Psychopathia sexualis: With especial reference to contrary sexual instinct

In such female-men there is horror feminæ and absolute incapability for sexual intercourse with women. Character and inclinations are feminine. The empirical facts that have been gathered by legal medicine and psychiatry are all included in this classification. Before the court of medical science, it would be necessary to prove that a man belonged to one of the above categories in order to carry the conviction that he was a pederast. In the life and character of Dr. S., one searches in vain for signs which place him in one of the categories of active pederasts which science has established. He is neither one forced to sexual abstinence, nor one made impotent for women by debauchery; neither is he congenitally male-loving, nor alienated from women by masturbation, and attracted to men through continuance of sexual desire; and, finally, he is not sexually perverse as a result of severe mental disease. In fact, the general conditions necessary for the occurrence of pederasty are wanting in him,—moral imbecility or moral depravity, on the one hand, and inordinate sexual desire, on the other. It is likewise impossible to classify the accomplice, G., in any of the empirical categories of passive pederasty; for he possesses neither the peculiarities of the male prostitute nor the clinical marks of effemination; and he has not the anthropological and clinical stigmata of the female-man. He is, in fact, the very opposite of all this. In order to make a pederastic relation between the two plausible medico-scientifically, it would be requisite for Dr. S. to present the antecedents and marks of the active pederasts of I, 2, and G., those of the passive pederasts of II, 1 or 2. The assumption lying at the basis of the verdict is, from a psychological stand-point, legally untenable. With the same right, every man might be considered a pederast. It remains to consider whether the explanations given by Dr. S. and G. of their remarkable friendship are psychologically valid. Psychologically it is not without parallel that so sentimental and eccentric a man as S.—without any sexual excitement whatever—should entertain a transcendental friendship. It suffices to recall the friendship of school-girls, the self-sacrificing friendship of sentimental young persons in general, and the partiality which this sensitive man sometimes showed even for domestic animals,—where no one would think of sodomy. With S.’s mental character, extraordinary friendship for the youth G. may be easily comprehended. The openness of this friendship permits the conclusion that it was innocent, much rather than that it depended upon sensual passion. The defendants succeeded in obtaining a new trial. The new trial took place on March 7, 1890. There was much evidence presented in favor of the accused. The previous moral life of S. was generally acknowledged. The Sister of Charity who cared for G. in S.’s house, never noticed anything suspicious in the intercourse between S. and G. S.’s former friends testified to his morality, his deep friendship, and his habit of kissing them on meeting or leaving them. The anal abnormalities previously found on G. were no longer present. Experts called by the court allowed the possibility that they had been due simply to digital manipulations; their diagnostic value in any case was contested by the experts called by the defense. The court recognized that the imputed crime had not been proved, and exonerated the defendants. LESBIAN LOVE.[146] Where the sexual intercourse is between adults, its legal importance is very slight; it could come into consideration only in Austria. In connection with urningism, this phenomenon is of anthropological and clinical value. The relation is the same, _mutatis mutandis_, as between men. Lesbian love does not seem to approach urningism in frequency. The majority of female urnings do not act in obedience to an innate impulse, but they are developed under conditions analogous to those which produce the urning by cultivation. These “forbidden friendships” flourish especially in penal institutions for females. Kraussold (_op. cit._) reports: “The female prisoners often have such friendships, which, when possible, extend to mutual manustupration. “But temporary manual gratification is not the only purpose of such friendships. They are made to be enduring,—entered into systematically, so to speak,—and intense jealousy and a passion for love are developed which could scarcely be surpassed between persons of opposite sex. When the friend of one prisoner is merely smiled at by another, there are often the most violent scenes of jealousy, and even beatings. “When the violent prisoner has been put in irons, in accordance with the prison-regulations, she says ‘she has had a child by her friend.’” We are indebted to Parent-Duchatelet (“De la prostitution,” 1857, vol. i, p. 159) for interesting communications concerning Lesbian love. According to this experienced author, repugnance for the most disgusting and perverse acts (coitus in axilla, inter mammæ, etc.) which men perform on prostitutes is not infrequently responsible for driving these unfortunate creatures to Lesbian love. From his statements it is seen that it is essentially prostitutes of great sensuality who, unsatisfied with intercourse with impotent or perverse men, and impelled by their disgusting practices, come to indulge in it. Besides these, there are prostitutes who let themselves be known as given to tribadism; persons who have been in prisons for years, and in these hot-beds of Lesbian love, ex abstinentia, acquired this vice. It is interesting to know that prostitutes hate those who practice tribadism,—just as men abhor pederasts; but female prisoners do not regard the vice as indecent. Parent mentions the case of a prostitute who, while intoxicated, tried to force another to Lesbian love. The latter became so enraged that she denounced the indecent woman to the police. Taxil (_op. cit._ p. 166, 170) reports similar instances. Mantegazza (“Anthropol. culturhistorische Studien,” p. 97) also finds that sexual intercourse between women has especially the significance of a vice which arises on the basis of unsatisfied hyperæsthesia sexualis. In many cases of this kind, however, aside from congenital contrary sexual instinct, one gains the impression that, just as in men (_vide supra_), the cultivated vice gradually leads to acquired contrary sexual instinct, with repugnance for sexual intercourse with the opposite sex. At least Parent’s cases were probably of this nature. The correspondence with the lover was quite as sentimental and exaggerated in tone as it is between lovers of the opposite sex; unfaithfulness and separation broke the heart of the one abandoned; jealousy was unbridled, and led to bloody revenge. The following cases of Lesbian love, by Mantegazza, are certainly pathological, and possibly examples of congenital contrary sexual instinct:—