tortures because of their supposed isolated abnormality.
The State attitude simply ignores this factor, and accordingly reveals
itself as unscientific.
It is true that perhaps by such an agency as psycho-analysis reasons could
be found in many of these cases why the individual had developed on
inverted sex lines; home repressions, the system of early education, the
age of the parents, these or other influences, may have produced a complex
which has switched the sex-nature on to a particular path. But these
reasons do not necessarily show the result to be artificial; it is our
very nature indeed which these influences construct. It is impossible to
trace an exact line between the inherent nature and the effect which
outside influences have had upon it. We must, and we do in fact, regard
the permanent and fundamental traits, however derived, as "natural."
Moreover psycho-analysis definitely indicates that there is a homosexual
period through which all individuals inevitably pass.
The State theory that the temperament is "unnatural" cannot therefore be
supported on any grounds, except in the cases where it is deliberately
assumed by normal persons. In most cases it is natural to the individual's
nature, and not "unnatural," but "abnormal."
Once this simple scientific truth is grasped the legal attitude is seen to
crumble in all directions. The case for criminal prosecution rests
logically on the assumption that unless homosexual practices are rigidly
suppressed they will spread. And since their increase would seriously
diminish the birth-rate the State is necessarily anxious to avert this
danger. But it is an odd perversion which imagines that sober respectable
citizens are only restrained from indulging in homosexual vice by the
threat of penal servitude! Once the scientific truth is grasped and
homosexuality is seen to be, except in a small number of cases, the
natural temperament of a small minority, it will be realized that normal
persons are not likely to wish to commit unnatural acts, whether there is
or there is not a penal law; nor can any Act of Parliament prevent
homosexuals from being homosexual.
And in practice this theoretical conclusion is found to hold true. For in
the countries, such as France, where the Code Napoleon does not cover
these prosecutions, homosexuality is far less rife than in England, or in
Germany, where until the Revolution the penal law was rigidly enforced.
It is well that we should face these facts unreservedly, however strong
may be our personal antipathy to the practices.
* * * * *
The second attitude may be described generally as that of society. Public
opinion must necessarily be too vague to admit of succinct definition. But
generally its attitude towards this question may be defined as that of an
ordinary man towards a freak; he has no sympathy with freaks and indeed
dislikes them--but they are so very rare that he can afford to ignore
them.
The problem of the homosexual cannot however be avoided in this way, for
the simple reason that the invert forms so comparatively large and
permanent a part of the community. It is difficult to attempt an accurate
estimate, partly because many homosexuals are so afraid of incurring the
odium of public opinion that they successfully disguise their true nature
and are unsuspected even by their most intimate friends. But there is a
more fundamental difficulty. It appears to be undeniable that a large
number of normal people possess to some extent a strain of the homosexual
temperament. We have, in fact, as in almost all classifications, not a
naturally dividing gulf but a gradually ascending scale. Some individuals
may have only 5 per cent. inverted and 95 per cent. hetero-sexual
tendencies, while others are only 10 per cent. normal. There are a large
and increasing number of persons who are almost equally balanced on either
side. These bisexuals often marry happily and at the same time enjoy
homogenic experiences.
When we remember that, according to psycho-analysis, everyone about the
age of puberty passes through a homosexual stage, it is probably not an
exaggeration to state that few people fail to preserve a stratum of this
nature, however small the percentage and however deeply such tendencies
may be buried in the unconsciousness.
If however we decide to draw an arbitrary distinction and to define
persons with less than 30 per cent. inverted nature as normal, persons
from 30 to 60 per cent. as bisexual, and the remainder as homosexual, we
are left with a considerable number of the last variety. Havelock Ellis
has reckoned the percentage of homosexuals among the professional middle
classes in England as 5 per cent. and among women as 10 per cent.[17] In
any case the popular view that the proportion is so small as to be
negligible is quite impossible, and is due to the fact that most men are
so unobservant of psychological evidence that their opinion is of little
serious value.
However undesirable, then, this species of temperament may be, it cannot
be described as unnatural in the sense of artificial or unusual. The third
or current scientific attitude does seem at first to avoid these
superstitions and to rest on a reasonable basis. This attitude may be
described as that of regarding homosexuality as a disease, which should
neither be punished nor ignored, but treated. The theory that we all pass
through a homosexual period at a comparatively early stage, lends support
to this conclusion. The hero-age of boys and girls, it is urged, is almost
always directed towards the child's own sex. Therefore it can fairly be
argued that where the sex development has been restricted to these lines
it denotes some strange dislocation which has prevented natural growth.
The fact that in some cases this cause can actually be traced--such as a
disappointment in an early love affair with the opposite sex, or to
artificial circumstances which have made for celibacy--confirm many
students of sex-science in this opinion.
But as if nature deliberately intends to thwart all easily attained
explanations, she sets out certain facts, in practice, which entirely
invalidate the theory. It is true that many homosexuals, both men and
women, portray in general mental efficiency that peculiar want of
proportion in some direction which is the inevitable symptom of mental
abnormality; the male may be obviously effeminate, or, male or female,
eccentric or hysterical. But this is distinctly the exception. So far as
my personal experience goes, the majority of homosexuals are
indistinguishable from normal men, except by some psychic or intuitional
sense, in physical or mental appearance; and I observe that this
experience is shared by all those scientists who have written on the
subject. The undeniable facts are that among this minority of the race a
majority of men have, in all ages and races, held a pre-eminent and
honourable position in society, revealing the brilliance of sanity rather
than the abnormality of genius. The homosexual has succeeded not only as
might have been expected in the arts. It is true that, in general, he
possesses certain feminine attributes, such as a gentler and more
emotional positivity than the normal. But he has excelled in such
masculine paths as soldiering, statesmanship, and engineering. It is
almost irritating, where one wishes to find support for the scientific
explanation, to turn to history and discover that the homosexual section
of the Greeks were magnificent warriors as well as philosophers; that not
only Shakespeare, who wrote many of his sonnets to a boy, or Michael
Angelo, but Alexander the Great, Charles XII of Sweden, Frederick II of
Prussia, and William III of England, had their homosexual tendencies.
Indeed, were it permissible to do so, it would be possible to instance
some of our most famous generals and politicians of modern times as
possessing this unmistakable temperament.
It is well then freely to admit that the scientific theory simply does
not square with the full facts of the case.
The fourth attitude is that of religion. The Church's official position is
mainly indistinguishable from that of the State, although the atmosphere
of the Church has tended largely to be congenial to this development. It
is evident that Christianity was influenced in its early days by the
appalling condition of vice in Roman society, and it is not to be wondered
at that a severe legacy of prejudice has been inherited in the light of
this indescribable experience. But this brings us conveniently to a point
where we must admit a fallacy underlying almost all considerations of the
homogenic sex nature. And unless we are able to dispose of the fallacy in
our minds, further investigation is useless.
The fallacy consists of the assumption that homosexuality means only the
perpetration of the physical sex-act. In reality this is as untrue as to
suppose that the normal man is necessarily a patron of prostitutes. Such a
confusion of thought is obviously ludicrous. But not less inaccurate is
this prevailing idea regarding the homosexual. Not only is the particular
sex-act, popularly associated with this subject, an extremely rare
occurence, even as among the physical sex-expressions of this temperament,
but probably a vast majority of homosexuals are deliberately celibate.
Homosexuality is a romantic cult rather than a physical vice. Nine-tenths
of its energy is directed purely in the realm of ideals. The old
misconception of sex as a rather disreputable physical function again dogs
our steps. But sex is almost entirely emotional; sex-love, and especially
homosexual love, is not lust. Its desire is romantic and idealistic, and
when physical incidents occur, they are usually the unintentional outlets
of the purely emotional passion.
The literature of homosexuality is almost entirely romantic, and small
though it is forced to be, in quality and ideal its average must rank as
extraordinarily noble.
It is noticeable, indeed, that in a large proportion of the unpleasant
cases which are tried in police-courts, the offenders are admittedly
normal men who have deliberately perpetrated homosexual acts for various
causes, such as a neurotic desire for novelty, or the desire to avoid
disease. There are also the considerable class of perverted normals whose
deviation from their natural path as the result of some such influence as
heterosexual disappointment or repression, has been so emphasized as to
render their perversion distinct from natural developments, and who
refuse, or are unable, to deny themselves physical gratification.
If we dissociate the true homosexual from this class, and concentrate our
attention only on the "celibate" species of such attachments, it is
evident that we are in the presence, not merely of something which is not
criminal, but of an ideal which is sacred in character. Pure love,
especially so intense a love as the homogenic attachment, is not profane
but divine. And though the Church may be unable to recognize it by her
sacramental benediction, because, unlike marriage, it cannot effect
physical procreation, she possesses such Biblical precedents as the story
of David and Jonathan--an episode which is obviously homosexual in the
sense that it describes not a platonic companionship but a romantic
passion.
In the social sphere also, the place of this aspect of homosexuality is
obvious. The homosexual must, and does in fact, exist in the most honoured
offices of the community. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to declare that
few men can be successful in educational or philanthropic work unless they
have some homogenic temperament in their nature. Without this they may
compel discipline but they are powerless to attract sympathetic
co-operation. The testimony in favour of this assertion is overwhelming.
But when we admit that sex tends to find a physical expression, and we
come therefore face to face with the physical problem, the difficulty I
admit to be considerable. And I can only re-emphasize that this feature
is numerically and potentially the least important, but that there can be
no religious countenance for any physical sex-act outside the sacrament of
matrimony.
* * * * *
Rape, and seduction without consent, are obviously evils calling for legal
prosecution, as being an infringement of personal liberty. And in this
connexion it must be remembered that homosexual practices tend to
seduction, inasmuch as the attraction is frequently towards those who have
not attained intellectual manhood. For the rest, I am inclined only to
re-affirm the general principle which I have already attempted to
define--namely, that sex becomes a sin where the main objective becomes
the physical gratification. Once the proportion is weighed on the side of
physical expression, love is prostituted. The purity of true love is known
by the fact that its face is turned not to mere physical functions, but
beyond the emotional and even mental, to the spiritual ideal. Indeed, a
lover, whatever his temperament happens to be, loves even if his beloved
is removed from all physical reach. That is the test.
I do not look for salvation to the arms of mere criminal legislation. This
seems to me to be almost powerless as a moral force, and indeed, to
encourage the hideous apparatus of blackmail.[18] Gradual and
unsensational as it may be, I believe that morals can only be improved by
educational and religious influences.
And so far as theoretical solutions are concerned I believe that Mr.
Edward Carpenter[19] comes nearest to the truth. Nature is deliberate in
creating not uniformity but variety, and I doubt if the world would
continue if there were only normal men in it. The homosexual has his
place, within restrictions, as has the celibate or the sexless type. The
real truth, I feel to be, is that few men are wholly masculine or women
feminine, and that somewhere, in comparative degrees, homosexuality is in
us all. It may become so excessive as to be a disease, or so feeble as to
create that unaesthetic, bourgeoise type, which is an unpleasant symptom
of super-normality.
We enter the realm of pure conjecture if we attempt to inquire the purpose
for which this type has been deliberately created. And I can only record
my own entirely unproveable, but definite opinion, that the human race, in
the far ages ahead, will return, by a spiral process, to the bisexual
species from which I believe it has come. If this is so, the homosexual is
apparently a prototype, a preliminary attempt of nature to combine both
sex-natures in one individual. And with all his present imperfections, I
believe that there are evidences which go strongly to support this
conjecture.