to disobedience natural to every child of Adam and Eve, and the
observation has often been repeated by teachers since. We probably have to
recognize that a way to render such manifestations wholesome, as well as
to prepare for the relationships of later life, is the adoption, so far as
possible, of the method of coeducation of the sexes,[246]--not, of course,
necessarily involving identity of education for both sexes,--since a
certain amount of association between the sexes helps to preserve the
healthiness of the sexual emotional attitude. Association between the
sexes will not, of course, prevent the development of congenital
inversion. In this connection it is pointed out by Bethe that it was
precisely in Sparta and Lesbos, where homosexuality was most ideally
cultivated, that the sexes, so far as we know, associated more freely than
in any other Greek State.[247]

The question of the treatment of homosexuality must be approached with
discrimination, caution, and skepticism. Nowadays we can have but little
sympathy with those who, at all costs, are prepared to "cure" the invert.
There is no sound method of cure in radical cases.

At one time the seemingly very radical method of castration was advocated
and occasionally carried out, as in a case I have recorded in a previous
chapter (History XXVI). Like all methods of treatment, it is sometimes
believed to have been successful by those who carried it out. Usually,
after a short period, it is found to be unsuccessful, and in some cases
the condition, especially the mental condition, is rendered worse. It is
not difficult to understand why this should be. Sexual inversion, is not a
localized genital condition. It is a diffused condition, and firmly
imprinted on the whole psychic state. There may be reasons for castration,
or the slighter operation of vasectomy, but, although sexual tension may
be thereby diminished, no authority now believes that any such operation
will affect the actual inversion. Castration of the body in adult age
cannot be expected to produce castration of the mind. Moll, Féré, Näcke,
Bloch, Rohleder, Hirschfeld, are all either opposed to castration for
inversion, or very doubtful as to any beneficial results.

In a case communicated to me by Dr. Shufeldt, an invert had
himself castrated at the age of 26 to diminish sexual desire,
make himself more like a woman, and to stop growth of beard. "But
the only apparent physical effect," he wrote, "was to increase my
weight 10 per cent., and render me a semi-invalid for the rest
of my life. After two years my sexuality decreased, but that may
have been due to satiety or to advancing years. I was also
rendered more easily irritated over trifles and more revengeful.
Terrible criminal auto-suggestions came into my head, never
experienced before." Féré (_Revue de Chirurgie_, March 10, 1905)
published the case of an invert of English origin who had been
castrated. The inverted impulse remained unchanged, as well as
sexual desire and the aptitude for erection; but neurasthenic
symptoms, which had existed before, were aggravated; he felt less
capable to resist his impulses, became migratory in his habits of
life, and addicted to the use of laudanum. In a case recorded by
C.H. Hughes (_Alienist and Neurologist_, Aug., 1914) the results
were less unsatisfactory; in this case the dorsal nerve of the
penis was first excised, without any result (see also _Alienist
and Neurologist_, Feb., 1904, p. 70, as regards worse than
useless results of cutting the pudic nerve), and a year or so
later the testes were removed and the patient gained tranquillity
and satisfaction; his homosexual inclinations appeared to go, and
he began to show inclination for asexualized women, being
specially anxious to meet with a woman whose ovaries had been
removed on account of inversion. (Reference may also be made to
Näcke, "Die Ersten Kastrationen aus sozialen Grunden auf
europäischen Boden," _Neurologisches Centralblatt_, 1909, No. 5,
and E. Wilhelm in _Juristisch-psychiatrische Grenzfragen_, vol.
viii, Heft 6 and 7, 1911.)

More trust has usually been placed in the psychotherapeutical than the
surgical treatment of homosexuality. At one time hypnotic suggestion was
carried out very energetically on homosexual subjects. Krafft-Ebing seems
to have been the first distinguished advocate of hypnotism for application
to the homosexual. Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing displayed special zeal and
persistency in this treatment. He undertook to treat even the most
pronounced cases of inversion by courses lasting more than a year, and
involving, in at least one case, nearly one hundred and fifty hypnotic
sittings; he prescribed frequent visits to the brothel, previous to which
the patient took large doses of alcohol; by prolonged manipulations a
prostitute endeavored to excite erection, a process attended with varying
results. It appears that in some cases this course of treatment was
attended by a certain sort of success, to which an unlimited good will on
the part of the patient, it is needless to say, largely contributed. The
treatment was, however, usually interrupted by continual backsliding to
homosexual practices, and sometimes, naturally, the cure involved a
venereal disorder. The patient was enabled to marry and to beget
children.[248] It is a method of treatment which seems to have found few
imitators. This we need not regret. The histories I have recorded in
previous chapters show that it is not uncommon for even a pronounced
invert to be able sometimes to effect coitus. It often becomes easy if at
the time he fixes his thoughts on images connected with his own sex. But
the perversion remains unaffected; the subject is merely (as one of Moll's
inverts expressed it) practising masturbation _per vaginam_. Such
treatment is a training in vice, and, as Raffalovich points out, the
invert is simply perverted and brought down to the vicious level which
necessarily accompanies perversity.[249]

There can be no doubt that in slight and superficial cases of
homosexuality, suggestion may really exert an influence. We can scarcely
expect it to exert such influence when the homosexual tendency is deeply
rooted in an organic inborn temperament. In such cases indeed the subject
may resist suggestion even when in the hypnotic state. This is pointed out
by Moll, a great authority on hypnotism, and with much experience of its
application to homosexuality, but never inclined to encourage an
exaggerated notion of its efficacy in this field. Forel, who was also an
authority on hypnotism, was equally doubtful as to its value in relation
to inversion, especially in clearly inborn cases. Krafft-Ebing at the end
said little about it, and Näcke (who was himself without faith in this
method of treating inversion) stated that he had been informed by the
last homosexual case treated by Krafft-Ebing by hypnotism that, in spite
of all good-will on the patient's side, the treatment had been quite
useless. Féré, also, had no belief in the efficacy of suggestive
treatment, nor has Merzbach, nor Rohleder. Numa Praetorius states that the
homosexual subjects he is acquainted with, who had been so treated, were
not cured, and Hirschfeld remarks that the inverts "cured" by hypnotism
were either not cured or not inverted.[250]

Moll has shown his doubt as to the wide applicability of suggestive
therapeutics in homosexuality by developing in recent years what he terms
association-therapy. In nearly all perverse individuals, he points out,
there is a bridge,--more or less weak, no doubt,--which leads to the
normal sexual life. By developing such links of association with
normality, Moll believes, it may be possible to exert a healing influence
on the homosexual. Thus a man who is attracted to boys may be brought to
love a boyish woman.[251] Indications of this kind have long been observed
and utilized, though not developed into a systematic method of treatment.
In the case of bisexual individuals, or of youthful subjects whose
homosexuality is not fully developed, it is probable that this method is
beneficial. It is difficult to believe, however, that it possesses any
marked influence on pronounced and developed cases of inversion.[252]

Somewhat the same aim as Moll's association-therapy, though on the basis
of a more elaborate theory, is sought by Freud's psychoanalytic method of
treating homosexuality. For the psychoanalytic theory (to which reference
was made in the previous chapter) the congenital element of inversion is a
rare and usually unimportant factor; the chief part is played by perverse
psychic mechanisms. It is the business of psychoanalysis to straighten
these out, and from the bisexual constitution, which is regarded as common
to every one, to bring into the foreground the heterosexual elements, and
so to reconstruct a normal personality, developing new sexual ideals from
the patient's own latent and subconscious nature. Sadger has especially
occupied himself with the psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality and
claims many successes.[253] Sadger admits that there are many limits to
the success of this treatment, and that it cannot affect the inborn
factors of homosexuality when present. Other psychoanalysts are less
sanguine as to the cure of inversion. Stekel appears to have stated that
he has never seen a complete cure by psychoanalysis, and Ferenezi is not
able to give a good account of the results; especially as regards what he
terms obsessional homosexuality, he states that he has never succeeded in
effecting a complete cure, although obsessions in general are especially
amenable to psychoanalysis.[254]

I have met with at least two homosexual persons who had undergone
psychoanalytic treatment and found it beneficial. One, however, was
bisexual, so that the difficulties in the way of the success--granting it
to be real--were not serious. In the other case, the inversion persisted
after treatment, exactly the same as before. The benefit he received was
due to the fact that he was enabled to understand himself better and to
overcome some of his mental difficulties. The treatment, therefore, in his
case, was not a method of cure, but of psychic hygiene, of what Hirschfeld
would call "adaptation-therapy." There can be no doubt that--even if we
put aside all effort at cure and regard an invert's condition as inborn
and permanent--a large and important field of treatment here still
remains.

As we have seen in the two previous chapters, sexual inversion cannot be
regarded as essentially an insane or psychopathic state.[255] But it is
frequently associated with nervous conditions which may be greatly
benefited by hygiene and treatment, without any attempt at all to overcome
a homosexual attitude which may be too deeply rooted to be changed. The
invert is specially liable to suffer from a high degree of neurasthenia,
often involving much nervous weakness and irritability, loss of
self-control, and genital hyperesthesia.[256] Hirschfeld finds that over
67 per cent. inverts suffer from nervous troubles, and among the cases
dealt with in the present _Study_ (as shown in chapter v) slight nervous
functional disturbances are very common. These are conditions which may be
ameliorated, and they may be treated in much the same way as if no
inversion existed, by physical and mental tonics; or, if necessary,
sedatives; by regulated gymnastics and out-of-door exercises; and by
occupations which employ, without overexerting, the mind. Very great and
permanent benefit may be obtained by a prolonged course of such mental and
physical hygiene; the associated neurasthenic conditions may be largely
removed, with the morbid fears, suspicions, and irritabilities that are
usually part of neurasthenia, and the invert may be brought into a fairly
wholesome and tonic condition of self-control.

The inversion is not thus removed. But if the patient is still young, and
if the perversion does not appear to be deeply rooted in the organism, it
is probable that--provided his own good-will is aiding--general hygienic
measures, together with removal to a favorable environment, may gradually
lead to the development of the normal sexual impulse. If it fails to do
so, it becomes necessary to exercise great caution in recommending
stronger methods. Purely "Platonic association with the other sex," Moll
points out, "leads to better results than any prescribed attempt at
coitus." For even when such attempt is successful, it is not usually
possible to regard the results with much satisfaction. Not only is the
acquisition of the normal instinct by an invert very much on a level with
the acquisition of a vice, but probably it seldom succeeds in eradicating
the original inverted instinct.[257] What usually happens is that the
person becomes capable of experiencing both impulses,--not a specially
satisfactory state of things. It may be disastrous, especially if it leads
to marriage, as it may do in an inverted man or still more easily in an
inverted woman. The apparent change does not turn out to be deep, and the
invert's position is more unfortunate than his original position, both for
himself and for his wife.[258]

It may be observed in the Histories brought forward in chapter iii that
the position of married inverts (we must, of course, put aside the
bisexual) is usually more distressing than that of the unmarried. Among my
cases 14 per cent. are married. Hirschfeld finds that 16 per cent. of
inverts are married and 50 per cent. are impotent; he is unable to find a
single cure of homosexuality, and seldom any improvement, due to marriage;
nearly always the impulse remains unaffected. The invert's happiness is,
however, often affected for the worse, and not least by the feeling that
he is depriving his wife of happiness. An invert, who had left his country
through fear of arrest and married a rich woman who was in love with him,
said to Hirschfeld: "Five years' imprisonment would not have been worse
than one year of marriage."[259] In a marriage of this kind the homosexual
partner and the normal partner--however ignorant of sexual matters--are
both conscious, often with equal pain, that, even in the presence of
affection and esteem and the best will in the world, there is something
lacking. The instinctive and emotional element, which is the essence of
sexual love and springs from the central core of organic personality,
cannot voluntarily be created or even assumed.[260]

For the sake of the possible offspring, also, marriage is to be avoided.
It is sometimes entirely for the sake of children that the invert desires
to marry. But it must be pointed out that homosexuality is undoubtedly in
many cases inherited. Often, it is true, the children turn out fairly
well, but, in many cases, they bear witness that they belong to a neurotic
and failing stock;[261] Hirschfeld goes so far as to say that it is always
so, and concludes that from the eugenic standpoint the marriage of a
homosexual person is always very risky. In a large number of cases such
marriages prove sterile. The tendency to sexual inversion in eccentric and
neurotic families seems merely to be nature's merciful method of winding
up a concern which, from her point of view, has ceased to be profitable.

As a rule, inverts have no desire to be different from what they
are, and, if they have any desire for marriage, it is usually
only momentary. Very pathetic appeals for help are, however,
sometimes made. I may quote from a letter addressed to me by a
gentleman who desired advice on this matter: "In part, I write to
you as a moralist and, in part, as to a physician. Dr. Q. has
published a book in which, without discussion, hypnotic treatment
of such cases was reported as successful. I am eager to know if
your opinion remains what it was. This new assurance comes from a
man whose moral firmness and delicacy are unquestionable, but you
will easily imagine how one might shrink from the implantation of
new impulses in the unconscious self, since newly created
inclinations might disturb the conditions of life. At any rate,
in my ignorance of hypnotism I fear that the effort to give the
normal instinct might lead to marriage without the assurance that
the normal instinct would be stable. I write, therefore, to
explain my present condition and crave your counsel. It is with
the greatest reluctance that I reveal the closely guarded secret
of my life. I have no other abnormality, and have not hitherto
betrayed my abnormal instinct. I have never made any person the
victim of passion: moral and religious feelings were too
powerful. I have found my reverence for other souls a perfect
safeguard against any approach to impurity. I have never had
sexual interest in women. Once I had a great friendship with a
beautiful and noble woman, without any mixture of sexual feeling
on my part. I was ignorant of my condition, and I have the bitter
regret of having caused in her a hopeless love--proudly and
tragically concealed to her death. My friendships with men,
younger men, have been colored by passion, against which I have
fought continually. The shame of this has made life a hell, and
the horror of this abnormality, since I came to know it as such,
has been an enemy to my religious faith. Here there could be no
case of a divinely given instinct which I was to learn to use in
a rational and chaste fashion, under the control of spiritual
loyalty. The power which gave me life seemed to insist on my
doing that for which the same power would sting me with remorse.
If there is no remedy I must either cry out against the injustice
of this life of torment between nature and conscience, or submit
to the blind trust of baffled ignorance. If there is a remedy
life will not seem to be such an intolerable ordeal. I am not
pleading that I must succumb to impulse. I do not doubt that a
pure celibate life is possible so far as action is concerned. But
I cannot discover that friendship with younger men can go on
uncolored by a sensuous admixture which fills me with shame and
loathing. The gratification of passion--normal or abnormal--is
repulsive to esthetic feeling. I am nearly 42 and I have always
diverted myself from personal interests that threatened to become
dangerous to me. More than a year ago, however, a new fate seemed
to open to my unhappy and lonely life. I became intimate with a
young man of 20, of the rarest beauty of form and character. I am
confident that he is and always has been pure. He lives an
exalted moral and religious life dominated by the idea that he
and all men are partners of the divine nature, and able in the
strength of that nature to be free from evil. I believe him to be
normal. He shows pleasure in the society of attractive young
women and in an innocent, light-hearted way refers to the time
when he may be able to marry. He is a general favorite, but
turned to me as to a friend and teacher. He is poor, and it was
possible for me to guarantee him a good education. I began to
help him from the longings of a lonely life. I wanted a son and
a friend in my inward desolation. I craved the companionship of
this pure and happy nature. I felt such a reverence for him that
I hoped to find the sensuous element in me purged away by his
purity. I am, indeed, utterly incapable of doing him harm; I am
not morally weak; nevertheless the sensuous element is there, and
it poisons my happiness. He is ardently affectionate and
demonstrative. He spends the summers with me in Europe, and the
tenderness he feels for me has prompted him at times to embrace
and kiss me as he always has done to his father. Of late I have
begun to fear that without will or desire I may injure the
springs of feeling in him, especially if it is true that the
homosexual tendency is latent in most men. The love he shows me
is my joy, but a poisoned joy. It is the bread and wine of life
to me; but I dare not think what his ardent affection might ripen
into. I can go on fighting the battle of good and evil in my
attachment to him, but I cannot define my duty to him. To shun
him would be cruelty and would belie his trust in human fidelity.
Without my friendship he will not take my money--the condition of
a large career. I might, indeed, explain to him what I explain to
you, but the ordeal and shame are too great, and I cannot see
what good it would do. If he has the capacity of homosexual
feeling he might be violently stimulated; if he is incapable of
it, he would feel repulsion.

"Suppose, then, that I should seek hypnotic treatment, I still do
not know what tricks an abnormal nature might play me when
diverted by suggestion. I might lose the joy of this friendship
without any compensation. I am afraid; I am afraid! Might I not
be influenced to shun the only persons who inspire unselfish
feeling?

"Bear with this account of my story. Many virtues are easy for
me, and my life is spent in pursuits of culture. Alas, that all
the culture with which I am credited, all the prayers and
aspirations, all the strong will and heroic resolves have not rid
my nature of this evil bent! What I long for is the right to
love, not for the mere physical gratification, for the right to
take another into the arms of my heart and profess all the
tenderness I feel, to find my joy in planning his career with
him, as one who is rightfully and naturally entitled to do so. I
crave this since I cannot have a son. I leave the matter here.

"When I read what I have written I see how pointless it is. It is
possible, indeed, that brooding over my personal calamity
magnifies in my mind the sense of danger to this friend through
me, and that I only need to find the right relation of
friendliness coupled with aloofness which will secure him against
any too ardent attachment. Certainly I have no fear that I shall
forget myself. Yet two things array themselves on the other
side: I rebel inwardly against the necessity of isolating myself
as if I were a pestilence, and I rebel against the taint of
sensuous feeling. The normal man can feel that his instinct is no
shame when the spirit is in control. I know that to the
consciousness of others my instinct itself would be a shame and a
baseness, and I have no tendency to construct a moral system for
myself. I have, to be sure, moments when I declare to myself that
I will have my sensuous gratification as well as other men, but,
the moment I think of the wickedness of it, the rebellion is soon
over. The disesteem of self, the sense of taint, the necessity of
withdrawing from happiness lest I communicate my taint, that is a
spiritual malady which makes the ground-tone of my existence one
of pain and melancholy. Should you have only some moral
consolation without the promise of medical assistance I should
feel grateful."

In such a case as this, one can do little more than advise the
sufferer that, however painful his lot may be, it is not without
its consolations, and that he would be best advised to pursue, as
cheerfully as may be, the path that he has already long since
marked out for himself. The invert sometimes fails to realize
that for no man with high moral ideals, however normal he may be,
is the conduct of life easy, and that if the invert has to be
satisfied with affection without passion, and to live a life of
chastity, he is doing no more than thousands of normal men have
done, voluntarily and contentedly. As to hypnotism in such a case
as this, it is altogether unreasonable to expect that suggestion
will supplant the deeply rooted organic impulses that have grown
up during a lifetime.

We may thus conclude that in the treatment of inversion the most
satisfactory result is usually obtained when it is possible by direct and
indirect methods to reduce the sexual hyperesthesia which frequently
exists, and by psychic methods to refine and spiritualize the inverted
impulse, so that the invert's natural perversion may not become a cause of
acquired perversity in others. The invert is not only the victim of his
own abnormal obsession, he is the victim of social hostility. We must seek
to distinguish the part in his sufferings due to these two causes. When I
review the cases I have brought forward and the mental history of inverts
I have known, I am inclined to say that if we can enable an invert to be
healthy, selfrestrained and selfrespecting, we have often done better than
to convert him into the mere feeble simulacrum of a normal man. An appeal
to the _paiderastia_ of the best Greek days, and the dignity, temperance,
even chastity, which it involved, will sometimes find a ready response in
the emotional, enthusiastic nature of the congenital invert. Plato's
Dialogues have frequently been found a source of great help and
consolation by inverts. The "manly love" celebrated by Walt Whitman in
_Leaves of Grass_, although it may be of more doubtful value for general
use, furnishes a wholesome and robust ideal to the invert who is
insensitive to normal ideals.[262]

Among recent books, _Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship_, edited
by Edward Carpenter, may be recommended. A similar book in
German, of a more extended character, is _Lieblingminne und
Freudesliebe in der Weltliteratur_, edited by Elisár von Kupffer.
Mention may also be made of the _Freundschaft_ (1912) of Baron
von Gleichen-Russwurm, a sort of literary history of friendship,
without specific reference to homosexuality, although many
writers of inverted tendency are introduced. Platen's
_Tagebücher_ are notable as the diary of an invert of high
character and ideals. The volumes of the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle
Zwischenstufen_ contain many studies bearing on the ideal and
esthetic aspects of homosexuality.

Various modern poets of high ability have given expression to
emotions of exalted or passionate friendship toward individuals
of the same sex, whether or not such friendship can properly be
termed homosexual. It is scarcely necessary to refer to _In
Memoriam_, in which Tennyson enshrined his affection for his
early friend, Arthur Hallam, and developed a picture of the
universe on the basis of that affection. The poems of Edward
Cracroft Lefroy are notable, and Mr. John Gambril Nicholson has
privately issued several volumes of verse (_A Chaplet of
Southernwood, A Garland of Ladslove_, etc.) showing delicate
charm combined with high technical skill. Some books mainly or
entirely written in prose may fairly be included in the same
group. Such are _In the Key of Blue_, by John Addington Symonds,
and the _Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton_ (published anonymously by a
well-known author, A.C. Benson), in which on somewhat Platonic
lines the idea is worked out that the individual sufferer must
pass "from the love of one fair form to the love of abstract
beauty" and "from the contemplation of his own suffering to the
consideration of the root of all human suffering."

As regards the modern poetic literature of feminine homosexuality
there is probably nothing to put beside the various
volumes--pathetic in their brave simplicity and sincerity--of
"Renée Vivien" (see _ante_, p. 200). Most other feminine singers
of homosexuality have cautiously thrown a veil of heterosexuality
over their songs.

Novels of a more or less definitely homosexual tone are now very
numerous in English, French, German, and other languages. In
English the homosexuality is for the most part veiled and the
narrative deals largely with school-life and boys in order that
the emotional and romantic character of the relations described
may appear more natural. Thus _Tim_, an anonymously published
book by H.O. Sturgis (1891), described the devotion of a boy to
an older boy at Eton and his death at an early age. _Jaspar
Tristram_, by A.W. Clarke (1899), again, is a well-written story
of a schoolboy friendship of homosexual tone; a boy is
represented as feeling attraction to boys who are like girls, and
a girl became attractive to the hero because she is like a boy
and recalls her brother whom he had formerly loved. _The Garden
God: A Tale of Two Boys_, by Forrest Reid (1905), is another
rather similar book, in its way a charming and delicately written
idyll. _Imre: A Memorandum_, (1906), by "Xavier Mayne" (the
pseudonym of an American author, who has also written _The
Intersexes_), privately issued at Naples, is a book of a
different class; representing the frankly homosexual passion of
two mutually attracted men, an Englishman who is supposed to
write the story and a Hungarian officer; it embodies a notable
narrative of homosexual development which is probably more or
less real.

In French there are a number of novels dealing with
homosexuality, sometimes sympathetically, sometimes with artistic
indifference, sometimes satirically. André Gide (in
_L'Immoraliste_ and other books), Rachilde (Madame Vallette),
Willy (in the well-known _Claudine_ series) may be mentioned,
among other writers of more or less distinction, who have once or
oftener dealt with homosexuality. Special reference should be
made to the Belgian author George Eekhoud, whose _Escal-Vigor_
(prosecuted at Bruges on its publication) is a book of special
power. The homosexual stories of Essebac, of which _L'Elu_
(1902) is considered the best, are of a romantic and sentimental
character. _Lucien_ (1910), by Binet-Valmer, is a penetrating and
scarcely sympathetic study of inversion. Nortal's _Les
Adolescents Passionnés_ (already mentioned, p. 325) is a notably
intimate and precise study of homosexuality in French schools. It
would be easy to mention many others.

In Germany during recent years many novels of homosexual
character have been published. They are not usually, it would
seem, of high literary character, but are sometimes notable as
being more or less disguised narratives of real fact. Body's _Aus
Eines Mannes Mädchenjahren_ is said to be a faithful
autobiography. _Der Neue Werther: eine Hellenische
Passions-geschichte_ by Narkissos (1902) is also said to be
authentic. Another book that may be mentioned is Konradin's _Ein
Junger Platos: Aus dem Leben eines Entgbeistes_ (1914). The
German belletristic literature of homosexuality, as well as that
of other countries, will be found adequately summarized and
criticised by Numa Praetorius in the volumes of the _Jahrbuch für
sexuelle Zwischenstufen_. See also Hirschfeld's _Die
Homosexualität_, pp. 47 and 1018 et seq.

It is by some such method of self-treatment as this that most of the more
highly intelligent men and women whose histories I have already briefly
recorded have at last slowly and instinctively reached a condition of
relative health and peace, both physical and moral. The method of
self-restraint and self-culture, without self-repression, seems to be the
most rational method of dealing with sexual inversion when that condition
is really organic and deeply rooted. It is better that a man should be
enabled to make the best of his own strong natural instincts, with all
their disadvantages, than that he should be unsexed and perverted, crushed
into a position which he has no natural aptitude to occupy. As both
Raffalovich and Féré have insisted, it is the ideal of chastity, rather
than of normal sexuality, which the congenital invert should hold before
his eyes. He may not have in him the making of _l'homme moyen sensuel_; he
may have in him the making of a saint.[263] What good work in the world
the inverted may do is shown by the historical examples of distinguished
inverts; and, while it is certainly true that these considerations apply
chiefly to the finer-grained natures, the histories I have brought
together suffice to show that such natures constitute a considerable
proportion of inverts. The helplessly gross sexual appetite cannot thus be
influenced; but that remains true whether the appetite is homosexual or
heterosexual, and nothing is gained by enabling it to feed on women as
well as on men.

A strictly ascetic life, it needs scarcely be said, is with difficulty
possible for all persons, either homosexual or heterosexual. It is,
however, outside the province of the physician to recommend his inverted
patients to live according to their homosexual impulses, even when those
impulses seem to be natural to the person displaying them. The most that
the physician is entitled to do, it seems to me, is to present the
situation clearly, and leave to the patient a decision for which he must
himself accept the responsibility. Forel goes so far as to say that he
sees no reason why inverts should not build cities of their own and marry
each other if they so please, since they can do no harm to normal adults,
while children can be protected from them.[264] Such notions are, however,
too far removed from our existing social conventions to be worth serious
consideration.

The standpoint here taken up, it may be remarked, by no means
denies to the invert a right to the fulfillment of his impulses.
Numa Praetorius remarks, it would seem justly, that while the
invert must properly be warned against unnatural sexual license,
and while those who are capable of continence do well to preserve
it, to deny all right to sexual activity to the invert merely
causes those inverts who are incapable of self-control to throw
recklessly aside all restraints (_Zeitschrift für sexuelle
Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906, p. 726). The invert has the
right to sexual indulgence, it may be, but he has also the duty
to accept the full responsibility for his own actions, and the
necessity to recognize the present attitude of the society he
lives in. He cannot be advised to set himself in violent
opposition to that society.

The world will not be a tolerable place for pronounced inverts
until they are better understood, and that will involve a radical
change in general and even medical opinion. An inverted
physician, of high character and successful in his profession,
writes to me on this point: "The first, and easiest, thing to do,
it seems to me, is to convince the medical profession that we
unfortunate people are not only as sane, but as moral, as our
normal brothers; and that we are even more alive to the supreme
necessity of self-control (necessary from every point of view)
than they. It is not license we want, but justice; it is the
cruelty and prejudice of convention which we wish to abolish--not
the proper and just indignation of society with crimes against
the social order. We want to make it possible for us to satisfy
our inborn instincts (which are not concerned essentially with
sexual acts, so called, alone) without thereby becoming
criminals. One of us who would, under any circumstances, seduce a
person of his own sex of immature age, and particularly one whose
sexual complexion was unknown, deserves the severe punishment
which would be meted out to a normal person who did the same to a
young girl--_but no more_; while, so long as no public offense is
given, there should be _no penalty or obloquy whatever_ attached
to sexual acts committed with full consent between mature
persons. These acts may or may not be wrong and immoral, just as
sexual acts between mature persons of different sexes may or may
not be wrong or immoral. But in neither case has the law any
concern; and public opinion should make no distinction between
the two. It is in the highest degree important that it should be
clearly understood that we want no relaxation of moral
obligations. At present we suffer an inconceivably cruel wrong."

We have always to remember, and there is, indeed, no possibility of
forgetting, that the question of homosexuality is a social question.
Within certain limits, the gratification of the normal sexual impulse,
even outside marriage, arouses no general or profound indignation; and is
regarded as a private matter; rightly or wrongly, the gratification of the
homosexual impulse is regarded as a public matter. This attitude is more
or less exactly reflected in the law. Thus it happens that whenever a man
is openly detected in a homosexual act, however exemplary his life may
previously have been, however admirable it may still be in all other
relations, every ordinary normal citizen, however licentious and
pleasure-loving his own life may be, feels it a moral duty to regard the
offender as hopelessly damned and to help in hounding him out of society.
At very brief intervals cases occur, and without reaching the newspapers
are more or less widely known, in which distinguished men in various
fields, not seldom clergymen, suddenly disappear from the country or
commit suicide in consequence of some such exposure or the threat of it.
It is probable that many obscure tragedies could find their explanation in
a homosexual cause.

Some of the various tragic ways in which homosexual passions are
revealed to society may be illustrated by the following
communication from a correspondent, not himself inverted, who
here narrates cases that came under his observation in various
parts of the United States. The cases referred to will be known
to many, but I have disguised the names of persons and places:--

"At the age of 14 I was a chorister at ---- church, whose
choirmaster, an Englishman named M.W.M., was an accomplished man,
seemingly a perfect gentleman, and a devout churchman. He never
seemed to care for the society of ladies, never mingled much with
the men, but sought companionship with the choristers of my age.
He frequently visited at the homes of his favorites, to tea, and
when he asked the parents' consent for George's or Frank's
company on an excursion or to the theater, and then to spend the
night with him, such request was invariably granted. I shall ever
remember my first night with him; he began by fondling and
caressing me, quieting my alarm by assurances of not hurting me,
and after invoking me to secrecy and with promises of many future
pleasures, I consented to his desire or passion, which he seemed
to satisfy by an attempt at _fellatio_. Was this depravity? I
would say 'No!' after reading his subsequent confession, found in
his room after his death by suicide. This was brought about by
his too intimate relations with the rector's son who contracted
St. Vitus's dance and in the delirium of a fever that followed
from nervous exhaustion told of him and his doings. A thorough
investigation took place and M. fled, a broken-hearted and
disgraced man, who, as the result of remorse, relentless
persecution, and exposure through several years, ended his life
by drowning himself. In his confession he spoke of having been
raised under a very strong moral restraint and having lived an
exemplary life, with the exception of this strange desire that
his will-power could not control.

"The next case is that of C.H. He came of an old family of brainy
men who have, and do yet, occupy prominent places in the pulpit
and the bar, and was himself a gifted young attorney. I knew him
intimately, as for six years he was a close neighbor and we were
associated in lodge-work. He was an effeminate little fellow:
height, 5 feet 2 inches; weight, 105 pounds; very near-sighted;
and he had a light voice, not a treble or falsetto, but still a
voice that detracted materially from the beautiful rhetoric that
flowed from his lips. He had served his country as its
representative in the Legislature and had received the nomination
for senator, over a hard-fought political battle. The last
canvass and speeches were made at a town which was, in
consequence, crowded. That night H. had to occupy a room with a
stranger, named E., a travelling salesman. There were two beds in
this room. Mr. E., on the following day told several people that
during the night he was awakened by H., who had come over to his
bed and had his mouth on his 'person,' and that he had threatened
to kick him out of the room, but that H. pleaded with him and
fell on his knees and swore that he had been overcome by a
passion that he had heretofore controlled, and begged of him not
to expose him. These facts coming to the notice of his opponents,
within twenty-four hours, they hastened to take advantage of it
by placarding H. as a second Oscar Wilde, and stating the facts
as far as decency and the law allowed. H.'s friends came to him
and gave him one of two alternatives: if guilty, either to kill
himself or leave that section forever; if not guilty, to slay his
traducer, E.H. affirmed his innocence, and in company with two
friends, C. and J., took the train for ----. Learning there that
E. was at a town twelve miles east, they hired a fast livery and
drove overland. They found E. at the station, awaiting the
arrival of a train. H., with a pistol, strode forward and in his
excitement said: 'You exposed me, did you?' Being near-sighted,
his aim proved wide of the mark. E. sprang forward and grappled
with H. for possession of the pistol, and was fired upon by C.
and J., who shot him in the back. He expired in a few minutes,
his last statement being to the effect that H. was guilty as
accused. H., C., and J. were sentenced to the penitentiary for
life. During my six years' acquaintance with H. I knew of nothing
derogatory to his character, nor has anyone ever come forward to
say that on any other occasion he ever displayed this weakness. I
know his early life had a pure atmosphere, as he was an only
child and the idol of both his parents, who builded high their
hopes of his future success, and who survive this disgrace, but
are broken-hearted.

"The next case is that of the Rev. T.W., professor at the
University of ----. Mr. W. is a scholarly gentleman, affable in
his address, eloquent in his oratory, and a fine classical
scholar. He was exposed by some of his students, who, to use a
slang phrase, accused him of being a 'head-worker.' At his
examination by the faculty he confessed his weakness, and said
he could not control his unholy passion. His resignation was
accepted both by the church and the college, and he left.

"I know of a few other cases that have their peculiar traits, and
am confident that these persons did not become possessed of this
habit through the so-called 'indiscretions of youth,' as in every
case their early life was freer from contamination than that of
90 per cent. of the boys who, on reaching man's estate, have,
like myself, no desire to deviate from the old-fashioned way
formulated by our ancient sire, Adam."

It can scarcely be said that the consciousness of this attitude of society
is favorable to the invert's attainment of a fairly sane and well-balanced
state of mind. This is, indeed, one of the great difficulties in his way,
and often causes him to waver between extremes of melancholia and
egotistic exaltation. We regard all homosexuality with absolute and
unmitigated disgust. We have been taught to venerate Alexander the Great,
Epaminondas, Socrates, and other antique heroes; but they are safely
buried in the remote past, and do not affect our scorn of homosexuality in
the present.

It was in the fourth century, at Rome, that the strong modern opposition
to homosexuality was first clearly formulated in law.[265] The Roman race
had long been decaying; sexual perversions of all kinds flourished; the
population was dwindling. At the same time, Christianity, with its
Judaic-Pauline antagonism to homosexuality, was rapidly spreading. The
statesmen of the day, anxious to quicken the failing pulses of national
life, utilized this powerful Christian feeling. Constantine, Theodosius,
and Valentinian all passed laws against homosexuality, the last, at all
events, ordaining as penalty the _vindices flammæ_; but their enactments
do not seem to have been strictly carried out. In the year 538, Justinian,
professing terror of certain famines, earthquakes, and pestilences in
which he saw the mysterious "recompense which was meet" prophesied by St.
Paul,[266] issued his edict condemning unnatural offenders to the sword,
"lest as the result of these impious acts" (as the preamble to his Novella
77 has it) "whole cities should perish, together with their inhabitants;
for we are taught by Holy Scripture that through these acts cities have
perished with the men in them."[267] This edict (which Justinian followed
up by a fresh ordinance to the same effect) constituted the foundation of
legal enactment and social opinion concerning the matter in Europe for
thirteen hundred years.[268] In France the _vindices flammæ_ survived to
the last; St. Louis had handed over these sacrilegious offenders to the
Church to be burned; in 1750 two pederasts were burned in the Place de
Grève, and only a few years before the Revolution a Capuchin monk named
Pascal was also burned.

After the Revolution, however, began a new movement, which has continued
slowly and steadily ever since, though it still divides European nations
into two groups. Justinian, Charlemagne, and St. Louis had insisted on the
sin and sacrilege of sodomy as the ground for its punishment.[269] It was
doubtless largely as a religious offense that the _Code Napoléon_ omitted
to punish it. The French law makes a clear and logical distinction between
crime on the one hand, vice and irreligion on the other, only concerning
itself with the former. Homosexual practices in private, between two
consenting adult parties, whether men or women, are absolutely unpunished
by the _Code Napoléon_ and by French law of today. Only under three
conditions does the homosexual act come under the cognizance of the law
as a crime: (1) when there is _outrage public à la pudeur_,--i.e., when
the act is performed in public or with a possibility of witnesses; (2)
when there is violence or absence of consent, in whatever degree the act
may have been consummated; (3) when one of the parties is under age, or
unable to give valid consent; in some cases it appears possible to apply
Article 334 of the penal code, directed against habitual excitation to
debauch of young persons of either sex under the age of 21.

This method of dealing with unnatural offenses has spread widely, at first
because of the political influence of France, and more recently because
such an attitude has commended itself on its merits. In Belgium the law is
similar to that of the _Code Napoléon_, as it is also in Italy, Spain,
Portugal, Roumania, Japan, and numerous South American lands. In
Switzerland the law is a little vague and varies slightly in the different
cantons, but it is not severe; in Geneva and some other cantons there is
no penalty; the general tendency is to inflict brief imprisonment when
serious complaints have been lodged, and cases can sometimes be settled
privately by the magistrate.

The only large European countries in which homosexuality _per se_ remains
a penal offense appear to be Germany, Austria, Russia, and England. In
several of the German States, such as Bavaria and Hanover, simple
homosexuality formerly went unpunished, but when the laws of Prussia were
in 1871 applied to the new German Empire this ceased to be the case, and
unnatural carnality between males became an offense against the law. This
article of the German Code (Section 175) has caused great discussion and
much practical difficulty, because, although the terms of the law make it
necessary to understand by _widernatürliche Unzucht_ other practices