Wilhelm Stekel

“ If I should see today a woman covered all over with furuncles it may inspire me with disgust to hear that she is an old aunt whom I must greet with a kiss. In a case of this kind only the super-analyst in his folly might be able to discover suppressed components of the libido.
But we do know that occasionally homosexuality may be aroused through episodes which enlist the negative reactions (hate, fear, disgust, shame) . These revulsive effects then protect the individual against their own positive tendencies. Disgust covers craving, hate covers love, fear covers longing ”

“ I believe I am like a man who is the victim of an insatiable hunger. I have often thought of poor Prometheus, condemned always to linger in hunger and thirst. In the same way I feel within me an unquenchable thirst for love and its pleasures and I have no other thought than to satisfy this thirst in some way. I feel like a mechanism destined only to serve the penis in its demand for gratification. ”

“ Some passages gripped me powerfully, even more so than the works on masochism, of which I also had read a large number. As I had to renounce my womanly ideal (for reasons mentioned previously) , it occurred to me to seek a man as the complement to my yearnings. For even the strongest woman wants to be beneath man during love. But I felt I needed a partner who should overpower and conquer me with some display of force. So I said to myself that such a role can be filled properly only by a man. A great deal of what I read in books about homosexuality confirmed me in this view. ”

“ The unknown girl’s face haunts her for weeks afterwards and she can not sleep tortured with regret because she did not gratify her impulse to kiss the girl as she does with her acquaintances. She is particularly distracted at the thought that with her tendernesses and attentions, she may mislead into homosexual counter-affection a fourteen-year-old girl who is close to her, although nothing out of the way has happened between them. But the little friend already trembles with excitement when she is embraced and her great affection leads her to tears if she does not see her beloved often enough. ”

“ The father brought him up badly; the father is responsible for his condition; the father is wealthy, nevertheless complains always that he has nothing; the father lives only for his mother and cares nothing for him. He wants to make himself independent and wants to get money from his father for that purpose. The very thought that his father may deny him the money makes him angry: “I shall go to him and kill him and shoot myself.” Such murder fancies are not infrequent about his father.
How close the neurotic is to the criminal! ”

“ His name is not mentioned at all in the dream, he is the secret, the unspeakable theme.... The physician laces his shoes; that is commonly known as a death symbol and shows the clear wish to be through with the analysis.
An engine has to be started. He is a machinist and has daily to do with machines. Engine is symbol for his soul which functions so poorly, a symbol for himself, for all the impulses and energies within him. He accomplishes through his own powers what his physician and his mother are unable to bring about. ”

“ Don Juan sees only women, for Cassanova every woman is “the woman.” Don Juan is demonic, devilish, he deliberately plans the destruction of the women who yield to him and drives them to perdition, while Cassanova is humane, he is always interested in the happiness of his sweethearts and preserves of them tender memories. ”

“ A woman writer whom I know and who is active under a male nom de plume has told me, as an objection to this view, that she is decidedly interested in men. She confessed herself a Messalina. But back of such an unsatisfied craving, there stands, as I have already mentioned, homosexuality, the blind instinct, ungratified. This woman preferred relations with well known “women killers,” typical Cassanovas. Obviously, the thought of the numerous female conquests must have furnished here the chief attraction. Such men carry about them the aroma of many women. ”

“ What is neurosis and who is neurotic? I call neurotic the person who has not successfully overcome the asocial cravings which he perceives to be unethical. I call asocial cravings all instincts which society rejects as conflicting with its cultural demands. That in itself shows that the essence of neurosis must differ in different countries. In one instance we find repression of normal sexuality, because sexual activity itself is considered unmoral. (Example: the properly brought up girl in good society who must remain coy.) ”

“ His sexual goal is man. Through each new woman he expects to experience, at last, the completely satisfactory gratification which he craves. But he turns away from each one equally disappointed because his libido cannot be fully gratified by any of them. In the manner of his conquering and abandoning each woman he shows his scorn of the sex. The true woman lover is really no Don Juan because he distributes his sexual libido among a few women at the most and the emotional overvaluation of these women furnishes the key to his attitude towards the whole sex. ”

“ The dream thus portrays a prospective tendency,—the overcoming religious inhibitions, subduing the dread of hell and devil as well as the fear of witches so as to give himself up to his cravings. He takes his life in his own hands, fires his own engine,—he will take unto himself any woman who looks like his sister. ”

“ Every monosexuality is other than normal or natural. Nature has created us bisexual beings and requires us to act as bisexual beings. The purely heterosexual is always a neurotic in a certain sense, that is, the repression of the homosexual components already creates a predisposition to neurosis, or is in itself a neurotic trait shared by every normal person. The psychology of paranoia, for whose investigation we are indebted to the genius of Freud, shows us the extreme result of this process of repression on one side, just as homosexuality shows us the other side of the same process. ”

“ The habit robs the nascent feeling of charm and beauty leaving behind only the husk of grossly animal craving for sexual gratification. An individual, so thwarted, attains the age of maturity lacking the esthetic, ideal, pure and undefiled longing which leads to the other sex. ”

“ If he finds himself in a room with a woman alone invariably he thinks: “How can I get her?” Every woman he gets hold of he looks upon merely as a means for gratification and soon tires of her. With the exception of one elderly woman whom he occasionally visits he has not kept up with any woman longer than a few weeks. Often after the first intercourse he feels disgust for his new sexual partner and thinks to himself: “You are not any different than the others!” Since his 16th year he has had intercourse almost daily and often several times a day. ”

“ But still it is undoubtedly justified, if we look upon homosexuality as an inborn anomaly or, to speak more correctly, as an anomaly resting on constitutional traits, which if morbid, are so only in Virchow’s sense, according to whom pathology is not the science of diseases but of deviations, so that the homosexual may be as healthy as the color blind. ”

“ One would think that a man who devotes his whole life to women, who dreams day and night only of new conquests, who considers every woman worth while when opportunity favors him, a man for whom no woman is too old, or too ugly, if he desires her,—that such a man would be far removed from any homosexual trend. ”

“ Repression against homosexual deeds is in itself almost invincible. But that which is considered the very essence of homosexuality acts apart and frequently does so in a sense far from proper. It is enough to induce young men who have no other claim to distinctions to try to imitate these ‘singular doings’ and they become finally interested in the acts.... Once the pose is assumed, it becomes part of reality, and then contact with the homosexual circle contributes not a little towards strengthening the attitude. Such an influence, naturally, is possible only among young people. ”

“ The formation of man’s character traits begins during the first years of life. He tests his powers upon the surroundings and his environment furnish him the picture of life. In the eyes of children who [Pg 335] are not self-reliant the father must be a giant because he overawes them with his genial appearance and his image generates in their soul a feeling of inferiority which marks them for life. Every child has an ambition: to excel his father. This wish may express itself first in the desire to attain father’s size, to be as strong and big as he. ”

“ The child’s wish then is: I would not rule and be like father; I would rather be like mother! If the child loves his tyrannical father he may become homosexual and passive: a woman and a strong man.
These are a few examples taken at random from life. I have brought them out, because one often hears that homosexuals have had an energetic mother, and a father who played a submissive rôle. Of course, the contrary may also be the case. Frequently we hear that the mother was strongly neurotic.... There are no definite rules in the psychogenesis of homosexuality. ”

“ This peculiarity already indicates a judgment-attitude in sexual matters. Sexuality is perceived as degrading, as compelling a return to the first aspects of “natural” life. The attitude is further complicated by the homosexual’s overemphasis of one or the other sex during his acts. If he is an active homosexual he preserves his individuality, identifying his selfhood with some male ideal, the father, the brother, the teacher, etc. On the other hand, if he plays a passive rôle, he identifies himself with a woman, the mother, or her polar obverse, the prostitute. ”

“ His customary attitude towards woman is one of dislike or disgust, she may leave him indifferent, but never will he admit that—he is afraid of woman. He would rather assume the mask of indifference; he may be willing to approach woman but only upon intellectual grounds, he may even appreciate her as a friend, but he flees from her as a possible lover. ”

“ The nausea is a sign of disgust. It is brought about by the homosexual tendency pressing forward as much as by the subject’s inhibition against heterosexual relationship. At the most critical time before meeting the girl he is restless, and a voice within seems to say to him: “you do not really want this woman, you want a man, like that teacher, or that friend of yours!” As a protection against these homosexual notions his nausea comes up and this also acts as a defence against women. For woman, as such, he feels no dislike, he is able to have intercourse with prostitutes, without aversion. ”

“ Nevertheless I am watching and waiting eagerly for the opportunity to show him that I am a modern girl, unafraid of anything when she finds a man sympathetic and to her liking, if he should ever begin. I do not expect anything more. One cannot fall in love all of a sudden! ”

“ He is greatly concerned only with the impression his wife makes upon other men. It also disturbs him if other women do not find his wife beautiful but he worries more if men fail to notice her. As he dreads evenings he spends the time in the company of friends. (Thus the ceremonial on retiring is delayed and he sleeps to a late hour into the day.)
His chief thought is his wife’s appearance. If a man says to him: “Your wife is charming today!” or if some stranger says to him: “Who is that beautiful woman?” as has actually happened at balls and entertainments he feels supremely happy. ”

“ As we become familiar with the various masks of homosexuality, we learn to appreciate surprising homosexual and heterosexual trends. I shall draw attention merely to the manifold significance of “trousers” in human love affairs. How often men fall in love with women only when and because they are seen in tights! I remember a number of classmates in high school, who had fallen in love with a singer, when they saw her in a role which she played wearing tights. ”