While the use of the clitoris is rare in homosexuality, the use of an artificial penis is by no means uncommon and very widespread. In several of the modern cases in which inverted women have married women (such as those of Sarolta Vay and De Raylan) the belief of the wife in the masculinity of the "husband" has been due to an appliance of this kind used in intercourse. The artificial penis (the olisbos, or baubon) was well known to the Greeks and is described by Herondas. Its invention was ascribed by Suidas to the Milesian women, and Miletus, according to Aristophanes in the _Lysistrata_, was the chief place of its manufacture.[176] It was still known in medieval times, and in the twelfth century Bishop Burchard, of Worms, speaks of its use as a thing "which some women are accustomed to do." In the early eighteenth century, Margaretha Lincken, again in Germany, married another woman with the aid of an artificial male organ.[177] The artificial penis is also used by homosexual women in various parts of the world. Thus we find it mentioned in legends of the North American Indians and it is employed in Zanzibar and Madagascar.[178] The various phenomena of sadism, masochism, and fetichism which are liable to arise, spontaneously or by suggestion, in the relationships of normal lovers, as well as of male inverts, may also arise in the same way among inverted women, though, probably, not often in a very pronounced form. Moll, however, narrates a case (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, 1899, pp. 565-70) in which various minor but very definite perversions were combined with inversion. A young lady of 26, of good heredity, from the age of 6 had only been attracted to her own sex, and even in childhood had practised mutual _cunnilinctus_. She was extremely intelligent, and of generous and good-natured disposition, with various masculine tastes, but, on the whole, of feminine build and with completely feminine larynx. During seven years she lived exclusively with one woman. She found complete satisfaction in active _cunnilinctus_. During the course of this relationship various other methods of excitement and gratification arose--it seems, for the most part, spontaneously. She found much pleasure in urolagnic and coprolagnic practices. In addition to these and similar perversions, the subject liked being bitten, especially in the lobule of the ear, and she was highly excited when whipped by her friend, who should, if possible, be naked at the time; only the nates must be whipped and only a birch rod be used, or the effect would not be obtained. These practices would not be possible to her in the absence of extreme intimacy and mutual understanding, and they only took place with the one friend. In this case the perverse phenomena were masochistic rather than sadistic. Many homosexual women, however, display sadistic tendencies in a more or less degree. Thus Dr. Kiernan tells me of an American case, with which he was professionally concerned with Dr. Moyer (see also paper by Kiernan and Moyer in _Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1907), of a sadistic inverted woman in a small Illinois city, married and with two young children. She was of undoubted neuropathic stock and there was a history of pre-marital masturbation and bestiality with a dog. She was a prominent club woman in her city and a leader in religious and social matters; as is often the case with sadists she was pruriently prudish, and there was strong testimony to her chaste and modest character by clergymen, club women, and local magnates. The victim of her sadistic passion was a girl she had adopted from a Home, but whom she half starved. On this girl she inflicted over three hundred wounds. Many of these wounds were stabs with forks and scissors which merely penetrated the skin. This was especially the case with those inflicted on the breasts, labia, and clitoris. During the infliction of these she experienced intense excitement, but this excitement was under control, and when she heard anyone approaching she instantly desisted. She was found sane and responsible at the time of these actions, but the jury also found that she had since become insane and she was sent to an Insane Hospital, after recovery to serve a sentence of two years in prison. The alleged insanity, Dr. Kiernan adds, was of the dubious manic and depressive variety, and perhaps chiefly due to wounded pride.
The inverted woman is an enthusiastic admirer of feminine beauty, especially of the statuesque beauty of the body, unlike, in this, the normal woman, whose sexual emotion is but faintly tinged by esthetic feeling. In her sexual habits we perhaps less often find the degree of promiscuity which is not uncommon among inverted men, and we may perhaps agree with Moll that homosexual women are more often apt to love faithfully and lastingly than homosexual men. Hirschfeld remarks that inverted women are not usually attracted in girlhood by the autoerotic and homosexual vices of school-life,[179] and nearly all the women whose histories I have recorded in this chapter felt a pronounced repugnance to such manifestations and cherished lofty ideals of love.
Inverted women are not rarely married. Moll, from various confidences which he has received, believes that inverted women have not the same horror of normal coitus as inverted, men; this is probably due to the fact that the woman under such circumstances can retain a certain passivity. In other cases there is some degree of bisexuality, although, as among inverted men, the homosexual instinct seems usually to give the greater relief and gratification.
It has been stated by many observers--in America, in France, in Germany, and in England--that homosexuality is increasing among women.[180] There are many influences in our civilization today which encourage such manifestations.[181] The modern movement of emancipation--the movement to obtain the same rights and duties as men, the same freedom and responsibility, the same education and the same work--must be regarded as, on the whole, a wholesome and inevitable movement. But it carries with it certain disadvantages.[182] Women are, very justly, coming to look upon knowledge and experience generally as their right as much as their brothers' right. But when this doctrine is applied to the sexual sphere it finds certain limitations. Intimacies of any kind between young men and young women are as much discouraged socially now as ever they were; as regards higher education, the mere association of the sexes in the lecture-room or the laboratory or the hospital is discouraged in England and in America. While men are allowed freedom, the sexual field of women is becoming restricted to trivial flirtation with the opposite sex, and to intimacy with their own sex; having been taught independence of men and disdain for the old theory which placed women in the moated grange of the home to sigh for a man who never comes, a tendency develops for women to carry this independence still farther and to find love where they find work. These unquestionable influences of modern movements cannot directly cause sexual inversion, but they develop the germs of it, and they probably cause a spurious imitation. This spurious imitation is due to the fact that the congenital anomaly occurs with special frequency in women of high intelligence who, voluntarily or involuntarily, influence others.
Kurella, Bloch, and others believe that the woman movement has helped to develop homosexuality (see, e.g., I. Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, 1902, vol. i, p. 248). Various "feminine Strindbergs of the woman movement," as they have been termed, displayed marked hostility to men. Anna Rüling claims that many leaders of the movement, from the outset until today, have been inverted. Hirschfeld, however (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 500), after giving special attention to the matter, concludes that, alike among English suffragettes and in the German Verein für Frauenstimmrecht, the percentage of inverts is less than 10 per cent.
FOOTNOTES: FOOTNOTES: [137] Catharina Margaretha Lincken, who married another woman, somewhat after the manner of the Hungarian Countess Sarolta Vay (i.e., with the aid of an artificial male organ), was condemned to death for sodomy, and executed in 1721 at the age of 27 (F.C. Müller, "Ein weiterer Fall von conträrer Sexualempfindung," _Friedrich's Blätter für Gerichtliche Medizin_, Heft 4, 1891). The most fully investigated case of sexual inversion in a woman in modern times is that of Countess Sarolta Vay (_Friedrich's Blätter_, Heft, 1, 1891; also Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, Eng. trans. of 10th. ed., 416-427; also summarized in Appendix E of earlier editions of the present Study). Sarolta always dressed as a man, and went through a pseudo-marriage with a girl who was ignorant of the real sex of her "husband." She was acquitted and allowed to return home and continue dressing as a man.
[138] Anna Rüling has some remarks on this point, _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. vii, 1905, p. 141 et seq.
[139] This, of course, by no means necessarily indicates the existence of sexual inversion, any more than the presence of feminine traits in distinguished men. I have elsewhere pointed out (e.g., _Man and Woman_, 5th ed., 1915, p. 488) that genius in either sex frequently involves the coexistence of masculine, feminine, and infantile traits.
[140] Various references to Queen Hatschepsu are given by Hirschfeld (_Die Homosexualität_, p. 739). Hirschfeld's not severely critical list of distinguished homosexual persons includes 18 women. It would not be difficult to add others.
[141] Sophie Hochstetter, in a study of Queen Christina in the _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_ (vol. ix, 1908, p. 168 et seq.), regards her as bisexual, while H.J. Schouten (_Monatsschrift für Kriminalanthropologie_, 1912, Heft 6) concludes that she was homosexual, and believes that it was Monaldeschi's knowledge on this point which led her to instigate his murder.
[142] Cf. Hans Freimark, _Helena Petrovna Blavatsky_; Levetzow, "Louise Michel," _Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. vii, 1905, p. 307 et seq.
[143] Rosa Bonheur, the painter, is a specially conspicuous example of pronounced masculinity in, a woman of genius. She frequently dressed as a man, and when dressed as a woman her masculine air occasionally attracted the attention of the police. See Theodore Stanton's biography.
[144] There is some difference of opinion as to whether there is less real delinquency among women (see Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 6th ed., 1915, p. 469), but we are here concerned with judicial criminality.
[145] This apparently widespread opinion is represented by the remark of a young man in the eighteenth century (concerning the Lesbian friend of the woman he wishes to marry), quoted in the Comte de Tilly's _Souvenirs_: "I confess that that is a kind of rivalry which causes me no annoyance; on the contrary it amuses me, and I am immoral enough to laugh at it." That attitude of the educated and refined was not probably shared by the populace. Madame de Lamballe, who was guillotined at the Revolution, was popularly regarded as a tribade, and it was said that on this account her charming head received the special insults of the mob.
[146] Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, 5th ed., 1915, especially chapters xiii and xv.
[147] Karsch (_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iii, 1901, pp. 85-9) brings together some passages concerning homosexuality in women among various peoples.
[148] Gandavo, quoted by Lomaeco, _Archivio per l'Antropologia_, 1889, fasc. 1.
[150] G.H. Lowie, "The Assiniboine," Am. Museum of Nat. Hist., _Anthropological Papers_, New York, 1909, vol. xiv, p. 223; W. Jones, "Fox Texts," _Publications of Am. Ethnological Soc._, Leyden, 1907, vol. i, p. 151; quoted by D.C. McMurtrie, "A Legend of Lesbian Love Among the North American Indians," _Urologic Review_, April, 1914.
[154] In a Spanish prison, some years ago, when a new governor endeavored to reform the homosexual manners of the women, the latter made his post so uncomfortable that he was compelled to resign. Salillas (_Vida Penal en España_) asserts that all the evidence shows the extraordinary expansion of Lesbian love in prisons. The _mujeres hombrunas_ receive masculine names--Pepe, Chulo, Bernardo, Valiente; new-comers are surrounded in the court-yard by a crowd of lascivious women, who overwhelm them with honeyed compliments and gallantries and promises of protection, the most robust virago having most successes; a single day and night complete the initiation.
[155] Even among Arab prostitutes it is found, according to Kocher, though among Arab women generally it is rare.
[156] _Monatsschrift für Harnkrankheiten_, Nov., 1905; in his _Tribadie Berlins_, he states that among 3000 prostitutes at least ten per cent. were homosexual. See also Parent-Duchâtelet, _De la Prostitution_, 3d ed., vol. i, pp. 159, 169; Martineau, _Les Déformations vulvaires et anales_; and Iwan Bloch, _Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, 1902, vol. i, p. 244.
[159] See vol. vi of these _Studies_, "Sex in Relation to Society," ch. vii.
[160] The prostitute has sometimes been regarded as a special type, analogous to the instinctive criminal. This point of view has been specially emphasized by Lombroso and Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente_. Apart from this, these authors regard homosexuality among prostitutes as due to the following causes (p. 410 et seq.): (_a_) excessive and often unnatural venery; (_b_) confinement in a prison, with separation from men; (_c_) close association with the same sex, such as is common in brothels; (_d_) maturity and old age, inverting the secondary sexual characters and predisposing to sexual inversion; (_e_) disgust of men produced by a prostitute's profession, combined with the longing for love. For cases of homosexuality in American prostitutes, see D. McMurtrie, _Lancet-Clinic_, Nov. 2, 1912.
[161] Thus Casanova, who knew several nuns intimately, refers to homosexuality as a childish sin so common in convents that confessors imposed no penance for it (_Mémoires_, ed. Garnier, vol. iv, p. 517). Homosexuality in convent schools has been studied by Mercante, _Archivos di Psiquiatria_, 1905, pp. 22-30.
[162] I quote the following from a private letter written in Switzerland: "An English resident has told me that his wife has lately had to send away her parlor-maid (a pretty girl) because she was always taking in strange women to sleep with her. I asked if she had been taken from hotel service, and found, as I expected, that she had. But neither my friend nor his wife suspected the real cause of these nocturnal visits."
[163] For a series of cases of affection of girls for girls, in apparently normal subjects in the United States, see, e.g., Lancaster, "The Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence," _Pedagogical Seminary_, July, 1897, p. 88; also, for school friendships between girls, exactly resembling those between boys and girls, Theodate L. Smith, "Types of Adolescent Affection," ib., June, 1904, pp. 193, 195.
[164] Obici and Marchesini, _Le "Amicizie" di Collegio_, Rome, 1898.
[165] See Appendix B, in which I have briefly summarized the result of the investigation by Obici and Marchesini, and also brought forward observations concerning English colleges.
[166] An interesting ancient example of a woman with an irresistible impulse to adopt men's clothing and lead a man's life, but who did not, so far as is known, possess any sexual impulses, is that of Mary Frith, commonly called Moll Cutpurse, who lived in London at the beginning of the seventeenth century. _The Life and Death of Mrs. Mary Frith_ appeared in 1662; Middleton and Rowley also made her the heroine of their delightful comedy, _The Roaring Girl (Mermaid Series, Middleton's Plays_, volume ii), somewhat idealizing her, however. She seems to have belonged to a neurotic and eccentric stock; "each of the family," her biographer says, "had his peculiar freak." As a child she only cared for boys' games, and could never adapt herself to any woman's avocations. "She had a natural abhorrence to the tending of children." Her disposition was altogether masculine; "she was not for mincing obscenity, but would talk freely, whatever came uppermost." She never had any children, and was not taxed with debauchery: "No man can say or affirm that ever she had a sweetheart or any such fond thing to dally with her;" a mastiff was the only living thing she cared for. Her life was not altogether honest, but not so much from any organic tendency to crime, it seems, as because her abnormal nature and restlessness made her an outcast. She was too fond of drink, and is said to have been the first woman who smoked tobacco. Nothing is said or suggested of any homosexual practices, but we see clearly here what may be termed the homosexual diathesis.
[169] This case was described by Gasparini, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1908, fasc. 1-2.
[170] Bringing together ten cases of inverted women from various sources (including the three original cases mentioned above), in only four were the sexual organs normal; in the others they were more or less undeveloped.
[171] Homosexual persons generally, male and female, unlike the heterosexual, are apt to feel more modesty with persons of the same sex than with those of the opposite sex. See, e.g., Hirschfeld, _Die Homosexualität_, p. 76.
[172] Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 197.
[173] The term "cunnilinctus" was suggested to me by the late Dr. J. Bonus, and I have ever since used it; the Latin authors commonly used "cunnilingus" for the actor, but had no corresponding term for the action. Hirschfeld has lately used the term "cunnilinctio" in the same sense, but such a formation is quite inadmissible. For information on the classic terms for this perversion, see, e.g., Iwan Bloch, _Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, p. 612 et seq.
[174] Casanova, _Mémoires_, ed. Gamier, vol. iv, p. 597.
[175] Hirschfeld deals in a full and authoritative manner with the differential diagnosis of inversion and the other groups of transitional sexuality in _Die Homosexualität_, ch. ii; also in his fully illustrated book _Geschlechtsübergänge_, 1905.
[176] Havelock Ellis, "Auto-erotism," in vol. i of these _Studies_; Iwan Bloch, _Ursprung der Syphilis_, vol. ii, p. 589; ib., _Die Prostitution_, vol, i, pp. 385-6; for early references, Crusius, _Untersuchungen zu den Mimiamben der Herondas_, pp. 129-30.
[177] I have found a notice of a similar case in France, during the sixteenth century, in Montaigne's _Journal du Voyage en Italie en_ 1850 (written by his secretary); it took place near Vitry le François. Seven or eight girls belonging to Chaumont, we are told, resolved to dress and to work as men; one of these came to Vitry to work as a weaver, and was looked upon as a well-conditioned young man, and liked by everyone. At Vitry she became betrothed to a woman, but, a quarrel arising, no marriage took place. Afterward "she fell in love with a woman whom she married, and with whom she lived for four or five months, to the wife's great contentment, it is said; but, having been recognized by some one from Chaumont, and brought to justice, she was condemned to be hanged. She said she would even prefer this to living again as a girl, and was hanged for using illicit inventions to supply the defects of her sex" (_Journal_, ed. by d'Ancona, 1889, p. 11).
[178] Roux, _Bulletin Société d'Anthropologie_, 1905, No. 3. Roux knew a Comarian woman who, at the age of 50, after her husband's death, became homosexual and made herself an artificial penis which she used with younger women.
[180] There are few traces of feminine homosexuality in English social history of the past. In Charles the Second's Court, the _Mémoires de Ghrammont_ tell us, Miss Hobart was credited with Lesbian tendencies. "Soon the rumor, true or false, of this singularity spread through the court. They were gross enough there never to have heard of that refinement of ancient Greece in the tastes of tenderness, and the idea came into their heads that the illustrious Hobart, who seemed so affectionate to pretty women, must be different from what she appeared." This passage is interesting because it shows us how rare was the exception. A century later, however, homosexuality among English women seems to have been regarded by the French as common, and Bacchaumont, on January 1, 1773, when recording that Mlle. Heinel of the Opera was settling in England, added: "Her taste for women will there find attractive satisfaction, for though Paris furnishes many tribades it is said that London is herein superior."
[181] "I believe," writes a well-informed American correspondent, "that sexual inversion is increasing among Americans--both men and women--and the obvious reasons are: first, the growing independence of the women, their lessening need for marriage; secondly, the nervous strain that business competition has brought upon the whole nation. In a word, the rapidly increasing masculinity in women and the unhealthy nervous systems of the men offer the ideal factors for the production of sexual inversion in their children."
[182] Homosexual women, like homosexual men, now insert advertisements in the newspapers, seeking a "friend." Näcke ("Zeitungsannoncen von weiblichen Homosexuellen," _Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1902, p. 225) brought together from Munich newspapers a collection of such advertisements, most of which were fairly unambiguous: "Actress with modern ideas desires to know rich lady with similar views, for the sake of friendly relations, etc.;" "Young lady of 19, a pretty blonde, seeks another like herself for walks, theatre, etc.," and so on.
CHAPTER V.
THE NATURE OF SEXUAL INVERSION.
Analysis of Histories--Race--Heredity--General Health--First Appearance of Homosexual Impulse--Sexual Precocity and Hyperesthesia--Suggestion and Other Exciting Causes of Inversion--Masturbation--Attitude Toward Women--Erotic Dreams--Methods of Sexual Relationship--Pseudo-sexual Attraction--Physical Sexual Abnormalities--Artistic and Other Aptitudes--Moral Attitude of the Invert.
Before stating briefly my own conclusions as to the nature of sexual inversion, I propose to analyze the facts brought out in the histories which I have been able to study.[183] RACE.--All my cases, 80 in number, are British and American, 20 living in the United States and the rest being British. Ancestry, from the point of view of race, was not made a matter of special investigation. It appears, however, that at least 44 are English or mainly English; at least 10 are Scotch or of Scotch extraction; 2 are Irish and 4 others largely Irish; 4 have German fathers or mothers; another is of German descent on both sides, while 2 others are of remote German extraction; 2 are partly, and 1 entirely, French; 2 have a Portuguese strain, and at least 2 are more or less Jewish. Except the apparently frequent presence of the German element, there is nothing remarkable in this ancestry.
HEREDITY.--It is always difficult to deal securely with the significance of heredity, or even to establish a definite basis of facts. I have by no means escaped this difficulty, for in some cases I have not even had an opportunity of cross-examining the subjects whose histories I have obtained. Still, the facts, so far as they emerge, have some interest. I possess some record of heredity in 62 of my cases. Of these, not less than 24, or in the proportion of nearly 39 per cent., assert that they have reason to believe that other cases of inversion have occurred in their families, and, while in some it is only a strong suspicion, in others there is no doubt whatever. In one case there is reason to suspect inversion on both sides. Usually the inverted relatives have been brothers, sisters, cousins, or uncles. In one case a bisexual son seems to have had a bisexual father.
This hereditary character of inversion (which was denied by Näcke) is a fact of great significance, and, as it occurs in cases with which I am well acquainted, I can have no doubt concerning the existence of the tendency. The influence of suggestion may often be entirely excluded, especially when the persons are of different sex. Both Krafft-Ebing and Moll noted a similar tendency. Von Römer states that in one-third of his cases there was inversion in other members of the family. Hirschfeld also found that there is a relatively high proportion of cases of family inversion.
Twenty-six, so far as can be ascertained, belong to reasonably healthy families; minute investigation would probably reduce the number of these, and it is noteworthy that even in some of the healthy families there was only one child born of the parents' marriage. In 28 cases there is more or less frequency of morbidity or abnormality--eccentricity, alcoholism, neurasthenia, insanity, or nervous disease--on one or both sides, in addition to inversion or apart from it. In some of these cases the inverted offspring is the outcome of the union, of a very healthy with a thoroughly morbid stock; in some others there is a minor degree of abnormality on both sides.
GENERAL HEALTH.--It is possible to speak with more certainty of the health of the individual than of that of his family. Of the 80 cases, 53--or about two-thirds--may be said to enjoy good, and sometimes even very good, health, though occasionally there is some slight qualification to be made. In 22 cases the health is delicate, or at best only fair; in these cases there is sometimes a tendency to consumption, and often marked neurasthenia and a more or less unbalanced temperament. Four cases are morbid to a considerable degree; the remaining case has had insane delusions which required treatment in an asylum. A considerable proportion, included among those as having either good or fair health, may be described as of extremely nervous temperament, and in most cases they so describe themselves; a certain proportion of these combine great physical and, especially, mental energy with this nervousness; all these are doubtless of neurotic temperament.[184] Very few can be said to be conspicuously lacking in energy. On the whole, therefore, a large proportion of these inverted individuals are passing through life in an unimpaired state of health, which enables them to do at least their fair share of work in the world; in a considerable proportion of my cases that work is of high intellectual value. Only in 5 cases, it will be seen, or at most 6, can the general health be said to be distinctly bad.
This result may, perhaps, seem surprising. It must, however, be remembered that my cases do not, on the whole, represent the class which alone the physician is usually able to bring forward: i.e., the sexual inverts who are suffering from a more or less severe degree of complete nervous breakdown.
There is no frequent relationship between homosexuality and insanity, and such homosexuality as is found in asylums is mostly of a spurious character. This point was specially emphasized by Näcke (e.g., "Homosexualität und Psychose," _Zeitschrift für Psichiatrie_, vol. lxviii, No. 3, 1911). He quoted the opinions of various distinguished alienists as to the rarity with which they had met genuine inverts, and recorded his own experiences. He had never met a genuine invert in the asylum throughout his extensive experience, although he was quite willing to admit that there may be unrecognized inverts in asylums, and one patient informed him, after leaving, that he was inverted, and had attracted the attention of the police both before and afterward, though nothing happened in the asylum. Among 1500 patients in the asylum during one year, active _pedicatio_ occurred in about 1 per cent. of cases, these patients being frequently idiots or imbeciles and at the same time masturbators, solitary or mutual. Hirschfeld informed Näcke that, among homosexual persons, hysterical conditions (not usually on hereditary basis) are fairly common, and neurasthenia of high degree decidedly frequent, but though stages of depression are common he had never seen pure melancholia and very seldom mania, but paranoiac delusional ideas frequently, and he agreed with Bryan of Broadmoor that religious delusions are not uncommon. General paralysis occurs, but is comparatively rare, and the same may be said of dementia præcox. On the whole, although Hirschfeld was unable to give precise figures, there was no reason whatever to suppose an abnormal prevalence of insanity. This was Näcke's own view. It is quite true, Näcke concluded, that homosexual actions occur in every form of psychosis, especially in congenital and secondary dements, and at periods of excitement, but we are here more concerned with "pseudo-homosexuality" than with true inversion. Hirschfeld finds that 75 per cent. inverts are of sound heredity; this seems too large a proportion; in any case allowance must be made for differences in method and minuteness of investigation.
I am fairly certain that thorough investigation would very considerably enlarge the proportion of cases with morbid heredity. At the same time this enlargement would be chiefly obtained by bringing minor abnormalities to the front, and it would then have to be shown how far the families of average or normal persons are free from such abnormalities. The question is sometimes asked: What family is free from neuropathic taint? At present it is difficult to answer this question precisely. There is good ground to believe that a fairly large proportion of families are free from such taint. In any case it seems probable that the families to which the inverted belong do not usually present such profound signs of nervous degeneration as we were formerly led to suppose. What we vaguely call "eccentricity" is common among them; insanity is much rarer.
FIRST APPEARANCE OF HOMOSEXUAL INSTINCT.--Out of 72 cases, in 8 the instinct veered round to the same sex in adult age or at all events after puberty; in 3 of these there had been a love-disappointment with a woman; no other cause than this can be assigned for the transition; but it is noteworthy that in at least 2 of these cases the sexual instinct is undeveloped or morbidly weak, while a third individual is of somewhat weak _physique_, and another has long been in delicate health. In a further case, also somewhat morbid, the development was rather more complicated.
In 64 cases, or in a proportion of 88 per cent., the abnormal instinct began in early life, without previous attraction to the opposite sex.[185] In 27 of these it dates from about puberty, usually beginning at school. In 39 cases the tendency began before puberty, between the ages of 5 and 11, usually between 7 and 9, sometimes as early as the subject can remember. It must not be supposed that, in these numerous cases of the early appearance of homosexuality, the manifestations were of a specifically physical character, although erections are noted in a few cases. For the most part sexual manifestations at this early age, whether homosexual or heterosexual, are purely psychic.[186] SEXUAL PRECOCITY AND HYPERESTHESIA.--It is a fact of considerable interest and significance that in so large a number of my cases there was distinct precocity of the sexual emotions, both on the physical and psychic sides. There can be little doubt that, as many previous observers have found, inversion tends strongly to be associated with sexual precocity. I think it may further be said that sexual precocity tends to encourage the inverted habit where it exists. Why this should be so is obvious, if we believe--as there is some reason for believing--that at an early age the sexual instinct is comparatively undifferentiated in its manifestations. The precocious accentuation of the sexual impulse leads to definite crystallization of the emotions at a premature stage. It must be added that precocious sexual energy is likely to remain feeble, and that a feeble sexual energy adapts itself more easily to homosexual relationships, in which there is no definite act to be accomplished, than to normal relationships. It is difficult to say how many of my cases exhibit sexual weakness. In 6 or 7 it is evident, and it may be suspected in many others, especially in those who are, and often describe themselves as, "sensitive" or "nervous," as well as in those whose sexual development was very late. In many cases there is marked hyperesthesia, or irritable weakness. Hyperesthesia simulates strength, and, while there can be little