Hirschfeld, too, has also made a few pertinent remarks on this subject (l. c. p. 209). He mentions the case of a government official who attacked a baker’s apprentice after a “heavy celebration” of the Kaiser’s birthday; also the case of an apparently heterosexual high school teacher who during a prolonged carousal attacked a waiter. He also mentions a report he was requested to make about an officer who after a carousal requested his servant boy to help him take an enema and used that opportunity to seduce him. In his report Hirschfeld found this complaint, if it be true, contrary to the defendant’s whole personality, and recommended annulling the complaint because at the time of the alleged misdeed the accused was in a peculiar and morbid mental state. But we must look upon these occurrences as proofs of man’s bisexual nature and as outbreaks of latent homosexuality made possible through the removal of customary inhibitions.
Otto Juliusburger, in his Psychology of Alcoholism,[32] has given us an exhaustive and masterly exposition of this problem. That author reports that he has been able definitely to trace the outbreak of unconscious homosexuality in cases of dipsomania and discusses most instructively the relations between alcohol and homosexuality.
Juliusburger describes the case of a dipsomaniac who during the drink episodes betrayed most clearly his homosexual love for his uncle. During those episodes the subject felt impelled to accost men—and only men—ordering for them anything they wished,—“frankly a symbol, to show his affection.” “One source of the anxiety and unrest which ushers in the so-called dipsomaniac episode or which may entirely replace the attack,” states Juliusburger, “I see in the struggle and the resulting intrapsychic tension between the various psychosexual components of the individual.” I shall have occasion to refer to Juliusburger’s views concerning the relationship of the jealousy episodes of the alcoholics and sadism in the chapter on “Jealousy.”
It is even more interesting in connection with our present subject to find that homosexuals are easily induced to carry on heterosexual deeds while under the influence of alcohol. Of course this is not the case in every instance but the fact is undeniable. Neither do all heterosexuals lend themselves to homosexual acts when drunk. Often the inhibitions are more powerful than the releasing effect of alcohol.
I have made inquiries of about one hundred homosexuals regarding the circumstances under which they indulged in intercourse with women. Many hesitated to answer, but I have found that a high percentage of cases have had the experience. Some answered saying, practically: “I can do this only if I am under the influence of drink;” or, “while I was drunk a girl seduced me.” We must not suppose that homosexuals are impotent with women. There are among them many more bisexually disposed than are willing to recognize this fact, because they prefer as a rule to assume the rôle of innocents before others and for that reason they claim that intercourse with a woman is positively impossible for them. I have had circulated in the Viennese homosexual circle a small questionnaire which contained also a question covering this point. Many confessed dislike for woman, others admitted a platonic attitude, but there were also such answers as: “In my 34 years I have had intercourse with a woman, this I found very pleasurable, but after four months I turned again exclusively homosexual;” or, “now and then I have intercourse with a woman”; further, “after pleasant personal relations lasting for some time I am able to have intercourse with a woman”; another writes: “Once I had intercourse with a woman and it was a very pleasurable experience but never repeated it since that time;”—Others write as follows:
“Have had intercourse previously; do so no longer.”
“No intercourse; presumably would be impotent with woman.”
“Intercourse previously pleasurable; sudden disappearance of feeling now makes intercourse impossible.”
Another writes laconically: “bisexual.”
At least one-fourth of my overt homosexuals are really bisexual with subsequent modifications of their bisexuality brought about through causes which will be discussed in a subsequent chapter of this work.[33]