The Various Human Sex Types That Nature Produces

( Originally Published 1940 )

JUST as the majority of us feel ourselves sexually attracted to persons of the opposite sex (heterosexuality), so also there are men and women who feel attracted, with equally pure and lofty motives, to members of their own sex (homosexuality).

In this chapter we are not referring to those cases in which persons seek their sexual satisfaction with others of the same sex on purpose as an exceptional experiment, or because there is no member of the opposite sex available. We are now dealing exclusively with those persons in whom this individual peculiarity is deeply rooted in their mentality, either inborn, strictly speaking, or as such a direct consequence of influences to which they have been subjected in their early childhood, that it can hardly be distinguished from an inborn tendency. This preference for one's own sex may indeed be so marked as to be quite exclusive, with a pronounced dislike for the opposite sex. Here it is not a case of "are there such people?", but "such people certainly do exist."

It frequently happens that a hereditary tendency to this preference appears in a highly educated and honoured family; and even when it only occurs in individuals, generally the persons concerned are of a high intellectual order and idealists, such as literary men or very sensitive women. In the hey-day of ancient Greek civilisation it was the higher intellectuals in particular, who sang the praises of this homosexual ideal.

But just as in those days in ancient Greece, even nowadays the direction of the impulse is not always absolutely exclusive, and thus we can understand that even now some high-class, idealistic persons display this psychic peculiarity. For in people of a coarser and more realistic nature, raw materialism in their sexual intercourse-manifests itself in an increasing measure as time goes on, and in this case, as we explained in Chapter 29, the ordinary, heterosexual connection is more indicated. But the more refined natures, in whom the heart speaks, and love is of more spiritual character, are not so eager for this mode of satisfaction.

Ordinary coitus often seems to them to be too coarse, too material, and a passionate embrace from an "affinity," a friend with a "sister soul," whom they feel very fond of, appeals to them as far more ideal. Persons with such lofty ideas are also called "Urnings," "Uranians" (from Uranos = heaven), because they feel just as much as we do that their love has something heavenly about it.

If there were no such powerful organochemical (see chapter 4), physiological (chapter 29) and psychological (see chapter 53) motives, by reason of which each new generation is formed again heterosexually, we should fully expect everybody to be homosexual. For a man would understand sooner than a woman what a man requires; and a woman too, would feel sooner than a man, what a woman feels. And not only all the material obstacles that we mentioned in Chapter 27, but also many of the psychic hindrances which we mentioned in Chapter 57 are non-existent in these cases.

In such a case heterosexual intercourse could only be maintained as an exception for the purpose of increasing the population.

In young children the propensity has not yet sufficiently differentiated, the specific organochemical substances especially, are not formed, and therefore cannot yet exercise their special stimulation. Even if our children were hereditarily or anatomically inclined to be homosexual (see appendices to chapters 3 and 4) we should not readily notice it at this early age. For if a child cherishes a special affection for a person of the other sex, we only think it to be friendship; how much more then would affection for a person of the child's own sex be regarded as purely friendship!

At the age of puberty both homo- and heterosexuals are traditionally and conventionally obliged to conceal and dissimulate their newly-born passions. Only when he has grown up and the heterosexuals are celebrating their engagement, the homosexual must persist in his hypocrisy, for the two paths now separate. And just on account of this secrecy, everyone thinks, ourselves included, that this propensity is extremely uncommon.

We should now expect that this peculiarity, which does no harm to anyone, would not be objected to; for although we do not share this feeling, we should at any rate respect it. But unfortunately, we are not living in a tolerant age; and it is just this intolerance which renders their unfortunate propensity an endless source of misery for these persons.

Formerly, e.g., in the hey-day of Greek civilisation, when people had not departed dogmatically from the simple feelings,(2) this particular disposition was held in the highest esteem amongst the upper classes. Intercourse with women, of whom only a very few (courtesans like Aspasia) had enjoyed the advantages of a higher education, they considered to be a mere gratification of an animal instinct; while friendly intercourse with celebrated men and youths distinguished by their beauty and talents, was thought by the aristocracy to be far more aesthetic and refined.

But times change. Rigid asceticism has spread over Europe from the East. I have often observed in my own practice, that the very men who have seduced many young girls are the first to throw stones at the homosexuals, as if to excuse themselves-they, at least, they say, have been "natural."

Even at the present time the statutes of many countries display the same intolerance. While in Germany up to the present only male homosexuality has been punishable by law, both male and female homosexuality in Austria. In the French penal code homosexual practices in themselves are not prohibited; only all vice in general which takes place either publicly, even if under the eyes of one single person, or with violence, or is practiced on a minor under a certain age. Neither is homosexual intercourse in itself punishable in Holland, unless it takes place between a major and a minor.

This intolerance not only affects individuals who may be on occasion accused and condemned, but the disgrace is attached to all homosexual persons, because they are thus forced to concealment and hypocrisy. The consciousness of how severely they would be judged by public opinion if the matter were only known, demoralises them extremely. And all that only because they have not the same inclinations as other people.

Edward Carpenter affords us a deeper insight into the significance of homosexuality in his essay on Homogenic Love. In our modern social organisation, says he, we cherish our tenderest feelings of sympathy almost exclusively for the opposite sex; we are too jealous and fearful of competition, with persons, of our own sex. If we would only take a lesson from the homosexuals, and feel sympathetically towards those of our own sex, how greatly would our sense of solidarity be increased.

We often express pity for homosexual persons, if they were hampered in their choice of intimate attachments; but we totally forget that we heterosexuals are equally hampered. It is just as if right-handed people should pity the left-handed ones; but those people who are as clever with their left hand as with the right, i.e., who are ambidextrous, may claim to occupy a higher place.

Who knows if the time will not also come one day, when the highest class of people will be am bisexual, feeling affection for both sexes alike, according to the agreement and harmony of their characters, and not always considering the difference of sex as the cardinal point. When they will not be in love with the sex, but will feel attracted by personal human sympathy. Only then such highly gifted people would have the right to despise us ordinary heterosexual mortals as they would the homosexuals, on account of our limitations.

From a scientific standpoint the homosexual question is of great importance to us all. It is only through it that we can obtain a correct insight into the position that we ourselves occupy in the sexual world.

As we have seen in Part IV, one of the most primitive stages in the great scale of the evolution of the species is hermaphrodism, or bisexuality. We have also seen at the end of Chapter 3 that individually there was a stage in the beginning of our own embryonic formation when we were all to some extent bisexual. Our sexual organs have only differentiated later on in our foetal development in the uterus, so that finally, at the age of puberty, each person has become a separate individuality in one or the other of two sexes.

Still this differentiation is not absolute. For instance, every woman has a clitoris as though she were a man, and every man nipples on the breasts, as if he were a woman. And internally as well, some rudiments of the excretory system of the opposite sex persist in each of us. Indeed, in some exceptional cases (see chapters 3 and 4) testicular and ovarian tissues have been found mingled in the same individual.

So there exists a mingling of both sexes in us; just as everyone of us has originated from a mingling of the two sexes. The purely male type, and the exclusively female type, are only the two extreme ideals of an endless succession of intermediate stages.

From this point of view, the homosexuals are a most instructive and typical example of such a mixed form. They have the reproductive organs of one sex, and the sexual inclinations of the other; and at the same time they display in their choice of clothing the way they do their hair, and in their general behaviour, an intermediate type between the two sexes. So they should be regarded as one of the most important transition phenomena between the two extreme sex types which we are accustomed to consider normal. Indeed, in the ranks of the homosexuals, amongst both those men and women who are homosexually inclined, this same scale of degrees may be observed of masculine and feminine personality.

But now, when we study this freak of Nature, we begin to grasp that, as has long been observed in the mental sphere, almost every person possesses a double psychic nature. A child has in its early years, absolutely no preference for persons of its own or the opposite sex, nor has it any expressed characteristics of the male or female sex. These things only gradually differentiate. And then this differentiation is never quite complete, for we still remain human. In the personal character of every man we find traces of something that we should term rather feminine, and in every woman traces of the masculine.

But in most cases it must remain a matter of conjecture, whether it is one of innate mixed sexuality dependent on an anatomical cause (chapter 4), or of an adaptation to some particular environment or training (see chapter 37).