CHAPTER XX
The dispute whether homosexuality is a congenital or an acquired phenomenon was one hitherto impossible to settle, because the whole province of those homosexual manifestations for which I suggest the name of “pseudo-homosexuality” had not been separated with sufficient clearness from true homosexuality for the essential difference between the two classes to receive accurate expression. True homosexuality is congenital. It is an original, permanent, essential outflow of the personality: pseudo-homosexuality, on the contrary, is either a homosexual sensibility suggested from without, transient, and not associated with the essence of the personality; or else it is merely apparent homosexuality, the illusion being dependent upon hermaphroditism or upon some other physical or mental abnormality.
The pseudo-homosexuality of the former category is explicable only by means of the fact of “bisexuality,” the existence of which has been scientifically proved only within recent years. By bisexuality we understand the possibility of two distinct modes of sexual perception occurring in one and the same person; and this, again, finds its explanation in the bisexual germinal vestiges which exist in every individual. There remains in every man a vestige of woman, in every woman a vestige of man, in a sense in a state of potential energy, which, however, is capable, by the action of various external influences, of being transformed into kinetic energy; but this vestige always plays a small part in comparison with the true specific sexual nature. This bisexuality was discussed in an earlier chapter of this book ([pp. 39], [40] and [70], [71]), and was there characterized as a phenomenon secondary in every respect, to which no great importance could be attached. The idea of bisexuality is not new; neither Fliess nor Weininger was its discoverer. It was already known to the ancients.[567] Heinse, in “Ardinghello,” gives expression to the idea in almost the same words as Weininger (see [p. 40]). Recently Magnus Hirschfeld[568] has collected the historical and literary details of the subject of bisexuality.
Bisexuality manifests itself more especially at the period of puberty, during the time of obscure yearnings and impulses—the so-called indifferent period which precedes the awakening of the sexual impulse. Physical bisexuality, therefore, often enough corresponds to psychical bisexuality. In the boy there is a trace of girlishness, in the girl a trace of boyishness; we have the two types of the dreamy youth and of the tomboy. Then there readily arise delicate inclinations between individuals of like sexes, especially as the result of continuous companionship, so that an obscure impulse of transient homosexual perception manifests itself between two boys, or between two girls, of the same age; or, again, this transient homosexuality may take the form of a worshipful admiration of an older person of the same sex. Gutzkow distinguished these two forms of pseudo-homosexuality, of which he had had experience in his own person. In his “Secular Pictures,” vol. i., pp. 50, 51 (Frankfort, 1856), he remarks:
“The feeling of love originates in most feminine natures, not from the quiet consideration of the secrets of love, but from a magnetic attraction towards other individuals, whom they regard as being better and more beautiful than themselves. Commonly the love for a man is preceded by an often illimitable love for a woman. Young girls fall in love with older girls—a phenomenon which often occurs also in boys, as I myself experienced when a boy, feeling the most ardent passion for one of my comrades, who now is extremely disagreeable to me.”
A similar explanation suffices for the transient tender love exhibited by Grillparzer towards Altmüller (cf. Grillparzer’s “Diary,” edition of Glossy and Sauer, pp. 24-26; Stuttgart). In boarding-schools, barracks, and training-schools we often find these pseudo-homosexual liaisons. The prison is said by Parent-Duchatelet to be a high-school of tribadism. He and other French authors report the epidemic diffusion of homosexual practices in prisons for women. Whenever homosexuality appears suddenly in an epidemic manner, affecting large numbers of individuals, we have to do, not with genuine original uranism, but with pseudo-homosexuality. As regards boarding-schools, which exhibit a lascivious environment extremely open to manifestations of this kind, Hans von Kahlenberg, in his “Nixchen,” p. 41 (Vienna, 1904), has vividly described the matter.
Youthful bisexuality is to be found in slighter forms in almost every human being, but it is a typical phenomenon of puberty, and disappears with the passing of this epoch, to make room for the completely developed heterosexuality of the adult. There occurs also in homosexuals, in whom homosexual sensibility first makes itself definitely manifest after puberty, a quite analogous inclination to the other sex before and during puberty. Thus, a typical homosexual twenty-three years of age, who now exhibits horror feminæ, related to me that at the age of sixteen or seventeen years he was very fond of girls, and pursued them a great deal, but without definite sexual desire. This transient obscure attraction of homosexuals towards the other sex is a kind of “pseudo-heterosexuality.”
Sometimes bisexuality will continue after the period of puberty, and in exceptional cases will persist throughout life. According to Hirschfeld, this occurs especially in men of genius, and in those inclined to become priests or schoolmasters. But in most cases even then one or other impulsive tendency—the heterosexual or the homosexual—is predominant. These individuals have been called “psychical hermaphrodites” (von Krafft-Ebing). These bisexual varieties may manifest themselves in very various ways, in most cases gynandry or androgyny is purely spiritual, and finds expression only in association with particular tendencies, especially fetichistic tendencies. The two following very remarkable cases throw a clear light on this peculiar form of bisexuality. We may as well accept for the more or less specific form of bisexuality described in these cases the suggested name of “junores.”
1.The case of a psychical hermaphrodite:
N. N., an American journalist, thirty-three years of age, writes: “From earliest youth I had an impulse to appear dressed in women’s clothing, and whenever I had an opportunity I had elegant body linen made for me, silken chemises, and whatever was the fashion. Even as a boy I used to borrow my sister’s clothing and wear it secretly. Only later, after my mother’s death, was I able to give free rein to my wishes, and I came into the possession of a wardrobe resembling that of the most elegant lady of fashion. Although compelled in the daytime to appear as a man, still I wear, under these clothes, a complete outfit of women’s underclothing—stays, open-work stockings, and everything proper to a woman, a bracelet also, and patent-leather women’s boots, with elegant high heels. When the evening comes, I breathe more freely. Then I can throw off the burdensome mask, and feel wholly woman. Wrapped in a tea-gown of an elegant cut, and wearing the finest underclothing, I am able to occupy myself in my favourite employments, among which may be mentioned the study of the primitive history of mankind, or I give myself up to some routine duties. A feeling of repose takes possession of me, such as is impossible during the day, when I have to wear men’s clothing. Although fully woman, I do not feel any need to give myself to a man. I feel flattered, certainly, if, when appearing in women’s dress, I please others, but I have no definite sexual desire towards my own sex. It may be that I have not yet discovered my alter ego. Notwithstanding all my well-developed feminine customs, I married, and am the father of a powerful, beautiful girl, who exhibits no tendencies whatever resembling mine. My wife, an energetic, cultured lady, was fully aware of my passion, but hoped in the course of time to wean me from it. In this, however, she was not successful. I performed my marital duties, but I gave myself up all the more to my customs. My wife obtained a separation, and at the time at which I now write she is intimate with another man, and is pregnant. My physique is thoroughly masculine, with the exception of the pelvis and of the calves of the legs, which are feminine in form. Summary: Outward appearance masculine. When wearing women’s dress I have completely the corresponding figure—waist, 20 inches; chest measurement, 34 inches; height, 176 centimetres (5 feet 9 inches); weight 125 pounds. Hands long and narrow, sensibility feminine. When wearing men’s clothing I feel a certain uneasiness. When I see an elegant lady or actress, I think how well I should appear in her dress. I have an abundance of earrings, pearls, lace scarves, and similar articles of adornment, and at a dance I give myself up to the idea of how delightful it would be to appear in women’s dress. If it were possible, I should completely abandon men’s clothing.”
2. “At about the age of fifteen and a half years I began to take an interest in women’s dress. I felt an inward impulse, which drove me to the windows of the shops displaying articles of women’s dress—corsets, etc. In shoemakers’ windows it was the women’s boots and shoes which attracted my attention rather than the men’s. The same was the case with dress fabrics, among which self-coloured materials for women’s dress pleased me best. Beautiful blue stuffs (satin) especially attracted me; also, I had an ardent love for blue velvet. As time passed, I felt a desire to possess such things, and to wear them. But since at home I had no means to spend in this way, whilst the desire sometimes was so violent as to give me no rest, I endeavoured to resist it with all the religious and rational grounds I could call to mind; yet this was of little help to me, for whenever I met a woman clothed to my taste, the longing was immediately reawakened. If I met a woman whose appearance aroused this desire (which henceforth I will call my ‘costume-stimulus’), I looked round, in order to overcome this costume-stimulus, to try to find a woman who displeased me. Within me there raged a conflict (which at that time was obscure even to myself) between the masculine nature and the feminine. One day the feminine in me gained the victory, as it impelled me (when my parents were absent from the house) to try on some of my sisters’ clothes; but as soon as I had put on the corset I had an erection, immediately followed by an ejaculation of semen. This gave me no gratification; on the contrary, I was very angry that putting on the corset should have given rise to an ejaculation of semen. At varying intervals I repeated this attempt to dress myself as a woman, and in doing so always endeavoured to avoid anything that could give rise to an erection. Gradually I succeeded in this matter of dressing; but I was now consumed also with the desire for caressing a feminine being, and therefore the dressing alone failed to satisfy me. Moreover, this dressing-up also failed to give me real pleasure, because I did not possess any costume which really suited me; but still, apart from sexual excitement, it produced a feeling of well-being. After I had dressed up as a woman, my imagination always busied itself with the idea of how beautiful it would be if I had a beloved before whom I might display myself unrestrainedly, just as I then was. In these fancies I always pictured to myself a girl of my own age, with long hair and well-developed breasts and hips. This imagination generally resulted in a pollution, which I sometimes endeavoured to prevent by taking off the articles of clothing as rapidly as possible.
“By a colleague I was initiated into the practice of masturbation. He explained to me that if I had no woman who would give herself to me, I was in a position to satisfy myself. The first time I resisted the impulse; but the costume-stimulus tormented me, and I had discovered that after a seminal emission I was at peace for a time; moreover, when dressing up, I was always exposed to the danger of being discovered, and so I began the practice of self-abuse. Masturbation did not give me proper gratification, and therefore, after practising it, I always experienced a great feeling of regret and also a feeling of exhaustion; moreover, it did not produce the feeling of well-being which resulted from dressing up as a woman.
“I was shy, and was very readily embarrassed in the presence of the female sex; I therefore avoided seeing much of women; I avoided it, also, on account of my costume-stimulus. It would have been preferable to me if, physically, Nature had made me a woman, so that I could have gone about freely among girls of my own age. For the reasons already given I did not learn to dance; moreover, the turning round made me very giddy, and from the age of seventeen and a half to nineteen years I suffered from attacks of syncope. At about the age of twenty-two years I fell in love with my present wife, who attracted me on account of her grace, her figure, and her character. My wife was even more bashful than myself. My inclination drew me towards her, but on account of my costume-stimulus, I avoided being alone with her. From now onwards I began to consider what I could possibly do in order to explain to my betrothed my true nature, but all the attempts which I made were failures. After six months’ engagement, I left the place where my betrothed was living. The engagement lasted seven years before we were married. The principal reason for the delay was that we were both impecunious. When I was alone with my betrothed, I was always thinking of my costume-stimulus. Shortly before we were married I told my betrothed in a letter of my peculiar tendency, for I felt it was my duty to do so. She could not understand how I could find pleasure in dressing myself up as a woman. At first she was indifferent regarding my costume-stimulus; later she thought it was morbid, an impulse bordering on the insane. I often had to call my imagination to my help in order to produce an erection. My marriage became more unhappy year by year. My wife, on account of my morbid tendency, suspected me of all possible perversities, and was of opinion that an individual predisposed as I was could not be capable of true, upright love for a woman. How I was to get woman’s clothing to my taste I did not know. In my marriage I was no better off as regards the costume-stimulus, but rather worse. I had more sleepless nights on account of this costume-stimulus than I had had before I married. As time passed, I became continually more ill-humoured, and was occasionally cross to my wife, which afterwards made me very sorry. In the sleepless nights I puzzled how I could possibly manage that my wife should not concern herself any more about the costume-stimulus, and how I could possibly fulfil my wishes in this respect. Gradually I succeeded in winning my wife to my side to this extent, that she agreed to make a costume for me, but I must not have many such.
“My wife was always looking for a reason. She believed that dressing up must have some cause, or must produce in me some effect, which I was unwilling to tell her. She was continually tormenting me about this; she would not believe that I spoke the truth, and she no longer felt any confidence in me. She believed that every one must perceive that I had this morbid impulse. She endeavoured to learn something about the matter from other women. Those whom she asked could only tell her evil and common things about men with tendencies like mine; some said I must be unconditionally an urning; others that I must have intercourse with other women behind my wife’s back; others that I wanted to lay aside men’s clothing in order to please girls under age, and so on. I suffered horribly from these false accusations.
“I endeavoured once again, in an essay I composed, which I entitled ‘The Junores,’ to make the matter clear to my wife. By junores I indicated men who wished to assume, or who did assume, the outward appearance of women in the matter of clothing, demeanour, and figure, but who sexually were masculine. All this was of no help to me. Our life together became continually more unbearable with the lapse of time; often there were scenes which had the most depressing effect on my mind. After violent scenes there occurred in me nocturnal pollutions, accompanied by no sensation of pleasure; also after these scenes erections were for a long time incomplete, so that a kind of impotence ensued.
“After every new accusation which my wife made against me I avoided going home in the evening. I wandered for hours in by-streets, overwhelmed by a feeling of futility and vacuity; my nerves all vibrated; sometimes I could not keep my limbs still. If I had had no children, or if I had known that they would be properly cared for, I should have known what to do in such a mood. One thing still torments me. Will my children be hereditarily tainted?”
I have myself seen both of these cases. The men concerned appear somewhat nervous, but they are otherwise quite healthy and manly, and both deny that they feel any sexual inclination towards men. The desire to wear women’s clothing, and to feel as a woman, may also make its appearance as a morbid phenomenon later in life, in the form of the “delusion of sexual metamorphosis” (metamorphosis sexualis paranoica); or it may be artificially induced, as among the ancient Scythians and among the Mexican “mujerados.” These latter are selected as men originally most powerful, and entirely free from any feminine appearance, and by incessant riding on horseback and by excessive masturbation they are made impotent (through atrophy of the genital organs) and effeminate, so that there may even occur a secondary development of the breasts (Hammond). All this belongs to the category of pseudo-homosexuality.
With regard to numerous historical women-men and men-women—such as, for example, the celebrated Chevalier d’Eon, Mademoiselle de Maupin (immortalized by Gautier in the romance of this name), and many other women going about in men’s clothing, or men going about in women’s clothing—it is, as a rule, no longer possible to determine whether they were genuinely homosexual, pseudo-homosexual, or bisexual.
I regard, however, the interesting type of effeminate Parisian street-arab, described by Brouardel at the Second Congress of Criminal Anthropologists at Berlin in the year 1889, as characteristically and originally homosexual.
“At the age from twelve to sixteen years the lad is still small, grasps ideas very slowly, and has little will-power. At the time of puberty he has experienced an inhibition of development, and his bodily growth has remained stationary. The penis is thin and flaccid, the testicles are small, the pubic hair is scanty, the skin is smooth, and the beard is very thin; the skeleton does not develop fully, like that of the normal male; the pelvis becomes wide, and the general outlines of the body become rounded (potelées) because there is an undoubted deposit of fat in the subcutaneous tissues, so that the breasts also become enlarged.”
This state persists. Brouardel found it still present in individuals of twenty-five to thirty years of age. These children of great towns are characterized by intellectual sterility and by incapacity for procreation. This type is found also among the well-to-do middle classes, and from such, according to Brouardel, the décadents are recruited, while the effeminate gamins either become professional pæderasts, or undertake the preparation of articles de Paris.[569]
It is not difficult, in this description, to recognize true homosexuality.
Magnus Hirschfeld gives an account of a peculiar form of pseudo-homosexuality occurring in an individual who in ordinary life was asexual.[570]
The person concerned was an extremely effeminate and neurasthenic member of a spiritualistic club, who in his normal condition felt sensual attraction neither to woman nor to man, but who in the trance state felt himself to be an Indian woman, and then became inspired with an ardent passion for one of his fellow-members.
Also in chronic intoxications, especially in alcoholism, pseudo-homosexuality may make its appearance, in some cases as an enduring and in others as a transient condition.
An important category of pseudo-homosexuality is constituted by persons in whom it arises owing to insufficient opportunity for sexual intercourse with members of the opposite sex—as, for example, in the absence of women on board ship, in monasteries, in prisons for men, in the French foreign legion; and as regards lack of men in nunneries, and in the case of unmarried or unhappily married women, who supply a large contingent to pseudo-tribadism.[571] An account of pæderasty in prisons is given by Charles Perrier, “La Pédérastie en Prison” (Lyons, 1900).
In this category we must also mention the “debauchee pæderasts” for which truly existent kind of pseudo-homosexuals I propose the name of “anal masturbators.” These are heterosexual individuals in whom either primarily the anus plays the part of an erogenic zone, or in whom this region becomes erogenic in consequence of the exhaustion of all other varieties of sexual stimulus. Hammond, von Schrenck-Notzing, and Taxil have proved the existence of these anal masturbators and the frequent occurrence in them of pseudo-homosexual tendencies.[572]
An interesting phenomenon is the pseudo-homosexuality of female prostitutes. We certainly encounter among prostitutes a number of genuine tribades, who owe their adoption of professional prostitution to the existence of this original tendency to homosexual love, because in their relations with men the heart plays, and can play, no part (see above, [p. 434]). Prostitutes who are heterosexual by nature may become homosexual for two reasons: first, by intercourse with, and owing to the influence of, truly Lesbian associates, in whom the inward sense of solidarity possessed by all prostitutes is especially strong; in the second place, in consequence of the antipathy to intercourse with men, created by their experience of life, and striking always deeper roots, for they learn to know man only in his brutal sexual coarseness. The continuous compulsion to which they are subjected to satisfy the animal sensuality of worn-out roués by the most disgusting procedures ultimately produces in them the most unconquerable antipathy to the male sex, so that all the delicate sensibility of which they are capable is directed towards their own sex. The homosexual union appears to them, as Eulenburg rightly points out (“Sexual Neuropathy,” pp. 143, 144), to be something “higher, purer, and comparatively blameless.” They regard it in a more ideal light than sexual intercourse with men. Women owners of brothels also favour tribadistic love, because thereby they safeguard the prostitutes in their houses from the influence of souteneurs.[573]
As J. de Vaudère describes in his “Demi-Sexes,” pseudo-tribadism is especially diffused in Paris as a fashionable practice, and manifests itself here in the form described by Martineau,[574] of a temporary homosexuality, which is subserved by an extensive prostitution, and which clearly exhibits its pseudo-homosexual characteristics by its intermittent appearance in the form of spiritual epidemics.
Unquestionably we have to do with pseudo-homosexuality also in all those cases in which homosexual love makes its appearance as a national custom among a percentage widely exceeding the usual percentage of ordinary homosexuality. The typical example of this kind is the love of boys of ancient Greece—“pæderasty,” in the better sense of the word. Since in this work I am discussing the sexual life of the present day, I do not propose here to deal at length with this interesting topic, and must refer the reader to the second volume (in course of preparation) of my work on “The Origin of Syphilis,” in which I have discussed the subject at considerable length.
Since the Hellenic love of boys was a widely diffused custom, the origin of which may be directly referred to Crete, indirectly to the Orient, it is evident that only a fraction of the pæderasts can have been true homosexuals. The majority were pseudo-homosexuals. It is possible that the custom was first introduced by original homosexuals, and also that it was subsequently maintained by these. But soon it became a general practice for a man to regard his wife simply as a “procreative machine,” and to seek for true spiritual love from a youth. Since to the men of antiquity woman had no soul and no individuality, the love of boys appeared to them something natural and morally justifiable. It would, however, be completely unnatural if for the heterosexual community of our own time we wished to reintroduce the antique love of boys, since we modern men have learned that woman also has a soul; that she also has the same justification as man for the development of her human nature; that she can be, and ought to be, the object of individual, spiritual, profound love. I rejoice, that those who are fighting for the rights of the genuine congenital homosexuals, that men like Magnus Hirschfeld, Numa Prætorius, and other investigators, have recently expressed themselves in energetic terms as opposed to those whose aim is a sort of propaganda for the diffusion of the love of men among heterosexuals—whose endeavour it is, in fact, to introduce a formal cult of uranism. This movement can do nothing but harm to the just cause of homosexuals.
No one can prize more highly than I do myself a noble friendship between men, which at the present day is far too little practised;[575] no one can wish more heartily than I do that men could speak to one another of love, without being exposed to the suspicion of homosexuality.[576] In a certain sense I am in thorough agreement with the beautiful demonstrations of Heinrich Schurtz and Benedict Friedländer on masculine friendship as a normal fundamental impulse of humanity and as the foundation of social intercourse.[577] But this friendship between heterosexual men, based upon natural sympathy and community of occupation, has not the least sexual admixture, whereas only in the beautiful dialogues of Plato can the Greek love of boys, which some advocate at the present day, be ascribed to the spiritual Eros.[578] In reality, however, the Greek love of boys degenerated into the grossest sensuality, since the youth stimulated sexual desire like a woman, and was used as such,[579] so that the originally ideal character of the relationship disappeared.
In the Oriental love of boys[580] this ideal element was probably never present, and sensual relationships played the principal part from the very first. The boys’ brothels of the Mohammedan East were visited by heterosexual men just as much as by homosexuals. The same men derived pleasure from intercourse both with women and with boys. Bisexuality was in this case put into practice as a matter of course.
German civilization also passed through an epoch in which bisexual activities of feeling were clearly manifest in both sexes, without, however, leading at any time to the physical practice of pseudo-homosexuality. This remarkable period was the time of transition between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The “Sturm und Drang” had quieted down; its fiercely active forces had been controlled; its vigorous will had been pacified, and guided in concrete directions; its kinetic energy had in a sense become potential in two new formative and emotional tendencies of the time, which progressed side by side, and, notwithstanding all the differences between them, influenced one another mutually to a considerable extent—classicism and romanticism. Classicism, under the stimulating influence of Winckelmann, looked back to the “noble simplicity and quiet greatness” of the antique, to the beauty exhibited simply in form, whose wonder Goethe more than any other has made manifest to us. Romanticism, on the other hand, was the term employed to indicate the boundless enlargement and increasing profundity of the emotional life, of which the formless is especially characteristic. This appears most clearly in the work of Novalis, Tieck, and Wackenroder; but both tendencies meet in the sphere of the sexual. I need only mention the name of Winckelmann to indicate how markedly the purely æsthetic contemplation,[581] and the purely æsthetic enjoyment, of the beautiful human form must have favoured the development of homosexual modes of perception. We may in this connexion speak of the “Greek Renascence.” On the other hand, the romantic mood, the deepening of the individual life of feeling, the eternal searching for new, peculiar sensations, was very apt to awaken those activities of feeling slumbering so deeply beneath the threshold of consciousness, which we to-day denote by the term “bisexuality.” In Friedrich Schlegel’s “Lucinde,” for example, we find frequent allusions to this bisexual mode of perception, as in the place in which he speaks of a confusion of the masculine and feminine rôles in the love contest. When, in so much of the published “Correspondence” of this period, kisses, embraces, caresses, and tendernesses between two men or two women appear to fly to and fro, it may be that this is neither to be regarded as purely homosexual perception, nor as a simply conventional contemporary custom, but rather as the very characteristic expression of a tendency to bisexual imaginations and dreams induced by the hypertension, overdriving, and artificial increase, of the emotional life. Thus only, for example, can we explain the passionate profusion of tenderness which appears in many of the letters of Jean Paul, written by him to men; for Jean Paul was unquestionably heterosexual.[582]
The same is true of the women of this time. According to Welcker, the friendships of the women of the romantic period exhibited this character of a Platonic love. Since the dominion of romanticism “influenced emotional young men in very various ways, in more than one morally strict circle, two women friends were so inseparable and so indispensable to one another that those round them used sometimes to laugh at this amativeness, of which, however, a serious suspicion was impossible.”[583]
An interesting proof of the existence of pseudo-homosexuality among the women of that time is afforded by a passage[584] from a romance by Ernst Wagner (1760-1812), one of the scholars of Jean Paul. The book is entitled “Isidora,” and in it the Lesbian love-scene between the Princess Isidora and her friend Olympia is very plainly described, although both of them at the same time are passionately in love with men.
The last and not unimportant phenomenal form of pseudo-homosexuality is hermaphroditism. It is a remarkable fact that only in recent years has science attempted a serious study of hermaphroditic states, which previously, as Blumreich[585] points out, were to a large extent ignored, both as regards their social importance and their frequency. It was the great service of Neugebauer[586] and Magnus Hirschfeld[587] that they drew general attention to these remarkable sexual intermediate stages, and proved their eminent practical importance, which had previously been suspected by no one. How completely the matter had been ignored is proved by the remarkable fact that the new Civil Code for the German Empire completely ignores the juridical determinations of the former Prussian Civil Code regarding hermaphrodites, alleging that there existed no persons whose sex was indeterminate or indeterminable!
The so-called “true hermaphroditism”—the condition in which male and female reproductive glands (testicles and ovaries) are met with in a single individual—is one of the greatest rarities. By the investigations of Salen (1899), Garré-Simon (1903), and Ludwig Pick (1905), the existence of such individuals with mixed reproductive glands (“ovotestes”) has been proved as an actual fact. Walter Simon, in the one hundred and seventy-second volume of Virchow’s Archives, has described the rare case of true hermaphroditism observed by Garré. In a person twenty-one years of age, brought up as a man, and having thoroughly masculine feelings, there suddenly occurred, associated with swelling of the breasts (gynecomasty), monthly recurring hæmorrhages, proceeding from the supposed intertesticular fissure; also from time to time, associated with voluptuous erection of the penis, there was discharged whitish mucus, and the libidinous ideas connected with this discharge referred always to women. The physical structure and facial expression of this individual were feminine; the build of the thorax, the shoulders, and the shape of the arms exhibited male characteristics. In a right-sided swelling, resembling an inguinal hernia, were found a testicle-ovary (Ger. Hodeneierstock), an epididymis, a parovarium, a spermatic cord, and a Fallopian tube.
More frequent than these cases, in which naturally the determination of sex is practically impossible, are cases of pseudo-hermaphroditism, which also possess the greatest importance in connexion with the problem of pseudo-homosexuality. In these cases of pseudo-hermaphroditism the reproductive glands are, in fact, distinctively male or female, but the characteristics of the excretory organs and of the external genital organs do not enable us to determine the sex, for they are in part male, in part female, and in part completely undifferentiated, which is to be explained as dependent upon an incomplete or entirely wanting differentiation of the primitively identical rudiment of the external genital organs of the two sexes (inhibition of the processes of growth at some stage of development). Thus there arises pseudo-hermaphroditismus masculinus, in cases in which the genital fissure is not completely closed, so that the urethra possesses a fissure below (hypospadias); also the two halves of the scrotum may fail to join, so that a fissure is left between them, simulating a vaginal inlet. Since in these cases the testicles are commonly retained within the abdominal cavity, or else appear in the inguinal region, simulating an inguinal hernia, the penis is believed to be a kind of enlarged clitoris, and the individual is mistaken for a woman (erreur de sexe). If it further happens that, on account of the supposed inguinal hernia, the individual is ordered to wear, and continues to wear, a truss, the testicular tissue disappears completely as a result of pressure atrophy, and the correct diagnosis becomes more difficult than ever. I recently saw a case of this kind in a male hermaphrodite, twenty-two years of age, who had been brought up as a woman. He had, however, always felt attraction towards women, and, having a large membrum, he was able, notwithstanding the existence of hypospadias, to complete regular coitus. In the ejaculated semen the examining physician had not found any spermatozoa; but in this case the testicles had doubtless atrophied in consequence of the wearing of a truss. This pseudo-hermaphrodite has recently published the history of his upbringing as a “woman.” The work is of great interest from the psychological point of view, and is entitled “A Man’s Years as a Girl,” by “Nobody” (Berlin, 1907).
Where the reproductive glands are female there results a pseudo-hermaphroditismus femininus in cases in which the external genital organs of this female pseudo-hermaphrodite exhibit a certain similarity with the genital organs of the male—for example, when the clitoris is exceptionally large, and the labia majora have grown together, so that the vaginal inlet appears to be wanting. In this case also there may be a mistake in diagnosis, and, consequently, the individual having been educated as a man, apparent homosexuality may result when the natural sexual inclination towards the male manifests itself in due course.
In both varieties of pseudo-hermaphroditism there exist very various anatomical and physiological possibilities in respect of the relationship of the secondary sexual characters to the anatomical character of the reproductive glands, in respect of the menstrual equivalents in male pseudo-hermaphrodites, in respect of the relationship of the sexual impulse to the reproductive glands, in respect of the greater or less strength of the impulse, in respect of periodic genital hæmorrhages in male pseudo-hermaphrodites, in respect of possible sexual aberrations, etc. For more exact details I must refer the reader to the works of Neugebauer and Hirschfeld. Here I will only refer to a case described by the last-named author, of a male pseudo-hermaphrodite, forty years of age, Friderike S., who had been brought up as a “woman,” who at a very early age had exhibited an inclination towards women only, and an antipathy to sexual intercourse with men. In this individual a reproductive gland resembling a testicle could be detected, out of which there issued a structure resembling the spermatic cord. In the left inguinal canal was an atrophied reproductive gland of indeterminate character. The membrum was something between penis and clitoris. The labia majora and minora bounded a short cæcal vagina. Internal female reproductive organs could not be detected. On the other hand, there appeared to be a prostate gland. In the sexual secretion, which was discharged by a different opening from the urine, H. Friedenthal was able to detect very numerous completely normal spermatozoa, whereby the male character of this pseudo-woman was completely proved, and whereby also the alleged “homosexual” tendencies were now shown to be heterosexual.
[567] Cf. L. S. A. M. von Römer, “Regarding the Androgynous Idea of Life,” Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1903, vol. v., pp. 707-940.
[568] M. Hirschfeld, “The Theory and History of Bisexuality,” published in “The Nature of Love,” pp. 93-133 (Leipzig, 1895). Cf. also P. Näcke, “Some Psychiatric Experiences in Support of the Doctrine of Bisexual Vestiges in Mankind,” published in The Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1906, vol. viii., pp. 583-603.
[569] Cf. C. Lombroso, “Recent Advances in the Study of Criminality,” pp. 109-111 (Gera, 1899).
[570] M. Hirschfeld, “Berlin’s Third Sex,” p. 13.
[571] These pseudo-tribades, belonging mainly to the aristocracy and to the upper middle classes, are known in Parisian slang as “Sapphos,” in contrast to the genuine “Lesbian lovers.”
[572] Cf. my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. i., pp. 224-227.
[573] Cf. L. Martineau, “Leçons sur les Déformations Vulvaires et Anales,” p. 21 (Paris, 1885).
[574] Op. cit., pp. 29-31.
[575] Karl Gutzkow writes in a beautiful letter to Max Ring: “Our time is so separative, our hearts beat in so solitary a manner, and yet the need of intimate bonds is there, but who dares to tie them? Any intimate friendship formed between men in early youth disappears like dust before the wind. Then comes the love of woman, which fills the whole of our heart; then follows the care for material existence, which increases our egoism; and the danger that our heart will shrink makes its appearance all too soon. Who draws near to another human being? Who admits that he has need of others, and that his life is a life without love? We all suffer in this way; we should form warm friendships between man and man” (“Berlin in the Time of Reaction,” reminiscences by Max Ring, published in Deutsche Dichtung, 1898, vol. xxiii., pp. 51, 52).
[576] Such a noble love between men shines, for example, from the letters of Count Arthur Gobineau to Prince Philipp zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld. Cf. Prince zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld’s “Eine Erinnerung an Graf Arthur Gobineau,” especially pp. 22, 23 (Stuttgart, 1906).
[577] Cf. H. Schurtz, “Age Classes and Associations of Men” (Berlin, 1904); B. Friedländer, “Physiological Friendship as a Normal Fundamental Impulse of Humanity and as the Foundation of Social Intercourse,” in the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1900, vol. vi., pp. 179, 214; and the same author’s “Renascence of Eros Uranios,” pp. 163-211 (Berlin, 1904).
[578] O. Kiefer, “Plato’s Attitude towards Homosexuality,” Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1905, vol. vii., pp. 107-126. Cf. also “Lyrical and Bucolic Poetry,” op. cit., 1906, viii., pp. 619-684.
[579] This connexion was recognized, although in the inverse direction, by Heinrich Laube. In a passage of “Junge Europa” (vol. i., p. 72 of the new edition; Vienna, 1876) we read: “Constantia is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Outline, muscles, figure, eyes, speech, mind, feeling—everything in her is beautiful; she is the ideal of a man found in the feminine form. I love this power in woman above everything; the soft, the non-resisting, does not offer me enough opposition. Perhaps such women as these form the transition to the Hellenic love of boys.”
[580] Cf., in this connexion, also P. Näcke, “Homosexuality in the Orient,” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, 1904, vol. xvi., pp. 333 et seq.
[581] Goethe confirms this in a conversation with Chancellor von Müller, in which he deduces the “aberration” of Greek love from this, “that, according to his own æsthetic judgment, man has always been more beautiful, more perfect, more complete, than woman. Such a feeling, when it has once originated, easily passes over into the animal and the grossly material.” Cf. Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1905, vol. vii., p. 127.
[582] Especially instructive is his correspondence with Christian Otto (cf. “Jean Paul’s Correspondence with his Wife and with Christian Otto,” edited by Paul Nerrlich; Berlin, 1902). For example, he writes once to this friend: “Ah, my friend, if I could only once more clasp your form to my breast.” Cf. also the interesting remarks on the peculiarly intimate masculine friendship of this period given in the last (eighth) volume of the “German History” of Karl Lamprecht (Freiburg, 1906).
[583] F. G. Welcker, “The Odes of Sappho,” published in the Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, 1856, vol. xi., p. 237.
[584] I reproduce this passage in the eighth volume of The Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, pp. 609, 610.
[585] L. Blumreich, “Diseases of Women, including Sterility,” being chapter xx. of Senator and Kaminer’s “Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage and the Married State,” published by Rebman Limited (London, 1906).
[586] Franz Neugebauer, “Seventeen Cases of the Coincidence of Mental Anomalies with Pseudo-Hermaphroditism, selected from a Collection of Seven Hundred and Thirteen Observations of Pseudo-Hermaphroditism,” published in The Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, 1902, vol. ii., pp. 224-253; same author, “Interesting Observations in the Department of Pseudo-Hermaphroditism,” op. cit., 1902, vol. iv., pp. 1-176; same author, “Surgical Surprises in the Domain of Pseudo-Hermaphroditism, containing One Hundred and Thirty-four Observations of Cases, with Fifty-four Instances of Erroneous Determination of Sex, in most Cases proved by the Scalpel,” op. cit., 1903, vol. v., pp. 205-424; same author, “One Hundred and Three Observations of more or less marked Development of a Uterus in the Male (pseudohermaphroditismus masculinus internus), in addition to a Compilation of Observations of Regular Periodic Bleeding from the Genital Organs, Menstruation, Vicarious Menstruation, Pseudo-Menstruation, Molimina Menstrualia, etc., in Pseudo-Hermaphrodites,” op. cit., 1904, vol. vi., pp. 215-326; same author, “Compend of the Literature of Hermaphroditism in Human Beings,” op. cit., 1905, vol. vii., pp. 471-670, and 1906, vol. viii., pp. 685-700.
[587] Magnus Hirschfeld, “Sexual Links: Intermixture of Masculine and Feminine Sexual Characters (Sexual Intermediate Stages),” Leipzig, 1905.
CHAPTER XXI
ALGOLAGNIA (SADISM AND MASOCHISM)
“We must continually keep before our minds the fact that in no other department of life so much as in the sexual life do we find side by side, and closely associated each with the other, the noblest and the basest, the superhuman and the subhuman, because the finest and the deepest roots of our spiritual and bodily existence spring, for the most part, from this subsoil; and we must remember that man would not be able to sink so deep, far beneath the level of animality, if he had not first raised himself by his own powers, in conflict with Nature and with himself, through an immeasurable height of civilization.”—Albert Eulenburg.