“Another less fortunate man does not find a friend of like feeling, but falls into the hands of a handsome man, who sought him until the secret was discovered. Now the most refined blackmail is extorted. The unfortunate, persecuted man, brought to the alternative of paying or of losing his social position, and bringing disgrace on himself and his family, pays; and the more he gives, the more voracious the vampire becomes; until at last there remains nothing but absolute financial ruin or dishonor. Who can wonder that nerves are not equal to such a terrible struggle!
“They give way; insanity comes on; and the miserable man at last finds the rest in an asylum that he could not find in the world. Another, in the same situation, driven to despair, finds relief in suicide. It cannot be known how many of the suicides of young men are to be attributed to this combination of circumstances.
“I do not think that I am in error when I declare that at least one-half of the suicides of young men are due to such conditions. Even in those cases where urnings are not persecuted by a heartless villain, but where a happy relation between two men exists, discovery, or even the fear of it, very often leads to suicide. How many officers, how many soldiers, having such relations with their subordinates or companions, in the moment when they have believed themselves discovered, have sought to escape the threatened disgrace by means of a bullet! And it is the same in all callings.
“Therefore, if it must be admitted that, among urnings, more mental abnormalities and more insanity are actually observed than among other men, yet this does not prove that the mental disturbance is a necessary accompaniment of the urning’s condition, and that the latter induces the former.
“According to my firm conviction, by far the greater number of cases of mental disturbance or abnormal disposition observed in urnings are not to be attributed to the sexual anomaly; but they are caused by the existing notions concerning urnings, and the resulting laws, and dominant public sentiment concerning the anomaly. Any one with an adequate idea of the mental and moral suffering, of the anxiety and care, that the urning must endure; of the constant hypocrisy and secrecy he must practice, in order to conceal his inner instinct; of the difficulties that meet him in satisfying his natural desire,—can only be surprised that more insanity and nervous disturbance does not occur in urnings. The greater part of these abnormal states would not be developed, if the urning, like another, could find a simple and easy way in which to satisfy his sexual desire,—if he were not forever troubled by these anxieties!”
De lege lata, as far as the urning is concerned, the paragraph with reference to pederasty must not be applied without the proof of actual pederasty; and psychical and somatic abnormalities must be examined by experts with respect of an estimate in the individual of the question of guilt.
De lege ferenda, the urnings wish a repeal of the paragraphs. The jurist could not consent to this, if he were to remember that pederasty is much more frequently a disgusting vice than the result of physical and mental infirmity; and that, moreover, many urnings, though driven to sexual acts with their own sex, are yet in nowise compelled to indulge in pederasty,—a sexual act which, under all circumstances, must stand as cynical, disgusting, and, when passive, as certainly injurious. Whether for reasons of expediency (difficulty of fixing the guilt, encouragement of blackmail, etc.), it would not be opportune to strike from the statutes the legal punishment of the male-loving man, and to protect youth by the use of the paragraphs concerning sexual abuses, is a future question for jurists.
What has been said concerning congenital contrary sexuality and its relation to the law is also applicable to the acquired abnormality. The accompanying neurosis or psychosis should have much diagnostic and forensic weight with reference to the question of guilt.
It only remains to describe acquired non-pathological pederasty,—one of the saddest pages in the history of human delinquencies:—