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Carmen:

“L’amour est un oiseau rebelle,

Que nul ne peut apprivoiser:

Et c’est bien en vain qu’on l’appelle

S’il lui convient de refuser.

Rien n’y fait; menace ou prière:

L’un parle, l’autre se tait;

Et c’est l’autre que je préfère;

Il n’a rien dit, mais il me plaît.

····

L’amour est enfant de Bohême

Il n’a jamais connu de loi.”

It has been recognised from time immemorial that, in all forms of sexually differentiated life, there exists an attraction between males and females, between the male and the female, the object of which is procreation. But as the male and the female are merely abstract conceptions which never appear in the real world, we cannot speak of sexual attraction as a simple attempt of the masculine and the feminine to come together. The theory which I am developing must take into account all the facts of sexual relations if it is to be complete; indeed, if it is to be accepted instead of the older views, it must give a better interpretation of all these sexual phenomena. My recognition of the fact that M and F (maleness and femaleness) are distributed in the living world in every possible proportion has led me to the discovery of an unknown natural law, of a law not yet suspected by any philosopher, a law of sexual attraction. As observations on human beings first led me to my results, I shall begin with this side of the subject.

Every one possesses a definite, individual taste of his own with regard to the other sex. If we compare the portrait of the women which some famous man has been known to love, we shall nearly always find that they are all closely alike, the similarity being most obvious in the contour (more precisely in the “figure”) or in the face, but on closer examination being found to extend to the minutest details, ad unguem, to the finger-tips. It is precisely the same with every one else. So, also, every girl who strongly attracts a man recalls to him the other girls he has loved before. We see another side of the same phenomenon when we recall how often we have said of some acquaintance or another, “I can’t imagine how that type of woman pleases him.” Darwin, in the “Descent of Man,” collected many instances of the existence of this individuality of the sexual taste amongst animals, and I shall be able to show that there are analogous phenomena even amongst plants.

Sexual attraction is nearly always, as in the case of gravitation, reciprocal. Where there appear to be exceptions to this rule, there is nearly always evidence of the presence of special influences which have been capable of preventing the direct action of the special taste, which is almost always reciprocal, or which have left an unsatisfied craving, if the direct taste were not allowed its play.

The common saying, “Waiting for Mr. Right,” or statements such as that “So-and-so are quite unsuitable for one another,” show the existence of an obscure presentiment of the fact that every man or woman possesses certain individual peculiarities which qualify or disqualify him or her for marriage with any particular member of the opposite sex; and that this man cannot be substituted for that, or this woman for the other without creating a disharmony.

It is a common personal experience that certain individuals of the opposite sex are distasteful to us, that others leave us cold; whilst others again may stimulate us until, at last, some one appears who seems so desirable that everything in the world is worthless and empty compared with union with such a one. What are the qualifications of that person? What are his or her peculiarities? If it really be the case—and I think it is—that every male type has its female counterpart with regard to sexual affinity, it looks as if there were some definite law. What is this law? How does it act? “Like poles repel, unlike attract,” was what I was told when, already armed with my own answer, I resolutely importuned different kinds of men for a statement, and submitted instances to their power of generalisation. The formula, no doubt, is true in a limited sense and for a certain number of cases. But it is at once too general and too vague; it would be applied differently by different persons, and it is incapable of being stated in mathematical terms.

This book does not claim to state all the laws of sexual affinity, for there are many; nor does it pretend to be able to tell every one exactly which individual of the opposite sex will best suit his taste, for that would imply a complete knowledge of all the laws in question. In this chapter only one of these laws will be considered—the law which stands in organic relation to the rest of the book. I am working at a number of other laws, but the following is that to which I have given most investigation, and which is most elaborated. In criticising this work, allowance must be made for the incomplete nature of the material consequent on the novelty and difficulty of the subject.

Fortunately it is not necessary for me to cite at length either the facts from which I originally derived this law of sexual affinity or to set out in detail the evidence I obtained from personal statements. I asked each of those who helped me, to make out his own case first, and then to carry out observations in his circle of acquaintances. I have paid special attention to those cases which have been noticed and remembered, in which the taste of a friend has not been understood, or appeared not to be present, or was different from that of the observer. The minute degree of knowledge of the external form of the human body which is necessary for the investigation is possessed by every one.

I have come to the law which I shall now formulate by a method the validity of which I shall now have to prove.

The law runs as follows: “For true sexual union it is necessary that there come together a complete male (M) and a complete female (F), even although in different cases the M and F are distributed between the two individuals in different proportions.”

The law may be expressed otherwise as follows:

If we take μ, any individual regarded in the ordinary way as a male, and denote his real sexual constitution as Mμ, so many parts really male, plus Wμ, so many parts really female; if we also take ω, any individual regarded in the ordinary way as a female, and denote her real sexual constitution as Wω, so many parts really female, plus Mω, so many parts really male; then, if there be complete sexual affinity, the greatest possible sexual attraction between the two individuals, μ and ω,

(1) Mμ (the truly male part in the “male”) + Mω (the truly male part in the “female”) will equal a constant quantity, M, the ideal male; and

(2) Wμ + Wω (the ideal female parts in respectively the “male” and the “female”) will equal a second constant quantity, W, the ideal female.

This statement must not be misunderstood. Both formulas refer to one case, to a single sexual relation, the second following directly from the first and adding nothing to it, as I set out from the point of view of an individual possessing just as much femaleness as he lacks of maleness. Were he completely male, his requisite complement would be a complete female, and vice versâ. If, however, he is composed of a definite inheritance of maleness, and also an inheritance of femaleness (which must not be neglected), then, to complete the individual, his maleness must be completed to make a unit; but so also must his femaleness be completed.

If, for instance, an individual be composed thus:

μ {

³⁄₄ M and ¹⁄₄ W,

μ	{	3⁄4 M
and
1⁄4 W,

then the best sexual complement of that individual will be another compound as follows: