The gait and the movements of effeminate urnings also have a somewhat womanly appearance, and attract the attention even of one who is not in the secret. Short, tripping paces and elegant movements are characteristic of the effeminate.
In an earlier chapter we came to the conclusion that the fully adult normal woman was approximate in physical characteristics rather to the child and to the youthful human being than to the adult man; and in this connexion it is of interest that we must describe as a distinctively feminine characteristic the peculiarity of many male homosexuals, which enables them for a long time to preserve a youthful appearance and demeanour.
Very remarkable is the behaviour of the voice. The change in the voice may not occur at all, or does not occur till very late. The capacity for singing soprano or falsetto is also long preserved. Others, in whom the change of voice had failed to occur, were able to lower the pitch considerably by practice. A typical and well-known example is that of the baritone singer Willibald von Sadler-Grün, whom I had the opportunity of hearing recently, when, under the name of “Urany Verde,” he made a professional journey through Germany, and sang his songs dressed as a woman. He said of himself: “My voice has never cracked in a definite way. At twenty-three years of age I could sing soprano, and can still do so to-day, at the age of thirty. The deeper tones for speech and singing I acquired only by instruction and practice” (Hirschfeld, “Urnings,” p. 65). In this typical effeminate, the breasts also had a completely feminine character, as, according to Hirschfeld, is by no means rare in boy urnings, who at puberty experience swelling of the breasts, associated with painful sensations.[509] I must, however, maintain, in opposition to Hirschfeld, that abnormally marked development of the breasts is by no means rare in perfectly normal heterosexual men. For the diagnosis of homosexuality, the imperfect development of the larynx, and the failure of the voice to crack, are more important than the marked development of the breasts. I remember distinctly that in the case of a fellow-student of mine years ago his high voice used greatly to strike me. To-day I am able to understand how this fact was associated with his complete disinclination to sexual intercourse with women and his insensibility to feminine charms in general; and I am able in his case to diagnose homosexuality with absolute certainty.
In the case of virile homosexuals, all the above-mentioned physical peculiarities are far less noticeable. In their outward appearance they much more nearly resemble heterosexual men, but still they always have comparatively more of the feminine in their nature than the latter. Such a typically virile homosexual, in whose appearance the impression of femininity was entirely absent, I was able recently to recognize during a railway journey, in the course of which he confided to me misogynous opinions against other fellow-travellers, and also said that in the whole of his life—he was a man of a little over thirty—he had not had intercourse with women more than three or four times. During the long wait of the train at a station I took the opportunity, having mentioned that I was a physician by profession, to ask him if he was not homosexual, a fact which he at once admitted. Already in very early childhood he had felt himself distinctly drawn only towards masculine beings, and had never experienced the least inclination towards women. In this case also any kind of outward influence was excluded, because he had grown up at home and chiefly in a feminine environment. As I have already said, in appearance he was masculine, and he himself stated that he had no physical characteristics which suggested a feminine impression. That this is the case in numerous virile homosexuals is proved by the distinctive fact that many of them are professional soldiers, especially officers, in respect of whose appearance virility is very strongly insisted on.
The mental qualities of male homosexuals correspond fully to the physical, and occupy a middle region between the psyche of the heterosexual man and that of woman. But every emotional element is in them more prominent than energetic will-power and clear-sighted reason. Something soft and pliable is characteristic of the majority of urnings. This adaptability manifests itself in good-humouredness, in inclination to self-sacrifice, but, above all, in a most astonishing mobility of the imaginative life, which seems to be something characteristic of the homosexual, and to explain his frequent artistic capacity, above all his talents for music, for which vocation, indeed, his less fixed and more sketchy nature especially fits him, but also for poetry, painting, acting, and sculpture. “For all the fine arts,” says Hirschfeld, “from cooking and artistic needlework to sculpture, we find that urnings have exceptional talent.” The inclination to intellectual occupation is distinctly greater among homosexuals than the inclination to bodily work. Associated with this is the ambition to distinguish themselves mentally above those by whom they are surrounded. Hirschfeld’s assertion that homosexuals belonging to the lower classes exhibit intellectual predominance over their environment, I am able emphatically to confirm, after frequent conversations with homosexual workmen and menservants. The peculiarity of their congenital tendencies has here early given rise to a certain intellectual profundity, has early taught these men to reflect about the world and about human existence. Every homosexual is a philosopher for himself. Most heterosexuals, especially those of the lower classes, never arrive at thinking so much about themselves and about their relations to the external world, as is a matter of course among homosexuals. The imaginative, the dreamy, is much more predominant in the homosexual than a crude sense of reality. This expresses itself particularly in his love, which far less frequently and exclusively than among the heterosexual takes the form of a gross and material sensuality. On the contrary, it permits us to recognize the inward need for tenderness and delicacy, for a peculiar ideal colouring. Goethe has contrasted this latter with the more sensual heterosexual love; he speaks of the
“remarkable phenomenon of the love of men for each other. Let it be admitted that this love is seldom pushed to the highest degree of sensuality, but rather occupies the intermediate region between inclination and passion. I am able to say that I have seen with my own eyes the most beautiful manifestations of this love, such as we have handed down to us from the days of Greek antiquity; and as an observant student of human nature I was able to observe the intellectual and moral elements of this love.”[510]
The ideal conception of Platonic—that is, of homosexual—love was a non-sensual, assexual love. The psychical element also plays an important part in modern uranism—a part overlooked or underestimated, whereas the sensual side is exaggerated.
Homosexuality as an anthropological phenomenon is diffused throughout all classes of the population. We find it among workmen just as much as among aristocrats, princely personalities, and intellectual heroes. Physicians, lawyers, theologians, philosophers, merchants, artists, etc., all contribute their contingents to uranism. If the extraordinarily frequent occurrence of homosexuality in the highest classes of society, especially in the leaders of the aristocracy, may possibly be brought into relationship with the processes of “degeneration,” still, on the other hand, numerous homosexuals are derived from healthy families, such as have not transmitted hereditary taint through a long series of ancestors. Recently G. Merzbach[511] has studied the relationship between homosexuality and the choice of a profession, and has proved that this choice is usually a consequence of the natural tendency. Thus we find an especially large number of homosexuals engaged in the production of ready-made clothing and in other manufacturing trades; others become music-hall comedians playing women’s parts, actors, dancers. Actors and singers appearing on the stage as women are to a large extent original homosexuals.[512] Among hairdressers and waiters we find also a relatively large number of urnings.
As regards the diffusion of homosexuality, the data obtainable up to the most recent times have been extremely contradictory. The first exact information is to be found in the work of a physician, published under the name of M. Kertbeny,[513] on “§ 143 of the Prussian Criminal Code of April 14, 1851, and its Continuance as § 152 in the Proposal for a Criminal Code for the North German Bund” (Leipzig, 1869). The author enumerates in Berlin 10,000 homosexuals among 700,000 inhabitants (equal to 1·425 %). A patient of von Krafft-Ebing, living in a town of 13,000 inhabitants, was acquainted with 14 urnings; and in another town of 60,000 he knew of at least 80. Many other equally uncertain estimates are recorded by Magnus Hirschfeld. They vary between 2 % and 0·1 %—vary, that is to say, within very wide limits. In view, therefore, of the importance of the exact determination of the number of homosexuals, which I myself had earlier declared to be desirable, we owe great thanks to Magnus Hirschfeld for having made an attempt[514] to obtain some exact data regarding this matter. He deduces from a compilation of thirty test investigations (reports regarding homosexuals in various classes of the population), and by means of an inquiry made with sealed letters, that the proportion of male homosexuals to the population is about 1·5 %. That is a very much greater percentage than has hitherto been assumed to exist. Formerly I doubted the accuracy of this figure, but since numerous respected, honourable, well-behaved persons, of whom I had not suspected it, have assured me that they have been homosexual since childhood, I have no longer any doubt regarding the approximate accuracy of Hirschfeld’s statistics. The enquiry made by Dr. von Römer in Amsterdam gave similar results, for he found the proportion of homosexuals to be 1·9 %. A third enquiry made by Hirschfeld among the metal-workers of Berlin gave a proportion of 1·1 %.
Normal heterosexual love was reported in about 94 to 96 % of the three inquiries.