In a similar manner, Kiernan (Medical Standard, 1888) and G. Frank Lydston (Phila. Med. and Surg. Reporter, 1888) attempt to explain a part of the cases of congenital sexual paranoia. Magnan, too (Ann. méd. psychol., 1885, p. 458), writes, in all earnestness, of the brain of a woman in the body of a man, and vice versâ.[[110]]
The attempted explanations of congenital urnings are not less superficial; for instance, that of Ulrichs, who, in his “Memnon,” 1868, speaks of an “anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa (virili corpori innata),” and thus tries to explain the congenital origin and the female character of his abnormal sexual instinct. The idea of the patient, the subject of Case 124, is original. He supposes that when his father begat him he thought to beget a girl, but, instead of a girl, a boy resulted. One of the strangest explanations of congenital contrary sexual feeling is made by Mantegazza (op. cit., p. 106, 1886).
According to this author, in such individuals there exist anatomical anomalies which, by an error of Nature, consist in a distribution to the rectum of the nerves intended for the genitals; so that only in this situation the lustful sensation is aroused which otherwise results from stimulation of the genitals. But how does this author, in other ways so acute, explain the great majority of cases, where pederasty is abhorred by those affected with contrary sexual feeling? Besides, Nature never makes such leaps. Mantegazza rests his hypothesis upon the statements of an acquaintance, a celebrated writer, who assured him that he was not sure that he took a greater pleasure in coitus than in defecation! Allowing the correctness of his experience, still it would only prove that the man was sexually abnormal, and that his pleasure in coitus was reduced to a minimum.
An explanation of congenital contrary sexual feeling may perhaps be found in the fact that it represents a peculiarity bred in descendants, but arising in ancestry. The hereditary factor might be an acquired abnormal inclination for the same sex in the ancestors (v. infra), found fixed as a congenital abnormal manifestation in the descendants. Since, according to experience, acquired physical and mental peculiarities, not simply improvements, but essentially defects, are transmitted, this hypothesis becomes tenable. Since individuals affected with contrary sexual feeling not infrequently beget children,—at least, they are not absolutely impotent (women never are),—a transmission to descendants is possible.
This supposition is decidedly favored by Case 124, in which the eight-year-old daughter of an individual affected with contrary sexual feeling, practiced mutual masturbation—a sexual act—at an age which permits the presumption of contrary sexual feeling. No less significant is the communication made to me by a young man of twenty-six, who belongs to the third group of contrary sexuality. He knew with certainty that his father, who had died some years before, was also subject to contrary sexuality. An informant assured me, at least, that he knew many other men with whom his father had sustained “relations.” Whether, in the case of the father, it was an acquired or a congenital contrary sexual instinct, and to what group he belonged, could not be ascertained.
The foregoing hypothesis seems the more plausible, when it is considered that the first three degrees of congenital contrary sexual instinct correspond exactly with the developmental stages which are discoverable in the development of the acquired anomaly. One, therefore, feels inclined to designate the various degrees of congenital contrary sexual instinct as various degrees of an hereditarily-induced sexual anomaly, acquired from the progenitors or otherwise developed. Here, too, the law of progressive heredity must be taken into consideration.
The sexual acts, by means of which male urnings seek and find satisfaction, are multifarious. There are individuals, of fine feeling and strength of will, who sometimes satisfy themselves with platonic love, with the risk, however, of becoming nervous (neurasthenic) and insane, as a result of this enforced abstinence. In other instances, for the same reasons which may lead normal individuals to avoid coitus, onanism, faut de mieux, is indulged in.
In urnings with nervous systems congenitally irritable, or injured by onanism (irritable weakness of the ejaculation centre), simple embraces or caresses, with or without contact of the genitals, are sufficient to induce ejaculation and consequent satisfaction. In less irritable individuals, the sexual act consists of manustupration by the loved person, or mutual onanism, or imitation of coitus between the thighs. In urnings morally perverse and potent, quoad erectionem, the sexual desire is satisfied by pederasty,—an act, however, which is repugnant to perverted individuals that are not defective morally, much in the same way as it is to normal men. The statement of urnings is remarkable, that the sexual act with persons of the same sex, which is adequate for them, gives them a feeling of great satisfaction and accession of strength, while satisfaction by solitary onanism, or by enforced coitus with a woman, affects them in an unfavorable way, making them miserable and increasing their neurasthenic symptoms. The manner of satisfaction of the female urning is little known. In one of my cases, the girl masturbated, and during the act felt herself to be a man; and her fancy created a beloved female person. In another case, the act consisted of practicing onanism on the person loved, and fondling her genitals.
Amor lesbicus is presumably not infrequent here, for which an enlarged clitoris or an artificial priapus may be used.
As to the frequency[[111]] of the occurrence of the anomaly, it is difficult to reach a just conclusion, since those affected with it break from their reserve only very infrequently; and in criminal cases the urning with perversion of sexual instinct is usually classed with the person given to pederasty for simply vicious reasons. According to Casper’s and Tardieu’s, as well as my own, experience, this anomaly is much more frequent than reported cases would lead us to presume.