Passing now to the consideration of the special circumstances of sexual

attraction, we find that the true love of boys,[536] or rather the love

of children (=pædophilia=), is rare in homosexuals. The age chiefly

preferred is that between seventeen and twenty-five years, alike by

mature homosexual men and by old men. On the other hand, it =is by no

means an exceptional phenomenon= for youths, or even mature men, to feel

attracted exclusively by elderly men (the so-called “=gerontophilia=”).

There exists also a heterosexual “gerontophilia”--that is to say,

abnormal love exhibited by young men for old women, or by young women

for old men. Thus Féré reports (“Note sur une Anomalie de l’Instinct

Sexuel: Gerontophilie,” published in the _Journal de Neurologie_, 1905)

the case of a man twenty-seven years of age who was sexually attracted

only by white-haired, elderly women. He referred this to an impression

received in very early youth. When four years old he slept in the same

bed with an elderly lady, a family friend, who was visiting the house,

and he then for the first time experienced sexual excitement. He had a

dislike to young girls and young married women. A white-haired elderly

woman whom he loved dyed her hair light brown, whereupon he ceased to

care for her. Further, effeminate urnings prefer virile homosexuals;

whereas many of these latter have a great dislike to effeminates and to

men in women’s clothing--to those male “women” who adopt by preference

feminine nicknames, such as Louisa instead of Louis, Georgina instead of

George, and who speak to one another as “sister,” just as the Roman

Emperor Heliogabalus wished to be addressed as “mistress” instead of

“lord.” Many urnings love beardless men; others love men with a

moustache or a full beard; many homosexuals are fascinated by

bright-coloured cloth, just as women are. Moreover, every possible

individual detail may here have an attractive force, just as is the case

with heterosexual love (the hair, the stature, the gait, the eyes, the

intelligence, and the character).

Ideal love and the gratification of the grossest sensuality are also the

two poles between which the =amatory manifestations= of male homosexuals

oscillate. Many confine themselves to simple contacts, caresses, kisses

and embraces. Most frequently sexual gratification is obtained by mutual

masturbation. The idea that the non-homosexual especially associates

with the word “pæderasty” is “pædication”[537]--that is, _immissio

membri in anum_. This sexual act is, however, far less frequent than it

is commonly assumed to be by heterosexuals. According to Magnus

Hirschfeld, it occurs only in 8 %, according to G. Merzbach only in 6 %,

of all cases of intercourse between male homosexuals. In an essay on

pædication which I possess, written by a homosexual, it is represented

as much commoner, and as “the most natural and least harmful means of

gratification.” According to a verbal communication made to me, the

author of this essay knew of one hundred cases of pædication in which no

harm had resulted. Frequently _coitus inter femora_ takes the place of

pædication; still more frequently “fellation,” or _coitus in os_, and

the widely diffused “tongue kiss.”[538] Other perverse manifestations of

the homosexual impulse also occur, such as anilinctus, fetichism,

masochism, sadism, exhibitionism, etc., just as they occur in

heterosexual individuals.

With regard to the relations of true homosexuals to women, generally

speaking they =loathe sexual intercourse= with woman, but they do not

dislike woman herself. Women, on the contrary, are greatly liked by most

homosexuals; effeminate urnings more especially gladly seek their

society, in order to gossip with them about all kinds of feminine

belongings. =Marriages= are often contracted by homosexuals who are

really ignorant as to their own condition, or who hope to conceal it

from the world, or simply for pecuniary considerations. They result most

unhappily if the wife has need of love, and understands the real nature

of the case; or, again, if she becomes jealous of her husband’s male

lovers; but when the wife is frigid, they may turn out quite happily.

They are, however, always very unnatural. Hirschfeld[539] has thoroughly

discussed the question of the marriage of homosexuals, and has also

alluded to the occasional marriages between homosexual men and

homosexual women. The fact proved by him that among homosexuals the

impulse towards the preservation of the species is almost entirely

wanting--not more than 3 % have the wish to possess children--shows how

little fitted they are for the purposes of marriage.

The above-described sexual relationships may be illustrated by a few

original reports taken from the autobiographies of homosexuals. For

example, a homosexual man, twenty-seven years of age, writes:

“When I was young, from four to six years of age, I loved to look at

the male generative organs, without knowing why they attracted me. I

liked to look at sculpture and pictures representing male nudity. I

detest woman’s work and the fashions of the day: a simple costume

suffices for me. I learned the ‘great secret of the world’ when I was

twelve years old, but woman had no interest for me, and I was always

asking little boys of from ten to fourteen years of age to show me

their private parts. I commenced to have carnal intercourse with boys

(aged eighteen to twenty-four) when I was myself twenty-four. Only

_coitus inter femora_, face to face, never from behind. I always

assume the active rôle. A young man from eighteen to twenty-four years

of age is to me like a woman. A woman is to me a thing (!), not so a

man. Perhaps it is original, odd for our time; but what is to be done?

Woman is a machine for producing children, and nothing more. I am not

married, and never shall marry.”

Another homosexual writes:

“I was about five years old when, walking with a nursemaid in the

pleasure gardens, I saw a man masturbating. Although I did not know

what he was doing, the picture busied my imagination for many years.

In my dreams, up to the age of fourteen years, the thought of living

together with a companion of the same age as myself played the

principal part. At the age of thirteen I fell in love with a

schoolfellow, who was, however, but little inclined towards me. What

perhaps especially interested me in him was that he brought sexual

enlightenment to our class. Through moving to another town I lost

sight of him. Although at that time I knew nothing of the real sexual

life, still I sought for objects which excited my sensuality.

“An unknown man of about thirty-five years of age seduced me, and

practised pæderasty with me on the first occasion that he met me. I

felt that there was something altogether wrong about this practice,

but was too weak to withdraw myself from his influence. After about

three months he disappeared. Now also I knew what masturbation was,

for in the school this practice was common.

“At the age of eighteen I left the school, and as in my comrades the

impulse towards women now showed itself, I, for my part, felt all the

more how everything directed me towards man. I often endeavoured, in

obedience to the urging of my friends, to form relationships with

women of the half-world, but this always filled me with the greatest

horror and repugnance. To me it is a dreadful feeling when I notice

that a woman is interested in me. All the more, on the other hand, did

the male sex interest me. When I love a man I do not think (only) of

sexual union, but I try to read in him what I am myself prepared to

give: a sole interest, faithfulness, unselfish surrender. If I love a

man, anyone else is nothing to me.

“Every man of standing of twenty to forty years of age is interesting

to me--every one who is not positively repulsive--but most of all

anyone who possesses a distinguished psyche. In isolated cases

sympathy has also led me to love.

“The kiss is of the highest importance to me, and precisely because I

regard love as created only for a holy purpose, so that human beings

may be mutually ennobled and morally advanced by this passion, it has

always been repulsive to me to observe how men flirt with one another,

just as is the case with heterosexuals. For this reason I am

disinclined to visit places of general resort--such as, for example,

the Casino of Dresden, where all kinds of people come together. I have

met hardly any other urning who shares my sentiments in this respect.”

A homosexual physician, thirty-two years of age, gives the following

account of his sexuality:

“I cannot tell you at what age sexual inclinations first appeared in

me. My sexual impulse is directed towards males. Before and during the

time of puberty the impulse was quite indeterminate. I believe that at

this time I even cherished the idea of some day carrying out

intercourse with a girl. But this was not love; it was a purely

physical desire. The spiritual side of the impulse was at this time

completely wanting. The sexual impulse now extends only towards young

men. I have hitherto had sexual intercourse neither with males nor

with females, but I believe that I should be competent for the normal

sexual act. This act, however, would give me no pleasure; it would be

nothing more than masturbation. I feel complete indifference towards

the female sex, but I do not feel hatred or disgust. Sexual

dreams[540] relate always to persons of the same sex. On the stage,

in the circus, it is always the men who interest me more than the

women. In addition, I admire celebrated actresses and female singers,

but my interest in them is purely artistic. From this standpoint also

I am fully able to do justice to the beauty of young women, and have

often wished to paint a girl, but this interest is always that of a

painter--the colour of the hair, the complexion, interesting features.

Social intercourse with persons of the other sex is quite

unrestrained. The sense of shame I feel more in regard to women, but

still I have also a strong sense of shame with regard to men. I always

have a great difficulty to overcome when I have to take off my clothes

in the presence of other men, and it is also very difficult to me to

urinate when other men are present.

“My love exists only towards youths from the ages of seventeen to

twenty-four, or, to speak more strictly, towards youths at the time of

puberty. One of these of whom I am fond is sixteen years of age, but

sexually he is completely mature, so that every one imagines him to be

twenty.

“The direction of my sexual impulse has first become perfectly clear

to me since reading the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_. I was

already fully aware of the fact that young men were especially

interesting to me, but had not previously understood that this

interest was of a sexual nature. I had, indeed, heard of

pæderasty--the case of Krupp and others--but I imagined that these

individuals had developed such a tendency in consequence of satiety.

‘You,’ I said to myself, ‘are purer and nobler in sentiment. Pæderasty

is loathsome to you; no human being will ever understand you.’

“Every young man at the age of puberty awakens in me a certain sexual

interest. This is especially the case when they are slender and wiry

in build, not fat, with well-developed, but not excessively powerful,

muscles, with gentle and modest character. Roughness always suffices

to destroy completely the commencement of inclination. Sturdy, plump

youths, and those with an excessive development of fat under the skin,

or with a wide, feminine aspect of the buttocks, leave me

comparatively cold. The youthful forms embodied in Grecian sculpture

are my ideal type. It is indispensable that they should be beardless,

or at most have the merest beginnings of a beard. A youth with a heavy

moustache leaves me cold; he is too masculine for me. Intellectual

culture plays no part in the attraction; modesty and gentleness are

necessary to render an intimate relationship possible. I find no

preference for any particular profession. I have, indeed, pedagogic

inclinations, but these appear to me to play no part in producing

attraction, but come into action only later. One whom one loves is one

in whom one would be glad to produce spiritual perfection. The

attraction depends, in the first place, upon beauty of the body;

beauty of the face is only of secondary importance. Smell has no

influence upon the attraction.”

It will be noted that this writer, now thirty-two years of age, has

hitherto had no experience of sexual intercourse, either heterosexual

or homosexual. This is characteristic. Homosexuals in general, in

contrast to heterosexuals, often proceed =at a comparatively late age=

to actual experience of their sexual impulse in action. He goes on to

describe the first beginnings of his love for a beautiful youth,

eighteen years of age. He writes:

“My eyes watched every movement of the body, which continually

displayed new beauties. I should have loved to fall upon his neck and

kiss him. For sexual intercourse he appeared to me too pure, too

noble; I should rather have lain before him in the dust and prayed to

his beauty. I felt that I should have been a poet in order to be able

to clothe in the right words this delicate and holy sentiment. And I

must shut this all up within myself, must remain outwardly cold. It

was enough to drive me to madness! Have compassion on us, and allow us

at least an embrace, a kiss. That certainly can do no one any harm,

and for me it would be a good action. The distressing tension which

tortures us to death would be for the time relaxed. I always have a

feeling that the process of sexual attraction must be of an electrical

nature. I seem to myself to be charged with electricity, the tension

increasing up to the highest point when the beloved is near me, and a

prolonged contact or a stroking with the hand already suffices to

bring about a certain calming of the nerves. The tension is to some

degree diminished. The various components of sexual enjoyment appear

to be developed in human beings with very different strength. In this

way it is explicable that in one person the odour of the loved one, in

another the changing tones of the voice, in a third the taste of the

kiss (the tongue kiss), is most stimulating. It is, indeed, even

conceivable that there exists a purely mental sexual enjoyment, and

that to some individuals merely to look at the beloved person, or to

read a letter from him, suffices.

“Sexual intercourse had hitherto never been practised, but I can

asseverate that the mode of my desire is rather feminine. It would be

my ideal if the loved one should feel sexual ardour for me; I should

be a willing sacrifice. I should like to possess feminine sexual

organs, in order to appear desirable to the loved one.

“I have battled powerfully against my nature, and have felt very

unhappy. I regard myself as physically and mentally healthy. I have

received at birth a double nature (alas! two souls dwell within my

breast). My body is that of a man, my soul rather that of a woman;

hence the conflict, hence my sexual desires, considered outwardly and

only from the physical point of view, are contrary to nature. Alas! my

soul can be seen by no one.

“Why do I only love a young man? Because he in ideal fashion enlarges

my nature. My sexual sensibility is mainly feminine, and is directed,

therefore, towards the masculine, and more especially towards the

masculine in the time of youth, because the feminine sensibility in my

nature is damped by a small masculine note. The effeminate urning

probably loves the complete man as the best complement of his own

nature. The slightly masculine note of my own sexual perception

demands also in the man whom I love a slight feminine note, such as we

find in the youth. He has, in fact, something feminine in

him--beardlessness, no immoderate strength of the muscular system, a

gentle disposition, receptive emotions--and yet he is masculine and

sexually mature. Sexual maturity is a necessary part of every love.

The young man, therefore, is the ideal conception of my nature. My

love is as great, as holy, and as pure, as heterosexual love; it is

capable of self-sacrifice. Believe me, for a loved one who fully

understood me in every respect, I would gladly go to my death.

“Ah! how painful it is to us when we are regarded as debauchees or as

sick persons!”

I must say that the above account, given to me by a much respected

medical colleague, one whose nature is characterized alike by

intellectual power and ideal sensibility, has made the deepest

impression upon me, and has been an important influence in confirming my

views regarding the nature of original homosexuality. Similar oral

communications have been received by me from other physicians who have

been homosexual from childhood onwards, one a neurologist and the other

an alienist, and I attribute the greatest importance to the account

given by this colleague of mine, who has a =twofold= understanding of

the matter in question--as physician and as homosexual. It is also

important to note that uranian physicians declare the majority of

homosexuals to be physically and mentally healthy, a fact which I myself

had not previously doubted, and that they contest the general validity

of the degeneration theory.

Whilst in the smaller provincial towns and in the country homosexuals

are for the most part thrust back into themselves, compelled to conceal

their nature, or at most able to communicate only with isolated

individuals of like nature with themselves, in the larger towns from

early days the homosexuals have been able to get into touch with one

another. Certain meeting-places--places of rendezvous for urnings

only--have been formed; in certain =streets= and =squares= there have

been formed urning-clubs, boarding-houses, and restaurants, and even

urning-balls, while certain health resorts are to a degree monopolized

by them. Moreover, the individual social groups of the homosexuals form

unions. Thus, for example, Hirschfeld[541] reports the existence of an

evening association consisting exclusively of homosexual princes,

counts, and barons. Such pæderastic meeting-places and unions existed in

the eighteenth century in Paris. From this time until about 1840 certain

dark lateral alleys of the Champs Elysées, the thickets from the Place

de la Concorde to the Allée des Veuves, between the Grand Avenue des

Champs Elysées and the Cour de la Reine, served from the commencement

of twilight for the rendezvous of homosexuals, not simply as a place of

masculine prostitution, but as a meeting-place of urnings in general,

who here in the dark sought and found love. The central point of this

evening activity was the Allée des Veuves (now known as the Avenue

Montaigne), the “Widow’s Alley”--“widow” was at that time the term used

to denote the passive pæderast. This region of the Champs Elysées was to

a certain extent monopolized by the homosexuals. They would not tolerate

here the presence of any heterosexuals; they closed the entrances with

cords, and placed guards at the openings of the alleys, who demanded a

pass-word from every comer. Even the police did not venture into this

dark region.

“Victor Hugo, who in the year 1831 lived in the Rue Jean Goujon in

this neighbourhood, often accompanied his friends who had been

visiting him part of the way home at a late hour of the night. They

walked in groups, talking of literature and art as far as the Place de

la Concorde. There the celebrated poet parted from his guests and

returned alone homewards, composing new verses by the way. He often

noticed individuals who, as he passed the entrance to the Rue des

Veuves, watched him from afar off without speaking to him. He could

not believe that these people were thieves, and asked himself what

could be the cause of their always waiting in this lonely place; but

notwithstanding the frequent occurrence of these scenes, he made no

further inquiry into the matter. But once in the midst of his poetical

reverie he was disturbed by a man who stepped forward from the

darkness of a thicket, and with a polite greeting said to him: ‘Sir,

we beg you not to wait any longer in this place. We know who you are,

and we should not wish that any one of us who does not know you should

cause you any uneasiness.’ ‘What are you doing there, then?’ answered

Victor Hugo. ‘Every evening I see people walking about here, and

disappearing among the trees.’ ‘Don’t concern yourself about it, sir,’

was the brisk answer; ‘we disturb no one and do no one any harm, but

we shall not permit anyone to disturb us or to do us any harm; =we are

here in our own grounds=.’ Victor Hugo understood, bowed, and pursued

his way. As on another evening, walking with his friends, he wished to

pass through another alley running parallel to the Allée des Veuves,

he found that this was closed by a number of chairs, which were

fastened together with cords. ‘There is no thoroughfare,’ called out a

threatening voice; but another, speaking more quietly, added: ‘We beg

Monsieur Victor Hugo on this occasion to pass along the other side of

the Avenue des Champs Elysées.’”[542]

During the Second Empire the Allée des Veuves maintained its former

position as a place of rendezvous for homosexuals. An urnings’ club, the

members of which belonged to the highest classes of society, being

persons of the Imperial Court, senators, great financiers, etc., had

their meeting-place in a beautifully furnished hotel in the Allée des

Veuves, in which soldiers of the Empress’s bodyguard (Dragons de

l’Impératrice) and of the Hundred Guard of the Emperor served, in return

for valuable presents, as the beloved of the various distinguished

urnings, for which function the term “faire l’Impératrice” came into

use. In the hotel there also lived from time to time transient unknown

persons, who were only admitted after showing a kind of medal bearing a

secret inscription. When the police made an examination of the hotel,

they found a number of women’s dresses and similar articles, such as

those which the Empress Eugénie was accustomed to wear on festival

occasions. Numerous letters were also discovered which had been

exchanged by the members of the club and their favourites of the Hundred

Guard or of the Empress’s guard. A report was made to the Emperor of the

results of the examination of this house. When he saw that persons of

the highest position, and bearing most celebrated names, were involved

in the affair, he at once ordered that the matter should be dismissed,

and said to the Procureur-General: “We must spare our people and our

country from such a scandal, which would do no one any good, and would

do a great deal of harm.” In fact, almost no details of this affair

became public.[543] Tardieu gave an account of another urnings’ club of

the Second Empire, where there were concealed closets, on the walls of

which erotic pictures were displayed. The manner in which the urnings

made acquaintance with homosexuals is shown in a police report of July

16, 1864, in which the conduct of a literary homosexual, “un vieux

monsieur fort bien et puissamment riche,” is described in the following

terms:

“He enters the Café Truffaut, sees a young soldier who pleases him. By

the intermediation of the waiter he makes an appointment, and departs

without waiting for an answer. If the soldier agrees, he goes to the

appointed place of meeting, and never goes alone, because Father

C----n (the elderly urning) is well known. As soon as the two have

met, other soldiers make their appearance, beat the old man, and

compel him to give them all the money which he has about him. He does

this willingly, and without ceasing prays for pardon. When he has not

a single sou left, and when he has also given up his watch, he goes

away weeping, and continually repeating the words, ‘What a miserable

man I am!’”

This elderly urning was manifestly also a masochist, and therefore a

very suitable victim of blackmailers, whom we here see at their work. In

the police report to which we have already referred homosexual orgies

are also described, the participants in which assumed women’s names and

practised mutual masturbation and fellation, and also carried out

obscene practices with a bitch. When Oscar Metenier in his book “Vertus

et Vices Allemands” (Paris, 1904) states that Berlin has a monopoly in

the matter of urnings’ balls, which, in his opinion, were not possible

in Paris, he is unquestionably wrong as regards the time of the Second

Empire. In this police report two typical urnings’ balls are mentioned.

One of these took place in a house in the Place de la Madeleine,

belonging to E. D., a man of business, who gave the ball on January 2,

1864. The second urnings’ ball was given by the Vicomte de M. in the

Pavilion Rohan, Rue de Rivoli, on January 16, 1864, at which at least

150 men, many of them in woman’s clothing, took part. In many cases the

appearance was so deceptive that even those who had invited the guests

were not always able to determine the sex with certainty.

It is doubtless true that there is no other town in which there are so

many social unions of homosexuals as there are in Berlin. Hirschfeld

records--in addition to private parties--dinners, suppers, evening

parties, five o’clock teas, picnics, dances, and summer festivals of

homosexuals, which are arranged every winter by urnings, and by female

homosexuals or their friends. Moreover, the male and female homosexuals

meet in certain restaurants, cafés, eating-houses, and public-houses

frequented only by themselves.[544]

Such localities exclusively for the use of urnings exist in Berlin to

the number of eighteen to twenty. There are also social literary unions,

such as the club “Lohengrin,” the antifeministic “Gesellschaft der

Eigenen,” the “Platen-Gemeinschaft,” etc. There are also cabarets

(public-houses) for urnings. Hirschfeld, in his book “Berlin’s Third

Sex,” written in a popular style, but extremely valuable owing to the

clearness of his descriptions, gives an exhaustive account of all these

institutions for urnings, and for further details I may refer my readers

to this interesting work, the authenticity of which I am able to confirm

as the result of my own visits to the above-mentioned places of meeting

for urnings.[545]

In Paris there no longer exist places of entertainment frequented solely

by urnings. In this respect they are replaced by certain Turkish baths,

whose patrons are almost without exception homosexuals--men whose age

varies from about twenty years upwards. In the industrial quarter, in

the neighbourhood of the Place de la République, there existed a few

years ago a Turkish bath, visited almost exclusively by young

homosexuals between the ages of fifteen and twenty years. On the great

boulevard there is a bath of a very expensive character, visited only by

wealthy homosexuals, frequented, among others, by a celebrated French

composer.[546]

A peculiar species of meeting-places for the urnings of Berlin is

represented by the soldiers’ public-houses in the neighbourhood of the

barracks, where soldiers are met and treated by homosexuals, and where

arrangements are made for subsequent meetings. There also exists a

“soldiers’ promenade,” where the soldiers walk up and down and offer

themselves to homosexuals. Athletes also enter freely into relationships

with homosexuals.

Urnings’ balls are to-day especially characteristic of Berlin. Von

Krafft-Ebing has described them in detail, and recently also Hirschfeld

has alluded to them in the above-mentioned work. I myself not long ago

attended such a “men’s ball,” at which from eight hundred to a thousand

homosexuals were present, some in men’s clothing, some in women’s

clothing, some in fancy dress. The homosexuals dressed as women could

have been distinguished from real women only by those in the secret.

More particularly do I recall an elegant sylph, who, on the arm of a

partner, glided across the hall--“glided” is the correct expression.

During the dance his delicate features were leaning on the shoulder of

the man, and he coquetted continually with ardent black eyes. I really

believed this was a woman, but was assured that it was a male

hairdresser. In the case of another urning dressed as a woman the

diagnosis was rendered easier by a well-developed moustache.

The seamy side of the relationships of homosexuals in public life is

constituted by the so-called “=male prostitution=,” which existed even

in ancient times, and in our own day was especially well organized

during the Second Empire, as we learn from the details given by Tardieu.

The ranks of male prostitution are recruited partly from homosexual and

partly from heterosexual men of the lower and more poverty-stricken

classes, who give themselves for payment to well-to-do urnings, and are

practised in all the arts of elaborate coquetry (they use rouge, make a

coquettish display of male charms, etc.). These are the so-called

“aunts.” In all large towns there exists what is called a “Strich”

(promenade), where male prostitutes are accustomed to walk, in order to

attract their clients. In Berlin the principal promenades are the

Friedrichstrasse, the Passage,[547] and some of the walks in the

Tiergarten. Like female prostitution, so also male prostitution has its

“=houses of accommodation=”; and in France there even existed, and still

exist, typical “=male brothels=.” From 1820 to 1826 such a brothel was

to be found in the Rue du Doyenne in Paris. In the neighbourhood of the

Louvre the male inmates of this establishment were even subjected to

regular medical examination, in order to protect their clients from

venereal infection. With the fall of twilight the visitors made their

appearance, and were received by young effeminates.[548] Still worse was

another form of male prostitution, at the time of the Restoration, and

in the earlier years of the reign of Louis Philippe--namely, the

so-called _grande montre des culs_ in the Rue des Marais, where a number

of male prostitutes displayed and offered their charms to the

homosexuals visiting the place. A detailed account of the way in which

this was done cannot be given, but is sufficiently indicated by what has

already been said.[549]

Male brothels exist even at the present day in Paris. Thus, at the end

of the year 1905 in the Rue St. Martin there was a small hotel whose

homosexual proprietor not only let rooms to urnings for a brief stay,

but also kept on the premises five or six young men between the ages of

fifteen and twenty-two years, whose services were always available for

homosexuals for payment. Besides this hotel there existed also in the

year 1905 a kind of male brothel in the house of an urning, where at

midday half a dozen young fellows were to be found, or could be fetched

at brief notice, for the choice of homosexual visitors, for whose use a

room was available at so many francs per hour.[550]

A phenomenon intimately related with male prostitution is =blackmail=,

or “=chantage=.” Tardieu (_op. cit._, pp. 128-130) describes these

relationships in vivid colours, and lays stress on the close

relationship between male prostitution and criminality. Blackmail has

become to-day a kind of special profession,[551] which is not directed

solely against homosexuals, but also against heterosexuals, and the

punishment of which cannot be too severe. Frequently these individuals,

whose activity is a danger to the community at large, persecute their

victims for many years in succession. Tardieu reports the case of a

celebrated literary man, “whose purse the blackmailers regarded as their

own.” =For more than twenty years in succession= he was plucked by

successive generations of blackmailers, who considered him an assured

source of income. He was “passed on from one to another.” As a rule,

blackmailers wait for their victims in public lavatories; they suddenly

assert that they have been indecently assaulted, and demand hush-money,

which is commonly given to them, even by heterosexuals. A case of the

last-mentioned kind recently occurred in Berlin, when a quite innocent

young merchant was being plundered in this way, and his wife, by a

courageous denunciation of the shameless blackmailer, freed him from

this tyranny. It is, however, unquestionable that blackmail often ensues

upon real advances on the part of homosexuals, and after the performance

of sexual acts; and there is no doubt that in Germany the existence of §

175 of the Criminal Code has been most advantageous to professional

blackmailers, has led to numerous scandals (alike disagreeable and

dangerous to the community), and has given rise to numerous suicides.

This celebrated § 175 runs as follows:

“Unnatural vice between two persons of the male sex, or between a man

and an animal, is punishable with imprisonment; it can also be

punished with loss of civil rights.”

This paragraph of the Imperial Criminal Code is identical with § 143 of

the former Prussian Criminal Code. Similar ordinances,[552] in some

cases even more severe, are found in the laws of Austria-Hungary,

Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Bulgaria, the State of New York, most

of the cantons of Switzerland, and more especially in Great Britain,

where the most severe punishments are inflicted, and, at any rate

logically, are inflicted also on women who practise homosexual

intercourse. On the other hand, punishment for homosexual intercourse

has been completely =abolished= in France, Belgium, Holland, Portugal,

Turkey, Italy, Spain, the Swiss Cantons of Genf, Wallis, Waadt and

Tessin, the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, the Principality of Monaco, and in

Mexico.

§ 143 of the Prussian Criminal Code was adopted as the basis of § 175 of

the German Criminal Code, in view of “the consciousness of right of the

people,” who “condemn such practices not only as vicious, but also as

criminal.” But this consciousness of right is based upon defective

knowledge, and upon an erroneous view of homosexuality. As soon as we

recognize that in homosexuality we have to do with a primary natural

disposition, and as soon as this view has permeated wide circles of the

population, the old consciousness of right will be replaced by a =new=

one, =which will demand the repeal of a criminal law=, by which =a

natural phenomenon= is regarded as a vice and a crime, and is esteemed

as infamous. My studies in recent years having convinced me that in

homosexuality we have to do with a typical biological phenomenon, I feel

that I must unhesitatingly approve of the efforts of the =Scientific and

Humanitarian Committee=, founded by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, which aims at

making the people understand the nature of homosexuality, and demands

the repeal of § 175 of the German Criminal Code. All the more is this

reform demanded because real homosexual =crimes= can be very readily

dealt with by means of the sections of the Criminal Code relating to

sexual delinquencies in general.

Apart from this general codification of the injustice of § 175, and

apart from the above-mentioned tragical consequences of the existence of

this section, it is also necessary to point out that the expressions

used therein are absurd and illogical.

1. Unnatural vice between men is punished, whereas that between women is

left impune. But why should this latter be the case, if we adopt the

standpoint (which we have, indeed, seen to be untenable) that homosexual

intercourse is in itself vicious and criminal--why should homosexual

intercourse between women be less vicious and criminal than homosexual

intercourse between men?

2. The idea “unnatural vice” is equally absurd and inconsequent, and

makes justice in respect of these offences absolutely impossible. By

this term is understood not merely pædication (_immissio membri in

anum_), but also any kind of intercourse between men “resembling sexual

intercourse”--that is, _coitus in os_, _coitus inter femora_, even

simple _frictio membri_--whilst mutual masturbation and other perverse

practices are not punishable.

3. § 175 does not safeguard any citizen,[553] for the sexual freedom of

the individual is not disturbed in any way by the intercourse between

two adult men who fully understand what they are doing, nor is the

general moral sense injured in any way if the act is not seen by any

third person. In this latter respect, however, § 183 of the Criminal

Code, which punishes annoyance to the public by improper conduct,

already affords sufficient protection.

4. If § 175 is maintained with especial reference to the existence of

professional male unchastity, von Liszt has rightly replied to this

contention that the latter form of unchastity can be rendered harmless

by a modified reading of § 361_b_ of the Criminal Code, just as the

protection of virtue can be safeguarded by other sections of the Code.

5. The effectiveness of § 175 is extremely limited. According to

Hirschfeld (“Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages,” vol. vi., p. 175),

no more than 0·007 % of the existing punishable homosexual practices of

the present day are detected and punished. Therefore a few =isolated=

individuals are punished for an offence which thousands of others commit

with impunity.

6. When § 175 of the Criminal Code was drawn up, the law-givers knew

absolutely nothing about the homosexual impulse as an essential outcome

of the personality; they merely wished to punish heterosexuals who

committed homosexual practices, not to punish genuine homosexuals (_cf._

Numa Prætorius, “The Question of the Responsibility of Homosexuals,”

published in the _Monthly Review of Criminal Psychology_, edited by G.

Aschaffenburg, 1906, p. 561).

The worst and most tragic consequence of § 175 is the permanent infamy

and social contempt suffered by persons who, =without any blame to

themselves=, have a mode of sexual perception diverging from that of the

great majority. The state itself commits a crime when it enrols in the

category of vice and crime a biological phenomenon which has recently

been recognized as such even by the Evangelical and Catholic

Churches,[554] and has been freed by these Churches from the stigma of

immorality. The continuance of this great injustice is the frequent

cause of the =suicide= of homosexuals, especially of such as are men of

exceptional spiritual and moral cultivation, and =frequently before they

have actually indulged in their homosexual impulse=, the best proof that

we have to do, not with vicious, but with unhappy men, who are unable to

bear the misery of being socially despised and unjustly misunderstood by

their associates. How many suicides from homosexual grounds occur it is

impossible to establish exactly. We can only suspect the cause from

certain attendant circumstances. A highly respected literary man writes

to me regarding this question of the suicide of homosexuals: “When a

fine young fellow, suffering frightfully as a result of his inherited

disposition, shoots himself, his family will rather suggest that the

cause was a chancre (which he has never had), than they will admit his

homosexuality.” Several such cases have come under his notice. “A better

cause,” he suggests, “for the suicide would have been unhappy love, for

that is the actual truth.” Zola,[555] speaking of the letters of a

homosexual, says that they exhibited “the most heart-breaking cry of

human agony” that he had ever known.

“He earnestly resisted yielding to such shameful, lustful love, and he

longed to know whence came this contempt of all men, whence this

continuous readiness of the law-courts to crush him down, when in his

flesh and blood were inborn a disgust towards woman, whilst he had

brought into the world with him a true feeling of love towards man.

Never had one possessed by a demon, never had a poor human body given

up to and tortured by the unknown powers of the sexual impulse, so

painfully expressed his misery. Have we not here a truly physiological

case definitely displayed before our eyes--an inversion, an error, on

the part of Nature? Nothing, in my opinion, is more tragical, and

nothing demands more urgently investigation and a means of cure, if

such can possibly be found.”

The =complete enlightenment= of the people would give rise to a

spontaneous change in their conception of homosexuality, to which,

moreover, the greater number of homosexuals belonging to the better

classes could contribute, if they would freely and openly admit their

tendencies. The secrecy and hypocrisy of many urnings is partly

responsible for the hitherto prevailing false views on homosexuality. We

cannot spare them this reproach.

Finally, § 175 is not merely an injustice to homosexuals, but it is also

a danger to heterosexuals, in consequence of the =blackmail= which is so

intimately associated with the existence of this section. It is not

enough that these criminals of the most debased kind, who to a small

extent only are recruited from the ranks of male prostitutes, reduce

numerous unhappy urnings to social and financial ruin, and drive many

others to suicide or to crime, of which the remarkable case of a County

Court Judge a few years ago afforded a typical example. These wretches

also dare with ever-greater success to make use of § 175 for the purpose

of blackmailing =completely normal heterosexuals=. In fact, they often

succeed better with these latter than they do with homosexuals, because

to the normal man the idea of being regarded as homosexual is so

repulsive.

A remedy for all these evils--for the suicides as well as for the

blackmailing--can only be found in the =enlightenment= of the whole

people--the first and most important thing to do--and in the

=unconditional repeal= of § 175 of the Criminal Code.

It has been a most useful service on the part of the Scientific and

Humanitarian Committee--a service the value of which has not yet been

sufficiently recognized--that it has endeavoured, above all, to bring

about the enlightenment of the people by means of popular writings,[556]

and of the learned by means of scientific publications, such as the most

successful _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_ (8 volumes,

1899-1906), and by means of lectures, by the convocation of public

meetings, by petitions, etc.

The petition of the committee to the legislative bodies of the German

Empire, asking for the repeal of § 175 of the Criminal Code, was signed

by 5,000 persons belonging to the circles of men of science, judges,

physicians, priests, schoolmasters, authors, and artists, among whom

were some of the most celebrated names of cultured Germany. I cite here

a few only: Ferdinand Avenarius, Hans von Basedow, Woldemar von

Biedermann, H. Bulthaupt, Professor Crédé, Albert Eulenburg, Theodor

Gaedertz, Rudolf von Gottschall, Franz Görres, O. E. Hartleben, Gerhart

Hauptmann, S. Jadassohn, Hermann Kaulbach, R. von Krafft-Ebing, Joseph

Kürschner, H. Kurella, Walter Leistikow, Leppmann, Max Liebermann, G.

von Liebig, Detlev von Lilieneron, Franz von Liszt, Berthold Litzmann,

Ph. Lotmar, John Henry Mackay, Mendel, Friedrich Moritz, P. Näcke, Paul

Natorp, Albert Neisser, Max Nordau, A. von Oechelhäuser, A. von

Oppenheim, J. Pagel, Pelman, R. Penzig, Placzek, Felix Poppenberg,

Rainer Maria Rilke, O. Rosenbach, Wilhelm Roux, Max Rubner, Benno

Rüttenauer, Johannes Schlaf, Arthur Schnitzler, A. von Schrenck-Notzing,

Alwin Schulz, Moritz Schwalb, Georg Schweinfurth, Adolf von Sonnenthal,

K. von Tepper-Laski, H. Unverricht, Max Verworn, A. Vierkandt, Richard

Voss, Hans Wachenhusen, Felix Weingartner, Adolf Wilbrandt, Ernst von

Wildenbruch, F. von Winkel, E. von Wolzogen, Ernst Ziegler, Theobald

Ziegler, Theophil Zolling.

In addition, we might mention that in the year 1904 not less than 2,800

German physicians, as well as 750 head masters and masters of higher

schools, signed the petition to the Reichstag for the repeal of § 175.

Owing to certain scandals by which the highest circles were

sympathetically affected--I need recall only the cases of Hohenau,

Krupp, Israel, von Schenk, etc.--the conviction has been forced upon

members of the most influential political circles that the repeal of the

paragraphs of the Criminal Code relating to urnings is an unconditional

necessity. We may, therefore, expect that the repeal will be effected

within the next few years.

* * * * *

Compared with true original homosexuality in men, the same condition in

women is of considerably less importance, because in women homosexuality

is undoubtedly =much less common= than it is in men. In comparison with

the number of urnings, the number of =female homosexuals=--of

“=urnindes=,” “=Lesbian lovers=,” or “=tribades=”--is relatively small;

whereas in many women, even at a comparatively advanced age, the

so-called “pseudo-homosexuality” (see the next chapter) is much more

frequently met with than it is in men. In the case of heterosexual men

it is usually impossible to induce a homosexual mode of perception or to

give rise to any kind of taste for homosexual activity; whereas in

heterosexual women the corresponding change certainly occurs much more

easily. Tendernesses and caresses play, indeed, among normal

heterosexual women a rôle which makes it easier for us to understand how

readily in woman pseudo-homosexual tendencies may arise. =Still, it is

impossible to doubt the existence also of original homosexuality in

women.= These are the cases in which, just as in urnings, the homosexual

impulse appears in very early childhood, often long before puberty, in

which case also the girl is distinguished from her heterosexual comrades

in external appearance, exhibiting indications of a masculine build of

body (slight development of the breasts, narrowness of the pelvis,

development of a moustache, a deep voice, etc.); but such indications

may be entirely absent, and the girl may not be distinguished from

others in any respect beyond the perverse direction of the sexual

impulse. These true tribades are much rarer than the false tribades, the

pseudo-Lesbian lovers. For example, when visiting an urnings’ ball we

may be quite sure that 99 % of the male homosexuals assembled there are

true homosexuals; but at a tribades’ ball--such, also, are given in

Berlin--certainly a much smaller percentage are “genuine”; the bulk of

the women present are pseudo-homosexuals. I here append the interesting

reminiscences of a genuine urninde, by which this relationship between

original homosexuality and pseudo-homosexuality in women is very clearly

shown:

THOUGHTS OF A LONELY WOMAN!

“Born in the country, the daughter of a merchant, I grew up as a very

dreamy being, with an unceasing yearning after something unknown,

beautiful, great--with a longing to become a singer or an artist. At

the age of twelve I was already completely ‘woman,’ very luxuriantly

developed, although still half a child, =filled always with an

uncontrollable longing for a beloved feminine being who should kiss me

and caress me=, whom I was to regard with love and with a sentiment of

self-sacrifice. At the age of thirteen I came to live with relatives

in a provincial town, where for a year I attended a young ladies’

school. Of my dreams no single one could be fulfilled. My mother, who

was widowed when I was only three years old, had a severe economical

struggle, being encumbered with six small children. After my elder

brothers and sisters were married, I myself, being then twenty-four

years of age, had to go out into the world to seek my own living,

ignorant of the world and its dangers, delivered up to commonness and

intrigue. I got a position in the house of a widow, filling the post

of ‘companion.’ My ‘principal,’ a woman sixty years of age, was at

first unsympathetic to me, but she treated me in a loving and motherly

manner, which pleased me, for I was of a pliant and receptive

disposition. Gradually I became her confidante. Every evening I had to

get into bed with her (I slept close by); I must touch her with my

hands. I did not then really understand why I had to stroke her legs;

but one evening this sexagenarian guided my hand into a forbidden

place. Now it became clear to me that this woman still had erotic

perceptions. I felt how she quivered under my touch, pressed me firmly

to herself, etc.; but I, for my part, felt nothing. It might have

been different had she been a friend of my own age. I had not at that

time any idea that ‘psychically’ I was different from other girls. I

had an unceasing yearning for love, not directly sensual love, but

spiritual love, out of which sensual love might later develop. Among

the inmates of our house was a young merchant, a fine-looking man, who

besieged me with his love, and, after long hesitation, I at length one

day consented to give him the best that woman has to give. He took

possession of my body with brutal voluptuousness. I was under the

delusion that he would make me his wife. I had in the sexual act =no

perception at all=, and was disillusioned. One day my seducer told me

that he was going to be married, asking me to return him the ring he

had given me, and offering me money. Moved to the inmost soul, without

any human being to give me counsel or help (from a feeling of shame I

had not disclosed the matter to my principal), I threw the ring at

him, resigned my position, and made myself independent. I will only

say in a few words how I had to struggle, to fight for my existence,

how I was lied to and deceived by rascally men. When I came to Berlin

I heard and read of homosexual love, but could not find what I dreamed

of--namely, spiritual love, out of which sensual love might spring. I

learned to know homosexual women, but they exhibited to me such

elemental passion, brutality, sensuality, that, notwithstanding all my

yearning for ‘homosexual’ love, I remained unresponsive. Only in

kissing the lips of a woman sympathetic to me I have experienced an

agreeable sensation, but that sweet state which I was able to induce

in others by contact with them was =in me= not forthcoming. I began to

wonder whether Nature had denied me this sensation, though I was

myself also a normally developed woman. For years I lived

‘ascetically,’ since I regarded myself as a ‘psychological’ problem--I

avoided every kind of intercourse--I only had a desire for tenderness

and caresses. I often loved handsome women, feeling the wish to kiss

them and to touch them, and I had learned to know women of the kind

who prostitute themselves to other women for money. These were hateful

to me, and never could I form a friendship with such, because they

knew only common brutal sensuality, towards which I was not

responsive.

“Some years ago I suffered from a severe abdominal and nervous

disorder. I have already passed my fortieth year. After an illness

lasting two years, I still feel the desire for homosexual love.

Hitherto I have lived unhappily, continually asking myself why Nature

has treated me so cruelly. Is it not possible once at least to enjoy

this perception? A few weeks ago I made the acquaintance of a married

woman, whose husband has been impotent for years, whilst she, on the

other hand, is a very passionate character. Unfortunately, this woman,

although in other respects she is very sympathetic to me, is upon a

comparatively low plane of culture, and, what frightens me more, she

has an intimacy with a female friend who is quite uncultured, but who

resembles her in respect of sexual love, and who night after night

lies with her in bed =beside the husband=, and the two women indulge

their perverse voluptuousness, the friend playing the ‘man’s’ part. I

have seen many strange things in my course through life, but =such a

marriage= is a new experience to me. The man terms himself an artist,

a painter, and allows his wife free play in bisexual love. I believe

that this man himself experiences a titillation of the senses when he

sees the two women together, and also that he makes drawings of

‘acts,’ out of which he makes a profit. In this house I have seen into

a deep abyss, yet other bisexual women visit it. Although I have found

my peace disturbed by these women, although I have been to a certain

extent intoxicated, the conditions are too repulsive to me--since this

woman is sunk into a morass deeper than she herself understands. Only

through me does she begin to understand it. But a longer intercourse

with her is impossible, for she lacks all the qualities that I look

for in a woman whom I could love. In actual fact I envy this creature,

for she is happy, since she experiences to the full those sweet

sensations which Nature denies to me. Are there any more beings

unhappy like myself? Perhaps the acquaintanceship with a woman whose

feelings were similar to my own would be a happiness, if Fate would

only have so much pity upon me as to throw a sorrowful companion in my

way. I hope for it, but I do not believe that it will happen.

“To what sex do I really belong?”

In the love-history of this genuine urninde the ideal element is

especially manifest; likewise the instinctive disinclination to man,

which, remarkably enough, is often more powerfully developed in strongly

feminine characters than in the more masculine tribades, as the

prototype of which latter we may mention the painter Rosa Bonheur.

During childhood Rosa Bonheur felt herself to be a boy, and preferred

the society of boys to that of girls.[557] Throughout her life,

notwithstanding her homosexual love, she felt strong sympathy with men.

Such a double relationship occurs also among urnindes of the first kind.

Even the true urninde, I may say, is =not so extremely homosexual= as is

the true urning. Take, for example, the following account[558] of an

original homosexual, and you will see the difference:

“I have not lost any of the valuable things of life--far otherwise.

Many-sided, many-shadowed intellectual sympathy leads any man of lofty

mind into harmony with me. There emanates unconsciously from my soul a

profound, tender charm. My friends find me necessary to them. I share

their interests. In our relationship there pass between us the most

wonderful shades of sympathetic feeling--what the French so

expressively speak of as _l’amitié amoureuse_. Thus my mode of being

becomes absorbed into that of my friend, a peculiar melody passes to

and fro between us, and a peculiar melody sounds in the stillness of

my own soul. All the fine and delicate sensations which I have

received from my friends become in me transformed into poietic

force--the ecstasies of my spirit assume form and substance. From the

spiritualization of the impulse there springs a stream clear as

crystal, there arise passion and ardour; my exceptional soul lifts me

upwards, above all sorrows and vexations. In this way is a talent

conceived, and amid ecstasy it is born.”

The need for a spiritual contact with men is among homosexual women much

stronger than the corresponding inclination on the part of urnings for

spiritual contact with woman natures. For this reason there is no doubt

that the “=Woman’s Movement=”--that is, in the movement directed towards

the acquirement by women of all the attainments of masculine

culture--homosexual women have played a notable part.[559] Indeed,

according to one author,[560] the “Woman’s Question” is mainly the

question regarding the destiny of virile homosexual women. I find it

necessary to doubt whether, as Hammer maintains,[561] the raging hatred

of men--the converse quality to the anti-feminism of the male

urnings--really proceeds from the uranian group of the Woman’s Movement,

for there exist no literary documents of importance to prove the

suggested connexion. Homosexual women of intellectual weight have also

assured me that among them there does at times exist an enmity to men on

principle, just as, _mutatis mutandis_, misogyny has been developed as a

system both from the heterosexual and from the homosexual side. For the

diffusion of pseudo-homosexuality the Woman’s Movement is of great

importance, as we shall see later.

The individual and social relationships of feminine uranism are nearly

the same as those of male uranism. In both cases there exists an entire

scale, running from pure Platonism to ardent sensuality. One kind of

Platonic tribades are those described by Catulle Mendés in his sketch

“Protectrices.” These are ladies of position who allow themselves the

luxury of a “protégée,” generally a girl employed at the theatre, with

whom during the performances they exchange glances, whose expenses they

pay, with whom they go out driving, without the matter proceeding to

actual sexual relations. In other cases, however, sensual gratification

is the desired goal, which is attained by kisses, embraces, friction of

the genital organs, or cuninilinctus (the so-called “=Sapphism=”). In

this intercourse one party--the “father”--plays the active part, the

other--“the mother”--the passive part. There exist passionate and

intimate relationships of long duration--true “marriages”--among

tribades. Thus, d’Estoc reports (“Paris-Eros,” p. 58) relationships of

this kind which have lasted thirty years. Still, as a general rule,

feminine homosexuals change their relationships more frequently than

male homosexuals. An elderly tribade, whose correspondence lies before

me, had within four years three love relationships. In these

relationships jealousy plays an even greater part than in heterosexual

liaisons. Two sympathetic urnindes who lived together described to me

very vividly the joys and sorrows of the _amor lesbicus_. The cause of

the troubles is always a _tertia_, never a _tertius gaudens_.

Like the urnings, the tribades also have their meeting-places, _jour

fixes_. One such meeting, at which four genuine female homosexuals and

one male homosexual assembled, I had the opportunity of attending. They

have their parties, and even their balls, at which the virile tribades

appear in men’s clothing,[562] and (as also when at home) use male

nicknames. There also exist female prostitutes who devote their services

entirely to urnindes. This tribadistic prostitution is especially

widespread in Paris. Such prostitutes are called _gouines_, or

_gougnottes_, or _chevalières du clair de lune_. Theatrical agents are

said to be especially occupied with tribadistic procurement. There also

exist tribadistic brothels in Paris.[563]

APPENDIX

THEORY OF HOMOSEXUALITY

Original, congenital, enduring homosexuality would appear to be an

exclusively human peculiarity. It is very doubtful whether a similar

condition exists among animals. We recognize among the lower animals

homosexual acts, but no homosexuality.[564] Thus we have no philogenetic

starting-point for the explanation of homosexuality. Moreover,

homosexuality is fundamentally different from the other sexual

perversions, sadism and masochism. These represent quite =extreme= forms

of biological phenomena, an abnormal increase of physiological impulsive

manifestations that occur in the normal heterosexual life, as part of

sexuality in general. But homosexuality is an alteration =in the

direction of the very impulse itself=--a change in the very nature of

sexuality. To put the matter shortly, it is the appearance of a

sexuality =heterogeneous to and not corresponding with the bodily

structure=. To define homosexuality as the appearance of a feminine

sexual psyche in a masculine body, or of a masculine sexual psyche in a

feminine body, does not apply to all cases--for example, it does not

apply to virile urnings or to tribades who remain womanly. The

definition of homosexuality as a sexuality which does not correspond to

the bodily structure embraces both these possibilities.

Whenever homosexuality in men is associated with a marked development of

feminine secondary sexual characters, or in women with a marked

development of masculine secondary sexual characters, the homosexual

sensibility may be said to have to some extent a physical basis, but not

completely so. For the “intermediate stage theory” proposed by

Hirschfeld--the intermixture of feminine and masculine characters--may

apply satisfactorily to “bisexuality,” to indeterminate sexual

sensibility; but it does not apply to the thoroughly one-sided, monistic

sexual sensibility, directed =only= towards members of the same sex, and

often appearing very early, before the days of puberty. Moreover, in

heterosexual male individuals the external appearance may at times

suggest that there is a strong intermixture of feminine characters.

These men, though heterosexual, have a womanly appearance.

The “intermediate stage theory” of Hirschfeld, which von Krafft-Ebing

also appears to have recognized in his last work (“New Studies in the

Subject of Homosexuality”), a theory which explains homosexual phenomena

as dependent upon the existence of transitional stages between the sexes

(“sexual links” of Hirschfeld), and which, moreover, erroneously

includes the typical hermaphrodite states--this interesting theory

explains =a portion only= of original homosexuality. It fails in cases

=in which homosexuality occurs in the absence of any divergence from

type=--for example, in those cases in which male individuals with

thoroughly normal masculine bodies exhibit marked homosexual sensibility

in early childhood, long before puberty. But these are the cases which

offer the greatest possible difficulties to a scientific explanation.

_Hic Rhodus, hic salta!_

Ulrich’s “feminine soul in a masculine body” applies to =effeminate

urnings=, such as he was himself. But is the mode of sensibility of

=virile= homosexuals “effeminate”? Why do we speak of a third sex? Here

lie difficulties which we cannot overcome without further assistance.

How does it come to pass that the central organs in homosexuals do not

correspond to the peripheral sexual organs, although the latter are

formed embryologically long before the former, so that the central

organs should properly be guided in their development by the peripheral

organs? But they are not so guided. That is only explicable in this

way--that the association between the central organs and the peripheral

organs is interrupted by a third influence, and that =this last

influence has a peculiar effect= upon the central organs =altogether

independent of the nature of the reproductive glands=.

I will formulate this new theory of homosexuality in the following

terms:

1. The so-called “undifferentiated stage” of the sexual impulse (Max

Dessoir) may often fail to appear in cases in which the sexual impulse,

either in heterosexuals or homosexuals, is definitely directed before

puberty unmistakably towards the members of one particular sex.

Especially in homosexuals do we often see =before= puberty the clear and

unmistakable direction of the sexual impulse towards members of the

=same= sex.

2. A critical theory of homosexuality must also explain the extreme

cases; above all, it must also explain male homosexuality associated

with complete virility.

3. The sexual organs and the reproductive glands cannot be the

determining cause, because homosexuality makes its appearance in

association with thoroughly typical male reproductive organs; nor can

the brain be the determining cause in cases of true homosexuality, for,

notwithstanding the intentional and unintentional operation of

heterosexual influences on thought and imagination, homosexuality cannot

be eradicated, and continues to develop.

4. Since this homosexuality often makes its appearance as an inclination

(not as the sexual impulse) long =before= puberty, and =before= the

proper activity of the reproductive glands is developed, it appears a

reasonable suggestion that in homosexuality some physiological

manifestation associated with “sexuality,” but not directly associated

with the reproductive glands, undergoes a =change= which results in an

alteration of the direction of the sexual impulse.

6. The most obvious influences to think of in this connexion are

=chemical= influences, changes in the chemistry of sexual tension, which

latter is certainly to a large extent =independent= of the reproductive

glands, since it may persist in eunuchs. But the nature of this sexual

chemistry is still entirely obscure.

Such a way of conceiving the process is thoroughly reasonable and

tenable on scientific grounds, as was shown by E. H. Starling and L.

Krehl[565] in their communication to the Scientific Congress at

Stuttgart in the year 1905, regarding disturbances of chemical

correlation in the organism, especially disturbances of the chemical

influences proceeding from the reproductive organs. All minuter details

regarding these “sexual hormone” (to use Starling’s own phrase) are

still unknown, but the experiments to which we alluded in an earlier

chapter have proved their existence. In my view, the anatomical

contradiction, the natural monstrosity, of a feminine--or, at any rate,

an unmanly--psyche in a typical masculine body, or that of a feminine or

unmanly sexual psyche associated with normally developed and normally

functioning male genital organs, can only be explained in this manner by

taking into account this intercurrent third factor. This can be deduced

very readily from some early =embryonic disturbances= of sexual

chemistry. This would also explain why it is that homosexuality so often

occurs in perfectly healthy families, as an isolated phenomenon which

has nothing to do either with inheritance or with degeneration. When von

Römer, on the contrary, describes homosexuality as a process of

“regeneration,” we must maintain that for this view there are no

sufficient grounds. Here begins the =riddle= of homosexuality; for me,

at any rate, it is one. My own theory only attempts to explain the

proper physiological connexions of homosexuality better, and, above all,

more scientifically than earlier theories. With regard to the ultimate

cause of the relatively frequent occurrence of homosexuality as an

original phenomenon, this theory has, however, nothing to say.

I do not suggest that I am able for a moment to find the ultimate reason

of the being and nature of homosexuality. There remains here a riddle to

be solved. But from the standpoint of civilization and reproduction

homosexuality is a senseless and aimless dysteleological phenomenon,

like many another “natural product”--as, for example, the human cæcum.

In an earlier chapter I drew attention to the fact that civilization has

entailed an increasingly sharp sexual differentiation--that is, the

antithesis between “man” and “woman” has become continually clearer.

The distinction between the sexes is a product rather of civilization

than of primitive nature. All sexual indifference, all sexual links, are

primitive characters. Eduard von Mayer rightly believes that in the

earliest days of the human race homosexuality was much more widely

diffused than it is at present, that, in fact, it came into being side

by side with heterosexual love. Civilization by means of inheritance,

adaptation, and differentiation, has continually more and more limited

the extent of the homosexual impulse. Unquestionably the homosexual

human being, =as human being=, has the same right to exist as the

heterosexual. To doubt it would be preposterous. Also, as a sexual

being, in so far as only the individual aspect of love comes under

consideration, the homosexual has an equal right. But for the species,

and also for the advancement of civilization, homosexuality has no

importance, or very little. It is obvious that, as a kind of enduring

“monosexuality,” it contradicts the purposes of the species. Equally

obvious is it that the whole of civilization is the product of the

physical and mental differentiation of the sexes, that civilization has,

in fact, to a certain extent, a heterosexual character. The greatest

spiritual values we owe to heterosexuals, not to homosexuals. =Moreover,

reproduction first renders possible the preservation and permanence of

new spiritual values.= In the last resort the latter are not possible

without the former. However obvious it may appear, we must still repeat

that spiritual values exist only in respect of the =future=, that they

only attain their true significance =in the connexion and the succession

of the generations=, and that they are, therefore, eternally dependent

upon heterosexual love as the intermediary by which this continuity is

produced. The monosexual and homosexual instincts permanently limited to

their own ego or their own sex are, therefore, in their innermost nature

=dysteleological= and =anti-evolutionistic=. In speaking thus we leave

entirely out of consideration the possibility that temporarily and for

the purposes of individual development they may possess a relative

justification.[566]

Moreover, the majority of homosexuals have a deeply rooted sentiment of

the lack of purpose and the aimlessness of their mode of sexual

perception, and this often gives them a very tragical and pitiable

expression. Especially in the case of noble, spiritually important

homosexuals, true carriers of civilization, is this sense of the

incongruity between homosexuality and life most plainly felt. Even the

talented Numa Prætorius (_Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, vol.

vi., p. 543) recognizes that--

“The love of the majority of men towards the other sex, based upon

heterosexual impulse, has undergone a development and refinement, and

has obtained a significance which makes homosexual love, in comparison

with it, play quite a subordinate part.”

[502] “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol.

i., p. 219.

[503] Lombroso, at the Sixth International Congress of Criminal

Anthropologists at Turin, May, 1906, actually drew a parallel between

congenital homosexuality and the congenital tendency to crime! That

this parallel is utterly non-existent and that crime and homosexuality

differ toto cælo is shown luminously by Paul Näcke (“Comparison

between Criminality and Homosexuality,” published in the

_Monatsschrift für Kriminalpsychologie_, 1906, pp. 477-487).

[504] Published in the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, edited

by Magnus Hirschfeld, vol. iii., p. 5 (Leipzig, 1901). _Cf._ also the

account of the newer views by P. Näcke, “Problems in the Domain of

Homosexuality,” published in the _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für

Psychiatrie_, 1902, vol. lix., pp. 805-829 (this writer also maintains

the existence of normal, healthy homosexual individuals).

[505] Magnus Hirschfeld, “Der Urnische Mensch,” p. 139 _et seq._

(Leipzig, 1903).

[506] Von Krafft-Ebing, “Retarded Homosexuality,” published in the

_Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1901, vol. iii., pp. 7-20.

[507] J. E. Meisner, “Uranism, or the so-called Homosexual Love,” p.

11 (Leipzig, 1906).

[508] Max Katte (“Virile Homosexuals,” published in the _Annual for

Sexual Intermediate Stages_, vol. vii., p. 94; Leipzig, 1905) remarks

that it is an error on the part of recent writers in the domain of

homosexuality to describe and vindicate so prominently the effeminate

type of homosexual man, and to neglect the virile type. The same is

true as regards the description of the corresponding types of

homosexual women.

[509] This occurs also in heterosexual boys. I extract the following

passage from the unpublished autobiography of a homosexual

=physician=: “When puberty occurred I am not able to say--I expect it

was about the age of sixteen or seventeen--but I know certainly that I

noticed at the time of puberty a swelling of the breasts. There was

only a slight forward curvature, which did not extend much beyond the

areola, and was painful on pressure. I remember distinctly that I was

anxious about the matter, and was afraid that there was some

inflammation beginning. =However, the same seems to occur in every

normal man.= A student whom I asked about the matter said that he had

noticed a swelling of the mammary glands about the age of fifteen;

recently, at the age of seventeen, he has had his first pollutions;

his sexual sensibility is normal.”

[510] “Goethe’s Letters,” vol. vii., p. 314: letter of December 29,

1787, from Rome to Karl August (Weimar, 1890).

[511] G. Merzbach, “Homosexuality and Occupation,” published in the

_Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1902, vol. iv., pp. 187-198.

[512] _Cf._ W. S., “Woman-Man on the Stage,” published in the _Annual

for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, vol. ii., pp. 313-325.

[513] This writer is also the inventor of the word “homosexual,” which

is found for the first time in his book.

[514] Magnus Hirschfeld, “Result of the Statistical Investigations

regarding the Percentage of Homosexuals,” published in the _Annual for

Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1904, vol. vi., pp. 109-178.

[515] F. Karsch, “Uranism or Pæderasty and Tribadism among Savage

Races,” published in the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_,

1901, vol. iii., pp. 72-201.

[516] “Traces of Contrary Sexuality among the Ancient Scandinavians:

Reports of a Norwegian Literary Man,” published in the _Annual for

Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1902, vol. v., pp. 244-263.

[517] Regarding homosexuality in Japan, _cf._ also “Pæderasty in

Japan,” by Suyewo Iwaya, published in the _Annual for Sexual

Intermediate Stages_, 1902, vol. iv., pp. 264-271.

[518] In the second volume, now in course of preparation, of my work

on “The Origin of Syphilis,” will be found a detailed critical

investigation, based upon the most recent data, of homosexuality and

pseudo-homosexuality in ancient times and during the middle ages.

[519] _Cf._ “Four Letters of Carl Heinrich Ulrichs (‘Numa Numantius’)

to his Relatives,” published in the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate

Stages_, 1899, vol. i., pp. 36-96 (with portrait).

[520] Ludwig Frey, “The Spiritual Life of Count Platen,” published in

the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1899, vol. i., pp.

159-214; and 1904, vol. vi., pp. 357-448.

[521] Numa Prätorius, “Michael Angelo as an Urning,” _op. cit._, 1900,

vol. ii., pp. 254-267.

[522] F. Karsch, “Heinrich Hössli,” _op. cit._, 1903, vol. v., pp.

449-556. Hössli was the author of the work “Eros: the Greek Love of

Men” (Glarus and St. Gallen, 1836 and 1838, 2 vols.), which, according

to Karsch, represented for our own time what Plato’s “Symposium” and

“Phædrus” represents for antiquity. Karsch gives an excellent table of

the contents and an analysis of the books under consideration.

[523] J. E. Meisner, “Uranism,” p. 16 (Leipzig); also verbal

communications by Meisner, who was personally acquainted with

Bulthaupt, to myself.

[524] F. Karsch, “Our Sources for the Consideration of Reputed and

Real Urnings,” “Johann von Müller the Historian (1752-1809),”

published in the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1902, vol.

iv., pp. 349-457.

[525] L. S. A. M. von Römer, “Henry III., King of France and Poland,”

_op. cit._, vol. iv., pp. 572-669.

[526] J. E. Meisner, _op. cit._, p. 17.

[527] Magnus Hirschfeld, “Sexual Transitional Stages,” Plate XXXII.

(Leipzig, 1905).

[528] _Op. cit._, Plate XXXII.

[529] F. Karsch, “Duke August the Fortunate (1772-1822),” published in

the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1903, vol. v., pp.

615-693.

[530] Numa Prätorius, “Georges Eekhoud: a Preface,” published in the

_Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1900, vol. ii., pp. 268-277.

[531] G. Eekhoud, “An Illustrious Urning of the Seventeenth Century,

Jerom Duquesnoy, the Flemish Sculptor,” _op. cit._, pp. 277-287.

[532] F. Karsch, “A. von Sternberg, the Novelist,” _op. cit._, 1902,

vol. iv., pp. 458-571. He obtained sexual gratification by

masturbating while looking at masculine posteriora, but also

frequently had relations with women.

[533] F. Karsch, “Theodor Beza, the Reformer (1519-1605),” _op. cit._,

pp. 291-349.

[534] H. J. Schouten, “The Alleged Pæderasty of the Reformer John

Calvin,” _op. cit._, 1905, vol. vii., pp. 291-306.

[535] Hans Rau, “Franz Grillparzer and his Amatory Life.” (Berlin,

1903).

[536] The love of boys, the “pæderasty,” of the Greeks related to

young adult men.

[537] I have used the established spelling for this word, although

probably its more correct spelling would be “pedication” (derived from

pedex = podex).

[538] _Cf._ P. Näcko, “The Kiss of the Homosexual,” published in the

_Archives for Criminal Anthropology and Criminal Statistics_, by H.

Gross, 1904, vol. xvii., Nos. 1, 2, p. 177. _Cf._ also the reports on

the tongue kiss published in the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate

Stages_, 1905, vol. vii., pp. 757-759.

[539] M. Hirschfeld, “Are Sexual Intermediate Stages Suited for

Marriage?” published in the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_,

1901, vol. iii., pp. 37-71.

[540] We owe to Näcke the recognition of the importance of sexual

dreams in the diagnosis of homosexuality and heterosexuality. _Cf._

his essay, “The Forensic Significance of Dreams,” published in _the

Archives for Criminal Anthropology_, 1889, vol. iii.; also P. Näcke,

“The Dream as the Most Delicate Reagent for the Detection of the Mode

of Sexual Sensibility,” published in the _Annual Review of Criminal

Psychology_, 1905.

[541] M. Hirschfeld, “Berlin’s Third Sex,” p. 26 (Berlin and Leipzig,

1905).

[542] The description of this interesting scene, with other details

regarding the organization of the homosexuals of Paris, is found in

the work of Pisanus Fraxi (Henry Spencer Ashbee). “Centuria Librorum

Absconditorum,” pp. 406-416 (London, 1879) (based upon personal

reports by Paul Lacroix).

[543] Ambroise Tardieu, “Offences against Morality from the Point of

View of State Medicine,” German translation by F. W. Theile, pp. 133,

134 (Weimar, 1860).

[544] There are also numerous places of public resort which are indeed

largely attended by urnings, but are also frequented by heterosexuals.

[545] _Cf._ in this connexion also the remarks of P. Näcke, “A Visit

to the Homosexuals of Berlin,” published in the _Archives of Criminal

Anthropology_, 1904, vol. xv., Nos. 1 and 2.

[546] _Cf._ P. Näcke, “Quelques Détails sur les Homosexuels de Paris,”

published in the _Archives d’Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1905, new

series, iv., No. 138. See the reference in the _Annual for Sexual

Intermediate Stages_, 1906, vol. viii., pp. 795, 796.

[547] _Cf._ “The Secrets of the Berlin Passage,” pp. 19, 20 (Berlin,

1877).

[548] _Cf._ Pisanus Fraxi, “Centuria Librorum Absconditorum,” pp.

404-406 (London, 1879) (according to the reports of Paul Lacroix, who

himself was a witness of the occurrences).

[549] _Op. cit._, pp. 404-407.

[550] _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1906, vol. viii., pp.

796, 797. According to d’Estoc (“Paris-Eros,” pp. 207, 208), the male

prostitutes in these brothels are more especially men from southern

countries--Italians, Orientals, Berbers, and negroes.

[551] _Cf._ Ludwig Frey, “Characterization of Blackmail,” published in

the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1899, vol. i., pp. 71-96.

[552] _Cf._ Numa Prætorius, “The Criminal Character of Homosexual

Intercourse, Considered Historically and Critically,” published in the

_Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1899, vol. i., pp. 97-158.

[553] _Cf._ Z. Richter, “Does § 175 afford any Protection? A

Criminalogical Study,” published in the _Annual for Sexual

Intermediate Stages_, 1900, vol. ii., pp. 30-52.

[554] “Opinions of Roman Catholic Priests on the Attitude of

Christianity towards the Criminal Prosecution of Homosexual Love”

(_Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1900, vol. ii., pp.

161-203); “What Position should the Church Assume towards Homosexual

Love and its Criminal Prosecution?” by an Evangelical Theologian (_op.

cit._, vol. iii., pp. 204-210); Caspar Wirz, “Urnings before the

Church and Scripture” (Orthodox-Evangelical) (_op. cit._, vol. iv.,

pp. 63-108); “Homosexuality in the Bible,” by a Catholic priest (_op.

cit._, vol. iv., pp. 199-243); “From the Memoirs of a (Catholic)

Priest” (_op. cit._, pp. 1172-1178).

[555] A letter from Emile Zola to Dr. Laupts on the problem of

homosexuality; translated, with an introduction, by Rudolf von

Beulwitz (_Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1905, vol. ii., pp.

371-386).

[556] “What should the People know about the Third Sex?” An

instructive work, published by the Scientific and Humanitarian

Committee (Leipzig, 1904).

[557] _Cf._ “The Truth about Myself: Autobiography of a

Contrary-Sexual,” published in the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate

Stages_, vol. iii., pp. 292-307.

[558] M. F., “How I See the Matter,” _op. cit._, pp. 308-312.

[559] _Cf._ Anna Rüling, “What Interest has the Woman’s Movement in

the Solution of the Homosexual Problem?” (_Annual for Sexual

Intermediate Stages_, vol. vii., pp. 131-151).

[560] Arduin, “The Woman’s Question and Sexual Intermediate Stages”

(_op. cit._, 1900, vol. ii., pp. 211-223).

[561] W. Hammer, “Tribadism in Berlin,” p. 97 (Berlin, 1906).

[562] _Cf._ “A Description of an Urnindes’ Ball,” given by M.

Hirschfeld, “Berlin’s Third Sex,” pp. 56, 57.

[563] _Cf._ Martial d’Estoc, “Paris-Eros,” p. 59 _et seq._

[564] _Cf._ F. Karsch, “Pæderasty and Tribadism among Animals as

recorded in Literature,” published in the _Annual for Sexual

Intermediate Stages_, 1900, vol. ii., pp. 126-160; P. Näcke,

“Pæderasty in Animals,” published in the _Archives of Criminal

Anthropology_, 1904, vol. xiv., pp. 361, 362.

[565] L. Krehl, “The Disturbance of Chemical Correlations in the

Organism” (Leipzig, 1907). Here, on p. 3, we find: “If we are

compelled to assume that many varieties of cells in their rudimentary

condition already bear the imprint of a masculine or feminine nature,

=still this masculine or feminine nature doubtless only undergoes its

real development under the enduring chemical influence of the ovaries

and the testicles=.”

[566] This latter view has been maintained especially by Max Katte, in

his treatise “The Purpose of the Existence of Homosexuals” (_Annual

for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, vol. iv., pp. 272-288), but he

completely ignores the evolutionary points of view. In the same way,

Hans Freimark neglects them (“The Meaning of Uranism,” p. 14; Leipzig,

1906); he regards homosexuality as a transition to a state in which

“mankind will no longer need gross material contact for purposes of

reproduction.”

CHAPTER XX

PSEUDO-HOMOSEXUALITY (GREEK AND ORIENTAL PÆDERASTY, HERMAPHRODITISM,

BISEXUAL VARIETIES)

“_Nous sommes les enfants des anciennes Sodomes;_

_Puisque l’on nous voit beaux, laissons-nous nous aimer._

_Notre sort est le plus désirable: charmer,_

_Nous sommes adorés des femmes et des hommes!_”

RACHILDE.

[“_We are children of the ancient Sodom;_

_Since people regard us as beautiful, let us continue to love one

another;_

_Our lot is the most desirable: to charm,_

_We are adored both by women and by men._”]

CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XX

Connexion between pseudo-homosexuality and bisexuality -- Great

antiquity of the idea of bisexuality -- Magnus Hirschfeld’s

treatise on bisexuality -- Bisexuality of the time of puberty --

Pseudo-homosexual tendencies at this period of life -- Examples

(Gutzkow, Grillparzer) -- On the large scale -- Analogy to the

pseudo-heterosexuality of youthful homosexuals -- Persistence of

bisexuality -- The “Junores” -- Delusion of sexual metamorphosis --

Cultivation of pæderasts -- Women-men and men-women -- Brouardel’s

type of effeminate Parisian street-arab -- Homosexuality in the state

of trance -- Pseudo-homosexuality owing to the lack of heterosexual

intercourse -- Anal masturbators -- Pseudo-homosexuality of

prostitutes -- Temporary pseudo-tribadism in Paris -- Pseudo-uranism

as a popular custom -- Explanation of the Greek love of boys -- Its

fundamental difference from modern true homosexuality -- Value of the

noble asexual friendship of men for men -- A letter of Gutzkow’s --

The Platonic Eros and Græco-Oriental pæderasty -- Bisexuality in

German romanticism -- Explanation of this -- Hermaphroditism --

Previous under-estimation of the importance of hermaphroditism --

Recent researches -- True hermaphroditism -- Pseudo-hermaphroditism --

Male and female apparent hermaphrodites.

CHAPTER XX

The dispute whether homosexuality is a congenital or an acquired

phenomenon was one hitherto impossible to settle, because the whole

province of those homosexual manifestations for which I suggest the name

of “=pseudo-homosexuality=” had not been separated with sufficient

clearness from true homosexuality for the essential difference between

the two classes to receive accurate expression. True homosexuality is

congenital. It is an original, =permanent, essential outflow= of the

personality: pseudo-homosexuality, on the contrary, is either a

homosexual sensibility suggested from without, transient, and not

associated with the essence of the personality; or else it is merely

=apparent= homosexuality, the illusion being dependent upon

hermaphroditism or upon some other physical or mental abnormality.

The pseudo-homosexuality of the former category is explicable only by

means of the fact of “=bisexuality=,” the existence of which has been

scientifically proved only within recent years. By bisexuality we

understand the possibility of two distinct modes of sexual perception

occurring in one and the same person; and this, again, finds its

explanation in the bisexual germinal vestiges which exist in every

individual. There remains in every man a vestige of woman, in every

woman a vestige of man, in a sense in a state of potential energy,

which, however, is capable, by the action of various external

influences, of being transformed into kinetic energy; but this vestige

=always= plays a small part in comparison with the true specific sexual

nature. This bisexuality was discussed in an earlier chapter of this

book (pp. 39, 40 and 70, 71), and was there characterized as a

phenomenon secondary in every respect, to which no great importance

could be attached. The idea of bisexuality is not new; neither Fliess

nor Weininger was its discoverer. It was already known to the

ancients.[567] Heinse, in “Ardinghello,” gives expression to the idea in

almost the same words as Weininger (see p. 40). Recently Magnus

Hirschfeld[568] has collected the historical and literary details of the

subject of bisexuality.

Bisexuality manifests itself more especially at the period of puberty,

during the time of obscure yearnings and impulses--the so-called

indifferent period which precedes the awakening of the sexual impulse.

Physical bisexuality, therefore, often enough corresponds to psychical

bisexuality. In the boy there is a trace of girlishness, in the girl a

trace of boyishness; we have the two types of the dreamy youth and of

the tomboy. Then there readily arise delicate inclinations between

individuals of like sexes, especially as the result of continuous

companionship, so that an obscure impulse of transient homosexual

perception manifests itself between two boys, or between two girls, of

the same age; or, again, this transient homosexuality may take the form

of a worshipful admiration of an older person of the same sex. Gutzkow

distinguished these two forms of pseudo-homosexuality, of which he had

had experience in his own person. In his “Secular Pictures,” vol. i.,

pp. 50, 51 (Frankfort, 1856), he remarks:

“The feeling of love originates in most feminine natures, not from the

quiet consideration of the secrets of love, but from a magnetic

attraction towards other individuals, whom they regard as being better

and more beautiful than themselves. Commonly the love for a man is

preceded by an often illimitable love for a woman. Young girls fall in

love with older girls--a phenomenon which often occurs also in boys,

as I myself experienced when a boy, feeling the most ardent passion

for one of my comrades, who now is extremely disagreeable to me.”

A similar explanation suffices for the transient tender love exhibited

by Grillparzer towards Altmüller (_cf._ Grillparzer’s “Diary,” edition

of Glossy and Sauer, pp. 24-26; Stuttgart). In boarding-schools,

barracks, and training-schools we often find these pseudo-homosexual

liaisons. The prison is said by Parent-Duchatelet to be a high-school of

tribadism. He and other French authors report the epidemic diffusion of

homosexual practices in prisons for women. Whenever homosexuality

appears =suddenly= in an epidemic manner, =affecting large numbers of

individuals=, we have to do, not with genuine original uranism, but with

pseudo-homosexuality. As regards boarding-schools, which exhibit a

lascivious environment extremely open to manifestations of this kind,

Hans von Kahlenberg, in his “Nixchen,” p. 41 (Vienna, 1904), has vividly

described the matter.

Youthful bisexuality is to be found in slighter forms in almost every

human being, but it is a typical phenomenon of puberty, and disappears

with the passing of this epoch, to make room for the completely

developed heterosexuality of the adult. There occurs also in

homosexuals, in whom homosexual sensibility first makes itself

definitely manifest after puberty, a quite analogous inclination to the

other sex before and during puberty. Thus, a typical homosexual

twenty-three years of age, who now exhibits _horror feminæ_, related to

me that at the age of sixteen or seventeen years he was very fond of

girls, and pursued them a great deal, but without definite sexual

desire. This transient obscure attraction of homosexuals towards the

other sex is a kind of “pseudo-heterosexuality.”

Sometimes bisexuality will continue after the period of puberty, and in

exceptional cases will persist throughout life. According to Hirschfeld,

this occurs especially in men of genius, and in those inclined to become

priests or schoolmasters. But in most cases even then one or other

impulsive tendency--the heterosexual or the homosexual--is predominant.

These individuals have been called “psychical hermaphrodites” (von

Krafft-Ebing). These bisexual varieties may manifest themselves in very

various ways, in most cases gynandry or androgyny is purely spiritual,

and finds expression only in association with particular tendencies,

especially =fetichistic= tendencies. The two following very remarkable

cases throw a clear light on this peculiar form of bisexuality. We may

as well accept for the more or less specific form of bisexuality

described in these cases the suggested name of “junores.”

1.The case of a psychical hermaphrodite:

N. N., an American journalist, thirty-three years of age, writes:

“From earliest youth I had an impulse to appear dressed in women’s

clothing, and whenever I had an opportunity I had elegant body linen

made for me, silken chemises, and whatever was the fashion. Even as a

boy I used to borrow my sister’s clothing and wear it secretly. Only

later, after my mother’s death, was I able to give free rein to my

wishes, and I came into the possession of a wardrobe resembling that

of the most elegant lady of fashion. Although compelled in the daytime

to appear as a man, still I wear, under these clothes, a complete

outfit of women’s underclothing--stays, open-work stockings, and

everything proper to a woman, a bracelet also, and patent-leather

women’s boots, with elegant high heels. When the evening comes, I

breathe more freely. Then I can throw off the burdensome mask, and

feel wholly woman. Wrapped in a tea-gown of an elegant cut, and

wearing the finest underclothing, I am able to occupy myself in my

favourite employments, among which may be mentioned the study of the

primitive history of mankind, or I give myself up to some routine

duties. A feeling of repose takes possession of me, such as is

impossible during the day, when I have to wear men’s clothing.

Although fully woman, I do not feel any need to give myself to a man.

I feel flattered, certainly, if, when appearing in women’s dress, I

please others, but I have no definite sexual desire towards my own

sex. It may be that I have not yet discovered my _alter ego_.

Notwithstanding all my well-developed feminine customs, I married, and

am the father of a powerful, beautiful girl, who exhibits no

tendencies whatever resembling mine. My wife, an energetic, cultured

lady, was fully aware of my passion, but hoped in the course of time

to wean me from it. In this, however, she was not successful. I

performed my marital duties, but I gave myself up all the more to my

customs. My wife obtained a separation, and at the time at which I now

write she is intimate with another man, and is pregnant. My physique

is thoroughly masculine, with the exception of the pelvis and of the

calves of the legs, which are feminine in form. Summary: Outward

appearance masculine. When wearing women’s dress I have completely the

corresponding figure--waist, 20 inches; chest measurement, 34 inches;

height, 176 centimetres (5 feet 9 inches); weight 125 pounds. Hands

long and narrow, sensibility feminine. When wearing men’s clothing I

feel a certain uneasiness. When I see an elegant lady or actress, I

think how well I should appear in her dress. I have an abundance of

earrings, pearls, lace scarves, and similar articles of adornment, and

at a dance I give myself up to the idea of how delightful it would be

to appear in women’s dress. If it were possible, I should completely

abandon men’s clothing.”

2. “At about the age of fifteen and a half years I began to take an

interest in women’s dress. I felt an inward impulse, which drove me to

the windows of the shops displaying articles of women’s

dress--corsets, etc. In shoemakers’ windows it was the women’s boots

and shoes which attracted my attention rather than the men’s. The same

was the case with dress fabrics, among which self-coloured materials

for women’s dress pleased me best. Beautiful blue stuffs (satin)

especially attracted me; also, I had an ardent love for blue velvet.

As time passed, I felt a desire to possess such things, and to wear

them. But since at home I had no means to spend in this way, whilst

the desire sometimes was so violent as to give me no rest, I

endeavoured to resist it with all the religious and rational grounds I

could call to mind; yet this was of little help to me, for whenever I

met a woman clothed to my taste, the longing was immediately

reawakened. If I met a woman whose appearance aroused this desire

(which henceforth I will call my ‘costume-stimulus’), I looked round,

in order to overcome this costume-stimulus, to try to find a woman who

displeased me. Within me there raged a conflict (which at that time

was obscure even to myself) between the masculine nature and the

feminine. One day the feminine in me gained the victory, as it

impelled me (when my parents were absent from the house) to try on

some of my sisters’ clothes; but as soon as I had put on the corset I

had an erection, immediately followed by an ejaculation of semen. This

gave me no gratification; on the contrary, I was very angry that

putting on the corset should have given rise to an ejaculation of

semen. At varying intervals I repeated this attempt to dress myself as

a woman, and in doing so always endeavoured to avoid anything that

could give rise to an erection. Gradually I succeeded in this matter

of dressing; but I was now consumed also with the desire for caressing

a feminine being, and therefore the dressing alone failed to satisfy

me. Moreover, this dressing-up also failed to give me real pleasure,

because I did not possess any costume which really suited me; but

still, apart from sexual excitement, it produced a feeling of

well-being. After I had dressed up as a woman, my imagination always

busied itself with the idea of how beautiful it would be if I had a

beloved before whom I might display myself unrestrainedly, just as I

then was. In these fancies I always pictured to myself a girl of my

own age, with long hair and well-developed breasts and hips. This

imagination generally resulted in a pollution, which I sometimes

endeavoured to prevent by taking off the articles of clothing as

rapidly as possible.

“By a colleague I was initiated into the practice of masturbation. He

explained to me that if I had no woman who would give herself to me, I

was in a position to satisfy myself. The first time I resisted the

impulse; but the costume-stimulus tormented me, and I had discovered

that after a seminal emission I was at peace for a time; moreover,

when dressing up, I was always exposed to the danger of being

discovered, and so I began the practice of self-abuse. Masturbation

did not give me proper gratification, and therefore, after practising

it, I always experienced a great feeling of regret and also a feeling

of exhaustion; moreover, it did not produce the feeling of well-being

which resulted from dressing up as a woman.

“I was shy, and was very readily embarrassed in the presence of the

female sex; I therefore avoided seeing much of women; I avoided it,

also, on account of my costume-stimulus. It would have been preferable

to me if, physically, Nature had made me a woman, so that I could have

gone about freely among girls of my own age. For the reasons already

given I did not learn to dance; moreover, the turning round made me

very giddy, and from the age of seventeen and a half to nineteen years

I suffered from attacks of syncope. At about the age of twenty-two

years I fell in love with my present wife, who attracted me on account

of her grace, her figure, and her character. My wife was even more

bashful than myself. My inclination drew me towards her, but on

account of my costume-stimulus, I avoided being alone with her. From

now onwards I began to consider what I could possibly do in order to

explain to my betrothed my true nature, but all the attempts which I

made were failures. After six months’ engagement, I left the place

where my betrothed was living. The engagement lasted seven years

before we were married. The principal reason for the delay was that we

were both impecunious. When I was alone with my betrothed, I was

always thinking of my costume-stimulus. Shortly before we were married

I told my betrothed in a letter of my peculiar tendency, for I felt it

was my duty to do so. She could not understand how I could find

pleasure in dressing myself up as a woman. At first she was

indifferent regarding my costume-stimulus; later she thought it was

morbid, an impulse bordering on the insane. I often had to call my

imagination to my help in order to produce an erection. My marriage

became more unhappy year by year. My wife, on account of my morbid

tendency, suspected me of all possible perversities, and was of

opinion that an individual predisposed as I was could not be capable

of true, upright love for a woman. How I was to get woman’s clothing

to my taste I did not know. In my marriage I was no better off as

regards the costume-stimulus, but rather worse. I had more sleepless

nights on account of this costume-stimulus than I had had before I

married. As time passed, I became continually more ill-humoured, and

was occasionally cross to my wife, which afterwards made me very

sorry. In the sleepless nights I puzzled how I could possibly manage

that my wife should not concern herself any more about the

costume-stimulus, and how I could possibly fulfil my wishes in this

respect. Gradually I succeeded in winning my wife to my side to this

extent, that she agreed to make a costume for me, but I must not have

many such.

“My wife was always looking for a reason. She believed that dressing

up must have some cause, or must produce in me some effect, which I

was unwilling to tell her. She was continually tormenting me about

this; she would not believe that I spoke the truth, and she no longer

felt any confidence in me. She believed that every one must perceive

that I had this morbid impulse. She endeavoured to learn something

about the matter from other women. Those whom she asked could only

tell her evil and common things about men with tendencies like mine;

some said I must be unconditionally an urning; others that I must have

intercourse with other women behind my wife’s back; others that I

wanted to lay aside men’s clothing in order to please girls under age,

and so on. I suffered horribly from these false accusations.

“I endeavoured once again, in an essay I composed, which I entitled

‘The Junores,’ to make the matter clear to my wife. By junores I

indicated men who wished to assume, or who did assume, the outward

appearance of women in the matter of clothing, demeanour, and figure,

but who sexually were masculine. All this was of no help to me. Our

life together became continually more unbearable with the lapse of

time; often there were scenes which had the most depressing effect on

my mind. After violent scenes there occurred in me nocturnal

pollutions, accompanied by no sensation of pleasure; also after these

scenes erections were for a long time incomplete, so that a kind of

impotence ensued.

“After every new accusation which my wife made against me I avoided

going home in the evening. I wandered for hours in by-streets,

overwhelmed by a feeling of futility and vacuity; my nerves all

vibrated; sometimes I could not keep my limbs still. If I had had no

children, or if I had known that they would be properly cared for, I

should have known what to do in such a mood. One thing still torments

me. Will my children be hereditarily tainted?”

I have myself seen both of these cases. The men concerned appear

somewhat nervous, but they are otherwise quite healthy and manly, and

both deny that they feel any sexual inclination towards men. The desire

to wear women’s clothing, and to feel as a woman, may also make its

appearance as a =morbid= phenomenon later in life, in the form of the

“delusion of sexual metamorphosis” (_metamorphosis sexualis paranoica_);

or it may be =artificially induced=, as among the ancient Scythians and

among the Mexican “mujerados.” These latter are selected as men

originally =most powerful=, and entirely free from any feminine

appearance, and by incessant riding on horseback and by excessive

masturbation they are made impotent (through atrophy of the genital

organs) and effeminate, so that there may even occur a secondary

development of the breasts (Hammond). All this belongs to the category

of pseudo-homosexuality.

With regard to numerous historical women-men and men-women--such as, for

example, the celebrated Chevalier d’Eon, Mademoiselle de Maupin

(immortalized by Gautier in the romance of this name), and many other

women going about in men’s clothing, or men going about in women’s

clothing--it is, as a rule, no longer possible to determine whether they

were genuinely homosexual, pseudo-homosexual, or bisexual.

I regard, however, the interesting type of =effeminate Parisian

street-arab=, described by Brouardel at the Second Congress of Criminal

Anthropologists at Berlin in the year 1889, as characteristically and

originally homosexual.

“At the age from twelve to sixteen years the lad is still small,

grasps ideas very slowly, and has little will-power. At the time of

puberty he has experienced an inhibition of development, and his

bodily growth has remained stationary. The penis is thin and flaccid,

the testicles are small, the pubic hair is scanty, the skin is smooth,

and the beard is very thin; the skeleton does not develop fully, like

that of the normal male; the pelvis becomes wide, and the general

outlines of the body become rounded (_potelées_) because there is an

undoubted deposit of fat in the subcutaneous tissues, so that the

breasts also become enlarged.”

This state persists. Brouardel found it still present in individuals of

twenty-five to thirty years of age. These children of great towns are

characterized by intellectual sterility and by incapacity for

procreation. This type is found also among the well-to-do middle

classes, and from such, according to Brouardel, the _décadents_ are

recruited, while the effeminate gamins either become professional

pæderasts, or undertake the preparation of _articles de Paris_.[569]

It is not difficult, in this description, to recognize true

homosexuality.

Magnus Hirschfeld gives an account of a peculiar form of

pseudo-homosexuality occurring in an individual who in ordinary life was

asexual.[570]

The person concerned was an extremely effeminate and neurasthenic member

of a spiritualistic club, who in his normal condition felt sensual

attraction neither to woman nor to man, but who in the trance state

felt himself to be an Indian woman, and then became inspired with an

ardent passion for one of his fellow-members.

Also in chronic intoxications, especially in alcoholism,

pseudo-homosexuality may make its appearance, in some cases as an

enduring and in others as a transient condition.

An important category of pseudo-homosexuality is constituted by persons

in whom it arises owing to =insufficient opportunity for sexual

intercourse with members of the opposite sex=--as, for example, in the

absence of women on board ship, in monasteries, in prisons for men, in

the French foreign legion; and as regards lack of men in nunneries, and

in the case of unmarried or unhappily married women, who supply a large

contingent to pseudo-tribadism.[571] An account of pæderasty in prisons

is given by Charles Perrier, “La Pédérastie en Prison” (Lyons, 1900).

In this category we must also mention the “debauchee pæderasts” for

which =truly existent= kind of pseudo-homosexuals I propose the name of

“=anal masturbators=.” These are heterosexual individuals in whom either

primarily the anus plays the part of an erogenic zone, or in whom this

region becomes erogenic in consequence of the exhaustion of all other

varieties of sexual stimulus. Hammond, von Schrenck-Notzing, and Taxil

have proved the existence of these anal masturbators and the frequent

occurrence in them of pseudo-homosexual tendencies.[572]

An interesting phenomenon is the =pseudo-homosexuality of female

prostitutes=. We certainly encounter among prostitutes a number of

genuine tribades, who owe their adoption of professional prostitution to

the existence of this original tendency to homosexual love, because in

their relations with men the heart plays, and can play, no part (see

above, p. 434). Prostitutes who are heterosexual by nature may become

homosexual for two reasons: first, by intercourse with, and owing to the

influence of, truly Lesbian associates, in whom the inward sense of

solidarity possessed by all prostitutes is especially strong; in the

second place, in consequence of the antipathy to intercourse with men,

created by their experience of life, and striking always deeper roots,

for they learn to know man only in his brutal sexual coarseness. The

continuous compulsion to which they are subjected to satisfy the animal

sensuality of worn-out roués by the most disgusting procedures

ultimately produces in them the most unconquerable antipathy to the male

sex, so that all the delicate sensibility of which they are capable is

directed towards their own sex. The homosexual union appears to them, as

Eulenburg rightly points out (“Sexual Neuropathy,” pp. 143, 144), to be

something “higher, purer, and comparatively blameless.” They regard it

in a more ideal light than sexual intercourse with men. Women owners of

brothels also favour tribadistic love, because thereby they safeguard

the prostitutes in their houses from the influence of _souteneurs_.[573]

As J. de Vaudère describes in his “Demi-Sexes,” pseudo-tribadism is

especially diffused in Paris as a fashionable practice, and manifests

itself here in the form described by Martineau,[574] of a =temporary=

homosexuality, which is subserved by an extensive prostitution, and

which clearly exhibits its pseudo-homosexual characteristics by its

intermittent appearance in the form of spiritual epidemics.

Unquestionably we have to do with pseudo-homosexuality also in all those

cases in which homosexual love makes its appearance as a =national

custom= among a percentage widely exceeding the usual percentage of

ordinary homosexuality. The typical example of this kind is =the love of

boys of ancient Greece=--“pæderasty,” in the better sense of the word.

Since in this work I am discussing the sexual life of the present day, I

do not propose here to deal at length with this interesting topic, and

must refer the reader to the second volume (in course of preparation) of

my work on “The Origin of Syphilis,” in which I have discussed the

subject at considerable length.

Since the Hellenic love of boys was a widely diffused custom, the origin

of which may be directly referred to Crete, indirectly to the Orient, it

is evident that only a fraction of the pæderasts can have been true

homosexuals. The majority were pseudo-homosexuals. It is possible that

the custom was first introduced by original homosexuals, and also that

it was subsequently maintained by these. But soon it became a general

practice for a man to regard his wife simply as a “procreative machine,”

and to seek for true =spiritual= love from a youth. Since to the men of

antiquity woman had no soul and no individuality, =the love of boys

appeared to them something natural and morally justifiable=. It would,

however, be completely unnatural if for the heterosexual community of

our own time we wished to reintroduce the antique love of boys, since we

modern men have learned that woman also has a =soul=; that she also has

the same justification as man for the development of her human nature;

that she can be, and ought to be, the object of individual, spiritual,

profound love. I rejoice, that those who are fighting for the rights of

the genuine congenital homosexuals, that men like Magnus Hirschfeld,

Numa Prætorius, and other investigators, have recently expressed

themselves in energetic terms as opposed to those whose aim is a

sort of propaganda for the diffusion of the love of men among

heterosexuals--whose endeavour it is, in fact, to introduce a formal

cult of uranism. This movement can do nothing but harm to the just cause

of homosexuals.

No one can prize more highly than I do myself a =noble friendship=

between men, which at the present day is far too little practised;[575]

no one can wish more heartily than I do that men could speak to one

another of love, without being exposed to the suspicion of

homosexuality.[576] In a certain sense I am in thorough agreement with

the beautiful demonstrations of Heinrich Schurtz and Benedict

Friedländer on masculine friendship as a normal fundamental impulse of

humanity and as the foundation of social intercourse.[577] But this

friendship between heterosexual men, based upon natural sympathy and

community of occupation, has =not the least sexual admixture=, whereas

only in the beautiful dialogues of Plato can the Greek love of boys,

which some advocate at the present day, be ascribed to the spiritual

Eros.[578] In reality, however, the Greek love of boys degenerated into

the grossest sensuality, since the youth stimulated sexual desire like a

woman, and was used as such,[579] so that the originally ideal character

of the relationship disappeared.

In the =Oriental= love of boys[580] this ideal element was probably

never present, and sensual relationships played the principal part from

the very first. The boys’ brothels of the Mohammedan East were visited

by heterosexual men just as much as by homosexuals. The same men derived

pleasure from intercourse both with women and with boys. Bisexuality was

in this case put into practice as a matter of course.

German civilization also passed through an epoch in which bisexual

activities of feeling were clearly manifest in both sexes, without,

however, leading at any time to the physical practice of

pseudo-homosexuality. This remarkable period was the time of transition

between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The “Sturm und Drang” had quieted down; its fiercely active forces had

been controlled; its vigorous will had been pacified, and guided in

concrete directions; its kinetic energy had in a sense become potential

in two new formative and emotional tendencies of the time, which

progressed side by side, and, notwithstanding all the differences

between them, influenced one another mutually to a considerable

extent--classicism and romanticism. Classicism, under the stimulating

influence of Winckelmann, looked back to the “noble simplicity and quiet

greatness” of the antique, to the beauty exhibited simply in =form=,

whose wonder Goethe more than any other has made manifest to us.

Romanticism, on the other hand, was the term employed to indicate the

boundless enlargement and increasing profundity of the emotional life,

of which the =formless= is especially characteristic. This appears most

clearly in the work of Novalis, Tieck, and Wackenroder; but both

tendencies meet in the sphere of the sexual. I need only mention the

name of Winckelmann to indicate how markedly the purely æsthetic

contemplation,[581] and the purely æsthetic enjoyment, of the beautiful

human form must have favoured the development of homosexual modes of

perception. We may in this connexion speak of the “Greek Renascence.” On

the other hand, the romantic mood, the deepening of the individual life

of feeling, the eternal searching for new, peculiar sensations, was very

apt to awaken those activities of feeling slumbering so deeply beneath

the threshold of consciousness, which we to-day denote by the term

“bisexuality.” In Friedrich Schlegel’s “Lucinde,” for example, we find

frequent allusions to this bisexual mode of perception, as in the place

in which he speaks of a confusion of the masculine and feminine rôles in

the love contest. When, in so much of the published “Correspondence” of

this period, kisses, embraces, caresses, and tendernesses between two

men or two women appear to fly to and fro, it may be that this is

neither to be regarded as purely homosexual perception, nor as a simply

conventional contemporary custom, but rather as the very characteristic

expression of a tendency to bisexual imaginations and dreams induced by

the hypertension, overdriving, and artificial increase, of the emotional

life. Thus only, for example, can we explain the passionate profusion of

tenderness which appears in many of the letters of Jean Paul, written by

him to men; for Jean Paul was unquestionably heterosexual.[582]

The same is true of the women of this time. According to Welcker, the

friendships of the women of the romantic period exhibited this character

of a Platonic love. Since the dominion of romanticism “influenced

emotional young men in very various ways, in more than one morally

strict circle, two women friends were so inseparable and so

indispensable to one another that those round them used sometimes to

laugh at this amativeness, of which, however, a serious suspicion was

impossible.”[583]

An interesting proof of the existence of pseudo-homosexuality among the

women of that time is afforded by a passage[584] from a romance by Ernst

Wagner (1760-1812), one of the scholars of Jean Paul. The book is

entitled “Isidora,” and in it the Lesbian love-scene between the

Princess Isidora and her friend Olympia is very plainly described,

although both of them at the same time are passionately in love with

men.

The last and not unimportant phenomenal form of pseudo-homosexuality is

=hermaphroditism=. It is a remarkable fact that only in recent years has

science attempted a serious study of hermaphroditic states, which

previously, as Blumreich[585] points out, were to a large extent

ignored, both as regards their social importance and their frequency. It

was the great service of Neugebauer[586] and Magnus Hirschfeld[587] that

they drew general attention to these remarkable sexual intermediate

stages, and proved their eminent practical importance, which had

previously been suspected by no one. How completely the matter had been

ignored is proved by the remarkable fact that the new Civil Code for the

German Empire completely ignores the juridical determinations of the

former Prussian Civil Code regarding hermaphrodites, alleging that there

existed no persons whose sex was indeterminate or indeterminable!

The so-called “=true hermaphroditism=”--the condition in which male and

female reproductive glands (testicles and ovaries) are met with =in a

single individual=--is one of the greatest rarities. By the

investigations of Salen (1899), Garré-Simon (1903), and Ludwig Pick

(1905), the existence of such individuals with mixed reproductive

glands (“ovotestes”) has been proved as an actual fact. Walter Simon, in

the one hundred and seventy-second volume of _Virchow’s Archives_, has

described the rare case of true hermaphroditism observed by Garré. In a

person twenty-one years of age, brought up as a man, and having

thoroughly masculine feelings, there suddenly occurred, associated with

swelling of the breasts (gynecomasty), monthly recurring hæmorrhages,

proceeding from the supposed intertesticular fissure; also from time to

time, associated with voluptuous erection of the penis, there was

discharged whitish mucus, and the libidinous ideas connected with this

discharge referred always to women. The physical structure and facial

expression of this individual were feminine; the build of the thorax,

the shoulders, and the shape of the arms exhibited male characteristics.

In a right-sided swelling, resembling an inguinal hernia, were found a

testicle-ovary (Ger. _Hodeneierstock_), an epididymis, a parovarium, a

spermatic cord, and a Fallopian tube.

More frequent than these cases, in which naturally the determination of

sex is practically impossible, are cases of =pseudo-hermaphroditism=,

which also possess the greatest importance in connexion with the problem

of pseudo-homosexuality. In these cases of pseudo-hermaphroditism the

reproductive glands are, in fact, distinctively male or female, but the

characteristics of the =excretory organs= and of the =external genital

organs= do not enable us to determine the sex, for they are in part

male, in part female, and in part completely undifferentiated,

which is to be explained as dependent upon an incomplete or entirely

wanting differentiation of the primitively identical rudiment of

the external genital organs of the two sexes (inhibition of the

processes of growth at some stage of development). Thus there arises

_pseudo-hermaphroditismus masculinus_, in cases in which the genital

fissure is not completely closed, so that the urethra possesses a

fissure below (hypospadias); also the two halves of the scrotum may fail

to join, so that a fissure is left between them, simulating a vaginal

inlet. Since in these cases the testicles are commonly retained within

the abdominal cavity, or else appear in the inguinal region, simulating

an inguinal hernia, the penis is believed to be a kind of enlarged

clitoris, and the individual is mistaken for a woman (_erreur de sexe_).

If it further happens that, on account of the supposed inguinal hernia,

the individual is ordered to wear, and continues to wear, a truss, the

testicular tissue disappears completely as a result of pressure atrophy,

and the correct diagnosis becomes more difficult than ever. I recently

saw a case of this kind in a male hermaphrodite, twenty-two years of

age, who had been brought up as a woman. He had, however, always felt

attraction towards women, and, having a large membrum, he was able,

notwithstanding the existence of hypospadias, to complete regular

coitus. In the ejaculated semen the examining physician had =not found

any spermatozoa=; but in this case the testicles had doubtless atrophied

in consequence of the wearing of a truss. This pseudo-hermaphrodite has

recently published the history of his upbringing as a “woman.” The work

is of great interest from the psychological point of view, and is

entitled “A Man’s Years as a Girl,” by “Nobody” (Berlin, 1907).

Where the reproductive glands are female there results a

_pseudo-hermaphroditismus femininus_ in cases in which the external

genital organs of this female pseudo-hermaphrodite exhibit a certain

similarity with the genital organs of the male--for example, when the

clitoris is exceptionally large, and the labia majora have grown

together, so that the vaginal inlet appears to be wanting. In this case

also there may be a mistake in diagnosis, and, consequently, the

individual having been educated as a man, apparent homosexuality may

result when the natural sexual inclination towards the male manifests

itself in due course.

In both varieties of pseudo-hermaphroditism there exist very various

anatomical and physiological possibilities in respect of the

relationship of the secondary sexual characters to the anatomical

character of the reproductive glands, in respect of the menstrual

equivalents in male pseudo-hermaphrodites, in respect of the

relationship of the sexual impulse to the reproductive glands, in

respect of the greater or less strength of the impulse, in respect of

periodic genital hæmorrhages in male pseudo-hermaphrodites, in respect

of possible sexual aberrations, etc. For more exact details I must refer

the reader to the works of Neugebauer and Hirschfeld. Here I will only

refer to a case described by the last-named author, of a male

pseudo-hermaphrodite, forty years of age, Friderike S., who had been

brought up as a “woman,” who at a very early age had exhibited an

inclination towards women =only=, and an antipathy to sexual intercourse

with men. In this individual a reproductive gland resembling a testicle

could be detected, out of which there issued a structure resembling the

spermatic cord. In the left inguinal canal was an atrophied reproductive

gland of indeterminate character. The membrum was something between

penis and clitoris. The labia majora and minora bounded a short cæcal

vagina. Internal female reproductive organs could not be detected. On

the other hand, there appeared to be a prostate gland. In the sexual

secretion, which was discharged by a different opening from the urine,

H. Friedenthal =was able to detect very numerous completely normal

spermatozoa=, whereby the male character of this pseudo-woman was

completely proved, and whereby also the alleged “homosexual” tendencies

were now shown to be heterosexual.

[567] _Cf._ L. S. A. M. von Römer, “Regarding the Androgynous Idea of

Life,” _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1903, vol. v., pp.

707-940.

[568] M. Hirschfeld, “The Theory and History of Bisexuality,”

published in “The Nature of Love,” pp. 93-133 (Leipzig, 1895). _Cf._

also P. Näcke, “Some Psychiatric Experiences in Support of the

Doctrine of Bisexual Vestiges in Mankind,” published in _The Annual

for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1906, vol. viii., pp. 583-603.

[569] _Cf._ C. Lombroso, “Recent Advances in the Study of

Criminality,” pp. 109-111 (Gera, 1899).

[570] M. Hirschfeld, “Berlin’s Third Sex,” p. 13.

[571] These pseudo-tribades, belonging mainly to the aristocracy and

to the upper middle classes, are known in Parisian slang as “Sapphos,”

in contrast to the genuine “Lesbian lovers.”

[572] _Cf._ my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia

Sexualis,” vol. i., pp. 224-227.

[573] _Cf._ L. Martineau, “Leçons sur les Déformations Vulvaires et

Anales,” p. 21 (Paris, 1885).

[574] _Op. cit._, pp. 29-31.

[575] Karl Gutzkow writes in a beautiful letter to Max Ring: “Our time

is so separative, our hearts beat in so solitary a manner, and yet the

need of intimate bonds is there, but who dares to tie them? Any

intimate friendship formed between men in early youth disappears like

dust before the wind. Then comes the love of woman, which fills the

whole of our heart; then follows the care for material existence,

which increases our egoism; and the danger that our heart will shrink

makes its appearance all too soon. Who draws near to another human

being? Who admits that he has need of others, and that his life is a

life without love? We all suffer in this way; we should form warm

friendships between man and man” (“Berlin in the Time of Reaction,”

reminiscences by Max Ring, published in _Deutsche Dichtung_, 1898,

vol. xxiii., pp. 51, 52).

[576] Such a noble love between men shines, for example, from the

letters of Count Arthur Gobineau to Prince Philipp zu

Eulenburg-Hertefeld. _Cf._ Prince zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld’s “Eine

Erinnerung an Graf Arthur Gobineau,” especially pp. 22, 23 (Stuttgart,

1906).

[577] _Cf._ H. Schurtz, “Age Classes and Associations of Men” (Berlin,

1904); B. Friedländer, “Physiological Friendship as a Normal

Fundamental Impulse of Humanity and as the Foundation of Social

Intercourse,” in the _Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1900,

vol. vi., pp. 179, 214; and the same author’s “Renascence of Eros

Uranios,” pp. 163-211 (Berlin, 1904).

[578] O. Kiefer, “Plato’s Attitude towards Homosexuality,” _Annual for

Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1905, vol. vii., pp. 107-126. _Cf._ also

“Lyrical and Bucolic Poetry,” _op. cit._, 1906, viii., pp. 619-684.

[579] This connexion was recognized, although in the inverse

direction, by Heinrich Laube. In a passage of “Junge Europa” (vol. i.,

p. 72 of the new edition; Vienna, 1876) we read: “Constantia is the

most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Outline, muscles, figure, eyes,

speech, mind, feeling--everything in her is beautiful; she is the

ideal of a man found in the feminine form. I love this power in woman

above everything; the soft, the non-resisting, does not offer me

enough opposition. _Perhaps such women as these form the transition to

the Hellenic love of boys._”

[580] _Cf._, in this connexion, also P. Näcke, “Homosexuality in the

Orient,” published in the _Archives for Criminal Anthropology_, 1904,

vol. xvi., pp. 333 _et seq._

[581] Goethe confirms this in a conversation with Chancellor von

Müller, in which he deduces the “aberration” of Greek love from this,

“that, according to his own æsthetic judgment, man has always been

more beautiful, more perfect, more complete, than woman. Such a

feeling, when it has once originated, easily passes over into the

animal and the grossly material.” _Cf._ _Annual for Sexual

Intermediate Stages_, 1905, vol. vii., p. 127.

[582] Especially instructive is his correspondence with Christian Otto

(_cf._ “Jean Paul’s Correspondence with his Wife and with Christian

Otto,” edited by Paul Nerrlich; Berlin, 1902). For example, he writes

once to this friend: “Ah, my friend, if I could only once more clasp

your form to my breast.” _Cf._ also the interesting remarks on the

peculiarly intimate masculine friendship of this period given in the

last (eighth) volume of the “German History” of Karl Lamprecht

(Freiburg, 1906).

[583] F. G. Welcker, “The Odes of Sappho,” published in the

_Rheinisches Museum für Philologie_, 1856, vol. xi., p. 237.

[584] I reproduce this passage in the eighth volume of _The Annual for

Sexual Intermediate Stages_, pp. 609, 610.

[585] L. Blumreich, “Diseases of Women, including Sterility,” being

chapter xx. of Senator and Kaminer’s “Health and Disease in Relation

to Marriage and the Married State,” published by Rebman Limited

(London, 1906).

[586] Franz Neugebauer, “Seventeen Cases of the Coincidence of Mental

Anomalies with Pseudo-Hermaphroditism, selected from a Collection of

Seven Hundred and Thirteen Observations of Pseudo-Hermaphroditism,”

published in _The Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages_, 1902, vol.

ii., pp. 224-253; same author, “Interesting Observations in the

Department of Pseudo-Hermaphroditism,” _op. cit._, 1902, vol. iv., pp.

1-176; same author, “Surgical Surprises in the Domain of

Pseudo-Hermaphroditism, containing One Hundred and Thirty-four

Observations of Cases, with Fifty-four Instances of Erroneous

Determination of Sex, in most Cases proved by the Scalpel,” _op.

cit._, 1903, vol. v., pp. 205-424; same author, “One Hundred and Three

Observations of more or less marked Development of a Uterus in the

Male (_pseudohermaphroditismus masculinus internus_), in addition to a

Compilation of Observations of Regular Periodic Bleeding from the

Genital Organs, Menstruation, Vicarious Menstruation,

Pseudo-Menstruation, Molimina Menstrualia, etc., in

Pseudo-Hermaphrodites,” _op. cit._, 1904, vol. vi., pp. 215-326; same

author, “Compend of the Literature of Hermaphroditism in Human

Beings,” _op. cit._, 1905, vol. vii., pp. 471-670, and 1906, vol.

viii., pp. 685-700.

[587] Magnus Hirschfeld, “Sexual Links: Intermixture of Masculine and

Feminine Sexual Characters (Sexual Intermediate Stages),” Leipzig,

1905.

CHAPTER XXI

ALGOLAGNIA (SADISM AND MASOCHISM)

“_We must continually keep before our minds the fact that in no other

department of life so much as in the sexual life do we find side by

side, and closely associated each with the other, the noblest and the

basest, the superhuman and the subhuman, because the finest and the

deepest roots of our spiritual and bodily existence spring, for the

most part, from this subsoil; and we must remember that man would not

be able to sink so deep, far beneath the level of animality, if he had

not first raised himself by his own powers, in conflict with Nature

and with himself, through an immeasurable height of

civilization._”--ALBERT EULENBURG.

CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXI