It is, perhaps, not difficult to account for the horror—much stronger than that normally felt toward a person of the same sex—with which the invert often regards the sexual organs of persons of the opposite sex. It cannot be said that the sexual organs of either sex under the influence of sexual excitement are esthetically pleasing; they only become emotionally desirable through the parallel excitement of the beholder. When the absence of parallel excitement is accompanied in the beholder by the sense of unfamiliarity as in childhood, or by a neurotic hypersensitiveness, the conditions are present for the production of intense horror feminæ or horror masculis, as the case may be. It is possible that, as Otto Rank argues in his interesting study, "Die Naktheit im Sage und Dichtung," this horror of the sexual organs of the opposite sex, to some extent felt even by normal people, is embodied in the Melusine type of legend.[[194]]
EROTIC DREAMS.—Our dreams follow, as a general rule, the impulses that stir our waking psychic life. The normal man or woman in sexual vigor dreams of loving a person of the opposite sex; the inverted man dreams of loving a man, the inverted woman of loving a woman.[[195]] Dreams thus have a certain value in diagnosis, more especially since there is less unwillingness to confess to a perverted dream than to a perverted action.
Ulrichs first referred to the significance of the dreams of inverts. At a later period Moll pointed out that they have some value in diagnosis when we are not sure how far the inverted tendency is radical. Then Näcke repeatedly emphasized the importance of dreams as constituting, he believed, the most delicate test we possess in the diagnosis of homosexuality;[[196]] this was an exaggerated view which failed to take into account the various influences which may deflect dreams. Hirschfeld has made the most extensive investigation on this point, and found that among 100 inverts 87 had exclusively homosexual dreams, while most of the rest had no dreams at all.[[197]] Among my cases, only 4 definitely state that there are no erotic dreams, while 31 acknowledge that the dreams are concerned more or less with persons of the same sex. Of these, at least 16 assert or imply that their dreams are exclusively of the same sex. Two, though apparently inverted congenitally, have had erotic dreams of women, in one case more frequently than of men; these two exceptions have no apparent explanation. Another appears to have sexual dreams of a nightmare character in which women appear. In another case there were always at first dreams of women, but this subject had sometimes had connection with prostitutes, and is not absolutely indifferent to women, while another, whose dreams remain heterosexual, had in early life some attraction to girls. In the cases of distinct bisexuality there is no unanimity; 2 dream of their own sex, 2 dream of both sexes, 1 usually dreams of the opposite sex, and 1 man, while dreaming of both, dislikes those dreams in which women figure. In at least 3 cases dreams of a sexual character began at the age of 8 or earlier.
The phenomena presented by erotic dreams, alike in normal and abnormal persons, are somewhat complex, and dreams are by no means a sure guide to the dreamer's real sexual attitude. The fluctuations of dream imagery may be illustrated by the experiences of one of my subjects who thus indirectly summarises his own experiences: "When he was quite a child, he used to be haunted by gross and grotesque dreams of naked adult men, which must have been erotic. At the age of puberty he dreamed in two ways, but always about males. One species of vision was highly idealistic; a radiant and lovely young man's face with floating hair appeared to him on a background of dim shadows. The other was obscene, being generally the sight of a groom's or carter's genitals in a state of violent erection. He never dreamed erotically or sentimentally about women; but when the dream was frightful, the terror-making personage was invariably female. In ordinary dreams, women of his family or acquaintance played a trivial part. At the age of 24, having determined to conquer his homosexual passions, he married, found no difficulty in cohabiting with his wife, and begat several children, although he took but little passionate delight in the sexual act. He still continued to dream exclusively of men, for several years; and the obscene visions became more frequent than the idealistic. Gradually, coarse and uninteresting erotic dreams of women began to haunt his mind in sleep. A curious particular regarding the new type of vision was that he never dreamed of whole females, only of their sexual parts, seen in a blur; and the seminal emissions which attended the mental pictures left a feeling of fatigue and disgust. In course of time, his wife and he agreed to live separately so far as sexual relations are concerned. He then indulged his passion for males, and wholly lost those rudimentary female dreams which had been developed during the period of nuptial cohabitation."
Not only is it possible for the genuine invert to be trained into heterosexual erotic dreams, but homosexual dreams may occasionally be experienced by persons who are, and always have been, exclusively heterosexual. I could bring forward much evidence on this point. (Cf. "Auto-erotism" in vol. i of these Studies.) Both men and women who have always been of pronounced heterosexual tendency, without a trace of inversion, are liable to rare homosexual dreams, not necessarily involving orgasm or even definite sexual excitement, and sometimes accompanied by a feeling of repugnance. As an example I may present a dream (which had no known origin) of an exclusively heterosexual lady aged 42; she dreamed she was in bed with another woman, unknown to her, and lying on her own stomach, while with her right hand stretched out she was feeling the other's sexual parts. She could distinctly perceive the clitoris, vagina, etc.; she felt a sort of disgust with herself for what she was doing, but continued until she awoke; she then found herself lying on her stomach as in the dream and at first thought she must have been touching herself, but realized that this could not have been the case. (Niceforo, who believes that inversion may develop out of masturbation, considers that dreams of masturbation by association of ideas may take on an inverted character [Le Psicopatie Sessuale, 1897, pp. 35, 69]; this, however, must be rare, and will not account for most of the dreams in question.)
Näcke and Colin Scott, some years ago, independently referred to cases in which normal persons were liable to homosexual dreams, and Féré (Revue de Médecine, Dec., 1898) referred to a man who had a horror of women, but appeared only to manifest homosexuality in his dreams. Näcke (Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie, 1907, Heft I, 2) calls dreams which represent a reaction of opposition to the dreamer's ordinary life "contrast dreams." Hirschfeld, who accepts Näcke's "contrast dreams" in relation to homosexuality, considers that they indicate a latent bisexuality. We may admit this is so, in the same sense in which a complementary color image called up by another color indicates the possibility of perceiving that color. In most cases, however, it seems to me that homosexual dreams in normal persons may be simply explained as due to the ordinary confusion and transition of dream imagery. (See Ellis, The World of Dreams, especially ch. ii.)
Methods of Sexual Relationship.—The exact mode in which an inverted instinct finds satisfaction is frequently of importance from the medico-legal standpoint;[[198]] from a psychological standpoint it is of minor significance, being chiefly of interest as showing the degree to which the individual has departed from the instinctive feelings of his normal fellow-beings.
Taking 57 inverted men of whom I have definite knowledge, I find that 12, restrained by moral or other considerations, have never had any physical relationship with their own sex. In some 22 cases the sexual relationship rarely goes beyond close physical contact and fondling, or at most mutual masturbation and intercrural intercourse. In 10 or 11 cases fellatio (oral excitation)—frequently in addition to some form of mutual masturbation, and usually, though not always, as the active agency—is the form preferred. In 14 cases, actual pedicatio[[199]]—usually active, not passive—has been exercised. In these cases, however, pedicatio is by no means always the habitual or even the preferred method of gratification. It seems to be the preferred method in about 7 cases. Several who have never experienced it, including some who have never practised any form of physical relationship, state that they feel no objection to pedicatio; some have this feeling in regard to active, others in regard to passive, pedicatio. The proportion of inverts who practise or have at some time experienced pedicatio thus revealed (nearly 25 per cent.) is large; in Germany Hirschfeld finds it to be only 8 per cent., and Merzbach only 6. I believe, however, that a wider induction from a larger number of English and American cases would yield a proportion much nearer to that found in Germany.[[200]]
PSEUDOSEXUAL ATTRACTION.—It is sometimes supposed that in homosexual relationships one person is always active, physically and emotionally, the other passive. Between men, at all events, this is very frequently not the case, and the invert cannot tell if he feels like a man or like a woman. Thus, one writes:—
"In bed with my friend I feel as he feels, and he feels as I feel. The result is masturbation, and nothing more or desire for more on my part. I get it over, too, as soon as possible, in order to come to the best—sleeping arms round each other, or talking so."