A remedy for all these evils—for the suicides as well as for the blackmailing—can only be found in the enlightenment of the whole people—the first and most important thing to do—and in the unconditional repeal of § 175 of the Criminal Code.
It has been a most useful service on the part of the Scientific and Humanitarian Committee—a service the value of which has not yet been sufficiently recognized—that it has endeavoured, above all, to bring about the enlightenment of the people by means of popular writings,[556] and of the learned by means of scientific publications, such as the most successful Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages (8 volumes, 1899-1906), and by means of lectures, by the convocation of public meetings, by petitions, etc.
The petition of the committee to the legislative bodies of the German Empire, asking for the repeal of § 175 of the Criminal Code, was signed by 5,000 persons belonging to the circles of men of science, judges, physicians, priests, schoolmasters, authors, and artists, among whom were some of the most celebrated names of cultured Germany. I cite here a few only: Ferdinand Avenarius, Hans von Basedow, Woldemar von Biedermann, H. Bulthaupt, Professor Crédé, Albert Eulenburg, Theodor Gaedertz, Rudolf von Gottschall, Franz Görres, O. E. Hartleben, Gerhart Hauptmann, S. Jadassohn, Hermann Kaulbach, R. von Krafft-Ebing, Joseph Kürschner, H. Kurella, Walter Leistikow, Leppmann, Max Liebermann, G. von Liebig, Detlev von Lilieneron, Franz von Liszt, Berthold Litzmann, Ph. Lotmar, John Henry Mackay, Mendel, Friedrich Moritz, P. Näcke, Paul Natorp, Albert Neisser, Max Nordau, A. von Oechelhäuser, A. von Oppenheim, J. Pagel, Pelman, R. Penzig, Placzek, Felix Poppenberg, Rainer Maria Rilke, O. Rosenbach, Wilhelm Roux, Max Rubner, Benno Rüttenauer, Johannes Schlaf, Arthur Schnitzler, A. von Schrenck-Notzing, Alwin Schulz, Moritz Schwalb, Georg Schweinfurth, Adolf von Sonnenthal, K. von Tepper-Laski, H. Unverricht, Max Verworn, A. Vierkandt, Richard Voss, Hans Wachenhusen, Felix Weingartner, Adolf Wilbrandt, Ernst von Wildenbruch, F. von Winkel, E. von Wolzogen, Ernst Ziegler, Theobald Ziegler, Theophil Zolling.
In addition, we might mention that in the year 1904 not less than 2,800 German physicians, as well as 750 head masters and masters of higher schools, signed the petition to the Reichstag for the repeal of § 175. Owing to certain scandals by which the highest circles were sympathetically affected—I need recall only the cases of Hohenau, Krupp, Israel, von Schenk, etc.—the conviction has been forced upon members of the most influential political circles that the repeal of the paragraphs of the Criminal Code relating to urnings is an unconditional necessity. We may, therefore, expect that the repeal will be effected within the next few years.
Compared with true original homosexuality in men, the same condition in women is of considerably less importance, because in women homosexuality is undoubtedly much less common than it is in men. In comparison with the number of urnings, the number of female homosexuals—of “urnindes,” “Lesbian lovers,” or “tribades”—is relatively small; whereas in many women, even at a comparatively advanced age, the so-called “pseudo-homosexuality” (see the next chapter) is much more frequently met with than it is in men. In the case of heterosexual men it is usually impossible to induce a homosexual mode of perception or to give rise to any kind of taste for homosexual activity; whereas in heterosexual women the corresponding change certainly occurs much more easily. Tendernesses and caresses play, indeed, among normal heterosexual women a rôle which makes it easier for us to understand how readily in woman pseudo-homosexual tendencies may arise. Still, it is impossible to doubt the existence also of original homosexuality in women. These are the cases in which, just as in urnings, the homosexual impulse appears in very early childhood, often long before puberty, in which case also the girl is distinguished from her heterosexual comrades in external appearance, exhibiting indications of a masculine build of body (slight development of the breasts, narrowness of the pelvis, development of a moustache, a deep voice, etc.); but such indications may be entirely absent, and the girl may not be distinguished from others in any respect beyond the perverse direction of the sexual impulse. These true tribades are much rarer than the false tribades, the pseudo-Lesbian lovers. For example, when visiting an urnings’ ball we may be quite sure that 99 % of the male homosexuals assembled there are true homosexuals; but at a tribades’ ball—such, also, are given in Berlin—certainly a much smaller percentage are “genuine”; the bulk of the women present are pseudo-homosexuals. I here append the interesting reminiscences of a genuine urninde, by which this relationship between original homosexuality and pseudo-homosexuality in women is very clearly shown:
Thoughts of a Lonely Woman!
“Born in the country, the daughter of a merchant, I grew up as a very dreamy being, with an unceasing yearning after something unknown, beautiful, great—with a longing to become a singer or an artist. At the age of twelve I was already completely ‘woman,’ very luxuriantly developed, although still half a child, filled always with an uncontrollable longing for a beloved feminine being who should kiss me and caress me, whom I was to regard with love and with a sentiment of self-sacrifice. At the age of thirteen I came to live with relatives in a provincial town, where for a year I attended a young ladies’ school. Of my dreams no single one could be fulfilled. My mother, who was widowed when I was only three years old, had a severe economical struggle, being encumbered with six small children. After my elder brothers and sisters were married, I myself, being then twenty-four years of age, had to go out into the world to seek my own living, ignorant of the world and its dangers, delivered up to commonness and intrigue. I got a position in the house of a widow, filling the post of ‘companion.’ My ‘principal,’ a woman sixty years of age, was at first unsympathetic to me, but she treated me in a loving and motherly manner, which pleased me, for I was of a pliant and receptive disposition. Gradually I became her confidante. Every evening I had to get into bed with her (I slept close by); I must touch her with my hands. I did not then really understand why I had to stroke her legs; but one evening this sexagenarian guided my hand into a forbidden place. Now it became clear to me that this woman still had erotic perceptions. I felt how she quivered under my touch, pressed me firmly to herself, etc.; but I, for my part, felt nothing. It might have been different had she been a friend of my own age. I had not at that time any idea that ‘psychically’ I was different from other girls. I had an unceasing yearning for love, not directly sensual love, but spiritual love, out of which sensual love might later develop. Among the inmates of our house was a young merchant, a fine-looking man, who besieged me with his love, and, after long hesitation, I at length one day consented to give him the best that woman has to give. He took possession of my body with brutal voluptuousness. I was under the delusion that he would make me his wife. I had in the sexual act no perception at all, and was disillusioned. One day my seducer told me that he was going to be married, asking me to return him the ring he had given me, and offering me money. Moved to the inmost soul, without any human being to give me counsel or help (from a feeling of shame I had not disclosed the matter to my principal), I threw the ring at him, resigned my position, and made myself independent. I will only say in a few words how I had to struggle, to fight for my existence, how I was lied to and deceived by rascally men. When I came to Berlin I heard and read of homosexual love, but could not find what I dreamed of—namely, spiritual love, out of which sensual love might spring. I learned to know homosexual women, but they exhibited to me such elemental passion, brutality, sensuality, that, notwithstanding all my yearning for ‘homosexual’ love, I remained unresponsive. Only in kissing the lips of a woman sympathetic to me I have experienced an agreeable sensation, but that sweet state which I was able to induce in others by contact with them was in me not forthcoming. I began to wonder whether Nature had denied me this sensation, though I was myself also a normally developed woman. For years I lived ‘ascetically,’ since I regarded myself as a ‘psychological’ problem—I avoided every kind of intercourse—I only had a desire for tenderness and caresses. I often loved handsome women, feeling the wish to kiss them and to touch them, and I had learned to know women of the kind who prostitute themselves to other women for money. These were hateful to me, and never could I form a friendship with such, because they knew only common brutal sensuality, towards which I was not responsive.
“Some years ago I suffered from a severe abdominal and nervous disorder. I have already passed my fortieth year. After an illness lasting two years, I still feel the desire for homosexual love. Hitherto I have lived unhappily, continually asking myself why Nature has treated me so cruelly. Is it not possible once at least to enjoy this perception? A few weeks ago I made the acquaintance of a married woman, whose husband has been impotent for years, whilst she, on the other hand, is a very passionate character. Unfortunately, this woman, although in other respects she is very sympathetic to me, is upon a comparatively low plane of culture, and, what frightens me more, she has an intimacy with a female friend who is quite uncultured, but who resembles her in respect of sexual love, and who night after night lies with her in bed beside the husband, and the two women indulge their perverse voluptuousness, the friend playing the ‘man’s’ part. I have seen many strange things in my course through life, but such a marriage is a new experience to me. The man terms himself an artist, a painter, and allows his wife free play in bisexual love. I believe that this man himself experiences a titillation of the senses when he sees the two women together, and also that he makes drawings of ‘acts,’ out of which he makes a profit. In this house I have seen into a deep abyss, yet other bisexual women visit it. Although I have found my peace disturbed by these women, although I have been to a certain extent intoxicated, the conditions are too repulsive to me—since this woman is sunk into a morass deeper than she herself understands. Only through me does she begin to understand it. But a longer intercourse with her is impossible, for she lacks all the qualities that I look for in a woman whom I could love. In actual fact I envy this creature, for she is happy, since she experiences to the full those sweet sensations which Nature denies to me. Are there any more beings unhappy like myself? Perhaps the acquaintanceship with a woman whose feelings were similar to my own would be a happiness, if Fate would only have so much pity upon me as to throw a sorrowful companion in my way. I hope for it, but I do not believe that it will happen.
“To what sex do I really belong?”
In the love-history of this genuine urninde the ideal element is especially manifest; likewise the instinctive disinclination to man, which, remarkably enough, is often more powerfully developed in strongly feminine characters than in the more masculine tribades, as the prototype of which latter we may mention the painter Rosa Bonheur. During childhood Rosa Bonheur felt herself to be a boy, and preferred the society of boys to that of girls.[557] Throughout her life, notwithstanding her homosexual love, she felt strong sympathy with men. Such a double relationship occurs also among urnindes of the first kind. Even the true urninde, I may say, is not so extremely homosexual as is the true urning. Take, for example, the following account[558] of an original homosexual, and you will see the difference: