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The law of Sexual Attraction gives the long-sought-for explanation of sexual inversion, of sexual inclination towards members of the same sex, whether or no that be accompanied by aversion from members of the opposite sex. Without reference to a distinction which I shall deal with later on, I may say at once that it is exceedingly probable that, in all cases of sexual inversion, there will be found indications of the anatomical characters of the other sex. There is no such thing as a genuine “psycho-sexual hermaphroditism”; the men who are sexually attracted by men have outward marks of effeminacy, just as women of a similar disposition to those of their own sex exhibit male characters. That this should be so is quite intelligible if we admit the close parallelism between body and mind, and further light is thrown upon it by the facts explained in the second chapter of this book; the facts as to the male or female principle not being uniformly present all over the same body, but distributed in different amounts in different organs. In all cases of sexual inversion, there is invariably an anatomical approximation to the opposite sex.

Such a view is directly opposed to that of those who would maintain that sexual inversion is an acquired character, and one that has superseded normal sexual impulses. Schrenk-Notzing, Kraepelin, and Féré are amongst those writers who have urged the view that sexual inversion is an acquired habit, the result of abstinence from normal intercourse and particularly induced by example. But what about the first offender? Did the god Hermaphroditos teach him? It might equally be sought to prove that the sexual inclination of a normal man for a normal woman was an unnatural, acquired habit—a habit, as some ancient writers have suggested, that arose from some accidental discovery of its agreeable nature. Just as a normal man discovers for himself what a woman is, so also, in the case of a sexual “invert” the attraction exercised on him by a person of his own sex is a normal product of his development from his birth. Naturally the opportunity must come in which the individual may put in practice his desire for inverted sexuality, but the opportunity will be taken only when his natural constitution has made the individual ready for it. That sexual abstinence (to take the second supposed cause of inversion) should result in anything more than masturbation may be explained by the supposition that inversion is acquired, but that it should be coveted and eagerly sought can only happen when the demand for it is rooted in the constitution. In the same fashion normal sexual attraction might be said to be an acquired character, if it could be proved definitely that, to fall in love, a normal man must first see a woman or a picture of a woman. Those who assert that sexual inversion is an acquired character, are making a merely incidental or accessory factor responsible for the whole constitution of an organism.

There is little reason for saying that sexual inversion is acquired, and there is just as little for regarding it as inherited from parents or grandparents. Such an assertion, it is true, has not been made, and seems contrary to all experience; but it has been suggested that it is due to a neuropathic diathesis, and that general constitutional weakness is to be found in the descendants of those who have displayed sexual inversion. In fact sexual inversion has usually been regarded as psycho-pathological, as a symptom of degeneration, and those who exhibit it have been considered as physically unfit. This view, however, is falling into disrepute, especially as Krafft-Ebing, its principal champion, abandoned it in the later editions of his work. None the less, it is not generally recognised that sexual inverts may be otherwise perfectly healthy, and with regard to other social matters quite normal. When they have been asked if they would have wished matters to be different with them in this respect, almost invariably they answer in the negative.

It is due to the erroneous conceptions that I have mentioned that homo-sexuality has not been considered in relation with other facts. Let those who regard sexual inversion as pathological, as a hideous anomaly of mental development (the view accepted by the populace), or believe it to be an acquired vice, the result of an execrable seduction, remember that there exist all transitional stages reaching from the most masculine male to the most effeminate male and so on to the sexual invert, the false and true hermaphrodite; and then, on the other side, successively through the sapphist to the virago and so on until the most feminine virgin is reached. In the interpretation of this volume, sexual inverts of both sexes are to be defined as individuals in whom the factor α (see page 8, chap. i.) is very nearly 0.5 and so is practically equal to α´; in other words, individuals in whom there is as much maleness as femaleness, or indeed who, although reckoned as men, may contain an excess of femaleness, or as women and yet be more male than female. Because of the want of uniformity in the sexual characters of the body, it is fairly certain that many individuals have their sex assigned them on account of the existence of the primary male sexual characteristic, even although there may be delayed descensus testiculorum, or epi- or hypo-spadism, or, later on, absence of active spermatozoa, or even, in the case of assignment of the female sex, absence of the vagina, and thus male avocations (such as compulsory military service) may come to be assigned to those in whom α is less than 0.5 and α´ greater than 0.5. The sexual complement of such individuals really is to be found on their own side of the sexual line, that is to say, on the side on which they are reckoned, although in reality they may belong to the other.

Moreover, and this not only supports my view but can be explained only by it, there are no inverts who are completely sexually inverted. In all of them there is from the beginning an inclination to both sexes; they are, in fact, bisexual. It may be that later on they may actively encourage a slight leaning towards one sex or the other, and so become practically unisexual either in the normal or in the inverted sense, or surrounding influence may bring about this result for them. But in such processes the fundamental bisexuality is never obliterated and may at any time give evidence of its suppressed presence.

Reference has often been made, and in recent years has increasingly been made, to the relation between homo-sexuality and the presence of bisexual rudiments in the embryonic stages of animals and plants. What is new in my view is that according to it, homo-sexuality cannot be regarded as an atavism or as due to arrested embryonic development, or incomplete differentiation of sex; it cannot be regarded as an anomaly of rare occurrence interpolating itself in customary complete separation of the sexes. Homo-sexuality is merely the sexual condition of these intermediate sexual forms that stretch from one ideally sexual condition to the other sexual condition. In my view all actual organisms have both homo-sexuality and hetero-sexuality.

That the rudiment of homo-sexuality, in however weak a form, exists in every human being, corresponding to the greater or smaller development of the characters of the opposite sex, is proved conclusively from the fact that in the adolescent stage, while there is still a considerable amount of undifferentiated sexuality, and before the internal secretions have exerted their stimulating force, passionate attachments with a sensual side are the rule amongst boys as well as amongst girls.

A person who retains from that age onwards a marked tendency to “friendship” with a person of his own sex must have a strong taint of the other sex in him. Those, however, are still more obviously intermediate sexual forms, who, after association with both sexes, fail to have aroused in them the normal passion for the opposite sex, but still endeavour to maintain confidential, devoted affection with those of their own sex.

There is no friendship between men that has not an element of sexuality in it, however little accentuated it may be in the nature of the friendship, and however painful the idea of the sexual element would be. But it is enough to remember that there can be no friendship unless there has been some attraction to draw the men together. Much of the affection, protection, and nepotism between men is due to the presence of unsuspected sexual compatibility.

An analogy with the sexual friendship of youth may be traced in the case of old men, when, for instance, with the involution following old age, the latent amphisexuality of man appears. This may be the reason why so many men of fifty years and upwards are guilty of indecency.

Homo-sexuality has been observed amongst animals to a considerable extent. F. Karsch has made a wide, if not complete, compilation from other authors. Unfortunately, practically no observations were made as to the grades of maleness or femaleness to be observed in such cases. But we may be reasonably certain that the law holds good in the animal world. If bulls are kept apart from cows for a considerable time, homo-sexual acts occur amongst them; the most female are the first to become corrupted, the others later, some perhaps never. (It is amongst cattle that the greatest number of sexually intermediate forms have been recorded.) This shows that the tendency was latent in them, but that at other times the sexual demand was satisfied in normal fashion. Cattle in captivity behave precisely as prisoners and convicts in these matters. Animals exhibit not merely onanism (which is known to them as to human beings), but also homo-sexuality; and this fact, together with the fact that sexually intermediate forms are known to occur amongst them, I regard as strong evidence for my law of sexual attraction.

Inverted sexual attraction, then, is no exception to my law of sexual attraction, but is merely a special case of it. An individual who is half-man, half-woman, requires as sexual complement a being similarly equipped with a share of both sexes in order to fulfil the requirements of the law. This explains the fact that sexual inverts usually associate only with persons of similar character, and rarely admit to intimacy those who are normal. The sexual attraction is mutual, and this explains why sexual inverts so readily recognise each other. This being so, the normal element in human society has very little idea of the extent to which homo-sexuality is practised, and when a case becomes public property, every normal young profligate thinks that he has a right to condemn such “atrocities.” So recently as the year 1900 a professor of psychiatry in a German university urged that those who practised homo-sexuality should be castrated.

The therapeutical remedies which have been used to combat homo-sexuality, in cases where such treatment has been attempted, are certainly less radical than the advice of the professor; but they serve to show only how little the nature of homo-sexuality was understood. The method used at present is hypnotism, and this can rest only on the theory that homo-sexuality is an acquired character. By suggesting the idea of the female form and of normal congress, it is sought to accustom those under treatment to normal relations. But the acknowledged results are very few.

The failure is to be expected from our standpoint. The hypnotiser suggests to the subject the image of a “typical” woman, ignorant of the innate differences in the subject and unaware that such a type is naturally repulsive to him. And as the normal typical woman is not his complement, it is fruitless of the doctor to advise the services of any casual Venus, however attractive, to complete the cure of a man who has long shunned normal intercourse. If our formula were used to discover the complement of the male invert, it would point to the most man-like woman, the Lesbian or Sapphist type. Probably such is the only type of woman who would attract the sexual invert or please him. If a cure for sexual inversion must be sought because it cannot be left to its own extinction, then this theory offers the following solution. Sexual inverts must be brought to sexual inverts, from homo-sexualists to Sapphists, each in their grades. Knowledge of such a solution should lead to repeal of the ridiculous laws of England, Germany and Austria directed against homo-sexuality, so far at least as to make the punishments the lightest possible. In the second part of this book it will be made clear why both the active and the passive parts in male homo-sexuality appear disgraceful, although the desire is greater than in the case of the normal relation of a man and woman. In the abstract there is no ethical difference between the two.

In spite of all the present-day clamour about the existence of different rights for different individualities, there is only one law that governs mankind, just as there is only one logic and not several logics. It is in opposition to that law, as well as to the theory of punishment according to which the legal offence, not the moral offence, is punished, that we forbid the homo-sexualist to carry on his practices whilst we allow the hetero-sexualist full play, so long as both avoid open scandal. Speaking from the standpoint of a purer state of humanity and of a criminal law untainted by the pedagogic idea of punishment as a deterrent, the only logical and rational method of treatment for sexual inverts would be to allow them to seek and obtain what they require where they can, that is to say, amongst other inverts.

My theory appears to me quite incontrovertible and conclusive, and to afford a complete explanation of the entire set of phenomena. The exposition, however, must now face a set of facts which appear quite opposed to it, and which seem absolutely to contradict my reference of sexual inversion to the existence of sexually intermediate types, and my explanation of the law governing the attraction of these types for each other. It is probably the case that my explanation is sufficient for all female sexual inverts, but it is certainly true that there are men with very little taint of femaleness about them who yet exert a very strong influence on members of their own sex, a stronger influence than that of other men who may have more femaleness—an influence which can be exerted even on very male men, and an influence which, finally, often appears to be much greater than the influence any woman can exert on these men. Albert Moll is justified in saying as follows: “There exist psycho-sexual hermaphrodites who are attracted by members of both sexes, but who in the case of each sex appear to care only for the characters peculiar to that sex; and, on the other hand, there are also psycho-sexual (?) hermaphrodites who, in the case of each sex, are attracted, not by the characteristics peculiar to that sex, but by those which are either sexually indifferent or even antagonistic to the sex in question.” Upon this distinction depends the difference between the two sets of phenomena indicated in the title of this chapter—Homo-sexuality and Pederasty. The distinction may be expressed as follows: The homo-sexualist is that type of sexual invert who prefers very female men or very male women, in accordance with the general law of sexual attraction. The pederast, on the other hand, may be attracted either by very male men or by very female women, but in the latter case only in so far as he is not pederastic. Moreover, his inclination for the male sex is stronger than for the female sex, and is more deeply seated in his nature. The origin of pederasty is a problem in itself and remains unsolved by this investigation.