The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization / Translated from the Sixth German Edition

by Iwan Bloch

CHAPTER XIX

Homosexuality—love between man and man (uranism), or between woman and woman (tribadism), a congenital state, or one spontaneously appearing in very early childhood—I consider “a riddle,” because, in fact, the more closely in recent years I have come to know it, the more I have endeavoured to study it scientifically, the more enigmatical, the more obscure, the more incomprehensible, it has become to me. But it exists. About that there is no doubt.

In the years 1905 and 1906 I was occupied almost exclusively with the problem of homosexuality, and I had the opportunity of seeing and examining a very large number of genuine homosexual individuals, both men and women. I was able to observe them during long periods, both at home and in public life. I learnt to know them—their mode of life, their habits, their opinions, their whole activity, not only in relation to one another, but also in relation to other non-homosexual individuals and to persons of the opposite sex. This experience taught me the indubitable fact that the diffusion of true homosexuality as a congenital natural phenomenon is far greater than I had earlier assumed;[502] so that I find myself now compelled to separate from true homosexuality the other category of acquired, apparent, occasional homosexuality, of the existence of which I am now, as formerly, firmly convinced. I denote this latter by the term “pseudo-homosexuality,” and treat of it in a separate chapter.

Formerly I believed that true homosexuality was only a variety of pseudo-homosexuality—in a sense larval pseudo-homosexuality. Now, however, I must recognize that true homosexuality constitutes a special well-defined group, sharply distinguishable from all forms of pseudo-homosexuality. From my medical observations, which have been as exact and objective as possible, I must draw the conclusion that among thoroughly healthy individuals of both sexes, not to be distinguished from other normal human beings, there appears in very early childhood, and certainly not evoked by any kind of external influence, an inclination, and after puberty a sexual impulse, towards persons of the same sex; and that this inclination and this impulse are as little to be altered as it is possible to expel from a heterosexual man the impulse towards woman.

Above all, in this definition of true original homosexuality I lay the stress upon the word “healthy”; for von Krafft-Ebing, though he admits the existence of congenital homosexuality yet regards it as a morbid degenerative phenomenon, as the expression of severe hereditary taint and of a neuro-psychopathic constitution; and this view is shared by many alienists.[503] Now, we must admit that a portion of genuine homosexuals—just as is the case with a portion of heterosexual individuals—possess such a morbid constitution; and we must acknowledge that yet another portion exhibit manifestations of nervousness and neurasthenia, which, beyond doubt, have developed during life out of an originally healthy state, in consequence of the struggle for life, the painful experience of being “different” from the great mass of people, etc.; but we ascertain that a third, and, in fact, the largest, section of original homosexuals are thoroughly healthy, free from hereditary taint, physically and psychically normal.

I have observed a great number of homosexuals belonging to all ages and occupations in whom not the slightest trace of morbidity was to be detected. They were just as healthy and normal as are heterosexuals. At an earlier date, though I was not yet aware of the relatively great frequency of true original homosexuality, it had become clear to me, on the ground of my own anthropological theory of sexual anomalies, that homosexuality might just as well appear in healthy human beings as in diseased. Therein I have always agreed with Magnus Hirschfeld, the principal advocate of this view, in opposition to the theory of the degenerative nature of homosexuality. For me there is no longer any doubt that homosexuality is compatible with complete mental and physical health.

It is very interesting to note that von Krafft-Ebing himself later came to the same view, and thus formally abandoned the degenerative hypothesis. In his “New Studies in the Domain of Homosexuality” he writes:[504]

“In view of the experience that contrary sexuality is a congenital anomaly, that it represents a disturbance in the evolution of the sexual life, and of the physical and mental development, in normal relationship to the kind of reproductive glands which the individual possesses, it has become impossible to maintain in this connexion the idea of ‘disease.’ Rather, in such a case we must speak of a malformation, and treat the anomaly as parallel with physical malformation—for example, anatomical deviations from the structural type. At the same time, the assumption of a simultaneous psychopathia is not prejudiced, for persons who exhibit such an anatomical differentiation from type (stigmata degenerationis) may remain physically healthy throughout life, and even be above the average in this respect. Of course, a difference from the generality so important as contrary sexual sensation must have a much greater importance to the psyche than the majority of other anatomical or functional variations. In this way it is to be explained that a disturbance in the development in the normal sexual life may often be antagonistic to the development of a harmonious psychical personality.

“Not infrequently in the case of those with contrary sexuality do we find neuropathic and psychopathic predispositions, as, for example, predisposition to constitutional neurasthenia and hysteria, to the milder forms of periodic psychosis, to the inhibition of the development of psychical energy (intelligence, moral sense), and in some of these cases the ethical deficiency (especially when hypersexuality is associated with the contrary sexuality) may lead to the most severe aberrations of the sexual impulse. And yet we can always prove that, relatively speaking, the heterosexual are apt to be much more depraved than the homosexual.

“Moreover, other manifestations of degeneration in the sexual spheres, in the form of sadism, masochism, and fetichism, are relatively much commoner among the former.

“That contrary sexual sensation cannot thus be necessarily regarded as psychical degeneration, or even as a manifestation of disease, is shown by various considerations, one of the principal of which is that these variations of the sexual life may actually be associated with mental superiority.... The proof of this is the existence of men of all nations whose contrary sexuality is an established fact, and who, none the less, are the pride of their nation as authors, poets, artists, leaders of armies, and statesmen.

“A further proof of the fact that contrary sexual sensation is not necessarily disease, nor necessarily a vicious self-surrender to the immoral, is to be found in the fact that all the noble activities of the heart which can be associated with heterosexual love can equally be associated with homosexual love... in the form of noble-mindedness, self-sacrifice, philanthropy, artistic sense, poietic activity, etc., but also the passions and defects of love (jealousy, suicide, murder, unhappy love, with its deleterious influence on soul and body, etc.).”

According to my own investigations and observations, the relationship between health and disease is among homosexuals originally identical with that among heterosexuals, and only in the course of life, in consequence of the social and individual isolation of the homosexual, which acts on them as a psychical trauma, is this relationship somewhat altered in favour of the predominance of disease. Here, however, we have, as a rule, to do chiefly with acquired nervous troubles and disorders, with the development of a peculiar type of “homosexual neurasthenia,” and in these cases by superficial observers there may easily be a confusion between post hoc and propter hoc.

Magnus Hirschfeld, who unquestionably possesses, relatively and absolutely, the greatest experience in the domain of homosexuality, maintains[505] that, according to his material of investigation—and this is of gigantic extent—at least 75 % of homosexuals are born of healthy parents and of happy marriages, often prolific marriages, and that nervous or mental anomalies, alcoholism, blood-relationship, and syphilis are no more frequent among the ancestors of homosexuals than among the ancestors of those endowed with normal sexuality. Only among from 20 to 25 % of homosexuals was he able, in conjunction with E. Burchard, to find hereditary taint. Only in 16 % could they find well-developed “stigmata of degeneration”; and, indeed, those with stigmata were throughout hereditarily tainted. This view is supported also by the facts (to which I already alluded in my “Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis”) that homosexuality is universally diffused in space and time; that it is independent of civilization, occurs among savage races who are not exposed to the conditions giving rise to degeneration in the same degree as civilized races; and that it is prevalent in the country, where the degenerative influence of life in large towns is not operative.

The most important characteristic of genuine homosexuality, its spontaneous appearance very early in life, which can only be referred to natural inheritance, appears to me to be a fact proved altogether beyond dispute. Men of the highest and most respected professions—above all, judges, practising physicians, men of science, theologians, and scholars—have described themselves to me as having been through and through homosexual from early childhood, so that I am thoroughly convinced that primary homosexuality makes its appearance at any rate very early in life.

The reports of physicians are of especially great importance. Hirschfeld (op. cit., p. 12) quotes the utterance of a leading alienist, himself homosexual: “I can and must declare that I have never known a case of homosexuality which I could regard as other than congenital,” and the accuracy of this statement has been confirmed to me personally by several homosexual physicians. The idea “congenital” harmonizes very well with the demonstrable casual objective cause of the first homosexual tendencies, which we are able to learn in almost every case of homosexuality. These can, as is well known, also occur transiently in heterosexual individuals—a matter which is discussed in the chapter “Pseudo-Homosexuality.” In the case of genuine homosexuality, however, these homosexual activities play from the very beginning a predominant rôle, and remain permanent, because they result from a natural inheritance, from a deeply rooted impulse. This is shown in the following interesting autobiography of a man of letters thirty years of age:

“From my earliest childhood there was something girlish in my whole nature, both outwardly and (more especially) inwardly. I was very quiet, obedient, diligent, sensitive to praise and blame, rather bright. I associated chiefly with adults, and was generally beloved. Sexual activity began in me unusually early. When I was about six years of age a tutor sat down on my bed, in which I was lying in a fever. He caressed me, and with his hand membrum meum tetigit. The voluptuous sensation which resulted was so intense that it has never disappeared from my memory. At school, where I always distinguished myself by my application and success, I sometimes enjoyed mutual ‘feeling’ with several other boys. From which side I inherited the unusual intensity of the sexual impulse I do not know, but I remember that when I was about twelve years old I already suffered a good deal from sexual desire, and that it came to me as a solution of a great difficulty when a comrade instructed me in the practice of masturbation. It is remarkable that for some time afterwards there was no evacuation of semen. When this first appeared I was very much alarmed and disquieted, but I soon became accustomed to it, and this the more readily because I had no doubt whatever that all men regularly indulged in the same pleasure. This ‘paradisaical’ state did not, however, last for long; and after a time, when I recognized the unnatural and dangerous nature of my conduct, I conducted a severe and unsuccessful contest against my desires. In my life generally I had a good deal to bear, and I can say that I have hardly preserved a single really pleasant memory of my past; and yet I could look back to this past with a certain pride and satisfaction if it had not been that the sexual side of my life has left such gloomy shadows in my soul.

“I remember that from very early days my eyes involuntarily turned with longing towards elderly vigorous men, but I did not pay much attention to this fact. I believed that I only practised masturbation (the influence of which I doubtless exaggerate in memory to some extent) because it was not possible for me to have sexual intercourse with women. I was accustomed sometimes to have friendly association with young girls, who appeared to be extremely attracted towards me. I always took care, however, that such love tendencies were nipped in the bud, because I felt that it was impossible for me to go any further with them. Ultimately I determined to seek salvation in intercourse with prostitutes, although they were disagreeable to my æsthetic and moral feelings; but I got no help here: either I was unable to complete the normal sexual act, or in other cases it was completed without any particular pleasure, and I was always consumed with anxiety with respect to infection. I had, indeed, often the opportunity of forming an ‘intimacy’ with a woman, but I did not do it, and always supposed that my failure to do so depended upon my ridiculous bashfulness and upon the excessive sensitiveness of my conscience. But though there is some truth in both of these suggestions, I have not taken into account the principal grounds—namely, that I am congenitally homosexual, and that I feel no physical attraction, or almost none, towards the other sex. This suffices to explain the fact (which can be explained in no other way) that when masturbating I almost always represented in imagination handsome elderly men. In my lascivious dreams, also, such men play the principal rôle. These longings were so powerful that it was impossible that I should not soon have my attention directed to them; but as I could not understand them and would not take the matter seriously (I knew, indeed, that man must feel drawn towards woman, and not towards man), I continued unceasingly and despairingly to fight against these fixed ideas, while at the same time with varying success I endeavoured to cure myself of masturbation; for in the first place it now gave very little satisfaction, and in the second place it destroyed my hopes of eventually procreating healthy children. I had almost come to believe myself no longer competent for the sexual life when I noticed one day that the view of a membrum virile set my blood flowing fiercely. I then remembered that this had sometimes happened before, although to a less marked extent. I was now compelled to recognize that I was not the same as every one else. This fact, which I had before suspected, and of which I now became more and more firmly convinced, reduced me to despair, which was all the greater because in other ways I felt extremely unhappy, and because I did not dare to speak of it to any human being. Sometimes I still thought that there must be some ‘misunderstanding,’ and that there must be some salvation for me. Then it happened that a simple girl fell in love with me, and I went so far as to enter into an intimacy with her, although I openly assured her that as far as I was concerned it was simply a matter of physical enjoyment, and that I could not in any way make myself responsible for her future, for which reason care must be taken that there should be no offspring. During this intimacy, which lasted several months, I sometimes overcame my enduring inclinations towards men, but completely to suppress them was impossible. My association with the girl was still continuing, when one day in a public lavatory I saw an elderly gentleman whose appearance greatly pleased me. He looked at me tentatively. Cautiously he leaned over, in order membrum meum videre; he gradually drew near to me, moved his shaking hand and ... membrum meum tetigit. I was so much surprised and alarmed that I ran away, and avoided for some time afterwards passing by the same place. All the stronger, however, was the impulse to find this remarkable man once more, and this was not at all difficult. What an enigma such a man seemed to me! How could it happen that he dared to do that of which I had always been able only to think, to dream, with heart-quaking and horror? Could there, perhaps, be another man like this—perhaps several such exceptional beings? A short period convinced me that I was not quite alone in my way of feeling; but this was a weak consolation. Rather, since that time—that is to say, during the last five years—my inward battle has become more unbearable, for earlier my only battle was to reject homosexual ideas, and to overcome the habit of solitary self-abuse. Now sometimes I practise with another mutual onanism (to me the proper ‘natural’ mode of sexual gratification), and yet I cannot forgive myself for doing it because it is effected in so unæsthetic a manner, and is associated with such dangers. Notwithstanding all my endeavours, however, I have never been able to resist the temptation for a long time together; and thus I am hunted always by my impulse as by a wild animal, and can nowhere and in nothing find repose and forgetfulness. I have frequently changed my place of residence, but I always before long form new ‘relationships.’ The tortures which I suffer in consequence of the incomparable power of the impulse are greater them I can possibly express in words. I can only wonder that I did not lose my reason, and that in the eyes of my friends and acquaintances I am now, as before, ‘the most normal of all human beings.’ In the senseless and utterly unsuccessful contest with an impulse which, as far as I am concerned, is wholly, or almost wholly, congenital, I have lost the best of my powers, although I have long recognized the fact that this impulse in and by itself is neither morbid nor sinful, for a divergence from the norm is not a disease, and the gratification of a natural impulse, which in no respect and for no human being leads to evil consequences, cannot be regarded as sinful. Why, then, must I continue to strive against this impulse like a madman? Because it is very generally misunderstood, so unpardonably condemned. What help is it that I am now surrounded by love and respect? I know that so many would turn away from me with horror if they were to learn my sexual constitution, although it is a matter which does not concern them at all. Scorn and contempt would then be my lot. I should be regarded by the majority of human beings as a libertine; whereas I feel and know that, notwithstanding all the sensuality of my nature, I have been created for some other purpose than simply to follow my lustful desire. Who will believe that I suffer in the struggle with myself? Who will have compassion upon me? This idea is intolerable. I am condemned to eternal solitude. I have not the moral right to found a home, to embrace a child who would give me the name of ‘father.’ Is not this punishment sufficiently severe for God knows what sins? Why, then, should the consciousness be superadded that I am a pariah, an outcast from society? Owing to the opinion of society regarding the homosexual—an opinion based upon ignorance, stupidity, and ill-nature—society drives these unhappy beings to death (or to a marriage which in their case is criminal), and then triumphantly exclaims: ‘Look what degenerate beings they are!’ No, they are not degenerates, those whose lives you have made unbearable; they are for the most part spiritually and morally very healthy human beings. I will speak of myself. Why do I long for death? Certainly not because I am mentally abnormal. I am no morbid pessimist, and I know well enough that life can be very beautiful. But, unfortunately, it cannot be so for me; for my life is a hell; I am intolerably weary of my internal conflict; it has become horribly difficult to me to play the hypocrite, to pretend continually to be a happy man rejoicing in life; I am bending beneath the burden of my heavy iron mask. Recently I had myself hypnotized, in order to have my thoughts turned away as far as possible from sexual matters. My hypnotist said to me: ‘You see, you will be at rest now,’ and involuntarily in sleep I had to swallow these words, ‘Be at rest’! Good God, is that possible? Does the ‘normal’ man know how this word sounds in our ears? Who will understand my intolerable pain? Perhaps my dear parents could have done so, as they loved me above all, as if they had a presentiment that I should be the most unhappy of their children; but they have been dead for several years, and so, notwithstanding my numerous relatives and friends, I stand quite alone in this world, and vainly seek an answer to the questions ‘Why?’ and ‘Wherefore?’”

Genuine homosexuality exhibits, like heterosexuality, the character of an impulse arising from the very nature of the personality, which, in activity from the cradle to the grave, expresses the continuity of the individual in respect also of this peculiar sexual tendency. Thus there does not exist a homosexuality limited merely to a certain age of life, as to childhood or youth, to maturity, or even to old age. Hence we must distinguish from genuine homosexuality the pæderasty of old men described by Schopenhauer, which does not begin till old age appears. We must distinguish, also, the love of Greek boys for elderly men; these must be included in the category of pseudo-homosexuality. An inclination which, like original homosexuality, is an outflow of the essential nature of the individual concerned, cannot disappear so long as the individual himself persists, cannot begin or end except with the beginning or end of his life. Homosexuality extends throughout the lifetime, and if by any cause whatever—for example, enforced marriage—it is apparently temporarily suppressed, it always reappears. It seems very doubtful if there really exists, as von Krafft-Ebing[506] assumes, a genuine retarded homosexuality—that is, original homosexuality which does not manifest itself until a comparatively advanced age. There do, doubtless, exist transient cases of pseudo-homosexuality, which have in some cases developed in those previously heterosexual, and which in other cases are superimposed upon a bisexual basis. These belong to the category of “acquired” homosexuality, which is always a pseudo-homosexuality.

The course of life of genuine homosexuals is a complete expression of the results of simple inversion of the sexual impulse, and the homosexual type makes its appearance in childhood. The fact of the “difference” between the homosexual and others is not experienced merely by the person himself, but is also noticed very early by those who have care of him. The “girlish” (in the case of female homosexuality, “boyish”) and “peculiar” nature is often observed by members of the family, by comrades, and by tutors, and gives rise to the use of nicknames. These manifestations and perceptions are a valuable objective confirmation of the subjective sensations of homosexual children. A Protestant clergyman whose homosexual son also studied theology remarked to M. Hirschfeld: “He was from the very beginning different from my five other sons.” The physical and moral peculiarities presently to be described are often manifested in very early childhood. Hirschfeld has frequently been able to diagnose “homosexuality” in children from ten to fourteen years of age. He alludes, among others, to a very timid boy, twelve years of age, who suffered from migraine, who cried frequently, who kept himself apart from his schoolfellows, and corresponded daily with a boy friend. He was fond of flowers and music; he had very little inclination to mathematics (according to Hirschfeld, a somewhat characteristic phenomenon in cases of homosexuality). The examination of the boy, who was extremely bashful, showed that the genital organs were still completely undeveloped, the penis resembling that of a boy of four years, whilst the breasts were markedly developed like those of a girl at the commencement of puberty.

I doubt whether the fondness on the part of boys for girls’ games, or on the part of girls for boys’ games, can be regarded as a symptom of diagnostic importance in regard to the existence of homosexuality, for a fondness for playing with girls and for cooking may often be observed in boys who later prove thoroughly heterosexual. Still, these things do play a great part in the autobiography of homosexuals, and have, in fact, great importance in cases in which these tendencies persist after puberty, when the heterosexually differentiated psyche would, after the transitory episode of these youthful games, display activities now corresponding to the fully developed sexual sensibility.

Puberty is the most important period with regard to the final determination of homosexuality by means of particular physical and mental characteristics.

The consideration of the physical and mental characters of male homosexuals leads clearly to the distinction of two different types—the effeminate and the virile urnings. With regard to the relative numbers of these two types there exist no definite data. Hirschfeld, in his “Urnings,” describes chiefly the type of the more or less effeminate urnings—that is, of those who show the greatest resemblance to the feminine nature—and does not express an opinion as to whether the number of effeminate homosexuals is greater than the number of virile homosexuals—that is, of those whose nature is predominantly masculine. Another experienced observer of urnings, Dr. J. E. Meisner,[507] is of opinion that in the majority of cases the male type of homosexuals is encountered rather than the female. According to my own observations, it appears to me that the number of virile and of effeminate urnings is about identical.[508] There are certainly numerous virile homosexuals, or rather homosexuals of a thoroughly masculine build of body, without great deviations from the normal type, who yet have a more or less feminine mode of sensibility. The distinction between effeminate and virile homosexuals would appear therefore to be only relative, and for the majority of cases Hirschfeld’s remarks (“Urnings,” p. 86) apply:

“A homosexual who was not distinguishable physically and mentally from the complete man is a being I have not yet encountered among fifteen hundred cases, and I am therefore unable to believe in the existence of such until I personally encounter one.”

More especially after removing any beard or moustache that may be present, we sometimes see much more clearly the feminine expression of face in a male homosexual, whilst before the hair was removed they appeared quite man-like. Still more important for the determination of a feminine habitus are direct physical characteristics. Among these there must be mentioned a considerable deposit of fat, by which the resemblance to the feminine type is produced, the contours of the body being more rounded than in the case of the normal male. In correspondence with this the muscular system is less powerfully developed than it is in heterosexual men, the skin is delicate and soft, and the complexion is much clearer than is usual in men. Last winter I attended an urnings’ ball, and I was much impressed, when looking at the décolleté men, with the remarkable whiteness of their skin on the shoulders, neck, and back—also in those who had not applied powder—and by the fact that the little acne spots almost always present in normal men were absent in these. The peculiar rounding of the shoulders was also remarkable, from its resemblance to what one sees in women.

According to Hirschfeld, the skin of the urning almost always feels warmer than his environment. He refers the expression commonly used among the people (in Germany), “warm brothers,” to this circumstance, and derives the Latin homo mollis (“soft man”) from the softness of the skin and of the muscular system (though in my opinion this term is applied rather to the entire effeminate, soft nature of the urning). Of great interest is the relation between the breadth of the shoulders and the width of the pelvis in homosexual men. Whilst the breadth of the shoulders of heterosexual men is several centimetres in excess of the width of the pelvis, and in women the width of the pelvis is greater than the breadth of the shoulders, according to Hirschfeld in the urning there is little or no difference between these two measurements. This, in respect of the bodily structure, would completely justify the expression “intermediate stage,” and would give the homosexual man a position between the heterosexual man and the heterosexual woman. Still, there are, without doubt, numerous virile homosexual men in whom this great width of the pelvis is not present. Investigations regarding the corresponding relationships among homosexual women have not to my knowledge hitherto been made. Very striking is the often luxuriant growth of hair, especially in the effeminate types, whereas the virile homosexuals are in this respect more approximate to normal men, baldness being common among them.

Our attention having been recently directed by the investigation of H. Swoboda to the existence of equivalents of menstruation in men, the occurrence of such equivalents among urnings is of interest. Hirschfeld reports the case of an effeminate homosexual who since the age of fourteen had suffered at intervals of twenty-eight days from migraine, associated with severe pains in the back and loins, so that his stepmother said to him: “It is with you just as it is with us.”

The gait and the movements of effeminate urnings also have a somewhat womanly appearance, and attract the attention even of one who is not in the secret. Short, tripping paces and elegant movements are characteristic of the effeminate.

In an earlier chapter we came to the conclusion that the fully adult normal woman was approximate in physical characteristics rather to the child and to the youthful human being than to the adult man; and in this connexion it is of interest that we must describe as a distinctively feminine characteristic the peculiarity of many male homosexuals, which enables them for a long time to preserve a youthful appearance and demeanour.

Very remarkable is the behaviour of the voice. The change in the voice may not occur at all, or does not occur till very late. The capacity for singing soprano or falsetto is also long preserved. Others, in whom the change of voice had failed to occur, were able to lower the pitch considerably by practice. A typical and well-known example is that of the baritone singer Willibald von Sadler-Grün, whom I had the opportunity of hearing recently, when, under the name of “Urany Verde,” he made a professional journey through Germany, and sang his songs dressed as a woman. He said of himself: “My voice has never cracked in a definite way. At twenty-three years of age I could sing soprano, and can still do so to-day, at the age of thirty. The deeper tones for speech and singing I acquired only by instruction and practice” (Hirschfeld, “Urnings,” p. 65). In this typical effeminate, the breasts also had a completely feminine character, as, according to Hirschfeld, is by no means rare in boy urnings, who at puberty experience swelling of the breasts, associated with painful sensations.[509] I must, however, maintain, in opposition to Hirschfeld, that abnormally marked development of the breasts is by no means rare in perfectly normal heterosexual men. For the diagnosis of homosexuality, the imperfect development of the larynx, and the failure of the voice to crack, are more important than the marked development of the breasts. I remember distinctly that in the case of a fellow-student of mine years ago his high voice used greatly to strike me. To-day I am able to understand how this fact was associated with his complete disinclination to sexual intercourse with women and his insensibility to feminine charms in general; and I am able in his case to diagnose homosexuality with absolute certainty.

In the case of virile homosexuals, all the above-mentioned physical peculiarities are far less noticeable. In their outward appearance they much more nearly resemble heterosexual men, but still they always have comparatively more of the feminine in their nature than the latter. Such a typically virile homosexual, in whose appearance the impression of femininity was entirely absent, I was able recently to recognize during a railway journey, in the course of which he confided to me misogynous opinions against other fellow-travellers, and also said that in the whole of his life—he was a man of a little over thirty—he had not had intercourse with women more than three or four times. During the long wait of the train at a station I took the opportunity, having mentioned that I was a physician by profession, to ask him if he was not homosexual, a fact which he at once admitted. Already in very early childhood he had felt himself distinctly drawn only towards masculine beings, and had never experienced the least inclination towards women. In this case also any kind of outward influence was excluded, because he had grown up at home and chiefly in a feminine environment. As I have already said, in appearance he was masculine, and he himself stated that he had no physical characteristics which suggested a feminine impression. That this is the case in numerous virile homosexuals is proved by the distinctive fact that many of them are professional soldiers, especially officers, in respect of whose appearance virility is very strongly insisted on.

The mental qualities of male homosexuals correspond fully to the physical, and occupy a middle region between the psyche of the heterosexual man and that of woman. But every emotional element is in them more prominent than energetic will-power and clear-sighted reason. Something soft and pliable is characteristic of the majority of urnings. This adaptability manifests itself in good-humouredness, in inclination to self-sacrifice, but, above all, in a most astonishing mobility of the imaginative life, which seems to be something characteristic of the homosexual, and to explain his frequent artistic capacity, above all his talents for music, for which vocation, indeed, his less fixed and more sketchy nature especially fits him, but also for poetry, painting, acting, and sculpture. “For all the fine arts,” says Hirschfeld, “from cooking and artistic needlework to sculpture, we find that urnings have exceptional talent.” The inclination to intellectual occupation is distinctly greater among homosexuals than the inclination to bodily work. Associated with this is the ambition to distinguish themselves mentally above those by whom they are surrounded. Hirschfeld’s assertion that homosexuals belonging to the lower classes exhibit intellectual predominance over their environment, I am able emphatically to confirm, after frequent conversations with homosexual workmen and menservants. The peculiarity of their congenital tendencies has here early given rise to a certain intellectual profundity, has early taught these men to reflect about the world and about human existence. Every homosexual is a philosopher for himself. Most heterosexuals, especially those of the lower classes, never arrive at thinking so much about themselves and about their relations to the external world, as is a matter of course among homosexuals. The imaginative, the dreamy, is much more predominant in the homosexual than a crude sense of reality. This expresses itself particularly in his love, which far less frequently and exclusively than among the heterosexual takes the form of a gross and material sensuality. On the contrary, it permits us to recognize the inward need for tenderness and delicacy, for a peculiar ideal colouring. Goethe has contrasted this latter with the more sensual heterosexual love; he speaks of the

“remarkable phenomenon of the love of men for each other. Let it be admitted that this love is seldom pushed to the highest degree of sensuality, but rather occupies the intermediate region between inclination and passion. I am able to say that I have seen with my own eyes the most beautiful manifestations of this love, such as we have handed down to us from the days of Greek antiquity; and as an observant student of human nature I was able to observe the intellectual and moral elements of this love.”[510]

The ideal conception of Platonic—that is, of homosexual—love was a non-sensual, assexual love. The psychical element also plays an important part in modern uranism—a part overlooked or underestimated, whereas the sensual side is exaggerated.

Homosexuality as an anthropological phenomenon is diffused throughout all classes of the population. We find it among workmen just as much as among aristocrats, princely personalities, and intellectual heroes. Physicians, lawyers, theologians, philosophers, merchants, artists, etc., all contribute their contingents to uranism. If the extraordinarily frequent occurrence of homosexuality in the highest classes of society, especially in the leaders of the aristocracy, may possibly be brought into relationship with the processes of “degeneration,” still, on the other hand, numerous homosexuals are derived from healthy families, such as have not transmitted hereditary taint through a long series of ancestors. Recently G. Merzbach[511] has studied the relationship between homosexuality and the choice of a profession, and has proved that this choice is usually a consequence of the natural tendency. Thus we find an especially large number of homosexuals engaged in the production of ready-made clothing and in other manufacturing trades; others become music-hall comedians playing women’s parts, actors, dancers. Actors and singers appearing on the stage as women are to a large extent original homosexuals.[512] Among hairdressers and waiters we find also a relatively large number of urnings.

As regards the diffusion of homosexuality, the data obtainable up to the most recent times have been extremely contradictory. The first exact information is to be found in the work of a physician, published under the name of M. Kertbeny,[513] on “§ 143 of the Prussian Criminal Code of April 14, 1851, and its Continuance as § 152 in the Proposal for a Criminal Code for the North German Bund” (Leipzig, 1869). The author enumerates in Berlin 10,000 homosexuals among 700,000 inhabitants (equal to 1·425 %). A patient of von Krafft-Ebing, living in a town of 13,000 inhabitants, was acquainted with 14 urnings; and in another town of 60,000 he knew of at least 80. Many other equally uncertain estimates are recorded by Magnus Hirschfeld. They vary between 2 % and 0·1 %—vary, that is to say, within very wide limits. In view, therefore, of the importance of the exact determination of the number of homosexuals, which I myself had earlier declared to be desirable, we owe great thanks to Magnus Hirschfeld for having made an attempt[514] to obtain some exact data regarding this matter. He deduces from a compilation of thirty test investigations (reports regarding homosexuals in various classes of the population), and by means of an inquiry made with sealed letters, that the proportion of male homosexuals to the population is about 1·5 %. That is a very much greater percentage than has hitherto been assumed to exist. Formerly I doubted the accuracy of this figure, but since numerous respected, honourable, well-behaved persons, of whom I had not suspected it, have assured me that they have been homosexual since childhood, I have no longer any doubt regarding the approximate accuracy of Hirschfeld’s statistics. The enquiry made by Dr. von Römer in Amsterdam gave similar results, for he found the proportion of homosexuals to be 1·9 %. A third enquiry made by Hirschfeld among the metal-workers of Berlin gave a proportion of 1·1 %.

Normal heterosexual love was reported in about 94 to 96 % of the three inquiries.

“An imposing recognition of the love of man for woman, a powerful manifestation of the provision for the preservation of the species, and a contradiction to the fear that the uranian element in the population could ever seriously impair the well-being of the great majority” (Hirschfeld).

As “bisexual”—that is, as exhibiting tendencies towards both sexes—the average of the three enquiries reported 3·9 %, of whom, however, 0·8 % were mainly homosexual.

The total number of the purely and mainly homosexual was thus 2·2 %. Hence, according to the results of the last census of 1900, in the total population of the German Empire, numbering 56,367,178, there would be about 1,200,000 homosexuals; whilst of the population of Berlin, numbering 2,500,000, 56,000 would be homosexual.

In the interest of the scientific and social study of homosexuality, it is urgently necessary that these statistical investigations should be pursued, for if it should appear that the above estimates really apply to the whole Empire—which I do not feel justified in assuming without further evidence, since it is naturally possible that Berlin might contain a relatively greater number of homosexuals—uranism would, in fact, have a greater social importance than it has hitherto been assumed to possess. In any case, the number of urnings is large enough to make them appear a remarkable anthropological variety of our race.

The truth of this assertion is supported by the fact of the ubiquitous diffusion of uranism in time and space. In addition to homosexuality as a popular custom, genuine homosexuality also played a part in antiquity; and F. Karsch[515] has proved in an admirable book its occurrence among all savage races, although unquestionably numerous cases of non-genuine homosexuality must have been included. That homosexuality is in no way a sign of “degeneration” is proved also by the fact that it is more widely diffused among the still thoroughly vigorous Germans and Anglo-Saxons than it is among the Latin peoples. It is especially frequent in the German Ostsee provinces. It existed among the ancient Scandinavians.[516] Recently F. Karsch has announced the publication of ethnological researches on homosexuality, the first volume of which has already been issued, under the title “Homosexual Life among the Inhabitants of Eastern Asia: the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Koreans”[517] (Munich, 1906). In the preface he states expressly that he treats not only of original homosexuality, but also of artificially produced or acquired homosexuality—that which I call “pseudo-homosexuality.”

My earlier view, that true homosexuality is rare among the Jews, I find it necessary to revise, for recently I have made the acquaintance of numerous Jewish homosexuals.

For the earlier history and literature of homosexuality the most important, and, in fact, nearly exhaustive, sources are the article “Pæderasty,” by Meier, in Ersch and Gruber’s “General Encyclopædia,” section iii., part 9, pp. 149-189 (Leipzig, 1837); Rosenbaum’s “History of Syphilis in Antiquity,” pp. 119-227[518] (Halle, 1893); and, finally, the writings of the earliest German student of homosexuality, containing numerous interesting data, the Hanoverian official Karl Heinrich Ulrichs,[519] who, under the pseudonym “Numa Numantius,” published numerous works devoted to the emancipation of homosexuals, and to the proof of the congenital nature of homosexuality. The general title of these works is “Anthropological Studies on the Sexual Love of Man for Man.” They were published under various peculiar separate titles, such as: “Vindex” (Leipzig, 1864); “Inclusa” (Leipzig, 1864); “Vindicta” (Leipzig, 1865); “Formatrix” (Leipzig, 1865); “Ara Spei” (Leipzig, 1865); “Gladius Furens” (Kassel, 1868); “Memnon” (Schleiz, 1868); “Incubus” (Leipzig, 1869); “Argonauticus” (Leipzig, 1869); “Araxes” (Schleiz, 1870); “Uranus” (Leipzig, 1870); “Kritische Pfeile” (Stuttgart, 1879). In addition, Ulrichs, whose lifetime extended from 1825 to 1895, published uranian poetry under the title of “Auf Bienchens Flügeln” (“On the Wings of the Bee”); Leipzig, 1875. These writings, most of which are very rare in their original editions (although many were reprinted in the year 1898), contained a number of new points of view for the consideration of homosexuality, which have been recognized as sound by recent investigators.

Important contributions to the knowledge of homosexuality are afforded us by the studies of the life and works of celebrated and intellectually distinguished urnings. As unquestionably homosexual we may mention the poet Platen,[520] Michael Angelo,[521] Heinrich Hössli,[522] Heinrich Bulthaupt,[523] Johannes von Müller (the historian),[524] King Henry III. of France,[525] the musician Franz von Holstein,[526] Peter Tschaikowsky,[527] the authors Count Emmerich von Stadion and Emil Mario Vacano,[528] Duke August von Gotha,[529] George Eekhoud,[530] and the Belgian sculptor Jérôme Duquesnoy (1602-1654).[531] The following celebrated persons have also been regarded as urnings, but, as it appears to me, on insufficient proofs: Frederick the Great; J. J. Winkelmann, who at most was bisexual, since we know of passionate letters written by him to a woman; and Alexander von Sternberg,[532] of whom the same is true; the reformers Beza[533] and Calvin,[534] who have unquestionably been wrongfully accused; and finally Byron and Grillparzer,[535] without troubling to enumerate hypotheses utterly without foundation. It is unquestionably a fact that a large number of intellectually prominent men were genuine homosexuals, and that their abnormal congenital tendencies did not prevent their doing important work in other spheres of activity. But this happened notwithstanding, and not, as many talented apologists wish to prove, because of their uranism.

When we pass to consider the activity of homosexual love, we find that homosexuals may, and actually do, love either other homosexual or heterosexual individuals. According to the account given by Meisner (“Uranism,” pp. 19, 20), the amatory ideal of most homosexual men is a heterosexual man, and intercourse between two urnings is, properly speaking, only a matter of necessity. But by several homosexuals with whom I discussed the matter this view was declared to be erroneous; in the majority of cases the attraction between two homosexuals plays the principal rôle. Ulrichs endeavoured to provide a theoretical justification for the sexual relationship between two homosexuals, and maintained (cf., for example, “Inclusa,” pp. 64, 65) that Nature destined the heterosexual, or “dioning,” as he calls them, by no means for woman alone, but also for the urning, for the “fulfilment of the sexual purposes of Nature, not directed towards reproduction.” According to Hirschfeld (“Urnings,” pp. 22, 23), it is unquestionable that, whilst many homosexuals greatly prefer to associate with those who also feel in a uranian manner, and whilst to many also it is a matter of indifference whether or not those with whom they have sexual relations are themselves endowed with contrary sexuality, quite a number of urnings feel attracted exclusively to normal, sexually powerful natures. As a rule, it is not difficult for homosexuals to gratify their inclinations in intercourse with heterosexual individuals. A middle-aged urning informed me that young heterosexual men almost always acceded in this matter to the expressed wish of homosexuals—in the first place from simple curiosity, and in the second place by no means rarely from sexual excitement. Indeed, according to this authority, effeminate homosexual men often produce in powerfully sensual heterosexual men the impression of femininity, and are seduced by the latter to mutual masturbation, especially in a state of alcoholic intoxication. Not infrequently does it happen—a striking example having come to my knowledge—that a young heterosexual has a love intimacy with a girl, and yet occasionally, when he is for any reason unable to have sexual intercourse with her, he very willingly transfers his affections to a homosexual man. Male prostitutes are also, to a large extent, heterosexual men who give themselves to homosexuals for pecuniary reward. Occasionally, moreover, heterosexual men mistake very effeminate urnings going about in women’s clothing for genuine women, and have intercourse with them in this belief—a belief which these latter are clever enough to keep up until the last possible moment.

Passing now to the consideration of the special circumstances of sexual attraction, we find that the true love of boys,[536] or rather the love of children (pædophilia), is rare in homosexuals. The age chiefly preferred is that between seventeen and twenty-five years, alike by mature homosexual men and by old men. On the other hand, it is by no means an exceptional phenomenon for youths, or even mature men, to feel attracted exclusively by elderly men (the so-called “gerontophilia”). There exists also a heterosexual “gerontophilia”—that is to say, abnormal love exhibited by young men for old women, or by young women for old men. Thus Féré reports (“Note sur une Anomalie de l’Instinct Sexuel: Gerontophilie,” published in the Journal de Neurologie, 1905) the case of a man twenty-seven years of age who was sexually attracted only by white-haired, elderly women. He referred this to an impression received in very early youth. When four years old he slept in the same bed with an elderly lady, a family friend, who was visiting the house, and he then for the first time experienced sexual excitement. He had a dislike to young girls and young married women. A white-haired elderly woman whom he loved dyed her hair light brown, whereupon he ceased to care for her. Further, effeminate urnings prefer virile homosexuals; whereas many of these latter have a great dislike to effeminates and to men in women’s clothing—to those male “women” who adopt by preference feminine nicknames, such as Louisa instead of Louis, Georgina instead of George, and who speak to one another as “sister,” just as the Roman Emperor Heliogabalus wished to be addressed as “mistress” instead of “lord.” Many urnings love beardless men; others love men with a moustache or a full beard; many homosexuals are fascinated by bright-coloured cloth, just as women are. Moreover, every possible individual detail may here have an attractive force, just as is the case with heterosexual love (the hair, the stature, the gait, the eyes, the intelligence, and the character).

Ideal love and the gratification of the grossest sensuality are also the two poles between which the amatory manifestations of male homosexuals oscillate. Many confine themselves to simple contacts, caresses, kisses and embraces. Most frequently sexual gratification is obtained by mutual masturbation. The idea that the non-homosexual especially associates with the word “pæderasty” is “pædication”[537]—that is, immissio membri in anum. This sexual act is, however, far less frequent than it is commonly assumed to be by heterosexuals. According to Magnus Hirschfeld, it occurs only in 8 %, according to G. Merzbach only in 6 %, of all cases of intercourse between male homosexuals. In an essay on pædication which I possess, written by a homosexual, it is represented as much commoner, and as “the most natural and least harmful means of gratification.” According to a verbal communication made to me, the author of this essay knew of one hundred cases of pædication in which no harm had resulted. Frequently coitus inter femora takes the place of pædication; still more frequently “fellation,” or coitus in os, and the widely diffused “tongue kiss.”[538] Other perverse manifestations of the homosexual impulse also occur, such as anilinctus, fetichism, masochism, sadism, exhibitionism, etc., just as they occur in heterosexual individuals.

With regard to the relations of true homosexuals to women, generally speaking they loathe sexual intercourse with woman, but they do not dislike woman herself. Women, on the contrary, are greatly liked by most homosexuals; effeminate urnings more especially gladly seek their society, in order to gossip with them about all kinds of feminine belongings. Marriages are often contracted by homosexuals who are really ignorant as to their own condition, or who hope to conceal it from the world, or simply for pecuniary considerations. They result most unhappily if the wife has need of love, and understands the real nature of the case; or, again, if she becomes jealous of her husband’s male lovers; but when the wife is frigid, they may turn out quite happily. They are, however, always very unnatural. Hirschfeld[539] has thoroughly discussed the question of the marriage of homosexuals, and has also alluded to the occasional marriages between homosexual men and homosexual women. The fact proved by him that among homosexuals the impulse towards the preservation of the species is almost entirely wanting—not more than 3 % have the wish to possess children—shows how little fitted they are for the purposes of marriage.

The above-described sexual relationships may be illustrated by a few original reports taken from the autobiographies of homosexuals. For example, a homosexual man, twenty-seven years of age, writes:

“When I was young, from four to six years of age, I loved to look at the male generative organs, without knowing why they attracted me. I liked to look at sculpture and pictures representing male nudity. I detest woman’s work and the fashions of the day: a simple costume suffices for me. I learned the ‘great secret of the world’ when I was twelve years old, but woman had no interest for me, and I was always asking little boys of from ten to fourteen years of age to show me their private parts. I commenced to have carnal intercourse with boys (aged eighteen to twenty-four) when I was myself twenty-four. Only coitus inter femora, face to face, never from behind. I always assume the active rôle. A young man from eighteen to twenty-four years of age is to me like a woman. A woman is to me a thing (!), not so a man. Perhaps it is original, odd for our time; but what is to be done? Woman is a machine for producing children, and nothing more. I am not married, and never shall marry.”

Another homosexual writes:

“I was about five years old when, walking with a nursemaid in the pleasure gardens, I saw a man masturbating. Although I did not know what he was doing, the picture busied my imagination for many years. In my dreams, up to the age of fourteen years, the thought of living together with a companion of the same age as myself played the principal part. At the age of thirteen I fell in love with a schoolfellow, who was, however, but little inclined towards me. What perhaps especially interested me in him was that he brought sexual enlightenment to our class. Through moving to another town I lost sight of him. Although at that time I knew nothing of the real sexual life, still I sought for objects which excited my sensuality.

“An unknown man of about thirty-five years of age seduced me, and practised pæderasty with me on the first occasion that he met me. I felt that there was something altogether wrong about this practice, but was too weak to withdraw myself from his influence. After about three months he disappeared. Now also I knew what masturbation was, for in the school this practice was common.

“At the age of eighteen I left the school, and as in my comrades the impulse towards women now showed itself, I, for my part, felt all the more how everything directed me towards man. I often endeavoured, in obedience to the urging of my friends, to form relationships with women of the half-world, but this always filled me with the greatest horror and repugnance. To me it is a dreadful feeling when I notice that a woman is interested in me. All the more, on the other hand, did the male sex interest me. When I love a man I do not think (only) of sexual union, but I try to read in him what I am myself prepared to give: a sole interest, faithfulness, unselfish surrender. If I love a man, anyone else is nothing to me.

“Every man of standing of twenty to forty years of age is interesting to me—every one who is not positively repulsive—but most of all anyone who possesses a distinguished psyche. In isolated cases sympathy has also led me to love.

“The kiss is of the highest importance to me, and precisely because I regard love as created only for a holy purpose, so that human beings may be mutually ennobled and morally advanced by this passion, it has always been repulsive to me to observe how men flirt with one another, just as is the case with heterosexuals. For this reason I am disinclined to visit places of general resort—such as, for example, the Casino of Dresden, where all kinds of people come together. I have met hardly any other urning who shares my sentiments in this respect.”

A homosexual physician, thirty-two years of age, gives the following account of his sexuality:

“I cannot tell you at what age sexual inclinations first appeared in me. My sexual impulse is directed towards males. Before and during the time of puberty the impulse was quite indeterminate. I believe that at this time I even cherished the idea of some day carrying out intercourse with a girl. But this was not love; it was a purely physical desire. The spiritual side of the impulse was at this time completely wanting. The sexual impulse now extends only towards young men. I have hitherto had sexual intercourse neither with males nor with females, but I believe that I should be competent for the normal sexual act. This act, however, would give me no pleasure; it would be nothing more than masturbation. I feel complete indifference towards the female sex, but I do not feel hatred or disgust. Sexual dreams[540] relate always to persons of the same sex. On the stage, in the circus, it is always the men who interest me more than the women. In addition, I admire celebrated actresses and female singers, but my interest in them is purely artistic. From this standpoint also I am fully able to do justice to the beauty of young women, and have often wished to paint a girl, but this interest is always that of a painter—the colour of the hair, the complexion, interesting features. Social intercourse with persons of the other sex is quite unrestrained. The sense of shame I feel more in regard to women, but still I have also a strong sense of shame with regard to men. I always have a great difficulty to overcome when I have to take off my clothes in the presence of other men, and it is also very difficult to me to urinate when other men are present.

“My love exists only towards youths from the ages of seventeen to twenty-four, or, to speak more strictly, towards youths at the time of puberty. One of these of whom I am fond is sixteen years of age, but sexually he is completely mature, so that every one imagines him to be twenty.

“The direction of my sexual impulse has first become perfectly clear to me since reading the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages. I was already fully aware of the fact that young men were especially interesting to me, but had not previously understood that this interest was of a sexual nature. I had, indeed, heard of pæderasty—the case of Krupp and others—but I imagined that these individuals had developed such a tendency in consequence of satiety. ‘You,’ I said to myself, ‘are purer and nobler in sentiment. Pæderasty is loathsome to you; no human being will ever understand you.’

“Every young man at the age of puberty awakens in me a certain sexual interest. This is especially the case when they are slender and wiry in build, not fat, with well-developed, but not excessively powerful, muscles, with gentle and modest character. Roughness always suffices to destroy completely the commencement of inclination. Sturdy, plump youths, and those with an excessive development of fat under the skin, or with a wide, feminine aspect of the buttocks, leave me comparatively cold. The youthful forms embodied in Grecian sculpture are my ideal type. It is indispensable that they should be beardless, or at most have the merest beginnings of a beard. A youth with a heavy moustache leaves me cold; he is too masculine for me. Intellectual culture plays no part in the attraction; modesty and gentleness are necessary to render an intimate relationship possible. I find no preference for any particular profession. I have, indeed, pedagogic inclinations, but these appear to me to play no part in producing attraction, but come into action only later. One whom one loves is one in whom one would be glad to produce spiritual perfection. The attraction depends, in the first place, upon beauty of the body; beauty of the face is only of secondary importance. Smell has no influence upon the attraction.”

It will be noted that this writer, now thirty-two years of age, has hitherto had no experience of sexual intercourse, either heterosexual or homosexual. This is characteristic. Homosexuals in general, in contrast to heterosexuals, often proceed at a comparatively late age to actual experience of their sexual impulse in action. He goes on to describe the first beginnings of his love for a beautiful youth, eighteen years of age. He writes:

“My eyes watched every movement of the body, which continually displayed new beauties. I should have loved to fall upon his neck and kiss him. For sexual intercourse he appeared to me too pure, too noble; I should rather have lain before him in the dust and prayed to his beauty. I felt that I should have been a poet in order to be able to clothe in the right words this delicate and holy sentiment. And I must shut this all up within myself, must remain outwardly cold. It was enough to drive me to madness! Have compassion on us, and allow us at least an embrace, a kiss. That certainly can do no one any harm, and for me it would be a good action. The distressing tension which tortures us to death would be for the time relaxed. I always have a feeling that the process of sexual attraction must be of an electrical nature. I seem to myself to be charged with electricity, the tension increasing up to the highest point when the beloved is near me, and a prolonged contact or a stroking with the hand already suffices to bring about a certain calming of the nerves. The tension is to some degree diminished. The various components of sexual enjoyment appear to be developed in human beings with very different strength. In this way it is explicable that in one person the odour of the loved one, in another the changing tones of the voice, in a third the taste of the kiss (the tongue kiss), is most stimulating. It is, indeed, even conceivable that there exists a purely mental sexual enjoyment, and that to some individuals merely to look at the beloved person, or to read a letter from him, suffices.

“Sexual intercourse had hitherto never been practised, but I can asseverate that the mode of my desire is rather feminine. It would be my ideal if the loved one should feel sexual ardour for me; I should be a willing sacrifice. I should like to possess feminine sexual organs, in order to appear desirable to the loved one.

“I have battled powerfully against my nature, and have felt very unhappy. I regard myself as physically and mentally healthy. I have received at birth a double nature (alas! two souls dwell within my breast). My body is that of a man, my soul rather that of a woman; hence the conflict, hence my sexual desires, considered outwardly and only from the physical point of view, are contrary to nature. Alas! my soul can be seen by no one.

“Why do I only love a young man? Because he in ideal fashion enlarges my nature. My sexual sensibility is mainly feminine, and is directed, therefore, towards the masculine, and more especially towards the masculine in the time of youth, because the feminine sensibility in my nature is damped by a small masculine note. The effeminate urning probably loves the complete man as the best complement of his own nature. The slightly masculine note of my own sexual perception demands also in the man whom I love a slight feminine note, such as we find in the youth. He has, in fact, something feminine in him—beardlessness, no immoderate strength of the muscular system, a gentle disposition, receptive emotions—and yet he is masculine and sexually mature. Sexual maturity is a necessary part of every love. The young man, therefore, is the ideal conception of my nature. My love is as great, as holy, and as pure, as heterosexual love; it is capable of self-sacrifice. Believe me, for a loved one who fully understood me in every respect, I would gladly go to my death.

“Ah! how painful it is to us when we are regarded as debauchees or as sick persons!”

I must say that the above account, given to me by a much respected medical colleague, one whose nature is characterized alike by intellectual power and ideal sensibility, has made the deepest impression upon me, and has been an important influence in confirming my views regarding the nature of original homosexuality. Similar oral communications have been received by me from other physicians who have been homosexual from childhood onwards, one a neurologist and the other an alienist, and I attribute the greatest importance to the account given by this colleague of mine, who has a twofold understanding of the matter in question—as physician and as homosexual. It is also important to note that uranian physicians declare the majority of homosexuals to be physically and mentally healthy, a fact which I myself had not previously doubted, and that they contest the general validity of the degeneration theory.

Whilst in the smaller provincial towns and in the country homosexuals are for the most part thrust back into themselves, compelled to conceal their nature, or at most able to communicate only with isolated individuals of like nature with themselves, in the larger towns from early days the homosexuals have been able to get into touch with one another. Certain meeting-places—places of rendezvous for urnings only—have been formed; in certain streets and squares there have been formed urning-clubs, boarding-houses, and restaurants, and even urning-balls, while certain health resorts are to a degree monopolized by them. Moreover, the individual social groups of the homosexuals form unions. Thus, for example, Hirschfeld[541] reports the existence of an evening association consisting exclusively of homosexual princes, counts, and barons. Such pæderastic meeting-places and unions existed in the eighteenth century in Paris. From this time until about 1840 certain dark lateral alleys of the Champs Elysées, the thickets from the Place de la Concorde to the Allée des Veuves, between the Grand Avenue des Champs Elysées and the Cour de la Reine, served from the commencement of twilight for the rendezvous of homosexuals, not simply as a place of masculine prostitution, but as a meeting-place of urnings in general, who here in the dark sought and found love. The central point of this evening activity was the Allée des Veuves (now known as the Avenue Montaigne), the “Widow’s Alley”—“widow” was at that time the term used to denote the passive pæderast. This region of the Champs Elysées was to a certain extent monopolized by the homosexuals. They would not tolerate here the presence of any heterosexuals; they closed the entrances with cords, and placed guards at the openings of the alleys, who demanded a pass-word from every comer. Even the police did not venture into this dark region.

“Victor Hugo, who in the year 1831 lived in the Rue Jean Goujon in this neighbourhood, often accompanied his friends who had been visiting him part of the way home at a late hour of the night. They walked in groups, talking of literature and art as far as the Place de la Concorde. There the celebrated poet parted from his guests and returned alone homewards, composing new verses by the way. He often noticed individuals who, as he passed the entrance to the Rue des Veuves, watched him from afar off without speaking to him. He could not believe that these people were thieves, and asked himself what could be the cause of their always waiting in this lonely place; but notwithstanding the frequent occurrence of these scenes, he made no further inquiry into the matter. But once in the midst of his poetical reverie he was disturbed by a man who stepped forward from the darkness of a thicket, and with a polite greeting said to him: ‘Sir, we beg you not to wait any longer in this place. We know who you are, and we should not wish that any one of us who does not know you should cause you any uneasiness.’ ‘What are you doing there, then?’ answered Victor Hugo. ‘Every evening I see people walking about here, and disappearing among the trees.’ ‘Don’t concern yourself about it, sir,’ was the brisk answer; ‘we disturb no one and do no one any harm, but we shall not permit anyone to disturb us or to do us any harm; we are here in our own grounds.’ Victor Hugo understood, bowed, and pursued his way. As on another evening, walking with his friends, he wished to pass through another alley running parallel to the Allée des Veuves, he found that this was closed by a number of chairs, which were fastened together with cords. ‘There is no thoroughfare,’ called out a threatening voice; but another, speaking more quietly, added: ‘We beg Monsieur Victor Hugo on this occasion to pass along the other side of the Avenue des Champs Elysées.’”[542]

During the Second Empire the Allée des Veuves maintained its former position as a place of rendezvous for homosexuals. An urnings’ club, the members of which belonged to the highest classes of society, being persons of the Imperial Court, senators, great financiers, etc., had their meeting-place in a beautifully furnished hotel in the Allée des Veuves, in which soldiers of the Empress’s bodyguard (Dragons de l’Impératrice) and of the Hundred Guard of the Emperor served, in return for valuable presents, as the beloved of the various distinguished urnings, for which function the term “faire l’Impératrice” came into use. In the hotel there also lived from time to time transient unknown persons, who were only admitted after showing a kind of medal bearing a secret inscription. When the police made an examination of the hotel, they found a number of women’s dresses and similar articles, such as those which the Empress Eugénie was accustomed to wear on festival occasions. Numerous letters were also discovered which had been exchanged by the members of the club and their favourites of the Hundred Guard or of the Empress’s guard. A report was made to the Emperor of the results of the examination of this house. When he saw that persons of the highest position, and bearing most celebrated names, were involved in the affair, he at once ordered that the matter should be dismissed, and said to the Procureur-General: “We must spare our people and our country from such a scandal, which would do no one any good, and would do a great deal of harm.” In fact, almost no details of this affair became public.[543] Tardieu gave an account of another urnings’ club of the Second Empire, where there were concealed closets, on the walls of which erotic pictures were displayed. The manner in which the urnings made acquaintance with homosexuals is shown in a police report of July 16, 1864, in which the conduct of a literary homosexual, “un vieux monsieur fort bien et puissamment riche,” is described in the following terms:

“He enters the Café Truffaut, sees a young soldier who pleases him. By the intermediation of the waiter he makes an appointment, and departs without waiting for an answer. If the soldier agrees, he goes to the appointed place of meeting, and never goes alone, because Father C——n (the elderly urning) is well known. As soon as the two have met, other soldiers make their appearance, beat the old man, and compel him to give them all the money which he has about him. He does this willingly, and without ceasing prays for pardon. When he has not a single sou left, and when he has also given up his watch, he goes away weeping, and continually repeating the words, ‘What a miserable man I am!’”

This elderly urning was manifestly also a masochist, and therefore a very suitable victim of blackmailers, whom we here see at their work. In the police report to which we have already referred homosexual orgies are also described, the participants in which assumed women’s names and practised mutual masturbation and fellation, and also carried out obscene practices with a bitch. When Oscar Metenier in his book “Vertus et Vices Allemands” (Paris, 1904) states that Berlin has a monopoly in the matter of urnings’ balls, which, in his opinion, were not possible in Paris, he is unquestionably wrong as regards the time of the Second Empire. In this police report two typical urnings’ balls are mentioned. One of these took place in a house in the Place de la Madeleine, belonging to E. D., a man of business, who gave the ball on January 2, 1864. The second urnings’ ball was given by the Vicomte de M. in the Pavilion Rohan, Rue de Rivoli, on January 16, 1864, at which at least 150 men, many of them in woman’s clothing, took part. In many cases the appearance was so deceptive that even those who had invited the guests were not always able to determine the sex with certainty.

It is doubtless true that there is no other town in which there are so many social unions of homosexuals as there are in Berlin. Hirschfeld records—in addition to private parties—dinners, suppers, evening parties, five o’clock teas, picnics, dances, and summer festivals of homosexuals, which are arranged every winter by urnings, and by female homosexuals or their friends. Moreover, the male and female homosexuals meet in certain restaurants, cafés, eating-houses, and public-houses frequented only by themselves.[544]

Such localities exclusively for the use of urnings exist in Berlin to the number of eighteen to twenty. There are also social literary unions, such as the club “Lohengrin,” the antifeministic “Gesellschaft der Eigenen,” the “Platen-Gemeinschaft,” etc. There are also cabarets (public-houses) for urnings. Hirschfeld, in his book “Berlin’s Third Sex,” written in a popular style, but extremely valuable owing to the clearness of his descriptions, gives an exhaustive account of all these institutions for urnings, and for further details I may refer my readers to this interesting work, the authenticity of which I am able to confirm as the result of my own visits to the above-mentioned places of meeting for urnings.[545]

In Paris there no longer exist places of entertainment frequented solely by urnings. In this respect they are replaced by certain Turkish baths, whose patrons are almost without exception homosexuals—men whose age varies from about twenty years upwards. In the industrial quarter, in the neighbourhood of the Place de la République, there existed a few years ago a Turkish bath, visited almost exclusively by young homosexuals between the ages of fifteen and twenty years. On the great boulevard there is a bath of a very expensive character, visited only by wealthy homosexuals, frequented, among others, by a celebrated French composer.[546]

A peculiar species of meeting-places for the urnings of Berlin is represented by the soldiers’ public-houses in the neighbourhood of the barracks, where soldiers are met and treated by homosexuals, and where arrangements are made for subsequent meetings. There also exists a “soldiers’ promenade,” where the soldiers walk up and down and offer themselves to homosexuals. Athletes also enter freely into relationships with homosexuals.

Urnings’ balls are to-day especially characteristic of Berlin. Von Krafft-Ebing has described them in detail, and recently also Hirschfeld has alluded to them in the above-mentioned work. I myself not long ago attended such a “men’s ball,” at which from eight hundred to a thousand homosexuals were present, some in men’s clothing, some in women’s clothing, some in fancy dress. The homosexuals dressed as women could have been distinguished from real women only by those in the secret. More particularly do I recall an elegant sylph, who, on the arm of a partner, glided across the hall—“glided” is the correct expression. During the dance his delicate features were leaning on the shoulder of the man, and he coquetted continually with ardent black eyes. I really believed this was a woman, but was assured that it was a male hairdresser. In the case of another urning dressed as a woman the diagnosis was rendered easier by a well-developed moustache.

The seamy side of the relationships of homosexuals in public life is constituted by the so-called “male prostitution,” which existed even in ancient times, and in our own day was especially well organized during the Second Empire, as we learn from the details given by Tardieu. The ranks of male prostitution are recruited partly from homosexual and partly from heterosexual men of the lower and more poverty-stricken classes, who give themselves for payment to well-to-do urnings, and are practised in all the arts of elaborate coquetry (they use rouge, make a coquettish display of male charms, etc.). These are the so-called “aunts.” In all large towns there exists what is called a “Strich” (promenade), where male prostitutes are accustomed to walk, in order to attract their clients. In Berlin the principal promenades are the Friedrichstrasse, the Passage,[547] and some of the walks in the Tiergarten. Like female prostitution, so also male prostitution has its “houses of accommodation”; and in France there even existed, and still exist, typical “male brothels.” From 1820 to 1826 such a brothel was to be found in the Rue du Doyenne in Paris. In the neighbourhood of the Louvre the male inmates of this establishment were even subjected to regular medical examination, in order to protect their clients from venereal infection. With the fall of twilight the visitors made their appearance, and were received by young effeminates.[548] Still worse was another form of male prostitution, at the time of the Restoration, and in the earlier years of the reign of Louis Philippe—namely, the so-called grande montre des culs in the Rue des Marais, where a number of male prostitutes displayed and offered their charms to the homosexuals visiting the place. A detailed account of the way in which this was done cannot be given, but is sufficiently indicated by what has already been said.[549]

Male brothels exist even at the present day in Paris. Thus, at the end of the year 1905 in the Rue St. Martin there was a small hotel whose homosexual proprietor not only let rooms to urnings for a brief stay, but also kept on the premises five or six young men between the ages of fifteen and twenty-two years, whose services were always available for homosexuals for payment. Besides this hotel there existed also in the year 1905 a kind of male brothel in the house of an urning, where at midday half a dozen young fellows were to be found, or could be fetched at brief notice, for the choice of homosexual visitors, for whose use a room was available at so many francs per hour.[550]

A phenomenon intimately related with male prostitution is blackmail, or “chantage.” Tardieu (op. cit., pp. 128-130) describes these relationships in vivid colours, and lays stress on the close relationship between male prostitution and criminality. Blackmail has become to-day a kind of special profession,[551] which is not directed solely against homosexuals, but also against heterosexuals, and the punishment of which cannot be too severe. Frequently these individuals, whose activity is a danger to the community at large, persecute their victims for many years in succession. Tardieu reports the case of a celebrated literary man, “whose purse the blackmailers regarded as their own.” For more than twenty years in succession he was plucked by successive generations of blackmailers, who considered him an assured source of income. He was “passed on from one to another.” As a rule, blackmailers wait for their victims in public lavatories; they suddenly assert that they have been indecently assaulted, and demand hush-money, which is commonly given to them, even by heterosexuals. A case of the last-mentioned kind recently occurred in Berlin, when a quite innocent young merchant was being plundered in this way, and his wife, by a courageous denunciation of the shameless blackmailer, freed him from this tyranny. It is, however, unquestionable that blackmail often ensues upon real advances on the part of homosexuals, and after the performance of sexual acts; and there is no doubt that in Germany the existence of § 175 of the Criminal Code has been most advantageous to professional blackmailers, has led to numerous scandals (alike disagreeable and dangerous to the community), and has given rise to numerous suicides.

This celebrated § 175 runs as follows:

“Unnatural vice between two persons of the male sex, or between a man and an animal, is punishable with imprisonment; it can also be punished with loss of civil rights.”

This paragraph of the Imperial Criminal Code is identical with § 143 of the former Prussian Criminal Code. Similar ordinances,[552] in some cases even more severe, are found in the laws of Austria-Hungary, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Bulgaria, the State of New York, most of the cantons of Switzerland, and more especially in Great Britain, where the most severe punishments are inflicted, and, at any rate logically, are inflicted also on women who practise homosexual intercourse. On the other hand, punishment for homosexual intercourse has been completely abolished in France, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Turkey, Italy, Spain, the Swiss Cantons of Genf, Wallis, Waadt and Tessin, the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, the Principality of Monaco, and in Mexico.

§ 143 of the Prussian Criminal Code was adopted as the basis of § 175 of the German Criminal Code, in view of “the consciousness of right of the people,” who “condemn such practices not only as vicious, but also as criminal.” But this consciousness of right is based upon defective knowledge, and upon an erroneous view of homosexuality. As soon as we recognize that in homosexuality we have to do with a primary natural disposition, and as soon as this view has permeated wide circles of the population, the old consciousness of right will be replaced by a new one, which will demand the repeal of a criminal law, by which a natural phenomenon is regarded as a vice and a crime, and is esteemed as infamous. My studies in recent years having convinced me that in homosexuality we have to do with a typical biological phenomenon, I feel that I must unhesitatingly approve of the efforts of the Scientific and Humanitarian Committee, founded by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, which aims at making the people understand the nature of homosexuality, and demands the repeal of § 175 of the German Criminal Code. All the more is this reform demanded because real homosexual crimes can be very readily dealt with by means of the sections of the Criminal Code relating to sexual delinquencies in general.

Apart from this general codification of the injustice of § 175, and apart from the above-mentioned tragical consequences of the existence of this section, it is also necessary to point out that the expressions used therein are absurd and illogical.

1. Unnatural vice between men is punished, whereas that between women is left impune. But why should this latter be the case, if we adopt the standpoint (which we have, indeed, seen to be untenable) that homosexual intercourse is in itself vicious and criminal—why should homosexual intercourse between women be less vicious and criminal than homosexual intercourse between men?

2. The idea “unnatural vice” is equally absurd and inconsequent, and makes justice in respect of these offences absolutely impossible. By this term is understood not merely pædication (immissio membri in anum), but also any kind of intercourse between men “resembling sexual intercourse”—that is, coitus in os, coitus inter femora, even simple frictio membri—whilst mutual masturbation and other perverse practices are not punishable.

3. § 175 does not safeguard any citizen,[553] for the sexual freedom of the individual is not disturbed in any way by the intercourse between two adult men who fully understand what they are doing, nor is the general moral sense injured in any way if the act is not seen by any third person. In this latter respect, however, § 183 of the Criminal Code, which punishes annoyance to the public by improper conduct, already affords sufficient protection.

4. If § 175 is maintained with especial reference to the existence of professional male unchastity, von Liszt has rightly replied to this contention that the latter form of unchastity can be rendered harmless by a modified reading of § 361b of the Criminal Code, just as the protection of virtue can be safeguarded by other sections of the Code.

5. The effectiveness of § 175 is extremely limited. According to Hirschfeld (“Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages,” vol. vi., p. 175), no more than 0·007 % of the existing punishable homosexual practices of the present day are detected and punished. Therefore a few isolated individuals are punished for an offence which thousands of others commit with impunity.

6. When § 175 of the Criminal Code was drawn up, the law-givers knew absolutely nothing about the homosexual impulse as an essential outcome of the personality; they merely wished to punish heterosexuals who committed homosexual practices, not to punish genuine homosexuals (cf. Numa Prætorius, “The Question of the Responsibility of Homosexuals,” published in the Monthly Review of Criminal Psychology, edited by G. Aschaffenburg, 1906, p. 561).

The worst and most tragic consequence of § 175 is the permanent infamy and social contempt suffered by persons who, without any blame to themselves, have a mode of sexual perception diverging from that of the great majority. The state itself commits a crime when it enrols in the category of vice and crime a biological phenomenon which has recently been recognized as such even by the Evangelical and Catholic Churches,[554] and has been freed by these Churches from the stigma of immorality. The continuance of this great injustice is the frequent cause of the suicide of homosexuals, especially of such as are men of exceptional spiritual and moral cultivation, and frequently before they have actually indulged in their homosexual impulse, the best proof that we have to do, not with vicious, but with unhappy men, who are unable to bear the misery of being socially despised and unjustly misunderstood by their associates. How many suicides from homosexual grounds occur it is impossible to establish exactly. We can only suspect the cause from certain attendant circumstances. A highly respected literary man writes to me regarding this question of the suicide of homosexuals: “When a fine young fellow, suffering frightfully as a result of his inherited disposition, shoots himself, his family will rather suggest that the cause was a chancre (which he has never had), than they will admit his homosexuality.” Several such cases have come under his notice. “A better cause,” he suggests, “for the suicide would have been unhappy love, for that is the actual truth.” Zola,[555] speaking of the letters of a homosexual, says that they exhibited “the most heart-breaking cry of human agony” that he had ever known.

“He earnestly resisted yielding to such shameful, lustful love, and he longed to know whence came this contempt of all men, whence this continuous readiness of the law-courts to crush him down, when in his flesh and blood were inborn a disgust towards woman, whilst he had brought into the world with him a true feeling of love towards man. Never had one possessed by a demon, never had a poor human body given up to and tortured by the unknown powers of the sexual impulse, so painfully expressed his misery. Have we not here a truly physiological case definitely displayed before our eyes—an inversion, an error, on the part of Nature? Nothing, in my opinion, is more tragical, and nothing demands more urgently investigation and a means of cure, if such can possibly be found.”

The complete enlightenment of the people would give rise to a spontaneous change in their conception of homosexuality, to which, moreover, the greater number of homosexuals belonging to the better classes could contribute, if they would freely and openly admit their tendencies. The secrecy and hypocrisy of many urnings is partly responsible for the hitherto prevailing false views on homosexuality. We cannot spare them this reproach.

Finally, § 175 is not merely an injustice to homosexuals, but it is also a danger to heterosexuals, in consequence of the blackmail which is so intimately associated with the existence of this section. It is not enough that these criminals of the most debased kind, who to a small extent only are recruited from the ranks of male prostitutes, reduce numerous unhappy urnings to social and financial ruin, and drive many others to suicide or to crime, of which the remarkable case of a County Court Judge a few years ago afforded a typical example. These wretches also dare with ever-greater success to make use of § 175 for the purpose of blackmailing completely normal heterosexuals. In fact, they often succeed better with these latter than they do with homosexuals, because to the normal man the idea of being regarded as homosexual is so repulsive.

A remedy for all these evils—for the suicides as well as for the blackmailing—can only be found in the enlightenment of the whole people—the first and most important thing to do—and in the unconditional repeal of § 175 of the Criminal Code.

It has been a most useful service on the part of the Scientific and Humanitarian Committee—a service the value of which has not yet been sufficiently recognized—that it has endeavoured, above all, to bring about the enlightenment of the people by means of popular writings,[556] and of the learned by means of scientific publications, such as the most successful Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages (8 volumes, 1899-1906), and by means of lectures, by the convocation of public meetings, by petitions, etc.

The petition of the committee to the legislative bodies of the German Empire, asking for the repeal of § 175 of the Criminal Code, was signed by 5,000 persons belonging to the circles of men of science, judges, physicians, priests, schoolmasters, authors, and artists, among whom were some of the most celebrated names of cultured Germany. I cite here a few only: Ferdinand Avenarius, Hans von Basedow, Woldemar von Biedermann, H. Bulthaupt, Professor Crédé, Albert Eulenburg, Theodor Gaedertz, Rudolf von Gottschall, Franz Görres, O. E. Hartleben, Gerhart Hauptmann, S. Jadassohn, Hermann Kaulbach, R. von Krafft-Ebing, Joseph Kürschner, H. Kurella, Walter Leistikow, Leppmann, Max Liebermann, G. von Liebig, Detlev von Lilieneron, Franz von Liszt, Berthold Litzmann, Ph. Lotmar, John Henry Mackay, Mendel, Friedrich Moritz, P. Näcke, Paul Natorp, Albert Neisser, Max Nordau, A. von Oechelhäuser, A. von Oppenheim, J. Pagel, Pelman, R. Penzig, Placzek, Felix Poppenberg, Rainer Maria Rilke, O. Rosenbach, Wilhelm Roux, Max Rubner, Benno Rüttenauer, Johannes Schlaf, Arthur Schnitzler, A. von Schrenck-Notzing, Alwin Schulz, Moritz Schwalb, Georg Schweinfurth, Adolf von Sonnenthal, K. von Tepper-Laski, H. Unverricht, Max Verworn, A. Vierkandt, Richard Voss, Hans Wachenhusen, Felix Weingartner, Adolf Wilbrandt, Ernst von Wildenbruch, F. von Winkel, E. von Wolzogen, Ernst Ziegler, Theobald Ziegler, Theophil Zolling.

In addition, we might mention that in the year 1904 not less than 2,800 German physicians, as well as 750 head masters and masters of higher schools, signed the petition to the Reichstag for the repeal of § 175. Owing to certain scandals by which the highest circles were sympathetically affected—I need recall only the cases of Hohenau, Krupp, Israel, von Schenk, etc.—the conviction has been forced upon members of the most influential political circles that the repeal of the paragraphs of the Criminal Code relating to urnings is an unconditional necessity. We may, therefore, expect that the repeal will be effected within the next few years.

Compared with true original homosexuality in men, the same condition in women is of considerably less importance, because in women homosexuality is undoubtedly much less common than it is in men. In comparison with the number of urnings, the number of female homosexuals—of “urnindes,” “Lesbian lovers,” or “tribades”—is relatively small; whereas in many women, even at a comparatively advanced age, the so-called “pseudo-homosexuality” (see the next chapter) is much more frequently met with than it is in men. In the case of heterosexual men it is usually impossible to induce a homosexual mode of perception or to give rise to any kind of taste for homosexual activity; whereas in heterosexual women the corresponding change certainly occurs much more easily. Tendernesses and caresses play, indeed, among normal heterosexual women a rôle which makes it easier for us to understand how readily in woman pseudo-homosexual tendencies may arise. Still, it is impossible to doubt the existence also of original homosexuality in women. These are the cases in which, just as in urnings, the homosexual impulse appears in very early childhood, often long before puberty, in which case also the girl is distinguished from her heterosexual comrades in external appearance, exhibiting indications of a masculine build of body (slight development of the breasts, narrowness of the pelvis, development of a moustache, a deep voice, etc.); but such indications may be entirely absent, and the girl may not be distinguished from others in any respect beyond the perverse direction of the sexual impulse. These true tribades are much rarer than the false tribades, the pseudo-Lesbian lovers. For example, when visiting an urnings’ ball we may be quite sure that 99 % of the male homosexuals assembled there are true homosexuals; but at a tribades’ ball—such, also, are given in Berlin—certainly a much smaller percentage are “genuine”; the bulk of the women present are pseudo-homosexuals. I here append the interesting reminiscences of a genuine urninde, by which this relationship between original homosexuality and pseudo-homosexuality in women is very clearly shown:

Thoughts of a Lonely Woman!

“Born in the country, the daughter of a merchant, I grew up as a very dreamy being, with an unceasing yearning after something unknown, beautiful, great—with a longing to become a singer or an artist. At the age of twelve I was already completely ‘woman,’ very luxuriantly developed, although still half a child, filled always with an uncontrollable longing for a beloved feminine being who should kiss me and caress me, whom I was to regard with love and with a sentiment of self-sacrifice. At the age of thirteen I came to live with relatives in a provincial town, where for a year I attended a young ladies’ school. Of my dreams no single one could be fulfilled. My mother, who was widowed when I was only three years old, had a severe economical struggle, being encumbered with six small children. After my elder brothers and sisters were married, I myself, being then twenty-four years of age, had to go out into the world to seek my own living, ignorant of the world and its dangers, delivered up to commonness and intrigue. I got a position in the house of a widow, filling the post of ‘companion.’ My ‘principal,’ a woman sixty years of age, was at first unsympathetic to me, but she treated me in a loving and motherly manner, which pleased me, for I was of a pliant and receptive disposition. Gradually I became her confidante. Every evening I had to get into bed with her (I slept close by); I must touch her with my hands. I did not then really understand why I had to stroke her legs; but one evening this sexagenarian guided my hand into a forbidden place. Now it became clear to me that this woman still had erotic perceptions. I felt how she quivered under my touch, pressed me firmly to herself, etc.; but I, for my part, felt nothing. It might have been different had she been a friend of my own age. I had not at that time any idea that ‘psychically’ I was different from other girls. I had an unceasing yearning for love, not directly sensual love, but spiritual love, out of which sensual love might later develop. Among the inmates of our house was a young merchant, a fine-looking man, who besieged me with his love, and, after long hesitation, I at length one day consented to give him the best that woman has to give. He took possession of my body with brutal voluptuousness. I was under the delusion that he would make me his wife. I had in the sexual act no perception at all, and was disillusioned. One day my seducer told me that he was going to be married, asking me to return him the ring he had given me, and offering me money. Moved to the inmost soul, without any human being to give me counsel or help (from a feeling of shame I had not disclosed the matter to my principal), I threw the ring at him, resigned my position, and made myself independent. I will only say in a few words how I had to struggle, to fight for my existence, how I was lied to and deceived by rascally men. When I came to Berlin I heard and read of homosexual love, but could not find what I dreamed of—namely, spiritual love, out of which sensual love might spring. I learned to know homosexual women, but they exhibited to me such elemental passion, brutality, sensuality, that, notwithstanding all my yearning for ‘homosexual’ love, I remained unresponsive. Only in kissing the lips of a woman sympathetic to me I have experienced an agreeable sensation, but that sweet state which I was able to induce in others by contact with them was in me not forthcoming. I began to wonder whether Nature had denied me this sensation, though I was myself also a normally developed woman. For years I lived ‘ascetically,’ since I regarded myself as a ‘psychological’ problem—I avoided every kind of intercourse—I only had a desire for tenderness and caresses. I often loved handsome women, feeling the wish to kiss them and to touch them, and I had learned to know women of the kind who prostitute themselves to other women for money. These were hateful to me, and never could I form a friendship with such, because they knew only common brutal sensuality, towards which I was not responsive.

“Some years ago I suffered from a severe abdominal and nervous disorder. I have already passed my fortieth year. After an illness lasting two years, I still feel the desire for homosexual love. Hitherto I have lived unhappily, continually asking myself why Nature has treated me so cruelly. Is it not possible once at least to enjoy this perception? A few weeks ago I made the acquaintance of a married woman, whose husband has been impotent for years, whilst she, on the other hand, is a very passionate character. Unfortunately, this woman, although in other respects she is very sympathetic to me, is upon a comparatively low plane of culture, and, what frightens me more, she has an intimacy with a female friend who is quite uncultured, but who resembles her in respect of sexual love, and who night after night lies with her in bed beside the husband, and the two women indulge their perverse voluptuousness, the friend playing the ‘man’s’ part. I have seen many strange things in my course through life, but such a marriage is a new experience to me. The man terms himself an artist, a painter, and allows his wife free play in bisexual love. I believe that this man himself experiences a titillation of the senses when he sees the two women together, and also that he makes drawings of ‘acts,’ out of which he makes a profit. In this house I have seen into a deep abyss, yet other bisexual women visit it. Although I have found my peace disturbed by these women, although I have been to a certain extent intoxicated, the conditions are too repulsive to me—since this woman is sunk into a morass deeper than she herself understands. Only through me does she begin to understand it. But a longer intercourse with her is impossible, for she lacks all the qualities that I look for in a woman whom I could love. In actual fact I envy this creature, for she is happy, since she experiences to the full those sweet sensations which Nature denies to me. Are there any more beings unhappy like myself? Perhaps the acquaintanceship with a woman whose feelings were similar to my own would be a happiness, if Fate would only have so much pity upon me as to throw a sorrowful companion in my way. I hope for it, but I do not believe that it will happen.

“To what sex do I really belong?”

In the love-history of this genuine urninde the ideal element is especially manifest; likewise the instinctive disinclination to man, which, remarkably enough, is often more powerfully developed in strongly feminine characters than in the more masculine tribades, as the prototype of which latter we may mention the painter Rosa Bonheur. During childhood Rosa Bonheur felt herself to be a boy, and preferred the society of boys to that of girls.[557] Throughout her life, notwithstanding her homosexual love, she felt strong sympathy with men. Such a double relationship occurs also among urnindes of the first kind. Even the true urninde, I may say, is not so extremely homosexual as is the true urning. Take, for example, the following account[558] of an original homosexual, and you will see the difference:

“I have not lost any of the valuable things of life—far otherwise. Many-sided, many-shadowed intellectual sympathy leads any man of lofty mind into harmony with me. There emanates unconsciously from my soul a profound, tender charm. My friends find me necessary to them. I share their interests. In our relationship there pass between us the most wonderful shades of sympathetic feeling—what the French so expressively speak of as l’amitié amoureuse. Thus my mode of being becomes absorbed into that of my friend, a peculiar melody passes to and fro between us, and a peculiar melody sounds in the stillness of my own soul. All the fine and delicate sensations which I have received from my friends become in me transformed into poietic force—the ecstasies of my spirit assume form and substance. From the spiritualization of the impulse there springs a stream clear as crystal, there arise passion and ardour; my exceptional soul lifts me upwards, above all sorrows and vexations. In this way is a talent conceived, and amid ecstasy it is born.”

The need for a spiritual contact with men is among homosexual women much stronger than the corresponding inclination on the part of urnings for spiritual contact with woman natures. For this reason there is no doubt that the “Woman’s Movement”—that is, in the movement directed towards the acquirement by women of all the attainments of masculine culture—homosexual women have played a notable part.[559] Indeed, according to one author,[560] the “Woman’s Question” is mainly the question regarding the destiny of virile homosexual women. I find it necessary to doubt whether, as Hammer maintains,[561] the raging hatred of men—the converse quality to the anti-feminism of the male urnings—really proceeds from the uranian group of the Woman’s Movement, for there exist no literary documents of importance to prove the suggested connexion. Homosexual women of intellectual weight have also assured me that among them there does at times exist an enmity to men on principle, just as, mutatis mutandis, misogyny has been developed as a system both from the heterosexual and from the homosexual side. For the diffusion of pseudo-homosexuality the Woman’s Movement is of great importance, as we shall see later.

The individual and social relationships of feminine uranism are nearly the same as those of male uranism. In both cases there exists an entire scale, running from pure Platonism to ardent sensuality. One kind of Platonic tribades are those described by Catulle Mendés in his sketch “Protectrices.” These are ladies of position who allow themselves the luxury of a “protégée,” generally a girl employed at the theatre, with whom during the performances they exchange glances, whose expenses they pay, with whom they go out driving, without the matter proceeding to actual sexual relations. In other cases, however, sensual gratification is the desired goal, which is attained by kisses, embraces, friction of the genital organs, or cuninilinctus (the so-called “Sapphism”). In this intercourse one party—the “father”—plays the active part, the other—“the mother”—the passive part. There exist passionate and intimate relationships of long duration—true “marriages”—among tribades. Thus, d’Estoc reports (“Paris-Eros,” p. 58) relationships of this kind which have lasted thirty years. Still, as a general rule, feminine homosexuals change their relationships more frequently than male homosexuals. An elderly tribade, whose correspondence lies before me, had within four years three love relationships. In these relationships jealousy plays an even greater part than in heterosexual liaisons. Two sympathetic urnindes who lived together described to me very vividly the joys and sorrows of the amor lesbicus. The cause of the troubles is always a tertia, never a tertius gaudens.

Like the urnings, the tribades also have their meeting-places, jour fixes. One such meeting, at which four genuine female homosexuals and one male homosexual assembled, I had the opportunity of attending. They have their parties, and even their balls, at which the virile tribades appear in men’s clothing,[562] and (as also when at home) use male nicknames. There also exist female prostitutes who devote their services entirely to urnindes. This tribadistic prostitution is especially widespread in Paris. Such prostitutes are called gouines, or gougnottes, or chevalières du clair de lune. Theatrical agents are said to be especially occupied with tribadistic procurement. There also exist tribadistic brothels in Paris.[563]

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APPENDIX
THEORY OF HOMOSEXUALITY

Original, congenital, enduring homosexuality would appear to be an exclusively human peculiarity. It is very doubtful whether a similar condition exists among animals. We recognize among the lower animals homosexual acts, but no homosexuality.[564] Thus we have no philogenetic starting-point for the explanation of homosexuality. Moreover, homosexuality is fundamentally different from the other sexual perversions, sadism and masochism. These represent quite extreme forms of biological phenomena, an abnormal increase of physiological impulsive manifestations that occur in the normal heterosexual life, as part of sexuality in general. But homosexuality is an alteration in the direction of the very impulse itself—a change in the very nature of sexuality. To put the matter shortly, it is the appearance of a sexuality heterogeneous to and not corresponding with the bodily structure. To define homosexuality as the appearance of a feminine sexual psyche in a masculine body, or of a masculine sexual psyche in a feminine body, does not apply to all cases—for example, it does not apply to virile urnings or to tribades who remain womanly. The definition of homosexuality as a sexuality which does not correspond to the bodily structure embraces both these possibilities.

Whenever homosexuality in men is associated with a marked development of feminine secondary sexual characters, or in women with a marked development of masculine secondary sexual characters, the homosexual sensibility may be said to have to some extent a physical basis, but not completely so. For the “intermediate stage theory” proposed by Hirschfeld—the intermixture of feminine and masculine characters—may apply satisfactorily to “bisexuality,” to indeterminate sexual sensibility; but it does not apply to the thoroughly one-sided, monistic sexual sensibility, directed only towards members of the same sex, and often appearing very early, before the days of puberty. Moreover, in heterosexual male individuals the external appearance may at times suggest that there is a strong intermixture of feminine characters. These men, though heterosexual, have a womanly appearance.

The “intermediate stage theory” of Hirschfeld, which von Krafft-Ebing also appears to have recognized in his last work (“New Studies in the Subject of Homosexuality”), a theory which explains homosexual phenomena as dependent upon the existence of transitional stages between the sexes (“sexual links” of Hirschfeld), and which, moreover, erroneously includes the typical hermaphrodite states—this interesting theory explains a portion only of original homosexuality. It fails in cases in which homosexuality occurs in the absence of any divergence from type—for example, in those cases in which male individuals with thoroughly normal masculine bodies exhibit marked homosexual sensibility in early childhood, long before puberty. But these are the cases which offer the greatest possible difficulties to a scientific explanation. Hic Rhodus, hic salta!

Ulrich’s “feminine soul in a masculine body” applies to effeminate urnings, such as he was himself. But is the mode of sensibility of virile homosexuals “effeminate”? Why do we speak of a third sex? Here lie difficulties which we cannot overcome without further assistance.

How does it come to pass that the central organs in homosexuals do not correspond to the peripheral sexual organs, although the latter are formed embryologically long before the former, so that the central organs should properly be guided in their development by the peripheral organs? But they are not so guided. That is only explicable in this way—that the association between the central organs and the peripheral organs is interrupted by a third influence, and that this last influence has a peculiar effect upon the central organs altogether independent of the nature of the reproductive glands.

I will formulate this new theory of homosexuality in the following terms:

1. The so-called “undifferentiated stage” of the sexual impulse (Max Dessoir) may often fail to appear in cases in which the sexual impulse, either in heterosexuals or homosexuals, is definitely directed before puberty unmistakably towards the members of one particular sex. Especially in homosexuals do we often see before puberty the clear and unmistakable direction of the sexual impulse towards members of the same sex.

2. A critical theory of homosexuality must also explain the extreme cases; above all, it must also explain male homosexuality associated with complete virility.

3. The sexual organs and the reproductive glands cannot be the determining cause, because homosexuality makes its appearance in association with thoroughly typical male reproductive organs; nor can the brain be the determining cause in cases of true homosexuality, for, notwithstanding the intentional and unintentional operation of heterosexual influences on thought and imagination, homosexuality cannot be eradicated, and continues to develop.

4. Since this homosexuality often makes its appearance as an inclination (not as the sexual impulse) long before puberty, and before the proper activity of the reproductive glands is developed, it appears a reasonable suggestion that in homosexuality some physiological manifestation associated with “sexuality,” but not directly associated with the reproductive glands, undergoes a change which results in an alteration of the direction of the sexual impulse.

6. The most obvious influences to think of in this connexion are chemical influences, changes in the chemistry of sexual tension, which latter is certainly to a large extent independent of the reproductive glands, since it may persist in eunuchs. But the nature of this sexual chemistry is still entirely obscure.

Such a way of conceiving the process is thoroughly reasonable and tenable on scientific grounds, as was shown by E. H. Starling and L. Krehl[565] in their communication to the Scientific Congress at Stuttgart in the year 1905, regarding disturbances of chemical correlation in the organism, especially disturbances of the chemical influences proceeding from the reproductive organs. All minuter details regarding these “sexual hormone” (to use Starling’s own phrase) are still unknown, but the experiments to which we alluded in an earlier chapter have proved their existence. In my view, the anatomical contradiction, the natural monstrosity, of a feminine—or, at any rate, an unmanly—psyche in a typical masculine body, or that of a feminine or unmanly sexual psyche associated with normally developed and normally functioning male genital organs, can only be explained in this manner by taking into account this intercurrent third factor. This can be deduced very readily from some early embryonic disturbances of sexual chemistry. This would also explain why it is that homosexuality so often occurs in perfectly healthy families, as an isolated phenomenon which has nothing to do either with inheritance or with degeneration. When von Römer, on the contrary, describes homosexuality as a process of “regeneration,” we must maintain that for this view there are no sufficient grounds. Here begins the riddle of homosexuality; for me, at any rate, it is one. My own theory only attempts to explain the proper physiological connexions of homosexuality better, and, above all, more scientifically than earlier theories. With regard to the ultimate cause of the relatively frequent occurrence of homosexuality as an original phenomenon, this theory has, however, nothing to say.

I do not suggest that I am able for a moment to find the ultimate reason of the being and nature of homosexuality. There remains here a riddle to be solved. But from the standpoint of civilization and reproduction homosexuality is a senseless and aimless dysteleological phenomenon, like many another “natural product”—as, for example, the human cæcum. In an earlier chapter I drew attention to the fact that civilization has entailed an increasingly sharp sexual differentiation—that is, the antithesis between “man” and “woman” has become continually clearer. The distinction between the sexes is a product rather of civilization than of primitive nature. All sexual indifference, all sexual links, are primitive characters. Eduard von Mayer rightly believes that in the earliest days of the human race homosexuality was much more widely diffused than it is at present, that, in fact, it came into being side by side with heterosexual love. Civilization by means of inheritance, adaptation, and differentiation, has continually more and more limited the extent of the homosexual impulse. Unquestionably the homosexual human being, as human being, has the same right to exist as the heterosexual. To doubt it would be preposterous. Also, as a sexual being, in so far as only the individual aspect of love comes under consideration, the homosexual has an equal right. But for the species, and also for the advancement of civilization, homosexuality has no importance, or very little. It is obvious that, as a kind of enduring “monosexuality,” it contradicts the purposes of the species. Equally obvious is it that the whole of civilization is the product of the physical and mental differentiation of the sexes, that civilization has, in fact, to a certain extent, a heterosexual character. The greatest spiritual values we owe to heterosexuals, not to homosexuals. Moreover, reproduction first renders possible the preservation and permanence of new spiritual values. In the last resort the latter are not possible without the former. However obvious it may appear, we must still repeat that spiritual values exist only in respect of the future, that they only attain their true significance in the connexion and the succession of the generations, and that they are, therefore, eternally dependent upon heterosexual love as the intermediary by which this continuity is produced. The monosexual and homosexual instincts permanently limited to their own ego or their own sex are, therefore, in their innermost nature dysteleological and anti-evolutionistic. In speaking thus we leave entirely out of consideration the possibility that temporarily and for the purposes of individual development they may possess a relative justification.[566]

Moreover, the majority of homosexuals have a deeply rooted sentiment of the lack of purpose and the aimlessness of their mode of sexual perception, and this often gives them a very tragical and pitiable expression. Especially in the case of noble, spiritually important homosexuals, true carriers of civilization, is this sense of the incongruity between homosexuality and life most plainly felt. Even the talented Numa Prætorius (Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, vol. vi., p. 543) recognizes that—

“The love of the majority of men towards the other sex, based upon heterosexual impulse, has undergone a development and refinement, and has obtained a significance which makes homosexual love, in comparison with it, play quite a subordinate part.”

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[502] “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. i., p. 219.

[503] Lombroso, at the Sixth International Congress of Criminal Anthropologists at Turin, May, 1906, actually drew a parallel between congenital homosexuality and the congenital tendency to crime! That this parallel is utterly non-existent and that crime and homosexuality differ toto cælo is shown luminously by Paul Näcke (“Comparison between Criminality and Homosexuality,” published in the Monatsschrift für Kriminalpsychologie, 1906, pp. 477-487).

[504] Published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, edited by Magnus Hirschfeld, vol. iii., p. 5 (Leipzig, 1901). Cf. also the account of the newer views by P. Näcke, “Problems in the Domain of Homosexuality,” published in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, 1902, vol. lix., pp. 805-829 (this writer also maintains the existence of normal, healthy homosexual individuals).

[505] Magnus Hirschfeld, “Der Urnische Mensch,” p. 139 et seq. (Leipzig, 1903).

[506] Von Krafft-Ebing, “Retarded Homosexuality,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1901, vol. iii., pp. 7-20.

[507] J. E. Meisner, “Uranism, or the so-called Homosexual Love,” p. 11 (Leipzig, 1906).

[508] Max Katte (“Virile Homosexuals,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, vol. vii., p. 94; Leipzig, 1905) remarks that it is an error on the part of recent writers in the domain of homosexuality to describe and vindicate so prominently the effeminate type of homosexual man, and to neglect the virile type. The same is true as regards the description of the corresponding types of homosexual women.

[509] This occurs also in heterosexual boys. I extract the following passage from the unpublished autobiography of a homosexual physician: “When puberty occurred I am not able to say—I expect it was about the age of sixteen or seventeen—but I know certainly that I noticed at the time of puberty a swelling of the breasts. There was only a slight forward curvature, which did not extend much beyond the areola, and was painful on pressure. I remember distinctly that I was anxious about the matter, and was afraid that there was some inflammation beginning. However, the same seems to occur in every normal man. A student whom I asked about the matter said that he had noticed a swelling of the mammary glands about the age of fifteen; recently, at the age of seventeen, he has had his first pollutions; his sexual sensibility is normal.”

[510] “Goethe’s Letters,” vol. vii., p. 314: letter of December 29, 1787, from Rome to Karl August (Weimar, 1890).

[511] G. Merzbach, “Homosexuality and Occupation,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1902, vol. iv., pp. 187-198.

[512] Cf. W. S., “Woman-Man on the Stage,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, vol. ii., pp. 313-325.

[513] This writer is also the inventor of the word “homosexual,” which is found for the first time in his book.

[514] Magnus Hirschfeld, “Result of the Statistical Investigations regarding the Percentage of Homosexuals,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1904, vol. vi., pp. 109-178.

[515] F. Karsch, “Uranism or Pæderasty and Tribadism among Savage Races,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1901, vol. iii., pp. 72-201.

[516] “Traces of Contrary Sexuality among the Ancient Scandinavians: Reports of a Norwegian Literary Man,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1902, vol. v., pp. 244-263.

[517] Regarding homosexuality in Japan, cf. also “Pæderasty in Japan,” by Suyewo Iwaya, published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1902, vol. iv., pp. 264-271.

[518] In the second volume, now in course of preparation, of my work on “The Origin of Syphilis,” will be found a detailed critical investigation, based upon the most recent data, of homosexuality and pseudo-homosexuality in ancient times and during the middle ages.

[519] Cf. “Four Letters of Carl Heinrich Ulrichs (‘Numa Numantius’) to his Relatives,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1899, vol. i., pp. 36-96 (with portrait).

[520] Ludwig Frey, “The Spiritual Life of Count Platen,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1899, vol. i., pp. 159-214; and 1904, vol. vi., pp. 357-448.

[521] Numa Prätorius, “Michael Angelo as an Urning,” op. cit., 1900, vol. ii., pp. 254-267.

[522] F. Karsch, “Heinrich Hössli,” op. cit., 1903, vol. v., pp. 449-556. Hössli was the author of the work “Eros: the Greek Love of Men” (Glarus and St. Gallen, 1836 and 1838, 2 vols.), which, according to Karsch, represented for our own time what Plato’s “Symposium” and “Phædrus” represents for antiquity. Karsch gives an excellent table of the contents and an analysis of the books under consideration.

[523] J. E. Meisner, “Uranism,” p. 16 (Leipzig); also verbal communications by Meisner, who was personally acquainted with Bulthaupt, to myself.

[524] F. Karsch, “Our Sources for the Consideration of Reputed and Real Urnings,” “Johann von Müller the Historian (1752-1809),” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1902, vol. iv., pp. 349-457.

[525] L. S. A. M. von Römer, “Henry III., King of France and Poland,” op. cit., vol. iv., pp. 572-669.

[526] J. E. Meisner, op. cit., p. 17.

[527] Magnus Hirschfeld, “Sexual Transitional Stages,” Plate XXXII. (Leipzig, 1905).

[528] Op. cit., Plate XXXII.

[529] F. Karsch, “Duke August the Fortunate (1772-1822),” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1903, vol. v., pp. 615-693.

[530] Numa Prätorius, “Georges Eekhoud: a Preface,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1900, vol. ii., pp. 268-277.

[531] G. Eekhoud, “An Illustrious Urning of the Seventeenth Century, Jerom Duquesnoy, the Flemish Sculptor,” op. cit., pp. 277-287.

[532] F. Karsch, “A. von Sternberg, the Novelist,” op. cit., 1902, vol. iv., pp. 458-571. He obtained sexual gratification by masturbating while looking at masculine posteriora, but also frequently had relations with women.

[533] F. Karsch, “Theodor Beza, the Reformer (1519-1605),” op. cit., pp. 291-349.

[534] H. J. Schouten, “The Alleged Pæderasty of the Reformer John Calvin,” op. cit., 1905, vol. vii., pp. 291-306.

[535] Hans Rau, “Franz Grillparzer and his Amatory Life.” (Berlin, 1903).

[536] The love of boys, the “pæderasty,” of the Greeks related to young adult men.

[537] I have used the established spelling for this word, although probably its more correct spelling would be “pedication” (derived from pedex = podex).

[538] Cf. P. Näcko, “The Kiss of the Homosexual,” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology and Criminal Statistics, by H. Gross, 1904, vol. xvii., Nos. 1, 2, p. 177. Cf. also the reports on the tongue kiss published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1905, vol. vii., pp. 757-759.

[539] M. Hirschfeld, “Are Sexual Intermediate Stages Suited for Marriage?” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1901, vol. iii., pp. 37-71.

[540] We owe to Näcke the recognition of the importance of sexual dreams in the diagnosis of homosexuality and heterosexuality. Cf. his essay, “The Forensic Significance of Dreams,” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, 1889, vol. iii.; also P. Näcke, “The Dream as the Most Delicate Reagent for the Detection of the Mode of Sexual Sensibility,” published in the Annual Review of Criminal Psychology, 1905.

[541] M. Hirschfeld, “Berlin’s Third Sex,” p. 26 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1905).

[542] The description of this interesting scene, with other details regarding the organization of the homosexuals of Paris, is found in the work of Pisanus Fraxi (Henry Spencer Ashbee). “Centuria Librorum Absconditorum,” pp. 406-416 (London, 1879) (based upon personal reports by Paul Lacroix).

[543] Ambroise Tardieu, “Offences against Morality from the Point of View of State Medicine,” German translation by F. W. Theile, pp. 133, 134 (Weimar, 1860).

[544] There are also numerous places of public resort which are indeed largely attended by urnings, but are also frequented by heterosexuals.

[545] Cf. in this connexion also the remarks of P. Näcke, “A Visit to the Homosexuals of Berlin,” published in the Archives of Criminal Anthropology, 1904, vol. xv., Nos. 1 and 2.

[546] Cf. P. Näcke, “Quelques Détails sur les Homosexuels de Paris,” published in the Archives d’Anthropologie Criminelle, 1905, new series, iv., No. 138. See the reference in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1906, vol. viii., pp. 795, 796.

[547] Cf. “The Secrets of the Berlin Passage,” pp. 19, 20 (Berlin, 1877).

[548] Cf. Pisanus Fraxi, “Centuria Librorum Absconditorum,” pp. 404-406 (London, 1879) (according to the reports of Paul Lacroix, who himself was a witness of the occurrences).

[549] Op. cit., pp. 404-407.

[550] Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1906, vol. viii., pp. 796, 797. According to d’Estoc (“Paris-Eros,” pp. 207, 208), the male prostitutes in these brothels are more especially men from southern countries—Italians, Orientals, Berbers, and negroes.

[551] Cf. Ludwig Frey, “Characterization of Blackmail,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1899, vol. i., pp. 71-96.

[552] Cf. Numa Prætorius, “The Criminal Character of Homosexual Intercourse, Considered Historically and Critically,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1899, vol. i., pp. 97-158.

[553] Cf. Z. Richter, “Does § 175 afford any Protection? A Criminalogical Study,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1900, vol. ii., pp. 30-52.

[554] “Opinions of Roman Catholic Priests on the Attitude of Christianity towards the Criminal Prosecution of Homosexual Love” (Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1900, vol. ii., pp. 161-203); “What Position should the Church Assume towards Homosexual Love and its Criminal Prosecution?” by an Evangelical Theologian (op. cit., vol. iii., pp. 204-210); Caspar Wirz, “Urnings before the Church and Scripture” (Orthodox-Evangelical) (op. cit., vol. iv., pp. 63-108); “Homosexuality in the Bible,” by a Catholic priest (op. cit., vol. iv., pp. 199-243); “From the Memoirs of a (Catholic) Priest” (op. cit., pp. 1172-1178).

[555] A letter from Emile Zola to Dr. Laupts on the problem of homosexuality; translated, with an introduction, by Rudolf von Beulwitz (Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1905, vol. ii., pp. 371-386).

[556] “What should the People know about the Third Sex?” An instructive work, published by the Scientific and Humanitarian Committee (Leipzig, 1904).

[557] Cf. “The Truth about Myself: Autobiography of a Contrary-Sexual,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, vol. iii., pp. 292-307.

[558] M. F., “How I See the Matter,” op. cit., pp. 308-312.

[559] Cf. Anna Rüling, “What Interest has the Woman’s Movement in the Solution of the Homosexual Problem?” (Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, vol. vii., pp. 131-151).

[560] Arduin, “The Woman’s Question and Sexual Intermediate Stages” (op. cit., 1900, vol. ii., pp. 211-223).

[561] W. Hammer, “Tribadism in Berlin,” p. 97 (Berlin, 1906).

[562] Cf. “A Description of an Urnindes’ Ball,” given by M. Hirschfeld, “Berlin’s Third Sex,” pp. 56, 57.

[563] Cf. Martial d’Estoc, “Paris-Eros,” p. 59 et seq.

[564] Cf. F. Karsch, “Pæderasty and Tribadism among Animals as recorded in Literature,” published in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1900, vol. ii., pp. 126-160; P. Näcke, “Pæderasty in Animals,” published in the Archives of Criminal Anthropology, 1904, vol. xiv., pp. 361, 362.

[565] L. Krehl, “The Disturbance of Chemical Correlations in the Organism” (Leipzig, 1907). Here, on p. 3, we find: “If we are compelled to assume that many varieties of cells in their rudimentary condition already bear the imprint of a masculine or feminine nature, still this masculine or feminine nature doubtless only undergoes its real development under the enduring chemical influence of the ovaries and the testicles.”

[566] This latter view has been maintained especially by Max Katte, in his treatise “The Purpose of the Existence of Homosexuals” (Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, vol. iv., pp. 272-288), but he completely ignores the evolutionary points of view. In the same way, Hans Freimark neglects them (“The Meaning of Uranism,” p. 14; Leipzig, 1906); he regards homosexuality as a transition to a state in which “mankind will no longer need gross material contact for purposes of reproduction.”

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CHAPTER XX
PSEUDO-HOMOSEXUALITY (GREEK AND ORIENTAL PÆDERASTY, HERMAPHRODITISM, BISEXUAL VARIETIES)

“Nous sommes les enfants des anciennes Sodomes;
Puisque l’on nous voit beaux, laissons-nous nous aimer.
Notre sort est le plus désirable: charmer,
Nous sommes adorés des femmes et des hommes!”

Rachilde.

[“We are children of the ancient Sodom;
Since people regard us as beautiful, let us continue to love one another;
Our lot is the most desirable: to charm,
We are adored both by women and by men.”]

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