Bi-sexual love; the homosexual neurosisStekel, Wilhelm
Science
Bi-sexual love; the homosexual neurosis
Stekel, Wilhelm
Homosexuality; Neuroses
[5] Cf., on the other hand, the views of _Bloch_: “That the contrary
sexual instinct-feeling in itself is not a sign of psychic degeneration
and need not be looked upon at all as morbid, is shown among others,
by the fact that the condition is often associated with spiritual
superiority. As proof we find, among all nations, men of proven
homosexuality, who are the pride of their respective people as writers,
poets, artists, military strategists, or statesmen. Further proof that
the contrary sexual feeling is no disease and does not necessarily
lead to immoral tendencies may be seen in all the noble qualities of
heart which it is capable of generating, precisely as the heterosexual
attraction, such as courage, self-sacrifice, altruism, artistic
feeling, creative energy, etc., just as it may be responsible also for
any of the morbidities and failings of heterosexual love (jealousy,
suicide, murder, unhappy love with its deleterious effects on mind and
body, etc.)”
[6] It was clearly the duty of the new editor of _Krafft-Ebing’s_
popular work to have recorded therein the author’s latest views.
In his “_Neuen Studien auf dem Gebiete der Homosexualitaet_,” he
states: “In contrast with the conception that contrary sexuality is
an inborn anomaly, a disorder in the evolution of the sexual function
of monosexuals and of the glandular development of the sex glands,
_the conception of ‘morbidity’ is untenable_. We may rather speak in
this connection of a malformation and compare the anomaly with bodily
malformations,—for instance, with the anatomic deviations from the
average type. But the concept of a simultaneous psychopathic state
remains a legitimate assumption, because subjects presenting anatomic
as well as functional deviations from type (_stigmata degenerationis_),
_may preserve good physical health for a time, and may even show points
of superiority_.
“At the same time so tremendous a deviation as contrary sexual feeling
must have a far wider influence upon the psyche than many of the
anatomic or functional stigmata of degeneration. That is the reason
why any disturbance in the usual development of a normal sexual life
reflects so commonly in an unfavorable sense upon the harmonious
psychic development of personality. _Victims of contrary sexual feeling
often show neuropathic and psychopathic predispositions_, such as, for
instance, a tendency to constitutional neurasthenias and hysteria,
milder forms of periodic psychosis, inhibitions against the unfoldment
of psychic energies (intelligence, moral sense), including moral
inferiority, especially associated with hyper-sexuality, eventually
leading to most serious disorders of the sexual instinct. At any
rate, it can be shown that, relatively speaking, heterosexuals prove
greater cynics about sexual matters than the homosexuals. Also that
other degenerative signs upon the field of sexuality, such as sadism,
masochism, fetichism, etc., are much more commonly found among the
former....”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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