A marked characteristic of many inverts, though one not easy of precise definition, is their youthfulness of appearance, and frequently child-like faces, equally in both sexes. This has often been remarked,[[217]] and is pronounced among many of my subjects.
The frequent inability of male inverts to whistle was first pointed out by Ulrichs, and Hirschfeld has found it in 23 per cent. Many of my cases confess to this inability, while some of the women inverts can whistle admirably. Although this inability of male inverts is only found among a minority, I am quite satisfied that it is well marked among a considerable minority. One of my correspondents, M. N., writes to me: "With regard to the general inability of inverts to whistle (I am not able to do so myself), their fondness for green (my favorite color), their feminine caligraphy, skill at female occupations, etc., these all seem to me but indications of the one principle. To go still farther and include trivial things, few inverts even smoke in the same manner and with the same enjoyment as a man; they have seldom the male facility at games, cannot throw at a mark with precision, or even spit!"
Nearly all these peculiarities indicate a minor degree of nervous disturbance and lead to modification, as my correspondent points out, in a feminine direction. It is scarcely necessary to add that they by no means necessarily imply inversion. Shelley, for instance, was unable to whistle, though he never gave an indication of inversion; but he was a person of somewhat abnormal and feminine organization, and he illustrates the tendency of these apparently very insignificant functional anomalies to be correlated with other and more important psychic anomalies.
The greater part of these various anatomical peculiarities and functional anomalies point, more or less clearly, to the prevalence among inverts of a tendency to infantilism, combined with feminism in men and masculinism in women.[[218]] This tendency is denied by Hirschfeld, but it is often well indicated among the subjects whose histories I have been able to present, and is indeed suggested by Hirschfeld's own elaborate results; so that it can scarcely be passed over. I regard it as highly significant, and it is in harmony with all that we are learning to know regarding the important part played by the internal secretions, alike in inversion and the general bodily modifications in an infantile, feminine, and masculine direction.
If we are justified in believing that there is a tendency for inverted persons to be somewhat arrested in development, approaching the child type, we may connect this fact with the sexual precocity sometimes marked in inverts, for precocity is commonly accompanied by rapid arrest of development.
A correspondent, who is himself inverted, furnishes the following notes of cases he is well acquainted with; I quote them here, as they illustrate the anomalies commonly found:—
1. A., male, eldest child of typically neurotic family. Three children in all: 2 male and 1 female. The other 2 are somewhat eccentric, unsocial, and sexually frigid, 1 in a marked degree. The curious point about this case is that A., the only one of the family possessed of mental ability and social qualifications, should be inverted. Parents' marriage was very ill-assorted and inharmonious, the father being of great stature and the mother abnormally small and of highly nervous temperament, both of feeble health. Ancestry unfortunate, especially on mother's side.
2. B., male, invert, younger of 2 sons, no other children, has extremely feminine disposition and appearance, of considerable personal attraction, and has great musical talent. Penis very small and marked breast-development.
3. C., male, invert, younger of 2 sons, no other children. Interval of six years between first and second son. Parents' marriage one of great affection, but degenerate ancestry on mother's side. Cancer and scrofula in family.
4. D., male, invert, second child of 6; remainder girls. Of humble social position. Considerable depravity evinced by all the members of this family, with the exception of D., who alone proved steady, honest, and industrious.