III. Androgynes of Mythology and History.
The Third Sex.
Apollo is the pre-eminent androgyne god. He was always represented with a feminine face and coiffure, and therefore worshipped as the god of beauty.
In conformity with his semi-femininity, he was the life-giving and light-giving deity—both physical and figurative life and light. He was the leader of the muses—the spirits presiding over all human inspiration in the fine arts.
The artistic instinct—the poetic temperament, “sentimentality” in its highest sense—goes hand in hand with a rounding-off of the sharp corners of masculinity. Artistic or poetic decades have been conspicuous because of a semi-slumbering of fundamental masculine traits, that is, the instinctive relish for wrangling and war. The sterner sex has temporarily laid aside its primal fighting function ordained by Nature and become to some degree effeminate.
As a rule, abstract beauty’s devotees—“æsthetes” in the highest sense, that is: poets, novelists, painters, sculptors, and superior musicians—have been characterized by more or less effeminacy. They have been particularly prone to homosexuality. While among full-fledged males, the proportion that has achieved proficiency in one of the fine arts is something like one in a thousand, among androgynes (the two varieties combined), it has been one in about twenty. I will later point out that the pinnacle in poetry, sculpture, and painting has been achieved by androgynes.
Apollo.
But the feminesque Apollo was the god not only of beauty, but of adolescence—the period of life during which human beauty is at its culmination. He possessed eternal youth. He is even referred to as “the boy god.” Adoration of him sprang out of man’s delight in the semi-womansouled and quasi-womanbodied stripling just before arrival at puberty.
And ultra-androgynes remain—to a large extent—in that pre-puberty period down to thirty-five. Their development has been arrested. Full-fledged male associates absolutely ignorant of the existence of androgynism have described—in the author’s hearing—androgynes even close to fifty years old as “still mere boys.”
But an adolescent androgyne or boy god was also worshipped by the Semite nations (other than the Jews) under the name Ablu, and by the Celts under the name Maponus.
Philologists will recognize that “Apollo,” “Ablu,” “Maponus,” and “boy” are descended from the same vocable in the language used by the Asiatic tribe from which most of the civilized nations of the ancient and modern world derive. B is only a strengthened p; the liquid l has often been transmuted into the kindred n; and the diphthong oy indicates the elision of a liquid. We have here etymological evidence that an adolescent-androgyne deity was worshipped before the dawn of history.
To-day, among some primitive races, as the aborigines of America, androgynes are the central feature of the most sacred rites.
Hermaphroditos and Ganymede.
Hermaphroditos stands second among androgyne gods. The myth is that “he-she” was originally a full-fledged human adolescent and an entirely separate nymph in the full flower of feminine charm. The nymph, falling in love, besought Zeus that the adolescent and herself might be forever amalgamated. Excepting the pudenda, the body remained that of the nymph. The psyche became a compound of the masculine and the feminine. This myth was a poetic recognition of the existence, at the very dawn of history, of androgynes such as exist to-day.
A picture or statue of Hermaphroditos adorned nearly every Greek and Roman home of the better class. This was because the ancients held the androgyne in honor as the super-human—man and woman in one individual.
Ganymede ranks third.[[10]] Originally a human adolescent of extraordinary feminesque beauty, Zeus snatched him up into the heavenly zone and conferred immortality that the feminesque youth might be his cup-bearer. The latter’s statues represent him with a mademoiselle’s chevelure, hips, and legs, but with male breasts and pudenda. The fact that the father-god of the classic world entered into this most intimate |Socrates.| union partly explains why the androgyne was held in honor by the Greeks and Romans.
Socrates is the earliest historic character whom sexologists have declared an androgyne. For centuries, a common designation of male homosexuality has been “Socratic love.” In Plato’s “Dialogues,” Socrates is the teacher. His remarks of extreme affection to his youthful disciples are sickening even to me, though an androgyne myself. Present-day scholars who close their eyes to the facts of androgynism, who cling to mediæval sex ideas, and hence hold homosexuality to result from deep-eyed moral depravity, have denounced Socrates as the greatest moral leper that ever lived. But from Socrates’ own generation down through the nineteenth century, he was universally recognized as the greatest saint of the classic world.
That Socrates was a married man and father and wore a beard does not disprove the sexologists’ claim. The mildly androgynous—psychic hermaphrodites, like Oscar Wilde—occasionally marry and procreate; chiefly for social reasons, not from the sexual incentive. Secondly, the razor was practically unknown in Socrates’ generation. Even to-day, some of the less extreme androgynes wear a full beard because of horror of a razor.
One of the three charges on which Socrates was condemned to death was that he was “a corruptor of youth;” the identic charge that landed Oscar Wilde in prison. But neither of these geniuses ever corrupted any youth. The prevalent idea that the association of an older androgyne with a sexually full-fledged younger man corrupts the latter is absolutely groundless. The androgyne only benefits, in several ways, the adolescent |Plato.| whom he loves far more than a father loves an only son. Socrates’ two most brilliant disciples, Plato and Xenophon, wrote books, still extant, one of the purposes of which was defence of Socrates from the charge mentioned.
Plato, the St. Paul of the pagan classic world—as was its Jesus (Socrates)—was an androgyne. His voluminous “Dialogues”—one of the world’s two score of literary masterpieces—are permeated with homosexuality. In the Symposium, Plato confesses himself a homosexualist. In his day, homosexuality was not regarded a disgrace any more than heterosexuality. The charge against Socrates was largely a pretext, the politicians having to give some plausible reason for ridding themselves of him.
Plato’s falsetto voice—a common characteristic of androgynes—is commented on in writings of his day still extant. He never married nor procreated.
Alexander the Great has been adjudged by sexologists an androgyne of the mild type. He was the first prominent Greek to dispense with hirsute decorations. The probability is that he was naturally beardless. But in imitation of the genius and leader of their generation, all the men who wished to be somebody started to shave clean. Knowledge of the razor first became common in Greece because Alexander the Great happened to be congenitally beardless!
As a monarch, Alexander was compelled to espouse a woman. But he spent nearly all his married life absent from his legal spouse, and was incapable of procreation. All the evidence is that his real soul-mate was a young warrior of his entourage. The two were inseparable. His strange affection for other |Alexander the Great.| young men of his entourage is remarked by contemporaries. He bewailed the death of favorites in battle as only a wife can mourn a husband.
Androgynes, because they possess the feminine psyche in greater or less degree, are generally very much opposed to war. But it is possible for a less extreme androgyne—of the psychic hermaphrodite type—to be a great general when the leadership of armies is thrust upon him. Genius occurs far oftener in connection with androgynism than with full-fledged masculinity. The rare keenness of mind of an androgyne like Alexander would enable him to plan successful campaigns. But his feminine cowardice would always keep him far from the battle-front, where there was no danger of a hair of his head ever being touched. And that is what happened with Alexander. Above all things else, he was a sybarite.
Androgynes, though never mixing in a fight themselves, are particularly attracted toward the war-loving “hero.” Much more than half of my own associates during my female-impersonation sprees belonged to a profession whose object was to kill their fellow man. For almost twenty years of my “youngmanhood,” I was an habitué of barracks, etc., and a worshipper of swords and rifles, although I would have been horrified if required to take them into my own hands. I have known other androgynes whose female-impersonation sprees were staged before professional common soldiers. A young androgyne acquaintance actually enlisted in the hospital corps in the war with Germany because he wished to be surrounded continually with warriors—the type of manhood which androgynes in general most servilely worship. Walt Whitman is |Julius Cæsar.| celebrated for his work among the wounded in America’s War of the Rebellion. I read in a medical journal that during the World War, a problem with the Italian army heads was to debar androgynes, who were said to demoralize the army because of their cowardice and seductive influence on their sexually full-fledged comrades. I heard of an androgyne who received a dishonorable discharge from the American conscript army because wrongly judged to be the incarnation of deepdyed moral depravity.
Perhaps the reason why Alexander and the next mild androgyne to be described were two out of the three greatest generals and conquerors of history was their craze to pass practically all their adult lives surrounded by warriors!
Alexander the Great
(Ancient Coin)
Julius Cæsar
(Bust in Louvre)
Julius Cæsar has been adjudged by sexologists an androgyne of the mild type. He married, as social custom demanded of aristocratic Romans, but spent nearly all his wedded life absent from his legal spouse. His offspring is said to have consisted only of a single daughter. History says he had a son by Cleopatra. But this is doubtful because that queen was every man’s wife. But even if Cæsar had offspring, he would merely be proved a psychic hermaphrodite.
Cæsar was always clean-shaven, if not naturally beardless. He even had his body depilated—as is customary to-day with “fairies.” Like the latter also, he was, in dress, notoriously fussy and feminine—in order to prove attractive to his lieutenants. He was an instinctive female-impersonator. His entourage were accustomed to refer to him as “the queen.” Of all historic characters, Cæsar excels in respect to the sensational stories of homosexual excesses found in contemporary authors still extant.
Cæsar was a great conqueror merely because circumstances, largely beyond his control, placed him at the head of an army. As in the case of Alexander, Cæsar’s genius enabled him to plan successful campaigns. Others, however, had to expose life and limb, while he kept himself safe in the rear passing his days and nights as an extreme voluptuary.
Michelangelo.
Michelangelo, with the renaissance of civilization after the Dark Ages, heads the list of the mildly androgynous. He never married or was known to have a mistress. He left behind many hitherto unpublished homosexual sonnets of such merit that his nephew-executor gave them to the world after radical expurgation. Angelo’s statues and paintings are pre-eminent in their consummate, although sensual, outlines of the nude adult male, the principal subject of his art. His statues of the nude youthful Bacchus, Cupid, and David of his middle twenties point the direction of his sexuality. Before thirty he also produced the picture, “The Battle of Cascina,” 288 square feet crowded with |Raphael.| nude male figures. His favorite Greek sculpture was a statue of Hercules.
Raphael was an ultra-androgyne. He was always beardless (probably natural) and boylike in appearance. Instead of choosing a Roman mademoiselle to be mistress of his mansion in the then most aristocratic residence district of the world, he took two young men to live with him as “sons”,—a common practice with well-to-do twentieth century androgynes.
Raphael, the Most Gifted Ultra-Androgyne the World Has Known
The Shakespeare-Author was an androgyne. The proof lies in the numerous homosexual passages of his sonnets. The authorship of the Shakespeare |The Shakespeare-Author.| literature is still undetermined after close to three hundred publications on this question. If Providence grants me time, I will finally prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, by the homosexual argument original with myself, that Francis Bacon was the Shakespeare-author. I give below an outline of my proposed thesis.
The young actor, Shakespeare, was a tremendously virile male, but estranged from his wife and living apart during most of his married life. Bacon was an androgyne several years older than Shakespeare. He married only in middle life and solely for money. He was a great statesman, but sorely in need of money to meet his extravagant tastes. Apparently he was incapable of procreation. Both men lived in London, and were at least acquaintances, during the dozen years which saw the creation of the Shakespeare literature.
Bacon was the foremost scholar and one of the foremost statesmen of his generation. He and the Shakespeare-author are recognized to-day as two out of the three greatest intellects which have ever blossomed forth in England—even by those who deny the identity of the two, and hand the palm of Shakespeare-author to the obscure actor, Shakespeare.
Numerous literateurs believe that evidence exists that the incomparable Bacon’s fad was writing plays, the theatre in his day being comparatively a new craze (that is, for modern times)—as are the “movies” in the first quarter of the twentieth century. It would then have been regarded as incongruous for the dignified statesman, Bacon, to write plays as for an expresident of the United States to-day to write scenarios |The Shakespeare Problem.| for the “movies.” Through covering his authorship, Bacon was spared the jests of his upper-crust entourage.
Whatever credit, too, the plays had, Bacon would wish his adored soul-mate to reap—just as the present writer has sacrificed his own interests fundamentally that his soul-mate might be benefited. But if Bacon had thought the Shakespeare literature would survive his own generation, he would doubtless, on his deathbed, have confessed himself its author. But even for many years after his death, everybody considered it would be forgotten by man as soon as the shredded leaves of the first printing were thrown into the fire place.
Another reason why Bacon would never confess his authorship is that in his age the law condemned to burial alive any one guilty of such homosexual sentiments as he was constrained, by passion, to express in the “Shakespeare” sonnets.
Francis Bacon published extensively under his own name. He published extensively—as a large body of literateurs believe—under the name of “William Shakespeare.” Just as the present writer has quite a number of publications under his legal name, and a number under the name “Ralph Werther—Jennie June.” And no one suspects the identity of the two present-day authors.
The actual Shakespeare—behind whose skirts Bacon hid—was, down to his death, only an obscure actor, not known personally to any writer of his own generation except (by supposition) Bacon. The actor Shakespeare has achieved immortality through having been Bacon’s soul-mate.
Walt Whitman.
Walt Whitman stands foremost among American androgynes. But he was of the mild type. Many passages of Leaves of Grass and Drumtaps exist as proof. He never married, although closely pursued by even wealthy women desiring him as husband. In middle age he spent his hours for recreation in the society of adolescents—as I was informed by Whitman’s so-called “adopted son”. That is, he courted them, as a normal man courts a woman. Chance made me intimate with the “adopted son” in his seventies. All three of us happened to belong to New York City.
Surely we androgynes, who for two thousand years have been despised, hunted down, and crushed under the heel of normal men because they have misunderstood biblical condemnations of homosexuality, have no reason to be ashamed of our heritage. America’s foremost poet; the world’s greatest sculptor subsequently to Athens’ golden age; the two greatest ethicists and two out of the three greatest intellects of ancient Greece and Rome; two out of the three greatest conquerors of history; the greatest painter of all ages; and—to cap the climax—the greatest intellect that the English-speaking world ever produced and the greatest literary genius of all time (these two distinctions united in Francis Bacon)—ALL WERE ANDROGYNES.[[11]]
And to you full-fledged males I say: “What God hath cleansed [through endowment with sublime talents] call not ye ‘Unclean!’”