Psychopathia sexualis: With especial reference to contrary sexual instinct

peculiarities of the ancestors and blood-relations has been possible, neuroses, psychoses, degenerative signs, etc., have been found in the families.[109] The depth of congenital contrary feeling is shown by the fact that the lustful dream of the male-loving urning has for its content only male individuals; that of the female-loving woman, only female individuals, with corresponding situations. The observation of Westphal, that the consciousness of one congenitally defective in sexual desires toward the opposite sex is painfully affected by the impulse toward the same sex, is true in only a number of cases. Indeed, in many instances, the consciousness of the abnormality of the condition is wanting. The majority of urnings are happy in their perverse sexual feeling and impulse, and unhappy only in so far as social and legal barriers stand in the way of the satisfaction of their instinct toward their own sex. The study of contrary sexual feeling points directly to anomalies of the cerebral organization of the affected individuals. Gley (_Revue philosoph._, January, 1884) believes that he is able to solve the riddle by the theory that the individuals have a female brain and male sexual glands; and, further, that pathological brain conditions determine the sexual life, while normally the sexual organs determine the sexual functions of the brain. One of my patients offered me an interesting theory in explanation of original contrary sexual instinct. He started with the actual bi-sexuality shown by the fœtus anatomically up to a certain age. While normally the organs which attain complete development exclusively condition and determine the sexual type, and the influence of the opposite organs, which remain rudimentary, is _nil_, it is conceivable that, under the influence of a factor inimical to the normal development of the brain (hereditary taint, etc.), these rudimentary organs likewise exercise an influence which, under certain circumstances, may be even greater than that of the fully developed organs which determine the external sexual type. In a similar manner, Kiernan (_Medical Standard_, 1888) and G. Frank Lydston (_Phila. Med. and Surg. Reporter_, 1888) attempt to explain a part of the cases of congenital sexual paranoia. Magnan, too (_Ann. méd. psychol._, 1885, p. 458), writes, in all earnestness, of the brain of a woman in the body of a man, and _vice versâ_.[110] The attempted explanations of congenital urnings are not less superficial; for instance, that of Ulrichs, who, in his “Memnon,” 1868, speaks of an “anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa (virili corpori innata),” and thus tries to explain the congenital origin and the female character of his abnormal sexual instinct. The idea of the patient, the subject of Case 124, is original. He supposes that when his father begat him he thought to beget a girl, but, instead of a girl, a boy resulted. One of the strangest explanations of congenital contrary sexual feeling is made by Mantegazza (_op. cit._, p. 106, 1886). According to this author, in such individuals there exist anatomical anomalies which, by an error of Nature, consist in a distribution to the rectum of the nerves intended for the genitals; so that only in this situation the lustful sensation is aroused which otherwise results from stimulation of the genitals. But how does this author, in other ways so acute, explain the great majority of cases, where pederasty is abhorred by those affected with contrary sexual feeling? Besides, Nature never makes such leaps. Mantegazza rests his hypothesis upon the statements of an acquaintance, a celebrated writer, who assured him that he was not sure that he took a greater pleasure in coitus than in defecation! Allowing the correctness of his experience, still it would only prove that the man was sexually abnormal, and that his pleasure in coitus was reduced to a minimum. An explanation of congenital contrary sexual feeling may perhaps be found in the fact that it represents a peculiarity bred in descendants, but arising in ancestry. The hereditary factor might be an _acquired_ abnormal inclination for the same sex in the ancestors (_v. infra_), found fixed as a congenital abnormal manifestation in the descendants. Since, according to experience, acquired physical and mental peculiarities, not simply improvements, but essentially defects, are transmitted, this hypothesis becomes tenable. Since individuals affected with contrary sexual feeling not infrequently beget children,—at least, they are not absolutely impotent (women never are),—a transmission to descendants is possible. This supposition is decidedly favored by Case 124, in which the eight-year-old daughter of an individual affected with contrary sexual feeling, practiced mutual masturbation—a sexual act—at an age which permits the presumption of contrary sexual feeling. No less significant is the communication made to me by a young man of twenty-six, who belongs to the third group of contrary sexuality. He knew with certainty that his father, who had died some years before, was also subject to contrary sexuality. An informant assured me, at least, that he knew many other men with whom his father had sustained “relations.” Whether, in the case of the father, it was an acquired or a congenital contrary sexual instinct, and to what group he belonged, could not be ascertained. The foregoing hypothesis seems the more plausible, when it is considered that the first three degrees of congenital contrary sexual instinct correspond exactly with the developmental stages which are discoverable in the development of the acquired anomaly. One, therefore, feels inclined to designate the various degrees of congenital contrary sexual instinct as various degrees of an hereditarily-induced sexual anomaly, acquired from the progenitors or otherwise developed. Here, too, the law of progressive heredity must be taken into consideration. The sexual acts, by means of which male urnings seek and find satisfaction, are multifarious. There are individuals, of fine feeling and strength of will, who sometimes satisfy themselves with platonic love, with the risk, however, of becoming nervous (neurasthenic) and insane, as a result of this enforced abstinence. In other instances, for the same reasons which may lead normal individuals to avoid coitus, onanism, _faut de mieux_, is indulged in. In urnings with nervous systems congenitally irritable, or injured by onanism (irritable weakness of the ejaculation centre), simple embraces or caresses, with or without contact of the genitals, are sufficient to induce ejaculation and consequent satisfaction. In less irritable individuals, the sexual act consists of manustupration by the loved person, or mutual onanism, or imitation of coitus between the thighs. In urnings morally perverse and potent, quoad erectionem, the sexual desire is satisfied by pederasty,—an act, however, which is repugnant to perverted individuals that are not defective morally, much in the same way as it is to normal men. The statement of urnings is remarkable, that the sexual act with persons of the same sex, which is adequate for them, gives them a feeling of great satisfaction and accession of strength, while satisfaction by solitary onanism, or by enforced coitus with a woman, affects them in an unfavorable way, making them miserable and increasing their neurasthenic symptoms. The manner of satisfaction of the female urning is little known. In one of my cases, the girl masturbated, and during the act felt herself to be a man; and her fancy created a beloved female person. In another case, the act consisted of practicing onanism on the person loved, and fondling her genitals. _Amor lesbicus_ is presumably not infrequent here, for which an enlarged clitoris or an artificial priapus may be used. As to the frequency[111] of the occurrence of the anomaly, it is difficult to reach a just conclusion, since those affected with it break from their reserve only very infrequently; and in criminal cases the urning with perversion of sexual instinct is usually classed with the person given to pederasty for simply vicious reasons. According to Casper’s and Tardieu’s, as well as my own, experience, this anomaly is much more frequent than reported cases would lead us to presume. Ulrichs (“Kritische Pfeile,” p. 2, 1880) declares that, on an average, there is one person affected with contrary sexual instinct to every two hundred mature men, or to every eight hundred of the population; and that the percentage among the Magyars and South Slavs is still greater,—statements which may be regarded as untrustworthy. The subject of one of my cases knows personally, at his home (13,000 inhabitants), fourteen urnings. He further declares that he is acquainted with at least eighty in a city of 60,000 inhabitants. It is to be presumed that this man, otherwise worthy of belief, makes no distinction between the congenital and the acquired anomaly.