Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2: Sexual InversionEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2: Sexual Inversion
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
[121] Krafft-Ebing set forth his latest views in a paper read before the
International Medical Congress, at Paris, in 1900 (_Comptes-rendus_,
"Section de Psychiatrie," pp. 421, 462; also in contributions to the
_Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Bd. iii, 1901).
[122] Kiernan, _Detroit Lancet_, 1884, _Alienist and Neurologist_, April,
1891; Lydston, _Philadelphia Medical and Surgical Reporter_, September 7,
1889, and _Addresses and Essays_, 1892.
[123] A summary of the conclusion of this book, of which but few copies
were printed, will be found in Hirschfeld's _Vierteljahrsberichte_,
October, 1911, pp. 78-91.
CHAPTER III.
SEXUAL INVERSION IN MEN.
Relatively Undifferentiated State of the Sexual Impulse in Early Life--The
Freudian View--Homosexuality in Schools--The Question of Acquired
Homosexuality--Latent Inversion--Retarded Inversion--Bisexuality--The
Question of the Invert's Truthfulness--Histories.
When the sexual instinct first appears in early youth, it is much less
specialized than normally it becomes later. Not only is it, at the outset,
less definitely directed to a specific sexual end, but even the sex of its
object is sometimes uncertain.[124] This has always been so well
recognized that those in authority over young men have sometimes forced
women upon them to avoid the risk of possible unnatural offenses.[125]
The institution which presents these phenomena to us in the most marked
and the most important manner is, naturally, the school, in England
especially the Public School. In France, where the same phenomena are
noted, Tarde called attention to these relationships, "most usually
Platonic in the primitive meaning of the word, which indicate a simple
indecision of frontier between friendship and love, still undifferentiated
in the dawn of the awakening heart," and he regretted that no one had
studied them. In England we are very familiar with vague allusions to the
vices of public schools. From time to time we read letters in the
newspapers denouncing public schools as "hot-beds of vice" and one
anonymous writer remarks that "some of our public schools almost provoke
the punishment of the cities of the Plain."[126] But these allegations are
rarely or never submitted to accurate investigation. The physicians and
masters of public schools who are in a position to study the matter
usually possess no psychological training, and appear to view
homosexuality with too much disgust to care to pay any careful attention
to it. What knowledge they possess they keep to themselves, for it is
considered to be in the interests of public schools that these things
should be hushed up. When anything very scandalous occurs one or two lads
are expelled, to their own grave and, perhaps, lifelong injury, and
without benefit to those who remain, whose awakening sexual life rarely
receives intelligent sympathy.
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