Studies in the Psychology of s.e.x.
by Havelock Ellis.
VOLUME II
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
It has been remarked by Professor Wilhelm Ostwald that the problem of h.o.m.os.e.xuality is a problem left over to us by the Middle Ages, which for five hundred years dealt with inverts as it dealt with heretics and witches. To regard the matter thus is to emphasize its social and humanitarian interest rather than its biological and psychological significance. It is no doubt this human interest of the question of inversion, rather than its scientific importance, great as the latter is, which is mainly responsible for the remarkable activity with which the study of h.o.m.os.e.xuality has been carried on during recent years.
The result has been that, during the fourteen years that have pa.s.sed since the last edition of this Study was issued, so vast an amount of work has been carried on in this field that the preparation of a new edition of the book has been a long and serious task. Nearly every page has been rewritten or enlarged and the Index of Authors consulted has more than doubled in length. The original portions of the book have been still more changed; sixteen new Histories have been added, selected from others in my possession as being varied, typical, and full.
These extensive additions to the volume have rendered necessary various omissions. Many of the shorter and less instructive Histories contained in earlier editions have been omitted, as well as three Appendices which no longer seem of sufficient interest to retain. In order to avoid undue increase in the size of this volume, already much larger than in the previous editions, a new Study of Eonism, or s.e.xo-esthetic inversion, will be inserted in vol. v, where it will perhaps be at least as much in place as here.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
It was not my intention to publish a study of an abnormal manifestation of the s.e.xual instinct before discussing its normal manifestations. It has happened, however, that this part of my work is ready first, and, since I thus gain a longer period to develop the central part of my subject, I do not regret the change of plan.
I had not at first proposed to devote a whole volume to s.e.xual inversion. It may even be that I was inclined to slur it over as an unpleasant subject, and one that it was not wise to enlarge on. But I found in time that several persons for whom I felt respect and admiration were the congenital subjects of this abnormality. At the same time I realized that in England, more than in any other country, the law and public opinion combine to place a heavy penal burden and a severe social stigma on the manifestations of an instinct which to those persons who possess it frequently appears natural and normal. It was clear, therefore, that the matter was in special need of elucidation and discussion.
There can be no doubt that a peculiar amount of ignorance exists regarding the subject of s.e.xual inversion. I know medical men of many years" general experience who have never, to their knowledge, come across a single case. We may remember, indeed, that some fifteen years ago the total number of cases recorded in scientific literature scarcely equaled those of British race which I have obtained, and that before my first cases were published not a single British case, unconnected with the asylum or the prison, had ever been recorded. Probably not a very large number of people are even aware that the turning in of the s.e.xual instinct toward persons of the same s.e.x can ever be regarded as inborn, so far as any s.e.xual instinct is inborn. And very few, indeed, would not be surprised if it were possible to publish a list of the names of s.e.xually inverted men and women who at the present time are honorably known in church, state, society, art, or letters. It could not be positively affirmed of all such persons that they were born inverted, but in most the inverted tendency seems to be instinctive, and appears at a somewhat early age. In any case, however, it must be realized that in this volume we are not dealing with subjects belonging to the lunatic asylum, or the prison. We are concerned with individuals who live in freedom, some of them suffering intensely from their abnormal organization, but otherwise ordinary members of society. In a few cases we are concerned with individuals whose moral or artistic ideals have widely influenced their fellows, who know nothing of the peculiar organization which has largely molded those ideals.
I am indebted to several friends for notes, observations, and correspondence on this subject, more especially to one, referred to as "Z.," and to another as "Q.," who have obtained a considerable number of reliable histories for me, and have also supplied many valuable notes; to "Josiah Flynt" (whose articles on tramps in Atlantic Monthly and Harper"s Magazine have attracted wide attention) for an appendix on h.o.m.os.e.xuality among tramps; to Drs. Kiernan, Lydston, and Talbot for a.s.sistance at various points noted in the text; and to Dr. K., an American woman physician, who kindly a.s.sisted me in obtaining cases, and has also supplied an appendix. Other obligations are mentioned in the text.
All those portions of the book which are of medical or medico-legal interest, including most of the cases, have appeared during the last three years in the Alienist and Neurologist, the Journal of Mental Science, the Centralblatt fur Nervenheilkunde, the Medico-legal Journal, and the Archivo delle Psicopatie Sessuale. The cases, as they appear in the present volume, have been slightly condensed, but nothing of genuine psychological interest has been omitted. Owing to some delay in the publication of the English edition of the work, a German translation by my friend, Dr. Hans Kurella, editor of the Centralblatt fur Nervenheilkunde, has already appeared (1896) in the Bibliothek fur Sozialwissenschaft. The German edition contains some matter which has finally been rejected from the English edition as of minor importance; on the other hand, much has been added to the English edition, and the whole carefully revised.
I have only to add that if it may seem that I have unduly ignored the cases and arguments brought forward by other writers, it is by no means because I wish to depreciate the valuable work done by my predecessors in this field. It is solely because I have not desired to popularize the results previously reached, but simply to bring forward my own results. If I had not been able to present new facts in what is perhaps a new light, I should not feel justified in approaching the subject of s.e.xual inversion at all.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
s.e.xUAL INVERSION.
CHAPTER I.-INTRODUCTION.
h.o.m.os.e.xuality Among Animals-Among the Lower Human Races-The Albanians-The Greeks-The Eskimos-The Tribes of the Northwest United States-h.o.m.os.e.xuality Among Soldiers in Europe-Indifference Frequently Manifested by European Lower Cla.s.ses-s.e.xual Inversion at Rome-h.o.m.os.e.xuality in Prisons-Among Men of Exceptional Intellect and Moral Leaders-Muret-Michelangelo-Winkelmann-h.o.m.os.e.xuality in English History-Walt Whitman-Verlaine-Burton"s Climatic Theory of h.o.m.os.e.xuality-The Racial Factor-The Prevalence of h.o.m.os.e.xuality Today.
s.e.xual inversion, as here understood, means s.e.xual instinct turned by inborn const.i.tutional abnormality toward persons of the same s.e.x. It is thus a narrower term than h.o.m.os.e.xuality, which includes all s.e.xual attractions between persons of the same s.e.x, even when seemingly due to the accidental absence of the natural objects of s.e.xual attraction, a phenomenon of wide occurrence among all human races and among most of the higher animals. It is only during recent years that s.e.xual inversion has been recognized; previously it was not distinguished from h.o.m.os.e.xuality in general, and h.o.m.os.e.xuality was regarded as a national custom, as an individual vice, or as an unimportant episode in grave forms of insanity.[1] We have further to distinguish s.e.xual inversion and all other forms of h.o.m.os.e.xuality from another kind of inversion which usually remains, so far as the s.e.xual impulse itself is concerned, heteros.e.xual, that is to say, normal. Inversion of this kind leads a person to feel like a person of the opposite s.e.x, and to adopt, so far as possible, the tastes, habits, and dress of the opposite s.e.x, while the direction of the s.e.xual impulse remains normal. This condition I term s.e.xo-esthetic inversion, or Eonism.
The nomenclature of the highly important form of s.e.xual perversion with which we are here concerned is extremely varied, and most investigators have been much puzzled in coming to a conclusion as to the best, most exact, and at the same time most colorless names to apply to it.
The first in the field in modern times was Ulrichs who, as early as 1862, used the appellation "Uranian" (Uranier), based on the well-known myth in Plato"s Banquet. Later he Germanized this term into "Urning" for the male, and "Urningin" for the female, and referred to the condition itself as "Urningtum." He also invented a number of other related terms on the same basis; some of these terms have had a considerable vogue, but they are too fanciful and high-strung to secure general acceptance. If used in other languages than German they certainly should not be used in their Germanized shape, and it is scarcely legitimate to use the term "Urning" in English. "Uranian" is more correct.
In Germany the first term accepted by recognized scientific authorities was "contrary s.e.xual feeling" (Kontrare s.e.xualempfindung). It was devised by Westphal in 1869, and used by Krafft-Ebing and Moll. Though thus accepted by the earliest authorities in this field, and to be regarded as a fairly harmless and vaguely descriptive term, it is somewhat awkward, and is now little used in Germany; it was never currently used outside Germany. It has been largely superseded by the term "h.o.m.os.e.xuality." This also was devised (by a little-known Hungarian doctor, Benkert, who used the pseudonym Kertbeny) in the same year (1869), but at first attracted no attention. It has, philologically, the awkward disadvantage of being a b.a.s.t.a.r.d term compounded of Greek and Latin elements, but its significance-s.e.xual attraction to the same s.e.x-is fairly clear and definite, while it is free from any question-begging a.s.sociation of either favorable or unfavorable character. (Edward Carpenter has proposed to remedy its b.a.s.t.a.r.dly linguistic character by transforming it into "h.o.m.ogenic;" this, however, might mean not only "toward the same s.e.x," but "of the same kind," and in German already possesses actually that meaning.) The term "h.o.m.os.e.xual" has the further advantage that on account of its cla.s.sical origin it is easily translatable into many languages. It is now the most widespread general term for the phenomena we are dealing with, and it has been used by Hirschfeld, now the chief authority in this field, as the t.i.tle of his encyclopedic work, Die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat.
"s.e.xual Inversion" (in French "inversion s.e.xuelle," and in Italian "inversione sessuale") is the term which has from the first been chiefly used in France and Italy, ever since Charcot and Magnan, in 1882, published their cases of this anomaly in the Archives de Neurologie. It had already been employed in Italy by Tama.s.sia in the Revista Sperimentale di Freniatria, in 1878. I have not discovered when and where the term "s.e.xual inversion" was first used. Possibly it first appeared in English, for long before the paper of Charcot and Magnan I have noticed, in an anonymous review of Westphal"s first paper in the Journal of Mental Science (then edited by Dr. Maudsley) for October, 1871, that "Contrare s.e.xualempfindung" is translated as "inverted s.e.xual proclivity." So far as I am aware, "s.e.xual inversion" was first used in English, as the best term, by J. A. Symonds in 1883, in his privately printed essay, A Problem in Greek Ethics. Later, in 1897, the same term was adopted, I believe for the first time publicly in English, in the present work.
It is unnecessary to refer to the numerous other names which have been proposed. (A discussion of the nomenclature will be found in the first chapter of Hirschfeld"s work, Die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat, and of some special terms in an article by Schouten, s.e.xual-Probleme, December, 1912.) It may suffice to mention the ancient theological and legal term "sodomy" (sodomia) because it is still the most popular term for this perversion, though, it must be remembered, it has become attached to the physical act of intercourse per anum, even when carried out heteros.e.xually, and has little reference to psychic s.e.xual proclivity. This term has its origin in the story (narrated in Genesis, ch. xix) of Lot"s visitors whom the men of Sodom desired to have intercourse with, and of the subsequent destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This story furnishes a sufficiently good ground for the use of the term, though the Jews do not regard sodomy as the sin of Sodom, but rather inhospitality and hardness of heart to the poor (J. Preuss, Biblisch-Talmudische Medizin, pp. 579-81), and Christian theologians also, both Catholic and Protestant (see, e.g., Jahrbuch fur s.e.xuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. iv, p. 199, and Hirschfeld, h.o.m.os.e.xualitat, p. 742), have argued that it was not h.o.m.os.e.xuality, but their other offenses, which provoked the destruction of the Cities of the Plain. In Germany "sodomy" has long been used to denote b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, or s.e.xual intercourse with animals, but this use of the term is quite unjustified. In English there is another term, "b.u.g.g.e.ry," identical in meaning with sodomy, and equally familiar. "b.u.g.g.e.r" (in French, bougre) is a corruption of "Bulgar," the ancient Bulgarian heretics having been popularly supposed to practise this perversion. The people of every country have always been eager to a.s.sociate s.e.xual perversions with some other country than their own.
The terms usually adopted in the present volume are "s.e.xual inversion" and "h.o.m.os.e.xuality." The first is used more especially to indicate that the s.e.xual impulse is organically and innately turned toward individuals of the same s.e.x. The second is used more comprehensively of the general phenomena of s.e.xual attraction between persons of the same s.e.x, even if only of a slight and temporary character. It may be admitted that there is no precise warrant for any distinction of this kind between the two terms. The distinction in the phenomena is, however, still generally recognized; thus Iwan Bloch applies the term "h.o.m.os.e.xuality" to the congenital form, and "pseudo-h.o.m.os.e.xuality" to its spurious or simulated forms. Those persons who are attracted to both s.e.xes are now usually termed "bis.e.xual," a more convenient term than "psycho-s.e.xual hermaphrodite," which was formerly used. There remains the normal person, who is "heteros.e.xual."
Before approaching the study of s.e.xual inversion in cases which we may investigate with some degree of scientific accuracy, there is interest in glancing briefly at the phenomena as they appear before us, as yet scarcely or at all differentiated, among animals, among various human races, and at various periods.
Among animals in a domesticated or confined state it is easy to find evidence of h.o.m.os.e.xual attraction, due merely to the absence of the other s.e.x.[2] This was known to the ancients; the Egyptians regarded two male partridges as the symbol of h.o.m.os.e.xuality, and Aristotle noted that two female pigeons would cover each other if no male was at hand. Buffon observed many examples, especially among birds. He found that, if male or female birds of various species-such as partridges, fowls, and doves-were shut up together, they would soon begin to have s.e.xual relations among themselves, the males sooner and more frequently than the females. More recently Sainte-Claire Deville observed that dogs, rams, and bulls, when isolated, first became restless and dangerous, and then acquired a permanent state of s.e.xual excitement, not obeying the laws of heat, and leading them to attempts to couple together; the presence of the opposite s.e.x at once restored them to normal conditions.[3] Bombarda of Lisbon states that in Portugal it is well known that in every herd of bulls there is nearly always one bull who is ready to lend himself to the perverted whims of his companions.[4] It may easily be observed how a cow in heat exerts an exciting influence on other cows, impelling them to attempt to play the bull"s part. Laca.s.sagne has also noted among young fowls and puppies, etc., that, before ever having had relations with the opposite s.e.x, and while in complete liberty, they make hesitating attempts at intercourse with their own s.e.x.[5] This, indeed, together with similar perversions, may often be observed, especially in puppies, who afterward become perfectly normal. Among white rats, which are very s.e.xual animals, Steinach found that, when deprived of females, the males practise h.o.m.os.e.xuality, though only with males with whom they have long a.s.sociated; the weaker rats play the pa.s.sive part. But when a female is introduced they immediately turn to her; although they are occasionally altogether indifferent to s.e.x, they never actually prefer their own s.e.x.[6]
With regard to the playing of the female part by the weaker rats it is interesting to observe that Fere found among insects that the pa.s.sive part in h.o.m.os.e.xual relations is favored by fatigue; among c.o.c.kchafers it was the male just separated from the female who would take the pa.s.sive part (on the rare occasions when h.o.m.os.e.xual relations occurred) with a fresh male.[7]
h.o.m.os.e.xuality appears to be specially common among birds. It was among birds that it attracted the attention of the ancients, and numerous interesting observations have been made in more recent times. Thus Selous, a careful bird-watcher, finds that the ruff, the male of the Machetes pugnax, suffers from s.e.xual repression owing to the coyness of the female (the reeve), and consequently the males often resort to h.o.m.os.e.xual intercourse. It is still more remarkable that the reeves also, even in the presence of the males, will court each other and have intercourse.[8] We may a.s.sociate this with the high erotic development of birds, the difficulty with which tumescence seems to occur in them, and their long courtships.
Among the higher animals, again, female monkeys, even when grown up (as Moll was informed), behave in a s.e.xual way to each other, though it is difficult to say how far this is merely in play. Dr. Seitz, Director of the Frankfurt Zoological Garden, gave Moll a record of his own careful observations of h.o.m.os.e.xual phenomena among the males and females of various animals confined in the Garden (Antelope cervicapra, Bos Indicus, Capra hircus, Ovis steatopyga).[9] In all such cases we are not concerned with s.e.xual inversion, but merely with the accidental turning of the s.e.xual instinct into an abnormal channel, the instinct being called out by an approximate subst.i.tute, or even by diffused emotional excitement, in the absence of the normal object.
It is probable, however, that cases of true s.e.xual inversion-in which gratification is preferably sought in the same s.e.x-may be found among animals, although observations have rarely been made or recorded. It has been found by Muccioli, an Italian authority on pigeons, that among Belgian carrier-pigeons inverted practices may occur, even in the presence of many of the other s.e.x.[10] This seems to be true inversion, though we are not told whether these birds were also attracted toward the opposite s.e.x. The birds of this family appear to be specially liable to s.e.xual perversion. Thus M. J. Bailly-Maitre, a breeder of great knowledge and a keen observer, wrote to Girard that "they are strange creatures in their manners and customs and are apt to elude the most persistent observer. No animal is more depraved. Mating between males, and still more frequently between females, often occurs at an early age: up to the second year. I have had several pairs of pigeons formed by subjects of the same s.e.x who for many months behaved as if the mating were natural. In some cases this had taken place among young birds of the same nest, who acted like real mates, though both subjects were males. In order to mate them productively we have had to separate them and shut each of them up for some days with a female."[11] In the Berlin Zoological Gardens also, it has been noticed that two birds of the same s.e.x will occasionally become attached to each other and remain so in spite of repeated advances from individuals of opposite s.e.x. This occurred, for instance, in the case of two males of the Egyptian goose who were thus to all appearance paired, and always kept together, vigorously driving away any female that approached. Similarly a male Australian sheldrake was paired to a male of another species.[12]
Among birds generally, inverted s.e.xuality seems to accompany the development of the secondary s.e.xual characters of the opposite s.e.x which is sometimes found. Thus, a poultry-breeder describes a hen (colored Dorking) crowing like a c.o.c.k, only somewhat more harshly, as a c.o.c.kerel crows, and with an enormous comb, larger than is ever seen in the male. This bird used to try to tread her fellow-hens. At the same time she laid early and regularly, and produced "grand chickens."[13] Among ducks, also, it has occasionally been observed that the female a.s.sumes at the same time both male livery and male s.e.xual tendencies. It is probable that such observations will be multiplied in the future, and that s.e.xual inversion in the true sense will be found commoner among animals than at present it appears to be.
Traces of h.o.m.os.e.xual practices, sometimes on a large scale, have been found among all the great divisions of the human race. It would be possible to collect a considerable body of evidence under this head.[14] Unfortunately, however, the travellers and others on whose records we are dependent have been so shy of touching these subjects, and so ignorant of the main points for investigation, that it is very difficult to discover s.e.xual inversion in the proper sense in any lower race. Travellers have spoken vaguely of crimes against nature without defining the precise relationship involved nor inquiring how far any congenital impulse could be distinguished.
Looking at the phenomena generally, so far as they have been recorded among various lower races, we seem bound to recognize that there is a widespread natural instinct impelling men toward h.o.m.os.e.xual relationships, and that this has been sometimes, though very exceptionally, seized upon and developed for advantageous social purposes. On the whole, however, unnatural intercourse (sodomy) has been regarded as an antisocial offense, and punishable sometimes by the most serious penalties that could be invented. This was, for instance, the case in ancient Mexico, in Peru, among the Persians, in China, and among the Hebrews and Mohammedans.
Even in very early history it is possible to find traces of h.o.m.os.e.xuality, with or without an implied disapproval. Its existence in a.s.syria and Babylonia is indicated by the Codex Hamurabi and by inscriptions which do not on the whole refer to it favorably.[15] As regards Egypt we learn from a Fayum papyrus, found by Flinders Petrie, translated by Griffiths, and discussed by Oefele,[16] that more than four thousand years ago h.o.m.os.e.xual practices were so ancient that they were attributed to the G.o.ds Horus and Set. The Egyptians showed great admiration of masculine beauty, and it would seem that they never regarded h.o.m.os.e.xuality as punishable or even reprehensible. It is notable, also, that Egyptian women were sometimes of very virile type, and Hirschfeld considers that intermediate s.e.xual types were specially widespread among the Egyptians.[17]
One might be tempted to expect that h.o.m.os.e.xual practices would be encouraged whenever it was necessary to keep down the population. Aristotle says that it was allowed by law in Crete for this end. And Professor Haddon tells me that at Torres Straits a native advocated sodomy on this ground.[18] There seems, however, on the whole, to be little evidence pointing to this utilization of the practice. The h.o.m.os.e.xual tendency appears to have flourished chiefly among warriors and warlike peoples. During war and the separation from women that war involves, the h.o.m.os.e.xual instinct tends to develop; it flourished, for instance, among the Carthaginians and among the Normans, as well as among the warlike Dorians, Scythians, Tartars, and Celts,[19] and, when there has been an absence of any strong moral feeling against it, the instinct has been cultivated and, idealized as a military virtue, partly because it counteracts the longing for the softening feminine influences of the home and partly because it seems to have an inspiring influence in promoting heroism and heightening esprit de corps. In the lament of David over Jonathan we have a picture of intimate friendship-"pa.s.sing the love of women"-between comrades in arms among a barbarous, warlike race. There is nothing to show that such a relationship was s.e.xual, but among warriors in New Caledonia friendships that were undoubtedly h.o.m.os.e.xual were recognized and regulated; the fraternity of arms, according to Foley,[20] complicated with pederasty, was more sacred than uterine fraternity. We have, moreover, a recent example of the same relationships recognized in a modern European race-the Albanians.
Hahn, in the course of his Albanische Studien (1854, p. 166), says that the young men between 16 and 24 lore boys from about 12 to 17. A Gege marries at the age of 24 or 25, and then he usually, but not always, gives up boy-love. The following pa.s.sage is reported by Hahn as the actual language used to him by an Albanian Gege: "The lover"s feeling for the boy is pure as sunshine. It places the beloved on the same pedestal as a saint. It is the highest and most exalted pa.s.sion of which the human breast is capable. The sight of a beautiful youth awakens astonishment in the lover, and opens the door of his heart to the delight which the contemplation of this loveliness affords. Love takes possession of him so completely that all his thought and feeling goes out in it. If he finds himself in the presence of the beloved, he rests absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, he thinks of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears, he falls into confusion, changes color, turns alternately pale and red. His heart beats faster and impedes his breathing. He has ears and eyes only for the beloved. He shuns touching him with the hand, kisses him only on the forehead, sings his praise in verse, a woman"s never." One of these love-poems of an Albanian Gege runs as follows: "The sun, when it rises in the morning, is like you, boy, when you are near me. When your dark eye turns upon me, it drives my reason from my head."
It should be added that Prof. Weigand, who knew the Albanians well, a.s.sured Bethe (Rheinisches Museum fur Philologie, 1907, p. 475) that the relations described by Hahn are really s.e.xual, although tempered by idealism. A German scholar who travelled in Albania some years ago, also, a.s.sured Nacke (Jahrbuch fur s.e.xuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. ix, 1908, p. 327) that he could fully confirm Hahn"s statements, and that, though it was difficult to speak positively, he doubted whether these relationships were purely ideal. While most prevalent among the Moslems, they are also found among the Christians, and receive the blessing of the priest in church. Jealousy is frequently aroused, the same writer remarks, and even murder may be committed on account of a boy.
It may be mentioned here that among the Tschuktsches, Kamschatdals, and allied peoples (according to a Russian anthropological journal quoted in s.e.xual-Probleme, January, 1913, p. 41) there are h.o.m.os.e.xual marriages among the men, and occasionally among the women, ritually consecrated and openly recognized.
The Albanians, it is possible, belonged to the same stock which produced the Dorian Greeks, and the most important and the most thoroughly known case of socially recognized h.o.m.os.e.xuality is that of Greece during its period of highest military as well as ethical and intellectual vigor. In this case, as in those already mentioned, the h.o.m.os.e.xual tendency was frequently regarded as having beneficial results, which caused it to be condoned, if not, indeed, fostered as a virtue. Plutarch repeated the old Greek statement that the Beotians, the Lacedemonians, and the Cretans were the most warlike stocks because they were the strongest in love; an army composed of loving h.o.m.os.e.xual couples, it was held, would be invincible. It appears that the Dorians introduced paiderastia, as the Greek form of h.o.m.os.e.xuality is termed, into Greece; they were the latest invaders, a vigorous mountain race from the northwest (the region including what is now Albania) who spread over the whole land, the islands, and Asia Minor, becoming the ruling race. h.o.m.os.e.xuality was, of course, known before they came, but they made it honorable. Homer never mentions it, and it was not known as legitimate to the aeolians or the Ionians. Bethe, who has written a valuable study of Dorian paiderastia, states that the Dorians admitted a kind of h.o.m.os.e.xual marriage, and even had a kind of boy-marriage by capture, the scattered vestiges of this practice indicating, Bethe believes, that it was a general custom among the Dorians before the invasion of Greece. Such unions even received a kind of religions consecration. It was, moreover, shameful for a n.o.ble youth in Crete to have no lover; it spoke ill for his character. By paiderastia a man propagated his virtues, as it were, in the youth he loved, implanting them by the act of intercourse.
In its later Greek phases paiderastia was a.s.sociated less with war than with athletics; it was refined and intellectualized by poetry and philosophy. It cannot be doubted that both aeschylus and Sophocles cultivated boy-love, while its idealized presentation in the dialogues of Plato has caused it to be almost identified with his name; thus in the early Charmides we have an attractive account of the youth who gives his name to the dialogue and the emotions he excites are described. But even in the early dialogues Plato only conditionally approved of the s.e.xual side of paiderastia and he condemned it altogether in the final Laws.[21]
The early stages of Greek paiderastia are very interestingly studied by Bethe, "Die Dorische Knabenliebe," Rheinisches Museum fur Philologie, 1907. J. A. Symonds"s essay on the later aspects of paiderastia, especially as reflected in Greek literature, A Problem in Greek Ethics, is contained in the early German edition of the present study, but (though privately printed in 1883 by the author in an edition of twelve copies and since pirated in another private edition) it has not yet been published in English. Paiderastia in Greek poetry has also been studied by Paul Brandt, Jahrbuch fur s.e.xuelle Zwischenstufen, vols. viii and ix (1906 and 1907), and by Otto Knapp (Anthropophyteia, vol. iii, pp. 254-260) who seeks to demonstrate the sensual side of paiderastia. On the other hand, Licht, working on somewhat the same lines as Bethe (Zeitschrift fur s.e.xualwissenschaft, August, 1908), deals with the ethical element in paiderastia, points out its beneficial moral influence, and argues that it was largely on this ground that it was counted sacred. Licht has also published a learned study of paiderastia in Attic comedy (Anthropophyteia, vol. vii, 1910), and remarks that "without paiderastia Greek comedy is unthinkable." Paiderastia in the Greek anthology has been fully explored by P. Stepha.n.u.s (Jahrbuch fur s.e.xuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. ix, 1908, p. 213). Kiefer, who has studied Socrates in relation to h.o.m.os.e.xuality (O. Kiefer, "Socrates und die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat," Jahrbuch fur s.e.xuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. ix, 1908), concludes that he was bis.e.xual but that his s.e.xual impulses had been sublimated. It may be added that many results of recent investigation concerning paiderastia are summarized by Hirschfeld, Die h.o.m.os.e.xualitat, pp. 747-788, and by Edward Carpenter, Intermediate Types Among Primitive Folk, 1914, part ii; see also Bloch, Die Prost.i.tution, vol. i, p. 232 et seq., and Der Ursprung der Syphilis, vol. ii, p. 564.
It would appear that almost the only indications outside Greece of paiderastic h.o.m.os.e.xuality showing a high degree of tenderness and esthetic feeling are to be found in Persian and Arabian literature, after the time of the Abbasids, although this practice was forbidden by the Koran.[22]
In Constantinople, as Nacke was informed by German inverts living in that city, h.o.m.os.e.xuality is widespread, most cultivated Turks being capable of relations with boys as well as with women, though very few are exclusively h.o.m.os.e.xual, so that their att.i.tude would seem to be largely due to custom and tradition. Adult males rarely have h.o.m.os.e.xual relations together; one of the couple is usually a boy of 12 to 18 years, and this condition of things among the refined cla.s.ses is said to resemble ancient Greek paiderastia. But ordinary h.o.m.os.e.xual prost.i.tution is prevalent; it is especially recognized in the baths which abound in Constantinople and are often open all night. The attendants at these baths are youths who scarcely need an invitation to induce them to gratify the client in this respect, the gratification usually consisting in masturbation, mutual or one-sided, as desired. The practice, though little spoken of, is carried on almost openly, and blackmailing is said to be unknown.[23] In the New Turkey, however, it is stated by Adler Bey that h.o.m.os.e.xual prost.i.tution has almost disappeared.[24]
There is abundant evidence to show that h.o.m.os.e.xual practices exist and have long existed in most parts of the world outside Europe, when subserving no obvious social or moral end. How far they are a.s.sociated with congenital inversion is usually very doubtful. In China, for instance, it seems that there are special houses devoted to male prost.i.tution, though less numerous than the houses devoted to females, for h.o.m.os.e.xuality cannot be considered common in China (its prevalence among Chinese abroad being due to the absence of women) and it is chiefly found in the north.[25] When a rich man gives a feast he sends for women to cheer the repast by music and song, and for boys to serve at table and to entertain the guests by their lively conversation. The boys have been carefully brought up for this occupation, receiving an excellent education, and their mental qualities are even more highly valued than their physical attractiveness. The women are less carefully brought up and less esteemed. After the meal the lads usually return home with a considerable fee. What further occurs the Chinese say little about. It seems that real and deep affection is often born of these relations, at first platonic, but in the end becoming physical, not a matter for great concern in the eyes of the Chinese. In the Chinese novels, often of a very literary character, devoted to masculine love, it seems that all the preliminaries and transports of normal love are to be found, while physical union may terminate the scene. In China, however, the law may be brought into action for attempts against nature even with mutual consent; the penalty is one hundred strokes with the bamboo and a month"s imprisonment; if there is violence, the penalty is decapitation; I am not able to say how far the law is a dead letter. According to Matignon, so far as h.o.m.os.e.xuality exists in China, it is carried on with much more decorum and restraint than it is in Europe, and he thinks it may be put down to the credit of the Chinese that, unlike Europeans, they never practice unnatural connection with women. His account of the customs of the Chinese confirms Morache"s earlier account, and he remarks that, though not much spoken of, h.o.m.os.e.xuality is not looked down upon. He gives some interesting details concerning the boy prost.i.tutes. These are sold by their parents (sometimes stolen from them), about the age of 4, and educated, while they are also subjected to a special physical training, which includes ma.s.sage of the gluteal regions to favor development, dilatation of the a.n.u.s, and epilation (which is not, however, practised by Chinese women). At the same time, they are taught music, singing, drawing, and the art of poetry. The waiters at the restaurants always know where these young gentlemen are to be found when they are required to grace a rich man"s feast. They are generally accompanied by a guardian, and usually nothing very serious takes place, for they know their value, and money will not always buy their expensive favors. They are very effeminate, luxuriously dressed and perfumed, and they seldom go on foot. There are, however, lower orders of such prost.i.tutes.[26]
h.o.m.os.e.xuality is easily traceable in India. Dubois referred to houses devoted to male prost.i.tution, with men dressed as women, and imitating the ways of women.[27] Burton in the "Terminal Essay" to his translation of the Arabian Nights, states that when in 1845 Sir Charles Napier conquered and annexed Sind three brothels of eunuchs and boys were found in the small town of Karachi, and Burton was instructed to visit and report on them. Hindus, in general, however, it appears, hold h.o.m.os.e.xuality in abhorrence. In Afghanistan h.o.m.os.e.xuality is more generally accepted, and Burton stated that "each caravan is accompanied by a number of boys and lads almost in woman"s attire, with kohled eyes and rouged cheeks, long tresses and hennaed fingers and toes, riding luxuriously in camel paniers."