Sexual orientation

“ Little boys are taught that they will grow up and marry a girl. Little girls are taught they will grow up and marry a boy. And growing up with those expectations, it is not uncommon for people to engage in sexual behavior with someone of the other sex, possibly before they have developed their real sense of who they are, of what their sexual orientation is. And I think that's one of the reasons why... [gay men and lesbians have] experience [d] heterosexual intercourse.... [I] t is not part of their identity. ”

“ We know, for example, that many homosexual men have a tendency to dress in girls' clothing, and many homosexual women to go about in men's clothing, and, in both cases, to adopt the inclinations and occupations of the opposite sex. During the period of the undifferentiated sexual impulse, we must not attach too much importance to the appearance of inclinations of this kind ”

“ Homosexual men who have started in our times an energetic action against the legal limitations of their sexual activity are fond of representing themselves through theoretical spokesmen as evincing a sexual variation, which may be distinguished from the very beginning, as an intermediate stage of sex or as “a third sex.” ”

“ If the mother, or other feminine guardian, should be homosexually disposed, i.e., showing a physical interest in women and a physical indifference to men, then, by the same token, the boy would tend to develop a sexual interest in women, and become a normal heterosexual man.
Every young boy's ambition, normally, is to be like his father ”

“ 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.
(d) 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. ”

“ Thus, in the case of a boy of fourteen, who is continually affected with homosexual imaginings, we shall find it far more difficult to repress sexual manifestations altogether, than to divert the homosexual sensibility into heterosexual channels. ”

“ Let us then first consider what Homosexuality is.
Homosexuality means sexual love for one of the same sex. Thus, if a male feels sexual desire for another male, or a female for another female, they are called sexually inverted or homosexual. ”

“ To most lay people the established order of sex relationships and marriage seems something so self-evident and stable that they cannot conceive the possibility of a variation in the established order. Yet here, as in all things, the law of evolution applies. Our sexual system is the outcome of a long continuous series of changes beginning with the very dawn of human history. To understand the modern sex problem rightly it is essential to know its origin and gradual development. ”

“ When we have recognized that there is a tendency for homosexuality to arise in persons of usually normal tendency who are placed under conditions (as on board ship or in prison) where the exercise of normal sexuality is impossible, there is little further classification to be achieved along this line. [129] We have gone as far as is necessary by admitting a general undefined homosexuality,—a relationship of unspecified nature to persons of the same sex,—in addition to the more specific sexual inversion. ”

“ 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? ”

“ There are also certain conditions in the development of the individual and of society where the sexual type of reaction is so near the surface that it shows through in connection with political, moral, and other essentially non-sexual activities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ True hermaphroditism in man being established, the question arises whether lesser grades do not occur.... Remote evidence of bisexuality in the human subject may, perhaps, be afforded by the psychical phenomenon of sexual perversion and inversion. ”

“ It has been stated that a person normally goes through three stages in the course of his sexual development—which are represented by the following dominant characteristics, in the order given: Autosexuality, Homosexuality, and Heterosexuality. ”

“ Before civilization developed the system of sex inhibitions that are considered an essential part of the ethical habits of our young people, the impulse to function was not repressed and pubescence marked the beginning of the distinctively sexual experience of both sexes. ”

“ It is true that the tendency of the dream and the unconscious fancy to utilize the sexual symbol bisexually betrays an archaic trend, for in childhood a difference in the genitals is unknown, and the same genitals are attributed to both sexes. ”

“ When I recall the light-heartedness with which homosexual males have acknowledged to me their experiences of sexual intercourse with apprentice-boys, and with pupils attending the higher forms of our secondary schools, and when I think of the readiness with which homosexual women seek opportunities of sexual intercourse with immature or partially mature girls, it seems to me that there are good grounds for the utterance of an urgent warning. ”

“ This then is my contention, that homosexuality is either an acquired vice, that is to say a habit, or an acquired mental aberration, that is to say, insanity, or congenital; and then it is that a human being is born with a body with sexual organs all those of the male, yet most likely with a body which shows certain earmarks of the female, and with a soul nearly all female, but certainly entirely female in regard to the sex question. ”

“ It may be true that sex made society, that the first society was the sex-cemented family, the first state a confederacy of blood relations, the first laws sexual taboos. Until a few years ago morality meant proper sexual behaviour. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Magnus Hirschfeld, one of the greatest of contemporary authorities on the sex question in all its phases, is convinced that homosexuality is a normal state, and that genuine homosexuality is always an inborn condition. ”

“ Stern17 points out that there can be no question here of cultivation leading to a sexual differentiation of faculty, since there is no attempt at a general and systematic teaching of draughtsmanship to the members of one sex to the exclusion of members of the other. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The physical bisexual characters—those of the opposite sex being present in rudimentary form—are readily observable. In the male, there are the vestigial breasts and nipples, and other rudimentary features less prominent; and sometimes a general feminine contour of body is noticeable in the male. ”

“ The congenital nature of homosexuality is displayed, not by the primary appearance of this mode of sensibility, but by the fact that when the puberal development takes place, the homosexual sentiments persist, and are not replaced by heterosexuality. ”

“ They will in due course be outgrown and replaced by other manifestations of sexual interest, unless unwise methods of repression are used.
HOMOSEXUALITY means a state in which one is sexually attracted toward members of the same sex. This is normally a primitive characteristic of childhood, which prevails up to the time of adolescence, but which may persist in adult life. Some degree of it does normally hold over in every adult, but it remains in the background of the unconscious, and is sublimated along social lines. ”

“ From a mistaken standpoint other supporters of women’s rights oppose the ideal method in sex-relations, life-long monogamy, and the ideal of sexual sensibility, motherhood, and they put forward quite new sexual pretensions on behalf of women, as belonging to them by natural right. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The first is the shifting of the emphasis of the sex-force from body to mind, so that the sex-force ceases to be concentrated in physical sex-acts and begins to be concerned rather with love emotion and sex-thought; the second is the transmutation of the sex-force to non-sexual channels. Both of these processes are necessary in the life of the non-celibate. ”

“ Every person should acknowledge and accept his or her sexual identity (no. 2333) ; Homosexuality refers to relations between men or women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction towards persons of the same sex (no. 2357) ”

“ Nevertheless, psychologists have noted that this tendency towards the more elevated forms of homo-sexual feeling is still to be found, more or less developed, amongst religious leaders and other persons with strong ethical instincts. ”

“ What is wanted is some principle which would enable us to determine at what point between male and female such individuals were placed. My law of sexual affinity is such a principle. Its application to the facts of homo-sexuality showed that the woman who attracts and is attracted by other women is herself half male. Interpreting the historical evidence at our disposal in the light of this principle, we find that the degree of emancipation and the proportion of maleness in the composition of a woman are practically identical. ”

“ The manifold echoes of that primitive conception of sex, and all the violent reactions that were thus evolved and eventually bound up with the original impulse, compose the streams of tradition that feed our modern world in this matter and determine the ideas of purity that surround us.
At the present day the crude theory of the sexual impulse held on one side, and the ignorant rejection of theory altogether on the other side, are beginning to be seen as both alike unjustified. We begin to find the grounds for a sounder theory. ”

“ But a separation of the sexes will not do away with them, as is proved, not only by the homosexual manifestations of the undifferentiated sexual impulse, but also by those that arise transiently, at any rate, when the members of one sex are completely segregated from those of the other--as in boarding-schools, on board ship, and in prisons. The educator cannot even count on being at all times able to safeguard the child from the sight of sexual acts. ”

“ We may easily picture to ourselves, in detail, the application of this interesting conclusion to the human community. Here, also, the same causes have evidently influenced the development of the secondary sexual characters. The characteristics distinguishing the man, as well as those distinguishing the woman, owe their origin, certainly for the most part, to the sexual selection of the other sex. ”

“ Others, again, refer the differences in respect of criminality between the youthful members of the two sexes to the influences of education and general environment. 48Morrison,23 however, maintains that all these influences combined are yet insufficient to account for the great disproportion between the sexes, and insists that there exists in youth as well as in adult life a specific sexual differentiation, based, for the most part, upon biological differences of a mental and physical character. ”