VII
Erotism and Sexuality—The Motive Power of Unfulfilled Wishes—The Male Protest—The Relations of the Homosexual to his Mother—Hirschfeld’s Schematic Outline—Infantile Impressions—Influence of the Stronger Parent—Letter of an Expert.
Die Knabenliebe ist so alt wie die Menschheit und man könnte daher sagen sie liege in der Natur, ob sie gleich gegen die Natur sei.
Goethe.
VII
Boy love is as old as the race and therefore it may be said to be part of nature, although against nature.
Goethe.
Investigators interested in the problem of homosexuality point out that the condition occurs in families and see therein a support for the contention that this condition is inborn. Homosexuals usually have a homosexual brother or sister, or one or the other of their parents is similarly afflicted, in spite of marriage. But if we think of neurosis and of homosexuality (which is a particular form of neurosis) as a retrogression, if we bear in mind that all neurotics show a marked overemphasis of sexual traits, the reason for these facts is plain. What is inherited is not the homosexuality but the powerful bisexual disposition which leads to morbid tendencies. Furthermore we must bear in mind that the influence of family life is practically the same for all children. Yet one child escapes lasting injury while another is tremendously handicapped.
Before looking more closely into the influence of family life upon the development of homosexuality we must point out two very significant considerations.
One of these is the division of all love into spiritual and physical; the next point is the double attitude of every homosexual as male and female. For the present I need only emphasize the fact that persons readily adjust themselves so that one sexual component is expressed on the spiritual, the other upon the physical plane. Let us call spiritual love, “erotism,” and physical love, “sexuality.” The average homosexual applies his erotism to male friendships and his sexuality he places in the service of heterosexual love; the progress of culture consists therein that heterosexual love is also gradually sublimated, that is, turned more and more into erotism. The homosexual, for instance, turns his erotism towards women, and applies his sexuality in his relation with men. But at times he may turn his whole erotism into the homosexual channel and suppress his whole sexuality. Or he may endeavor to find certain spiritual qualities in his sexual ideal, trying to turn also part of his erotism into the homosexual path. Thus we meet most remarkable variations. For an example we may mention the homosexual who is interested only in coachmen, soldiers, servants and peasants. His sexual ideal he finds only among the lower orders. Such a man has turned his whole erotism towards women. He seeks the friendship of mature women, sometimes also the company of fine men, but sexually he can be active only in contact with men of low order.
This peculiarity already indicates a judgment-attitude in sexual matters. Sexuality is perceived as degrading, as compelling a return to the first aspects of “natural” life. The attitude is further complicated by the homosexual’s overemphasis of one or the other sex during his acts. If he is an active homosexual he preserves his individuality, identifying his selfhood with some male ideal, the father, the brother, the teacher, etc. On the other hand, if he plays a passive rôle, he identifies himself with a woman, the mother, or her polar obverse, the prostitute. Occasionally he carries on both rôles and the relations between sexuality and erotism become reversed and transposed. That is what complicates the problem so tremendously. The urning transfers his erotism to men and his sexuality is roused in relation with women only, but the latter is soon turned into disgust. Or the urlind loves spiritually only women and finds all men repulsive, unbearable and disgusting.
In order to acquire a psychologic insight into every case as it presents itself, and to judge of its significance, it is necessary to answer the question: what does the homosexual aim to accomplish with his actions? What does the homosexual act represent in the subject’s fancy. In most cases of this character reality does not enter into consideration.
Some obscure and baffling paraphilias lose their extraordinary character once we get at the specific act which the subject repeats vicariously through his overt action. For Nietzsche’s law of the eternal return of sameness applies to the neurotic.
The acts which the neurotic carries out are either something experienced or something wished, some unreached yearning. It is part of human nature that the unattained experience exercises a stronger driving power than what has been experienced. Experience acts as a retrospective tendency, craving is prospective. (One might say, therefore: the most severe traumas are those which have never been experienced.) The unsatisfied craving is the motive power of most neuroses. The “world pain” of all those who are weary of life and who struggle in vain to accomplish the impossible is due to the eternal craving, the eternally Lost, the perennially Unreachable. All the dream fancies of the neurotic are shattered in contact with reality. For that reason the neurotic overlooks the world’s standards and builds a world of his own, wherein he is master and attains all his wishes as dreams. The unattained experiences furnish the material for perennial dreams.
The formation of man’s character traits begins during the first years of life. He tests his powers upon the surroundings and his environment furnish him the picture of life. In the eyes of children who are not self-reliant the father must be a giant because he overawes them with his genial appearance and his image generates in their soul a feeling of inferiority which marks them for life. Every child has an ambition: to excel his father. This wish may express itself first in the desire to attain father’s size, to be as strong and big as he. But later the wish shows itself in that quiet but determined competitive struggle which has always existed between father and son, or mother and daughter. The strong son takes after the powerful father. But suppose the father is weak and the mother is the one who dominates the house? What sort of picture of life becomes imprinted upon the child’s mind under the circumstances? Can it help believing that women dominate the world, can he escape taking the attitude either of wishing to be a woman and rule, or of fleeing from woman when she clashes with his “will to power” as man?
In the conflict that follows, sexuality becomes mixed up with erotism, the soul of the child is bewildered, a definite outcome is delayed and meanwhile the child’s soul is filled with anxiety and doubt.
Alfred Adler, who has followed this line of inquiry with great keenness, has conceived it an important factor in the dynamics of the neuroses and he has described this picture as “the male protest.” All reactions and protective constructions or fictions of the neurotic, according to him, lead back to the desire to be “a complete man.” Homosexuality displays this protest under a peculiarly cryptic form. The homosexual cries out: I want to be a woman! He may even go so far as to dress himself like a woman and become a transvestite. Adler here gives a far fetched explanation, saying: this is a male protest under the use of female means! He holds that the homosexual attempts to heighten by this means his feeling of personality; the latter turns away from woman because he fears his inferiority, he avoids decisions. That is true of some aspects but not of the whole picture. The problem of homosexuality as a whole shows Adler’s position to be untenable.
The important thing is that there arises in the child’s soul a wish which gravitates in the direction of the parallelogram of forces exhibited within the family circle. If the mother plays the upper rôle, the wish becomes: I should like to be like mother! I should like to dominate and rule as she does! Love for the mother increases this tendency to become identified with her and turns it into a directive ideal. The child begins at a tender age to imitate its mother, acts womanly, wants to play with dolls and cook, wears gladly girls’ clothes. The child may overcome these tendencies or it may grow up with them or return to them later and become a pronounced homosexual. (Late Homosexuality.)
For the sake of simplicity I am now speaking of boys. The same effect may be brought about when a brutal father trods down the mother, the child sees its mother suffer and comes to look upon his father as an abhorrent example. Under such circumstances the child’s “will to power” may turn into “ethical will.” The child’s wish then is: I would not rule and be like father; I would rather be like mother! If the child loves his tyrannical father he may become homosexual and passive: a woman and a strong man.
These are a few examples taken at random from life. I have brought them out, because one often hears that homosexuals have had an energetic mother, and a father who played a submissive rôle. Of course, the contrary may also be the case. Frequently we hear that the mother was strongly neurotic.... There are no definite rules in the psychogenesis of homosexuality. Each case requires an individual solution. That is why Sadger’s statements on the subject cannot be taken as absolute axioms. Every third case or so disproves his notions.
Many paths lead to homosexuality. It would be impossible to describe all. We can only get at a few typical examples.
We turn our attention now to the important question: what is the attitude of the neurotic towards his mother? We have seen that psychoanalysts correlate homosexuality to the repressed love for the mother. Let us give a glimpse at my few statistical data. The question: “Are you specially fond of your mother or your father? Or are you partial to some brother or sister?” was answered by my 20 homosexuals as follows:
“Only of mother—mother—no particular preference—both alike—mother—father—no preference—on the whole, more fond of mother—love the whole family passionately—father—mother—my father mother—mother—mother—mother—specially fond of a brother (indifferent to all the others)—father—mother.”
Approximately one-half confess a greater fondness for the mother. I have mentioned the preferences in these cases because in one of them, at least, I am able positively to prove that back of love for the mother is hidden really a powerful aversion against the father; another subject had failed to mention his fondness for his sister which played a tremendous rôle in the development of his homosexuality. Such a statistical inquiry really requires documentation through psychoanalysis. But even on the face of the statistical figures we find a certain percentage of cases showing a greater fondness for the mother. This is also true of some of the cases in which the predominant love had been declared in favor of the father.
Hirschfeld holds that the attachment of the urning to his mother is a common occurrence. He states:
“The homosexual is attracted to one woman with particular tenderness; this is his mother; and here we also find the analogy of a particularly intimate relationship between the urning daughter and her father. The homosexual’s attachment to his mother is so typical, that the Freudian school has described this mother-complex as the cause of homosexuality. I hold this deduction for a false one. The homosexual does not become an urning because he was so passionately attached to his mother as a child; on the contrary, he leans towards the mother instinctively rather than knowingly, at first, this being the direction of his weakness and peculiarity and often his mother, also instinctively, makes him her favorite child....”
This conclusion of Hirschfeld’s I find myself unable to accept. The urning is often the mother’s favorite child before his birth. The child responds with the most tender love for his mother with whom he identifies himself in the end. Sometimes the mother wishes a girl and brings up her boy as one. I know one urning who was never dressed in pantelets by his mother, who was always kept by her side and whose mother was in the habit of folding his external genital over with his skin, saying: you are a girl! Even as a grown up boy he was frequently put in girl’s clothes and he preserved for some time a tendency to transvestism.
Undoubtedly there are many cases, in which direct love for the mother has absorbed all love for the female sex.
One urning, for instance, as quoted by Hirschfeld, states:
“My mother was everything to me, she was my one best friend, the alpha and omega of my existence. I had built many pretty plans for her, desiring to make her comfortable in her old age.... Then, there came the terrible catastrophe, which nearly wiped out my whole existence, death robbed me of my much-beloved mother. The report of her illness, which made me fear the worst, found me in the North of Ireland and the tortures which I endured during the two days and two nights that it took me to reach home, could not be described in mere words. On the train folks avoided me suspecting that I was insane.... For three weary weeks I took care of my mother day and night, then God took her from me, and I remained a lonely wanderer, broken in mind and body. It was a blow from which I could never recover. In the endeavor to forget I returned to my England to take up my former work but it was useless. Forget I could not, day and night I was a prey to mental and physical suffering. I could not stand it any longer. So I returned to the old home where my people had lived for 100 years. Sometimes I was nearly insane and felt a little more quiet only when visiting the cemetery and hovering around my parents’ resting place. Unable to find peace I decided to travel. In the churches and cathedrals of every City and in the chapels of every village through which I passed I prayed to God for the soul of my beloved mother. The gnawing anguish in my heart over the death of my beloved mother had shattered my nerves all to pieces.... I felt myself paralyzed on account of my deep depression, I could no longer think, I fell into melancholy although I sometimes tried to rouse myself. I abandoned all correspondence because no one could write me a consoling word. When the world which existed between mother and myself shattered, life ceased to have any interest for me.”
The relationship of the urlind to the father and of the urning to the mother Hirschfeld summarizes in the following table:
I. Urning boy
Prefers girls’ games, avoids characteristic boys’ games, has many girlish features in his character and behavior, Sometimes also in his appearance. Observers remark: “He is like a girl.”
Urlind girl
Prefers boys’ games, dislikes handwork, confections, is ‘boy-like’ in behavior, in acts and, often, in appearance. Remark: “She is like a boy!”
II. Attitude towards the other sex
Prefers the company of girls.
Emotional fixation on the mother.
Preferably plays rough games with boys.
Attachment greater to father.
III. Attitude towards own sex (as erotically colored in the unconscious)
Instinctively inhibited and bashful in relation to boys.
Dreamy attachment to teacher or some school mate.
Greater bashfulness in the presence of girls.
Similarly attached in dreams to some female person—teacher or school mate.
The powerful influence of the mother in bringing up the child is illustrated by the following passage from one history:
“A young lieutenant relates: as soon as I was out of the school room I used to rush to my girl friends. My mother was fond of taking me along when she went shopping and always asked me how I liked this thing and that, before making a purchase. For every new hat which mother bought I served as a model, that is, every hat was tried on my head, and mother purchased for herself the hat that looked best when tried on me. ‘You look like a little girl,’ mother often would say to me while the hats were tried on, ‘too bad, that you are not a real girl!’” (Hirschfeld, l. c., p. 113.)
The expression, “too bad, you are not a real girl,” shows how the mother influenced the child’s soul at a time when it is so very plastic. But Hirschfeld maintains that the conditions were reversed; that the parents had suspected the child’s homosexual inclination and treated it accordingly:
“Often the disposition towards homosexuality is fostered in children by their elders who treat them according to that leaning. The fathers feel specially attracted to the urning daughters—the mothers fondly give their urning boys girlish tasks about the house. The feminine and the virile peculiarities are not brought out through training at first; the mother would not expect girlish tasks of a boy who was not in the first place inclined that way. When Krafft-Ebing relates in his description of the case of the Countess Sarolta Vay: ‘it was her father’s whim to bring up S. as a boy; he let her ride, drive, hunt, admired her virile energy, called her Sandor. On the other hand this foolish parent allowed his second son to be dressed like a girl and to be brought up very much like one’—we must credit the father with the intention of meeting deliberately an outspoken tendency on the part of his children.” (Hirschfeld, l. c., p. 112.)
Naturally when one explains everything so arbitrarily and tries to interpret in the parent’s favor, suggesting that the father displayed great psychic insight, anything may be proven.
But when one looks with open eyes at this observation and at another case of Hirschfeld’s,—an important contribution because it illustrates the whole inner condition of the homosexual,—it is not difficult to draw one’s own conclusions. One urning relates about his mother:
“In the midst of his worries he was suddenly embraced and kissed—his mother held him tightly in her arms; she drew his little face to her cheek and their tears mingled while she consoled him until his eyes again mirrored a smile. These were unforgettable experiences in the life of the homosexual child. He felt that his mother was his truest friend, and in his grateful heart he planned to recompense her above all other mothers. His whole life and hope was centered in her; it was for her sake that he was willing to prepare his school lessons, and because of her he avoided arousing his father’s wrath; he did not want her to be scolded on his account. To make her happy was his ambition in life. Because she was not happy, he felt as if it were his fault and with redoubled tenderness he clung to her, the quiet sufferer.
“He reached 16 years of age, he became sexually ripe and a perplexing unrest troubled him. His comrades told him about their gallant adventures. But he remained unresponsive to everything that seemed to make them so happy. On the contrary, he was terribly distressed when his best friend ‘betrayed’ him in favor of a girl. He began to be aware of his peculiarity and the terrible thought that he must hide his awful feelings made him tremble. He tried very hard to turn into the right path. But he could not live at home while harboring his secret; his mother, whom he loved above all else, he wanted to spare; he felt he had to leave; so he abandoned his home and went into the world trying to direct properly his sexual feelings. While away he received most tender messages from his mother to whom he wrote as to a beloved. After an absence of two years he returned home. From that time on his life developed under the eyes of his mother, in whom he saw the highest quintessence of all womanhood. His relations with women were marked by timidity. He adored them and felt he would like to serve them. He became early their confessor for his womanly soul made him their natural comrade. But in the midst of all he was very unhappy, his feelings for them never turned into physical love—the sexual attraction was absent.” (Hirschfeld, l. c., p. 105.)
This urning actually confessed, in his own words, that in his mother he saw the quintessence of all womanhood. The condition is obvious. Every woman represents the mother, in part. At first I had occasion to observe cases of this kind and that is how I came to the hasty conclusion that every homosexual is emotionally fixed upon his mother and avoids women because his inhibition towards them is due to the mother Imago which he carries within him.[45]
Another observation of Hirschfeld’s seems to me of very great interest:
“The great attachment of homosexuals to their mother as pointed out by Sadger and other followers of Freud is really a fact and holds true of nearly all homosexuals, the attachment reaching far back into their own childhood and extending over the mother’s whole life. We have seen that many who lost their mother at an advanced age, for a long time were unable to recover from the blow. But it seems more proper not to look upon this great attachment to the mother as the cause of homosexuality, but as a consequence thereof. Aside from this more feminine nature, absence of a home of his own keeps the homosexual for a longer time than usual close to his mother, especially when she possesses a more pronounced personality, which is rather not unusual where the children are homosexual. Urnings who contract marriage are not wound up emotionally in their mother quite to such an extent and often their love is transferred to their wife.” (Hirschfeld, l. c., p. 344.)
With these words and the admission of the transference of the love for the mother to some other female person Hirschfeld recognizes the possibility of healing the condition, which is the psychoanalyst’s task. But I must warn against any tendency to solve the problem of homosexuality on the basis of any single finding.
In the first place I must point out that the history of these cases discloses two types of motherhood: the strong mother and the weak mother. Both types are common and either or both may determine the growth of the child. Hirschfeld states that the urning becomes readily attached to the mother who is strong. This corresponds with my practical observations and shows one type of homosexuality which I shall presently describe. The strong mother dominates a weak child throughout his life, he never escapes her and she determines his relations to other women.
It will be of interest to record on this question the opinion of a man who is looked upon as the spiritual leader of the homosexual circle in a cosmopolitan city, a man who has organized them and who has had considerable experience. This gentleman writes me:
“My Dear Doctor:
“In conformity with your wish I am sending you herewith a number of life histories.
“First I wish to report to you the result of a questionnaire; I have reached with the questionnaire 800 persons. It is noteworthy that none of them knew that the answer to the question was of any particular interest to me, for the question and the answer came up unobtrusively in the course of ordinary conversation. This disposes of the criticism sometimes heard in medical circles that the answers to interrogatories are of little or no worth because the respondents unconsciously report things in a manner to favor themselves if they do not deliberately tell falsehoods with that end in view.
“Among the 800 persons interrogated 65% stated that the mother was unusually energetic and self-reliant, while the father was mild and easy going, as well as diffident and easily influenced.
“In my opinion these 65% represent the hereditary cases; there may be some also among the other 35% due to hereditary transmission but this, of course, I am unable to ascertain and it would be interesting to conduct a medical inquiry into the subject.
“In favor of a hereditary predisposition as the most general factor stands also the fact that in many families the homosexual’s sisters or brothers show a similar tendency.”
Illustrations
U. Sch., 26 years of age, a merchant. The mother extraordinarily self-reliant and the one who determines the course of action in every family emergency. Father good-natured fellow, easily influenced. U. Sch. has been several years ago under the care of Prof. Pilz. At the time he had some intercourse with women, but the act always caused him disgust and did not diminish his need to get into contact with men. At first he tried to oppose this leaning towards men, but after two months of struggle—during which he lost considerable weight—he had to give in again and today he maintains relations exclusively with men. His brother, six years younger than he, is an actor and is also homosexual. An older brother, also a merchant, is completely normal in his sexual life, but far from self reliant and very moody. His sister is also heterosexual, but has male traits and physical features, hairy growth on the face and a bass voice which would be considered very low even in a man.
Count X., 25 years old; a very energetic mother. His gait and movements are exceedingly feminine, he is careless and has been mixed up already in a number of unpleasant affairs from which the writer successfully helped him extricate himself. Two of his three brothers are also homosexual, and of his family circle in the wider sense, two uncles.
Karl W., 28 years of age, bank clerk. For the past six years has maintained relations with his older colleagues. He is very strikingly feminine and anxiety appears to lend zest to life in his case. He is continually living in dread lest some one in his family should find out about his peculiar inclination, although he is a stranger here and has no relative living nearby. But if he has no reason to fear anything on this score he finds some other reason to keep his mind in torment. For instance, he fears he will be run over by an automobile, even when he strolls along the safe side of a side walk, etc. As he is otherwise mentally normal I conclude that he has a strong masochistic tendency which he satisfies thus by conjuring up absurd fears. There is no expression of the masochistic tendency in any overt acts. On the other hand K. has relations only with persons belonging to the lowest social stratum (plasterers, drivers, etc.) and it is probable that the greater danger in that connection serves as a stimulant for him.
His mother is normal, but a very energetic woman, always taking care of her own affairs and when a couple of thieves once broke in at her home she grappled with them, threw them to the ground and held them. She has married a second time, has a slight downy beard growth, and in her house often puts on male clothing.
We need not be surprised that the expert emphasizes the fact that in many instances homosexuality occurs in groups in the same family. The same conditions bring about similar effects. Even the fact that 65% of homosexuals have a very energetic mother need not be in itself of any particular significance as typical of the psychogenesis of homosexuality. The expert really means that these are mannish women so that they naturally bring into the world womanly boys.