Part 3

His next publication appeared also in 1908.[8] Here we find clearly taken into account the infantile heterosexual attitude which all homosexuals usually forget but which always precedes genuine homosexuality.

“The young student, 21 years of age at the time, was sent to me, because he was tormented by various homosexual inclinations, especially directed towards young boys 14–20 years of age, associated with all sorts of masochistic feelings. In contact with woman (a prostitute with whom he sought intercourse three times till then, the first two times spontaneously, to see whether he is at all potent, the third time, on medical advice as well as upon his father’s insistence) he found himself entirely _impotent_. Questioned whether he ever felt any inclination towards the opposite sex, he only recalls that when he was two or three years of age he once opened the garden gate for a girl of about his own age, with a flourish of extreme gallantry. Concerning any hereditary factors he can only relate that a brother of his mother’s had some mental trouble. The mother herself seemed to have something boy-like and manly about her, on the other hand the father showed very little sensuousness and rather pronounced inverted traits, while a sister, who died early, had a _very boy-like facial expression_. She preferred boyish games and at 4 or 5 years of age she chose a boy’s hobby horse for her Christmas present. Some female cousins—on mother’s as well as on father’s side—were clearly amphigenously inverted. The subject himself had unusually broad hips and the growth of his facial hair was noticeably scant. As a child he is supposed to have played only with dolls, never with soldiers, he never took part in boys’ games and he also learned embroidery.

“Plainly a clear case of inversion with masochistic traits. What was revealed through the analysis of this particularly intelligent subject? In the first place, a remarkable peculiarity: _his earliest inclinations were directed towards women,—not some one in particular, but a number of them. His first beloved was the mother_ and, of course, after a time he turned away from her. After that he felt himself tremendously attracted to an elderly mother of children, proposed marriage to her and that woman later figured in many of his pubertal coitus dreams. Next he displayed such an extreme gallantry towards a girl of his own age that it became very noticeable and his mother spoke to him about it and he felt very ashamed and uneasy.

“During his childhood a servant maid also had made a deep impression on his feelings and she reappears in various male types. Among the homosexual inclinations traceable to the first years I look upon his attachment to a couple of uncles as the strongest and most significant, next the love of a 9-year-old boy belonging to the nobility (baron). In his fourth year the attachment to a boy who taught him masturbation, in his sixth and seventh years the influence of a private teacher. During his fourth year, on account of his mother’s condition, following childbirth, he slept for a time with his father in one bed and this suggested various homosexual wishes and fancies. When a little sister came into the world _he promptly fell in love with her_. Even more striking is the subject’s normal sexual calf-love affairs in his seventh and eighth years with three or four schoolgirl mates of about his age. It turned out that each one of these girls contributed some traits to the types, both male and female, which later were alone capable of rousing his emotional interest.

“_These facts, of which the subject was entirely unconscious and which had to be brought to surface after months of diligent analysis, yield an entirely new picture._ First of all they show us how little even the most intelligent person knows himself, and, consequently, how careful we must be in accepting even the most candid statements. Secondly,—that even pure cases of inversion do not exclude the presence of normal sexual inclinations, indeed, that the latter may actually be present, though the subject be unaware of the fact. Thirdly,—and finally,—that the inversion is traceable as far back as the fourth year although it may reach consciousness only during puberty.”

Here already I must point out the first contradiction. It is not a fact that the inversion is traceable back to the fourth year. I have analyzed a number of cases in which the inversion arose after puberty and much later. The beginnings of the homosexual disposition reach into childhood with all persons. This turning away from the other sex may break forth early in some cases and in others much later. _But it is a fact that every analysis discloses the heterosexual trait which the homosexuals forget, or speaking more correctly, repress, because it does not appear to fit into their system._ Analytically this case of _Sadger’s_ seems to me to be an instance of fixation upon the sister. The boys are substitutes for the sister. We will give the histories of several such cases. He who understands the neurotic’s art of metamorphosing his ideals, he who has learned through their dreams to appreciate this trick of substitution, will readily appreciate that a girl may be loved through falling in love with a boy. It is related of _Platen_ that he possessed a marvelous phantasy. For a long time a colleague was changed for him into an owl whom he avoided on the way. In Neapel he kept for days a cat on his lap pretending it was an enchanted princess. Genuine fetichism shows to what unbelievable metamorphoses the sexual ideal is subjected. With the homosexuals to find a boy who stands as symbol for self or for a sister is a common experience. Like all neurotics they do not possess the capacity to distinguish between the world of fancy and that of reality. I have called neurosis _the tyranny of symbolisms_. This is particularly true of the neurotic who becomes homosexual. All values are transformed, the object becomes subject and vice versa. In the midst of this transformation of all facts one thing remains fast and true: the infantile ideal which is yearned for with the persistence generated by the eternally ungratified craving.

In his next contribution _Sadger_ reports the results of the analysis of an invert during a period of six months (_Zur Ætiologie der konträren Sexualempfindung_, Med. Klinik, 1909, No. 2). The special preference of his patient for passive pederasty he traces to the frequent use of enemas during childhood. (In fact it seems to me that the many unnecessary enemas administered during early childhood may contribute towards the fixation of the anus as an erogenous zone.) He also traces out in this case the repressed heterosexuality. “The vacillations of the _libido_ between male and female are like the facial innervation which, as is well known, is based on the equilibrium between the muscles innervated simultaneously by the pair of _facialis_ nerves. Paralysis of the _facialis_ nerve on one side causes not only weakness of the muscles on the affected side but induces also contractures of the muscles on the opposite side.” The patient referred to was attached exclusively to his father, who, himself somewhat homosexually inclined, won the child’s heart through his excessive tenderness, in contrast to the rather severe mother. During his fourth year, on account of the mother’s pregnant state, he slept with his father, an occurrence to which _Sadger_ attaches great significance. The objects of the boy’s homosexual attachments bore some resemblance to the beloved sister. He weaned himself away from his attachment to his mother during his fifteenth year, when he saw his mother deformed with a tremendous ascites on account of which she had to be tapped a number of times. Her appearance at the time filled him with disgust for all women. As over-determination of this feeling-attitude of aversion he recalls the following: after the puerperium referred to above his mother had a profuse leucorrheal discharge which the boy, already sensitive to all scents—he was four years of age at the time—found very repulsive whenever he approached his mother. The subject also recalls vividly how his mother repulsed his aggressive ways with her, between his 3rd and 6th year. (“He always wanted to grab her by the breasts and tried to go to her room and to the bathroom as soon as she went in.”)

Much as physicians unacquainted with infantile sexuality may ignore such aggressions they do take place and some mothers have verified them for me. On the other hand it is hardly likely that a child four years of age should be repelled from the mother on account of scent. At that early age scent is rather a stimulant and is never accompanied by disgust.

I turn now to the last and most comprehensive deductions formulated by _Sadger_ in his study entitled: _Ein Fall von multipler perversion mit hysterischen Absenzen_ (‘A case of multiple perversions with hysterical amnesias’).[9]

This work contains a chapter entitled _“New Contributions to the Theory of Homosexuality.”_ Here _Sadger_ abandons entirely his former notion about the significance of the fourth year and states: “_Permanent_ inclination towards one’s own sex usually comes to surface and is certainly increased during puberty, or during the prepubescent period at the earliest, in our latitude around the tenth or eleventh year. Occasionally an earlier onset is recorded and every case of that kind is due to some special factors.” Permanent homosexuality is established through some significant incident which leads to the repression of the mother in her rôle as helper and teacher. Such incidents are death, sudden financial reverse, and consequent serious neurosis, making sanatorium treatment necessary, inconsiderate persecution of the boy on account of masturbation and similar traumata. The love feeling is turned from the mother to the father, or to older comrades, or to comrades of about the same age, who stand as substitutes for the mother and initiate the boy into the facts of love....

The path to homosexuality leads over love of self, through narcissism. “The state of being in love with one’s own person, which shows itself also in the admiration of one’s own genitalia (_sic_), is never absent as a developmental phase.” Every person has two aboriginal sexual objectives to which he clings throughout life: the mother and self. The father replaces self only for a short period because as the primary rival in his relationship to the mother the child early assumes an antagonistic attitude towards him. The _urning_ hates woman for an obvious reason: “when the best of women, my own mother, amounts to no more than that, what can there be to any other woman?”

Here follows a convincing proof that the _urning_ identifies himself with his mother. The _urning_ always plans to instruct his beloved, for the mother does it. (Does not the father, rather, do it?) The patient has instructed a waiter in geology and history of art, subjects which did not interest the latter. But the mother had done the same....

Most _urnings_ are said to be “only” children. (This statement like many another of _Sadger’s_, is positively false. Among 500 homosexuals _Hirschfeld_ found only 67 “only” children and among them only 54 were sons. My own statistical figures are even smaller. But the percentage among my neurotics is practically the same.)

_Sadger_ summarizes his findings in five fundamental statements:

“1. The _urning_ is a victim of withdrawal from the mother (the first caretaker or nurse, respectively) in whom he is himself seriously disappointed. He represses the mother by identifying himself completely with her.

2. The path to homosexuality leads through narcissism, that is, love of self, as one was, or as one may ideally be.

3. The sexual ideal of the invert includes not only traits of former female and male sexual objectives but also features of one’s own beloved self.

4. Being brought up in surroundings exclusively feminine—the father does not count in such circumstances—fosters homosexuality in the male as well as in the female, for reasons that are not sufficiently clear as yet. Moreover the _urning_ is usually an only child.

5. Finally inversion may be fostered by a sort of ‘latter-day obedience’ to the mother’s commands. I have observed not rarely that mothers warn their children against harmless, though warm and friendly contact with the other sex, as something unpermissible and bad and that the teaching thus instilled may unfortunately increase the disposition to one’s own sex through later obedience.”

The first of these conclusions is a false one. The homosexual is not a victim of withdrawal from the mother, but rather of a fixation on her. But this subject will be discussed fully later.

One represses no person with whom one identifies one’s self. _Identification is direct love, differentiation means repression._ Many homosexuals identify themselves with the mother—of that there can be no doubt. But that identification already implies the repression of the father-ideal. _The problem of homosexuality cannot be solved one-sidedly, and I have the records of a number of cases in which the mother plays no rôle whatever._

The only psychologic hypothesis we possess—_Sadger’s_—fails to satisfy on account of its onesidedness. It holds true of certain cases. But it neglects entirely the great significance of sadism, it overlooks the fact that the attachment to the father is more important and more deeply repressed than the love for the mother, it overlooks entirely the identification with the father and the differentiation from him and it fails altogether to explain the occurrence of later homosexuality, which is of particular interest to us (_tardive Homosexualität_). The awakening of homosexuality is ascribed to a period which varies according to the different investigators all the way from the fifth to the twentieth year, and even later. I mention here the ages shown in the first twenty of my cases taken at random. Homosexuality became manifest at 12, 10, 12, 15, 16, 22, 13, 11, 14, 8, 14, 12, 17, 17, 17, 13, 21, 15, 17, 24 (Average, 15).

The ages as given are generally high,—only in one subject did the homosexual attitude become manifest as early as the eighth year. But that, certainly, is incorrect. For we know that the homosexual leaning is present already during the earliest period and positively that children’s feeling-attitude is bisexual during the first few years. The figures are significant only as showing us that “genuine homosexuality” is preceded by a lengthy period of latency.

II

RÔLE OF THE FATHER AND OF OTHER MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY—DISLIKE OF CHILDREN—LETTER OF A HOMOSEXUAL WHO FEARS THE “PENETRATING EYE” OF WOMEN—A MARRIAGE WITH THE FATHER—JEALOUSY OF THE FATHER—A HOMOSEXUAL WHO HATES HIS MOTHER—A BELOVED BOY AS THE IMAGO OF THE SISTER—PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE WITHIN THE FAMILY CIRCLE—FEAR OF THE CHILD—A GIRL WHO HATES ALL CHILDREN—DIFFERENTIATION FROM THE MOTHER.

_Wenn wir nun alles dieses uns vergegenwärtigen und wohl erwägen so sehen wir die Päderastie zu allen Zeiten und in allen Ländern auf eine weise auftreten, die gar weit entfernt ist von der, welche wir zuerst, als wir sie bloss an sich selbst betrachteten, also a priori, vorausgesetzt hatten. Nämlich die gänzliche Allgemeinheit und beharrliche Unausrottbarkeit der Sache beweist, dass sie irgendwie aus der menschlichen Natur selbst herausgeht; da sie nur aus diesem Grunde jederzeit and überall unausbleiblich auftreten kann als Beleg zu dem naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurrent._

—_Schopenhauer._

II

_Considering all that and taking everything carefully into account we find that pederasty has been manifest at all times and in all countries in a manner very unlike what we had at first presumed a priori, that is, by considering abstractly the subject. Precisely its complete universality and irradicable character everywhere shows that the thing somehow flows out of human nature itself; only in that way could it persist at all times and everywhere as an accompaniment to naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurrent._

—_Schopenhauer._

I begin this chapter with the history of a case, a subject with whom I have never spoken. I know him only through correspondence. Nevertheless the case seems to me of great significance as it substantiates many of my previous conclusions. The need of psychologic insight as shown by our necessarily brief histories of homosexuals becomes more fully obvious as we become acquainted with a complete analysis of a homosexual.

62. Mr. G. L. writes me:

“I shall attempt to conform with your request and give you a cursive and true insight into my sexual and mental life. Born and raised the youngest of ten children, three of whom died early of children’s diseases, I lived in the country till my 5th year, when I started going to school and I remember nothing of that period except that I was tremendously fond of _playing with fire_ and that I kept up till then, more or less, the habit of bed-wetting, an act which was associated with the pleasurable feeling that I was sitting on the chamber. I know also that I envied my sisters a great deal. My unusually strict and religious parents naturally subjected me to rigorous training and thus I learned early to distinguish between mine and thine, good and evil, truth and falsehood. Continually watched over by parents and instructors—a custom contrary to the modern spirit—I was kept from many of the children’s games.