The State attitude simply ignores this factor, and accordingly reveals itself as unscientific.
It is true that perhaps by such an agency as psycho-analysis reasons could be found in many of these cases why the individual had developed on inverted sex lines; home repressions, the system of early education, the age of the parents, these or other influences, may have produced a complex which has switched the sex-nature on to a particular path. But these reasons do not necessarily show the result to be artificial; it is our very nature indeed which these influences construct. It is impossible to trace an exact line between the inherent nature and the effect which outside influences have had upon it. We must, and we do in fact, regard the permanent and fundamental traits, however derived, as “natural.”
Moreover psycho-analysis definitely indicates that there is a homosexual period through which all individuals inevitably pass.
The State theory that the temperament is “unnatural” cannot therefore be supported on any grounds, except in the cases where it is deliberately assumed by normal persons. In most cases it is natural to the individual’s nature, and not “unnatural,” but “abnormal.”
Once this simple scientific truth is grasped the legal attitude is seen to crumble in all directions. The case for criminal prosecution rests logically on the assumption that unless homosexual practices are rigidly suppressed they will spread. And since their increase would seriously diminish the birth-rate the State is necessarily anxious to avert this danger. But it is an odd perversion which imagines that sober respectable citizens are only restrained from indulging in homosexual vice by the threat of penal servitude! Once the scientific truth is grasped and homosexuality is seen to be, except in a small number of cases, the natural temperament of a small minority, it will be realized that normal persons are not likely to wish to commit unnatural acts, whether there is or there is not a penal law; nor can any Act of Parliament prevent homosexuals from being homosexual.
And in practice this theoretical conclusion is found to hold true. For in the countries, such as France, where the Code Napoléon does not cover these prosecutions, homosexuality is far less rife than in England, or in Germany, where until the Revolution the penal law was rigidly enforced.
It is well that we should face these facts unreservedly, however strong may be our personal antipathy to the practices.
The second attitude may be described generally as that of society. Public opinion must necessarily be too vague to admit of succinct definition. But generally its attitude towards this question may be defined as that of an ordinary man towards a freak; he has no sympathy with freaks and indeed dislikes them—but they are so very rare that he can afford to ignore them.
The problem of the homosexual cannot however be avoided in this way, for the simple reason that the invert forms so comparatively large and permanent a part of the community. It is difficult to attempt an accurate estimate, partly because many homosexuals are so afraid of incurring the odium of public opinion that they successfully disguise their true nature and are unsuspected even by their most intimate friends. But there is a more fundamental difficulty. It appears to be undeniable that a large number of normal people possess to some extent a strain of the homosexual temperament. We have, in fact, as in almost all classifications, not a naturally dividing gulf but a gradually ascending scale. Some individuals may have only 5 per cent. inverted and 95 per cent. hetero-sexual tendencies, while others are only 10 per cent. normal. There are a large and increasing number of persons who are almost equally balanced on either side. These bisexuals often marry happily and at the same time enjoy homogenic experiences.