"If at this point my friend had happened to die or go away, and the incident had come to an end, I should probably have been left nervous in these matters for years to come. I should have faltered in the opinion I had always held, that bodily expressions of love between women were as innocent as they were natural; and I might have come nearer than I ever expected to the doctrine of those convent teachers who forbid their girls to embrace one another for fear an incalculable instinct should carry them to the edge of an abyss.
"As it was, after a while I said a little on the subject to my friend herself. I had been inclined to think that she might share my anxiety, but she did not share it at all. She said to me that she did not like these thoughts, that she cared for me more than She had ever done for any person except one (now causing most of her unhappiness), and wanted me in all possible ways, and that it would make her sad to feel that I was trying not to want her in one way because I thought it was wrong.
"On my part, I knew very well how much she did need and want me. I knew that in relations with others she was spending the greatest effort in following a course that I urged on her, and was doing what I thought right in spite of the most painful pressure on her to do wrong; and that she needed all the support and comfort I could give her. It seemed to me, after our conversation, that the right path for me lay not in giving way to fears and scruples, but in giving my friend straightforwardly all the love I could and all the kinds of love I could. I decided to keep my eyes open for danger, but meanwhile to go on.
"We were living alone together at the time, and thenceforward we did as we liked doing. As soon as we could, we moved to a bed where we could sleep together all night. In the day when no one was there we sat as close together as we wished, which was very close. We kissed each other as often as we wanted to kiss each other, which was very many times a day.
"The results of this, so far as I can see, have been wholly good. We love each other warmly, but no temptation to nastiness has ever come, and I cannot see now that it is at all likely to come. With custom, the localized physical excitement has practically disappeared, and I am no longer obsessed by imagined embraces. The spiritual side of our affection seems to have grown steadily stronger and more profitable since the physical side has, been allowed to take its natural place."
A class in which homosexuality, while fairly distinct, is only slightly marked, is formed by the women to whom the actively inverted woman is most attracted. These women differ, in the first place, from the normal, or average, woman in that they are not repelled or disgusted by lover-like advances from persons of their own sex. They are not usually attractive to the average man, though to this rule there are many exceptions. Their faces may be plain or ill-made, but not seldom they possess good figures: a point which is apt to carry more weight with the inverted woman than beauty of face. Their sexual impulses are seldom well marked, but they are of strongly affectionate nature. On the whole, they are women who are not very robust and well developed, physically or nervously, and who are not well adapted for child-bearing, but who still possess many excellent qualities, and they are always womanly. One may, perhaps, say that they are the pick of the women whom the average man would pass by. No doubt, this is often the reason why they are open to homosexual advances, but I do not think it is the sole reason. So far as they may be said to constitute a class, they seem to possess a genuine, though not precisely sexual, preference for women over men, and it is this coldness, rather than lack of charm, which often renders men rather indifferent to them.
The actively inverted woman usually differs from the woman of the class just mentioned in one fairly essential character: a more or less distinct trace of masculinity. She may not be, and frequently is not, what would be called a "mannish" woman, for the latter may imitate men on grounds of taste and habit unconnected with sexual perversion, while in the inverted woman the masculine traits are part of an organic instinct which she by no means always wishes to accentuate. The inverted woman's masculine element may, in the least degree, consist only in the fact that she makes advances to the woman to whom she is attracted and treats all men in a cool, direct manner, which may not exclude comradeship, but which excludes every sexual relationship, whether of passion or merely of coquetry. Usually the inverted woman feels absolute indifference toward men, and not seldom repulsion. And this feeling, as a rule, is instinctively reciprocated by men. At the same time bisexual women are at least as common as bisexual men.
HISTORY XXXIV.—Miss S., aged 38, living in a city of the United States, a business woman of fine intelligence, prominent in professional and literary circles. Her general health is good, but she belongs to a family in which there is a marked neuropathic element. She is of rather phlegmatic temperament, well poised, always perfectly calm and self-possessed, rather retiring in disposition, with gentle, dignified bearing.
She says she cannot care for men, but that all her life has been "glorified and made beautiful by friendship with women," whom she loves as a man loves women. Her character is, however, well disciplined, and her friends are not aware of the nature of her affections. She tries not to give all her love to one person, and endeavors (as she herself expresses it) to use this "gift of loving" as a stepping-stone to high mental and spiritual attainments. She is described by one who has known her for several years as "having a high nature, and instincts unerringly toward high things."
HISTORY XXXV.—Miss B., artist, of German ancestry on the paternal side. Among her brothers and sisters, one is of neurotic temperament and another is inverted. She is herself healthy. She has no repugnance to men, and would even like to try marriage, if the union were not permanent, but she has seldom felt any sexual attraction to a man. In one exceptional instance, early in life, realizing that she was not adapted for heterosexual relationships, she broke off the engagement she had formed. Much later in life, she formed a more permanent relationship with a man of congenial tastes.