[84] Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 38.
Dr. Havelock Ellis justly observes that when homosexual attraction is due simply to the absence of the other sex we are not concerned with sexual inversion, but merely with the accidental turning of the sexual instinct into an abnormal channel, the instinct being called out by an approximate substitute, or even by diffused emotional excitement, in the absence of the normal object.[85] But it seems to me probable that in such cases the homosexual attraction in the course of time quite easily develops into genuine inversion. I cannot but think that our chief authorities on homosexuality have underestimated the modifying influence which habit may exercise on the sexual instinct. Professor Krafft-Ebing[86] and Dr. Moll[87] deny the existence of acquired inversion except in occasional instances; and Dr. Havelock Ellis takes a similar view, if putting aside those cases of a more or less morbid character in which old men with failing sexual powers, or younger men exhausted by heterosexual debauchery, are attracted to members of their own sex.[88] But how is it that in some parts of Morocco such a very large proportion of the men are distinctly sexual inverts, in the sense in which this word is used by Dr. Havelock Ellis,[89] that is, persons who for the gratification of their sexual desire prefer their own sex to the opposite one? It may be that in Morocco and in Oriental countries generally, where almost every individual marries, congenital inversion, through the influence of heredity, is more frequent than in Europe, where inverts so commonly abstain from marrying. But that this could not be an adequate explanation of the fact in question becomes at once apparent when we consider the extremely unequal distribution of inverts among different neighbouring tribes of the same stock, some of which are very little or hardly at all addicted to pederasty. I take the case to be, that homosexual practices in early youth have had a lasting effect on the sexual instinct, which at its first appearance, being somewhat indefinite, is easily turned into a homosexual direction.[90] In Morocco inversion is most prevalent among the scribes, who from childhood have lived in very close association with their fellow-students. Of course, influences of this kind “require a favourable organic predisposition to act on”;[91] but this predisposition is probably no abnormality at all, only a feature in the ordinary sexual constitution of man.[92] It should be noticed that the most common form of inversion, at least in Muhammedan countries, is love of boys or youths not yet in the age of puberty, that is, of male individuals who are physically very like girls. Voltaire observes:—“Souvent un jeune garçon, par la fraîcheur de son teint, par l’éclat de ses couleurs, et par la douceur de ses yeux, ressemble pendant deux ou trois ans à une belle fille; si on l’aime, c’est parce que la nature se méprend.”[93] Moreover, in normal cases sexual attraction depends not only on sex, but on a youthful appearance as well; and there are persons so constituted that to them the latter factor is of chief importance, whilst the question of sex is almost a matter of indifference.
[85] Havelock Ellis, op. cit. p. 3.
[86] Krafft-Ebing, op. cit. p. 211 sq.
[87] Moll, op. cit. p. 157 sqq.
[88] Havelock Ellis, op. cit. p. 50 sq. Cf. ibid. p. 181 sqq.
[89] Ibid. p. 3.
[90] Cf. Norman, ‘Sexual Perversion,’ in Tuke’s Dictionary of Psychological Medicine, ii. 1156.
[91] Havelock Ellis, op. cit. p. 191.
[92] Dr. Havelock Ellis also admits (op. cit. p. 190) that, if in early life the sexual instincts are less definitely determined than when adolescence is complete, “it is conceivable, though unproved, that a very strong impression, acting even on a normal organism, may cause arrest of sexual development on the psychic side. It is a question,” he adds, “I am not in a position to settle.”