A homosexual physician, thirty-two years of age, gives the following account of his sexuality:
“I cannot tell you at what age sexual inclinations first appeared in me. My sexual impulse is directed towards males. Before and during the time of puberty the impulse was quite indeterminate. I believe that at this time I even cherished the idea of some day carrying out intercourse with a girl. But this was not love; it was a purely physical desire. The spiritual side of the impulse was at this time completely wanting. The sexual impulse now extends only towards young men. I have hitherto had sexual intercourse neither with males nor with females, but I believe that I should be competent for the normal sexual act. This act, however, would give me no pleasure; it would be nothing more than masturbation. I feel complete indifference towards the female sex, but I do not feel hatred or disgust. Sexual dreams[540] relate always to persons of the same sex. On the stage, in the circus, it is always the men who interest me more than the women. In addition, I admire celebrated actresses and female singers, but my interest in them is purely artistic. From this standpoint also I am fully able to do justice to the beauty of young women, and have often wished to paint a girl, but this interest is always that of a painter—the colour of the hair, the complexion, interesting features. Social intercourse with persons of the other sex is quite unrestrained. The sense of shame I feel more in regard to women, but still I have also a strong sense of shame with regard to men. I always have a great difficulty to overcome when I have to take off my clothes in the presence of other men, and it is also very difficult to me to urinate when other men are present.
“My love exists only towards youths from the ages of seventeen to twenty-four, or, to speak more strictly, towards youths at the time of puberty. One of these of whom I am fond is sixteen years of age, but sexually he is completely mature, so that every one imagines him to be twenty.
“The direction of my sexual impulse has first become perfectly clear to me since reading the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages. I was already fully aware of the fact that young men were especially interesting to me, but had not previously understood that this interest was of a sexual nature. I had, indeed, heard of pæderasty—the case of Krupp and others—but I imagined that these individuals had developed such a tendency in consequence of satiety. ‘You,’ I said to myself, ‘are purer and nobler in sentiment. Pæderasty is loathsome to you; no human being will ever understand you.’
“Every young man at the age of puberty awakens in me a certain sexual interest. This is especially the case when they are slender and wiry in build, not fat, with well-developed, but not excessively powerful, muscles, with gentle and modest character. Roughness always suffices to destroy completely the commencement of inclination. Sturdy, plump youths, and those with an excessive development of fat under the skin, or with a wide, feminine aspect of the buttocks, leave me comparatively cold. The youthful forms embodied in Grecian sculpture are my ideal type. It is indispensable that they should be beardless, or at most have the merest beginnings of a beard. A youth with a heavy moustache leaves me cold; he is too masculine for me. Intellectual culture plays no part in the attraction; modesty and gentleness are necessary to render an intimate relationship possible. I find no preference for any particular profession. I have, indeed, pedagogic inclinations, but these appear to me to play no part in producing attraction, but come into action only later. One whom one loves is one in whom one would be glad to produce spiritual perfection. The attraction depends, in the first place, upon beauty of the body; beauty of the face is only of secondary importance. Smell has no influence upon the attraction.”
It will be noted that this writer, now thirty-two years of age, has hitherto had no experience of sexual intercourse, either heterosexual or homosexual. This is characteristic. Homosexuals in general, in contrast to heterosexuals, often proceed at a comparatively late age to actual experience of their sexual impulse in action. He goes on to describe the first beginnings of his love for a beautiful youth, eighteen years of age. He writes:
“My eyes watched every movement of the body, which continually displayed new beauties. I should have loved to fall upon his neck and kiss him. For sexual intercourse he appeared to me too pure, too noble; I should rather have lain before him in the dust and prayed to his beauty. I felt that I should have been a poet in order to be able to clothe in the right words this delicate and holy sentiment. And I must shut this all up within myself, must remain outwardly cold. It was enough to drive me to madness! Have compassion on us, and allow us at least an embrace, a kiss. That certainly can do no one any harm, and for me it would be a good action. The distressing tension which tortures us to death would be for the time relaxed. I always have a feeling that the process of sexual attraction must be of an electrical nature. I seem to myself to be charged with electricity, the tension increasing up to the highest point when the beloved is near me, and a prolonged contact or a stroking with the hand already suffices to bring about a certain calming of the nerves. The tension is to some degree diminished. The various components of sexual enjoyment appear to be developed in human beings with very different strength. In this way it is explicable that in one person the odour of the loved one, in another the changing tones of the voice, in a third the taste of the kiss (the tongue kiss), is most stimulating. It is, indeed, even conceivable that there exists a purely mental sexual enjoyment, and that to some individuals merely to look at the beloved person, or to read a letter from him, suffices.
“Sexual intercourse had hitherto never been practised, but I can asseverate that the mode of my desire is rather feminine. It would be my ideal if the loved one should feel sexual ardour for me; I should be a willing sacrifice. I should like to possess feminine sexual organs, in order to appear desirable to the loved one.
“I have battled powerfully against my nature, and have felt very unhappy. I regard myself as physically and mentally healthy. I have received at birth a double nature (alas! two souls dwell within my breast). My body is that of a man, my soul rather that of a woman; hence the conflict, hence my sexual desires, considered outwardly and only from the physical point of view, are contrary to nature. Alas! my soul can be seen by no one.
“Why do I only love a young man? Because he in ideal fashion enlarges my nature. My sexual sensibility is mainly feminine, and is directed, therefore, towards the masculine, and more especially towards the masculine in the time of youth, because the feminine sensibility in my nature is damped by a small masculine note. The effeminate urning probably loves the complete man as the best complement of his own nature. The slightly masculine note of my own sexual perception demands also in the man whom I love a slight feminine note, such as we find in the youth. He has, in fact, something feminine in him—beardlessness, no immoderate strength of the muscular system, a gentle disposition, receptive emotions—and yet he is masculine and sexually mature. Sexual maturity is a necessary part of every love. The young man, therefore, is the ideal conception of my nature. My love is as great, as holy, and as pure, as heterosexual love; it is capable of self-sacrifice. Believe me, for a loved one who fully understood me in every respect, I would gladly go to my death.