Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Ii Part 22

While this is so, I am certainly inclined to believe that an early and excessive indulgence in masturbation, though not an adequate cause, is a favoring condition for the development of inversion, and that this is especially so in women. The s.e.xual precocity indicated by early and excessive masturbation doubtless sometimes reveals an organism already predisposed to h.o.m.os.e.xuality. But, apart from this, when masturbation arises spontaneously at an early age on a purely physical basis it seems to tend to produce a divorce between the physical and the psychic aspects of s.e.xual love. The s.e.xual manifestations are all diverted into this physical direction, and the child is ignorant that such phenomena are normally allied to love; then, when a more spiritual attraction appears with adolescent development, this divorce is perpetuated. Instead of the physical and psychic feelings appearing together when the age for s.e.xual attraction comes, the physical feelings are prematurely twisted from their natural end, and it becomes abnormally easy for a person of the same s.e.x to step in and take the place rightfully belonging to a person of the opposite s.e.x. This has certainly seemed to me the course of events in some cases I have observed.

ATt.i.tUDE TOWARD THE OPPOSITE s.e.x.-In 17 cases (of whom 5 are married and others purposing to marry) there is s.e.xual attraction to both s.e.xes, a condition formerly called psycho-s.e.xual hermaphroditism, but now more usually bis.e.xuality. In such cases, although there is pleasure and satisfaction in relationships with both s.e.xes, there is usually a greater degree of satisfaction in connection with one s.e.x. Most of the bis.e.xual prefer their own s.e.x. It is curiously rare to find a person, whether man or woman, who by choice exercises relationships with both s.e.xes and prefers the opposite s.e.x. This would seem to indicate that the bis.e.xual may really be inverts.

In any case bis.e.xuality merges imperceptibly into simple inversion. In at least 16 of 52 cases of simple inversion in men there has been connection with women, in some instances only once or twice, in others during several years, but it was always with an effort, or from a sense of duty and anxiety to be normal; they never experienced any real pleasure in the act, or sense of satisfaction after it. Four of these cases are married, but martial relationships usually ceased after a few years. At least four others were attracted to women when younger, but are not now; another once felt s.e.xually attracted to a boyish woman, but never made any attempt to obtain any relationships with her; 3 or 4 others, again, have tried to have connection with women, but failed. The largest proportion of my cases have never had any s.e.xual intimacy with the opposite s.e.x,[193] and some of these experience what, in the case of the male invert, is sometimes called horror feminae. But, while woman as an object of s.e.xual desire is in such cases disgusting to them, and it is usually difficult for a genuine invert to have connection with a woman except by setting up images of his own s.e.x, for the most part inverts are capable of genuine friendships, irrespective of s.e.x.

It is, perhaps, not difficult to account for the horror-much stronger than that normally felt toward a person of the same s.e.x-with which the invert often regards the s.e.xual organs of persons of the opposite s.e.x. It cannot be said that the s.e.xual organs of either s.e.x under the influence of s.e.xual excitement are esthetically pleasing; they only become emotionally desirable through the parallel excitement of the beholder. When the absence of parallel excitement is accompanied in the beholder by the sense of unfamiliarity as in childhood, or by a neurotic hypersensitiveness, the conditions are present for the production of intense horror feminae or horror masculis, as the case may be. It is possible that, as Otto Rank argues in his interesting study, "Die Naktheit im Sage und Dichtung," this horror of the s.e.xual organs of the opposite s.e.x, to some extent felt even by normal people, is embodied in the Melusine type of legend.[194]

EROTIC DREAMS.-Our dreams follow, as a general rule, the impulses that stir our waking psychic life. The normal man or woman in s.e.xual vigor dreams of loving a person of the opposite s.e.x; the inverted man dreams of loving a man, the inverted woman of loving a woman.[195] Dreams thus have a certain value in diagnosis, more especially since there is less unwillingness to confess to a perverted dream than to a perverted action.

Ulrichs first referred to the significance of the dreams of inverts. At a later period Moll pointed out that they have some value in diagnosis when we are not sure how far the inverted tendency is radical. Then Nacke repeatedly emphasized the importance of dreams as const.i.tuting, he believed, the most delicate test we possess in the diagnosis of h.o.m.os.e.xuality;[196] this was an exaggerated view which failed to take into account the various influences which may deflect dreams. Hirschfeld has made the most extensive investigation on this point, and found that among 100 inverts 87 had exclusively h.o.m.os.e.xual dreams, while most of the rest had no dreams at all.[197] Among my cases, only 4 definitely state that there are no erotic dreams, while 31 acknowledge that the dreams are concerned more or less with persons of the same s.e.x. Of these, at least 16 a.s.sert or imply that their dreams are exclusively of the same s.e.x. Two, though apparently inverted congenitally, have had erotic dreams of women, in one case more frequently than of men; these two exceptions have no apparent explanation. Another appears to have s.e.xual dreams of a nightmare character in which women appear. In another case there were always at first dreams of women, but this subject had sometimes had connection with prost.i.tutes, and is not absolutely indifferent to women, while another, whose dreams remain heteros.e.xual, had in early life some attraction to girls. In the cases of distinct bis.e.xuality there is no unanimity; 2 dream of their own s.e.x, 2 dream of both s.e.xes, 1 usually dreams of the opposite s.e.x, and 1 man, while dreaming of both, dislikes those dreams in which women figure. In at least 3 cases dreams of a s.e.xual character began at the age of 8 or earlier.

The phenomena presented by erotic dreams, alike in normal and abnormal persons, are somewhat complex, and dreams are by no means a sure guide to the dreamer's real s.e.xual att.i.tude. The fluctuations of dream imagery may be ill.u.s.trated by the experiences of one of my subjects who thus indirectly summarises his own experiences: "When he was quite a child, he used to be haunted by gross and grotesque dreams of naked adult men, which must have been erotic. At the age of p.u.b.erty he dreamed in two ways, but always about males. One species of vision was highly idealistic; a radiant and lovely young man's face with floating hair appeared to him on a background of dim shadows. The other was obscene, being generally the sight of a groom's or carter's genitals in a state of violent erection. He never dreamed erotically or sentimentally about women; but when the dream was frightful, the terror-making personage was invariably female. In ordinary dreams, women of his family or acquaintance played a trivial part. At the age of 24, having determined to conquer his h.o.m.os.e.xual pa.s.sions, he married, found no difficulty in cohabiting with his wife, and begat several children, although he took but little pa.s.sionate delight in the s.e.xual act. He still continued to dream exclusively of men, for several years; and the obscene visions became more frequent than the idealistic. Gradually, coa.r.s.e and uninteresting erotic dreams of women began to haunt his mind in sleep. A curious particular regarding the new type of vision was that he never dreamed of whole females, only of their s.e.xual parts, seen in a blur; and the seminal emissions which attended the mental pictures left a feeling of fatigue and disgust. In course of time, his wife and he agreed to live separately so far as s.e.xual relations are concerned. He then indulged his pa.s.sion for males, and wholly lost those rudimentary female dreams which had been developed during the period of nuptial cohabitation."

Not only is it possible for the genuine invert to be trained into heteros.e.xual erotic dreams, but h.o.m.os.e.xual dreams may occasionally be experienced by persons who are, and always have been, exclusively heteros.e.xual. I could bring forward much evidence on this point. (Cf. "Auto-erotism" in vol. i of these Studies.) Both men and women who have always been of p.r.o.nounced heteros.e.xual tendency, without a trace of inversion, are liable to rare h.o.m.os.e.xual dreams, not necessarily involving o.r.g.a.s.m or even definite s.e.xual excitement, and sometimes accompanied by a feeling of repugnance. As an example I may present a dream (which had no known origin) of an exclusively heteros.e.xual lady aged 42; she dreamed she was in bed with another woman, unknown to her, and lying on her own stomach, while with her right hand stretched out she was feeling the other's s.e.xual parts. She could distinctly perceive the c.l.i.toris, v.a.g.i.n.a, etc.; she felt a sort of disgust with herself for what she was doing, but continued until she awoke; she then found herself lying on her stomach as in the dream and at first thought she must have been touching herself, but realized that this could not have been the case. (Niceforo, who believes that inversion may develop out of masturbation, considers that dreams of masturbation by a.s.sociation of ideas may take on an inverted character [Le Psicopatie Sessuale, 1897, pp. 35, 69]; this, however, must be rare, and will not account for most of the dreams in question.)

Nacke and Colin Scott, some years ago, independently referred to cases in which normal persons were liable to h.o.m.os.e.xual dreams, and Fere (Revue de Medecine, Dec., 1898) referred to a man who had a horror of women, but appeared only to manifest h.o.m.os.e.xuality in his dreams. Nacke (Archiv fur Kriminal-Anthropologie, 1907, Heft I, 2) calls dreams which represent a reaction of opposition to the dreamer's ordinary life "contrast dreams." Hirschfeld, who accepts Nacke's "contrast dreams" in relation to h.o.m.os.e.xuality, considers that they indicate a latent bis.e.xuality. We may admit this is so, in the same sense in which a complementary color image called up by another color indicates the possibility of perceiving that color. In most cases, however, it seems to me that h.o.m.os.e.xual dreams in normal persons may be simply explained as due to the ordinary confusion and transition of dream imagery. (See Ellis, The World of Dreams, especially ch. ii.)

Methods of s.e.xual Relationship.-The exact mode in which an inverted instinct finds satisfaction is frequently of importance from the medico-legal standpoint;[198] from a psychological standpoint it is of minor significance, being chiefly of interest as showing the degree to which the individual has departed from the instinctive feelings of his normal fellow-beings.

Taking 57 inverted men of whom I have definite knowledge, I find that 12, restrained by moral or other considerations, have never had any physical relationship with their own s.e.x. In some 22 cases the s.e.xual relationship rarely goes beyond close physical contact and fondling, or at most mutual masturbation and intercrural intercourse. In 10 or 11 cases f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o (oral excitation)-frequently in addition to some form of mutual masturbation, and usually, though not always, as the active agency-is the form preferred. In 14 cases, actual pedicatio[199]-usually active, not pa.s.sive-has been exercised. In these cases, however, pedicatio is by no means always the habitual or even the preferred method of gratification. It seems to be the preferred method in about 7 cases. Several who have never experienced it, including some who have never practised any form of physical relationship, state that they feel no objection to pedicatio; some have this feeling in regard to active, others in regard to pa.s.sive, pedicatio. The proportion of inverts who practise or have at some time experienced pedicatio thus revealed (nearly 25 per cent.) is large; in Germany Hirschfeld finds it to be only 8 per cent., and Merzbach only 6. I believe, however, that a wider induction from a larger number of English and American cases would yield a proportion much nearer to that found in Germany.[200]

PSEUDOs.e.xUAL ATTRACTION.-It is sometimes supposed that in h.o.m.os.e.xual relationships one person is always active, physically and emotionally, the other pa.s.sive. Between men, at all events, this is very frequently not the case, and the invert cannot tell if he feels like a man or like a woman. Thus, one writes:-

"In bed with my friend I feel as he feels, and he feels as I feel. The result is masturbation, and nothing more or desire for more on my part. I get it over, too, as soon as possible, in order to come to the best-sleeping arms round each other, or talking so."

It remains true, however, that there may usually be traced what it is possible to call pseudos.e.xual attraction, by which I mean a tendency for the invert to be attracted toward persons unlike himself, so that in his s.e.xual relationships there is a certain semblance of s.e.xual opposition. Numa Praetorius considers that in h.o.m.os.e.xuality the attraction of opposites-the attraction for soldiers and other primitive vigorous types-plays a greater part than among normal lovers.[201] This pseudos.e.xual attraction is, however, as Hirschfeld points out,[202] and as we see by the Histories here presented, by no means invariable.

M. N. writes: "To me it appears that the female element must, of necessity, exist in the body that desires the male, and that nature keeps her law in the spirit, though she breaks it in the form. The rest is all a matter of individual temperament and environment. The female nature of the invert, hampered though it is by its disguise of flesh, is still able to exert an extraordinary influence, and calls insistently upon the male. This influence seems called into action most violently in the presence of males possessed of strong s.e.xual magnetism of their own. Such men are generally more or less conscious of the influence, and the result is either a vague appreciation, which will make the male wonder why he gets on so well with the invert, or else the influence will be realized to be something incongruous and unnatural, and will be resented accordingly. Sometimes, indeed, the reciprocated feeling (circ.u.mstance and opportunity permitting) will prove strong enough to induce s.e.xual relations. Reason will then generally overpower instinct, and the feeling, aroused unaware, will probably be changed into repulsion. Further, the influence reacts in the same way on women, who, particularly if they are strongly s.e.xual, experience involuntary sensations of dislike or antagonism on a.s.sociation with inverts. There is, however, one terrible reality for the invert to face, no matter how much he may wish to avoid it and seek to deceive himself. There exists for him an almost absolute lack of any genuine satisfaction either in the way of the affections or desires. His whole life is pa.s.sed in vainly seeking and desiring the male, the ant.i.thesis of his nature, and in consorting with inverts he must perforce be content with the male in form only, the shadow without the substance. Indeed, one invert necessarily regards another as being of the same undesired female s.e.x as himself, and for this reason it will be found that, while friendships between inverts frequently exist (and these are characteristically feminine, unstable, and liable to betrayal), love-attachments are less common, and when they occur must naturally be based upon considerable self-deception. Venal gratifications are always, of course, as possible as they are unsatisfactory, and here perhaps some of the peculiarities of taste accompanying inversion may admit of elucidation. In considering the peculiar predilection shown by inverts for youths of inferior social position, for the wearers of uniforms, and for extreme physical development and virility not necessarily accompanied by intellectuality, regard must be had to the probable conduct of women placed in a position of complete irresponsibility combined with absolute freedom of action and every opportunity for promiscuity. It seems to me that the importance of recognizing the underlying female element in inversion cannot be too strongly insisted upon."

"The majority" [of inverts], writes "Z," "differ in no detail of their outward appearance, their physique, or their dress from normal men. They are athletic, masculine in habit, frank in manner, pa.s.sing through society year after year without arousing a suspicion of their inner temperament; were it not so, society would long ago have had its eyes opened to the amount of perverted s.e.xuality it harbors." These lines were written, not in opposition to the more subtle distinctions pointed out above, but in refutation of the vulgar error which confuses the typical invert with the painted and petticoated creatures who appear in police-courts from time to time, and whose portraits are presented by Lombroso, Legludic, etc. On another occasion the same writer remarked, while expressing general agreement with the idea of a pseudos.e.xual attraction: "The liaison is by no means always sought and begun by the person who is abnormally const.i.tuted. I mean that I can cite cases of decided males who have made up to inverts, and have found their happiness in the reciprocated pa.s.sion. One p.r.o.nounced male of this sort, again, once said to me, 'men are so much more affectionate than women.' [Precisely the same words were used by one of my subjects.] Also, the liaison springs up now and then quite accidentally through juxtaposition, when it is difficult to say whether either at the outset had an inverted tendency of any marked quality. In these cases the s.e.xual relation seems to come on as a heightening of comradely affection, and is found to be pleasurable-sometimes, I think, discovered to be safe as well as satisfying. On the other hand, so far as I know, it is extremely rare to observe a permanent liaison between two p.r.o.nounced inverts."

The tendency to pseudos.e.xual attraction in the h.o.m.os.e.xual would thus seem to involve a preference for normal persons. How far this is the case it seems difficult to state positively. Usually, one may say, an invert falls in love (exactly as in the case of a normal person) without any intellectual calculation as to the temperamental ability to return the affection which the object of his love may possess. Naturally, however, there cannot be any adequate return of the affection in the absence of an actual or latent h.o.m.os.e.xual disposition. On this point an American correspondent (H. C.), with a wide knowledge of inversion in many lands, writes: "One of your correspondents declares that inverts long for s.e.xual relations with normal men rather than with one another. If this be true, I have never once found it exemplified in all my wide experience of inverts; and I have submitted his a.s.sertion to more than 50. These have replied invariably that unless a man is himself h.o.m.os.e.xual, nearly all the pleasure of f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o is absent. The fact is, the majority of inverts flock together not from exigency, but from choice. The mere s.e.xual act is, if anything, far less the sole object between inverts than it is between normal men and women. Why should the invert sigh for intercourse with normal men, where mutual confidences and sympathies and love would be out of the question? Personally, I decline to commit f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o with a man who is given to women; the thought of it is repugnant to me. And this is the att.i.tude with every invert I have questioned. The nearest approach to confirmation of your correspondent's theory has been when an extremely feminine invert here and there has admitted the wish that a certain normal man were inverted. Indeed, the temperamental gamut of inversion is itself broad enough to embrace the most widely divergent ideals. As my furthest-reaching demands attain fruition in the gentle and pretty boy, so his own robuster affinity resides in me. If inverts were actually women, then indeed the normal male would be their ideal. But inverts are not women. Inverts are males capable of pa.s.sionate friendship, and their ideal is the male who will give them pa.s.sionate friendship in return."

In at least 24, probably many more, of my male cases there is a marked contrast, and in a still larger number a less-marked contrast, between the subject and the individuals he is attracted to; either he is of somewhat feminine and sensitive nature, and admires more simple and virile natures, or he is fairly vigorous and admires boys who are often of lower social cla.s.s. Inverted women also are attracted to more clinging feminine persons.[203] A s.e.xual attraction for boys is, no doubt, as Moll points out, that form of inversion which comes nearest to normal s.e.xuality, for the subject of it usually approaches nearer to the average man in physical and mental disposition. The reason of this is obvious: boys resemble women, and therefore it requires a less profound organic twist to become s.e.xually attracted to them. Anyone who has watched private theatricals in boys' schools will have observed how easy it is for boys to personate women successfully, and it is well known that until the middle of the seventeenth century women's parts on the stage were always taken by boys, whether or not with injury to their own or other people's morals.[204] It is also worthy of note that in Greece, where h.o.m.os.e.xuality flourished so extensively, and apparently with so little accompaniment of neurotic degeneration, it was often held that only boys under 18 should be loved; so that the love of boys merged into love of women. About 18 of my cases are most strongly attracted to youths,-preferably of about the age of 18 to 20,-and they are, for the most part, among the more normal and healthy of the cases. A preference for older men, or else a considerable degree of indifference to age alone, is more common, and perhaps indicates a deeper degree of perversion.

Putting aside the age of the object desired, it must be said that there is a distinctly general, though not universal, tendency for s.e.xual inverts to approach the feminine type, either in psychic disposition or physical const.i.tution, or both.[205] I cannot say how far this is explained by the irritable nervous system and delicate health which are so often a.s.sociated with inversion, though this is certainly an important factor. Although the invert himself may stoutly affirm his masculinity, and although this femininity may not be very obvious, its wide prevalence may be a.s.serted with considerable a.s.surance, and by no means only among the small minority of inverts who take an exclusively pa.s.sive role, though in these it is usually most marked. In this I am confirmed by Q., who writes: "In all, or certainly almost all, the cases of congenital male inverts (excluding psycho-s.e.xual hermaphrodites) that I know there has been a remarkable sensitiveness and delicacy of sentiment, sympathy, and an intuitive habit of mind, such as we generally a.s.sociate with the feminine s.e.x, even though the body might be quite masculine in its form and habit."[206] When, however, a distinguished invert said to Moll: "We are all women; that we do not deny," he put the matter in too extreme a form. The feminine traits of the h.o.m.os.e.xual are not usually of a conspicuous character. "I believe that inverts of plainly feminine nature are rare exceptions," wrote Nacke:[207] and that statement may be accepted even by those who emphasize the prevalence of feminine traits among inverts.

In inverted women some degree of masculinity or boyishness is equally prevalent, and it is not usually found in the women to whom they are attracted. Even in inversion the need for a certain s.e.xual opposition-the longing for something which the lover himself does not possess-still prevails. It expresses itself sometimes in an attraction between persons of different race and color. I am told that in American prisons for women Lesbian relationships are specially frequent between white and black women.[208] A similar affinity is found among the Arabs, says Kocher; and if an Arab woman has a Lesbian friend the latter is usually European. In Cochin China, too, according to Lorion, while the Chinese are chiefly active pederasts, the Annamites are chiefly pa.s.sive.

It must, however, be remembered that, in normal love, h.o.m.ogamy, the attraction of the like, prevails over heterogamy, the attraction of the unlike, which is chiefly confined to those features which belong to the sphere of the secondary s.e.xual characters;[209] the same appears to be true in inversion, and the h.o.m.os.e.xual are probably, on the whole, more attracted by the traits which they seem to themselves to possess than by those which are foreign to themselves.[210]

PHYSICAL ABNORMALITIES.-The circ.u.mstances under which many of my cases were investigated often made information under this head difficult to obtain, or to verify. In at least 4 cases the p.e.n.i.s is very large, while in at least 3 it is small and undeveloped, with small and flabby testes. It seems probable that variations in these two directions are both common, but it is doubtful whether they possess as much significance as the tendency to infantilism of the s.e.xual organs in inverted women seems to possess. Hirschfeld considers that the genital organs of inverts resemble those of normal people. He finds, however, that phimosis is rather common.[211]

More significant, perhaps, than specifically genital peculiarities are the deviations found in the general conformation of the body.[212] In at least 2 cases there are well-developed b.r.e.a.s.t.s, in 1 the b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelling and becoming red.[213] In 1 case there are "menstrual" phenomena, physical and psychic, recurring every four weeks. In several cases the hips are broad and the arms rounded, while some are skillful in throwing a ball. One was born with a double squint. At least 2 were 7 months' children. In the previous chapter I have referred to the tendency to hypertrichosis and occasionally oligotrichosis among inverted women; among the men it is the latter condition which seems more common, and in several cases the bodies are hairless, or with but scanty hair. A few are left-handed, though not perhaps an abnormal proportion.[214] The s.e.xual characters of the handwriting are in some cases clearly inverted, the men writing a feminine hand and the women a masculine hand.[215] A high feminine voice is sometimes found.[216]

A marked characteristic of many inverts, though one not easy of precise definition, is their youthfulness of appearance, and frequently child-like faces, equally in both s.e.xes. This has often been remarked,[217] and is p.r.o.nounced among many of my subjects.

The frequent inability of male inverts to whistle was first pointed out by Ulrichs, and Hirschfeld has found it in 23 per cent. Many of my cases confess to this inability, while some of the women inverts can whistle admirably. Although this inability of male inverts is only found among a minority, I am quite satisfied that it is well marked among a considerable minority. One of my correspondents, M. N., writes to me: "With regard to the general inability of inverts to whistle (I am not able to do so myself), their fondness for green (my favorite color), their feminine caligraphy, skill at female occupations, etc., these all seem to me but indications of the one principle. To go still farther and include trivial things, few inverts even smoke in the same manner and with the same enjoyment as a man; they have seldom the male facility at games, cannot throw at a mark with precision, or even spit!"

Nearly all these peculiarities indicate a minor degree of nervous disturbance and lead to modification, as my correspondent points out, in a feminine direction. It is scarcely necessary to add that they by no means necessarily imply inversion. Sh.e.l.ley, for instance, was unable to whistle, though he never gave an indication of inversion; but he was a person of somewhat abnormal and feminine organization, and he ill.u.s.trates the tendency of these apparently very insignificant functional anomalies to be correlated with other and more important psychic anomalies.

The greater part of these various anatomical peculiarities and functional anomalies point, more or less clearly, to the prevalence among inverts of a tendency to infantilism, combined with feminism in men and masculinism in women.[218] This tendency is denied by Hirschfeld, but it is often well indicated among the subjects whose histories I have been able to present, and is indeed suggested by Hirschfeld's own elaborate results; so that it can scarcely be pa.s.sed over. I regard it as highly significant, and it is in harmony with all that we are learning to know regarding the important part played by the internal secretions, alike in inversion and the general bodily modifications in an infantile, feminine, and masculine direction.

If we are justified in believing that there is a tendency for inverted persons to be somewhat arrested in development, approaching the child type, we may connect this fact with the s.e.xual precocity sometimes marked in inverts, for precocity is commonly accompanied by rapid arrest of development.

A correspondent, who is himself inverted, furnishes the following notes of cases he is well acquainted with; I quote them here, as they ill.u.s.trate the anomalies commonly found:-

1. A., male, eldest child of typically neurotic family. Three children in all: 2 male and 1 female. The other 2 are somewhat eccentric, unsocial, and s.e.xually frigid, 1 in a marked degree. The curious point about this case is that A., the only one of the family possessed of mental ability and social qualifications, should be inverted. Parents' marriage was very ill-a.s.sorted and inharmonious, the father being of great stature and the mother abnormally small and of highly nervous temperament, both of feeble health. Ancestry unfortunate, especially on mother's side.

2. B., male, invert, younger of 2 sons, no other children, has extremely feminine disposition and appearance, of considerable personal attraction, and has great musical talent. p.e.n.i.s very small and marked breast-development.

3. C., male, invert, younger of 2 sons, no other children. Interval of six years between first and second son. Parents' marriage one of great affection, but degenerate ancestry on mother's side. Cancer and scrofula in family.

4. D., male, invert, second child of 6; remainder girls. Of humble social position. Considerable depravity evinced by all the members of this family, with the exception of D., who alone proved steady, honest, and industrious.

5. E., male, invert, second son of family of 3, the youngest child being a girl, stillborn. Of extreme neurotic temperament fostered by upbringing. Effeminate in build and disposition; musically gifted.

6. F., male, invert, second child of family of 5. Eldest child a girl, died in youth. After F. a boy G., a girl H., and another girl stillborn. Parents badly matched; mother of considerable mental and physical strength; father last representative of moribund stock, the result of intermarriage. Children all resembling father in appearance and mother in disposition. Drink-tendency in both boys, to which F.'s death at the age of 30 was mainly due. G. committed suicide some years later. The girl H. married into a family with worse ancestry than her own. Has two children:-

7. I. and J., boy and girl, both inverted as far as I am able to judge. The boy was born with some deformity of the feet and ankles; is of effeminate tastes and appearance. Boy resembles mother, and girl, who is of great physical development, resembles father.

The same correspondent adds:-

"I have noticed little abnormal with regard to the genital formation of inverts. There are, however, frequent abnormalities of proportion in their figures, the hands and feet being noticeably smaller and more shapely, the waist more marked, the body softer and less muscular. Almost invariably there is either cranial malformation or the head approaches the feminine in type and shape."

ARTISTIC AND OTHER APt.i.tUDES.-All avocations are represented among inverts. Among the subjects here dealt with are found, at one end of the scale, numerous manual workers, and at the other end an equal number, sometimes of aristocratic family, who exercise no profession at all. There are 12 physicians, 9 men of letters, at least 7 are engaged in commercial life, 6 are artists, architects, or composers, 4 are or have been actors. These figures cannot give any clue to the relative extent of inversion in various occupations, but they indicate that no cla.s.s of occupation furnishes a safeguard against inversion.

There are, however, certain avocations to which inverts seem especially called.[219] One of the chief of these is literature. The apparent predominance of physicians is easily explicable. The frequency with which literature is represented is probably more genuine. Here, indeed, inverts seem to find the highest degree of success and reputation. At least half a dozen of my subjects are successful men of letters, and I could easily add others by going outside the group of Histories included in this study. They especially cultivate those regions of belles-lettres which lie on the borderland between prose and verse. Though they do not usually attain much eminence in poetry, they are often very accomplished writers of verse. They may be attracted to history, but rarely attempt tasks of great magnitude, involving much patient labor, though to this rule there are exceptions. Pure science seems to have relatively little attraction for the h.o.m.os.e.xual.[220]

An examination of my Histories reveals the interesting fact that 45 of the subjects, or in the proportion of 56 per cent., possess artistic apt.i.tudes of varying degree. Galton found, from the investigation of nearly 1000 persons, that the average showing artistic tastes in England was only about 30 per cent. It must also be said that my figures are probably below the truth, as no special point was made of investigating the matter, and also that in some cases the artistic ability is of high order.

It is suggested that Adler's theory of Minderwertigkeit-according to which we react strenuously against our congenital organic defects and fortify them into virtues-may be applied to the invert's acquirement of artistic abilities (G. Rosenstein, "Die Theorien der Organminderwertigkeit und die Bis.e.xualitat," Jahrbuch fur Psychoa.n.a.lytische Forschungen, vol. ii, 1910, p. 398). This theory is in some cases of valuable application, but it seems doubtful to me whether it is very profitable in the present connection. The artistic apt.i.tudes of inverts may better be regarded as part of their organic tendencies than as a reaction against those tendencies. In this connection I may quote the remarks of an American correspondent, himself h.o.m.os.e.xual: "Regarding the connection between inversion and artistic capacity, so far as I can see, the temperament of every invert seems to strive to find artistic expression-crudely or otherwise. Inverts, as a rule, seek the paths of life that lie in pleasant places; their resistance to opposing obstacles is elastic, their work is never strenuous (if they can help it), and their accomplishments hardly ever of practical use. This is all true of the born artist, as well. Both inverts and artists are inordinately fond of praise; both yearn for a life where admiration is the reward for little energy. In a word, they seem to be 'born tired,' begotten by parents who were tired, too."

Hirschfeld (Die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat, p. 66) gives a list of pictures and sculptures which specially appeal to the h.o.m.os.e.xual. Prominent among them are representations of St. Sebastian, Gainsborough's Blue Boy, Vandyck's youthful men, the Hermes of Praxiteles, Michelangelo's Slave, Rodin's and Meunier's working-men types.

As regards music, my cases reveal the apt.i.tude which has been remarked by others as peculiarly common among inverts. It has been extravagantly said that all musicians are inverts; it is certain that various famous musicians, among the dead and the living, have been h.o.m.os.e.xual. Ingegnieros speaks of a "genito-musical synaesthesia," a.n.a.logous to color-hearing, in this connection. Calesia states (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1900, p. 209) that 60 per cent, inverts are musicians. Hirschfeld (Die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat, p. 500) regards this estimate as excessive, but he himself elsewhere states (p. 175) that 98 per cent, of male inverts are greatly attracted to music, the women being decidedly less attracted. Oppenheim (in a paper summarized in the Neurologische Centralblatt for June 1, 1910, and the Alienist and Neurologist for Nov., 1910) well remarks that the musical disposition is marked by a great emotional instability, and this instability is a disposition to nervousness. It is thus that neurasthenia is so common among musicians. The musician has not been rendered nervous by the music, but he owes his nervousness (as also, it may be added, his disposition to h.o.m.os.e.xuality) to the same disposition to which he owes his musical apt.i.tude. Moreover, the musician is frequently one-sided in his gifts, and the possession of a single hypertrophied apt.i.tude is itself closely related to the neuropathic and psychopathic diathesis.

The tendency to dramatic apt.i.tude-found among a large proportion of my subjects who have never been professional actors-has attracted the attention of previous investigators in this field.[221] Thus, Moll refers to the frequency of artistic, and especially dramatic, talent among inverts, and remarks that the cause is doubtful. After pointing out that the lie which they have to be perpetually living renders inverts always actors, he goes on to say:-

Apart from this, it seems to me that the capacity and the inclination to conceive situations and to represent them in a masterly manner corresponds to an abnormal predisposition of the nervous system, just as does s.e.xual inversion; so that both phenomena are due to the same source.

I am in agreement with this statement; the congenitally inverted may, I believe, be looked upon as a cla.s.s of individuals exhibiting nervous characters which, to some extent, approximate them to persons of artistic genius. The dramatic and artistic apt.i.tudes of inverts are, therefore, partly due to the circ.u.mstances of the invert's life, which render him necessarily an actor,-and in some few cases lead him into a love of deception comparable with that of a hysterical woman,-and partly, it is probable, to a congenital nervous predisposition allied to the predisposition to dramatic apt.i.tude.

One of my correspondents has long been interested in the frequency of inversion among actors and actresses. He knew an inverted actor who told him he adopted the profession because it would enable him to indulge his proclivity; but, on the whole, he regards this tendency as due to "hitherto unconsidered imaginative flexibilities and curiosities in the individual. The actor, ex hypothesi, is one who works himself by sympathy (intellectual and emotional) into states of psychological being that are not his own. He learns to comprehend-nay, to live himself into-relations which were originally alien to his nature. The capacity for doing this-what makes a born actor-implies a faculty for extending his artistically acquired experience into life. In the process of his trade, therefore, he becomes at all points sensitive to human emotions, and, s.e.xuality being the most intellectually undetermined of the appet.i.tes after hunger, the actor might discover in himself a sort of s.e.xual indifference, out of which a s.e.xual aberration could easily arise. A man devoid of this imaginative flexibility could not be a successful actor. The man who possesses it would be exposed to divagations of the s.e.xual instinct under esthetical or merely wanton influences. Something of the same kind is applicable to musicians and artists, in whom s.e.xual inversion prevails beyond the average. They are conditioned by their esthetical faculty, and encouraged by the circ.u.mstances of their life to feel and express the whole gamut of emotional experience. Thus they get an environment which (unless they are sharply otherwise differentiated) leads easily to experiments in pa.s.sion. All this joins on to what you call the 'variational diathesis' of men of genius. But I should seek the explanation of the phenomenon less in the original s.e.xual const.i.tution than in the exercise of sympathetic, a.s.similative emotional qualities, powerfully stimulated and acted on by the conditions of the individual's life. The artist, the singer, the actor, the painter, are more exposed to the influences out of which s.e.xual differentiation in an abnormal direction may arise. Some persons are certainly made abnormal by nature, others, of this sympathetic artistic temperament, may become so through their sympathies plus their conditions of life." It is possible there may be some element of truth in this view, which my correspondent regarded as purely hypothetical.