IV
Description of Don Juan Types who are satisfied with conquest and forego physical possession—An unlucky Hero, whose love adventures are interfered with by Gastric Derangements—A would-be Messalina who hesitates on account of vomiting spells—Influence of Religion on Neurosis.
Ich wüsste kaum noch etwas Anderes geltend zu machen, das dermassen zerstörrisch der Gesundheit und Rassenkräftigkeit, namentlich der Europäer zugesetzt hat als das asketische Ideal; man darf es ohne Übertreibung das eigentliche Verhängniss in der Gesundheitsgeschichte des europäischen Menschen nennen.
Nietzsche.
IV
I know hardly what other factor could be held so harmful to the health and racial vigor of European peoples, as the ascetic ideal; without exaggeration this must be looked upon as the striking fatality in the health history of the European.
Nietzsche.
We have spoken thus far of the active Don Juan and of Messalina types and we have attempted to prove that homosexuality is responsible. Along the extreme types we find endless varieties of transitional types. Nature nowhere confounds us through the richness of her varieties and combinations so much as in the manifestations of human sexuality.
The would-be Don Juan and would-be Messalina are most interesting types. They behave precisely like the true type. They manifest the same uncontrollable and restless craving. But somewhere in their development the capacity to carry out heterosexual adventures fails them. I am not now speaking of the man who plays Don Juan in his mind’s fancy or of the Messalina who does not truly possess the courage to try to live up to her instinctive cravings. There are numberless such cases and a bit of the type lurks in the breast of every person, a fact we recognize as the polygamic tendency.
The type which I wish to describe approaches the ascetic. It is plain that the ascetic ideal would not arise if a strong homosexual tendency did not depreciate heterosexuality. For every action is the product of instinct and repression. An overpowerful instinct may overcome even the strongest inhibitions. But if a portion of the individual’s sexual energy is anchored homosexually the aggressive sexual acts are endowed only with a portion of the energy they require. If the energy is shunted off its proper track entirely we have the ascetic person; and if the energy is but partially side-tracked and is insufficient for the accomplishment of the sexual aim, we have the would-be Don Juan type.
There are any number of men who daily dream only of their possible conquests, begin adventures, and carry them along for a time only to drop the affairs suddenly ... because they “get cold feet.” They envy men who are able to pursue their adventures to the end, men fortunate enough actually to make conquests and they bewail the fate which brings them so close to the most tempting fruit only to prove elusive just when the fruit seems ready to fall into their lap,—and to be gone forever. Better than all generalizations may serve the account of an actual case, like the following:
Mr. Xaver Z., would like to be a “lively fellow,” like most of his companions. He claims that his shyness spoils his success. He is 29 years old and has never yet had a “real” affair. When he wakes up in the morning he thinks: “Will you have luck today to talk up to a girl and get her?” The whole day he thinks of this so that he is continually distracted and unable to work. He is also dissatisfied with his business accomplishments. Others work so easily and accomplish everything without friction, he is slow and not energetic enough. He thinks that somehow he lacks initiative. He is always tired and depressed, and he has already been in sanitaria several times vainly trying to get well. He can hardly wait for evening to arrive so he may go into the street in search of adventure. He speaks to a number of girls but nothing comes of it. He has also tried a “personal” in the newspaper and corresponds with several women. But they are only platonic relations. He either lacks the courage to become more intimate with the women or finds himself repulsed when making a suggestion of the kind. He thinks he is unlike other men and it discourages him. He always feels lonely and Sundays are a torture to him. He tries to meet poor people and pays them occasionally to partake of an evening meal with them so as not to feel quite so lonely.
He is a travelling salesman. He fears that he is not an efficient salesman. He lacks the power of influencing his prospective customers, he seems unable to talk as convincingly to them as other men in his calling. He acts indifferent and if he sees that the customer does not intend to buy he goes right off. He is employed by an older brother. He is lucky. Another employer would have dismissed him long ago. While his brother does not reproach him in words he can read it in the brother’s eyes.
Regarding his sexual life he is able to state that sexual matters began early to interest him. He does not remember the beginning of it. He does remember that he masturbated at 10 years of age and he continued the practice till he was 20 years old. Then he heard about the evil consequences and gradually gave it up. But even after that he masturbated every two months or so and always felt very worried after doing it.
He began going to women at twenty years of age. Since that time he has intercourse about once every two weeks with prostitutes, or occasionally with some girl whom he picks up on the street and who usually expects pay; he is strongly potent. He has no particular pleasure with prostitutes. He goes to them out of a sense of duty because all his colleagues have intercourse with women and he wants to be like them. It is a hygienic measure rather than an inner compulsion with him. But he always fancies that, under the right conditions, when the girl gives herself out of love, it must be different. He felt so dissatisfied because he was never lucky enough to have a real sweetheart. For the girls he picked up on the street were really nothing more than ordinary prostitutes since they, too, expect some present if not regular pay.
He was distinctly unlucky. Other young men were always lucky but he, quite the contrary. There must be something about him that makes persons keep away when they get to know him more intimately.
If these complaints are looked upon as true facts one would really think that the young man was unlucky. But as a matter of fact he himself lays the foundation for his lack of luck, he alone spreads the bed in which he is to lie. He is a Don Juan who carries on flawlessly the first part of his adventures; it is only when he tries to bring the adventures to a head that his luck fails him and then the expected conquest turns into a deception.[21]
It appears that he has actually brought many of his adventures to a crisis only to withdraw at the supreme moment on the score of some triviality or other. These occurrences are all alike except that the alleged motives for breaking up the adventure differ in every case. Perhaps it will be best to mention his last adventure as an example, for it is particularly typical:
It was Sunday. Xaver felt again very lonely and neglected and went out looking for a girl. An old friend whom he was to meet at a certain place he neglected to look up. Today he must succeed. He is tired of loneliness and neglect. Today he will get a girl. He makes a few attempts but in each case he finds the girl expects pay and that does not suit him. Finally he sees passing by a fine, sinewy, supple figure. He hurries after it—she is an elegant, attractive woman. He speaks up, telling her in one breath that she must not be angry, his intentions are “entirely honorable.” He merely feels lonely and would like to spend the evening in pleasant company. The woman is not prudish, she permits him to accompany her and confesses that she, too, is lonely and feels terribly depressed. He now worries because he promised her “an honorable acquaintance” and during the walk tries to make up his mind whether he ought not to change his tactics. It begins to rain. They enter a Café where they listen to some music; then they go to a restaurant for dinner. He shows himself very gallant, pays all expenses and conducts her home. The woman tells him she has a telephone, as she conducts a little business and suggests that he may call her up. They agree to meet the following Sunday and spend their time together. During the week he plans a line of attack and decides to put an end to his shyness and come with her to the real object.... He calls her up, they decide to go to the Opera together and then to a late supper. On Sunday forenoon he purchases the tickets and intends to put them at her disposal. Suddenly the thought strikes him, he ought to give up the relationship. He sends the spare ticket to a friend and telephones the woman that some of his relatives having arrived unexpectedly he cannot go to the Opera. Afterwards he is unhappy over it, etc.
The friend was otherwise engaged, he remained alone, the ticket was wasted. He worried considerably over the matter and returned home feeling sad. When I pointed out to him next day that he really fled from the girl, he shook his head and said his sister was really responsible because “I told her everything and asked her what I should do. Sister said: ‘she is pulling your leg, it will cost you money and nothing will come of it.’”
“Do you tell your sister these things?”
“Certainly. We speak very frankly about all sexual matters. Sister has started the custom and I find it natural. Why should I not advise with sister?”
I explain to him that he expected her to turn him against the adventure, that he was really afraid of the relationship and its possible consequences. I show that the friend was more to him than the woman and that the sending of the ticket to him meant: my friend is more important to me than a woman!
I have occasion to prove again and again that he paves the way for his failures very adroitly and sometimes tactlessly because while acting the role of a “lively” man he wants at the same time to preserve his inner attitude. The initial stage of conquest satisfies him and thereafter he voluntarily renounces to its consummation.
That he vehemently denies,—he knows absolutely nothing about any homosexual leaning! He declares he would be right if he could only have the right kind of a love affair. He is continually looking for it. It was really unbelievable to hear how many adventures he was able to start in the course of a week. He was a handsome interesting man and found no trouble conquering women’s hearts. But he always managed affairs so as to break them up before they went too far. At the last moment he always thought of something or other which prevented consummation of the adventure.
This was shown typically one New Year’s day. A woman from a distance, with whom he was in correspondence—they had also exchanged their photographs—invited herself for that evening. He was to meet her at the train and they were to celebrate the New Year’s together. He went to the station but missed her because he “waited at the wrong place.” Next day he succeeded in tracing her. Naturally she was angry by that time; then, thinking to make up with her he proposed on the spot to take the woman to a hotel with him. Naturally she resented the insult and made him scurry out of her presence. He had provoked this precipitate dismissal by his sudden proposal. He managed things so that every promising victory turned into a defeat in the end.
He was late at his appointments or showed himself overanxious and even coarse at the last moment, when the situation was most delicate, or made some uncalled-for remark. Thus, to one girl who was already on the way to a hotel with him he said: “Ah, all women are alike, they all run after men and when they catch one they are happy!” She looked at him with lifted brows: “Is that what you think of a girl who goes with you? Then I want to have nothing to do with you ...” and turning around she walked off.
That does not prevent him from running again after girls; he even accosts married women on the street but he always complains about his poor luck. At the same time his sexual desire is not excessive. His physical requirements never cause him any uneasiness. It is a psychic urge that drives him to seek women. At the same time he longs for friends but then, such friends as he seeks are also not to be found. Only the last friend was such a one because “he understood him.” They went to brothels together. That was the first time he experienced a really strong orgasm. We know this custom on the part of men to be a convenient mask for homosexuality.
The motives of his conduct are revealed in a dream which throws considerable light on the significance of homosexuality.
We have recognized for some time that this is a case of latent homosexuality, repressed on the negative principle of aversion.
Xaver speaks incessantly of women, thinks of them all day long, so as to avoid thinking of men. He tries to lean on women, but never becomes intimate with them because the negative force that drives him is not powerful enough. The better woman is for him a “noli me tangere,” he suffers from an inhibition which keeps him from every woman who is not paid. The prostitute is not considered a woman and, besides, her charm is increased by the fact that she has intercourse with other men. Through her it is therefore possible to give an outlet to a portion of the homosexual tendency.
We shall now turn our attention to his dream. Naecke[22] justly remarks that the dream is the best reagent for homosexuality. Unfortunately he was not familiar at the time with the revelations of dream analysis and he paid attention only to the manifest content. How much richer in meaning the dream shows itself when we learn to read it and to interpret its hidden symbolism.
The Dream:
I am pursued by men and fear they are about to do something to me. One man in particular, brandishing a big sword, is very hotly on my trail and already he touches me from behind with the tip edge of his sword, a curved thing like the Yatagan used by Turks. I run to the cemetery to mother’s grave. I find there my cousin (female) who is also afraid of the robbers. First we try to hide, then we look around carefully and see that the coast is clear. We leave the cemetery together in a carriage and we drive upon an endless dark road. I snuggle up to her, as if for protection against the robbers and I am ashamed of my unmanly attitude.
Of course it is not proper to conclude that a dreamer is homosexual merely because the dream carries a homosexual meaning. For, as I have shown in my Language of Dreams, every dream is bisexual, consequently homosexual traits may be found in every dream. The dream only portrays once more man’s bisexual nature and even the dreams of homosexuals are, without exception, bisexual. We see through them merely the degree of the repressed homosexuality and the dreams enable us to recognize more easily the motives which impell the subjects to adopt a monosexual path....[23]
This dream begins with a typical portrayal of a homosexual pursuit. The subject is really pursued by his homosexual thoughts. The great curved sword is a well-known phallic symbol. That the sword touches him from behind is something easily interpreted. Equally obvious is the reason why the sword appears curved when we learn that his brother has a hypospadia and a phallus of that shape so that medical advice was even sought on the matter. The pursuer had a big heavy beard exactly like his brother and the same figure. Thus we see that the brother, who stands out of the mass of pursuing males, in a certain measure typifies the homosexual pursuit.
He flies to his mother’s grave in the cemetery. His mother shall save him from homosexuality. She, the representative of femininity, is the one to whom he flies, when pursued by men. The cousin is the wife of another brother. She represents the typical incest compromise. Many neurotics who are emotionally fixed upon their family, finally marry a cousin. The cousin, whom he finds at the grave, is his savior and he starts with her upon the dark path of life, a half man....
He tells that he was to marry the woman but she became instead his brother’s wife because he kept hesitating and would not make up his mind. But he had the fancy that he could be her sweetheart. He is specially fond of his brothers’ wives and his sisters.... He has numberless phantasies revolving around incestuous deeds. His two sisters also figure in these day dreams.... He grew accustomed to talk over sexual matter with his sister not without reason. He tells her all his adventures with preconceived watchfulness. Thus he told her also of the late acquaintance, as mentioned above, and was advised, as she had previously advised him in a number of similar instances, to keep away. Unconsciously he was awaiting from her the reply: Why go out of your way? Why seek in other women what you can find in me? ...
We understand now the inhibition which stands between him and women of “the better class.” The latter stand for the sister and the mother. The incest taboo is what stands in his way. He looks for a true adventure but cannot find it. He looks for his sister and he looks for the man. His brothers’ wives are the objects of his jealousy and his yearning at the same time. With his questions and problems he goes to his sisters-in-law, never to his brothers. His conscience is uneasy with regard to his brothers. In their presence he is always timid and ill at ease. He is in love with his older brother though he does not acknowledge the fact to himself. His brother’s strength and energy rouse his admiration. Occasionally his brother sang. The voice lingers in his ears so sweetly that he declares his brother to be the best singer in the world. He feels that his brother neglects him. The brother does not seem to notice how ill he is or how much he suffers. Once he was quite a jolly fellow but now (since giving up masturbation) he is mostly depressed. But the brother takes no notice of it and never asks him how he feels or how it goes with his health. If he only could quit his brother’s business! He belittles himself in order to cling to the brother more lovingly. He could not endure being away from his brother. He does poorly during his business trips because it is against his wish to travel at all and because he is jealous of his brother’s large business.
His attitude towards the second brother, who was his playmate in childhood, is even more tense. He never visits that brother and when he cannot avoid meeting him has but little to say. He shows that peculiar uneasiness towards the brother which persons manifest when they try to cover a certain erotic attitude.
The following characteristic dream may be instructive at this point:
I am in my brother’s store ... He puts before me an assortment of underwear to mark up. I refuse to do it and step out of the store saying: “Brother can kiss me....”
His brother advised him to get married. This is the incentive to the dream language “underwear to be marked.” But he loves only his brother. The remark, “er kann mich gern haben,” (equivalent to the colloquialism, “he can kiss me,” and its more vulgar variants) plainly embodies a reference to a sexual act.
Incidentally anal irritation is one of his strongest paraphilias. He suffers more or less continually of “anal itching,” which is at times so unbearable that he cannot sleep. He consulted for this complaint a physician who found no local trouble and who declared that it was merely a “nervous” itching.
The fact is this subject is now on the point of becoming a homosexual. Some precipitating occasion and his homosexuality is bound to become manifest. His last friend is dearer to him than all the girls.... This is shown clearly by the fact that he sent him the ticket which he had bought for his lady friend. A portion of the hidden impulse had broken forth on that occasion. Usually he covers his homosexual leanings very cleverly. His friends and colleagues at the office think he is a lucky Don Juan and have no idea that he never enjoys the ultimate advantage of the role he plays. They see him always in the company of girls, always going around with pretty women; he runs after them on the street, he goes to public places with them; at the office he speaks of nothing else but his conquests and new adventures.
But not to his brothers. He never mentions any sexual matters especially in the presence of his younger brother, the one who was his playmate in childhood.
The analysis did not last long. But during the very first few weeks there came to light experiences with this brother which explained the subject’s reticence.
Considering the remarkable fact that Xaver was animated by the desire to be a regular Don Juan we have something with which to contrast the extent of his moral qualms. For a long time he was very pious and then all of a sudden he turned into a free thinker. Analysis discloses that his religious piety still persists undiminished. Don Juan stands to his mind only for the unreachable ideal of a free man, a man undisturbed in his actions by any inhibitory feelings. But he invariably hears an inner voice calling to him, at the last, supreme moment of action: Don’t! It is sinful.
It is the voice of his mother, who never failed to dwell on moral themes, who warned him against the dangers of the big City, his mother whom he so loved and honored. How often his dreams lead him to the cemetery where his mother lies buried, as if to conjure up before his eyes the dear image and to remind him to avoid all evil and to follow in the Lord’s righteous path!
This case illustrates the significant role of family environment in the genesis of that homosexuality which Hirschfeld calls genuine. We find a fixation upon the sisters, also a fixation upon the mother, and the passionate love for the brothers, particularly for the older one, with whose wife he sees himself driving off in a dream. That cousin really stands for his brother. Through her union with his brother she had acquired a new attraction for him. Before her marriage he was rather indifferent towards her. The homosexual experiences with his younger brother date back to his 16th year.
His craving for love affairs, the impulsion to women, was but a flight away from the pursuit of man.
The next patient shows an entirely different constellation. Whereas Xaver was clever enough to free himself from the terrible women through his peculiar tactlessness, the following subject reassured himself by conjuring up an ailment which became very troublesome, it is true, but which proved an effective means of defence.
Mr. Christoph—we shall designate the subject by that name—is a victim of chronic stomach trouble which, according to the opinion of various physicians, is of a nervous origin. He has attacks of sharp gastric pains, and loss of appetite so that he has grown very thin and looks like an advanced victim of consumption. (Lungs and all other organs are in excellent condition.) He cannot digest any meat, any attempt to do so produces intense pain, and if he swallows so much as a mouthful he is likely to vomit. He denies that he ever masturbated, and claims that his sexual life is entirely normal. Formerly he was in the habit of going around with girls, but it gave him no pleasure, probably because prostitutes are disgusting to him, and with other girls he did not care to become too intimate for ethical reasons. He would like to be hypnotized so that he should be cured of his aversion to food. I decline hypnosis and advise, instead, a complete analysis. Only in that way may he learn the way to a complete cure. He insists he has not withheld anything in his talk with me. He has told me everything and wants hypnosis by all means but this I refuse.
He says he will think it over. My questions took him by surprise. He was unprepared. He is one of those men who have to think matters over and don’t make up their mind in a hurry. One of his rules through which he learned to protect himself against life’s sudden perplexities is: “Don’t lose your head. Think it over.”
He calls a few times continually talking about his pains. One day he states that he has about made up his mind to quit. But next day he returns and brings me a lengthy written document: “You have asked me repeatedly about my dreams. I have written down my last night’s dreams. I always dream a lot and my dreams are always lively and about like those of last night. I have also brought along my true confessions to let you know what I really am. You will see from the confession of my life history what brought about my illness. I see I cannot get along any more trying to keep it all to myself. Let the truth come out.”
I am now giving this life history as it was presented to me in writing, following it up with the dream report.
The Story of My Illness and My Biography
I lived in the parental home up to my 4th year and then I was taken in charge by my mother’s people. My father’s business compelled him to be away from home for months, sometimes for a whole year at a stretch. My grandparents brought me up with much tenderness, and as they were very religious, my education was also based on piety. They lived in a very prettily situated village, an old, lovely resort place. The river flowing nearby was naturally the meeting place for us children. On account of the danger of drowning I was an object of great concern to my grandparents, so that they tried to keep me close to them as much as possible. I went with them to church daily, visited with them, usually at the homes of elderly people where the conversation was almost exclusively about religious matters, and on every occasion it was drilled into me under the most terrible threats and admonitions to pray and be good.
I heard numerous stories of deeds and miracles attributed to the Holy Mother and I was shown the places where some of these took place in the neighborhood.
Then I returned to mother. Soon afterwards I went to school. Sister taught me the primer and soon I was able to go through my favorite book, an old large copy of the Bible, whereas formerly I depended on questioning others.
Frequently I gave up all games preferring to sit in a corner poring over my Bible. It is customary in the country to undergo a public examination in the church every half year. My sister two and one half years older than I prepared herself for that event for some time because she did not learn easily. I followed her study carefully and was able to recite everything as well as she.
The examination came up at the church and no one could answer a certain question. But I knew the answer, because it was part of sister’s lesson, made signs, the vicar asked me and I surprised everybody by giving the correct answer. It was the prayer, “Our Father.” My folks admired me for it, gave me presents and said: “Boy, you will grow up to be a fine man.” This praise touched me very deeply.
I was about seven and a half when a girl of twelve induced me to join her in forbidden games, we played with each other’s genitals, etc. This occurred very often. I liked it very much and the experience became deeply imprinted on my mind. Then I felt a strong desire to repeat the same games with other girls. My mother’s sister visited us about a year later and while she caressed me she roused in me a new feeling and I could hardly refrain myself from asking her to play with me the games that the first girl had taught me.
Beginning with the third year of school we had a new teacher. He took notice of me early because I was a good scholar and soon I became one of his favorite pupils. This teacher had the horrible habit of calling me to his desk where he held me by the member until it became stiff, while talking to me. I wondered a great deal what it meant; but I did not dare mention it to any one.
At the end of that school year we removed to Vienna permanently. I was tremendously homesick for the old place; the coolness and indifference of the new surroundings at Vienna affected me and secretly I resolved that I would rather starve than stay there. I was threatened that I would not be allowed to visit the old home if I did not make progress and I would be sent to a sanitarium; the last threat in particular scared me especially as I was shown some (false) papers to indicate that the first steps had already been taken to have me interned. That and the perpetual anxiety at school where we had a queer teacher who mistreated horribly the pupils (and I did not know a word of German at the time), had a serious effect upon me; my physical condition was impaired, I grew thin and lived in a sort of dream state. During my solitude I often sought relief in tears.
I lived through the period. In two years, here too, I reached one of the first places as a scholar. I had a colleague at school, whose sixteen-year-old brother was compelled to stay at home for a year on account of illness and we played with him. The two initiated me into all sorts of nasty practices. The brothers slept together in one bed, underneath their parents, and had frequent opportunity to see their parents lying together. They always told me about it and showed me their mother’s stained shirt. This impressed me very much and I also began to watch my parents. Till my twelfth year I slept in one bed with my sister. Then I slept near mother in bed, as father was mostly away.
My fancies grew to such unhealthy dimensions, that I began to think my uncle, mother’s brother, who was living with us at the time, was guilty of criminal intimacy with her. Slowly my suspicions were allayed, as I could observe nothing out of the ordinary, despite watchfulness.
Around thirteen a school boy taught me to masturbate. I did not do it often because I feared it was sinful and it kept me in continuous anxiety. Then a book fell into my hands describing the terrible consequences of the habit. That scared me off completely, and as a positive protection, when I was about fourteen and a half I swore over grandfather’s grave that I would have nothing to do with sexual matters till my twentieth year. I suffered a great deal in consequence on account of my pent-up desires. But I was fairly faithful to my oath.
At fourteen I joined a higher institution. My preparation was far below that of my colleagues and one of the teachers warned me that I might not be able to keep up with the course at that institution. That worried me a great deal. It affected me considerably to think that in this way I might be hampered in the free choice of a vocation.
At the first examination it turned out that only I and one other student passed successfully and I looked upon that as a divine favor, the more so because my very affectionate grandmother prayed for me continually.
I was permitted to take the course on condition that I should earn for myself remission of the school fees, which amounted to a considerable sum. Only the best scholars received free tuition. I plunged zealously into the subjects on which my preliminary preparation was weak.
My thrifty zeal was not flawless. I was always confident that God was with me and I thought that I owed to his intervention, rather than to my constant application the position of a scholar of the first rank which I had attained in two years’ time.
During that period I came again into contact with that girl who was the first to initiate me into sexual matters. Her presence continually disturbed me.
When I was about seventeen and a half I had some innocent love affairs with some other girls, but although opportunities for coitus were frequent, I never took advantage of them. Reason: my fear of immoral deeds.
I slept with my sister and a girl cousin in one room. I concentrated my attention upon the girl cousin. The frequent allurements kept me in a continuous state of agitation the more so because I could see that the cousin, too, had to struggle hard to suppress her inclinations and desires. I withstood all temptation and remained innocent.
Towards the end of the school years I came into closer contact with a girl who had already previously attracted my attention. We became deeply interested in one another, but we could meet only occasionally and that under very strict conditions. We had to part in the end; as I really loved the girl it made me suffer a great deal. During the occasions when we did steal away to our secret trysting place I felt a peculiar excitation which settled on my stomach; if I ate it caused me nausea.
After completing my course of study I entered the employ of a local business house. I became acquainted with another girl, and strange enough, we two also had to overcome considerable difficulties when we tried to meet. After about a year we could meet freely and shortly after there were no more difficulties in our way. But I lost interest in her by that time, and decided that I would have nothing to do with any such foolish love affairs.
Whereas formerly I was kept back from any thought of coitus with a decent girl because I considered it an unworthy and dishonorable act, now whenever I was about to meet a girl I was seized with a gastric discomfort and even vomiting. Once in the girl’s company that would disappear.
I gave up all affairs of heart, but my condition became gradually worse. I vomited several times daily, I could not even tolerate a mouthful of bread on my stomach, even clear soup was hard for me to take. Every time I swallowed I felt like vomiting and I could not even drink. Besides that I suffered of sleeplessness and of strong neurasthenic pains.
Finally I had to give up work for a year and I spent four months of that time in the country but my condition did not improve very much.
It caused me a great deal of tension to suppress my strong sexual impulses. Contact with a public woman seemed shameful to me, and with a good girl I could not enter into any intimate relations partly for moral reasons and partly on account of lack of favorable opportunity.
I felt inhibited from the moment my illness began. I decided to resort to public women upon the express advice of a physician.
This remarkable case is as clear as a school problem and richly illustrates the various factors which determine a person’s attitude regarding sexual matters. The subject is a simple man who has not yet mastered completely the German language and he has repressed but little. His youth and his sexual struggles apparently stretch before his memory like an open book. He has had many dreams and remembers them well. We note the genuine religious background. He is no longer pious and does not care to go to church service. Nevertheless it ought not to be difficult to perceive that back of his fear of immoral acts stands the fear of divine punishment,—a consequence of his early moral training. This man has been brought up with fear in his heart. This breeding of the germ of fear in his soul was responsible for his anxiety neurosis. Witches appeared to admonish him, in the school he was spurred on by dire threats to do his best. Then there was his powerful sexual craving which he, nevertheless, found possible to withstand. Whence did he acquire the strength to keep away from his girl cousin, although she so warmly attracted him and even encouraged him? Was it the proximity of his sister who occupied the same room? Some occurrences between him and that sister he had overlooked in his voluntary account of his life, otherwise fairly accurate. He avoided incest, but besides the moral and religious inhibitions, there must have been something more to keep him so effectively away from women. His trouble which asserts itself before keeping a secret appointment is nausea. Dislike and fear are protective defences against sinning. We recognize readily this disgust for woman, so strongly emphasized by most genuine homosexuals. We know that this aversion covers a repressed craving, a craving which is unbearable to consciousness for one reason or another and therefore breaks out in the negative form as disgust. The latter serves as defence and protection against the very tendencies which generate the powerful cravings.
The disturbance is a cover for the incest motive. He cannot approach a woman because he sees in her the grandmother, the mother, or the sister, a fact of which he was often fully aware. Quo me vertam? There is open before him the homosexual path, since the road to woman is closed. The episode with the teacher, the “vile doings” with his school companions were a sort of initiation.... Here repression sets in. He knows nothing about his homosexuality. But the dream betrays and tells more than the subject is prepared to see as yet. We shall therefore begin the analysis with an analysis of the dream.
That Night’s Dream.
I stand before the door of a dwelling in my home town and gaze upon the surrounding landscape.
While I am immersed in thought, my uncle comes along; he had helped through the day working in the field and on his way home stopped near me in front of the big door; he throws out some jocular allusions; among other remarks saying: “it would be healthier for you if you plowed up a few acres instead of idling away.”
I point to the team of horses hitched to the harrow, jocularly saying: “oh, yes, certainly, but not with so poor a team. These two animals should have been dumped on the scrap heap long ago, specially this left one bearing himself so proudly when he is only an old nag.”
I hardly finished my words, when the horse started and broke his traces madly to jump at me.
I started to run, fled up the first stairway and ran into the kitchen shutting the door after me. Then I ran into the next room and barricaded the door with every furniture article I found handy. The horse was already at the door kicking until he broke through and made his way into the room.
Meanwhile I ran to another room, again shutting the door but even as I did so I knew that it wouldn’t be an effective barrier. I looked around the room for some other means of escape and to my surprise saw my sister standing behind me.
The horse had broken down the door enough to be able to stretch his head through into the room and his dilated nostrils snorted angrily.
Sister handed me a small round stove calling out to defend myself with the stove lids, they will prove an effective weapon.
The horse was ready to jump inside the room so I hurled at him first the covers then the whole stove as powerfully as I could. At the last critical moment I caught sight of another door, hurried out ran to the stairway and woke up.
I went over the whole dream in my mind to make sure that I will remember to tell it to my psychoanalyst. Shortly after that I fell again into a light slumber and dreamed that I had gone to the analyst who treats me:
He occupied a commodious residence with broad stairways. I found myself face to face with him; he was doing something in a closet. I stood by and told him the foregoing dream.
He went away for a while to attend to some important matters, as he had to drive off in about one half hour. Then he called me down to him and asked me to continue my story while he was lacing his shoes.
When I finished I moved off and through a side door and there I met my mother. I exchanged a few words with her, opened the door, which led to a glass-covered veranda and saw a locomotive and open fire.
The engineer moved various levers in vain, he could not start the engine. Meanwhile the physician arrived, looked at his watch, and remarked impatiently that it is already late. Suddenly a servant girl comes running down the steps bringing three carefully tied up paper packages (or bundles).
In order to raise the required steam pressure it was necessary to feed the fire lively. The physician decided to help and threw one of the bundles into the fire. It burned up quickly but produced no effect.
Then mother spoke up from the other side saying, there it must be all right, took another package and threw it in at that spot without accomplishing anything, any more than the physician did.
Saying: “That is not the way, look here,” I took hold of the third package, jumped on a protruding piece of machinery in the midst of the flame which surrounded it and threw the bundle into the center of the burning mass. The flames broke forth, the safety valve began to whizz, a whistling was heard and the engine began ponderously to move.
The physician jumped on, reached out his hand to me as he was moving off and I barely had time to ask him where he was going. He said he was going to Brünn. I wondered at that and—woke up again.
After I fell asleep once more I had another dream like the first. I found myself in an elegantly furnished residence.
The door opened and a young pretty woman came in. She looked at me for a while, then smiled wickedly but I did not lose my poise and said something to her. She became more irritable, raised her hand, in which she held a weapon and threatened me.
I looked on quietly, confident that she could not do a thing to me. Then she jumped at me. I ran to another room, she pursued me, and thus the chase continued through several rooms.
I was about to open another door when I felt she was directly behind me holding in her hands some instrument that looked like a perolin sprayer. It squirted a white soapy fluid. She gave a few squirts without touching me, although a few drops fell on my clothes. I thought it was some caustic fluid and wanted to escape.
While she was preparing for a new attack I quickly shut the door and the nozzle of the sprayer caught between the door and the frame.
I grasped the nozzle, twisted the sprayer out of her hand, threw it aside, caught the woman by the throat, and was going to throw her down. But she caught me also by the throat, kissed me passionately and staggered towards a sofa, dragging me along. I held her with my left arm around her body while I pushed my right hand between her legs. I felt a pleasant sensation; as we looked in each other’s eyes we slid down together....
She was saying she meant no harm, laughed heartily, pressed me to her bosom, her face began suddenly to change,—I now saw my sister smiling at me.
Overcome with affection for her I wanted to press her closely to me—suddenly the door opened and an elderly woman came storming in. It scared me and I awoke—pollution.
His first dream carries him to his home town and birthplace. Our previous analyses have shown us the meaning of this and no Freudian student will fail to recognize that the birthplace is a symbol for the mother. We learn that the father’s brother resembles the father and conclude that the uncle stands for the father in that dream. The conversation between himself and the uncle is a repetition of old reproaches. For a long time he was unable to work and at the present time he is unable to help in his father’s business. He finds a ready excuse in his illness. The incestuous relation to his mother is fairly obvious. The inhibitions which developed so that he is unable to make himself useful in his father’s business, are due partly to his hatred of the father as a rival. The day before the dream he had a small controversy with his father, because the latter had made an error in one of his calculations and was unwilling to acknowledge it. In the dream he revenges himself for the reproach implied in his unwillingness to plow (plowing here stands for coitus) by a slurring reference to his father’s age. He was no longer fit for marital duties. The parental couple are too old, they have already lived too long (“the pair belong on the scrap heap”) and the one at the left (the father) is but an old jade. (In German, Mähre, jade, old horse, here is also a play upon the old home, Mähren). This is followed by the revenge of the scorned father in the form of pursuit by the horse.
The dreamer relates that he was fully aware of his incestuous thoughts with reference to his mother and sister, only he thought that he had outgrown them. But he finds that occasionally he still dreams of contact with his mother and more often with his sister. On the other hand he did not think the dreams signified anything, believing that they were but the echoes of a past stage. He does not remember having ever dreamed of his father in an overt sexual connection.
But we recognize the bipolar attitude towards his father. His trouble must be intimately linked with an unconquered homosexuality. The account of his illness now brings up a childhood occurrence which had made a strong impression on him. There was a teacher in that home town who had a most peculiar and extraordinary way of recompensing his worthy pupils. If one did something praiseworthy and the teacher was pleased, he said: “very well, my boy! You shall be honored for this,”—and gave the boy his erect penis to hold until ejaculation followed. This was done openly before the whole class. The teacher carried on this sort of thing until five years ago without any trouble and then left the place suddenly, to avoid court trouble as the result of a complaint. Christoph, who was a special pet of that teacher, was probably chosen for that honor more often than any other boy. He was also the prettiest boy in the class.
Beginning with that experience various episodes of homosexual character are disclosed extending up to the time when he was seventeen years of age, when they suddenly ceased. But he does not know that these were homosexual acts and still insists that he always felt only the most terrible aversion towards “all these homosexual things.” The subject maintains unconsciously the wish to do with his father what he had done with his teacher.
He is pursued by homosexual thoughts (the left horse). We are now turning our attention to the functional significance of the dream. It represents a pursuit. The attitude displayed towards the physician is clear. The physician pursues him through all his memories (the flight through the rooms). This flight through rooms has been interpreted by Freud as a flight from women (brothel). I have repeatedly pointed out that rooms represent the compartments of the soul, that the pursuit is really through all the parts of the brain (the upper story stands for brain; compare the colloquialism, there is something the matter with some one’s “upper story”). We see that a certain thought pursues him past all obstacles and hindrances, and he is unable to elude that searching thought. His sister is the one who comes to his aid. She hands him a miniature stove with which to defend himself against the horse. The stove and the lids represent the sister’s sex.... The dream means: only your sister, only a woman can save you from your homosexual inclination towards your father. The dream also indicates a prospective tendency: he throws the sister upon the father and saves himself through another door. He means to overcome his complexes. The attitude towards the physician is also clear: he expects to put me off his trail by confessing to me his incest fancies about his sister, when I had not asked him about it. The dream indicates his intention of telling me about his fancies and episodes in which his sister figures. But he expects to escape thereby any further inquiry into his wish phantasies and to avoid telling me about his attitude towards his parents.
Then the patient falls asleep again and repeats the dream so as to be able to tell it. We may presume that the dream was distorted and changed somewhat in the course of its first rendition. We really get but an extract, the chief parts omitted.... In the next dream he tells me the first dream. Such dreams are seldom remembered. When a woman dreams that she has told her physician the dream, it means that she is through with the unpleasant task and the dream vanishes from memory as in the cases when the patients declare: Today I dreamed something important; I said to myself in my half slumber: “This is something I must tell the doctor! I don’t remember what it was. But it was something really significant.” Thus is the physician thwarted; the resistance is vicariously overcome in the dream, the wish to tell the dream is fulfilled but the wish to keep it from the physician is stronger; during his dream experience both tendencies are given expression by the subject.
The next dream: Again, an exposition of analysis. I am upstairs busy with a closet, which represents the brain or his shut-up soul. But the analysis will not last long. The wild hunting after his secrets and treasures will cease soon. The physician has to leave (die?). Here the physician substitutes the father. The dream shows plainly the transference from the father to the physician. The first dream dramatizes the pursuit of the father, in the second and third the father no longer figures. His name is not mentioned at all in the dream, he is the secret, the unspeakable theme.... The physician laces his shoes; that is commonly known as a death symbol and shows the clear wish to be through with the analysis.
An engine has to be started. He is a machinist and has daily to do with machines. Engine is symbol for his soul which functions so poorly, a symbol for himself, for all the impulses and energies within him. He accomplishes through his own powers what his physician and his mother are unable to bring about. First I try to put the engine in motion. I take the mysterious paper package and throw it on; the mother attends to the other side of the fire. But he gets up and takes care of the fire from above.[24] He is above, he triumphs over me and surpasses me in the ability to cure him. He recalls a pupil of his who had to commute to Brünn. It brings to his mind an occasion when he was the teacher. Thus I am his pupil, I am learning from him how to start an engine. Though I may know something about sick souls, I don’t understand a thing about his specialty (he is a machinist), there he is the master and I am ignorant. This consoling thought serves to strengthen his feeling of self-regard and prevents a feeling of inferiority from developing in his relations to me. There are a number of scornful references to the impotent father and to the equally unskilful physician. He is with me one half hour daily. He had noticed that I looked at the watch, to see whether his time was up. The half hour and the looking at the watch appear in the dream. The day before he showed his father how a technical problem was solved. In this dream he also shows me that something must be done a particular way.
We observe that this attitude towards the physician, as representative of the father, pervades the whole dream. But this does not exhaust the meaning of the dream. It is a pollution dream (gratification without responsibility). It is interesting to see how the onanistic act, represented as pollution, is dramatized in the dreams. In the first dream he flees from homosexuality and there the relationship between homosexuality and the hidden mother complex is clearly shown. In the second dream the mechanism of sexuality is represented in action. Neither the father (the engineer working around the engine), the mother nor the physician can do it. He alone is able to accomplish it. This shows the secret pride of the masturbator, the self-sufficiency of the autoerotic personality. (The engine’s flame covered running board, a phallic symbol; later note.) Onanism is shown as a protection against all sexual perils. The safety valve hisses and relieves itself—an intimation of the subsequent pollution.
But the fear of onanism, the strong effects, the dread of homosexuality and incest wake him from his sleep. Consciousness (the engine conductor) attempts to control the thoughts and to banish the nocturnal ghosts. The thoughts about a man and about his sister are interrupted and he falls asleep once more. Three times he dreams of various situations before the anxiety in him is transformed into wish. First he fled from the horse and from his sister, then he fled from his mother and the physician and finally there came his release. He was strong enough to withstand his homosexuality, strong to overcome the heterosexual longings. Now the instinct throws forward its highest and strongest card to overcome the last inhibitions: bisexuality. The girl with the phallus, his sister, appears ... and pursues him. He is frankly preoccupied with the thought: give in and masturbate. The thought itself he avoids, he tries to push out of his mind. He sees himself in the dream. He sees the womanly side of himself, the woman with the phallus, and this thought troubles him during the nightly hours when he should be resting. He jumps at the female person to strangle her: that is how he fights with his instinct, how he tries to thwart his autoerotism. The instinct recognizes the weakness of his defence and suggests that it seeks only his welfare. With the right hand he seizes his genitals while with the left he carries out an embrace. He has an orgasm (the sister smiles at him) but it does not last long; for an old woman appears upon the scene. The door opens, that is, the door of conscience (the threshold symbolism of Silberer), and remorse seizes his soul. He rouses from his sleep and the pollution worries him. The old woman may also be a symbol for his mother (further significance of the old woman as symbol will be shown later). But I have no proof of that inasmuch as the subject describes her otherwise.
What is the sense of the dream with reference to its central theme? Is it a wish-fulfillment, a warning, or a prophecy? Undoubtedly many wishes are fulfilled in this dream. The subject resists many temptations, he embraces his sister, he triumphs over his father and over his physician as well. But the most important feature that the dream portrays is the pollution as a defence against all sexual dangers and as successful cover for all inner inhibitions.
Another meaning of the dream should be pointed out. His neurosis must be represented by some person or object in the dream. Asked what the engine suggests to his mind the subject answers: my illness. The glass-covered porch: the transparency of his trouble; the engine: his neurosis. The subject habitually compares his body to a steam engine, especially his stomach. He shows various effects of starvation: unable to eat, he loses weight, and looks like a skeleton because he wants to starve out his sexual longing and punish himself for his sinful passions. This man had built for himself a marvelous safety valve in his neurosis. When he thinks of going to meet a girl, he gets such a severe attack of gastric pain that he must give up the appointment. The gastric discomfort is induced beforehand through excitement and inability to eat. The clever staging of his gastric trouble is noteworthy. Nausea and vomiting are first induced to prevent the taking of food. Then hunger supervenes and that gnawing sense of hunger, spoken of as gastric cramps, becoming so strong as to overshadow the heart affair. The craving for food becomes more obsessive than the desire for woman. These episodes are followed by a ravenous appetite.
He recalls that after the first dream he woke up with a terrible hunger. This hunger was even stronger after the second dream but disappeared after the pollution.
I have already maintained in my work on Morbid Anxiety that hunger may stand as a substitute for sexual libido and here this is clearly shown and illustrated.
Now we understand the firing of the engine with the paper packages. The caloric value of paper is as small as that of nutrition, when the latter is substituted for sexual desire. Thus he makes use of his stomach as a remarkable safety valve. He starves himself out because the gratification of food serves as a substitute for sexual gratification. He relates a number of incidents showing how cleverly his neurosis serves him. Every woman he meets excites him but even when he goes so far as to arrange an appointment with one and she agrees to call at his residence or to go to a hotel he stops short of actual intimacy.
From the standpoint of the analysis the prognosis is unfavorable. He does not want to give up the neurosis, his safety valve, he wants to keep up his own way of “firing the engine” and wishes the physician were out of the way. Indeed, he continues to have recourse to masturbation, he endures the consequent regrets and self reproaches, rather than give up his defence.
We observe inwardly a strong “will to power” and formally a decidedly feminine attitude; the orgasm occurs while he plays the role of woman; but the highest gratification always depends on the most powerful inner forces. He does not avoid women because he fears defeat, for he has repeatedly proven his potentia through intercourse with prostitutes and feels supremely confident that he could master any situation involving no moral scruples. What hinders him seems to be the association of his sister with all decent girls, and of his mother with all married women. His homosexuality is inhibited by his fixation on the father. And back of all inhibitions there stands his overstressed religiosity, which he had cultivated for years although he had apparently outgrown it. He intended to embrace a religious career but gave up the idea when he was 14 years of age. It is very likely that most of his troubles will disappear after marriage, if he should break away from the parental circle.
I believe that even one who is inexperienced in dream analysis will readily recognize a phallic symbol in the perolin sprayer which gives forth a soapy fluid. It was natural that at 16 years of age he should fall in love with a colleague who resembled a sister. The obvious incest thoughts kept him from the girl. All girls of good family were sisters; he treated them like sisters. The prostitutes were not in the same class with his sister and he could be potent with them. The homosexual path was closed to him also on account of his sister. In all young men he saw his sister with a phallus.
It is significant that further analysis discloses a fixation upon the father to an extent I had not quite suspected before. Back of the apparent scorn of his father, underneath his tendency to speak lightly of him there was an unquenchable love which nothing could quite gratify. The ugly example given by his teacher suggested intimacies possible only in the realm of phantasy. (His subsequent dreams placed him with me in a similar situation.) Thus he vacillated between homosexuality and Don Juanism.
Why do these men hesitate in the end and why do they not become genuine Don Juans? In large measure this is due to the inner religious scruples. These rudimentary types are weighted down by an excess of morality. They like to play at immorality but very carefully see to it that morality wins in the end.
I wish to add a few remarks about the religious significance of the dream. It is remarkable that all dream interpreters have overlooked the obvious import of dreams, from the religious standpoint, in spite of the fact that they are aware of the great role which religion plays in man’s mental life and must appreciate that such a force necessarily finds expression through the dream.
The subject has been for years a very pious young man. Witches and devils filled his fancies as real tempters. The dream also shows the fear of the devil who misleads the weak to drink, whoredom, shortly, into sin. The homosexual tendency is often felt as the work of the devil.
Our subject who was so very pious for a long time, declaring himself now an atheist and free thinker. He promised his mother, under oath, that he would attend church services regularly on Sundays but he gave this up when he reached the 20th year. At first his mother objected, and was very angry over it, and desisted only after her son convinced her that he had no faith. But she said repeatedly: “I feel certain that the Lord will enlighten you and that some day you will come back to the faith.” He only smiled at that for on his part he felt certain that he would never again be a believer. His greatmother, whom he visited every summer, was even more pious. Two weeks after the dream we analyzed he had the following dream:
I am with my grandmother. She goes early in the morning to church and asks me to go along. I hesitate. Next morning she repeats the request. I have a strong attack of gastric pains and tell her. I will take a sunbath, it is the same thing....
We see that, under the grandmother’s request, the dream portrays the subject’s childhood disposition. We note a connection between the hesitation to go to church and the gastric pains and we hear of sunbaths as a substitute for religion,—a fact which I have repeatedly observed in other cases as well.
Further inquiry reveals that every evening the patient struggles with the impulse to recite “Our Father”; he resents the inclination,—“it is nonsense. I don’t believe any such folly as that.” Nevertheless sometimes he murmurs portions of the prayer, while in a half dreamy state, when he has the illusion of being again a child. He carries around in his pocket, a couple of small “holy mother medallions” which he bought at a fair: “it is really a superstition; I always carry them in my coin purse, because I have an idea it is good luck.” He has presented his prayer book to his younger sister and so the book is always accessible. He goes to churches because he is “interested in the church music.” ...
How does the dream show this? The devil appears to him in the shape of a horse (horse’s hoof is a characteristic sign of the devil) and tries to seduce him. The horse breaks down doors and all obstacles. At one time he believed in a personal devil. He attended once a church where the minister preached considerably about the devil and who said that there were living witnesses to testify that they had seen the devil. His grandfather was angry because the minister told believers such far-fetched stories, and forbade him going to that church. But the fear of a personal devil had been deeply implanted in him at home. If he misbehaved, he was threatened with the evil one. If he refused to pray some one knocked in the next room and he was told that it was the devil that was after him. He was brought up the same way to believe in witches. An ugly old woman once came to his room dressed as a witch to scare him and the other children into better behavior and it affected him so horribly that he remembered the scare for years. In his dream the devil pursues him and he eludes the pursuit. In the second part of the dream he himself is the devil and can do charms. To do magic was his highest ambition in his youth and he would have gladly given himself up to the devil for the privilege of learning magic. He starts the engine by means of a charm. In his childhood his great wish was to build a magic locomotive with which he could travel wherever he wanted.
The servant girl who brings down three bales of paper (play on trinity?), (his love letters?), is a symbol of the Holy Virgin, as it is in all dreams, a fact which I could easily prove. He was a confirmed admirer of the Holy Mother. He must give this up if he is to learn magic. But the dream is a compromise between the two tendencies and expresses a bipolar attitude; he fires the engine with divine fuel, with faith, which upholds his life along the right path and protects it. He wishes me to the devil that he may continue secretly to cling to his religion. But the infantile wish to be a magician comes foremost to the surface. (The dream does not portray one wish, but a number of wishes which criss-cross the soul.) The supplementary portion of the lengthy dream also illustrates the power of magic. The religious meaning of spraying (with holy water ... Perolin cleanses and disinfects the air) is readily obvious and so is also the admixture of religious and sexual motives which play such a tremendous role in the neuroses and the psychoses.[25] He yields to the temptation, a she-devil seduces him. The old woman, after all, is the witch of his childhood, coming to punish him for his sins. (He admits also a strong gerontophilia and once he fell in love with a 60-year-old woman).
The old and the new testament, his prayer books, his confession slips, are in the paper packages which he must burn up to free himself of all religious inhibitions.
The dream thus portrays a prospective tendency,—the overcoming religious inhibitions, subduing the dread of hell and devil as well as the fear of witches so as to give himself up to his cravings. He takes his life in his own hands, fires his own engine,—he will take unto himself any woman who looks like his sister.
The dream expresses clearly also that his homosexual fixation is due to the mother and sister Imago which he finds in all women. Finding himself upon a sexual path which leads away from women and in the direction of man, he wants to leave that path and become a normal man by overcoming all inhibitions. He no longer requires the protection of his neurosis, he is master of himself, scorns the religious imperatives, becoming magician and God in his own right.
Through the history of this subject we obtain a glimpse into the mechanism which eventually leads to homosexuality. This subject might have become a homosexual and would have then presented the usual homosexual life history: Very tender for a time, girl-like, played with dolls at his grandmother’s house, liked to be busy in the kitchen and preferred the company of girls. Such experiences are commonly shared also by the heterosexual persons but the latter forget them. Later, if the course of development favors the outbreak of homosexuality, these recollections, emphasized and fixed through repetition are pointed out as proof that the condition is inborn.
One episode in our subject’s life might have led him to overt homosexuality: his experience with the teacher,—the more so as it took place openly. But what amounts to an inciting factor in one case may act as a deterrent in another. Every influence may assert itself either on the negative or positive side. Childhood dreams as carried out by adults, may generate either a gerontophilia, or a similar inclination towards children, depending on whether the subject assumes the role of the adult or of the younger person. Fixation on the mother may drive a man entirely to homosexuality as I have clearly learned through the history of a certain case. The homosexuals frequently have a morbid mother, a woman who suffers of depression and is unwise in her actions. Unfortunately my observations indicate that the fancies are generated by parents as often as they are incited by guilty servants and that such occurrences are far from rare.
In the case under consideration the experience with the teacher and the latter’s revolting openness about it acted as an inhibition to homosexuality. The thought, “You may get to be like that teacher,” acted as a deterrent against the outbreak of a so-called genuine homosexuality, though all conditions were otherwise favorable. Even the characteristic dislike of women was there as well as the incestuous fixation upon the female members of the family.
And although much of his sexual life was perfectly clear to this subject’s mind, including things which to others appear only in the dim light of day dreaming or upon the lowered state of threshold consciousness, there was one thing about which he was entirely ignorant: his true attitude towards, and relationship to, his father. He was continually more irritated with his father and avoided to be alone with him because he knew how easily they break into a quarrel and how misunderstanding would arise between them on the slightest provocation. This hypersensitiveness in his relations with his father, shows that there were feelings at work over which he was not master. What he demanded and expected of his father I have already indicated. He wanted to be treated by him as he had been treated by his teacher. In the course of the analysis he also had a dream during which I was the one assuming that role. He is homosexually fixed on his father and heterosexually fixed upon the female members of his family.
It is interesting to see that the homosexual inclination, despite all childhood experiences, is repressed and masked under the feeling of disgust. We understand in this light the meaning of the gastric pains. He thinks only of women and is a typical instance of a would-be Don Juan. He begins numerous adventures but always meets difficulties. That is, he starts relations which from the beginning present these difficulties and in that way there is no danger for him. If the difficulties (symbol of the unattainable, that is of the incestuous goal) are overcome, the attraction disappears or else his protective defence comes to his aid: the gastric attacks. He goes so far as to take a girl to a room but at the last moment he can do nothing on account of his gastric pain. The nausea is a sign of disgust. It is brought about by the homosexual tendency pressing forward as much as by the subject’s inhibition against heterosexual relationship. At the most critical time before meeting the girl he is restless, and a voice within seems to say to him: “you do not really want this woman, you want a man, like that teacher, or that friend of yours!” As a protection against these homosexual notions his nausea comes up and this also acts as a defence against women. For woman, as such, he feels no dislike, he is able to have intercourse with prostitutes, without aversion. But homosexual acts are repulsive to him. Thus he remains hanging midway between homosexuality and heterosexuality. On account of his religious scruples both pathways are closed to him and the result is—his ascetic behavior at the end.
His asceticism is back of the rudimentary Don Juan role which he plays but cannot carry out in accordance with his instinctive promptings on account of his inhibitions. One step nearer and we have the Don Juan of day-dreams and ascetic in fact,—if the adventures with women are not even begun. A step further advanced is represented by the complete repression of all sexual inclinations. We may define the ascete as a person who remains in the narcissistic stage of fixation because both paths of allerotism (that is, homo-, and heterosexuality) are equally closed to him. An exclusive monosexual goal is incapable of rousing the instinctive excitation necessary for carrying out a sexual act, because the religious scruples are oppressive. His perennially unattainable ideal is a bisexual being, he longs for a passion so strong that it should be capable of overcoming all obstacles. His asceticism is not voluntary, but a state induced by his sexual constellation.
Our subject has found his sexual ideal in the dream world. That is a sister who has a phallus. He, the valiant warrior, struggles against his instinctive promptings and masturbates. This act acquires in his conscious mind, as pollution, the character of an involuntary act, an accidental occurrence which cannot be helped, thus being robbed of its significance.
Freud points out rightly that the psychologist is particularly interested in cases showing a late development of homosexuality,—a condition which Krafft-Ebing has described as “tardive” or Late Homosexuality. In such cases homosexuality develops after a period of hetero-, or bisexuality. We will describe a number of cases of late homosexuality elsewhere and then we shall also attempt to trace the reasons for the occurrence.
The next case also represents a transitional stage showing us a woman in the throes of a struggle between the two tendencies. We have here a rudimentary, a would-be Messalina, an interesting female counterpart to the case described above.
Miss Wanda K. complains of an unfortunate split in her mental make-up which prevents her from enjoying life as she should. She suffers of strong and uncontrollable vomiting but the trouble arises only when she is about to keep an appointment. She holds the most liberal views that “a modern girl can and should have.” She meets gladly men who interest her and even those who rouse her sexually. She knows she will never marry. She is 29 years old and although still very pretty and attractive,—how long will this last? She wants to enjoy life, she would not care to die without having tasted the supreme gift and prize of life, love. But she has a “delicate” stomach which interferes at the most critical moment. Here is an example:
“Last Sunday I was to take an excursion with a gentleman whom I met in an unconventional way. I am not at all prudish and do not mind being spoken to on the street. As I walk downtown often I think to myself: will someone talk to me this time? I try to attract attention, just a little, and return home disappointed if no one notices me. A few weeks ago a very elegant elderly gentleman addressed me on such an occasion. He is a very intellectual man, which is the chief consideration with me. I like intercourse only with intellectual persons. Persons lacking culture are a trial to me. We entertained ourselves very pleasantly and since then we meet daily. When the store where I am employed closes at the end of the day, I find him already waiting for me at the street corner. Then we go for a walk and we talk about all sorts of things. He has never dared yet mention anything erotic in our conversation. I have no reason, therefore, to fear him. Nevertheless I am watching and waiting eagerly for the opportunity to show him that I am a modern girl, unafraid of anything when she finds a man sympathetic and to her liking, if he should ever begin. I do not expect anything more. One cannot fall in love all of a sudden! Now, we promise ourselves an excursion around Vienna for Sunday. Saturday I feel very excited, and I picture to myself how he is going to bring up sexual matters, how he will kiss me in the woods, I already plan what I shall say to him, how I will resist him, just a little, and finally give in. You will excuse me. It is high time that I quit being an old maid. Is that not a pity, at twenty-nine? At the office where I am employed all the girls have a sweetheart and some have several at once. That keeps going through my mind. I am very excited and I even whistle a tune. But at the evening meal I am unable to swallow a morsel of foods. My stomach seems shut tight. Nothing will go down. I hope it will be over in the morning. I get up early, put on my excursion suit and want to have my breakfast. I struggle with nausea, try to eat some breakfast, only to vomit promptly every particle of the food. Then the terrible nausea continues and keeps up so that I must stay home while the gentleman waits in vain for me at the appointed spot. Naturally when this happens a second time he drops me ... unfortunately it ends just that way every time.”
She relates numberless occurrences of this character which always end in uncontrollable nausea and vomiting. She has a long list of admirers, young and old, rich and poor, educated and some less so, every one thinking he can conquer her as she is very free and open in her talk and does not avoid sexual topics in her conversations with them. She is a member of various women’s organizations, like Mutterschutz, which is devoted to the protection of the unmarried mother, she is a champion for women’s sexual freedom and also a Shannaist. But every one of the men she dangles on her string who tries to pass from theory to cold fact discovers, much to his astonishment, that there is quite a difference between this woman’s views and her practical conduct. She circumvents all occasions which might prove embarrassing to her. An office colleague invites her to his home. He is an art collector, she is interested in painting, and he would like to show her his collection. She finds all sorts of excuses to postpone accepting his invitation and finally appears at his house ... accompanied by a girl friend.... She had dwelt so much on all the possible consequences of a visit of this kind that at the last moment she lost her courage.
It is interesting that her mental state developed first after an engagement. Until the age of 23 she was fairly normal, very much like any other girl. At that age she made the acquaintance of a man of good standing in whom she became much interested. She became engaged to him and this made her happy for she was in love as much as any girl could be who thought she had found her ideal.
The man had but one serious fault. He was tremendously jealous. He tortured her with questions about her whole past life and she had to relate to him with particularity everything that she had experienced as a girl. She frankly told him that once she was in love with her piano teacher and also with her school teacher, a girl, but that there was nothing else of any significance in her life. Nevertheless he kept torturing her with further questionings insisting that she must tell everything before marriage and he will forgive her absolutely everything, but he did not want to be deceived, he wanted perfect candor and truth between them.
One night she woke from a dream in which her brother and she had figured in a rather intimate role. This brought to her mind an occurrence she had entirely forgotten. She was visiting her married brother in the country. His wife had gone to some relatives and he suggested that she should sleep in his wife’s bed. She did so without having any particular erotic notions, since this was her brother with whom she had always been frank, not as she was with her other brothers, for she had four others. During the night she felt her brother’s hand touching her. He crawled in to her bed and kissed her. She was sleepy and thought she was dreaming. He kissed her again and sleepy as she was, she responded. They embraced warmly. She knows that she took hold of his membrum. She thinks her brother must have exercised wonderful control over himself after that and that he crawled back in his own bed. The whole experience of that night is rather unclear. That much she is certain, no coitus took place.
This remembrance awed her for she knew then that she had lied to her man. It happened only once for next day she left the place and her own brother advised her to do it. She went to visit a friend of hers in the neighborhood and returned only after her sister-in-law was back home. But since her young man had such complete faith in her, she felt that she must tell him the whole truth. She told him of the occurrence relating how it took place as in a dream. He began to investigate and to question until it drove her to distraction and there were times when she herself wavered in her recollection as to what really occurred. But she could only repeat the one thing: she knew positively that they kissed and touched each other that night, but could not say that between her brother and herself matters had gone beyond that.
Her bridegroom stayed away a few days. Then she received from him a note stating that he does not feel that he can take her to the altar after her confession and he considers himself therefore a free man. He sent her back the engagement ring and demanded the return of all his gifts and letters.
This was like a physical blow to her. That was the thanks she received for her complete candor! She had taken at his word the man whom she dearly loved. How could she help thinking that he merely sought an excuse in her eyes, and in his own, a pretext to declare himself free?
For a time after that she hated all men. She made no exception, including in her hatred even that brother who was responsible for her misfortune, in the first place.
Then she arrived at a second deduction: “it is not worth while to be honorable! Better be easy going, like all your women friends!”
Shortly after that she apparently ceased hating all men and her great yearning began causing her to think continually of nothing but men. At the same time there began also her uncontrollable vomiting.
It seemed that her tremendous inclination to love was struggling with an equally powerful antagonism. During that difficult period her only consolation was a woman friend and her sister to whom she felt herself very closely attached.
But her dreams show that back of her running after men there was something else: the homosexual instinct which was struggling powerfully to come to surface and which she tried to hold back by her love affairs with men. She showed a number of unmistakable signs. She dressed simply and rather mannishly; she cut her hair short, and began smoking cigarettes; her appearance and gait assumed more and more a mannish form; she lost her mildness and soft nature becoming hardened and strong. Her whole nature expressed one supreme wish: I want to be a man, he has a better life! And, strange enough! Now she does attract men and they dangle after her by the dozen. But she only played and when it came to a serious issue in the course of any of her adventures,—for some of the men had earnest intentions,—she deliberately turned the whole thing into a huge joke.
She was no longer lured by men alone. She was on the point of becoming overtly homosexual passing through the last phase of the struggle. The nausea stood more and more clearly as a protection and defence against the homosexual inclination. Her dreams were filled with homosexual episodes. She herself was astonished when she began to observe her dreams. The very first dream she related concerned her sister and her friend:
I am with my friend on the Gaensehäufel (a popular promenade on the Danube embankment in Vienna) and we are naked; I say: How beautiful you are! You are more beautiful than any man. She embraces me and kisses me on the breast, on the spot where I am so sensitive. I wake up with dread,—palpitation of the heart and nausea.
Other dreams represent endless variants of this theme. Men figure in them but seldom. Occasionally she is pursued by them and flees to her sister or her friend. Thus her conflict is also shown in her dreams as a flight away from men, an escape through homosexuality.
This young woman also imagined herself to be a radical although inwardly she was pious. Sundays she visited the church, to hear the music, she was not a believer, but occasionally she prayed, because it was an old habit, she was fond of reading the Bible and she had to suppress a small inner voice which impelled her to go to confession. One day she said to me: “Do you know, yesterday it occurred to me that if I were again a believer and could go to confession, everything would be all right....”
Here we see a young woman who was at first on the proper path to become a normal, heterosexual woman. She experiences a serious trauma and begins to despise all men. She turns away from them. This aversion is favored by the fact that all men remind her of the love for her brother, which was repressed and forgotten but which flared up again on the occasion of her unfortunate experience. That was the reason why she was able to entertain herself best with elderly gentlemen and go on excursions with them, etc., without being overcome with nausea. The danger was not so great and these men were less typical of her brother.... She turns away from men and her sexuality flows into another channel. We have therefore a regression back to a childhood phase, apparently past and gone, in Freud’s sense. She also becomes more agreeable at home, where during the past years she had been accustomed to pay no attention to her mother. She again becomes fixed upon her family and turns once more to her childhood piety. The period of her nausea represents the last stage in her struggle against homosexuality.
As we glance over the three cases just analyzed we are impressed in the first place by the powerful rôle of the inner religiosity, which often passes unrecognized. Both men stood upon that emotional level which leads to polygamy as a defence against homosexuality. But they were unable to overcome their religious scruples. Too weak openly to embrace asceticism, they wandered through complicated neurotic by-paths in the attempt to circumvent all the dangers that threatened them. One of them played very cleverly the rôle of ‘Pechvogel,’—a man who would gladly be a libertine but who was not lucky enough to succeed,—the other was prevented by his stomach trouble from abandoning the path of virtue.
The counterpart is the “modern girl” who dreams about free love and mother-rights and at the same time generates a nervous nausea as a defence against any danger to her virtue. Here again we must admire the subtlety of the neurotic who finds such clever means to assume a certain rôle in the eyes of the world no less than before himself, in order to cover up his true nature. All men who really lack inner freedom are overanxious to act as if they were free. They apparently adopt some modern liberal principle while as a matter of fact secretly they adhere to the religious scruples of their ancestors.
As a great sin and “unnatural” act, it is plain that homosexuality was out of question in these cases. Religion acts here as protection and outlet at the same time. But it is also clear that under an other educational régime these men would have found open to them two paths neither of which they were able to choose under the existing inhibitions.
The woman may become overtly homosexual and some late episodes indicate that her resistance to the homosexual longings may yet be overcome. In this case the traumatic incident which turned her against all men did not occur during early childhood. It is a great error to assume that traumas of late occurrence lose their pathogenic rôle.
There are periods in our life when we are impervious to traumas. But there are also times during which we are hypersensitive to any influences which play upon us. Every decennium of our life has its crises and morbid periods during which we show a peculiar sensitiveness.