besides _pædicatio_, not every homosexual practice is included; it must be
some practice resembling normal coitus. There is a widespread opinion that
this article of the code should be abolished; it appears that at one time
an authoritative committee pronounced in favor of this step, and their
proposition came near adoption. The Austrian law is somewhat similar to
the German, but it applies to women as well as to men; this is logical,
for there is no reason why homosexuality should be punished in men and
left unpunished in women. In Russia the law against homosexual practices
appears to be very severe, involving, in some cases, banishment to Siberia
and deprivation of civil rights; but it can scarcely be rigorously
executed.

The existing law in England is severe, but simple. Carnal knowledge _per
anum_ of either a man or a woman or an animal is punishable by a sentence
of penal servitude with not less than three years, or of imprisonment with
not more than two years. Even "gross indecency" between males, however
privately committed, has been since 1885 a penal offense.[270] The clause
is open to criticism. With the omission of the words "or private," it
would be sound and in harmony with the most enlightened European
legislation; but it must be pointed out that an act only becomes indecent
when those who perform it or witness it regard it as indecent. The act
which brought each of us into the world is not indecent; it would become
so if carried on in public. If two male persons, who have reached years of
discretion, consent together to perform some act of sexual intimacy in
private, no indecency has been committed. If one of the consenting parties
subsequently proclaims the act, indecency may doubtless be created, as may
happen also in the case of normal sexual intercourse, but it seems
contrary to good policy that such proclamation should convert the act
itself into a penal offense. Moreover, "gross indecency" between males
usually means some form of mutual masturbation; no penal code regards
masturbation as an offense, and there seems to be no sufficient reason why
mutual masturbation should be so regarded.[271] The main point to be
insured is that no boy or girl who has not reached years of discretion
should be seduced or abused by an older person, and this point is equally
well guaranteed on the basis introduced by the _Code Napoléon_. However
shameful, disgusting, personally immoral, and indirectly antisocial it may
be for two adult persons of the same sex, men or women, to consent
together to perform an act of sexual intimacy in private, there is no
sound or adequate ground for constituting such act a penal offense by law.

One of the most serious objections to the legal recognition of private
"gross indecency" is the obvious fact that only in the rarest cases can
such indecency become known to the police, and we thus perpetrate what is
very much like a legal farce. "The breaking of few laws," as Moll truly
observes, regarding the German law, "so often goes unpunished as of this."
It is the same in England, as is amply evidenced by the fact that, of the
English sexual inverts, whose histories I have obtained, not one, so far
as I am aware, has ever appeared in a police-court on this charge.

It may further be pointed out that legislation against homosexuality has
no clear effect either in diminishing or increasing its prevalence. This
must necessarily be so as regards the kernel of the homosexual group, if
we are to regard a considerable proportion of cases as congenital. In
France homosexuality _per se_ has been untouched by the law for a century;
yet it abounds, chiefly, it seems, among the lowest in the community;
although the law is silent, social feeling is strong, and when--as has
been the case in one instance--a man of undoubted genius has his name
associated with this perversion it becomes difficult or impossible for the
admirers of his work to associate with him personally; very few cases of
homosexuality have been recorded in France among the more intelligent
classes; the literature of homosexuality is there little more than the
literature of male prostitution, as described by police-officials, and as
carried on largely for the benefit of foreigners. In Germany and Austria,
where the law against homosexuality is severe, it abounds also, perhaps
to a much greater extent than in France;[272] it certainly asserts itself
more vigorously; a far greater number of cases have been recorded than in
any other country, and the German literature of homosexuality is very
extensive, often issued in popular form, and sometimes enthusiastically
eulogistic. In England the law is exceptionally severe; yet, according to
the evidence of those who have an international acquaintance with these
matters, homosexuality is fully as prevalent as on the Continent; some
would say that it is more so. Much the same is true of the United States,
though there is less to be seen on the surface. It cannot, therefore, be
said that legislative enactments have very much influence on the
prevalence of homosexuality. The chief effect seems to be that the attempt
at suppression arouses the finer minds among sexual inverts to undertake
the enthusiastic defense of homosexuality, while coarser minds are
stimulated to cynical bravado.[273]

As regards the prevalence of homosexuality in the United States,
I may quote from a well-informed American correspondent:--

"The great prevalence of sexual inversion in American cities is
shown by the wide knowledge of its existence. Ninety-nine normal
men out of a hundred have been accosted on the streets by
inverts, or have among their acquaintances men whom they know to
be sexually inverted. Everyone has seen inverts and knows what
they are. The public attitude toward them is generally a negative
one--indifference, amusement, contempt.

"The world of sexual inverts is, indeed, a large one in any
American city, and it is a community distinctly organized--words,
customs, traditions of its own; and every city has its numerous
meeting-places: certain churches where inverts congregate;
certain cafés well known for the inverted character of their
patrons; certain streets where, at night, every fifth man is an
invert. The inverts have their own 'clubs,' with nightly
meetings. These 'clubs' are, really, dance-halls, attached to
_saloons_, and presided over by the proprietor of the saloon,
himself almost invariably an invert, as are all the waiters and
musicians. The frequenters of these places are male sexual
inverts (usually ranging from 17 to 30 years of age); sightseers
find no difficulty in gaining entrance; truly, they are welcomed
for the drinks they buy for the company--and other reasons.
Singing and dancing turns by certain favorite performers are the
features of these gatherings, with much gossip and drinking at
the small tables ranged along the four walls of the room. The
habitués of these places are, generally, inverts of the most
pronounced type, i.e., the completely feminine in voice and
manners, with the characteristic hip motion in their walk; though
I have never seen any approach to feminine dress there, doubtless
the desire for it is not wanting and only police regulations
relegate it to other occasions and places. You will rightly infer
that the police know of these places and endure their existence
for a consideration; it is not unusual for the inquiring stranger
to be directed there by a policeman."

The Oscar Wilde trial (see _ante_, p. 48), with its wide
publicity, and the fundamental nature of the questions it
suggested, appears to have generally contributed to give
definiteness and self-consciousness to the manifestations of
homosexuality, and to have aroused inverts to take up a definite
attitude. I have been assured in several quarters that this is so
and that since that case the manifestations of homosexuality have
become more pronounced. One correspondent writes:--

"Up to the time of the Oscar Wilde trial I had not known what the
condition of the law was. The moral question in itself--its
relation to my own life and that of my friends--I reckoned I had
solved; but I now had to ask myself how far I was justified in
not only breaking the law, but in being the cause of a like
breach in others, and others younger than myself. I have never
allowed the _dictum_ of the law to interfere with what I deemed
to be a moral development in any youth for whom I am responsible.
I cannot say that the trial made me alter my course of life, of
the rightness of which I was too convincingly persuaded, but it
made me much more careful, and it probably sharpened my sense of
responsibility for the young. Reviewing the results of the trial
as a whole, it doubtless did incalculable harm, and it
intensified our national vice of hypocrisy. But I think it also
may have done some good in that it made those who, like myself,
have thought and experienced deeply in the matter--and these must
be no small few--ready to strike a blow, when the time comes,
for what we deem to be right, honorable, and clean."

From America a lady writes with reference to the moral position
of inverts, though without allusion to the Wilde trial:--

"Inverts should have the courage and independence to be
themselves, and to demand an investigation. If one strives to
live honorably, and considers the greatest good to the greatest
number, it is not a crime nor a disgrace to be an invert. I do
not need the law to defend me, neither do I desire to have any
concessions made for me, nor do I ask my friends to sacrifice
their ideals for me. I too have ideals which I shall always hold.
All that I desire--and I claim it as my right--is the freedom to
exercise this divine gift of loving, which is not a menace to
society nor a disgrace to me. Let it once be understood that the
average invert is not a moral degenerate nor a mental degenerate,
but simply a man or a woman who is less highly specialized, less
completely differentiated, than other men and women, and I
believe the prejudice against them will disappear, and if they
live uprightly they will surely win the esteem and consideration
of all thoughtful people. I know what it means to an invert--who
feels himself set apart from the rest of mankind--to find one
human heart who trusts him and understands him, and I know how
almost impossible this is, and will be, until the world is made
aware of these facts."

But, while the law has had no more influence in repressing abnormal
sexuality than, wherever it has tried to do so, it has had in repressing
the normal sexual instinct, it has served to foster another offense. What
is called blackmailing in England, _chantage_ in France, and _Erpressung_
in Germany--in other words, the extortion of money by threats of exposing
some real or fictitious offense--finds its chief field of activity in
connection with homosexuality.[274] No doubt the removal of the penalty
against simple homosexuality does not abolish blackmailing, as the
existence of this kind of _chantage_ in France shows, but it renders its
success less probable.

On all these grounds, and taking into consideration the fact that the
tendency of modern legislation generally, and the consensus of
authoritative opinion in all countries, are in this direction, it seems
reasonable to conclude that neither "sodomy" (i.e., _immissio membri in
anum hominis vel mulieris_) nor "gross indecency" ought to be penal
offenses, except under certain special circumstances. That is to say, that
if two persons of either or both sexes, having reached years of
discretion,[275] privately consent to practise some perverted mode of
sexual relationship, the law cannot be called upon to interfere. It should
be the function of the law in this matter to prevent violence, to protect
the young, and to preserve public order and decency. Whatever laws are
laid down beyond this must be left to the individuals themselves, to the
moralists, and to social opinion.

At the same time, and while such a modification in the law seems to be
reasonable, the change effected would be less considerable than may appear
at first sight. In a very large proportion, indeed, of cases boys are
involved. It is instructive to observe that in Legludic's 246 cases
(including victims and aggressors together) in France, 127, or more than
half, were between the ages of 10 and 20, and 82, or exactly one-third,
were between the ages of 10 and 14. A very considerable field of operation
is thus still left for the law, whatever proportion of cases may meet with
no other penalty than social opinion.

That, however, social opinion--law or no law--will speak with no uncertain
voice is very evident. Once homosexuality was primarily a question of
population or of religion. Now we hear little either of its economic
aspects or of its sacrilegiousness; it is for us primarily a disgusting
abomination, i.e., a matter of taste, of esthetics; and, while unspeakably
ugly to the majority, it is proclaimed as beautiful by a small minority. I
do not know that we need find fault with this esthetic method of judging
homosexuality. But it scarcely lends itself to legal purposes. To indulge
in violent denunciation of the disgusting nature of homosexuality, and to
measure the sentence by the disgust aroused, or to regret, as one English
judge is reported to have regretted when giving sentence, that "gross
indecency" is not punishable by death, is to import utterly foreign
considerations into the matter. The judges who yield to this temptation
would certainly never allow themselves to be consciously influenced on the
bench by their political opinions. Yet esthetic opinions are quite as
foreign to law as political opinions. An act does not become criminal
because it is disgusting. To eat excrement, as Moll remarks, is extremely
disgusting, but it is not criminal. The confusion which thus exists, even
in the legal mind, between the disgusting and the criminal is additional
evidence of the undesirability of the legal penalty for simple
homosexuality. At the same time it shows that social opinion is amply
adequate to deal with the manifestations of inverted sexuality. So much
for the legal aspects of sexual inversion.

But while there can be no doubt about the amply adequate character of the
existing social reaction to all manifestations of perverted sexuality, the
question still remains how far not merely the law, but also the state of
public opinion, should be modified in the light of such a psychological
study as we have here undertaken. It is clear that this public opinion,
molded chiefly or entirely with reference to gross vice, tends to be
unduly violent in its reaction. What, then, is the reasonable attitude of
society toward the congenital sexual invert? It seems to lie in the
avoidance of two extremes. On the one hand, it cannot be expected to
tolerate the invert who flouts his perversion in its face, and assumes
that, because he would rather take his pleasure with a soldier or a
policeman than with their sisters, he is of finer clay than the vulgar
herd. On the other, it might well refrain from crushing with undiscerning
ignorance beneath a burden of shame the subject of an abnormality which,
as we have seen, has not been found incapable of fine uses. Inversion is
an aberration from the usual course of nature. But the clash of contending
elements which must often mark the history of such a deviation results now
and again--by no means infrequently--in nobler activities than those
yielded by the vast majority who are born to consume the fruits of the
earth. It bears, for the most part, its penalty in the structure of its
own organism. We are bound to protect the helpless members of society
against the invert. If we go farther, and seek to destroy the invert
himself before he has sinned against society, we exceed the warrant of
reason, and in so doing we may, perhaps, destroy also those children of
the spirit which possess sometimes a greater worth than the children of
the flesh.

Here we may leave this question of sexual inversion. In dealing with it I
have sought to avoid that attitude of moral superiority which is so common
in the literature of this subject, and have refrained from pointing out
how loathsome this phenomenon is, or how hideous that. Such an attitude is
as much out of place in scientific investigation as it is in judicial
investigation, and may well be left to the amateur. The physician who
feels nothing but disgust at the sight of disease is unlikely to bring
either succor to his patients or instruction to his pupils.

That the investigation we have here pursued is not only profitable to us
in succoring the social organism and its members, but also in bringing
light into the region of sexual psychology, is now, I hope, clear to every
reader who has followed me to this point. There are a multitude of social
questions which we cannot face squarely and honestly unless we possess
such precise knowledge as has been here brought together concerning the
part played by the homosexual tendency in human life. Moreover, the study
of this perverted tendency stretches beyond itself;

"O'er that art
Which you say adds to Nature, is an art
That Nature makes."

Pathology is but physiology working under new conditions. The stream of
nature still flows into the bent channel of sexual inversion, and still
runs according to law. We have not wasted our time in this toilsome
excursion. With the knowledge here gained we are the better equipped to
enter upon the study of the wider questions of sex.


FOOTNOTES:

[243] In this connection I may refer to Moll's _Sexual Life of the Child_,
to the writings of Dr. Clement Dukes, physician to Rugby School, who fully
recognizes the risks of school-life, and to the discussion on sexual vice
in schools, started by an address by the Rev. J.M. Wilson, head-master of
Clifton College, in the English _Journal of Education_, 1881-82.

[244] With regard to the importance of the sexual emotions generally and
their training, see the well-known book by Edward Carpenter, _Love's
Coming of Age_; Professor Gurlitt ("Knabenfreundschaften,"
_Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1909) also upholds the intimate friendships of
youth, which in his own experience have not had even a suspicion of
homosexuality.

[245] Casanova, _Mémoires_, vol. i (edition Garnier), p. 160. See also
remarks by an experienced master in one of the largest English public
schools, which I have brought forward in vol. i of these _Studies_,
"Auto-erotism," 3d ed., 1910.

[246] See, e.g., Professor J.R. Angell, "Some Reflections upon the
Reaction from Coeducation," _Popular Science Monthly_, Nov., 1902; also
Moll's _Sexual Life of the Child_, ch. ix, and for a general discussion of
coeducation, S. Poirson, _La Coéducation_, 1911.

[247] Bethe, "Die Dorische Knabenliebe," _Rheinisches Museum für
Philologie_; vol. lxii, Heft 3, p. 440; cf. Edward Carpenter,
_Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk_, ch. vi.

[248] Schrenck-Notzing, _Die Suggestionstherapie bei krankhaften
Erscheinungen des Geschlechtsinnes_, 1892. (Eng. trans. _Therapeutic
Suggestion_, 1895.)

[249] Raffalovich, _Uranisme et Unisexualité_, 1896, p. 16. He remarks
that the congenital invert who has never had relations with women, and
whose abnormality, to use Krafft-Ebing's distinction, is a perversion and
not a perversity, is much less dangerous and apt to seduce others than the
more versatile and corrupt person who has known all methods of
gratification.

[250] See, e.g., Moll, _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, ch. xi; Forel,
_Die Sexuelle Frage_, ch. xiv; Näcke, "Die Behandlung der Homosexualität,"
_Sexual-Probleme_, Aug., 1910; Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xxii.

[251] Moll, _Zeitschrift für Psychotherapie_, 1911, Heft 1; id., _Handbuch
der Sexualwissenschaften_, 1912, p. 662 et seq.

[252] This is also the opinion of Numa Praetorius, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle
Zwischenstufen_, Jan., 1913, p. 222.

[253] See, especially, Sadger, _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Heft
12, 1908; also _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix, 1908;
Sadger's methods are criticised by Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch.
xxii, and defended by Sadger, _Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche
Psychoanalyse_, July, 1914, p. 392. For a discussion of the psychoanalytic
treatment of homosexuality by a leading American Freudian, see Brill,
_Journal American Medical Association_, Aug. 2, 1913.

[254] _Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Psychoanalyse_, March,
1914.

[255] This is now generally recognized. See, e.g., Roubinovitch and Borel,
"Un Cas d'Uranisme," _L'Encéphale_, Aug., 1913. These authors conclude
that it is today impossible to look upon inversion as the equivalent or
the symptom of a psychopathic state, though we have to recognize that it
frequently coexists with morbid emotional states. Näcke, also, in his
extensive experience, found that homosexuality is rare in asylums and
slight in character; he dealt with this question on various occasions;
see, e.g., _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. viii, 1906.

[256] Krafft-Ebing considered that the temporary or lasting association of
homosexuality with neurasthenia having its root in congenital conditions
is "almost invariable," and some authorities (like Meynert) have regarded
inversion as an accidental growth on the foundation of neurasthenia.

[257] Féré expressed himself concerning the general treatment of
homosexuality in the same sense, and even more emphatically (Féré,
_L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1899, pp. 272, 286). He considers that all forms of
congenital inversion resist treatment, and that, since a change in the
invert's instincts must be regarded rather as a perversion of the invert
than a cure of the inversion, one may be permitted to doubt not only the
utility of the treatment, but even the legitimacy of attempting it. The
treatment of sexual inversion, he declared, is as much outside the
province of medicine as the restoration of color-vision in the
color-blind. The ideal which the physician and the teacher must place
before the invert is that of chastity; he must seek to harness his wagon
to a star.

[258] I have been told by a distinguished physician, who was consulted in
the case, of a congenital invert highly placed in the English government
service, who married in the hope of escaping his perversion, and was not
even able to consummate the marriage. It is needless to insist on the
misery which is created in such cases. It is not, of course, denied that
such marriages may not sometimes become eventually happy. Thus Kiernan
("Psychical Treatment of Congenital Sexual Inversion," _Review of Insanity
and Nervous Diseases_, June, 1894) reports the case of a thoroughly
inverted girl who married the brother of the friend to whom she was
previously attached merely in order to secure his sister's companionship.
She was able to endure and even enjoy intercourse by imagining that her
husband, who resembled his sister, was another sister. Liking and esteem
for the husband gradually increased and after the sister died a child was
born who much resembled her; "the wife's esteem passed through love of the
sister to intense natural love of the daughter, as resembling the sister;
through this to normal love of the husband as the father and brother." The
final result may have been satisfactory, but this train of circumstances
could not have been calculated beforehand. Moll is also opposed, on the
whole (e.g., _Deutsche medicinische Presse_, No. 6, 1902), to marriage and
procreation by inverts.

[259] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xxi. It might seem on
theoretical grounds that the marriage of a homosexual man with a
homosexual woman might turn out well. Hirschfeld, however, states that he
knows of 14 such marriages, and the theoretical expectation has not been
justified; 3 of the cases speedily terminated in divorce, 4 of the couples
lived separately, and all but 2 of the remaining couples regretted the
step they had taken. I may add that in such a case even the expectation of
happiness scarcely seems reasonable, since neither of the parties can feel
a true mating impulse toward the other.

[260] Hirschfeld also notes (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 95) that women often
instinctively feel that there is something wrong in the love of their
inverted husbands who may perhaps succeed in copulating, but betray their
deepest feelings by a repugnance to touch the sexual parts with the hand.
The homosexual woman, also, as Hirschfeld elsewhere points out with cases
in illustration (p. 84), may suffer seriously through being subjected to
normal sexual relationships.

[261] Féré reports the case of an invert of great intellectual ability who
had never had any sexual relationships, and was not averse from a chaste
life; he was urged by his doctor to acquire the power of normal
intercourse and to marry, on the ground that his perversion was merely a
perversion of the imagination. He did so, and, though he married a
perfectly strong and healthy woman, and was himself healthy, except in so
far as his perversion was concerned, the offspring turned out
disastrously. The eldest child was an epileptic, almost an imbecile, and
with strongly marked homosexual impulses; the second and third children
were absolute idiots; the youngest died of convulsions in infancy (Féré,
_L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 269 et seq.) No doubt this is not an average case,
but the numerous examples of the offspring of similar marriages brought
forward by Hirschfeld (op. cit., p. 391) scarcely present a much better
result.

[262] It is scarcely necessary to add that the same principle is adaptable
to the case of homosexual women. "In all such cases," writes an American
woman physician, "I would recommend that the moral sense be trained and
fostered, and the persons allowed to keep their individuality, being
taught to remember always that they are different from others, rather
sacrificing their own feelings or happiness when necessary. It is good
discipline for them, and will serve in the long run to bring them more
favor and affection than any other course. This quality or idiosyncrasy is
not essentially evil, but, if rightly used, may prove a blessing to others
and a power for good in the life of the individual; nor does it reflect
any discredit upon its possessor."

[263] The existence of an affinity between homosexuality and the religious
temperament has been referred to in ch. i as recognized in many parts of
the world. See, for a more extended discussion, Horneffer, _Der Priester_,
and Bloch, _Die Prostitution_, vol. i, pp. 101-110. The psychoanalysts
have also touched on this point; thus Pfister, _Die Frommingkeit des
Grafen von Zinzendorf_ (1910), argues that the founder of the pietistic
sect of the Herrenhuter was of sublimated homosexual (or bisexual)
temperament.

[264] Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 528. Such ideas are, of course,
often put forward by inverts themselves.

[265] Roman law previously seems to have been confined in this matter to
the protection of boys. The Scantinian and other Roman laws against
paiderasty seem to have been usually a dead letter. See, for various notes
and references, W.G. Holmes, _The Age of Justinian and Theodora_, vol. i,
p. 121.

[266] Epistle to the Romans, chapter i, verses 26-7.

[267] In practice this penalty of death appears to have been sometimes
commuted to ablation of the sexual organs.

[268] For a full sketch of the legal enactments against homosexual
intercourse in ancient and modern times, see Numa Praetorius, "Die
straflichen Bestimmungen gegen den gleichgeschlechtlichen Verkehr,"
_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. i, pp. 97-158. This writer
points out that Justinian, and still more clearly, Pius V, in the
sixteenth century, distinguished between occasional homosexuality and
deep-rooted inversion, habitual offenders alone, not those who had only
been guilty once or twice, being punished.

[269] The influence of the supposed connection of sodomy with unbelief,
idolatry, and heresy in arousing the horror of it among earlier religions
has been emphasized by Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of the
Moral Ideas_, vol. i, p. 486 et seq.

[270] "Any male person who in public or private commits, or is a party to
the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by
any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person,
shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, being convicted thereof, shall be
liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term not
exceeding two years, with or without hard labor."

[271] This point is brought forward by Dr. Léon de Rode in his report on
"L'Inversion Génitale et la Législation," prepared for the Third
(Brussels) Congress of Criminal Anthropology in 1892. The same point is
insisted on by some of my correspondents.

[272] It is a remarkable and perhaps significant fact that, while
homosexuality is today in absolute disrepute in France, it was not so
under the less tolerant law of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The Duc de Gesvres, as described by Besenval (_Mémoires_, i, p. 178), was
a well-marked invert of feminine type, impotent, and publicly affecting
all the manners of women; yet he was treated with consideration. In 1687
Madame, the mother of the Regent, writes implying that "all the young men
and many of the old" practised pederasty: _il n'y a que les gens du commun
qui aiment les femmes_. The marked tendency to inversion in the French
royal family at this time is well known.

[273] A man with homosexual habits, I have been told, declared he would be
sorry to see the English law changed, as then he would find no pleasure in
his practices.

[274] Blackmailing appears to be the most serious risk which the invert
runs. Hirschfeld states in an interesting study of blackmailing (_Jahrbuch
für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, April, 1913) that his experience shows that
among 10,000 homosexual persons hardly one falls a victim to the law, but
over 3000 are victimized by blackmailers.

[275] Krafft-Ebing would place this age not under 16, the age at which in
England girls may legally consent to normal sexual intercourse
(_Psychopathia Sexualis_, 1893, p. 419). It certainly should not be lower.




APPENDICES.


APPENDIX A.

HOMOSEXUALITY AMONG TRAMPS.

BY "JOSIAH FLYNT."


I have made a rather minute study of the tramp class in the United States,
England, and Germany, but I know it best in the States. I have lived with
the tramps there for eight consecutive months, besides passing numerous
shorter periods in their company, and my acquaintance with them is nearly
of ten years' standing. My purpose in going among them has been to learn
about their life in particular and outcast life in general. This can only
be done by becoming part and parcel of its manifestations.

There are two kinds of tramps in the United States: out-of-works and
"hoboes." The out-of-works are not genuine vagabonds; they really want
work and have no sympathy with the hoboes. The latter are the real tramps.
They make a business of begging--a very good business too--and keep at it,
as a rule, to the end of their days. Whisky and _Wanderlust_, or the love
of wandering, are probably the main causes of their existence; but many of
them are discouraged criminals, men who have tried their hand at crime and
find that they lack criminal wit. They become tramps because they find
that life "on the road" comes the nearest to the life they hoped to lead.
They have enough talent to do very well as beggars, better, generally
speaking, then the men who have reached the road simply as drunkards; they
know more about the tricks of the trade and are cleverer in thinking out
schemes and stories. All genuine tramps in America are, however, pretty
much the same, as far as manners and philosophy are concerned, and all are
equally welcome at the "hang-out."[276] The class of society from which
they are drawn is generally the very lowest of all, but there are some
hoboes who have come from the very highest, and these latter are
frequently as vicious and depraved as their less well-born brethren.

Concerning sexual inversion among tramps, there is a great deal to be
said, and I cannot attempt to tell all I have heard about it, but merely
to give a general account of the matter. Every hobo in the United States
knows what "unnatural intercourse" means, talking about it freely, and,
according to my finding, every tenth man practises it, and defends his
conduct. Boys are the victims of this passion. The tramps gain possession
of these boys in various ways. A common method is to stop for awhile in
some town, and gain acquaintance with the slum children. They tell these
children all sorts of stories about life "on the road," how they can ride
on the railways for nothing, shoot Indians, and be "perfeshunnels"
(professionals), and they choose some boy who specially pleases them. By
smiles and flattering caresses they let him know that the stories are
meant for him alone, and before long, if the boy is a suitable subject, he
smiles back just as slyly. In time he learns to think that he is the
favorite of the tramp, who will take him on his travels, and he begins to
plan secret meetings with the man. The tramp, of course, continues to
excite his imagination with stories and caresses, and some fine night
there is one boy less in the town. On the road the lad is called a
"prushun," and his protector a "jocker." The majority of prushuns are
between 10 and 15 years of age, but I have known some under 10 and a few
over 15. Each is compelled by hobo law to let his jocker do with him as he
will, and many, I fear, learn to enjoy his treatment of them. They are
also expected to beg in every town they come to, any laziness on their
part receiving very severe punishment.

How the act of unnatural intercourse takes place is not entirely clear;
the hoboes are not agreed. From what I have personally observed I should
say that it is usually what they call "leg-work" (intercrural), but
sometimes _immissio penis in anum_, the boy, in either case, lying on his
stomach. I have heard terrible stories of the physical results to the boy
of anal intercourse.

One evening, near Cumberland, Pennsylvania, I was an unwilling witness of
one of the worst scenes that can be imagined. In company with eight
hoboes, I was in a freight-car attached to a slowly moving train. A
colored boy succeeded in scrambling into the car, and when the train was
well under way again he was tripped up and "seduced" (to use the hobo
euphemism) by each of the tramps. He made almost no resistance, and joked
and laughed about the business as if he had expected it. This, indeed, I
find to be the general feeling among the boys when they have been
thoroughly initiated. At first they do not submit, and are inclined to run
away or fight, but the men fondle and pet them, and after awhile they do
not seem to care. Some of them have told me that they get as much pleasure
out of the affair as the jocker does. Even little fellows under 10 have
told me this, and I have known them to willfully tempt their jockers to
intercourse. What the pleasure consists in I cannot say. The youngsters
themselves describe it as a delightful tickling sensation in the parts
involved, and this is possibly all that it amounts to among the smallest
lads. Those who have passed the age of puberty seem to be satisfied in
pretty much the same way that the men are. Among the men the practice is
decidedly one of passion. The majority of them prefer a prushun to a
woman, and nothing is more severely judged than rape. One often reads in
the newspapers that a woman has been assaulted by a tramp, but the
perverted tramp is never the guilty party.

I believe, however, that there are a few hoboes who have taken to boys
because women are so scarce "on the road." For every woman in hoboland
there are a hundred men. That this disproportion has something to do with
the popularity of boys is made clear by the following case: In a gaol,
where I was confined for a month during my life in vagabondage, I got
acquainted with a tramp who had the reputation of being a "sod"
(sodomist). One day a woman came to the gaol to see her husband, who was
awaiting trial. One of the prisoners said he had known her before she was
married and had lived with her. The tramp was soon to be discharged, and
he inquired where the woman lived. On learning that she was still
approachable, he looked her up immediately after his release, and
succeeded in staying with her for nearly a month. He told me later that he
enjoyed his life with her much more than his intercourse with boys. I
asked him why he went with boys at all, and he replied: "'Cause there
ain't women enough. If I can't get them I've got to have the other."

It is in gaols that one sees the worst side of this perversion. In the
daytime the prisoners are let out into a long hall, and can do much as
they please; at night they are shut up, two and even four in a cell. If
there are any boys in the crowd, they are made use of by all who care to
have them. If they refuse to submit, they are gagged and held down. The
sheriff seldom knows what goes on, and for the boys to say anything to him
would be suicidal. There is a criminal ignorance all over the States
concerning the life of these gaols, and things go on that would be
impossible in any well-regulated prison. In one of these places I once
witnessed the fiercest fight I have ever seen among hoboes; a boy was the
cause of it. Two men said they loved him, and he seemed to return the
affection of both with equal desire. A fight with razors was suggested to
settle who should have him.[277] The men prepared for action, while the
crowd gathered round to watch. They slashed away for over half an hour,
cutting each other terribly, and then their backers stopped them for fear
of fatal results. The boy was given to the one who was hurt the least.

Jealousy is one of the first things one notices in connection with this
passion. I have known them to withdraw entirely from the "hang-out" life
simply to be sure that their prushuns were not touched by other tramps.
Such attachments frequently last for years, and some boys remain with
their first jockers until they are "emancipated."

Emancipation means freedom to "snare" some other boy, and make him submit
as the other had been obliged to submit when younger. As a rule, the
prushun is freed when he is able to protect himself. If he can defend his
"honor" from all who come, he is accepted into the class of "old stagers,"
and may do as he likes. This is the one reward held out to prushuns during
their apprenticeship. They are told that some day they can have a boy and
use him as they have been used. Thus hoboland is always sure of recruits.

It is difficult to say how many tramps are sexually inverted. It is not
even certainly known how many vagabonds there are in the country. I have
stated in one of my papers on tramps that, counting the boys, there are
between fifty and sixty thousand genuine hoboes in the United States. A
vagabond in Texas who saw this statement wrote me that he considered my
estimate too low. The newspapers have criticised it as too high, but they
are unable to judge. If my figures are, as I believe, at least
approximately correct, the sexually perverted tramps may be estimated at
between five and six thousand; this includes men and boys.

I have been told lately by tramps that the boys are less numerous than
they were a few years ago. They say that it is now a risky business to be
seen with a boy, and that it is more profitable, as far as begging is
concerned, to go without them. Whether this means that the passion is less
fierce than it used to be, or that the men find sexual satisfaction among
themselves, I cannot say definitely. But from what I know of their
disinclination to adopt the latter alternative, I am inclined to think
that the passion may be dying out somewhat. I am sure that women are not
more numerous "on the road" than formerly, and that the change, if real,
has not been caused by them. So much for my finding in the United States.

In England, where I have also lived with tramps for some time, I have
found very little contrary sexual feeling. In Germany, also, excepting in
prisons and work-houses, it seems very little known among vagabonds. There
are a few Jewish wanderers (sometimes peddlers) who are said to have boys
in their company, and I am told that they use them as the hoboes in the
United States use their boys, but I cannot prove this from personal
observation. In England I have met a number of male tramps who had no
hesitation in declaring their preference for their own sex, and
particularly for boys, but I am bound to say that I have seldom seen them
with boys; as a rule, they were quite alone, and they seem to live chiefly
by themselves.

It is a noteworthy fact that both in England and Germany there are a great
many women "on the road," or, at all events, so near it that intercourse
with them is easy and cheap. In Germany almost every town has its quarter
of "Stadt-Schieze"[278]: women who sell their bodies for a very small sum.
They seldom ask over thirty or forty pfennigs for a night, which is
usually spent in the open air. In England it is practically the same
thing. In all the large cities there are women who are glad to do business
for three or four pence, and those "on the road" for even less.

The general impression made on me by the sexually perverted men I have met
in vagabondage is that they are abnormally masculine. In their intercourse
with boys they always take the active part. The boys have, in some cases,
seemed to me uncommonly feminine, but not as a rule. In the main, they are
very much like other lads, and I am unable to say whether their liking for
the inverted relationship is inborn or acquired. That it is, however, a
genuine liking, in altogether too many instances, I do not, in the least,
doubt. As such, and all the more because it is such, it deserves to be
more thoroughly investigated and more reasonably treated.

"Josiah Flynt" who wrote the foregoing account of tramp-life for the
second edition of this volume, was well known as author, sociologist, and
tramp. He was especially, and it would seem by innate temperament, the
tramp, which part he looked to perfection (he himself referred to his
"weasoned face and diminutive form") and felt completely at home in. He
was thus able to throw much light on the psychology of the tramp, and his
books (such as _Tramping with Tramps_) are valuable from this point of
view. His real name was F. Willard and he was a nephew of Miss Frances
Willard. He died in Chicago, in 1907, at the age of 38, shortly after
writing a frank and remarkable _Autobiography_. I am able to supplement
his observations on tramps, so far as England is concerned, by the
following passages from a detailed record sent to me by an English
correspondent:--

"I am a male invert with complete feminine, sexual inclinations. Different