Chapter XIX · (continued 2)

“Some years ago I suffered from a severe abdominal and nervous disorder. I have already passed my fortieth year. After an illness lasting two years, I still feel the desire for homosexual love. Hitherto I have lived unhappily, continually asking myself why Nature has treated me so cruelly. Is it not possible once at least to enjoy this perception? A few weeks ago I made the acquaintance of a married woman, whose husband has been impotent for years, whilst she, on the other hand, is a very passionate character. Unfortunately, this woman, although in other respects she is very sympathetic to me, is upon a comparatively low plane of culture, and, what frightens me more, she has an intimacy with a female friend who is quite uncultured, but who resembles her in respect of sexual love, and who night after night lies with her in bed beside the husband, and the two women indulge their perverse voluptuousness, the friend playing the ‘man’s’ part. I have seen many strange things in my course through life, but such a marriage is a new experience to me. The man terms himself an artist, a painter, and allows his wife free play in bisexual love. I believe that this man himself experiences a titillation of the senses when he sees the two women together, and also that he makes drawings of ‘acts,’ out of which he makes a profit. In this house I have seen into a deep abyss, yet other bisexual women visit it. Although I have found my peace disturbed by these women, although I have been to a certain extent intoxicated, the conditions are too repulsive to me—since this woman is sunk into a morass deeper than she herself understands. Only through me does she begin to understand it. But a longer intercourse with her is impossible, for she lacks all the qualities that I look for in a woman whom I could love. In actual fact I envy this creature, for she is happy, since she experiences to the full those sweet sensations which Nature denies to me. Are there any more beings unhappy like myself? Perhaps the acquaintanceship with a woman whose feelings were similar to my own would be a happiness, if Fate would only have so much pity upon me as to throw a sorrowful companion in my way. I hope for it, but I do not believe that it will happen.

“To what sex do I really belong?”

In the love-history of this genuine urninde the ideal element is especially manifest; likewise the instinctive disinclination to man, which, remarkably enough, is often more powerfully developed in strongly feminine characters than in the more masculine tribades, as the prototype of which latter we may mention the painter Rosa Bonheur. During childhood Rosa Bonheur felt herself to be a boy, and preferred the society of boys to that of girls.[557] Throughout her life, notwithstanding her homosexual love, she felt strong sympathy with men. Such a double relationship occurs also among urnindes of the first kind. Even the true urninde, I may say, is not so extremely homosexual as is the true urning. Take, for example, the following account[558] of an original homosexual, and you will see the difference:

“I have not lost any of the valuable things of life—far otherwise. Many-sided, many-shadowed intellectual sympathy leads any man of lofty mind into harmony with me. There emanates unconsciously from my soul a profound, tender charm. My friends find me necessary to them. I share their interests. In our relationship there pass between us the most wonderful shades of sympathetic feeling—what the French so expressively speak of as l’amitié amoureuse. Thus my mode of being becomes absorbed into that of my friend, a peculiar melody passes to and fro between us, and a peculiar melody sounds in the stillness of my own soul. All the fine and delicate sensations which I have received from my friends become in me transformed into poietic force—the ecstasies of my spirit assume form and substance. From the spiritualization of the impulse there springs a stream clear as crystal, there arise passion and ardour; my exceptional soul lifts me upwards, above all sorrows and vexations. In this way is a talent conceived, and amid ecstasy it is born.”

The need for a spiritual contact with men is among homosexual women much stronger than the corresponding inclination on the part of urnings for spiritual contact with woman natures. For this reason there is no doubt that the “Woman’s Movement”—that is, in the movement directed towards the acquirement by women of all the attainments of masculine culture—homosexual women have played a notable part.[559] Indeed, according to one author,[560] the “Woman’s Question” is mainly the question regarding the destiny of virile homosexual women. I find it necessary to doubt whether, as Hammer maintains,[561] the raging hatred of men—the converse quality to the anti-feminism of the male urnings—really proceeds from the uranian group of the Woman’s Movement, for there exist no literary documents of importance to prove the suggested connexion. Homosexual women of intellectual weight have also assured me that among them there does at times exist an enmity to men on principle, just as, mutatis mutandis, misogyny has been developed as a system both from the heterosexual and from the homosexual side. For the diffusion of pseudo-homosexuality the Woman’s Movement is of great importance, as we shall see later.

The individual and social relationships of feminine uranism are nearly the same as those of male uranism. In both cases there exists an entire scale, running from pure Platonism to ardent sensuality. One kind of Platonic tribades are those described by Catulle Mendés in his sketch “Protectrices.” These are ladies of position who allow themselves the luxury of a “protégée,” generally a girl employed at the theatre, with whom during the performances they exchange glances, whose expenses they pay, with whom they go out driving, without the matter proceeding to actual sexual relations. In other cases, however, sensual gratification is the desired goal, which is attained by kisses, embraces, friction of the genital organs, or cuninilinctus (the so-called “Sapphism”). In this intercourse one party—the “father”—plays the active part, the other—“the mother”—the passive part. There exist passionate and intimate relationships of long duration—true “marriages”—among tribades. Thus, d’Estoc reports (“Paris-Eros,” p. 58) relationships of this kind which have lasted thirty years. Still, as a general rule, feminine homosexuals change their relationships more frequently than male homosexuals. An elderly tribade, whose correspondence lies before me, had within four years three love relationships. In these relationships jealousy plays an even greater part than in heterosexual liaisons. Two sympathetic urnindes who lived together described to me very vividly the joys and sorrows of the amor lesbicus. The cause of the troubles is always a tertia, never a tertius gaudens.

Like the urnings, the tribades also have their meeting-places, jour fixes. One such meeting, at which four genuine female homosexuals and one male homosexual assembled, I had the opportunity of attending. They have their parties, and even their balls, at which the virile tribades appear in men’s clothing,[562] and (as also when at home) use male nicknames. There also exist female prostitutes who devote their services entirely to urnindes. This tribadistic prostitution is especially widespread in Paris. Such prostitutes are called gouines, or gougnottes, or chevalières du clair de lune. Theatrical agents are said to be especially occupied with tribadistic procurement. There also exist tribadistic brothels in Paris.[563]

APPENDIX THEORY OF HOMOSEXUALITY

Original, congenital, enduring homosexuality would appear to be an exclusively human peculiarity. It is very doubtful whether a similar condition exists among animals. We recognize among the lower animals homosexual acts, but no homosexuality.[564] Thus we have no philogenetic starting-point for the explanation of homosexuality. Moreover, homosexuality is fundamentally different from the other sexual perversions, sadism and masochism. These represent quite extreme forms of biological phenomena, an abnormal increase of physiological impulsive manifestations that occur in the normal heterosexual life, as part of sexuality in general. But homosexuality is an alteration in the direction of the very impulse itself—a change in the very nature of sexuality. To put the matter shortly, it is the appearance of a sexuality heterogeneous to and not corresponding with the bodily structure. To define homosexuality as the appearance of a feminine sexual psyche in a masculine body, or of a masculine sexual psyche in a feminine body, does not apply to all cases—for example, it does not apply to virile urnings or to tribades who remain womanly. The definition of homosexuality as a sexuality which does not correspond to the bodily structure embraces both these possibilities.

Whenever homosexuality in men is associated with a marked development of feminine secondary sexual characters, or in women with a marked development of masculine secondary sexual characters, the homosexual sensibility may be said to have to some extent a physical basis, but not completely so. For the “intermediate stage theory” proposed by Hirschfeld—the intermixture of feminine and masculine characters—may apply satisfactorily to “bisexuality,” to indeterminate sexual sensibility; but it does not apply to the thoroughly one-sided, monistic sexual sensibility, directed only towards members of the same sex, and often appearing very early, before the days of puberty. Moreover, in heterosexual male individuals the external appearance may at times suggest that there is a strong intermixture of feminine characters. These men, though heterosexual, have a womanly appearance.

The “intermediate stage theory” of Hirschfeld, which von Krafft-Ebing also appears to have recognized in his last work (“New Studies in the Subject of Homosexuality”), a theory which explains homosexual phenomena as dependent upon the existence of transitional stages between the sexes (“sexual links” of Hirschfeld), and which, moreover, erroneously includes the typical hermaphrodite states—this interesting theory explains a portion only of original homosexuality. It fails in cases in which homosexuality occurs in the absence of any divergence from type—for example, in those cases in which male individuals with thoroughly normal masculine bodies exhibit marked homosexual sensibility in early childhood, long before puberty. But these are the cases which offer the greatest possible difficulties to a scientific explanation. Hic Rhodus, hic salta!

Ulrich’s “feminine soul in a masculine body” applies to effeminate urnings, such as he was himself. But is the mode of sensibility of virile homosexuals “effeminate”? Why do we speak of a third sex? Here lie difficulties which we cannot overcome without further assistance.

How does it come to pass that the central organs in homosexuals do not correspond to the peripheral sexual organs, although the latter are formed embryologically long before the former, so that the central organs should properly be guided in their development by the peripheral organs? But they are not so guided. That is only explicable in this way—that the association between the central organs and the peripheral organs is interrupted by a third influence, and that this last influence has a peculiar effect upon the central organs altogether independent of the nature of the reproductive glands.

I will formulate this new theory of homosexuality in the following terms:

1. The so-called “undifferentiated stage” of the sexual impulse (Max Dessoir) may often fail to appear in cases in which the sexual impulse, either in heterosexuals or homosexuals, is definitely directed before puberty unmistakably towards the members of one particular sex. Especially in homosexuals do we often see before puberty the clear and unmistakable direction of the sexual impulse towards members of the same sex.

2. A critical theory of homosexuality must also explain the extreme cases; above all, it must also explain male homosexuality associated with complete virility.

3. The sexual organs and the reproductive glands cannot be the determining cause, because homosexuality makes its appearance in association with thoroughly typical male reproductive organs; nor can the brain be the determining cause in cases of true homosexuality, for, notwithstanding the intentional and unintentional operation of heterosexual influences on thought and imagination, homosexuality cannot be eradicated, and continues to develop.

4. Since this homosexuality often makes its appearance as an inclination (not as the sexual impulse) long before puberty, and before the proper activity of the reproductive glands is developed, it appears a reasonable suggestion that in homosexuality some physiological manifestation associated with “sexuality,” but not directly associated with the reproductive glands, undergoes a change which results in an alteration of the direction of the sexual impulse.

6. The most obvious influences to think of in this connexion are chemical influences, changes in the chemistry of sexual tension, which latter is certainly to a large extent independent of the reproductive glands, since it may persist in eunuchs. But the nature of this sexual chemistry is still entirely obscure.

Such a way of conceiving the process is thoroughly reasonable and tenable on scientific grounds, as was shown by E. H. Starling and L. Krehl[565] in their communication to the Scientific Congress at Stuttgart in the year 1905, regarding disturbances of chemical correlation in the organism, especially disturbances of the chemical influences proceeding from the reproductive organs. All minuter details regarding these “sexual hormone” (to use Starling’s own phrase) are still unknown, but the experiments to which we alluded in an earlier chapter have proved their existence. In my view, the anatomical contradiction, the natural monstrosity, of a feminine—or, at any rate, an unmanly—psyche in a typical masculine body, or that of a feminine or unmanly sexual psyche associated with normally developed and normally functioning male genital organs, can only be explained in this manner by taking into account this intercurrent third factor. This can be deduced very readily from some early embryonic disturbances of sexual chemistry. This would also explain why it is that homosexuality so often occurs in perfectly healthy families, as an isolated phenomenon which has nothing to do either with inheritance or with degeneration. When von Römer, on the contrary, describes homosexuality as a process of “regeneration,” we must maintain that for this view there are no sufficient grounds. Here begins the riddle of homosexuality; for me, at any rate, it is one. My own theory only attempts to explain the proper physiological connexions of homosexuality better, and, above all, more scientifically than earlier theories. With regard to the ultimate cause of the relatively frequent occurrence of homosexuality as an original phenomenon, this theory has, however, nothing to say.

I do not suggest that I am able for a moment to find the ultimate reason of the being and nature of homosexuality. There remains here a riddle to be solved. But from the standpoint of civilization and reproduction homosexuality is a senseless and aimless dysteleological phenomenon, like many another “natural product”—as, for example, the human cæcum. In an earlier chapter I drew attention to the fact that civilization has entailed an increasingly sharp sexual differentiation—that is, the antithesis between “man” and “woman” has become continually clearer. The distinction between the sexes is a product rather of civilization than of primitive nature. All sexual indifference, all sexual links, are primitive characters. Eduard von Mayer rightly believes that in the earliest days of the human race homosexuality was much more widely diffused than it is at present, that, in fact, it came into being side by side with heterosexual love. Civilization by means of inheritance, adaptation, and differentiation, has continually more and more limited the extent of the homosexual impulse. Unquestionably the homosexual human being, as human being, has the same right to exist as the heterosexual. To doubt it would be preposterous. Also, as a sexual being, in so far as only the individual aspect of love comes under consideration, the homosexual has an equal right. But for the species, and also for the advancement of civilization, homosexuality has no importance, or very little. It is obvious that, as a kind of enduring “monosexuality,” it contradicts the purposes of the species. Equally obvious is it that the whole of civilization is the product of the physical and mental differentiation of the sexes, that civilization has, in fact, to a certain extent, a heterosexual character. The greatest spiritual values we owe to heterosexuals, not to homosexuals. Moreover, reproduction first renders possible the preservation and permanence of new spiritual values. In the last resort the latter are not possible without the former. However obvious it may appear, we must still repeat that spiritual values exist only in respect of the future, that they only attain their true significance in the connexion and the succession of the generations, and that they are, therefore, eternally dependent upon heterosexual love as the intermediary by which this continuity is produced. The monosexual and homosexual instincts permanently limited to their own ego or their own sex are, therefore, in their innermost nature dysteleological and anti-evolutionistic. In speaking thus we leave entirely out of consideration the possibility that temporarily and for the purposes of individual development they may possess a relative justification.[566]

Moreover, the majority of homosexuals have a deeply rooted sentiment of the lack of purpose and the aimlessness of their mode of sexual perception, and this often gives them a very tragical and pitiable expression. Especially in the case of noble, spiritually important homosexuals, true carriers of civilization, is this sense of the incongruity between homosexuality and life most plainly felt. Even the talented Numa Prætorius (Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages, vol. vi., p. 543) recognizes that—

“The love of the majority of men towards the other sex, based upon heterosexual impulse, has undergone a development and refinement, and has obtained a significance which makes homosexual love, in comparison with it, play quite a subordinate part.”