a woman, or the reverse, was the means of rousing sexual passion, or,
at least, of increasing it enormously. Whenever this happens it is
plainly a manifestation of latent homosexuality,—a condition of which
_Blueher_ appears to have a very poor opinion. Although he seems to
agree with my views otherwise (“today it is no longer possible,” he
says, “to hold that homosexuality or heterosexuality is inborn; instead
we must recognize that bisexuality is inborn in every individual, with
a special predilection in one direction or the other,”), he makes a
distinction between “healthful inversion” and an outbreak of latent
homosexuality; one condition he considers aboriginal and in keeping
with cultural development, while the other “arises out of the depths of
the unconscious, through the removal of the inhibitions....” This view
is also contrary to facts. _Blueher_, like _Hirschfeld_, is inclined
to consider latent homosexuality as ‘pseudo,’ as something unnatural,
and accordingly passes judgment upon it. The practical observations
gathered in the course of my practice do not coincide with these
theoretical assumptions. I know only one kind of homosexuality, and
that is always inborn. Also, I find it always linked intimately with
heterosexuality. Awareness of one’s own homosexual tendency or lack of
it is not a reliable guide. If the number of consciously homosexual
persons be estimated at 2 per cent., we may confidently assert that
there are 98 per cent. of persons who know nothing of their homosexual
traits, or rather that they do not want to know anything about them.
As we become familiar with the various masks of homosexuality, we learn
to appreciate surprising homosexual and heterosexual trends. I shall
draw attention merely to the manifold significance of “trousers” in
human love affairs. How often men fall in love with women only when and
because they are seen in tights! I remember a number of classmates in
high school, who had fallen in love with a singer, when they saw her
in a role which she played wearing tights. _Grillparzer_ apparently
fell in love once in his life and very passionately. It was with
the singer to whom he absent-mindedly sent his famous poem. She had
appeared upon the stage as a Cherub in tights. The woman wearing the
trousers is a by-word,—a typical compromise. Through the medium of
such compromises it becomes possible for the homosexual suddenly to
act like a heterosexual person. _Hirschfeld_, who was the first to
point out this fact, relates that a lieutenant of cavalry well known in
the circle of Berlin urnings one day surprised his acquaintances with
the announcement of his engagement and even more with the statement
he had become fully heterosexual. Previous to that time he had loved
only boys in girls’ clothes but apparently he had found a woman of
very youthful type, one who was able to satisfy both components of his
libido. Symbols at times disclose tremendous power. The trousers figure
as a symbol of masculinity. I remember the storm of popular indignation
which arose once when some change in women’s fashions threatened man’s
exclusive prerogative. The skirt and long hair are symbols of feminity.
The symbol often furnishes the bridge across which traits, otherwise
antagonistic, become fused.
* * * * *
The following case is an illustration:
Mr. E. W. has practiced onanism since he was five years of age and
during the act was in the habit of thinking he was touching girls.
Later he masturbated jointly with other school boys. They attempted
pederastic acts, in the course of which he felt neither aversion nor
pleasure. At 14 years of age he was seduced by a servant girl, and he
went to her bed every night for a year. A poor scholar up till that
time, he became subsequently one of the best in the class. After a
time he became tired of her and he sought other opportunities which
were easy to find. He maintains that up to his 20th year he has had
intercourse with every one of the girls who served in his parents’
house, and he estimates them to have been about twenty in number. It
struck him that he could not always achieve orgasm. But he was always
potent, so much so, sometimes the girls wondered. But he would become
indifferent before reaching ejaculation. This happened to him with
fat women who excited him tremendously and at the same time failed to
satisfy him.
He began early to be interested in painting and made special efforts
to experience the feeling of love; for the petty adventures with the
servant girls did not involve the heart in the least. As he grew all
women only appeared to him to be merely objects for the gratification
of lust. He had all sort of love affairs but could be true to none
for any length of time and did not always reach orgasm with them. He
happened to try once the situs inversus and after that he found it
always possible to bring about the orgasm. Coitus a posteriori was
also a method which enabled him to attain this aim more easily than
the normal position. He was already thirty years of age when he saw at
a social affair a girl who appeared as a boy in a “living picture.”
He felt at once the greatest attraction for her. During the whole
evening he kept her in his company, and he felt animated and inspired
with the thought that he had found, at last, his soul affinity. A few
weeks later he became engaged to her. The picture of her as a boy
always floated before his mind. He married soon, experienced tremendous
orgasm during coitus and felt himself very happily married. After a
few years his potentia began to fail him and this worried him a great
deal because he loved his wife tremendously and was ashamed to confess
to her the true state of things. He became more frigid and finally his
potentia failed him completely.
He came into his wife’s room (they had separate rooms) while she was
undressing. She was in her tights, the kind in which he had seen her
in the role of a boy. At once this roused his passion and he threw
himself upon his wife, covering her with kisses, against her protests,
for she was very bashful. This happened in day time. His wife had never
consented to coitus in day time before. But this time she was taken by
surprise and as he pressed her for it, she called out, over and over:
“What is the matter with you today!” He did not tell her the reason for
his excitement; he was ashamed to request her to dress herself next
time in tights.
He called to have this remarkable occurrence explained and to be
cured of the peculiarity. Later he achieved potentia again but always
he had to think of his wife as dressed in trousers. The man was an
out-of-town resident and had come to Vienna only for the day. I was
unable to find out much about the psychic roots of this condition.
He recalled no infantile memories, but thought that the sight of
his little sister in bloomers had already roused him. He was much
interested in women’s underwear and could have easily turned into a
fetichist, one gathering a large assortment of women’s underclothes. I
advised him to confide in his wife and ask her for his sake to dress
herself in the kind of apparel which appealed to him. That was, after
all, a harmless desire which he shared with many other men.
A few years later I saw him again. He had followed my advice, and
his wife, who loved him devotedly, had finally consented, because he
could not attain erection otherwise, and she required the fulfilment
of marital relations. Since she “gave in” to her husband’s peculiar
request, she is able to rouse him to coitus as often as she desires
it. She only needs to put on tights.... He experiences the greatest
satisfaction while his wife wears tights and they assume the situs
inversus. Through such a small compromise, by meeting some specific
phantasy, it is often possible to turn an incompatible marriage into a
happy one.
This is not the only case of its kind of which I know. I know men who,
when going to houses of prostitution request the women to retain their
drawers when undressing. Others actually demand that the girls should
put on male trousers. These latent homosexuals are well known to the
prostitutes. They remain passive and expect the woman to be aggressive.
This shows they maintain the fiction that they are females and they
require relatively but little in the form of overt acts to maintain
this fiction in their mind. Many an instance of love at first sight is
induced in the same way.
* * * * *
Case. Z. I. A man, 48 years of age, had several light love affairs,
was twice unhappily married. After the second separation—some six
years previously—he left women severely alone because he had a poor
opinion of them. He used to say: all women are worthless decoys and
it is a pity to turn a single hair grey on their account. In the
circle of women haters he was known for that reason as the decoy-man.
His physical sexual needs he satisfied with prostitutes or street
acquaintances. Beyond that he avoided women and sought only the company
of men. It was obvious that he was drifting away from heterosexuality
and leaning towards psychic homosexuality. Then it happened that he
agreed once to sit as a model for a woman artist. The sculptress was
in ordinary clothes and had made no particular impression on him.
She asked him to wait a few moments and then she stepped out to put
on her working clothes. When she reappeared, a few moments later, he
was astonished. She wore a long white coat, which covered her whole
dress, a pleasing little cap, under which she had tucked her hair to
protect it against the dust, and a pair of glasses which she wore
only when working. She appeared so attractive that he fell in love
with her that moment. He did not hide his feelings but immediately
hastened to make up on the spot what he had lost in six years of
opportunities to worship at the shrine of womanhood. She accepted his
compliments good-naturedly. He fell in love with her as he had never
been in love before. A few weeks later he proposed marriage, but she
politely refused. She had made up her mind never to marry. But he did
not give her up; on the contrary he pursued her with his attentions
and tendernesses. His club and all his cronies he abandoned. He was
head over heels in love, like a frisky boy, and held that now he knew
the meaning of love. One of his friends proposed to cure him of his
infatuation and told him in confidence that he had heard the sculptress
was a homosexual who maintained relations with a chorus girl wearing
tights. The whole town knew about it. It was an open secret. This
information had the contrary effect upon him. His passion reached such
a point that life seemed to him worthless without her. He struggled
with thoughts of suicide and told the beloved about it. This made a
strong impression upon her and she stated frankly: she would agree to
be his sweetheart, but his wife, never. For a time he fought against
accepting this compromise, desiring nothing short of a union for life.
Finally he acquiesced. She was a virgin no longer and told him that
she had already been her instructor’s sweetheart. That is why she did
not want to consider marriage. With her instructor, however, she had
never achieved orgasm. His embrace left her cold. She could achieve
satisfaction and orgasm only with the aid of _manipulatio cum digito_.
Z. I. remained faithful to her for a few years and during that time
tried several times to induce her to consider marriage. He was always
most excited when he saw her wearing the apparel which had first roused
his love for her. They always met in her studio while she was wearing
her working clothes. Finally his love cooled and he returned to the
society of his woman-hating companions. An attempt to have intercourse
with a girl in his employ failed him and he called for advice.
He believed himself impotent. But it was merely the homosexual trait
which comes to the fore at this age in various manifestations which
physicians call the climacterium of man.
Analysis disclosed that the woman sculptor was the cousin of one
of his favorite old school mates, whom she resembled closely. This
young man also wore, while at work in his laboratory, a white coat,
like the sculptress. It was this similarity that roused his libido so
tremendously. The young man had become engaged a few weeks previously.
He disapproved the young man’s step on various grounds. (A young man
should not jeopardise his scientific career on account of a woman.) He
was in love with the young man without realising it. The transference
of the feeling into a heterosexual one was mediated through the fact
that the woman looked like her cousin and the costume also helped
to transfer some of the homosexual tendencies into the heterosexual
channel.
In connection with this case I may make a few remarks about the
so-called climacterium of man and about woman’s critical period. The
psychic process is well known, in so far as it involves a parting from
one’s youth, and it has been repeatedly outlined and described. The
whole love instinct of man rebels against growing old and fosters the
utilization to the utmost of the opportunities during the few remaining
years. The milder the sexual life in the past, the greater and more
stormy becomes the need of making up for lost opportunities “while
there is time.”
But the significance of homosexuality during this critical period is a
matter which most investigators have overlooked. It may be that the
involution of the sexual glands brings the opposite sex into stronger
relief at this period. One who conceives bisexuality as a chemical
process—and there are some data apparently supporting such a view—may
speak of the conquest of man’s heterosexuality over homosexuality.
_Hirschfeld_ would say of a man: as he now produces less andrin the
gynecin achieves upper hands. Perhaps many cases of so-called late
homosexuality (_Krafft-Ebing_) may be explained in this manner. I have
known a man who, up to the 50th year of his life, has had no sexual
experiences and who was also unaware of his homosexuality. At that
age he happened to drift into the company of homosexuals and now he
is a confirmed member of the third (intermediate) sex. Possibly the
outbreak of homosexuality leading all the way to paranoia—a subject
which I shall take up more fully in another chapter—depends on changes
in the sexual glands, these changes leading to characteristic psychic
expression.
In the last case disappointment after marriage (both women proved
unfaithful to the man) induced the breaking forth of the homosexual
tendencies.
The behavior of those persons who do not care to acknowledge their
homosexuality is characteristic. So passionately do they fall in love,
their impulsion to loving is so tremendous that every new passion
surpasses all previous experiences.
This peculiarity gives us an insight into the mentality of the Don Juan
type, the desolute adventurer, and the Messalina type....
The flight away from homosexuality leads the individual to overstress
his heterosexuality (with the formulation of compromises and the
adoption of homosexual masks) but that seldom yields the satisfaction
craved by the individual. The sexual adventurer is always a person who
has failed to find proper gratification. He who has found complete
gratification becomes thereby master of his libido and knows the
meaning of satiety. When the gratification is only apparent the
craving leads soon again to new adventures. Just as the compulsory
acts of neurotics cannot be permanently removed, because such acts
are only symptomatic and stand for hidden cravings, the unsatisfied
homosexual longing which stands masked under an apparently excessive
heterosexuality cannot be completely gratified on that path. The sexual
instinct,—as _Freud_ has pointed out—is of complex character and is
seldom brought into play in its full form. Man’s unattainable ideal is
the whole instinct, undivided and unhampered in any of its component
parts; falling in love manifests the expectation of a gratification
previously unattained.
During man’s critical period—as well as woman’s—a number of
troublesome compulsion neuroses are likely to break forth and these
have been erroneously attributed to excitement, overwork, and other
secondary factors. Every compulsion neurosis appearing at this period
is a complicated riddle through which the subject aims to hide
before his own consciousness no less than before the world at large
the true significance of the psychic impulses which reassert their
supremacy at the time. Frequently back of the various symptomatic
acts it is possible to discern the clear mechanism of defence against
homosexuality.
* * * * *
The next case shows an interesting array of symbolisms and of symbolic
acts, which are easily understood if one has the key to the psychology
of such mental processes.
Mr. B. experiences the outbreak of an acute neurosis at 60 years of
age. Suddenly he becomes obsessed with the fear of tuberculosis. He is
firmly convinced that he is a victim of the disease and the reassurance
of famous specialists quiets him only for a few days. He reads all
popular works on tuberculosis as well as the scientific works of
Cornet, Koch, and other investigators. He has worked out for himself a
systematic method for the cure of tuberculosis. He holds, in the first
place, that cold air is the best, and takes long walks out of doors,
sleeps with all windows wide open, goes to Davos and generally prefers
winter sporting places. He is a confirmed believer in the theory
of infection through particles of sputum and therefore avoids the
proximity of ... men.
“Why be afraid specially of men? May not women also carry the
infection?”
“No; women do not expectorate so vigorously. Men spit all over, women
only close by!”
“How do you know these things?”
“You see, I have given the matter a great deal of thought and I have
studied the subject. I thought to myself, coughing and urinating are
very much alike. In both operations products of the organism are
removed from the body. A woman urinates with a small stream which does
not reach far. But many men urinate with force and are able to throw
out their stream,—a distance of several feet.”
Already this statement showed that back of the fear of consumption
there stood some hidden sexual motive. B. carried the analogy still
further:
“Men are also able to ejaculate, while women only omit a little
moisture which trickles down upon their parts.... At any rate, I am
particularly afraid of infection through some tubercular man.”
I inquired into the circumstances under which this fear first showed
itself and how long he had it and in reply received the following
interesting confession:
“For a long time I lived with a nephew who occupied a separate room in
my home. My married daughter came once to pay us a visit because her
child had whooping cough and she was advised that a change of air would
be beneficial.”
(It is characteristic that he was not afraid of catching whooping
cough, although he knew of a serious case,—an elderly man who had
caught the infection and as a result was seriously ill for months. The
fear of tuberculosis thus shows itself to be a misdirected notion.)
“It became necessary for me to share with my nephew the same sleeping
room,” continued the man. “He had but recently returned from Meran and
was considered cured.... But you know, how these alleged cures turn out
upon closer examination. During the night I became uneasy and several
times I heard my nephew coughing. I noticed that he did not sleep, and
I also could not fall asleep because the thought tormented me that I
would surely catch the infection. The first thing I did next morning
was to call my physician; he laughed at me but upon my persistent
questioning he told me: ‘If you are as afraid as all that, you better
sleep in a separate room!’ I did not wait to be told twice and for a
number of weeks after that I slept at a hotel. But here too, I began to
think, perhaps some tubercular man has occupied the room before me, and
could not sleep! I had night sweats and after that I no longer believed
the physicians’ reassurances and was convinced that this was a sign of
the first stage of consumption....”
We note that the elderly gentleman had become homosexually roused
by the presence of his nephew and this craving appeared to his
consciousness masked under the form of a fear of tubercular infection.
“I could tear my hairs out by the roots, to think that I had done such
a foolish thing!”
“What foolish thing?”
“I mean, sleeping in the same room with my nephew. If I had at least
put up a Japanese screen. But, unfortunately, one does foolish things
without reflecting upon the consequences....”
B. also displays various compulsory mannerisms, the meaning of which
becomes obvious once we appreciate that, in his case, ‘tuberculosis’
really means ‘homosexuality.’ As he walks upon the City streets he
meets a man coming his way. While still at a distance he steps aside or
crosses on the other side; he no longer shakes hands with any man, not
even with his friends; one may become infected with tubercle bacilli in
that way. All places where men are seen naked or in partial undress,
such as gymnasia or bathing resorts, are breeding spots for tubercular
infection.
Moreover, B. shows some female traits in his nature. He has shaved his
beard because hairs may be nests for tubercle bacilli; he has become
emotional, whining and he is unable to arrive at decisions promptly. He
finds the fashion of wearing short coats not “dressy” and wears a long
coat that has almost the appearance of a jacket. (Similar mannerisms
are found in _Jean-Jacques Rousseau_; _vid._ his _Confessions_.)
This case is one of almost complete outbreak of femininity, closely
allied to the paranoiac forms, which will be considered more fully
in another chapter. He is also jealous of his wife and thinks he is
slighted,—that he is not given the proper degree of attention. He is
excitable, sleepless, dissatisfied with life. After a few hours the
analysis is given up.
Such persons are tremendously afraid of the truth; they wander from
physician to physician and really want but one thing: to preserve
their secret and to devote themselves more and more to their hidden
homosexuality. If the condition were once disclosed before their eyes
they could not continue their indulgence so easily. They always break
up the treatment after a few hours under some pretext or other and this
justifies the suspicion that, sooner or later, they come to regard the
physician also as a man and, transferring their homosexual attachment
to the physician they flee from the danger of being together with the
object of their love.
This case illustrates, I believe, what remarkable masks the outbreak
of the homosexual trait is capable of assuming. Similar masks are the
fear of syphilis, the fear of “blood poisoning,” and the dread of
physical contact with other persons or objects. The fear of syphilis
covers also other dreads. Formerly I thought that syphilidophobia was
only a mask for incest craving. I am now convinced that it stands
for “forbidden love” generally. Syphilis stands as a symbol either
for incest or for homosexuality. ‘Becoming infected’ means: ‘being
oppressed’ by homosexual or incestuous tendencies. These figures of
speech are suggested by the every day use of language. One hears, for
instance, that the whole city of Berlin is infected with homosexuality;
the opponents of homosexuality fight against the plague which threatens
the whole German nation; young men are warned against being infected
with homosexuality. It is not surprising, therefore, that the morbid
expressions of neuroses assume similar figurative forms.
The rise of such morbid fear during advanced age is always suspicious
of an outbreak of homosexuality, against which various protective
devices are thus raised. If I should attempt to describe all these
forms of outbreak and all the protective devices I would have to write
a special treatise on anxiety states. We well know already that all
neuroses have a bisexual basis. But, what is more, I maintain that
homosexuality plays a far greater role in the development of neurotic
traits than any other suppressed instincts.