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had no known origin) of an exclusively heterosexual lady aged 42;
she dreamed she was in bed with another woman, unknown to her,
and lying on her own stomach, while with her right hand stretched
out she was feeling the other's sexual parts. She could
distinctly perceive the clitoris, vagina, etc.; she felt a sort
of disgust with herself for what she was doing, but continued
until she awoke; she then found herself lying on her stomach as
in the dream and at first thought she must have been touching
herself, but realized that this could not have been the case.
(Niceforo, who believes that inversion may develop out of
masturbation, considers that dreams of masturbation by
association of ideas may take on an inverted character [_Le
Psicopatie Sessuale_, 1897, pp. 35, 69]; this, however, must be
rare, and will not account for most of the dreams in question.)
Näcke and Colin Scott, some years ago, independently referred to
cases in which normal persons were liable to homosexual dreams,
and Féré (_Revue de Médecine_, Dec., 1898) referred to a man who
had a horror of women, but appeared only to manifest
homosexuality in his dreams. Näcke (_Archiv für
Kriminal-Anthropologie_, 1907, Heft I, 2) calls dreams which
represent a reaction of opposition to the dreamer's ordinary life
"contrast dreams." Hirschfeld, who accepts Näcke's "contrast
dreams" in relation to homosexuality, considers that they
indicate a latent bisexuality. We may admit this is so, in the
same sense in which a complementary color image called up by
another color indicates the possibility of perceiving that color.
In most cases, however, it seems to me that homosexual dreams in
normal persons may be simply explained as due to the ordinary
confusion and transition of dream imagery. (See Ellis, _The World
of Dreams_, especially ch. ii.)
_Methods of Sexual Relationship_.--The exact mode in which an inverted
instinct finds satisfaction is frequently of importance from the
medico-legal standpoint;[198] from a psychological standpoint it is of
minor significance, being chiefly of interest as showing the degree to
which the individual has departed from the instinctive feelings of his
normal fellow-beings.
Taking 57 inverted men of whom I have definite knowledge, I find that 12,
restrained by moral or other considerations, have never had any physical
relationship with their own sex. In some 22 cases the sexual relationship
rarely goes beyond close physical contact and fondling, or at most mutual
masturbation and intercrural intercourse. In 10 or 11 cases _fellatio_
(oral excitation)--frequently in addition to some form of mutual
masturbation, and usually, though not always, as the active agency--is the
form preferred. In 14 cases, actual _pedicatio_[199]--usually active, not
passive--has been exercised. In these cases, however, _pedicatio_ is by no
means always the habitual or even the preferred method of gratification.
It seems to be the preferred method in about 7 cases. Several who have
never experienced it, including some who have never practised any form of
physical relationship, state that they feel no objection to _pedicatio_;
some have this feeling in regard to active, others in regard to passive,
_pedicatio_. The proportion of inverts who practise or have at some time
experienced _pedicatio_ thus revealed (nearly 25 per cent.) is large; in
Germany Hirschfeld finds it to be only 8 per cent., and Merzbach only 6. I
believe, however, that a wider induction from a larger number of English
and American cases would yield a proportion much nearer to that found in
Germany.[200]
PSEUDOSEXUAL ATTRACTION.--It is sometimes supposed that in homosexual
relationships one person is always active, physically and emotionally, the
other passive. Between men, at all events, this is very frequently not the
case, and the invert cannot tell if he feels like a man or like a woman.
Thus, one writes:--
"In bed with my friend I feel as he feels, and he feels as I
feel. The result is masturbation, and nothing more or desire for
more on my part. I get it over, too, as soon as possible, in
order to come to the best--sleeping arms round each other, or
talking so."
It remains true, however, that there may usually be traced what it is
possible to call pseudosexual attraction, by which I mean a tendency for
the invert to be attracted toward persons unlike himself, so that in his
sexual relationships there is a certain semblance of sexual opposition.
Numa Praetorius considers that in homosexuality the attraction of
opposites--the attraction for soldiers and other primitive vigorous
types--plays a greater part than among normal lovers.[201] This
pseudosexual attraction is, however, as Hirschfeld points out,[202] and as
we see by the Histories here presented, by no means invariable.
M.N. writes: "To me it appears that the female element must, of
necessity, exist in the body that desires the male, and that
nature keeps her law in the spirit, though she breaks it in the
form. The rest is all a matter of individual temperament and
environment. The female nature of the invert, hampered though it
is by its disguise of flesh, is still able to exert an
extraordinary influence, and calls insistently upon the male.
This influence seems called into action most violently in the
presence of males possessed of strong sexual magnetism of their
own. Such men are generally more or less conscious of the
influence, and the result is either a vague appreciation, which
will make the male wonder why he gets on so well with the invert,
or else the influence will be realized to be something
incongruous and unnatural, and will be resented accordingly.
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