A Problem in Modern Ethics Part 8

[13] Tardieu, _op. cit._, pp. 213-255.

[14] In dealing with Tardieu, Casper-Liman, and Tarnowsky, I have directed the reader to pa.s.sages in the works of the three medical authorities who have spoken most decidedly upon this topic. After comparing their evidence, the case seems to me to stand thus. Both male and female prost.i.tutes are exposed to considerable risks of physical deformation in the exercise of their illicit trade. But males and females, if they keep their vicious propensities within the bounds of temperance, offer no physical deformations to observation. Only those men who for years have practised promiscuous prost.i.tution earn epithets like the Greek slang e???p???t??, or the Italian _culo rotto_.

[15] Casper-Liman, _op. cit._, vol. i. p. 164.

[16] Casper-Liman, _op. cit._, vol. i. pp. 174-181.

[17] _Op. cit._, vol. i. pp. 164-166.

[18] Having criticised Tardieu for his use of the phrase _paederast_, Casper and Liman can find no better.

[19] Westphal: Die Contrare s.e.xualempfindung. Archiv fur Psychatrie, vol. ii. I.

[20] The Standard of Sanity, Br. Med. Journal, Nov. 28, 1885.

[21] See Tarnowsky about the opinion of the lower cla.s.ses in St.

Petersburg, _op. cit._, p. 99. "Ueberhaupt verhalten sich die gemeinen ungebildeten Leute, dem Ausspruch aller mir bekannten Paderasten gema.s.s, ausserat nachsichtig gegen unzuchtige Antrage--'herrschaft-liche Spielerei,' wie sie es nennen." This is true not only of Russia, but of countries where we should least expect to find the compliance in question.

[22] P. 73. The italics are the translator's. The adjective _h.o.m.os.e.xual_, though ill-compounded of a Greek and a Latin word, is useful, and has been adopted by medical writers on this topic.

_Unis.e.xual_ would perhaps be better.

[23] A note upon this subject has to be written; and it may be introduced here as well as elsewhere. Balzac, in _Une derniere incarnation de Vautrin_, describes the morals of the French _bagnes_.

Dostoieffsky, in _Prison Life in Siberia_, touches on the same topic.

See his portrait of Sirotkin, p. 52, _et seq._, p. 120 (edn. J. & R.

Maxwell, London). We may compare Carlier, _op. cit._, pp. 300, 301, for an account of the violence of h.o.m.os.e.xual pa.s.sions in French prisons. The initiated are familiar with the facts in English prisons. There is a military prison on the Lido at Venice, where incorrigible lovers of their own s.e.x, amongst other culprits, are confined. A man here said: "All our loves in this place are breech-loaders." Bouchard, in his _Confessions_ (Paris, Liseux, 1881), describes the convict station at Ma.r.s.eilles in 1630. The men used to be allowed to bring women on board the galleys. At that epoch they "les besognoient avant tout le monde, les couchant sous le banc sur leur 'capot. Mais depuis quelques annees en ca, le general a defendu entree aux femmes. De sorte qu'il ne se peche plus maintenant la-dedans qu'en sodomie, mollesse, irrumation, et autres pareilles tendresses" (p. 151). The same Frenchman, speaking of the Duc d'Orleans' pages at Paris, says that this was a "cour extrememen impie et debauchee, surtout pour les garcons, M. d'Orleans deffendoit a ses pages de se besogner ni branler la pique; leur donnant au reste conge de voir les femmes tant qu'ils voudroient, et quelquefois venant de nuict heurter a la porte de leur chambre, avec cinq ou six ga.r.s.es, qu'il enfermoit avec eux une heure a deux" (p. 88). This prince was of the same mind as Campanella, who, in the _Citta del Sole_, laid it down that young men ought to be freely admitted to women, for the avoidance of s.e.xual aberrations. Aretino and Berni enable us to comprehend the s.e.xual immorality of males congregated together in the courts of Roman prelates. As regards military service, the facts related by Ulrichs about the French Foreign Legion in Algeria, on the testimony of a credible witness, who had been a pathic in his regiment, deserve attention (_Ara Spei_, p. 20; _Memnon_, p. 27). This man, who was a German, told Ulrichs that the Spanish, French, and Italian soldiers were the lovers, the Swiss and German their beloved. See General Brossier, cited above, p. 19. Ulrichs reports that in the Austrian army lectures on h.o.m.os.e.xual vices are regularly given to cadets and conscripts (_Memnon_, p. 20).

[24] See above, p. 33, my criticism of Moreau upon this point, with special reference to Greece.

[25] Prometheus, pp. 20-26, _et seq._

[26] Without having recourse to Ulrichs, it may be demonstrated from Krafft-Ebing's own cases of genuine Urnings that early onanism is by no means more frequent among them than among normal males. Five marked specimens showed no inclination for self-abuse. The first (p. 128) says: "As I never m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed and felt no inclination for it, I sometimes had a nocturnal pollution." The second (p. 155): "You will be surprised to hear that before my twenty-eighth year I never had any e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of s.e.m.e.n, either by nocturnal emissions, or by masturbation, or by contact with a man." The third (p. 172): "Onanism is a miserable makes.h.i.+ft, and pernicious, whereas h.o.m.os.e.xual love elevates the moral and strengthens the physical nature." The fourth (p. 163): "I had an internal horror of onanism, although from the very first appearance of p.u.b.erty I was sensually very excitable and troubled with persistent erections." The fifth (p. 142) is not so clear; but it is obvious from his remarks that the first e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of s.e.m.e.n which happened to him did so at the sight of a handsome soldier: "feeling my parts moistened, I was horribly frightened and thought it was a haemorrhage." Some of the cases do not mention the subject at all. A good many seem to have begun to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e early; but the proportion is not excessive to the whole number. One Urning explains the _faute de mieux_ system (p. 115): "If we have no friend, whose s.e.xual company has become needful to the preservation of our health, and if we abandon ourselves at last to masturbation alone with our imagination, then indeed do we become ill." Another speaks as follows (p. 151): "h.o.m.os.e.xual indulgence with a man gave me enjoyment and a consequent feeling of well-being, whereas onanism _faute de mieux_ produced an opposite result."

[27] P. 82. Herodotus called it "the female disease."

[28] P. 86, _et seq._

[29] P. 88, _et seq._

[30] Henceforward we may use the word Urning without apology; for however the jurists and men of science repudiate Ulrichs' doctrine, they have adopted his designation for a puzzling and still uncla.s.sified member of the human race. A Dr. Kaserer, of Vienna, is said to have invented the term Urning.

[31] This is a hit at Westphal, Krafft-Ebing's predecessor, who laid down the doctrine that Urnings are conscious of their own morbidity. Of course, both authorities are equally right. Approach an Urning with terrors of social opinion and law; and he will confess his dreadful apprehensions. Approach him from the point of view of science; and he will declare that, within four closed walls, he has no thought of guilt.

[32] Pp. 97-106.

[33] The physical repugnance of true Urnings for women may be ill.u.s.trated by pa.s.sages from three of Krafft-Ebing's cases (pp. 117, 123, 163), which I will translate. (1) "I had observed that a girl was madly in love with me, and longed intensely to yield herself up to me. I gave her an a.s.signation in my house, hoping that I should succeed better with a girl who sought me out of love than I had with public women.

After her first fiery caresses, I did indeed feel a little less frigid; but when it came to thinking about copulation, all was over--the same stark frost set in, and my part was played out. I sent her away, deeply excited, with some moral remarks; and I have never tried the like experiments again. On all these occasions _the specific odour of the female added to my horror_." (2) "The proximity of wenches aroused in me qualms and nausea; _in particular I could not bear to smell them_." (3) "It seems to me absurd to set up the female form as the prototype of human beauty. I regard a woman's person as displeasing, the formation of her hips as ugly and unaesthetic. Dancing is therefore an abomination to me. _I loathe the odour which the so-called fair s.e.x exhales when heated by the dance._" The disgust inspired in these three Urnings by the smell of the female is highly significant; since we know that the sense of smell acts powerfully upon the s.e.xual appet.i.te of normal individuals. It may be remarked that in all the instances of p.r.o.nounced Urnings, s.e.xual congress with women seems to have been followed with disgust, nervous exhaustion, and the sense of an unnatural act performed without pleasure. This is true even of those who have brought themselves to marriage.

[34] A sign, by the way, which may be observed in the most masculine of athletes. This is very noticeable in the nude photographs of Sandow.

[35] Englishmen know the type as Mariannes, and had occasion to study their habits in the Boulton and Park trial. For the type in Paris, consult Carlier, _op. cit._, pp. 323-326, 339-351, 463.

[36] I have used the German version of Lombroso's work, because of the translator's preface and occasional annotations.

[37] See Dufour, "Histoire de la Prost.i.tution," vol. iii. (France, ch.

i.) p. 193.

[38] See Dufour, "Histoire de la Prost.i.tution," (France, chs. 6 and 7).

[39] See above, p. 35, for an ingenious definition by Dr. Huggard, which covers both cla.s.ses as born criminals and moral madmen.

[40] His German translator calls attention to this omission; p. 153 footnote.

[41] Third edition. Halle a. S., 1882.

[42] Psych. s.e.x., p. 82.

[43] Leipzig, Wigand, 1860.

[44] Arabian Nights, 1885, vol. x., pp. 205-254.

[45] Burton's acquaintance with what he called "le Vice" was princ.i.p.ally confined to Oriental nations. He started on his enquiries, imbued with vulgar errors; and he never weighed the psychical theories examined by me in the foregoing section of this Essay. Nevertheless, he was led to surmise a crasis of the two s.e.xes in persons subject to s.e.xual inversion. Thus he came to speak of "the third s.e.x." During conversations I had with him less than three months before his death, he told me that he had begun a general history of "le Vice"; and at my suggestion he studied Ulrichs and Krafft-Ebing. It is to be lamented that life failed before he could apply his virile and candid criticism to those theories, and compare them with the facts and observations he had independently collected.

[46] I give the author's own text, p. 206.

[47] P. 208.

[48] P. 251.

[49] P. 222.

[50] Pp. 204, 209.

[51] Gli amori degli Uomini, Milano, 1886, vol. i. cap. 5.

[52] _Ibid._, p. 149.

[53] Pp. 148-154.

[54] P. 154.

[55] See above, p. 55, note.

[56] The notion that human beings were originally hermaphrodite is both ancient and wide-spread. We find it in the Book of Genesis, unless, indeed, there be a confusion here between two separate theories of creation. G.o.d is said to have first made man in his own image, male and female in one body, and to have bidden them multiply. Later on he created the woman out of part of the primitive man. The myth related by Aristophanes in Plato's _Symposium_ has a curious bearing upon Ulrichs'

speculations. There were originally human beings of three s.e.xes: men, the children of the sun; women, the children of the earth; and hermaphrodites, the children of the moon. They were round, with two faces, four hands, four feet and two sets of reproductive organs apiece.

In the case of the third s.e.x, one set was male, the other female. Zeus, on account of their strength and insolence, sliced them into halves.

Since that time the halves of each sort have always striven to unite with their corresponding halves, and have found some satisfaction in carnal congress--males with males, females with females, and males and females with each other: "They who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. And when they reach manhood, they are lovers of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children, which they do, if at all, only in obedience to the law, but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded; and such a nature is p.r.o.ne to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him." (Symp. 191-2, Jowett's translation.) Then follows a glowing description of Greek Love, the whole reminding us very closely of the confessions made by Urnings in modern times, and preserved by medical or forensic writers on s.e.xual inversion.

[57] Memnon, section xix.