Then M.O. and Edmund went to college at different places, but they met in vacations and wrote frequent and ardent love-letters. Both had genuine attacks of love-sickness and of jealousy. As M.O. looks back on this first love passion he can by no means regret it. It doubtless had great formative influence.
After the first year at college, Edmund transferred to another school farther away from M.O. and the opportunities for meeting became rarer, but their affection was maintained and the intercourse resumed whenever it was possible. Gradually, however, Edmund became interested in women and finally married. M.O. also formed relations repeatedly with college friends and occasionally with others.
On the whole M.O. preferred boys a year or two younger than himself, but as he grew older the age difference increased. At 30 he regarded himself as virtually "engaged" to a youth of 17, one unusually mature, however, and much larger than himself.
M.O. is always unhappy unless his affections have fairly free course. Life has been very disappointing to him in other respects. His greatest joys have come to him in this way. If he is able to consummate his present plan of union with the youth just referred to, he will feel that his life has been crowned by what is for him the best possible end; otherwise, he declares, he would not care to live at all.
He admires male beauty passionately. Feminine beauty he perceives objectively, as he would any design of flowing curves and delicate coloring, but it has no sexual charm for him whatever. Women have put themselves in his way repeatedly, but he finds himself more and more irritated by their specifically feminine foibles. With men generally he is much more patient and sympathetic.
The first literature that appealed to him was Plato's dialogues, first read at 20 years of age. Until then he had not known but what he stood alone in his peculiarity. He read what he could of classic literature. He enjoys Pater, appreciating his attitude toward his own sex. Four or five years, later he came across Raffalovich's book, and ever since has felt a real debt of gratitude to its author.
M.O. has no wish to injure society at large. As an individual he holds that he has the same right to be himself that anyone else has. He thinks that while boys of from 13 to 15 might possibly be rendered inverts, those who reach 16 without it cannot be bent that way. They may be devoted to an invert enough in other ways to yield him what he wishes sexually, but they will remain essentially normal themselves. His observations are based on about 30 homosexual relationships that have lasted various lengths of time.
M.O. feels strongly the poetic and elevated character of his principal homosexual relationships, but he shrinks from appearing too sentimental.
With regard to the traces of feminism in inverts he writes:-- "Up to the age of 11 I associated much with a cousin five years older (the one referred to above) and took great delight in a game we often played, in which I was a girl,--a never-ending romance, a non-sexual love story.
"Somewhat later and until puberty, I took great delight in acting, but generally took female roles, wearing skirts, shawls, beads, wigs, head-dresses. When I was about 13 my family began to make fun of me for it. I played secretly for a while, and then the desire for it left, never to return.
"There still lingers, however, a minor interest, which began before puberty, in valentines. My feeling for them is much like my feeling for flowers.
"Before I reached puberty I was sometimes called a 'sissy' by my father. Such taunts humiliated me more than anything else has ever done. After puberty my father no longer applied the term, and gradually other persons ceased to tease me that way. The sting of it lasted, though, and led me more than once to ask intimate friends, both men and women, if they considered me at all feminine. Every one of them has been very emphatically of the opinion that my rational life is distinctively masculine, being logical, impartial, skeptical. One or two have suggested that I have a finer discrimination than most men, and that I take care of my rooms somewhat as a woman might, though this does not extend to the style of decorations. One man said that I lacked sympathy with certain 'grosser manifestations of masculine character, such as smoking.' Some women think me unusually observing of women's dress. My own is by no means effeminate. In a muscular way I have average strength, but am supple far beyond what is usual. If trained for it early, I believe I would have made a good contortionist.
"I have never had the least inclination to use tobacco, generally take neither tea nor coffee, and seldom any liquor, never malt liquors. The dessert is always the best part of the meal. These tastes I attribute largely to my sedentary life. When out camping I observed a marked change in the direction of heartier food and mild stimulants.
"My physical courage has never been put to the test, but I observe that others appear to count on it. I am very aggressive in matters of religious, political, social opinion. In moral courage I am either reckless or courageous, I do not know which.
"I am, perhaps, a better whistler than most men.
"When I was quite little my grandmother taught me to do certain kinds of fancy-work, and I continued to do a little from time to time until I was 24. Then I became irritated over a piece that troubled me, put it in the fire, and have not wanted to touch any since. As a pet economy I continue to do nearly all of my own mending.
"I have a decided aversion for much jewelry. My estheticism is very pronounced as compared with most of the men with whom I associate, although I have never been able to give it much scope. It makes for cleanliness, order, and general good taste. My dress is economical and by no means fastidious; yet it seems to be generally approved. I have been complimented often on my ability to select appropriate presents, clothing, and to arrange a room."
M.O. states that he practises the love-bite at times, though very gently. He often wants to pinch one who interests him sexually.
He considers very silly the statement somewhere made, that inverts are always liars. Very few people, he says, are perfectly honest, and the more dangerous society makes it for a man to be so, the less likely he is to be. While he himself has been unable in two or three instances to keep promises made to withhold from sexual intercourse with certain attractive individuals, he has never otherwise been guilty of untruth about his homosexual relations.
The foregoing narrative was received eight years ago. During this interval M.O.'s health has very greatly improved. There has been a marked increase in outdoor activities and interests.
Two years since M.O. consulted a prominent specialist who performed a thorough psychoanalysis. He informed M.O. that he was less strongly homosexual than he himself supposed, and recommended marriage with some young and pretty woman. He attributed the homosexual bent to M.O.'s having had his "nose broken" at the age of 6, by the birth of a younger brother, who from that time on received all the attention and petting. M.O. had continued up to that age very affectionate toward his mother and dependent on her. He can remember friends and neighbors commenting on it. At first M.O. was inclined to reject this suggestion of the specialist, but on long reflection he inclines to believe that it was indeed a very important factor, though not the sole one. From his later observations of children and comparisons of these with memories of his own childhood, M.O. says he is sure he was affectionate and demonstrative much beyond the average. His greatest craving was for affection, and his greatest grief the fancied belief that no one cared for him. At 10 or 11 he attempted suicide for this reason.
Also as a result of the psychoanalysis, but trying to eliminate the influence of suggestion, he recollects and emphasizes more the attraction he felt toward girls before the age of 12. Had his sexual experiences subsequently proved normal, he doubts if those before 12 could be held to give evidence of homosexuality, but only of precocious nervous and sexual irritability, greatly heightened and directed by the secret practices of the children with whom he associated. He does not see why these experiences should have given him a homosexual bent any more than a heterosexual one.
The psychoanalysis recalled to M.O. that during the period of early flirtation he had often kissed and embraced various girls, but likewise he recalled having observed at the same time, with some surprise, that no definitely sexual desire arose, though the way was probably open to gratify it. Such interest as did exist ceased wholly or almost so as the relation with Edmund developed. There was no aversion from the company of girls and women, however; the intellectual friendships were mainly with them, while the emotional ones were with boys.
Very recently M.O. spent several days with Edmund, who has been married for several years. With absolutely no sexual interest in each other, they nevertheless found a great bond of love still subsisting. Neither regrets anything of the past, but feels that the final outcome of their earlier relation has been good. Edmund's beauty is still pronounced, and is remarked by others.
In spite of his precocious sexuality, M.O. had from the very first an extreme disgust for obscene stories, and for any association of sexual things with filthy words and anecdotes. Owing in part to this and in part to his temperamental skepticism, he disbelieved what associates told him regarding sexual emissions, only becoming convinced when he actually experienced them; and the facts of reproduction he denied indignantly until he read them in a medical work. Until he was well over 25 the physical aversion from any thought of reproduction was intense. He knows other, normal, young men who have felt the same way, but he believes it would be prevented or overcome by sex-education such as is now being introduced in American schools.
Again, as to traces of feminism: Perhaps two years ago, all impulse to give the love-bite disappeared suddenly. There has been lately a marked increase of dramatic interest, arising in perfectly natural ways, and without any of the peculiarities noted before. The childish pleasure in valentines has all gone; M.O. believes that _circumstances_ have lately been more favorable for the development of a more robust estheticism.
For some years he has heard no definite reproach for feminism, though some persons tell his friends that he is "very peculiar." He forms many intimate, enduring, non-sexual friendships with both men and women, and he doubts if the peculiarity noted by others is due so much to his homosexuality as it is to his estheticism, skepticism, and the unconventional opinions which he expresses quite indiscreetly at times. With the improvement in general health, has come the changes that would be expected in food and other matters of daily life.
Resuming his narrative at the point where the earlier communication left it, M.O. says that about a year after that time, the youth of 17 to whom he had considered himself virtually engaged withdrew from the agreement so far as it bore on his own future, but not from the sentimental relation as it existed. Although separated most of the time by distance, the physical relation was resumed whenever they met. Subsequently, however, the young man fell in love with a young woman and became engaged to her. His physical relation with M.O. then ceased, but the friendship otherwise continues strong.
Shortly after the first break in this relation, M.O. became, through the force of quite unusual circumstances, very friendly and intimate with a young woman of considerable charm. He confided to her his abnormality, and was not repulsed. To others their relation probably appeared that of lovers, and a painful situation was created by the slander of a jealous woman. M.O. felt that in honor he must propose marriage to her. The young woman was non-committal, but invited M.O. to spend several months at her home. Shortly after his arrival a sad occurrence in his own family compelled him to go away, and they did not meet again for four years. They corresponded, but less and less often. His relations with boys continued.
Before his final meeting with her he became acquainted with a woman whom he has since married. The acquaintance began in a wholly non-sentimental community of interests in certain practical affairs, and very gradually widened into an intellectual and sympathetic friendship. M.O. had no secrets from this woman. After a full and prolonged consideration of all sides of the matter they married. Since that event he has had no sexual relations except with his wife. With her they are not passionate, but they are animated by the strong desire for children. Of the parental instinct he had become aware several years before this.
M.O. believes that no moral stigma should be attached to homosexuality until it can be proved to result from the vicious life of a free moral agent,--and of this he has no expectation. He believes that much of its danger and unhappiness would be prevented by a thorough yet discreet sex-education, such as should be given to all children, whether normal or abnormal.
FOOTNOTES: [124] Thus Godard described the little boys in Cairo as amusing themselves indifferently either with boys or girls in sexual play. (_Egypte et Palestine_, 1867, p. 105.) The same thing may be observed in England and elsewhere.
[125] Thus, of the Duc d'Orleans, in the seventeenth century, as described in Bouchard's _Confessions_, one of my correspondents writes: "This prince was of the same mind as Campanella, who, in the _Città del Sole_, laid it down that young men ought to be freely admitted to women for the avoidance of sexual aberrations. Aretino and Berni enable us to comprehend the sexual immorality of males congregated together in the courts of Roman prelates." The homosexuality of youth was also well recognized among the Romans, but they adopted the contrary course and provided means to gratify it, as the existence of the _concubinus_, referred to by Catullus, clearly shows.
[126] "Our Public Schools: their Methods and Morals." _New Review_, July, 1893.
[127] Max Dessoir, "Zür Psychologie der Vita Sexualis," _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1894, H. 5.
[129] Iwan Bloch, in _The Sexual Life of Our Time_, makes this distinction as between "homosexuality" (corresponding to inversion) and "pseudo-homosexuality." According to the terminology I have accepted, the term "pseudo-homosexuality" would be unnecessary and incorrect. More recently (_Die Prostitution_, Bd. i, 1912, p. 103) Bloch has preferred, in place of pseudo-homosexuality, the more satisfactory term, "secondary homosexuality."
[130] See, for instance, Hirschfeld's reasonable discussion of the matter, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. xvii.
[131] Alfred Fuchs, who edited Krafft-Ebing's _Psychopathia Sexualis_ after the latter's death, distinguishes between congenital homosexuality, manifesting itself from the first without external stimulation, and homosexuality on a basis of inborn disposition needing special external influences to arouse it (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iv, 1902, p. 181).
[132] Krafft-Ebing, "Ueber tardive Homosexualität," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iii, 1901, p. 7; Näcke, "Probleme auf den Gebiete der Homosexualität," _Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1902, p. 805; ib., "Ueber tardive Homosexualität," _Sexual-Probleme_, September, 1911. Numa Praetorius (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, January, 1913, p. 228) considers that retarded cases should not be regarded as bisexual, but as genuine inverts who had acquired a pseudoheterosexuality which at last falls away; at the most, he believes such cases merely represent a prolongation of the youthful undifferentiated period.
[133] Moll, _Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, 1897, pp, 458-8.
[134] Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, ch. viii.
[135] This was the term used in the earlier editions of the present _Study_. I willingly reject it in favor of the simpler and fairly clear term now more generally employed. It is true that by bisexuality it is possible to understand not only the double direction of the sexual instinct, but also the presence of both sexes in the same individual, which in French is more accurately distinguished as "bisexuation."
[136] J. Van Biervliet, "L'Homme Droit et l'Homme Gauche," _Revue Philosophique_, October, 1901. It is here shown that in the constitution of their nervous system the ambidextrous are demonstrably left-sided persons; their optic, acoustic, olfactory, and muscular sensitivity is preponderant on the left side.
CHAPTER IV.
SEXUAL INVERSION IN WOMEN.
Prevalence of Sexual Inversion Among Women--Among Women of Ability--Among the Lower Races--Temporary Homosexuality in Schools, etc.--Histories--Physical and Psychic Characteristics of Inverted Women--The Modern Development of Homosexuality Among Women.
Homosexuality is not less common in women than in men. In the seriocomic theory of sex set forth by Aristophanes in Plato's _Symposium_, males and females are placed on a footing of complete equality, and, however fantastic, the theory suffices to indicate that to the Greek mind, so familiar with homosexuality, its manifestations seemed just as likely to occur in women as in men. That is undoubtedly the case. Like other anomalies, indeed, in its more pronounced forms it may be less frequently met with in women; in its less pronounced forms, almost certainly, it is more frequently found. A Catholic confessor, a friend tells me, informed him that for one man who acknowledges homosexual practices there are three women. For the most part feminine homosexuality runs everywhere a parallel course to masculine homosexuality and is found under the same conditions. It is as common in girls as in boys; it has been found, under certain conditions, to abound among women in colleges and convents and prisons, as well as under the ordinary conditions of society. Perhaps the earliest case of homosexuality recorded in detail occurred in a woman,[137] and it was with the investigation of such a case in a woman that Westphal may be said to have inaugurated the scientific study of inversion.
Moreover, inversion is as likely to be accompanied by high intellectual ability in a woman as in a man. The importance of a clear conception of inversion is indeed in some respects, under present social conditions, really even greater in the case of women than of men. For if, as has sometimes been said of our civilization, "this is a man's world," the large proportion of able women inverts, whose masculine qualities render it comparatively easy for them to adopt masculine avocations, becomes a highly significant fact.[138] It has been noted of distinguished women in all ages and in all fields of activity that they have frequently displayed some masculine traits.[139] Even "the first great woman in history," as she has been called by a historian of Egypt, Queen Hatschepsu, was clearly of markedly virile temperament, and always had herself represented on her monuments in masculine costume, and even with a false beard.[140] Other famous queens have on more or less satisfactory grounds been suspected of a homosexual temperament, such as Catherine II of Russia, who appears to have been bisexual, and Queen Christina of Sweden, whose very marked masculine traits and high intelligence seem to have been combined with a definitely homosexual or bisexual temperament.[141] Great religious and moral leaders, like Madame Blavatsky and Louise Michel, have been either homosexual or bisexual or, at least, of pronounced masculine temperament.[142] Great actresses from the eighteenth century onward have frequently been more or less correctly identified with homosexuality, as also many women distinguished in other arts.[143] Above all, Sappho, the greatest of women poets, the peer of the greatest poets of the other sex in the supreme power of uniting art and passion, has left a name which is permanently associated with homosexuality.
It can scarcely be said that opinion is unanimous in regard to Sappho, and the reliable information about her, outside the evidence of the fragments of her poems which have reached us, is scanty. Her fame has always been great; in classic times her name was coupled with Homer's. But even to antiquity she was somewhat of an enigma, and many legends grew up around her name, such as the familiar story that she threw herself into the sea for the love of Phaon. What remains clear is that she was regarded with great respect and admiration by her contemporaries, that she was of aristocratic family, that she was probably married and had a daughter, that at one time she had to take her part in political exile, and that she addressed her girl friends in precisely similar terms to those addressed by Alcaeus to youths. We know that in antiquity feminine homosexuality was regarded as especially common in Sparta, Lesbos, and Miletus. Horace, who was able to read Sappho's complete poems, states that the objects of her love-plaints were the young girls of Lesbos, while Ovid, who played so considerable a part in weaving fantastic stories round Sappho's name, never claimed that they had any basis of truth. It was inevitable that the early Christians should eagerly attack so ambiguous a figure, and Tatian (_Oratio ad Graecos_, cap. 52) reproached the Greeks that they honored statues of the tribade Sappho, a prostitute who had celebrated her own wantonness and infatuation. The result is that in modern times there have been some who placed Sappho's character in a very bad light and others who have gone to the opposite extreme in an attempt at "rehabilitation." Thus, W. Mure, in his _History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece_ (1854, vol. iii, pp. 272-326, 496-8), dealing very fully with Sappho, is disposed to accept many of the worst stories about her, though he has no pronounced animus, and, as regards female homosexuality, which he considers to be "far more venial" than male homosexuality, he remarks that "in modern times it has numbered among its votaries females distinguished for refinement of manners and elegant accomplishments." Bascoul, on the other hand, will accept no statements about Sappho which conflict with modern ideals of complete respectability, and even seeks to rewrite her most famous ode in accordance with the colorless literary sense which he supposes that it originally bore (J.M.F. Bascoul, _La Chaste Sappho et le Mouvement Feministe à Athènes_, 1911).
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (_Sappho und Simonides_, 1913) also represents the antiquated view, formerly championed by Welcker, according to which the attribution of homosexuality is a charge of "vice," to be repudiated with indignation. Most competent and reliable authorities today, however, while rejecting the accretions of legend around Sappho's name and not disputing her claim to respect, are not disposed to question the personal and homosexual character of her poems. "All ancient tradition and the character of her extant fragments," says Prof. J.A. Platt (_Encyclopedia Britannica_, 11th. ed., art. "Sappho"), "show that her morality was what has ever since been known as 'Lesbian.'" What exactly that "Lesbian morality" involved, we cannot indeed exactly ascertain. "It is altogether idle," as A. Croiset remarks of Sappho (_Histoire de la Littérature Grecque_, vol. ii, ch. v), "to discuss the exact quality of this friendship or this love, or to seek to determine with precision the frontiers, which language itself often seems to seek to confuse, of a friendship more or less esthetic and sensual, of a love more or less Platonic." (See also J.M. Edmonds, _Sappho in the Added Light of the New Fragments_, 1912). Iwan Bloch similarly concludes (_Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, 1911, p. 507) that Sappho probably combined, as modern investigation shows to be easily possible, lofty ideal feelings with passionate sensuality, exactly as happens in normal love.
It must also be said that in literature homosexuality in women has furnished a much more frequent motive to the artist than homosexuality in men. Among the Greeks, indeed, homosexuality in women seldom receives literary consecration, and in the revival of the classical spirit at the Renaissance it was still chiefly in male adolescents, as we see, for instance, in Marino's _Adone_, that the homosexual ideal found expression. After that date male inversion was for a long period rarely touched in literature, save briefly and satirically, while inversion in women becomes a subject which might be treated in detail and even with complacence. Many poets and novelists, especially in France, might be cited in evidence.
Ariosto, it has been pointed out, has described the homosexual attractions of women. Diderot's famous novel, _La Religieuse_, which, when first published, was thought to have been actually written by a nun, deals with the torture to which a nun was put by the perverse lubricity of her abbess, for whom, it is said, Diderot found a model in the Abbess of Chelles, a daughter of the Regent and thus a member of a family which for several generations showed a marked tendency to inversion. Diderot's narrative has been described as a faithful description of the homosexual phenomena liable to occur in convents. Feminine homosexuality, especially in convents, was often touched on less seriously in the eighteenth century. Thus we find a homosexual scene in _Les Plaisirs du Cloître_, a play written in 1773 (_Le Théâtre d'Amour an XVIIIe Siècle_, 1910.) Balzac, who treated so many psychological aspects of love in a more or less veiled manner, has touched on this in _La Fille aux Yeux d'Or_, in a vague and extravagantly romantic fashion. Gautier made the adventures of a woman who was predisposed to homosexuality, and slowly realizes the fact, the central motive of his wonderful romance, _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ (1835). He approached the subject purely as an artist and poet, but his handling of it shows remarkable insight. Gautier based his romance to some extent on the life of Madame Maupin or, as she preferred to call herself, Mademoiselle Maupin, who was born in 1673 (her father's name being d'Aubigny), dressed as a man, and became famous as a teacher of fencing, afterward as an opera singer. She was apparently of bisexual temperament, and her devotion to women led her into various adventures. She ultimately entered a convent, and died, at the age of 34, with a reputation for sanctity. (E.C. Clayton, _Queens of Song_, vol. i, pp, 52-61; F. Karsch, "Mademoiselle Maupin," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. v, 1903, pp. 694-706.) A still greater writer, Flaubert, in _Salammbô_ (1862) made his heroine homosexual. Zola has described sexual inversion in _Nona_ and elsewhere. Some thirty years ago a popular novelist, A. Belot, published a novel called _Mademoiselle Giraud, ma Femme_, which was much read; the novelist took the attitude of a moralist who is bound to treat frankly, but with all decorous propriety, a subject of increasing social gravity. The story is that of a man whose bride will not allow his approach on account of her own _liaison_ with a female friend continued after marriage. This book appears to have given origin to a large number of novels, some of which touched the question with considerable less affectation of propriety. Among other novelists who have dealt with the matter may be mentioned Guy de Maupassant (_La Femme de Paul_), Bourget (_Crime d'Amour_), Catulle Mendès (_Méphistophéla_), and Willy in the _Claudine_ series.
Among poets who have used the motive of homosexuality in women with more or less boldness may be found Lamartine (_Regina_), Swinburne (first series of _Poems and Ballads_), Verlaine (_Parallèlement_), and Pierre Louys (_Chansons de Bilitis_). The last-named book, a collection of homosexual prose-poems, attracted considerable attention on publication, as it was an attempt at mystification, being put forward as a translation of the poems of a newly discovered Oriental Greek poetess; Bilitis (more usually Beltis) is the Syrian name for Aphrodite. _Les Chansons de Bilitis_ are not without charm, but have been severely dealt with by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (_Sappho und Simonides_, 1913, p. 63 et seq.) as "a travesty of Hellenism," betraying inadequate knowledge of Greek antiquity.
More interesting, as the work of a woman who was not only highly gifted, but herself of homosexual temperament, are the various volumes of poems published by "Renée Vivien." This lady, whose real name was Pauline Tarn, was born in 1877; her father was of Scotch descent, and her mother an American lady from Honolulu. As a child she was taken to Paris, and was brought up as a French girl. She travelled much and at one time took a house at Mitylene, the chief city of ancient Lesbos. She had a love of solitude, hated publicity, and was devoted to her women friends, especially to one whose early death about 1900 was the great sorrow of Pauline Tarn's life. She is described as very beautiful, very simple and sweet-natured, and highly accomplished in many directions. She suffered, however, from nervous overtension and incurable melancholy. Toward the close of her life she was converted to Catholicism and died in 1909, at the age of 32. She is buried in the cemetery at Passy. Her best verse is by some considered among the finest in the French language. (Charles Brun, "Pauline Tarn," _Notes and Queries_, 22 Aug., 1914; the same writer, who knew her well, has also written a pamphlet, _Renée Vivien_, Sansot, Paris, 1911.) Her chief volumes of poems are _Etudes et Preludes_ (1901), _Cendres et Poussières_ (1902), _Evocations_ (1903). A novel, _Une Femme M'Apparut_ (1904), is said to be to some extent autobiographical. "Renée Vivien" also wrote a volume on Sappho with translations, and a further volume of poems, _Les Kitharèdes_, suggested by the fragments which remain of the minor women poets of Greece, followers of Sappho.