[38] I must also emphasize that the first homosexual activity often takes place in the twenties, if we omit from consideration the mutual gratifications between boys and between girls which—with but very few exceptions—are found to occur during the childhood of all persons. Between small children (4-8 years of age) homosexual activity is very common, then in many cases a period of latency seems to set in. During the period from the 10th to the 15th year nearly every boy passes through homosexual love (either purely platonic or grossly sexual). After the onset of puberty there are numerous variations: persons who later become homosexual continue heterosexual activity, try all sorts of experiments and then withdraw into homosexuality in consequence of some unpleasant heterosexual experience (infection, claim of parenthood, etc.) or on account of impotence. [39] As is well known _Bloch_ has endeavored to show that _Schopenhauer’s_ antifeminism and pessimism are traceable to syphilitic infection acquired during youth. [40] _Beiträge zur Lehre der kontraeren Geschlechtsempfindung._ Zeitschrift f. d. ges. Neurol. u. Pathologie, 1911. [41] _Zur Entstehung sexueller Perversitäten und ihrer Beurteilung vor Gericht._ Archiv f. Psychiatrie, vol. LI, 1913. [42] We shall see later that this attitude is due to the fact that these persons fix their whole heterosexual psychic eroticism upon the immediate members of their family. Heterosexual men in this situation often experience merely physical gratification during intercourse with prostitutes; with the other type of women they are wholly impotent. [43] The following statement of _Hirschfeld’s_ illustrates this point (l.c., p. 315): “An urning, writer,—_unus e multis_—writes me: ‘The homosexual inclination developed in me in spite of the fact that the first sexual aggression was of a heterosexual character—a nursemaid seduced me—in spite of the fact that through training from childhood on I was taught to look at the female sex and my reading of literature showed me that woman was the object of love.’” I add: this tendency developed because the first sexual experience was associated with disgust on his part and because the domineering of woman led him to hate that sex. [44] _Die Darstellung der Neurose in Traums._ Zentralblatt f. Psychoanalyse. vol. III, p. 26. [45] In a novel which is an autobiography and a confession at the same time, the hero relates that during his first visit to the brothel he had to think of his mother. (_Erlebnisse des Zoeglings Taxil._ Wiener Verlag.) This book is interesting also because it describes accurately the homosexual practices in a school of cadets. The fact that young boys are impelled to think of their mother when visiting the brothel for the first time is often the cause of total impotence. Cf. _Weininger_: _Geschlecht u. Charakter_, chapter: _Mutter u. Dirne._ The work has been translated into English.