The next case quoted from Krafft-Ebing is also very remarkable:
A merchant, 34 years of age, mother neuropathic; at 9 years of age was taught masturbation by a schoolmate; also, homosexual relations with a brother; fellatio; urolagnia; at 14 years of age first love for a school colleague.
At 17 years of age his love ideal changes completely. He is no longer attracted by young, beautiful boys, but by decrepit old men.
T. traces this back to the fact that he had once overheard his father in the next room uttering pleasurable exclamations after he retired for the night and this excited him tremendously because he thought his father was ... (weil er sich den Vater coitierend dachte).
Since that time old men carrying on various homosexual deeds play a predominant role in his dream pollutions and during masturbation. But even through the day the sight of an old man is enough to excite him, especially if the man is very old and decrepit when his excitement may be so tremendous as to end in ejaculation. Attempts at intercourse with women in houses of prostitution proved unsuccessful and ordinary men and boys do not rouse him. From the age of 22 years on he carried on a platonic love towards an old gentleman whom he met on the latter’s daily walks. During these walks T. had ejaculation. In order to free himself of this peculiar dependence after several unsuccessful attempts at intercourse with prostitutes he took along with him a decrepit old man whom he induced to have coitus before his eyes. The scene so excited him that he in turn proved potent. Later on he was able to dispense with the old man’s presence and could carry out the act successfully without that aid. But this improvement did not last long; soon he became impotent once more.
This case is in every way interesting and of great significance for our problem. It proves to us the great determinative role of a childish reminiscence and the persistence of a scene which is continually repeated in memory. The whole of that young man’s libido is centered around that particular scene. He stages it also in the brothel when he hires an old man to have intercourse in his presence. That old man assumes then the role of the father, the prostitute is the mother, while he is once more the onlooking child. The act of looking on so excites his passion that with that aid he proves potent in his intercourse with the prostitute. But that continues only so long as the exciting influence of the scene persists. After that he reverts to his former impotence and he again ... seeks his father. It is perfectly plain, and only the blind could fail to see that T. seeks his father. His wish was obviously that his father should also start something sexual with him. It is possible that he had identified himself with his mother. But we have no direct proof of that. This is particularly significant because Sadger and the others who belong to Freud’s narrower circle place great emphasis upon the role of the mother in the genesis of genuine homosexuality while neglecting ruefully the role of the father. This case shows us a “Japhet, who seeks his father.” The promenades with the respectable old gentleman are repetitions of the walks with his father.
This patient does not recall any heterosexual experiences during his youth, probably because the memory of them has been repressed from consciousness. In the other case which I shall now quote from Krafft-Ebing the heterosexual period is clearly recalled. I refer the reader to that author’s Observation 144. Here I quote the first part of the history of that case:
“I am at the present time 31 years of age, lean yet well built, devoted to male love, therefore unmarried. My relatives were in good health, mentally normal, there were two suicides in our family, on mother’s side. My sexual feelings arose when I was about seven years of age, the sight of the naked abdomen being particularly exciting. I gratified my instinct by allowing my sputum to trickle down the abdomen. When I was eight years old we had in our house a little nurse maid of about thirteen years. I found it very pleasurable to rub my genitals against hers, but there could be no coitus on my part at that time. During the ninth year I went to live among strangers and went to the gymnasium. A colleague showed me his genitals and that filled me with disgust. But in the family where my parents arranged for me to board there was a very beautiful girl who prevailed upon me—I was but little over nine years old at the time—to sleep with her. I found the experience most pleasurable. My penis, though small, was already capable of erection and I had intercourse with her almost daily. This continued for several months. Then my parents transferred me to another gymnasium; I missed the girl very much and during my tenth year I began to masturbate. But the act inspired me only with disgust. I masturbated but moderately, always felt deeply remorseful afterwards, although I could discover no bad consequences.”
Here is a man who actually felt disgust at the sight of a friend’s genitals and who found intercourse with women pleasurable. He is excellently on the way to become a heterosexual. At fourteen he falls in love with a school colleague, an experience which every person goes through at about that age, the “normal,” no less than the homosexual. After the final examination (high school) he has intercourse with girls and great pleasure in the act, but he is already making use of some homosexual makeshifts. Soldiers must precede him in the act of using the prostitutes and the thought of having access to a vagina which had just been in contact with another penis, stimulates him. “At the same time I can never kiss women without feeling disgust; even my relatives I kiss only on the cheek.” ... Hinc illæ lacrimæ! He protects himself against the sexual excitations emanating from his family circle. His homosexuality is somehow linked to his family. The peculiar action of a boy who allows sputum to trickle down his abdomen, imagining that it is spermatic fluid could probably be traced by means of analysis to a definite childhood trauma. Particularly clear in this case is the heterosexual attitude which under certain influences and inhibitions merges almost imperceptibly into the bisexual and homosexual.