“I have not lost any of the valuable things of life—far otherwise. Many-sided, many-shadowed intellectual sympathy leads any man of lofty mind into harmony with me. There emanates unconsciously from my soul a profound, tender charm. My friends find me necessary to them. I share their interests. In our relationship there pass between us the most wonderful shades of sympathetic feeling—what the French so expressively speak of as l’amitié amoureuse. Thus my mode of being becomes absorbed into that of my friend, a peculiar melody passes to and fro between us, and a peculiar melody sounds in the stillness of my own soul. All the fine and delicate sensations which I have received from my friends become in me transformed into poietic force—the ecstasies of my spirit assume form and substance. From the spiritualization of the impulse there springs a stream clear as crystal, there arise passion and ardour; my exceptional soul lifts me upwards, above all sorrows and vexations. In this way is a talent conceived, and amid ecstasy it is born.”
The need for a spiritual contact with men is among homosexual women much stronger than the corresponding inclination on the part of urnings for spiritual contact with woman natures. For this reason there is no doubt that the “Woman’s Movement”—that is, in the movement directed towards the acquirement by women of all the attainments of masculine culture—homosexual women have played a notable part.[559] Indeed, according to one author,[560] the “Woman’s Question” is mainly the question regarding the destiny of virile homosexual women. I find it necessary to doubt whether, as Hammer maintains,[561] the raging hatred of men—the converse quality to the anti-feminism of the male urnings—really proceeds from the uranian group of the Woman’s Movement, for there exist no literary documents of importance to prove the suggested connexion. Homosexual women of intellectual weight have also assured me that among them there does at times exist an enmity to men on principle, just as, mutatis mutandis, misogyny has been developed as a system both from the heterosexual and from the homosexual side. For the diffusion of pseudo-homosexuality the Woman’s Movement is of great importance, as we shall see later.
The individual and social relationships of feminine uranism are nearly the same as those of male uranism. In both cases there exists an entire scale, running from pure Platonism to ardent sensuality. One kind of Platonic tribades are those described by Catulle Mendés in his sketch “Protectrices.” These are ladies of position who allow themselves the luxury of a “protégée,” generally a girl employed at the theatre, with whom during the performances they exchange glances, whose expenses they pay, with whom they go out driving, without the matter proceeding to actual sexual relations. In other cases, however, sensual gratification is the desired goal, which is attained by kisses, embraces, friction of the genital organs, or cuninilinctus (the so-called “Sapphism”). In this intercourse one party—the “father”—plays the active part, the other—“the mother”—the passive part. There exist passionate and intimate relationships of long duration—true “marriages”—among tribades. Thus, d’Estoc reports (“Paris-Eros,” p. 58) relationships of this kind which have lasted thirty years. Still, as a general rule, feminine homosexuals change their relationships more frequently than male homosexuals. An elderly tribade, whose correspondence lies before me, had within four years three love relationships. In these relationships jealousy plays an even greater part than in heterosexual liaisons. Two sympathetic urnindes who lived together described to me very vividly the joys and sorrows of the amor lesbicus. The cause of the troubles is always a tertia, never a tertius gaudens.
Like the urnings, the tribades also have their meeting-places, jour fixes. One such meeting, at which four genuine female homosexuals and one male homosexual assembled, I had the opportunity of attending. They have their parties, and even their balls, at which the virile tribades appear in men’s clothing,[562] and (as also when at home) use male nicknames. There also exist female prostitutes who devote their services entirely to urnindes. This tribadistic prostitution is especially widespread in Paris. Such prostitutes are called gouines, or gougnottes, or chevalières du clair de lune. Theatrical agents are said to be especially occupied with tribadistic procurement. There also exist tribadistic brothels in Paris.[563]
APPENDIX
THEORY OF HOMOSEXUALITY
Original, congenital, enduring homosexuality would appear to be an exclusively human peculiarity. It is very doubtful whether a similar condition exists among animals. We recognize among the lower animals homosexual acts, but no homosexuality.[564] Thus we have no philogenetic starting-point for the explanation of homosexuality. Moreover, homosexuality is fundamentally different from the other sexual perversions, sadism and masochism. These represent quite extreme forms of biological phenomena, an abnormal increase of physiological impulsive manifestations that occur in the normal heterosexual life, as part of sexuality in general. But homosexuality is an alteration in the direction of the very impulse itself—a change in the very nature of sexuality. To put the matter shortly, it is the appearance of a sexuality heterogeneous to and not corresponding with the bodily structure. To define homosexuality as the appearance of a feminine sexual psyche in a masculine body, or of a masculine sexual psyche in a feminine body, does not apply to all cases—for example, it does not apply to virile urnings or to tribades who remain womanly. The definition of homosexuality as a sexuality which does not correspond to the bodily structure embraces both these possibilities.
Whenever homosexuality in men is associated with a marked development of feminine secondary sexual characters, or in women with a marked development of masculine secondary sexual characters, the homosexual sensibility may be said to have to some extent a physical basis, but not completely so. For the “intermediate stage theory” proposed by Hirschfeld—the intermixture of feminine and masculine characters—may apply satisfactorily to “bisexuality,” to indeterminate sexual sensibility; but it does not apply to the thoroughly one-sided, monistic sexual sensibility, directed only towards members of the same sex, and often appearing very early, before the days of puberty. Moreover, in heterosexual male individuals the external appearance may at times suggest that there is a strong intermixture of feminine characters. These men, though heterosexual, have a womanly appearance.
The “intermediate stage theory” of Hirschfeld, which von Krafft-Ebing also appears to have recognized in his last work (“New Studies in the Subject of Homosexuality”), a theory which explains homosexual phenomena as dependent upon the existence of transitional stages between the sexes (“sexual links” of Hirschfeld), and which, moreover, erroneously includes the typical hermaphrodite states—this interesting theory explains a portion only of original homosexuality. It fails in cases in which homosexuality occurs in the absence of any divergence from type—for example, in those cases in which male individuals with thoroughly normal masculine bodies exhibit marked homosexual sensibility in early childhood, long before puberty. But these are the cases which offer the greatest possible difficulties to a scientific explanation. Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
Ulrich’s “feminine soul in a masculine body” applies to effeminate urnings, such as he was himself. But is the mode of sensibility of virile homosexuals “effeminate”? Why do we speak of a third sex? Here lie difficulties which we cannot overcome without further assistance.