Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Ii Part 25

These three influences, therefore,-example at school, seduction, disappointment in normal love,-all of them drawing the subject away from the opposite s.e.x and concentrating him on his own s.e.x, are exciting causes of inversion; but they require a favorable organic predisposition to act on, while there are a large number of cases in which no exciting cause at all can be found, but in which, from earliest childhood, the subject's interest seems to be turned on his own s.e.x, and continues to be so turned throughout life.

At this point I conclude the a.n.a.lysis of the psychology of s.e.xual inversion as it presents itself to me. I have sought only to bring out the more salient points, neglecting minor points, neglecting also those groups of inverts who may be regarded as of secondary importance. The average invert, moving in ordinary society, is a person of average general health, though very frequently with hereditary relationships that are markedly neurotic. He is usually the subject of a congenital predisposing abnormality, or complexus of minor abnormalities, making it difficult or impossible for him to feel s.e.xual attraction to the opposite s.e.x, and easy to feel s.e.xual attraction to his own s.e.x. This abnormality either appears spontaneously from the first, by development or arrest of development, or it is called into activity by some accidental circ.u.mstance.

[225]

See pa.s.sim, Jahrbuch fur Psychoa.n.a.lytische Forschungen, Zentralblatt fur Psychoa.n.a.lyse, and Internationale Zeitschrift fur Aerztliche Psychoa.n.a.lyse; also Sadger, "Zur Aetiologie der Kontraren s.e.xualempfindung," Medizinische Klinik, 1909, No. 2.

[226]

For an exposition of this by an able English representative of Freudian doctrines, see Ernest Jones, "The dipus Complex As An Explanation of Hamlet's Mystery," American Journal of Psychology, January, 1910.

[227]

The love of relations may be tinctured by all degrees of s.e.xual love, some of which are so faint and vague that they cannot be considered unnatural or abnormal; it is misleading to term them incestuous. The Russian novelist, Artzibascheff, in his Sanine described a brother's affection for his sister as thus touched with a perception of her s.e.xual charm (I refer to the French translation), and the book has consequently been much abused as "incestuous," though the att.i.tude described is very pale and conventional compared to the romantic pa.s.sion sung in Sh.e.l.ley's Laon and Cythna, or the tragic exaltation of the same pa.s.sion in Ford's great play, "'Tis Pity She's a Wh.o.r.e."

[228]

Thus Numa Praetorius, a sagacious observer with, a very wide and thorough knowledge of h.o.m.os.e.xuality, finds himself quite unable to accept the "dipus Complex" explanation of inversion (Jahrbuch fur s.e.xuelle Zwischenstufen, July, 1914, p. 362).

[229]

It cannot be maintained that the frequency of inversion among the near relatives of inverts is a chance coincidence, for it must be remembered that few estimates of the prevalence of inversion yield a higher proportion than 3 per cent.

[230]

See also a discussion of the Freudian view by Hirschfeld, who concludes (Die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat, p. 344) that we can only accept the Freudian mechanism as rare, and in all cases subordinate to organic predisposition.

[231]

It has been denied by some (Meynert, Nacke, etc.) that there is any s.e.xual instinct at all. I may as well, therefore, explain in what sense I use the word. (See also "a.n.a.lysis of the s.e.xual Impulse" in vol. iii of these Studies.) I mean an inherited apt.i.tude the performance of which normally demands for its full satisfaction the presence of a person of the opposite s.e.x. It might be a.s.serted that there is no such thing as an instinct for food, that it is all imitation, etc. In a sense this is true, but the automatic basis remains. A chicken from an incubator needs no hen to teach it to eat. It seems to discover eating and drinking, as it were, by chance, at first eating awkwardly and eating everything, until it learns what will best satisfy its organic mechanism. There is no instinct for food, it may be, but there is an instinct which is only satisfied by food. It is the same with the "s.e.xual instinct." The tentative and omnivorous habits of the newly hatched chicken may be compared to the uncertainty of the s.e.xual instinct at p.u.b.erty, while the s.e.xual pervert is like a chicken that should carry on into adult age an appet.i.te for worsted and paper. It may be added here that the question of the hereditary nature of the s.e.xual instinct has been exhaustively discussed and decisively affirmed by Moll in his Untersuchungen uber die Libido s.e.xualis, 1898. Moll attaches importance to the inheritance of the normal apt.i.tudes for s.e.xual reaction in an abnormally weak degree as a factor in the development of s.e.xual perversions.

[232]

This view was revived in a modified form by Nacke (Zeitschrift fur die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie, vol. xv, Heft 5, 1913), who supposed that there may be an anatomical "h.o.m.os.e.xual center" in the brain; i.e., a feminine libido-center in the inverted man, and a masculine libido-center in the inverted woman. He expressed a hope that in the future the brains of inverted persons would be more carefully investigated.

[233]

I do not present this view as more than a picture which helps us to realize the actual phenomena which we witness in h.o.m.os.e.xuality, although I may add that so able a teratologist as Dr. J. W. Ballantyne considers that "it seems a very possible theory."

[234]

This explanation of h.o.m.os.e.xuality has already been tentatively put forth. Thus, Iwan Bloch (s.e.xual Life of Our Time, ch. xix, Appendix) vaguely suggests a new theory of h.o.m.os.e.xuality as dependent on chemical influences. Hirschfeld also believes (Die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat, ch. xx) that the study of the internal secretions is the path to the deepest foundations of inversion.

[235]

A. E. Garrod, "The Thymus Gland in its Clinical Aspects," British Medical Journal, Oct. 3, 1914

[236]

"The pure female and the pure male are produced by all the internal secretions," Blair Bell, "The Internal Secretions," British Medical Journal, Nov. 15, 1913.

[237]

After this chapter was first published (in the Centralblatt fur Nervenheilkunde, February, 1896), Fere also compared congenital inversion to color-blindness and similar anomalies (Fere, "La Descendance d'un Inverti," Revue Generale de Clinique et Therapeutique, 1896), while Ribot referred to the a.n.a.logy with color-hearing (Psychology of the Emotions, part ii, ch. vii).

[238]

See, e.g., Flournoy, Des Phenomenes de Synopsie, Geneva, 1893; and for a brief discussion of the general phenomena of synesthesia, E. Parish, Hallucinations and Illusions (Contemporary Science Series), chapter vii; Bleuler, article "Secondary Sensations," in Tuke's Dictionary of Psychological Medicine; and Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, 5th ed., 1915, pp. 181-4.

[239]

Magnan has in recent years reaffirmed this view ("Inversion s.e.xuelle et Pathologic Mentale," Revue de Psychotherapie, March, 1914): "The invert is a diseased person, a degenerate."

[240]

It is this fact which has caused the Italians to be shy of using the word "degeneration;" thus, Marro, in his great work, I Caratteri del Delinquenti, made a notable attempt to a.n.a.lyze the phenomena lumped together as degenerate into three groups: atypical, atavistic, and morbid.

[241]

Hirschfeld and Burchard among 200 inverts found p.r.o.nounced stigmata of degeneration in only 16 per cent. (Hirschfeld, Die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat, ch. xx.)

[242]

Alcohol has sometimes been considered an important exciting cause of h.o.m.os.e.xuality, and alcoholism is certainly not uncommon in the heredity of inverts; according to Hirschfeld (Die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat, p. 386) it is well marked in one of the parents in over 21 per cent, of cases. But it probably has no more influence as an exciting cause in the individual h.o.m.os.e.xual person than in the individual heteros.e.xual person. From the Freudian standpoint, indeed, Abraham believes (Zeitschrift fur s.e.xualwissenschaft, Heft 8, 1908) that even in normal persons alcohol removes the inhibition from a latent h.o.m.os.e.xuality, and Juliusburger from the same standpoint (Zentralblatt fur Psychoa.n.a.lyse, Heft 10 and 11, 1912) thinks that the alcoholic tendency is unconsciously aroused by the h.o.m.os.e.xual impulse in order to reach its own gratification. But we may accept Nacke's conclusions (Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Psychiatrie, vol. lxviii, 1911, p. 852), that (1) alcohol cannot produce h.o.m.os.e.xuality in persons not predisposed, that (2) it may arouse it in those who are predisposed, that (3) the action of alcohol is the same on the h.o.m.os.e.xual as the heteros.e.xual, and that (4) alcoholism is not common among inverts.

CHAPTER VII.-CONCLUSIONS.

The Prevention of h.o.m.os.e.xuality-The Influence of the School-Coeducation-The Treatment of s.e.xual Inversion-Castration-Hypnotism-a.s.sociational Therapy-Psycho-a.n.a.lysis-Mental and Physical Hygiene-Marriage-The Children of Inverts-The Att.i.tude of Society-The Horror Aroused by h.o.m.os.e.xuality-Justinian-The Code Napoleon-The State of the Law in Europe Today-Germany-England-What Should be our Att.i.tude toward h.o.m.os.e.xuality?

Having now completed the psychological a.n.a.lysis of the s.e.xual invert, so far as I have been able to study him, it only remains to speak briefly of the att.i.tude of society and the law. First, however, a few words as to the medical and hygienic aspects of inversion. The preliminary question of the prevention of h.o.m.os.e.xuality is in too vague a position at present to be profitably discussed. So far as the really congenital invert is concerned, prevention can have but small influence; but sound social hygiene should render difficult the acquisition of h.o.m.os.e.xual perversity, or what has been termed pseudo-h.o.m.os.e.xuality. It is the school which is naturally the chief theater of immature and temporary h.o.m.os.e.xual manifestations, partly because school life largely coincides with the period during which the s.e.xual impulse frequently tends to be undifferentiated, and partly because in the traditions of large and old schools an artificial h.o.m.os.e.xuality is often deeply rooted.

h.o.m.os.e.xuality in English schools has already been briefly referred to in chapter iii. As a precise and interesting picture of the phenomena in French schools, I may mention a story by Albert Nortal, Les Adolescents Pa.s.sionnes (1913), written immediately after the author left college, though not published until more than twenty-five years later, and clearly based on personal observation and experience. As regards German schools, see, e.g., Moll, Untersuchungen uber die Libido s.e.xualis, p. 449 et seq., and for s.e.xual manifestations in early life generally, the same author's s.e.xual Life of the Child; also Hirschfeld, Jahrbuch fur s.e.xuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. v, 1903, p. 47 et seq., and, for references, Hirschfeld, Die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat, p. 46 et seq.

While much may be done by physical hygiene and other means to prevent the extension of h.o.m.os.e.xuality in schools,[243] it is impossible, and even undesirable, to repress absolutely the emotional manifestations of s.e.x in either boys or girls who have reached the age of p.u.b.erty.[244] It must always be remembered that profoundly rooted organic impulses cannot be effectually combated by direct methods. Writing of a period two centuries ago, Casanova, in relating his early life as a seminarist trained to the priesthood, describes the precautions taken to prevent the youths entering each other's beds, and points out the folly of such precautions.[245] As that master of the human heart remarks, such prohibitions intensify the very evil they are intended to prevent by invoking in its aid the impulse 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 s.e.xes,[246]-not, of course, necessarily involving ident.i.ty of education for both s.e.xes,-since a certain amount of a.s.sociation between the s.e.xes helps to preserve the healthiness of the s.e.xual emotional att.i.tude. a.s.sociation between the s.e.xes 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 h.o.m.os.e.xuality was most ideally cultivated, that the s.e.xes, so far as we know, a.s.sociated more freely than in any other Greek State.[247]

The question of the treatment of h.o.m.os.e.xuality 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. s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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, Fere, Nacke, 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xuality 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." Fere (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 s.e.xual desire and the apt.i.tude 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 p.e.n.i.s 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 h.o.m.os.e.xual inclinations appeared to go, and he began to show inclination for as.e.xualized women, being specially anxious to meet with a woman whose ovaries had been removed on account of inversion. (Reference may also be made to Nacke, "Die Ersten Kastrationen aus sozialen Grunden auf europaischen 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 h.o.m.os.e.xuality. At one time hypnotic suggestion was carried out very energetically on h.o.m.os.e.xual subjects. Krafft-Ebing seems to have been the first distinguished advocate of hypnotism for application to the h.o.m.os.e.xual. Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing displayed special zeal and persistency in this treatment. He undertook to treat even the most p.r.o.nounced 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 prost.i.tute 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 h.o.m.os.e.xual 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 s.e.x. But the perversion remains unaffected; the subject is merely (as one of Moll's inverts expressed it) practising masturbation per v.a.g.i.n.am. 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 h.o.m.os.e.xuality, suggestion may really exert an influence. We can scarcely expect it to exert such influence when the h.o.m.os.e.xual 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 h.o.m.os.e.xuality, 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 Nacke (who was himself without faith in this method of treating inversion) stated that he had been informed by the last h.o.m.os.e.xual 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. Fere, also, had no belief in the efficacy of suggestive treatment, nor has Merzbach, nor Rohleder. Numa Praetorius states that the h.o.m.os.e.xual 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 h.o.m.os.e.xuality by developing in recent years what he terms a.s.sociation-therapy. In nearly all perverse individuals, he points out, there is a bridge,-more or less weak, no doubt,-which leads to the normal s.e.xual life. By developing such links of a.s.sociation with normality, Moll believes, it may be possible to exert a healing influence on the h.o.m.os.e.xual. 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 bis.e.xual individuals, or of youthful subjects whose h.o.m.os.e.xuality 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 p.r.o.nounced and developed cases of inversion.[252]

Somewhat the same aim as Moll's a.s.sociation-therapy, though on the basis of a more elaborate theory, is sought by Freud's psychoa.n.a.lytic method of treating h.o.m.os.e.xuality. For the psychoa.n.a.lytic 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 psychoa.n.a.lysis to straighten these out, and from the bis.e.xual const.i.tution, which is regarded as common to every one, to bring into the foreground the heteros.e.xual elements, and so to reconstruct a normal personality, developing new s.e.xual ideals from the patient's own latent and subconscious nature. Sadger has especially occupied himself with the psychoa.n.a.lytic treatment of h.o.m.os.e.xuality 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 h.o.m.os.e.xuality when present. Other psychoa.n.a.lysts are less sanguine as to the cure of inversion. Stekel appears to have stated that he has never seen a complete cure by psychoa.n.a.lysis, and Ferenezi is not able to give a good account of the results; especially as regards what he terms obsessional h.o.m.os.e.xuality, he states that he has never succeeded in effecting a complete cure, although obsessions in general are especially amenable to psychoa.n.a.lysis.[254]

I have met with at least two h.o.m.os.e.xual persons who had undergone psychoa.n.a.lytic treatment and found it beneficial. One, however, was bis.e.xual, 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, s.e.xual inversion cannot be regarded as essentially an insane or psychopathic state.[255] But it is frequently a.s.sociated with nervous conditions which may be greatly benefited by hygiene and treatment, without any attempt at all to overcome a h.o.m.os.e.xual att.i.tude 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 a.s.sociated 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 s.e.xual impulse. If it fails to do so, it becomes necessary to exercise great caution in recommending stronger methods. Purely "Platonic a.s.sociation with the other s.e.x," 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 bis.e.xual) 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 h.o.m.os.e.xuality, 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 h.o.m.os.e.xual partner and the normal partner-however ignorant of s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual love and springs from the central core of organic personality, cannot voluntarily be created or even a.s.sumed.[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 h.o.m.os.e.xuality 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 h.o.m.os.e.xual person is always very risky. In a large number of cases such marriages prove sterile. The tendency to s.e.xual 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 a.s.surance 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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.sion: 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 s.e.xual interest in women. Once I had a great friendship with a beautiful and n.o.ble woman, without any mixture of s.e.xual 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 pa.s.sion, against which I have fought continually. The shame of this has made life a h.e.l.l, 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 succ.u.mb 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 pa.s.sion-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 h.o.m.os.e.xual 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 h.o.m.os.e.xual 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 ent.i.tled to do so. I crave this since I cannot have a son. I leave the matter here.