In connection with my discussion of the Messalina type I have already shown that latent homosexuality is what drives many women to prostitution. They run away from woman and into the arms of man, into the arms of a great number of men! They expect quantity to replace what quality fails to supply them. We have additional reasons to assume that the women who lean most strongly towards the homosexual side are those who supply the ranks of prostitutes. That of course is true of the largest number though by no means holding true of every case. For there are prostitutes who are attached to their lover (cadet), and who experience orgasm only during intercourse with him, while the embraces of other men leave them unaffected. Here and there the factors pointed out by Bloch and Krafft-Ebing may also enter into the situation. In the presence of an already avowed homosexual inclination disgust brought about through a number of possible circumstances may act as an effective barrier against heterosexuality.
This is revealed to us through the life histories of certain homosexuals. We often come across the statement that certain men, and women too, became homosexual after an infection, particularly gonorrhea. The fear of infection also plays an important role in the psychogenesis of homosexuality.[37]
Krafft-Ebing mentions (Late Homosexuality, etc.) the case of a young man, 27 years of age, who after masturbating since 7 years of age, at 19 years had intercourse with women and enjoyed it. After a gonorrheal infection he became so disgusted with women that when frequenting houses of prostitution he found himself impotent. Old masochistic-homosexual phantasies reappeared and before long he was attracted to the respective circle and seduced.[38] I must draw attention particularly to the fact that this man was able to experience orgasm during intercourse with women. Nevertheless his experience was so impressive that it intensified his revulsive attitude towards heterosexuality by generating a feeling of disgust. (In other cases under similar circumstances there arises a dislike for prostitutes, and the subject seeks as sexual partner a healthy woman.) The infection often becomes the root of a phantastic hatred of women without leading all the way to the development of a manifest homosexuality.[39] The next case which has come under my own observation belongs to this category:
I. P., engineer, 30 years of age, appears to me a typical anxiety neurotic. He is unable to leave his room, a personal servant must accompany him wherever he goes. For the past ten years has been sexually abstinent, because he had the misfortune to acquire a very serious luetic infection from a so-called “respectable” woman. Since that experience he feels a tremendous hatred for the sex. He reads with interest Strindberg, gloats over Weininger and he has translated into a foreign language Moebius’ “Der physiologische Schwachsinn des Weibes.” Homosexual activity does not inspire him with disgust but he claims that it has no attraction for him. Analysis discloses that the anxiety attacks appear as a defence against homosexual deeds. After the syphilitic infection he was for a time in danger of becoming homosexual. Now he protects himself against that tendency by various defensive measures. The path to woman is effectively blocked for him through his disgust and hatred of the sex.
The cure of his anxiety state was not very difficult. A few years later I found him a married man. He had married a woman who was 10 years older than he and who lacked every womanly characteristic. He is entirely potent in his marital relations, claims to experience orgasm satisfactorily, and believes his orgasm would be even greater if he did not have to use precautionary measures against pregnancy. As a syphilitic he wants to avoid bringing sickly children into the world. For coitus he prefers the a posteriori position and situs inversus and justifies this theoretically on the basis of the structure of the female genitalia....
Concerning the relationship between sexual infection and homosexuality we also have an illuminating observation by Fleischmann.[40] This case is an urlind (homosexual woman):
She is an illegitimate child. Father a heavy drinker. She was badly brought up, neglected and persecuted. As a child she avoided work and was unruly. Prison experience. “At 16 years of age I had to earn my own living. My first position was in a restaurant serving beer. There I met Mr. X., the man who seduced me and gave me a sexual disease.
“At the hospital I saw and heard things that opened my eyes. From that time on I worked no longer. Years passed in struggle with suffering and want; prison life; house of correction; solitary confinement. In the house of correction most girls handled one another at night and from that time on no man could interest me any more. I have intercourse only with girls who are pretty. For the past year I have been a prostitute,—mostly drunk,—for I wanted to forget what has become of me and the morbid inclination to which I have fallen a victim.”