of inverts, though without allusion to the Wilde trial:--
"Inverts should have the courage and independence to be
themselves, and to demand an investigation. If one strives to
live honorably, and considers the greatest good to the greatest
number, it is not a crime nor a disgrace to be an invert. I do
not need the law to defend me, neither do I desire to have any
concessions made for me, nor do I ask my friends to sacrifice
their ideals for me. I too have ideals which I shall always hold.
All that I desire--and I claim it as my right--is the freedom to
exercise this divine gift of loving, which is not a menace to
society nor a disgrace to me. Let it once be understood that the
average invert is not a moral degenerate nor a mental degenerate,
but simply a man or a woman who is less highly specialized, less
completely differentiated, than other men and women, and I
believe the prejudice against them will disappear, and if they
live uprightly they will surely win the esteem and consideration
of all thoughtful people. I know what it means to an invert--who
feels himself set apart from the rest of mankind--to find one
human heart who trusts him and understands him, and I know how
almost impossible this is, and will be, until the world is made
aware of these facts."
But, while the law has had no more influence in repressing abnormal
sexuality than, wherever it has tried to do so, it has had in repressing
the normal sexual instinct, it has served to foster another offense. What
is called blackmailing in England, _chantage_ in France, and _Erpressung_
in Germany--in other words, the extortion of money by threats of exposing
some real or fictitious offense--finds its chief field of activity in
connection with homosexuality.[274] No doubt the removal of the penalty
against simple homosexuality does not abolish blackmailing, as the
existence of this kind of _chantage_ in France shows, but it renders its
success less probable.
On all these grounds, and taking into consideration the fact that the
tendency of modern legislation generally, and the consensus of
authoritative opinion in all countries, are in this direction, it seems
reasonable to conclude that neither "sodomy" (i.e., _immissio membri in
anum hominis vel mulieris_) nor "gross indecency" ought to be penal
offenses, except under certain special circumstances.
That is to say, that
if two persons of either or both sexes, having reached years of
discretion,[275] privately consent to practise some perverted mode of
sexual relationship, the law cannot be called upon to interfere. It should
be the function of the law in this matter to prevent violence, to protect
the young, and to preserve public order and decency.
Whatever laws are
laid down beyond this must be left to the individuals themselves, to the
moralists, and to social opinion.
At the same time, and while such a modification in the law seems to be
reasonable, the change effected would be less considerable than may appear
at first sight. In a very large proportion, indeed, of cases boys are
involved. It is instructive to observe that in Legludic's 246 cases
(including victims and aggressors together) in France, 127, or more than
half, were between the ages of 10 and 20, and 82, or exactly one-third,
were between the ages of 10 and 14. A very considerable field of operation
is thus still left for the law, whatever proportion of cases may meet with
no other penalty than social opinion.
That, however, social opinion--law or no law--will speak with no uncertain
voice is very evident. Once homosexuality was primarily a question of
population or of religion. Now we hear little either of its economic
aspects or of its sacrilegiousness; it is for us primarily a disgusting
abomination, i.e., a matter of taste, of esthetics; and, while unspeakably
ugly to the majority, it is proclaimed as beautiful by a small minority. I
do not know that we need find fault with this esthetic method of judging
homosexuality. But it scarcely lends itself to legal purposes. To indulge
in violent denunciation of the disgusting nature of homosexuality, and to
measure the sentence by the disgust aroused, or to regret, as one English
judge is reported to have regretted when giving sentence, that "gross
indecency" is not punishable by death, is to import utterly foreign
considerations into the matter. The judges who yield to this temptation
would certainly never allow themselves to be consciously influenced on the
bench by their political opinions. Yet esthetic opinions are quite as
foreign to law as political opinions. An act does not become criminal
because it is disgusting. To eat excrement, as Moll remarks, is extremely
disgusting, but it is not criminal. The confusion which thus exists, even
in the legal mind, between the disgusting and the criminal is additional
evidence of the undesirability of the legal penalty for simple
homosexuality. At the same time it shows that social opinion is amply
adequate to deal with the manifestations of inverted sexuality. So much
for the legal aspects of sexual inversion.
But while there can be no doubt about the amply adequate character of the
existing social reaction to all manifestations of perverted sexuality, the
question still remains how far not merely the law, but also the state of
public opinion, should be modified in the light of such a psychological
study as we have here undertaken. It is clear that this public opinion,
molded chiefly or entirely with reference to gross vice, tends to be
unduly violent in its reaction. What, then, is the reasonable attitude of
society toward the congenital sexual invert? It seems to lie in the
avoidance of two extremes. On the one hand, it cannot be expected to
tolerate the invert who flouts his perversion in its face, and assumes
that, because he would rather take his pleasure with a soldier or a
policeman than with their sisters, he is of finer clay than the vulgar
herd. On the other, it might well refrain from crushing with undiscerning
ignorance beneath a burden of shame the subject of an abnormality which,
as we have seen, has not been found incapable of fine uses. Inversion is
an aberration from the usual course of nature. But the clash of contending
elements which must often mark the history of such a deviation results now
and again--by no means infrequently--in nobler activities than those
yielded by the vast majority who are born to consume the fruits of the
earth. It bears, for the most part, its penalty in the structure of its
own organism. We are bound to protect the helpless members of society
against the invert. If we go farther, and seek to destroy the invert
himself before he has sinned against society, we exceed the warrant of
reason, and in so doing we may, perhaps, destroy also those children of
the spirit which possess sometimes a greater worth than the children of
the flesh.
Here we may leave this question of sexual inversion. In dealing with it I
have sought to avoid that attitude of moral superiority which is so common
in the literature of this subject, and have refrained from pointing out
how loathsome this phenomenon is, or how hideous that.
Such an attitude is
as much out of place in scientific investigation as it is in judicial
investigation, and may well be left to the amateur. The physician who
feels nothing but disgust at the sight of disease is unlikely to bring
either succor to his patients or instruction to his pupils.
That the investigation we have here pursued is not only profitable to us
in succoring the social organism and its members, but also in bringing
light into the region of sexual psychology, is now, I hope, clear to every
reader who has followed me to this point. There are a multitude of social
questions which we cannot face squarely and honestly unless we possess
such precise knowledge as has been here brought together concerning the
part played by the homosexual tendency in human life.
Moreover, the study
of this perverted tendency stretches beyond itself;
"O'er that art
Which you say adds to Nature, is an art That Nature makes."
Pathology is but physiology working under new conditions. The stream of
nature still flows into the bent channel of sexual inversion, and still
runs according to law. We have not wasted our time in this toilsome
excursion. With the knowledge here gained we are the better equipped to
enter upon the study of the wider questions of sex.
FOOTNOTES:
[243] In this connection I may refer to Moll's _Sexual Life of the Child_,
to the writings of Dr. Clement Dukes, physician to Rugby School, who fully
recognizes the risks of school-life, and to the discussion on sexual vice
in schools, started by an address by the Rev. J.M.
Wilson, head-master of
Clifton College, in the English _Journal of Education_, 1881-82.
[244] With regard to the importance of the sexual emotions generally and
their training, see the well-known book by Edward Carpenter, _Love's
Coming of Age_; Professor Gurlitt
("Knabenfreundschaften,"
_Sexual-Probleme_, Oct., 1909) also upholds the intimate friendships of
youth, which in his own experience have not had even a suspicion of
homosexuality.
[245] Casanova, _Mémoires_, vol. i (edition Garnier), p.
160. See also
remarks by an experienced master in one of the largest English public
schools, which I have brought forward in vol. i of these _Studies_,
"Auto-erotism," 3d ed., 1910.
[246] See, e.g., Professor J.R. Angell, "Some Reflections upon the
Reaction from Coeducation," _Popular Science Monthly_, Nov., 1902; also
Moll's _Sexual Life of the Child_, ch. ix, and for a general discussion of
coeducation, S. Poirson, _La Coéducation_, 1911.
[247] Bethe, "Die Dorische Knabenliebe," _Rheinisches Museum für
Philologie_; vol. lxii, Heft 3, p. 440; cf. Edward Carpenter,
_Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk_, ch. vi.
[248] Schrenck-Notzing, _Die Suggestionstherapie bei krankhaften
Erscheinungen des Geschlechtsinnes_, 1892. (Eng. trans.
_Therapeutic
Suggestion_, 1895.)
[249] Raffalovich, _Uranisme et Unisexualité_, 1896, p.
16. He remarks
that the congenital invert who has never had relations with women, and
whose abnormality, to use Krafft-Ebing's distinction, is a perversion and
not a perversity, is much less dangerous and apt to seduce others than the
more versatile and corrupt person who has known all methods of
gratification.
[250] See, e.g., Moll, _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, ch. xi; Forel,
_Die Sexuelle Frage_, ch. xiv; Näcke, "Die Behandlung der Homosexualität,"
_Sexual-Probleme_, Aug., 1910; Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xxii.
[251] Moll, _Zeitschrift für Psychotherapie_, 1911, Heft 1; id., _Handbuch
der Sexualwissenschaften_, 1912, p. 662 et seq.
[252] This is also the opinion of Numa Praetorius, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle
Zwischenstufen_, Jan., 1913, p. 222.
[253] See, especially, Sadger, _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Heft
12, 1908; also _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix, 1908;
Sadger's methods are criticised by Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch.
xxii, and defended by Sadger, _Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche
Psychoanalyse_, July, 1914, p. 392. For a discussion of the psychoanalytic
treatment of homosexuality by a leading American Freudian, see Brill,
_Journal American Medical Association_, Aug. 2, 1913.
[254] _Internationale Zeitschrift für Aerztliche Psychoanalyse_, March,
1914.
[255] This is now generally recognized. See, e.g., Roubinovitch and Borel,
"Un Cas d'Uranisme," _L'Encéphale_, Aug., 1913. These authors conclude
that it is today impossible to look upon inversion as the equivalent or
the symptom of a psychopathic state, though we have to recognize that it
frequently coexists with morbid emotional states. Näcke, also, in his
extensive experience, found that homosexuality is rare in asylums and
slight in character; he dealt with this question on various occasions;
see, e.g., _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol.
viii, 1906.
[256] Krafft-Ebing considered that the temporary or lasting association of
homosexuality with neurasthenia having its root in congenital conditions
is "almost invariable," and some authorities (like Meynert) have regarded
inversion as an accidental growth on the foundation of neurasthenia.
[257] Féré expressed himself concerning the general treatment of
homosexuality in the same sense, and even more emphatically (Féré,
_L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1899, pp. 272, 286). He considers that all forms of
congenital inversion resist treatment, and that, since a change in the
invert's instincts must be regarded rather as a perversion of the invert
than a cure of the inversion, one may be permitted to doubt not only the
utility of the treatment, but even the legitimacy of attempting it. The
treatment of sexual inversion, he declared, is as much outside the
province of medicine as the restoration of color-vision in the
color-blind. The ideal which the physician and the teacher must place
before the invert is that of chastity; he must seek to harness his wagon
to a star.
[258] I have been told by a distinguished physician, who was consulted in
the case, of a congenital invert highly placed in the English government
service, who married in the hope of escaping his perversion, and was not
even able to consummate the marriage. It is needless to insist on the
misery which is created in such cases. It is not, of course, denied that
such marriages may not sometimes become eventually happy. Thus Kiernan
("Psychical Treatment of Congenital Sexual Inversion,"
_Review of Insanity
and Nervous Diseases_, June, 1894) reports the case of a thoroughly
inverted girl who married the brother of the friend to whom she was
previously attached merely in order to secure his sister's companionship.
She was able to endure and even enjoy intercourse by imagining that her
husband, who resembled his sister, was another sister.
Liking and esteem
for the husband gradually increased and after the sister died a child was
born who much resembled her; "the wife's esteem passed through love of the
sister to intense natural love of the daughter, as resembling the sister;
through this to normal love of the husband as the father and brother." The
final result may have been satisfactory, but this train of circumstances
could not have been calculated beforehand. Moll is also opposed, on the
whole (e.g., _Deutsche medicinische Presse_, No. 6, 1902), to marriage and
procreation by inverts.
[259] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xxi. It might seem on
theoretical grounds that the marriage of a homosexual man with a
homosexual woman might turn out well. Hirschfeld, however, states that he
knows of 14 such marriages, and the theoretical expectation has not been
justified; 3 of the cases speedily terminated in divorce, 4 of the couples
lived separately, and all but 2 of the remaining couples regretted the
step they had taken. I may add that in such a case even the expectation of
happiness scarcely seems reasonable, since neither of the parties can feel
a true mating impulse toward the other.
[260] Hirschfeld also notes (_Die Homosexualität_, p.
95) that women often
instinctively feel that there is something wrong in the love of their
inverted husbands who may perhaps succeed in copulating, but betray their
deepest feelings by a repugnance to touch the sexual parts with the hand.
The homosexual woman, also, as Hirschfeld elsewhere points out with cases
in illustration (p. 84), may suffer seriously through being subjected to
normal sexual relationships.
[261] Féré reports the case of an invert of great intellectual ability who
had never had any sexual relationships, and was not averse from a chaste
life; he was urged by his doctor to acquire the power of normal
intercourse and to marry, on the ground that his perversion was merely a
perversion of the imagination. He did so, and, though he married a
perfectly strong and healthy woman, and was himself healthy, except in so
far as his perversion was concerned, the offspring turned out
disastrously. The eldest child was an epileptic, almost an imbecile, and
with strongly marked homosexual impulses; the second and third children
were absolute idiots; the youngest died of convulsions in infancy (Féré,
_L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 269 et seq.) No doubt this is not an average case,
but the numerous examples of the offspring of similar marriages brought
forward by Hirschfeld (op. cit., p. 391) scarcely present a much better
result.
[262] It is scarcely necessary to add that the same principle is adaptable
to the case of homosexual women. "In all such cases,"
writes an American
woman physician, "I would recommend that the moral sense be trained and
fostered, and the persons allowed to keep their individuality, being
taught to remember always that they are different from others, rather
sacrificing their own feelings or happiness when necessary. It is good
discipline for them, and will serve in the long run to bring them more
favor and affection than any other course. This quality or idiosyncrasy is
not essentially evil, but, if rightly used, may prove a blessing to others
and a power for good in the life of the individual; nor does it reflect
any discredit upon its possessor."
[263] The existence of an affinity between homosexuality and the religious
temperament has been referred to in ch. i as recognized in many parts of
the world. See, for a more extended discussion, Horneffer, _Der Priester_,
and Bloch, _Die Prostitution_, vol. i, pp. 101-110. The psychoanalysts
have also touched on this point; thus Pfister, _Die Frommingkeit des
Grafen von Zinzendorf_ (1910), argues that the founder of the pietistic
sect of the Herrenhuter was of sublimated homosexual (or bisexual)
temperament.
[264] Forel, _Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 528. Such ideas are, of course,
often put forward by inverts themselves.
[265] Roman law previously seems to have been confined in this matter to
the protection of boys. The Scantinian and other Roman laws against
paiderasty seem to have been usually a dead letter. See, for various notes
and references, W.G. Holmes, _The Age of Justinian and Theodora_, vol. i,
p. 121.
[266] Epistle to the Romans, chapter i, verses 26-7.
[267] In practice this penalty of death appears to have been sometimes
commuted to ablation of the sexual organs.
[268] For a full sketch of the legal enactments against homosexual
intercourse in ancient and modern times, see Numa Praetorius, "Die
straflichen Bestimmungen gegen den
gleichgeschlechtlichen Verkehr,"
_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. i, pp. 97-158. This writer
points out that Justinian, and still more clearly, Pius V, in the
sixteenth century, distinguished between occasional homosexuality and
deep-rooted inversion, habitual offenders alone, not those who had only
been guilty once or twice, being punished.
[269] The influence of the supposed connection of sodomy with unbelief,
idolatry, and heresy in arousing the horror of it among earlier religions
has been emphasized by Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of the
Moral Ideas_, vol. i, p. 486 et seq.
[270] "Any male person who in public or private commits, or is a party to
the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by
any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person,
shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, being convicted thereof, shall be
liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term not
exceeding two years, with or without hard labor."
[271] This point is brought forward by Dr. Léon de Rode in his report on
"L'Inversion Génitale et la Législation," prepared for the Third
(Brussels) Congress of Criminal Anthropology in 1892.
The same point is
insisted on by some of my correspondents.
[272] It is a remarkable and perhaps significant fact that, while
homosexuality is today in absolute disrepute in France, it was not so
under the less tolerant law of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The Duc de Gesvres, as described by Besenval (_Mémoires_, i, p. 178), was
a well-marked invert of feminine type, impotent, and publicly affecting
all the manners of women; yet he was treated with consideration. In 1687
Madame, the mother of the Regent, writes implying that
"all the young men
and many of the old" practised pederasty: _il n'y a que les gens du commun
qui aiment les femmes_. The marked tendency to inversion in the French
royal family at this time is well known.
[273] A man with homosexual habits, I have been told, declared he would be
sorry to see the English law changed, as then he would find no pleasure in
his practices.
[274] Blackmailing appears to be the most serious risk which the invert
runs. Hirschfeld states in an interesting study of blackmailing (_Jahrbuch
für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, April, 1913) that his experience shows that
among 10,000 homosexual persons hardly one falls a victim to the law, but
over 3000 are victimized by blackmailers.
[275] Krafft-Ebing would place this age not under 16, the age at which in
England girls may legally consent to normal sexual intercourse
(_Psychopathia Sexualis_, 1893, p. 419). It certainly should not be lower.
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX A.
HOMOSEXUALITY AMONG TRAMPS.
BY "JOSIAH FLYNT."
I have made a rather minute study of the tramp class in the United States,
England, and Germany, but I know it best in the States.
I have lived with
the tramps there for eight consecutive months, besides passing numerous
shorter periods in their company, and my acquaintance with them is nearly
of ten years' standing. My purpose in going among them has been to learn
about their life in particular and outcast life in general. This can only
be done by becoming part and parcel of its manifestations.
There are two kinds of tramps in the United States: out-of-works and
"hoboes." The out-of-works are not genuine vagabonds; they really want
work and have no sympathy with the hoboes. The latter are the real tramps.
They make a business of begging--a very good business too--and keep at it,
as a rule, to the end of their days. Whisky and _Wanderlust_, or the love
of wandering, are probably the main causes of their existence; but many of
them are discouraged criminals, men who have tried their hand at crime and