LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 692 Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius Homo-Sexual Life William J. Fielding Author of “The Caveman Within Us,” “Sanity In Sex,” “Health and Self-Mastery Through Psychoanalysis and Autosuggestion,” “The Puzzle of Personality,” “Autosuggestion--How It Works,” “Psychoanalysis--The Key to Human Behavior,” “Rejuvenation--Science’s New Fountain of Youth,” “Rational Sex Series,” etc. HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY GIRARD, KANSAS Vol. IX Rational Sex Series William J. Fielding Copyright, 1925 Haldeman-Julius Company PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HOMO-SEXUAL LIFE CHAPTER I. COMPLEXITY OF SEX. It has been stated that a person normally goes through three stages in the course of his sexual development--which are represented by the following dominant characteristics, in the order given: _Autosexuality_, _Homosexuality_, and _Heterosexuality_. Each is normal at a certain stage of life. Circumstances, hereditary or environmental, or a combination of both (there is a vast amount of controversy about this phase of the subject), may halt the course of development at either the first or second stage, so that the final evolution of sexual life may never be realized. This refers to the psychological and emotional aspects of sexual development, rather than the purely physical, as it is the former that sustains the shocks in the difficult process of the individual’s social adjustment. While there is a great deal of theoretical abstraction in such a broad survey of the sexual life, nevertheless, there are enough concrete facts at hand to make the conclusions as accurate and serviceable as any that are to be obtained within the realm of actual clinical practice. The sexual urge is by no means a simple, direct manifestation, but consists of many partial and often conflicting impulses, with ramifications that extend into every channel and byway of life. AUTO-SEXUALITY, as the term implies, means that an individual’s sexual interest is turned upon himself. This condition is normal to infants. It also is more pronounced in primitive and savage tribes, and has its analogy, in more practical form, in the lower order of the animal and vegetable world in those species whose individuals are self-sufficient sexually. These types, which are capable of reproducing their kind without depending for fertilization upon another individual of the same species, are called _hermaphrodites_. This latter term, in its real sense, means combining the sexual organs of the two sexes.