Freud - Complete Works (258 page)

  
¹ On these
difficulties and on the attempts which have been made to arrive at
the proportional number of inverts, see Hirschfeld (1904).

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1466

   Again, inverts vary in their
views as to the peculiarity of their sexual instinct. Some of them
accept their inversion as something in the natural course of
things, just as a normal person accepts the direction of
his
libido, and insist energetically that inversion is as legitimate as
the normal attitude; others rebel against their inversion and feel
it as a pathological compulsion.¹

   Other variations occur which
relate to questions of time. The trait of inversion may either date
back to the very beginning, as far back as the subject’s
memory reaches, or it may not have become noticeable till some
particular time before or after puberty.² It may either
persist throughout life, or it may go into temporary abeyance, or
again it may constitute an episode on the way to a normal
development. It may even make its first appearance late in life
after a long period of normal sexual activity. A periodic
oscillation between a normal and an inverted sexual object has also
sometimes been observed. Those cases are of particular interest in
which the libido changes over to an inverted sexual object after a
distressing experience with a normal one.

   As a rule these different kinds
of variations are found side by side independently of one another.
It is, however, safe to assume that the most extreme form of
inversion will have been present from a very early age and that the
person concerned will feel at one with his peculiarity.

   Many authorities would be
unwilling to class together all the various cases which I have
enumerated and would prefer to lay stress upon their differences
rather than their resemblances, in accordance with their own
preferred view of inversion. Nevertheless, though the distinctions
cannot be disputed, it is impossible to overlook the existence of
numerous intermediate examples of every type, so that we are driven
to conclude that we are dealing with a connected series.

  
¹
The fact of a person struggling in this way
against a compulsion towards inversion may perhaps determine the
possibility of his being influenced by suggestion [
Added
1910:] or psycho-analysis.

  
²
Many writers have insisted with justice
that the dates assigned by inverts themselves for the appearance of
their tendency to inversion are untrustworthy, since they may have
repressed the evidence of their heterosexual feelings from their
memory. [
Added
1910:] These suspicions have been confirmed
by psycho-analysis in those cases of inversion to which it has had
access; it has produced decisive alterations in their anamnesis by
filling in their infantile amnesia.

Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality

1467

NATURE OF
INVERSION
   The earliest assessments regarded
inversion as an innate indication of

                                        
nervous degeneracy. This corresponded to the fact that medical

observers first came across it in persons
suffering, or appearing to suffer, from nervous diseases. This
characterization of inversion involves two suppositions, which must
be considered separately: that it is innate and that it is
degenerate.

DEGENERACY
   The
attribution of degeneracy in this connection is open to the
objections which

                         
can be raised against the indiscriminate use of the word in
general. It has become the fashion to regard any symptom which is
not obviously due to trauma or infection as a sign of degeneracy.
Magnan’s classification of degenerates is indeed of such a
kind as not to exclude the possibility of the concept of degeneracy
being applied to a nervous system whose general functioning is
excellent. This being so, it may well be asked whether an
attribution of ‘degeneracy’ is of any value or adds
anything to our knowledge. It seems wiser only to speak of it
where

   (1) several serious deviations
from the normal are found together, and

   (2) the capacity for efficient
functioning and survival seem to be severely impaired.¹

  
¹
Moebius (1900) confirms the view that we
should be chary in making a diagnosis of degeneracy and that it has
very little practical value: ‘If we survey the wide field of
degeneracy upon which some glimpses of revealing light have been
thrown in these pages, it will at once be clear that there is small
value in ever making a diagnosis of degeneracy.’

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   Several facts go to show that in
this legitimate sense of the word inverts cannot be regarded as
degenerate:

   (1) Inversion is found in people
who exhibit no other serious deviations from the normal.

   (2) It is similarly found in
people whose efficiency is unimpaired, and who are indeed
distinguished by specially high intellectual development and
ethical culture.¹

   (3) If we disregard the patients
we come across in our medical practice, and cast our eyes round a
wider horizon, we shall come in two directions upon facts which
make it impossible to regard inversion as a sign of degeneracy:

   (
a
) Account must be taken
of the fact that inversion was a frequent phenomenon - one might
almost say an institution charged with important functions - among
the peoples of antiquity at the height of their civilization.

   (
b
) It is remarkably
widespread among many savage and primitive races, whereas the
concept of degeneracy is usually restricted to states of high
civilization (cf. Bloch); and, even amongst the civilized peoples
of Europe, climate and race exercise the most powerful influence on
the prevalence of inversion and upon the attitude adopted towards
it.²

INNATE
CHARACTER
   As may be supposed, innateness is only
attributed to the first, most

                                  
extreme, class of inverts, and the evidence for it rests upon
assurances given by them that at no time in their lives has their
sexual instinct shown any sign of taking another course. The very
existence of the two other classes, and especially the third, is
difficult to reconcile with the hypothesis of the innateness of
inversion. This explains why those who support this view tend to
separate out the group of absolute inverts from all the rest, thus
abandoning any attempt at giving an account of inversion which
shall have universal application. In the view of these authorities
inversion is innate in one group of cases, while in others it may
have come about in other ways.

  
¹
It must be allowed that the spokesmen of
‘Uranism’ are justified in asserting that some of the
most prominent men in all recorded history were inverts and perhaps
even absolute inverts.

  
²
The pathological approach to the study of
inversion has been displaced by the anthropological. The merit for
bringing about this change is due to Bloch (1902-3), who has also
laid stress on the occurrence of inversion among the civilizations
of antiquity.

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   The reverse of this view is
represented by the alternative one that inversion is an acquired
character of the sexual instinct. This second view is based on the
following considerations:

   (1) In the case of many inverts,
even absolute ones, it is possible to show that very early in their
lives a sexual impression occurred which left a permanent
after-effect in the shape of a tendency to homosexuality.

   (2) In the case of many others,
it is possible to point to external influences in their lives,
whether of a favourable or inhibiting character, which have led
sooner or later to a fixation of their inversion. (Such influences
are exclusive relations with persons of their own sex, comradeship
in war, detention in prison, the dangers of heterosexual
intercourse, celibacy, sexual weakness, etc.)

   (3) Inversion can be removed by
hypnotic suggestion, which would be astonishing in an innate
characteristic.

   In view of these considerations
it is even possible to doubt the very existence of such a thing as
innate inversion. It can be argued (cf. Havelock Ellis ) that, if
the cases of allegedly innate inversion were more closely examined,
some experience of their early childhood would probably come to
light which had a determining effect upon the direction taken by
their libido. This experience would simply have passed out of the
subject’s conscious recollection, but could be recalled to
his memory under appropriate influence. In the opinion of these
writers inversion can only be described as a frequent variation of
the sexual instinct, which can be determined by a number of
external circumstances in the subject’s life.

   The apparent certainty of this
conclusion is, however, completely countered by the reflection that
many people are subjected to the same sexual influences (e.g. to
seduction or mutual masturbation, which may occur in early youth)
without becoming inverted or without remaining so permanently. We
are therefore forced to a suspicion that the choice between
‘innate’ and ‘acquired’ is not an exclusive
one or that it does not cover all the issues involved in
inversion.

EXPLANATION OF
INVERSION
   The nature of inversion is explained
neither by the hypothesis

                                   
              that
it is innate nor by the alternative hypothesis that it is acquired.
In the former case we must ask in what respect it is innate, unless
we are to accept the crude explanation that everyone is born with
his sexual instinct attached to a particular sexual object. In the
latter case it may be questioned whether the various accidental
influences would be sufficient to explain the acquisition of
inversion without the co-operation of something in the subject
himself. As we have already shown, the existence of this last
factor is not to be denied.

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1470

BISEXUALITY
   A fresh
contradiction of popular views is involved in the considerations
put

                       
forward by Lydston, Kiernan and Chevalier in an endeavour to
account for the possibility of sexual inversion. It is popularly
believed that a human being is either a man or a woman. Science,
however, knows of cases in which the sexual characters are
obscured, and in which it is consequently difficult to determine
the sex. This arises in the first instance in the field of anatomy.
The genitals of the individuals concerned combine male and female
characteristics. (This condition is known as hermaphroditism.) In
rare cases both kinds of sexual apparatus are found side by side
fully developed (true hermaphroditism); but far more frequently
both sets of organs are found in an atrophied condition.¹

   The importance of these
abnormalities lies in the unexpected fact that they facilitate our
understanding of normal development. For it appears that a certain
degree of anatomical hermaphroditism occurs normally. In every
normal male or female individual, traces are found of the apparatus
of the opposite sex. These either persist without function as
rudimentary organs or become modified and take on other
functions.

   These long-familiar facts of
anatomy lead us to suppose that an originally bisexual physical
disposition has, in the course of evolution, become modified into a
unisexual one, leaving behind only a few traces of the sex that has
become atrophied.

   It was tempting to extend this
hypothesis to the mental sphere and to explain inversion in all its
varieties as the expression of a psychical hermaphroditism. All
that was required further in order to settle the question was that
inversion should be regularly accompanied by the mental and somatic
signs of hermaphroditism.

  
¹
For the most recent descriptions of somatic
hermaphroditism, see Taruffi (1903), and numerous papers by
Neugebauer in various volumes of the
Jahrbuch für sexuelle
Zwischenstufen
.

Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality

1471

   But this expectation was
disappointed. It is impossible to demonstrate so close a connection
between the hypothetical psychical hermaphroditism and the
established anatomical one. A general lowering of the sexual
instinct and a slight anatomical atrophy of the organs is found
frequently in inverts (cf. Havelock Ellis, 1915). Frequently, but
by no means regularly or even usually. The truth must therefore be
recognized that inversion and somatic hermaphroditism are on the
whole independent of each other.

   A great deal of importance, too,
has been attached to what are called the secondary and tertiary
sexual characters and to the great frequency of the occurrence of
those of the opposite sex in inverts (cf. Havelock Ellis, 1915).
Much of this, again, is correct; but it should never be forgotten
that in general the secondary and tertiary sexual characters of one
sex occur very frequently in the opposite one. They are indications
of hermaphroditism, but are not attended by any change of sexual
object in the direction of inversion.