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well-accredited source is noteworthy from this point of view:--
"The following facts may possibly be of interest to you, though
my statement of them is necessarily general and vague. I happen
to know intimately three cases of men whose affections have
chiefly been directed exclusively to persons of their own sex.
The first, having practised masturbation as a boy, and then for
some ten years ceased to practise it (to such an extent that he
even inhibited his erotic dreams), has since recurred to it
deliberately (at about fortnightly intervals) as a substitute for
copulation, for which he has never felt the least desire. But
occasionally, when sleeping with a male friend, he has emissions
in the act of embracing. The second is constantly and to an
abnormal extent (I should say) troubled with erotic dreams and
emissions, and takes drugs, by doctor's advice, to reduce this
activity. He has recently developed a sexual interest in women,
 but for ethical and other reasons does not copulate with them. Of
the third I can say little, as he has not talked to me on the
subject; but I know that he has never had intercourse with women,
and has always had a natural and instinctive repulsion to the
idea. In all these, I imagine, the physical impulse of sex is
less imperative than in the average man. The emotional impulse,
on the other hand, is very strong. It has given birth to
friendships of which I find no adequate description anywhere but
in the dialogues of Plato; and, beyond a certain feeling of
strangeness at the gradual discovery of a temperament apparently
different to that of most men, it has provoked no kind of
self-reproach or shame. On the contrary, the feeling has been
rather one of elation in the consciousness of a capacity of
affection which appears to be finer and more spiritual than that
which commonly subsists between persons of different sexes. These
men are all of intellectual capacity above the average; and one
is actively engaged in the world, where he is both respected for
his capacity and admired for his character. I mention this
particularly, because it appears to be the habit, in books upon
this subject, to regard the relation in question as pathological,
and to select cases where those who are concerned in it are
tormented with shame and remorse. In the cases to which I am
referring nothing of the kind subsists.
"In all these cases a physical sexual attraction is recognized as
the basis of the relation, but as a matter of feeling, and partly
also of theory, the ascetic ideal is adopted.
"These are the only cases with which I am personally and
intimately acquainted. But no one can have passed through a
public-school and college life without constantly observing
indications of the phenomenon in question. It is clear to me that
in a large number of instances there is no fixed line between
what is called distinctively 'friendship' and love; and it is
probably the influence of custom and public opinion that in most
cases finally specializes the physical passion in the direction
of the opposite sex."
The classification of the varieties of homosexuality is a matter of
difficulty, and no classification is very fundamental. The early attempts
of Krafft-Ebing and others at elaborate classification are no longer
acceptable. Even the most elementary groupings become doubtful when we
have definitely to fit our cases into them. The old distinction between
congenital and acquired homosexuality has ceased to possess significance.
When we have recognized that there is a tendency for homosexuality to
arise in persons of usually normal tendency who are placed under
conditions (as on board ship or in prison) where the exercise of normal
sexuality is impossible, there is little further classification to be
achieved along this line.[129] We have gone as far as is necessary by
admitting a general undefined homosexuality,--a relationship of
unspecified nature to persons of the same sex,--in addition to the more
specific sexual inversion.[130]
It may now be said to be recognized by all authorities, even by Freud who
emphasizes a special psychological mechanism by which homosexuality may
become established, that a congenital predisposition as well as an
acquired tendency is necessary to constitute true inversion, apparent
exceptions being too few to carry much weight. Krafft-Ebing, Näcke, Iwan
Bloch, who at one time believed in the possibility of acquired inversion,
all finally abandoned that view, and even Schrenck-Notzing, a vigorous
champion of the doctrine of acquired inversion twenty years ago, admits
the necessity of a favoring predisposition, an admission which renders the
distinction between innate and acquired an unimportant, if not a merely
verbal, distinction.[131] Supposing, indeed, that we are prepared to admit
that true inversion may be purely acquired the decision in any particular
case must be extremely difficult, and I have found very few cases which,
even with imperfect knowledge, could fairly so be termed.
Even the cases (to which Schopenhauer long since referred) in which
inversion is only established late in life, are no longer regarded as
constituting a difficulty in accepting the doctrine of the congenital
nature of inversion; in such cases the inversion is merely retarded. The
conception of retarded inversion,--that is to say a latent congenital
inversion becoming manifest at a late period in life,--was first brought
forward by Thoinot in 1898 in his _Attentats aux Moeurs_, in order to
supersede the unsatisfactory conception, as he considered it to be, of
acquired inversion. Thoinot regarded retarded inversion as relatively rare [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]