combined with inversion. A young lady of 26, of good heredity,
from the age of 6 had only been attracted to her own sex, and
even in childhood had practised mutual _cunnilinctus_. She was
extremely intelligent, and of generous and good-natured
disposition, with various masculine tastes, but, on the whole, of
feminine build and with completely feminine larynx. During seven
years she lived exclusively with one woman. She found complete
satisfaction in active _cunnilinctus_. During the course of this
relationship various other methods of excitement and
gratification arose--it seems, for the most part, spontaneously.
She found much pleasure in urolagnic and coprolagnic practices.
In addition to these and similar perversions, the subject liked
being bitten, especially in the lobule of the ear, and she was
highly excited when whipped by her friend, who should, if
possible, be naked at the time; only the nates must be whipped
and only a birch rod be used, or the effect would not be
obtained. These practices would not be possible to her in the
absence of extreme intimacy and mutual understanding, and they
only took place with the one friend. In this case the perverse
phenomena were masochistic rather than sadistic. Many homosexual
women, however, display sadistic tendencies in a more or less
degree. Thus Dr. Kiernan tells me of an American case, with which
he was professionally concerned with Dr. Moyer (see also paper by
Kiernan and Moyer in _Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1907), of a
sadistic inverted woman in a small Illinois city, married and
with two young children. She was of undoubted neuropathic stock
and there was a history of pre-marital masturbation and
bestiality with a dog. She was a prominent club woman in her city
and a leader in religious and social matters; as is often the
case with sadists she was pruriently prudish, and there was
strong testimony to her chaste and modest character by clergymen,
club women, and local magnates. The victim of her sadistic
passion was a girl she had adopted from a Home, but whom she half
starved. On this girl she inflicted over three hundred wounds.
Many of these wounds were stabs with forks and scissors which
merely penetrated the skin. This was especially the case with
those inflicted on the breasts, labia, and clitoris. During the
infliction of these she experienced intense excitement, but this
excitement was under control, and when she heard anyone
approaching she instantly desisted. She was found sane and
responsible at the time of these actions, but the jury also found
that she had since become insane and she was sent to an Insane
Hospital, after recovery to serve a sentence of two years in
prison. The alleged insanity, Dr. Kiernan adds, was of the
dubious manic and depressive variety, and perhaps chiefly due to
wounded pride.

The inverted woman is an enthusiastic admirer of feminine beauty,
especially of the statuesque beauty of the body, unlike, in this, the
normal woman, whose sexual emotion is but faintly tinged by esthetic
feeling. In her sexual habits we perhaps less often find the degree of
promiscuity which is not uncommon among inverted men, and we may perhaps
agree with Moll that homosexual women are more often apt to love
faithfully and lastingly than homosexual men. Hirschfeld remarks that
inverted women are not usually attracted in girlhood by the autoerotic and
homosexual vices of school-life,[179] and nearly all the women whose
histories I have recorded in this chapter felt a pronounced repugnance to
such manifestations and cherished lofty ideals of love.

Inverted women are not rarely married. Moll, from various confidences
which he has received, believes that inverted women have not the same
horror of normal coitus as inverted, men; this is probably due to the fact
that the woman under such circumstances can retain a certain passivity. In
other cases there is some degree of bisexuality, although, as among
inverted men, the homosexual instinct seems usually to give the greater
relief and gratification.

It has been stated by many observers--in America, in France, in Germany,
and in England--that homosexuality is increasing among women.[180] There
are many influences in our civilization today which encourage such
manifestations.[181] The modern movement of emancipation--the movement to
obtain the same rights and duties as men, the same freedom and
responsibility, the same education and the same work--must be regarded as,
on the whole, a wholesome and inevitable movement. But it carries with it
certain disadvantages.[182] Women are, very justly, coming to look upon
knowledge and experience generally as their right as much as their
brothers' right. But when this doctrine is applied to the sexual sphere it
finds certain limitations. Intimacies of any kind between young men and
young women are as much discouraged socially now as ever they were; as
regards higher education, the mere association of the sexes in the
lecture-room or the laboratory or the hospital is discouraged in England
and in America. While men are allowed freedom, the sexual field of women
is becoming restricted to trivial flirtation with the opposite sex, and to
intimacy with their own sex; having been taught independence of men and
disdain for the old theory which placed women in the moated grange of the
home to sigh for a man who never comes, a tendency develops for women to
carry this independence still farther and to find love where they find
work. These unquestionable influences of modern movements cannot directly
cause sexual inversion, but they develop the germs of it, and they
probably cause a spurious imitation. This spurious imitation is due to the
fact that the congenital anomaly occurs with special frequency in women of
high intelligence who, voluntarily or involuntarily, influence others.

Kurella, Bloch, and others believe that the woman movement has
helped to develop homosexuality (see, e.g., I. Bloch, _Beiträge
zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, 1902, vol. i, p. 248).
Various "feminine Strindbergs of the woman movement," as they
have been termed, displayed marked hostility to men. Anna Rüling
claims that many leaders of the movement, from the outset until
today, have been inverted. Hirschfeld, however (_Die
Homosexualität_, p. 500), after giving special attention to the
matter, concludes that, alike among English suffragettes and in
the German Verein für Frauenstimmrecht, the percentage of inverts
is less than 10 per cent.


FOOTNOTES:

[137] Catharina Margaretha Lincken, who married another woman, somewhat
after the manner of the Hungarian Countess Sarolta Vay (i.e., with the aid
of an artificial male organ), was condemned to death for sodomy, and
executed in 1721 at the age of 27 (F.C. Müller, "Ein weiterer Fall von
conträrer Sexualempfindung," _Friedrich's Blätter für Gerichtliche
Medizin_, Heft 4, 1891). The most fully investigated case of sexual
inversion in a woman in modern times is that of Countess Sarolta Vay
(_Friedrich's Blätter_, Heft, 1, 1891; also Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia
Sexualis_, Eng. trans. of 10th. ed., 416-427; also summarized in Appendix
E of earlier editions of the present Study). Sarolta always dressed as a
man, and went through a pseudo-marriage with a girl who was ignorant of
the real sex of her "husband." She was acquitted and allowed to return
home and continue dressing as a man.

[138] Anna Rüling has some remarks on this point, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle
Zwischenstufen_, vol. vii, 1905, p. 141 et seq.

[139] This, of course, by no means necessarily indicates the existence of
sexual inversion, any more than the presence of feminine traits in
distinguished men. I have elsewhere pointed out (e.g., _Man and Woman_,
5th ed., 1915, p. 488) that genius in either sex frequently involves the
coexistence of masculine, feminine, and infantile traits.

[140] Various references to Queen Hatschepsu are given by Hirschfeld (_Die
Homosexualität_, p. 739). Hirschfeld's not severely critical list of
distinguished homosexual persons includes 18 women. It would not be
difficult to add others.

[141] Sophie Hochstetter, in a study of Queen Christina in the _Jahrbuch
für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_ (vol. ix, 1908, p. 168 et seq.), regards
her as bisexual, while H.J. Schouten (_Monatsschrift für
Kriminalanthropologie_, 1912, Heft 6) concludes that she was homosexual,
and believes that it was Monaldeschi's knowledge on this point which led
her to instigate his murder.

[142] Cf. Hans Freimark, _Helena Petrovna Blavatsky_; Levetzow, "Louise
Michel," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. vii, 1905, p. 307 et
seq.

[143] Rosa Bonheur, the painter, is a specially conspicuous example of
pronounced masculinity in, a woman of genius. She frequently dressed as a
man, and when dressed as a woman her masculine air occasionally attracted
the attention of the police. See Theodore Stanton's biography.

[144] There is some difference of opinion as to whether there is less real
delinquency among women (see Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 6th ed.,
1915, p. 469), but we are here concerned with judicial criminality.

[145] This apparently widespread opinion is represented by the remark of a
young man in the eighteenth century (concerning the Lesbian friend of the
woman he wishes to marry), quoted in the Comte de Tilly's _Souvenirs_: "I
confess that that is a kind of rivalry which causes me no annoyance; on
the contrary it amuses me, and I am immoral enough to laugh at it." That
attitude of the educated and refined was not probably shared by the
populace. Madame de Lamballe, who was guillotined at the Revolution, was
popularly regarded as a tribade, and it was said that on this account her
charming head received the special insults of the mob.

[146] Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 5th ed., 1915, especially chapters
xiii and xv.

[147] Karsch (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iii, 1901, pp.
85-9) brings together some passages concerning homosexuality in women
among various peoples.

[148] Gandavo, quoted by Lomaeco, _Archivio per l'Antropologia_, 1889,
fasc. 1.

[149] _Journal Anthropological Institute_, July-Dec., 1904, p. 342.

[150] G.H. Lowie, "The Assiniboine," Am. Museum of Nat. Hist.,
_Anthropological Papers_, New York, 1909, vol. xiv, p. 223; W. Jones, "Fox
Texts," _Publications of Am. Ethnological Soc._, Leyden, 1907, vol. i, p.
151; quoted by D.C. McMurtrie, "A Legend of Lesbian Love Among the North
American Indians," _Urologic Review_, April, 1914.

[151] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Heft 6, 1899, p. 669.

[152] I. Bloch, _Die Prostitution_, vol. i, pp. 180, 181.

[153] Corre, _Crime en Pays Creoles_, 1889.

[154] In a Spanish prison, some years ago, when a new governor endeavored
to reform the homosexual manners of the women, the latter made his post so
uncomfortable that he was compelled to resign. Salillas (_Vida Penal en
España_) asserts that all the evidence shows the extraordinary expansion
of Lesbian love in prisons. The _mujeres hombrunas_ receive masculine
names--Pepe, Chulo, Bernardo, Valiente; new-comers are surrounded in the
court-yard by a crowd of lascivious women, who overwhelm them with honeyed
compliments and gallantries and promises of protection, the most robust
virago having most successes; a single day and night complete the
initiation.

[155] Even among Arab prostitutes it is found, according to Kocher, though
among Arab women generally it is rare.

[156] _Monatsschrift für Harnkrankheiten_, Nov., 1905; in his _Tribadie
Berlins_, he states that among 3000 prostitutes at least ten per cent.
were homosexual. See also Parent-Duchâtelet, _De la Prostitution_, 3d ed.,
vol. i, pp. 159, 169; Martineau, _Les Déformations vulvaires et anales_;
and Iwan Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, 1902,
vol. i, p. 244.

[157] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 330.

[158] Eulenburg, _Sexuelle Neuropathie_, p. 144.

[159] See vol. vi of these _Studies_, "Sex in Relation to Society," ch.
vii.

[160] The prostitute has sometimes been regarded as a special type,
analogous to the instinctive criminal. This point of view has been
specially emphasized by Lombroso and Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente_.
Apart from this, these authors regard homosexuality among prostitutes as
due to the following causes (p. 410 et seq.): (_a_) excessive and often
unnatural venery; (_b_) confinement in a prison, with separation from men;
(_c_) close association with the same sex, such as is common in brothels;
(_d_) maturity and old age, inverting the secondary sexual characters and
predisposing to sexual inversion; (_e_) disgust of men produced by a
prostitute's profession, combined with the longing for love. For cases of
homosexuality in American prostitutes, see D. McMurtrie, _Lancet-Clinic_,
Nov. 2, 1912.

[161] Thus Casanova, who knew several nuns intimately, refers to
homosexuality as a childish sin so common in convents that confessors
imposed no penance for it (_Mémoires_, ed. Garnier, vol. iv, p. 517).
Homosexuality in convent schools has been studied by Mercante, _Archivos
di Psiquiatria_, 1905, pp. 22-30.

[162] I quote the following from a private letter written in Switzerland:
"An English resident has told me that his wife has lately had to send away
her parlor-maid (a pretty girl) because she was always taking in strange
women to sleep with her. I asked if she had been taken from hotel service,
and found, as I expected, that she had. But neither my friend nor his wife
suspected the real cause of these nocturnal visits."

[163] For a series of cases of affection of girls for girls, in apparently
normal subjects in the United States, see, e.g., Lancaster, "The
Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence," _Pedagogical Seminary_, July,
1897, p. 88; also, for school friendships between girls, exactly
resembling those between boys and girls, Theodate L. Smith, "Types of
Adolescent Affection," ib., June, 1904, pp. 193, 195.

[164] Obici and Marchesini, _Le "Amicizie" di Collegio_, Rome, 1898.

[165] See Appendix B, in which I have briefly summarized the result of the
investigation by Obici and Marchesini, and also brought forward
observations concerning English colleges.

[166] An interesting ancient example of a woman with an irresistible
impulse to adopt men's clothing and lead a man's life, but who did not, so
far as is known, possess any sexual impulses, is that of Mary Frith,
commonly called Moll Cutpurse, who lived in London at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. _The Life and Death of Mrs. Mary Frith_ appeared in
1662; Middleton and Rowley also made her the heroine of their delightful
comedy, _The Roaring Girl (Mermaid Series, Middleton's Plays_, volume ii),
somewhat idealizing her, however. She seems to have belonged to a neurotic
and eccentric stock; "each of the family," her biographer says, "had his
peculiar freak." As a child she only cared for boys' games, and could
never adapt herself to any woman's avocations. "She had a natural
abhorrence to the tending of children." Her disposition was altogether
masculine; "she was not for mincing obscenity, but would talk freely,
whatever came uppermost." She never had any children, and was not taxed
with debauchery: "No man can say or affirm that ever she had a sweetheart
or any such fond thing to dally with her;" a mastiff was the only living
thing she cared for. Her life was not altogether honest, but not so much
from any organic tendency to crime, it seems, as because her abnormal
nature and restlessness made her an outcast. She was too fond of drink,
and is said to have been the first woman who smoked tobacco. Nothing is
said or suggested of any homosexual practices, but we see clearly here
what may be termed the homosexual diathesis.

[167] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 137.

[168] S. Weissenberg, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1892, Heft 4, p. 280.

[169] This case was described by Gasparini, _Archivio di Psichiatria_,
1908, fasc. 1-2.

[170] Bringing together ten cases of inverted women from various sources
(including the three original cases mentioned above), in only four were
the sexual organs normal; in the others they were more or less
undeveloped.

[171] Homosexual persons generally, male and female, unlike the
heterosexual, are apt to feel more modesty with persons of the same sex
than with those of the opposite sex. See, e.g., Hirschfeld, _Die
Homosexualität_, p. 76.

[172] Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 197.

[173] The term "cunnilinctus" was suggested to me by the late Dr. J.
Bonus, and I have ever since used it; the Latin authors commonly used
"cunnilingus" for the actor, but had no corresponding term for the action.
Hirschfeld has lately used the term "cunnilinctio" in the same sense, but
such a formation is quite inadmissible. For information on the classic
terms for this perversion, see, e.g., Iwan Bloch, _Ursprung der Syphilis_,
vol. ii, p. 612 et seq.

[174] Casanova, _Mémoires_, ed. Gamier, vol. iv, p. 597.

[175] Hirschfeld deals in a full and authoritative manner with the
differential diagnosis of inversion and the other groups of transitional
sexuality in _Die Homosexualität_, ch. ii; also in his fully illustrated
book _Geschlechtsübergänge_, 1905.

[176] Havelock Ellis, "Auto-erotism," in vol. i of these _Studies_; Iwan
Bloch, _Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, p. 589; ib., _Die Prostitution_,
vol, i, pp. 385-6; for early references, Crusius, _Untersuchungen zu den
Mimiamben der Herondas_, pp. 129-30.

[177] I have found a notice of a similar case in France, during the
sixteenth century, in Montaigne's _Journal du Voyage en Italie en_ 1850
(written by his secretary); it took place near Vitry le François. Seven or
eight girls belonging to Chaumont, we are told, resolved to dress and to
work as men; one of these came to Vitry to work as a weaver, and was
looked upon as a well-conditioned young man, and liked by everyone. At
Vitry she became betrothed to a woman, but, a quarrel arising, no marriage
took place. Afterward "she fell in love with a woman whom she married, and
with whom she lived for four or five months, to the wife's great
contentment, it is said; but, having been recognized by some one from
Chaumont, and brought to justice, she was condemned to be hanged. She said
she would even prefer this to living again as a girl, and was hanged for
using illicit inventions to supply the defects of her sex" (_Journal_, ed.
by d'Ancona, 1889, p. 11).

[178] Roux, _Bulletin Société d'Anthropologie_, 1905, No. 3. Roux knew a
Comarian woman who, at the age of 50, after her husband's death, became
homosexual and made herself an artificial penis which she used with
younger women.

[179] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 47.

[180] There are few traces of feminine homosexuality in English social
history of the past. In Charles the Second's Court, the _Mémoires de
Ghrammont_ tell us, Miss Hobart was credited with Lesbian tendencies.
"Soon the rumor, true or false, of this singularity spread through the
court. They were gross enough there never to have heard of that refinement
of ancient Greece in the tastes of tenderness, and the idea came into
their heads that the illustrious Hobart, who seemed so affectionate to
pretty women, must be different from what she appeared." This passage is
interesting because it shows us how rare was the exception. A century
later, however, homosexuality among English women seems to have been
regarded by the French as common, and Bacchaumont, on January 1, 1773,
when recording that Mlle. Heinel of the Opera was settling in England,
added: "Her taste for women will there find attractive satisfaction, for
though Paris furnishes many tribades it is said that London is herein
superior."

[181] "I believe," writes a well-informed American correspondent, "that
sexual inversion is increasing among Americans--both men and women--and
the obvious reasons are: first, the growing independence of the women,
their lessening need for marriage; secondly, the nervous strain that
business competition has brought upon the whole nation. In a word, the
rapidly increasing masculinity in women and the unhealthy nervous systems
of the men offer the ideal factors for the production of sexual inversion
in their children."

[182] Homosexual women, like homosexual men, now insert advertisements in
the newspapers, seeking a "friend." Näcke ("Zeitungsannoncen von
weiblichen Homosexuellen," _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1902, p.
225) brought together from Munich newspapers a collection of such
advertisements, most of which were fairly unambiguous: "Actress with
modern ideas desires to know rich lady with similar views, for the sake of
friendly relations, etc.;" "Young lady of 19, a pretty blonde, seeks
another like herself for walks, theatre, etc.," and so on.




CHAPTER V.

THE NATURE OF SEXUAL INVERSION.

Analysis of Histories--Race--Heredity--General Health--First Appearance of
Homosexual Impulse--Sexual Precocity and Hyperesthesia--Suggestion and
Other Exciting Causes of Inversion--Masturbation--Attitude Toward
Women--Erotic Dreams--Methods of Sexual Relationship--Pseudo-sexual
Attraction--Physical Sexual Abnormalities--Artistic and Other
Aptitudes--Moral Attitude of the Invert.


Before stating briefly my own conclusions as to the nature of sexual
inversion, I propose to analyze the facts brought out in the histories
which I have been able to study.[183]


RACE.--All my cases, 80 in number, are British and American, 20 living in
the United States and the rest being British. Ancestry, from the point of
view of race, was not made a matter of special investigation. It appears,
however, that at least 44 are English or mainly English; at least 10 are
Scotch or of Scotch extraction; 2 are Irish and 4 others largely Irish; 4
have German fathers or mothers; another is of German descent on both
sides, while 2 others are of remote German extraction; 2 are partly, and 1
entirely, French; 2 have a Portuguese strain, and at least 2 are more or
less Jewish. Except the apparently frequent presence of the German
element, there is nothing remarkable in this ancestry.


HEREDITY.--It is always difficult to deal securely with the significance
of heredity, or even to establish a definite basis of facts. I have by no
means escaped this difficulty, for in some cases I have not even had an
opportunity of cross-examining the subjects whose histories I have
obtained. Still, the facts, so far as they emerge, have some interest. I
possess some record of heredity in 62 of my cases. Of these, not less than
24, or in the proportion of nearly 39 per cent., assert that they have
reason to believe that other cases of inversion have occurred in their
families, and, while in some it is only a strong suspicion, in others
there is no doubt whatever. In one case there is reason to suspect
inversion on both sides. Usually the inverted relatives have been
brothers, sisters, cousins, or uncles. In one case a bisexual son seems to
have had a bisexual father.

This hereditary character of inversion (which was denied by
Näcke) is a fact of great significance, and, as it occurs in
cases with which I am well acquainted, I can have no doubt
concerning the existence of the tendency. The influence of
suggestion may often be entirely excluded, especially when the
persons are of different sex. Both Krafft-Ebing and Moll noted a
similar tendency. Von Römer states that in one-third of his cases
there was inversion in other members of the family. Hirschfeld
also found that there is a relatively high proportion of cases of
family inversion.

Twenty-six, so far as can be ascertained, belong to reasonably healthy
families; minute investigation would probably reduce the number of these,
and it is noteworthy that even in some of the healthy families there was
only one child born of the parents' marriage. In 28 cases there is more or
less frequency of morbidity or abnormality--eccentricity, alcoholism,
neurasthenia, insanity, or nervous disease--on one or both sides, in
addition to inversion or apart from it. In some of these cases the
inverted offspring is the outcome of the union, of a very healthy with a
thoroughly morbid stock; in some others there is a minor degree of
abnormality on both sides.


GENERAL HEALTH.--It is possible to speak with more certainty of the health
of the individual than of that of his family. Of the 80 cases, 53--or
about two-thirds--may be said to enjoy good, and sometimes even very good,
health, though occasionally there is some slight qualification to be made.
In 22 cases the health is delicate, or at best only fair; in these cases
there is sometimes a tendency to consumption, and often marked
neurasthenia and a more or less unbalanced temperament. Four cases are
morbid to a considerable degree; the remaining case has had insane
delusions which required treatment in an asylum. A considerable
proportion, included among those as having either good or fair health, may
be described as of extremely nervous temperament, and in most cases they
so describe themselves; a certain proportion of these combine great
physical and, especially, mental energy with this nervousness; all these
are doubtless of neurotic temperament.[184] Very few can be said to be
conspicuously lacking in energy. On the whole, therefore, a large
proportion of these inverted individuals are passing through life in an
unimpaired state of health, which enables them to do at least their fair
share of work in the world; in a considerable proportion of my cases that
work is of high intellectual value. Only in 5 cases, it will be seen, or
at most 6, can the general health be said to be distinctly bad.

This result may, perhaps, seem surprising. It must, however, be remembered
that my cases do not, on the whole, represent the class which alone the
physician is usually able to bring forward: i.e., the sexual inverts who
are suffering from a more or less severe degree of complete nervous
breakdown.

There is no frequent relationship between homosexuality and
insanity, and such homosexuality as is found in asylums is mostly
of a spurious character. This point was specially emphasized by
Näcke (e.g., "Homosexualität und Psychose," _Zeitschrift für
Psichiatrie_, vol. lxviii, No. 3, 1911). He quoted the opinions
of various distinguished alienists as to the rarity with which
they had met genuine inverts, and recorded his own experiences.
He had never met a genuine invert in the asylum throughout his
extensive experience, although he was quite willing to admit that
there may be unrecognized inverts in asylums, and one patient
informed him, after leaving, that he was inverted, and had
attracted the attention of the police both before and afterward,
though nothing happened in the asylum. Among 1500 patients in the
asylum during one year, active _pedicatio_ occurred in about 1
per cent. of cases, these patients being frequently idiots or
imbeciles and at the same time masturbators, solitary or mutual.
Hirschfeld informed Näcke that, among homosexual persons,
hysterical conditions (not usually on hereditary basis) are
fairly common, and neurasthenia of high degree decidedly
frequent, but though stages of depression are common he had never
seen pure melancholia and very seldom mania, but paranoiac
delusional ideas frequently, and he agreed with Bryan of
Broadmoor that religious delusions are not uncommon. General
paralysis occurs, but is comparatively rare, and the same may be
said of dementia præcox. On the whole, although Hirschfeld was
unable to give precise figures, there was no reason whatever to
suppose an abnormal prevalence of insanity. This was Näcke's own
view. It is quite true, Näcke concluded, that homosexual actions
occur in every form of psychosis, especially in congenital and
secondary dements, and at periods of excitement, but we are here
more concerned with "pseudo-homosexuality" than with true
inversion. Hirschfeld finds that 75 per cent. inverts are of
sound heredity; this seems too large a proportion; in any case
allowance must be made for differences in method and minuteness
of investigation.

I am fairly certain that thorough investigation would very considerably
enlarge the proportion of cases with morbid heredity. At the same time
this enlargement would be chiefly obtained by bringing minor abnormalities
to the front, and it would then have to be shown how far the families of
average or normal persons are free from such abnormalities. The question
is sometimes asked: What family is free from neuropathic taint? At present
it is difficult to answer this question precisely. There is good ground to
believe that a fairly large proportion of families are free from such
taint. In any case it seems probable that the families to which the
inverted belong do not usually present such profound signs of nervous
degeneration as we were formerly led to suppose. What we vaguely call
"eccentricity" is common among them; insanity is much rarer.


FIRST APPEARANCE OF HOMOSEXUAL INSTINCT.--Out of 72 cases, in 8 the
instinct veered round to the same sex in adult age or at all events after
puberty; in 3 of these there had been a love-disappointment with a woman;
no other cause than this can be assigned for the transition; but it is
noteworthy that in at least 2 of these cases the sexual instinct is
undeveloped or morbidly weak, while a third individual is of somewhat
weak _physique_, and another has long been in delicate health. In a
further case, also somewhat morbid, the development was rather more
complicated.

In 64 cases, or in a proportion of 88 per cent., the abnormal instinct
began in early life, without previous attraction to the opposite sex.[185]
In 27 of these it dates from about puberty, usually beginning at school.
In 39 cases the tendency began before puberty, between the ages of 5 and
11, usually between 7 and 9, sometimes as early as the subject can
remember. It must not be supposed that, in these numerous cases of the
early appearance of homosexuality, the manifestations were of a
specifically physical character, although erections are noted in a few
cases. For the most part sexual manifestations at this early age, whether
homosexual or heterosexual, are purely psychic.[186]


SEXUAL PRECOCITY AND HYPERESTHESIA.--It is a fact of considerable interest
and significance that in so large a number of my cases there was distinct
precocity of the sexual emotions, both on the physical and psychic sides.
There can be little doubt that, as many previous observers have found,
inversion tends strongly to be associated with sexual precocity. I think
it may further be said that sexual precocity tends to encourage the
inverted habit where it exists. Why this should be so is obvious, if we
believe--as there is some reason for believing--that at an early age the
sexual instinct is comparatively undifferentiated in its manifestations.
The precocious accentuation of the sexual impulse leads to definite
crystallization of the emotions at a premature stage. It must be added
that precocious sexual energy is likely to remain feeble, and that a
feeble sexual energy adapts itself more easily to homosexual
relationships, in which there is no definite act to be accomplished, than
to normal relationships. It is difficult to say how many of my cases
exhibit sexual weakness. In 6 or 7 it is evident, and it may be suspected
in many others, especially in those who are, and often describe themselves
as, "sensitive" or "nervous," as well as in those whose sexual development
was very late. In many cases there is marked hyperesthesia, or irritable
weakness. Hyperesthesia simulates strength, and, while there can be little
doubt that some sexual inverts (and more especially bisexuals) do possess
unusual sexual energy, in others it is but apparent; the frequent
repetition of seminal emissions, for example, may be the result of
weakness as well as of strength. It must be added that this irritability
of the sexual centers is, in a considerable proportion of inverts,
associated with marked emotional tendencies to affection and
self-sacrifice. In the extravagance of his affection and devotion, it has
been frequently observed, the male invert resembles many normal women.


SUGGESTION AND OTHER EXCITING CAUSES OF INVERSION.--In 18 of my cases it
is possible that some event, or special environment, in early life had
more or less influence in turning the sexual instinct into homosexual
channels, or in calling out a latent inversion. In 3 cases a
disappointment in normal love seems to have produced a profound nervous
and emotional shock, acting, as we seem bound to admit, on a predisposed
organism, and developing a fairly permanent tendency to inversion. In 8
cases there was seduction by an older person, but in at least 4 or 5 of
these there was already a well-marked predisposition. In at least 8 other
cases, example, usually at school, may probably be regarded as having
exerted some influence. It is noteworthy that in very few of my cases can
we trace the influence of any definite "suggestion," as asserted by
Schrenck-Notzing, who believes that, in the causation of sexual inversion
(as undoubtedly in the causation of erotic fetichism), we must give the
first place to "accidental factors of education and external influence."
He records the case of a little boy who innocently gazed in curiosity at
the penis of his father who was urinating, and had his ears boxed, whence
arose a train of thought and feeling which resulted in complete sexual
inversion. In two of the cases I have reported we have parallel incidents,
and here we see clearly that the homosexual tendency already existed. I do
not question the occurrence of such incidents, but I refuse to accept them
as supplying the causation of inversion, and in so doing I am supported by
all the evidence I am able to obtain. I am in agreement with a
correspondent who wrote:--

"Considering that all boys are exposed to the same order of
suggestions (sight of a man's naked organs, sleeping with a man,
being handled by a man), and that only a few of them become
sexually perverted, I think it reasonable to conclude that those
few were previously constituted to receive the suggestion. In
fact, suggestion seems to play exactly the same part in the
normal and abnormal awakening of sex."

I would go so far as to assert that for normal boys and girls the
developed sexual organs of the adult man or woman--from their size,
hairiness, and the mystery which envelops them--nearly always exert a
certain fascination, whether of attraction or horror.[187] But this has no
connection with homosexuality, and scarcely with sexuality at all. Thus,
in one case known to me, a boy of 6 or 7 took pleasure in caressing the
organs of another boy, twice his own age, who remained passive and
indifferent; yet this child grew up without ever manifesting any
homosexual instinct. The seed of suggestion can only develop when it falls
on a suitable soil. If it is to act on a fairly normal nature the
perverted suggestion must be very powerful or iterated, and even then its
influence will probably only be temporary, disappearing in the presence of
the normal stimulus.[188]

Not only is "suggestion" unnecessary to develop a sexual impulse already
rooted in the organism, but when exerted in an opposite direction it is
powerless to divert that impulse. We see this illustrated in several of
the cases whose histories I have presented. Thus in one case a boy was
seduced by the housemaid at the age of 14 and even derived pleasure from
the girl, yet none the less the native homosexual instinct asserted itself
a year later. In another case heterosexual suggestions were offered and
accepted in early life, yet, notwithstanding, the homosexual attraction
was slowly evolved from within.

I have, therefore, but little to say of the influence of suggestion, which
was formerly exalted to a position of the first importance in books on
sexual inversion. This is not because I underestimate the great part
played by suggestion in many fields of normal and abnormal life. It is
because I have been able to find but few decided traces of it in sexual
inversion. In many cases, doubtless, there may be some slight elements of
suggestion in developing the inversion, though they cannot be traced.[189]
Their importance seems usually questionable even when they are
discovered. Take Schrenck-Notzing's case of the little boy whose ears were
boxed for what his father considered improper curiosity. I find it
difficult to realize that a mighty suggestion can thereby be generated
unless a strong emotion exists for it to unite with; in that case the seed
falls on prepared soil. Is the wide prevalence of normal sexuality due to
the fact that so many little boys have had their ears boxed for taking
naughty liberties with women? If so, I am quite prepared to accept
Schrenck-Notzing's explanation as a complete account of the matter. I know
of one case, indeed, in which an element of what may fairly be called
suggestion can be detected. It is that of a physician who had always been
on very friendly terms with men, but had sexual relations exclusively with
women, finding fair satisfaction, until the confessions of an inverted
patient one day came to him as a revelation; thereafter he adopted
inverted practices and ceased to find any attraction in women. But even in
this case, as I understand the matter, suggestion merely served to reveal
his own nature to the man. For a physician to adopt the perverted habits
which the visit of a chance patient suggests to him can scarcely be a
phenomenon of pure suggestion. We have no reason to suppose that this
physician practised every perversion he heard of from patients; he adopted
that which fitted his own nature.[190] In another case homosexual advances
were made to a youth and accepted, but he had already been attracted to
men in childhood. Again, in another case, there were homosexual
influences in the boyhood of a subject who became bisexual, but as the
subject's father was of similar bisexual temperament we can attach no
potency to the mere suggestions. In another case we find homosexual
influence in childhood, but the child was already delicate, shy, nervous,
and feminine, clearly possessing a temperament predestined to develop in a
homosexual direction.

The irresistible potency of the inner impulse is well illustrated
in a case presented by Hirschfeld and Burchard: "My daughter
Erna," said the subject's mother, "showed boyish inclinations at
the age of 3, and they increased from year to year. She never
played with dolls, only with tin soldiers, guns, and castles. She
would climb trees and jump ditches; she made friends with the
drivers of all the carts that came to our house and they would
place her on the horse's back. The annual circus was a joy to her
for all the year. Even as a child of 4 she was so fearless on
horseback that lookers-on shouted Bravo! and all declared she was
a born horsewoman. It was her greatest wish to be a boy. She
would wear her elder brother's clothes all day, notwithstanding
her grandmother's indignation. Cycling, gymnastics, boating,
swimming, were her passion, and she showed skill in them. As she
grew older she hated prettily adorned hats and clothes. I had
much trouble with her for she would not wear pretty things. The
older she grew the more her masculine and decided ways developed.
This excited much outcry and offence. People found my daughter
unfeminine and disagreeable, but all my trouble and exhortations
availed nothing to change her." Now this young woman whom all the
influences of a normal feminine environment failed to render
feminine was not physiologically a woman at all; the case proved
to be the unique instance of an individual possessing all the
external characteristics of a woman combined with internal
testicular tissue capable of emitting true masculine semen
through the feminine urethra. No suggestions of the environment
could suffice to overcome this fundamental fact of internal
constitution. (Hirschfeld and Burchard, "Spermasekretion aus
einer weiblichen Harnröhre," _Deutsche medizinische
Wochenschrift_, No. 52, 1911.)

I may here quote three American cases (not previously published), for
which I am indebted to Prof. G. Frank Lydston, of Chicago. They seem to me
to illustrate the only kind of suggestions which play much part in the
evolution of inversion. I give them in Dr. Lydston's words:--


CASE I.--A man, 45 years of age, attracted by the allusion to my
essay on "Social Perversion" contained in the English translation
of Krafft-Ebing's _Psychopathia Sexualis_, consulted me regarding
the possible cure of his condition. This individual was a finely
educated, very intelligent man, who was an excellent linguist,
had considerable musical ability, and was in the employ of a firm
whose business was such as to demand on the part of its employés
considerable legal acumen, clerical ability, and knowledge of
real-estate transactions. This man stated that at the age of
puberty, without any knowledge of perversity of sexual feeling,