[189] I may add that I see no fundamental irreconcilability between the point of view here adopted and the facts brought forward (and wrongly interpreted) by Schrenck-Notzing. In his Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Conträrer Sexualempfindung (Vienna, 1895), this writer states: "The neuropathic disposition is congenital, as is the tendency to precocious appearance of the appetites, the lack of psychic resistance, and the tendency to imperative associations; but that heredity can extend to the object of the appetite, and influence the contents of these characters, is not shown. Psychological experiences are against it, and the possibility, which I have shown, of changing these impulses by experiment and so removing their danger to the character of the individual." It need not be asserted that "heredity extends to the object of the appetite," but simply that heredity culminates in an organism which is sexually best satisfied by that object. It is also a mistake to suppose that congenital characters cannot be, in some cases, largely modified by such patient and laborious processes as those carried on by Schrenck-Notzing. In the same pamphlet this writer refers to moral insanity and idiocy as supporting his point of view. It is curious that both these congenital manifestations had independently occurred to me as arguments against his position. The experiences of Elmira Reformatory and Bicêtre—not to mention institutions of more recent establishment—long since showed that both the morally insane and the idiotic can be greatly improved by appropriate treatment. Schrenck-Notzing seems to be unduly biased by his interest in hypnotism and suggestion.
[190] "If an invert acquires, under the influence of external conditions," Féré wrote with truth (L'Instinct Sexuel, p. 238), "it is because he was born with an aptitude for such acquisition: an aptitude lacking in those who have been subjected to the same conditions without making the same acquisitions."
[191] One of my subjects writes: "Inverts are, I think, naturally more liable to indulge in self-gratification than normal people, partly because of the perpetual suppression and disappointment of their desires, and also because of the fact that they actually possess in themselves the desired form of the male. This idea is a little difficult of explanation, but you can readily imagine to what frenzies of self-abuse a normal man would be impelled supposing that he included in his own the form of the female."
[192] I do not here enter upon the consideration of the normal prevalence and significance of masturbation and allied phenomena, as I have dealt with this subject in the study of "Auto-erotism," in volume i of these Studies.
[193] Hirschfeld also finds, among German inverts (Die Homosexualität, ch. iii), that the majority (though a smaller majority than I find in England and the United States) have not had intercourse with women; 53 per cent., he states, including a few married men, have never even attempted coitus, and over 50 per cent, are presumably impotent. The number of inverted women who have never had intercourse with men is still larger.
[194] Otto Rank, Imago, Heft 3, 1913.
[195] Erotic dreams have been discussed in "Auto-erotism," vol. i of these Studies, and the wider bearings of the subject in another work, The Study of Dreams. Many references to the extensive literature will be found in both these places.
[196] E.g., Archiv für Psychiatrie, 1899; Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie, 1900.
[197] Hirschfeld, Die Homosexualität, p. 71 et seq. Hirschfeld considers that the dreams of the inverted fall into two groups: one in which the dreamer imagines he is embracing a person of the same sex, and another in which he imagines that he is himself of the opposite sex. The latter class of dreams, constituting a pseudo-heterosexual group, seems to me to be rare, and they may, moreover, occur in heterosexual persons.
[198] See Thoinot and Weysse, Medico-legal Aspects of Moral Offenses, pp. 165, 291, etc.