I choose for examination the fundamental type, as he is known to me through a number of concrete examples. This triad: “quickly roused, not particular as to choice, just as quickly cooled,” admits of numerous variations. Particularly the choice of the sexual object is something that in many woman chasers becomes determined on the basis of particular fetichistic preferences, such as red hair, virginity, a particular figure, a special occupation, etc. The Don Juan collectors of women are differentiated into various distinct classes. I knew one who for his record of adventures specialized in widows. The shorter the period of widowhood the greater was his ambition to make the conquest. Only women in mourning attracted him. But beyond this point he was not particular. It made no difference to him whether the woman was young or old, beautiful or homely, so long as she was a widow in mourning. His greatest pride he took in his conquest of widows on the burial day.
Oskar A. H. Smitz, (in his Cassanova und Andere erotische Charaktere, Stuttgart, 1906, quoted after Bloch), has attempted to trace a fine distinction between the Don Juan and the Cassanova type: “Don Juan is a deceiving, cunning seducer to whom the sense of possessing the woman, the feeling of danger, and the pleasure of overcoming resistance and of exercising his manly strength are the chief things, but he is not erotic, whereas Cassanova is the erotic type par excellence; he, too, is tricky and remorseless, but he craves the satisfaction of his sensuous needs rather than of his sense of power. Don Juan sees only women, for Cassanova every woman is “the woman.” Don Juan is demonic, devilish, he deliberately plans the destruction of the women who yield to him and drives them to perdition, while Cassanova is humane, he is always interested in the happiness of his sweethearts and preserves of them tender memories. Don Juan hates woman, he is a typical misogynist, the satanic type of woman hater, whereas Cassanova is a typical feminist, he has a deep and sympathetic understanding of woman’s soul, he is not deceived by his love affairs but needs continual intercourse with women as the condition of his happiness. Don Juan seduces through his demonic character, with the brutal, and wild, attraction exercised by his uncanny power, Cassanova achieves his conquests through the more refined gentle atmosphere generated by his charming presence.”
Bloch introduces a third type, the pseudo-Don Juan, or more correctly, the pseudo-Cassanova,—the adventurer perennially disappointed in his conquests, of whom Retif de la Bretonne is the nearest widely known type. He is continually looking for the true love and never finds it. While I admit that the seducer as a type belongs to one of these categories, I must designate all three classes mentioned above, that is, the Don Juan, the Cassanova, and the would-be type of either, as bearers, alike, of a latent homosexuality. None of them finds his ideal. Retif de la Bretonne is the perennially disappointed type, and true love is something he can never find; in his love he displays considerable dependence on woman. He portrays the hopeless flight to woman and away from man. Cassanova feels all the time impelled to prove to himself how seductive a fellow and man he is and every new conquest gives him a new opportunity to do so. Woman is to him but a means to enhance his sense of virility. He must not depreciate his conquest for the glory of his achievement would be lessened in his own eyes if he were to do so.
The Don Juan type is close to the level which leads directly to the well known Marquis de Sade type of character. He scorns woman because she is incapable of yielding to him all the gratification for which he yearns. He is perennially searching for release and in that respect bears some resemblance to the Flying Dutchman who is similarly in quest of love and whom the quest leads eventually to death. But I cannot concur with the idea that these types are so sharply differentiated as Schmitz and Bloch are inclined to maintain. We meet the finest gradations and the most varied combinations. Moreover individuals change, their character shifting from one type to another by imperceptible degrees in the course of time.
I propose to consider Don Juan as the representative of the type of seducer, irrespective of further variations. In fact it is characteristic of all the types mentioned above that they are alike unable to remain loyal in their love. And, in my view, this is the most important characteristic.
Ready excitability, scorn of womankind, latent cruelty, and perennial readiness for love adventures are traits which show that, in the last analysis, Don Juan represents a type of unsatisfied libido. For him the most important moment is the conquest of the woman. In the joy of this conquest there is betrayed something of the scorn of woman which plays such an important role in the lives of all homosexuals—whether latent or manifest. For the genuine Don Juan the conquest of a woman is a task which appeals to his play lust. Will he succeed with this one, and with that one, and with the third woman? Each new conquest reassures him that he is irresistible, magical in his charm, so that he can say to himself: thou art a real man! He must reassure himself over and over that he is fully a man because he fears his femininity too strongly; with the aid of his feminine trait he is the better able to achieve his conquests among women because that trait enables him the better to feel and know what every woman wants. He is really but a woman in man’s clothes. His narcissistic character (the morbid self-love) requires continually new proofs of his irresistible powers. This type of man, one who practices all sorts of perversions on women and in this very changing of the manner of his loving betrays his insatiable quest for new and untried gratifications, never permits himself any homosexual act, although he is far from particular otherwise and has run the gamut of tasting all ugly and forbidden fruit. Homosexuality strikes this type of man as disgusting and unbearable, he must spit out when meeting a fellow of that kind, he would have all men and women of that kind in jail, he would have them rooted out as one would a plague. Towards homosexuality his attitude is emotionally overstressed, showing that this negative form of disgust and neurotic repulsion really covers the positive trend of longing. But at the same time he looks for women who are mannish in appearance and who lack the secondary sexual characteristics, thin, ephebic women, matrons and girls who are so young as to look like children and thus represent really intermediary stages towards manhood.
Certain aversions, which Hirschfeld has described as antifetichistic, sometimes disclose the homosexual character of their libido and the protective means adopted against the recognition of homosexuality. One man dislikes woman with large feet, another is repelled by women with hair on their bodies. Such a woman causes him to have distinct nausea. A third one is repelled by the presence of hair upon the woman’s upper lip, or by a deep voice. There are, besides, all sorts of transitional types. One seeks only the completely developed and typical female figure, another is attracted particularly by the type of woman resembling the male figure but without disdaining the former type.
His search is endless because he is truly, though secretly, attracted by the male. His sexual goal is man. Through each new woman he expects to experience, at last, the completely satisfactory gratification which he craves. But he turns away from each one equally disappointed because his libido cannot be fully gratified by any of them. In the manner of his conquering and abandoning each woman he shows his scorn of the sex. The true woman lover is really no Don Juan because he distributes his sexual libido among a few women at the most and the emotional overvaluation of these women furnishes the key to his attitude towards the whole sex. Don Juan makes love in a manner apparently as if he respected womankind. But the cold manner in which he dismisses his victims betrays his complete contempt for the sex. He admires only the women who withstand him and whom he cannot subdue. Such resistance may lead eventually to the marriage of a Don Juan, a marriage which necessarily proves unhappy and he continues his former life. For the step has not furnished him what he is really seeking, man has eluded him again.
Closer examination reveals the characteristic fact that frequently the choice of lovers is determined by homosexual traits of one kind or another. The Don Juan who runs after married women may be goaded on by the fact that he likes the physical appearance of their husbands. Naturally the thought heightens his feeling of self-esteem because it must be a harder task to induce the wife of a handsome man to deceive her husband than it would be to bring to one’s feet the wife of an ugly man. A Don Juan told me once: “I have possessed all sorts of women, but never cared for the wife of a simpleton. I have always considered it beneath me and not worth while to deceive a fool.” Here we have a type of man desirous to measure his wit against that of a sharp rival. (If you are so very sharp, why don’t you look out better for your wife!) The emphasis here is really upon the fact that he likes the husband, admires him, and considers him a bright man. Before he makes up his mind to get a woman he must like her husband, and he can be attracted only by intelligent men. That condition is imperative before he engages in any love adventure. Maupassant describes this type of man in one of his stories. The hero is interested only in married women whose husbands attract him and are among his friends. I give the history of an extreme case of this type in my chapter on jealousy in the present work.