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Title: The Homosexual Neurosis
Author: Stekel, Wilhelm
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Homosexual Neurosis" ***


          Excerpts from the Professional Press on the work of

                             DR. WM. STEKEL


We have lacked thus far a systematic clinical application of Freudian
analysis. Stekel’s work fills this need.

                                               _Jung_, in MEDIS. KLINIK.

... A standard work; a milestone in the psychiatric and
psychotherapeutic literature.

                 Geh. Sanitätsrat _Dr. Gerstor_, in DIE NEUE GENERATION.

It would be regrettable if the work did not attract fully the attention
of the scientific world; its deep sobriety and the fulness of its
details render it a treasury of information, primarily for the
physician, but, in large measure, of interest also to the educationist,
the minister, the teacher and, not least, to the student of
criminology....

                                     _Horch_, in ARCHIV F. KRIMINALOGIE.

These case histories will be read with great interest by everyone,
including those who are inclined to maintain a sceptical attitude
towards psychoanalysis.

                                    _Eulenburg_, in MEDIZINISCHE KLINIK.

Stekel’s work teaches practitioners a great many things they did not
know before, particularly about the significance of psychology and
sexual science in the practice of medicine.

                _Hitschmann_, in INTERNAT. ZEITSCHRIFT F. PSYCHOANALYSE.

It is Stekel’s extraordinary merit that he compels us to take into
account a pressing mass of data which he brings to light with a
scientific zeal which is unfortunately still rare,—facts and
observations so penetrating, so true to life that these often render
unnecessary any formal statement of the obvious deductions which flow
from them.

                                                    DIE NEUE GENERATION.

The most modern problems are considered, new viewpoints are brought out,
while the excesses in the technique and interpretation of the earlier
stages of psychoanalysis are avoided.

                         _Kermauner_, in WIENER KLINISCHE WOCHENSCHRIFT.

All in all, Stekel’s is a work for which I bespeak the widest interest
not only among physicians, but also among jurists, educationists,
sociologists and ministers. Only an understanding of the mental life of
the individual will yield a proper view of our social life.

                          _Liepmann_, in ZEITSCHRIFT F. SEXUALWISSENSCH.

The work is a treasury for all who have occasion to probe the depths of
human life and should be a source of considerable information and
stimulus to every jurist who takes in earnest his professional duties.

                  Geh. Justizrat _Dr. Horch_, in ARCHIV F. KRIMINALOGIE.

It does not matter from what angle the work of Stekel is approached. Any
consideration of it reveals rich material. Stekel is a writer who
handles his subjects in a lavish manner; lavish, but with that restraint
which bends all to the urgency of his themes. He evidently approaches
his clinical work with the same exuberant interest. There he reaps
through psychoanalysis a rich harvest of results. He has collected these
results and presented them for the dissemination of such knowledge of
the sexual disturbances as he thus obtained. Facts are there in great
number. They cannot be gainsaid. Stekel’s own evaluation of such facts
and his earnest plea for their consideration, both by the medical
profession and by the society of men and women where these facts exist,
can speak only for themselves to the truly conscientious reader. There
is not much in these books that the psychotherapeutist can afford to
pass over.

                                               NEW YORK MEDICAL JOURNAL.



                        THE HOMOSEXUAL NEUROSIS


                                   BY
                           DR. WILLIAM STEKEL
                                (VIENNA)

                      _Authorized translation by_
                       JAMES S. VAN TESLAAR, M.D.

         (For sale only to Members of the Medical Profession.)


                                 BOSTON
                           RICHARD G. BADGER
                            THE GORHAM PRESS



                 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY RICHARD G. BADGER

                          All Rights Reserved


                  Made in the United States of America

                   The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.



                          TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE


The present volume completes my English version of the _Homosexualität_
portion of the author’s _Onanie und Homosexualität_. The first portion
has been issued a few months ago, under the title _Bisexual Love_, and
it is very gratifying that the publication of the present volume was
made possible so soon after the appearance of the first. The translation
of the part dealing with _Autoerotism_ is also completed, and will
appear shortly. One of the most important works of clinical
psychopathology will thus be available, for the English reading
professional ranks, in unabridged form.

These three volumes, though available separately, in some respects form
an instructive continuity. At any rate those interested in any of the
fundamental problems discussed therein will find most helpful an
acquaintance with all three volumes.

Furthermore the student or physician interested in mental problems will
find the implications of the principles set forth herein of the utmost
practical significance, aside from their specific bearing on the
problems of Homosexuality and Autoerotism. These clinical studies stand
forth, in the first place, as lessons in analysis and therapy; but
incidentally they reveal certain fundamental aspects of human nature
more clearly than such a revelation was possible without the aid of the
psychoanalytic method of research. The knowledge thus gained for
therapeutic purposes is also applicable to many other practical problems
of life. One approaching the study of a work like the present, with the
intention of improving one’s therapeutic efficiency and of thus
increasing one’s professional usefulness, is quite likely to discover
before long that his whole outlook, as a professional man, and, above
all, as a social being, has undergone a wholesome transformation.

Indeed, all fundamental knowledge has this quality of spreading,
fan-like, clearing up with its helpful implications more than appears
obvious at the beginning. It is not surprising, therefore, that
Psychoanalysis, at the present stage primarily a therapeutic method, but
reaching into the inner recesses of the human soul more penetratingly
than any other method of inquiry, should also prove the most helpful
method of interpreting all other problems generated by the functions of
the human instincts and emotions.

                                                            VAN TESLAAR.

 September 30, 1922
 Brookline, Mass.



                                CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                                                            PAGE
       I The Relations of the Homosexual to the Other Sex—Fear,
           Disgust, Hate, and Anger—Homosexuality and
           Epilepsy—Sadger’s Researches—Hirschfeld’s Theses—Fear of
           the Sexual Partner—Disgust for Woman—Sadistic
           Attitude—Epilepsy and Homosexuality—Other Reactions
           Indicating Revulsion—My First Early Experiences—Sadger’s
           Investigations                                             11

      II Rôle of the Father and of Other Members of the
           Family—Dislike of Children—Letter of a Homosexual Who
           Fears the “Penetrating Eye” of Women—A Marriage with the
           Father—Jealousy of the Father—A Homosexual Who Hates His
           Mother—A Beloved Boy as the Imago of the
           Sister—Psychology of Love within the Family Circle—Fear
           of the Child—A Girl Who Hates All
           Children—Differentiation from the Mother                   53

     III Homosexuality and Jealousy—Masked Jealousy—A Jealous Wife
           of a Physician—Why Women Abuse Servant
           Girls—Transference of Jealousy to the
           Surroundings—Jealousy of the Father—Jealousy of the
           Residence—Jealousy of the Past—A Young Woman
           Oversensitive to Any Noises                               109

      IV Jealousy and Paranoia—Jealousy as Projection of One’s Own
           Inadequacy—Freud’s Researches on Paranoia—The
           Investigations of Juliusburger—The Jealousy of a
           Paranoiac—Jealousy Delusion of a Merchant—Jealousy and
           Alcoholism—The Evolution of Mankind from Bisexuality to
           Monosexuality—Metamorphosis Sexualis Paranoica—The
           Monotheism of Sexuality—Jealousy and Criminality          155

       V Homosexuality and Sadism—The Analysis of a
           Homosexual—Earliest Memories—First Account of His
           Attitude—Fear of Tuberculosis—His Attitude towards His
           Parents—First Dream—Dreams of Urinals—Anal
           Eroticism—Coprophagia—The Mother as a
           Tyrant—Transvestitism—An Important Dream—Voyeur and
           Exhibitionist—Other Dreams—Poems to the Mother—Maternal
           Body Dreams—Sadistic Phantasies—A Spermatozoan Dream—The
           Dream About Wild Bears—Summarization of the Analytic
           Data in the Case—The Formula of Homosexuality             199

      VI History and Analysis of a Homosexual—Childhood
           Reminiscences—Anal Erotism—Attachment to the
           Mother—Interpretation of Dream Symbolisms—Lore of the
           Father—Regression Theory of Homosexuality                 227

     VII The Neurotic’s Inability to Love—The Narcissism of the
           Homosexual—Progressive Sexual Differentiation with the
           Growth of Culture—The Position of the Homosexual in the
           Struggle between Sexes—The Social Causes of
           Homosexuality—Homosexuality among Greeks—Increase of
           Polar Sexual Tension—Various Therapeutic
           Measures—Hypnosis—Moll’s Association
           therapy—Psychoanalysis—The Path towards Cure and the
           Conditions for Recovery                                   289



                                   I

  THE RELATIONS OF THE HOMOSEXUAL TO THE OTHER SEX—FEAR, DISGUST,
      HATE, AND ANGER—HOMOSEXUALITY AND EPILEPSY—SADGER’S
      RESEARCHES—HIRSCHFELD’S THESES—FEAR OF THE SEXUAL
      PARTNER—DISGUST FOR WOMAN—SADISTIC ATTITUDE—EPILEPSY AND
      HOMOSEXUALITY—OTHER REACTIONS INDICATING REVULSION—MY FIRST
      EARLY EXPERIENCES—SADGER’S INVESTIGATIONS.


_Jedermann trägt ein Bild des Weibes von der Mutter her in sich: davon
wird er bestimmt, die Weiber überhaupt zu verehren oder sie
geringzuschätzen oder gegen sie in allgemeinen gleichgültig zu sein._

                                                           —_Nietzsche._



                                  THE
                          HOMOSEXUAL NEUROSIS



                                   I

_Everyone carries within himself a pattern of womanhood derived from his
mother: that determines whether he should respect or depreciate woman;
or whether his attitude towards woman in general should be one of
indifference._

                                                           —_Nietzsche._


Our investigations thus far have repeatedly shown us that in the case of
homosexuals the heterosexual path is merely blocked, but that it would
be incorrect to hold that the pathway is altogether absent. I have
proven that the individual, as representative of our modern culture,
finds it impossible to maintain his bisexuality; therefore he represses
either his homosexuality or his heterosexuality. We also convinced
ourselves that organic bisexuality has nothing to do with psychic
bisexuality. _Hirschfeld_ expressly emphasizes that he has met with
homosexuality among strongly virile men and among persons typically
female. The organic theory of homosexuality has broken down completely.
One would suppose that the investigators would necessarily turn to the
psychologic concept. No. The psychic forces are still underestimated and
the heterosexual period of homosexuals is still overlooked. Although
_Hirschfeld_ emphasizes that to psychoanalysis belongs the merit of
having pointed out first the heterosexual component, why does he not
draw the natural deductions from this acknowledged fact? He arrives at
the following conclusions:


1. Genuine homosexuality is always an inborn condition.

2. This inborn state is conditioned by a specific homosexual
constitution of the brain.

3. That specific brain structure is brought about through a peculiar
mixed condition of male and female hereditary plasm.

4. That ambisexual state is found frequently associated with pronounced
instability of the nervous system.

5. Between the specific and the nervous constitution there exists an
intimate relationship.

6. All external causes are operative only in the presence of the inner
homosexual constitution.

7. External causes—provocative—are so common that in 99 per cent. of
cases the innate homosexual disposition breaks forth sooner or later and
becomes clearly manifest in consciousness.

8. Homosexuality is neither a morbidity nor a degeneration; it is
neither a taint nor a criminal trait, representing merely an aspect of
natural development, a sexual variant, like many analogous sexual
modifications in the animal and vegetal world. (_Hirschfeld,
Homosexualität_, p. 394.)


Our data do not uphold these contentions. How can _Hirschfeld_ speak of
an innate homosexual constitution when elsewhere in his work he admits
the constant presence of heterosexual instincts? How can he maintain
that homosexuality is a trait reaching back to the very roots of
individuality when every careful investigation proves the contrary?

The following statements show his contradictions on the subject:


“Here too it has been contended that all these deviations from the
sexual type during childhood and puberty do not conclusively lead to the
diagnosis of homosexuality, that the earlier periods of life are
undifferentiated with respect to sex, that boys as well as girls, young
men as well as young women, often become eventually fully heterosexual
in spite of pronounced androgyny and sexual incongruities; even the
transvestites of both sexes show early traits inharmonious with their
respective sex, and certainly many passivists, succubists, or masochists
show themselves already as boys somewhat lacking in ‘mannish’ traits
while female activists, incubists and sadists lack certain womanly
traits already in their girlhood, though all retain the capacity to love
the opposite sex and therefore prove themselves later heterosexual....

“At any rate one thing is certain. If a child is a urning, it grows up a
heterosexual person with the same unconditional certainty with which the
‘normal’ child becomes heterosexual. Thus the special character of the
urning looms forth as something fundamental having its roots in the
depths of personality.” (_Hirschfeld, Homosexualität_, p. 121.)


Naturally, _Hirschfeld_ adopts a safe method of excluding all cases
which do present a history of heterosexuality. He calls such cases
“pseudohomosexuality” thus placing them in a category apart from the
genuine urning. _Bloch_ also calls the heterosexual inclination of
typical homosexuals a sort of “pseudoheterosexuality.”[1] This method of
dealing with the subject admits of no proofs. _Bloch_ suggests the test
that a genuine theory of homosexuality must be capable of embracing all
cases. The _Hirschfeld_ theory of “the third sex” cannot do so. It is
neither founded nor proven either on organic or on psychologic grounds.

But why is it that the homosexual shifts so completely away from the
sexual partner? _A. Adler_ has conceived in these cases the hypothesis
of a “_fear of the sexual partner_.” This observation certainly holds
true in the case of many homosexuals, but is not true of all cases.
Nature does not operate in such simple ways and a single key does not
unlock the riddle of homosexuality.

In accordance with the results of our investigation thus far we may
conclude: the homosexual finds closed for him the path which leads to
the other sex, and the barrier is psychical. Anxiety, disgust and scorn
support the forces of homosexual love. These feelings do not exhaust the
range of inhibitory factors and we shall presently turn our attention to
others. But we must take up the psychogenesis of these inhibitions in a
thorough and systematic manner.

May fear of the sexual partner drive a person into homosexuality? We
must answer this question in the affirmative inasmuch as we are able to
trace that fear in a number of cases.

First, let us take up the case of _Krafft-Ebing_ (Obs. 159) since it is
so simple and obvious:


54. Mrs. X., 26 years of age, married 7 years, confesses herself
attracted for some time to persons of her own sex; she respects and even
feels a certain sympathy for her husband but marital relations with him
she finds repulsive. She has made him abstain from sexual relations with
her since the birth of their youngest child. Already at the boarding
school she felt a keen interest in other young women, which she can only
describe as love attraction. _But occasionally she had also felt herself
attracted to particular men and lately a certain man had put her
resistance to test. She was often afraid she might forget herself with
him and therefore avoided being alone with the man._ But these are
merely passing episodes in contrast with her passionate inclination
towards persons of her own sex. Her true love is expressed in kisses,
caresses and intimate contact with the latter. Failure to gratify that
yearning is painfully uncomfortable and is largely responsible for her
present nervous state. The subject does not assume a particular sexual
rôle in relation to persons of her own sex, and she did no more than
indulge with them in kisses, petting and embracing. The subject
considers herself of a passionate nature. Quite likely that she
masturbates. Her sexual perversion she looks upon as “unnaturally
morbid.” Nothing in the woman’s ordinary conduct or external appearance
betrays such an anomaly. About her childhood she is unable to report
anything of significance. She was quick to learn, had poetic and
æsthetic inclinations, was considered somewhat nervous, loved reading of
novels and sentimental romances, was of a neuropathic constitution, and
extremely sensitive to changes in temperature. It is noteworthy also
that at ten years of age, because she thought that her mother did not
love her, the patient dissolved matches in coffee and _drank the
solution so as to make herself very ill and to draw her mother’s
affection to her_.


Here we see an inclination to heterosexual relations which is not
cultivated on account of fear. This young woman, with a tremendous
homosexual leaning as shown already by her attachment to her mother,
marries a man, in whose embrace she remains frigid, but fears to be
alone with a man who rouses her, because he may prove dangerous to her.
We see that her pronounced bisexuality leads her to fall in love with a
man, to be his sweetheart, in her fancy, but she hesitates to turn her
fancy into a reality, the “fear of sinning” preventing her from carrying
out the step. Then she looks upon the heterosexual inclinations as
passing whims and turns to her homosexual fancies. She is running away
from the male. She fears the man she loves because a strong love implies
submission to the male. She gravitates away from him, not because the
male is unable to yield her gratification but because she fears him. But
we must understand how this flight from the male, which manifests itself
also in her dyspareunia, originated. How little such life histories bear
on this point, without psychoanalysis! In my study of dyspareunia[2] I
describe similar cases and show how aversion towards the male originates
in the first place.

Through _Freud_ we have learned that fear, like disgust, is a repressed
form of _libido_. Though this view is correct, it is not always
adequate. My own researches have shown that every fear represents in the
first place fear of self.

But why should the homosexual entertain any fear of himself during
intercourse with woman? What he fears is his excessive sexuality when it
is commingled with criminal tendencies.

The frequency with which fear of one’s own criminal aggressiveness
stands back of impotence and homosexuality can hardly be overestimated.
_Krafft-Ebing_ describes a typical bisexual who had experienced orgasm
but once in contact with woman. But that happened during the commission
of a delict (_Obs._ 142, p. 273) on his part.

“It is remarkable that he did experience gratification that one time
during the (forced) act. After the act he was overcome with nausea. One
hour after the assault he again had coitus with the same woman and with
her consent but that time he no longer experienced any satisfaction.”
That proves that the orgasm depended on his abuse of force. The fear is
fear of violence, the disgust is disgust of self, both coming into play
so as to protect one against deeds incompatible with one’s ethical
standards.

I know a large number of homosexuals who have actually confessed to me
that they are able to have intercourse with women only while they are in
a strong rage. But then they are in fear of themselves, so dangerous do
they become. One subject confessed to me that he had nearly strangled
his sexual partner. Other homosexuals feel an inexpressible rage just
after coitus. In such cases the heterosexual act is associatively
related to some criminal act. Some unconscious fancies depict and urge
cutting up, strangling or beating the female companion. These men are
extreme woman-haters and hatred is always deadly.

I reproduce here a single relevant observation:


55. Mr. H. K. is a well-known homosexual who prefers particularly males
of low standing. The more powerfully built the men are the greater is
his orgasm. He prefers to choose packers, furniture movers, expressmen
and generally individuals of strong build. His greatest orgasm he
experienced during intimacy with a member of an athletic club, a man who
had a very small penis. He feels such a strong fear of women that he
does not trust himself in a room alone with one. He does not remember
having ever been sensuously stirred by a woman. Several times he tried
intercourse with prostitutes but fled each time as soon as he found
himself alone in the room with the woman. A cold sweat breaks out over
his brow and he runs off precipitately as if pursued by a thousand
demons. A short analysis over a few days revealed that this was a
typical case of a criminal fancy, the subject having indulged for a long
time in the onanistic fancy of strangling a woman. (“All women ought to
be exterminated” ... is a favorite sentiment often expressed by this
man.) In his phantasies he has also committed assaults on men, and the
thought of ripping open the anus of a man has occurred to him already
several times.

His fear of women is the fear he may forget himself and strangle one of
them. But he is also afraid of men, that is, he also fears he may commit
some assault on a man. Therefore he protects himself through choosing
men of powerful physique. They should be stronger than he. Thus he feels
assured that he will not be able to assault them. Lately he has been
seeking a mannish woman who should also be stronger than he. Evidently
he proposes to protect himself also in that case ... against himself.
The homosexuality showed itself to be a flight from his criminal
heterosexual tendencies.


Other homosexuals protect themselves against woman through disgust. How
closely hatred, fear, and disgust stand in this connection may be seen
in the following observation by _Hirschfeld_:


“A certain homosexual related to me that he is able to have intercourse
with a woman but that immediately afterwards he is seized with a
terrible anger against the woman and once after the act he spat at her
in disgust; since that, in order to avoid consequences, he leaves the
room as hastily as possible immediately after the ejaculation.

“How far the aversion may go is shown by the case of the homosexual
_Herzog von Praslin-Choiseul_ who at Paris in 1864 strangled _post
coitum_ his young bride, the daughter of _General Sebastiani_. It may be
mentioned in this connection that by far the greater number of sadistic
women who prevail upon masochistic males of grossest physical and mental
type to carry out acts of violence upon them are in reality homosexual
women with a sexual aversion to men. Professor _Albert Eulenburg_ told
me that all the alleged sadists among females whom he knows have proven
themselves in reality to be homosexuals. I, too, know but three women
among twelve sadists who deny homosexuality.” (_Hirschfeld_, _loc. cit._
p. 96).


First we learn that this homosexual, through fear of himself, runs off
in the nick of time. The act of spitting may be the symbolic substitute
for a more serious act. If additional testimony were needed to support
the relevance of my conception, the case of the _Duke von
Praslin-Choiseul_ stands forth as the clearest proof one could wish.
Plainly _Hirschfeld_, as usual, confuses here cause and effect. The
_Duke did not strangle his bride because he was homosexual,—he had taken
flight in homosexuality, because he felt impelled to commit a “passion
crime” and he tried to protect himself against his own wild instincts_.

Particularly interesting from the criminologic-psychologic standpoint
are the cases of epileptics who during the attack are diverted from
their usual sexual path. The epileptic is a criminal who during the
attack carries out some criminal deed. Ordinarily the deed is carried
out in the phantasy, but here and there the epileptic commits overtly
some deed of uncommon cruelty. During his epileptic attack the patient
gives expression to his criminal trend. The attack is the equivalent of
the crime. Readers interested in this important problem I must refer to
my original study.[3] I have been much surprised that it has received so
little attention on the part of neurologists and criminologists. It is
the fate of psychoanalysts. The current fashion in science has decreed
our ban, our works are overlooked and are neglected even when they are
of fundamental significance, like my contribution on epilepsy.

Epilepsy, with the exception of the Jacksonian type, is a particular
form of hysteria. In the hysterical attack, too, the unconscious forces
break through and the individual carries out various instinctive
promptings while his consciousness is side-tracked. The epileptic attack
represents more the criminal, the hysterical corresponds more to the
sexual urge. Naturally the epileptic attack may also substitute some
sexual crime (_crime passionelle_), and that, frequently, is the theme
of the attack. It is thus obvious that homosexuals who shun crimes of
passion may fall easily a victim to attacks during which the crimes are
carried out vicariously. In our study of sadism we shall analyze in
detail such a case.[4] Here I wish to point out merely the interesting
fact that during the epileptic attack heterosexuals commit homosexual
acts and reversely.


56. Mr. W. H., 39 years of age, a strongly built young man, comes to me
to be treated for epilepsy and every time he is accompanied by an
attendant. Since his 16th year he suffers attacks and several times he
was seized while on the street. For that reason he does not go out alone
and is always accompanied by his attendant, a simple fellow to whom he
seems much attached. He is totally incapacitated from following any
occupation for it turns out that his attacks are more frequent when he
endeavors to work. On account of his attacks he has prevailed upon his
well-to-do father to keep him in the country where he has nothing to do
but to go on walks. He is soft and pliant so long as things go his way.
But if contradicted he flies into great rage. He does not burst out with
anger but tries to control himself and soon afterwards he has an attack
during which he sees red. He reproaches himself a great deal on account
of his failure to achieve something in life and because he is the cause
of so much trouble to his parents. His ethical standard is a very high
one and that is a point of great significance in the differential
diagnosis of genuine epilepsy. He bemoans his misspent life and wants to
be cured. If only there were some way to free him of the trouble!
Regarding his sexual life: he relates that he is decidedly homosexual
and that boys and handsome young men particularly attract him. The
attendant is clearly a protection against his homosexual excitations.
When he meets boys who attract him he clings to his attendant pretending
to fear an oncoming attack. While living in the country at the present
his attacks come on only at night and in bed. He does not recall the
_aura_, except that he sees red, and he remembers no dream starting or
accompanying the attack. He masturbates occasionally; always with the
fancy that he is playing with small boys. I suggest to his parents that
he ought to be psychoanalyzed. In view of the hopeless character of
other current therapy this may be his only chance of recovery. The
father agrees. But as the patient lives some distance from Vienna I
advise the father to remove him to the city for the duration of the
treatment. This he also agrees to do. Next day the mother calls and asks
me to use my influence to prevent the boy from staying in Vienna. That
would bring him back home and she is tremendously afraid of him. Her
husband does not know it, she has kept it from him. During the attacks
the son turns on her and attempts to attack her. Once she succeeded to
repel him only by the exercise of her strength. During the attack he
rolls his eyes fearfully and threatens she must die because she is
responsible for everything. I arrange that the patient should see me
only twice a week after that. But on the third appointment he failed to
appear, because I had stipulated as one of the first conditions of my
treatment that he must go to work. The very next day he reacted with
several attacks. The father found that the treatment proved “too
exciting” for the boy, and I agreed readily to give up the analysis when
the father took entirely the son’s side and disagreed with the
suggestion that the boy must take up some occupation.


This case shows the outbreak of homosexuality during the attacks and an
affective relationship to the mother such as is shown by many
homosexuals, as we shall explain more fully later.

The reverse also happens,—heterosexuals committing homosexual deeds
during the attacks. The repressed components of sexuality always break
through during the attack.

_Tarnowsky_, too, speaks of “_epileptic pederasty_.”[5] The “epileptic
pederasts” are usually of active character. As an example he mentions
the case of a criminal who came under his personal observation. A young
man, wealthy, apparently fully heterosexual, goes to the house of his
beloved after a sumptuous dinner during which he had imbibed a great
amount of wine. The lady of the house not being at home he went to a
room where a 14-year-old boy was asleep, assaulted him and also the
chamber maid who ran to the spot attracted by the boy’s outcries. After
that he fell into a sleep which lasted 12 hours. When he awoke he
recalled nothing of the episode. It was found that he was subject to
epileptic attacks particularly after wine. _Hirschfeld_ observes in this
connection:


“Usually the epileptic neurosis—which, as a matter of fact, I have
noticed but rarely among homosexuals—influences homosexuality in the
sense of removing the inhibitions and increasing the impulsive energy of
the instinctive cravings. I have had under examination a particularly
serious case of this character, a man-servant, subject to epilepsy who
during a fit of rage and anger strangled to death and then hacked to
pieces a boy. In this, as in similar cases, there was a previous history
of a fusion of homosexuality and epilepsy. At any rate it is conceivable
that during the beclouding of consciousness induced by the epileptic
seizure all psychic factors undergo such a complete transformation that
even tendencies ordinarily wholly foreign to consciousness and not even
tolerated in the foreconscious, insofar as the latter may be revealed,
find ready outlet. _Burchard_, too, has observed an epileptic of normal
sexuality who during the seizures committed homosexual assaults on other
patients.” (_Hirschfeld_, _loc. cit._, p. 214.)


What I have said about the influence of alcoholics holds true also of
epileptic attacks. The latter also neutralize the inhibitions and the
bisexual and criminal aspects of human nature come clearly to surface.
It is noteworthy that _Tarnowsky’s_ patient also indulged in alcohol
before the onset of the attack.

The following case shows that the attacks may also be simulated:


57. Mr. Z. T., a bisexual, subject to anxiety attacks, relates that he
suffered a great deal once because his mother devoted herself very
lovingly to a brother during the latter’s illness. He was 22 years of
age at the time and extremely jealous. Once he found himself alone in
the room with his mother. Without knowing what he was doing he threw
himself on her with the intent of assaulting her. The mother shouted and
the sisters and servants came rushing in. He simulated an epileptic fit,
threw himself on the floor and remained for an hour apparently in a
faint. Physicians were called in and they declared the condition
epilepsy. For two days he acted as if he heard nothing of what was said
and knew nothing of what was going on. His deed caused him endless
shame. He was not reproached on account of it and he spent two months in
a comfortable sanatorium.

How closely related are make-believe and illness with every neurotic!
This young man suffered also from fear and disgust of women but that, as
well as his whole anxiety neurosis, disappeared completely under
psychoanalytic treatment. The case stands as one of my most successful
therapeutic accomplishments.

We turn our attention now to a consideration of the disgust with which
homosexuals are inspired by the other sex. I have already repeatedly
stated that the disgust represents a repressed desire, that it stands
for the repulsion of unbearable tendencies. Heterosexuals show a similar
aversion for their own sex,—a feeling which the homosexuals have
repressed. That much the very beginner in psychoanalysis knows; the
observation belongs to the _a b c_ of practical psychology.
Nevertheless, we still find disgust and scorn of woman pointed out as
proofs of homosexuality. Disgust is not a proof of the absence of the
proper _libido_. The true homosexuals would show a complete indifference
towards the opposite sex. Occasionally they do assume such indifference
for their attitude is always affective and negativistic. _Hirschfeld_
contradicts himself repeatedly on this point.

In one place he emphasizes that the genuine homosexual is indifferent
towards woman and shows no disgust:


“On this point also I find myself in agreement with _Numa
Praetorius_,[6] who in one of his essays remarks that most persons ‘show
an inclination towards one sex but only indifference towards the other
sex.’ He is of the opinion that the disgust of heterosexuals’
feeling-attitude of disgust towards homosexual deeds, too, is an
intellectual process induced by the prevailing social attitude and
judgment rather than instinctive and innate. If the dislike were genuine
heterosexuals would hardly get along so easily and so often with
homosexuals nor would the latter carry on so readily masturbatory acts
with the opposite sex, even though the acts be limited to mechanical
excitations.” (_Hirschfeld_, _loc. cit._, p. 218.)


But another passage of the work reveals the opposite view:


“A 26-year-old workingman relates: ‘At 17 years of age an older friend
of mine induced me once to have sexual intercourse with a woman—I was
unaware at the time of my _urning disposition_—and I felt such disgust
that I vomited. Since that time I have a “holy horror” of any contact
with woman, until a few weeks ago when driven to despair I tried to
control myself. It was useless, I could attain neither erection nor
ejaculation and instead, the continuous irritation brought on an
inflammation of the member.’”

“A Bavarian merchant relates: ‘As a result of repeated intercourse with
women I have acquired a serious nervous derangement, a strong sense of
lassitude associated with vomiting and migraine lasting for days. The
odor exhaled by woman causes me greatest distress. I am now unable to
gratify a woman, but on the other hand contact with a soldier makes me
happy, it strengthens and revives me.’” (_Hirschfeld_, _loc. cit._, p.
96.)


In the passage next following he expresses himself even more plainly:


“It is very striking to note that women in executive positions,
directresses, etc., are much more severe with the male employees,
servants, etc., than with the female personnel. There are homosexual
males who avoid any service by women and chiefly for that reason dislike
restaurants employing female waitresses. Also, there are homosexual
women who avoid business relations with men for similar reasons. Without
knowing why, homosexually predisposed girls begin early to feel that
being conducted home by gentlemen is something superfluous as well as
unpleasant. Many _urnings_ and _urlinds_ actually experience a physical
distress when some member of the opposite sex so much as helps them on
with their coat. _I know several homosexual physicians of extreme
sensitiveness whose aversion to the female characters is so strong that
physical examinations of women, particularly of their sexual parts or
breasts, is highly repulsive to them and the aversion may go so far as
to make it impossible for them to undertake such an examination._”
(_Hirschfeld_, _loc. cit._, p. 98.)


Such accounts prove that the attitude of the homosexual towards the
opposite sex is not one of indifference. Where that is claimed it may be
doubted; at any rate it does not correspond with psychoanalytic
experience. Hatred, anger, disgust, physical discomfort serve as
protections against the other sex. That is true of male as well as of
the female homosexuals.

For a short space I shall now limit my observations to male homosexuals.
I shall attempt to make clear how I have arrived at my present
conception. _The homosexual’s scorn of woman, his emotional
revulsion-attitude against the other sex, is precisely what led me to
formulate my new conceptions._ I had the opportunity to analyze a
homosexual. During the very first consultation hours there was revealed
that heterosexual stage through which every homosexual must pass.
Previously it was my custom to refuse to analyze homosexuals because I
had assumed _Hirschfeld’s_ view that _uranism_ is an innate condition.
This particular patient suffered of various anxiety attacks and came to
be treated for his anxiety not for his homosexuality. His anxiety state
showed itself particularly as a fear of woman so that he could not trust
himself to be alone with one. Among his acquaintances there was also a
very sympathetic spinster. They went on walks together for hours but his
fear still dominated him and he could never trust himself with her alone
in a room. They held their conversations either in a public garden or at
a restaurant. Naturally I looked into this anxiety condition and began
to investigate this homosexual who had maintained relations with an
elderly gentleman for years, with reference to his heterosexuality. I
was surprised when he brought forth countless heterosexual reminiscences
from his childhood. During the first few days I heard the usual history
of _urnings_: the liking for girls’ games, womanly behavior, he had
always been more like a girl in everything, etc. But soon the picture
changed and the heterosexual tendency became gradually more evident. His
dependence on the attachment to the mother was striking. One-sided as my
attitude was at the time, I made certain deductions, somewhat hastily,
regarding the roots of homosexuality, and in the first edition of my
_Angstzustände_ (1908), after several similar experiences, I wrote:


“As is shown by my latest investigations these cases are frequently
neuroses. Some time homosexuality improves or may disappear under
psychoanalysis. Homosexuality represents merely the complete revulsion
of infantile incestuous thoughts. Homosexual males never experience any
erotic feeling in contact with a strange woman; they confess that they
can feel towards these women only as towards a sister or the mother.
That discloses to us the roots of homosexuality. The concept ‘woman’ is
unalterably fused with the concepts ‘mother’ and ‘sister.’ The _Abwehr_
of incestuous fancies determines the flight into homosexuality. That
transposition naturally is facilitated through corresponding somatic
changes. The homosexual, too, is a victim of infantile reminiscences.
Thus homosexuality turns out to be but a special form of the neurotic
repression.”


With youthful impetuosity I formulated the results of my investigations
somewhat hastily at the time and expressed the therapeutic results in
too optimistic a tone. In the course of time I learned to know better.
Many patients who considered themselves cured were only improved and
stuck to their _uranism_. We shall have to speak of that with full
particulars.

For the present I must consider more fully the theme “mother and
homosexuality.” The relationship between the two I had originally
conceived according to the Freudian formula. I did not see at the time
the influence of other forces, such as I have already pointed out here.
The earliest dream of my first homosexual, for instance, was about a
murder, the victim being a woman; I did not understand that dream. I did
not know that the fear of woman stood for the fear of criminal
tendencies, that the subject was a sadist who had saved himself through
homosexuality from committing some regrettable deed. These impulses
accompanied the incest phantasies which were unusually strong and of
which he was fully aware long before analysis. The latter were merely
pushed out of consciousness as unbearable. A short time later _Sadger_
published his first analysis of a homosexual and in that contribution he
formulated the thesis that like every other neurosis homosexuality
arises during the fourth year and that the task of analysis, therefore,
must be to reach back to the fourth year.[7]

_Sadger_ emphasized: “From the very first I assumed that the homosexual
tendencies may be acquired only if they are formed during the first four
years, precisely as in the case of hysteria and compulsive neurosis and
that psychoanalysis ought to uncover the fact. What stood beyond
psychoanalysis must be innate and corresponds to the sexual constitution
proper.”

That work, extremely one-sided and full of contradictions, still
attempts to reduce homosexuality to the love of the father. The mother
plays a limited rôle. It is mentioned passingly that the subject of the
analysis had never loved a being so dearly as the mother; but even
before the mother’s death an aunt had attracted to herself the boy’s
love.

But what are the conclusions drawn by _Sadger_ from the case? None
whatever! He is pleased that he has been able to bring to light such
interesting material but knows not what to do with it. Among the various
questions and answers there is a very significant passage suggesting an
important conclusion. Concerning his attachment to the mother the
subject states: “_And my love arose chiefly through compassion, because
father drank a great deal lately and paid attention to other women and
mother often wept and that made me feel badly._”

That is a fact which I have had occasion frequently to corroborate. The
children of drinkers and “woman-chasers” turn easily homosexual, in the
endeavor to be unlike the father. They then hate woman and scorn
everything that the father liked in particular. They become abstinent
and try to behave contrary to the father in every respect.


_Sadger’s_ patient actually points out this tendency. He states: “Father
clearly had no homosexual inclination as he was a great admirer of
women. From the time he began telling me about the school—he was
particularly fond of French women—he also advised me to marry only a
French woman and showed me French pictures and the photos of various
French women. It was thus instilled in me that I ought to marry a French
woman.” And what did the father accomplish thereby? Was it jealousy or
pity and love for the mother? The father accomplished the contrary of
what he set out to do. Instead of obedience he was met with spite. The
subject relates: “Later when I became aware of my homosexual
inclinations, _everything French-like was particularly hateful to me,
especially the French women, I no longer liked the French language or
anything whatever related to French_....”


The subject had a pronounced fear of marriage, having seen a sad example
of it in his own home. He dreams of getting married, a minister is about
to perform the ceremony, and he is so unhappy in the midst of it that
upon awakening his happiness knows no bounds. He fears every great
passion. “I am afraid of a really tremendous love, because such a
passion always makes me unhappy.” The analysis discloses other relations
to the father which are of greatest significance.

The feeling-attitude in question dates in fact from the earliest
childhood. As yet we are ignorant of child nature and we do not fully
appreciate that the fundamental traits of life show themselves very
definitely during early childhood. This boy must have conceived early
the thought: _I must not be like the father!_ and so he turned away from
women because the father was an admirer of that sex. Whether this choice
of attitude was also influenced directly by love for the father I am
unable to assert in that particular case. It seems to play a
contributory rôle and greatly denied love may enhance the child’s
attachment to the mother. _But does not the example of a drinking
“woman-chaser” contrasted to the picture of a quiet suffering mother
seem to be enough to induce the differentiation and to maintain it as
its underlying determining motive?_ Back of the homosexuality of the
first case of the kind analyzed by _Sadger_ stands the subject’s fear of
becoming like his father. The violent fancies disclosed in the course of
the analysis show that there are also other reasons for the subject’s
fear of woman. He is so constituted that he cannot see blood. This
peculiarity denotes the conversion of a craving for violence and
signifies a repressed sadism.

In Russia he once witnessed how a man split his wife’s head open with a
stone.... The occurrence so impressed him that he could never get it out
of his mind, and he also likes to dwell on wars and other bloody scenes.

There can be no doubt the man is a sadist and that with reference to
women in particular. He has full reason to fear woman. His fear is fear
of himself. He must turn to man, towards whom he does not feel the
instinctive sexual hatred which makes heterosexual excitations
impossible for him. When he has intercourse with a woman, he feels
subsequently a tremendous disgust and revulsion, the whole thing seems
to him unnatural. In the end he gives up all such attempts.

Obviously he is all the time seeking a kindly preeminent father for he
falls in love with an elderly philosopher, out of respect for
philosophy, as he paralogizes, because he looks to philosophy to redeem
him from his suffering. The differentiation is an attempt at gaining
freedom, a tendency to overcome the nature of the father. The love of
the philosopher is a substitution for the love of the father.

Thus we see the importance of the early life history of every subject
for the understanding of homosexuality. The constellation of childhood
permits the reading of the horoscope for the future. Perhaps this
uncontrovertible truth contains the root of all astrologic art, “the
planetary laws governing the facts of life.” The father as the sun, the
mother as the milder moon and the children, the stars. Our fate arranges
itself in accordance with the constellation of these planets. Blind
accident and innate forces cooperate to create man as he is.

But let us look further into the investigations of _Sadger_ to whom the
credit must not be denied of having applied himself earnestly to the
attempt of solving the problem of homosexuality.

His next publication appeared also in 1908.[8] Here we find clearly
taken into account the infantile heterosexual attitude which all
homosexuals usually forget but which always precedes genuine
homosexuality.


“The young student, 21 years of age at the time, was sent to me, because
he was tormented by various homosexual inclinations, especially directed
towards young boys 14–20 years of age, associated with all sorts of
masochistic feelings. In contact with woman (a prostitute with whom he
sought intercourse three times till then, the first two times
spontaneously, to see whether he is at all potent, the third time, on
medical advice as well as upon his father’s insistence) he found himself
entirely _impotent_. Questioned whether he ever felt any inclination
towards the opposite sex, he only recalls that when he was two or three
years of age he once opened the garden gate for a girl of about his own
age, with a flourish of extreme gallantry. Concerning any hereditary
factors he can only relate that a brother of his mother’s had some
mental trouble. The mother herself seemed to have something boy-like and
manly about her, on the other hand the father showed very little
sensuousness and rather pronounced inverted traits, while a sister, who
died early, had a _very boy-like facial expression_. She preferred
boyish games and at 4 or 5 years of age she chose a boy’s hobby horse
for her Christmas present. Some female cousins—on mother’s as well as on
father’s side—were clearly amphigenously inverted. The subject himself
had unusually broad hips and the growth of his facial hair was
noticeably scant. As a child he is supposed to have played only with
dolls, never with soldiers, he never took part in boys’ games and he
also learned embroidery.

“Plainly a clear case of inversion with masochistic traits. What was
revealed through the analysis of this particularly intelligent subject?
In the first place, a remarkable peculiarity: _his earliest inclinations
were directed towards women,—not some one in particular, but a number of
them. His first beloved was the mother_ and, of course, after a time he
turned away from her. After that he felt himself tremendously attracted
to an elderly mother of children, proposed marriage to her and that
woman later figured in many of his pubertal coitus dreams. Next he
displayed such an extreme gallantry towards a girl of his own age that
it became very noticeable and his mother spoke to him about it and he
felt very ashamed and uneasy.

“During his childhood a servant maid also had made a deep impression on
his feelings and she reappears in various male types. Among the
homosexual inclinations traceable to the first years I look upon his
attachment to a couple of uncles as the strongest and most significant,
next the love of a 9-year-old boy belonging to the nobility (baron). In
his fourth year the attachment to a boy who taught him masturbation, in
his sixth and seventh years the influence of a private teacher. During
his fourth year, on account of his mother’s condition, following
childbirth, he slept for a time with his father in one bed and this
suggested various homosexual wishes and fancies. When a little sister
came into the world _he promptly fell in love with her_. Even more
striking is the subject’s normal sexual calf-love affairs in his seventh
and eighth years with three or four schoolgirl mates of about his age.
It turned out that each one of these girls contributed some traits to
the types, both male and female, which later were alone capable of
rousing his emotional interest.

“_These facts, of which the subject was entirely unconscious and which
had to be brought to surface after months of diligent analysis, yield an
entirely new picture._ First of all they show us how little even the
most intelligent person knows himself, and, consequently, how careful we
must be in accepting even the most candid statements. Secondly,—that
even pure cases of inversion do not exclude the presence of normal
sexual inclinations, indeed, that the latter may actually be present,
though the subject be unaware of the fact. Thirdly,—and finally,—that
the inversion is traceable as far back as the fourth year although it
may reach consciousness only during puberty.”


Here already I must point out the first contradiction. It is not a fact
that the inversion is traceable back to the fourth year. I have analyzed
a number of cases in which the inversion arose after puberty and much
later. The beginnings of the homosexual disposition reach into childhood
with all persons. This turning away from the other sex may break forth
early in some cases and in others much later. _But it is a fact that
every analysis discloses the heterosexual trait which the homosexuals
forget, or speaking more correctly, repress, because it does not appear
to fit into their system._ Analytically this case of _Sadger’s_ seems to
me to be an instance of fixation upon the sister. The boys are
substitutes for the sister. We will give the histories of several such
cases. He who understands the neurotic’s art of metamorphosing his
ideals, he who has learned through their dreams to appreciate this trick
of substitution, will readily appreciate that a girl may be loved
through falling in love with a boy. It is related of _Platen_ that he
possessed a marvelous phantasy. For a long time a colleague was changed
for him into an owl whom he avoided on the way. In Neapel he kept for
days a cat on his lap pretending it was an enchanted princess. Genuine
fetichism shows to what unbelievable metamorphoses the sexual ideal is
subjected. With the homosexuals to find a boy who stands as symbol for
self or for a sister is a common experience. Like all neurotics they do
not possess the capacity to distinguish between the world of fancy and
that of reality. I have called neurosis _the tyranny of symbolisms_.
This is particularly true of the neurotic who becomes homosexual. All
values are transformed, the object becomes subject and vice versa. In
the midst of this transformation of all facts one thing remains fast and
true: the infantile ideal which is yearned for with the persistence
generated by the eternally ungratified craving.


In his next contribution _Sadger_ reports the results of the analysis of
an invert during a period of six months (_Zur Ætiologie der konträren
Sexualempfindung_, Med. Klinik, 1909, No. 2). The special preference of
his patient for passive pederasty he traces to the frequent use of
enemas during childhood. (In fact it seems to me that the many
unnecessary enemas administered during early childhood may contribute
towards the fixation of the anus as an erogenous zone.) He also traces
out in this case the repressed heterosexuality. “The vacillations of the
_libido_ between male and female are like the facial innervation which,
as is well known, is based on the equilibrium between the muscles
innervated simultaneously by the pair of _facialis_ nerves. Paralysis of
the _facialis_ nerve on one side causes not only weakness of the muscles
on the affected side but induces also contractures of the muscles on the
opposite side.” The patient referred to was attached exclusively to his
father, who, himself somewhat homosexually inclined, won the child’s
heart through his excessive tenderness, in contrast to the rather severe
mother. During his fourth year, on account of the mother’s pregnant
state, he slept with his father, an occurrence to which _Sadger_
attaches great significance. The objects of the boy’s homosexual
attachments bore some resemblance to the beloved sister. He weaned
himself away from his attachment to his mother during his fifteenth
year, when he saw his mother deformed with a tremendous ascites on
account of which she had to be tapped a number of times. Her appearance
at the time filled him with disgust for all women. As over-determination
of this feeling-attitude of aversion he recalls the following: after the
puerperium referred to above his mother had a profuse leucorrheal
discharge which the boy, already sensitive to all scents—he was four
years of age at the time—found very repulsive whenever he approached his
mother. The subject also recalls vividly how his mother repulsed his
aggressive ways with her, between his 3rd and 6th year. (“He always
wanted to grab her by the breasts and tried to go to her room and to the
bathroom as soon as she went in.”)

Much as physicians unacquainted with infantile sexuality may ignore such
aggressions they do take place and some mothers have verified them for
me. On the other hand it is hardly likely that a child four years of age
should be repelled from the mother on account of scent. At that early
age scent is rather a stimulant and is never accompanied by disgust.

I turn now to the last and most comprehensive deductions formulated by
_Sadger_ in his study entitled: _Ein Fall von multipler perversion mit
hysterischen Absenzen_ (‘A case of multiple perversions with hysterical
amnesias’).[9]

This work contains a chapter entitled _“New Contributions to the Theory
of Homosexuality.”_ Here _Sadger_ abandons entirely his former notion
about the significance of the fourth year and states: “_Permanent_
inclination towards one’s own sex usually comes to surface and is
certainly increased during puberty, or during the prepubescent period at
the earliest, in our latitude around the tenth or eleventh year.
Occasionally an earlier onset is recorded and every case of that kind is
due to some special factors.” Permanent homosexuality is established
through some significant incident which leads to the repression of the
mother in her rôle as helper and teacher. Such incidents are death,
sudden financial reverse, and consequent serious neurosis, making
sanatorium treatment necessary, inconsiderate persecution of the boy on
account of masturbation and similar traumata. The love feeling is turned
from the mother to the father, or to older comrades, or to comrades of
about the same age, who stand as substitutes for the mother and initiate
the boy into the facts of love....

The path to homosexuality leads over love of self, through narcissism.
“The state of being in love with one’s own person, which shows itself
also in the admiration of one’s own genitalia (_sic_), is never absent
as a developmental phase.” Every person has two aboriginal sexual
objectives to which he clings throughout life: the mother and self. The
father replaces self only for a short period because as the primary
rival in his relationship to the mother the child early assumes an
antagonistic attitude towards him. The _urning_ hates woman for an
obvious reason: “when the best of women, my own mother, amounts to no
more than that, what can there be to any other woman?”

Here follows a convincing proof that the _urning_ identifies himself
with his mother. The _urning_ always plans to instruct his beloved, for
the mother does it. (Does not the father, rather, do it?) The patient
has instructed a waiter in geology and history of art, subjects which
did not interest the latter. But the mother had done the same....

Most _urnings_ are said to be “only” children. (This statement like many
another of _Sadger’s_, is positively false. Among 500 homosexuals
_Hirschfeld_ found only 67 “only” children and among them only 54 were
sons. My own statistical figures are even smaller. But the percentage
among my neurotics is practically the same.)

_Sadger_ summarizes his findings in five fundamental statements:


“1. The _urning_ is a victim of withdrawal from the mother (the first
caretaker or nurse, respectively) in whom he is himself seriously
disappointed. He represses the mother by identifying himself completely
with her.

2. The path to homosexuality leads through narcissism, that is, love of
self, as one was, or as one may ideally be.

3. The sexual ideal of the invert includes not only traits of former
female and male sexual objectives but also features of one’s own beloved
self.

4. Being brought up in surroundings exclusively feminine—the father does
not count in such circumstances—fosters homosexuality in the male as
well as in the female, for reasons that are not sufficiently clear as
yet. Moreover the _urning_ is usually an only child.

5. Finally inversion may be fostered by a sort of ‘latter-day obedience’
to the mother’s commands. I have observed not rarely that mothers warn
their children against harmless, though warm and friendly contact with
the other sex, as something unpermissible and bad and that the teaching
thus instilled may unfortunately increase the disposition to one’s own
sex through later obedience.”


The first of these conclusions is a false one. The homosexual is not a
victim of withdrawal from the mother, but rather of a fixation on her.
But this subject will be discussed fully later.

One represses no person with whom one identifies one’s self.
_Identification is direct love, differentiation means repression._ Many
homosexuals identify themselves with the mother—of that there can be no
doubt. But that identification already implies the repression of the
father-ideal. _The problem of homosexuality cannot be solved
one-sidedly, and I have the records of a number of cases in which the
mother plays no rôle whatever._

The only psychologic hypothesis we possess—_Sadger’s_—fails to satisfy
on account of its onesidedness. It holds true of certain cases. But it
neglects entirely the great significance of sadism, it overlooks the
fact that the attachment to the father is more important and more deeply
repressed than the love for the mother, it overlooks entirely the
identification with the father and the differentiation from him and it
fails altogether to explain the occurrence of later homosexuality, which
is of particular interest to us (_tardive Homosexualität_). The
awakening of homosexuality is ascribed to a period which varies
according to the different investigators all the way from the fifth to
the twentieth year, and even later. I mention here the ages shown in the
first twenty of my cases taken at random. Homosexuality became manifest
at 12, 10, 12, 15, 16, 22, 13, 11, 14, 8, 14, 12, 17, 17, 17, 13, 21,
15, 17, 24 (Average, 15).

The ages as given are generally high,—only in one subject did the
homosexual attitude become manifest as early as the eighth year. But
that, certainly, is incorrect. For we know that the homosexual leaning
is present already during the earliest period and positively that
children’s feeling-attitude is bisexual during the first few years. The
figures are significant only as showing us that “genuine homosexuality”
is preceded by a lengthy period of latency.



                                   II

  RÔLE OF THE FATHER AND OF OTHER MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY—DISLIKE OF
      CHILDREN—LETTER OF A HOMOSEXUAL WHO FEARS THE “PENETRATING EYE” OF
      WOMEN—A MARRIAGE WITH THE FATHER—JEALOUSY OF THE FATHER—A
      HOMOSEXUAL WHO HATES HIS MOTHER—A BELOVED BOY AS THE IMAGO OF THE
      SISTER—PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE WITHIN THE FAMILY CIRCLE—FEAR OF THE
      CHILD—A GIRL WHO HATES ALL CHILDREN—DIFFERENTIATION FROM THE
      MOTHER.


_Wenn wir nun alles dieses uns vergegenwärtigen und wohl erwägen so
sehen wir die Päderastie zu allen Zeiten und in allen Ländern auf eine
weise auftreten, die gar weit entfernt ist von der, welche wir zuerst,
als wir sie bloss an sich selbst betrachteten, also a priori,
vorausgesetzt hatten. Nämlich die gänzliche Allgemeinheit und
beharrliche Unausrottbarkeit der Sache beweist, dass sie irgendwie aus
der menschlichen Natur selbst herausgeht; da sie nur aus diesem Grunde
jederzeit and überall unausbleiblich auftreten kann als Beleg zu dem
naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurrent._

                                                        —_Schopenhauer._



                                   II

_Considering all that and taking everything carefully into account we
find that pederasty has been manifest at all times and in all countries
in a manner very unlike what we had at first presumed a priori, that is,
by considering abstractly the subject. Precisely its complete
universality and irradicable character everywhere shows that the thing
somehow flows out of human nature itself; only in that way could it
persist at all times and everywhere as an accompaniment to naturam
expelles furca, tamen usque recurrent._

                                                        —_Schopenhauer._


I begin this chapter with the history of a case, a subject with whom I
have never spoken. I know him only through correspondence. Nevertheless
the case seems to me of great significance as it substantiates many of
my previous conclusions. The need of psychologic insight as shown by our
necessarily brief histories of homosexuals becomes more fully obvious as
we become acquainted with a complete analysis of a homosexual.


62. Mr. G. L. writes me:

“I shall attempt to conform with your request and give you a cursive and
true insight into my sexual and mental life. Born and raised the
youngest of ten children, three of whom died early of children’s
diseases, I lived in the country till my 5th year, when I started going
to school and I remember nothing of that period except that I was
tremendously fond of _playing with fire_ and that I kept up till then,
more or less, the habit of bed-wetting, an act which was associated with
the pleasurable feeling that I was sitting on the chamber. I know also
that I envied my sisters a great deal. My unusually strict and religious
parents naturally subjected me to rigorous training and thus I learned
early to distinguish between mine and thine, good and evil, truth and
falsehood. Continually watched over by parents and instructors—a custom
contrary to the modern spirit—I was kept from many of the children’s
games.

“When I did play, it was mostly with boys and I do not recall having
preferred the company of girls. My free time was taken up a great deal
with agricultural pursuits and I was about 8 years of age when the first
sexual episode took place which left an impression on my mind, _having
witnessed that year how some boys of my own age played with the sexual
parts of a dog and, another time, how the same boys played with their
own sexual parts, taking one another’s member in the mouth,—but without
feeling on my part any desire to imitate them. With girls I came but
little into contact as a child, but I remember once having been present
when several boys, 11–12 years of age, abused a girl_ but I took no part
in the deed. At about that period I put on women’s clothes a few times
though today a man in women’s clothes rather disgusts me. Two incidents
concerning me personally are still vivid in my memory, namely, playing
once with my privates, in the presence of other boys, and another time,
warmly embracing the naked body of another boy while playing a ‘mother
and father’ game. Thirteen years thus passed with nothing eventful
taking place, except a fall from a tree as the result of which I hurt
myself rather seriously. It was at that period that my teacher, who
considered me not only a bright boy but a model student as well,
prevailed upon my struggling parents to permit me to continue my
schooling. I was able to secure, in fact, a free scholarship at an
Institute. Shortly after that a schoolmate grew attached to me and he
_taught me to masturbate_. Although I had already erections, there was
no seminal loss, probably on account of deficient development. He and
another schoolmate prevailed on me to masturbate then—but nothing more.
About that time other comrades were in the habit of speaking of some
girl or other, admiring her beauty. _This talk about a ‘pretty girl’
struck me as strange_, so far as I remember. It was during my second
high school year (_gymnasial-klasse_),—I may have been just over my 14th
year, at the time,—when a teacher appeared in class with the trousers
absent-mindedly unbuttoned and when I noticed it my eyes became glued on
his trouser fly as though in a trance, and thus I awoke, for the first
time, to the sad realization of my sexual bend. From that time on I
noticed that I was extraordinarily attracted to this teacher although he
did not like me in school. It was then that my first struggles, the
first wishes in my awakened boyish soul, began to shape themselves.
There were two boys in particular who, among others, charmed me with
their attractiveness. I masturbated a great deal during that period,
without indulging in any particular phantasies,—occasionally in the
company of other boys. But I had the feeling of being sexually attracted
to boys and in my dreams appeared the wish to be their friend. But the
stimuli were not of a character which I found impossible to curb. Next I
felt myself irresistibly attracted to an elderly man. Neither in the
waking state nor in my dreams did I think at all of women during that
time. Around my 18th year I experienced the first stormy upheaval which
nearly unbalanced me. I came into close touch with a distant relative,
an attractive, interesting and splendid intellectual man who, moreover,
was happily married. I then passed through the anguish of unrequited
love, kept dreaming of what was beyond my reach, and endeavored to still
my unnatural passion through excessive onanism. The keen struggle to
preserve my secret, the intense mental torture, caused me one day to
break down. The strict but kind-hearted talk of my relative in whom, of
necessity, I forced myself to confide, saved me that time from suicide.
The next day the house physician was called, a cordial and kindly young
man, who took a strong professional interest in me. Day after day he
spoke to me and tried to influence my mind and he succeeded in shifting
my sexual feelings entirely into the background and in about five months
he thought I was ready to try regular intercourse. But the attempt
proved a new defeat for me. _The secret aversion, the fear of
infection_, made me prove myself impotent at the critical moment. But I
did not tell the physician _and shortly thereafter he dismissed me as
cured_. There followed again years of struggle. Fearing mental breakdown
I was driven to the idea of seeking final release through suicide. But I
lacked courage for the deed.... Was it cowardice, was it the yearning of
my sickly body that prevented me from ending then a life unblessed by a
single experience of that highest yearning of a healthy body,—the
consummation of love? During that time my relative also died and my
anguish was unbearable. For I was absorbed in that great passion of mine
so deeply that I had forgotten all about the rest of the world. I was
hardly reconciled to that misfortune when further anguish came into my
life; several men crossed my path with whom I would have no doubt
entered into intimacy if I had found any points of contact. In my
despairing mood I confided in _Hofrat W._, who consoled me saying that
my misfortune could not be very deep rooted since I had come to him
about it. He advised me to seek intimacy with girls (I came a great deal
in contact with girls in the course of my daily work and also forced
myself to learn dancing). In accordance with his advice I resorted to
_puellæ publicæ_ and had intercourse a number of times but without
particular pleasure or satisfaction. Yes, I went so far as to propose
marriage to a girl of a good family. It was my fate not to meet with a
favorable response, although secretly I was gratified at that. For I
could not think that my supreme passion intimately and indissolubly
linked to the nature, the appearance and form of boyhood and charming
old age would ever be overcome. Springtide and autumn, boyhood and old
age, evoke in me the wonders of development and suggest the soft quiet
stealing in of blissful eternal peace. Although the sense of touch alone
is enough to rouse in me the most wonderful feeling of bliss, contact
with a woman leaves me indifferent, if it does not actually inspire me
with disgust. Thus I kept up for a time longer, greatly agitated but
unyielding, the fear of being discovered keeping me back. Tortured at
night by the yearnings of the day while dreaming of endless bliss by
conjuring up the most intimate scenes depicting contact, dreaming and
thinking also of oral (lip) contact, but never of any love act _a
posteriori_. In terror of being found out—I blushed at the lightest
pointed joke when in company—I often thought of joining the foreign
legion or to migrate to some country where homosexual love is not looked
upon as a crime or as something shameful.

“Often I heard of places where persons of my bent may be found but I
never had the courage to look them up, fearing that I would be
recognized, that I would be put to shame and that I should lose my means
of subsistence. I am particularly pained at the thought that I must pass
for an inferior dissolute type while millions and millions of
insignificant tramps are placed on a higher level in the eyes of the
law, enjoy life and are even honored and respected while I, in spite of
possessing the qualities of a truer manhood, must waste my life in
joyless existence. Two women came into my life with whom I became
somewhat intimate, _one attracting me temporarily because her physical
appearance was like that of a boy underdeveloped, the other, because I
was at the time under the influence of alcohol_. But I noticed in
connection with those two experiences that I felt no particular
satisfaction during bodily contact with the women or while kissing them,
_in fact, many women cause me nausea if I so much as take food out of
their hand_. Several _puellæ publicæ_ have tried to rouse my sexual
feelings (_lambentes glandem membri_), but in spite of erection I felt
no particular pleasure, and the act was always followed by a feeling of
despair—the same old story. Sometimes in my anguish I sought the church
and there I broke into tears and I yearningly clasped my hands in prayer
without being a believer at heart. Ofttimes I thought my mind must be
affected and thought I had to go to an asylum for the insane but it
would make my trouble known to do so and I feared I should have to
forego contact with men forever after that. Occasionally _I dreamed also
of women_, but without any particular feelings, while if I dreamed of
clasping in a warm embrace or only touching or even merely looking at a
boy, or at an elderly man, I felt great pleasure. I dreamed of contact
with the lips. Something more about the family: On account of father’s
strict discipline _I inclined more to mother who was more indulgent_.
One of four sisters is married, also both brothers, happy and satisfied,
I believe. (I am very bashful with all my relations, old and young.) One
uncle only showed eccentricities and he remained single. All my other
habits of life are not unlike those of any normal young man, I have
friends who are married and who are unaware of my condition. But time
after time I am tremendously agitated on account of my mental struggle.
Finally, to conclude: my dear doctor, you cannot prevail upon me again
to try to look you up at your office because the penetrating look of
your office girl inspires me with the fear that my condition is
recognized and diagnosed at a glance. If you feel inclined to advise me
how best to withstand this craving or to mention some country where I
may go, I should be very grateful to you—if not, I have learned to bear
defeat.”...


One of the usual confessions, overlooking most important features. The
self-incriminating feeling of the masochist who has “learned to bear
defeat,” is indicated by the ridiculous fear of the “penetrating look”
of my office girl. This fear would probably be traced through analysis
to his sadistic attitude towards women. There are a number of other
interesting statements. He belongs to a family of many children, a
severe father, a negligent mother, he is jealously envious of his
sisters. A large number of homosexual episodes are related about his
childhood and his habit of putting on women’s clothes. That shows
clearly the tendency to identify himself with the mother or sister. But
why did he want to be a woman? Why did he want to assume the rôle of
mother? He wanted to supply a woman, to substitute the mother to his
father. Here it was _the strong father_ who so attracted the boy that
the latter wanted to be everything to him; Subsequently he falls in love
repeatedly with elderly men who stand for substitutes of his father. The
elderly man is always the _Imago_ of the father. During the homosexual
episodes with elderly men, either actual or occurring merely in the
boy’s fancy, he finds himself still a child towards whom the father
displays tenderness and who is permitted by the father to carry on
_fellatio_ upon the latter. He is also drawn to young boys. There he
plays the rôle of the father while the boy supplies the picture of his
own youth.

Interesting is his distinct disgust at women which disappears after
alcoholic drinks enough so as to enable him to carry out coitus. He was
also near falling in love with a girl who had a boyish appearance. That
betrays certain relations between boy and girl. The boys are loved when
they show the traits of a beloved sister, the old men when they recall
the father.

His path towards woman is blocked. Disgust and fear of infections cover
more significant motives bearing a religious coloring. Every prostitute
becomes the sister, a younger edition of the mother. Without analysis
the genesis of this paraphilia cannot be understood. He avoids me
because he is unwilling to discover the truth. The over-severe father
seems to have roused in him the yearning for a kindlier one and to have
determined the development of his feeling-attitude. An attachment to the
sister seems also clearly discernible.


63. Mr. T. D., 26 years of age, has struggled vainly for years against
his homosexual disposition. He is attracted to old, gray-bearded men,
who always represent to his mind an erotic ideal, and loves to be in
their company, go on walks with them, play cards or perform music, and
loves also the company of very simple fellows, preferably sailormen,
plasterers, and soldiers, and among the latter prefers artillerists. His
sexual activity consists in holding the friend’s _membrum virile_ in his
hand and giving his own to be held by the other likewise. Orgasm follows
rapidly at that. After the deed, regrets and strong avowals never to
repeat it. The last time he tried it a watchman caught him in the act
and brought him together with his companion, a workingman, to court.

Analysis discloses the following facts: He has repeatedly tried to have
intercourse with women but each time great fear and disgust prevented.
Strong erections, but before _immissio penis_, the _membrum_ turns soft
and useless. Accomplishment of the orgasm through manual friction of the
organ by the woman’s hand is possible, but is followed by a powerful
feeling-attitude of disgust and he must leave immediately. He has had
various opportunities to become intimate with certain women and girls,
they have even incited him to it, but he does not feel tempted.

His family history is as follows: He is the only son of a very kindly
man who died four years previously. The mother died at his birth and
that has established in his mind an intimate association between coitus
and death. He cannot help thinking of that association when with women.
His father was extraordinarily tender with him, and for his sake never
married again. When he was still young his father always played with
him, devoting to him all his spare time. Later their relationship became
even more intimate. There was a sort of marriage situation with his
father.

He began to masturbate at a very early age and claims to have indulged
in phantasies only about common men, imagining they were handling his
_membrum virile_.

His attachment to his father was decidedly morbid. If the father stayed
away from the house a quarter of an hour longer than usual, he began to
cry and could not be consoled. The whole object of his life was to bring
joy to his father and to replace in the latter’s life the lost mother.
When the father fell ill he took it so much to heart that it was feared
his mind would break down. After the death of his father he attempted
suicide and was thwarted in the act by his father’s faithful servant. He
made all sorts of resolutions, among others, not to masturbate during
the year of mourning. He did not live up to that.... At first he is
unable to recall heterosexual episodes from his childhood and his memory
fails him equally regarding homosexual facts. But suddenly the cloud
which seemed to cover his childhood lifts and a vast number of
reminiscences come to surface, showing the developmental course of his
homosexual tendency. His father had always been a strong admirer of the
other sex and even as a child he had observed that the father was
maintaining intimate relations with the nurse, the cook, as well as with
the maid servant. Once he surprised his father in the act of embracing
the cook while the two were alone in the room. The irate father boxed
his ear because he entered without knocking at the door. That was one of
the rare occasions on which his father punished him. He also overheard
at night how his father crawled into the nurse’s bed, who was still very
young and pretty at the time and carried on all sorts of doings with
her. Later he received private instruction from a male tutor who
conformed to the _genius loci_ and was also intimate with the servant
girl. As a child he often wished he were a woman so as to take the
cook’s place in gratifying his father. The father seemed to fear that
the boy might fall into the women’s hands and did not delay warning his
son with appropriate teachings. At 12 years of age his father instructed
him frankly about the dangers of masturbation, with the result that he
struggled hard against the habit without, however, overcoming it. A few
years later his father spoke to him about the terrible dangers of
venereal diseases, warning him against prostitutes. He was told he must
watch out, for he would have frequently occasion to go through the city,
and the prostitutes are always eager to seduce such innocent young boys
so that many a one is ruined for life.

It is significant also that at 5 years of age he played with a girl from
the neighborhood, trying to imitate the father. He must have hurt the
girl for she cried out, the nurse rushed in, a serious scene ensued, and
he was severely chastised by the nurse.

An ugly impression was produced on him when he witnessed a terrible
quarrel between their cook and the nurse who were jealous of each other
on account of the father’s attentions. They grabbed each other by the
hair and the whole household was in an uproar. The cook had to leave the
house at once. He believes that after that incident his father gave up
all intimate relations with the women in the house. At 19 years of age
he fell in love with the cashier of a coffee house and would have very
much liked to possess her. But his father, to whom he told everything,
warned him against all cashier women because they are usually diseased
and infected. As a warning he told him that in his youth he once
suffered very unpleasant consequences as the result of an affair with
that kind of a woman and was even subjected to blackmail.

He filled his heart with a gruesome fear of woman. In addition to that
he placed in his hands a book relating all about the evil consequences
of sexual diseases, so that after that he did not dare come near a woman
without the protection of a condom. After intercourse, which consisted
merely of digital manipulations in his case, he had to bathe at once and
to wash his genitals with soap several times. After homosexual acts he
did not feel the compulsion to carry out these ablutions.

We now come to the analysis of his acts, which show themselves veritable
compulsive manifestations. Suddenly he becomes restless, energetically
tries to control himself, then paces back and forth for hours, until he
falls into the hands of one of the male prostitutes who easily recognize
their prospective victims. But as he never mentioned any name and never
established any lasting intimate relations, he escaped blackmail. Once
he thought that a certain masseur had studied his physiognomy and had
later recognized him. He saw that fellow a few times in front of his
home. Immediately he left Vienna and undertook an extensive journey
which kept him for some months in foreign countries.

In the act he tried to find the love caresses of his father. He split
love into its well recognized two components. The erotic side he
reserved for elderly men, physicians, and the faithful elderly
friends,—while for sexuality proper he turned exclusively towards men of
low rank. Similarly he divided his father’s personality into two parts,
the high-striving, intellectual, lofty-minded father, and the woman
fancier, the lover of ordinary servant girls. He was still playing the
rôle of a male but during the act he regressed back to childhood,
becoming again a child who longs for the father’s tender love squandered
on servant girls. Moreover the ordinary males also had the traits of
servants, they were of the servant class.

We have here an instance of the transposition of the love of servant
girls to males. He had always a weakness for servant girls and since he
feared he might yet get tangled up in marriage with a cook, he tried to
keep away from them. Only once in the home of a friend he embraced
suddenly a cook and passionately kissed her. “I could have without a
doubt cohabited with her,” he told me. But he soon quit visiting that
particular friend....

He identified himself completely with the father. He lived in his own
house, acted like the father, had the same kind of wardrobe, although
his father had aged a great deal. But in one respect he wanted to be
different. He engaged therefore a male servant and always took his meals
outside, so as to have no cook in the house. But that servant he kept
always at a certain distance. He did not care to have any love affairs
with servants in the house, like his father.

The analysis disclosed his repressed sadistic attitude towards woman.
His first attempts at intercourse with women failed him and he was able
to carry out coitus successfully only under the influence of alcohol.
Later he did recall a single successful coitus without that aid. The
girl had roused his anger with the remark that he was merely an insolent
fellow. He jumped at her, ready to strike her, and was tremendously
excited. In that roused state he carried out coitus. _But he would have
rather strangled her._

He showed an idiosyncrasy against certain female occupations. Nurses in
their garb he would have gladly torn to pieces. He also hated all nuns.
It was not well for any woman to rouse his anger. He could be very
dangerous when roused. He confesses entertaining as his favorite
phantasy the thought of tearing to pieces a woman.

The reason for this sadistic attitude: His _infantile jealousy_ of all
women since woman had robbed him of his father’s love. Among them was
also a nurse who had taken care of the father during a prolonged
illness.

That hatred of women made him impotent and drove him into the homosexual
path. For he was afraid of himself when finding himself alone in the
presence of a woman. He rushed away from houses of prostitution
suddenly, as if a thousand demons were after him.

I succeeded in convincing him that this sadistic attitude was a rudiment
of his early feelings, that he was really fighting against ghosts which
he had long since dispelled. Now it was up to him to avow consciously
his criminal tendencies and to render them innocuous through meeting
them in the open. Presently he began having intercourse with _puellæ
publicæ_, before the analysis was ended, and even undertook to carry out
coitus _lege artis_. He forced himself to do it because he no longer
cared to incur the risk of coming into conflict with the law. (The legal
case against him was squashed because there had been committed no overt
act and such manipulations ordinarily are unpunished in Austria, if they
cause no open scandal.) Later he chose a sweetheart who accompanied him
on his travels and whom he suddenly abandoned. He had meanwhile met a
woman who captivated him mentally and spiritually. Two years later I
received their engagement card. In this case the analysis accomplished a
complete recovery.


Here we found a complete fixation on the father, which had to be
overcome first in order to free the path to woman which had become
obstructed by all sorts of infantile imperatives. Neither the mother nor
the persons who trained him during his earlier years play any rôle in
the psychogenesis of his homosexuality; on the other hand there was his
strong sadistic attitude towards women which showed itself in a
personally baffling fear of women.

This case shows how one-sided _Sadger’s_ explanation is of
homosexuality, when he traces its psychogenesis solely to the relations
with the mother and overlooks entirely the rôle of the father.

We must also bear in mind that many children gravitate to the mother
only because they feel themselves neglected by the father, because they
hate the father, and are unable to attain a proper feeling-attitude
towards him. Precisely that overstressed love of the mother and the
obvious antagonism against the father adroitly covers the fixation on
the father.

I will now report three similar cases from my own practice, relating
only the important details:


64. Mr. S. L. has not worked as bank employee for the past three years
or more. Three years ago he began to complain of various nervous
ailments and was granted a leave of absence to recover his health. That
leave proved his undoing. He did not improve; instead, he became totally
unable to work and is now no longer able to return to his duties. His
father always maintained that the whole trouble was imaginary, and
wanted to hear nothing of a prolongation of the leave. But the man’s
suffering became gradually worse. Out of spite for his father’s attitude
he at first simulated the aggravation of his trouble and his condition
in the end actually grew so much worse that it shattered him to pieces
and he lost control over himself. He experienced attacks of dyspnea so
severe that he could not talk. The dyspnea occurred in paroxysms. After
one year he lost his position with the bank and, reduced to want, he
appealed to his well-to-do father for aid. The father denied him any
assistance because he did not consider the son unable to work; he
thought the son was simulating so as to impose on him. S. L. sued his
father for sustenance and won, aided by the testimony of a number of
physicians who certified that his case was one of severe neurasthenia,
so that his father had to give him a monthly allowance. Father and son
broke all personal relations so that the payment was made through an
attorney. Thereafter S. L. was inspired by no other thought than revenge
on his father. He was very clever in thinking out new legal issues and
additional suits against him. Finally he came to the conclusion he was
not the rightful son of his father and threatened a law suit which only
his love for his mother prevented him from actually starting. She was
revolted at the son’s terrible accusation but so strongly under his
influence that she did not have the will power to break with him. She
met him clandestinely, placing money into his hands. He loved his mother
above all else and urged her to leave the father. He put detectives on
his father’s trail, hoping to be able to fasten against him the
accusation of being untrue to the mother. He always spoke of his father
as “the old rascal,” “the old scamp,” “that miserable, quarrelsome
rake.” “Should I see him today writhe in agony it would be the best and
most pleasant day I ever had.” I had never seen before so bitter a
hatred of the father.

He was a confirmed homosexual, hating all women with the exception of
his mother, whom he held in divine veneration. The alleged breach of
faithfulness which he alleged her to have committed with a person of
high position (the well-known family romance of the neurotic) he excused
as natural for it would have been a miracle for that noble soul to have
remained true to so terrible a man. The father compelled her to coitus
with brute force. He was the offspring of such a coercion, etc.... He
loved only younger men, even boys, and he was fairly brutal towards
them. Occasionally he carried on deeds with older men towards whom he
then preserved an attitude of submissiveness and passivity, trying to
please them in every way. He permitted pederasty on his person and did
not shrink from _fellatio_.

The analysis showed a passionate love of the father, a feeling which on
account of its unattainable aspect turned into bitter hatred. He thought
the father was partial to the other sons and fled to the mother to whom
he often complained about the father’s severity and lack of affection.
In his homosexual acts he played actively the rôle of the father,
becoming at such times very severe and almost cruel, passively he
carried out the act as if he were with the father, being then very
submissive, and thus allowing his whole repressed love to outflow as if
bent on showing him: _that is how loving I would be with you always if
you only were agreeable!_ Cruel phantasies revolving around revenge upon
the father as the central theme were confessed under strong resistances.
Several times he came near shooting his father. He often fancied himself
in situations in which his father depended altogether on his compassion
and magnanimity. For instance, he would imagine his father had committed
some great fraud. He himself had become a millionaire through an
ingenious invention of his own. His father comes begging at his feet and
is refused any aid. His favorite reading is books describing cruel
punishments, the inquisition tortures, etc. The well-known work of
_Octave Mirbeau_, “_Le jardin des supplices_,” threw him into ecstasy.

The other roots of this subject’s homosexuality I do not dwell upon
because I am concerned here only with the rôle of the father....

The next case shows a very similar situation:


65. Mr. G. Z. for some years has had intimate relations with an elderly
man, an artist, whose studio is the meeting place of a number of young
men exclusively. He is not a musician like the others, but a jurist, and
had met incidentally Mr. X, his fatherly friend, as he calls the man.
Before that time he had been entirely abstinent. He became Mr. X’s
friend only at the age of 21. The friendship was wholly platonic until
they undertook a journey together. At Salzburg they occupied together
the same room, because the hotel was filled. They carried on intercourse
(_coitus inter femora_), he playing the female rôle on that occasion as
well as subsequently. G. Z.’s relations with his father are very
stressed. They hardly speak to each other. He is employed in his
father’s office, but has only business relations with him. His whole
spare time he devotes to his mother. One day he surprised his mother
with the information that he had had his father watched and found out
that the father maintained clandestine relations with a number of women.
He requested his mother to break with the father. He raised a terrible
row with his father, ordering the father to withdraw from the office and
leave the business entirely to him, and at that the father showed him
the door. A letter from the mother convinces him that he is not the son
of his father; thereupon he locks himself in the room and commits
suicide by shooting himself.

Jealousy of the father had driven him to suicide. During the acts with
the fatherly friend he played the rôle of the son replacing the women in
the life of the father.


66. Mr. T. B., 32 years of age, like Case 64, is also unable to work. He
has tried everything but cannot make anything go. His father is a common
employee reduced to seek occasionally the son’s financial aid. But the
young man now stays at home and complains of attacks which he describes
as of an epileptic nature, occurring only at night, but which prove to
be hysterical anxiety attacks. His brother is diligent and hard-working,
the favorite of the family. When the brother is praised he turns so wild
that he is boiling with rage. He speaks but little with the brother,
exchanging with him only necessary words. Regarding his father he
declares that living together with him he finds most painful. He has
delicate tastes. But his father’s manner of eating and talking rouses
his anger. He will bless the day when he shall once more be working and
in a position to leave the parental home. The mother was on his side,
believed in his illness and in the genuineness of his attacks, and comes
at night during his attacks to his bed, trying to help him and to quiet
him to the best of her powers. The mother alone knows that he is
homosexual and she does not disturb him in the least on that score. But
she turns jealous as soon as she sees him pay any attention to a girl,
and every night, too, she comes to the kitchen to make sure that her
sons are not taking advantage of the servant girls. She accompanies the
ailing son on his errands and is his confidante. She does not get along
at all well with her husband and they have ceased marital relations long
ago. There are thus two parties in the house, he with his mother, and
the father with the other son.

Moreover, the ailing son raises various issues so that there are daily
quarrels and conflicts in the house. The father published a statement in
the newspaper to the effect that he will no longer be responsible for
debts and obligations contracted by the son. Thereupon the mother, who
earns an independent income with her piano lessons, left the house
together with her favorite son. They rented another home for themselves
and the mother hopes that the separation and the quiet care will bring
about her son’s complete recovery. At this stage T. B. is brought to me
for analysis. Two days later I am called to the father. T. B. had gone
there under an excuse and while searching among the books he was seized
with a very severe attack and had to be put to bed. He was now so ill
that he could not leave the bed. It was the love of the father that had
driven him to the place. He could not live without seeing his father and
could not endure the thought of leaving the father alone with the
brother. The mother moved back to the old home. As prerequisites for my
analysis I suggested isolation of the subject and moderate occupation,
and the mother apparently agreed. Next day the patient wrote me that on
account of his attacks he would be unable to live among strangers, and
that therefore he must give up the treatment. An experience similar to
that I had with the epileptic, Case No. 51.

The specific phantasy during his indulgences in which he played always a
passive rôle, represented him as the mother who gives herself up to the
father. The following dream yielded some light on the matter:


“_I lie on the bed in a remarkable attire, a hood on my head and dressed
in a green robe. I gaze in a looking-glass and instead of my person I
see my mother, and father in the act of bending over her to give her a
kiss. Now the image in the looking-glass fuses with the original, the
two coming together and forming a single picture. I feel myself turning
into a woman and everything male about me falls off or disappears. I
have long black hair, a white skin and a high voice. My arms stretch out
to embrace a man and I awake with a feeling of anxiety and a rapid heart
beat._”


An analysis of this dream is superfluous. The subject was unwilling to
see its meaning.

But the fixation upon the mother is often also marked with hatred. It
must not be thought that the homosexual is always disposed pleasantly
towards the mother. It also happens that the love for the mother is
covered under an overt hatred and an unnatural disgust, as is shown by
the following case:


67. H. U., 24-year-old sculptor, homosexual as long as he can remember.
His inclination is always towards waiters and restaurant employees. Has
four sisters and an older brother who had to go to America and is lost
to them. His father is a writer, a genial but impractical man who stuck
to journalism. He clings to his father with every fiber of his heart,
protecting him against the attacks of the mother who is tired of her
husband’s continual love affairs and cannot stand them any longer. The
father lives in a dreamy state continuously, passing from one ecstasy,
lasting from several days to a week, into another. He is not finicky in
his love adventures, drawing the line neither at servant girls nor at
prostitutes; daily he has some new rendezvous and in that way squanders
a great portion of his income. There are always quarrels in the house,
and the father does not like to stay at home, preferring to spend his
evenings in the public houses. The relations between mother and son are
as unpleasant as between the parents. The son always lets his mother
know that she is repulsive to him. If she attempts to come near him in
the room he avoids her, shouting: “_Don’t touch me, mir graust vor
dir,—you give me the shivers!_” He never permits her to fondle him, and
has no good word for the poor tortured woman. Towards his sister he is
also always sarcastic, aloof, and likes to meet her admirers to make
uncomplimentary remarks about her to them. The situation became
seriously aggravated, he had to leave the house, and now wants to meet
no one of the family except the father, whom he sees daily at the
newspaper office. He hates fanatically all women and dotes on
_Strindberg_ and _Weininger_.

Back of this hatred of women stands his great love for the mother, the
sisters, and all women. In that respect he is exactly like his father,
whose fate he does not want to share. He protects himself against the
love for his mother because he would be lost and subordinate to women if
he yielded. The gruesome quarrels which he witnessed during his
childhood showed him a father who ruined himself on account of women, a
man unable to achieve the full expression of his high ideal because he
squandered his energies on numerous love adventures. Homosexuality
serves him as a protection against all womanhood. His attachment to
waiters is explained through the fact that his mother had been a
waitress whom his father had married after she had become pregnant by
him so as to legitimatize the child. After two weeks he breaks up the
analysis because he feels that his attitude towards women is being
changed. In that attitude lies his security. Among waiters he prefers
small young boys who remind him of his sister.


This fixation upon the sister is not so rare, as is shown by the next
case, which dates back to my earlier psychoanalytic experience.


68. Mr. P. G., teacher in a high school (_Realschule professor_),
consults me on account of an ailment which began a few weeks ago and
which threatens to destroy all his joy of living. He is 26 years of age
and has had no sexual intercourse. In fact, he has not had even one
genuine love affair. A few months ago he met a girl whom he liked very
much and they became engaged. They were to be married in six months. She
is a friend of his sister’s, a girl to whom he had not previously paid
any particular attention but during an outing he got to know her and to
appreciate her so well that he fell suddenly in love with her. It was
not a great consuming passion,—rather a mutual understanding and a
strong spiritual kinship. He was abstinent through conviction. He wanted
to enter the marriage bond a pure man and was proud that in that respect
he was unlike his friends and colleagues. Then something happened in his
life which threatened to break him to pieces and even drove him to
thoughts of suicide. I relate the occurrence in his own words:

“In my class there is a very beautiful, physically imposing, slim,
bright young fellow whom I liked on account of his excellent answers and
fine manners. I directed my questions at him with great pleasure,
whenever the other boys could not answer, knowing that I would always
receive from him the correct answer, and I have often held this favorite
scholar of mine up to the others as an example of how they ought to be.
One night I dreamed that the boy was lying in my bed and that I embraced
and kissed him. I woke up, scared, and presently quieted down.
‘Nonsense,’ I said to myself. ‘Anything may come up in a dream!’ At
school that day I found myself somewhat uneasy towards that boy because
I could not help thinking about my dream. I avoided putting any
questions to him. As was frequently his habit, the boy waited for me
after school hours and asked permission to accompany me on the way. We
had to go the same road and I was pleased to pass the time talking with
him. He entertained me. I heard a great deal about what the pupils were
saying about the teachers and it seemed to me very interesting. Teaching
means building up souls, and so I wanted to implant every noble and high
ideal in the soul of this child.

“I granted him also that day, gladly, permission to come along. I was
strikingly distracted and silent. Whereas formerly I had been in the
habit of taking him by the arm now and then, this time I avoided all
intimate contact, because the dream stood between me and the handsome
young boy, rendering any intimacy or informality impossible. I reached
home and very promptly went to my bride. She found me absent-minded,
wanted to know the reason,—and about that, naturally, I could but be
silent. I wanted to show her tenderness; she goaded me with her kisses
and caresses. But, oh, horrors! In the midst of her kisses my mind
turned to the young fellow and when I felt her lips, so warm, I thought
it was the boy’s lips. I pushed her, scared, out of my arms, pretending
I did not feel well, and hurried back home.

“I was so excited that for a long time I could not fall asleep. I
decided I would fight the insane passion. I had heard before passingly
about boy love, knew also that it was the custom and fashion of the day
in ancient Greece, but I myself had never before entertained the least
thought of a man or boy. I felt I ought to remain a teacher no longer if
I failed to conquer the feeling and to master the impression of the
dream picture on my mind, conjured up, undoubtedly, by unconscious
wishes. I resolved to be strict with myself, to give up the attachment
to the boy, and to avoid his company after school hours. For it was I
who first spoke up and invited him to keep me company on the way home. I
resolved to be strong and to devote once more all my affection and my
love to my bride.

“Next school day I forced myself not to turn my gaze towards the boy’s
seat. But I could not help looking that way and the first glance rushed
the blood to my cheeks. He was as beautiful as a Greek boy, his form so
delicate, his eyes so smiling,—I could have lost myself for hours in the
contemplation of that wonderful face. I roused from my day dreaming,
which, fortunately, had passed unnoticed by the class. But I wanted to
neutralize the impression that my gazing at the boy may have made upon
the class and called upon the boy. I was severe, unmercifully severe
with him, and sought to catch him in some error. And who fails to find
an error when looking hard for it? Then I reprimanded the boy so
severely that he began to cry and returned to his seat weeping, and he
was unable to quiet down for some time after that. Then I became really
angry. I was trying to stifle the inner voice which was whispering: ‘It
is unfair for you to torture thus the innocent boy; he is not
responsible for your awful thoughts....’ I disregarded that and scolded
him.

“On the street the boy did not dare to offer to join me. I hurried past
him and wandered for hours on the streets like a madman. I reproached
myself, regretting the lost opportunity for enjoying the boy’s company
and wept over the breaking up of the beautiful friendship between
scholar and teacher. I resolved to be fair the next day with the boy and
to pay no attention to him. But a wild demoniac power, stronger than my
good resolutions, impelled me once more to hurt the boy’s feelings and
to humiliate him before the class. It looked as if I was bent on
revenging myself on him for the trouble he had cost me. I knew that I
punished myself doing so, that I suffered far more than the boy,
although he, too, changed in appearance, became timid, looked badly and
obviously suffered under the unjust treatment. I also became irritable,
morose, nervous. I lost completely my nervous equilibrium. I began to
avoid my bride’s company. It seemed to me a profanation on my part of
her pure love so long as I was consumed with such passion for a boy. She
also became cooler and more reserved, because she could not understand
me.

“Eventually things improved at school. I learned to control myself and
to act more fairly. We resumed the walks once more; the boy accompanied
me again after school hours; sometimes we walked on and on for hours,
and we even met specially during the holidays. In his company I felt
happy and all my wishes seemed gratified. I enjoyed his beauty and his
lively mind and counted the minutes to pass when we should meet again.

“Then something happened which opened my eyes. My bride wrote me a
letter breaking up our engagement. It did not even affect me as deeply
as I had thought it would, whenever reflecting previously on the
possibility. Very well—I thought to myself—now you can devote yourself
entirely to your beloved boy! At the same time I felt during the day the
same physical excitation which I had theretofore experienced only in my
dreams. Then I realized that I must avoid the boy if I was to keep from
committing a crime. My first task, I thought, would be to make up again
with the bride; secondly, I must give up the school so as to not meet
the boy again. My bride was resolute, however, insisting that she had
become convinced that I did not love her. I kept secrets from her. I was
on the very point of confessing everything and of telling her the whole
truth. I threw myself, weeping, to her feet. She said quietly: ‘Don’t!
What is done cannot be undone. It is better that we should part. Don’t
make the parting hard for me. Let’s leave one another good friends and
think kindly of me.’ Then she hurried out of the room and left me to
myself.

“Next day when I went to the school the boy was not there; he was ill.
Another boy reported he was kept at home on account of scarlet fever. My
anxiety about him was boundless. I could think of nothing but that boy.
A schoolmate had to bring me daily reports about his condition. Often I
wandered in the neighborhood of his home, up and down the streets, and
at night I watched the lamplit window of the room where a sister was
taking care of him. Finally I heard that he was convalescing, that all
danger was over, and that he would return to school in a few weeks. I
had to keep a strong grip on myself at school to be able to carry on my
lectures at all. My thoughts were perpetually centered on my beloved boy
pupil. Continually I kept thinking: How many days longer must I keep
longing? In three weeks he will be here! My heart danced with joy at the
thought....

“There had to be a change. I could not keep on living that way. I took
my father into confidence and he sent me to you, thinking that you would
be able to furnish good advice and aid in this difficult case.”


I offered at first no advice and no help. To begin with, I allowed the
love-sick fellow to speak out everything that was on his mind and that
in itself lightened his burden. Then I undertook to obtain an insight
into his mental life before the advent of his boy love.

It turned out that he had really loved and still loves but one person in
the wide world: his sister. The affection for the bride was but a
substitute for his love of the sister. His bride was also homosexual and
loved in him but the brother of her best girl friend. As the girl friend
(his sister) cooled off during their engagement, preferring another
friendship (obviously led thereto by unconscious jealousy of the
brother), her own affection for the young man cooled off and she
promptly made use of the opportunity to break off with him. The
opportunity arose conveniently enough and the severing of the engagement
reacted most painfully upon the school teacher who had reasons of his
own for reproaching himself most bitterly.

_The more his bride kept away from his sister the greater was his
indifference to the bride. But the boy resembled his sister very
closely._

He never thought of this similarity before. They had the same eyes, the
same color of hair, and the same voice, and these played a strong rôle
with him. During that critical period his sister was interested in a
certain physician. He felt he was about to lose her affection and sought
a substitute for her and that he found in his pupil....

Now he was in a position to come to an understanding with his sister.
She had the requisite psychologic insight to understand him fully and to
lend him intelligent assistance towards his recovery.

His whole tremendous excitation simmered down. The love for the boy
calmed down to an attitude of kindly interest which no longer troubled
him. He took his walks only with his sister who often called for him at
the school. Months later I heard that he was very quiet and had no
reason to complain. He succeeded in sublimating his affection for the
sister into joint intellectual interests, insofar as that is possible.
But frank relations create a healthy atmosphere in which it is easier to
overcome incestuous phantasies than in the byways and hidden bypaths of
repression and transference.


I have given a detailed account of this case because it is typical and
because the transference of affection from the sister to a boy is more
common than would be recognized _a priori_ in the light of our current
contributions on homosexuality. We must also bear in mind that the
sister represents a younger likeness of the mother _Imago_.[10]

But father, mother and sister do not exhaust the ideal of the
homosexual. I also know cases—one I have described in a previous
chapter—in which the love of an older brother plays a tremendous
rôle.[11] We are thus led to the conclusion that fixation on the family
plays a determinative rôle in the genesis of homosexuality, that
homosexuality often may represent a flight from incest. True, we have
also seen cases in which these roots are not traceable, particularly
cases of late homosexuality. But why may not other psychic forces,
manifesting themselves as hatred, disgust, fear and shame, likewise lead
to homosexuality?

Love of the family is a form of narcissism. Every member of the family
is a mirrored image of one’s own personality. One may love one’s self in
one’s parents or other members of the intimate family circle more
readily than through strangers. _Leo Berg_ was the first to express this
truth and he has done it very clearly. In his inspiring work,
_Geschlechter_ (_Kulturprobleme der Gegenwart_, 2nd ser., Vol. II,
Berlin, 1906), he states:


“What does the homosexual substitute for procreation? In the first place
self-seeking, the love of like (_die Liebe zum Gleichen_), plays a
greater rôle in his case than with the heterosexual who is responsive to
the unlike, and that is why the instinct of procreation is as a rule
very much weaker in the former though not entirely absent. A young
physician who confessed to me that he was homosexual, told me of a
colleague who was passionately attached to a child. It was a powerful
motherly instinct in him, a sign of his female sensitiveness in a male
body; he is wholly womanly, a submissive being, and loves like a woman
cursed only because he cannot bear a child for the man of his heart.”


_Berg_ also points out that the homosexuals transfer to the intellectual
sphere their reproductive and creative urge.

The case mentioned by _Berg_ shows nothing in itself more than a
complete identification with the mother. But I have observed long ago
that this love of the like bears some relations to purposive sterility.
The homosexual renounces the immortality implied in procreation. (Many
homosexual artists achieve immortality in the realm of spiritual
endeavor.) Such an attitude discloses a revolt against natural law and
order. The homosexual, in fact, always conceives himself as unique. The
world contains not his equal and that feeling is the hidden source of
his pride. The “bearing of aloofness,” already pointed out by
_Freimark_,[12] the pride of being “different,” determine also his
opposition to the procreative instinct. He does not care to be like
others. Against the notion that God had ordained man to have offspring
he wants to oppose all teleology and, in spite of God, maintain a
purposeless, meaningless love, contrary to nature, a love for its own
sake. Conceivably women manifest even more clearly the corresponding
revulsion against the motherly instinct.

Who will deny that fear of children, of motherhood, is an important
social manifestation? Can it be that this fear is characteristic only of
women and is not shared also by men? May it not manifest itself as a
form of flight from sexual determinism? We need only look around us.
There are any number of married couples who want no children and others
who want no more than a child or two. Undoubtedly this state of things
is partly due to homosexuality, to a deviation from the biblical
injunction concerning the duty of increasing offspring. But let us also
glance over our professional experience. The relationship between
children and their parents carries within itself the beginnings of a new
phase. The everlasting conflict between the new and the old generation,
between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, children and parents,
requires, fosters new forms. Not without reason has our age been called
“the century of the child” with its slogan raised about the Rights of
Children. The greater the (unconsciously motivated) antagonism of the
child against his parents, the stronger will be the fear of its own
children, who loom up as potential enemies and rivals.[13] It seems that
our own image attracts and repels us at the same time, that there is a
fear of the like as strong as the fear of the unlike. The aboriginal
conflict between the old and the new goes on forever within us. Hungry
for the new though we be, yet we cling to the old. Having acquired the
new we turn longingly to the old.

This bipolarity shows itself nowhere so distinctly as upon the sexual
sphere. It means that contraries have the power of sexual attraction.
That is an observation substantiated by everyday experience. But there
is an extreme point at which the opposite touches upon the like. _Les
extrêmes se touchent_, extremes meet. In each of us there lives also
another who is the precise counterpart of ourselves. In the other sex we
love our counterpart and through the love for our own sex we endeavor to
run away from that counterpart.

The mother instinct and hatred of motherhood are not split in the human
soul. The homosexual woman always shows the hatred of motherhood and her
alleged love of children, when such a sentiment is claimed at all,
proves but a self-deception and lip-service at best. In our study of
_female dyspareunia_ we propose fully to prove that conclusion in
connection with the histories of several homosexual women. We do find
many instances of alleged affection for children but in reality these
are only caricatures of the true sentiment and only rarely the affection
as it is characteristic of normal woman. Our school teacher in love with
the boy pupil, whose case we gave in full in the preceding pages, did
not love children as such and did not care to have children of his own.
Through his love for the boy the repressed father instinct also found
outlet.

The life histories of homosexual women differ from those of males only
in the fact that occasionally there seems present a certain yearning for
children, as if the child could bring about release from the passion and
a new state of bliss. Beyond that the _urlind_ shows the same
psychogenesis as the _urning_. There is a strong fixation on the family,
though not always on the father, as _Hirschfeld_ claims. In addition to
that, rather commonly there is found affection for the mother which is
fairly open, and tenderness for some sister which persists through life
and assumes remarkable masks.

I want to conclude this chapter with the histories of some cases of
female homosexuality which may serve to illustrate clearly the points I
have just made:


69. Miss Ilse—we shall call her by that name—after a series of various
exciting episodes has fallen a victim to depression, during which she
lost a great deal of weight, but in spite of a successful fattening
régime her stay at a sanitarium did not effect a complete cure. She is
an impressively attractive girl, 24 years of age, voluptuous, feminine
in every way up to her angular, somewhat energetic nose and prominent,
curved eyebrows. Her mother, of whom the girl speaks with much feeling,
believes that the girl’s breakdown dates from the death of the father.
Ilse irritatedly contradicts the mother several times, breaking into a
quarrelsome attitude towards her mother over trifles. Reprimanded by her
mother, she falls into her depression and speaks no word. I take her
under treatment and for a week I have in her a heavy burden on my hands.
She hardly says anything, is very negativistic in her attitude, only
muttering from time to time: “Don’t trouble yourself. It will never be
any different. Better give me something that will put me quickly out of
the way.” She livens up somewhat only when referring to her
father,—thinks he should have not passed away. The mother should have
called in a specialist. In fact, it was as much her fault as anybody’s,
for she had failed to insist on calling the best aid while there was
time.

Gradually she extends me her confidence and one day she appears,—like a
changed person. She must tell me the truth. She is not a normal person.
Since childhood she has been homosexual and had never cared for men. Her
mother had implied as much when she said to me: “I cannot understand the
girl. She always fled from the room when young men called on Alfred (her
brother). The girl is a man hater.” This fact the girl had denied during
the first visit, but now she herself admitted. She had never cared for
men. On the other hand, at 11 years of age she had already fallen
passionately in love with a woman school teacher. She was a frolicsome
girl, often wore her brother’s clothes, and played with all the young
boys of the neighborhood. At 14 years of age she again fell in love with
a girl friend.

Her current depression is due to a terrible disappointment. She had
maintained a love affair with a French woman and was happy. She said
nothing about the character of the relations, but admitted that they
were very intimate. Suddenly she found out that the French woman was not
true to her, but was keeping up intimate relations more often with other
girls than with her. She suffered tremendously on account of her
jealousy. She began to feel a disgust against all women not unlike her
former aversion to men. Asked why she was so antagonistic to men, she
answered: “Because they are, all, without exception, disgusting
brutes....”

At this point Ilse begins to relate her past experiences. She was seven
years of age when she visited an uncle. He showed her his big _membrum
virile_ and asked her to hold it in her hand. She did this as well as
other things he requested her _usque et ejaculationem_. “How shall I
have any respect for men when they don’t hesitate thus to poison the
innocent soul of a child?” The uncle is still living.... She has since
thought that it must be some morbid tendency and has forgiven him. “It
happened only a few times and the uncle believes I have forgotten
it....”

Another traumatic incident impressed her more seriously; it was, in
fact, a series of traumas. Her mother was a light-minded person and is
so to this day, despite her 50 years. But she knows enough to dress
herself so attractively and with such a display of refinement that she
is still capable of achieving conquests. There follow a number of
serious complaints against the mother, which must have been true, for I
have had opportunity to convince myself of the truth of some of the
statements. The mother always kept on the string a number of lovers who
gratified her extravagant requirements. As a child she had been taken
along to a number of rendezvous and has repeatedly witnessed the display
of tendernesses between the lovers. She also recalled various household
scenes from her early childhood. As a child she was already very
sensuous and masturbated jointly with the sister and the brother. She
was precocious as well as prematurely spoiled and every one thought she
would early turn out to be like her mother. Then her sister underwent a
great change in character. She became religious and wanted to join a
nunnery. She made fun of her religious-minded sister but secretly
admired her for her chastity. She was 14 years of age at the time. She
now knows that she was in love with the family physician and that she
was interested in men, but at the same time she was in love at different
times with various teachers and girl friends. When her sister was 16
years of age she had a love affair with an army lieutenant and had to go
to a sanitarium to be curetted, fever set in after the operation, and
for several weeks the girl was seriously ill.

Her sister’s experience shook her to pieces. Inwardly she had been proud
that there was such a pure, innocent girl in the family. Now that her
sister followed the example of her mother it seemed to her that she,
too, was fated to follow in the same path and that there could be no
escape for her. During that period her character underwent a change and
she acquired a tremendous dislike for all small children. She could not
suffer to see a small child. She thought to herself, if she were its
mother she would strangle it. The feeling was so horrible that she could
not sleep. In time she improved somewhat, but the dislike of children
or, rather, the fear of them, that is, the fear that she might do some
harm to them, never left her.

I suspected that back of this feeling-attitude towards the children
might be found the solution of her problem. I reverted back to her
sixteenth year, for it was at that period that she turned definitely
against all men.

“Why do you hate children?”

“Not that, exactly.... In fact, I was at one time foolish over them. I
have always wanted children. When I told you that I always played boyish
games it was not exactly the truth. I remember now that I played nurse
to my doll and that we often played the game of childbirth. Brother was
the doctor and I was the pregnant lady in bed.”

“Did you happen to witness childbirth as a little girl?”

“Yes, everything.... Our aunt gave birth to a child in our home,—a
romantic story. An illegitimate child; her parents were not to know
anything about the birth, or they would have disowned her. But we
children knew everything. Afterwards she married the man but was very
unhappy with him. The little baby was with us for a time. I was very
fond of it and carried it around....”

“Have you other such aunts in the family?”

“Between us: mother’s family has a poor reputation. There were six
sisters, each more flighty than the next. None was a virgin at marriage.
Things were always happening and there was never any peace. That is why
I was so shocked over sister’s experience. I was getting to think it was
my fate also to become ... merely a prostitute. You will pardon me for
speaking so harshly about my own mother. But unfortunately it is the
truth....”

“A prostitute is purchasable.... There is some difference whether one is
light-minded through passion or for gain.”

(After a lengthy pause.) “Just what I did find out at the time. Mother
was to be had for money. Father was a humble employee, an unsuccessful
jurist, who eked out a living doing secretarial service for an attorney.
He could not keep up with the large household expenses even though he
occasionally transacted a business deal on the side which netted him a
considerable sum. Mother always had a friend who took care of our needs.
Thus we were brought up rather well educated, my brother could afford to
study, we did everything.”

“Did you know all that already as a child?”

“I knew it at a very early age....”

“You think, then, that your sister was also paid and that she sold
herself?”

“No, nothing like that. In addition to the paying lover mother always
had one, a purely heart affair, on the side. It was funny! The men
always brought us candies and all sorts of presents. When we grew older
mother became a little more careful. Still, there was enough going on to
bring shame as I look back. And so there came into our house also a
young lieutenant whom mother had picked up—God knows where. This fellow
was mother’s avowed lover and could do as he pleased. The terrible thing
was that he began to pursue also sister and after a few jealousy
quarrels mother had to put up with it,—she perhaps even encouraged the
affair. For I overheard once a talk between them and heard mother
reproach ‘Shikki,’—that was the lieutenant’s nickname,—that he had used
sister. She could have obtained a large sum of money for the girl
because she was a virgin and the girl would have been provided for. Then
there followed bitter quarrels between mother and sister.”


I interrupt the conversation at this point. It turns out that she, too,
was in love with the lieutenant, and so were the others of the
household, including the father and the brother; she was also jealous of
her mother. Her jealousy opened her eyes. That is how it happened that
she heard the unpleasant rumors about her mother circulating among the
neighbors. She began hating her mother, but that continued only for a
short time. Then her hatred turned to children. She hated first herself,
the child who bore no respect for the mother. She did not want to be
like her mother and her sister. She knew that she would have to submit
to similar experiences; that her fate was sealed. She strove against her
feminine and motherly instincts. But the analysis disclosed that she
really entertained one supreme wish which she was unwilling to
countenance openly: she wanted to be a mother and to bear many, many
children. But the neurotic reaction thwarted her powerful motherly
instinct. To be a mother meant identification with the despised mother.
Her better feelings prompted her to draw herself far apart from the
mother.

She did not want to be a woman. She did not want to be so easy-going as
her mother. At that time her brother also showed a temperamental change.
He became serious-minded, began to write verses, and to take an interest
in all sorts of idealistic endeavors. She linked herself to him and
before long she differentiated herself completely from the rest of the
household, and particularly from the mother. She sought earnest-minded
girl friends and came into frequent contact with her brother’s
companions, but was unapproachable, even though she expressed herself
freely and frankly about all subjects. Her strongly sensuous temperament
threw her next into the arms of the Frenchwoman and she preferred that
to a love affair with a man as she was afraid of children. After the
Frenchwoman’s breach of loyalty she fell into her depression.

This circumstance also disclosed an interesting sidelight. She confessed
to me that the Frenchwoman was also her brother’s sweetheart. It had
never been mentioned by the woman but she knew it even before she
entered into intimate relations with her. Nevertheless it was her
happiest period.

The depression is thus traceable to a second source. The brother had
abandoned the Frenchwoman, having chosen another sweetheart, of whom he
was very fond and whom he intended to marry. The Frenchwoman was only a
sensuous play affair with him, the brother belonged wholly to her. They
were always together and she knew all his secrets. She was never jealous
when she knew that he kept up relations with some girl or woman so long
as he did not love soulfully. But now the brother became acquainted with
a wealthy, beautiful girl, with whom he fell in love and whom he was
going actually to marry. This, for the brother, lucky event,—came to
nothing in the end on account of the opposition of the girl’s
family,—left her cool. All she saw was that she was losing her brother,
and that he no longer belonged to her. He could not marry the girl
because her parents required that he should first prove his ability to
support her. But the two lovers agreed to wait for one another and the
brother had gone already pretty far and he may yet succeed to marry the
girl, despite the mother’s deplorable reputation. He lives no longer
with his family and avoids the old home. He only sees her from time to
time and they are still good old pals, whenever they meet....


This interesting analysis illustrates all the chief points to be found
in the psychogenesis of male homosexuality. In fact the girl was on the
point of becoming as fond of men as her mother, perhaps of indulging in
bisexual activities. Her sister’s experience opened her eyes and acted
as a terrible warning. The yearning for purity which animates every soul
and is the polar counterpart of the desire for tasting every sort of
experience, became uppermost in her case, the fear of becoming like the
sister, or like the mother, and her hatred of the mother, jointly, had
the effect of shaping her into a different being. She probably would
have not yielded to the homosexual love of the Frenchwoman had she not
been overcome by the fact that the woman was her brother’s sweetheart.
It was a case of incest through a third person.... She hated her mother
and had to protect herself against the danger of having children who
grow up to be one’s enemies. Thus children became her enemies. The
father played a negligible rôle in her life and had no influence on the
development of her homosexuality.

I do not know well her subsequent history. Her depression was soon
relieved and her hatred of children disappeared entirely. But she left
Vienna and went to another country, obviously to get away from her
family and to forget her whole past. I had advised her to do so and the
fact that she had followed my advice permits us to hope that, after the
tempestuous course of her past life, she may have succeeded, at last, in
finding a friendlier harbor.



                                  III

  HOMOSEXUALITY AND JEALOUSY—MASKED JEALOUSY—THE JEALOUS WIFE OF A
      PHYSICIAN—WHY WOMEN ABUSE SERVANT GIRLS—TRANSFERENCE OF JEALOUSY
      TO THE SURROUNDINGS—JEALOUSY OF THE FATHER—JEALOUSY OF THE
      RESIDENCE—JEALOUSY OF THE PAST—A YOUNG WOMAN OVERSENSITIVE TO ANY
      NOISES.


_In der Eifersucht liegt mehr Eigenliebe als Liebe._

                                                       —_Rochefoucauld._



                                  III

_Jealousy involves self-love rather than love._

                                                       —_Rochefoucauld._


Jealousy is the projection of one’s own insufficiencies to the
surroundings.[14] It is an atavistic awakening of the brutal sense of
self such as was common to the primordial man protecting his
possessions. All children are jealous. Jealousy leads us back to the
sources of man’s instinctive life.

It is not my intention to take up the whole subject of jealousy. But
morbid jealousy shows certain definite, almost regular, relations to
homosexuality which we must consider. We have seen that homosexuality
may be hidden from consciousness. That is also true of jealousy. I have
seen many neurotics who have suffered tremendously on account of their
jealousy, without being aware of it. In the masking of neurosis jealousy
assumes most remarkable forms.

The next case illustrates the masking of jealousy, its fusion with
homosexuality, and contains various points of psychologic interest:


70. A highly intelligent subject, H. J., writes me: “Have you already
reflected on how we discern certain similarities on certain days and
fail to do so at other times? You are undoubtedly aware that neurotics
and normal persons are fond of finding resemblances when they formulate
identifications. The lover finds that the beloved walks like mother, or
that she talks like the latter, and if physically no resemblance can be
established he finds the same mental characteristics, the same soul,
perhaps the same shortcomings. But I want to speak of an entirely
different peculiarity. One forenoon I see a man, who looked enough like
my friend, X, the painter, to be taken for the latter. I walk up to him
and say: Hello, X,—still under the impression of that mistake. A strange
face wearing a beard of familiar form is staring at me. I offer the
usual apologetic explanation and go my way. After a while I see again my
friend X, this time somewhat dimly, not quite so certain of it as
before. I recover from this illusion quickly enough.

“By that time my psychologic curiosity is roused and it occurs to me
that my wife told me that morning she was going to visit the painter, X,
during the forenoon. I listened indifferently to the statement, merely
asking her to give him my greetings. But a certain unrest must have
risen in the unconscious: your wife goes to the painter who likes her
and makes love to her. Nothing of that in consciousness at all. Painters
are a light-minded class who do not take such things seriously. Who
knows whether your wife will be strong enough to resist?

“These secret fears led to a symptomatic act. I accosted a stranger as
X, the painter. In other words,—a wish fulfilment. For if I meet X on
the street he cannot possibly be in his studio at this time. My wish is
that he shall not be at home. My wife shall go to the studio and find:
Mr. X is not in.... That wish came up on three different occasions that
morning. For I thought I saw Mr. X in the street three different times.
Moreover, I project X upon strange faces. Because I think constantly of
X, because my mind is wholly preoccupied with him, because I am innerly
preoccupied with the uncountenanced thought: what does X now do with
your wife?—I see X everywhere. _Ringstrasse_ is filled with men looking
like him; every man is a Mr. X.

“The illusion at this juncture denotes also another suspicion. An
additional thought renders the first one pregnant with significance.
Yesterday I heard the opinion expressed at a gathering, ‘Any woman may
be had and there is no such thing as a virtuous woman!’ I opposed
vehemently that cynical thought (_Pauschalverdächtigung_) and I tried to
the best of my ability to point out the ridiculous and unfair
implications of this notion. And today I am surprised to find myself
entertaining the thought. These men who look like X, the great unknown,
are alike attractive and powerful men, just like X. You are reflecting:
Who knows whether this or that man is not actually your wife’s lover?
Why do the words from Faust come into my mind: ‘_The whole town has
her’?_... In justice to my wife’s honor I must now state that she is in
fact an exemplary woman and that I entertain no trace of suspicion about
her conduct. But I am deliberately looking for excuses to vindicate
myself. I mean to believe that every woman is guilty, including
therefore my own wife, so as to justify in my eyes my new love
affairs.... I am envious of X, of his free ways with women, and would
like to be in his place, receiving ladies in the studio. I would like to
be X. In my phantasy I am X, and see myself as X in every stranger.

“A lady of my acquaintance always saw her deceased husband on the street
in the person of some stranger who seemed closely to resemble him. This
peculiar resemblance to strangers was noticeable particularly when her
mind turned to light and frivolous thoughts. As if the image of the
husband came forward to warn and protect her: ‘It is only three years
since I have passed away and already you begin to turn your mind to
trivial joys? Beware. I watch you from Heaven and I see everything you
do.’”

We admit freely that our subject is a keen-minded psychologist
possessing an extraordinary capacity for introspection, yet this
excellent piece of self-analysis seemed to me to overlook something
important. I therefore write Mr. H. J. that I should like to talk this
interesting episode over with him and I invite him to call on me. He
accepts the invitation. From our conversation I report only some of the
more important points:

“Has it not struck you that the men who impressed you as bearing
resemblance were exclusively attractive and powerful men?”

“No, because my friend, X, the painter, is also an attractive and well
built man. Others would not look like him....”

“Are you also otherwise jealous?”

“No; not in the least; only about X,—and even that I did not know or was
perhaps too proud to admit to myself.”

“What is your attitude towards X? Do you care for him also as you
do...?”

“... For my wife, you mean? I do. I love him. He is a charming fellow.”

“Is it not strange that you should be jealous precisely of the one man
whom you also like so well?”

He reflects a while and finds no answer. I explain to him that it shows
a repressed homosexual disposition towards his friend. The trend of his
unconscious thought is: “_If I were a woman I could not withstand him._”
Perhaps the thought goes even further than that: “_Too bad I am not a
woman for then I would enjoy that beautiful man_....”

He sees at once the relationship between his jealousy and the
unrecognized inner homosexual disposition. He relates that this man is
the only friend whom he greets with a kiss after a prolonged absence,
that he likes to take him by the arm and to hold his hand.

In short, he himself is in love with his friend. He sees his friend
everywhere and the slightest resemblances impress themselves strongly on
his mind. They are emanations from his one thought: _I like him and I
wish I were a woman to yield to him._

It is very tempting to try to trace the various paths of unconscious
jealousy. But that would lead us too far off our present theme. As we
are confronted with a very complicated condition which may have the most
varied roots I propose to give a few clinical illustrations from my own
practice and to discuss the various forms of jealousy on the basis of
these data.


71. The first case of jealousy which I had occasion to observe was that
of a physician’s wife. The woman, 45 years of age, relates: “Perhaps you
can free me from a painful condition which embitters my whole life and
turns my marriage into a veritable hell. I have been married already 22
years and can assert that I have not yet had a happy day except when my
husband is all day alone with me and we have no occasion to come into
contact with another female person. He is a physician and already during
our engagement I was jealous of all his women patients. I did not know
this awful trait in myself before. At any rate it was not so pronounced
or I should have not married my husband. At first I was jealous of my
immediate acquaintances and friends, particularly of the very pretty
women among them. After marriage my condition grew worse and worse.
During the consultation hours I watched behind the door and shivered
with actual nervous chills in my excitement. My husband was a woman
specialist and a very popular woman specialist at that. I implored him
to abandon that specialty and to take up any other. I admit that the
fact of his being a woman specialist had at first excited my interest in
him and had a great deal to do with my choice of the man. I thought to
myself: the man sees so many beautiful women, he sees them naked, and
yet has chosen you,—the thought flattered me immensely. That was well
enough at first, but later the feeling of jealousy grew in its stead.

“I had a very pretty woman friend who was taking treatment from my
husband. What I endured during her visits is beyond my powers to
describe. I said to myself: ‘She is now taking off her blouse and now
her petticoat. He is now examining, looking at her bosom, and now she
lifts herself upon the examination table, she stretches her limbs
apart....’ I suffered hellish torments. I was convinced that my husband
could not withstand this woman’s charms and would kiss her. I had a
serious quarrel with him; I quarreled with my friend, who turned from me
with indignation. Our marriage relations grew worse on that account. I
tortured my husband so that he had to allow me to watch through a
carefully hidden peep-hole what was going on in the consultation room.
In that manner I convinced myself that my husband was physically true to
me. But even though he swore a thousand times that the women did not
excite him in the least I could not believe him. I stuck to one thing
which I harped on daily: ‘_Give up your specialty._’ Years thus passed
in quarrels and dispute. I have now a married daughter of my own and I
thought to myself that with advancing age my condition would change. But
not at all! It grows worse and I transfer now my jealousy also to my
son-in-law, I am jealous for my daughter. Fortunately, she has no real
reason to feel jealous and laughs at me....

“I am also jealous of my daughter. I would like to preserve her love for
myself only and I begrudge her husband. Although she made an excellent
match, I was not satisfied and treated my son-in-law very unfairly. I
was unhappy over it but could not help it. I have consulted already the
most famous specialists, have been for six weeks under hypnotic
treatment by Prof. X. I have already kept away from my husband for three
months at a stretch,—nothing has helped.”


That is the sufferer’s history. What is the meaning of this jealousy?

The root of this jealousy is a non-conscious homosexuality. She is
jealous of her woman friend because she herself is in love with the
friend. She puts herself in the rôle of the man, the physician, and
concludes that in his position she could not resist the temptation. She
imagines herself in the man’s place; she scrutinizes every woman with
hungry looks. The peep-hole in the consultation room serves on the one
hand the purpose of calming down her jealousy and of giving the poor
husband a few quiet hours; on the other hand it enables her to
participate in everything that is taking place and to gratify her
craving as _voyeuse_. This control is her daily homosexual excitant, the
means through which she rouses the flames of her passion only to still
them afterwards upon her husband.

After the explanation was reached there was a marked improvement in her
condition. The woman saw that her love for the daughter was homosexual
and that this was the reason why she was so jealous of her son-in-law.

The occurrence is far from rare, and many a marriage has been wrecked on
account of it. The angry mother-in-law is always the mother who cannot
live without her daughter and who wants to show her daughter that the
husband is untrue and does not appreciate her and how much more she
truly loves the daughter.... I have also often seen the daughter, after
a timorous attempt at married life, return penitently back to the
mother. I have seen mothers who fight for their daughters with a lover’s
passion and with their tremendous jealousy putting all sorts of
difficulties in the way of any pretenders to the daughter’s hand. I have
found that kind of jealousy frequently as the root of melancholia. I
refer in this connection to Case 132 in my “_Nervöse Angstzustände_”
(2nd ed., p. 363).


72. The next case of jealousy shows the same roots. A married woman, 30
years of age, consults me on account of an unexplainable jealousy which
has been torturing her for about four weeks. She tells the story of her
jealousy: She engaged a new servant, a very young girl, somewhat
coquettish, but who at first glance seemed to her very sympathetic.
After one week she felt jealous and found that her husband, who usually
did not so much as look at the servants in the house, was extremely
friendly and courteous towards that girl. It seemed to her even that he
was bestowing longing glances on the girl. At first she kept silent
because she hesitated to speak of the matter to her husband. But after a
time she reproached him about it: he must be more strict. She requested
him to assume a more severe tone in his relations with the girl. Her
husband laughed at her. He said he talked to the girl in his usual
manner and nothing more. It was all imagination on her part. The girl
was very good; he had no reason to call her down or to assume a more
severe tone towards her. That reassured her somewhat but only for a
short while. She watched her husband more carefully than ever and
thought he was much charmed by the girl. She arose several times during
the night to go into the servant’s room and investigate. Once her
husband had some gastric trouble and he had to leave the room several
times that night. She was convinced that it was but an excuse to go to
the girl and several times she followed him along the chilly passage
into the hall, so that her husband asked: “What is the matter with you
this time?” She said she was worried over his condition and wanted to
watch and see that he was all right. Finally her jealousy broke to
surface a number of times and she reproached her husband very bitterly
with her suspicions. She was absolutely certain that he was intimate
with the girl. Her husband was indignant and asked her to dismiss the
girl at once so that there might be an end to that “foolish notion.” The
remarkable thing was that she felt unable or unwilling to dismiss the
girl. The girl was so good and so faithful, it is so hard nowadays to
find an efficient girl servant, she insisted only that her husband must
show himself more strict with her. He had to declare on his oath again
that there was no intimacy between them. _Towards the girl she felt a
peculiar anger which she could not understand. At times she could have
flown at the girl to strike her, which was very baffling as she had
never been in the habit of striking a servant. But it would have been a
great satisfaction to her to have pummelled this girl who caused her so
much anguish. She had to restrain herself forcefully so as not to give
vent to her rage. She was very “touchy” with the girl and tolerated not
the least contradiction on her part._

Nevertheless she could not make up her mind to dismiss the girl, and yet
she was afraid to be alone with her.

All her troubles arose on account of her homosexual attitude towards the
girl who was in fact a charming blonde type of beauty. She herself was
in love with the girl; that is why she could not conceive that her
husband might be indifferent towards her. She figured: _If I were a man
I would love this girl!_ Interesting, and at the same time typical, is
her rage and desire to strike the girl. The love feeling is converted
into its opposite and the longing to touch the girl (that is, to come
into contact with her body) manifests itself in the inclination to
strike her. How often love contacts disguise themselves as angry blows
under the mask of anger!

I explain to the woman that she must dismiss the girl when she saw
clearly the meaning of her jealousy. After the girl left all the
unpleasant symptoms mentioned above vanished.

Another form of jealousy transfers itself from one object to another, or
to the whole surroundings. Such transference of jealousy serves the
purpose of masking from self and from others the real object of the
original jealousy.


73. Mrs. H. G. is a woman, 38 years of age, who has been living happily
with her husband. At present she is unhappy on account of jealousy. Here
is her statement: “I have called on you to ask you to relieve me of a
condition which I find simply unbearable. I have a good, fine husband
against whom I cannot complain of anything. He is a splendid and model
man in every way. I am the more distressed therefore to be so jealous of
him. I felt that way, first, while my husband was ill with typhus which
left him with heart trouble. He has to be more careful of himself
because of the illness he has been through, and whereas formerly he had
intercourse with me two and three times a week, now it happens only
about once a month. My husband is not well,—I know it; his physician has
expressly told me that he must keep very quiet and avoid all excitement.
Nevertheless I cannot help feeling that he is untrue to me. I am so
ashamed of it that I have not yet breathed a word about my jealousy to
my husband. In fact, we are nearly always together. I know all his
affairs and I often go along wherever he goes. But I cannot hang on to
him every minute. So I hold the watch in hand and count the minutes,
even the seconds, for him to return. Always the one thought: _He is
untrue to you this very minute!_ If he goes to another office, I think
he does it because there is a pretty office girl there with whom he is
in love. If he takes a meal at a restaurant, it is because he has a
_rendezvous_. If he is a few minutes late coming home from the office,
he was with a street woman. In short, I am tormented all the time by
these evil thoughts, I struggle against them but cannot put them out of
my mind.”

“How long have you been in that state?”

“It began when he went to Franzensbad on account of his heart trouble.
There he became acquainted with a spinster, a girl 46 years of age, who
was also alone. They two got together and kept each other company. I
know the girl; she is very honorable, and when my judgment is uppermost,
I say to myself: _Nothing has happened; the two have merely felt a
temporary intellectual interest in one another._ But in my evil hours my
mind conjures up the worst thoughts. I have once read a letter which
that woman had written my husband. She thanked him for his interesting
company during the cure. A few weeks after the Franzensbad cure, there
came a box of flowers and a letter for my husband. The woman wrote
thanking him for his pleasant company during the cure,—she was very glad
to have made the acquaintance of so prominent and intellectual a
gentleman and hoped their friendship would endure beyond the time of the
cure. At that I reproached my husband and tortured him with my jealousy.
He gave me his word of honor that his relations with the woman were
strictly of a friendly and formal character; aside of his own
considerations, he was a sick man and satisfied to be left alone. But I
asked him to give up all further correspondence with the woman and he
readily consented. He is really a fine fellow who grants me everything I
want, a man who reads in my eyes every wish of mine, and I am ashamed to
think ill of him all the time.”

Here we see one source of her jealousy. The woman was married to a man
who gratified her in every respect; suddenly she had to restrict herself
to an abstinent life. The enforced abstinence suggested the thought:
_You are still young and attractive, so many men are after you! Take a
lover._ She was filled with fancies of longing and projected them unto
her husband. If he were unfaithful it would furnish an excuse for her.
She needed it; she wanted him to be unfaithful, for that would have
served her as a defense. Her compulsive thinking is the masking of the
thought: _Oh, that my husband were unfaithful so that I, too, might take
a lover!_

The thought was suggested to her by the fact that the wife of one of her
husband’s colleagues, a very light-minded person, was able,
nevertheless, to keep up a very handsome social position. She spoke with
great feeling about that woman.

“Does that woman not take loyalty so seriously as you do?”

“That woman? She does not have one lover; she has six at a time, and
even more! She certainly enjoys life. And the lovers pay for everything.
She has the finest wardrobe, the prettiest hats, takes wonderful
journeys and her husband knows everything.”

“Isn’t her husband jealous?”

“Oh, no! He knows everything, and consoles himself in his own way. But,
do you know the curious part of it all? That flighty woman is jealous of
her husband! She quarrels bitterly with him when she hears of his
escapades, although she has no right. The two have taken reciprocal
freedom....”

This is also a common occurrence and very interesting. Married couples
living apart, each carrying on all sorts of adventures and love affairs,
yet jealous of each other, though usually they do not show it.[15] There
are persons who love each other very warmly, but in the struggle between
the sexes they regard loyalty as submissiveness, as a humbling before
the partner, and they would perish rather than submit to such a
love.[16]

Her calculating friend is a sophisticated woman possessing wonderful
tact, she tastes all forms of pleasure, plays a certain social rôle, and
enjoys every phase of life. Moreover she is a very attractive woman
appealing strongly to our jealous subject.

Back of her jealous thoughts, again, there stand homosexual fancies. At
the time when her husband began to restrict his marital indulgences her
homosexual longing began to assert itself. She did not want to be
unfaithful. She was thus inhibited against taking up a man. Therefore
her thoughts could only turn to woman. Her inner reflection was: _If I
were a man, I would enjoy a pretty woman every little while and more
particularly that flighty friend whom I like so well._

The flighty woman had roused every feeling in her. Not only her
homosexuality, but also all those prostituting tendencies which either
slumber deeply hidden in every woman’s soul or break to surface before
self and before the whole world. To be paid for the service of love, to
receive actual coin in recognition of her sexual charm—that is a fancy
looming up under various cover-symptoms among the neurotics.

That polygamic friend of hers achieved everything that a woman may wish,
and in spite of that she maintained her good social standing. She moved
in a select circle, folks merely shutting one eye so long as she was so
clever in covering her tracks.

That example is constantly before her eyes. She herself is sexually
ungratified, financially she can hardly make both ends meet, and she
sees the other woman getting everything she needs: money and love. The
question, Does it pay to be honest? continually recurs to her mind.

She unburdens herself of a mass of similar reflections but does not
think that the real cause of her jealousy depends on herself. She is
jealous also of the servant girl, the man-servant, and the children. She
is even jealous of her male friends. She has a certain good friend whom
she put in touch, so to speak, with a woman friend because he did not
mean anything to her. Since that time he has been keeping up a close
acquaintance with that woman and she is very jealous; she would like to
get him away from her and to have him entirely to herself. She cannot
bear to see a child familiar with other persons and is wild even when
the servant girl receives a letter or a show post card through the mail.
_It is the perseverance of the instinct of possession on account of
diminished sexual gratification._ She is reduced, so to speak, to small
rations and therefore wants to accumulate and reserve for herself
everything the environment yields in the form of love. The little she
has she wants to preserve for herself only and to protect as her own
exclusive possession. The same attitude is seen on the part of children
who have a favorite older brother or sister. They are extremely jealous
of their trifling possessions and are enraged when the other children in
the house attempt to touch their toys. The others may have more, but
what little they possess they want to preserve exclusively for
themselves.

The subject thus tells about her jealousy of everything and everybody.
But she displays but little understanding of psychic relationships, she
is afraid to come to me because while at my office she cannot watch her
husband, and stays away a few days. It seems as if she had something
important to tell me but does not quite find the courage to do so.

Soon she calls at my office again complaining that her jealousy grows
worse; she suffered terribly that day, and all through the previous
night she had hardly closed her eyes. And presently she confesses that
the jealousy actually began after the death of her mother.

“Do you know—dear doctor—my mother was the model of a noble woman. She
was virtuous, diligent, well educated, sweet tempered, a veritable angel
in human form. In spite of it all—I don’t know why—I was more strongly
attached to father. Possibly because he played more with us and paid
more attention to our games and excursions while mother was more strict
in her training and careful to inculcate in us a sense of orderliness.
Mother died of a painful growth. I said to myself: ‘Now you must take
mother’s place with father. You must take care of him.’ Father was
already 62 years of age, and suffered occasionally of gouty attacks. I
was tremendously shocked to see my father put aside mourning after a few
weeks and change into an elegant man-about-town,—he the respectable town
official, who had never before gone a step without mother.... He started
to frequent nightly disreputable dives and I soon heard that he was
having relations with various disreputable women of the town. I was so
disconsolate, in my anguish I visited daily mother’s grave. There I
threw myself to the ground and out of the bitterness of my heart I
implored mother and prayed to her. ‘Mother,’ I cried, ‘you must not let
this go on, you must not allow your good name and honor to be dragged
down that way. Mother, put an end to these shameful doings. Make father
so ill that he shall be unable to sin any more and besmirch your
memory.’ Thus I implored and prayed. But it did not do any good. Soon I
observed that father was intimate with our young servant girl and that
she was trying to get hold of his money. I drove her out of the house
with the aid of the police because I discovered that she was stealing
money from father. O, I was like a fury and irreconcilable because the
honor of my mother was at stake, and I had ceased to respect my father
who had been the dearest person in the world to me! After that I had
peace for a few weeks because father suffered one of his gout attacks. I
prayed to God and to the virgin mother to keep father confined to his
bed so that he should be able no longer to add to his sins. But father
got well soon and resumed his former care-free nocturnal rounds of
amusement places. Chorus girls, dancers, street women and others of that
ilk gathered at our house and were lavishly entertained. Then one day I
heard that father intended to marry again. He had become engaged to a
42-year-old widow. I knew at once that the woman had her eye on father’s
money. _I bought a revolver and, I tell you frankly: I should have
killed either the woman or my father if there had been any marriage.
Perhaps I would have done away with both, for I was determined to
protect mother’s memory against this insult and shame. I went to that
woman’s house and gave her such a warning that the engagement was soon
given up._ I told that shameless adventuress: ‘_You will never reach the
altar alive; that I swear solemnly on mother’s memory!_’ I was fully
determined to shoot them both. You can appreciate how excited I was.

“After that father avoided me and my sisters. But the proposed marriage
did not take place,—I had accomplished that much. I went no longer to
his house when he had suddenly a light stroke and was forced to appeal
to us children. Then we had a complete family reconciliation and since
that time I have again my father. Now I see him daily, we children take
turns in looking after him.”

“Have you no feeling of guilt and did you never think that your father
fell ill because you wished it? Did you not want him to be so crippled
and reduced to your care that he should be able no longer to carry on?”

“I don’t feel guilty and I have no regrets. Only satisfaction.... I
wished it to be that way and it has come out as I wished. For now I have
once more a father of whom I need not be ashamed. But you must not think
that I was jealous on my own account. I only felt myself the
representative of my mother.”

“You are not jealous of your sister?”

“Yes ... when father is very demonstrative with her, I feel the same
wild jealousy come over me, but I control myself....”


Here we see jealousy rising out of an incestuous wish first directed
upon a man, then transferred to the whole environment. This transference
of jealousy to every one serves more effectively to cover the genuine
jealousy of the father. The death of the mother left this young woman in
a critical position. Obviously her wish as a child was: “_When mother
dies I will marry father._” A wish which so many girls entertain and
even openly express. With the death of the mother the new situation
presented itself. A place close to father was vacated and now other
women filled it. The old father’s behavior showed that he was still a
man. But one thing stood against this fancy: her husband. So long as he
lived she could not go to live with her father. Her husband’s illness
brought matters prospectively nearer to an issue. The physician had
declared that he could not live long, his heart trouble was serious. She
might yet be free! Her agitation explains a number of peculiar dreams
she had. She dreamed repeatedly of quarreling with her husband and of
striking him. _Several times already she has beaten him up and she has
even shot him in her dreams. She is also unfair to the child, turning
against it with hatred on slightest provocation._

We see that the jealousy of the husband also has the rôle of
legitimizing a hatred which has its roots in other causes. For she
confesses that during her fits of jealousy, when she thinks that her
husband is unfaithful, she feels a bitter hatred against him and could
murder him.... The husband is in the way, her hatred corresponds to the
idea that he is a hindrance. During the night the hatred breaks forth
but during the waking hours it is rationalized as due to jealousy. For
she admits that she has really never fully loved her husband. Her
affection goes to her father. She imagines that she is fighting for the
preservation of her mother’s pure memory; that furnishes an ethical
cover and masks the true motives.

The relationship of this jealousy to homosexuality is interesting. It
furnishes an excellent proof of our findings concerning homosexuality.
One must bear in mind, first of all, that many factors contribute in
this instance to bring about the regression to the infantile level: her
husband’s serious illness, his relative impotence and abstinence, her
mother’s illness, the father’s change to a devil-may-care attitude,
showing her that one may change even in late years, and that it is never
too late fully to enjoy the fruits of love. Her homosexuality was always
ready to break forth in her. She identified herself with her father
looking at women through his eyes. She had protected herself at first by
a passionate love for her husband and minor various trivial homosexual
traits of her childhood were thus readily overcome. Her swing to
heterosexuality was very successful with the aid of her husband. Her
homosexuality was repressed, only to reappear at the beginning of the
menopause,—woman’s critical age. The involutive processes taking place
in the genital glands, and the general physical changes in woman at the
time play a certain rôle in that connection. Her husband’s impotence and
the friend’s exciting example of her attractive friend, with whom she
herself was secretly in love, again roused her homosexual feelings,
though the attitude showed itself only under the guise of jealousy. But
the father’s conduct, since her father was the deepest cause of her
aversion against man, was what really made her lose her balance. She
might have become an _urlind_, had her father remained the old, kindly,
bland and quiet gentleman. But since he abandoned the mask after the
death of the mother, he roused all the daughter’s evil instincts. Not
only the infantile erotic predisposition but the infantile criminal
tendencies as well. In her dreams she murdered her husband who prevented
her from turning entirely to her father and fulfill an infantile wish to
become her father’s wife. She also repeatedly killed the children and
her beloved friends. This woman during her critical period displayed not
only the craving for love but also the aboriginal emotion, the
primordial stuff, out of which everything beautiful and great has
evolved: hatred.

Hatred against the other sex and against her rivals, hatred against the
children whom she could have killed when anger seized her soul....


74. This is the case of a 30-year-old woman, victim of a remarkable form
of jealousy. She is jealous of her home, watching over it like one might
watch and protect a beloved. She has an older sister who has been
married for five years past and lives outside Vienna. That sister was
more to her than her mother or any other friend. She looked upon her as
a second mother, confided all her secrets in her and allowed herself to
be guided and advised by her at every step. She was supremely happy in
her companionship and desired nothing better. She loved only that one
sister,—towards the other members of the family she was more or less
indifferent. Suddenly the family decided to marry off that sister and an
aunt brought a suitor to the house. She found that suitor ridiculous,
unsuitable for the sister, and fought with all her limited powers
against the match. But the mother showed the greatest eagerness for an
early marriage. Then it happened that the girl awoke suddenly in the
night. Like a thunder a terrible thought flashed through her mind: “_You
must do away with your mother!_” (It was the last desperate soul cry in
the attempt to hold on forever to her sister. The mother was the
original cause of her misfortune. She could not live without the
sister.) The thought so shocked her, the subsequent regrets over it kept
her in a very depressed mood. She developed a severe neurosis,
consisting chiefly of a series of punishments and expiations to which
she deliberately subjected herself. And shortly after that she developed
her jealousy of the home. Her sister lived outside Vienna at a small
place in Hungary and occasionally came to Vienna. It was natural that
she should find a place in the comfortable old home of seven rooms which
the family occupied alone. But the girl could not tolerate the sister’s
presence in the house. She became depressed, began to cry, found that
the furniture was being abused and ruined, could not sleep nights, and
daily asked her sister: “How long are you going to stay in town?” so
that the sister cut her visit as short as possible.

This went on for several years. Year after year the sister brought a new
baby into the world and she could not tolerate her sister’s children in
the old home. Every time a visit with the children made her so seriously
ill that finally the mother begged the sister to find some other rooming
place. The children were hardly tolerated in the house; they had to be
kept in one certain room. The girl was always afraid that something in
the house would be ruined. That this was not jealousy of her mother is
shown by the fact that it did not affect her to have the mother visit
the sister. In fact she joined the mother readily on such visits and
behaved very pleasantly and quietly at her sister’s. Only when it was a
question of the old home she became a storming avenging angel. Naturally
she also wanted to have her mother to herself. Her boundless jealousy of
the sister had apparently disappeared altogether and had switched over
to the old home where the two had been once so supremely happy. Thoughts
of hatred against the sister’s children and phantasies about doing away
with them, also occurred. She thought of a subtle poison that could be
given with the food in her home. Perhaps she feared the presence of her
sister and sister’s children in the house for that very reason and the
fear may have been a protection against her criminal tendencies.

She had loved truly but one person: her sister. The latter was
everything in the world to her. She called her the second mother, her
friend, her beloved. Her first thought when she awoke in the morning was
of her sister, the endeavor to please her filled her life, and the last
thing she did before going to bed was to offer a prayer for her sister.
She was good and upright because she loved her sister and because she
felt happy that her sister gave all her spare time up to her. She was
trained by her, they went on walks together, her sister trained her
heart. She was supremely happy and wished nothing more than always so to
live beside her sister.

Then came the engagement and her sister’s marriage. Her heart bled at
that terrible act of treason and her feelings hardened. She hated
everything, she was against the whole world: against the mother who
instigated the match, against the other sisters, who had also favored
it, against the brothers who did not oppose it. Only an old nurse woman
who had always stood by her and was her staff of support, exceptionally
escaped her hatred remaining a sort of solitary ray of affection. But
the house was filled with memories of the beloved sister. The pieces of
furniture were mute but eloquent witnesses of her former happy love
state. They should not be profaned by the presence of the unfaithful,
changed sister! She hated the children, wishing they were dead and at
the same time she was afraid she might hurt them. Two souls struggled in
her breast: one a criminal, the other ethical. The sight of the children
was repulsive to her. They bore the traits of the sister and of the man
who had stolen her away.

Her whole possessions consisted now of her memory and the household
goods, the old rooms furnished the necessary real background for her
phantasies. “Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven
out,” said _Jean Paul_. Her residence became to her a temple of memory,
a sanctuary where every piece of furniture recalled the past happiness
in which she still projected herself. For her days passed in dreaming
and weaving of fancies. She idled away sweet hours and days continually
dreaming only of her sister. Criminal fancies of poisoning all the
others finally led her, by way of punishment, to fear poisoning. She
quit eating anything at the table, as she formerly did. She suspected
poison in every food. She began to vomit after her meals. She kept away
from everybody except one woman friend who stuck to her faithfully and
who shared her revulsion of feeling against the sister. She lived
continually in fear she might kill her mother because the imperative
(kill her!) kept cropping up all the time. She avoided men. All attempts
to interest her in some man eventually to get her married off proved
fruitless....

The home was her temple which must not be soiled. All her devotion and
her affection were centered daily on that spot.

The case approaches closely the realm of psychosis.

After a course of psychoanalysis lasting about one half year she
improved a great deal. She was able to tolerate her sister’s visits, was
free of the obsessive thought of killing her mother, was again able to
eat any food and her “nervous” vomiting ceased altogether. A very
favorable offer of marriage she rejected. She still avoided men as
resolutely as ever.

We turn to the next case.


75. Mr. R. T., a well-known poet, only 31 years of age, is also a victim
of morbid jealousy and has already experienced very serious conflicts on
that account. He was always fixed on his family and lived exclusively
for his parents and other members of the immediate family circle. He
clung particularly to the mother, with worshipful affection. At 18 years
of age he began to fall in love with all his friends’ “girls.” He even
fell in love with a street woman whom his best friend often visited.
Already at that time he showed a strong jealous streak and he asked that
woman to give up her unfortunate way of living. (That is a typical
experience with young fellows who are fixed on the mother. They seek out
a polar obverse to their mother’s character and associate with that
person a fancy of being the savior. The savior phantasy covers,
according to my investigation, merely the wish to save one’s self....)
He was soon through with this love affair, although it had broken out
with great passion, and had to leave Berlin because he could not get
along with his parents. He always quarreled with his mother and that
interfered with his creative work.

Meanwhile he became very famous and was earning a very comfortable
income. He fell into the habit of spending his nights at restaurants and
other amusement places in the company of friends and of returning home
in the early morning hours. He woke up at noon and wrote a few hours
during the afternoon,—that was his only work.

At a certain cabaret he became acquainted with a girl who was in charge
of the bar. She was 35 years of age at the time, but gave her age as 28,
and in fact looked much younger than she was. He began having relations
with that girl, looking upon the affair as a trivial adventure, at
first. He knew that she was being supported by a Count but this did not
prevent him from allowing her to choose him for her “heart love.” He was
tremendously flattered that this girl, or perhaps we would better say,
this woman, preferred him to all others and loved him so
disinterestedly. His affection grew daily, also her love for him. She
finally gave up her Count and told our young man that she loved him
only, and would never again give herself to any other man. It made him
very happy; they rented lodgings together. But soon he requested her to
give up her position at the bar, because there she came into too close
contact with men. She did that very willingly. Before they had taken up
lodgings together he had asked her to give him a complete history of her
past life. She told him a very romantic life history and mentioned four
men who had had sexual relations with her. (As a matter of fact dozens
of men had cohabited with her.)

He was madly jealous of these men. She had to repeat to him the story of
her past over and over, then he became angry, also sexually very
excited, figured how he would revenge himself on his rivals, how he
would beat them, box their ears or shoot them down in a duel or cut them
up with his sword; his rage against the unfortunate woman grew all the
time, he scolded her, called her every bad name, threatened to leave her
at once, struck her, and in the end had intercourse with her,
experiencing powerful orgasm.

Before long he began to be troubled with the uncertainty whether she had
told the whole truth. He investigated her past, looking up questionable
episodes. A detective was engaged to watch her during his absence and to
look up her past. The fellow quickly picked up the gossip of the
neighborhood and reported the talk as true. Besides the adventures
frankly confessed to him a number of other liaisons were traced, which
the woman had failed to mention. She also had to admit that she was
older than she had held herself out to be.

There followed years of terrible torture and continual torture. First
thing in the morning he began to wonder who else among his acquaintances
or among strangers may have possessed the woman. He questioned her
persistently, his rage growing, he made her take a solemn oath, then he
struck her and tried to extract from her a forced confession. In vain
she implored him, begging him to realize that she was not responsible
for her past, that she did not know him at the time, that she was but a
child when she already had to support the whole household and a sick
mother; nothing helped, he was implacable.

When his investigations led accidentally to the discovery of another man
who had not previously figured in the list of her adventures he threw a
glass at her head and hurt her so seriously that she was ill several
weeks. He sought quarrels with her former sweethearts and challenged
them on the least provocation, wounding several in duel, as he was an
excellent duellist.

Finally the lovers separated. The woman could stand it no longer and
threatened to take her life. But, in a few weeks she fell ill and had
him called to her sick bed. Another time the reverse occurred. In
short—the pair could not keep away from each other. It was the last
love of this woman who had lost her early first charms. Through this
love she hoped to save herself and either marry or attain the
quasi-respectability of a similar state. But he had entered this
relationship lightly as he had done in similar cases and he now
suddenly found himself entangled in a tight net which isolated him
from the world. For he did not dare to go out with her. He always had
the unpleasant thought he might meet one of her former lovers,—he even
watched the faces of all passers-by to see whether they did not laugh
at him.

He had a friend who was very devoted to him. That friend hated his
partner, because she had robbed him of his best friend. That friend was
his complete slave. He became the poor woman’s guardian. But the friend
had a peculiar passion. He desired to possess all women who belonged to
his friends. (This is a transparent homosexual mask as I have already
pointed out in the present work.) Therefore he made love also to this
woman, who planned her revenge by apparently accepting his advances and
when she had in her hands proofs of the fellow’s intention, she turned
the proofs over to her beloved. A terrible scene ensued, including
revolver shots, but fortunately no one was hurt.

Next he began to torment the woman regarding her relations with that
friend. He obviously looked for an excuse to break with her, and
solemnly resolved to leave her for good if he should discover the least
thing out of the way in her conduct. But she was so cowed by his snares
that she did not dare to go out on the street alone....

The motives of his conduct are clear. We have here a pronounced case of
homosexuality manifesting itself as jealousy of other men. The thought
that this or that other man had possessed her is precisely what
constituted the woman’s highest charm in his eyes. When the man declares
that he would have been happy if he could have met this woman in her
virgin purity, he is mistaken. He will always seek the street walker,
the disreputable woman. She is the more charming because she is older
than he. For he is longing for the mother _Imago_ and therefore he is
most happy, too, when she mothers him. Like most homosexuals he is
strongly attached to the mother. But unlike the overt homosexuals he has
not carried out his flight all the way to the male, but has fled,
instead, to the _puella publica_, the dishonored woman....

He would like to get rid of this woman. But he has become more deeply
enmeshed with her through his feeling of guilt on account of the wound
he had caused her and which had left an ugly scar on her face. Since he
wishes she were dead in order to be free of her, his conscience
indissolubly binds him tenfold to his victim. His criminal fancies
center continually on the poor tortured woman and her former lovers.
Under the mask of his jealousy he gives free rein to his criminal
fancies. In addition, like most artists he is very superstitious and
believes that the woman had brought him good luck. Since he has her, he
has created his best work and under the inspiration of the strong
excitement, he has achieved his best results. It thus seems that the
relationship is fixed for life and he may never be able to give it
up....

Naturally there are also other forms of jealousy. But when it appears in
this pathologic form, it is never difficult to trace the homosexual
factor and with it the criminal tendencies back of it. The last case
given above is particularly convincing and the friend’s behavior very
characteristic.

Our subject feels impelled to think of the woman’s lovers driven thereto
by his homosexual longing. He thinks of them in a roundabout way, so to
speak, through and around the woman. Jealousy enables him to dwell on
the picture of the naked man; he thinks of the _phallus_ of his rival,
compares it with his own; he drinks in the bliss which his beloved must
have tasted through another man; he places himself entirely in the
woman’s rôle, so that, in his fancy, he is the woman. He hates the woman
in himself and transfers that hatred upon his second self, his beloved.
He hates the woman also because she cannot successfully substitute the
man for him. Before that liaison he spent his nights in cafès and wine
rooms in the exclusive company of men. He no longer does that. He does
not leave his beloved alone any more, thus lacking the excitation of
manly company. He tortures his mother as he does his beloved whenever he
goes home for a few days. He loves her so dearly that he cannot live
through a day without calling her up from Vienna all the way to Berlin,
where she lives, to talk to her. If he is somewhere where he cannot be
reached by telephone his mother must wire him daily. It is very
interesting how this love of the mother covers the deeper love of the
father. He plays the love of his mother as his trump card against the
father. He flees from the sexual love of the father, while yet he has
been repeatedly conscious of his incest phantasies towards the mother.
He always adds to his mother _Imago_ some kind of a father. He was most
jealous of an attorney, already grey haired and a married man, who
therefore stood as a symbol of the father. He has even gone so far as to
look up that man to demand an explanation from him, thereby making
himself ridiculous. His jealousy was particularly suitable as a means
for his latent sadism to become manifest. It enabled him to dwell on
bloodcurdling phantasies, it made it reasonable for him to injure his
beloved sweetheart, and to justify that insane deed as due to excess of
love. The analysis brought about a distinct improvement in the
situation. He joined again his comrades at the public houses and peace
was seldom disturbed after that.

How difficult it is at times to ferret out the homosexual root of
jealousy in such situations is shown by the next case, in which jealousy
is again masked before the subject’s consciousness.


76. Miss K. N. consults me for a peculiar trouble about her sleep. She
is extremely sensitive to noise. She lives with her sister who keeps a
very small apartment where one little room is rented to a gentleman. Her
nervousness consists of uncontrollable reflections, as soon as evening
begins, about the lodger’s return home. If he returns and goes to sleep
early, she herself is soon quiet and sleeps well through the night. But
if he is away, she cannot sleep. She may fall into slumber but sleeps so
lightly that she is awake at the least noise until she hears the lodger
return at last to his room. Then a terrible feeling of dread comes over
her and her heart begins to beat fast. Other noises also seem to disturb
her. The house in which she lives is near a railroad track. But the
trains do not disturb her, nor the electric cars. But voices in the next
room, and the sound of steps on the floor above, keep her awake.

One would suppose that she wishes the lodger would come to her and is
afraid of that. But she insists that the gentleman is indifferent to
her, she would not kiss him if he gave her millions in money for it. She
is an unlucky person. She will undoubtedly have to give up her sister’s
lodging. She has already had a similar experience. She was the mother’s
favorite, petted and fondled in every way. Her mother had a stroke of
paralysis and lost consciousness. After she came to herself, she clung
to the delusion that her favorite child had turned untrue to her and
began terribly to torture the poor child.[17] She reproached her with
occurrences wholly imaginary, scolded her as being cold, selfish and
indifferent. The girl could do nothing and finally had to leave the
house and go to live with strangers. She returned home only after the
death of the mother. Meanwhile the father had also passed away. The two
girls remained alone in the world and now only had each other. But
things were at sixes and sevens between them and they seldom had a quiet
hour between themselves.

At last the sister became actually abusive. She begged her sister “with
uplifted hands” to dismiss the lodger. She was willing to cover the room
rent out of her own pocket. She could not stand it any longer. She could
not sleep nights and was going physically and mentally to pieces. But
the sister became wild and started to scold her, using the same terrible
terms which she had heard her mother hurl at her. They rushed at each
other’s hair. She was so enraged she could have strangled her sister at
the time.

After that scene she came again to me in despair. I advised her to move
out. She cannot have everything her way and she must have quiet. But
what was her answer.

“That I cannot do. I cannot.”

“Why not? Does not your sister let you?”

“Oh no, it isn’t that ... only yesterday sister said to me: ‘Move out. I
will cherish the day when I will get rid of you.’”

“And you stand for that?”

“I cannot move out because....”

“You are in love with your sister and cannot live without her.”

“That’s it. I cannot live without sister and even her scoldings and her
angry words I will put up with rather than stand a day without seeing
her.”

“Still you will have to do it.... The conditions are unhealthy.”

“Yes.... Only yesterday I said to sister: ‘_I am going to move out and
you can keep your rooms and do with your lodger whatever you want. I
won’t protect you any more._’”

Thus it came out clearly that she was watching every night, whether the
lodger was going to the sister and that she dreaded moving out because
she knew that the sister would then be alone with the lodger in the
house and he could go to her every night. I made this clear to her but
she did not seem to see it at first. She admitted her homosexual love
for the sister....

She moved to other quarters. It was a quiet little room over a garden in
the home of an elderly woman living alone. But here also she could not
sleep. The old woman snored and she could not stand that. Then the
ticking of a clock disturbed her continually and kept her from falling
asleep, the striking of the hours even waking her up. She thus
continually sought everywhere for the reasons of her unrest which were
only in herself. The palpitation of her heart (symbolic substitute for
it: the clock) gave her no peace. She looked for other quarters, kept
looking and looking but found no place so satisfactory and quiet as the
sister’s lodging. She went there every evening returning to her outside
lodgings late in the night. She took advantage of a light illness of her
sister’s as an excuse and returned to her little room, again shivering
with dread whenever the lodger was late coming home. Even after she
chose for herself a lover who gave her complete sexual gratification her
quiet was temporary. The heterosexual component of her instincts drove
her more and more to her lover trying to forget her sister in his arms.
But she succeeded only intermittently and her thoughts kept revolving
again and again between her sister and that lodger. Finally her sister
gave in and the lodger had to move. An elderly young woman became the
new lodger. Then she quieted down and was able to sleep once more.

It is interesting that nearly all narcotic drugs not only proved useless
but made her worse. She did not want to sleep so as to keep watch over
her sister’s virtue.

As in all the cases previously mentioned, here, too, developments led to
overt attitudes, the subject stood on the brink of criminal passional
deeds. Hatred and love showed intimate relationships. She was also
afraid of murderers, barricaded the doors and shivered at every little
noise. That was the fear of her own criminal thoughts. Her infantile
criminal tendencies arose with her infantile love for the sister.

This case, like the former, illustrates the inner relations between
jealousy, homosexuality and sadism. For during her fits of anger she
entertained terrible thoughts of revenge. She thought of burning down
the home; of killing her sister, as well as herself, by turning on the
gas in the room; she tried to secure a revolver, supposedly as a
protection against thieves. Her dreams show a criminal personality in
sharp contrast to her customary mild character. Emotionally the criminal
in her was much more powerful than her cultural self, she could have
assaulted her sister and once actually drew a knife. After such
emotional outbreaks she crumpled and became again the quiet, soft girl,
beloved of everybody on account of her good nature.



                                   IV

  JEALOUSY AND PARANOIA—JEALOUSY AS PROJECTION OF ONE’S OWN
      INADEQUACY—FREUD’S RESEARCHES ON PARANOIA—THE INVESTIGATIONS OF
      JULIUSBURGER—THE JEALOUSY OF A PARANOIAC—JEALOUSY DELUSION OF A
      MERCHANT—JEALOUSY AND ALCOHOLISM—THE EVOLUTION OF MANKIND FROM
      BISEXUALITY TO MONOSEXUALITY—METAMORPHOSIS SEXUALIS PARANOICA—THE
      MONOTHEISM OF SEXUALITY—JEALOUSY AND CRIMINALITY.


_Die Eifersucht wird immer mit der Liebe geboren aber stirbt nicht immer
mit ihr._

                                                    —_La Rochefoucauld._



                                   IV

_Jealousy always arises with love but does not always die out with it._

                                                    —_La Rochefoucauld._


It is very striking that the feeling of jealousy breaks through all the
barriers of culture. Extraordinarily frequent are suspicions of
incest,[18] of homosexuality, of masturbation, and zoöphily. Women
accuse their husbands of relations with their daughter; or they accuse
the man of homosexual relations with a friend. Men bring similar
accusations against their wives. All such accusations are projections of
subjective sexual tendencies upon the object of their jealousy.
_Beaussart_ (_La Jalousie; Annales Psychiques_, vol. LXXI, 1913), who
maintains erroneously that morbid jealousy is more frequent among men
than among women, brings out very strongly this peculiarity of jealousy
and bases it on the absence of true motivation. But the motivation is
transparent enough. Among the cases reported by him I note that of a
75-year-old woman who tortured her husband to death with her groundless
jealousy and who, in a rage, one day, attacked him with a razor.
Jealousy is clearly a rationalization of hatred, it harks back to the
primary egoistic attitude of the aboriginal man. The phyletic raw
sexuality and criminality corresponds to man’s primary ontogenetic
attitude towards his environment.

Other jealous persons see their criminal tendencies reflected in the
surroundings. A jealous person has the hallucination that the supposed
lover of his wife intends to knife him. In this manner the killing of
the lover looms up as a logical necessity. Whereas men make use of
swords, revolvers, whips, tortures and shackles, woman’s criminality
breaks out in such jealousy acts as anonymous letters, libel, poisoning,
castration and throwing of acid (_Beaussart_).

In many cases the barrier between jealousy and insanity, between
neurosis and psychosis, is hardly to be distinguished. Often jealousy is
the first symptom of paranoia.

The next two cases have also pronounced paranoiac features. We are
indebted to _Freud_ for his significant contributions to our
understanding of the nature of paranoia, or _paraphrenia_, as _Freud_
terms the condition. In his fundamental contribution, _Psychoanalytische
Bemerkungen über einen autobiographisch beschriebenen Fall von Paranoia_
(_Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, 3rd ed., Franz
Deuticke, Leipzig and Vienna, 1913), he has shown that paranoiac
insanity is traceable back to the repressed homosexual components of the
sexual instinct. The persecution ideas of paranoiacs (by men) is the
projection outward of their own thoughts. The subject is pursued by his
own homosexual phantasies and out of those fancies he constructs his
notion of a pursuer. Love is transmuted by the subject into its bipolar
opposite, hatred. _Freud_ states on this point:

“‘I do not love him, in fact I hate him.’ This contrary attitude, which
cannot mean anything else in the unconscious does not assume that form
in the paranoiac’s consciousness. The mechanism governing the formation
of symptoms in paranoia requires that the inner apperception,—the
feeling of subjection,—should be replaced by some perception from
without. The proposition: ‘in fact I hate him,’ is thus changed through
projection into another: ‘he hates (pursues) me which consequently
justifies me in hating him.’ The unconscious feeling-motive thus appears
as though it were an objective perception, a deduction:

“‘_I do not love him, in fact I hate him, because he pursues me._’”

Observation leaves no doubt that the pursuer is none other than the
formerly beloved person.

_Freud_ here overlooks entirely the relations of paranoia to
criminality. Having persistently overlooked thus far the tremendous
significance of latent criminality in the psychogenesis of neurosis and
having emphasized only the sexual factors underlying all psychotic and
nervous manifestations, he neglects here also the important rôle of
criminality in the dynamics of paranoia. That is the reason why his
explanation does not fit all cases. For there is also a paranoia which
stands for a flight from criminality, even representing a
rationalization of criminal tendencies without any homosexuality. Such
cases are exceptional but they do occur. The fear of insanity which
oppresses so many neurotics, involves as a polar component the wish to
lose one’s mind. For the insane is responsible neither to himself nor
before the law. “He cannot help it.” That is why paranoiac conditions
break out so often with the commission of some crime. On the other hand
the paranoiac turns insane as a defence against committing a crime. We
shall yet find that isolation in an asylum for the insane corresponds
with many a victim’s hidden wish, because there they find peace of mind
and security.

The jealousy of paranoia like every other form of jealousy is an
expression of rage. But _it serves to rationalize the anger and lends
force as well as a measure of emotional justification to the criminal
impulse_. Many crimes of passion, so-called, are caused by the passion
for crime. We have as yet penetrated but little through the mask which
covers the inner criminal. We are still too anxiously concerned with the
superficial motivations which bring about sadism to find the path
leading towards the fundamental fact. The best measure of culture is the
manner in which the man’s primordial character manifests itself in us,
our conscious conduct. That is why the advancement of culture is bound
to lead to an increase of insanity in the proportion that the jails are
emptied.

I must again point out that _Juliusburger_ was the first to recognize
and describe clearly these relations. In fact the credit of having
discovered the relations between homosexuality and paranoia belongs to
him. In his work entitled, “_Die Homosexualität im Vorentwurf zu einem
deutschen Strafgesetzbuch_” (_Allgemeine Zeitschrift f. Psychiatrie_,
1911), he already stated:

“Furthermore we find in the insane the well-known delusion of
persecution and its motive is often derived from homosexuality inasmuch
as the patients complain that they are pursued with homosexual intent,
of which they themselves disclaim any guilt. Or, in their morbid state
of mind, they believe themselves victims of persecution because it is
proposed that they should be driven into the alleged ranks of
homosexuals, something they resent most scornfully. In both cases we see
a peculiar psychic process which must be conceived as a projection to
the surroundings, to the world of external reality, of unconscious
subjective notions. When an individual breaks down mentally complaining
to be a victim of watchfulness and persecution for alleged homosexual
purposes, the condition may be explained only in the sense that the
individual in question actually harbors within himself a powerful
homosexual tendency and the latter is projected unto the world of
external reality through a peculiar mental mechanism. The old
proposition: _ex nihilo nihil fit_ holds true also of the mental sphere
and it would be utterly unscientific to fail to recognize in this sphere
as well the law of strict causality or motivation. A careful examination
of the mental life of our insane man’s unconscious shows that
homosexuality is a powerful motive force much more frequently than is
ordinarily recognized and this attempt to turn the unconscious
subjective feeling of homosexuality into an objective reality,
constitutes a pathway for the release of inner psychic tension, so a
means for the individual to escape the feeling of guilt roused by his
erroneous perception of facts and to pass the responsibility onto other
shoulders. Many of the insane notions of our patients become
intelligible and we grasp their meaning only when we recognize the
powerful rôle which homosexuality plays in man’s unconscious.”

_Juliusburger_ also recognizes the significance of sadism and its
tremendous rôle in the psychogenesis of the delusion of jealousy. In his
contribution referred to previously, “_Zur Psychologie des
Alkoholismus_” (_Zentralblatt f. Psychoanalyse_, Vol. III, 1913), he
makes the following relevant observations:

“I agree with _Freud_ that the homosexual or homopsychic component of
man and woman finds one of its outlets, as sublimation, in the form of
companionship and social drinking. But thus far I remain unconvinced
that homosexuality or its psychic substitute plays also a similar rôle
in the pathogenesis of the delusion of jealousy. Therefore I still
adhere to the view expressed by my colleague, _Hans Oppenheim_, in his
contribution, “_Zur Frage der Genese des Eifersuchtswahns_” (published
in: _Zentralblatt f. Psychoanalyse_, 1911). As formerly I still regard
the sadistic-masochistic instinctive cravings as the strongest root of
the delusion of jealousy. I found particularly instructive a certain
case in which sadism broke forth in a jealous drinker more quickly than
I had ever seen that happen before. This man’s sadism manifested itself
concurrently in an incredible cruelty to dogs which could be only
explained by his sadism. The oft-recorded fact that the jealous drinker
is not satisfied and does not release his victim even after the latter,
in an attempt to quiet him, submits to some disgusting act, the
continual repetition by him of tortures and cruelties, may be explained
only as due to a deeply rooted sadistic impulse everlastingly craving
gratification. The delusion of jealousy is rooted in sadism, the
overstressed images accompanying the morbid feeling of jealousy are
generated by the sadistic tendency. Sadism is the fertile soil giving
rise to the delusions of persecution of the jealous alcoholics, and
intimately linked with sadism stands masochism, upon which the feeling
of jealousy feeds and grows.”

“Besides the sadistic-masochistic components the pathogenesis of the
delusion of jealousy displays also the transposition of a certain
feeling of guilt. In my cases at least it was easy to prove that the
jealous drinker who forces his wife to commit some punishable offence,
is himself inclined to carry out the incriminating acts and controls
himself only with difficulty. I found a similar situation in the case of
women, victims of delusions of jealousy. The more or less conscious
projection of their feeling of guilt upon the partner brings on mental
release and a certain sense of freedom, and at the same time furnishes
new fuel for the sadistic impulse. Finally for the explanation of the
delusion of jealousy we must take into consideration also another factor
which may be explained on the basis of atavism. We shall see later that
certain atavistic reminiscences play a great rôle in the psychology of
alcoholism. The will to power, the yearning to dominate and subdue woman
still lies dormant in man’s soul,—a remnant from old. The soul of the
alcoholic is particularly prolific in atavistic remnants which show
themselves upon close analysis and, besides, the chronic intoxication
rouses the _dormant atavistic trends_ which lie dormant at the bottom of
the soul and brings them to surface. The aboriginal tyrannical self
awakens in the drinker and flays a controlling whip over the cowering
woman; in the case of female victims of the delusion of jealousy the
reverse happens and the primordial matriarchal instinct becomes
manifest. We learn progressively to see and appreciate how atavistic
remnants break to the surface in the psyche of the insane.”

That conception of jealousy as the “projection upon the surroundings of
a subjective feeling of inadequacy” was at one time my starting point in
my characterological investigations of jealousy. But I soon learned that
the problem is much more complicated. When I found that the neurotics
represent regressive stages of development, I conceived jealousy to be a
primitive feeling of hatred, characteristic of man in his primordial
state. Paranoia discloses the primary tendencies which are glossed over
by our cultural development. One’s true character betrays itself in
one’s emotions. Jealousy shows us the true inner man in all his
passionate cravings and his hidden desires.

The next case illustrates all the characteristic features: the delusion
of persecution, the morbid jealousy and the brutal sadism. There is no
insight into the condition. The feeling of jealousy is adjudged as
justified. Ridiculous incidents are held forth as grounds for suspicion
in order to remove from self the sense of guilt. All the alleged
“persecutions,” which are looked upon as dangerous, lack any objective
grounds. Often sadism breaks through, though under the guise of
emotional paralogisms.


77. Mr. A. W., a manufacturer, 29 years of age, consults me for anxiety,
a condition which has already plunged him into very unpleasant
situations. His anxiety broke out in Tyrol the first time. He wanted to
meet a certain party and asked his landlord for directions. The latter
conducted him personally over the road, which was a very rough and badly
neglected one. Suddenly the man saw in front of him some
suspicious-looking persons. But he controlled himself, although he
surmised they were tramps if not a gang of highwaymen. Next he saw a
number of men on the hill hurrying in his direction. At that he broke
into a run, and kept running as fast as he could. A shot rang out in the
distance, intended for him.... He reached the valley, out of breath, and
reported the occurrence to the officer. The latter shook his head and
did not even care to question the landlord, who explained that he had
merely conducted the gentleman through a short cut in the road which is
also used by hunters. That short cut leads to the next broad highway.
But A. insisted that all was not well and that an attempt had been made
to hold him up. The officer said that in his 30-year experience such a
thing had never happened in that locality. But A. remained unconvinced
and to this day he believes that he had narrowly escaped a hold-up. That
might be thought possibly true if the occurrence stood alone. But he had
very many such experiences. During a journey through Sweden he saw the
hotel proprietor talk in subdued tones in Swedish with a number of
guests who thereupon stared at him queerly. There was no key to his room
and the room could not be locked. He could not sleep and kept peering
through the window. Then he saw a number of queer fellows foregathering
in the hall. He could not stay longer in that house. The owner told him
that as he had engaged the room he would have to keep it. They could not
come to an understanding. He saw an officer passing by and called upon
the representative of law to help him extricate himself. The officer
knew a few German words, he stepped in, and they went to the police
station together, and there a record was made of his remarkable
adventures. He left his lodgings a third time on similar grounds. On his
excursions he always carries a revolver and that gives him a certain
sense of security.

It is easy to diagnose this as a case of paranoia. The absence of
insight after the emotional episodes shows the psychotic character of
the trouble. A victim of anxiety neurosis may have similar experiences.
But afterwards, perhaps only a few hours after the occurrence, he says
to himself: “It was nonsense,” and is ashamed to speak of it later. But
this man dwells on his adventures trying to convince me of the dangers
he has gone through.

The notion of being watched and pursued is a product of his homosexual
leaning which he is unable to control. We inquire into his personal
habits and past life and find that his mother died when he was very
young and his father assumed also the place of a mother to him. With his
father he maintained a sort of “spiritual marriage” relationship up to a
few months ago. They always went out together, never one without the
other, and they slept in one room. The latter habit was but seldom
broken by the presence of friends.

A remarkable episode is brought to memory such as is always found among
the homosexuals. He once fell in love with a girl, an employee’s
sweetheart. That passion soon blew over. Another love affair, however,
almost turned him away from his customary leaning. There was another
girl employed in the office, a slim, diminutive figure, rather
plain-looking, and underdeveloped (a type resembling the male). That
girl was engaged and her young man was in the habit of calling to take
her home. Everybody in the store knew that the young man was waiting
outside at the closing hour (he claims she was cordial also with some
other men in the store). He fell in love with the girl and soon showed
that uncontrollable passion which is characteristic of homosexuals when
they attempt to save themselves from man,—when they try to fly from
homosexuality. He soon succeeded in winning her favor against his rival,
who was but a poor employee. The poor girl was supremely happy and proud
that the wealthy manufacturer’s son had his eye on her. He promptly
showed the girl that his intentions were honorable. He withdrew entirely
from his father who was bitterly opposed to the affair. He lived with
his thoughts exclusively on and for the girl. She had to leave the
office. The father requested it and, besides, the other employees
gossiped and spread rumors which were unpleasant to him. He received
anonymous communications pointing out to him that the girl was flighty.
Another employee told him that he had kissed the girl and she was not at
all a prude. These persons naturally did not know that their tales only
increased his passion for the girl. For it was precisely the thought
that she had been kissed by another man that made her so irresistible in
his sight. It made him angry and raging mad but his excitation reacted
upon his homosexual component. The more he was roused against the girl
the more closely he was enmeshed with her. He met her three times daily.
He called for her in the morning, at noon they took a walk together, and
the evenings, often the nights, belonged to the girl who proved with a
physician’s certificate that she was still _virgo intacta_. His
relations with her were of such a nature that her virginity was not
endangered. This attitude, this fearsome withholding from the task of
defloration under the excuse of ethical considerations, is typical of
the neurotic’s feeling of uncertainty and lack of confidence in himself,
fear of binding himself, and fear of consequences, and shows an
insufficient _libido_. The passion was something rather spiritual, a
transference, something unreal. For they passed some nights together and
he was satisfied merely to be in the same room (they never slept in one
bed). Her presence had chiefly a quieting effect on him. Through her he
felt himself protected against his homosexual thoughts. He also needed a
love affair to show the whole world that he was not homosexual and that
he was capable of loving a woman.

But during the very first days of this love affair his jealousy began to
assert itself, a peculiarity characteristic of these subjects,
permitting them to concentrate their mind perpetually on the subject of
men. First he began to investigate her past. She had to confess
everything to him. Then there followed endless torture over endless
days. In the morning he began to look questioningly at her. If she
showed blue dark streaks under her eyes, or looked pale, he felt sure
that she had been untrue to him that night. Although he conducted her
home late at night and called for her early next morning he still
thought that she slipped out of the house to meet some strange lover
somewhere. Often he stood on watch all night in the front of her home.
He saw curious shadows moving across her window blind and was sure that
it must be a man. He endured hellish torments over it. He engaged a
detective to watch the girl and caught her in an innocent lie. His
persistent questionings had cowed her and sometimes she had to lie in
order to pacify him. An innocent fib of that character was the starting
point of a quarrel which kept up for many weeks. She saw him patrol up
and down in front of her house. He looked badly run down as he did not
sleep nights and he neglected his affairs at the factory. She made him
promise that he would go home nights. He promised and immediately
afterwards felt uneasy over it. For he was certain that she made him
give that promise so as to be able to deceive him more easily.

Then terrible thoughts of revenge flashed through his mind. He wanted to
shoot the unknown lover and strangle the girl. Perhaps he sought a proof
of unfaithfulness so as to get rid of the girl and justify his own
disloyalty towards her.

He naturally pretended once to go on a journey only to return
unexpectedly to the girl. He thought he smelled cigar smoke, dragged her
by the hair, and wanted to force a confession from her. He also accused
her of intimacy with her 70-year-old guardian.

Such cases are not favorable for analysis and rather hopeless. I am not
as lucky as _Bjerre_[19] to be able to report a complete cure of a case
of paranoia. Usually these patients abandon the psychoanalysis, finding
some pretext to turn from the consultant. It is useless to explain to
them the mechanism of transference. From the moment when they perceive a
leaning towards their consultant that sympathetic feeling is changed
into anxiety and distrust. They are unwilling to recognize their
homosexuality. Their psychic disturbance is too deep and a correction is
no longer possible. Often the subjects stay away after only a few
visits. This sudden abandonment stands in sharp contrast to their
initial enthusiasm for the new method of treatment. Others stay on with
the analysis for a few weeks but make little or no progress. So long as
their homosexual tendencies are not touched upon, it is possible to keep
up the psychoanalysis a little longer but the psychoanalysis is
superficial under the circumstances, as they cannot be induced to apply
candor, always keep secrets from the consultant, and cover under silence
whatever comes into their mind bearing on their attitude towards their
physician.

He carried his revolver whenever he called at my office, always ready to
shoot down the alleged enemy. I tried to make him understand that he was
tortured by his own homosexual and criminal thoughts. He listened
incredulously but was not so averse as I have seen most paranoiacs.

This patient also stayed away after three weeks of analysis because the
analysis produced in him a tremendous excitement. He thought I was in
league with his father[20] to part him from his girl. The real object of
his love was the father who seems to me to play an important rôle in the
psychogenesis of male paranoia.

I saw him two years later during the war. He had joined the army as
volunteer, had made an excellent record for himself and had been
slightly wounded. Since the war he felt better. He had given up the
engagement shortly after the treatment. His ideas of persecution had
subsided to a great extent, he claimed.

The next case shows us a paranoiac jealousy with insane notions based on
proofs ferreted out and scrutinized with remarkable ingenuity. Such
cases form the borderline towards the class of querrulants who clamor
always for their “rights,” precisely because an inner voice clamoring
for “injustice” must be drowned.


78. Mr. S. D. is referred to me by his family physician from a distance.
I am asked to determine whether his jealousy is justified or the result
of a morbid state of mind.

He is a very energetic, active 30-year-old merchant, who conducts the
local inn in connection with his larger business in a small village. In
eight years he made a great success and attained affluence. He has
acquired all the retail business of the place, carries on also a
wholesale business with the neighboring retail dealers, and was on the
way to become a very wealthy man when he began to quarrel with his wife
on account of his jealousy. His wife was of a frigid temperament who
always remained cool during his embrace and it always worried him. After
the birth of a couple of children she grew somewhat more responsive.
When she had her first strong orgasm during his embrace he became
suspicious and concluded at once that she must have had some other
instructor in the art of love. How was it possible for a cool woman,
suddenly, over night, as it were, to turn into a passionate mate? He
began watching his wife and came to the conclusion that she must have
had intercourse with a certain man possessing a very long _phallus_.
There lived in that village a farmer who was no longer young, but
wealthy, and known for his long penis and his virility. That fellow was
his regular guest at the inn. What more natural than that the innkeeper
should conclude that he must be the guilty man. We note that his mind
must have been preoccupied for a long time with the size of that man’s
penis. That phantasy he projected to his wife. His curiosity and longing
to see that _phallus_ he ascribed to his wife. That is how thought
processes originate. Such _autism_ (_Bleuler_) renders us uncritical and
permits us to see the whole world through the subjective coloring of our
own emotions. How could his wife, a woman, fail to be interested in the
size of the peasant’s _phallus_, which was openly the talk of the
tavern, when he, a man, could not help being interested? Such,
approximately, is the logic of this thinking. He began to watch that
peasant and his wife. He pretended to go on a journey telling his wife
he would not be back before the following day. But he returned that very
evening. He tiptoed up the steps to the bedroom. He heard a dull thud.
Naturally it was the peasant, escaping through the window. It was—as the
woman explained—the cat who had been scared off. He insisted a man had
been in the room. His wife felt so indignant that she wanted to leave
him at once and refused to say another word. He became humble and begged
her imploringly for forgiveness telling her the reason for his jealousy.
The wife declared that she had always been passionate but was ashamed to
show it. Finally it came to her all of a sudden that it was foolish on
her part, also, she had learned to love him more than ever. She cannot
help it if she is now more responsive. There followed an interval of
peace but only for a few months. Soldiers were quartered in the place
and a physically impressive captain secured a room. From the moment of
his appearance at the place that captain roused the man’s suspicions. He
found that his wife gave the fellow the best cup of coffee, that she was
altogether too friendly with him, and that she showered upon him all
sorts of pleasant little courtesies. His wife explained to him that this
captain bought of them all the supplies for his company and was the
means of bringing them important business, and that she was friendly
only for business reasons, but that their relations had never trespassed
the limits of propriety. But he kept collecting indications of her
unfaithfulness. Among the proofs he found the butt of a cigarette in his
wife’s room. He questioned her closely and asked the officer’s orderly
to bring him a cigarette from his master’s case, claiming those
cigarettes had such a pleasant aroma he wanted to try one. He thus
secured a cigarette and found that it bore an identical mark. The fact
was he smoked the same brand of cigarettes, but he thought he discovered
a certain stripe which the other cigarettes did not have (I could not
detect the stripe in question). His other proofs were of a like
character. This time he had a terrible quarrel with his wife,—much more
serious than the previous ordeal. Trouble upon trouble followed after
that. He suspected his clerks and dismissed them one after another about
every two weeks. Every one was his wife’s lover. Finally he rushed at
his wife, in a fit of anger, to beat her, and began choking her. The
following day the woman left him, went to live with her sister, and
started proceedings for divorce. She claimed her husband was not normal
and he voluntarily came to Vienna to place himself under my observation.

First I turned my attention to his jealousy and I tried carefully to
correct that. He acknowledged some points, here and there, showed some
insight into his condition, and was not shocked when I refused to give
him a certificate of good health. Meanwhile he had removed his beard to
give himself a younger appearance. That change was not necessary as he
was young-looking enough, but it was part of the outbreak of his
feminine tendencies. He also had a string of dreams in which he was a
woman. Usually he rehearsed the old jealousy scenes and he repeatedly
killed his wife in his dreams.

Thus he dreamed:


_I am with my wife in an old room but dressed as a woman, so as not to
be recognized. My wife steps out of the room, it was very dark. The
captain comes into the room and wants to touch me under the dress. But
some one calls him out of the room. I jump at my wife, enraged: that is
the kind of a h—— you are. Now I know everything about you ... and I
stick a knife in her throat._


In another dream he lies hidden under the bed and feels the swaying
motion of coitus above. It was very characteristic that after quarrels
and scenes of violence he craved intercourse with his wife and his
_libido_ was much stronger ... clearly on account of the sadistic
excitation.

I saw this patient again five years after the psychoanalysis. He was
divorced from his wife and was apparently very quiet. He claimed to be
entirely well, said he was jealous no longer, and every now and then had
intercourse with women. I do not dare decide whether this result may be
ascribed to the analysis and the therapeutic-educational course of
treatment.

The various confusion states, called periodic insanity, must be looked
upon as an equivalent of permanent insanity. It is certainly striking to
see how many alcoholics, morphinists, opium eaters, cocaine fiends and,
in more recent years, victims addicted to adalin, veronal, medinal,
luminal, etc., fear insanity. If such a case is analyzed one always
finds the homosexual component and the repressed sadistic tendency. The
psychic mechanisms of these disorders are the same as those described in
the paranoid form of the jealousy delusion. We have in all these cases
an endopsychic perception that inner forces compel greater stress on the
delusions than on reality.

The next case is a pure example of this condition under a form which
often ends in suicide.


79. Mr. O. L., a very talented violinist, suffers unbearable anxieties,
among them the fear of insanity being the strongest. He also has hours
of terrific, unexplainable depressions for which he is unable to give
any cause. He only _has the feeling that he is about to commit some
terrible deed_ so as to rid himself of the anxiety and have peace once
more. He thinks he might commit some crime and be jailed so as to be
sure that there is nothing further for him to fear. During the first
weeks he speaks only of his anxiety over his father. He has the idea
fixed in his mind that his father will come to Vienna and have him
interned in an insane asylum. Rather than put up with that _he will
shoot his father first and then kill himself_. He reverts every little
while to the suspicion that I am in league with his father. (That is the
form which the identification of the physician with the father assumes
with this class of patients. The physician is the symbol of the father.)
He has been taking various narcotics for a number of years. Not,
exactly, to sleep. For he sleeps well without the aid of veronal or
pantopon. But he suffers so much of anxiety. And he feels that the
narcotics make a better man of him. He uses unbelievable doses of these
drugs. He has once taken with suicidal intent 10 g. veronal in one dose
with the only result that he slept 24 hours “like a top” and woke up
without any ill effects. He sleeps every day till 11 or noon, sometimes
into the afternoon hours, and still wakes up somewhat drowsy.

He now abstains strictly from alcohol. He has done a number of foolish
things under the influence of drink. Once he tackled an officer at a
night resort, wanted to embrace him, kiss him, made various suggestive
proposals and finally had to be thrown out. He has also had serious rows
which put him in the hands of the police. He gave his word of honor to
his father that he would not touch liquor any more because he was
threatened with internment at a sanitarium for alcoholics. He broke his
word only once but has turned to various narcotics. During a six-months
sojourn at a sanitarium he got completely well and abandoned the drugs.
One month after leaving the sanitarium he began again to use the drugs.

He is an impressive, handsome, very powerful man, very “lucky” with
women. But he is true to none for any length of time excepting the last
sweetheart. He did love her and does to this day. He would marry her if
he could support her.

He is tremendously jealous and his jealousy is that typical form which
is concerned with the past, an example of which we have seen in case 75.
He has to be told over and over by his sweethearts how they have been
seduced. He must hear with particular circumstantiality all the details
of the defloration. That causes him tremendous sexual excitation. Only
then is he able to achieve orgasm with women. Otherwise he may keep up
the sexual congress for a half hour without accomplishing
ejaculation.[21]

Finally ejaculation and orgasm are brought about through manual friction
of the penis by the woman. This form of sexual gratification leads back
to a particular incident in his youth when the choice was made. First,
he confesses that at 17 he maintained relations with a boy who gratified
him in that manner. Earlier reminiscences from childhood appear. The
incidents always relate to boys. Now he does not want to recognize any
homosexual tendencies. At 17 years he made a forceful attempt to tear
himself away from his friend and began passionately to run after women
and girls.

His homosexuality shows itself in the choice of his love objectives.
Usually he seduces the sisters of those of his friends whom he likes in
particular. I know no affair of his in which some man did not play a
rôle. When a man did not figure at the beginning he was brought in
later, so as to complete the constellation necessary for the rousing of
his libidinous craving. Very characteristic is the following episode,
among the others of the last few years:

He became acquainted at a sanitarium with a young woman who soon became
his sweetheart. One of his most intimate friends was also at that
sanitarium. He asked his friend to try his luck with the lady because he
wanted to test her faithfulness. The friend hesitated. He was afraid of
a misunderstanding and the woman was not worth that to him. Then our
subject tried to bring him and his sweetheart together in another way.
He wagered a large sum of money that he could not get at the girl. His
friend accepted the wager, and three days later proved that he had won
the bet. O. L. wanted to hear every detail about the seduction and
became so enraged that he could have killed his friend. Then that friend
seduced again another sweetheart of his, a few months later he attacked
him on the street and would have beaten him up if a few colleagues had
not restrained him.

Now here in Vienna he is convinced that “that d—— fellow” will seduce
also his present sweetheart, a girl whom he truly loves. But if so, he
will find the fellow and kill him as well as the girl. The woman has a
brother who plays an important rôle in the psychogenesis of this love.
Once the woman told him how devotedly she loved her brother. She could
understand how a sister may give herself to a brother. Now he urged the
woman to give herself to the brother, setting up but one condition: he
should witness the act. This phantasy assumed compulsive strength. On
every occasion he tortured her, insisting that she ought to grant him
the wish, and he kept calling in the brother when she did not want him.
Once they were alone. He broke his word and they drank merrily. He got
very drunk and made a passionate love declaration to his sweetheart’s
brother, begging him to accompany him to the house and take the sister’s
place.

His mother died when he was 15 years of age. The father engaged a young
woman to take care of the house and he fell in love with her. At the
same time he also hated her, fearing that his father would disinherit
him in favor of this woman. He even planned to put the woman out of the
way with poison. Wholly unconscious and most deeply repressed is his
love for the father, whom he worries and to whom he causes no end of
trouble. He was at the threshold of a wonderful career, all teachers had
prophesied that he would be some day one of the world’s greatest
violinists. His first concert was an unprecedented success. Then his
neurosis broke out and now he is through with his career. Done with it
and with life.

Back of the neurosis the motive of which is to worry the old father, to
irritate him and force him to pay attention to the unsuccessful son,
stands hidden his passionate love of the father, though he writes him
scolding letters, 20 sheets long, and threatens to shoot him, should he
dare cut down his rightful inheritance. A certain memory trace leads to
various childhood fancies resembling the affairs with boys already
mentioned. Finally he brings forth a reminiscence placing his father in
an unpleasant light. The father was also a drinker....

It seems as if he had tried to forget that fact. His fancies of murder
are directed against the father. That becomes clearer all the time. He
turns ill and addicted to veronal so as to commit no crime. He feels his
father slights and neglects him. They quarrel all the time on account of
his dissipations. The father threatens he will be no longer responsible
for his debts. The son must give up his expensive habits of living. Then
the war broke out. He was among the first volunteers to answer the call,
distinguished himself several times with his conduct, and finally met
his death in an engagement.

I have already pointed out elsewhere in this work the latent
homosexuality of drinkers. In the light of these new considerations, the
well-known jealousy of drinkers reveals an additional feature. The
intoxication is to a certain extent a periodic artificial paranoia
during which the ideas of persecution come to the foreground. This is
very clearly to be seen in many cases. In that particular respect the
alcohol addict is hardly different from the paranoiac. Both believe in
the objectivity of their insane notions.

The following two case histories of drinkers’ jealousy will conclude
this lengthy list of illustrative cases:


80. Mr. N. V., Captain, married at the age of 34 and has been married
two years. His marriage was unhappy from the very first day. Previous to
that he had had intercourse only with _puellæ publicæ_ and with them was
always potent. With his wife he is impotent. He is very unhappy over it
and consoles himself with street women. He began to drink and beats his
wife while intoxicated. He scolds her, calls her a whore and accuses her
of intimacy with all the officers. Although he had been drinking
formerly, he did so with moderation, but now he is a confirmed
_potator_, spends his time in dram shops and while intoxicated becomes
very friendly with the waiters and other underlings, kissing them and
toasting their comradeship. He is firmly convinced that his wife is
unfaithful to him and even suspects his boy whom he beats mercilessly
when under the influence of drink.

The woman left her husband and fled to her parents.

That affected the man so depressingly that, after a three months’ stay
at a sanitarium, he returned penitently, a changed man, and prevailed
upon the wife to return and live with him again. But in a few weeks his
old demoniac jealousy set in once more. This time he accused her of the
most horrible crimes. He reproached her that she allowed herself to be
licked by the dog and shot the animal. He watched her carefully and
denied her the least social intercourse. Finally he accused her of
intimacy with her 15-year-old brother. He found a small spot on the bed
linen and he cut that out to preserve as proof of her infidelity. He
pounced on her one night, choked her, and tried to force her to confess
her doings with the brother. Again she fled to her parents but hesitated
to turn her husband over to the lunacy board. She did not want to be the
cause of his commitment to a sanitarium.

Meanwhile the patient’s insanity grew rapidly. He drank to great excess
and raised a big row in front of her parents’ home. He complained to the
police that his wife and her younger brother, with whom she maintains
criminal relations, had set a number of desperate-looking characters on
his trail. He served notice that he would give those fellows something
to remember him by and that the first one who would dare come too close
to him would be shot down. Commitment. Delirium tremens. Exitus in
consequence of an intercurrent malady.

It is noteworthy that the suspected little brother-in-law had been a
great favorite of his; he had been fond of taking the boy along on his
hunting trips. When completely under the influence of drink he always
wanted to embrace him and pet him.

A connection between paranoia and alcoholism is shown also by the last
of this series of observations, which follows:


81. This is a woman no longer in her prime of life. She is the
grandmother of several children, 54 years of age, and, up to a few years
ago, she was not jealous. As soon as her husband ceased to have
intercourse with her she was seized with the idea that he must have
intercourse with a certain pretty girl who had been formerly in their
employ and had left. She had seen that girl often in the neighborhood
and wondered that the girl looked so well and was so well dressed. She
had always liked the girl very much. In fact, she wept when the girl
left the house. Now she tortured her husband with the accusation that he
was intimate with that girl,—she was sure of it. The man denied it,
but—grilled by her—he had to admit that he had met the girl on the
street a few times and had spoken to her. That led to such terrible
quarrels,—he had to leave the house and was gone for weeks on a journey.
He wanted to have peace and was energetic enough to bring it about. In
fact, he threatened to sue for separation.

The woman began to drink, specially liqueurs, but also ordinary whiskey.
When intoxicated she behaved very vulgarly and cursed the girl; called
her a whore, and shouted that she ought to have the clothes torn off
her. She threatened her youngest daughter’s husband and entertained the
notion of throwing acid at him. While intoxicated she also felt an
impulse to seek out her youngest daughter (obviously to find her
son-in-law) and ran to the railroad station, entered the wrong train,
and committed all sorts of nuisances so that she had to be committed. At
the asylum she had to give up drink but showed no ill effects from the
enforced abstinence, only she figured daily what her husband was up to
with the girl. Like most paranoiacs she claimed that she had telepathic
powers and felt at a distance that her husband was with the girl. That
was an absolute fact and no physician could convince her it was not so.

That contention embodied an inner truth: the man in her was with the
girl, that is, the man in her was continually preoccupied with the girl.
In fact, she had no other thought than the girl. It was as if she was
saying to herself: _If I were a man I would fall in love with this girl
and would not leave her alone a minute. She would have to be mine only._

After the marriage of her youngest daughter she fell into a depression
during which she first began the habit of indulging in alcoholic drinks.

Obviously the woman had two homosexual objectives which she fused: the
servant girl and the youngest daughter. In fact, she began early to
think that her husband was intimate with the daughter in question. She
even lodged with the authorities a complaint to that effect and asked to
be allowed to bring proofs of the assertion. Now her husband wanted to
poison her. She had been given coffee which had an arsenical smell.

She transfers to the surroundings her subjective criminal ideas. We see
that she had to drink in order to deafen in her the wild beast which
endeavored to break forth in all its primordial crudity. Her commitment
to an asylum did not change her leanings. She swore at her man who
conspired with the hateful son-in-law to have her put out of the way so
as to prevent her from exposing their evil doings before the whole
world.

How close the forbidden tendencies are to one another in such cases!
Almost uniformly the same picture throughout: criminality, homosexuality
and incest. After years of the compulsory yoke of a formal monosexuality
the repression gives way and the underlying pansexuality and criminal
tendencies manifest themselves in pathologic form. For all these case
histories center around the “other,” the second, self,—the repressed
component of human nature.

_We know_ many persons who prove themselves victims of our monosexual
culture. The race is paying for the development of monosexuality with
neurotic homosexuality, with all the various neuroses, with alcoholism
and paranoia!

But it would be erroneous for that reason to decry the course of
cultural development or to look for the improvement of conditions to
changes in law or in the formal code of morals. All lovers of mankind
surely must fight for the abandonment of the moral opprobrium and legal
persecution of homosexuals and for a greater freedom from bias in the
perception of the problem of all paraphilias. But we must not fail to
recognize that we are dealing here with tremendous social forces and
with developmental tendencies striving, beyond all human range, for the
attainment of unknown higher ideals. _The development of the race is
from bisexualism to monosexualism. Even the “genuine” homosexuality as
we know it today everywhere is a proof in favor of this contention._

For if homosexuality were an inborn trait, as _Hirschfeld_ and his
pupils maintain, it would be the pattern-type of health and homosexuals
would show no repressed heterosexuality; there would be no morphinists,
no drinkers, and no dipsomaniacs[22] among them. Their number may not be
large, but that is because the uranists’ homosexuality is already a
compromise, an attempt on the part of nature, and of the psyche, to
escape the insolvable bisexual conflict. The very fact that all
neurotics represent retrogressions shows that the race is advancing
towards monosexuality. The neurotic, as a bisexual being, might stand
for an earlier developmental phase, if the cultural standards of
morality would not hinder. When he attempts it (like, for instance,
_Oscar Wilde_) he draws upon himself the deadly scorn of his fellowmen;
he is ostracized as a citizen. Homosexuality leads but seldom to
paranoia when associated with heterosexuality, as happens in the reverse
instance,—heterosexuals trying to repress their homosexuality. That in
itself shows homosexuality to be a neurosis,—the premonitory phase of
the paranoiac psychosis. When paranoia breaks out, the homosexual holds
to the delusion that he belongs to the opposite sex and may go so far as
to disregard his genitalia and to acquire the feeling that he is
physically changed. The paranoia attempts to round out physically the
delusion of sexual transformation it has initiated psychically. The wish
of the male homosexual: “I want to be a woman!” is fulfilled in
paranoia. In that state he finds a thousand proofs that he is a woman.
Many such cases have been described especially by _Krafft-Ebing_, who
has called them “_metamorphosis sexualis paranoica_.” The subjects
imagine that they have the monthly flow because they have the nose-bleed
every four weeks (this happens also with nonparanoia _urnings_),—they
have a flow from the lower parts for five days at every full moon. A
patient of _Krafft-Ebing’s_ relates (Obs. 134, p. 245): “Every four
weeks at the full moon I have for 5 days the _molimina_, like any woman,
physically and mentally, only I do not flow,—but I have a sensation of
discharging fluid, a feeling of fulness about the genitals and the lower
part of the body (within); a very pleasant time it is, especially later
(in a couple of days) when the physiologic craving for procreation looms
forth with its all-pervading womanly force.” Another paranoiac claims
that he has always been woman, but when he was a child a French magician
had miraculously endowed him with male organs and, with a certain salve,
hindered the development of his breasts. A girl under my observation
felt her penis, pointed to the hairs on her face, and thought she was a
bewitched male. But she could feel her penis growing within and almost
coming through.

The following statement by the highest expert on homosexuality shows
that the repression of heterosexuality may have serious effects upon the
homosexual,—it may drive him to drink, or into a delusion of
persecution:

“I have seen, in the homosexual, states of precordial anxiety with
strong vasomotor excitation as serious as such conditions could be. Next
to anxiety neurosis, an occasional consequence of abstinence seems to me
to be the occurrence of a sort of persecution mania which is rather
difficult to determine whether it belongs to the compulsive neuroses or
is actually a part of the picture of paranoia. Such persons imagine
everybody suspects their homosexuality; they look at their hands and
laugh sheepishly because they wear no engagement or marriage ring; at
restaurants persons sitting at neighboring tables whisper and knowingly
nod among themselves as they talk about the ‘_eingefleischten
Junggesellen_’; porters and waiters at hotels ‘catch on’ to ‘what is up’
and treat them either more or less attentively than other customers;
passers-by on the street comment on their tripping gait; in short, they
feel that they are watched everywhere and are uncomfortably
self-conscious; some blush continually, others become morbidly
suspicious and timid, others again—and that is the worst—take to drink.
Convinced of the truthfulness of their notions and refractory in their
attitude towards the physician, patients of this type make up their
minds late and only after considerable struggle, to consult a physician
and even then they often do it under an assumed name. If the ideas of
persecution have already persisted for a long time, the condition is
hardly one that can be influenced by treatment,—in any case it requires
the greatest skill and patience on the part of the physician as well as
his whole therapeutic armamentarium, of which psychotherapy and
hydrotherapy are most important means, while drugs, rather excessively
favored nowadays, should be used but sparingly.” (_Hirschfeld, loc.
cit._, p. 455.)

This observation of _Hirschfeld’s_ discloses the homosexual’s deep
feeling of self-reproach which must be ascribed to hidden criminality
rather than to the homosexuality. Perhaps that fusion of homosexuality
with criminality, of pathologic self-love and repressed hatred, that
incapacity for true love, is the reason why men struggle against
monosexuality and why innumerable victims fall in that struggle, their
refined souls crushed by the conflict. Just as we no longer have the
gods of antiquity—men with female bosoms and women with a tremendous
_phallus_—just as we have accepted the division of God into three
components (man, woman, and child) which unitedly represent but one
force, so we must choose, in our day, our ideal. _That is the monotheism
of sexuality,—more unyielding and strict than religious monotheism. “To
love means to find one’s God,” I stated. But there must be no other gods
besides that one. This struggle for the single god of love sums up the
erotic tragedies of our cultural development: the struggle for the true
ideal and for monogamy which for the present appears the utmost sexual
ideal of our current cultural level. Between the primitive man’s
pansexualism and the monosexuality of modern man may be found all the
developmental phases and inhibitions which manifest themselves as
neuroses, paraphilias, drunkenness, psychoses, etc._

The analysis of jealousy has shown us clearly that with the outbreak of
the repressed homosexuality criminality, too, comes to the surface. The
patients whose histories we have recorded, fight, carry revolvers and
threaten murder. Many a jealousy murder is due to the instinctive
asocial cravings. We must bear in mind that the repression keeps down
the homosexuality as well as the other paraphiliac instincts, including
the criminal tendencies. When the repressed homosexuality breaks through
the protecting covers and out of the unconscious, it carries along and
brings to surface all the repressed antagonistic cravings. This mental
mechanism explains the gruesome crimes which the paranoiacs commit who
believe themselves pursued or threatened. They project to their
surroundings not only the pursuit with homosexual intent but their
subjective criminal tendencies as well. Someone is after them to kill
them ... it really means: “_I want to kill and therefore I assume, that
others want to kill me._”

Looking upon homosexuality as an archaic symptom, a regressive
manifestation, we may understand also that the incest, in all its forms,
must play a greater rôle among homosexuals than among the normals. The
_urning_, in point of psychic progression, is nearer the ancient
_Œdipus_ and the _urlind_ is nearer ancient _Elektra_ than the normal
man. Their will to power also manifests itself through stronger
tendencies. The very repression of his heterosexual component shows that
the homosexual tries to achieve mastery over self, and is a proof of the
one-sided emphasis of his stubborn will to self-control. The will to
power breaks out in violent, affectively stressed jealousy deeds, which
shows the intimate inner relations between homosexuality and sadism,—a
subject to which we shall give more careful consideration in our next
chapter.



                                   V

  HOMOSEXUALITY AND SADISM—THE ANALYSIS OF A HOMOSEXUAL—EARLIEST
      MEMORIES—FIRST ACCOUNT OF HIS ATTITUDE—FEAR OF TUBERCULOSIS—HIS
      ATTITUDE TOWARDS HIS PARENTS—FIRST DREAM—DREAMS OF URINALS—ANAL
      EROTICISM—COPROPHAGIA—THE MOTHER AS A TYRANT—TRANSVESTITISM—AN
      IMPORTANT DREAM—VOYEUR AND EXHIBITIONIST—OTHER DREAMS—POEMS TO THE
      MOTHER—MATERNAL BODY DREAMS—SADISTIC PHANTASIES—A SPERMATOZOAN
      DREAM—THE DREAM ABOUT WILD BEARS—SUMMARIZATION OF THE ANALYTIC
      DATA IN THE CASE—THE FORMULA OF HOMOSEXUALITY.


_Man missversteht das Raubtier und den Raubmenschen (z. b. Cesare
Borgia) gründlich, man missversteht die “Natur,” so lange man noch nach
einer “Krankhaftigkeit” in Grunde dieser gesundesten aller tropischen
Untiere und Gewächse sucht, oder gar nach einer ihnen eingeborenen
“Hölle” wie es bis her fast alle Moralisten gethan haben._

                                                           —_Nietzsche._



                                   V

_The nature of the wild beast and of predatory man,—Cesare Borgia, for
instance,—is misunderstood, “Nature” herself is misunderstood, so long
as we look for “morbidity” back of these healthiest of all monstrosities
and excrescences, or for some “inner depravity” peculiar to them,—as
most moralists have done thus far._

                                                           —_Nietzsche._


Our investigation of the problem of jealousy has led us repeatedly to
the relationship between homosexuality and sadism, a subject we have
already considered briefly in connection with the repression-symptoms of
the homosexuals. We have succeeded in proving the sadistic trend of
homosexuals in most of the cases which we have examined. This
relationship is so typical that I am surprised previous investigators
have not been impressed by the regularity of its occurrence. The
frequency of abnormal sexual cravings among homosexuals has been pointed
out by many physicians and has been interpreted by them as indicative of
a degenerative trend. But since the physicians were satisfied with their
patients’ account and they were unfamiliar with the technique of
psychoanalysis, this constant relationship escaped their observation.
The next chapter will be devoted to a complete history of such cases and
in that connection we shall see more clearly how unsatisfactory the
patients’ first account of their own trouble must be. I have already
mentioned that many investigators suspect that the homosexuals decidedly
lack veracity. Moreover all neurotics drive their sadistic tendencies
back into the unconscious. Their repressed tendencies are among the
persistently overlooked features,—the unconsidered inventory,—of the
homosexual’s psyche.

The sadistic tendency breaks to the foreground of consciousness only
occasionally and then it lends its characteristic coloring to the
paraphilic disorder. In such cases the sadistic trend is not directed
only against the opposite sex. Sexual lust and cruelty are inextricably
interwoven; the antisocial cravings cannot be sublimated;[23] the ailing
individual becomes a danger to the community, he gets into conflict with
the law, and lands in jail or in the asylum. For such cases show us a
morbidly enlarged and distorted picture of the average homosexual.

The following observation by _Fleischmann_[24] may serve as an
illustration of this fact:


82. “Physically the patient shows the early signs of _Basedow’s_
disease. His temperament is very uneven, he shifts from one extreme to
another. He is suspicious, very mendacious and very irritable—for
instance, he struck his father in his rage. He is not particularly
religious. His whole conduct shows a very weak will and lack of energy.
Since his 17th year the patient has been addicted to excessive drink.
His sexual history reveals the following facts: As a boy, 10 years of
age, he came across a book containing an illustration of a scene of
violence (beating) which gave him great pleasure. Ever since he thinks
of that picture placing himself in the position of the one being beaten.
The mere word ‘_Peitschen_,’ cuffing, has something appealing, something
exciting about it to his mind. From the very beginning the patient
thought this was an unhealthy trait and was uncomfortably self-conscious
over it. At that time he took a journey into the country with his
mother. They passed over a river and he saw standing on the shore a
naked man who was bathing. That scene stuck in his mind for months. At
11 years of age the patient asked his father to punish him because he
had an impure conscience, but did not attain his aim. His fancies were
growing. He liked to put himself in Captain Dreyfus’ place, wanted to
experience the latter’s degradation and suffering. So constantly was his
mind preoccupied with his fancies that the boy neglected his school
studies; he became distraught, and suffered headaches. At 15 years of
age the boy began to enact his phantasies; he undressed in a room, tied
his hands with a rope and suspended himself. He also tied weights to his
lower limbs. This produced orgasm and ejaculation. An illustration of
tortures which he found in an illustrated work on world history
suggested to him new methods. He was specially fond of staging scenes of
crucifixion. In all these scenes the boy fancied that he was the victim
of all the imaginary tortures. He never connected these fancies of
torture with one sex or the other. He had sexual gratification without
reflecting particularly about sex. The gratifications led to orgasm and
ejaculation. Then the craving for self-torture quieted down somewhat,
his imagination cooled off and the patient began to seek sexual
gratification through masturbation. He drew his penis downwards and
backwards between his limbs and rocked his pelvis sideways. During these
acts there arose the first homosexual fancies. While masturbating, which
he did at first regularly once every four weeks, later daily and
afterwards, five to ten times in succession,[25] he pictured to himself
the hips of a young boy. At first that fancy, without any further
details, was enough. Later he fancied carrying out _coitus intra
femora_. His contrary sexual feelings showed themselves also in other
ways. For instance, he took such a strong fancy to a younger comrade
that he resolved to stay voluntarily back one year so as to sit in the
same classroom with that boy. On account of his lack of veracity his
father put him in a training institution; there his comrades initiated
him into sex matters and he learned mutual masturbation. He was not
aware of being untruthful because he had lost the faculty of discerning
between phantasy and fact. At 17 years of age the patient picked up a
peasant girl and induced her to sleep with him; but she did not allow
coitus; the patient thinks that at that time he would have found coitus
pleasurable.[26] During that period he was in the habit of abusing daily
one of his best friends,—in his phantasy. He had the latter stand naked
before his eyes and played with his private parts. In his phantasy he
felt all over the fellow’s body, finally advancing to a complete
homosexual act, always fancying a one-sided active _immissio penis in
anum_; at the same time he masturbated in the manner described above.
After one year he was no longer able to control himself. He prevailed on
his friend to undress before him and lie, face down, on the sofa. Then
the patient crawled on top and attempted _immissio_; he did not succeed
on account of a sudden feeling of nausea. He desisted, but ejaculated
_ante portas_; afterwards he was ashamed of it. The patient parted from
this friend later as the result of a quarrel. Then the sadistic
tendencies again came to surface. He imagined all sorts of tortures,
reserving to himself merely the rôle of devising the punishment to be
applied. The actual carrying out of the deeds he left to other imaginary
persons conjured up for the purpose. He chose his victims preferably
from among his younger comrades. Patient had devised 36 different kinds
of torture assigning to each a written symbol. He selected by lot
(drawing numbers) the intended victim, as well as the torture to be
applied and the instruments therefor. The patient played this game for
hours.

“He kept this up a couple of years. Suddenly the whole thing lost its
charm for him. His phantasy cooled down. Finally he gave up the game
altogether. At 18, the patient attempted for the second time normal
coitus. He had an erection but premature ejaculation _ante portas_. A
third attempt failed on account of drunkenness. Again he reverted to his
masturbation habit, his thoughts during the act once more centered on
the hips of a young boy; this was a fetich to him. Masochistic fancies
he entertained no longer; but he dwelt profusely on homosexual
phantasies. Later the patient thought of _coitus inter femora_ with
boys. He became very friendly with a 14-year-old boy, kissed him, and
allowed the boy to touch his own genitals. But when he found that the
boy had hairy hips his passion for the boy cooled off at once. During
that time the patient (20 years old) entertained thoughts of suicide
because he felt that his life was a failure. An attempt at analysis only
excited him worse instead of quieting him. Again the patient linked
himself in intimate friendship with a 14-year-old boy; as that boy
resented any physical display of affection, his attachment remained
purely platonic. Every now and then patient masturbated fancying he was
carrying out _coitus inter femora_ with his friend. His sadistic fancies
again broke to the surface. He became more and more restless, enticed a
boy (under a slight pretext) to visit him and devised most refined ways
of abusing him; for instance, hanging over the boy’s back with the hands
clasped around his neck, or beating him over hips and buttocks with a
reed cane; for every stroke the boy was to receive a sum of money. As a
consequence of this action the patient was brought to the clinic.”[27]

_Fleischmann_, in his psychologic examination of this case, lays
stress particularly on the significance of trauma and ascribes to the
masturbation a predominant rôle in the psychogenesis of the
paraphilia: “This case proves clearly that the various sexual
anomalies differ only in their sexual objective and aim,—their
developmental interrelationship—but that the mechanism of their
development must be looked upon as identical.”

But of particular significance in this case is the constant association
of sadism and masochism, a condition with which but few sexologists thus
far have been impressed as a bipolar expression of the same underlying
tendency; next, the tremendous sense of guilt which no masochist lacks;
further, the defense reaction against the homosexual tendencies: disgust
of the _immissio penis in anum_, and the unpleasant feelings roused by
the sight of the boy’s hairy thighs.

This patient also illustrates the overwhelming rôle of the father in the
psychogenesis of homosexuality and the recurrence of the “specific
scene.” At 11 years of age he requested his father to beat him because
he felt guilty. At 25 years he carried out that very act on a boy under
a very refined form. One must be a victim of psychic blindness not to
see that he there played the rôle of the father who punishes the child.
The development of this attitude may be surmised to have taken place
approximately as follows: His primary phantasy was undoubtedly generated
by the wish that his father be tender with him. He wanted to replace the
mother in his father’s affection (_coitus inter femora_). Probably
jealousy thoughts against the mother, revenge fancies against the father
on account of unrequited love; these mental sins gave rise to his
feeling of guilt, as displayed in his masochism. For as I shall prove in
another work[28] in this Series, sadism is always the primary attitude
and is transposed into masochism in consequence of the feeling of guilt,
or else the two appear side by side.

I must comment on _Fleischmann’s_ remark that psychoanalysis only
disturbed the patient and did not cure him. It is not proper to ascribe
all failures of psychoanalysis to the method. Psychoanalysis is a
difficult art and will always be conducted expertly only by a relatively
small number of specialists. Not everything that goes under the name of
psychoanalysis is genuine. Often the patient submits for a few days to
psychoanalysis then drops it (when a successful psychoanalysis may
require several months) and claims it did him no good.[29] A thorough
psychoanalysis of the above case would have certainly led to a deeper
understanding of the mental mechanism involved and would have revealed
much new light.

Undoubtedly various sexual repressed tendencies may become manifest
during psychoanalytic treatment. That is even necessary,—they must be
met and overcome with the consultant’s aid. The next case below is an
illustration that latent homosexuality may become manifest after a few
seances in the course of psychoanalysis.

83. Mr. Delta, medical student, 24 years of age, hereditary history
negative, physically healthy in every respect, suffers of depressions
and inability to concentrate on his work. The most important facts
bearing on his anamnesis and his later history he relates in the
following letter:


“From my earliest childhood I have been extraordinarily sensuous. It was
the custom (an evil one) in our family for the children to crawl into
the parents’ bed in the morning. I naturally always went to mother’s
bed, while my sisters preferred to go to father’s bed. We children also
went to one another’s bed and on such occasions I was in the habit of
trying to crawl with my head under the covers with the intention,
frankly, of carrying out _cunnilingus_ especially on my sister N., who
was already married. Why I preferred N., at the time I do not understand
clearly, possibly because she was receptive towards me and such
practices are possible only if the female partner is at least
unconsciously agreeable to it. I was 5 years of age at the time. I have
also carried on _cunnilingus_ on my sister B., at 15 years of age, while
she was asleep. These fancies later played a tremendous rôle in my
mental life, causing also a profuse sweating of the palms of my hands
which disappeared in part when I became consciously aware of them. The
killing of the chickens by our cook produced an extraordinarily exciting
effect upon me. When the cook gripped the chicken between her limbs near
her genital region to kill it she excited me to the point of a true
orgasm. I tried to imitate her by catching flies and squeezing them to
death between my limbs, near my genitals, or by drowning them in urine.
My attitude towards friends, colleagues, etc., was also extremely
peculiar. I cultivated preferably the friendship of children of the
proletarian class, while children of my own set never attracted me in
particular, although I was friendly with them. Children of that class
also submitted more willingly to various homosexual acts, something
which I did not quite dare carry on with children of my own set. I
remember one boy in particular, with whom I attempted _coitus in os_. I
recall also a dream of my childhood years: An awful butchery is going on
in our court yard and my sister W., and a certain man are in it. I am
pursued by both, they throw me on the ground, and I am killed with a
single blow on the forehead. I may add that killing invoked in my mind
the picture of the aggressor sitting astride over the victim’s face and
mouth, rider-fashion. That at any rate was the manner in which we boys
killed one another. Girls of my age were a torture to me but to older
girls and adult women I extended my greatest admiration,—a sentiment
which was purely platonic with me at the time. At the public school I
fell in love with every strict teacher, once I was in love with two of
them at the same time. I wanted the two to punish me and that, in a very
strange way. I wanted to be taken to bed and to be squeezed to death by
them,[30]—naturally between their genitalia. The _immictio in os_ by a
woman was also a favorite form of torture in my day dreaming.

“Now comes puberty. I consider the starting point of my later neurosis
the fact that I cared for contact only with persons who could offer me
some sexual satisfaction and that even as a child. During puberty this
peculiarity showed even more markedly. For a time I preserved my
platonic admiration of women older than myself. Young girls were still
repulsive to me until I fell passionately in love with one. I followed
that little one for years like a shadow, but in spite of the
encouragement she gave me I could not bring myself to speak to her. When
I finally did so, I saw in a flash the reason for my remarkable
hesitation, I did not say what I started to say, the whole charm was
gone in an instant,—she seemed to me common and inferior,—although my
objective judgment at other times told me precisely the reverse. In
short, my affection reawakened in its earlier intensity only some time
after I recovered from the shock of my personal acquaintance with her.
At that time I became very friendly with a certain colleague, Joseph Z.
The tie that linked us was that very bewitching dark girl. He also was
in love with her (one would have thought that this would have broken our
friendship). We never tired admiring her charms between us and our
friendship came to an end only when I discovered that he was not true to
our idol. At the same time nothing disgusted me during that period so
much as the sight of a pair of lovers. _I had the feeling that a man
loses something of his manliness and dignity through intimacy with a
woman._

“My next friend was Herbert. I had few sexual points of contact with
him, except that we visited together the red light resorts for the first
time and jointly made love to the various inmates. Herbert was so witty
a fellow that I almost loved him, especially as he was slavishly devoted
to me. But my neurosis made tremendous leaps for the worse even at that
time and I became more and more timid and awkward in my ways and when
finally he turned on me with his wit our friendship came to an end.

“Next came Friedrich. He clung to me with fanatic love, this went on for
about three years, until he married, and then I felt lonely in the
world. My beloved mother to whom I was extremely devoted as a child
could only try to console me, but I was hopelessly disconsolate. As a
child I had been inseparable from her for years; _Mendelssohn’s_
well-known Spring song brought tears to my eyes because the thought of a
mother losing her child seemed atrocious to me. Although I felt a great
measure of that affection for mother which is common in every one’s
childhood experience, a certain craving remained ungratified. I became
acquainted with psychoanalysis and it brought to my mind the youthful
perversities of my youth. I decided to give expression to my conscious
instincts and I have come to the following conclusion:

“_My attitude towards the other sex will never be satisfactory, I must
stand either above or below woman, must be either hammer or anvil, an
unprejudiced relationship I find impossible, because as soon as I see a
pretty woman I lose my senses, and would like preferably to be at her
feet and obey her like a slave. But women do not wish that, they want to
be submissive themselves, they want to feel the man above them._
Intercourse on the level of equality I find tiresome, so there remains
only sadism for me, through which, I may confess frankly, I have already
enjoyed pleasant times. True friendship on the basis of mutual love and
respect I am capable of maintaining only with men, as in my childhood.”


This sounds like the history of a typical bisexual strongly on the way
to become a genuine homosexual. Let us turn to his psychoanalytic
treatment before we examine his sexual attitude. He went to a
psychoanalyst who had been recommended to him by _Freud_. He was wholly
unable to work, impotent with women at the time, and had recourse to
masturbation. During the first sitting he learned that he had been in
love with his mother. The knowledge of this fact acted as a “relief,”
according to his testimony. (He even told it to his mother.) Shortly
afterwards he had his first successful coitus with a woman. But the
neurosis did not change and in a short time he came to me for analysis.
I found a tremendous resistance against the discovery of the true
attitude. He employed all sorts of subterfuges to take up the time
during the consultation hours and to disclose only what he wanted. He
soon exhausted the account of his pronounced sadism and of his
masochistic tendencies. But concerning his relations to his father he
was very hazy. He became able to go to work, attended the lectures and
turned once more diligently to his studies. I saw the hopelessness of my
endeavors and broke the analysis under some pretext or other.... There
are patients, whom I have described as the psychoanalytic
_Ahasverus-type_[31] who are among the most thankless of subjects for
our professional endeavors. They rush from one analyst to another,
imploring the new consultant to remove the last of their troublous
symptoms, and stay all the time very much as they have been from the
beginning. They look upon the analysis, too, as a test of power, they
want to triumph over their consultant, they want to come out stronger
than he and—what is most important—they do not want to recognize the
real background of their attitude. They stubbornly overlook the real
foundation of their neurotic trouble and their ‘unwillingness to see’ is
made worse by their superficial acquaintance with psychoanalysis and
their fragmentary introspection. They thus run from one physician to
another, criticize the first to the second, the second to a third, the
third to a fourth. This conduct stands partly in relation to their
attitude towards the father,—a subject to which we shall have occasion
to revert more fully later.

It happened precisely as I had surmised. He went back to _Freud_, who
recommended a third analyst, because he refused stubbornly to return to
the first. After a few months he gave up the treatment and considered
himself well. One half year later he came back to me and told me that
since adopting exclusively homosexual relations he was entirely well,
able to work, and as lively “as a fish in the brook.” But something
still seemed to be lacking. At my request he wrote the account which I
have given above, stating that he had no objection to its publication.
He added orally a few statements which I shall use later.

The characteristic feature of his attitude towards woman is emphasized
in his own written statement. Either he must torture or he must be
tortured—he can either love or must hate, and only to excess. He is
afraid of his terrific love passion. Therefore he feels impelled to
humble himself before woman, to serve her as a slave, which is his
symbolic expression for the longing after _cunnilingus_ and for his
willingness to submit to _mictio in os_. He wants to serve woman as a
means for the attainment of gratification, as a vessel for her excreta,
to be a submissive slave to all her whims. His submissiveness goes so
far that he is willing to be killed by woman. This sadistic
transposition of this attitude signifies: only through doing away with
the sexual partner one achieves complete mastery and may claim complete
possession.

In his feeling-attitude towards woman he vacillates between two
extremes: hatred to the point of annihilation and a love so great as to
include the willingness to be sacrificed. Clearly, he must protect
himself so as not to give way to his hatred and become a murderer. A
deeper insight into the parallelogram of the psychic forces involved in
such situations leads plainly to the conviction that the instinct to
live and the will to power prevent him from subjecting himself to woman
actually to the point of self-annihilation. His feeling-attitude towards
woman is too affective for him to be able to reduce it to a proper
emotional level. How plain is the significance of his boyhood
experience,—his great passion for the girl whom he followed like a
shadow. But he did not dare to bring that love affair down to reality.
He was afraid of himself, afraid of the subjection. The girl gave him to
understand that he need not belittle himself at all. In his eyes that
was enough for her to lose her charm after he became acquainted with
her; she attracted him again only after all danger of his trying himself
out with her was over. He considered himself plain-looking and thought
he could not attract any one. He hated the women on account of their
charm, because he himself would have liked to have been a pretty woman.

He also cleverly covered that wish by beginning to overstress the value
of manliness. “I had a feeling,” he states, “that a man loses something
of his manliness and dignity through his intimacy with a female person.”
One must bear in mind that this man esteemed his mother very highly,
holding her above all others as a person and as a woman. The normal
person forms the image of his ideal woman after his mother. But he looks
upon his mother as an exception and, like many other homosexuals,
excepts his mother alone from the scorn with which he looks down upon
the whole female sex. Now he tolerates woman but only with a sadistic
feeling-attitude. For hatred vanquishes woman easier than love.

The question, what is he seeking in man and why does he prefer men to
women?, he answers as follows: “I seek the penis in man. I think chiefly
of his penis. With men I find no resistance at all. Woman I consider
ugly while man is beautiful. I look chiefly for womanly men who to me
stand for the girl with the penis. _I was attracted only once to an
elderly man with a very energetic face._ And what particularly attracts
me to man: there is no question of any submissiveness with him. Man does
not humble himself,—only woman does that.”

But he does not seek the submissive woman. He needs a strong woman who
shall domineer over him. He confesses that intercourse with a woman
sadist would gratify him. But, as he states in his written account:
women do not care to domineer, they want to be overpowered themselves.

We note that the polar sexual tension between male and female is most
extreme in his case. He could kill the woman who humiliates him,
belittles him, as Judith killed Holofernes, because he had conquered her
sexually.[32]

His peculiar manner of masturbating (squeezing flies to death against
the penis) discloses his specific onanistic fancy. He squeezes a woman
to death, he strangles her, while cohabiting with her. A short time
after the first analysis he had sexual intercourse with a servant girl.
He described her to me: “a gigantic girl, and so powerful that she could
have overpowered me with one hand!” With such a girl he felt safe. But
he never dared to have sexual intercourse with weak persons, even though
they exerted a stronger sexual attraction on him. He had every reason to
flee from woman, because he feared the transposition of his excessive
love passion into a deadly aggressive hatred. He claims he could have
intercourse now only with a woman addicted to all sorts of perversities.
Only such a woman could rouse his passion and could offer him something.
He has never tried this out. It looks as if he feared the involvement of
his heart, but that could use woman merely as a vehicle for his lust. A
perverse woman would drown the urgings of his strongest paraphilia: the
impulse to kill a woman.

Now we may understand through his family history how this attitude must
have arisen.

He belonged to a family where both parents had very pronounced
individualities of their own. The father was a self-made man, who rose
through his own efforts and became a millionaire. He was strict,
energetic, always preoccupied with his business, and never had any spare
time for his family. With the children he was tender while they were
small and pretty playthings. Later he changed completely his attitude
and the patient was required and expected to show a good record of his
conduct at school. He continued to be tender with the girls, so that the
boy must have unconsciously envied his sisters. This change from
tenderness to severity on the part of parents is very common and is
responsible for many instances of stubborn contrariness on the part of
children, especially towards the father. The child always longs for the
early childhood when the father was so loving and tender. Perhaps this
longing for early childhood is the reason why so many homosexuals are of
a decidedly infantile type.[33] The kindly old gentleman sought by so
many homosexuals is perhaps merely the affectionate father of their
youth, who never punished severely....

Our patient’s mother was a remarkably intelligent and very beautiful
woman, who all her life contended with her husband for rulership over
the house. I had an opportunity to obtain a deep insight into that
marriage situation. I know of no other marriage where the struggle for
supremacy was so bitter between the two personalities. There were
constantly quarrels in the house, often on the point of breaking out in
violence. Each one avoided showing any affection for the other. To do so
would have meant acknowledging the other’s superiority. They did
everything they could to each other. They bore themselves with aloofness
and appeared indifferent towards one another, though keeping up a
continuous quarrel. If the husband noticed some other man courting his
handsome wife, he smiled indulgently and accorded his rival a free
field, as if to prove to his wife that he was not jealous in the least,
and was willing to accord her every freedom. She also seemed to overlook
the seamy side, in her husband’s conduct. Nevertheless they were ready
to jump at each other on the slightest provocation. Once the situation
reached a crisis and the woman pointed a revolver at her husband
threatening to end everything in a terrible tragedy.

The children divided between the contesting parents, taking sides. The
son was entirely with his mother. He was unhappy because she had to put
up with so much and he goaded her on all the time, urging her to carry
the fight to a successful issue and even advising her to seek separation
from her husband. He had nothing good to say about his father, outside
the latter’s business ability. He described the father as a cold-blooded
fellow without a heart, a mere adding machine, etc.... On a superficial
examination it looked as if he loved his mother and hated his father.
But back of that hatred there stood the carefully preserved love of his
earlier years. That love, however, he was unwilling to acknowledge. That
was the critical point in the analysis. He always recoiled whenever the
analysis led to his fondness of the father, or various signs pointed out
his aboriginal attitude towards the father. Any analysis leads sooner or
later to a similar experience. Nothing is more difficult than to
dissolve the father hatred and reduce it back to its infantile
components,—love.

But in his homosexual acts he played the rôle of the father who is
tender with the child. We also perceive now why he felt himself suddenly
attracted to that elderly gentleman with the energetic face. He was an
image of his own strict father.

Having witnessed in his childhood a terrific struggle between man and
woman, and having himself taken a part in that merciless struggle for
supremacy, he was bound to conceive the problem of love as a struggle
for supremacy, a competitive struggle in the will to power. His supreme
question always was: “_Who is the stronger one?_” This case shows us
with remarkable clearness the mechanisms on which _Alfred Adler_ lays
such great stress. But it also shows the incestuous love for the sister,
a tendency of which he was aware. In the young men he sought the
reproductions of his sister’s picture. He also showed a fixation upon
the mother, with whom he was seldom on agreeable pleasant terms.
Nevertheless he has not forgotten the early tendernesses of his father.
In the wish to be squeezed to death, his masochistic fancies revolve
around the masked image of his severe father standing like a shadow. To
be master, to be slave—his whole system of thinking revolved around
these two notions. He has social intercourse only with men towards whom
he feels himself superior. Already as a child he chose his comrades
among the children of the poor, because he could domineer them. He
abandoned one friendship because his friend made jokes at his expense.
He was not a handsome child. That drove him into the path of hatred and
envy. He hated all women because they were his rivals with the father.
He thought he would have been liked better if he had been a handsomer
fellow.

He was a slave to his family and unable to wean himself away. He moved
to another city in order to free himself of the family ties. That made
him homesick. His mother had to visit him. He was proud when they went
on walks together and were taken for a pair of lovers. But secretly he
really yearned for his father, and never forgives himself that he did
not interrupt that vacation journey to go to his father.

In reality he continued the struggle between his parents. Within him
struggled man and wife. Possibly also the child, though acting more in
the rôle of a bystander, and ready to give the stereotypic answer “both”
to the question, “whom do you like better?” He thinks he has overcome
the man in him. I consider his homosexuality a passing phase. He will
achieve health only after complete emotional detachment from the family
circle.

We often note that the neurotic gets well only after the death of one of
the parents or of both. But in many cases, the parents even after they
are dead continue to hold their sway over the infantile soul and their
dominion ends only with the death of their child who, in that devotion
to them, loved but himself and loved himself unto death....



                                   VI

  HISTORY AND ANALYSIS OF A HOMOSEXUAL—CHILDHOOD REMINISCENCES—ANAL
      EROTISM—ATTACHMENT TO THE MOTHER—INTERPRETATION OF DREAM
      SYMBOLISMS—LOVE OF THE FATHER—REGRESSION THEORY OF HOMOSEXUALITY.


_Was ist das Siegel der erreichten Freiheit?—Sich nicht mehr von sich
selber schämen._

                                                           —_Nietzsche._



                                   VI

_What is the stamp of achieved freedom?—To be no longer ashamed of one’s
self._

                                                           —_Nietzsche._


The complete analysis of a homosexual would require a whole volume.
Before concluding the present work I propose to give a portion of such
an analysis. The treatment lasted six weeks, when it was interrupted by
the war. This analysis, too, only led as far as the father complex. But
even so it yields important data and enables us to draw together the
observations made in connection with the various briefer illustrations
already discussed.


84. Mr. Sigma, a student from Denmark, 28 years of age, consults me on
account of various nervous difficulties. For a number of months past he
has felt very depressed, is always fatigued, generally unable to sleep
and unable to concentrate on his work. He is facing his final
examinations but is unable to study. He complains of a lack of any sense
of joy in living. He admits having entertained also ideas of suicide
which he has rejected chiefly on account of his mother. He is very much
afraid that he may yield some day to just such a temptation.

Sigma is consciously homosexual. He emphasizes: He has never felt any
interest in the female sex and already as a child he fell in love only
with boys. He is the only son of a very hard-working, brave, mother in
comfortable circumstances who is wholly wrapped up in him. His father
died a few years ago. He lives a wholly retired existence, he has no
friends,—for his mother prevents that. Once—he was 17 years of age at
the time—he had a close friend to whom he felt very attached, but his
mother interfered and broke up their friendship. Now he is completely
isolated. All his spare time he devotes to his mother, when he is not
gone to the theater or to a concert. He also visits no families; his
mother prevents it.

He begins—spontaneously—an account of his life with his first
recollections:

I was 2 years of age and we—a number of children—played out of doors. A
pretty lady walked up and threw a ball into the grass. She said: He who
catches the ball may keep it. I was nearest to it but did not dare to
trespass upon the finely kept lawn. Therefore another one caught the
ball....

This recollection seems typical of Sigma. Like all first recollections
it contains the determinants of his whole life.[34] It shows us a man
who lacks self-confidence, whose activity is inhibited by considerations
regarding others. He explains that for the sake of his mother he has
renounced all pleasures in life. He is always hesitant (_kleinmütig_),
overwhelmed by his feeling of inferiority and dares not assume any
important enterprise.

His sexuality awoke very early. He played always with girls and felt
more like a girl. He liked to put on his mother’s hat and clothing. His
mother was the master in the house, the breadwinner and law giver. The
father always played a subordinate rôle. We see again a reiteration of
the fact that the child identifies itself with the stronger parent.
Under the circumstances it was natural that Sigma should identify
himself with the mother....

Already, in the public school, at seven years of age, he fell in love
with his teacher. That is why he became one of the best scholars. He
also loved some of his colleagues, but was too bashful to betray himself
to them. At 12 years of age he began to masturbate and during the act
his fancies were centered on the image of a naked man. He was very
religious up till that time and during confession distinguished himself
by the lengthy list of his sins and the depth of his dejection. At 12
years of age he became free and progressively developed into a
full-fledged atheist. The struggle against masturbation began at 14
years of age, when he heard that the habit was very harmful. After that
he indulged more rarely. Great feeling of fatigue on day after
pollution. The subject regards his present condition a consequence of
his masturbation habit.

Already during his gymnasium years (high school) his mind was distracted
and he barely managed to squeeze through his finals (_Matura_). He was
always bashful and avoided the colleagues who spoke cynically among
themselves about girls so that he was called “Miss Sigma.” For a few
years he lived away from home. They lived formerly in the country and he
had to stay in Copenhagen. He lived with some older sisters with whom he
did not get along very well. He played music with them, joined them on
walks, experienced considerable excitation ... short of erotism. His
whole erotic feeling was directed only to men and boys. In the course of
his endless day dream fancies he never thought of a woman at any time in
his life. He dreams only of men and thinks only of them. That concludes
the first visit.

Sigma again emphasizes his one-sided inclination towards men.
Nevertheless he must correct a small detail of his account as given on
the previous day. This, I repeat, is a common typical occurrence in the
anamnesis of homosexuals. When giving an account of their life they
neglect entirely all the heterosexual episodes. But today Sigma adds
that occasionally he did have erotic dreams concerning women; perhaps
four or five times. But not more often than that. These dreams led to
pollutions and were rather indefinite as to content. Sigma was also in
love, transiently, with a girl cousin, at sixteen years of age. He at
once attempts to weaken the force of this declaration: it was merely a
pastime, a pose, because an uncle was in love with the same girl. He
thought it was his duty also to make love to this girl cousin. But it
was soon over. And he must emphasize again that he never indulged in any
phantasies centering on women. He had such phantasies. But they were
always about men.

He was brought up almost wholly in female society. If his mother was
away, there was an aunt in the house who looked after him. He was taken
to school and was called for when he was already a grown-up boy—the
typical training for dependence. His mother wanted to procure friends
for him. There were always some boys whom she wished he would accept as
his friends. But usually he himself found nothing in those particular
boys to interest him. If he himself chose some boy for a friend his
mother was sure to interpose her veto as soon as their friendship became
too warm. And he was always prone to fall in love with his friends. He
composed poetry at a very early age, deifying his friends; to this day
his poems are devoted almost wholly to Eros Uranos.

At this point he reflects for a while; and he continues: “I identified
myself always with the female figures who were mostly strong, aggressive
women. I could always enthuse over such strong, energetic women
displaying male aggressiveness about them. If a woman or a girl ever
interested me and played a rôle in my day dreams, she was of this type.”
Next he recalls a heterosexual episode. He admired for a time the
landlady’s daughter, kept company with her, they played music together,
but he felt very unhappy when she married off afterwards.

The Eulenberg trial made him aware of his own homosexuality. That made
him very unhappy for he discovered that he was unlike others. In the
high school he was always looked upon as peculiar and he kept aloof from
his schoolmates. The famous trial made it clear to him that his end
would be either insanity or jail. He went through some dreadful days. He
was in love with a friend and when the latter asked him why he was so
depressed, he broke into bitter tears and poured out his heart
circuitously describing his passion. He felt that he was not like
others, he felt lonely and closed in, unrecognized and weak. His friend
advised him to devote himself more to art. He looked upon the subject’s
suffering as due to thwarted ambition.

His typical dreams are concerned with pursuit by men and breaking in. A
particular dream made a strong impression on him: He was pursued in bed
by a great mass of bedbugs and finally himself turned into a bedbug.[35]
Like all homosexuals he had for a time the fear of infection and
especially of tuberculosis. He was almost convinced that he would die
prematurely of tuberculosis.

We are also familiar with tuberculosis (as well as syphilis) as the
representative of what is evil, of incest and homosexuality. But for the
present our patient sheds no light on this aspect of the subject. We do
not care to influence Sigma and therefore do not disturb the course of
his associations. Sigma shows but little interest in the analysis. He is
mistrusting and hesitant. He does not have much time and seems relieved
when the sitting is over.

The next sitting opens as follows: “I have come to ask you to make an
appointment with me for tomorrow. I want to skip today. I must take a
little rest and gather strength. Yesterday’s sitting has sort of taken
me to pieces....”

During the first couple of sittings I had hardly spoken a word and had
allowed Sigma to do all the talking. But the flight reflex, which
dominates all homosexuals, because they are afraid of the truth, is here
already coming to surface:

“What roused you so yesterday?”

“That you kept so quiet. It was an uncanny silence....”

“Would you have preferred to see me excited?”

“No.... I know, of course, that the physician must keep his balance. But
that is precisely what I lack. What an awful impression I must have made
on you!”

_Hinc illae lacrimae!_ The subject is concerned over the impression he
makes upon the physician. He wants to know whether the physician has
sympathy for him, whether he is impressed or indifferent. He is afraid
of making himself appear ridiculous. The physician becomes the chief
person around whom his own life interests are being centered for the
time.

“But that is irrelevant. You want to get well; and that has nothing to
do with personal matters.”

“To be sure,—that is just what I was saying to myself. Doctor, you are
my last hope. And yet, I am already losing patience and feel like
running off. It is less than two weeks since I went to purchase a
revolver intending to shoot myself. The plan fell through only on
account of my lack of adroitness. I was unable to procure a revolver.
The saleslady demanded to be shown a purchase permit and I did not have
one. There must have also been a tremor in my voice. I was so
excited.... If I had been able to procure that revolver I would not be
now sitting in your office.”

“Why did you want to die?”

“A life full of trouble! No friends! No prospect of improvement! The
everlasting depression!”

“And did you not think of the suffering you would have caused your
mother? To your mother who sacrificed her life for you?”

“No, I was indifferent about that. It would have only served her right,
because it is she who has ruined my life. It might have been the end of
her too.... But I was truly sorry for my friend. He has so many cares
and so much to think about. It would have shaken him up. He is a writer
and is now at work on a new novel. It would have certainly thrown him
out of the writing mood and it would have interfered with his creative
activity.”

“What has your mother done you that you should want to punish her so
severely?”

This brings out the last repressed grudge against the mother who came
near separating him from his much beloved friend.

“Mother has ruined my whole life,” he continues, “she has separated me
from my only and best friend. You have no idea what I suffered. He came
daily to our house. He accompanied me on the piano so that we enjoyed
unforgettable evenings together. Father was once a good singer. As there
was no accompanist at hand he neglected the beautiful gift. Now we
resurrected the old songs once more. Every evening was a festival. On
account of a pulmonary apical catarrh I had to go to Egypt. During my
absence a catastrophe occurred. Mother found that my friend was robbing
her of a son’s love. She was jealous because he heard more often and
received longer letters from me than the parents. She compelled my
father to write Ernst a curt letter forbidding him to come to the house
any longer or to correspond with me. From Ernst, to whom I wrote
regularly three times weekly while he answered once, I received next an
ironic letter, stating that I ought to enclose the parent’s permission
next time I write him. Only then will he write me again. I did not
understand what that meant until I read the enclosed father’s letter. I
felt like one against whom the gates of heaven have been suddenly closed
tight. I returned to Copenhagen at once, but did not dare to take openly
a stand against mother. She had a bad heart spell the first time I
reproached her bitterly and all the relatives called me her murderer. I
made up secretly with Ernst and met him on the street. But mother found
out. She followed me stealthily and when she discovered that I was
meeting Ernst there followed terrible quarrels which I am unable to
relate. I was thus very badly embittered and that innocent relationship
was turned into a morbid whim. You will appreciate, therefore, that I
cannot but hold a grudge against mother....”

“Have you not tried to rebel openly against the situation?”

“I was too weak for that. Father begged me not to disturb the happiness
of our family circle. It was a terrible situation and I did not see my
way out of it. That happened when I was 19 years of age. I have since
told mother that I must meet Ernst once in a while. She is against the
idea and wants to link me up to other friends. I am brought into contact
with girls in the hope that I will take an interest in them. But the
very fact that they are brought in my way under mother’s patronage, as
it were, makes them repulsive to me from the outset. Moreover, I know
that mother would be equally jealous if I should really love a girl. She
will stand for no other love besides her. I am too broken up to ever
break away and be self-reliant. So I remain everlastingly a mother’s
boy. But I cannot endure this sort of thing any longer. I have had
enough of this torture and want to see an end to it....”


“I feel much better. Last evening I worked fairly well, for the first
time in a long period. I am beginning to like Vienna. I was out in the
woods (_Wienerwald_) and I was pleased with the sight of the first
violet. I am again beginning to feel pleasure in nature’s beauties. It
was my first excursion.”

“Don’t you go out of doors otherwise?”

“Yes, every Sunday. Always in mother’s company. We start in the morning,
have our lunch out of doors and spend the day together.”

“Do you not go on excursions with your friend?”

“Unfortunately, I do not. But hold on! I did, just once. I was going to
tell you about it anyway, today. He invited me to join him with a number
of his colleagues on an excursion to a distant island. I was
enthusiastic over the plan at once for I hoped that it would prove an
opportunity for greater intimacy between us. But I was disillusioned. We
were happy the whole day. I was thinking all the time of the night. I
hoped we would have a room with double bed.... Unfortunately all the
rooms in the hotel were taken and we had to be content with occupying
quarters in common. Here, too, luck failed to serve me. My friend slept
next to another member of the party. Next day, under the pretext of
fatigue, I started back. I felt unhappy and was all day long on the
point of tears. I reached the next village alone. It was on a holiday. I
did not know what to do. So I went into the church....”

“To pray?”

“Not at all. I was no longer religious at the time. I went to be among
people. It did no good. The many dressed up folks, the holiday
atmosphere, the music, the songs, the organ. I calmed down a little.
Next I went to a restaurant because I felt a great craving for something
sweet. Thus the majestic and the trivial stand close in my case.[36]
Then I returned home, after first driving around through the streets and
was happy when it was so late that I had to go back to the house....”

There follow various accounts of his passion for his friend Ernst. He
always dreams of physical union with the friend and has no other
thought. Only once he attempted aggression on his friend. In a urinal he
suddenly reached for his friend’s penis. The latter good-naturedly
avoided him and never afterwards referred to the incident. But he saw
clearly that he would never achieve his aim. Meanwhile his friend fell
in love with an actress. He was jealous only so long as his friend did
not confide in him. Thereafter he was happy because the actress
preferred another man and paid no attention to Ernst. He was in a
position to console his friend like a mother. He emphasizes that his
feelings are distinctly maternal towards men who are ill or unhappy and
that he makes an excellent nurse,—thus bringing out his pronounced
identification with the mother. But he was unable to nurse his father
when the latter was taken with gastric cancer; the disease was terribly
repulsive to him....

He has dreamed the following dream:


_I am called up in school. I had to solve a mathematical problem but
could not arrive at the right result. Next it was an English translation
from Shakespeare. I did not know the vowels. It seemed that the various
persons of the play were represented by some of the colleagues in
theatrical costumes._


The analysis of this dream would lead us into endless bypaths. The most
important feature is the affective character of the dream which in
simplest terms may be formulated as follows: “I am facing problems in
life for which I do not feel prepared. I am an actor and I am wearing a
theatrical costume. I am playing the homosexual, I have transposed one
aboriginal trend into another. The English play, _The Merchant of
Venice_, comes to his mind. The teacher who examined him in mathematics
was also _Kaufmann_ (merchant) by name. This _Kaufmann_ is the center of
a rather tragic episode in his life. He was studying “exact” branches
(_Realschule_) but was interested in the classical (_Gymnasium_) course;
he was always weak in mathematics; he failed in his last examination for
engineering. His attitude towards money matters has always been morbid.
His mother continually reproaches him for not appreciating the value of
money and for being unable to handle money wisely. He is different from
his parents, both of whom are merchants.”

The _Merchant of Venice_ portrays the tragedy of the relations of a Jew
to his only daughter. She runs off with her beloved and abandons the
greedy father, who, however, never begrudged her anything. He wants to
do likewise. He would like to flee with his friend and abandon the
mother. His basic problem is: how to get around his mother, how to free
himself of her.

He places great weight on the jewel box scene, which has always
impressed him. He, too, is confronted by the difficult problem of a
choosing among the boxes. There are three paths open before him: man,
woman and child. He is a child, would like to be a woman and is afraid
to be a man. His inner conflicts are locked up like the valuables in the
box. We shall see whether analysis is capable of disclosing them....

There are some vague relations to Shylock’s coldbloodedness. He
emphasizes the pound of flesh. The associations lead to certain sadistic
trends which are wholly unconscious. At any rate, the first dream in the
analysis is of greatest significance. Its complete solution and
interpretation becomes possible much later....

He dwells for a long time on his attitude towards money. One familiar
with dream analysis at once suspects that this money complex has its
bearing on anal eroticism. He keeps to his theme. Requests to leave
early.

Again comes very late and asks whether he may leave early. He is hungry.
(One notices his extremely resistant attitude. He is afraid he might
disclose something.) He has dreamed wild and profuse dreams, he can no
longer remember what. He must have spoiled his stomach for he vomited in
the morning.

This vomiting in the morning, a symptom which appears in many neurotics
and also in the case of many neurotic children is a reaction of the
ethical, moral self against the dreams of the previous night. Plainly,
one is disgusted with one’s self. Hence the vomiting which is
subsequently ascribed to something inoffensive that may have been eaten
on the previous evening. But the subject believes that the beer he drank
did not agree with the dessert....

He is asked whether he can recall at all the dream.

“No, not a trace.”

“Better try and see.”

“I only remember scraps; nothing worth mentioning.”

“Please tell me these scraps.”

“I have dreamed only about various water closets and urinals. There was
a urinal here and one in the office ... the rest is gone. I cannot
recall.”

“The vomiting in the morning seems to me to point at something going on
in the urinal which strikes you as disgusting.”

“May I not have simply spoiled my stomach?”

“Indeed. That is a possibility not to be excluded. But the other is also
a possibility to be thought of. Do you often vomit in the morning?”

“Yes, but only as I did today. Only fluid. It is more a nausea than real
vomiting. May I leave now?”

“You know that I never compel you to stay. Only I want to draw your
attention that I am fully aware you want to hide something from me. How
do you imagine you can get well if you do not have the courage to
confide in your consultant? Or perhaps you are afraid that you will lose
something of my respect if you should disclose the peculiarities of your
sexual life? You are anxious to run off and keep your secret. Very well.
You are free to do as you wish. But do not expect, under the
circumstances, that a consultant should spend his time on your case. One
who wants really to get well must first be willing to face his problems
clearly.”

“You are right, doctor. I have kept from you the most important thing: I
do indulge in a form of sexual excitation which is perhaps the most
unpleasant possible. You will appreciate at once why I have kept the
knowledge of this from you so long. I thought I have told you already
too much and I wanted to keep to myself this particular morbid turn. But
you will surely despise me.”

“I despise no sufferer.”

“Already as a small boy I had felt the greatest interest in the water
closet. My wish was always: to see another man in the act of defecating.
In my school fancies I always thought of the teacher being compelled to
defecate in my presence. I was always trying to watch other men in the
act. If I succeeded in witnessing the act I became very excited and
masturbated. My whole mind and thought to this day revolves around the
water closet and the feces. Think of it! I, a person with certain
æsthetic tastes, an artist, poet, enthusiastic musician, a man aspiring
to all that is beautiful and noble,—to be fettered down to so horrible a
perversion! Think of this abyss between my body and my soul! If I become
acquainted with a new man and I like him, my first thought is: I should
like to see him empty his bowels.”[37]

“Have you perhaps, as a child, witnessed such a scene which may have
made a deep impression on you?”

“I do not remember. I only know that already in the primary grades I was
interested in watching my schoolmates. In Denmark there is a greater
freedom about these matters than elsewhere. Sexual freedom, too, seems
to me to be greater in our country. In later years I found sufficient
opportunity to satisfy my craving. Finally I had recourse to a tiny
augur which I keep always with me as an aid to secure the opportunities
for observation which have now become indispensable to me. But usually I
find boring holes unnecessary. Little appropriate convenient holes may
be found when one looks for them. I must have many colleagues for I have
found that most closets show these observation spots. Here in Vienna,
too, I have seldom come across a water closet, where it was not possible
to watch the act. I fight with all my powers against this unfortunate
trend. But I give in each time again. I think of it all forenoon. By
noontime I am wholly out of patience. I am impelled to seek a public
lavatory. There I wait till a man comes along. When I see him defecate,
I masturbate....”

“Have you watched women, too?”

“No, I find women disgusting when I think of them in this situation.”

We are here confronted with a form of anal erotism of a pronounced
infantile character. All children without exception show a great
interest in the lavatory and in the processes of micturition and
defecation. These processes form the theme of a whole group of infantile
sexual theories. The children come through the anus, they are generated
through the urine, etc. It is quite likely that we have here an instance
of the fixation of certain infantile impressions. The fact that the
first phantasies which he is able to recall revolve around his teacher,
proves that someone who was an authority played a rôle as the
intermediary for these early infantile impressions. Who can that
authority be? We can only surmise. We must await patiently the further
development of the analysis.

He complain that he has an ugly appearance, because everything about him
is so unprepossessing; his whole physiognomy seems to him womanly, soft,
and the obverse of striking. He often turns to the looking-glass and
examines himself. As in the picture of Dorian Grey he finds the traces
of his paraphilia expressed in his features. He symbolizes his mental
processes and localizes them in his face. He fights, a relentless fight
against his scatologic phantasies and trends, he seems to himself weak,
womanly, repulsive. Vice, low thoughts, animal cravings, low passion—all
that he sees expressed in his face.


His first recollection of his paraphilia is noteworthy. He is playing
with a little friend, an uncle, who wants to defecate near the street.
He points out that people may pass and prevents the deed.... This
recollection already indicates the two tendencies: the coprophiliac
trend and the struggle against it.

Moreover, his coprophilia reaches farther than he has confessed thus
far. We discover today that there is present a predisposition to
coprophagia, that the condition is really a mixture of homosexuality and
stark infantilism. He would like to allow the partner to defecate on
him. Identifications with lavatory come to surface. The place chosen for
the deposition of the feces is the abdomen, occasionally the mouth.
There are also frequent phantasies of _fellatio_, active and passive.
The reading of various medical and popular books excites his phantasy
and feeds his paraphilia.


He relates two dreams. In the first he was running after an electric car
which he could not reach. He tried to jump on but in vain, the car just
passed before his nose. In the second dream he led his dog for a walk,
the dog met another and copulated while he himself ran off. The first
dream represents an unattainable ideal. The second illustrates the
endeavor to get rid of the animal-like trends (within himself). He
avoids similarly coitus with a woman.

He relates that for a long time he has been in the habit of writing up
phantastic homosexual orgies and that he carries around these erotic
stories for months. The last story he wrote some 14 days ago. He is much
interested in these doings, because the writing and the reading excite
him tremendously. He tells me the content of the last phantasy which he
has written up: A round table of sixteen soldiers. One of them holds a
naked woman on his knees. She must urinate in a glass. The soldier pours
beer in that glass. Then all those present partake of the beer.[38]

He confesses next that he has already carried out a number of times
various urolagnic acts and felt great pleasure doing so. In fact these
cravings did not bother him only so long as the friend visited him daily
and he was keeping up his spiritual love for the fellow. That is why he
was so broken up when his mother deprived him of that friend.

He relates a number of episodes illustrating his activity as _voyeur_.
At first it was chiefly men of advanced age who roused him. They had to
have very clean and attractive linen. Ejaculation ensued when he had an
opportunity to see the man naked and the phallus interested him more
than the podex.

He also admits having entertained phantasies about his father. But he
found these phantasies unbearable and they proved at last so
discomforting that he had to abandon them. On the other hand he was able
to state emphatically that his mother never figured as an erotic object
in his fancies.

As a genuine homosexual he was very much surprised that a “naked woman”
should figure in his last phantasy or story and he could not explain the
intrusion. But he is telling me everything without reserve....

He fears that perhaps his mother is having some understanding with me.
She is in the habit of tracing all his secrets.... I point out to him
the fact that the mothers of homosexuals always show the strongest
opposition against the analysis when they find out that their sons free
themselves and turn their affection (temporarily, of course) to the
analyst. Sigma’s mother, who has accompanied him to Vienna, also
tolerates no intimate friendship on her son’s part, as we know. Thus he
tells me that she had reproached him yesterday for leaving her alone on
Sunday. She wants to be everything to him. She also tries to be tender
with him, to coddle him, a habit which he strongly resents. He believes
that this resentment is due to his aversion against all womanhood. This
sort of protection against all tendernesses on mother’s part is typical
of all sons who are incestuously fixed on their mother.

He relates how his mother once confessed to him that she found no
support in his father and actually felt lonely. On that occasion he wept
over his mother’s plight and passed a sleepless night.... His further
associations lead him to his father’s fatal illness: it was a slow
breaking down due to cancer. He could not take care of his father, and
was but of little service to the latter. It was shortly after his father
had dismissed his friend. He was still too absorbed in his own troubles.
He witnessed with detachment the terrible phases of the dying man’s last
struggle. A few days before the end he dreamed that he saw his father’s
body lying peacefully on the bier. It was plainly a dream of impatience.
He could hardly await his father’s passing away. He declares that he
hated his father heartily at the time, because the latter had allowed
himself to be induced by the mother to write that letter to his friend.
Strangely, he was never so angry with his determined mother as he was
with his weak-willed father. During the father’s funeral and upon
returning home he was unable to weep. This occurrence is typical of
those men for whom a death is the fulfillment of an old wish. In point
of fact the father was a burden and drag in the house. The mother
sacrificed herself and his death was a release for everybody. Moreover
his attitude towards his father had always been rather peculiar. They
had never had much in common....

He reports a number of small details illustrating how tirelessly his
mother endeavors to bind him to herself. Yesterday afternoon he was at
the theater and later went to the _Prater_. In the evening he found his
mother morose and pouting. She looked at him reproachfully saying: “Did
it not occur to you during your rounds of pleasure that you are leaving
your poor mother alone?”

He must think only of his mother and always feel that he is bound to her
forever. Aunts and neighbors always come to him to tell him how much
suffering he causes his poor mother by neglecting her. While he was
still suffering acutely the distress caused by his mother’s breaking up
his friendship with Ernst, he met the latter once secretly and they went
to a theater together. The mother knew it in some way and when he
returned home he found her in bed, her head wrapped in towels. Her
disappointment made her ill and she had to keep to her bed for a week.
Finally an aunt accused him of behaving like a murderer towards his
mother. She cannot understand that passion of his for that friend! Was
he perhaps in love with the young man’s sister? Happy to have a way out
of his difficulty suggested to him he answered the question in the
affirmative. That roused his mother’s jealousy to the highest pitch. But
she soon convinced herself that she had been fooled by him and that he
had no interest whatever in the girl.

He found the household ties so unbearable that at one time he
entertained the notion of shooting his parents and running off. There
were frequent quarrels during which he displayed unexpectedly a terrible
venom against his mother and an unexplainable tendency to violence. But
these episodes soon blew over, and he again felt himself helpless under
the tyrannic sway of her love. Perhaps not as unwillingly as he makes
out ... for there were opportunities available for freeing himself and
he did not take advantage of them. He remained inactively at home, to be
taken care of and to allow his mother to worry over him....

He dreamed of visiting numerous urinals running from one to the other.
This dream portrays him as searching for something. It appears that he
is trying to trace down a particular infantile scene. He relates how
obsessed he becomes with the desire to go from lavatory to lavatory
until he finally sees the longed-for scene. He is seldom satisfied.
Often there follows a feeling of disappointment and disgust.
Occasionally an uncommon sense of peace during which he is able to
gather his thoughts.

“I did not tell you the truth when I denied transvestitism
(_Verkleidungstrieb_). I often entertain such fancies. I am particularly
fond of Salome and I often portrayed myself in that rôle with keenest
interest. My teachers were the prophets whose cold, severed head I
kissed.”

This trend distinctly sadistic is fortified by numerous small details.
He is jealous. He saw once his friend entertaining himself in friendly
and lengthy conversation with a lady and the thought occurred to him
that perhaps his friend was in love with her. He figured that he would
be justified to take his friend’s life for he loved him more than any
one else in the world. He pictured to himself that deed and what he
would do to his friend. The chief motive he confessed reluctantly: “I
should abuse sexually his body.” With that fancy there is linked also
the portrayal of immense sadness.

The two features he mentions today are represented in the _Merchant of
Venice_. A scene which always excited him, representing transvestitism.
Portia as judge and the Jew bent on carving out a pound of flesh.
Shylock and Salome. The bloody head of John is obvious enough.

Today, too, he is in a hurry and must get through quickly. He is always
relieved when the hour is over. This raises the suspicion that he is
trying to cover up further revelations....

He relates particulars regarding his homicidal fancies against his
friends. His favored phantasy is the thought of pushing his favored
friend into an abyss. They often take walks on the seashore. At a
certain spot the coast is very steep and rocky and a fall there would
mean certain death. He is also obsessed with the reflection: what would
he do afterwards? Run away? No ... he would jump after his friend to be
united with the latter in death....

The next dream carries us deeply into the structure of his
homosexuality. First he relates the dream as he had written it down and
then he adds reluctantly the portion indicated as “additional.” The
addition usually contains the most important features.

The dream just before falling asleep:


_Place_: _the grotto across the_ Schönbrunn _Castle. I was descending
the rocky incline and reached the lowermost declivity. I was very much
afraid of falling into the water basin. I was wondering what to do, and
I had the feeling that back of me, instead of rocks there were high
stairs which I could never climb up. Suddenly I found myself on level
ground, beyond the water. An automobile passed me by noiselessly and
with lightning rapidity disappearing specter-like in the bushes. I saw
no driver and nobody else in the machine. It seemed very uncanny but
presently I knew that I was at home and in my bed. I should have liked
to keep on dreaming but the wish to hold on to what I had dreamed thus
far prevailed over all other desires. I was afraid I should forget my
phantasy so far as it had unfolded and that I should have nothing to
report to my consultant._

_Shortly afterwards I fell actually asleep and i dreamed a great deal. I
have tried to recall some of the things in the morning. It seems
noteworthy that the dreams were but lightly intimated rather than
carried out; there was always still something more about to take place
but the next dream picture intruded before the previous one was all
done._

Additional: _Once I found myself in a theater in the first row of a
balcony. Tristan was being given for the occasion. Instead of the
orchestra leader, André Rose was leading. A fine one-year volunteer_,
Einjahrig-Freiwilliger, _back of me, in the second row, was singing
Tristan in the style of the modern recital song. Next to me sat my aunt
who is linked with memories of my kindergarten age. I had the unpleasant
feeling that I was involuntarily sliding down towards the ground floor,
and therefore I leaned heavily back in my seat stretching out my legs
and trying to support myself by pressing my toes against the foot
support (bed foot-board?). I had the uncanny feeling that the foot rest
might give way and fall off like a piece of paste board. I begged my
aunt to lift me carefully. I felt like a very sick person. Sitting again
upright I felt well and refreshed and I was just in time to see the
curtain drop over the stage and a number of persons appearing in front
of it, among them several gentlemen in evening dress. Obviously the
performance is being cancelled. The public broke into ironic applause,
whistled and howled._

Another dream: _Late at night in a big garden. Many people about to take
their leave after an afternoon spent in irrelevant gossip. My parents
were also among those present. My father was in a hurry to get to town.
He leaves. It is very dark. Presently a station bell, the whistle of a
locomotive. I shout into the night’s darkness not knowing whether any
one hears me or not: he is lucky! He is just in time to catch the train.
And I think of following in an hour. I am very tired. I am happy in my
bed at home._

_Sunny afternoon in a poor quarter of a suburb. Under a window of an
apartment window there are a number of tin vessels which I know, belong
to the woman above. An elderly woman is preoccupied with the vessels,
holding each vessel up to the light, as if testing them, but I know that
she is merely awaiting the opportunity to run off with them. A window is
raised in the neighboring house, a woman calls out to the woman living
in the apartment under whose window the vessels are lying, to watch out
for the stranger. By that time I myself am standing in the owner’s room.
She is just putting on her best toilette. The warning neighbor appears
and scolds the vain woman who on account of her vanity neglects to watch
out for her things._

Addition: _I was in the next room. The woman had a little girl with her.
I held my penis in hand pursued the two and wanted them to take it in
their hand; and thus the ejaculation...._

_The woman’s hands disgusted me because they were dirty._


This is hardly the place for a complete analysis of the whole dream. The
first part, the falling into a deep basin is a hypnagogic vision and
represents the process of falling asleep, the descent into the depths of
primordial man. The rapidly passing automobile, the danger. The
representation of Tristan refers to a great passion for a queen.
_Schœnbrunn_, the former Kaiser’s summer residence, refers to the
parental home. Isolde is also a queen, who is lost forever for Tristan.
Is it not rather remarkable that he should dream of Tristan and Isolde,
the quintessential epic of heterosexual love? And does not the
cancellation correspond precisely to his cryptic wish? The thought of a
fall into the depths is continually recurring as well as the inhibitions
about things not holding out (hence the steadying with the feet for
support). The man in evening dress represents the love of a modern
cultural man in contrast with a Tristan. He himself is Tristan, the
onlooker and the singing _Einjährig-Freiwillige_. Finally another
picture: parting, _i.e._, his father’s death: “He was lucky.” What is
the meaning of that? He has caught the train on time! Recalling that in
one of his previous dreams the subject was unable to catch the electric
car, we understand that his father found time to attain his aim,—a
tempo—while he himself is late. We shall be informed presently about the
meaning of this aim. And back of all inhibitions another picture breaks
forth: he runs after an old woman with his erect membrum (the child is a
symbol for the genitalia. _Cp._, in this connection, _The Language of
Dreams_, _Dreams and Sex_, Chapter, “Children in Dreams,” translation by
_James S. Van Teslaar_, Badger, Gorham Press, Boston, 1922).

He is not a little surprised that his dreams portray heterosexual
feelings. Heretofore he had paid no attention to his dreams.

I have not yet stated whom the old woman represents. He is asked to
mention any woman that occurs to him and after some hesitation he
states: my mother.

Here we come across one of the roots of his homosexuality, one that
perhaps we anticipated. But thus far I avoided any inquiries about his
attitude towards the mother.

What is the meaning of that portion of the dream which portrays a number
of tin dishes? I perceive this as follows: He does not possess many
treasures, it is all mere tin, but such as it is it all belongs to the
woman above ... the mother. The neighbor warns the mother that another
woman might rob her of her son’s affection. The mother is very vain and
spends considerable time preparing her toilette.

The key to the dream rests in the pollution with which it ends and the
deepest effect: the disgust on account of the dirty, unclean hands of
the woman above.

We see that the pollution is slowly prepared. First there is a
representation of the heterosexual love (Tristan). But his inner
voices—the public—express themselves against that love, the latter is
deprecated: there is whistling and shouting and ironic applause. Next
the father is upon the scene of action. He is represented in the act of
leaving. Other women appear,—the old woman, the neighbor. But the orgasm
is achieved only through the “woman above” (“upstairs,”—_Frau da oben_,
literally, woman above),—the mother. This form of pollution, which at
bottom represents merely an unconscious onanism (unclean hands!) brings
on a feeling of disgust in him.

The next dream portrays a scene in which a man talks about his son. The
scene takes place in a lavatory. Probably this reproduces an infantile
scene wherein he may have observed his father at the lavatory. The dream
following that is much clearer. I reproduce here both:


_I found myself in a lavatory compartment and I watched my “victim.” The
man turned his back to me and spoke to himself about his son. I noticed
that the woman guardian was keeping watch on me from the outside and I
started to leave, grabbing my hat just as she was opening the door to
catch me at my observation post. I acted as if I were unconcerned,
quietly picked up my handkerchief on which I had knelt down, picked off
the floor the various things of mine that were still strewn about,
gloves, muffler, etc., and went off with the feeling that through my
cool behavior I disarmed the woman of her suspicions and had avoided a
public scandal...._

_I went upstairs to a wide open store. Half way across I saw the
saleswoman standing in a corner. At the sight of her I am seized with
tremendous bowel cramps. I turned around and defecate publicly in the
room. The woman over there will not see me?_


This dream reminds him of the childhood incident already mentioned: When
he was two years of age he was playing out of doors with another boy who
prepared himself to move his bowels close to the street, in the open.
Now he admits also that his own _libido_ is greatly increased if he
imagines he is watched during defecation. This is a typical instance of
sexual infantilism. He is not only _voyeur_; he is also exhibitionist.

The first dream discloses the fear that the mother, the guardian, might
find out his scatological tendencies. In the second, the woman upstairs
was the onlooker during an infantile scene. It reproduces undoubtedly a
frequent scene of childhood.

He has carried out a number of homosexual acts at public baths. In
Denmark the men bathe together in steam rooms. Thus he had opportunity
to permit himself bodily contact with others to the extent of inducing
_ejaculatio_. He must also add something to yesterday’s dream about
defecation. Once at the seashore he heard a man groan in the lavatory.
He climbed upon the side wall and saw the man masturbate. This so
excited him that he climbed down at once and also masturbated. The
stranger revenged himself by looking on in his turn and that increased
tremendously the subject’s _libido_.

His dreams today are very characteristic.


_I am in a carriage and I am playing with an infant in swaddling
clothes. I would gladly be rid of it. A man advises me to pack the child
in a tin box,[39] and I actually do to._


Interpretation: he wants to be rid of his infantilism; he preserves it
in a tin box. Compromise between the two trends. The next dream relates
about a minister of the gospel who stands before a big hole in the
ground and who interprets that hole to mean that asceticism is not a
possible ideal. It is necessary to masturbate, at least occasionally.
There were roots in that hole, which looked like hair. Next he is with
his mother in a carriage. The mother turns into the holy Madonna or the
holy Zara(?)

The earth, too, stands for the mother: mother earth. The hole refers to
both, birth and death. One comes from the mother and returns to the
mother. The mother appears again as the holy one, and as the Czarina,
hence the mystifying Zara. The father is the Czar, just as in the
Tristan dream he is represented by the king. Further meaning is obvious.

Hairs recall his peculiar attitude. Women’s hairs are abhorrent to him.
His mother has long blond hair. The father was very hairy. Formerly all
hairy men were abhorrent to him. Downy, young, feminine men are his
ideal. He is continually seeking woman in man....

He reverts once more to the dream about the hole in the ground. He now
recalls that dream very clearly.

I am again a pupil at school and I am being conducted to confession
along with the other school mates. We stand in a wide, round
amphitheater scooped out of the ground. The natural wall rises to a
height of about 2 meters, all around. Above it there stands a wonderful
temple-like edifice. A monk points to the wet spots upon the earthen
walls and compares them to the erotic thoughts, which are also not to be
rooted out of the believer’s conscience. I notice a bunch of roots on
the wall and involuntarily I think of pudendal hair. The monk condemns
asceticism.

A dream full of religious meaning. Already in some of the previous
dreams the woman “upstairs,” or “above,” was perceived through religious
over-determination as mother Mary to whom alone his love belongs and
which he therefore must not squander on any earthly woman. He sees his
grave which like a _memento mori_ admonishes him to regard this life as
a preparation for the next.

Woman seems to be here the quintessence of sinfulness. Now we understand
why the woman upstairs had a little child by her. It was little Jesus.
He has soiled his pure faith. The brain which holds his belief (the
earthen wall!) is likewise stained with his sinful erotic thoughts.

The great wall surrounding the place to a height of a couple of meters
symbolizes all the inhibitions. He himself is the monk, he had a passing
desire to become an ecclesiastic, he is a heterosexual ascete....

Last night many dreams of going through urinals. In one urinal he found
a man who instead of a _phallus_ had a vagina.

Dissolute dreams. Among others a dream that he _podicem lambit_ a
friend. He also entertains consciously fancies of like character....
Further dreams of mutual masturbation with a strange man. Finally the
scraps of dreams culminate in a lengthier one in which he finds himself
in the company of the girl he was very fond of as a boy. The struggle
against the heterosexual tendencies goes on throughout the night and
finally he is conquered.

Obvious resistance against the uncovering of the heterosexual
tendencies.

One dream out of a large number deserves to be reproduced:


_I go on a walk with mother. We are tender with one another and she
tells me sweet words. I pluck wonderful anemones from a river and want
to make a garland to crown my mother with it. But the petals fall off
and only the empty green stems remain in my hand._


Any one familiar with the symbolism of plucking flowers (_vid._ my
_Dreams and Sex: The Language of Dreams_, translated by _Dr. James S.
Van Teslaar_, Badger, Gorham Press, Boston, 1922, Publisher) will
readily recognize that this is a reference to an indulgence of an erotic
nature. These love pats lead to empty stems. The love cannot come to
blossoms or fruition.

He dwells on his relations with his mother. It is virtually a marriage
without any erotic elements. He does not tolerate his mother’s
tendernesses and he has asked her to refrain. There is now between them
genuine shyness. Erotic matters are never so much as touched upon.
Against his incestuous leanings he secures himself by the wall of an
apparent aloofness. But they live together, they go out together, they
share every enjoyment. His mother is a woman who has a grip on his whole
life. And at bottom he is not angry because she has interfered with his
other friendship. He understands her, that is, he sympathizes with her.
That friendship was an attempt to free himself of the mother. But the
mother instinctively did the right thing when she stepped in between her
son and his friend. He does not at bottom care to be liberated from the
slavery of his affection. He allows himself to be led about and to be
treated as a child. He talks as if the love and the chain were
disagreeable to him. Both trends—towards the mother and away from
her—are active in his soul: bipolarity.

The treatment should improve his neurotic condition only but should not
interfere with his attitude towards his mother. He dreams that he is
well and that he tells his mother, now he is all well and they are going
to be happier together than ever.

In connection with a dream another love affair comes to surface, dating
some 16 years back. He courted a certain girl and sent her some poems.
He thinks it was mere play, an attempt to “imagine” that he was also
capable of loving girls. That is how he endeavors to dismiss lightly his
heterosexual tendencies. But he thinks that the love poems were
irrelevant. He also composed poems to his mother, when he was away from
home for a short time:

              “_Du meines keuschen Herzens Allgebieterin,
              Der ich mich neige in tiefer Demut_ ...”

              _“You, mistress of my chaste heart,
              To whom I bow in deep humility_ ...”

The verses are full of yearning and passion. His blood calls for her,
his heart is filled only with yearning for her. These are the utterances
of a man who has lost his head by falling in love.

This case illustrates plainly the manner in which monosexuality leads to
homosexuality. But the subject himself did not want to recognize any of
these relations. All the powers of sublimation at his disposal he had
turned into his love for the mother. Therefore he had to cling to a
portion of his mysophilia (dirt compulsion). What he overdid on one side
in the way of cleanliness was compensated for on the other by a sinking
into filth. It is noteworthy that he does not care to be cleared of his
homosexuality. He looks upon it as a protection and as something that
sets him apart from other men. This again shows the hopelessness of any
therapeutic endeavors in most cases of this type.

Since taking account of his dreams he is astonished how often
heterosexual excitations come to the surface. Last night he dreamed,
first, that he was with a naked woman, of wonderful build and that he
_in vaginam et in anum immisit_ his finger.

Further, another remarkable dream, which played an important rôle in the
solution of his neurosis:


_I am with mother at the Opera. A long hallway at the end of which one
obtains a view of Vienna. One sees the wonderful St. Stephen’s Church, a
fine cloud like a smoke or like a fine powdery water spray over its
tower. The Opera is changed. Instead of Don Juan, the Donna carissima._


Already the first dream indicated a definite trend towards woman and now
the change of program discloses the source of his neurosis. I ask him
for a description of the woman in the first dream. He did not see her
face at all. He merely saw the wonderful bewitching white body.

Such dreams—figures without faces—are very frequent and serve to hide
the beloved person and to prevent recognition. I know dreamers who have
pollutions with such half figures. The face is never visible. Often only
a portion of the body. Through the second dream we may assume that the
figure represents the mother. Otherwise it is hardily possible to
explain why the face should have been subjected to the dream’s
censorship.

The second dream belongs to the category of maternal body fancies. He is
within the mother’s womb. The long passage he associates with: life’s
pathway. It is in fact the pathway through which he came into life.
Stephen’s tower is a phallic symbol. The smoking room, _ejaculatio_ or
_mictio_. It is a representation of the illusion that he is within the
maternal body and is able to observe from that point of vantage the
process of generation. The dream becomes even more transparent when we
learn that his father’s name is Stephen.[40]

Now his sexual infantilism becomes intelligible. He is under the spell
of _Mutterleibsphantasie_, maternal body phantasy. Every lavatory
becomes for him the symbol of the maternal body. There he watches the
man urinating as he might have watched the father in the maternal body
if he had had enough intelligence to do so as an embryo. It seems
unbelievable that intelligent persons should become victims of so
puerile a phantasy. Various facts always uphold the sense of such a
phantasy. In this particular instance there was dislike for, and
unpleasant sensations in, closed rooms, also a series of paraphiliac
trend which found their explanation only through that phantasy. He
revelled in the thought of permitting himself to be besprinkled with the
spermatic fluid by his beloved male friend; he had a craving _membrum
erectum amati viri fellare_; his urolagnic and coprolagnic proclivities,
too, were dominated by the same phantasy. He behaved as if he were still
in the maternal body.

But the dream declares clearly that a change of program is taking place
in the play of his life. Don Juan becomes a _Donna_—_Carissima_,—she who
is most dear to him. He has changed programs; and the love for the
father he has transferred to his mother. He is within the maternal
body,—he himself is the mother. He seeks himself, he is his dearest
woman, he loves the womanly in himself. We have here the never absent
love of the homosexual for himself—narcissism.

Various recollections come to surface, all showing alike that his
earliest predisposition was distinctly heterosexual. Thus, for instance,
at five years of age he fell in love with a girl, wanted to marry her,
and called her his bride. We hear only of three heterosexual episodes
belonging to his later life. It is not yet clear how this complete
turning away from woman came about. Further inquiries reveal dreams of
which I can only give a part. Thus he dreams:


_I study for an hour. My textbook is on various physical experiments,
further on it turns into history. There is something in it about
Bavarian history. The year 4005 plays an important rôle. The whole thing
ends with a fairy tale about three pines which stand on a winter’s night
before the house and signify three dead women._

_Later I act successfully as an imitator of women._


The figure 4005 brings the following associations: 00 is the sign for
lavatory; 45 is the opus number of one of his favorite opera scores, the
Salome of Richard Strauss; 4 and 5 are the bad marks at school.

The Salome of Strauss and a previous dream lead us to his sadistic
trends. It becomes progressively clearer that his aboriginal sadism was
extraordinarily great. To this day he revels in phantasies about sexual
crimes, violent murders, etc. He toyed with the plan of killing himself
as well as his whole family. Any opposition at home immediately suggests
to him thoughts of murder. His original attitude towards woman, too, was
sadistic. The chief motive of Salome is the severed head of the prophet.
Also the pound of flesh in Shylock, in the first dream, refers to this
trend; finally the dream about the bedbug. His religious trend set in
early, thus protecting him against the wild beast within him. At six
years of age he played that he was a preacher and he had his own altar.
He fled from woman because he was not sure of himself....

He has a large number of idiosyncrasies which may be explained through a
repressed sadism. He cannot eat peaches because their skins resemble
human skin; he cannot tolerate the skin on parboiled milk, it brings on
disgust and nausea; he often turns against meat and for a long time he
confined himself to vegetarianism. Meat he calls animal carcass. The
thought of a menstruating woman is particularly repulsive to him. All
associations with blood are strongly affective, partly in a positive and
partly in a negative way.

What is the meaning of the three pines which symbolize dead women in the
dream? Has he lost three female ideals? He associates with “_Ein
Fichtenbaum stand einsam im Norden auf kahler Höhe_,” etc., “a pine tree
stood lonely on the bleak heights of the north,” the famous poem by
_Heine_. That pine tree dreams of palms in the glowing climate of the
Southern Country. There are no further associations. The theme “dead
women” is met with considerable resistance.

I pass over a number of days which amounted merely to a preparation for
the coming solution; and I shall report merely the most significant of
the dream material.

Very important appears the following dream:


_Standing with father at a wide stream. A little white steamboat departs
from us, turning and twisting like a reptile. I would have liked very
much to be on it (though I do not know where I could have found place,
it was like a microcosm). The ship is delayed and now we have to return
by train. That the ship would have made better time is an opinion I dare
not share with father._

_Next day I enter a grotto through which a number of others are
wandering ahead of me. The pathway is tortuous and leads upwards. Who
among my acquaintances is joining me I do not know. My whole attention
is centered on snakes which I carry on a cord. They have very friendly
heads, yet somehow I have the impression they can bite. I say to some
one close by that their poison glands have already been removed.
Eventually I reach a house in full daylight and at the top they turn
into dogs who escape my control and quickly clatter down the deep
stairway. Presently they are back and allow meekly to be held in leash._

_At home I find a package of handkerchiefs neatly wrapped in tissue
paper._


This is a combination of a spermatozoon dream and a maternal body
phantasy. The stream in which the tiny boat is moving about, the life
stream, the stream of spermatic fluid carries a particular spermatozoon,
himself. He, now grown up, wants to revert back to the tiny thing,
wiggling like a reptile. He wants to be tiny again, not a child merely,
a spermatozoon (_Samenfaden_). He is dissatisfied with life and would
like to begin his life all over. The path leads from the stream into a
grotto cave,—the maternal body. At the same time the dream symbolizes
his whole life, which leads him upwards through pitfalls and dangers to
the sunshiny heights. His thoughts are represented here as snakes. They
have friendly heads, to be sure, _i. e._, sin beckons, but he holds them
captive. All sins are overcome, all snakes are captive and wear muzzles.
The shiny house is the church. Thus this dream shows the life’s
beginning and end.

The next dream about handkerchiefs, becomes intelligible when we find
out that he masturbates into his handkerchiefs. The packing in tissue
paper shows that the specific masturbatory phantasy is covered up.

The dream is concerned with the father. During the last few days he has
been thinking a great deal about his father. He tells me about that:

“I have had some hard days and I only see now how strongly I was fixed
on father and what a tremendous rôle he has played in my life. Yesterday
I felt in me all the strong hatred that I bore for years against
father.”

“Why did you hate your father?”

“In the first place because he made me and passed on to me his weakly
characteristics. Such men should have no children. I have taken over all
his morbid predispositions. Then I hated him because he parted me from
my friend through that letter which he wrote at mother’s behest.”

“Then you ought to hate your mother. Is it not strange that you should
condone the same conduct in the mother but not in the father? You seem
to appreciate your mother’s side but not your father’s.”

“Naturally, when you put it that way I see clearly that I was unfair to
father. The letter was but an excuse for the great hatred. I recall with
shuddering his last day. I had the feeling that father was afraid of me.
He gazed at me continually with his great glassy eyes while holding on
to mother’s hand. I felt something like jealousy over mother,—now I know
that I was always jealous. My maternal body phantasy means, of course,
that I want to be present at the parental love act. I want to replace
the father in mother’s life. As a small child I loved him very devotedly
and I suffered on account of his coolness. He was immeasurably loving
and devoted; nevertheless I felt that there was something lacking.”

He looked for tendernesses from his father. To this day he indulges in
two phantasies during his sexual acts. He is the boy watching his father
during coitus. That is the particular lavatory phantasy when he watches
elderly men. He permits himself to be used as a _receptaculum seminis_
by a favored person. (Strong desire to carry on _fellatio_ on his
teachers or to subject himself to pederasty.) He is within the maternal
body _und wird vom Vater päderastiert oder felliert_. Or else, he
himself is the father, he identifies himself with the latter, and seeks
young boys who in that case stand for himself.

But we see that these phantasies differ as widely as possible from
reality. He is unable to secure his contact with reality, because he is
continually under the sway of the maternal body phantasy, as shows by
his peeping into lavatories.

His love for the father proves to be the strongest root of his
homosexuality. He wanted to assume the mother’s place in the father’s
life. In his phantasies he is either the father or the mother; he has
not attained his own individuality. He loves himself either with
maternal or with paternal feelings.

I record the following dream among many others. It shows us his typical
attitude towards the mother:


_Am going with mother to the country where we expect to spend a few days
to recuperate ourselves. Locality: forest neighborhood. The journey,
stopping station, roadway familiar partly from actuality partly through
precious dreams. Wonderful woods with fragrant blooming flowers. But the
blooms show numerous brown spots of decay, as after excessive rains.
Elder bushes badly torn up by the weather and by plunderers. The path
leads to an incline which offers a view of the numerous villas in the
valley. I find that we have wandered off, in order to reach the place
where we proposed to stay for a while; we should have taken the path to
the right half way up the road._


This dream represents a love whose bloom is decaying. They have wandered
off (note the double meaning of the expression, _vergehen_), and they
are off the right path.

His past is illumined not only by his dreams. Among his youthful
compositions he finds a poem which portrays clearly a paternal body
phantasy and speaks longingly of the time when he was yet “unformed and
rested quietly in his father’s loins.”...

The revelations in the course of the following days bring to light new
associations. His reveries continually slight the immediate past and
carry him back over a number of generations. He is a person of wonderful
ancestry, he is not at all the son of his father, he is a child whom
gypsies have changed in the cradle, he has fallen into the midst of his
family by accident.

It turns out that two lives were much talked of at home and that has had
a great deal to do with determining his life course and specifically his
fear of woman. In the first place, there was his father’s life. The man
had been previously married to a woman whom he caught in a breach of
marital faithfulness and it led him to fight a duel. He carried a scar
on his forehead as a memento. Then, an uncle took his life when he found
out that his wife whom he considered loyal, proved unfaithful.

These lessons stood before his eyes already when he was a mere boy. They
served as terrible warnings: beware of woman!

During the next days his fear of woman is the chief theme of his
associations. His father’s and his uncle’s fate stand before him as a
perpetual warning. Already as a small child he had absorbed very clearly
the thought: one must beware of women! His mother did everything to fix
permanently this fear in his mind.

But every fear is the fear of self. This fear of women must have a
deeper determinant. The deeper relations are indicated by the following
dream:


_I am on the street and it is towards evening. The roadbed in front of
me is badly torn up. A wagon drives by; it rolls past at dusk and the
farther end of the street is already plunged in darkness. Horse and
driver will not be able to see that the road is torn. A powerful bear
jumps up to warn the horse, the driver draws tight his reins, the animal
turns around at the same time holding his head anxiously away from the
torn pavement until he finally reaches again the straight road. Before
the wagon disappears into the night the powerful bear jumps once more at
it._

_I am tremendously roused to think that such wild animals are sent out
as warning. There might be small children in the wagon who would be
frightened to death._


Every statement in this dream is a psychic disclosure. The dream records
his life’s journey. A portion of the street is torn and impassable. He
can only go through the homosexual pathway. The heterosexual is so
broken up as to be unusable. It is dark and he might easily meet with
disaster in his life’s journey over this point. The darkness symbolizes
the forgetting of the aboriginal determinants; the driver is
consciousness, the horses are the instincts.

A bear warns him of the dangers of the torn-up road. He is angered at
this form of warning. The reference to small children shows that the
warnings date back to childhood, when he was actually threatened with a
bear.

“There may be small children in the wagon who would be frightened to
death,” records the dream. As a child he has heard repeatedly about his
uncle’s suicide, because of the wife’s faithlessness. In the depths of
his soul this story could not but act as a perpetual warning against
woman. The story of his father’s duel, too, and the latter’s scar on the
forehead influenced his childhood and filled him with fear of woman.[41]
It made him resolve to submit to no woman. And is not hatred the surest
self-defence against the dangers of love?

Who or what is the mysterious bear in the dreams? Naturally,—like every
figure in the dream, it is the dreamer himself. There is the power of a
wild beast in his breast. We recall that one of his dreams was staged at
_Schönbrunn_, the Zoölogical Garden of Vienna, where the wild beasts may
be seen. We recall Shylock, the pound of flesh, and the various sadistic
determinants of his neurosis.

We now approach the kernel of his homosexual neurosis which turns out to
consist of a powerful protective wall against his criminal self. His
attitude towards woman is characterized by a tremendous hatred. He is a
_Lustmörder_, the wild bear who attacks women, who strangles them and
would drink their blood. The bear represents his own image and a
terrible warning.

Beware of the women! It will turn you into a murderer. Better remain a
child, enjoy whatever brings gratification to a child. Woe to you if
your life’s journey should lead you through the open road where all wild
passions lurk which have already filled you as a child! Oh, better if
you had never been born, or if you could begin life all over....

Blood is his true requirement. Spermatic fluid, urine, fæces,—all these
are substitutions representing blood.[42]

Now we begin to understand why he must not be a man and why he wants to
be a woman. His great aggressive trend is linked with the notion of
maleness. The passive attitude, suffering, patience, is identified with
femaleness.

After these revelations, which were supported by a large mass of
memories, the patient stayed away for a few days. Then he reappeared and
told me that he had successful intercourse with a _puella publica_. He
thought he might be able to overcome his homosexuality. But he received
a telegram recalling him to Denmark.

I have not heard anything about his subsequent history. Did he become
bisexual? Did he overcome his infantilism? Did the torn portion of the
road become passable at last?

I am unable to state anything definite. But we have obtained here a
clear insight into the psychogenesis of homosexuality and we have seen
that many determinants are at work shaping the original predisposition.

Let us briefly mention the most important data in this clinical history.
It must be looked upon really as but a fragment of an analysis. But it
leads us to the core of the neurosis and shows us the subject’s inner
predisposition, so sharply contrasting with his conscious attitude.

This man carries within himself the aboriginal instincts of mankind. His
dreams carry him back to the paternal body and back to the prehistoric
phase of his existence not without reason. He carries within himself the
engrams of thousands of years, the remnants of the wildest instinct of
primordial man. The phylogenesis of his being corresponds with his
ontogenesis. What does he lack for a typical primordial being? In his
dreams and phantasies he shows the terrible blood lust, the
imperativeness of wishes, the brutal egoism of the periods of long past.
Even man’s primordial toleration of filth is not absent; this subject’s
history discloses urolagnistic and coprophagic tendencies.

Consider the contrast between his instinctive and his cultural self. He
is a man of refinement and a marked personality, a genuine artist, a man
who appreciates the beautiful, a man who is transfixed before a
representation of Tristan, or before a statue and whom the beauties of
nature plunge into ecstasy; a man who seems capable of adding some day
to the world’s art possessions a worthy contribution.


This case proves most decidedly that my view that homosexuality
represents a regression is correct. Other physicians will prefer to
speak of degeneration. Indeed,—but this subject has no sign of physical
degeneration, there is no pathologic family history such as might be
regarded as predisposing to degeneration. One might as well consider all
artists degenerates inasmuch as all artists show the primordial cravings
which we find in our patients. The very fact that all human progress is
brought about through individuals who represent regressions should teach
us more carefully the term degeneration and to apply it only to the
cases in which the conjunction of physical signs of degeneration with
moral inferiority leaves no doubt.

We trace here the operation of that primordial hatred which threatens to
smother the mind’s safety valve as it presses for expression. A portion
of this hatred may turn into love and lead the subject into the pathway
which makes prophets, religious reformers, philanthropists or champions
of the people. Another part of it persists and strengthens infantile
trends.

What is _Sigma’s_ conscious attitude? Love for men, indifference towards
women, hatred of the father, a bipolar vacillation towards his
mother,—love and hate![43] But unconsciously he loves his father and
hates all women,—perhaps because he must love them. His ordinary
attitude requires the projection of his love feeling in its bipolar form
upon all the objectives of his affection. One loves and hates at the
same time. But he hates only the women. How has this primordial hatred
been attained by the subject? Why is he incapable of assuming the usual
bipolar attitude towards women?

If we go far back into his childhood we find that he was in love with
his father and jealous of his mother. At that time all women were
possible rivals in love for the father. He himself wanted to be a woman,
the woman to love his father. This father _Imago_ he seeks to this day
in all his teachers, older friends, in his superiors. He must
necessarily stand in a homosexual relationship towards them so long as
he is unable to overcome his infantile constellations. Everything
peculiar about his attachment to the mother is traceable back to his
identification with the father. From the latter he has derived his
quiet, timid, patient temperament,—that attitude of passivity which
really masks a tremendous aggressivity. That infantile attitude
determines the survival of all infantile excitations in his _vita
sexualis_.

How may the cure be effected? The subject must be made to understand
that he will never really carry out the crimes which contact with women
suggest to his unconscious. He must learn to apply love in its bipolar
form alike to men and women. His plethora of cravings should enable him
to awaken within himself the hitherto badly neglected love for woman.
Before the analysis all his erotic trends were directed towards male
friends. The cure leads through approach of woman as friend. First she
is a friend, and subsequently—after much struggle and searching—the
beloved. He must learn to play the rôle of father to some strange woman.

Is analysis the proper means? Who, in the present state of our
knowledge, knows another? What can we accomplish through commands,
punishment, formal training, or hypnosis? Primordial love achieves
supremacy only through the exacting process of self-knowledge and
through the recognition of the primordial instincts, including the
primordial hatred. The subject has concentrated his primordial love
feeling wholly upon his own person.

Like all homosexuals he loves only himself. This peculiarity, too, he
shares with all primordial beings. Does primordial man know any other
love than love of self?[44]

I have already pointed out that _urnings_ always seek themselves first
and assume subsequently the rôle of another person; or else they seek in
the male different variants of their own childhood. The same is true
_pari passu_ also of the _urlinds_. To be in love always means to find
one’s self in another. But why do _urnings_ not find themselves in the
female _Imago_? This question cannot be covered with a generalization
that will hold good for all cases. In the two last cases the fact that
the subjects regarded themselves as the reverse of handsome played an
important rôle. They had a sense of inferiority with regard to woman and
a feeling of envy. Self-love induced fear of defeat by woman on account
of lack of attractiveness. How could they feel confident of conquering
woman in view of their ugliness? How could they play the rôle of a Don
Juan to which their latent homosexuality might otherwise have driven
them? Among men physical beauty does not matter. What is important is
the size of the genitalia.

If love capacity be measured by the size of one’s genitalia, the patient
_Delta_ (Case 83) could measure himself against any one. He took
ridiculous pride in his great penis,—a pride shown by many men. His
whole sexuality was centered upon the symbol of masculinity. With
_Sigma_, with whom the penis played but a secondary rôle, the case was
different. _Sadger_ who sees in narcissism the love of one’s genitalia
would find his view corroborated by the history of the first case but
not by the second, the subject in the latter instance showing not the
least interest in his penis.

The first of these cases portrays the mechanisms described by _Adler_,
the second barely a trace. This shows how easy it is to build certain
assumptions through a one-sided selection of cases. It is obvious that
every earnest investigator must come upon certain aspects of the truth.
What we obtain always are mere sectional views of homosexuality. A cross
section yields merely a corresponding view of the picture. Only the
apposition of the various sectional views can furnish us the proper
perspective for reconstructing the whole picture of homosexuality.

Infantile reminiscences in both cases were partial determinants which
lead to a lasting fear of women and to withdrawal from heterosexual
love. _Delta_ had witnessed an unhappy marriage as a child, _Sigma_
heard a great deal about faithlessness and about woman’s lack of
loyalty. Both shared also a strong sadism, a feature which we have
observed in all cases of homosexuality thus far analyzed.

We are thus led to a synthetic formulation of male homosexuality which,
in reversed terms, holds true also of women:


_The homosexual neurosis is a flight back to one’s own sex induced by a
sadistic predisposition towards the opposite sex._



                                  VII

  THE NEUROTIC’S INABILITY TO LOVE—THE NARCISSISM OF THE
      HOMOSEXUAL—PROGRESSIVE SEXUAL DIFFERENTIATION WITH THE GROWTH OF
      CULTURE—THE POSITION OF THE HOMOSEXUAL IN THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN
      SEXES—THE SOCIAL CAUSES OF HOMOSEXUALITY—HOMOSEXUALITY AMONG
      GREEKS—INCREASE OF POLAR SEXUAL TENSION—VARIOUS THERAPEUTIC
      MEASURES—HYPNOSIS—MOLL’S ASSOCIATION THERAPY—PSYCHOANALYSIS—THE
      PATH TOWARDS CURE AND THE CONDITIONS FOR RECOVERY.


_Im Hass ist Furcht, ein grosser, guter Teil Furcht. Wir Furchtlosen
aber, wir geistigeren Menschen dieses Zeitalters, wir kennen unseren
Vorteil gut genug, um gerade als die Geistigeren in Hinsicht auf dieser
Zeit ohne Furcht zu Leben. Man wird uns schwerlich köpfen, einsperren,
verbrennen; man wird nicht einmal unsere Bücher verbieten und
verbrennen. Man ist seines Faches um den Preis, auch das Opfer seines
Faches zu sein._

                                                           —_Nietzsche._



                                  VII

_Hatred means fear, it contains a great, big part of fear. But we the
Fearless ones, we the more intellectual men of our age, precisely as the
more emancipated ones, with reference to our age, are well aware of our
advantage of living without fear. We shall be bitterly pursued, jailed,
burned at the stake; our books will more than once fall under the ban
and be burned. One is a man after one’s own kind only at the risk of
paying the price demanded of one’s kind._

                                                           —_Nietzsche._


We have seen with what powerful hatred the homosexual encounters his
environment. Whether he turns his hatred towards the other sex, his own,
or, under certain circumstances, against himself, he remains the
inveterate hater vainly trying to reconcile the feeling of man’s
aboriginal nature with the ethical requirements of later culture. The
question rises whether he is at all capable of loving. One may point out
that in a certain sense he does love his mother, father, some friend or
that perhaps he even has a “sweetheart.” But it only seems that he loves
them! The truth is that he is unable to love. That peculiarity he shares
with all artists who, in fact, are also incapable of loving. I repeat
myself and reproduce below my statements on this point as incorporated
in my work “_Die Träume der Dichter_.”[45]

All my inquiries into the psychogenesis of these disorders have led me
back to the manifestations of hatred. Already in my work, _Die Sprache
Des Traumes_ (_the Language of Dreams_), I have pointed out that
antagonism (or hatred) is man’s primary feeling responsible for the
development of neuroses in those ethical-minded persons who still
preserve strongly their aboriginal instinctive cravings. “_The neurosis
is the endopsychic perception of hatred in terms of a guilty
conscience_” (_The Language of Dreams_, page 563 of the 1st German
edition; English version of the latter edition is now in preparation by
the translator of the present volume.)

I believe I have proven successfully that the homosexual is a neurotic,
that he represents a type of regression to man’s primordial instincts;
and that homosexuality is a sort of compromise healing process in the
mental conflict between the abnormal, raw cravings, and the cultural
need for their suppression.

But we must not think that, like the average neurotic, the homosexual is
incapable of love. Only, all his love is a love centered exclusively on
self. Yet all cultural progress consists of the sublimation of self-love
into social love. That is the meaning of the majestic injunction: _love
thy neighbor as thyself_!

Since the homosexual loves only himself he seeks only himself in others.
That, however, is a feature of all love. What appears to be the most
extreme manifestation of altruistic feeling is at bottom but the outcome
of egoistic cravings. Love is but egoism potentialized. Every neurotic
suffers of narcissism. He is a slave to self and cannot escape that
bondage. The homosexual loves, or appears to love, his own sex, but even
superficial examination shows this to be but part of his narcissism. In
truth he loves neither man nor woman. He has to overcome a hatred
stronger than the corresponding feeling in the normal. That hatred is
the theme of his childhood. As perpetual infant, he fails to sublimate
sufficiently that hatred, or to fix it upon objectives considered proper
in our current cultural development.

All who investigate homosexuality find an early awakening of the sexual
instinct. It is perhaps the greatest social function of sexual instinct,
next to reproduction, to provide for the conquest of hatred. Though the
selfish child becomes a loving person, the child’s love is still
entirely self-centered. The child loves the persons who serve it. In
vain one tries to point out that it ought to love also the teachers who
are severe but mean well, that parents must punish in order to teach!
This view belongs to the adult mind and is what enables the adult to
forget the childish notions of revenge which he entertained as a child
whenever he suffered punishment which he looked upon as unjust before
his higher sense of responsibility had asserted itself. But in the
neurotics, including homosexuals, sexual precocity brings early to
surface cravings which involve the love of others; they are therefore
inclined to renounce or modify their hatred. The proportionate share of
hatred against some beloved person is withdrawn and turned against the
others. These infantile feeling-attitudes may undergo a second
transformation in later years. A boy may love the father and hate the
mother, because she is his rival in the father’s affection. At the same
time the sisters may be hated because they draw to themselves a certain
quantum of the father’s love, which the self-centered jealous boy wishes
to secure exclusively for himself. Later the mother and sisters are
loved, and the father recedes to the background.

Jealousy is an infantile feeling. Its appearance in later years always
signifies a regression to infantile attitudes. The homosexual spreads
his hatred from one persons to the whole sex under the form of jealousy.
Let us assume that he loves the father insofar as he is at all capable
of loving. The mother is looked upon as a rival. With the formulation of
that attitude, all other women become likewise potential rivals, capable
of robbing him of his father’s affection. Therefore he hates all
women,—the subject is on the road to homosexual neurosis. At the onset
of homosexuality stands jealousy and the latter, therefore, preserves
its infantile value throughout life.

I have already mentioned that it is the function of sexuality to conquer
hatred. But that task is never completely carried out. An eternal
rivalry persists between the two sexes giving rise to the so-called
“struggle between the sexes.” I have no doubt that man’s capacity for
loving has increased in the course of our racial evolution. What subtle
refinements our erotism has undergone! How complicated the psychic
processes displayed by the man and the woman in love! But the antagonism
or hatred which divides the two sexes has grown apace. Modern love owes
its profuse affectivity to this conquest of hatred, this periodic
regression back to the feeling-attitude of hatred and its renewed
subdual.

The question arises: Have we in fact any proof that the polar tension
between man and woman has diminished? He who fails to see a proof of
this in the improvement of woman’s social position and her acquisition
of equal rights may turn to biologic facts. _These biologic data prove
that the sexual differentiation between man and woman has increased with
growth of culture._ In primitive times woman was not so womanly, the man
less manly, than the man and woman of civilization. _Fehlinger_[46]
compares the primitive peoples with the Europeans and shows that _the
secondary sexual characters are much more pronounced among the civilized
peoples than among the savages_. Subtler stimuli are required to excite
the domesticated sexual instinct.

That sexual differentiation is more pronounced among Europeans is shown
also by the fact that the period from the onset of sexual adolescence to
the attainment of complete physical growth is more prolonged among
civilized peoples than among the colored races. The primitive races show
a great similarity between male and female types and that is most
pronounced among the various pygmean races. The latter are characterized
by an infantile physique, which, as is well known, is sexually but
little differentiated.

_Since the homosexual represents retrogressively a stage of racial
development during which the bisexual character of the organism was more
pronounced, he carries _ab ovo_ the inclination to project himself unto
both sexes._ He passes into the world of sexual differentiation as into
some strange, inimical, and, to his mind, incomprehensible realm of
existence. He belongs to the primordial period in which a man, if
necessary, could have replaced the woman. His _engrams_ perceive the
homosexual feeling as something as natural as if he had come a few
hundreds of thousands of years sooner into the world. But into the
cultural age in which love plays such a tremendous rôle he brings with
him also the antagonism of bygone ages. That feeling of hatred becomes a
powerful lever in the struggle between the sexes. Physically he stands
between man and woman but he is not suited for the rôle of mediator
because he has not learned to subdue the eternal struggle between male
and female within his breast. The love-attitude which is a mixture of
love and hatred, he splits into its two components directing one
separately towards each of the two sexes. Towards woman he turns his
primordial hatred, while man he loves as a representative of culture.
When he is grown up that deadly hatred is repressed and stands a hidden
stumblingblock between himself and woman. Unable to be a complete man,
unable to extricate himself from that infantile feeling-attitude, he
also hates the woman in him. He overvalues manliness and in his
excessive appraisal of it turns to it with his whole love. The hatred of
all women corresponds to his scorn of the woman in himself,—a reaction
due to his personal inability to overcome the woman in his own make up
and to become a complete man. Finally in the course of the continuous
struggle between the man and the woman within his breast he reaches the
curious compromise of accepting the feeling that he is a woman. That is:
he excepts a single woman from his hatred ... himself. In that manner he
becomes a transvestite. He may be active heterosexually, he may,
apparently, have overcome his homosexuality, yet, as penance for his
hatred, he puts on the clothes which had seemed once so hateful to him.
_The latent homosexual becomes a transvestite only on account of his
guilty conscience._

Our investigations have proven that homosexuality has no uniform
psychogenesis. But all cases showed an archaic emphasis on bisexuality.
Although I speak of regressive manifestations I should not care to see
that conception confused with the notion of “hereditary taint” or of
“degeneration.” For my investigations of artists have convinced me that
they present the same tendencies as the homosexuals. They, too, are
neurotics. In fact, the number of homosexual artists, even of homosexual
persons of rare genius, as given by _Hirschfeld_, is impressive. I hold
the view that every great creative work has been and is being achieved
through these regressions. It is as if nature attempted to rejuvenate
herself and once more to absorb creative energy by dipping down into the
primordial source of all energy. It might be more proper, perhaps, to
speak of them as _dégénérés supérieurs_, in the sense of _Magnan_. It
seems to me that true degeneration, as seen in the stigmata of physical
decay, and which manifests itself in an insufficient adjustment to the
ethical requirements of society, represents rather the terminal point of
an exhausted stem, gravitating downwards, while the neurotic represents
a progression. Degeneration and regressions certainly have a great deal
in common. But similar causes often bring on varying results. I need
refer only to the well-known laws of inbreeding, for instance. The
summation of good qualities through the intermarriage of relatives may
lead to the birth of a true genius, but the same step causes more or
less degeneration by reinforcing morbid tendencies.

I see in such an atavistic tendency the predisposition to homosexuality,
common to all neurotics. Perhaps organic changes, such as I have found
in more or less pronounced form in most homosexuals also play a certain
rôle. Persons of pronounced bisexual type do not necessarily become
homosexual, but this does not disprove that the organic condition may be
a factor. Here is where I agree with _Hirschfeld’s_ “intermediate sex”
theory. But beyond this point our standpoints diverge. The organic
factors remain yet to be investigated. We are but at the beginning of
our studies of organic bisexuality. The ascertainment of unilateral
hermaphroditism, it seems to me, will play a particularly important rôle
in future investigations. Already the data obtained through the
examination of large groups of persons, for which the World War
furnished me an opportunity, impressed me with the fact, that contrary
sexual _Anlage_ is to be found particularly often on the left side of
the body. (In men this shows itself in the form of unilateral
gynecomasty, scant hair growth, asymmetry of the face, the left side
being more pronouncedly of feminine type.) The finding of infantile
features must also be considered of significance in the diagnosis of an
organic predisposition to homosexuality.

These interesting facts do not relieve us of the need of establishing
the psychogenesis of homosexuality on a sound basis. But the multitude
of conditions which may lead to homosexuality admit no hard-and-fast
line. Every case is a problem of its own; these are the very cases where
we must carefully individualize and guard ourselves against hindering
future research by laying down any hard-and-fast rules.

A question which no investigator of sexual problems has thus far
satisfactorily answered, now suggests itself: Why is it that
homosexuality and particularly male homosexuality has become the object
of such terrific social abhorrence? Why is our penal code so backward in
that respect?

We can understand the reasons for that only in the light of the historic
aspect of the problem. It is a striking fact that although female
homosexuality always appears along with the male, it is not nearly so
abhorred but is rather tolerated under the cover of silence. Austria is
the only European country in which sexual intimacy between women is a
penal offence. Probably the difference in this attitude bears some
relation to the problem of reproduction, since man, as the fertilizing
agent, plays a more active rôle than the woman.[47] The seed, that most
precious possession with which a man may fructify several women, must
not be squandered.

The decided struggle against homosexuality began energetically with
Judaism. Monosexualism developed with monotheism. The Bible hardly
refers to homosexuality. The blessings of children, of reproduction, the
advantage of numbers were the needs to which the sexual cravings had to
be subordinated. There is, therefore, justification for the contention
that Judaism has fought against homosexuality,—impelled by social
motives. On the other hand it was also an account of another set of
social motives that, in Greece, homosexuality was not only tolerated but
permitted and even expressly introduced. _Aristotle_ is of the opinion
that in accordance with their customs and beliefs the Dorians expressly
intended to limit the increase in population through the encouragement
of boy love and the separation of women from society.[48] But that in
itself would not explain the high regard in which homosexuality was held
in ancient Greece.

I refer those interested in the subject to the interesting work of a
philologist, Prof. _E. Bethe_.[49]

Like many other philosophers and investigators of history, _Bethe_ falls
into the error of pointing to the Christian church as the agent
responsible for the newer orientation in sexual matters. In the first
place these writers overlook the fact that the new attitude had set in
already with Judaism. Secondly, they fail to see that religions are,
themselves, but the result of social conditions. Religious teachings
always adjust themselves to the social needs of their day and even
fulfill them. Religious formulæ prove meaningless only to the
progressive, emancipated, free and forward-striving persons, the
imperatives of religion are superfluous only for those above the
average. The crowds must cling to religious formulæ and will always need
sexual inhibitions of a religious character.

Sexuality is changing all the time, it undergoes progressive refinement.
No careful observer can deny that fact. More and more of our instinctive
cravings are gradually throttled. But when the process of repression
becomes too severe there are regressions such as we have witnessed in
the agitation for free love of the last decades and in the current more
frank discussion of sexual matters. But if all signs do not fail the
high tide of the agitation for sexual freedom has passed and the wave of
that agitation is receding. Pioneers in the movement for sexual freedom
are beginning to uphold monogamy; and the problem of population made
pressing by the World War does not favor the abandonment of the current
social and legal proscriptions against homosexuality. On the contrary.
There is likely to be in the near future a stronger revulsion against
homosexuality inasmuch as society finds itself compelled to revert at
all costs back to the Old Testament attitude of fostering reproduction.

I have already pointed out that the secondary sexual characters are
becoming more strongly accentuated through culture. The prehistoric
stage was probably characterized by an undifferentiated sexual feeling,
such as _Max Dessoir_ ascribes to the pre-adolescent stage. _The polar
tension between male and female has increased!_ That explains the
difference between the old Greek and the modern attitude towards
homosexuality. The Greek was a bisexual being. He was capable of loving
his friend and wife and woman slave alongside the boy. The modern
homosexual, carrying within him the bisexual instincts of the most
archaic developmental stage, finds himself confronted with another
sex-attitude. He is confronted, so to speak, with the need of making a
new choice, and therefore he seeks always the type to which he himself
belongs, the man who is a woman, or the woman who is a man. Exceptions
do not disprove this rule. But in proportion as the polar tension
between the sexes increases, the basic antagonism between man and woman
also grows. As we have seen—the last case was particularly instructive
in that regard—the homosexual, who apparently stands above that
struggle, is inspired from within by a feeling-attitude of extreme
hatred. He hates woman with such deadly antagonism that the fear of his
own passion makes him avoid woman. His hatred is a will of annihilation.
But that feeling involves its polar alternative: love to the point of
self-annihilation, a willingness to be utterly humbled. Subject No. _83_
gives us a history clearly illustrating this interplay of forces.

But it is plain that the number of homosexuals will not decrease. On the
contrary. _I am of the opinion that under certain conditions the extreme
polar tension between man and woman will always drive to homosexuality
certain individuals possessing the requisite bisexual predisposition and
that the number of homosexuals will increase._ Since I look upon
homosexuality as a neurosis, a morbid condition, if one insists on the
term, I am decidedly opposed to the policy of penalizing the homosexual,
and against those legal proscriptions which have been and are the cause
of much misery. It is a striking fact that in France and Italy
homosexuality plays a lesser rôle than in Germany, for instance,
although in those countries the offence is not so severely penalized.
Dangers and prohibitory laws often excite the strongest attraction and
the neurotic is the very person who likes to become a martyr. Homosexual
relations or acts, carried on under mutual understanding and with the
consent of the parties thereto, should not come under the province of
penal law, as provided in the _Codex Napoleonis_. The latter penalizes
only public nuisances (_outrage à la pudeur_) that is, acts committed in
public or carried on in the presence of witnesses; the _Code Napoléon_
penalizes coercion and protects the minors and the feeble-minded.

With these provisions the requirements of our current ethical standards
are fully met. I cannot conceive the State compelling the homosexuals to
reproduce. Although I do not accept _Tarnowsky’s_ viewpoint that their
offspring is degenerate,—because personal observation has often
convinced me of the contrary—I look upon the rise of the homosexual
neurosis as a sort of social instinct. The homosexual possesses an
endopsychic perception of his asocial tendencies. He feels himself
beyond the pale of society and does not care to adjust himself into the
social order with regard to his sexuality. His struggle against
reproduction is perhaps best for society. Considering the strength of
his sadistic inclinations we can appreciate that through his voluntary
sterilization in certain cases he renders society a genuine service.

The question rises whether it is advisable to clear the homosexual’s
path towards woman through psychoanalysis. That brings up the chief
question whether homosexuality is at all amenable to therapy.

My personal experience has convinced me that here and there
psychoanalysis is successful in effecting a cure. But only under certain
conditions. The homosexual must be genuinely willing to be cured. He
must actively desire a change in his leaning.

But experience shows also that this will to health is found only in the
lighter forms of homosexuality in which latent sadism does not dominate
the condition.[50] That in a certain sense the homosexual of this type
is curable I am in a position to affirm on the basis of my personal
experience. The cure proceeds spontaneously but it may be hastened
through psychotherapeutic endeavor.

The proper psychotherapeutic method can never be _hypnosis_. What may we
expect hypnosis to accomplish so long as the homosexual himself remains
in the dark regarding his false attitude, so long as he has not learned
to acknowledge openly the repressions against which he has fought so
long? Contrary to _Krafft-Ebing_, _Schrenk-Notzing_, and _Alfred Fuchs_,
I have never met with a lasting cure through hypnotic treatment. We must
accept with greatest caution the statements of homosexuals claiming to
have been cured by us.[51] Case _62_ recorded in this work, illustrates
that there are some homosexuals who in order to please the physician and
conclude the treatment with flying colors, claim they are well without
having changed in the least their deeply rooted feeling-attitude.
_Moll’s_ association therapy I am also unable to accept. That method of
treatment consists of the systematic development of normal and the
equally deliberate destruction of the perverse, associations. _Moll_,
who has proposed this therapy and given it that designation, has the
homosexual cultivate deliberately feminine company so as to come
strongly under the specific female influences, he regulates the
subject’s reading and helps him overcome the homosexual phantasies. The
subject must think of “normal pictures” only, before going to sleep and
thus influence his dreams in the proper direction.[52] But one must not
think, as _Moll_ concludes, that the heterosexual dream pictures which
follow are due to the association therapy. The pictures thereby are
merely rendered _bewusstseinsfähig_, tolerable to consciousness. They
were always present. But the patient lacked the courage to acknowledge
them.

I do not mean to deny a certain relative value to the association
method. It is certainly not an advantage for the homosexual who
earnestly strives to get cured to continue to frequent homosexual
circles and to have constantly dinned into his ears the assertion that
his condition is inborn and hopeless. I have quoted some cases showing
that latent homosexuality may become manifest through contact with and
the example of homosexuals while the heterosexual leaning may be
disturbed thereby. But I did not intend to suggest the advisability of
any compulsory measures for restricting the homosexual’s freedom of
action or social intercourse. I have already expressed myself clearly
against compulsions and punishments. It is advisable to urge the
homosexual anxious to get cured to give up contact with homosexual
circles.

But that the association therapy alone is capable of effecting a
complete cure I cannot but doubt. The subject must first learn to see
himself clearly and to recognize the source of the evil against which he
is fighting. We must bear in mind the many subjects with whom repressed
sadism is the true cause of the fear of woman. Such subjects must first
consciously overcome their sadism, they must recognize that the fear is
a ridiculous attempt at protecting themselves against leanings which
under normal conditions never break through.

_The first condition for the successful cure of homosexuality is
adequate self-knowledge._ That can be accomplished only through
persistent psychoanalysis. The physician must devote himself to the
subject for some months until the side-tracked leanings which the
patient has stubbornly overlooked are brought into the field of
consciousness and clearly acknowledged. The subject is like a person
with torticollis looking constantly in one direction and avoiding a turn
of his head on account of the pain. This mental torticollis must be
overcome. The homosexual—if he is to get well—must be able to turn his
gaze unrestrictedly over his whole mental horizon.

That is by no means a simple task. It is an achievement challenging the
whole medical art, requiring insight, diplomacy, sympathy, friendliness,
and patience. But few physicians are fitted for the task. Perhaps the
opposition to psychoanalysis would not be so sharp if it were practiced
only by competent psychotherapeutists and experienced professional men
possessing the requisite tact. The physician is like the sculptor
engaged in the task of bringing forth a certain form out of raw
material.

Unfortunately I must point out in this connection that the
psychoanalytic method inaugurated by _Freud_ is in danger of falling
into discredit through careless application. On the one hand the
exaggerations of the master and his pupils have repelled many
practitioners; on the other many of the patients have themselves become
psychoanalysts, without being completely cured of their own trouble.
What would one think of a hydrotherapeutist, expert though he be in his
own specialty, who undertook a laparotomy? Analysis is comparable to a
serious operation requiring a steady, experienced and skilful hand.
Psychoanalysis does not permit dilettantism like hypnosis. Only from an
experienced master may one learn the difficult art of psychoanalysis and
in turn become a master of the art.

It is quite likely that the analysis of today will be ridiculed in the
future as a raw beginning. Various subtleties and gradations remain to
be uncovered by the future generations.

The psychoanalytic realm is not yet completely laid out.

How firmly I held to all the Freudian mechanisms so long as the
deceptive proximity of the great founder confused my own understanding!
How much I had to unlearn, correct, tone down, or underscore, overcome
or forget, or see with a different eye, before I realized that we are as
yet but at the beginnings of our knowledge and that we must use our
present findings as but so many spring boards to enable us to reach a
little farther out! _Finally, each psychotherapeutist formulates in the
end his own technique. The most important prerequisite for
psychoanalysis—as for every scientific investigator—is to approach the
subject without any preconceptions, to look upon every patient as a new
problem and not to be surprised if one’s case does not fit in with one’s
ready-made systems or if it disproves one’s favorite notion._ For even
the physician with years of experience is startled to meet so many new
forms under which neurosis manifests itself.

But in spite of the variegated pictures, this bewildering variety of
causes leading to the trouble, one thing remains true and unalterable:
the neurotic’s unwillingness to see, that peculiarity which _Freud_ has
called _repression_, and the consequent _psychic conflict_. We must
first appreciate that the patient’s mind is shattered over the hopeless
character of his conflict, that for him the neurosis is a
necessity,—something that enables him in one way or another to put up
with his hardships,—something with which softly to hide his wounds on
the one hand and on the other, show his suffering to the world; when we
appreciate all that, we may gradually acquire the subtle skill of
dissolving the ties and bringing the wound to light. We see the wound
but the patient will not, cannot, see it. He may go so far as to claim
that he has no wound and is well; that he was born with the ties that
bind him; or else, that he came with that wound into the world.

These difficulties are in no psychoneurosis so great as in
homosexuality. As I have already stated: the homosexual neurosis is a
flight to one’s own sex induced by the sadistic feeling-attitude towards
the opposite sex. It is the task of analysis to uncover the mental
conflict which finds expression in this onesidedness and to enable the
patient to see the cruelty trend which he has derived from the childhood
of the race and has carried through his own childhood into his adult
life. _When the homosexual becomes aware of his bisexuality and sees the
causes of his monosexual leaning we have accomplished the requisite
educational task. Beyond that point the patient must help himself. If he
is truly earnest about his desire to get well he will accomplish it
without being pushed to it. If he lacks the inner will the situation is
hopeless in spite of the analysis._

For that reason I am not in favor of the practical management of
homosexuality as carried out by many physicians and particularly by some
psychoanalysts. They urge the homosexual to adopt heterosexual ways, and
consider the subject cured when he is able to have normal coitus a few
times. Unfortunately unpleasant reactions often follow alleged cures
such as are often claimed for persuasion-therapy and hypnosis. The
homosexual abandons all further attempts and prefers his original
monosexual attitude.

We may claim a cure only after the subject under treatment falls in love
with a suitable person of the other sex. _Potentia cœundi_ is not
enough. He must be able to give up dividing the feeling-complex
hatred—love between the two sexes—and to achieve the bipolar attitude
“hatred and love” towards the opposite sex. Such a miracle only love can
perform. Experience proves that the homosexual flees from the
heterosexual love to save himself. The latter looms up in his mind as a
test of power, in which he is anxious to come out the winner, even at
the cost of doing away with his heterosexual partner. He must accept the
subjection to woman implied in love and recognize that in true love both
lovers rule and both obey. He must also learn to recognize the essential
unity of erotism and sexuality. Only when the homosexual finds it
possible to fix his erotism and sexuality upon the same goal, in a
person of the opposite sex,—in other words, when he learns to love in
adult manner,—have we the right to claim a cure. It is only then, at any
rate, that the greatest healer of all ages, love, achieves its easy
victory and the former patient, like all neurotics, thinks that mere
chance has brought him face to face with his ideal. With that end in
view the fixation on the family—through which the homosexual loses his
erotic freedom, occasionally also the sexual—must be severed. I have
brought strong proofs to show that we must transform the homosexual into
a bisexual being, in order to cure him. Practical experience does not
favor bisexuality. We must reckon with the fact that we live in a
monosexual age. The homosexual must transpose his whole sexuality and
must try to overcome or sublimate his one-sided leanings.

The necessary educational discipline takes a long time. The treatment of
homosexuality therefore is a formidable task, both for the analyst and
for the patient. The end-result of the treatment may not be known
definitely for some years.

I have tried to describe the technique of the analysis in the individual
cases. From those various indications the reader may form a picture of
the difficulties. A systematic account of the technique of the analysis
would require a volume in itself. Perhaps after finishing my _Disorders
of the Instincts and Emotions Series_ I may write such a work in order
to acquaint with my experience the practitioners who want to grapple
with the same problems.

A new generation of physicians, not brought up in the midst of the
prejudices of the older, will further the psychologic investigation of
the neuroses.

Naturally the high school must change its attitude towards the problem
of sex. Departments of Sexology and Psychotherapy are necessary to
instruct the young physicians in the essentials of sexual life and its
morbid changes, in order to prepare the future practitioner to deal
effectively with these troubles, heretofore erroneously looked upon as
hopeless. The next volumes in this Series will prove how little the
paraphilias are inborn and how much they are the result of training and
environment. But what is formulated through faulty training may be
corrected by proper reëducation, even though the hold of infantilism
appears unconquerable.

I have called the paraphilias _the struggle between spinal cord and
brain_. They are, even more truly, _the Struggle of Child against
Adult_. For at bottom these neuroses are but infantilisms struggling for
survival. The adult fights against the child; the adult race, ripe for
monosexuality, fights against its childhood manifesting itself in
bisexuality and sadism. The physician can see to it that the warfare is
carried on in humane fashion and with means worthy of civilization. He
can turn the hidden into an open warfare. It means overcoming the
evil—or that which the moralists call evil—by meeting it face to face.

He who looks for more than a few words on the subject of the prophylaxis
of homosexuality and onanism will be disappointed. I believe it is best
that we turn our attention to these themes only when we are called upon
to do so in our professional capacity. I advise all parents and
educators not to watch whether a child masturbates or not. The child
quits the habit when it finds other ways for releasing the tension. And
our analyses have abundantly shown us that it is almost impossible to
prevent masturbation. The evil effects produced upon the child
witnessing marital bickerings, the household inspiration it receives
with regard to judgment-feelings about women and men, the decisive
manner in which parents affect it when they transfer their conflicts on
the child,—these capital facts the life histories of homosexuals given
above illustrate very clearly for any one willing to look squarely at
the truth. We do not as yet appreciate how careful we must be in our
relations with the children. Our educators are still guilty of a serious
blunder when they conceive their duty to be to instill goodness in the
child through the instrumentality of fear. There are only two
educational levers: one’s own example and—love. The healthiest children
come from happy marriages. It is love that determines whether a marriage
shall be a happy one and whether the offspring will be healthy or weak.
The unconscious sexual instinct, manifesting itself in love is the guide
for the regeneration of the human race.[53] Social conditions favoring
early love marriages are the only social reform to which I look for
results....



                           INDEX OF SUBJECTS


 Abstinence, 81, 191

 Adult Love, 314

 Age, 50

 Aggressivity, 283

 Ahasuerus-Type, 214

 Alcoholism, 27, 69, 178, 183

 Ambisexuality, 12

 Anal Eroticism, 245

 Anamnesis (of H.), 231

 Anger, 69, 120, 152

 Antagonism, 94, 304

 Anxiety, 15, 164, 178
   neurosis, 28, 76, 191

 Asocial (Cravings), 194

 Associations, 250

 Association Therapy, 307

 Atavism, 169, 297

 Attachment (to Father), 182

 Autism, 173

 Aversion, 29, 31, 57, 97


 Bipolarity, 157, 206, 218, 265, 283

 Bisexuality, 12, 296


 Censorship, 267

 Christianity, 301

 Compromise, 189, 290

 Compulsion Neurosis, 192

 Conflict, Psychic, 311
   Psychology of, 93

 Confusion States, 176

 Conscience, 144

 Coprophilia, 247

 Cravings, 180

 Creative Energy, 296

 Crime Passionelle, 23, 158

 Criminality, 13, 18 passim, 20, 70, 133, 138, 144, 151, 157, 187

 Culture, 159

 Cunnilingus, 209, 216


 Day Dreaming, 138

 Defence of Jealousy, 123

 Degeneration Theory, 282, 296 passim

 Delusion of Jealousy, 161
   vs. Reality, 177

 Depression, 96, 104, 187

 Differentiation, Sexual, 294

 Disgust, 15, 21, 29, 62, 63, 207

 Dorian Love, 300

 Dreams, 82, 131 passim, 176, 240, 247, 254 passim, 267, 269, 271, 277

 Drinkers’ Jealousy, 183

 Drug Addiction, 176, 178

 Dyspareunia, 18, 95

 Dyspnea, 72


 Egoism, 291

 Elektra, 195

 Engrams, 295

 Epilepsy, 22 passim

 Ethics, Sexual, 317


 Family, Love of, 91

 Fancies, Homosexual, 247, 253

 Father Complex, 227

 Father Imago, 35, 36, 39, 49, 61 passim, 77, 283

 Fear, 57, 62, 67
   of Sexual Partner, 15 passim, 17, 20, 38
   of Women, 286

 Feeling-Attitude, 216

 Fellatio, 73, 247

 Fetichism, 44

 Fixation, 47, 70, 79, 81
   Emotional, 223

 Flight Reflex, 234


 Greek Love, 82 passim

 Guilty Conscience, 296

 Guilt, Feeling of, 207


 Hair Symbolism, 262

 Hatred, 19, 38, 79, 80, 103, 132, 134, 145, 273, 289, 304

 Hermaphroditism, Unilateral, 297

 Heterosexuality, 269

 Horror Feminae, 14

 Hypnosis, 306

 Hysteria, 22


 Identification, 49, 103, 110

 Impotentia, 40, 69

 Inability to Love, 289

 Inbreeding, 297

 Incest Phantasy, 33, 105, 146, 155, 181, 187, 194, 222, 265

 Infantile Attitude, 283, 292, 295
   Reminiscences, 286
   Sexual Theory, 211, 246

 Infantilism, 44, 133, 220

 Inferiority, Feeling of, 229

 Insanity, 156, 158
   Fear of, 176, 177
   Periodic, 176

 Intermediate Sex Theory, 217

 Inversion, 41, 43, 49


 Jealousy, 76, 102, 109, 127 passim, 131, 135, 156, 292

 Judaism, 299

 Late Homosexuality, 50

 Latent Criminality, 137
   Homosexuality, 296, 308

 Law of Substitution, 89, 90

 Libido, 29, 44, 260

 Love, 157
   Attitude, 295


 Masochism, 207

 Masturbation, 16, 55, 64, 66, 155, 230, 245

 Maternal Body Phantasy, 268, 272

 Melancholia, 118

 Monogamy, 303

 Monosexuality, 187 passim, 299

 Monotheism, Sexual, 193

 Mother Imago, 34, 41, 49, 89, 144, 146

 Mother-in-Law, 118

 Motherhood, 95

 Motivations, 159


 Narcissism, 47, 48, 91, 269, 291

 Neurasthenia, 72

 Neurosis, Epileptic, 27

 Non-Conscious H., 117


 Œdipus, 195

 Ontogenesis, 156, 281

 Orgasm, 63

 Overcleanliness, 266

 Over-valuation (of Manliness), 217, 295


 Pansexualism, 193

 Paranoia, 156, 163, 166, 190

 Paraphilia, 200, 219

 Pederasty, Epileptic, 26

 “Penetrating Eye” Symbolism, 61

 Permanence of H., 46

 Persecution, Delusion of, 159, 171, 192

 Phylogenesis, 156, 281

 Philosophy, 39

 Polar tension, 293, 303

 Pollution Symbolism, 259

 Precocity, Sexual, 291

 Primordial Hatred, 282

 Progression, 297

 Projection, Psychic, 159

 Prophylaxis, 316

 Protection, 80

 Pseudo-Heterosexuality, 14

 Psychoanalysis, 139, 146, 170, 176, 200, 208, 284, 310

 Psychogenesis of H., 105, 181, 280, 298
   Paranoia, 171

 Psychosexual Infantilism, 148

 Psychosis, 156

 Puellæ Publica, 194

 Purity, 105


 Querrulants, 172


 Rage, 19, 158

 Regression, 90, 132, 163, 194, 195, 282, 292

 Religion, 301

 Reminiscences, 179

 Repressed Sadism, 270

 Repression, 34, 43, 49, 190, 194

 Revenge Fancies, 169, 292

 Revolt, 92

 Rivalry, between Sexes, 293


 Sadism, 38, 49, 69, 159, 161 passim, 200

 Sadistic Trend, 177

 Scatologie Fancies, 244, 246, 260

 Scent, 46

 Scorn, 15, 32

 Self-Knowledge, 309

 Self-Love, 284, 291
   Pathologic, 193
   Punishment, 135
   Torture, 202

 Servant Girl, 119

 Severity, Parental, 220

 Sexual Infantilism, 260

 Sister Imago, 88

 Social Abhorrence of H., 298

 Specific Phantasy, 78

 Spermatozoan Dream, 272

 Spiritual Marriage, 166, 264

 Sublimation, 88, 90

 Submissiveness, 135

 Suicide, 76

 Supremacy, Struggle for, 220, 222

 Symbolism, 44

 Sympathetic Act, 111


 Telepathy, 186

 Tenderness, Craving for, 274
   Parental, 220

 Third Sex Theory, 15

 Transposition, Emotional, 162

 Transvestitism, 252, 296

 Trauma, Psychic, 98

 Tuberculosis, Symbolism of, 233


 Uncertainty, 168

 Unconscious, 160, 194

 Uranism, 34, 189

 Urlind, 95, 133, 195, 284

 Urning, 14, 31, 33, 47, 48 passim, 194, 284

 Urolagnia, 248


 Voyeurism, 117

 Vomiting, Symptomatic, 242


 Warning, 105

 Water Closet Symbolism, 244 passim

 Wish, 207
   Fulfillment, 111
   Incestuous, 131, 133


 Zoöphily, 155



                             INDEX OF NAMES


 Adler, 15, 222, 285

 Aristotle, 299


 Beaussart, 155

 Berg, 91, 92 passim

 Bjerre, 170

 Bloch, 14

 Bethe, 300 passim

 Burchard, 27


 Dessoir, 308


 Eulenburg, 21, 317


 Fehlinger, 294

 Fleischmann, 200, 206, 208

 Freimark, 93

 Freud, 156, 161, 213, 215, 310, 311

 Fuchs, 306


 Havelock Ellis, 220

 Heine, 271

 Hirschfeld, 11, 12 passim, 14, 21, 26, 27, 29, 30 passim, 48, 90, 95,
    188 passim, 193, 296 passim, 297, 299


 Ibsen, 89


 Juliusburger, 159, 160


 Kafka, 233

 Krafft-Ebing, 190 passim


 Magnan, 296

 Moll, 307


 Nietzsche, 10, 11, 198, 199, 288, 289


 Oppenheim, 161


 Paul (Jean), 138

 Platen, 43

 Praetorius (Numa), 29


 Raffalovich, 284

 Rank, 90

 Rochefoucauld, 108, 109, 154, 155


 Sadger, 36 passim, 38, 39, 43, 46, 48, 71, 285

 Schnitzler, 125

 Schopenhauer, 52, 53

 Schrenk-Notzing, 306

 Schrecker, 229

 Stekel, 200, 258, 264, 268, 290

 Strindberg, 80


 Tannenbaum, 125

 Tarnowsky, 305


 Van Teslaar, 18, 23, 90, 207, 258, 264, 268, 290


 Weininger, 80


 Ziemcke, 205

-----

Footnote 1:

  “Homosexuals who display their inclination clearly only after puberty
  show an interest in the other sex before and during the period of
  puberty. For instance, I have been told by a 23-year-old typical
  homosexual, today a victim of horror feminae, that at 16 and 17 years
  of age he entertained strong fancies about girls and ran after them,
  although without any particular sexual feeling desire. This transitory
  and undefined preoccupation of homosexuals with the opposite sex is a
  sort of ‘pseudoheterosexuality.’” (_Bloch_, _loc. cit._, p. 597.)

Footnote 2:

  In vol. III of _Disorders of Instincts and Emotions: The Sexual
  Frigidity of Woman; Psychopathology of Woman’s Love Life_. English
  translation by _Dr. James S. Van Teslaar_.

Footnote 3:

  _Nervöse Angstzustände_, 2nd ed., p. 336.

Footnote 4:

  Vol. V. in: _Disorders of Instincts and Emotions_. English version by
  _Dr. Van Teslaar_.

Footnote 5:

  _B. Tarnowsky_, _Die krankhaften Erscheinungen des Geschlechtssinnes_
  (The Morbid Manifestations of the Sexual Instinct). _Eine
  forensisch-psychiatrische Studie._ Berlin, 1886, p. 51 ff.

Footnote 6:

  _Jahrbuch f. sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. IX, 1908, p. 504.

Footnote 7:

  _Fragment der Psychoanalyse eines Homosexuellen_ (_Jahrb. f. sexuelle
  Zwischenstufen_, vol. IX, 1908). [A typical illustration of the wrong
  way of carrying on a psychoanalysis, the kind of painful ordeal during
  which the subject calls out in distress: “But, pardon me, what _must_
  I tell you? You just torture me, nothing less!” The most important
  relations are overlooked, the patient is tortured to admit that he is
  in love with _Sadger_, so that after fourteen hours of this sort of
  torment he runs off.]

Footnote 8:

  _J. Sadger_: _Ist die konträre Sexualempfindung heilbar? Zeitschr. f.
  Sexualwissenschaft_, 1908, p. 712.

Footnote 9:

  _Jahrb. f. psychoanalytische u. psychopathol. Forschungen_, vol. II,
  1910.

Footnote 10:

  _Ibsen_, the great psychologist, has described in masterly fashion the
  transposition of sister love into boy love. In “_Little Eyolf_,”
  Almers, the writer, suddenly loses the love for his wife and turns his
  affection exclusively to his child. That child is called ‘little
  Eyolf,’ like his sister, who had once put on boy’s clothes and called
  herself ‘little Eyolf.’ The parents had expected a boy. Almers turns
  his affection for the sister, which pervades the whole drama, into the
  love for the boy. He has discovered for himself _the law of
  substitution_ which corresponds to the changes spoken of in these
  pages. Little Eyolf in fact is the dramatisation of the latent
  homosexual fixation on the sister. Almers cannot split his
  personality, he cannot be both homo- and heterosexual. This inability
  to split his self, the root of all homosexuality, forms the background
  of the whole drama. Rita cannot divide her personality any more than
  Almers can do it; he must give his whole personality self. Almers
  cannot divide wife and sister. He embraces his wife and thinks of the
  sister (That sister, whom he calls his little and his big Eyolf. The
  sister in trousers, who embodied his ideal, a woman in male clothes, a
  bisexual being which need not be split up at all). “_Love of brothers
  and sisters is the only relationship not subject to the law of
  transformation._” _Rank_ (_Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage_,
  1919, p. 654) and _Pfister_ (_Anwendung der Psychoanalyse in der
  Pädagogik und Seelsorge_, p. 72) find the incest motive easily but
  overlook the fact that the situation involves the outbreak of
  homosexuality and its psychogenesis. It represents a flight from the
  sister to man, a wavering homosexuality sublimated into love for the
  boy. The drama contains numerous other familiar points well worth
  careful analysis. For Almers, his wife, and his child, are the
  representatives of the male, female, and infantile components which we
  endeavor to synthetize in our character (_trinity_). Regression to the
  infantile level sets in with flight from the world (flight to the
  solitude of the mountain top). The solitary Ibsen, as road builder,
  undertakes to construct a new highway which shall lead up to solitary
  heights and does not observe that the road leads really straight back
  to the realm of his youth. Somewhere in the vast expanse of his soul
  the ‘dead child’ is floating around and staring with wide open eyes
  into infinity. A child is killed in this drama. It stands for the
  miscarried regression back to infantilism. Childhood is finally
  subdued and forgetfulness once more drowns in the soul’s vast expanse
  all gnawing and biting reproaches. The memories are all dead ... and
  the next drama has for its theme: When the dead awaken. But in little
  Eyolf they are already awake.... The dead, whom Ibsen carried in his
  breast, the corpse to which Rita refers so often.... The child in him
  is dead and now the man in him also threatens to die. It recalls the
  admission of impotence, described with such tremendous realism in the
  great Rita-Almers scene. The man in him dies and the woman in him
  persists with yearnings. A more detailed treatment of these
  endopsychic processes will be found in my book on _Masochism_
  (Translation by _Van Teslaar_, in preparation).

Footnote 11:

  The following passage, from an observation by _Hirschfeld_, shows how
  early such fixation on the brother may take place, only to disappear,
  apparently, and to be mistaken for inborn homosexuality: “I hated boys
  and boyish games; my sister was my _alter ego_, while my brother, who
  was 13 years older and a very beautiful man, had powerfully charmed my
  childish, pure and innocent heart. I worshipped him for his physical
  beauty even more than on account of his sterling qualities. At the
  same time I grew continuously more sensitive in my overt attitude
  towards him. I remember clearly that during the 6th or 7th year my
  brother’s physical beauty caused me to shake before him with every
  fiber of my body in admiration as before some mystery revealed. At 10
  years of age I wept through a whole night intoxicated with joy because
  it fell to my lot to lie down near his intoxicatingly sweet presence
  for rest. I had a feeling of shame such as I did not experience in the
  presence of my mother or sister. Clearly and deliberately, although
  unbeknown, of course, to him, I deified my brother from the 10th to
  the 15th year, and this worshipful attitude reached its highest from
  my 10th to the 12th year, when he married. I was disconsolately
  unhappy over it because that event removed him from our midst and I
  felt it was dreadful that he should lose his virgin beauty, as I
  thought.” (_Hirschfeld_, _loc. cit._, p. 46.)

Footnote 12:

  _Zuchtbarkeit der Homosexualität._ _Sexualprobleme_, 6 Jahrg., 1910,
  No. 12.

Footnote 13:

  This thought is very wonderfully expressed in _Gerhart Hauptmann’s
  Griseldis_. The father is jealous of the son because he, in turn, had
  been his father’s enemy and rival....

Footnote 14:

  _Cf._ chapter on Jealousy in my collection of essays, “_Was am Grunde
  der Seele ruht_...,” Wien, 1909, Hofbuchhandlung Paul Knepler. English
  Version, _The Depths of the Soul_, translated by _Dr. S. A.
  Tannenbaum_, Moffat, Yard & Co., N. Y.

Footnote 15:

  With his wonderful psychologic mastery _Arthur Schnitzler_ has
  described such a pair in his best piece entitled, “_Das weite Land_.”
  Hofrichter, the manufacturer, who flutters from one love affair to
  another, and his wife, who consoles herself in the arms of a young
  Cadet, are the kind of a pair who love each other but go down in ruin
  rather than openly acknowledge their love.

Footnote 16:

  _Cf._ chapter entitled, “_Der Kampf der Geschlechter_,” in my work,
  _The Beloved Ego_, translated by _Dr. S. A. Tannenbaum_, Moffat, Yard
  & Co., N. Y.

Footnote 17:

  The flaring up of jealousy in old age during exhaustive conditions, an
  extraordinarily common occurrence, seems to be determined partly by
  endocrinic disorders and partly by the awakening of infantile
  predispositions. We also find frequent mention of the fact that morbid
  jealousy manifests itself after a prolonged convalescence in bed. Some
  physicians are inclined to trace the condition back to an
  intoxication. It seems to me more likely that the unusual opportunity
  of mulling things over in the mind is more likely the cause. We must
  also take into consideration that facing closely the possibility of
  death all ungratified wishes, including the homosexual, once more
  flare up, urgently pressing for gratification. This alone may lead to
  the flaring up also of paraphilias and homosexual tendencies during
  old age, when it must also be considered that on account of organic
  changes in the brain cortex the inhibitions are also weakened. I have
  repeatedly noticed that nursing care by a person of the same sex as
  the patient also plays a certain rôle. I have even seen directly as a
  consequence of prolonged invalidism the development of a homosexual
  feeling-attitude towards the nursing person, for instance, the flaring
  up of a passion for mother or sister. Regressions back into childhood
  frequently occur after infectious diseases. All the various infantile
  attitudes manifest themselves. Psychosexual infantilism, a subject
  which will be fully treated in a forthcoming volume of our “_Disorders
  of the Emotions and the Instincts_,” is most likely to break out
  particularly after a period of illness when one feels one’s self again
  a child.

Footnote 18:

  Cf. _Willy Schmidt_, _Inzestuöser Eifersuchtswahn, Gross’ Archiv_,
  vol. LVII, 1914, p. 257.

Footnote 19:

  _Zur Radikalbehandlung der chronischen Paranoia. Jahrbuch f.
  psychoanalytische Forsch._, Vol. III, 1912.

Footnote 20:

  A symbolic representation of the identification of myself with the
  father.

Footnote 21:

  A form of sexual disorder not infrequent among neurotics, suggesting a
  different sexual objective.

Footnote 22:

  _Hirschfeld_ naturally traces this morbid tendency back to the social
  ostracism of the homosexual. In my opinion that is a forced
  explanation. The very proneness of the homosexuals to affective
  disorders, their heightened sensibility, their morbid irritability,
  their endogenous depression prove that all homosexuals are severe
  neurotics. _Hirschfeld_ may be able to trace the homosexual’s acute
  outbreaks of affective psychoses back to the actual conflicts. But it
  is impossible to link this heightened affectivity to the feminine
  attitude of the urnings. For if it were so, how could we explain the
  equally distressing analogous disorders among the _urlinds_?
  _Hirschfeld_ refers to the anxiety states of the homosexuals (p. 916)
  and expressly states:

  “This very condition is found frequently also among homosexuals who
  are psychically normal so far as their home relations are concerned.”

  No—they are not normal with regard to home relations, they are severe
  neurotics on account of the repression of their heterosexuality.
  Superficial appearances are deceptive and many a person who appears
  outwardly to be the picture of health, a well balanced temperament, is
  inwardly the victim of a serious neurosis.... _Hirschfeld_ refers
  further to the homosexual’s proneness to persecution manias and to
  delusions of reference. Concerning homosexual women he states:

  “Compelled against their inclination to fulfill their marital duties
  the homosexual women become very nervous and, in addition to anxiety
  attacks, they suffer severe depressions.”...

  How does _Hirschfeld_ know that the depressions are due to the
  enforced fulfillment of marital duties? I know homosexual women who
  are divorced and suffer even more; I know homosexual unmarried women,
  who are as neurotic as the married women, and, like the latter, suffer
  of serious depressions. All these facts prove that the homosexual pays
  for his monosexuality just as dearly as the neurotic monosexual who is
  heterosexual.

Footnote 23:

  _Cf. Stekel, Berufswahl und Neurose, Gross’ Archiv_, vol. XIX.

Footnote 24:

  _Beiträge zur Lehre von der konträrer Sexualempfindung Zeitschr. f.
  Psychol. u. Neurol._, vol. VII, 1911.

Footnote 25:

  I have at the present time under observation a soldier who for about
  three weeks masturbated 15 times (!) daily. Advanced hypochondriac.
  The motive seems to have been the development of a neurosis so he
  would be freed of military service.

Footnote 26:

  The history of the same patient, as given by _Ziemcke_, refers to the
  same episode as follows: “At 17 years of age the first coitus with a
  peasant girl, pleasurable, no disorder.” A proof that the heterosexual
  episodes are always corrected in memory and modified in favor of a
  homosexual predisposition.

Footnote 27:

  Regarding this occurrence _Ziemcke_ relates: “Towards the last of his
  studies at Kiel he brought to his room a 12-year-old boy from the
  street under the pretext of carrying some books for him. When the boy
  returned he suggested making some experiments on him, tapped him first
  on the knee cap, then had him take off his stockings and kneel on the
  edge of the lowermost cabinet drawer; next he forced the boy to stand
  up stripped to the waist while he pricked him with a pen in the armpit
  and under the fingernails. After that he hung him by a rope tied
  around his hands, but the rope broke. Then he had the boy lie down on
  the sofa, lowered his trousers so as to expose the hips and gluteal
  region and proposed to pay the boy 5 pfennig for every one of 50 cane
  strokes. After the 43rd stroke the boy could not endure the pain any
  longer, so he increased the pay to 10 pfennig and gave him 5
  additional strokes. It has been ascertained that the man had been
  drinking hard the night before carousing until daylight and according
  to his own testimony he was very nervous next day and had palpitation
  of the heart. He also stated that he had acted impulsively; he
  remembered well all the details of the occurrence but everything took
  place as in a haze. After the deed he had a feeling of relief, his
  usual excitement and unrest promptly subsided. Examination showed
  nothing physically abnormal and absence of any serious intellectual
  defect as well.”

Footnote 28:

  The volume on _Sadism and Masochism_, in my Series on the _Disorders
  of the Instincts and of the Emotions_. English version by _Van
  Teslaar_.

Footnote 29:

  At a meeting of the medical society in Odessa, a colleague was
  presented as one who had been treated unsuccessfully by me. He
  suffered compulsions of a most serious character and was one week
  under my care. I had proposed three months. Nevertheless he was
  brought forth as proof of the inefficacy of psychoanalysis. It
  happened that colleague Dr. W. was present, and he knew that the
  alleged analysis was of one week’s duration. He was able to apprise
  the meeting of the fact. In a few weeks that honorable sick physician
  placed himself under the professional care of Dr. W....

Footnote 30:

  An “infantile sexual theory,” in which coitus is conceived
  sadistically as a squeezing.

Footnote 31:

  _Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, Vol. IV.

Footnote 32:

  _Cf._ also my essay, _Der Kampf der Geschlechter, the Struggle between
  the Sexes_, in my work, _The Beloved Ego_, Moffat, Yard & Co., N. Y. I
  have now under treatment a very sick woman who has gone to pieces over
  a similar problem. She was anesthetic with all men. The one man who
  had just once roused her during sexual intercourse she hated and could
  kill.

Footnote 33:

  _Havelock Ellis_ and _Moll_ (_Handbuch der Sexualwissenschaften_,
  Leipzig, F. C. W. Vogel, 1912) draw attention to this fact: “Both
  sexes often show a remarkable youthfulness in appearance which is
  preserved late into the adult state. The love of green, which is
  chiefly, normally, a favorite color with children, and especially with
  girls, is often observed. A certain degree of histrionic talent is not
  uncommon as well as an inclination towards tenderness, occasionally
  also a feminine love of adornments and jewels. It may be said of many
  of these physical and psychic characteristics that they denote a
  certain degree of infantilism, and this fits in with the view that
  homosexuality is traceable to aboriginal bisexuality; for the deeper
  we penetrate into the life history of the individual, the nearer we
  approach the bisexual stage.”

Footnote 34:

  _Dr. Paul Schrecker, Die Individualpsychologische Bedeutung der
  Kindheitserrinnerungen_, Zentralbl. f. Psychoanalyse, Vol. IV.

Footnote 35:

  _Cp._ the novel by _Kafka_, _Die Verwandlung_ (Verlag von Kurt Wolff).
  It portrays the transformation of a man into a bedbug. It is obviously
  a sadistic fancy (the bedbug sucks blood). This meaning is not
  imparted to the patient so as not to influence the course of his
  associations.

Footnote 36:

  The mouth as an erogenous zone. He expected kisses and meanwhile was
  satisfied with other sweets as a substitute. He is a confirmed lover
  of dainties and still relies on sweets which he is in the habit of
  carrying in his pockets.

Footnote 37:

  This is a thought which troubles many neurotics. It is their way of
  belittling the persons who impress them and who thus make them realize
  their own inferiority.

Footnote 38:

  Later will be shown the sadistic meaning of this phantasy. Urine is
  often a substitute for blood in the dream....

Footnote 39:

  _Cp._ the boxes in the first dream (_Merchant of Venice_).

Footnote 40:

  _Cp._ _Sex and Dreams: The Language of Dreams_, vol. I. Translation by
  _James S. Van Teslaar_.

Footnote 41:

  _Cp._ Chapter on _Maternal Body Dreams_, in work mentioned above, Vol.
  II.

Footnote 42:

  In the Tristan phantasy these reminiscences return. The father is the
  betrayed King. The episode of the father’s departure in that dream
  becomes clear only now. He died in time to avoid the experience of a
  second deception in love.

Footnote 43:

  _Cp._ my laws of symbolic equivalents in _Language of Dreams_: All
  secretions and excreta are equal to one another as symbols.

Footnote 44:

  _Raffalovich_, author of a small monograph on _Die Entwickelung der
  Homosexualität_ (The Development of H.), Berlin, 1895, states in a few
  pages more truths than many authors disclose in heavy volumes of
  writing. He states, for instance, that “there are no distinct barriers
  between heterosexuals and homosexuals.” He also emphasizes the strong
  self-love of homosexuals: “They have _die Leidenschaft der
  Æhnlichkeit_.”

Footnote 45:

  Page 248, of the German edition. “The neurotic’s attachment to the
  family is an overcorrection of former lack of love and is induced by a
  feeling of remorse.” “Poets formulate a longing for love because of
  their inability to love and that drives them to their continuous chase
  after love adventure. Love becomes the overstressed idea and the
  unattainable ideal of poets.” “The poet differs from the criminal
  because he is aware of his incapacity to love as a handicap, and from
  hatred and scorn of humanity he turns to love his fellow men.”

Footnote 46:

  _Domestikation und die secundären Geschlechtsmerkmale. Zeitschrift f.
  Sexualwissenschaft_, Vol. III, No. 6–7, 1916.

Footnote 47:

  An excellent account of the history of homosexuality may be found in
  the work of _Hirschfeld_ (_loc. cit._).

Footnote 48:

  Politics, II. Quoted after _Havelock Ellis_ and _I. A. Symonds_, _Das
  konträre Geschlechtsgefühl_, Leipzig, George H. Wiegands Verlag, 1896.

Footnote 49:

  _Die dorische Knabenliebe_ (_Ihre Ethik and ihre Idee_), _Rheinisches
  Museum f. Philologie_ (Neue Folge), vol. 69, 1907.

  The authors prove that boy love in Hellas was introduced by the
  Dorians. Although traces of the custom are found also among the
  Ionians, boy love, like knighthood, became fashionable in Greece
  through the Dorians. “It was permitted only to the free citizen, the
  knight, while slaves were forbidden to indulge in the practice often
  under penalty of death. The practice was regulated by strict rules and
  became a state institution. In Sparta, Crete, Thebes the training for
  (arety) ἀρεθή, among the dominant class was based on pederasty. The
  lovers in Sparta were held to a strict accountability for their
  ‘companions’ who became attached to them from their 12th year; so that
  they and not their youthful companions were punished for any shameful
  act on the part of the latter.” “The battlefield at _Chaironeia_ was
  covered with the lovers ... lying in pairs.” In Crete the choice of
  boy lovers assumed the form of bridal theft. The lover advised the
  boy’s family of his intention of stealing the boy. If the family did
  not like the “match” it tried to avoid the capture of the boy. The
  higher the lover’s social position the greater was the honor felt by
  the boy and his family. The chosen one was afterwards sent home
  carrying gifts....

  In fact, at Thebes, Thera and in Crete _such unions even enjoyed
  religious sanction_. “The engagement of the lovers or rather their
  physical union certainty occurred under the protection of some god or
  hero at Thera and at Thebes. At Thebes we find the language
  unmistakably clear in the high archaic field inscriptions of the
  Seventh Century, chiselled in large letters upon the holy promontory
  near the City, at a distance of 50–70 meters from the temple of
  _Apollo Karneios_ and on the holy site dedicated to _Zeus_. They read
  as follows: “On this holy place, under protection of _Zeus_, _Kerion_
  has consummated his union with the son of _Bathykles_ and proclaiming
  it proudly to the world dedicates to it this imperishable memorial.
  And many Thereans with him, and after him, have united themselves with
  their boys on this same holy spot.””

  At Crete it was considered a shame for a boy to possess no knightly
  lover. On the other hand it was a great honor for a boy to be wanted
  by many lovers.

  For the lovers and for the boys these relations had an excellent
  effect. Each was inspired to do his best in order to prove his mettle
  and be ἀγαθός ανήρ (_agathoi anyr_). The heroic tales even took note
  of this love. The wondrous deeds of a _Herakles_ were carried out in
  honor of the male lover _Eurystheus_. Repelling a wooing knight was
  considered ignominious,—a blot on one’s honor. _Plutarch_ relates the
  story how _Aristodamus_ struck down with his sword an obstinate boy:
  “Man gerät unwilkürlich in die Sprache unseres ritterlichen
  Ehrenkomments,”—states _Bethe_.

  With that act the knight transferred his ἀρετή (arety), knighthood,
  upon the boy. It had a symbolic meaning. Among the Spartans the
  pæderast was called εἰοπνήλας (eiopnylas), from εἰοπνειν (eiopnein),
  meaning, _the one who blows something in_ (the inblower). But what was
  it that the pederast blew into the boy? Clearly the πνευμα (pneuma),
  the soul, a belief which has come down from the oldest period (Bible)
  surviving to this day in Christianity. According to primitive
  conceptions the soul of man resided in his various secreta and
  excreta. Urine, fæces, blood and semen were magical substances
  inasmuch as they contained the life principle. With his male seed the
  Dorian endowed his boy with knightly prowess. (Similarly the savages
  in New Guinea drink the urine of the chieftain in order to acquire his
  skill and strength. _Bethe_ mentions numerous similar instances.) The
  semen was regarded as the seat of the soul.

  _Bethe_ points out also that the liver, the heart and more
  particularly the _phallus_ were similarly identified with the soul.
  The reader is referred to the original study for further details.

  The remarkable notion of blowing one’s soul into another _a
  posteriori_, is traced by the author to primitive beliefs. Animals
  showed no objection to these love-offerings; and men who ascribed
  magical properties to urine and fæces undoubtedly lacked any feeling
  of revulsion against these excreta.... Since the anus was looked upon
  as the portal for angry demons, why should not the benevolent magical
  power of heroes be introduced the same way?

  “The notion which led to the development of pæderasty as a State
  Institution among the Dorians, could not long endure. It had to give
  way finally.... But boy love persisted as a widespread custom and
  stood throughout antiquity and throughout the whole extent of Greek
  culture as a necessary feature of decent superior Greek citizenship.
  The Christian church fought the heathen custom from the beginning and
  was the first to drive pæderasty from Christian society; unable to
  root it out by spiritual means, it adopted criminal punishment in the
  year 342.”

  That is, briefly, the philologist’s account, who also states that
  during the pre-Doric period (_Homer_, for instance) the custom of boy
  love had as yet no roots as an Institution.

Footnote 50:

  _Zur Psychologie der Vita Sexualis, Allg. Zeitschr. f. Psychol._,
  1894.

Footnote 51:

  I am unable to corroborate the contention of _Ferenczi_ in his _Zur
  Nosologie der männlichen Homosexualität_ (_Homoerotik_), published in
  _Zeitschrift f. ärztl. Psychoanalyse_, Vol. II, 189, 1914. He assumes
  two forms of homosexuality: 1. _the passive subject-homoerotic_, who
  represents an inborn state and stands for an intermediary type in
  _Hirschfeld’s_ sense and is incurable and 2. the _active
  object-homoerotic_, a type he describes as a special form of
  compulsion neurosis. The passive type never consults the physician for
  his trouble,—he is a genuine homosexual; the active type is unhappy
  over his condition, he shows the typical symptoms. Both share in
  common the peculiarity that their own sex is an essential condition
  for the attainment of their love-object and remains so throughout
  life.

  I have seen many homosexuals who are interchangeably active or
  passive. On the other hand I have seen active homosexuals who were
  very much troubled over their condition and passive homosexuals who
  have been cured. Incidentally I may mention that _Ferenczi_ borrows
  thoughts from my essay on _Masken der Homosexualität_, without
  indicating the source. Since _Freud_ has decreed against me his
  anathema, the narrower Freudian school looks upon my work as common
  property to be appropriated at will by any one.

Footnote 52:

  _Handbuch der Sexualwissenschaften_, p. 664.

Footnote 53:

  A new orientation in matters of sexual morality is on the way in spite
  of tremendous opposition. I refer those interested to _Eulenburg’s_
  excellent work, _Moral und Sexualität_ (Verlag, Marcus & Webster,
  Bonn, 1916).

------------------------------------------------------------------------



                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
      spelling.
 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.



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