Heterostyly

“ On the other hand, it is possible that esthetic and ethical sympathy with persons of the opposite sex may favor the development of hetero-sexual desires. Thus it happens that the individual, according to the predominance of favorable or unfavorable influences, experiences now hetero-sexual, now homo-sexual, feeling. ”

“ In the same way, have you any corresponding aversion to the kisses, embraces, etc., of a person of the male sex, and to the idea of sexual intercourse with him? Or quite the contrary?
How far have you tested this by practical experiences?
In ordinary social life do you mix most agreeably with your own sex?—or would you rather be with the other sex, socially? Or is the pleasure about equal?
Are you more "popular" with men or women, in outward social life? Are your most intimate friends men or women? To which (aside from love) does your sentimental nature most turn? ”

“ It is also doubtful whether such an acquaintanceship would greatly help me, for I have a very peculiar conception of homosexuality. As you will see, I have little more in common with what are called pæderasts than sexual indifference to the female sex, and I often ask myself: 'Does any other man in the whole world feel like you? Are you alone in the earth with your morbid desires? Are you a pariah of pariahs, or is there, perhaps, another soul with similar longings living near you? ”

“ The social pressure, urging all persons into the normal sexual channel, suffices to develop such slight germs of heterosexuality as homosexual persons may possess, and so to render them bisexual. In the majority of adult bisexual persons it would seem that the homosexual tendency is stronger and more organic than the heterosexual tendency. ”

“ Your case, my dear sir, is the easier because you suffer in a sentimental and sexual way from what we call the obsession of a set, distinct Type, you see; instead of a general—h'm—how shall I style it?—morbidity of your sex-inclinations. It is largely mere imagination I You say you have never really 'realized' this haunting masculine Type which has given you such trouble? My dear sir, don't think any more about such nonsense! You never will 'realize' it in any way to be—h'm—disturbed. ”

“ This unconscious trait of our psychic make-up is not very discriminating. It goes out to all fairly attractive members of the opposite sex.
There is, however, one feature of our unconscious love emotions that evidences a marked discrimination. Why is it that each of us instinctively takes to, or shows a preference for, a certain type of individual of the opposite sex? Why is it that so many people fall in love at first sight—often to fall out again as soon as they get a chance to become acquainted? ”

“ The Homosexual Temperament We must now pass from the normal or hetero-sexual to the second-class of sex-temperament. This is the homosexual—that in which the individual’s sex attraction is directed towards the same sex. And here it will be necessary to utter a note of warning. The sex instinct lies so deep in human nature that many men are incapable of regarding sex characteristics save through their own temperamental colour. Normal men are frequently found, for instance, of such underdeveloped mental faculties that they start out with an immense sex prejudice against the homosexual. ”

“ Every young individual unconsciously patterns its conduct, especially in the matter of its attitudes toward persons of the opposite sex, after some one in the home environment. When the boy, for instance, is raised under conditions which cause him to pattern his actions after the mother-model, to feel himself woman-like, he will unconsciously and automatically imitate feminine ways and adopt woman's attitudes, in the sexual sphere as well as otherwise. ”

“ We can quite see that we do not seem like—women—to you. Of course, in a bi-sexual race the distinctive feature of each sex must be intensified. But surely there are characteristics enough which belong to People, aren’t there? ”

“ In the old age, before sex was, we were mixed, each one a mixture. The process of singling into individuality resulted into the great polarisation of sex. The womanly drew to one side, the manly to the other. ”

“ Heredity, race-instinct, æsthetic sensitiveness, and the temperament—nervous and imaginative—of the high-class American tend to make him similisexual; or to experiment in the instinct, even when no hereditary impulse exists. ”

“ All the drawing and painting in the world will not prevent his having emotion when he looks at the face of a pretty girl.
In our segregation schools boys and girls see nothing of each other. The unsublimated sex instinct finds expression in homosexuality, that is the emotion that should go to the opposite sex is fixed on a person of the same sex. I admit that we are all more or less homosexual; otherwise there could be no friendship between man and man, or woman and woman. In our boarding schools the sex instinct often takes the road of auto-eroticism. ”

“ Indeed, the whole point of the attraction is that the inverted boy vaguely feels his own feminine disposition and so shuns the uncongenial amusements and society of his own sex for the sympathy and community of tastes which he finds concentrated in his mother. So far from such association being evidence of sexual attraction it might more reasonably be regarded as evidence of its absence; just as the association of boys among themselves, and of girls among themselves, even in co-educational schools, is proof of the prevalence of heterosexual rather than of homosexual feeling. ”

“ But even in the highest form of life, there are the vestigal organs and characters of the opposite sex, so that while the normal human being has a definite sexual category, it is just as truly apparent that no individual is wholly of one sexual character. The most masculine man is not one hundred per cent masculine, nor is the most feminine woman one hundred per cent feminine. ”

“ Then, the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which has become like nature, is to be essentially modified, before woman can be allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position. ”

“ Now it will be admitted—or, at any rate, it seems likely—that the principal differences in the psychology of the sexes have their root in the sexual separation itself, inasmuch as certain main channels of thought and feeling seem by this to be cut off from the one sex or the other, especially from the male one. ”

“ It is undoubtedly true that their special temperament may sometimes cause them difficulty in regard to their sexual relations. But then, all types have more or less difficulty in making sexual adjustments—so while the homosexual has some special problems to meet in this respect—the heterosexual also has his problems which not infrequently lead to dire results. ”

“ In both it is carried on by individuals of the same sex; but in one these individuals, generally the males, try to drive away or kill their rivals; in the other, they seek to excite or charm those of the opposite sex, generally the females, who select the most attractive males for their partners. Therefore, the characters acquired through sexual selection, and transmitted chiefly to offspring of the same sex, generally the males, are, on the one hand, weapons for battle, vigour and courage; on the other hand, certain colours, forms, ornaments, sounds, or odours, which are felt to be pleasant. ”

“ From the standpoint of the individual, the homosexual and the heterosexual have the same interest in deciding how he will live his own life, and, more narrowly, how he will conduct himself in his personal and voluntary associations with his companions. ”

“ If the homosexual differ in any respect, under this aspect, from the heterosexual, it is by exhibiting a more frequent tendency to be slightly neuropathic, nervously sensitive, and femininely emotional. ”

“ In every other trait that we have been accustomed to accept as telling of what sex we or another fellow-creature may be, Nature hoodwinks and plays with us, or else gives us relatively superficial clues. ”

“ Further proof that the contrary sexual feeling is no disease and does not necessarily lead to immoral tendencies may be seen in all the noble qualities of heart which it is capable of generating, precisely as the heterosexual attraction, such as courage, self-sacrifice, altruism, artistic feeling, creative energy, etc., just as it may be responsible also for any of the morbidities and failings of heterosexual love (jealousy, suicide, murder, unhappy love with its deleterious effects on mind and body, etc.) ”

“ In this and the following four chapters we shall deal with the instinctive feelings by which the sexes are guided in the act of selection. We have already observed that the sexual instinct is excited by artificial means, such as ornaments, mutilations, &c. Now we have to consider the intrinsic characters of a human being which affect the passions of a person of the opposite sex. ”

“ The problem of the bisexual girl-boy or androgyne has been presented for the learned professions in my Autobiography of an Androgyne and The Riddle of the Underworld. But to accomplish my three aims, it is necessary that the general reader have instilled into his mind that sexual intermediates are not to blame for their cross-sex idiosyncrasies. Such knowledge could not besmirch the soul of the general reader, but only benefit him morally. ”

“ Hence, do thou let me copulate with thee.’ On hearing this the mainã said, ‘I have no desire for a male.’ Thereupon he inquired ‘Why?’ The mainã said, ‘The male sex are sinful, irreligious, deceivers, and wife-killers.’ Hearing this, the parrot said, ‘The female sex, too, are deceitful, false, stupid, avaricious creatures, and murderesses.’”
“When the two commenced wrangling in this manner, the king asked, ‘Why are you two quarrelling with each other?’ The maina replied, ‘Great king! the male sex are evil-doers and wife-killers, and hence I have no desire to have a male partner. ”

“ Homosexualism is a symphony running through a marvellous range of psychic keys, with many high and heroic (one might say divine) harmonies; but constantly relapsing to base and fantastic discords!... Is there really now, as ages ago, a sexual aristocracy of the male? A mystic and hellenic Brotherhood, a sort of super-virile man? A race through which hearts never to be kindled by any woman; though, it once aglow, their strange fires can burn not less ardently and purely than ours? ”

“ Those persons, again, who allow themselves to be the recipients of homosexual attentions may well possess traces of homosexual feeling, and are undoubtedly in very many cases lacking in vigorous heterosexual impulse. ”

“ We have, in fact, as in almost all classifications, not a naturally dividing gulf but a gradually ascending scale. Some individuals may have only 5 per cent. inverted and 95 per cent. hetero-sexual tendencies, while others are only 10 per cent. ”

“ But like the normal heterosexual individual, even the 'male hero' type displays a permanent latent disposition to neurosis.
"The process of sublimation is more difficult in the case of the normal homosexual than in the case of the normal heterosexual. That is why this type is extremely rare and why a thorough analysis always discloses typical neurotic reactions. The neurotic reactions of expression are anxiety, fear, shame, disgust and hatred. The heterosexual is inspired with disgust at any homosexual act. ”

“ The inner natures of all men and women partake of [Pg 353] the natures of the opposite sex—a psychological phenomenon in some forms openly expressed by modern society (O moms, O Mummers!) , but in other forms suppressed with the full force of public opinion. What public opinion suppresses, the individual endeavors to conceal both from himself and from society. Nevertheless, were the individual not equipped with the psychological elements of the opposite sex, comprehension and sympathy between the two would be impossible. ”

“ It is interesting also to observe the sublimation which the heterosexual love undergoes among homosexuals. They endeavor to de-sexualize the other sex, at the same time have recourse to heterosexual [Pg 272] friendships by preference. I know quite a number of homosexuals of this class, men who maintain motherly, sisterly, or even grandmotherly friendships and to whom these friendships are positively indispensable. We psychoanalysts are in a position to appreciate the source of these sexual attachments. ”

“ We have further to distinguish sexual inversion and all other forms of homosexuality from another kind of inversion which usually remains, so far as the sexual impulse itself is concerned, heterosexual, that is to say, normal. Inversion of this kind leads a person to feel like a person of the opposite sex, and to adopt, so far as possible, the tastes, habits, and dress of the opposite sex, while the direction of the sexual impulse remains normal. ”

“ It belongs to their soul's constitution, and must therefore continue while the soul endures.
Now, the sexes being thus constituted, mutually desire conjunction with each other. The masculine soul instinctively yearns for union with some feminine soul, and the feminine for union with some masculine. And until this union is attained, each is conscious of an unsatisfied want; each has a sense of incompleteness—feels a lack of wholeness to his being. ”

“ Does similisexual desire of this sort direct itself strongest to very young boys? (If Uraniad: to very young girls?) To older youthful persons? To individuals in their early or latter teens?—older? or for distinctly mature individuals? In any case as to what type?—that is to say, robust or delicate, blond or dark, refined or unrefined physiques, etc.
Are you greatly excited during sexual intercourse, or in fits of desire?
Are you conscious of a certain contempt or aversion for women as a sex? ”