FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]Vindices Flammæ.[2]Stieber, "Practisches Lehrbuch der Criminal-Polizei," 1860, cap. 19, quoted by Ulrichs, "Araxes," p. 9. It is not necessary to multiply evidences upon a point so patent to every man of the world. But I will nevertheless translate a striking passage from Mantegazza (op. cit., p. 148). "Nor is this infamous abomination confined to the vilest classes of our society. It soars into the highest spheres of wealth and intelligence. Within the narrow range of my own experience I have known among the most scandalous sodomites a French journalist, a German poet, an Italian statesman, and a Spanish jurist; all of these men of exquisite taste and profound culture!" It would not be difficult to draw up a list of English kings, bishops, deans, nobles of the highest rank, poets, historians, dramatists, officers in the army and navy, civil servants, schoolmasters in the most fashionable schools, physicians, members of Parliament, journalists, barristers, who in their lifetime were, as Dante says, "d'un medesmo peccato al mondo lerci." Many belonging to the past are notorious; and no good could come of mentioning the names of the living.[3]This accusation against men who feel a sexual inclination for males loses some of its significance when we consider how common the practice ofVenus aversais among libertines who love women. Parent-Duchatelet asserts that no prostitute after a certain age has escaped it. Coffignon, in his book on, "La Corruption à Paris" (p. 324), says: "Chaque année, il passe en traîtement a l'hôpital de Lourcine une centaine de femmes sodomistes.... Je suis persuadé qu'à l'hôpital de St. Lazare la proportion des sodomistes est encore beaucoup plus grande.... Les maîtresses de maison, professant cet odieux principe que la clientèle doit être satisfaite, ne permettent pas à une fille de se refuser à une acte de sodomie." Tardieu (Attentats, &c., p. 198) observes: "Chose singulière! c'est principalement des rapports conjugaux que se sont produits les faits de cette nature."[4]See Casper-Liman, vol. i., p. 182, at the end of Case 71.[5]While studying what Germans call theCasuistikof this question in medical, forensic, and anthropological works, we often meet with cases where inverted sexuality exhibits extraordinary symptoms of apparent craziness—strange partialities for particular kinds of dress, occupations in the beloved object, nastinesses, and so forth. But it must be remarked first that the same symptoms are exhibited by sexually normal natures (Krafft-Ebing, Observations 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and the cases recorded in footnote to page 90); and, secondly, that if they should appear to be more frequent in the abnormal, this can in a great measure be ascribed to the fact that these latter cases only come under the observation of medical men and judges when the patients have already for many years been suffering from all the pangs of a coerced and defrauded instinct. There is nothing in the copious history of Greece and Rome upon this subject to lead us to suppose that in a society which tolerated sexual inversion, its subjects were more conspicuous for filthy and degrading or insane proclivities than ordinary men and women were. Those who can bring themselves to enquire into such matters may convince themselves by reading Forberg's annotations to "Hermaphroditus," Rosenbaum's "Lustseuche," the pseudo-Meursius, and the pornographical dialogues of Aretino. It will appear conclusively that both in ancient and in modern times the normal sexual instinct has been subject to the wildest freaks and aberrations; not in actually diseased persons, but simply in lustful wantons and the epicures of new sensations. The curious things we know about flagellation and cruelty in connection with the ordinary appetite should also be remembered. As a final note on this topic, I will refer to a passage quoted by Tarnowsky from a work of Taxil, describing a peculiarly repulsive class of fashionable libertines in Paris called "les stercoraires" (op. cit., p. 70). Compare what Mantegazza reports of a "gentile ufficiale francese" (Gli amore degli uomini, vol. i. p. 117).[6]See upon this point Tardieu, "Attentats aux Mœurs," Rosenbaum, "Die Lustseuche."[7]Ancient literature abounds in prose and poetry which are both of them concerned with homosexual love. Only a portion of this can be called pornographic: among the Greeks, theΜοὑσα Παιδικἡ, parts of Lucian, and occasional hints in Athenæus and Aristophanes perhaps deserve the name; among the Romans, the Priapeia, the Satyricon of Petronius, some elegies and satires, certainly do so. Italian literature can show the Rime Burlesche, Beccadelli's Hermaphroditus, the Canti Carnascialeschi, the maccaronic poems of Fidentius, and the remarkably outspoken romance entitled "Alcibiade fanciullo a scolla." Balzac has treated the theme, but with reserve and delicacy. Mirabeau's "Erotika Biblion" is a kind of classic on the subject. In English literature, if we except Shakespeare's Sonnets, George Barnfield's Poems, parts of Marlowe, "Roderick Random," Churchill's Satire "The Times," homosexual passions have been rarely handled, and none of these works are pornographic. In Germany, Count von Platen, Heine's victim, was certainly an Urning; but his homosexual imitations of Persian poetry are pure, though passionate. I am not acquainted with more than the titles of some distinctly pornographic German books. The following appears to be of this sort: "Mannesliebe, oder drei Jahre aus dem Leben eines jungen Mannes."[8]Les Deux Prostitutions, par F. Carlier, Ancien Chef du Service actif des Mœurs à la Préfecture de Police. Paris. Dentu. 1889.[9]Paris, Brossier, 1889.[10]In the recently published military novel "Sous Offs." (by Lucien Descaves, Paris, Tresse et Stock, 1890) some details are given regarding establishments of this nature. See pp. 322, 412, 417, for a description of the drinking-shop called "Aux Amis de l'Armée," where a few maids were kept for show, and also of its frequenters, including in particular the adjutant Laprévotte (cp. 44).[11]On the morals of the Foreign Legions, see Ulrichs, Ara Spei, p. 20; Memnon, p. 27. Also General Brossier's report, quoted by Burton, Arabian Nights, vol. x. p. 251[12]P. 459.[13]Tardieu,op. cit., pp. 213-255.[14]In dealing with Tardieu, Casper-Liman, and Tarnowsky, I have directed the reader to passages in the works of the three medical authorities who have spoken most decidedly upon this topic. After comparing their evidence, the case seems to me to stand thus. Both male and female prostitutes are exposed to considerable risks of physical deformation in the exercise of their illicit trade. But males and females, if they keep their vicious propensities within the bounds of temperance, offer no physical deformations to observation. Only those men who for years have practised promiscuous prostitution earn epithets like the Greek slangεὑρὑπρωκτος, or the Italianculo rotto.[15]Casper-Liman,op. cit., vol. i. p. 164.[16]Casper-Liman,op. cit., vol. i. pp. 174-181.[17]Op. cit., vol. i. pp. 164-166.[18]Having criticised Tardieu for his use of the phrasepæderast, Casper and Liman can find no better.[19]Westphal: Die Conträre Sexualempfindung. Archiv für Psychatrie, vol. ii. I.[20]The Standard of Sanity, Br. Med. Journal, Nov. 28, 1885.[21]See Tarnowsky about the opinion of the lower classes in St. Petersburg,op. cit., p. 99. "Ueberhaupt verhalten sich die gemeinen ungebildeten Leute, dem Ausspruch aller mir bekannten Päderasten gemäss, äusserat nachsichtig gegen unzüchtige Anträge—'herrschaft-liche Spielerei,' wie sie es nennen." This is true not only of Russia, but of countries where we should least expect to find the compliance in question.[22]P. 73. The italics are the translator's. The adjectivehomosexual, though ill-compounded of a Greek and a Latin word, is useful, and has been adopted by medical writers on this topic.Unisexualwould perhaps be better.[23]A note upon this subject has to be written; and it may be introduced here as well as elsewhere. Balzac, inUne dernière incarnation de Vautrin, describes the morals of the Frenchbagnes. Dostoieffsky, inPrison Life in Siberia, touches on the same topic. See his portrait of Sirotkin, p. 52,et seq., p. 120 (edn. J. & R. Maxwell, London). We may compare Carlier,op. cit., pp. 300, 301, for an account of the violence of homosexual passions in French prisons. The initiated are familiar with the facts in English prisons. There is a military prison on the Lido at Venice, where incorrigible lovers of their own sex, amongst other culprits, are confined. A man here said: "All our loves in this place are breech-loaders." Bouchard, in hisConfessions(Paris, Liseux, 1881), describes the convict station at Marseilles in 1630. The men used to be allowed to bring women on board the galleys. At that epoch they "les besognoient avant tout le monde, les couchant sous le banc sur leur 'capot. Mais depuis quelques années en ca, le general a defendu entrée aux femmes. De sorte qu'il ne se pêche plus maintenant là-dedans qu'en sodomie, mollesse, irrumation, et autres pareilles tendresses" (p. 151). The same Frenchman, speaking of the Duc d'Orléans' pages at Paris, says that this was a "cour extrèmemen impie et débauchée, surtout pour les garçons, M. d'Orléans deffendoit à ses pages de se besogner ni branler la pique; leur donnant au reste congé de voir les femmes tant qu'ils voudroient, et quelquefois venant de nuict heurter à la porte de leur chambre, avec cinq ou six garses, qu'il enfermoit avec eux une heure à deux" (p. 88). This prince was of the same mind as Campanella, who, in theCittà del Sole, laid it down that young men ought to be freely admitted to women, for the avoidance of sexual aberrations. Aretino and Berni enable us to comprehend the sexual immorality of males congregated together in the courts of Roman prelates. As regards military service, the facts related by Ulrichs about the French Foreign Legion in Algeria, on the testimony of a credible witness, who had been a pathic in his regiment, deserve attention (Ara Spei, p. 20;Memnon, p. 27). This man, who was a German, told Ulrichs that the Spanish, French, and Italian soldiers were the lovers, the Swiss and German their beloved. See General Brossier, cited above, p. 19. Ulrichs reports that in the Austrian army lectures on homosexual vices are regularly given to cadets and conscripts (Memnon, p. 20).[24]See above,p. 33, my criticism of Moreau upon this point, with special reference to Greece.[25]Prometheus, pp. 20-26,et seq.[26]Without having recourse to Ulrichs, it may be demonstrated from Krafft-Ebing's own cases of genuine Urnings that early onanism is by no means more frequent among them than among normal males. Five marked specimens showed no inclination for self-abuse. The first (p. 128) says: "As I never masturbated and felt no inclination for it, I sometimes had a nocturnal pollution." The second (p. 155): "You will be surprised to hear that before my twenty-eighth year I never had any ejaculation of semen, either by nocturnal emissions, or by masturbation, or by contact with a man." The third (p. 172): "Onanism is a miserable makeshift, and pernicious, whereas homosexual love elevates the moral and strengthens the physical nature." The fourth (p. 163): "I had an internal horror of onanism, although from the very first appearance of puberty I was sensually very excitable and troubled with persistent erections." The fifth (p. 142) is not so clear; but it is obvious from his remarks that the first ejaculation of semen which happened to him did so at the sight of a handsome soldier: "feeling my parts moistened, I was horribly frightened and thought it was a hæmorrhage." Some of the cases do not mention the subject at all. A good many seem to have begun to masturbate early; but the proportion is not excessive to the whole number. One Urning explains thefaute de mieuxsystem (p. 115): "If we have no friend, whose sexual company has become needful to the preservation of our health, and if we abandon ourselves at last to masturbation alone with our imagination, then indeed do we become ill." Another speaks as follows (p. 151): "Homosexual indulgence with a man gave me enjoyment and a consequent feeling of well-being, whereas onanismfaute de mieuxproduced an opposite result."[27]P. 82. Herodotus called it "the female disease."[28]P. 86,et seq.[29]P. 88,et seq.[30]Henceforward we may use the word Urning without apology; for however the jurists and men of science repudiate Ulrichs' doctrine, they have adopted his designation for a puzzling and still unclassified member of the human race. A Dr. Kaserer, of Vienna, is said to have invented the term Urning.[31]This is a hit at Westphal, Krafft-Ebing's predecessor, who laid down the doctrine that Urnings are conscious of their own morbidity. Of course, both authorities are equally right. Approach an Urning with terrors of social opinion and law; and he will confess his dreadful apprehensions. Approach him from the point of view of science; and he will declare that, within four closed walls, he has no thought of guilt.[32]Pp. 97-106.[33]The physical repugnance of true Urnings for women may be illustrated by passages from three of Krafft-Ebing's cases (pp. 117, 123, 163), which I will translate. (1) "I had observed that a girl was madly in love with me, and longed intensely to yield herself up to me. I gave her an assignation in my house, hoping that I should succeed better with a girl who sought me out of love than I had with public women. After her first fiery caresses, I did indeed feel a little less frigid; but when it came to thinking about copulation, all was over—the same stark frost set in, and my part was played out. I sent her away, deeply excited, with some moral remarks; and I have never tried the like experiments again. On all these occasionsthe specific odour of the female added to my horror." (2) "The proximity of wenches aroused in me qualms and nausea;in particular I could not bear to smell them." (3) "It seems to me absurd to set up the female form as the prototype of human beauty. I regard a woman's person as displeasing, the formation of her hips as ugly and unæsthetic. Dancing is therefore an abomination to me.I loathe the odour which the so-called fair sex exhales when heated by the dance." The disgust inspired in these three Urnings by the smell of the female is highly significant; since we know that the sense of smell acts powerfully upon the sexual appetite of normal individuals. It may be remarked that in all the instances of pronounced Urnings, sexual congress with women seems to have been followed with disgust, nervous exhaustion, and the sense of an unnatural act performed without pleasure. This is true even of those who have brought themselves to marriage.[34]A sign, by the way, which may be observed in the most masculine of athletes. This is very noticeable in the nude photographs of Sandow.[35]Englishmen know the type as Mariannes, and had occasion to study their habits in the Boulton and Park trial. For the type in Paris, consult Carlier,op. cit., pp. 323-326, 339-351, 463.[36]I have used the German version of Lombroso's work, because of the translator's preface and occasional annotations.[37]See Dufour, "Histoire de la Prostitution," vol. iii. (France, ch. i.) p. 193.[38]See Dufour, "Histoire de la Prostitution," (France, chs. 6 and 7).[39]See above,p. 35, for an ingenious definition by Dr. Huggard, which covers both classes as born criminals and moral madmen.[40]His German translator calls attention to this omission; p. 153 footnote.[41]Third edition. Halle a. S., 1882.[42]Psych. Sex., p. 82.[43]Leipzig, Wigand, 1860.[44]Arabian Nights, 1885, vol. x., pp. 205-254.[45]Burton's acquaintance with what he called "le Vice" was principally confined to Oriental nations. He started on his enquiries, imbued with vulgar errors; and he never weighed the psychical theories examined by me in the foregoing section of this Essay. Nevertheless, he was led to surmise a crasis of the two sexes in persons subject to sexual inversion. Thus he came to speak of "the third sex." During conversations I had with him less than three months before his death, he told me that he had begun a general history of "le Vice"; and at my suggestion he studied Ulrichs and Krafft-Ebing. It is to be lamented that life failed before he could apply his virile and candid criticism to those theories, and compare them with the facts and observations he had independently collected.[46]I give the author's own text, p. 206.[47]P. 208.[48]P. 251.[49]P. 222.[50]Pp. 204, 209.[51]Gli amori degli Uomini, Milano, 1886, vol. i. cap. 5.[52]Ibid., p. 149.[53]Pp. 148-154.[54]P. 154.[55]See above,p. 55, note.[56]The notion that human beings were originally hermaphrodite is both ancient and wide-spread. We find it in the Book of Genesis, unless, indeed, there be a confusion here between two separate theories of creation. God is said to have first made man in his own image, male and female in one body, and to have bidden them multiply. Later on he created the woman out of part of the primitive man. The myth related by Aristophanes in Plato'sSymposiumhas a curious bearing upon Ulrichs' speculations. There were originally human beings of three sexes: men, the children of the sun; women, the children of the earth; and hermaphrodites, the children of the moon. They were round, with two faces, four hands, four feet and two sets of reproductive organs apiece. In the case of the third sex, one set was male, the other female. Zeus, on account of their strength and insolence, sliced them into halves. Since that time the halves of each sort have always striven to unite with their corresponding halves, and have found some satisfaction in carnal congress—males with males, females with females, and males and females with each other: "They who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. And when they reach manhood, they are lovers of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children, which they do, if at all, only in obedience to the law, but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded; and such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him." (Symp. 191-2, Jowett's translation.) Then follows a glowing description of Greek Love, the whole reminding us very closely of the confessions made by Urnings in modern times, and preserved by medical or forensic writers on sexual inversion.[57]Memnon, section xix.[58]See above,p. 36, the suggestion quoted from Dr. Huggard of "a congenital lack of balance between structures themselves healthy." It might be queried whether this "imperfect sexual differentiation," or this "congenital lack of balance between structures themselves healthy," is not the result of an evolutionary process arriving through heredity and casual selection at an abnormal, but not of necessity a morbid, phenomenon in certain individuals.[59]The first two from Casper-Liman, Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin, vol. i. pp. 166-169. The others from Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis.[60]Memnon, section lxxiii. p. 54.[61]Since Ulrichs left off writing, Italy (by the "Nuovo Codice Penale" of 1889) has adopted the principles of the Code Napoleon, and has placed sexual inversion under the same legal limitations as the normal sexual instinct.[62]Dr. W. Ogle, on the 18th March, 1890, read a paper before the Statistical Society upon "Marriage Rates and Ages." The conclusion he arrived at, with regard to the rapidly-advancing over-population of England, was that, in order to equalise the death-rate with the birth-rate (or in other words, to maintain the population at its present level), we must look forward either to (1) an increase of emigration which would involve social revolution, or (2) to the advance of the average age at which women marry to the point of thirty years, or (3) to an exclusion of 45 per cent. of those who now marry from matrimony at any period of life. In the face of these calculations, after admitting their possible exaggeration, it seems illogical to punish with severe legal penalties those members of the male sex who do not want to marry, and who can satisfy their natural desires in ways which involve no detriment to the State and no violation of the rights of individuals.[63]Psych. Sex., p. 108. I have condensed the sense of four short paragraphs, to translate which in full would have involved a disagreeable use of medical language.[64]Psych. Sex., p. 107.[65]Studies in Literature, p. 119.[66]In this relation it is curious to note what one of Casper-Liman's correspondents says about the morals of North America (op. cit., vol. i. p. 173). "Half a year after my return I went to North America, to try my fortune. There the unnatural vice in question is more ordinary than it is here; and I was able to indulge my passions with less fear of punishment or persecution. The American's tastes in this matter resemble my own; and I discovered, in the United States, that I was always immediately recognised as a member of the confraternity." The date of this man's visit to America was the year 1871-72. He had just returned from serving as a volunteer in the great Franco-German war of 1870-71.[67]Not included in the "Complete Poems and Prose." It will be found in "Leaves of Grass," Boston, 1860-1861.[68]The two last are from "Drum-Taps."[69]This I cannot find in "Complete Poems and Prose." It is included in the Boston edition, 1860-61, and the Camden edition, 1876.[70]"Drum-Taps." Complete Poems, p. 247.[71]Ibid., p, 238.[72]"Leaves of Grass." Complete Poems, p. 107.[73]Complete Poems, p. 109. Compare, "I hear it was charged against me,"ibid., p. 107.[74]Complete Poems, p. 110.[75]Camden edition, 1876, p. 127. Complete Poems, p. 99. Compare "Democratic Vistas," Complete Prose, p. 247, note.[76]These prose passages are taken from "Democratic Vistas," cited above, p. 119, note.[77]While these sheets were going through the press, I communicated Whitman's reply to a judicious friend, whose remarks upon it express my own opinion more clearly and succinctly than I have done above: "I do not feel that this answer throws light on the really interesting question; does the sentiment of 'Calamus' represent, in its own way, the ideal which we should aim at impressing on passionate affections between men, as certainly liable to take other objectionable forms? Is there sufficient affinity between the actual and the ideal for this to be practicable? That is what I have never felt sure about when we have discussed these matters. But I do not feel that my doubts have been resolved in any negative direction by Walt Whitman."[78]Kelts, Scythians, Dorians, Tartars, Normans.[79]It ought to be borne in mind that they are by no means invariably complicated with abnormal sexuality, but quite as often with normal sexuality in some extravagant shape, as well as with other kinds of moral aberration.[80]It may not be superfluous to recapitulate the main points of English legislation on this topic. (1) Sodomy is a felony, defined as the carnal knowledge (per anum) of any man or of any woman by a male person; punishable with penal servitude for life as a maximum, for ten years as a minimum. (2) The attempt to commit sodomy is punishable with ten years' penal servitude as a maximum. (3) The commission, in public or private, by any male person with another male person, of "any act of gross indecency," is punishable with two years' imprisonment and hard labour."

[1]Vindices Flammæ.

[2]Stieber, "Practisches Lehrbuch der Criminal-Polizei," 1860, cap. 19, quoted by Ulrichs, "Araxes," p. 9. It is not necessary to multiply evidences upon a point so patent to every man of the world. But I will nevertheless translate a striking passage from Mantegazza (op. cit., p. 148). "Nor is this infamous abomination confined to the vilest classes of our society. It soars into the highest spheres of wealth and intelligence. Within the narrow range of my own experience I have known among the most scandalous sodomites a French journalist, a German poet, an Italian statesman, and a Spanish jurist; all of these men of exquisite taste and profound culture!" It would not be difficult to draw up a list of English kings, bishops, deans, nobles of the highest rank, poets, historians, dramatists, officers in the army and navy, civil servants, schoolmasters in the most fashionable schools, physicians, members of Parliament, journalists, barristers, who in their lifetime were, as Dante says, "d'un medesmo peccato al mondo lerci." Many belonging to the past are notorious; and no good could come of mentioning the names of the living.

[3]This accusation against men who feel a sexual inclination for males loses some of its significance when we consider how common the practice ofVenus aversais among libertines who love women. Parent-Duchatelet asserts that no prostitute after a certain age has escaped it. Coffignon, in his book on, "La Corruption à Paris" (p. 324), says: "Chaque année, il passe en traîtement a l'hôpital de Lourcine une centaine de femmes sodomistes.... Je suis persuadé qu'à l'hôpital de St. Lazare la proportion des sodomistes est encore beaucoup plus grande.... Les maîtresses de maison, professant cet odieux principe que la clientèle doit être satisfaite, ne permettent pas à une fille de se refuser à une acte de sodomie." Tardieu (Attentats, &c., p. 198) observes: "Chose singulière! c'est principalement des rapports conjugaux que se sont produits les faits de cette nature."

[4]See Casper-Liman, vol. i., p. 182, at the end of Case 71.

[5]While studying what Germans call theCasuistikof this question in medical, forensic, and anthropological works, we often meet with cases where inverted sexuality exhibits extraordinary symptoms of apparent craziness—strange partialities for particular kinds of dress, occupations in the beloved object, nastinesses, and so forth. But it must be remarked first that the same symptoms are exhibited by sexually normal natures (Krafft-Ebing, Observations 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and the cases recorded in footnote to page 90); and, secondly, that if they should appear to be more frequent in the abnormal, this can in a great measure be ascribed to the fact that these latter cases only come under the observation of medical men and judges when the patients have already for many years been suffering from all the pangs of a coerced and defrauded instinct. There is nothing in the copious history of Greece and Rome upon this subject to lead us to suppose that in a society which tolerated sexual inversion, its subjects were more conspicuous for filthy and degrading or insane proclivities than ordinary men and women were. Those who can bring themselves to enquire into such matters may convince themselves by reading Forberg's annotations to "Hermaphroditus," Rosenbaum's "Lustseuche," the pseudo-Meursius, and the pornographical dialogues of Aretino. It will appear conclusively that both in ancient and in modern times the normal sexual instinct has been subject to the wildest freaks and aberrations; not in actually diseased persons, but simply in lustful wantons and the epicures of new sensations. The curious things we know about flagellation and cruelty in connection with the ordinary appetite should also be remembered. As a final note on this topic, I will refer to a passage quoted by Tarnowsky from a work of Taxil, describing a peculiarly repulsive class of fashionable libertines in Paris called "les stercoraires" (op. cit., p. 70). Compare what Mantegazza reports of a "gentile ufficiale francese" (Gli amore degli uomini, vol. i. p. 117).

[6]See upon this point Tardieu, "Attentats aux Mœurs," Rosenbaum, "Die Lustseuche."

[7]Ancient literature abounds in prose and poetry which are both of them concerned with homosexual love. Only a portion of this can be called pornographic: among the Greeks, theΜοὑσα Παιδικἡ, parts of Lucian, and occasional hints in Athenæus and Aristophanes perhaps deserve the name; among the Romans, the Priapeia, the Satyricon of Petronius, some elegies and satires, certainly do so. Italian literature can show the Rime Burlesche, Beccadelli's Hermaphroditus, the Canti Carnascialeschi, the maccaronic poems of Fidentius, and the remarkably outspoken romance entitled "Alcibiade fanciullo a scolla." Balzac has treated the theme, but with reserve and delicacy. Mirabeau's "Erotika Biblion" is a kind of classic on the subject. In English literature, if we except Shakespeare's Sonnets, George Barnfield's Poems, parts of Marlowe, "Roderick Random," Churchill's Satire "The Times," homosexual passions have been rarely handled, and none of these works are pornographic. In Germany, Count von Platen, Heine's victim, was certainly an Urning; but his homosexual imitations of Persian poetry are pure, though passionate. I am not acquainted with more than the titles of some distinctly pornographic German books. The following appears to be of this sort: "Mannesliebe, oder drei Jahre aus dem Leben eines jungen Mannes."

[8]Les Deux Prostitutions, par F. Carlier, Ancien Chef du Service actif des Mœurs à la Préfecture de Police. Paris. Dentu. 1889.

[9]Paris, Brossier, 1889.

[10]In the recently published military novel "Sous Offs." (by Lucien Descaves, Paris, Tresse et Stock, 1890) some details are given regarding establishments of this nature. See pp. 322, 412, 417, for a description of the drinking-shop called "Aux Amis de l'Armée," where a few maids were kept for show, and also of its frequenters, including in particular the adjutant Laprévotte (cp. 44).

[11]On the morals of the Foreign Legions, see Ulrichs, Ara Spei, p. 20; Memnon, p. 27. Also General Brossier's report, quoted by Burton, Arabian Nights, vol. x. p. 251

[12]P. 459.

[13]Tardieu,op. cit., pp. 213-255.

[14]In dealing with Tardieu, Casper-Liman, and Tarnowsky, I have directed the reader to passages in the works of the three medical authorities who have spoken most decidedly upon this topic. After comparing their evidence, the case seems to me to stand thus. Both male and female prostitutes are exposed to considerable risks of physical deformation in the exercise of their illicit trade. But males and females, if they keep their vicious propensities within the bounds of temperance, offer no physical deformations to observation. Only those men who for years have practised promiscuous prostitution earn epithets like the Greek slangεὑρὑπρωκτος, or the Italianculo rotto.

[15]Casper-Liman,op. cit., vol. i. p. 164.

[16]Casper-Liman,op. cit., vol. i. pp. 174-181.

[17]Op. cit., vol. i. pp. 164-166.

[18]Having criticised Tardieu for his use of the phrasepæderast, Casper and Liman can find no better.

[19]Westphal: Die Conträre Sexualempfindung. Archiv für Psychatrie, vol. ii. I.

[20]The Standard of Sanity, Br. Med. Journal, Nov. 28, 1885.

[21]See Tarnowsky about the opinion of the lower classes in St. Petersburg,op. cit., p. 99. "Ueberhaupt verhalten sich die gemeinen ungebildeten Leute, dem Ausspruch aller mir bekannten Päderasten gemäss, äusserat nachsichtig gegen unzüchtige Anträge—'herrschaft-liche Spielerei,' wie sie es nennen." This is true not only of Russia, but of countries where we should least expect to find the compliance in question.

[22]P. 73. The italics are the translator's. The adjectivehomosexual, though ill-compounded of a Greek and a Latin word, is useful, and has been adopted by medical writers on this topic.Unisexualwould perhaps be better.

[23]A note upon this subject has to be written; and it may be introduced here as well as elsewhere. Balzac, inUne dernière incarnation de Vautrin, describes the morals of the Frenchbagnes. Dostoieffsky, inPrison Life in Siberia, touches on the same topic. See his portrait of Sirotkin, p. 52,et seq., p. 120 (edn. J. & R. Maxwell, London). We may compare Carlier,op. cit., pp. 300, 301, for an account of the violence of homosexual passions in French prisons. The initiated are familiar with the facts in English prisons. There is a military prison on the Lido at Venice, where incorrigible lovers of their own sex, amongst other culprits, are confined. A man here said: "All our loves in this place are breech-loaders." Bouchard, in hisConfessions(Paris, Liseux, 1881), describes the convict station at Marseilles in 1630. The men used to be allowed to bring women on board the galleys. At that epoch they "les besognoient avant tout le monde, les couchant sous le banc sur leur 'capot. Mais depuis quelques années en ca, le general a defendu entrée aux femmes. De sorte qu'il ne se pêche plus maintenant là-dedans qu'en sodomie, mollesse, irrumation, et autres pareilles tendresses" (p. 151). The same Frenchman, speaking of the Duc d'Orléans' pages at Paris, says that this was a "cour extrèmemen impie et débauchée, surtout pour les garçons, M. d'Orléans deffendoit à ses pages de se besogner ni branler la pique; leur donnant au reste congé de voir les femmes tant qu'ils voudroient, et quelquefois venant de nuict heurter à la porte de leur chambre, avec cinq ou six garses, qu'il enfermoit avec eux une heure à deux" (p. 88). This prince was of the same mind as Campanella, who, in theCittà del Sole, laid it down that young men ought to be freely admitted to women, for the avoidance of sexual aberrations. Aretino and Berni enable us to comprehend the sexual immorality of males congregated together in the courts of Roman prelates. As regards military service, the facts related by Ulrichs about the French Foreign Legion in Algeria, on the testimony of a credible witness, who had been a pathic in his regiment, deserve attention (Ara Spei, p. 20;Memnon, p. 27). This man, who was a German, told Ulrichs that the Spanish, French, and Italian soldiers were the lovers, the Swiss and German their beloved. See General Brossier, cited above, p. 19. Ulrichs reports that in the Austrian army lectures on homosexual vices are regularly given to cadets and conscripts (Memnon, p. 20).

[24]See above,p. 33, my criticism of Moreau upon this point, with special reference to Greece.

[25]Prometheus, pp. 20-26,et seq.

[26]Without having recourse to Ulrichs, it may be demonstrated from Krafft-Ebing's own cases of genuine Urnings that early onanism is by no means more frequent among them than among normal males. Five marked specimens showed no inclination for self-abuse. The first (p. 128) says: "As I never masturbated and felt no inclination for it, I sometimes had a nocturnal pollution." The second (p. 155): "You will be surprised to hear that before my twenty-eighth year I never had any ejaculation of semen, either by nocturnal emissions, or by masturbation, or by contact with a man." The third (p. 172): "Onanism is a miserable makeshift, and pernicious, whereas homosexual love elevates the moral and strengthens the physical nature." The fourth (p. 163): "I had an internal horror of onanism, although from the very first appearance of puberty I was sensually very excitable and troubled with persistent erections." The fifth (p. 142) is not so clear; but it is obvious from his remarks that the first ejaculation of semen which happened to him did so at the sight of a handsome soldier: "feeling my parts moistened, I was horribly frightened and thought it was a hæmorrhage." Some of the cases do not mention the subject at all. A good many seem to have begun to masturbate early; but the proportion is not excessive to the whole number. One Urning explains thefaute de mieuxsystem (p. 115): "If we have no friend, whose sexual company has become needful to the preservation of our health, and if we abandon ourselves at last to masturbation alone with our imagination, then indeed do we become ill." Another speaks as follows (p. 151): "Homosexual indulgence with a man gave me enjoyment and a consequent feeling of well-being, whereas onanismfaute de mieuxproduced an opposite result."

[27]P. 82. Herodotus called it "the female disease."

[28]P. 86,et seq.

[29]P. 88,et seq.

[30]Henceforward we may use the word Urning without apology; for however the jurists and men of science repudiate Ulrichs' doctrine, they have adopted his designation for a puzzling and still unclassified member of the human race. A Dr. Kaserer, of Vienna, is said to have invented the term Urning.

[31]This is a hit at Westphal, Krafft-Ebing's predecessor, who laid down the doctrine that Urnings are conscious of their own morbidity. Of course, both authorities are equally right. Approach an Urning with terrors of social opinion and law; and he will confess his dreadful apprehensions. Approach him from the point of view of science; and he will declare that, within four closed walls, he has no thought of guilt.

[32]Pp. 97-106.

[33]The physical repugnance of true Urnings for women may be illustrated by passages from three of Krafft-Ebing's cases (pp. 117, 123, 163), which I will translate. (1) "I had observed that a girl was madly in love with me, and longed intensely to yield herself up to me. I gave her an assignation in my house, hoping that I should succeed better with a girl who sought me out of love than I had with public women. After her first fiery caresses, I did indeed feel a little less frigid; but when it came to thinking about copulation, all was over—the same stark frost set in, and my part was played out. I sent her away, deeply excited, with some moral remarks; and I have never tried the like experiments again. On all these occasionsthe specific odour of the female added to my horror." (2) "The proximity of wenches aroused in me qualms and nausea;in particular I could not bear to smell them." (3) "It seems to me absurd to set up the female form as the prototype of human beauty. I regard a woman's person as displeasing, the formation of her hips as ugly and unæsthetic. Dancing is therefore an abomination to me.I loathe the odour which the so-called fair sex exhales when heated by the dance." The disgust inspired in these three Urnings by the smell of the female is highly significant; since we know that the sense of smell acts powerfully upon the sexual appetite of normal individuals. It may be remarked that in all the instances of pronounced Urnings, sexual congress with women seems to have been followed with disgust, nervous exhaustion, and the sense of an unnatural act performed without pleasure. This is true even of those who have brought themselves to marriage.

[34]A sign, by the way, which may be observed in the most masculine of athletes. This is very noticeable in the nude photographs of Sandow.

[35]Englishmen know the type as Mariannes, and had occasion to study their habits in the Boulton and Park trial. For the type in Paris, consult Carlier,op. cit., pp. 323-326, 339-351, 463.

[36]I have used the German version of Lombroso's work, because of the translator's preface and occasional annotations.

[37]See Dufour, "Histoire de la Prostitution," vol. iii. (France, ch. i.) p. 193.

[38]See Dufour, "Histoire de la Prostitution," (France, chs. 6 and 7).

[39]See above,p. 35, for an ingenious definition by Dr. Huggard, which covers both classes as born criminals and moral madmen.

[40]His German translator calls attention to this omission; p. 153 footnote.

[41]Third edition. Halle a. S., 1882.

[42]Psych. Sex., p. 82.

[43]Leipzig, Wigand, 1860.

[44]Arabian Nights, 1885, vol. x., pp. 205-254.

[45]Burton's acquaintance with what he called "le Vice" was principally confined to Oriental nations. He started on his enquiries, imbued with vulgar errors; and he never weighed the psychical theories examined by me in the foregoing section of this Essay. Nevertheless, he was led to surmise a crasis of the two sexes in persons subject to sexual inversion. Thus he came to speak of "the third sex." During conversations I had with him less than three months before his death, he told me that he had begun a general history of "le Vice"; and at my suggestion he studied Ulrichs and Krafft-Ebing. It is to be lamented that life failed before he could apply his virile and candid criticism to those theories, and compare them with the facts and observations he had independently collected.

[46]I give the author's own text, p. 206.

[47]P. 208.

[48]P. 251.

[49]P. 222.

[50]Pp. 204, 209.

[51]Gli amori degli Uomini, Milano, 1886, vol. i. cap. 5.

[52]Ibid., p. 149.

[53]Pp. 148-154.

[54]P. 154.

[55]See above,p. 55, note.

[56]The notion that human beings were originally hermaphrodite is both ancient and wide-spread. We find it in the Book of Genesis, unless, indeed, there be a confusion here between two separate theories of creation. God is said to have first made man in his own image, male and female in one body, and to have bidden them multiply. Later on he created the woman out of part of the primitive man. The myth related by Aristophanes in Plato'sSymposiumhas a curious bearing upon Ulrichs' speculations. There were originally human beings of three sexes: men, the children of the sun; women, the children of the earth; and hermaphrodites, the children of the moon. They were round, with two faces, four hands, four feet and two sets of reproductive organs apiece. In the case of the third sex, one set was male, the other female. Zeus, on account of their strength and insolence, sliced them into halves. Since that time the halves of each sort have always striven to unite with their corresponding halves, and have found some satisfaction in carnal congress—males with males, females with females, and males and females with each other: "They who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. And when they reach manhood, they are lovers of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children, which they do, if at all, only in obedience to the law, but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded; and such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him." (Symp. 191-2, Jowett's translation.) Then follows a glowing description of Greek Love, the whole reminding us very closely of the confessions made by Urnings in modern times, and preserved by medical or forensic writers on sexual inversion.

[57]Memnon, section xix.

[58]See above,p. 36, the suggestion quoted from Dr. Huggard of "a congenital lack of balance between structures themselves healthy." It might be queried whether this "imperfect sexual differentiation," or this "congenital lack of balance between structures themselves healthy," is not the result of an evolutionary process arriving through heredity and casual selection at an abnormal, but not of necessity a morbid, phenomenon in certain individuals.

[59]The first two from Casper-Liman, Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin, vol. i. pp. 166-169. The others from Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis.

[60]Memnon, section lxxiii. p. 54.

[61]Since Ulrichs left off writing, Italy (by the "Nuovo Codice Penale" of 1889) has adopted the principles of the Code Napoleon, and has placed sexual inversion under the same legal limitations as the normal sexual instinct.

[62]Dr. W. Ogle, on the 18th March, 1890, read a paper before the Statistical Society upon "Marriage Rates and Ages." The conclusion he arrived at, with regard to the rapidly-advancing over-population of England, was that, in order to equalise the death-rate with the birth-rate (or in other words, to maintain the population at its present level), we must look forward either to (1) an increase of emigration which would involve social revolution, or (2) to the advance of the average age at which women marry to the point of thirty years, or (3) to an exclusion of 45 per cent. of those who now marry from matrimony at any period of life. In the face of these calculations, after admitting their possible exaggeration, it seems illogical to punish with severe legal penalties those members of the male sex who do not want to marry, and who can satisfy their natural desires in ways which involve no detriment to the State and no violation of the rights of individuals.

[63]Psych. Sex., p. 108. I have condensed the sense of four short paragraphs, to translate which in full would have involved a disagreeable use of medical language.

[64]Psych. Sex., p. 107.

[65]Studies in Literature, p. 119.

[66]In this relation it is curious to note what one of Casper-Liman's correspondents says about the morals of North America (op. cit., vol. i. p. 173). "Half a year after my return I went to North America, to try my fortune. There the unnatural vice in question is more ordinary than it is here; and I was able to indulge my passions with less fear of punishment or persecution. The American's tastes in this matter resemble my own; and I discovered, in the United States, that I was always immediately recognised as a member of the confraternity." The date of this man's visit to America was the year 1871-72. He had just returned from serving as a volunteer in the great Franco-German war of 1870-71.

[67]Not included in the "Complete Poems and Prose." It will be found in "Leaves of Grass," Boston, 1860-1861.

[68]The two last are from "Drum-Taps."

[69]This I cannot find in "Complete Poems and Prose." It is included in the Boston edition, 1860-61, and the Camden edition, 1876.

[70]"Drum-Taps." Complete Poems, p. 247.

[71]Ibid., p, 238.

[72]"Leaves of Grass." Complete Poems, p. 107.

[73]Complete Poems, p. 109. Compare, "I hear it was charged against me,"ibid., p. 107.

[74]Complete Poems, p. 110.

[75]Camden edition, 1876, p. 127. Complete Poems, p. 99. Compare "Democratic Vistas," Complete Prose, p. 247, note.

[76]These prose passages are taken from "Democratic Vistas," cited above, p. 119, note.

[77]While these sheets were going through the press, I communicated Whitman's reply to a judicious friend, whose remarks upon it express my own opinion more clearly and succinctly than I have done above: "I do not feel that this answer throws light on the really interesting question; does the sentiment of 'Calamus' represent, in its own way, the ideal which we should aim at impressing on passionate affections between men, as certainly liable to take other objectionable forms? Is there sufficient affinity between the actual and the ideal for this to be practicable? That is what I have never felt sure about when we have discussed these matters. But I do not feel that my doubts have been resolved in any negative direction by Walt Whitman."

[78]Kelts, Scythians, Dorians, Tartars, Normans.

[79]It ought to be borne in mind that they are by no means invariably complicated with abnormal sexuality, but quite as often with normal sexuality in some extravagant shape, as well as with other kinds of moral aberration.

[80]It may not be superfluous to recapitulate the main points of English legislation on this topic. (1) Sodomy is a felony, defined as the carnal knowledge (per anum) of any man or of any woman by a male person; punishable with penal servitude for life as a maximum, for ten years as a minimum. (2) The attempt to commit sodomy is punishable with ten years' penal servitude as a maximum. (3) The commission, in public or private, by any male person with another male person, of "any act of gross indecency," is punishable with two years' imprisonment and hard labour."

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