A Problem in Modern Ethics: Being an Inquiry into the Phenomenon of Sexual Inversion, Addressed Especially to Medical Psychologists and JuristsSymonds, John Addington
Philosophy
A Problem in Modern Ethics: Being an Inquiry into the Phenomenon of Sexual Inversion, Addressed Especially to Medical Psychologists and Jurists
Symonds, John Addington
Homosexuality
In modern France, since the promulgation of the Code Napoleon, sexual
inversion has been tolerated under the same restrictions as normal
sexuality. That is to say, violence and outrages to public decency are
punished, and minors are protected, but adults are allowed to dispose as
they like of their own persons. The experience of nearly a century shows
that in France, where sexual inversion is not criminal _per se_, there
has been no extension of it through society. Competent observers, like
agents of police, declare that London, in spite of our penal
legislation, is no less notorious for abnormal vice than Paris.
X.
Italy, by the Penal Code of 1889, adopted the principles of the Code
Napoleon on this point. It would be interesting to know what led to this
alteration of the Italian law. But it cannot be supposed that the
results of the Code Napoleon in France were not fully considered.
XI.
The severity of the English statutes render them almost incapable of
being put in force. In consequence of this the law is not unfrequently
evaded, and crimes are winked at.
XII.
At the same time our laws encourage blackmailing upon false accusation;
and the presumed evasion of their execution places from time to time a
vile weapon in the hands of unscrupulous politicians, to attack the
Government in office. Examples: the Dublin Castle Scandals of 1884, the
Cleveland Street Scandals of 1889.
XIII.
Those who hold that our penal laws are required by the interests of
society must turn their attention to the higher education. This still
rests on the study of the Greek and Latin classics, a literature
impregnated with pæderastia. It is carried on at public schools, where
young men are kept apart from females, and where homosexual vices are
frequent. The best minds of our youth are therefore exposed to the
influences of a pæderastic literature at the same time that they acquire
the knowledge and experience of unnatural practices. Nor is any trouble
taken to correct these adverse influences by physiological instruction
in the laws of sex.
XIV.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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