Excerpts from the Professional Press on the work of 
 DR. WM. STEKEL 
 
 We have lacked thus far a systematic clinical application of Freudian 
 analysis. Stekel's work fills this need. Jung, in MEDIZ. KLINIK. 
 
 ... A standard work ; a milestone in the psychiatric and psycho- 
 therapeutic literature. 
 
 Geh. Sanitatsrat Dr. Gerster, in DIE NECE GENERATION. 
 
 It would be regrettable if the work did not attract fully the atten- 
 tion of the scientific world ; its deep sobriety and the fulness of its 
 details render it a treasury of information, primarily for the physician, 
 but, in large measure, of interest also to the educationist, the minister, 
 the teacher and, not least, to the student of criminology. . . . 
 
 Horch, in ARCHIV r. KRIMINALOGIE. 
 
 These case histories will be read with great interest by everyone, 
 including those who are inclined to maintain a sceptical attitude towards 
 psychoanalysis. Eulenburg, in MEDIZINISCHE KLINIK. 
 
 Stekel's work teaches practitioners a great many things they did not 
 know before, particularly about the significance of psychology and sexual 
 science in the practice of medicine. 
 
 Bitschmann, in INTERNAT. ZEITSCHRIFT F. PSYCHOANALYSE. 
 
 It is Stekel's extraordinary merit that he compels us to take into 
 account a pressing mass of data which he brings to light with a scien- 
 tific zeal which is unfortunately still rare, facts and observations so 
 penetrating, so true to life that these often render unnecessary any 
 formal statement of the obvious deductions which flow from them. 
 
 DIE NEUB GENERATION. 
 
 The most modern problems are considered, new viewpoints are 
 brought out, while the excesses in the technique and interpretation of 
 the earlier stages of psychoanalysis are avoided. 
 
 Kermauner, in WIENER KLINISCHE WOCHENSCHRIFT. 
 
 All in all, Stekel's is a work for which I bespeak the widest inter- 
 est not only among physicians, but also among jurists, educationists, 
 sociologists and ministers. Only an understanding of the mental life 
 of the individual will yield a proper view of our social life. 
 
 Liepmann, in ZEITSCHRIFT F. SEXUALWISSENSCH. 
 
 The work is a treasury for all who have occasion to probe the depths 
 of human life and should be a source of considerable information and 
 stimulus to every jurist who takes in earnest his professional duties. 
 Geh. Justizrat Dr. Horch, in ARCHIV F. KRIMINALOGIE. 
 
 It does not matter from what angle the work of Stekel is ap- 
 proached. Any consideration of it reveals rich material. Stekel is 
 a writer who handles his subjects in a lavish manner ; lavish, but with 
 that restraint which bends all to the urgency of his themes. He evi- 
 dently approaches his clinical work with the same exuberant interest. 
 There he reaps through psychoanalysis a rich harvest of results. He has 
 collected these results and presented them for the dissemination of such 
 knowledge of the sexual disturbances as he thus obtained. Facts are there 
 in great number. They cannot be gainsaid. Stekel's own evaluation of 
 such facts and his earnest plea for their consideration, both by the medi- 
 cal profession and by the society of men and women where these facts 
 exist, can speak only for themselves to the truly conscientious reader. 
 There is not much in these books that the psychotherapeutist can afford 
 to pass over. NEW YORK. MEDICAL JOURNAL.
 
 THE HOMOSEXUAL 
 NEUROSIS 
 
 BY 
 DR. WILLIAM STEKEL 
 
 (VIENNA) 
 
 Authorized translation by 
 JAMES S. VAN TESLAAR, M.D. 
 
 (For sale only to Members of the 
 Medical Profession.) 
 
 BOSTON 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY RICHARD G. BADGZR 
 
 AU Rights Reserved 
 
 Made in the United States of America 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.
 
 w/v\ 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 The present volume completes my English version 
 of the HomosexuaUtat portion of the author's 
 Onanie und HomosexuaUtat. The first portion has 
 been issued a few months ago, under the title Bi- 
 sexual Love, and it is very gratifying that the pub- 
 lication of the present volume was made possible so 
 soon after the appearance of the first. The trans- 
 lation of the part dealing with Autoerotism is also 
 completed, and will appear shortly. One of the 
 most important works of clinical psychopathology 
 will thus be available, for the English reading pro- 
 fessional ranks, in unabridged form. 
 
 These three volumes, though available separately, 
 in some respects form an instructive continuity. 
 At any rate those interested in any of the funda- 
 mental problems discussed therein will find most 
 helpful an acquaintance with all three volumes. 
 
 Furthermore the student or physician interested 
 in mental problems will find the implications of 
 the principles set forth herein of the utmost prac- 
 tical significance, aside from their specific bearing 
 on the problems of Homosexuality and Autoerotism. 
 These clinical studies stand forth, in the first place, 
 
 5
 
 6 Translator's Preface 
 
 as lessons in analysis and therapy; but incidentally 
 they reveal certain fundamental aspects of human 
 nature more clearly than such a revelation was pos- 
 sible without the aid of the psychoanalytic method 
 of research. The knowledge thus gained for thera- 
 peutic purposes is also applicable to many other 
 practical problems of life. One approaching the 
 study of a work like the present, with the intention 
 of improving one's therapeutic efficiency and of thus 
 increasing one's professional usefulness, is quite 
 likely to discover before long that his whole out- 
 look, as a professional man, and, above all, as a 
 social being, has undergone a wholesome trans- 
 formation. 
 
 Indeed, all fundamental knowledge has this qual- 
 ity of spreading, fan-like, clearing up with its helpful 
 implications more than appears obvious at the be- 
 ginning. It is not surprising, therefore, that Psy- 
 choanalysis, at the present stage primarily a thera- 
 peutic method, but reaching into the inner recesses 
 of the human soul more penetratingly than any other 
 method of inquiry, should also prove the most help- 
 ful method of interpreting all other problems gen- 
 erated by the functions of the human instincts and 
 emotions. 
 
 VAN TESLAAR. 
 September 30, 1922 
 Brookline, Mass.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I The Relations of the Homosexual to the Other 
 Sex Fear, Disgust, Hate, and Anger Homo- 
 sexuality and Epilepsy Sadger's Researches 
 Hirschfeld's Theses Fear of the Sexual Partner 
 Disgust for Woman Sadistic Attitude Epi- 
 lepsy and Homosexuality Other Reactions Indi- 
 cating Revulsion My First Early Experiences 
 Sadger's Investigations 11 
 
 II Role of the Father and of Other Members of the 
 Family Dislike of Children Letter of a Homo- 
 sexual Who Fears the "Penetrating Eye" of 
 Women A Marriage with the Father Jealousy 
 of the Father A Homosexual Who Hates His 
 Mother A Beloved Boy as the Imago of the Sis- 
 ter Psychology of Love within the Family Circle 
 Fear of the Child A Girl Who Hates All Chil- 
 dren Differentiation from the Mother .... 53 
 
 III Homosexuality and Jealousy Masked Jealousy A 
 Jealous Wife of a Physician Why Women Abuse 
 Servant Girls Transference of Jealousy to the 
 Surroundings Jealousy of the Father Jealousy 
 of the Residence Jealousy of the Past A Young 
 Woman Oversensitive to Any Noises .... 100 
 
 IV Jealousy and Paranoia Jealousy as Projection of 
 One's Own Inadequacy Freud's Researches on 
 Paranoia The Investigations of Juliusburger 
 The Jealousy of a Paranoiac Jealousy Delusion 
 of a Merchant Jealousy and Alcoholism The 
 Evolution of Mankind from Bisexuality to Mono- 
 sexuality Metamorphosis Sexualis Paranoica 
 The Monotheism of Sexuality Jealousy and 
 Criminality 155 
 
 7
 
 8 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 V Homosexuality and Sadism The Analysis of a 
 Homosexual Earliest Memories First Account 
 of His Attitude Fear of Tuberculosis His At- 
 titude towards His Parents First Dream 
 Dreams of Urinals Anal Eroticism Coprophagia 
 The Mother as a Tyrant Transvestitism An 
 Important Dream Voyeur and Exhibitionist 
 Other Dreams Poems to the Mother Maternal 
 Body Dreams Sadistic Phantasies A Spermato- 
 zoan Dream The Dream About Wild Bears 
 Summarization of the Analytic Data in the Case 
 The Formula of Homosexuality 199 
 
 VI History and Analysis of a Homosexual Childhood 
 Reminiscences Anal Erotism Attachment to the 
 Mother Interpretation of Dream Symbolisms 
 Love of the Father Regression Theory of Homo- 
 sexuality 227 
 
 VII The Neurotic's Inability to Love The Narcissism 
 of the Homosexual Progressive Sexual Differ- 
 entiation with the Growth of Culture The Posi- 
 tion of the Homosexual in the Struggle between 
 Sexes The Social Causes of Homosexuality 
 Homosexuality among Greeks Increase of Polar 
 Sexual Tension Various Therapeutic Measures 
 Hypnosis Moll's Association-therapy Psychoan- 
 alysis The Path towards Cure and the Conditions 
 for Recovery , 289
 
 THE RELATIONS OP THE HOMOSEXUAL TO THE OTHER 
 
 SEX FEAR, DISGUST, HATE, AND ANGER HOMO- 
 SEXUALITY AND EPILEPSY SADGER*S RESEARCHES 
 
 HIRSCHFELD'S THESES FEAR OF THE SEXUAL 
 PARTNER DISGUST FOR WOMAN SADISTIC ATTI- 
 TUDE EPILEPSY AND HOMOSEXUALITY OTHER 
 
 REACTIONS INDICATING REVULSION MY FIRST 
 
 EARLY EXPERIENCES SADGER 5 S INVESTIGATIONS.
 
 Jedermann trdgt ein Bild des Weibes von der 
 Mutter her in sich: davon wird er bestimmt, die 
 Weiber uberhaupt zu verehren oder sie geringzu- 
 sclidtzten oder gegen sie in allgemeinen gleichgultig 
 zu sein, Nietzsche.
 
 THE 
 HOMOSEXUAL NEUROSIS 
 
 Everyone carries within himself a pattern of 
 womanhood derived from his mother: that deter- 
 mines whether he should respect or depreciate 
 woman; or whether his attitude towards woman in 
 general should be one of mdifference. 
 
 Nietzsche. 
 
 Our investigations thus far have repeatedly shown 
 us that in the case of homosexuals the heterosexual 
 path is merely blocked, but that it would be incor- 
 rect to hold that the pathway is altogether absent. 
 I have proven that the individual, as representative 
 of our modern culture, finds it impossible to main- 
 tain his bisexuality ; therefore he represses either his 
 homosexuality or his heterosexuality. We also 
 convinced ourselves that organic bisexuality has 
 nothing to do with psychic bisexuality. Hirschfeld 
 expressly emphasizes that he has met with homo- 
 sexuality among strongly virile men and among 
 
 11
 
 12 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 persons typically female. The organic theory of 
 homosexuality has broken down completely. One 
 would suppose that the investigators would neces- 
 sarily turn to the psychologic concept. No. The 
 psychic forces are still underestimated and the 
 heterosexual period of homosexuals is still over- 
 looked. Although Hirschfeld emphasizes that to 
 psychoanalysis belongs the merit of having pointed 
 out first the heterosexual component, why does he 
 not draw the natural deductions from this acknowl- 
 edged fact? He arrives at the following conclu- 
 sions : 
 
 1. Genuine homosexuality is always an inborn 
 condition. 
 
 2. This inborn state is conditioned by a specific 
 homosexual constitution of the brain. 
 
 3. That specific brain structure is brought about 
 through a peculiar mixed condition of male and 
 female hereditary plasm. 
 
 4. That ambisexual state is found frequently 
 associated with pronounced instability of the ner- 
 vous system. 
 
 5. Between the specific and the nervous consti- 
 tution there exists an intimate relationship. 
 
 6. All external causes are operative only in the 
 presence of the inner homosexual constitution. 
 
 7. External causes provocative are so com- 
 mon that in 99 per cent, of cases the innate homo-
 
 The Nature of Homosexuality 18 
 
 sexual disposition breaks forth sooner or later and 
 becomes clearly manifest in consciousness. 
 
 8. Homosexuality is neither a morbidity nor a 
 degeneration; it is neither a taint nor a criminal 
 trait, representing merely an aspect of natural de- 
 velopment, a sexual variant, like many analogous 
 sexual modifications in the animal and vegetal 
 world. (Hirschfeld, Homosexualitat, p. 394.) 
 
 Our data do not uphold these contentions. How 
 can Hirschfeld speak of an innate homosexual con- 
 stitution when elsewhere in his work he admits the 
 constant presence of heterosexual instincts? How 
 can he maintain that homosexuality is a trait reach- 
 ing back to the very roots of individuality when 
 every careful investigation proves the contrary? 
 
 The following statements show his contradictions 
 on the subject: 
 
 "Here too it has been contended that all these 
 deviations from the sexual type during childhood 
 and puberty do not conclusively lead to the diagnosis 
 of homosexuality, that the earlier periods of life are 
 undifferentiated with respect to sex, that boys as 
 well as girls, young men as well as young women, 
 often become eventually fully heterosexual in spite 
 of pronounced androgyny and sexual incongruities ; 
 even the transvestites of both sexes show early traits 
 inharmonious with their respective sex, and certainly 
 many passivists, succubists, or masochists show
 
 14 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 themselves already as boys somewhat lacking in 
 'mannish* traits while female activists, incubists and 
 sadists lack certain womanly traits already in their 
 girlhood, though all retain the capacity to love the 
 opposite sex and therefore prove themselves later 
 heterosexual. . . . 
 
 "At any rate one thing is certain. If a child 
 is a urning, it grows up a heterosexual person with 
 the same unconditional certainty with which the 
 'normal* child becomes heterosexual. Thus the spe- 
 cial character of the urning looms forth as some- 
 thing fundamental having its roots in the depths 
 of personality." (Hirschfeld, Homosexualitat, p. 
 121.) 
 
 Naturally, Hirschfeld adopts a safe method of 
 excluding all cases which do present a history of 
 heterosexuality. He calls such cases "pseudo- 
 homosexuality" thus placing them in a category 
 apart from the genuine urning. Bloch also calls 
 the heterosexual inclination of typical homosexuals 
 a sort of "pseudoheterosexuality." This method 
 of dealing with the subject admits of no proofs. 
 
 1 "Homosexuals who display their inclination clearly only 
 after puberty show an interest in the other sex before and 
 during the period of puberty. For instance, I have been told 
 by a 23-year-old typical homosexual, today a victim of horror 
 feminae, that at 16 and 17 years of age he entertained strong 
 fancies about girls and ran after them, although without any 
 particular sexual feeling desire. This transitory and unde- 
 fined preoccupation of homosexuals with the opposite sex is a 
 sort of 'pseudoheterosexuality.' " (Bloch, loc. cit., p. 597.) 

 
 The Nature of Homosexuality 15 
 
 Block suggests the test that a genuine theory of 
 homosexuality must be capable of embracing all 
 cases. The Hirschfeld theory of "the third sex" can- 
 not do so. It is neither founded nor proven either 
 on organic or on psychologic grounds. 
 
 But why is it that the homosexual shifts so com- 
 pletely away from the sexual partner? A. Adler 
 has conceived in these cases the hypothesis of a 
 "fear of the sexual partner." This observation cer- 
 tainly holds true in the case of many homosexuals, 
 but is not true of all cases. Nature does not ope- 
 rate in such simple ways anji a single key does not 
 unlock the riddle of homosexuality. 
 
 In accordance with the results of our investiga- 
 tion thus far we may conclude : the homosexual finds 
 closed for him the path which leads to the other sex, 
 and the barrier is psychical. Anxiety, disgust and 
 scorn support the forces of homosexual love. These 
 feelings do not exhaust the range of inhibitory fac- 
 tors and we shall presently turn our attention to 
 others. But we must take up the psychogenesis of 
 these inhibitions in a thorough and systematic 
 manner. 
 
 May fear of the sexual partner drive a person into 
 homosexuality? We must answer this question in 
 the affirmative inasmuch as we are able to trace that 
 fear in a number of cases. 
 
 First, let us take up the case of Krafft-Ebing 
 (Obs. 159) since it is so simple and obvious:
 
 16 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 54. Mrs. X., 26 years of age, married 7 years, 
 confesses herself attracted for some time to per- 
 sons of her own sex; she respects and even feels a 
 certain sympathy for her husband but marital rela- 
 tions with him she finds repulsive. She has made 
 him abstain from sexual relations with her since 
 the birth of their youngest child. Already at the 
 boarding school she felt a keen interest in other 
 young women, which she can only describe as 
 love attraction. But occasionally she had also felt 
 herself attracted to particular men and lately a cer- 
 tain man had put her resistance to test. She was 
 often afraid she might forget herself with him and 
 therefore avoided being alone with the man. But 
 these are merely passing episodes in contrast with 
 her passionate inclination towards persons of her 
 own sex. Her true love is expressed in kisses, ca- 
 resses and intimate contact with the latter. Fail- 
 ure to gratify that yearning is painfully uncom- 
 fortable and is largely responsible for her present 
 nervous state. The subject does not assume a par- 
 ticular sexual role in relation to persons of her own 
 sex, and she did no more than indulge with them in 
 kisses, petting and embracing. The subject con- 
 siders herself of a passionate nature. Quite likely 
 that she masturbates. Her sexual perversion she 
 looks upon as "unnaturally morbid." Nothing in 
 the woman's ordinary conduct or external appear- 
 ance betrays such an anomaly. About her child-
 
 A Homosexual Woman 17 
 
 hood she is unable to report anything of signifi- 
 cance. She was quick to learn, had poetic and 
 esthetic inclinations, was considered somewhat ner- 
 vous, loved reading of novels and sentimental ro- 
 mances, was of a neuropathic constitution, and ex- 
 tremely sensitive to changes in temperature. It is 
 noteworthy also that at ten years of age, because 
 she thought that her mother did not love her, the 
 patient dissolved matches in coffee and drank the 
 solution so as to make herself very ill and to draw 
 her mother's affection to her. 
 
 Here we see an inclination to heterosexual rela- 
 tions which is not cultivated on account of fear. 
 This young woman, with a tremendous homosexual 
 leaning as shown already by her attachment to her 
 mother, marries a man, in whose embrace she re- 
 mains frigid, but fears to be alone with a man who 
 rouses her, because he may prove dangerous to her. 
 We see that her pronounced bisexuality leads her 
 to fall in love with a man, to be his sweetheart, in 
 her fancy, but she hesitates to turn her fancy into 
 , reality, the "fear of sinning" preventing her from 
 carrying out the step. Then she looks upon the 
 heterosexual inclinations as passing whims and turns 
 to her homosexual fancies. She is running away 
 from the male. She fears the man she loves be- 
 cause a strong love implies submission to the male. 
 She gravitates away from him, not because the male
 
 18 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 is unable to yield her gratification but because she 
 fears him. But we must understand how this flight 
 from the male, which manifests itself also in her 
 dyspareunia, originated. How little such life his- 
 tories bear on this point, without psychoanalysis ! 
 In my study of dyspareunia 2 I describe similar 
 cases and show how aversion towards the male origi- 
 nates in the first place. 
 
 Through Freud we have learned that fear, like 
 disgust, is a repressed form of libido. Though this 
 view is correct, it is not always adequate. My own 
 researches have shown that every fear represents 
 in the first place fear of self. 
 
 But why should the homosexual entertain any 
 fear of himself during intercourse with woman? 
 What he fears is his excessive sexuality when it is 
 commingled with criminal tendencies. 
 
 The frequency with which fear of one's own crimi- 
 nal aggressiveness stands back of impotence and 
 homosexuality can hardly be overestimated. Krafft- 
 Ebing describes a typical bisexual who had experi- 
 enced orgasm but once in contact with woman. But 
 that happened during the commission of a delict 
 (Obs. 142, p. 273) on his part. 
 
 "It is remarkable that he did experience gratifi- 
 cation that one time during the (forced) act. After 
 the act he was overcome with nausea. One hour 
 
 "In vol. Ill of Disorders of Instincts and Emotions: The 
 Sexual Frigidity of Woman; Psychopathology of Woman's 
 Love Life. English translation by Dr. James 8. Van Teslaar.
 
 Fear of the Sexual Partner 19 
 
 after the assault he again had coitus with the same 
 woman and with her consent but that time he no 
 longer experienced any satisfaction." That proves 
 that the orgasm depended on his abuse of force. 
 The fear is fear of violence, the disgust is disgust 
 of self, both coming into play so as to protect 
 one against deeds incompatible with one's ethical 
 standards. 
 
 I know a large number of homosexuals who have 
 actually confessed to me that they are able to have 
 intercourse with women only while they are in a 
 strong rage. But then they are in fear of them- 
 selves, so dangerous do they become. One subject 
 confessed to me that he had nearly strangled his 
 sexual partner. Other homosexuals feel an inex- 
 pressible rage just after coitus. In such cases the 
 heterosexual act is associatively related to some 
 criminal act. Some unconscious fancies depict and 
 urge cutting up, strangling or beating the female 
 companion. These men are extreme woman-haters 
 and hatred is always deadly. 
 
 I reproduce here a single relevant observation: 
 
 55. Mr. H. K. is a well-known homosexual who 
 prefers particularly males of low standing. The 
 more powerfully built the men are the greater is 
 his orgasm. He prefers to choose packers, furni- 
 ture movers, expressmen and generally individuals 
 of strong build. His greatest orgasm he experi-
 
 20 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 enced during intimacy with a member of an athletic 
 club, a man who had a very small penis. He feels 
 such a strong fear of women that he does not trust 
 himself in a room alone with one. He does not 
 remember having ever been sensuously stirred by a 
 woman. Several times he tried intercourse with 
 prostitutes but fled each time as soon as he found 
 himself alone in the room with the woman. A cold 
 sweat breaks out over his brow and he runs off pre- 
 cipitately as if pursued by a thousand demons. A 
 short analysis over a few days revealed that this 
 was a typical case of a criminal fancy, the subject 
 having indulged for a long time in the onanistic 
 fancy of strangling a woman. ("All women ought 
 to be exterminated" ... is a favorite sentiment 
 often expressed by this man.) In his phantasies 
 he has also committed assaults on men, and the 
 thought of ripping open the anus of a man has 
 occurred to him already several times. 
 
 His fear of women is the fear he may forget him- 
 self and strangle one of them. But he is also afraid 
 of men, that is, he also fears he may commit some 
 assault on a man. Therefore he protects himself 
 through choosing men of powerful physique. They 
 should be stronger than he. Thus he feels assured 
 that he will not be able to assault them. Lately he 
 has been seeking a mannish woman who should also 
 be stronger than he. Evidently he proposes to pro- 
 tect himself also in that case . . . against himself.
 
 Protection against the Other Sea. 21 
 
 The homosexuality showed itself to be a flight from 
 his criminal heterosexual tendencies. 
 
 Other homosexuals protect themselves against 
 woman through disgust. How closely hatred, fear, 
 and disgust stand in this connection may be seen 
 in the following observation by Hirschfeld: 
 
 "A certain homosexual related to me that he is 
 able to have intercourse with a woman but that im- 
 mediately afterwards he is seized with a terrible 
 anger against the woman and once after the act he 
 spat at her in disgust ; since that, in order to avoid 
 consequences, he leaves the room as hastily as pos- 
 sible immediately after the ejaculation. 
 
 "How far the aversion may go is shown by the 
 case of the homosexual Herzog von Praslin-Choiseul 
 who at Paris in 1864 strangled post coitum his 
 young bride, the daughter of General Sebastiani. 
 It may be mentioned in this connection that by far 
 the greater number of sadistic women who prevail 
 upon masochistic males of grossest physical and 
 mental type to carry out acts of violence upon them 
 are in reality homosexual women with a sexual aver- 
 sion to men. Professor Albert Eulenburg told me 
 that all the alleged sadists among females whom 
 he knows have proven themselves in reality to be 
 homosexuals. I, too, know but three women among 
 twelve sadists who deny homosexuality." (Hirsch- 
 feld, loc. cit. p. 96).
 
 22 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 First we learn that this homosexual, through fear 
 of himself, runs off in the nick of time. The act of 
 spitting may be the symbolic substitute for a more 
 serious act. If additional testimony were needed 
 to support the relevance of my conception, the case 
 of the Duke von Praslin-Choiseul stands forth as the 
 clearest proof one could wish. Plainly Hirschfeld, 
 as usual, confuses here cause and effect. The Duke 
 did not strangle his bride because he was homo- 
 sexual, he had taken flight in homosexuality, be- 
 cause he felt impelled to commit a "passion crime" 
 and he tried to protect himself against his own wild 
 instincts. 
 
 Particularly interesting from the criminologic- 
 psychologic standpoint are the cases of epileptics 
 who during the attack are diverted from their usual 
 sexual path. The epileptic is a criminal who dur- 
 ing the attack carries out some criminal deed. Or- 
 dinarily the deed is carried out in the phantasy, but 
 here and there the epileptic commits overtly some 
 deed of uncommon cruelty. During his epileptic 
 attack the patient gives expression to his criminal 
 trend. The attack is the equivalent of the crime. 
 Readers interested in this important problem I must 
 refer to my original study. 3 I have been much 
 surprised that it has received so little attention on 
 the part of neurologists and criminologists. It is 
 the fate of psychoanalysts. The current fashion in 
 *Nervdse Angstzustande, 2nd ed., p. 336.
 
 Epilepsy 23 
 
 science has decreed our ban, our works are over- 
 looked and are neglected even when they are of fun- 
 damental significance, like my contribution on 
 epilepsy. 
 
 Epilepsy, with the exception of the Jacksonian 
 type, is a particular form of hysteria. In the 
 hysterical attack, too, the unconscious forces break 
 through and the individual carries out various in- 
 stinctive promptings while his consciousness is side- 
 tracked. The epileptic attack represents more the 
 criminal, the hysterical corresponds more to the 
 sexual urge. Naturally the epileptic attack may 
 also substitute some sexual crime (crime passionelle), 
 and that, frequently, is the theme of the attack. It 
 is thus obvious that homosexuals who shun crimes 
 of passion may fall easily a victim to attacks dur- 
 ing which the crimes are carried out vicariously. In 
 our study of sadism we shall analyze in detail such 
 a case. 4 Here I wish to point out merely the 
 interesting fact that during the epileptic at- 
 tack heterosexuals commit homosexual acts and re- 
 versely. 
 
 56. Mr. W. H., 39 years of age, a strongly built 
 young man, comes to me to be treated for epilepsy 
 and every time he is accompanied by an attendant. 
 Since his 16th year he suffers attacks and several 
 times he was seized while on the street. For that 
 
 * Vol. V. in: Disorders of Instincts and Emotions. English 
 version by Dr. Van Teslaar.
 
 24 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 reason he does not go out alone and is always accom- 
 panied by his attendant, -a simple fellow to whom 
 he seems much attached. He is totally incapaci- 
 tated from following any occupation for it turns 
 out that his attacks are more frequent when he 
 endeavors to work. On account of his attacks he 
 has prevailed upon his well-to-do father to keep 
 him in the country where he has nothing to do but 
 to go on walks. He is soft and pliant so long as 
 things go his way. But if contradicted he flies into 
 great rage. He does not burst out with anger but 
 tries to control himself and soon afterwards he has 
 an attack during which he sees red. He reproaches 
 himself a great deal on account of his failure to 
 achieve something in life and because he is the 
 cause of so much trouble to his parents. His ethi- 
 cal standard is a very high one and that is a point 
 of great significance in the differential diagnosis of 
 genuine epilepsy. He bemoans his misspent life and 
 wants to be cured. If only there were some way 
 to free him of the trouble! Regarding his sexual 
 life: he relates that he is decidedly homosexual and 
 that boys and handsome young men particularly 
 attract him. The attendant is clearly a protection 
 against his homosexual excitations. When he meets 
 boys who attract him he clings to his attendant 
 pretending to fear an oncoming attack. While liv- 
 ing in the country at the present his attacks come 
 on only at night and in bed. He does not recall the
 
 Epilepsy 25 
 
 aura, except that he sees red, and he remembers no 
 dream starting or accompanying the attack. He 
 masturbates occasionally ; always with the fancy 
 that he is playing with small boys. I suggest to his 
 parents that he ought to be psychoanalyzed. In 
 view of the hopeless character of other current 
 therapy this may be his only chance of recovery. 
 The father agrees. But as the patient lives some 
 distance from Vienna I advise the father to remove 
 him to the city for the duration of the treatment. 
 This he also agrees to do. Next day the mother 
 calls and asks me to use my influence to prevent the 
 boy from staying in Vienna. That would bring him 
 back home and she is tremendously afraid of him. 
 Her husband does not know it, she has kept it from 
 him. During the attacks the son turns on her and 
 attempts to attack her. Once she succeeded to re- 
 pel him only by the exercise of her strength. Dur- 
 ing the attack he rolls his eyes fearfully and 
 threatens she must die because she is responsible for 
 everything. I arrange that the patient should see 
 me only twice a week after that. But on the third 
 appointment he failed to appear, because I had 
 stipulated as one of the first conditions of my treat- 
 ment that he must go to work. The very next day 
 he reacted with several attacks. The father found 
 that the treatment proved "too exciting" for the 
 boy, and I agreed readily to give up the analysis 
 when the father took entirely the son's side and
 
 26 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 disagreed with the suggestion that the boy must 
 take up some occupation. 
 
 This case shows the outbreak of homosexuality 
 during the attacks and an affective relationship to 
 the mother such as is shown by many homosexuals, 
 as we shall explain more fully later. 
 
 The reverse also happens, heterosexuals com- 
 mitting homosexual deeds during the attacks. The 
 repressed components of sexuality always break 
 through during the attack. 
 
 Tarnowsky, too, speaks of "epileptic peder- 
 asty." 5 The "epileptic pederasts" are usually of 
 active character. As an example he mentions the 
 case of a criminal who came under his personal ob- 
 servation. A young man, wealthy, apparently fully 
 heterosexual, goes to the house of his beloved after 
 a sumptuous dinner during which he had imbibed 
 a great amount of wine. The lady of the house 
 not being at home he went to a room where a 14- 
 year-old boy was asleep, assaulted him and also 
 the chamber maid who ran to the spot attracted by 
 the boy's outcries. After that he fell into a sleep 
 which lasted 12 hours. When he awoke he recalled 
 nothing of the episode. It was found that he was 
 subject to epileptic attacks particularly after wine. 
 Hirschfeld observes in this connection: 
 
 11 B. Tarnowsky, Die krankhaften Erscheinungen des Ge- 
 schlechssinnes (The Morbid Manifestations of the Sexual In- 
 stinct). Fine forensisch-psychiatrische Studie. Berlin, 1886, 
 p. 51 ff.
 
 Epilepsy 27 
 
 "Usually the epileptic neurosis which, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, I have noticed but rarely among homo- 
 sexuals influences homosexuality in the sense of 
 removing the inhibitions and increasing the impul- 
 sive energy of the instinctive cravings. I have had 
 under examination a particularly serious case of 
 this character, a man-servant, subject to epilepsy 
 who during a fit of rage and anger strangled to 
 death and then hacked to pieces a boy. In this, as 
 in similar cases, there was a previous history of a 
 fusion of homosexuality and epilepsy. At any rate 
 it is conceivable that during the beclouding of con- 
 sciousness induced by the epileptic seizure all 
 psychic factors undergo such a complete trans- 
 formation that even tendencies ordinarily wholly 
 foreign to consciousness and not even tolerated in 
 the foreconscious, insofar as the latter may be re- 
 vealed, find ready outlet. Burchard, too, has ob- 
 served an epileptic of normal sexuality who during 
 the seizures committed homosexual assaults on other 
 patients." (Hirschfeld, loc. cit., p. 214.) 
 
 What I have said about the influence of alcoholics 
 holds true also of epileptic attacks. The latter 
 also neutralize the inhibitions and the bisexual and 
 criminal aspects of human nature come clearly to 
 surface. It is noteworthy that Tarnowsky's pa- 
 tient also indulged in alcohol before the onset of 
 the attack.
 
 28 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 The following case shows that the attacks may 
 also be simulated: 
 
 57. Mr. Z. T., a bisexual, subject to anxiety 
 attacks, relates that he suffered a great deal once 
 because his mother devoted herself very lovinglv 
 to a brother during the latter's illness. He was 22 
 years of age at the time and extremely jealous. 
 Once he found himself alone in the room with his 
 mother. Without knowing what he was doing he 
 threw himself on her with the intent of assaulting 
 her. The mother shouted and the sisters and serv- 
 ants came rushing in. He simulated an epileptic 
 fit, threw himself on the floor and remained for an 
 hour apparently in a faint. Physicians were called 
 in and they declared the condition epilepsy. For 
 two days he acted as if he heard nothing of what 
 was said and knew nothing of what was going on. 
 His deed caused him endless shame. He was not 
 reproached on account of it and he spent two months 
 in a comfortable sanatorium. 
 
 How closely related are make-believe and illness 
 with every neurotic ! This young man suffered also 
 from fear and disgust of women but that, as well as 
 his whole anxiety neurosis, disappeared completely 
 under psychoanalytic treatment. The case stands 
 as one of my most successful therapeutic accom- 
 plishments. 
 
 We turn our attention now to a consideration
 
 Aversion 29 
 
 of the disgust with which homosexuals are inspired 
 by the other sex. I have already repeatedly stated 
 that the disgust represents a repressed desire, that 
 it stands for the repulsion of unbearable tendencies. 
 Heterosexuals show a similar aversion for their own 
 sex, a feeling which the homosexuals have re- 
 pressed. That much the very beginner in psycho- 
 analysis knows ; the observation belongs to the a b c 
 of practical psychology. Nevertheless, we still find 
 disgust and scorn of woman pointed out as proofs 
 of homosexuality. Disgust is not a proof of the 
 absence of the proper libido. The true homosexuals 
 would show a complete indifference towards the 
 opposite sex. Occasionally they do assume such in- 
 difference for their attitude is always affective 
 and negativistic. Hirschfeld contradicts himself 
 repeatedly on this point. 
 
 In one place he emphasizes that the genuine homo- 
 sexual is indifferent towards woman and shows no 
 disgust : 
 
 "On this point also I find myself in agreement 
 with Numa Praetorius, 6 who in one of his essays 
 remarks that most persons 'show an inclination 
 towards one sex but only indifference towards the 
 other sex.' He is of the opinion that the disgust 
 of heterosexuals' feeling-attitude of disgust towards 
 homosexual deeds, too, is an intellectual process in- 
 " Jahrbuch f. swcuelle Zwischenttufen, vol. IX, 1908, p. 504.
 
 30 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 duced by the prevailing social attitude and judg- 
 ment rather than instinctive and innate. If the dis- 
 like were genuine heterosexuals would hardly get 
 along so easily and so often with homosexuals nor 
 would the latter carry on so readily masturbatory 
 acts with the opposite sex, even though the acts be 
 limited to mechanical excitations." (Hirschfeld, 
 loc. cit., p. 218.) 
 
 But another passage of the work reveals the op- 
 posite view: 
 
 "A 26-year-old workingman relates: 'At 17 years 
 of age an older friend of mine induced me once to 
 have sexual intercourse with a woman I was un- 
 aware at the time of my urning disposition and I 
 felt such disgust that I vomited. Since that time I 
 'have a "holy horror'* of any contact with woman, 
 until a few weeks ago when driven to despair I tried 
 to control myself. It was useless, I could attain 
 neither erection nor ejaculation and instead, the 
 continuous irritation brought on an inflammation 
 of the member.* ' 
 
 "A Bavarian merchant relates : 'As a result of 
 repeated intercourse with women I have acquired a 
 serious nervous derangement, a strong sense of las- 
 situde associated with vomiting and migraine last- 
 ing for days. The odor exhaled by woman causes 
 me greatest distress. I am now unable to gratify a 
 woman, but on the other hand contact with a sol-
 
 Aversion 31 
 
 dier makes me happy, it strengthens and revives 
 me." (Hirschfeld, loc. cit., p. 96.) 
 
 In the passage next following he expresses him- 
 self even more plainly : 
 
 "It is very striking to note that women in execu- 
 tive positions, directresses, etc., are much more se- 
 vere with the male employees, servants, etc., than 
 with the female personnel. There are homosexual 
 males who avoid any service by women and chiefly 
 for that reason dislike restaurants employing fe- 
 male waitresses. Also, there are homosexual women 
 who avoid business relations with men for similar 
 reasons. Without knowing why, homosexually pre- 
 disposed girls begin early to feel that being con- 
 ducted home by gentlemen is something superfluous 
 as well as unpleasant. Many timings and urlinds 
 actually experience a physical distress when some 
 member of the opposite sex so much as helps them 
 on with their coat. / know several homosexual 
 physicians of extreme sensitiveness whose aversion 
 to the female characters is so strong that physical 
 examinations of women, particularly of their sexual 
 parts or breasts, is highly repulsive to them and the 
 aversion may go so far as to make it impossible for 
 them to undertake such an examination." (Hirsch- 
 feld, loc. cit., p. 98.) 
 
 Such accounts prove that the attitude of the 
 homosexual towards the opposite sex is not one of
 
 32 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 indifference. Where that is claimed it may be 
 doubted; at any rate it does not correspond with 
 psychoanalytic experience. Hatred, anger, disgust, 
 physical discomfort serve as protections against the 
 other sex. That is true of male as well as of the 
 female homosexuals. 
 
 For a short space I shall now limit my observa- 
 tions to male homosexuals. I shall attempt to make 
 clear how I have arrived at my present conception. 
 The homosexual's scorn of woman, his emotional 
 revulsion-attitude against the other sex, is precisely 
 what led me to formulate my new conceptions. I 
 had the opportunity to analyze a homosexual. Dur- 
 ing the very first consultation hours there was re- 
 vealed that heterosexual stage through which every 
 homosexual must pass. Previously it was my cus- 
 tom to refuse to analyze homosexuals because I had 
 assumed Hirschfeld's view that uranism is an innate 
 condition. This particular patient suffered of vari- 
 ous anxiety attacks and came to be treated for his 
 anxiety not for his homosexuality. His anxiety 
 state showed itself particularly as a fear of woman 
 so that he could not trust himself to be alone with 
 one. Among his acquaintances there was also a 
 very sympathetic spinster. They went on walks 
 together for hours but his fear still dominated him 
 and he could never trust himself with her alone 
 in a room. They held their conversations either in 
 a public garden or at a restaurant. Naturally I
 
 The Other Sex 33 
 
 looked into this anxiety condition and began to in- 
 vestigate this homosexual who had maintained rela- 
 tions with an elderly gentleman for years, with ref- 
 erence to his heterosexuality. I was surprised when 
 he brought forth countless heterosexual reminis- 
 cences from his childhood. During the first few 
 days I heard the usual history of urnings: the lik- 
 ing for girls* games, womanly behavior, he had 
 always been more like a girl in everything, etc. But 
 soon the picture changed and the heterosexual ten- 
 dency became gradually more evident. His depend- 
 ence on the attachment to the mother was striking. 
 One-sided as my attitude was at the time, I made 
 certain deductions, somewhat hastily, regarding the 
 roots of homosexuality, and in the first edition of 
 my Angst zustdnde (1908), after several similar 
 experiences, I wrote: 
 
 "As is shown by my latest investigations these 
 cases are frequently neuroses. Some time homo- 
 sexuality improves or may disappear under psycho- 
 analysis. Homosexuality represents merely the 
 complete revulsion of infantile incestuous thoughts. 
 Homosexual males never experience any erotic feel- 
 ing in contact with a strange woman ; they confess 
 that they can feel towards these women only as 
 towards a sister or the mother. That discloses to 
 us the roots of homosexuality. The concept 'wom- 
 an' is unalterably fused with the concepts 'mother*
 
 34 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 and 'sister.' The Abwehr of incestuous fancies de- 
 termines the flight into homosexuality. That trans- 
 position naturally is facilitated through correspond- 
 ing somatic changes. The homosexual, too, is a vic- 
 tim of infantile reminiscences. Thus homosexuality 
 'turns out to be but a special form of the neurotic 
 repression." 
 
 With youthful impetuosity I formulated the re- 
 sults of my investigations somewhat hastily at the 
 time and expressed the therapeutic results in too 
 optimistic a tone. In the course of time I learned 
 to know better. Many patients who considered 
 themselves cured were only improved and stuck to 
 their uranism. We shall have to speak of that with 
 full particulars. 
 
 For the present I must consider more fully the 
 theme "mother and homosexuality." The relation- 
 ship between the two I had originally conceived ac- 
 cording to the Freudian formula. I did not see at 
 the time the influence of other forces, such as I have 
 already pointed out here. The earliest dream of 
 my first homosexual, for instance, was about a 
 murder, the victim being a woman; I did not under- 
 stand that dream. I did not know that the fear of 
 woman stood for the fear of criminal tendencies, 
 that the subject was a sadist who had saved him- 
 self through homosexuality from committing some 
 regrettable deed. These impulses accompanied the
 
 The Other Sex 35 
 
 incest phantasies which were unusually strong and 
 of which he was fully aware long before analysis. 
 The latter were merely pushed out of consciousness 
 as unbearable. A short time later Sadger pub- 
 lished his first analysis of a homosexual and in that 
 contribution he formulated the thesis that like every 
 other neurosis homosexuality arises during the 
 fourth year and that the task of analysis, there- 
 fore, must be to reach back to the fourth year. 7 
 
 Sadger emphasized: "From the very first I as- 
 sumed that the homosexual tendencies may be ac- 
 quired only if they are formed during the first four 
 years, precisely as in the case of hysteria and com- 
 pulsive neurosis and that psychoanalysis ought to 
 uncover the fact. What stood beyond psychoanaly- 
 sis must be innate and corresponds to the sexual 
 constitution proper." 
 
 That work, extremely one-sided and full of con- 
 tradictions, still attempts to reduce homosexuality 
 to the love of the father. The mother plays a 
 limited role. It is mentioned passingly that the sub- 
 ject of the analysis had never loved a being so 
 dearly as the mother; but even before the mother's 
 
 ' Fragment der Psychoanalyse eines Homos exuellen (Jahrb. 
 f. sexuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. IX, 1908). [A typical illus- 
 tration of the wrong way of carrying on a psychoanalysis, the 
 kind of painful ordeal during which the subject calls out in 
 distress: "But, pardon me, what mmt I tell you? You just 
 torture me, nothing less !" The most important relations are 
 overlooked, the patient is tortured to admit that he is in love 
 with Sadger, so that after fourteen hours of this sort of tor- 
 ment he runs off.]
 
 86 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 death an aunt had attracted to herself the boy's 
 love. 
 
 But what are the conclusions drawn by Sadger 
 from the case ? None whatever ! He is pleased that 
 he has been able to bring to light such interesting 
 material but knows not what to do with it. Among 
 the various questions and answers there is a very 
 significant passage suggesting an important con- 
 clusion. Concerning his attachment to the mother 
 the subject states: "And my love arose chiefty 
 through compassion, because father drank a great 
 deal lately and paid attention to other women and 
 mother often wept and that made me feel badly." 
 
 That is a fact which I have had occasion fre- 
 quently to corroborate. The children of drinkers 
 and "woman-chasers" turn easily homosexual, in 
 the endeavor to be unlike the father. They then 
 hate woman and scorn everything that the father 
 liked in particular. They become abstinent and try 
 to behave contrary to the father in every respect. 
 
 Sadger's patient actually points out this ten- 
 dency. He states: "Father clearly had no homo- 
 sexual inclination as he was a great admirer of 
 women. From the time he began telling me about 
 the school he was particularly fond of French 
 women he also advised me to marry only a French 
 woman and showed me French pictures and the 
 photos of various French women. It was thus in-
 
 The Parental Imago 37 
 
 stilled in me that I ought to marry a French wom- 
 an." And what did the father accomplish thereby? 
 Was it jealousy or pity and love for the mother? 
 The father accomplished the contrary of what he 
 set out to do. Instead of obedience he was met 
 with spite. The subject relates : "Later when I be- 
 came aware of my homosexual inclinations, every- 
 thing French-like was particularly hateful to me, 
 especially the French women, I no longer liked the 
 French language or anything whatever related to 
 French. . . ." 
 
 The subject had a pronounced fear of marriage, 
 having seen a sad example of it in his own home. 
 He dreams of getting married, a minister is about 
 to perform the ceremony, and he is so unhappy in 
 the midst of it that upon awakening his happiness 
 knows no bounds. He fears every great passion. 
 "I am afraid of a really tremendous love, because 
 such a passion always makes me unhappy." The 
 analysis discloses other relations to the father 
 which are of greatest significance. 
 
 The feeling-attitude in question dates in fact 
 from the earliest childhood. As yet we are ignorant 
 of child nature and we do not fully appreciate that 
 the fundamental traits of life show themselves very 
 definitely during early childhood. This boy must 
 have conceived early the thought : I must not be like 
 the father! and so he turned away from women be-
 
 38 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 cause the father was an admirer of that sex. 
 Whether this choice of attitude was also influenced 
 directly by love for the father I am unable to assert 
 in that particular case. It seems to play a con- 
 tributory role and greatly denied love may enhance 
 the child's attachment to the mother. But does not 
 the example of a drinking "woman-chaser" con- 
 trasted to the picture of a quiet suffering mother 
 seem to be enough to induce the differentiation and 
 to maintain it as its underlying determining mo- 
 tive? Back of the homosexuality of the first case 
 of the kind analyzed by Sadger stands the subject's 
 fear of becoming like his father. The violent fancies 
 disclosed in the course of the analysis show that 
 there are also other reasons for the subject's fear 
 of woman. He is so constituted that he cannot see 
 blood. This peculiarity denotes the conversion of 
 a craving for violence and signifies a repressed 
 sadism. 
 
 In Russia he once witnessed how a man split his 
 wife's head open with a stone. . . . The occurrence 
 so impressed him that he could never get it out of 
 his mind, and he also likes to dwell on wars and 
 other bloody scenes. 
 
 There can be no doubt the man is a sadist and 
 that with reference to women in particular. He 
 has full reason to fear woman. His fear is fear of 
 himself. He must turn to man, towards whom he 
 does not feel the instinctive sexual hatred which
 
 , The Parental Imago 39 
 
 makes heterosexual excitations impossible for him. 
 When he has intercourse with a woman, he feels 
 subsequently a tremendous disgust and revulsion, 
 the whole thing seems to him unnatural. In the 
 end he gives up all such attempts. 
 
 Obviously he is all the time seeking a kindly pre- 
 eminent father for he falls in love with an elderly 
 philosopher, out of respect for philosophy, as he 
 paralogizes, because he looks to philosophy to re- 
 deem him from his suffering. The differentiation is 
 an attempt at gaining freedom, a tendency to over- 
 come the nature of the father. The love of the 
 philosopher is a substitution for the love of the 
 father. 
 
 Thus we see the importance of the early life his- 
 tory of every subject for the understanding of 
 homosexuality. The constellation of childhood per- 
 mits the reading of the horoscope for the future. 
 Perhaps this uncontrovertible truth contains the 
 root of all astrologic art, "the planetary laws gov- 
 erning the facts of life." The father as the sun, 
 the mother as the milder moon and the children, the 
 stars. Our fate arranges itself in accordance with 
 the constellation of these planets. Blind accident 
 and innate forces cooperate to create man as he is. 
 
 But let us look further into the investigations of 
 Sadger to whom the credit must not be denied of 
 having applied himself earnestly to the attempt of 
 solving the problem of homosexuality.
 
 40 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 His next publication appeared also in 1908. 8 
 Here we find clearly taken into account the infan- 
 tile heterosexual attitude which all homosexuals 
 usually forget but which always precedes genuine 
 homosexuality. 
 
 "The young student, 21 years of age at the time, 
 was sent to me, because he was tormented by vari- 
 ous homosexual inclinations, especially directed to- 
 wards young boys 14-20 years of age, associated 
 with all sorts of masochistic feelings. In contact 
 with woman (a prostitute with whom he sought in- 
 tercourse three times till then, the first two times 
 spontaneously, to see whether he is at all potent, 
 the third time, on medical advice as well as upon 
 his father's insistence) he found himself entirely 
 impotent. Questioned whether he ever felt any in- 
 clination towards the opposite sex, he only recalls 
 that when he was two or three years of age he once 
 opened the garden gate for a girl of about his own 
 age, with a flourish of extreme gallantry. Con- 
 cerning any hereditary factors he can only relate 
 that a brother of his mother's had some mental 
 trouble. The mother herself seemed to have some- 
 thing boy-like and manly about her, on the other 
 hand the father showed very little sensuousness and 
 rather pronounced inverted traits, while a sister, 
 who died early, had a very boy-like facial expression. 
 
 *J. Badger: 1st die kontrare Sexitalempfindung heilbar? 
 Zeitschr. f. Sexualwissenschaft, 1908, p. 712.
 
 Infantile Heterosexuality 41 
 
 She preferred boyish games and at 4 or 5 years of 
 age she chose a boy's hobby horse for her Christ- 
 mas present. Some female cousins on mother's as 
 well as on father's side were clearly amphigen- 
 ously inverted. The subject himself had unusually 
 broad hips and the growth of his facial hair was 
 noticeably scant. As a child he is supposed to have 
 played only with dolls, never with soldiers, he never 
 took part in boys* games and he also learned em- 
 broidery. 
 
 "Plainly a clear case of inversion with maso- 
 chistic traits. What was revealed through the 
 analysis of this particularly intelligent subject? In 
 the first place, a remarkable peculiarity : his earliest 
 inclinations were directed towards women, not 
 some one in particular, but a number of them. His 
 first beloved was tlie mother and, of course, after a 
 time he turned away from her. After that he felt 
 himself tremendously attracted to an elderly mother 
 of children, proposed marriage to her and that woman 
 later figured in many of his pubertal coitus 
 dreams. Next he displayed such an extreme gal- 
 lantry towards a girl of his own age that it be- 
 came very noticeable and his mother spoke to him 
 about it and he felt very ashamed and uneasy. 
 
 "During his childhood a servant maid also had 
 made a deep impression on his feelings and she re- 
 appears in various male types. Among the homo- 
 sexual inclinations traceable to the first years I
 
 42 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 look upon his attachment to a couple of uncles as 
 the strongest and most significant, next the love 
 of a 9-year-old boy belonging to the nobility 
 (baron). In his fourth year the attachment to a 
 boy who taught him masturbation, in his sixth and 
 seventh years the influence of a private teacher. 
 During his fourth year, on account of his mother's 
 condition, following childbirth, he slept for a time 
 with his father in one bed and this suggested vari- 
 ous homosexual wishes and fancies. When a little 
 sister came into the world he promptly fell in love 
 with her. Even more striking is the subject's nor- 
 mal sexual calf-love affairs in his seventh and 
 eighth years with three or four schoolgirl mates of 
 about his age. It turned out that each one of these 
 girls contributed some traits to the types, both 
 male and female, which later were alone capable of 
 rousing his emotional interest. 
 
 "These facts, of which the subject was entirely 
 unconscious and which had to be brought to surface 
 after months of diligent analysis, yield an entirely 
 new picture. First of all they show us how little 
 even the most intelligent person knows himself, and, 
 consequently, how careful we must be in accepting 
 even the most candid statements. Secondly, that 
 even pure cases of inversion do not exclude the 
 presence of normal sexual inclinations, indeed, that 
 the latter may actually be present, though the sub- 
 ject be unaware of the fact. Thirdly, and
 
 Infantile Hetero sexuality 43 
 
 finally, that the inversion is traceable as far back 
 as the fourth year although it may reach conscious- 
 ness only during puberty." 
 
 Here already I must point out the first contra- 
 diction. It is not a fact that the inversion is trace- 
 able back to the fourth year. I have analyzed a 
 number of cases in which the inversion arose after 
 puberty and much later. The beginnings of the 
 homosexual disposition reach into childhood with 
 all persons. This turning away from the other sex 
 may break forth early in some cases and in others 
 much later. But it is a fact that every analysis 
 discloses the heterosexual trait which the homo- 
 sexuals forget, or speaking more correctly, repress, 
 because it does not appear to fit into their system. 
 Analytically this case of Sadger's seems to me to be 
 an instance of fixation upon the sister. The boys 
 are substitutes for the sister. We will give the 
 histories of several such cases. He who understands 
 the neurotic's art of metamorphosing his ideals, he 
 who has learned through their dreams to appre- 
 ciate this trick of substitution, will readily appre- 
 ciate that a girl may be loved through falling in 
 love with a boy. It is related of Platen that he 
 possessed a marvelous phantasy. For a long time 
 a colleague was changed for him into an owl whom 
 he avoided on the way. In Neapel he kept for days 
 a cat on his lap pretending it was an enchanted
 
 44 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 princess. Genuine fetichism shows to what unbe- 
 lievable metamorphoses the sexual ideal is subjected. 
 With the homosexuals to find a boy who stands as 
 symbol for self or for a sister is a common experi- 
 ence. Like all neurotics they do not possess the 
 capacity to distinguish between the world of fancy 
 and that of reality. I have called neurosis the 
 tyranny of symbolisms. This is particularly true 
 of the neurotic who becomes homosexual. All 
 values are transformed, the object becomes subject 
 and vice versa. In the midst of this transforma- 
 tion of all facts one thing remains fast and true: 
 the infantile ideal which is yearned for with the per- 
 sistence generated by the eternally ungratified 
 craving. 
 
 In his next contribution Sadger reports the re- 
 sults of the analysis of an invert during a period of 
 six months (Zur JEtiologie der kontraren Sexual- 
 empfindung, Med. Klinik, 1909, No. 2). The spe- 
 cial preference of his patient for passive pederasty 
 he traces to the frequent use of enemas during child- 
 hood. (In fact it seems to me that the many un- 
 necessary enemas administered during early child- 
 hood may contribute towards the fixation of the 
 anus as an erogenous zone.) He also traces out in 
 this case the repressed heterosexuality. "The va- 
 cillations of the libido between male and female are 
 like the facial innervation which, as is well known,
 
 Early Fixation 45 
 
 is based on the equilibrium between the muscles in- 
 nervated simultaneously by the pair of facialis 
 nerves. Paralysis of the facialis nerve on one side 
 causes not only weakness of the muscles on the af- 
 fected side but induces also contractures of the 
 muscles on the opposite side." The patient re- 
 ferred to was attached exclusively to his father, 
 who, himself somewhat homosexually inclined, won 
 the child's heart through his excessive tenderness, 
 in contrast to the rather severe mother. During 
 his fourth year, on account of the mother's preg- 
 nant state, he slept with his father, an occurrence 
 to which Sadger attaches great significance. The 
 objects of the boy's homosexual attachments bore 
 some resemblance to the beloved sister. He weaned 
 himself away from his attachment to his mother 
 during his fifteenth year, when he saw his mother 
 deformed with a tremendous ascites on account of 
 which she had to be tapped a number of times. Her 
 appearance at the time filled him with disgust for 
 all women. As over-determination of this feeling- 
 attitude of aversion he recalls the following: after 
 the puerperium referred to above his mother had a 
 profuse leucorrheal discharge which the boy, al- 
 ready sensitive to all scents he was four years of 
 age at the time found very repulsive whenever he 
 approached his mother. The subject also recalls 
 vividly how his mother repulsed his aggressive ways 
 with her, between his 3rd and 6th year. ("He
 
 46 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 always wanted to grab her by the breasts and tried 
 to go to her room and to the bathroom as soon as 
 she went in.") 
 
 Much as physicians unacquainted with infantile 
 sexuality may ignore such aggressions they do take 
 place and some mothers have verified them for me. 
 On the other hand it is hardly likely that a child 
 four years of age should be repelled from the mother 
 on account of scent. At that early age scent is 
 rather a stimulant and is never accompanied by 
 disgust. 
 
 I turn now to the last and most comprehensive 
 deductions formulated by Sadger in his study en- 
 titled: Ein Fall von multipler perversion mit hys- 
 terischen Absenzen ('A case of multiple perversions 
 with hysterical amnesias*). 9 
 
 This work contains a chapter entitled "New Con- 
 tributions to the Theory of Homosexuality." Here 
 Sadger abandons entirely his former notion about 
 the significance of the fourth year and states : 
 "Permanent inclination towards one's own sex 
 usually comes to surface and is certainly increased 
 during puberty, or during the prepubescent period 
 at the earliest, in our latitude around the tenth or 
 eleventh year. Occasionally an earlier onset is re- 
 corded and every case of that kind is due to some 
 special factors." Permanent homosexuality is es- 
 
 Jahrb. f. psychoanalytische u. psychopathol. Forschungen, 
 vol. II, 1910.
 
 Early Fixation 47 
 
 tablished through some significant incident which 
 leads to the repression of the mother in her role as 
 helper and teacher. Such incidents are death, 
 sudden financial reverse, and consequent serious 
 neurosis, making sanatorium treatment necessary, 
 inconsiderate persecution of the boy on account of 
 masturbation and similar traumata. The love feel- 
 ing is turned from the mother to the father, or to 
 older comrades, or to comrades of about the same 
 age, who stand as substitutes for the mother and 
 initiate the boy into the facts of love. . . ." 
 
 The path to homosexuality leads over love of 
 self, through narcissism. "The state of being in love 
 with one's own person, which shows itself also in the 
 admiration of one's own genitalia (sic), is never 
 absent as a developmental phase." Every person 
 has two aboriginal sexual objectives to which he 
 clings throughout life: the mother and self. The 
 father replaces self only for a short period be- 
 cause as the primary rival in his relationship to 
 the mother the child early assumes an antagonistic 
 attitude towards him. The urning hates woman for 
 an obvious reason: "when the best of women, my 
 own mother, amounts to no more than that, what 
 can there be to any other woman?" 
 
 Here follows a convincing proof that the urning 
 identifies himself with his mother. The urning al- 
 ways plans to instruct his beloved, for the mother 
 does it. (Does not the father, rather, do it?) The
 
 48 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 patient has instructed a waiter in geology and his- 
 tory of art, subjects which did not interest the 
 latter. But the mother had done the same. . . . 
 
 Most urnings are said to be "only" children. 
 (This statement like many another of Sadger's, is 
 positively false. Among 500 homosexuals Hirsch- 
 feld found only 67 "only" children and among them 
 only 54 were sons. My own statistical figures are 
 even smaller. But the percentage among my neu- 
 rotics is practically the same.) 
 
 Sadger summarizes his findings in five funda- 
 mental statements: 
 
 "1. The urnmg is a victim of withdrawal from 
 the mother (the first caretaker or nurse, respec- 
 tively) in whom he is himself seriously disappointed. 
 He represses the mother by identifying himself com- 
 pletely with her. 
 
 2. The path to homosexuality leads through nar- 
 cissism, that is, love of self, as one was, or as one 
 may ideally be. 
 
 3. The sexual ideal of the invert includes not 
 only traits of former female and male sexual ob- 
 jectives but also features of one's own beloved self. 
 
 4. Being brought up in surroundings exclusively 
 feminine the father does not count in such cir- 
 cumstances fosters homosexuality in the male as 
 well as in the female, for reasons that are not suf-
 
 Sadger's Conclusions 49 
 
 ficiently clear as yet. Moreover the urning is 
 usually an only child. 
 
 5. Finally inversion may be fostered by a sort 
 of 'latter-day obedience' to the mother's commands. 
 I have observed not rarely that mothers warn their 
 children against harmless, though warm and friendly 
 contact with the other sex, as something unpermis- 
 sible and bad and that the teaching thus instilled 
 may unfortunately increase the disposition to one's 
 own sex through later obedience." 
 
 The first of these conclusions is a false one. The 
 homosexual is not a victim of withdrawal from the 
 mother, but rather of a fixation on her. But this 
 subject will be discussed fully later. 
 
 One represses no person with whom one identifies 
 one's self. Identification is direct love, differentia- 
 tion means repression. Many homosexuals identify 
 themselves with the mother of that there can be 
 no doubt. But that identification already implies 
 the repression of the father-ideal. The problem of 
 homosexuality cannot be solved one-sidedly, and I 
 have the records of a number of cases in which the 
 mother plays no role whatever. 
 
 The only psychologic hypothesis we possess 
 Sadger's fails to satisfy on account of its one- 
 sidedness. It holds true of certain cases. But it 
 neglects entirely the great significance of sadism,
 
 50 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 it overlooks the fact that the attachment to the 
 father is more important and more deeply repressed 
 than the love for the mother, it overlooks entirely 
 the identification with the father and the differentia- 
 tion from him and it fails altogether to explain the 
 occurrence of later homosexuality, which is of par- 
 ticular interest to us (tardive Homosexualitat). 
 The awakening of homosexuality is ascribed to a 
 period which varies according to the different in- 
 vestigators all the way from the fifth to the twen- 
 tieth year, and even later. I mention here the ages 
 shown in the first twenty of my cases taken at ran- 
 dom. Homosexuality became manifest at 12, 10, 12, 
 15, 16, 22, 13, 11, 14, 8, 14, 12, 17, 17, 17, 13, 21, 
 15, 17, 24 (Average, 15). 
 
 The ages as given are generally high, only in 
 one subject did the homosexual attitude become 
 manifest as early as the eighth year. But that, 
 certainly, is incorrect. For we know that the homo- 
 sexual leaning is present already during the earliest 
 period and positively that children's feeling-attitude 
 is bisexual during the first few years. The figures 
 are significant only as showing us that "genuine 
 homosexuality" is preceded by a lengthy period of 
 latency.
 
 n 
 
 ROLE OF THE FATHER AND OF OTHER MEMBERS OF 
 
 THE FAMILY DISLIKE OF CHILDREN LETTER OF 
 
 A HOMOSEXUAL WHO FEARS THE "PENETRATING 
 
 EYE" OF WOMEN A MARRIAGE WITH THE FATHER 
 
 JEALOUSY OF THE FATHER A HOMOSEXUAL 
 
 WHO HATES HIS MOTHER A BELOVED BOY AS 
 
 THE IMAGO OF THE SISTER PSYCHOLOGY OF 
 
 LOVE WITHIN THE FAMILY CIRCLE FEAR OF THE 
 
 CHILD A GIRL WHO HATES ALL CHILDREN 
 
 DIFFERENTIATION FROM THE MOTHER.
 
 Wenn wir nun alles dieses uns vergegenwartigen 
 und wohl erwagen so sehen wir die Pdderastie zu 
 alien Zeiten und in alien Landern auf eine weise 
 auftreten, die gar weit entfernt ist von der, welche 
 wir zuerst, als wir sie bloss an sich selbst betrach- 
 teten, also a priori, vorausgesetzt hatten. Nam- 
 lich die gdnzliche Allgemeinheit und beharrliche 
 Unausrottbarkeit der Sache beweist, dass sie 
 irgendwie aus der menschlichen Natur selbst 
 herausgeht; da sie nur aus diesem Grunde jederzeit 
 and uberall unausbleiblich auftreten kann als Beleg 
 zu dem naturam expelles furca, tamen usque re- 
 current. Schopenhauer.
 
 II 
 
 Considering all that and taking everything care- 
 fully into account we find that pederasty has been 
 manifest at all times and in all countries in a man- 
 ner very unlike what we had at first presumed a 
 priori, that is, by considering abstractly the sub- 
 ject. Precisely its complete universality and ir- 
 radicable character everywhere shows that the thing 
 somehow flows out of human nature itself; only in 
 that way could it persist at all times and every- 
 where as an accompaniment to naturam expelles 
 furca, tamen usque recurrent. 
 
 Schopenhauer. 
 
 I begin this chapter with the history of a case, 
 a subject with whom I have never spoken. I know 
 him only through correspondence. Nevertheless the 
 case seems to me of great significance as it substan- 
 tiates many of my previous conclusions. The need 
 of psychologic insight as shown by our necessarily 
 brief histories of homosexuals becomes more fully 
 obvious as we become acquainted with a complete 
 analysis of a homosexual. 
 
 62. Mr. G. L. writes me: 
 53
 
 54 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 "I shall attempt to conform with your request 
 and give you a cursive and true insight into my 
 sexual and mental life. Born and raised the young- 
 est of ten children, three of whom died early of 
 children's diseases, I lived in the country till my 
 5th year, when I started going to school and I re- 
 member nothing of that period except that I 
 was tremendously fond of playing with fire and 
 that I kept up till then, more or less, the habit of 
 bed-wetting, an act which was associated with the 
 pleasurable feeling that I was sitting on the cham- 
 ber. I know also that I envied my sisters a great 
 deal. My unusually strict and religious parents 
 naturally subjected me to rigorous training and thus 
 I learned early to distinguish between mine and 
 thine, good and evil, truth and falsehood. Contin- 
 ually watched over by parents and instructors a 
 custom contrary to the modern spirit I was kept 
 from many of the children's games. 
 
 "When I did play, it was mostly with boys and I 
 do not recall having preferred the company of girls. 
 My free time was taken up a great deal with agri- 
 cultural pursuits and I was about 8 years of age 
 when the first sexual episode took place which left 
 an impression on my mind, having witnessed that 
 year how some boys of my own age played with the 
 sexual parts of a dog and, another time, how the 
 same boys played with their own sexual parts, tak- 
 ing one another's member in the mouth, but with-
 
 Early Life History 55 
 
 out feeling on my part any desire to imitate them. 
 With girls I came but little into contact as a child, 
 but I remember once having been present when sev- 
 eral boys; 11-12 years of age, abused a girl but I 
 took no part in the deed. At about that period I 
 put on women's clothes a few times though today a 
 man in women's clothes rather disgusts me. Two 
 incidents concerning me personally are still vivid 
 in my memory, namely, playing once with my priv- 
 ates, in the presence of other boys, and another 
 time, warmly embracing the naked body of another 
 boy while playing a 'mother and father' game. 
 Thirteen years thus passed with nothing eventful 
 taking place, except a fall from a tree as the result 
 of which I hurt myself rather seriously. It was at 
 that period that my teacher, who considered me not 
 only a bright boy but a model student as well, pre- 
 vailed upon my struggling parents to permit me 
 to continue my schooling. I was able to secure, in 
 fact, a free scholarship at an Institute. Shortly 
 after that a schoolmate grew attached to me and he 
 taught me to masturbate. Although I had already 
 erections, there was no seminal loss, probably on 
 account of deficient development. He and another 
 schoolmate prevailed on me to masturbate then 
 but nothing more. About that time other comrades 
 were in the habit of speaking of some girl or other, 
 admiring her beauty. This talk about a 'pretty 
 girV struck me as strange, so far as I remember.
 
 56 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 It was during my second high school year (gym- 
 nasial-klasse), I may have been just over my 14th 
 year, at the time, when a teacher appeared in class 
 with the trousers absent-mindedly unbuttoned and 
 when I noticed it my eyes became glued on his 
 trouser fly as though in a trance, and thus I awoke, 
 for the first time, to the sad realization of my sexual 
 bend. From that time on I noticed that I was ex- 
 traordinarily attracted to this teacher although he 
 did not like me in school. It was then that my first 
 struggles, the first wishes in my awakened boyish 
 soul, began to shape themselves. There were two 
 boys in particular who, among others, charmed me 
 with their attractiveness. I masturbated a great 
 deal during that period, without indulging in any 
 particular phantasies, occasionally in the company 
 of other boys. But I had the feeling of being sex- 
 ually attracted to boys and in my dreams appeared 
 the wish to be their friend. But the stimuli were 
 not of a character which I found impossible to curb. 
 Next I felt myself irresistibly attracted to an el- 
 derly man. Neither in the waking state nor in my 
 dreams did I think at all of women during that time. 
 Around my 18th year I experienced the first stormy 
 upheaval which nearly unbalanced me. I came into 
 close touch with a distant relative, an attractive, 
 interesting and splendid intellectual man who, more- 
 over, was happily married. I then passed through 
 the anguish of unrequited love, kept dreaming of
 
 Homosexual Fixation 57 
 
 what was beyond my reach, and endeavored to still 
 my unnatural passion through excessive onanism. 
 The keen struggle to preserve my secret, the intense 
 mental torture, caused me one day to break down. 
 The strict but kind-hearted talk of my relative in 
 whom, of necessity, I forced myself to confide, saved 
 me that time from suicide. The next day the house 
 physician was called, a cordial and kindly young 
 man, who took a strong professional interest in me. 
 Day after day he spoke to me and tried to influence 
 my mind and he succeeded in shifting my sexual feel- 
 ings entirely into the background and in about five 
 months he thought I was ready to try regular in- 
 tercourse. But the attempt proved a new defeat 
 for me. The secret aversion, the fear of infection, 
 made me prove myself impotent at the critical mo- 
 ment. But I did not tell the physician and shortly 
 thereafter he dismissed me as cured. There followed 
 again years of struggle. Fearing mental break- 
 down I was driven to the idea of seeking final re- 
 lease through suicide. But I lacked courage for 
 the deed. . . . Was it cowardice, was it the yearn- 
 ing of my sickly body that prevented me from end- 
 ing then a life unblessed by a single experience of 
 that highest yearning of a healthy body, the con- 
 summation of love? During that time my relative 
 also died and my anguish was unbearable. For I 
 was absorbed in that great passion of mine so deeply 
 that I had forgotten all about the rest of the world.
 
 58 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 I was hardly reconciled to that misfortune when 
 further anguish came into my life; several men 
 crossed my path with whom I would have no doubt 
 entered into intimacy if I had found any points of 
 contact. In my despairing mood I confided in 
 Hofrat W., who consoled me saying that my mis- 
 fortune could not be very deep rooted since I had 
 come to him about it. He advised me to seek in- 
 timacy with girls (I came a great deal in contact 
 with girls in the course of my daily work and also 
 forced myself to learn dancing). In accordance 
 with his advice I resorted to puellae publicae and 
 had intercourse a number of times but without par- 
 ticular pleasure or satisfaction. Yes, I went so far 
 as to propose marriage to a girl of a good family. 
 It was my fate not to meet with a favorable re- 
 sponse, although secretly I was gratified at that. 
 For I could not think that my supreme passion in- 
 timately and indissolubly linked to the nature, the 
 appearance and form of boyhood and charming old 
 age would ever be overcome. Springtide and au- 
 tumn, boyhood and old age, evoke in me the wonders 
 of development and suggest the soft quiet stealing 
 in of blissful eternal peace. Although the sense of 
 touch alone is enough to rouse in me the most won- 
 derful feeling of bliss, contact with a woman leaves 
 me indifferent, if it does not actually inspire me 
 with disgust. Thus I kept up for a time longer, 
 greatly agitated but unyielding, the fear of being
 
 Homosexual Fixation 59 
 
 discovered keeping me back. Tortured at night by 
 the yearnings of the day while dreaming of endless 
 bliss by conjuring up the most intimate scenes de- 
 picting contact, dreaming and thinking also of oral 
 (lip) contact, but never of any love act a posteriori. 
 In terror of being found out I blushed at the 
 lightest pointed joke when in company I often 
 thought of joining the foreign legion or to migrate 
 to some country where homosexual love is not looked 
 upon as a crime or as something shameful. 
 
 "Often I heard of places where persons of my 
 bent may be found but I never had the courage to 
 look them up, fearing that I would be recognized, 
 that I would be put to shame and that I should lose 
 my means of subsistence. I am particularly pained 
 at the thought that I must pass for an inferior 
 dissolute type while millions and millions of insig- 
 nificant tramps are placed on a higher level in the 
 eyes of the law, enjoy life and are even honored 
 and respected while I, in spite of possessing the 
 qualities of a truer manhood, must waste my life 
 in joyless existence. Two women came into my life 
 with whom I became somewhat intimate, one attract- 
 ing me temporarily because her physical appearance 
 was like that of a boy underdeveloped, the other, 
 because I was at the time under the influence of 
 alcohol. But I noticed in connection with those two 
 experiences that I felt no particular satisfaction 
 during bodily contact with the women or while kiss-
 
 60 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 ing them, in fact, many women cause me nausea if 
 I go much as take food out of their hand. Several 
 puellae publicae have tried to rouse my sexual feel- 
 ings (lambent es glandem membri), but in spite of 
 erection I felt no particular pleasure, and the act 
 was always followed by a feeling of despair the 
 same old story. Sometimes in my anguish I sought 
 the church and there I broke into tears and I yearn- 
 ingly clasped my hands in prayer without being a 
 believer at heart. Ofttimes I thought my mind must 
 be affected and thought I had to go to an asylum 
 for the insane but it would make my trouble known 
 to do so and I feared I should have to forego con- 
 tact with men forever after that. Occasionally 7 
 dreamed also of women, but without any particular 
 feelings, while if I dreamed of clasping in a warm 
 embrace or only touching or even merely looking at 
 a boy, or at an elderly man, I felt great pleasure. 
 I dreamed of contact with the lips. Something more 
 about the family : On account of father's strict dis- 
 cipline / inclined more to mother who was more in- 
 dulgent. One of four sisters is married, also both 
 brothers, happy and satisfied, I believe. (I am very 
 bashful with all my relations, old and young.) One 
 uncle only showed eccentricities and he remained 
 single. All my other habits of life are not unlike 
 those of any normal young man, I have friends who 
 are married and who are unaware of my condition. 
 But time after time I am tremendously agitated on
 
 Fear of the "Penetrating Eye" 01 
 
 account of my mental struggle. Finally, to con- 
 clude: my dear doctor, you cannot prevail upon me 
 again to try to look you up at your office because 
 the penetrating look of your office girl inspires me 
 with the fear that my condition is recognized and 
 diagnosed at a glance. If you feel inclined to ad- 
 vise me how best to withstand this craving or to 
 mention some country where I may go, I should be 
 very grateful to you if not, I have learned to bear 
 defeat." . . . 
 
 One of the usual confessions, overlooking most 
 important features. The self-incriminating feeling 
 of the masochist who has "learned to bear defeat," 
 is indicated by the ridiculous fear of the "penetrat- 
 ing look" of my office girl. This fear would prob- 
 ably be traced through analysis to his sadistic atti- 
 tude towards women. There are a number of other 
 interesting statements. He belongs to a family of 
 many children, a severe father, a negligent mother, 
 he is jealously envious of his sisters. A large num- 
 ber of homosexual episodes are related about his 
 childhood and his habit of putting on women's 
 clothes. That shows clearly the tendency to iden- 
 tify himself with the mother or sister. But why 
 did he want to be a woman? Why did he want to 
 assume the role of mother? He wanted to supply 
 a woman, to substitute the mother to his father. 
 Here it was the strong father who so attracted the
 
 62 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 boy that the latter wanted to be everything to him. 
 Subsequently he falls in love repeatedly with elderly 
 men who stand for substitutes of his father. The 
 elderly man is always the Imago of the father. 
 During the homosexual episodes with elderly men, 
 either actual or occurring merely in the boy's fancy, 
 he finds himself still a child towards whom the father 
 displays tenderness and who is permitted by the 
 father to carry on fellatio upon the latter. He is 
 also drawn to young boys. There he plays the role 
 of the father while the boy supplies the picture of 
 his own youth. 
 
 Interesting is his distinct disgust at women which 
 disappears after alcoholic drinks enough so as to 
 enable him to carry out coitus. He was also near 
 falling in love with a girl who had a boyish appear- 
 ance. That betrays certain relations between boy 
 and girl. The boys are loved when they show the 
 traits of a beloved sister, the old men when they 
 recall the father. 
 
 His path towards woman is blocked. Disgust and 
 fear of infections cover more significant motives 
 bearing a religious coloring. Every prostitute be- 
 comes the sister, a younger edition of the mother. 
 Without analysis the genesis of this paraphilia can- 
 not be understood. He avoids me because he is 
 unwilling to discover the truth. The over-severe 
 father seems to have roused in him the yearning for 
 a kindlier one and to have determined the develop-
 
 The Father Imago C3 
 
 ment of his feeling-attitude. An attachment to the 
 sister seems also clearly discernible. 
 
 63. Mr. T. D., 26 years of age, has struggled 
 vainly for years against his homosexual disposi- 
 tion. He is attracted to old, gray-bearded men, who 
 always represent to his mind an erotic ideal, and 
 loves to be in their company, go on walks with them, 
 play cards or perform music, and loves also the 
 company of very simple fellows, preferably sailor- 
 men, plasterers, and soldiers, and among the latter 
 prefers artillerists. His sexual activity consists in 
 holding the friend's membrum virile in his hand and 
 giving his own to be held by the other likewise. 
 Orgasm follows rapidly at that. After the deed, 
 regrets and strong avowals never to repeat it. The 
 last time he tried it a watchman caught him in the 
 act and brought him together with his companion, 
 a workingman, to court. 
 
 Analysis discloses the following facts : He has 
 repeatedly tried to have intercourse with women but 
 each time great fear and disgust prevented. Strong 
 erections, but before i?nmissio penis, the membrum 
 turns soft and useless. Accomplishment of the or- 
 gasm through manual friction of the organ by the 
 woman's hand is possible, but is followed by a pow- 
 erful feeling-attitude of disgust and he must leave 
 immediately. He has had various opportunities to 
 become intimate with certain women and girls, they
 
 64 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 have even incited him to it, but he does not feel 
 tempted. 
 
 His family history is as follows: He is the only 
 son of a very kindly man who died four years pre- 
 viously. The mother died at his birth and that has 
 established in his mind an intimate association be- 
 tween coitus and death. He cannot help thinking 
 of that association when with women. His father 
 was extraordinarily tender with him, and for his 
 sake never married again. When he was still young 
 his father always played with him, devoting to him 
 all his spare time. Later their relationship became 
 even more intimate. There was a sort of marriage 
 situation with his father. 
 
 He began to masturbate at a very early age and 
 claims to have indulged in phantasies only about 
 common men, imagining they were handling his 
 membrum virile. 
 
 His attachment to his father was decidedly mor- 
 bid. If the father stayed away from the house a 
 quarter of an hour longer than usual, he began to 
 cry and could not be consoled. The whole object of 
 his life was to bring joy to his father and to replace 
 in the latter's life the lost mother. When the father 
 fell ill he took it so much to heart that it was feared 
 his mind would break down. After the death of his 
 father he attempted suicide and was thwarted in 
 the act by his father's faithful servant. He made 
 all sorts of resolutions, among others, not to mas-
 
 The Father Imago 65 
 
 turbate during the year of mourning. He did not 
 live up to that. ... At first he is unable to recall 
 heterosexual episodes from his childhood and his 
 memory fails him equally regarding homosexual 
 facts. But suddenly the cloud which seemed to cover 
 his childhood lifts and a vast number of reminis- 
 cences come to surface, showing the developmental 
 course of his homosexual tendency. His father had 
 always been a strong admirer of the other sex and 
 even as a child he had observed that the father was 
 maintaining intimate relations with the nurse, the 
 cook, as well as with the maid servant. Once he 
 surprised his father in the act of embracing the 
 cook while the two were alone in the room. The 
 irate father boxed his ear because he entered with- 
 out knocking at the door. That was one of the 
 rare occasions on which his father punished him. 
 He also overheard at night how his father crawled 
 into the nurse's bed, who was still very young and 
 pretty at the time and carried on all sorts of doings 
 with her. Later he received private instruction from 
 a male tutor who conformed to the genius loci and 
 was also intimate with the servant girl. As a child 
 he often wished he were a woman so as to take the 
 cook's place in gratifying his father. The father 
 seemed to fear that the boy might fall into the 
 women's hands and did not delay warning his son 
 with appropriate teachings. At 12 years of age his 
 father instructed him frankly about the dangers of
 
 66 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 masturbation, with the result that he struggled hard 
 against the habit without, however, overcoming it. 
 A few years later his father spoke to him about the 
 terrible dangers of venereal diseases, warning him 
 against prostitutes. He was told he must watch 
 out, for he would have frequently occasion to go 
 through the city, and the prostitutes are always 
 eager to seduce such innocent young boys so that 
 many a one is ruined for life. 
 
 It is significant also that at 5 years of age he 
 played with a girl from the neighborhood, trying to 
 imitate the father. He must have hurt the girl for 
 she cried out, the nurse rushed in, a serious scene 
 ensued, and he was severely chastised by the nurse. 
 
 An ugly impression was produced on him when 
 he witnessed a terrible quarrel between their cook 
 and the nurse who were jealous of each other on 
 account of the father's attentions. They grabbed 
 each other by the hair and the whole household was 
 in an uproar. The cook had to leave the house at 
 once. He believes that after that incident his father 
 gave up all intimate relations with the women in the 
 house. At 19 years of age he fell in love with the 
 cashier of a coffee house and would have very much 
 liked to possess her. But his father, to whom he 
 told everything, warned him against all cashier 
 women because they are usually diseased and in- 
 fected. As a warning he told him that in his youth 
 he once suffered very unpleasant consequences as the
 
 The Father Imago 67 
 
 result of an affair with that kind of a woman and 
 was even subjected to blackmail. 
 
 He filled his heart with a gruesome fear of wom- 
 an. In addition to that he placed in his hands a 
 book relating all about the evil consequences of 
 sexual diseases, so that after that he did not dare 
 come near a woman without the protection of a 
 condom. After intercourse, which consisted merely 
 of digital manipulations in his case, he had to 
 bathe at once and to wash his genitals with soap 
 several times. After homosexual acts he did not 
 feel the compulsion to carry out these ablutions. 
 
 We now come to the analysis of his acts, which 
 show themselves veritable compulsive manifestations. 
 Suddenly he becomes restless, energetically tries to 
 control himself, then paces back and forth for 
 hours, until he falls into the hands of one of the 
 male prostitutes who easily recognize their prospec- 
 tive victims. But as he never mentioned any name 
 and never established any lasting intimate relations, 
 he escaped blackmail. Once he thought that a cer- 
 tain masseur had studied his physiognomy and had 
 later recognized him. He saw that fellow a few 
 times in front of his home. Immediately he left 
 Vienna and undertook an extensive journey which 
 kept him for some months in foreign countries. 
 
 In the act he tried to find the love caresses of his 
 father. He split love into its well recognized two 
 components. The erotic side he reserved for elderly
 
 68 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 men, physicians, and the faithful elderly friends, 
 while for sexuality proper he turned exclusively to- 
 wards men of low rank. Similarly he divided his 
 father's personality into two parts, the high- 
 striving, intellectual, lofty-minded father, and the 
 woman fancier, the lover of ordinary servant girls. 
 He was still playing the role of a male but during 
 the act he regressed back to childhood, becoming 
 again a child who longs for the father's tender love 
 squandered on servant girls. Moreover the ordi- 
 nary males also had the traits of servants, they 
 were of the servant class. 
 
 We have here an instance of the transposition of 
 the love of servant girls to males. He had always 
 a weakness for servant girls and since he feared he 
 might yet get tangled up in marriage with a cook, he 
 tried to keep away from them. Only once in the 
 home of a friend he embraced suddenly a cook and 
 passionately kissed her. "I could have without a 
 doubt cohabited with her," he told me. But he soon 
 quit visiting that particular friend. . . . 
 
 He identified himself completely with the father. 
 He lived in his own house, acted like the father, had 
 the same kind of wardrobe, although his father had 
 aged a great deal. But in one respect he wanted 
 to be different. He engaged therefore a male serv- 
 ant and always took his meals outside, so as to have 
 no cook in the house. But that servant he kept 
 always at a certain distance. He did not care to
 
 Jealousy of the Father 69 
 
 have any love affairs with servants in the house, like 
 his father. 
 
 The analysis disclosed his repressed sadistic atti- 
 tude towards woman. His first attempts at inter- 
 course with women failed him and he was able 
 to carry out coitus successfully only under the in- 
 fluence of alcohol. Later he did recall a single 
 successful coitus without that aid. The girl had 
 roused his anger with the remark that he was merely 
 an insolent fellow. He jumped at her, ready to 
 strike her, and was tremendously excited. In that 
 roused state he carried out coitus. But Tie would 
 have rather strangled her. 
 
 He showed an idiosyncrasy against certain female 
 occupations. Nurses in their garb he would have 
 gladly torn to pieces. He also hated all nuns. It 
 was not well for any woman to rouse his anger. 
 He could be very dangerous when roused. He con- 
 fesses entertaining as his favorite phantasy the 
 thought of tearing to pieces a woman. 
 
 The reason for this sadistic attitude: His infan- 
 tile jealousy of all women since woman had robbed 
 him of his father's love. Among them was also a 
 nurse who had taken care of the father during a 
 prolonged illness. 
 
 That hatred of women made him impotent and 
 drove him into the homosexual path. For he was 
 afraid of himself when finding himself alone in the 
 presence of a woman. He rushed away from houses
 
 70 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 of prostitution suddenly, as if a thousand demons 
 were after him. 
 
 I succeeded in convincing him that this sadistic 
 attitude was a rudiment of his early feelings, that 
 he was really fighting against ghosts which he had 
 long since dispelled. Now it was up to him to avow 
 consciously his criminal tendencies and to render 
 them innocuous through meeting them in the open. 
 Presently he began having intercourse with puellce 
 publicts, before the analysis was ended, and even 
 undertook to carry out coitus lege artis. He forced 
 himself to do it because he no longer cared to incur 
 the risk of coming into conflict with the law. (The 
 legal case against him was squashed because there 
 had been committed no overt act and such manipu- 
 lations ordinarily are unpunished in Austria, if they 
 cause no open scandal.) Later he chose a sweet- 
 heart who accompanied him on his travels and whom 
 he suddenly abandoned. He had meanwhile met a 
 woman who captivated him mentally and spiritually. 
 Two years later I received their engagement card. 
 In this case the analysis accomplished a complete 
 recovery. 
 
 Here we found a complete fixation on the father, 
 which had to be overcome first in order to free the 
 path to woman which had become obstructed by all 
 sorts of infantile imperatives. Neither the mother 
 nor the persons who trained him during his earlier
 
 Fixation on the Father 71 
 
 years play any role in the psychogenesis of his 
 homosexuality ; on the other hand there was his 
 strong sadistic attitude towards women which 
 showed itself in a personally baffling fear of women. 
 
 This case shows how one-sided Sadger's explana- 
 tion is of homosexuality, when he traces its psycho- 
 genesis solely to the relations with the mother and 
 overlooks entirely the role of the father. 
 
 We must also bear in mind that many children 
 gravitate to the mother only because they feel them- 
 selves neglected by the father, because they hate the 
 father, and are unable to attain a proper feeling- 
 attitude towards him. Precisely that overstressed 
 love of the mother and the obvious antagonism 
 against the father adroitly covers the fixation on 
 the father. 
 
 I will now report three similar cases from my own 
 practice, relating only the important details: 
 
 64. Mr. S. L. has not worked as bank employee 
 for the past three years or more. Three years ago 
 he began to complain of various nervous ailments 
 and was granted a leave of absence to recover his 
 health. That leave proved his undoing. He did not 
 improve ; instead, he became totally unable to work 
 and is now no longer able to return to his duties. 
 His father always maintained that the whole trouble 
 was imaginary, and wanted to hear nothing of a 
 prolongation of the leave. But the man's suffering
 
 72 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 became gradually worse. Out of spite for his 
 father's attitude he at first simulated the aggrava- 
 tion of his trouble and his condition in the end 
 actually grew so much worse that it shattered him 
 to pieces and he lost control over himself. He 
 experienced attacks of dyspnea so severe that he 
 could not talk. The dyspnea occurred in par- 
 oxysms. After one year he lost his position with 
 the bank and, reduced to want, he appealed to his 
 well-to-do father for aid. The father denied him 
 any assistance because he did not consider the son 
 unable to work ; he thought the son was simulating 
 so as to impose on him. S. L. sued his father for 
 sustenance and won, aided by the testimony of a 
 number of physicians who certified that his case was 
 one of severe neurasthenia, so that his father had to 
 give him a monthly allowance. Father and son 
 broke all personal relations so that the payment was 
 made through an attorney. Thereafter S. L. was 
 inspired by no other thought than revenge on his 
 father. He was very clever in thinking out new 
 legal issues and additional suits against him. Fin- 
 ally he came to the conclusion he was not the rightful 
 son of his father and threatened a law suit which 
 only his love for his mother prevented him from 
 actually starting. She was revolted at the son's 
 terrible accusation but so strongly under his influ- 
 ence that she did not have the will power to break 
 with him. She met him clandestinely, placing money
 
 Hatred of the Father 78 
 
 into his hands. He loved his mother above all else 
 and urged her to leave the father. He put detec- 
 tives on his father's trail, hoping to be able to fasten 
 against him the accusation of being untrue to the 
 mother. He always spoke of his father as "the old 
 rascal," "the old scamp," "that miserable, quarrel- 
 some rake." "Should I see him today writhe in 
 agony it would be the best and most pleasant day 
 I ever had." I had never seen before so bitter a 
 hatred of the father. 
 
 He was a confirmed homosexual, hating all women 
 with the exception of his mother, whom he held in 
 divine veneration. The alleged breach of faithful- 
 ness which he alleged her to have committed with a 
 person of high position (the well-known family 
 romance of the neurotic) he excused as natural for 
 it would have been a miracle for that noble soul to 
 have remained true to so terrible a man. The father 
 compelled her to coitus with brute force. He was 
 the offspring of such a coercion, etc. . . . He loved 
 only younger men, even boys, and he was fairly 
 brutal towards them. Occasionally he carried on 
 deeds with older men towards whom he then pre- 
 served an attitude of submissiveness and passivity, 
 trying to please them in every way. He permitted 
 pederasty on his person and did not shrink from 
 fellatio. 
 
 The analysis showed a passionate love of the 
 father, a feeling which on account of its unattainable
 
 74 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 aspect turned into bitter hatred. He thought the 
 father was partial to the other sons and fled to the 
 mother to whom he often complained about the 
 father's severity and lack of affection. In his homo- 
 sexual acts he played actively the role of the father, 
 becoming at such times very severe and almost cruel, 
 passively he carried out the act as if he were with 
 the father, being then very submissive, and thus 
 allowing his whole repressed love to outflow as if 
 bent on showing him : that is how loving I would be 
 with you always if you only were agreeable! Cruel 
 phantasies revolving around revenge upon the father 
 as the central theme were confessed under strong 
 resistances. Several times he came near shooting 
 his father. He often fancied himself in situations in 
 which his father depended altogether on his com- 
 passion and magnanimity. For instance, he would 
 imagine his father had committed some great fraud. 
 He himself had become a millionaire through an 
 ingenious invention of his own. His father comes 
 begging at his feet and is refused any aid. His 
 favorite reading is books describing cruel punish- 
 ments, the inquisition tortures, etc. The well-known 
 work of Octave Mirbeau, "Le jardin des supplices" 
 threw him into ecstasy. 
 
 The other roots of this subject's homosexuality 
 I do not dwell upon because I am concerned here 
 only with the role of the father. . . .
 
 Hatred of the Father 75 
 
 The next case shows a very similar situation: 
 
 65. Mr. G. Z. for some years has had intimate 
 relations with an elderly man, an artist, whose 
 studio is the meeting place of a number of young 
 men exclusively. He is not a musician like the 
 others, but a jurist, and had met incidentally Mr. X, 
 his fatherly friend, as he calls the man. Before that 
 time he had been entirely abstinent. He became 
 Mr. X's friend only at the age of 21. The friend- 
 ship was wholly platonic until they undertook a 
 journey together. At Salzburg they occupied to- 
 gether the same room, because the hotel was filled. 
 They carried on intercourse {coitus inter femora), 
 he playing the female role on that occasion as well 
 as subsequently. G. Z/s relations with his father 
 are very stressed. They hardly speak to each other. 
 He is employed in his father's office, but has only 
 business relations with him. His whole spare time 
 he devotes to his mother. One day he surprised his 
 mother with the information that he had had his 
 father watched and found out that the father main- 
 tained clandestine relations with a number of women. 
 He requested his mother to break with the father. 
 He raised a terrible row with his father, ordering 
 the father to withdraw from the office and leave the 
 business entirely to him, and at that the father 
 showed him the door. A letter from the mother 
 convinces him that he is not the son of his father;
 
 76 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 thereupon he locks himself in the room and commits 
 suicide by shooting himself. 
 
 Jealousy of the father had driven him to suicide. 
 During the acts with the fatherly friend he played 
 the role of the son replacing the women in the life 
 of the father. 
 
 66. Mr. T. B., 32 years of age, like Case 64, is 
 also unable to work. He has tried everything but 
 cannot make anything go. His father is a common 
 employee reduced to seek occasionally the son's 
 financial aid. But the young man now stays at 
 home and complains of attacks which he describes 
 as of an epileptic nature, occurring only at night, 
 but which prove to be hysterical anxiety attacks. 
 His brother is diligent and hard-working, the 
 favorite of the family. When the brother is praised 
 he turns so wild that he is boiling with rage. He 
 speaks but little with the brother, exchanging with 
 him only necessary words. Regarding his father he 
 declares that living together with him he finds most 
 painful. He has delicate tastes. But his father's 
 manner of eating and talking rouses his anger. He 
 will bless the day when he shall once more be working 
 and in a position to leave the parental home. The 
 mother was on his side, believed in his illness and in 
 the genuineness of his attacks, and comes at night 
 during his attacks to his bed, trying to help him 
 and to quiet him to the best of her powers. The
 
 Hatred of the Father 77 
 
 mother alone knows that he is homosexual and she 
 does not disturb him in the least on that score. 
 But she turns jealous as soon as she sees him pay 
 any attention to a girl, and every night, too, she 
 comes to the kitchen to make sure that her sons are 
 not taking advantage of the servant girls. She 
 accompanies the ailing son on his errands and is his 
 confidante. She does not get along at all well with 
 her husband and they have ceased marital relations 
 long ago. There are thus two parties in the house, 
 he with his mother, and the father with the other son. 
 Moreover, the ailing son raises various issues so 
 that there are daily quarrels and conflicts in the 
 house. The father published a statement in the 
 newspaper to the effect that he will no longer be 
 responsible for debts and obligations contracted by 
 the son. Thereupon the mother, who earns an inde- 
 pendent income with her piano lessons, left the house 
 together with her favorite son. They rented another 
 home for themselves and the mother hopes that the 
 separation and the quiet care will bring about her 
 son's complete recovery. At this stage T. B. is 
 brought to me for analysis. Two days later I am 
 called to the father. T. B. had gone there under an 
 excuse and while searching among the books he was 
 seized with a very severe attack and had to be put 
 to bed. He was now so ill that he could not leave 
 the bed. It was the love of the father that had 
 driven him to the place. He could not live without
 
 78 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 seeing his father and could not endure the thought 
 of leaving the father alone with the brother. The 
 mother moved back to the old home. As prerequi- 
 sites for my analysis I suggested isolation of the 
 subject and moderate occupation, and the mother 
 apparently agreed. Next day the patient wrote me 
 that on account of his attacks he would be unable to 
 live among strangers, and that therefore he must 
 give up the treatment. An experience similar to 
 that I had with the epileptic, Case No. 51. 
 
 The specific phantasy during his indulgences in 
 which he played always a passive role, represented 
 him as the mother who gives herself up to the father. 
 The following dream yielded some light on the 
 matter : 
 
 "/ lie on the bed in a remarkable attire, a hood on 
 my head and dressed in a green robe. I gaze in a 
 looking-glass and instead of my person I see my 
 mother, and father in the act of bending over her 
 to give her a kiss. Now the image in the looking- 
 glass fuses with the original, the two coming to- 
 gether and forming a single picture. I feel myself 
 turning into a woman and everything male about me 
 falls off or disappears. I have long black hair, a 
 white skin and a high voice. My arms stretch out 
 to embrace a man and I awake with a feeling of 
 anxiety and a rapid heart beat."
 
 The Mother Imago 79 
 
 An analysis of this dream is superfluous. The 
 subject was unwilling to see its meaning. 
 
 But the fixation upon the mother is often also 
 marked with hatred. It must not be thought 
 that the homosexual is always disposed pleasantly 
 towards the mother. It also happens that the love 
 for the mother is covered under an overt hatred and 
 an unnatural disgust, as is shown by the following 
 case: 
 
 67. H. U., 24-year-old sculptor, homosexual as 
 long as he can remember. His inclination is always 
 towards waiters and restaurant employees. Has 
 four sisters and an older brother who had to go to 
 America and is lost to them. His father is a writer, 
 a genial but impractical man who stuck to jour- 
 nalism. He clings to his father with every fiber of 
 his heart, protecting him against the attacks of the 
 mother who is tired of her husband's continual love 
 affairs and cannot stand them any longer. The 
 father lives in a dreamy state continuously, passing 
 from one ecstasy, lasting from several days to a 
 week, into another. He is not finicky in his love 
 adventures, drawing the line neither at servant girls 
 nor at prostitutes ; daily he has some new rendezvous 
 and in that way squanders a great portion of his 
 income. There are always quarrels in the house, 
 and the father does not like to stay at home, pre- 
 ferring to spend his evenings in the public houses.
 
 80 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 The relations between mother and son are as un- 
 pleasant as between the parents. The son always 
 lets his mother know that she is repulsive to him. 
 If she attempts to come near him in the room he 
 avoids her, shouting: "Don't touch me, mir graust 
 vor dir, you give me the shivers!" He never per- 
 mits her to fondle him, and has no good word for 
 the poor tortured woman. Towards his sister he is 
 also always sarcastic, aloof, and likes to meet her 
 admirers to make uncomplimentary remarks about 
 her to them. The situation became seriously aggra- 
 vated, he had to leave the house, and now wants to 
 meet no one of the family except the father, whom 
 he sees daily at the newspaper office. He hates 
 fanatically all women and dotes on Strindberg and 
 Weininger. 
 
 Back of this hatred of women stands his great 
 love for the mother, the sisters, and all women. In 
 that respect he is exactly like his father, whose fate 
 he does not want to share. He protects himself 
 against the love for his mother because he would be 
 lost and subordinate to women if he yielded. The 
 gruesome quarrels which he witnessed during his 
 childhood showed him a father who ruined himself 
 on account of women, a man unable to achieve the 
 full expression of his high ideal because he squan- 
 dered his energies on numerous love adventures. 
 Homosexuality serves him as a protection against 
 all womanhood. His attachment to waiters is ex-
 
 Fixation on the Sister 81 
 
 plained through the fact that his mother had been 
 a waitress whom his father had married after she 
 had become pregnant by him so as to legitimatize 
 the child. After two weeks he breaks up the analysis 
 because he feels that his attitude towards women is 
 . being changed. In that attitude lies his security. 
 Among waiters he prefers small young boys who 
 remind him of his sister. 
 
 This fixation upon the sister is not so rare, as is 
 shown by the next case, which dates back to my 
 earlier psychoanalytic experience. 
 
 68. Mr. P. G., teacher in a high school (Real- 
 schule professor), consults me on account of an 
 ailment which began a few weeks ago and which 
 threatens to destroy all his joy of living. He is 26 
 years of age and has had no sexual intercourse. 
 In fact, he has not had even one genuine love affair. 
 A few months ago he met a girl whom he liked very 
 much and they became engaged. They were to be 
 married in six months. She is a friend of his sister's, 
 a girl to whom he had not previously paid any par- 
 ticular attention but during an outing he got to 
 know her and to appreciate her so well that he fell 
 suddenly in love with her. It was not a great con- 
 suming passion, rather a mutual understanding 
 and a strong spiritual kinship. He was abstinent 
 through conviction. He wanted to enter the mar-
 
 82 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 riage bond a pure man and was proud that in that 
 respect he was unlike his friends and colleagues. 
 Then something happened in his life which threat- 
 ened to break him to pieces and even drove him to 
 thoughts of suicide. I relate the occurrence in his 
 own words: 
 
 "In my class there is a very beautiful, physically 
 imposing, slim, bright young fellow whom I liked on 
 account of his excellent answers and fine manners. 
 I directed my questions at him with great pleasure, 
 whenever the other boys could not answer, knowing 
 that I would always receive from him the correct 
 answer, and I have often held this favorite scholar 
 of mine up to the others as an example of how they 
 ought to be. One night I dreamed that the boy was 
 lying in my bed and that I embraced and kissed him. 
 I woke up, scared, and presently quieted down. 
 'Nonsense,' I said to myself. 'Anything may come 
 up in a dream !' At school that day I found myself 
 somewhat uneasy towards that boy because I could 
 not help thinking about my dream. I avoided 
 putting any questions to him. As was frequently 
 his habit, the boy waited for me after school hours 
 and asked permission to accompany me on the way. 
 We had to go the same road and I was pleased to 
 pass the time talking with him. He entertained me. 
 I heard a great deal about what the pupils were 
 saying about the teachers and it seemed to me very 
 interesting. Teaching means building up souls, and
 
 Pupil-Sister Imago 83 
 
 so I wanted to implant every noble and high ideal 
 in the soul of this child. 
 
 "I granted him also that day, gladly, permission 
 to come along. I was strikingly distracted and 
 silent. Whereas formerly I had been in the habit 
 of taking him by the arm now and then, this time 
 I avoided all intimate contact, because the dream 
 stood between me and the handsome young boy, 
 rendering any intimacy or informality impossible. 
 I reached home and very promptly went to my bride. 
 She found me absent-minded, wanted to know the 
 reason, and about that, naturally, I could but be 
 silent. I wanted to show her tenderness ; she goaded 
 me with her kisses and caresses. But, oh, horrors ! 
 In the midst of her kisses my mind turned to the 
 young fellow and when I felt her lips, so warm, I 
 thought it was the boy's lips. I pushed her, scared, 
 out of my arms, pretending I did not feel well, and 
 hurried back home. 
 
 "I was so excited that for a long time I could not 
 fall asleep. I decided I would fight the insane pas- 
 sion. I had heard before passingly about boy love, 
 knew also that it was the custom and fashion of the 
 day in ancient Greece, but I myself had never before 
 entertained the least thought of a man or boy. I 
 felt I ought to remain a teacher no longer if I failed 
 to conquer the feeling and to master the impression 
 of the dream picture on my mind, conjured up, 
 undoubtedly, by unconscious wishes. I resolved to
 
 84 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 be strict with myself, to give up the attachment to 
 the boy, and to avoid his company after school 
 hours. For it was I who first spoke up and invited 
 him to keep me company on the way home. I re- 
 solved to be strong and to devote once more all my 
 affection and my love to my bride. 
 
 "Next school day I forced myself not to turn my 
 gaze towards the boy's seat. But I could not help 
 looking that way and the first glance rushed the 
 blood to my cheeks. He was as beautiful as a Greek 
 boy, his form so delicate, his eyes so smiling, I 
 could have lost myself for hours in the contemplation 
 of that wonderful face. I roused from my day 
 dreaming, which, fortunately, had passed unnoticed 
 by the class. But I wanted to neutralize the im- 
 pression that my gazing at the boy may have made 
 upon the class and called upon the boy. I was 
 severe, unmercifully severe with him, and sought to 
 catch him in some error. And who fails to find an 
 error when looking hard for it? Then I repri- 
 manded the boy so severely that he began to cry and 
 returned to his seat weeping, and he was unable to 
 quiet down for some time after that. Then I became 
 really angry. I was trying to stifle the inner voice 
 which was whispering: 'It is unfair for you to tor- 
 ture thus the innocent boy ; he is not responsible for 
 your awful thoughts. . . .' I disregarded that and 
 scolded him. 
 
 "On the street the boy did not dare to offer to
 
 Pupil-Sister Imago 85 
 
 join me. I hurried past him and wandered for 
 hours on the streets like a madman. I reproached 
 myself, regretting the lost opportunity for enjoying 
 the boy's company and wept over the breaking up 
 of the beautiful friendship between scholar and 
 ' teacher. I resolved to be fair the next day with the 
 boy and to pay no attention to him. But a wild 
 demoniac power, stronger than my good resolutions, 
 impelled me once more to hurt the boy's feelings and 
 to humiliate him before the class. It looked as if I 
 was bent on revenging myself on him for the trouble 
 he had cost me. I knew that I punished myself 
 doing so, that I suffered far more than the boy, 
 although he, too, changed in appearance, became 
 timid, looked badly and obviously suffered under the 
 unjust treatment. I also became irritable, morose, 
 nervous. I lost completely my nervous equilibrium. 
 I began to avoid my bride's company. It seemed 
 to me a profanation on my part of her pure love so 
 long as I was consumed with such passion for a 
 boy. She also became cooler and more reserved, 
 because she could not understand me. 
 
 "Eventually things improved at school. I learned 
 to control myself and to act more fairly. We re- 
 sumed the walks once more ; the boy accompanied me 
 again after school hours; sometimes we walked on 
 and on for hours, and we even met specially during 
 the holidays. In his company I felt happy and all 
 my wishes seemed gratified. I enjoyed his beauty
 
 86 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 and his lively mind and counted the minutes to pass 
 when we should meet again. 
 
 "Then something happened which opened my eyes. 
 My bride wrote me a letter breaking up our engage- 
 ment. It did not even affect me as deeply as I had 
 thought it would, whenever reflecting previously on 
 the possibility. Very well I thought to myself 
 now you can devote yourself entirely to your beloved 
 boy! At the same time I felt during the day the 
 same physical excitation which I had theretofore 
 experienced only in my dreams. Then I realized 
 that I must avoid the boy if I was to keep from 
 committing a crime. My first task, I thought, 
 would be to make up again with the bride ; secondly, 
 I must give up the school so as to not meet the boy 
 again. My bride was resolute, however, insisting 
 that she had become convinced that I did not love 
 her. I kept secrets from her. I was on the very 
 point of confessing everything and of telling her the 
 whole truth. I threw myself, weeping, to her feet. 
 She said quietly: 'Don't! What is done cannot be 
 undone. It is better that we should part. Don't 
 make the parting hard for me. Let's leave one 
 another good friends and think kindly of me.' Then 
 she hurried out of the room and left me to myself. 
 
 "Next day when I went to the school the boy was 
 not there ; he was ill. Another boy reported he was 
 kept at home on account of scarlet fever. My 
 anxiety about him was boundless. I could think of
 
 The Sister Imago 87 
 
 nothing but that boy. A schoolmate had to bring 
 me daily reports about his condition. Often I 
 wandered in the neighborhood of his home, up and 
 down the streets, and at night I watched the lamp- 
 lit window of the room where a sister was taking care 
 of him. Finally I heard that he was convalescing, 
 that all danger was over, and that he would return 
 to school in a few weeks. I had to keep a strong 
 grip on myself at school to be able to carry on my 
 lectures at all. My thoughts were perpetually 
 centered on my beloved boy pupil. Continually I 
 kept thinking: How many days longer must I keep 
 longing? In three weeks he will be here! My heart 
 danced with joy at the thought. . . . 
 
 "There had to be a change. I could not keep on 
 living that way. I took my father into confidence 
 and he sent me to you, thinking that you would be 
 able to furnish good advice and aid in this difficult 
 case.'* 
 
 I offered at first no advice and no help. To begin 
 with, I allowed the love-sick fellow to speak out 
 everything that was on his mind and that in itself 
 lightened his burden. Then I undertook to obtain 
 an insight into his mental life before the advent of 
 his boy love. 
 
 It turned out that he had really loved and still 
 loves but one person in the wide world: his sister. 
 The affection for the bride was but a substitute for
 
 88 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 his love of the sister. His bride was also homo- 
 sexual and loved in him but the brother of her best 
 girl friend. As the girl friend (his sister) cooled 
 off during their engagement, preferring another 
 friendship (obviously led thereto by unconscious 
 jealousy of the brother), her own affection for the 
 young man cooled off and she promptly made use 
 of the opportunity to break off with him. The 
 opportunity arose conveniently enough and the 
 severing of the engagement reacted most painfully 
 upon the school teacher who had reasons of his own 
 for reproaching himself most bitterly. 
 
 The more his bride kept away from his sister the 
 greater was his indifference to the bride. But the 
 boy resembled his sister very closely. 
 
 He never thought of this similarity before. They 
 had the same eyes, the same color of hair, and the 
 same voice, and these played a strong role with him. 
 During that critical period his sister was interested 
 in a certain physician. He felt he was about to lose 
 her affection and sought a substitute for her and 
 that he found in his pupil. . . . 
 
 Now he was in a position to come to an under- 
 standing with his sister. She had the requisite 
 psychologic insight to understand him fully and to 
 lend him intelligent assistance towards his recovery. 
 
 His whole tremendous excitation simmered down. 
 The love for the boy calmed down to an attitude of 
 kindly interest which no longer troubled him. He
 
 The Sister Imago 89 
 
 took his walks only with his sister who often called 
 for him at the school. Months later I heard that 
 he was very quiet and had no reason to complain. 
 He succeeded in sublimating his affection for the 
 sister into joint intellectual interests, insofar as 
 that is possible. But frank relations create a 
 healthy atmosphere in which it is easier to overcome 
 incestuous phantasies than in the byways and hidden 
 bypaths of repression and transference. 
 
 I have given a detailed account of this case be- 
 cause it is typical and because the transference of 
 affection from the sister to a boy is more common 
 than would be recognized a priori in the light of our 
 current contributions on homosexuality. We must 
 also bear in mind that the sister represents a 
 younger likeness of the mother Imago. 1 
 
 1 Ibsen, the great psychologist, has described in masterly 
 fashion the transposition of sister love into boy love. In 
 "Little Eyolf," Aimers, the writer, suddenly loses the love for 
 his wife and turns his affection exclusively to his child. That 
 child is called 'little Eyolf,' like his sister, who had once put 
 on boy's clothes and called herself 'little Eyolf.' The parents 
 had expected a boy. Aimers turns his affection for the sister, 
 which pervades the whole drama, into the love for the boy. He 
 has discovered for himself the law of substitution which cor- 
 responds to the changes spoken of in these pages. Little 
 Eyolf in fact is the dramatization of the latent homosexual 
 fixation on the sister. Aimers cannot split his personality, he 
 cannot be both homo- and heterosexual. This inability to 
 split his self, the root of all homosexuality, forms the back- 
 ground of the whole drama. Rita cannot divide her person- 
 ality any more than Aimers can do it; he must give his whole 
 personality self. Aimers cannot divide wife and sister. He 
 embraces his wife and thinks of the sister (That sister, whom
 
 90 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 But father, mother and sister do not exhaust the 
 ideal of the homosexual. I also know cases one I 
 have described in a previous chapter in which the 
 love of an older brother plays a tremendous role. 2 
 
 he calls his little and his big Eyolf. The sister in trousers, 
 who embodied his ideal, a woman in male clothes, a bisexual 
 being which need not be split up at all). "Love of brothers 
 and sisters is the only relationship not subject to the law of 
 transformation." Rank {Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und 
 Sage, 1912, p. 654) and Pfister (Anwendung der Psycho- 
 analyse in der Padagogik und Seelsorge, p. 72) find the incest 
 motive easily but overlook the fact that the situation involves 
 the outbreak of homosexuality and its psychogenesis. It rep- 
 resents a flight from the sister to man, a wavering homo- 
 sexuality sublimated into love for the boy. The drama con- 
 tains numerous other familiar points well worth careful analy- 
 sis. For Aimers, his wife, and his child, are the representa- 
 tives of the male, female, and infantile components which we 
 endeavor to synthetize in our character {trinity). Regression 
 to the infantile level sets in with flight from the world (flight 
 to the solitude of the mountain top). The solitary Ibsen, as 
 road builder, undertakes to construct a new highway which 
 shall lead up to solitary heights and does not observe that the 
 road leads really straight back to the realm of his youth. Some- 
 where in the vast expanse of his soul the 'dead child' is floating 
 around and staring with wide open eyes into infinity. A 
 child is killed in this drama. It stands for the miscarried 
 regression back to infantilism. Childhood is finally subdued 
 and forgetfulness once more drowns in the soul's vast expanse 
 all gnawing and biting reproaches. The memories are all 
 dead . . . and the next drama has for its theme: When the 
 dead awaken. But in little Byolf they are already awake. . . . 
 The dead, whom Ibsen carried in his breast, the corpse to 
 which Rita refers so often. . . . The child in him is dead and 
 now the man in him also threatens to die. It recalls the admis- 
 sion of impotence, described with such tremendous realism in 
 the great Rita-Aimers scene. The man in him dies and the 
 woman in him persists with yearnings. A more detailed treat- 
 ment of these endopsychic processes will be found in my book 
 on Masochism (Translation by Van Teslaar, in preparation). 
 J The following passage, from an observation by Hirsch- 
 feld, shows how early such fixation on the brother may take 
 place, only to disappear, apparently, and to be mistaken for 
 inborn homosexuality: "I hated boys and boyish games; my
 
 Flight from Incest 91 
 
 We are thus led to the conclusion that fixation on 
 the family plays a determinative role in the genesis 
 of homosexuality, that homosexuality often may 
 represent a flight from incest. True, we have also 
 seen cases in which these roots are not traceable, 
 particularly cases of late homosexuality. But why 
 may not other psychic forces, manifesting themselves 
 as hatred, disgust, fear and shame, likewise lead to 
 homosexuality? 
 
 Love of the family is a form of narcissism. Every 
 member of the family is a mirrored image of one's 
 own personality. One may love one's self in one's 
 parents or other members of the intimate family 
 circle more readily than through strangers. Leo 
 Berg was the first to express this truth and he has 
 done it very clearly. In his inspiring work, Ge- 
 
 sister was my alter ego, while my brother, who was 13 years 
 older and a very beautiful man, had powerfully charmed my 
 childish, pure and innocent heart. I worshipped him for his 
 physical beauty even more than on account of his sterling 
 qualities. At the same time I grew continuously more sensi- 
 tive in my overt attitude towards him. I remember clearly 
 that during the 6th or. 7th year my brother's physical beauty 
 caused me to shake before him with every fiber of my body 
 in admiration as before some mystery revealed. At 10 years 
 of age I wept through a whole night intoxicated with joy 
 because it fell to my lot to lie down near his intoxicatingly 
 sweet presence for rest. I had a feeling of shame such as I 
 did not experience in the presence of my mother or sister. 
 Clearly and deliberately, although unbeknown, of course, to 
 him, I deified my brother 'from the 10th to the 15th year, and 
 this worshipful attitude reached its highest from my 10th to 
 the 12th year, when he married. I was disconsolately unhappy 
 over it because that event removed him from our midst and 
 I felt it was dreadful that he should lose his virgin beauty, 
 as I thought." (Hirtchfield, loc. tit., p. 46.)
 
 92 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 schlechtgr (Kulturprobleme der Gegenwart, 2nd ser., 
 Vol. II, Berlin, 1906), he states: 
 
 "What does the homosexual substitute for pro- 
 creation? In the first place self-seeking, the love 
 of like (die Liebe zum Gleichen), plays a greater role 
 in his case than with the heterosexual who is respon- 
 sive to the unlike, and that is why the instinct of 
 procreation is as a rule very much weaker in the 
 former though not entirely absent. A young physi- 
 cian who confessed to me that he was homosexual, 
 told me of a colleague who was passionately attached 
 to a child. It was a powerful motherly instinct in 
 him, a sign of his female sensitiveness in a male 
 body ; he is wholly womanly, a submissive being, and 
 loves like a woman cursed only because he cannot 
 bear a child for the man of his heart." 
 
 Berg also points out that the homosexuals trans- 
 fer to the intellectual sphere their reproductive and 
 creative urge. 
 
 The case mentioned by Berg shows nothing in 
 itself more than a complete identification with the 
 mother. But I have observed long ago that this 
 love of the like bears some relations to purposive 
 sterility. The homosexual renounces the immor- 
 tality implied in procreation. (Many homosexual 
 artists achieve immortality in the realm of 
 spiritual endeavor.) Such an attitude discloses 
 a revolt against natural law and order. The homo-
 
 Flight from Sexual Determinism 93 
 
 sexual, in fact, always conceives himself as unique. 
 The world contains not his equal and that feeling 
 is the hidden source of his pride. The "bearing of 
 aloofness,*' already pointed out by Freimark, 3 the 
 pride of being "different," determine also his oppo- 
 sition to the procreative instinct. He does not care 
 to be like others. Against the notion that God had 
 ordained man to have offspring he wants to oppose 
 all teleology and, in spite of God, maintain a pur- 
 poseless, meaningless love, contrary to nature, a 
 love for its own sake. Conceivably women manifest 
 even more clearly the corresponding revulsion 
 against the motherly instinct. 
 
 Who will deny that fear of children, of mother- 
 hood, is an important social manifestation? Can it 
 be that this fear is characteristic only of women and 
 is not shared also by men? May it not manifest 
 itself as a form of flight from sexual determinism? 
 We need only look around us. There are any num- 
 ber of married couples who want no children and 
 others who want no more than a child or two. 
 Undoubtedly this state of things is partly due to 
 homosexuality, to a deviation from the biblical in- 
 junction concerning the duty of increasing offspring. 
 But let us also glance over our professional ex- 
 perience. The relationship between children and 
 their parents carries within itself the beginnings of 
 
 Zuchtbarkeit der Homosexiialitat. Sexualprobleme, 6 
 Jahrg., 1910, No. 12.
 
 94 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 a new phase. The everlasting conflict between the 
 new and the old generation, between fathers and 
 sons, mothers and daughters, children and parents, 
 requires, fosters new forms. Not without reason 
 has our age been called "the century of the child" 
 with its slogan raised about the Rights of Children. 
 The greater the (unconsciously motivated) antag- 
 onism of the child against his parents, the stronger 
 will be the fear of its own children, who loom up as 
 potential enemies and rivals. 4 It seems that our 
 own image attracts and repels us at the same time, 
 that there is a fear of the like as strong as the fear 
 of the unlike. The aboriginal conflict between the 
 old and the new goes on forever within us. Hungry 
 for the new though we be, yet we cling to the old. 
 Having acquired the new we turn longingly to the 
 old. 
 
 This bipolarity shows itself nowhere so distinctly 
 as upon the sexual sphere. It means that contraries 
 have the power of sexual attraction. That is an 
 observation substantiated by everyday experience. 
 But there is an extreme point at which the opposite 
 touches upon the like. Les extremes se touchent, 
 extremes meet. In each of us there lives also an- 
 other who is the precise counterpart of ourselves. 
 In the other sex we love our counterpart and through 
 
 4 This thought is very wonderfully expressed in Gerhart 
 Hauptmarm's Oriseldis. The father is jealous of the son 
 because he, in turn, had been his father's enemy and rival. . . .
 
 Sexual Bipolarity 95 
 
 the love for our own sex we endeavor to run away 
 from that counterpart. 
 
 The mother instinct and hatred of motherhood 
 are not split in the human soul. The homosexual 
 woman always shows the hatred of motherhood and 
 her alleged love of children, when such a senti- 
 ment is claimed at all, proves but a self-deception 
 and lip-service at best. In our study of female 
 dyspareunia we propose fully to prove that con- 
 clusion in connection with the histories of several 
 homosexual women. We do find many instances of 
 alleged affection for children but in reality these 
 are only caricatures of the true sentiment and only 
 rarely the affection as it is characteristic of normal 
 woman. Our school teacher in love with the boy 
 pupil, whose case we gave in full in the preceding 
 pages, did not love children as such and did not 
 care to have children of his own. Through his love 
 for the boy the repressed father instinct also found 
 outlet. 
 
 The life histories of homosexual women differ from 
 those of males only in the fact that occasionally 
 there seems present a certain yearning for children, 
 as if the child could bring about release from the 
 passion and a new state of bliss. Beyond that the 
 urlind shows the same psychogenesis as the urning. 
 There is a strong fixation on the family, though not 
 always on the father, as Hirschfeld claims. In ad- 
 dition to that, rather commonly there is found affec-
 
 96 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 tion for the mother which is fairly open, and tender- 
 ness for some sister which persists through life and 
 assumes remarkable masks. 
 
 I want to conclude this chapter with the histories 
 of some cases of female homosexuality which may 
 serve to illustrate clearly the points I have just 
 made: 
 
 69. Miss DSC we shall call her by that name 
 after a series of various exciting episodes has fallen 
 a victim to depression, during which she lost a great 
 deal of weight, but in spite of a successful fattening 
 regime her stay at a sanitarium did not effect a 
 complete cure. She is an impressively attractive 
 girl, 24 years of age, voluptuous, feminine in every 
 way up to her angular, somewhat energetic nose and 
 prominent, curved eyebrows. Her mother, of whom 
 the girl speaks with much feeling, believes that the 
 girl's breakdown dates from the death of the father. 
 Use irritatedly contradicts the mother several times, 
 breaking into a quarrelsome attitude towards her 
 mother over trifles. Reprimanded by her mother, 
 she falls into her depression and speaks no word. 
 I take her under treatment and for a week I have 
 in her a heavy burden on my hands. She hardly 
 says anything, is very negativistic in her attitude, 
 only muttering from time to time: "Don't trouble 
 yourself. It will never be any different. Better give 
 me something that will put me quickly out of the
 
 Depression 97 
 
 way." She livens up somewhat only when referring 
 to her father, thinks he should have not passed 
 away. The mother should have called in a specialist. 
 In fact, it was as much her fault as anybody's, for 
 she had failed to insist on calling the best aid while 
 there was time. 
 
 Gradually she extends me her confidence and one 
 day she appears, like a changed person. She must 
 tell me the truth. She is not a normal person. Since 
 childhood she has been homosexual and had never 
 cared for men. Her mother had implied as much 
 when she said to me: "I cannot understand the girl. 
 She always fled from the room when young men called 
 on Alfred (her brother). The girl is a man hater." 
 This fact the girl had denied during the first visit, 
 but now she herself admitted. She had never cared 
 for men. On the other hand, at 11 years of age she 
 had already fallen passionately in love with a woman 
 school teacher. She was a frolicsome girl, often 
 wore her brother's clothes, and played with all the 
 young boys of the neighborhood. At 14 years of 
 age she again fell in love with a girl friend. 
 
 Her current depression is due to a terrible dis- 
 appointment. She had maintained a love affair with 
 a French woman and was happy. She said nothing 
 about the character of the relations, but admitted 
 that they were very intimate. Suddenly she found 
 out that the French woman was not true to her, but 
 was keeping up intimate relations more often with
 
 98 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 other girls than with her. She suffered tremen- 
 dously on account of her jealousy. She began to 
 feel a disgust against all women not unlike her 
 former aversion to men. Asked why she was so 
 antagonistic to men, she answered: "Because they 
 are, all, without exception, disgusting brutes. . . ." 
 
 At this point Use begins to relate her past ex- 
 periences. She was seven years of age when she 
 visited an uncle. He showed her his big membrum 
 virile and asked her to hold it in her hand. She did 
 this as well as other things he requested her usque 
 et ejaculationem. "How shall I have any respect 
 for men when they don't hesitate thus to poison the 
 innocent soul of a child?" The uncle is still living. 
 . . . She has since thought that it must be some 
 morbid tendency and has forgiven him. "It hap- 
 pened only a few times and the uncle believes I have 
 forgotten it. . . ." 
 
 Another traumatic incident impressed her more 
 seriously ; it was, in fact, a series of traumas. Her 
 mother was a light-minded person and is so to this 
 day, despite her 50 years. But she knows enough 
 to dress herself so attractively and with such a dis- 
 play of refinement that she is still capable of achiev- 
 ing conquests. There follow a number of serious 
 complaints against the mother, which must have 
 been true, for I have had opportunity to convince 
 myself of the truth of some of the statements. The 
 mother always kept on the string a number of lovers
 
 Early Life History 99 
 
 who gratified her extravagant requirements. As a 
 child she had been taken along to a number of 
 rendezvous and has repeatedly witnessed the display 
 of tendernesses between the lovers. She also recalled 
 various household scenes from her early childhood. 
 As a child she was already very sensuous and mas- 
 turbated jointly with the sister and the brother. 
 She was precocious as well as prematurely spoiled 
 and every one thought she would early turn out to 
 be like her mother. Then her sister underwent a 
 great change in character. She became religious 
 and wanted to join a nunnery. She made fun of 
 her religious-minded sister but secretly admired her 
 for her chastity. She was 14 years of age at the 
 time. She now knows that she was in love with the 
 family physician and that she was interested in men, 
 but at the same time she was in love at different 
 times with various teachers and girl friends. When 
 her sister was 16 years of age she had a love affair 
 with an army lieutenant and had to go to a sani- 
 tarium to be curetted, fever set in after the opera- 
 tion, and for several weeks the girl was seriously ill. 
 Her sister's experience shook her to pieces. In- 
 wardly she had been proud that there was such a 
 pure, innocent girl in the family. Now that her 
 sister followed the example of her mother it seemed 
 to her that she, too, was fated to follow in the same 
 path and that there could be no escape for her. 
 During that period her character underwent a
 
 100 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 change and she acquired a tremendous dislike for all 
 small children. She could not suffer to see a small 
 child. She thought to herself, if she were its mother 
 she would strangle it. The feeling was so horrible 
 that she could not sleep. In time she improved 
 somewhat, but the dislike of children or, rather, the 
 fear of them, that is, the fear that she might do 
 some harm to them, never left her. 
 
 I suspected that back of this feeling-attitude 
 towards the children might be found the solution of 
 her problem. I reverted back to her sixteenth year, 
 for it was at that period that she turned definitely 
 against all men. 
 
 "Why do you hate children?" 
 
 "Not that, exactly. ... In fact, I was at one 
 time foolish over them. I have always wanted chilr 
 dren. When I told you that I always played boyish 
 games it was not exactly the truth. I remember 
 now that I played nurse to my doll and that we often 
 played the game of childbirth. Brother was the 
 doctor and I was the pregnant lady in bed." 
 
 "Did you happen to witness childbirth as a little 
 girl?" 
 
 "Yes, everything. . . . Our aunt gave birth to a 
 child in our home, a romantic story. An illegiti- 
 mate child; her parents were not to know anything 
 about the birth, or they would have disowned her. 
 But we children knew everything. Afterwards she
 
 Life History 101 
 
 married the man but was very unhappy with him. 
 The little baby was with us for a time. I was very 
 fond of it and carried it around. . . ." 
 
 "Have you other such aunts in the family?" 
 
 "Between us : mother's family has a poor reputa- 
 tion. There were six sisters, each more flighty than 
 the next. None was a virgin at marriage. Things 
 were always happening and there was never any 
 peace. That is why I was so shocked over sister's 
 experience. I was getting to think it was my fate 
 also to become . . . merely a prostitute. You will 
 pardon me for speaking so harshly about my own 
 mother. But unfortunately it is the truth. . . ." 
 
 "A prostitute is purchasable. . . . There is some 
 difference whether one is light-minded through pas- 
 sion or for gain." 
 
 (After a lengthy pause.) "Just what I did find 
 out at the time. Mother was to be had for money. 
 Father was a humble employee, an unsuccessful 
 jurist, who eked out a living doing secretarial serv- 
 ice for an attorney. He could not keep up with the 
 large household expenses even though he occasionally 
 transacted a business deal on the side which netted 
 him a considerable sum. Mother always had a 
 friend who took care of our needs. Thus we were 
 brought up rather well educated, my brother could 
 afford to study, we did everything." 
 
 "Did you know all that already as a child?"
 
 102 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 "I knew it at a very early age. . . ." 
 "You think, then, that your sister was also paid 
 and that she sold herself?" 
 
 "No, nothing like that. In addition to the pay- 
 ing lover mother always had one, a purely heart 
 affair, on the side. It was funny ! The men always 
 brought us candies and all sorts of presents. When 
 we grew older mother became a little more careful. 
 Still, there was enough going on to bring shame as 
 I look back. And so there came into our house also 
 a young lieutenant whom mother had picked up 
 God knows where. This fellow was mother's avowed 
 lover and could do as he pleased. The terrible thing 
 was that he began to pursue also sister and after a 
 few jealousy quarrels mother had to put up with it, 
 she perhaps even encouraged the affair. For I 
 overheard once a talk between them and heard 
 mother reproach 'Shikki,' that was the lieutenant's 
 nickname, that he had used sister. She could have 
 obtained a large sum of money for the girl because 
 she was a virgin and the girl would have been pro- 
 vided for. Then there followed bitter quarrels be- 
 tween mother and sister." 
 
 I interrupt the conversation at this point. It 
 turns out that she, too, was in love with the lieu- 
 tenant, and so were the others of the household, 
 including the father and the brother; she was also 
 jealous of her mother. Her jealousy opened her
 
 Psychogenesis of Hatred 103 
 
 eyes. That is how it happened that she heard the 
 unpleasant rumors about her mother circulating 
 among the neighbors. She began hating her mother, 
 but that continued only for a short time. Then her 
 hatred turned to children. She hated first herself, 
 the child who bore no respect for the mother. She 
 did not want to be like her mother and her sister. 
 She knew that she would have to submit to similar 
 experiences ; that her fate was sealed. She strove 
 against her feminine and motherly instincts. But 
 the analysis disclosed that she really entertained one 
 supreme wish which she was unwilling to countenance 
 openly : she wanted to be a mother and to bear many, 
 many children. But the neurotic reaction thwarted 
 her powerful motherly instinct. To be a mother 
 meant identification with the despised mother. Her 
 better feelings prompted her to draw herself far 
 apart from the mother. 
 
 She did not want to be a woman. She did not 
 want to be so easy-going as her mother. At that 
 time her brother also showed a temperamental 
 change. He became serious-minded, began to write 
 verses, and to take an interest in all sorts of 
 idealistic endeavors. She linked herself to him and 
 before long she differentiated herself completely 
 from the rest of the household, and particularly 
 from the mother. She sought earnest-minded girl 
 friends and came into frequent contact with her 
 brother's companions, but was unapproachable, even
 
 104 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 though she expressed herself freely and frankly 
 about all subjects. Her strongly sensuous tem- 
 perament threw her next into the arms of the 
 Frenchwoman and she preferred that to a love affair 
 with a man as she was afraid of children. After 
 the Frenchwoman's breach of loyalty she fell into 
 her depression. 
 
 This circumstance also disclosed an interesting 
 sidelight. She confessed to me that the French- 
 woman was also her brother's sweetheart. It had 
 never been mentioned by the woman but she knew it 
 even before she entered into intimate relations with 
 her. Nevertheless it was her happiest period. 
 
 The depression is thus traceable to a second 
 source. The brother had abandoned the French- 
 woman, having chosen another sweetheart, of whom 
 he was very fond and whom he intended to marry. 
 The Frenchwoman was only a sensuous play affair 
 with him, the brother belonged wholly to her. They 
 were always together and she knew all his secrets. 
 She was never jealous when she knew that he kept up 
 relations with some girl or woman so long as he did 
 not love soulfully. But now the brother became 
 acquainted with a wealthy, beautiful girl, with whom 
 he fell in love and whom he was going actually to 
 marry. This, for the brother, lucky event, came 
 to nothing in the end on account of the opposition 
 of the girl's family, left her cool. All she saw was 
 that she was losing her brother, and that he no
 
 Differentiation from t]ie Mother 105 
 
 longer belonged to her. He could not marry the girl 
 because her parents required that he should first 
 prove his ability to support her. But the two lovers 
 agreed to wait for one another and the brother had 
 gone already pretty far and he may yet succeed 
 to marry the girl, despite the mother's deplorable 
 reputation. He lives no longer with his family and 
 avoids the old home. He only sees her from time 
 to time and they are still good old pals, whenever 
 they meet. . . . 
 
 This interesting analysis illustrates all the chief 
 points to be found in the psychogenesis of male 
 homosexuality. In fact the girl was on the point of 
 becoming as fond of men as her mother, perhaps of 
 indulging in bisexual activities. Her sister's ex- 
 perience opened her eyes and acted as a terrible 
 warning. The yearning for purity which animates 
 every soul and is the polar counterpart of the desire 
 for tasting every sort of experience, became upper- 
 most in her case, the fear of becoming like the sister, 
 or like the mother, and her hatred of the mother, 
 jointly, had the effect of shaping her into a different 
 being. She probably would have not yielded to the 
 homosexual love of the Frenchwoman had she not 
 been overcome by the fact that the woman was her 
 brother's sweetheart. It was a case of incest 
 through a third person. . . . She hated her mother 
 and had to protect herself against the danger of
 
 106 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 having children who grow up to be one's enemies. 
 Thus children became her enemies. The father 
 played a negligible role in her life and had no influ- 
 ence on the development of her homosexuality. 
 
 I do not know well her subsequent history. Her 
 depression was soon relieved and her hatred of chil- 
 dren disappeared entirely. But she left Vienna and 
 went to another country, obviously to get away from 
 her family and to forget her whole past. I had 
 advised her to do so and the fact that she had fol- 
 lowed my advice permits us to hope that, after the 
 tempestuous course of her past life, she may have 
 succeeded, at last, in finding a friendlier harbor.
 
 m 
 
 HOMOSEXUALITY AND JEALOUSY MASKED JEALOUSY 
 
 THE JEALOUS WIFE OF A PHYSICIAN WHY 
 
 WOMEN ABUSE SEEVANT GIRLS TEANSFEEENCE 
 
 OF JEALOUSY TO THE SUEEOUNDINGS JEALOUSY 
 
 OF THE FATHEE JEALOUSY OF THE EESIDENCE 
 
 JEALOUSY OF THE PAST A YOUNG WOMAN 
 
 OVEESENSITIVE TO ANY NOISES.
 
 In der Eifersucht liegt mehr Eigenliebe als Liebe. 
 
 Rochefoucauld.
 
 Ill 
 
 Jealousy involves self-love rather than love. 
 
 Rochefoucauld. 
 
 Jealousy is the projection of one's own insuffi- 
 ciencies to the surroundings. 1 It is an atavistic 
 awakening of the brutal sense of self such as was 
 common to the primordial man protecting his pos- 
 sessions. All children are jealous. Jealousy leads 
 us back to the sources of man's instinctive life. 
 
 It is not my intention to take up the whole subject 
 of jealousy. But morbid jealousy shows certain 
 definite, almost regular, relations to homosexuality 
 which we must consider. We have seen that homo- 
 sexuality may be hidden from consciousness. That 
 is also true of jealousy. I have seen many neu- 
 rotics who have suffered tremendously on account of 
 their jealousy, without being aware of it. In the 
 masking of neurosis jealousy assumes most remark- 
 able forms. 
 
 The next case illustrates the masking of jealousy, 
 
 1 Cf. chapter on Jealousy in my collection of essays, "Was 
 am Qrunde der Seele ruht . . .," Wien, 1909, Hofbuchhand- 
 lung Paul Knepler. English Version, The Depths of the Soul, 
 translated by Dr. 8. A. Tannenbaum, Moffat, Yard & Co., 
 N. Y. 
 
 100
 
 110 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 its fusion with homosexuality, and contains various 
 points of psychologic interest: 
 
 70. A highly intelligent subject, H. J., writes 
 me: "Have you already reflected on how we discern 
 certain similarities on certain days and fail to do so 
 at other times? You are undoubtedly aware that 
 neurotics and normal persons are fond of finding 
 resemblances when they formulate identifications. 
 The lover finds that the beloved walks like mother, 
 or that she talks like the latter, and if physically 
 no resemblance can be established he finds the same 
 mental characteristics, the same soul, perhaps the 
 same shortcomings. But I want to speak of an 
 entirely different peculiarity. One forenoon I see 
 a man, who looked enough like my friend, X, the 
 painter, to be taken for the latter. I walk up to 
 him and say: Hello, X, still under the impression 
 of that mistake. A strange face wearing a beard 
 of familiar form is staring at me. I offer the usual 
 apologetic explanation and go my way. After a 
 while I see again my friend X, this time somewhat 
 dimly, not quite so certain of it as before. I recover 
 from this illusion quickly enough. 
 
 "By that time my psychologic curiosity is roused 
 and it occurs to me that my wife told me that morn- 
 ing she was going to visit the painter, X, during the 
 forenoon. I listened indifferently to the statement, 
 merely asking her to give him my greetings. But
 
 Cryptic Jealousy 111 
 
 a certain unrest must have risen in the unconscious : 
 your wife goes to the painter who likes her and 
 makes love to her. Nothing of that in consciousness 
 at all. Painters are a light-minded class who do 
 not take such things seriously. Who knows whether 
 your wife will be strong enough to resist? 
 
 "These secret fears led to a symptomatic act. I 
 accosted a stranger as X, the painter. In other 
 words, a wish fulfilment. For if I meet X on the 
 street he cannot possibly be in his studio at this 
 time. My wish is that he shall not be at home. 
 My wife shall go to the studio and find : Mr. X is not 
 in. ... That wish came up on three different occa- 
 sions that morning. For I thought I saw Mr. X in 
 the street three different times. Moreover, I project 
 X upon strange faces. Because I think constantly 
 of X, because my mind is wholly preoccupied with 
 him, because I am innerly preoccupied with the un- 
 countenanced thought: what does X now do with 
 your wife? I see X everywhere. Ringstrasse is 
 filled with men looking like him; every man is a 
 Mr. X. 
 
 "The illusion at this juncture denotes also another 
 suspicion. An additional thought renders the first 
 one pregnant with significance. Yesterday I heard 
 the opinion expressed at a gathering, 'Any woman 
 may be had and there is no such thing as a virtuous 
 woman!' I opposed vehemently that cynical 
 thought (Pauschalverdachtigung) and I tried to the
 
 112 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 best of my ability to point out the ridiculous and 
 unfair implications of this notion. And today I am 
 surprised to find myself entertaining the thought. 
 These men who look like X, the great unknown, are 
 alike attractive and powerful men, just like X. You 
 are reflecting : Who knows whether this or that man 
 is not actually your wife's lover ? Why do the words 
 from Faust come into my mind: 'The whole town 
 has her 9 ? ... In justice to my wife's honor I must 
 now state that she is in fact an exemplary woman 
 and that I entertain no trace of suspicion about her 
 conduct. But I am deliberately looking for excuses 
 to vindicate myself. I mean to believe that every 
 woman is guilty, including therefore my own wife, 
 so as to justify in my eyes my new love affairs. . . . 
 I am envious of X, of his free ways with women, and 
 would like to be in his place, receiving ladies in the 
 studio. I would like to be X. In my phantasy I 
 am X, and see myself as X in every stranger. 
 
 "A lady of my acquaintance always saw her de- 
 ceased husband on the street in the person of some 
 stranger who seemed closely to resemble him. This 
 peculiar resemblance to strangers was noticeable 
 particularly when her mind turned to light and 
 frivolous thoughts. As if the image of the husband 
 came forward to warn and protect her: 'It is only 
 three years since I have passed away and already 
 you begin to turn your mind to trivial joys? Be-
 
 Cryptic Fear 113 
 
 ware. I watch you from Heaven and I see every- 
 thing you do.' " 
 
 We admit freely that our subject is a keen-minded 
 psychologist possessing an extraordinary capacity 
 for introspection, yet this excellent piece of self- 
 analysis seemed to me to overlook something impor- 
 tant. I therefore write Mr. H. J. that I should 
 like to talk this interesting episode over with him 
 and I invite him to call on me. He accepts the invi- 
 tation. From our conversation I report only some 
 of the more important points : 
 
 "Has it not struck you that the men who im- 
 pressed you as bearing resemblance were exclusively 
 attractive and powerful men?" 
 
 "No, because my friend, X, the painter, is also 
 an attractive and well built man. Others would not 
 look like him. . . ." 
 
 "Are you also otherwise jealous?" 
 
 "No; not in the least; only about X, and even 
 that I did not know or was perhaps too proud to 
 admit to myself." 
 
 "What is your attitude towards X? Do you care 
 for him also as you do ... ?" 
 
 ". . . For my wife, you mean? I do. I love him. 
 He is a charming fellow." 
 
 "Is it not strange that you should be jealous 
 precisely of the one man whom you also like so well ?" 
 
 He reflects a while and finds no answer. I explain 
 to him that it shows a repressed homosexual dispo-
 
 114 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 sition towards his friend. The trend of his uncon- 
 scious thought is: "// I were a woman I could not 
 withstand him" Perhaps the thought goes even 
 further than that : "Too bad 1 am not a woman for 
 then I would enjoy that beautiful man. . . ." 
 
 He sees at once the relationship between his jeal- 
 ousy and the unrecognized inner homosexual dispo- 
 sition. He relates that this man is the only friend 
 whom he greets with a kiss after a prolonged absence, 
 that he likes to take him by the arm and to hold his 
 hand. 
 
 In short, he himself is in love with his friend. He 
 sees his friend everywhere and the slightest resem- 
 blances impress themselves strongly on his mind. 
 They are emanations from his one thought: / like 
 him and I wish I were a woman to yield to him. 
 
 It is very tempting to try to trace the various 
 paths of unconscious jealousy. But that would lead 
 us too far off our present theme. As we are con- 
 fronted with a very complicated condition which 
 may have the most varied roots I propose to give a 
 few clinical illustrations from my own practice and 
 to discuss the various forms of jealousy on the basis 
 of these data. 
 
 71. The first case of jealousy which I had occa- 
 sion to observe was that of a physician's wife. The 
 woman, 45 years of age, relates : "Perhaps you can 
 free me from a painful condition which embitters my
 
 Jealousy 115 
 
 whole life and turns my marriage into a veritable 
 hell. I have been married already 22 years and can 
 assert that I have not yet had a happy day except 
 when my husband is all day alone with me and we 
 have no occasion to come into contact with another 
 female person. He is a physician and already dur- 
 ing our engagement I was jealous of all his women 
 patients. I did not know this awful trait in myself 
 before. At any rate it was not so pronounced or I 
 should have not married my husband. At first I was 
 jealous of my immediate acquaintances and friends, 
 particularly of the very pretty women among them. 
 After marriage my condition grew worse and worse. 
 During the consultation hours I watched behind the 
 door and shivered with actual nervous chills in my 
 excitement. My husband was a woman specialist 
 and a very popular woman specialist at that. I 
 implored him to abandon that specialty and to take 
 up any other. I admit that the fact of his being a 
 woman specialist had at first excited my interest in 
 him and had a great deal to do with my choice of 
 the man. I thought to myself: the man sees so 
 many beautiful women, he sees them naked, and yet 
 has chosen you, the thought flattered me immensely. 
 That was well enough at first, but later the feeling 
 of jealousy grew in its stead. 
 
 I had a very pretty woman friend who was taking 
 treatment from my husband. What I endured dur- 
 ing her visits is beyond my powers to describe. I
 
 116 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 said to myself : 'She is now taking off her blouse and 
 now her petticoat. He is now examining, looking at 
 her bosom, and now she lifts herself upon the exam- 
 ination table, she stretches her limbs apart. . . .' 
 I suffered hellish torments. I was convinced that my 
 husband could not withstand this woman's charms 
 and would kiss her. I had a serious quarrel with 
 him; I quarreled with my friend, who turned from 
 me with indignation. Our marriage relations grew 
 worse on that account. I tortured my husband so 
 that he had to allow me to watch through a carefully 
 hidden peep-hole what was going on in the consul- 
 tation room. In that manner I convinced myself 
 that my husband was physically true to me. But 
 even though he swore a thousand times that the 
 women did not excite him in the least I could not 
 believe him. I stuck to one thing which I harped on 
 daily : 'Give up your specialty.' Years thus passed 
 in quarrels and dispute. I have now a married 
 daughter of my own and I thought to myself that 
 with advancing age my condition would change. 
 But not at all ! It grows worse and I transfer now 
 my jealousy also to my son-in-law, I am jealous for 
 my daughter. Fortunately, she has no real reason 
 to feel jealous and laughs at me. . . . 
 
 "I am also jealous of my daughter. I would like 
 to preserve her love for myself only and I begrudge 
 her husband. Although she made an excellent
 
 Psychogenesis of Jealousy 117 
 
 match, I was not satisfied and treated my son-in-law 
 very unfairly. I was unhappy over it but could 
 not help it. I have consulted already the most 
 famous specialists, have been for six weeks under 
 hypnotic treatment by Prof. X. I have already 
 kept away from my husband for three months at a 
 stretch, nothing has helped." 
 
 That is the sufferer's history. What is the 
 meaning of this jealousy? 
 
 The root of this jealousy is a non-conscious homo- 
 sexuality. She is jealous of her woman friend be- 
 cause she herself is in love with the friend. She puts 
 herself in the role of the man, the physician, and 
 concludes that in his position she could not resist 
 the temptation. She imagines herself in the man's 
 place; she scrutinizes every woman with hungry 
 looks. The peep-hole in the consultation room 
 serves on the one hand the purpose of calming down 
 her jealousy and of giving the poor husband a few 
 quiet hours ; on the other hand it enables her to par- 
 ticipate in everything that is taking place and to 
 gratify her craving as voyeuse. This control is her 
 daily homosexual excitant, the means through which 
 she rouses the flames of her passion only to still them 
 afterwards upon her husband. 
 
 After the explanation was reached there was a 
 marked improvement in her condition. The woman
 
 118 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 saw that her love for the daughter was homosexual 
 and that this was the reason why she was so jealous 
 of her son-in-law. 
 
 The occurrence is far from rare, and many a 
 marriage has been wrecked on account of it. The 
 angry mother-in-law is always the mother who can- 
 not live without her daughter and who wants to show 
 her daughter that the husband is untrue and does 
 not appreciate her and how much more she truly 
 loves the daughter. ... I have also often seen the 
 daughter, after a timorous attempt at married life, 
 return penitently back to the mother. I have seen 
 mothers who fight for their daughters with a lover's 
 passion and with their tremendous jealousy putting 
 all sorts of difficulties in the way of any pretenders 
 to the daughter's hand. I have found that kind of 
 jealousy frequently as the root of melancholia. I 
 refer in this connection to Case 132 in my "Nervose 
 Angstzustande" (2nd ed., p. 363). 
 
 72. The next case of jealousy shows the same 
 roots. A married woman, 30 years of age, consults 
 me on account of an unexplainable jealousy which 
 has been torturing her for about four weeks. She 
 tells the story of her jealousy: She engaged a new 
 servant, a very young girl, somewhat coquettish, but 
 who at first glance seemed to her very sympathetic. 
 After one week she felt jealous and found that her 
 husband, who usually did not so much as look at the
 
 The Jealous Wife 119 
 
 servants in the house, was extremely friendly and 
 courteous towards that girl. It seemed to her even 
 that he was bestowing longing glances on the girl. 
 At first she kept silent because she hesitated to speak 
 of the matter to her husband. But after a time she 
 reproached him about it: he must be more strict. 
 She requested him to assume a more severe tone in 
 his relations with the girl. Her husband laughed 
 at her. He said he talked to the girl in his usual 
 manner and nothing more. It was all imagination 
 on her part. The girl was very good; he had no 
 reason to call her down or to assume a more severe 
 tone towards her. That reassured her somewhat 
 but only for a short while. She watched her hus- 
 band more carefully than ever and thought he was 
 much charmed by the girl. She arose several times 
 during the night to go into the servant's room and 
 investigate. Once her husband had some gastric 
 trouble and he had to leave the room several times 
 that night. She was convinced that it was but an 
 excuse to go to the girl and several times she fol- 
 lowed him along the chilly passage into the hall, so 
 that her husband asked: "What is the matter with 
 you this time?" She said she was worried over his 
 condition and wanted to watch and see that he was 
 all right. Finally her jealousy broke to surface a 
 number of times and she reproached her husband 
 very bitterly with her suspicions. She was abso- 
 lutely certain that he was intimate with the girl.
 
 120 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 Her husband was indignant and asked her to dismiss 
 the girl at once so that there might be an end to that 
 "foolish notion." The remarkable thing was that 
 she felt unable or unwilling to dismiss the girl. The 
 girl was so good and so faithful, it is so hard nowa- 
 days to find an efficient girl servant, she insisted 
 only that her husband must show himself more strict 
 with her. He had to declare on his oath again that 
 there was no intimacy between them. Towards the 
 girl she felt a peculiar anger which she could not 
 understand. At times she could have flown at the 
 girl to strike her, which was very baffling as she had 
 never been in the habit of striking a servant. But 
 it would have been a great satisfaction to her to have 
 pummelled this girl who caused her so much anguish. 
 She had to restrain herself forcefully so as not to 
 give vent to her rage. She was very "touchy" with 
 the girl and tolerated not the least contradiction 
 on her part. 
 
 Nevertheless she could not make up her mind to 
 dismiss the girl, and yet she was afraid to be alone 
 with her. 
 
 All her troubles arose on account of her homo- 
 sexual attitude towards the girl who was in fact a 
 charming blonde type of beauty. She herself was in 
 love with the girl ; that is why she could not conceive 
 that her husband might be indifferent towards her. 
 She figured : // I were a man I would love this girl! 
 Interesting, and at the same time typical, is her rage
 
 The Growth of Jealousy 121 
 
 and desire to strike the girl. The love feeling is 
 converted into its opposite and the longing to touch 
 the girl (that is, to come into contact with her body) 
 manifests itself in the inclination to strike her. How 
 often love contacts disguise themselves as angry 
 blows under the mask of anger ! 
 
 I explain to the woman that she must dismiss 
 the girl when she saw clearly the meaning of her 
 jealousy. After the girl left all the unpleasant 
 symptoms mentioned above vanished. 
 
 Another form of jealousy transfers itself from 
 one object to another, or to the whole surroundings. 
 Such transference of jealousy serves the purpose of 
 masking from self and from others the real object 
 of the original jealousy. 
 
 73. Mrs. H. G. is a woman, 38 years of age, who 
 has been living happily with her husband. At pres- 
 ent she is unhappy on account of jealousy. Here 
 is her statement : "I have called on you to ask you 
 to relieve me of a condition which I find simply un- 
 bearable. I have a good, fine husband against whom 
 I cannot complain of anything. He is a splendid 
 and model man in every way. I am the more dis- 
 tressed therefore to be so jealous of him. I felt that 
 way, first, while my husband was ill with typhus 
 which left him with heart trouble. He has to be 
 more careful of himself because of the illness he has 
 been through, and whereas formerly he had inter-
 
 122 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 course with me two and three times a week, now it 
 happens only about once a month. My husband is 
 not well, I know it ; his physician has expressly 
 told me that he must keep very quiet and avoid all 
 excitement. Nevertheless I cannot help feeling that 
 he is untrue to me. I am so ashamed of it that I 
 have not yet breathed a word about my jealousy to 
 my husband. In fact, we are nearly always to- 
 gether. I know all his affairs and I often go along 
 wherever he goes. But I cannot hang on to him 
 every minute. So I hold the watch in hand and 
 count the minutes, even the seconds, for him to 
 return. Always the one thought: He is untrue to 
 you this very minute! If he goes to another office, 
 I think he does it because there is a pretty office girl 
 there with whom he is in love. If he takes a meal 
 at a restaurant, it is because he has a rendezvous. 
 If he is a few minutes late coming home from the 
 office, he was with a street woman. In short, I am 
 tormented all the time by these evil thoughts, I 
 struggle against them but cannot put them out of 
 my mind." 
 
 "How long have you been in that state?" 
 "It began when he went to Franzensbad on ac- 
 count of his heart trouble. There he became ac- 
 quainted with a spinster, a girl 46 years of age, 
 who was also alone. They two got together and kept 
 each other company. I know the girl; she is very 
 honorable, and when my judgment is uppermost, I
 
 Jealousy Introspection 123 
 
 say to myself: Nothing has happened; the two have 
 merely felt a temporary intellectual interest in one 
 another. But in my evil hours my mind conjures 
 up the worst thoughts. I have once read a letter 
 which that woman had written my husband. She 
 'thanked him for his interesting company during the 
 cure. A few weeks after the Franzensbad cure, there 
 came a box of flowers and a letter for my husband. 
 The woman wrote thanking him for his pleasant 
 company during the cure, she was very glad to 
 have made the acquaintance of so prominent and 
 intellectual a gentleman and hoped their friendship 
 would endure beyond the time of the cure. At that I 
 reproached my husband and tortured him with my 
 jealousy. He gave me his word of honor that his 
 relations with the woman were strictly of a friendly 
 and formal character; aside of his own considera- 
 tions, he was a sick man and satisfied to be left alone. 
 But I asked him to give up all further correspond- 
 ence with the woman and he readily consented. He 
 is really a fine fellow who grants me everything I 
 want, a man who reads in my eyes every wish of 
 mine, and I am ashamed to think ill of him all the 
 time." 
 
 Here we see one source of her jealousy. The 
 woman was married to a man who gratified her in 
 every respect ; suddenly she had to restrict herself 
 to an abstinent life. The enforced abstinence sug- 
 gested the thought : You are still young and attrac-
 
 124 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 tive, so many men are after you! Take a lover. 
 She was filled with fancies of longing and projected 
 them unto her husband. If he were unfaithful it 
 would furnish an excuse for her. She needed it ; she 
 wanted him to be unfaithful, for that would have 
 served her as a defense. Her compulsive thinking is 
 the masking of the thought: Oh, that my husband 
 were unfaithful so that I, too, might take a lover! 
 
 The thought was suggested to her by the fact that 
 the wife of one of her husband's colleagues, a very 
 light-minded person, was able, nevertheless, to keep 
 up a very handsome social position. She spoke with 
 great feeling about that woman. 
 
 "Does that woman not take loyalty so seriously 
 as you do?" 
 
 "That woman ? She does not have one lover ; she 
 has six at a time, and even more! She certainly 
 enjoys life. And the lovers pay for everything. She 
 has the finest wardrobe, the prettiest hats, takes 
 wonderful journeys and her husband knows every- 
 thing." 
 
 "Isn't her husband jealous?" 
 
 "Oh, no! He knows everything, and consoles 
 himself in his own way. But, do you know the 
 curious part of it all? That flighty woman is 
 jealous of her husband ! She quarrels bitterly with 
 him when she hears of his escapades, although she 
 has no right. The two have taken reciprocal 
 freedom. .**
 
 Cryptic Jealousy 125 
 
 This is also a common occurrence and very in- 
 teresting. Married couples living apart, each car- 
 rying on all sorts of adventures and love affairs, yet 
 jealous of each other, though usually they do not 
 show it. 2 There are persons who love each other 
 very warmly, but in the struggle between the sexes 
 they regard loyalty as submissiveness, as a hum- 
 bling before the partner, and they would perish 
 rather than submit to such a love. 3 
 
 Her calculating friend is a sophisticated woman 
 possessing wonderful tact, she tastes all forms of 
 pleasure, plays a certain social role, and enjoys 
 every phase of life. Moreover she is a very attrac- 
 tive woman appealing strongly to our jealous sub- 
 ject. 
 
 Back of her jealous thoughts, again, there stand 
 homosexual fancies. At the time when her husband 
 began to restrict his marital indulgences her homo- 
 sexual longing began to assert itself. She did not 
 want to be unfaithful. She was thus inhibited 
 against taking up a man. Therefore her thoughts 
 could only turn to woman. Her inner reflection 
 
 1 With his wonderful psychologic mastery Arthur Schnitzler 
 has described such a pair in his best piece entitled, "Das weite 
 Land." Hofrichter, the manufacturer, who flutters from one 
 love affair to another, and his wife, who consoles herself in 
 the arms of a young Cadet, are the kind of a pair who love 
 each other but go down in ruin rather than openly acknowl- 
 edge their love. 
 
 *Cf. chapter entitled, "Der Kampf der Oesclechter," in my 
 work, The Beloved Ego, translated by Dr. S. A. Tamnenbawn, 
 Moffat, Yard & Co., N. Y.
 
 126 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 was : If I were a man, I would enjoy a pretty woman 
 every little while and more particularly that flighty 
 friend whom I like so well. 
 
 The flighty woman had roused every feeling in 
 her. Not only her homosexuality, but also all those 
 prostituting tendencies which either slumber deeply 
 hidden in every woman's soul or break to surface 
 before self and before the whole world. To be paid 
 for the service of love, to receive actual coin in 
 recognition of her sexual charm that is a fancy 
 looming up under various cover-symptoms among 
 the neurotics. 
 
 That polygamic friend of hers achieved every- 
 thing that a woman may wish, and in spite of that 
 she maintained her good social standing. She 
 moved in a select circle, folks merely shutting one 
 eye so long as she was so clever in covering her 
 tracks. 
 
 That example is constantly before her eyes. She 
 herself is sexually ungratified, financially she can 
 hardly make both ends meet, and she sees the other 
 woman getting everything she needs : money an-i 
 love. The question, Does it pay to be honest? 
 continually recurs to her mind. 
 
 She unburdens herself of a mass of similar reflec- 
 tions but does not think that the real cause of her 
 jealousy depends on herself. She is jealous also of 
 the servant girl, the man servant, and the children. 
 She is even jealous of her male friends. She has a
 
 Instinct of Possession 127 
 
 certain good friend whom she put in touch, so to 
 speak, with a woman friend because he did not mean 
 anything to her. Since that time he has been keeping 
 up a close acquaintance with that woman and she 
 is very jealous ; she would like to get him away from 
 her and to have him entirely to herself. She cannot 
 bear to see a child familiar with other persons and 
 is wild even when the servant girl receives a letter 
 or a show post card through the mail. It is the per- 
 severance of the instinct of possession on account of 
 diminished sexual gratification. She is reduced, so 
 to speak, to small rations and therefore wants to 
 accumulate and reserve for herself everything the 
 environment yields in the form of love. The little 
 she has she wants to preserve for herself only and 
 to protect as her own exclusive possession. The 
 same attitude is seen on the part of children who 
 have a favorite older brother or sister. They are 
 extremely jealous of their trifling possessions and 
 are enraged when the other children in the house 
 attempt to touch their toys. The others may have 
 more, but what little they possess they want to pre- 
 serve exclusively for themselves. 
 
 The subject thus tells about her jealousy of 
 everything and everybody. But she displays but 
 little understanding of psychic relationships, she is 
 afraid to come to me because while at my office she 
 cannot watch her husband, and stays away a few 
 days. It seems as if she had something important
 
 128 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 to tell me but does not quite find the courage to 
 do so. 
 
 Soon she calls at my office again complaining that 
 her jealousy grows worse ; she suffered terribly that 
 day, and all through the previous night she had 
 hardly closed her eyes. And presently she con- 
 fesses that the jealousy actually began after the 
 death of her mother. 
 
 "Do you know dear doctor my mother was the 
 model of a noble woman. She was virtuous, dili- 
 gent, well educated, sweet tempered, a veritable an- 
 gel in human form. In spite of it all I don't know 
 why I was more strongly attached to father. Pos- 
 sibly because he played more with us and paid more 
 attention to our games and excursions while mother 
 was more strict in her training and careful to in- 
 culcate in us a sense of orderliness. Mother died 
 of a painful growth. I said to myself: 'Now you 
 must take mother's place with father. You must 
 take care of him.' Father was already 62 years of 
 age, and suffered occasionally of gouty attacks. I 
 was tremendously shocked to see my father put 
 aside mourning after a few weeks and change into 
 an elegant man-about-town, he the respectable 
 town official, who had never before gone a step 
 without mother. . . . He started to frequent night- 
 ly disreputable dives and I soon heard that he 
 was having relations with various disreputable 
 women of the town. I was so disconsolate, in my
 
 Jealousy of the Father 129 
 
 anguish I visited daily mother's grave. There I 
 threw myself to the ground and out of the bitter- 
 ness of my heart I implored mother and prayed to 
 her. 'Mother,' I cried, 'you must not let this go 
 on, you must not allow your good name and honor 
 to be dragged down that way. Mother, put an 
 end to these shameful doings. Make father so ill 
 that he shall be unable to sin any more and besmirch 
 your memory.' Thus I implored and prayed. But 
 it did not do any good. Soon I observed that 
 father was intimate with our young servant girl 
 and that she was trying to get hold of his money. 
 I drove her out of the house with the aid of the 
 police because I discovered that she was stealing 
 money from father. O, I was like a fury and irrec- 
 oncilable because the honor of my mother was at 
 stake, and I had ceased to respect my father who 
 had been the dearest person in the world to me! 
 After that I had peace for a few weeks because 
 father suffered one of his gout attacks. I prayed 
 to God and to the virgin mother to keep father con- 
 fined to his bed so that he should be able no longer 
 to add to his sins. But father got well soon and 
 resumed his former care-free nocturnal rounds of 
 amusement places. Chorus girls, dancers, street 
 women and others of that ilk gathered at our house 
 and were lavishly entertained. Then one day I 
 heard that father intended to marry again. He 
 had become engaged to a 42-year-old widow. I
 
 130 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 knew at once that the woman had her eye on father's 
 money. / bought a revolver and, I tell you frankly : 
 / should have killed either the woman or my father 
 if there had been any marriage. Perhaps I would 
 have done away with both, for I was determined to 
 protect mother's memory against this insult and 
 shame. I went to that woman's house and gave her 
 such a warning that the engagement was soon given 
 up. I told that shameless adventuress: 'You will 
 never reach the altar alive; that I swear solemnly 
 on mother's memory!' I was fully determined to 
 shoot them both. You can appreciate how excited 
 I was. 
 
 "After that father avoided me and my sisters. But 
 the proposed marriage did not take place, I had 
 accomplished that much. I went no longer to his 
 house when he had suddenly a light stroke and was 
 forced to appeal to us children. Then we had a 
 complete family reconciliation and since that time 
 I have again my father. Now I see him daily, we 
 children take turns in looking after him." 
 
 "Have you no feeling of guilt and did you never 
 think that your father fell ill because you wished 
 it? Did you not want him to be so crippled and 
 reduced to your care that he should be able no 
 longer to carry on?'* 
 
 "I don't feel guilty and I have no regrets. Only 
 satisfaction. ... I wished it to be that way and it 
 has come out as I wished. For now I have once
 
 Jealousy of the Father 181 
 
 more a father of whom I need not be ashamed. But 
 you must not think that I was jealous on my own 
 account. I only felt myself the representative of 
 my mother." 
 
 "You are not jealous of your sister?" 
 "Yes . . . when father is very demonstrative 
 with her, I feel the same wild jealousy come over 
 me, but I control myself . . ." 
 
 Here we see jealousy rising out of an incestuous 
 wish first directed upon a man, then transferred to 
 the whole environment. This transference of jeal- 
 ousy to every one serves more effectively to cover the 
 genuine jealousy of the father. The death of the 
 mother left this young woman in a critical position. 
 Obviously her wish as a child was: "When mother 
 dies I will marry father." A wish which so many 
 girls entertain and even openly express. With the 
 death of the mother the new situation presented it- 
 self. A place close to father was vacated and now 
 other women filled it. The old father's behavior 
 showed that he was still a man. But one thing stood 
 against this fancy: her husband. So long as he 
 lived she could not go to live with her father. Her 
 husband's illness brought matters prospectively 
 nearer to an issue. The physician had declared 
 that he could not live long, his heart trouble was 
 serious. She might yet be free! Her agitation ex- 
 plains a number of peculiar dreams she had. She
 
 132 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 dreamed repeatedly of quarreling with her husband 
 and of striking him. Several times already she has 
 beaten him up and she has even shot him in her 
 dreams. She is also unfair to the child, turning 
 against it with hatred on slightest provocation. 
 
 We see that the jealousy of the husband also has 
 the role of legitimizing a hatred which has its roots 
 in other causes. For she confesses that during her 
 fits of jealousy, when she thinks that her husband 
 is unfaithful, she feels a bitter hatred against him 
 and could murder him. . . . The husband is in the 
 way, her hatred corresponds to the idea that he is 
 a hindrance. During the night the hatred breaks 
 forth but during the waking hours it is rationalized 
 as due to jealousy. For she admits that she has 
 really never fully loved her husband. Her affection 
 goes to her father. She imagines that she is fight- 
 ing for the preservation of her mother's pure mem- 
 ory; that furnishes an ethical cover and masks the 
 true motives. 
 
 The relationship of this jealousy to homosexual- 
 ity is interesting. It furnishes an excellent proof 
 of our findings concerning homosexuality. One 
 must bear in mind, first of all, that many factors 
 contribute in this instance to bring about the re- 
 gression to the infantile level: her husband's seri- 
 ous illness, his relative impotence and abstinence, 
 her mother's illness, the father's change to a devil- 
 may-care attitude, showing her that one may change
 
 Hatred 133 
 
 even in late years, and that it is never too late fully 
 to enjoy the fruits of love. Her homosexuality was 
 always ready to break forth in her. She identified 
 herself with her father looking at women through 
 his eyes. She had protected herself at first by a 
 'passionate love for her husband and minor various 
 trivial homosexual traits of her childhood were thus 
 readily overcome. Her swing to heterosexuality 
 was very successful with the aid of her husband. 
 Her homosexuality was repressed, only to reappear 
 at the beginning of the menopause, woman's criti- 
 cal age. The involutive processes taking place in 
 the genital glands, and the general physical changes 
 in woman at the time play a certain role in that 
 connection. Her husband's impotence and the 
 friend's exciting example of her attractive friend, 
 with whom she herself was secretly in love, again 
 roused her homosexual feelings, though the atti- 
 tude showed itself only under the guise of jealousy. 
 But the father's conduct, since her father was the 
 deepest cause of her aversion against man, was 
 what really made her lose her balance. She might 
 have become an urlind, had her father remained the 
 old, kindly, bland and quiet gentleman. But since 
 he abandoned the mask after the death of the 
 mother, he roused all the daughter's evil instincts. 
 Not only the infantile erotic predisposition but the 
 infantile criminal tendencies as well. In her dreams 
 she murdered her husband who prevented her from
 
 134 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 turning entirely to her father and fulfill an in- 
 fantile wish to become her father's wife. She also 
 repeatedly killed the children and her beloved 
 friends. This woman during her critical period 
 displayed not only the craving for love but also the 
 aboriginal emotion, the primordial stuff, out of 
 which everything beautiful and great has evolved: 
 hatred. 
 
 Hatred against the other sex and against her 
 rivals, hatred against the children whom she could 
 have killed when anger seized her soul. . . . 
 
 74. This is the case of a 30-year-old woman, 
 victim of a remarkable form of jealousy. She is 
 jealous of her home, watching over it like one might 
 watch and protect a beloved. She has an older 
 sister who has been married for five years past and 
 lives outside Vienna. That sister was more to her 
 than her mother or any other friend. She looked 
 upon her as a second mother, confided all her se- 
 crets in her and allowed herself to be guided and 
 advised by her at every step. She was supremely 
 happy in her companionship and desired nothing 
 better. She loved only that one sister, towards 
 the other members of the family she was more or 
 less indifferent. Suddenly the family decided to 
 marry off that sister and an aunt brought a suitor 
 to the house. She found that suitor ridiculous, 
 unsuitable for the sister, and fought with all her
 
 Jealousy of the Home 135 
 
 limited powers against the match. But the mother 
 showed the greatest eagerness for an early mar- 
 riage. Then it happened that the girl awoke sud- 
 denly in the night. Like a thunder a terrible 
 thought flashed through her mind: "You must do 
 away with your mother!" (It was the last desperate 
 soul cry in the attempt to hold on forever to her 
 sister. The mother was the original cause of her 
 misfortune. She could not live without the sister.) 
 The thought so shocked her, the subsequent regrets 
 over it kept her in a very depressed mood. She 
 developed a severe neurosis, consisting chiefly of a 
 series of punishments and expiations to which she 
 deliberately subjected herself. And shortly after 
 that she developed her jealousy of the home. Her 
 sister lived outside Vienna at a small place in Hun- 
 gary and occasionally came to Vienna. It was 
 natural that she should find a place in the com- 
 fortable old home of seven rooms which the family 
 occupied alone. But the girl could not tolerate the 
 sister's presence in the house. She became depressed, 
 began to cry, found that the furniture was being 
 abused and ruined, could not sleep nights, and 
 daily asked her sister : "How long are you going to 
 stay in town?" so that the sister cut her visit as 
 short as possible. 
 
 This went on for several years. Year after year 
 the sister brought a new baby into the world and 
 she could not tolerate her sister's children in the
 
 136 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 old home. Every time a visit with the children 
 made her so seriously ill that finally the mother 
 begged the sister to find some other rooming place. 
 The children were hardly tolerated in the house; 
 they had to be kept in one certain room. The girl 
 was always afraid that something in the house would 
 be ruined. That this was not jealousy of her 
 mother is shown by the fact that it did not affect 
 her to have the mother visit the sister. In fact she 
 joined the mother readily on such visits and be- 
 haved very pleasantly and quietly at her sister's. 
 Only when it was a question of the old home she 
 became a storming avenging angel. Naturally she 
 also wanted to have her mother to herself. Her 
 boundless jealousy of the sister had apparently 
 disappeared .altogether and had switched over to 
 the old home where the two had been once so su- 
 premely happy. Thoughts of hatred against the 
 sister's children and phantasies about doing away 
 with them, also occurred. She thought of a subtle 
 poison that could be given with the food in her 
 *home. Perhaps she feared the presence of her sis- 
 ter and sister's children in the house for that very 
 reason and the fear may have been a protection 
 against her criminal tendencies. 
 
 She had loved truly but one person: her sister. 
 The latter was everything in the world to her. She 
 called her the second mother, her friend, her be- 
 loved. Her first thought when she awoke in the
 
 Fixation on the Sister 137 
 
 morning was of her sister, the endeavor to please 
 her filled her life, and the last thing she did before 
 going to bed was to offer a prayer for her sister. 
 She was good and upright because she loved her 
 sister and because she felt happy that her sister 
 gave all her spare time up to her. She was trained 
 by her, they went on walks together, her sister 
 trained her heart. She was supremely happy and 
 wished nothing more than always so to live beside 
 her sister. 
 
 Then came the engagement and her sister's mar- 
 riage. Her heart bled at that terrible act of trea- 
 son and her feelings hardened. She hated every- 
 thing, she was against the whole world: against 
 the mother who instigated the match, against the 
 other sisters, who had also favored it, against the 
 brothers who did not oppose it. Only an old nurse 
 woman who had always stood by her and was her 
 staff of support, exceptionally escaped her hatred 
 remaining a sort of solitary ray of affection. But 
 the house was filled with memories of the beloved 
 sister. The pieces of furniture were mute but elo- 
 quent witnesses of her former happy love state. 
 They should not be profaned by the presence of the 
 unfaithful, changed sister! She hated the children, 
 wishing they were dead and at the same time she 
 was afraid she might hurt them. Two souls 
 struggled in her breast: one a criminal, the other 
 ethical. The sight of the children was repulsive
 
 138 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 to her. They bore the traits of the sister and of 
 the man who had stolen her away. 
 
 Her whole possessions consisted now of her mem- 
 ory and the household goods, the old rooms fur- 
 nished the necessary real background for her phan- 
 tasies. "Memory is the only paradise from which 
 we cannot be driven out," said Jean Paul. Her 
 residence became to her a temple of memory, a 
 sanctuary where every piece of furniture re- 
 called the past happiness in which she still pro- 
 jected herself. For her days passed in dreaming 
 and weaving of fancies. She idled away sweet hours 
 and days continually dreaming only of her sister. 
 Criminal fancies of poisoning all the others finally 
 led her, by way of punishment, to fear poisoning. 
 She quit eating anything at the table, as she form- 
 erly did. She suspected poison in every food. She 
 began to vomit after her meals. She kept away 
 from everybody except one woman friend who stuck 
 to her faithfully and who shared her revulsion of 
 feeling against the sister. She lived continually in 
 fear she might kill her mother because the impera- 
 tive (kill her!) kept cropping up all the time. She 
 avoided men. All attempts to interest her in some 
 man eventually to get her married off proved fruit- 
 less. . . . 
 
 The home was her temple which must not be 
 soiled. All her devotion and her affection were cen- 
 tered daily on that spot.
 
 The Savior Phantasy 139 
 
 The case approaches closely the realm of psy- 
 chosis. 
 
 After a course of psychoanalysis lasting about 
 one half year she improved a great deal. She was 
 able to tolerate her sister's visits, was free of 'the 
 obsessive thought of killing her mother, was again 
 able to eat any food and her "nervous" vomiting 
 ceased altogether. A very favorable offer of mar- 
 riage she rejected. She still avoided men as reso- 
 lutely as ever. 
 
 We turn to the next case. 
 
 75. Mr. R. T., a well-known poet, only 31 years 
 of age, is also a victim of morbid jealousy and has 
 already experienced very serious conflicts on that 
 account. He was always fixed on his family and 
 lived exclusively for his parents and other members 
 of the immediate family circle. He clung particu- 
 larly to the mother, with worshipful affection. At 
 18 years of age he began to fall in love with all his 
 friends' "girls." He even fell in love with a street 
 woman whom his best friend often visited. Already 
 at that time he showed a strong jealous streak and 
 he asked that woman to give up her unfortunate 
 way of living. (That is a typical experience with 
 young fellows who are fixed on the mother. They 
 seek out a polar obverse to their mother's character 
 and associate with that person a fancy of being 
 the savior. The savior phantasy covers, accord"
 
 140 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 ing to my investigation, merely the wish to save 
 one's self. . . .) He was soon through with this 
 love affair, although it had broken out with great 
 passion, and had to leave Berlin because he could 
 not get along with his parents. He always quar- 
 reled with his mother and that interfered with his 
 creative work. 
 
 Meanwhile he became very famous and was earn- 
 ing a very comfortable income. He fell into the 
 habit of spending his nights at restaurants and 
 other amusement places in the company of friends 
 and of returning home in the early morning hours. 
 He woke up at noon and wrote a few hours during 
 the afternoon, that was his only work. 
 
 At a certain cabaret he became acquainted with 
 a girl who was in charge of the bar. She was 35 
 years of age at the time, but gave her age as 28, 
 and in fact looked much younger than she was. He 
 began having relations with that girl, looking upon 
 the affair as a trivial adventure, at first. He knew 
 that she was being supported by a Count but this 
 did not prevent him from allowing her to choose 
 him for her "heart love." He was tremendously 
 flattered that this girl, or perhaps we would better 
 say, this woman, preferred him to all others and 
 loved him so disinterestedly. His affection grew 
 daily, also her love for him. She finally gave up 
 her Count and told our young man that she 
 loved him only, and would never again give her-
 
 The Past 141 
 
 self to any other man. It made him very happy; 
 they rented lodgings together. But soon he re- 
 quested her to give up her position at the bar, be- 
 cause there she came into too close contact with 
 men. She did that very willingly. Before they 
 had taken up lodgings together he had asked her 
 to give him a complete history of her past life. She 
 told him a very romantic life history and mentioned 
 four men who had had sexual relations with her. 
 (As a matter of fact dozens of men had cohabited, 
 with her.) 
 
 He was madly jealous of these men. She had to 
 repeat to him the story of her past over and over, 
 then he became angry, also sexually very excited, 
 figured how he would revenge himself on his rivals, 
 how he would beat them, box their ears or shoot 
 them down in a duel or cut them up with his sword; 
 his rage against the unfortunate woman grew all the 
 time, he scolded her, called her every bad name, 
 threatened to leave her at once, struck her, and in 
 the end had intercourse with her, experiencing pow- 
 erful orgasm. 
 
 Before long he began to be troubled with the 
 uncertainty whether she had told the whole truth. 
 He investigated her past, looking up questionable 
 episodes. A detective was engaged to watch her 
 during his absence and to look up her past. The 
 fellow quickly picked up the gossip of the neigh- 
 borhood and reported the talk as true. Besides
 
 142 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 the adventures frankly confessed to him a number 
 of other liaisons were traced, which the woman had 
 failed to mention. She also had to admit that she 
 was older than she had held herself out to be. 
 
 There followed years of terrible torture and con- 
 tinual torture. First thing in the morning he be- 
 gan to wonder who else among his acquaintances or 
 among strangers may have possessed the woman. 
 He questioned her persistently, his rage growing, 
 he made her take a solemn oath, then he struck her 
 and tried to extract from her a forced confession. 
 In vain she implored him, begging him to realize 
 that she was not responsible for her past, that she 
 did not know him at the time, that she was but a 
 child when she already had to support the whole 
 household and a sick mother; nothing helped, he 
 was implacable. 
 
 When his investigations led accidentally to the 
 discovery of another man who had not previously 
 figured in the list of her adventures he threw a glass 
 at her head and hurt her so seriously that she was 
 ill several weeks. He sought quarrels with her 
 former sweethearts and challenged them on the least 
 provocation, wounding 'several in duel, as he was 
 an excellent duellist. 
 
 Finally the lovers separated. The woman could 
 stand it no longer and threatened to take her life. 
 But in a few weeks she fell ill and had him called 
 to her sick bed. Another time the reverse occurred.
 
 The Past 143 
 
 In short the pair could not keep away from each 
 other. It was the last love of this woman who had 
 lost her early first charms. Through this love she 
 hoped to save herself and either marry or attain the 
 quasi-respectability of a similar state. But he had 
 entered this relationship lightly as he had done in 
 similar cases and he now suddenly found himself 
 entangled in a tight net which isolated him from 
 the world. For he did not dare to go out with her. 
 He always had the unpleasant thought he might 
 meet one of her former lovers, he even watched 
 the faces of all passers-by to see whether they did 
 not laugh at him. 
 
 He had a friend who was very devoted to him. 
 That friend hated his partner, because she had 
 robbed him of his best friend. That friend was his 
 complete slave. He became the poor woman's guar- 
 dian. But the friend had a peculiar passion. He 
 desired to possess all women who belonged to his 
 friends. (This is a transparent homosexual mask 
 as I have already pointed out in the present work.) 
 Therefore he made love also to this woman, who 
 planned her revenge by apparently accepting his 
 advances and when she had in her hands proofs of 
 the fellow's intention, she turned the proofs over to 
 her beloved. A terrible scene ensued, including re- 
 volver shots, but fortunately no one was hurt. 
 
 Next he began to torment the woman regarding 
 her relations with that friend. He obviously looked
 
 144 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 for an excuse to break with her, and solemnly re- 
 solved to leave her for good if he should discover 
 the least thing out of the way in her conduct. But 
 she was so cowed by his snares that she did not 
 dare to go out on the street alone. . . . 
 
 The motives of his conduct are clear. We have 
 here a pronounced case of homosexuality manifest- 
 ing itself as jealousy of other men. The thought 
 that this or that other man had possessed her is 
 precisely what constituted the woman's highest 
 charm in his eyes. When the man declares that he 
 would have been happy if he could have met this 
 woman in her virgin purity, he is mistaken. He 
 will always seek the street walker, the disreputable 
 woman. She is the more charming because she is 
 older than he. For he is longing for the mother 
 Imago and therefore he is most happy, too, when 
 she mothers him. Like most homosexuals he is 
 strongly attached to the mother. But unlike the 
 overt homosexuals he has not carried out his flight 
 all the way to the male, but has fled, instead, to 
 the puella publica, the dishonored woman. . . . 
 
 He would like to get rid of this woman. But he 
 has become more deeply enmeshed with her through 
 his feeling of guilt on account of the wound he had 
 caused her and which had left an ugly scar on her 
 face. Since he wishes she were dead in order to be 
 free of her, his conscience indissolubly binds him 
 tenfold to his victim. His criminal fancies centeif
 
 Criminal Fancies 145 
 
 continually on the poor tortured woman and her 
 former lovers. Under the mask of his jealousy he 
 gives free rein to his criminal fancies. In addi- 
 tion, like most artists he is very superstitious and 
 believes that the woman had brought him good luck. 
 Since he has her, he has created his best work and 
 under the inspiration of the strong excitement, he 
 has achieved his best results. It thus seems that 
 the relationship is fixed for life and he may never 
 be able to give it up. . . . 
 
 Naturally there are also other forms of jealousy. 
 But when it appears in this pathologic form, it is 
 never difficult to trace the homosexual factor and 
 with it the criminal tendencies back of it. The last 
 case given above is particularly convincing and the 
 friend's behavior very characteristic. 
 
 Our subject feels impelled to think of the woman's 
 lovers driven thereto by his homosexual longing. 
 He thinks of them in a roundabout way, so to speak, 
 through and around the woman. Jealousy enables 
 him to dwell on the picture of the naked man; he 
 thinks of the phallus of his rival, compares it with 
 his own ; he drinks in the bliss which his beloved must 
 have tasted through another man; he places him- 
 self entirely in the woman's role, so that, in his 
 fancy, he is the woman. He hates the woman in 
 himself and transfers that hatred upon his second 
 self, his beloved. He hates the woman also because 
 she cannot successfully substitute the man for him.
 
 146 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 Before that liaison he spent his nights in cafes and 
 wine rooms in the exclusive company of men. He 
 no longer does that. He does not leave his beloved 
 alone any more, thus lacking the excitation of manly 
 company. He tortures his mother as he does his 
 beloved whenever he goes home for a few days. He 
 loves her so dearly that he cannot live through a 
 day without calling her up from Vienna all the way 
 to Berlin, where she lives, to talk to her. If he is 
 somewhere where he cannot be reached by telephone 
 his mother must wire him daily. It is very interest- 
 ing how this love of the mother covers the deeper 
 love of the father. He plays the love of his mother 
 as his trump card against the father. He flees from 
 the sexual love of the father, while yet he has been 
 repeatedly conscious of his incest phantasies to- 
 wards the mother. He always adds to his mother 
 Imago some kind of a father. He was most jealous 
 of an attorney, already grey haired and a married 
 man, who therefore stood as a symbol of the father. 
 He has even gone so far as to look up that man 
 to demand an explanation from him, thereby mak- 
 ing himself ridiculous. His jealousy was particu- 
 larly suitable as a means for his latent sadism to 
 become manifest. It enabled him to dwell on blood- 
 curdling phantasies, it made it reasonable for him 
 to injure his beloved sweetheart, and to justify that 
 insane deed as due to excess of love. The analysis 
 brought about a distinct improvement in the situ-
 
 Sensitiveness to Noise 147 
 
 ation. He joined again his comrades at the public 
 houses and peace was seldom disturbed after that. 
 How difficult it is at times to ferret out the homo- 
 sexual root of jealousy in such situations is shown 
 by the next case, in which jealousy is again masked 
 before the subject's consciousness. 
 
 76. Miss K. N. consults me for a peculiar 
 trouble about her sleep. She is extremely sensitive 
 to noise. She lives with her sister who keeps a very 
 small apartment where one little room is rented to 
 a gentleman. Her nervousness consists of uncon- 
 trollable reflections, as soon as evening begins, about 
 the lodger's return home. If he returns and goes 
 to sleep early, she herself is soon quiet and sleeps 
 well through the night. But if he is away, she can- 
 not sleep. She may fall into slumber but. sleeps so 
 lightly that she is awake at the least noise until 
 she hears the lodger return at last to his room. 
 Then a terrible feeling of dread comes over her and 
 her heart begins to beat fast. Other noises also 
 seem to disturb her. The house in which she lives 
 is near a railroad track. But the trains do not 
 disturb her, nor the electric cars. But voices in 
 the next room, and the sound of steps on the floor 
 above, keep her awake. 
 
 One would suppose that she wishes the lodger 
 would come to her and is afraid of that. But she 
 insists that the gentleman is indifferent to her, she
 
 148 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 would not kiss him if he gave her millions in money 
 for it. She is an unlucky person. She will un- 
 doubtedly have to give up her sister's lodging. She 
 has already had a similar experience. She was the 
 mother's favorite, petted and fondled in every way. 
 Her mother had a stroke of paralysis and lost con- 
 sciousness. After she came to herself, she clung 
 to the delusion that her favorite child had turned 
 untrue to her and began terribly to torture the poor 
 child. 4 She reproached her with occurrences wholly 
 imaginary, scolded her as being cold, selfish and in- 
 
 *The flaring up of jealousy in old age during exhaustive 
 conditions, an extraordinarily common occurrence, seems to be 
 determined partly by endocrinic disorders and partly by the 
 awakening of infantile predispositions. We also find frequent 
 mention of the fact that morbid jealousy manifests itself 
 after a prolonged convalescence in bed. Some physicians are 
 inclined to trace the condition back to an intoxication. It 
 seems to me more likely that the unusual opportunity of 
 mulling things over in the mind is more likely the cause. We 
 must also take into consideration that facing closely the pos- 
 sibility of death all ungratified wishes, including the homo- 
 sexual, once more flare up, urgently pressing for gratification. 
 This alone may lead to the flaring up also of paraphilias and 
 homosexual tendencies during old age, when it must also be 
 considered that on account of organic changes in the brain 
 cortex the inhibitions are also weakened. I have repeatedly 
 noticed that nursing care by a person of the same sex as the 
 patient also plays a certain r61e. I have even seen directly as 
 a consequence of prolonged invalidism the development of a 
 homosexual feeling-attitude towards the nursing person, for 
 instance, the flaring up of a passion for mother or sister. 
 Regressions back into childhood frequently occur after infec- 
 tious diseases. All the various infantile attitudes manifest 
 themselves. Psychosexual infantilism, a subject which will be 
 fully treated in a forthcoming volume of our "Disorders of 
 the Emotions and the Instincts," is most likely to break out 
 particularly after a period of illness when one feels one's 
 self again a child.
 
 Sensitiveness to Noise 149 
 
 different. The girl could do nothing and finally had 
 to leave the house and go to live with strangers. 
 She returned home only after the death of the 
 mother. Meanwhile the father had also passed 
 away. The two girls remained alone in the world 
 and now only had each other. But things were at 
 sixes and sevens between them and they seldom had 
 a quiet hour between themselves. 
 
 At last the sister became actually abusive. She 
 begged her sister "with uplifted hands" to dismiss 
 the lodger. She was willing to cover the room rent 
 out of her own pocket. She could not stand it any 
 longer. She could not sleep nights and was going 
 physically and mentally to pieces. But the sister 
 became wild and started to scold her, using the same 
 terrible terms which she had heard her mother hurl 
 at her. They rushed at each other's hair. She was 
 so enraged she could have strangled her sister at 
 the time. 
 
 After that scene she came again to me in despair. 
 I advised her to move out. She cannot have every- 
 thing her way and she must have quiet. But what 
 was her answer. 
 
 "That I cannot do. I cannot." 
 "Why not? Does not your sister let you?*' 
 "Oh no, it isn't that . . . only yesterday sister 
 said to me: 'Move out. I will cherish the day when 
 I will get rid of you.' " 
 "And you stand for that?"
 
 150 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 "I cannot move out because . . ." 
 
 "You are in love with your sister and cannot live 
 without her." 
 
 "That's it. I cannot live without sister and even 
 her scoldings and her angry words I will put up 
 with rather than stand a day without seeing her." 
 
 "Still you will have to do it. ... The conditions 
 are unhealthy. n 
 
 "Yes . . . Only yesterday I said to sister : */ am 
 going to move out and you can keep your rooms and 
 do with your lodger whatever you want. I won't 
 protect you any more. 1 ' 
 
 Thus it came out clearly that she was watching 
 every night, whether the lodger was going to the 
 sister and that she dreaded moving out because she 
 knew that the sister would then be alone with the 
 lodger in the house and he could go to her every 
 night. I made this clear to her but she did not seem 
 to see it at first. She admitted her homosexual love 
 for the sister. . . . 
 
 She moved to other quarters. It was a quiet 
 little room over a garden in the home of an elderly 
 woman living alone. But here also she could not 
 sleep. The old woman snored and she could not 
 stand that. Then the ticking of a clock disturbed 
 her continually and kept her from falling asleep, 
 the striking of the hours even waking her up. She 
 thus continually sought everywhere for the reasons 
 of her unrest which were only in herself. The pal-
 
 Fixation on Sister 151 
 
 pitation of her heart (symbolic substitute for it: 
 the clock) gave her no peace. She looked for other 
 quarters, kept looking and looking but found no 
 place so satisfactory and quiet as the sister's lodg- 
 ing. She went there every evening returning to her 
 outside lodgings late in the night. She took advan- 
 tage of a light illness of her sister's as an excuse 
 and returned to her little room, again shivering with 
 dread whenever the lodger was late coming home. 
 Even after she chose for herself a lover who gave 
 her complete sexual gratification her quiet was tem- 
 porary. The heterosexual component of her in- 
 stincts drove her more and more to her lover trying 
 to forget her sister in his arms. But she succeeded 
 only intermittently and her thoughts kept revolving 
 again and again between her sister and that lodger. 
 Finally her sister gave in and the lodger had to 
 move. An elderly young woman became the new 
 lodger. Then she quieted down and was able to 
 sleep once more. 
 
 It is interesting that nearly all narcotic drugs 
 not only proved useless but made her worse. She 
 did not want to sleep so as to keep watch over her 
 sister's virtue. 
 
 As in all the cases previously mentioned, here, 
 too, developments led to overt attitudes, the subject 
 stood on the brink of criminal passional deeds. 
 Hatred and love showed intimate relationships. She 
 was also afraid of murderers, barricaded the doors
 
 152 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 and shivered at every little noise. That was the 
 fear of her own criminal thoughts. Her infantile 
 criminal tendencies arose with her infantile love for 
 the sister. 
 
 This case, like the former, illustrates the inner 
 relations between jealousy, homosexuality and sad- 
 ism. For during her fits of anger she entertained 
 terrible thoughts of revenge. She thought of burn- 
 ing down the home; of killing her sister, as well as 
 herself, by turning on the gas in the room ; she tried 
 to secure a revolver, supposedly as a protection 
 against thieves. Her dreams show a criminal per- 
 sonality in sharp contrast to her customary mild 
 character. Emotionally the criminal in her was 
 much more powerful than her cultural self, she could 
 have assaulted her sister and once actually drew a 
 knife. After such emotional outbreaks she crumpled 
 and became again the quiet, soft girl, beloved of 
 everybody on account of her good nature.
 
 IV 
 
 JEALOUSY AND PARANOIA JEALOUSY AS PROJECTION 
 
 OF ONE'S OWN INADEQUACY FREUD'S RE- 
 SEARCHES ON PARANOIA THE INVESTIGATIONS 
 
 OF JULIUSBURGER THE JEALOUSY OF A PARA- 
 NOIAC JEALOUSY DELUSION OF A MERCHANT 
 
 JEALOUSY AND ALCOHOLISM THE EVOLUTION OF 
 
 MANKIND FROM BISEXUALITY TO MONOSEXUALITY 
 
 METAMORPHOSIS SEXUALIS PARANOICA THE 
 
 MONOTHEISM OF SEXUALITY JEALOUSY AND 
 
 CRIMINALITY.
 
 Die Eifersucht wird immer mit der Liebe geboren 
 dber stirbt nicht immer mit ihr. 
 
 La Rochefoucauld.
 
 IV 
 
 Jealousy always arises with love "but does not al- 
 ways die out with it. 
 
 La Rochefoucauld. 
 
 It is very striking that the feeling of jealousy 
 breaks through all the barriers of culture. Extra- 
 ordinarily frequent are suspicions of incest, 1 of ho- 
 mosexuality, of masturbation, and zoophily. Wom- 
 en accuse their husbands of relations with their 
 daughter; or they accuse the man of homosexual 
 relations with a friend. Men bring similar accusa- 
 tions against their wives. All such accusations 
 are projections of subjective sexual tendencies 
 upon the object of their jealousy. Beaussart (La 
 Jalousie; Annales Psychiques, vol. LXXI, 1913), 
 who maintains erroneously that morbid jealousy is 
 more frequent among men than among women, 
 brings out very strongly this peculiarity of jealousy 
 and bases it on the absence of true motivation. But 
 the motivation is transparent enough. Among the 
 cases reported by him I note that of a 75-year-old 
 woman who tortured her husband to death with her 
 
 1 Cf. Willy Schmidt, Inzestuuser Eifvrsuchtficahn, QrotJ 
 Archiv, vol. LVII, 1914, p. 257. 
 
 155
 
 158 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 groundless jealousy and who, in a rage, one day, 
 attacked him with a razor. Jealousy is clearly a 
 rationalization of hatred, it harks back to the pri- 
 mary egoistic attitude of the aboriginal man. The 
 philetic raw sexuality and criminality corresponds 
 to man's primary ontogenetic attitude towards his 
 environment. 
 
 Other jealous persons see their criminal ten- 
 dencies reflected in the surroundings. A jealous per- 
 son has the hallucination that the supposed lover 
 of his wife intends to knife him. In this manner the 
 killing of the lover looms up as a logical necessity. 
 Whereas men make use of swords, revolvers, whips, 
 tortures and shackles, woman's criminality breaks 
 out in such jealousy acts as anonymous letters, libel, 
 poisoning, castration and throwing of acid (Beaus- 
 sart). 
 
 In many cases the barrier between jealousy and 
 insanity, between neurosis and psychosis, is hardly 
 to be distinguished. Often jealousy is the first 
 symptom of paranoia. 
 
 The next two cases have also pronounced para- 
 noiac features. We are indebted to Freud for his 
 significant contributions to our understanding of the 
 nature of paranoia, or paraphrenia, as Freud terms 
 the condition. In his fundamental contribution, 
 Psychoanalysche Bemerkungen uber einen auto- 
 biographisch beschriebenen Fall von Paranoia 
 (Sammlung klemer Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, 3rd
 
 Jealousy and Paranoia 157 
 
 ed., Franz Deuticke, Leipzig and Vienna, 1913), he 
 has shown that paranoiac insanity is traceable back 
 to the repressed homosexual components of the sex- 
 ual instinct. The persecution ideas of paranoiacs 
 (by men) is the projection outward of their own 
 thoughts. The subject is pursued by his own homo- 
 sexual phantasies and out of those fancies he con- 
 structs his notion of a pursuer. Love is transmuted 
 by the subject into its bipolar opposite, hatred. 
 Freud states on this point : 
 
 " 'I do not love him, in fact I hate him.' This 
 contrary attitude, which cannot mean anything else 
 in the unconscious does not assume that form in 
 the paranoiac's consciousness. The mechanism gov- 
 erning the formation of symptoms in paranoia re- 
 quires that the inner apperception, the feeling of 
 subjection, should be replaced by some perception 
 from without. The proposition: 'in fact I hate 
 him,' is thus changed through projection into an- 
 other: 'he hates (pursues) me which consequently 
 justifies me in hating him.' The unconscious feeling- 
 motive thus appears as though it were an objective 
 perception, a deduction: 
 
 " */ do not love him, in fact I hate him, because he 
 pursues me.' ' 
 
 Observation leaves no doubt that the pursuer is 
 none other than the formerly beloved person. 
 
 Freud here overlooks entirely the relations of 
 paranoia to criminality. Having persistently over-
 
 158 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 looked thus far the tremendous significance of latent 
 criminality in the psychogenesis of neurosis and hav- 
 ing emphasized only the sexual factors underlying 
 all psychotic and nervous manifestations, he ne- 
 glects here also the important role of criminality in 
 the dynamics of paranoia. That is the reason why 
 his explanation does not fit all cases. For there is 
 also a paranoia which stands for a flight from crimi- 
 nality, even representing a rationalization of crimi- 
 nal tendencies without any homosexuality. Such 
 cases are exceptional but they do occur. The fear 
 of insanity which oppresses so many neurotics, in- 
 volves as a polar component the wish to lose one's 
 mind. For the insane is responsible neither to him- 
 self nor before the law. "He cannot help it." That 
 is why paranoiac conditions break out so often with 
 the commission of some crime. On the other hand 
 the paranoiac turns insane as a defence against com- 
 mitting a crime. We shall yet find that isolation in 
 an asylum for the insane corresponds with many 
 a victim's hidden wish, because there they find peace 
 of mind and security. 
 
 The jealousy of paranoia like every other form 
 of jealousy is an expression of rage. But it serves 
 to rationalize the anger and lends force as well as a 
 measure of emotional justification to the criminal 
 impulse. Many crimes of passion, so-called, are 
 caused by the passion for crime. We have as yet 
 penetrated but little through the mask which covers
 
 Jealousy and Paranoia 159 
 
 the inner criminal. We are still too anxiously con- 
 cerned with the superficial motivations which bring 
 about sadism to find the path leading towards the 
 fundamental fact. The best measure of culture is 
 the manner in which the man's primordial character 
 manifests itself in us, our conscious conduct. That 
 is why the advancement of culture is bound to lead 
 to an increase of insanity in the proportion that 
 the jails are emptied. 
 
 I must again point out that Juliusburger was the 
 first to recognize and describe clearly these relations. 
 In fact the credit of having discovered the relations 
 between homosexuality and paranoia belongs to him. 
 In his work entitled, "Die Homosexualitat im Vorent- 
 wurf zu einem deutschen Strafgesetzbuch" (Allge- 
 meine Zeitschrift f. Psychiatrie, 1911), he already 
 stated : 
 
 "Furthermore we find in the insane the well-known 
 delusion of persecution and its motive is often de- 
 rived from homosexuality inasmuch as the patients 
 complain that they are pursued with homosexual 
 intent, of which they themselves disclaim any guilt. 
 Or, in their morbid state of mind, they believe them- 
 selves victims of persecution because it is proposed 
 that they should be driven into the alleged ranks 
 of homosexuals, something they resent most scorn- 
 fully. In both cases we see a peculiar psychic proc- 
 ess which must be conceived as a projection to the 
 surroundings, to the world of external reality, of
 
 160 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 unconscious subjective notions. When an individual 
 breaks down mentally complaining to be a victim 
 of watchfulness and persecution for alleged homo- 
 sexual purposes, the condition may be explained 
 only in the sense that the individual in question 
 actually harbors within himself a powerful homo- 
 sexual tendency and the latter is projected unto 
 the world of external reality through a peculiar 
 mental mechanism. The old proposition: ex nihilo 
 nihil fit holds true also of the mental sphere and it 
 would be utterly unscientific to fail to recognize in 
 this sphere as well the law of strict causality or 
 motivation. A careful examination of the mental 
 life of our insane man's unconscious shows that 
 homosexuality is a powerful motive force much more 
 frequently than is ordinarily recognized and this 
 attempt to turn the unconscious subjective feeling 
 of homosexuality into an objective reality, consti- 
 tutes a pathway for the release of inner psychic 
 tension, so a means for the individual to escape the 
 feeling of guilt roused by his erroneous perception 
 of facts and to pass the responsibility onto other 
 shoulders. Many of the insane notions of our pa- 
 tients become intelligible and we grasp their mean- 
 ing only when we recognize the powerful role which 
 homosexuality plays in man's unconscious. 
 
 Juliusburger also recognizes the significance of 
 sadism and its tremendous role in the psychogenesis 
 of the delusion of jealousy. In his contribution
 
 Sadism and Jealousy 161 
 
 referred to previously, "Zur Psychologic des Alko- 
 holismus" (Zentralblatt f. Psychoanalyse, Vol. Ill, 
 1913), he makes the following relevant observa- 
 tions : 
 
 "I agree with Freud that the homosexual or ho- 
 mopsychic component of man and woman finds one 
 of its outlets, as sublimation, in the form of com- 
 panionship and social drinking. But thus far I 
 remain unconvinced that homosexuality or its 
 psychic substitute plays also a similar role in the 
 pathogenesis of the delusion of jealousy. Therefore 
 I still adhere to the view expressed by my colleague, 
 Hans Oppenheim, in his contribution, "Zur Frage 
 der Genese des Eifersuchtswahns" (published in: 
 Zentralblatt f. Psychoanalyse, 1911). As formerly 
 I still regard the sadistic-masochistic instinctive 
 cravings as the strongest root of the delusion of 
 jealousy. I found particularly instructive a cer- 
 tain case in which sadism broke forth in a jealous 
 drinker more quickly than I had ever seen that hap- 
 pen before. This man's sadism manifested itself 
 concurrently in an incredible cruelty to dogs which 
 could be only explained by his sadism. The oft- 
 recorded fact that the jealous drinker is not sat- 
 isfied and does not release his victim even after the 
 latter, in an attempt to quiet him, submits to some 
 disgusting act, the continual repetition by him of 
 tortures and cruelties, may be explained only as due 
 to a deeply rooted sadistic impulse everlastingly
 
 162 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 craving gratification. The delusion of jealousy is 
 rooted in sadism, the overstressed images accom- 
 panying the morbid feeling of jealousy are gen- 
 erated by the sadistic tendency. Sadism is the fer- 
 tile soil giving rise to the delusions of persecution 
 of the jealous alcoholics, and intimately linked with 
 sadism stands masochism, upon which the feeling 
 of jealousy feeds and grows." 
 
 "Besides the sadistic-masochistic components the 
 pathogenesis of the delusion of jealousy displays 
 also the transposition of a certain feeling of guilt. 
 In my cases at least it was easy to prove that the 
 jealous drinker who forces his wife to commit some 
 punishable offence, is himself inclined to carry out 
 the incriminating acts and controls himself only 
 with difficulty. I found a similar situation in the 
 case of women, victims of delusions of jealousy. 
 The more or less conscious projection of their feel- 
 ing of guilt upon the partner brings on mental re- 
 lease and a certain sense of freedom, and at the same 
 time furnishes new fuel for the sadistic impulse. 
 Finally for the explanation of the delusion of 
 jealousy we must take into consideration also an- 
 other factor which may be explained on the basis 
 of atavism. We shall see later that certain atavis- 
 tic reminiscences play a great role in the psychology 
 of alcoholism. The will to power, the yearning to 
 dominate and subdue woman still lies dormant in 
 man's soul, a remnant from old. The soul of the
 
 Feeling of Inadequacy 163 
 
 alcoholic is particularly prolific in atavistic rem- 
 nants which show themselves upon close analysis 
 and, besides, the chronic intoxication rouses the 
 dormant atavistic trends which lie dormant at the 
 bottom of the soul and brings them to surface. The 
 aboriginal tyrannical self awakens in the drinker 
 and flays a controlling whip over the cowering wom- 
 an; in the case of female victims of the delusion of 
 jealousy the reverse happens and the primordial 
 matriarchal instinct becomes manifest. We learn 
 progressively to see and appreciate how atavistic 
 remnants break to the surface in the psyche of the 
 insane." 
 
 That conception of jealousy as the "projection 
 upon the surroundings of a subjective feeling of 
 inadequacy" was at one time my starting point in 
 my characterological investigations of jealousy. 
 But I soon learned that the problem is much more 
 complicated. When I found that the neurotics rep- 
 resent regressive stages of development, I conceived 
 jealousy to be a primitive feeling of hatred, char- 
 acteristic of man in his primordial state. Paranoia 
 discloses the primary tendencies which are glossed 
 over by our cultural development. One's true char- 
 acter betrays itself in one's emotions. Jealousy 
 shows us the true inner man in all his passionate 
 cravings and his hidden desires. 
 
 The next case illustrates all the characteristic 
 features : the delusion of persecution, the morbid
 
 164 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 jealousy and the brutal sadism. There is no in- 
 sight into the condition. The feeling of jealousy is 
 adjudged as justified. Ridiculous incidents are held 
 forth as grounds for suspicion in order to remove 
 from self the sense of guilt. All the alleged "perse- 
 cutions," which are looked upon as dangerous, lack 
 any objective grounds. Often sadism breaks 
 through, though under the guise of emotional 
 paralogisms. 
 
 77. Mr. A. W., a manufacturer, 29 years of age, 
 consults me for anxiety, a condition which has 
 already plunged him into very unpleasant situa- 
 tions. His anxiety broke out in Tyrol the first 
 time. He wanted to meet a certain party and asked 
 his landlord for directions. The latter conducted 
 him personally over the road, which was a very 
 rough and badly neglected one. Suddenly the man 
 saw in front of him some suspicious-looking per- 
 sons. But he controlled himself, although he sur- 
 mised they were tramps if not a gang of highway- 
 men. Next he saw a number of men on the hill 
 hurrying in his direction. At that he broke into a 
 run, and kept running as fast as he could. A shot 
 rang out in the distance, intended for him. . . . He 
 reached the valley, out of breath, and reported the 
 occurrence to the officer. The latter shook his head 
 and did not even care to question the landlord, who 
 explained that he had merely conducted the gentle-
 
 Paranoiac Suspicions 165 
 
 man through a short cut in the road which is also 
 used by hunters. That short cut leads to the next 
 broad highway. But A. insisted that all was not 
 well and that an attempt had been made to hold him 
 up. The officer said that in his 30-year experience 
 such a thing had never happened in that locality. 
 But A. remained unconvinced and to this day he 
 believes that he had narrowly escaped a hold-up. 
 That might be thought possibly true if the occur- 
 rence stood alone. But he had very many such 
 experiences. During a journey through Sweden he 
 saw the hotel proprietor talk in subdued tones in 
 Swedish with a number of guests who thereupon 
 stared at him queerly. There was no key to his 
 room and the room could not be locked. He could 
 not sleep and kept peering through the window. 
 Then he saw a number of queer fellows foregather- 
 ing in the hall. He could not stay longer in that 
 house. The owner told him that as he had engaged 
 the room he would have to keep it. They could not 
 come to an understanding. He saw an officer pass- 
 ing by and called upon the representative of law to 
 help him extricate himself. The officer knew a few 
 German words, he stepped in, and they went to the 
 police station together, and there a record was 
 made of his remarkable adventures. He left his 
 lodgings a third time on similar grounds. On his 
 excursions he always carries a revolver and that 
 gives him a certain sense of security.
 
 166 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 It is easy to diagnose this as a case of paranoia. 
 The absence of insight after the emotional episodes 
 shows the psychotic character of the trouble. A 
 victim of anxiety neurosis may have similar ex- 
 periences. But afterwards, perhaps only a few 
 hours after the occurrence, he says to himself: "It 
 was nonsense," and is ashamed to speak of it later. 
 But this man dwells on his adventures trying to con- 
 vince me of the dangers he has gone through. 
 
 The notion of being watched and pursued is a 
 product of his homosexual leaning which he is unable 
 to control. We inquire into his personal habits and 
 past life and find that his mother died when he was 
 very young and his father assumed also the place 
 of a mother to him. With his father he maintained 
 a sort of "spiritual marriage" relationship up to a 
 few months ago. They always went out together, 
 never one without the other, and they slept in one 
 room. The latter habit was but seldom broken by 
 the presence of friends. 
 
 A remarkable episode is brought to memory such 
 as is always found among the homosexuals. He 
 once fell in love with a girl, an employee's sweet- 
 heart. That passion soon blew over. Another love 
 affair, however, almost turned him away from his 
 customary leaning. There was another girl em- 
 ployed in the office, a slim, diminutive figure, rather 
 plain-looking, and underdeveloped (a type resem- 
 bling the male). That girl was engaged and her
 
 "Spiritual Marriage" 167 
 
 young man was in the habit of calling to take her 
 home. Everybody in the store knew that the young 
 man was waiting outside at the closing hour (he 
 claims she was cordial also with some other men in 
 the store). He fell in love with the girl and soon 
 showed that uncontrollable passion which is charac- 
 teristic of homosexuals when they attempt to save 
 themselves from man, when they try to fly from 
 homosexuality. He soon succeeded in winning her 
 favor against his rival, who was but a poor employee. 
 The poor girl was supremely happy and proud that 
 the wealthy manufacturer's son had his eye on her. 
 He promptly showed the girl that his intentions 
 were honorable. He withdrew entirely from his 
 father who was bitterly opposed to the affair. He 
 lived with his thoughts exclusively on and for the 
 girl. She had to leave the office. The father re- 
 quested it and, besides, the other employees gos- 
 siped and spread rumors which were unpleasant to 
 him. He received anonymous communications 
 pointing out to him that the girl was flighty. An- 
 other employee told him that he had kissed the girl 
 and she was not at all a prude. These persons natu- 
 rally did not know that their tales only increased 
 his passion for the girl. For it was precisely the 
 thought that she had been kissed by another man 
 that made her so irresistible in his sight. It made 
 him angry and raging mad but his excitation reacted 
 upon his homosexual component. The more he was
 
 168 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 roused against the girl the more closely he was 
 enmeshed with her. He met her three times daily. He 
 called for her in the morning, at noon they took a 
 walk together, and the evenings, often the nights, 
 belonged to the girl who proved with a physician's 
 certificate that she was still virgo intacta. His re- 
 lations with her were of such a nature that her vir- 
 ginity was not endangered. This attitude, this fear- 
 some withholding from the task of defloration under 
 the excuse of ethical considerations, is typical of 
 the neurotic's feeling of uncertainty and lack of con- 
 fidence in himself, fear of binding himself, and fear 
 of consequences, and shows an insufficient libido. 
 The passion was something rather spiritual, a trans- 
 ference, something unreal. For they passed some 
 nights together and he was satisfied merely to be 
 in the same room (they never slept in one bed). 
 Her presence had chiefly a quieting effect on him. 
 Through her he felt himself protected against his 
 homosexual thoughts. He also needed a love affair 
 to show the whole world that he was not homosexual 
 and that he was capable of loving a woman. 
 
 But during the very first days of this love affair 
 his jealousy began to assert itself, a peculiarity 
 characteristic of these subjects, permitting them to 
 concentrate their mind perpetually on the subject 
 of men. First he began to investigate her past. 
 She had to confess everything to him. Then there 
 followed endless torture over endless days. In the
 
 Jealousy of the Past 169 
 
 morning he began to look questioningly at her. If 
 she showed blue dark streaks under her eyes, or 
 looked pale, he felt sure that she had been untrue 
 to him that night. Although he conducted her home 
 late at night and called for her early next morning 
 he still thought that she slipped out of the house 
 to meet some strange lover somewhere. Often he 
 stood on watch all night in the front of her home. 
 He saw curious shadows moving across her window 
 blind and was sure that it must be a man. He 
 endured hellish torments over it. He engaged a 
 detective to watch the girl and caught her in an 
 innocent lie. His persistent questionings had cowed 
 her and sometimes she had to lie in order to pacify 
 him. An innocent fib of that character was the 
 starting point of a quarrel which kept up for many 
 weeks. She saw him patrol up and down in front 
 of her house. He looked badly run down as he did 
 not sleep nights and he neglected his affairs at the 
 factory. She made him promise that he would go 
 home nights. He promised and immediately after- 
 wards felt uneasy over it. For he was certain that 
 she made him give that promise so as to be able to 
 deceive him more easily. 
 
 Then terrible thoughts of revenge flashed through 
 his mind. He wanted to shoot the unknown lover 
 and strangle the girl. Perhaps he sought a proof 
 of unfaithfulness so as to get rid of the girl and 
 justify his own disloyalty towards her.
 
 170 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 He naturally pretended once to go on a journey 
 only to return unexpectedly to the girl. He thought 
 he smelled cigar smoke, dragged her by the hair, 
 and wanted to force a confession from her. He also 
 accused her of intimacy with her 70-year-old 
 guardian. 
 
 Such cases are not favorable for analysis and 
 rather hopeless. I am not as lucky as Bjerre 2 to 
 be able to report a complete cure of a case of para- 
 noia. Usually these patients abandon the psycho- 
 analysis, finding some pretext to turn from the con- 
 sultant. It is useless to explain to them the mechan- 
 ism of transference. From the moment when they 
 perceive a leaning towards their consultant that 
 sympathetic feeling is changed into anxiety and dis- 
 trust. They are unwilling to recognize their homo- 
 sexuality. Their psychic disturbance is too deep 
 and a correction is no longer possible. Often the 
 subjects stay away after only a few visits. This 
 sudden abandonment stands in sharp contrast to 
 their initial enthusiasm for the new method of treat- 
 ment. Others stay on with the analysis for a few 
 weeks but make little or no progress. So long as 
 their homosexual tendencies are not touched upon, 
 it is possible to keep up the psychoanalysis a little 
 longer but the psychoanalysis is superficial under 
 the circumstances, as they cannot be induced to 
 
 * Zur Radikalbehandluny der chronischen Paranoia. Jahr- 
 buch f. psychoanalytische Forsch., VoL III, 1912.
 
 Paranoiac Jealousy 171 
 
 apply candor, always keep secrets from the consul- 
 tant, and cover under silence whatever comes into 
 their mind bearing on their attitude towards their 
 physician. 
 
 He carried his revolver whenever he called at my 
 office, always ready to shoot down the alleged enemy. 
 I tried to make him understand that he was tor- 
 tured by his own homosexual and criminal thoughts. 
 He listened incredulously but was not so averse as 
 I have seen most paranoiacs. 
 
 This patient also stayed away after three weeks 
 of analysis because the analysis produced in him a 
 tremendous excitement. He thought I was in league 
 with his father 3 to part him from his girl. The 
 real object of his love was the father who seems to 
 me to play an important role in the psychogenesis 
 of male paranoia. 
 
 I saw him two years later during the war. He 
 had joined the army as volunteer, had made an ex- 
 cellent record for himself and had been slightly 
 wounded. Since the war he felt better. He had 
 given up the engagement shortly after the treat- 
 ment. His ideas of persecution had subsided to a 
 great extent, he claimed. 
 
 The next case shows us a paranoiac jealousy with 
 insane notions based on proofs ferreted out and 
 scrutinized with remarkable ingenuity. Such cases 
 
 *A symbolic representation of the identification of myself 
 with the father.
 
 172 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 form the borderline towards the class of querrulants 
 who clamor always for their "rights," precisely be- 
 cause an inner voice clamoring for "injustice" must 
 be drowned. 
 
 78. Mr. S. D. is referred to me by his family 
 physician from a distance. I am asked to deter- 
 mine whether his jealousy is justified or the result 
 of a morbid state of mind. 
 
 He is a very energetic, active 30-year-old mer- 
 chant, who conducts the local inn in connection with 
 his larger business in a small village. In eight years 
 he made a great success and attained affluence. He 
 has acquired all the retail business of the place, car- 
 ries on also a wholesale business with the neighbor- 
 ing retail dealers, and was on the way to become a 
 very wealthy man when he began to quarrel with his 
 wife on account of his jealousy. His wife was of a 
 frigid temperament who always remained cool dur- 
 ing his embrace and it always worried him. After 
 the birth of a couple of children she grew somewhat 
 more responsive. When she had her first strong 
 orgasm during his embrace he became suspicious 
 and concluded at once that she must have had some 
 other instructor in the art of love. How was it 
 possible for a cool woman, suddenly, over night, 
 as it were, to turn into a passionate mate? He be- 
 gan watching his wife and came to the conclusion 
 that she must have had intercourse with a certain
 
 Paranoiac Jealousy 173 
 
 man possessing a very long phallus. There lived in 
 that village a farmer who was no longer young, but 
 wealthy, and known for his long penis and his vi- 
 rility. That fellow was his regular guest at the 
 inn. What more natural than that the inn- 
 keeper should conclude that he must be the guilty 
 man. We note that his mind must have been pre- 
 occupied for a long time with the size of that man's 
 penis. That phantasy he projected to his wife. 
 His curiosity and longing to see that phallus he 
 ascribed to his wife. That is how thought processes 
 originate. Such autism (Bleuler) renders us un- 
 critical and permits us to see the whole world 
 through the subjective coloring of our own emotions. 
 How could his wife, a woman, fail to be interested 
 in the size of the peasant's phallus, which was openly 
 the talk of the tavern, when he, a man, could not 
 help being interested? Such, approximately, is the 
 logic of this thinking. He began to watch that 
 peasant and his wife. He pretended to go on a 
 journey telling his wife he would not be back before 
 the following day. But he returned that very eve- 
 ning. He tiptoed up the steps to the bedroom. 
 He heard a dull thud. Naturally it was the peas- 
 ant, escaping through the window. It was as the 
 woman explained the cat who had been scared off. 
 He insisted a man had been in the room. His wife 
 felt so indignant that she wanted to leave him at 
 once and refused to sav another word. He became
 
 174 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 humble and begged her imploringly for forgiveness 
 telling her the reason for his jealousy. The wife 
 declared that she had always been passionate but 
 was ashamed to show it. Finally it came to her all 
 of a sudden that it was foolish on her part, also, she 
 had learned to love him more than ever. She can- 
 not help it if she is now more responsive. There 
 followed an interval of peace but only for a few 
 months. Soldiers were quartered in the place and a 
 physically impressive captain secured a room. 
 From the moment of his appearance at the place that 
 captain roused the man's suspicions. He found 
 that his wife gave the fellow the best cup of coffee, 
 that she was altogether too friendly with him, 
 and that she showered upon him all sorts of pleasant 
 little courtesies. His wife explained to him that this 
 captain bought of them all the supplies for his com- 
 pany and was the means of bringing them impor- 
 tant business, and that she was friendly only for 
 business reasons, but that their relations had never 
 trespassed the limits of propriety. But he kept 
 collecting indications of her unfaithfulness. Among 
 the proofs he found the butt of a cigarette in his 
 wife's room. He questioned her closely and asked 
 the officer's orderly to bring him a cigarette from 
 his master's case, claiming those cigarettes had such 
 a pleasant aroma he wanted to try one. He thus 
 secured a cigarette and found that it bore an iden- 
 tical mark. The fact was he smoked the same brand
 
 Paranoiac Jealousy 175 
 
 of cigarettes, but lie thought he discovered a cer- 
 tain stripe which the other cigarettes did not have 
 (I could not detect the stripe in question). His 
 other proofs were of a like character. This time 
 he had a terrible quarrel with his wife, much more 
 serious than the previous ordeal. Trouble upon 
 trouble followed after that. He suspected his clerks 
 and dismissed them one after another about every 
 two weeks. Every one was his wife's lover. Finally 
 he rushed at his wife, in a fit of anger, to beat her, 
 and began choking her. The following day the 
 woman left him, went to live with her sister, and 
 started proceedings for divorce. She claimed her 
 husband was not normal and he voluntarily came to 
 Vienna to place himself under my observation. 
 
 First I turned my attention to his jealousy and I 
 tried carefully to correct that. He acknowledged 
 some points, here and there, showed some insight 
 into his condition, and was not shocked when I re- 
 fused to give him a certificate of good health. 
 Meanwhile he had removed his beard to give him- 
 self a younger appearance. That change was not 
 necessary as he was young-looking enough, but it 
 was part of the outbreak of his feminine tendencies. 
 He also had a string of dreams in which he was a 
 woman. Usually he rehearsed the old jealousy 
 scenes and he repeatedly killed his wife in his 
 dreams. 
 
 Thus he dreamed:
 
 176 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 I am with my wife in an old room but dressed as 
 a woman, so as not to be recognized. My wife steps 
 out of the room, it was very dark. The captain 
 comes into the room and wants to touch me under 
 the dress. But some one calls him out of the room. 
 I jump at my wife, enraged: that is the kind of a 
 
 h you are. Now I know everything about you 
 
 . . . and I stick a knife in her throat. 
 
 In another dream he lies hidden under the bed 
 and feels the swaying motion of coitus above. It 
 was very characteristic that after quarrels and 
 scenes of violence he craved intercourse with his wife 
 and his libido was much stronger . . . clearly on 
 account of the sadistic excitation. 
 
 I saw this patient again five years after the psy- 
 choanalysis. He was divorced from his wife and 
 was apparently very quiet. He claimed to be en- 
 tirely well, said he was jealous no longer, and every 
 now and then had intercourse with women. I do 
 not dare decide whether this result may be ascribed 
 to the analysis and the therapeutic-educational 
 course of treatment. 
 
 The various confusion states, called periodic in- 
 sanity, must be looked upon as an equivalent of 
 permanent insanity. It is certainly striking to see 
 how many alcoholics, morphinists, opium eaters, 
 cocaine fiends and, in more recent years, victims 
 addicted to adalin, veronal, medinal, luminal, etc.,
 
 Criminal Trend 177 
 
 fear insanity. If such a case is analyzed one al- 
 ways finds the homosexual component and the re- 
 pressed sadistic tendency. The psychic mechanisms 
 of these disorders are the same as those described 
 in the paranoid form of the jealousy delusion. We 
 have in all these cases an endopsychic perception 
 that inner forces compel greater stress on the delu- 
 sions than on reality. 
 
 The next case is a pure example of this condition 
 under a form which often ends in suicide. 
 
 79. Mr. O. L., a very talented violinist, suffers 
 unbearable anxieties, among them the fear of in- 
 sanity being the strongest. He also has hours of 
 terrific, unexplainable depressions for which he is 
 unable to give any cause. He only has the feeling 
 that he is about to commit some terrible deed so as 
 to rid himself of the anxiety and have peace once 
 more. He thinks he might commit some crime and 
 be jailed so as to be sure that there is nothing 
 further for him to fear. During the first weeks he 
 speaks only of his anxiety over his father. He has 
 the idea fixed in his mind that his father will come 
 to Vienna and have him interned in an insane asylum. 
 Rather than put up with that he will shoot his 
 father first and then kill himself. He reverts every 
 little while to the suspicion that I am in league with 
 his father. (That is the form which the identifica- 
 tion of the physician with the father assumes with
 
 178 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 this class of patients. The physician is the symbol 
 of the father.) He has been taking various nar- 
 cotics for a number of years. Not, exactly, to sleep. 
 For he sleeps well without the aid of veronal or 
 pantopon. But he suffers so much of anxiety. And 
 he feels that the narcotics make a better man of him. 
 He uses unbelievable doses of these drugs. He has 
 once taken with suicidal intent 10 g. veronal in one 
 dose with the only result that he slept 24 hours 
 "like a top" and woke up without any ill effects. He 
 sleeps every day till 11 or noon, sometimes into the 
 afternoon hours, and still wakes up somewhat 
 drowsy. 
 
 He now abstains strictly from alcohol. He has 
 done a number of foolish things under the influence 
 of drink. Once he tackled an officer at a night 
 resort, wanted to embrace him, kiss him, made vari- 
 ous suggestive proposals and finally had to be 
 thrown out. He has also had serious rows which 
 put him in the hands of the police. He gave his 
 word of honor to his father that he would not touch 
 liquor any more because he was threatened with 
 internment at a sanitarium for alcoholics. He 
 broke his word only once but has turned to various 
 narcotics. During a six-months sojourn at a sani- 
 tarium he got completely well and abandoned the 
 drugs. One month after leaving the sanitarium he 
 began again to use the drugs. 
 
 He is an impressive, handsome, very powerful
 
 Early Life History 179 
 
 man, very "lucky" with women. But he is true to 
 none for any length of time excepting the last sweet- 
 heart. He did love her and does to this day. He 
 would marry her if he could support her. 
 
 He is tremendously jealous and his jealousy is 
 that typical form which is concerned with the past, 
 an example of which we have seen in case 75. He 
 has to be told over and over by his sweethearts how 
 they have been seduced. He must hear with par- 
 ticular circumstantiality all the details of the de- 
 floration. That causes him tremendous sexual ex- 
 citation. Only then is he able to achieve orgasm 
 with women. Otherwise he may keep up the sexual 
 congress for a half hour without accomplishing 
 ejaculation. 4 
 
 Finally ejaculation and orgasm are brought 
 about through manual friction of the penis by the 
 woman. This form of sexual gratification leads back 
 to a particular incident in his youth when the choice 
 was made. First, he confesses that at 17 he main- 
 tained relations with a boy who gratified him in 
 that manner. Earlier reminiscences from childhood 
 appear. The incidents always relate to boys. Now 
 he does not want to recognize any homosexual ten- 
 dencies. At 17 years he made a forceful attempt 
 to tear himself away from his friend and began 
 passionately to run after women and girls. 
 
 * A form of sexual disorder not infrequent among neurotics, 
 suggesting a different sexual objective.
 
 180 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 His homosexuality shows itself in the choice of 
 his love objectives. Usually he seduces the sisters 
 of those of his friends whom he likes in particular. 
 I know no affair of his in which some man did not 
 play a role. When a man did not figure at the be- 
 ginning he was brought in later, so as to complete 
 the constellation necessary for the rousing of his 
 libidinous craving. Very characteristic is the fol- 
 lowing episode, among the others of the last few 
 years : 
 
 He became acquainted at a sanitarium with a 
 young woman who soon became his sweetheart. One 
 of his most intimate friends was also at that sani- 
 tarium. He asked his friend to try his luck with 
 the lady because he wanted to test her faithfulness. 
 The friend hesitated. He was afraid of a misun- 
 derstanding and the woman was not worth that to 
 him. Then our subject tried to bring him and his 
 sweetheart together in another way. He wagered 
 a large sum of money that he could not get at the 
 girl. His friend accepted the wager, and three days 
 later proved that he had won the bet. O. L. wanted 
 to hear every detail about the seduction and became 
 so enraged that he could have killed his friend. Then 
 that friend seduced again another sweetheart of his, 
 a few months later he attacked him on the street 
 and would have beaten him up if a few colleagues 
 had not restrained him. 
 
 Now here in Vienna he is convinced that "that
 
 Fixation on the Father 181 
 
 d fellow" will seduce also his present sweet- 
 heart, a girl whom he truly loves. But if so, he will 
 find the fellow and kill him as well as the girl. The 
 woman has a brother who plays an important role 
 in the psychogenesis of this love. Once the woman 
 told him how devotedly she loved her brother. She 
 could understand how a sister may give herself to a 
 brother. Now he urged the woman to give herself 
 to the brother, setting up but one condition: he 
 should witness the act. This phantasy assumed 
 compulsive strength. On every occasion he tortured 
 her, insisting that she ought to grant him the wish, 
 and he kept calling in the brother when she did not 
 want him. Once they were alone. He broke his 
 word and they drank merrily. He got very drunk 
 and made a passionate love declaration to his sweet- 
 heart's brother, begging him to accompany him to 
 the house and take the sister's place. 
 
 His mother died when he was 15 years of age. 
 The father engaged a young woman to take care of 
 the house and he fell in love with her. At the same 
 time he also hated her, fearing that his father would 
 disinherit him in favor of this woman. He even 
 planned to put the woman out of the way with poi- 
 son. Wholly unconscious and most deeply repressed 
 is his love for the father, whom he worries and to 
 whom he causes no end of trouble. He was at the 
 threshold of a wonderful career, all teachers had 
 prophesied that he would be some day one of the
 
 182 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 world's greatest violinists. His first concert was an 
 unprecedented success. Then his neurosis broke out 
 and now he is through with his career. Done with 
 it and with life. 
 
 Back of the neurosis the motive of which is to 
 worry the old father, to irritate him and force him 
 to pay attention to the unsuccessful son, stands 
 hidden his passionate love of the father, though he 
 writes him scolding letters, 20 sheets long, and 
 threatens to shoot him, should he dare cut down his 
 rightful inheritance. A certain memory trace leads 
 to various childhood fancies resembling the affairs 
 with boys already mentioned. Finally he brings 
 forth a reminiscence placing his father in an un- 
 pleasant light. The father was also a drinker. . . . 
 
 It seems as if he had tried to forget that fact. 
 His fancies of murder are directed against the 
 father. That becomes clearer all the time. He 
 turns ill and addicted to veronal so as to commit 
 no crime. He feels his father slights and neglects 
 him. They quarrel all the time on account of his 
 dissipations. The father threatens he will be no 
 longer responsible for his debts. The son must give 
 up his expensive habits of living. Then the war 
 broke out. He was among the first volunteers to 
 answer the call, distinguished himself several times 
 with his conduct, and finally met his death in an 
 engagement. 
 
 I have already pointed out elsewhere in this work
 
 The Jealousy of Drinkers 183 
 
 the latent homosexuality of drinkers. In the light 
 of these new considerations, the well-known jealousy 
 of drinkers reveals an additional feature. The in- 
 toxication is to a certain extent a periodic artificial 
 paranoia during which the ideas of persecution 
 come to the foreground. This is very clearly to be 
 seen in many cases. In that particular respect the 
 alcohol addict is hardly different from the paranoiac. 
 Both believe in the objectivity of their insane 
 notions. 
 
 The following two case histories of drinkers' 
 jealousy will conclude this lengthy list of illustrative 
 cases : 
 
 80. Mr. N. V., Captain, married at the age of 
 34 and has been married two years. His marriage 
 was unhappy from the very first day. Previous to 
 that he had had intercourse only with puellce pub- 
 licoe and with them was always potent. With his 
 wife he is impotent. He is very unhappy over it 
 and consoles himself with street women. He began 
 to drink and beats his wife while intoxicated. He 
 scolds her, calls her a whore and accuses her of 
 intimacy with all the officers. Although he had been 
 drinking formerly, he did so with moderation, but 
 now he is a confirmed potator, spends his time in 
 dram shops and while intoxicated becomes very 
 friendly with the waiters and other underlings, kiss- 
 ing them and toasting their comradeship. He is
 
 184 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 firmly convinced that his wife is unfaithful to him 
 and even suspects his boy whom he beats merci- 
 lessly when under the influence of drink. 
 
 The woman left her husband and fled to her 
 parents. 
 
 That affected the man so depressingly that, after 
 a three months' stay at a sanitarium, he returned 
 penitently, a changed man, and prevailed upon the 
 wife to return and live with him again. But in a 
 few weeks his old demoniac jealousy set in once 
 more. This time he accused her of the most hor- 
 rible crimes. He reproached her that she allowed 
 herself to be licked by the dog and shot the animal. 
 He watched her carefully and denied her the least 
 social intercourse. Finally he accused her of in- 
 timacy with her 15-year-old brother. He found a 
 small spot on the bed linen and he cut that out to 
 preserve as proof of her infidelity. He pounced on 
 her one night, choked her, and tried to force her to 
 confess her doings with the brother. Again she fled 
 to her parents but hesitated to turn her husband 
 over to the lunacy board. She did not want to be 
 the cause of his commitment to a sanitarium. 
 
 Meanwhile the patient's insanity grew rapidly. 
 He drank to great excess and raised a big row in 
 front of her parents' home. He complained to the 
 police that his wife and her younger brother, with 
 whom she maintains criminal relations, had set a 
 number of desperate-looking characters on his trail.
 
 Alcoholism and Paranoia 185 
 
 He served notice that he would give those fellows 
 something to remember him by and that the first one 
 who would dare come too close to him would be shot 
 down. Commitment. Delirium tremens. Exitus in 
 consequence of an intercurrent malady. 
 
 It is noteworthy that the suspected little brother- 
 in-law had been a great favorite of his ; he had been 
 fond of taking the boy along on his hunting trips. 
 When completely under the influence of drink he 
 always wanted to embrace him and pet him. 
 
 A connection between paranoia and alcoholism is 
 shown also by the last of this series of observations, 
 which follows: 
 
 81. This is a woman no longer in her prime of 
 life. She is the grandmother of several children, 
 54 years of age, and, up to a few years ago, she was 
 not jealous. As soon as her husband ceased to have 
 intercourse with her she was seized with the idea that 
 he must have intercourse with a certain pretty girl 
 who had been formerly in their employ and had left. 
 She had seen that girl often in the neighborhood and 
 wondered that the girl looked so well and was so well 
 dressed. She had always liked the girl very much. 
 In fact, she wept when the girl left the house. Now 
 she tortured her husband with the accusation that 
 he was intimate with that girl, she was sure of it. 
 The man denied it, but grilled by her he had to 
 admit that he had met the girl on the street a few
 
 186 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 times and had spoken to her. That led to such ter- 
 rible quarrels, he had to leave the house and was 
 gone for weeks on a journey. He wanted to have 
 peace and was energetic enough to bring it about. 
 In fact, he threatened to sue for separation. 
 
 The woman began to drink, specially liqueurs, but 
 also ordinary whiskey. When intoxicated she be- 
 haved very vulgarly and cursed the girl; called her 
 a whore, and shouted that she ought to have the 
 clothes torn off her. She threatened her youngest 
 daughter's husband and entertained the notion of 
 throwing acid at him. While intoxicated che also 
 felt an impulse to seek out her youngest daughter 
 (obviously to find her son-in-law) and ran to the 
 railroad station, entered the wrong train, and com- 
 mitted all sorts of nuisances so that she had to be 
 committed. At the asylum she had to give up drink 
 but showed no ill effects from the enforced absti- 
 nence, only she figured daily what her husband was 
 up to with the girl. Like most paranoiacs she 
 claimed that she had telepathic powers and felt at a 
 distance that her husband was with the girl. That 
 was an absolute fact and no physician could con- 
 vince her it was not so. 
 
 That contention embodied an inner truth: the 
 man in her was with the girl, that is, the man in her 
 was continually preoccupied with the girl. In fact, 
 she had no other thought than the girl. It was as 
 if she was saying to herself : If I were a man I would
 
 Alcoholism and Paranoia 187 
 
 fall in love with this girl and would not leave her 
 alone a minute. She would have to be mine only. 
 
 After the marriage of her youngest daughter she 
 fell into a depression during which she first began 
 the habit of indulging in alcoholic drinks. 
 
 Obviously the woman had two homosexual objec- 
 tives which she fused: the servant girl and the 
 youngest daughter. In fact, she began early to 
 think that her husband was intimate with the daugh- 
 ter in question. She even lodged with the author- 
 ities a complaint to that effect and asked to be 
 allowed to bring proofs of the assertion. Now her 
 husband wanted to poison her. She had been given 
 coffee which had an arsenical smell. 
 
 She transfers to the surroundings her subjective 
 criminal ideas. We see that she had to drink in 
 order to deafen in her the wild beast which en- 
 deavored to break forth in all its primordial crudity. 
 Her commitment to an asylum did not change her 
 leanings. She swore at her man who conspired with 
 the hateful son-in-law to have her put out of the 
 way so as to prevent her from exposing their evil 
 doings before the whole world. 
 
 How close the forbidden tendencies are to one 
 another in such cases ! Almost uniformly the same 
 picture throughout : criminality, homosexuality and 
 incest. After years of the compulsory yoke of a 
 formal monosexuality the repression gives way and 
 the underlying pansexuality and criminal tendencies
 
 188 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 manifest themselves in pathologic form. For all 
 these case histories center around the "other," the 
 second, self, the repressed component of human 
 nature. 
 
 We know many persons who prove themselves vic- 
 tims of our monosexual culture. The race is paying 
 for the development of monosexuality with neurotic 
 homosexuality, with all the various neuroses, with 
 alcoholism and paranoia! 
 
 But it would be erroneous for that reason to decry 
 the course of cultural development or to look for the 
 improvement of conditions to changes in law or in 
 the formal code of morals. All lovers of mankind 
 surely must fight for the abandonment of the moral 
 opprobium and legal persecution of homosexuals and 
 for a greater freedom from bias in the perception 
 of the problem of all paraphilias. But we must not 
 fail to. recognize that we are dealing here with tre- 
 mendous social forces and with developmental tend- 
 encies striving, beyond all human range, for the 
 attainment of unknown higher ideals. The develop- 
 ment of the race is from bisexualism to monosexual- 
 ism. Even the "genuine" homosexuality as we know 
 it today everywhere is a proof in favor of this con- 
 tention. 
 
 For if homosexuality were an inborn trait, as 
 Hirschfeld and his pupils maintain, it would be the 
 pattern-type of health and homosexuals would show 
 no repressed heterosexuality ; there would be no mor-
 
 Sexual Monotheism 189 
 
 phinists, no drinkers, and no dipsomaniacs 5 among 
 them. Their number may not be large, but that is 
 because the uranists* homosexuality is already a 
 compromise, an attempt on the part of nature, and 
 of the psyche, to escape the insolvable bisexual con- 
 flict. The very fact that all neurotics represent 
 
 Hirschfeld naturally traces this morbid tendency back to 
 the social ostracism of the homosexual. In my opinion that 
 is a forced explanation. The very proneness of the homo- 
 sexuals to affective disorders, their heightened sensibility, 
 their morbid irritability, their endogenous depression prove 
 that all homosexuals are severe neurotics. Hirschfeld may 
 be able to trace the homosexual's acute outbreaks of affec- 
 tive psychoses back to the actual conflicts. But it is impossible 
 to link this heightened affectivity to the feminine attitude of 
 the urnings. For if it were so, how could we explain the 
 equally distressing analogous disorders among the urlindsf 
 Hirschfeld refers to the anxiety states of the homosexuals (p. 
 916) and expressly states: 
 
 "This very condition is found frequently also among homo- 
 sexuals who are psychically normal so far as their home rela- 
 tions are concerned." 
 
 No they are not normal with regard to home relations, 
 they are severe neurotics on account of the repression of their 
 heterosexuality. Superficial appearances are deceptive and 
 many a person who appears outwardly to be the picture of 
 health, a well balanced temperament, is inwardly the victim 
 of a serious neurosis. . . . Hirschfeld refers further to the 
 homosexual's proneness to persecution manias and to delusions 
 of reference. Concerning homosexual women he states: 
 
 "Compelled against their inclination to fulfill their marital 
 duties the homosexual women become very nervous and, in 
 addition to anxiety attacks, they suffer severe depres- 
 sions." . . . 
 
 How does Hirschfeld know that the depressions are due to 
 the enforced fulfillment of marital duties? I know homosexual 
 women who are divorced and suffer even more; I know homo- 
 sexual unmarried women, who are as neurotic as the married 
 women, and, like the latter, suffer of serious depressions. All 
 these facts prove that the homosexual pays for his mono- 
 sexuality just as dearly as the neurotic monosexual who is 
 heterosexual.
 
 190 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 retrogressions shows that the race is advancing 
 towards monosexuality. The neurotic, as a bisexual 
 being, might stand for an earlier developmental 
 phase, if the cultural standards of morality would 
 not hinder. When he attempts it (like, for instance, 
 Oscar Wilde) he draws upon himself the deadly 
 scorn of his fellowmen ; he is ostracized as a citizen. 
 Homosexuality leads but seldom to paranoia when 
 associated with heterosexuality, as happens in the 
 reverse instance, heterosexuals trying to repress 
 their homosexuality. That in itself shows homo- 
 sexuality to be a neurosis, the premonitory phase 
 of the paranoiac psychosis. When paranoia breaks 
 out, the homosexual holds to the delusion that he 
 belongs to the opposite sex and may go so far as 
 to disregard his genitalia and to acquire the feeling 
 that he is physically changed. The paranoia at- 
 tempts to round out physically the delusion of sexual 
 transformation it has initiated psychically. The 
 wish of the male homosexual: "I want to be a 
 woman!" is fulfilled in paranoia. In that state he 
 finds a thousand proofs that he is a woman. Many 
 such cases have been described especially by Krafft- 
 Ebing, who has called them "metamorphosis sexualis 
 paranoica." The subjects imagine that they have 
 the monthly flow because they have the nose-bleed 
 every four weeks (this happens also with non- 
 paranoia urnings)) they have a flow from the lower 
 parts for five days at every full moon. A patient
 
 Monosexuality 191 
 
 of Krafft-Ebing's relates (Obs. 134, p. 245): 
 "Every four weeks at the full moon I have for 5 days 
 the molimina, like any woman, physically and men- 
 tally, only I do not flow, but I have a sensation of 
 discharging fluid, a feeling of fullness about the 
 'genitals and the lower part of the body (within) ; 
 a very pleasant time it is, especially later (in a 
 couple of days) when the physiologic craving for 
 procreation looms forth with its all-pervading 
 womanly force." Another paranoiac claims that 
 he has always been woman, but when he was a child 
 a French magician had miraculously endowed him 
 with male organs and, with a certain salve, hindered 
 the development of his breasts. A girl under my 
 observation felt her penis, pointed to the hairs on 
 her face, and thought she was a bewitched male. 
 But she could feel her penis growing within and 
 almost coming through. 
 
 The following statement by the highest expert on 
 homosexuality shows that the repression of hetero- 
 sexuality may have serious effects upon the homo- 
 sexual, it may drive him to drink, or into a delusion 
 of persecution: 
 
 "I have seen, in the homosexual, states of pre- 
 cordial anxiety with strong vasomotor excitation as 
 serious as such conditions could be. Next to 
 anxiety neurosis, an occasional consequence of absti- 
 nence seems to me to be the occurrence of a sort of 
 persecution mania which is rather difficult to deter-
 
 192 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 mine whether it belongs to the compulsive neuroses 
 or is actually a part of the picture of paranoia. 
 Such persons imagine everybody suspects their 
 homosexuality; they look at their hands and laugh 
 sheepishly because they wear no engagement or 
 marriage ring; at restaurants persons sitting at 
 neighboring tables whisper and knowingly nod 
 among themselves as they talk about the 'einge- 
 fleischten Junggesellen' ; porters and waiters at 
 hotels 'catch on' to 'what is up 5 and treat them 
 either more or less attentively than other customers ; 
 passers-by on the street comment on their tripping 
 gait; in short, they feel that they are watched 
 everywhere and are uncomfortably self-conscious; 
 some blush continually, others become morbidly sus- 
 picious and timid, others again and that is the 
 worst take to drink. Convinced of the truthful- 
 ness of their notions and refractory in their attitude 
 towards the physician, patients of this type make up 
 their minds late and only after considerable struggle, 
 to consult a physician and even then they often do 
 it under an assumed name. If the ideas of perse- 
 cution have already persisted for a long time, the 
 condition is hardly one that can be influenced by 
 treatment, in any case it requires the greatest skill 
 and patience on the part of the physician as well as 
 his whole therapeutic armamentarium, of which 
 psychotherapy and hydrotherapy are most impor-
 
 Self-reproach 193 
 
 tant means, while drugs, rather excessively favored 
 nowadays, should be used but sparingly." (Hirsch- 
 feld, loc. cit., p. 455.) 
 
 This observation of Hirschfeld's discloses the 
 homosexual's deep feeling of self-reproach which 
 , must be ascribed to hidden criminality rather than 
 to the homosexuality. Perhaps that fusion of homo- 
 sexuality with criminality, of pathologic self-love 
 and repressed hatred, that incapacity for true love, 
 is the reason why men struggle against monosexu- 
 ality and why innumerable victims fall in that 
 struggle, their refined souls crushed by the conflict. 
 Just as we no longer have the gods of antiquity 
 men with female bosoms and women with a tremen- 
 dous phallus just as we have accepted the division 
 of God into three components (man, woman, and 
 child) which unitedly represent but one force, so we 
 must choose, in our day, our ideal, That is the 
 monotheism of sexuality, more unyielding and 
 strict than religious monotheism. "To love means 
 to find one's God," I stated. But there must be no 
 other gods besides that one. This struggle for the 
 single god of love sums up the erotic tragedies of 
 our cultural development: the struggle for the true 
 ideal and for monogamy which for the present ap- 
 pears the utmost sexual ideal of our current cultural 
 level. Between the primitive man's pansexualism 
 and the monosexuality of modern man may be found
 
 194 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 all the developmental phases and inhibitions which 
 manifest themselves as neuroses, paraphilias, drunk- 
 enness, psychoses, etc. 
 
 The analysis of jealousy has shown us clearly 
 that with the outbreak of the repressed homosex- 
 uality criminality, too, comes to the surface. The 
 patients whose histories we have recorded, fight, 
 carry revolvers and threaten murder. Many a 
 jealousy murder is due to the instinctive asocial 
 cravings. We must bear in mind that the re- 
 pression keeps down the homosexuality as well as 
 the other paraphiliac instincts, including the crimi- 
 nal tendencies. When the repressed homosexuality 
 breaks through the protecting covers and out of 
 the unconscious, it carries along and brings to sur- 
 face all the repressed antagonistic cravings. This 
 mental mechanism explains the gruesome crimes 
 which the paranoiacs commit who believe themselves 
 pursued or threatened. They project to their sur- 
 roundings not only the pursuit with homosexual 
 intent but their subjective criminal tendencies as 
 well. Someone is after them to kill them ... it 
 really means : "7 want to kill and therefore I assume, 
 that others want to kill me." 
 
 Looking upon homosexuality as an archaic symp- 
 tom, a regressive manifestation, we may understand 
 also that the incest, in all its forms, must play a 
 greater role among homosexuals than among the 
 normals. The urning, in point of psychic pro-
 
 Urning and Urlind 195 
 
 gression, is nearer the ancient (Edipus and the ur- 
 lind is nearer ancient Elektra than the normal man. 
 Their will to power also manifests itself through 
 stronger tendencies. The very repression of his 
 heterosexual component shows that the homosexual 
 tries to achieve mastery over self, and is a proof 
 of the one-sided emphasis of his stubborn will to 
 self-control. The will to power breaks out in vio- 
 lent, affectively stressed jealousy deeds, which 
 shows the intimate inner relations between homo- 
 sexuality and sadism, a subject to which we shall 
 give more careful consideration in our next chapter.
 
 HOMOSEXUALITY AND SADISM THE ANALYSIS OF A 
 
 HOMOSEXUAL EARLIEST MEMORIES FIRST AC- 
 COUNT OF HIS ATTITUDE FEAR OF TUBERCULO- 
 SIS HIS ATTITUDE TOWARDS HIS PARENTS FIRST 
 
 DREAM DREAMS OF URINALS ANAL EROTICISM 
 
 COPROPHAGIA THE MOTHER AS A TYRANT 
 
 TRANSVESTITISM AN IMPORTANT DREAM 
 
 VOYEUR AND EXHIBITIONIST OTHER DREAMS 
 
 POEMS TO THE MOTHER MATERNAL BODY 
 
 DREAMS SADISTIC PHANTASIES A SPERMATO- 
 
 ZOAN DREAM THE DREAM ABOUT WILD BEARS 
 
 SUMMARIZATION OF THE ANALYTIC DATA IN 
 THE CASE THE FORMULA OF HOMOSEXUALITY.
 
 Man missversteht das Raubtier und den Raub- 
 menschen (z. b. Cesare Borgia) grundlich, man 
 missversteht die "Natur," so lange man noch nach 
 einer "Krankhaftigkeit" in Grande dieser gesundes- 
 ten alter tropischen Untiere und Gewdchse sucht, 
 oder gar nach einer ihnen eingeborenen "Holle" 
 we es bi her fast aUe Moralisten gethan haben. 
 
 Nietzsche.
 
 The nature of the wild beast and of predatory 
 man, Cesare Borgia, for instance, is misunder- 
 stood, "Nature" herself is misunderstood, so long as 
 we look for "morbidity" back of these healthiest of 
 att monstrosities and excrescences, or for some "in- 
 ner depravity" peculiar to them, as most moral- 
 ists have done thus far. 
 
 Nietzsche. 
 
 Our investigation of the problem of jealousy has 
 led us repeatedly to the relationship between homo- 
 sexuality and sadism, a subject we have already 
 considered briefly in connection with the repression- 
 symptoms of the homosexuals. We have succeeded 
 in proving the sadistic trend of homosexuals in most 
 of the cases which we have examined. This rela- 
 tionship is so typical that I am surprised previous 
 investigators have not been impressed by the regu- 
 larity of its occurrence. The frequency of abnor- 
 mal sexual cravings among homosexuals has been 
 pointed out by many physicians and has been inter- 
 preted by them as indicative of a degenerative trend. 
 But since the physicians were satisfied with their 
 patients' account and they were unfamiliar with the 
 
 199
 
 200 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 technique of psychoanalysis, this constant relation- 
 ship escaped their observation. The next chapter 
 will be devoted to a complete history of such cases 
 and in that connection we shall see more clearly how 
 unsatisfactory the patients' first account of their 
 own trouble must be. I have already mentioned 
 that many investigators suspect that the homo- 
 sexuals decidedly lack veracity. Moreover all neu- 
 rotics drive their sadistic tendencies back into the 
 unconscious. Their repressed tendencies are among 
 the persistently overlooked features, the uncon- 
 sidered inventory, of the homosexual's psyche. 
 
 The sadistic tendency breaks to the foreground 
 of consciousness only occasionally and then it lends 
 its characteristic coloring to the paraphilic dis- 
 order. In such cases the sadistic trend is not 
 directed only against the opposite sex. Sexual lust 
 and cruelty are inextricably interwoven; the anti- 
 social cravings cannot be sublimated ; 1 the ailing 
 individual becomes a danger to the community, he 
 gets into conflict with the law, and lands in jail or 
 in the asylum. For such cases show us a morbidly 
 enlarged and distorted picture of the average homo- 
 sexual. 
 
 The following observation by Fleischmann 2 may 
 serve as an illustration of this fact: 
 
 l Cf. Stekel, Berufswahl und Neurose, Gross' Archiv, vol. 
 XIX. 
 
 1 Beitrdge zur Lehre von der kontrarer Sexualempfindung 
 Zeittchr. f. Psychol, u. Neurol, vol. VII, 1911.
 
 Sadism 201 
 
 82. "Physically the patient shows the early 
 signs of Basedow's disease. His temperament is 
 very uneven, he shifts from one extreme to another. 
 He is suspicious, very mendacious and very irrit- 
 able for instance, he struck his father in his rage. 
 He is not particularly religious. His whole con- 
 duct shows a very weak will and lack of energy. 
 Since his 17th year the patient has been addicted 
 to excessive drink. His sexual history reveals the 
 following facts : As a boy, 10 years of age, he came 
 across a book containing an illustration of a scene 
 of violence (beating) which gave him great pleas- 
 ure. Ever since he thinks of that picture placing 
 himself in the position of the one being beaten. 
 The mere word 'Peitschen,' cuffing, has something 
 appealing, something exciting about it to his mind. 
 From the very beginning the patient thought this 
 was an unhealthy trait and was uncomfortably self- 
 conscious over it. At that time he took a journey 
 into the country with his mother. They passed 
 over a river and he saw standing on the shore a 
 naked man who was bathing. That scene stuck in 
 his mind for months. At 11 years of age the pa- 
 tient asked his father to punish him because he had 
 an impure conscience, but did not attain his aim. 
 His fancies were growing. He liked to put himself 
 in Captain Dreyfus' place, wanted to experience 
 the latter's degradation and suffering. So con- 
 stantly was his mind preoccupied with his fancies
 
 202 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 that the boy neglected his school studies; he be- 
 came distraught, and suffered headaches. At 15 
 years of age the boy began to enact his phantasies ; 
 he undressed in a room, tied his hands with a rope 
 and suspended himself. He also tied weights to his 
 lower limbs. This produced orgasm and ejacula- 
 tion. An illustration of tortures which he found in 
 an illustrated work on world history suggested to 
 him new methods. He was specially fond of staging 
 scenes of crucifixion. In all these scenes the boy 
 fancied that he was the victim of all the imaginary 
 tortures. He never connected these fancies of tor- 
 ture with one sex or the other. He had sexual 
 gratification without reflecting particularly about 
 sex. The gratifications led to orgasm and ejacu- 
 lation. Then the craving for self-torture quieted 
 down somewhat, his imagination cooled off and the 
 patient began to seek sexual gratification through 
 masturbation. He drew his penis downwards and 
 backwards between his limbs and rocked his pelvis 
 sideways. During these acts there arose the first 
 homosexual fancies. While masturbating, which he 
 did at first regularly once every four weeks, later 
 daily and afterwards, five to ten times in succession, 8 
 he pictured to himself the hips of a young boy. At 
 
 3 1 have at the present time under observation a soldier who 
 for about three weeks masturbated 15 times ( !) daily. Ad- 
 vanced hypochondriac. The motive seems to have been the de- 
 velopment of a neurosis so he would be freed of military 
 service.
 
 Sadism 203 
 
 first that fancy, without any further details, was 
 enough. Later he fancied carrying out coitus intra 
 femora. His contrary sexual feelings showed them- 
 selves also in other ways. For instance, he took 
 such a strong fancy to a younger comrade that he 
 resolved to stay voluntarily back one year so as to 
 sit in the same classroom with that boy. On ac- 
 count of his lack of veracity his father put him in 
 a training institution; there his comrades initiated 
 him into sex matters and he learned mutual mas- 
 turbation. He was not aware of being untruthful 
 because he had lost the faculty of discerning be- 
 tween phantasy and fact. At 17 years of age the 
 patient picked up a peasant girl and induced her 
 to sleep with him ; but she did not allow coitus ; the 
 patient thinks that at that time he would have 
 found coitus pleasurable. 4 During that period he 
 was in the habit of abusing daily one of his best 
 friends, in his phantasy. He had the latter stand 
 naked before his eyes and played with his private 
 parts. In his phantasy he felt all over the fellow's 
 body, finally advancing to a complete homosexual 
 act, always fancying a one-sided active immissio 
 penis in anum; at the same time he masturbated in 
 the manner described above. After one year he was 
 
 4 The history of the same patient, as given by Ziemcke, 
 refers to the same episode as follows: "At 17 years of 
 age the first coitus with a peasant girl, pleasurable, no dis- 
 order." A proof that the heterosexual episodes are always 
 corrected in memory and modified in favor of a homosexual 
 predisposition.
 
 204 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 no longer able to control himself. He prevailed on 
 his friend to undress before him and lie, face down, 
 on the sofa. Then the patient crawled on top and 
 attempted immissio; he did not succeed on account 
 of a sudden feeling of nausea. He desisted, but 
 ejaculated ante port as; afterwards he was ashamed 
 of it. The patient parted from this friend later as 
 the result of a quarrel. Then the sadistic tenden- 
 cies again came to surface. He imagined all sorts 
 of tortures, reserving to himself merely the role of 
 devising the punishment to be applied. The actual 
 carrying out of the deeds he left to other imaginary 
 persons conjured up for the purpose. He chose his 
 victims preferably from among his younger com- 
 rades. Patient had devised 36 different kinds of 
 torture assigning to each a written symbol. He 
 selected by lot (drawing numbers) the intended 
 victim, as well as the torture to be applied and the 
 instruments therefor. The patient played this game 
 for hours. 
 
 He kept this up a couple of years. Suddenly the 
 whole thing lost its charm for him. His phantasy 
 cooled down. Finally he gave up the game alto- 
 gether. At 18, the patient attempted for the sec- 
 ond time normal coitus. He had an erection but 
 premature ejaculation ante portas. A third at- 
 tempt failed on account of drunkenness. Again he 
 reverted to his masturbation habit, his thoughts 
 during the act once more centered on the hips of a
 
 Sadism 205 
 
 young boy; this was a fetich to him. Masochistic 
 fancies he entertained no longer; but he dwelt pro- 
 fusely on homosexual phantasies. Later the patient 
 thought of coitus inter femora with boys. He be- 
 came very friendly with a 14-year-old boy, kissed 
 him, and allowed the boy to touch his own genitals. 
 But when he found that the boy had hairy hips his 
 passion for the boy cooled off at once. During that 
 time the patient (20 years old) entertained thoughts 
 of suicide because he felt that his life was a fail- 
 ure. An attempt at analysis only excited him 
 worse instead of quieting him. Again the patient 
 linked himself in intimate friendship with a 14-year- 
 old boy; as that boy resented any physical display 
 of affection, his attachment remained purely pla- 
 tonic. Every now and then patient masturbated 
 fancying he was carrying out coitus inter femora 
 with his friend. His sadistic fancies again broke 
 to the surface. He became more and more restless, 
 enticed a boy (under a slight pretext) to visit him 
 and devised most refined ways of abusing him; for 
 instance, hanging over the boy's back with the hands 
 clasped around his neck, or beating him over hips 
 and buttocks with a reed cane ; for every stroke the 
 boy was to receive a sum of money. As a conse- 
 quence of this action the patient was brought to 
 the clinic. 5 
 
 'Regarding this occurrence Ziemcke relates: "Towards the 
 last of his studies at Kiel he brought to his room a 12-year-
 
 206 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 Fleischmann, in his psychologic examination of 
 this case, lays stress particularly on the significance 
 of trauma and ascribes to the masturbation a pre- 
 dominant role in the psychogenesis of the para- 
 philia: "This case proves clearly that the various 
 sexual anomalies differ only in their sexual objec- 
 tive and aim, their developmental interrelationship 
 but that the mechanism of their development must 
 be looked upon as identical." 
 
 But of particular significance in this case is the 
 constant association of sadism and masochism, a 
 condition with which but few sexologists thus far 
 have been impressed as a bipolar expression of the 
 same underlying tendency; next, the tremendous 
 
 old boy from the street under the pretext of carrying some 
 books for him. When the boy returned he suggested making 
 some experiments on him, tapped him first on the knee cap, 
 then had him take off his stockings and kneel on the edge of 
 the lowermost cabinet drawer; next he forced the boy to stand 
 up stripped to the waist while he pricked him with a pen in 
 the armpit and under the fingernails. After that he hung 
 him by a rope tied around his hands, but the rope broke. 
 Then he had the boy lie down on the sofa, lowered his trousers 
 so as to expose the hips and gluteal region and proposed to 
 pay the boy 5 pfennig for every one of 50 cane strokes. 
 After the 43rd stroke the boy could not endure the pain any 
 longer, so he increased the pay to 10 pfennig and gave him 5 
 additional strokes. It has been ascertained that the man had 
 been drinking hard the night before carousing until daylight 
 and according to his own testimony he was very nervous next 
 day and had palpitation of the heart. He also stated that he 
 had acted impulsively; he remembered well all the details of 
 the occurrence but everything took place as in a haze. After 
 the deed he had a feeling of relief, his usual excitement and 
 unrest promptly subsided. Examination showed nothing phys- 
 ically abnormal and absence of any serious intellectual defect 
 as well.
 
 Sadism and Masochism 207 
 
 sense of guilt which no masochist lacks; further, 
 the defense reaction against the homosexual ten- 
 dencies: disgust of the immissio penis in anum, and 
 the unpleasant feelings roused by the sight of the 
 boy's hairy thighs. 
 
 This patient also illustrates the overwhelming 
 role of the father in the psychogenesis of homo- 
 sexuality and the recurrence of the "specific scene." 
 At 11 years of age he requested his father to beat 
 him because he felt guilty. At 25 years he carried 
 out that very act on a boy under a very refined 
 form. One must be a victim of psychic blindness 
 not to see that he there played the role of the 
 father who punishes the child. The development of 
 this attitude may be surmised to have taken place 
 approximately as follows : His primary phantasy 
 was undoubtedly generated by the wish that his 
 father be tender with him. He wanted to replace 
 the mother in his father's affection (coitus inter 
 femora). Probably jealousy thoughts against the 
 mother, revenge fancies against the father on ac- 
 count of unrequited love ; these mental sins gave rise 
 to his feeling of guilt, as displayed in his masochism. 
 For as I shall prove in another work 6 in this Series, 
 sadism is always the primary attitude and is trans- 
 posed into masochism in consequence of the feeling 
 
 of guilt, or else the two appear side by side. 
 
 * The volume on Sadism and Masochism, in my Series on the 
 Disorders of the Instincts and of the Emotions. English ver- 
 sion by Van Teslaar.
 
 208 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 I must comment on Fleischmann's remark that 
 psychoanalysis only disturbed the patient and did 
 not cure him. It is not proper to ascribe all fail- 
 ures of psychoanalysis to the method. Psycho- 
 analysis is a difficult art and will always be con- 
 ducted expertly only by a relatively small number 
 of specialists. Not everything that goes under the 
 name of psychoanalysis is genuine. Often the pa- 
 tient submits for a few days to psychoanalysis then 
 drops it (when a successful psychoanalysis may re- 
 quire several months) and claims it did him no 
 good. 7 A thorough psychoanalysis of the above 
 case would have certainly led to a deeper under- 
 standing of the mental mechanism involved and 
 would have revealed much new light. 
 
 Undoubtedly various sexual repressed tendencies 
 may become manifest during psychoanalytic treat- 
 ment. That is even necessary, they must be met 
 and overcome with the consultant's aid. The next 
 case below is an illustration that latent homosex- 
 uality may become manifest after a few seances in 
 the course of psychoanalysis. 
 
 T At a meeting of the medical society in Odessa, a colleague 
 was presented as one who had been treated unsuccessfully by 
 me. He suffered compulsions of a most serious character 
 and was one week under my care. I had proposed three 
 months. Nevertheless he was brought forth as proof of the 
 inefficacy of psychoanalysis. It happened that colleague Dr. 
 W. was present, and he knew that the alleged analysis was 
 of one week's duration. He was able to apprise the meeting 
 of the fact. In a few weeks that honorable sick physician 
 placed himself under the professional care of Dr. W. . . .
 
 Latent Homosexuality 209 
 
 83. Mr. Delta, medical student, 24 years of age, 
 hereditary history negative, physically healthy in 
 every respect, suffers of depressions and inability 
 to concentrate on his work. The most important 
 facts bearing on his anamnesis and his later history 
 he relates in the following letter: 
 
 "From my earliest childhood I have been extra- 
 ordinarily sensuous. It was the custom (an evil 
 one) in our family for the children to crawl into 
 the parents' bed in the morning. I naturally al- 
 ways went to mother's bed, while my sisters pre- 
 ferred to go to father's bed. We children also went 
 to one another's bed and on such occasions I was 
 in the habit of trying to crawl with my head under 
 the covers with the intention, frankly, of carrying 
 out cunnilingus especially on my sister N., who was 
 already married. Why I preferred N., at the time 
 I do not understand clearly, possibly because she 
 was receptive towards me and such practices are 
 possible only if the female partner is at least uncon- 
 sciously agreeable to it. I was 5 years of age at 
 the time. I have also carried on cunnilingus on my 
 sister B., at 15 years of age, while she was asleep. 
 These fancies later played a tremendous role in my 
 mental life, causing also a profuse sweating of the 
 palms of my hands which disappeared in part when 
 I became consciously aware of them. The killing 
 of the chickens by our cook produced an extraordi-
 
 210 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 narily exciting effect upon me. When the cook 
 gripped the chicken between her limbs near her 
 genital region to kill it she excited me to the point 
 of a true orgasm. I tried to imitate her by catch- 
 ing flies and squeezing them to death between my 
 limbs, near my genitals, or by drowning them in 
 urine. My attitude towards friends, colleagues, etc., 
 was also extremely peculiar. I cultivated prefer- 
 ably the friendship of children of the proletarian 
 class, while children of my own set never attracted 
 me in particular, although I was friendly with them. 
 Children of that class also submitted more willingly 
 to various homosexual acts, something which I did 
 not quite dare carry on with children of my own set. 
 I remember one boy in particular, with whom I 
 attempted coitus in os. I recall also a dream of my 
 childhood years: An awful butchery is going on in 
 our court yard and my sister W., and a certain man 
 are in it. I am pursued by both, they throw me 
 on the ground, and I am killed with a single blow 
 on the forehead. I may add that killing invoked in 
 my mind the picture of the aggressor sitting astride 
 over the victim's face and mouth, rider-fashion. 
 That at any rate was the manner in which we boys 
 killed one another. Girls of my age were a torture 
 to me but to older girls and adult women I extended 
 my greatest admiration, a sentiment which was 
 purely platonic with me at the time. At the public 
 school I fell in love with every strict teacher, once
 
 Masochistic Fancies 211 
 
 I was in love with two of them at the same time. I 
 wanted the two to punish me and that, in a very 
 strange way. I wanted to be taken to bed and to 
 be squeezed to death by them, 8 naturally between 
 their genitalia. The immictio in os by a woman was 
 also a favorite form of torture in my day dreaming. 
 Now comes puberty. I consider the starting 
 point of my later neurosis the fact that I cared for 
 contact only with persons who could offer me some 
 sexual satisfaction and that even as a child. Dur- 
 ing puberty this peculiarity showed even more 
 markedly. For a time I preserved my platonic ad- 
 miration of women older than myself. Young girls 
 were still repulsive to me until I fell passionately in 
 love with one. I followed that little one for years 
 like a shadow, but in spite of the encouragement she 
 gave me I could not bring myself to speak to her. 
 When I finally did so, I saw in a flash the reason for 
 my remarkable hesitation, I did not say what I 
 started to say, the whole charm was gone in an in- 
 stant, she seemed to me common and inferior, 
 although my objective judgment at other times told 
 me precisely the reverse. In short, my affection re- 
 awakened in its earlier intensity only some time after 
 I recovered from the shock of my personal acquain- 
 tance with her. At that time I became very friendly 
 with a certain colleague, Joseph Z. The tie that 
 
 An "infantile sexual theory," in which coitus is conceived 
 sadistically as a squeezing.
 
 212 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 linked us was that very bewitching dark girl. He 
 also was in love with her (one would have thought 
 that this would have broken our friendship). We 
 never tired admiring her charms between us and 
 our friendship came to an end only when I dis- 
 covered that he was not true to our idol. At the 
 same time nothing disgusted me during that period 
 so much as the sight of a pair of lovers. / had the 
 feeling that a man loses something of his manliness 
 and dignity through mtimacy with a woman. 
 
 My next friend was Herbert. I had few sexual 
 points of contact with him, except that we visited 
 together the red light resorts for the first time and 
 jointly made love to the various inmates. Herbert 
 was so witty a fellow that I almost loved him, espe- 
 cially as he was slavishly devoted to me. But my 
 neurosis made tremendous leaps for the worse even 
 at that time and I became more and more timid and 
 awkward in my ways and when finally he turned on 
 me with his wit our friendship came to an end. 
 
 Next came Friedrich. He clung to me with fa- 
 natic love, this went on for about three years, until 
 he married, and then I felt lonely in the world. 
 My beloved mother to whom I was extremely de- 
 voted as a child could only try to console me, but I 
 was hopelessly disconsolate. As a child I had been 
 inseparable from her for years ; Mendelssohn's well- 
 known Spring song brought tears to my eyes be- 
 cause the thought of a mother losing her child
 
 Early Experiences 213 
 
 seemed atrocious to me. Although I felt a great 
 measure of that affection for mother which is com- 
 mon in every one's childhood experience, a certain 
 craving remained ungratified. I became acquainted 
 with psychoanalysis and it brought to my mind the 
 youthful perversities of my youth. I decided to 
 give expression to my conscious instincts and I have 
 come to the following conclusion: 
 
 My attitude towards the other sex will never be 
 satisfactory, I must stand either above or below 
 woman, I must be either hammer or anvil, an unpre- 
 judiced relationship I find impossible, because as 
 soon as I see a pretty woman I lose my senses, and 
 would like preferably to be at her feet and obey her 
 like a slave. But women do not wish that, they want 
 to be submissive themselves, they want to feel the 
 man above them. Intercourse on the level of 
 equality I find tiresome, so there remains only sad- 
 ism for me, through which, I may confess frankly, 
 I have already enjoyed pleasant times. True friend- 
 ship on the basis of mutual love and respect I am 
 capable of maintaining only with men, as in my 
 childhood." 
 
 This sounds like the history of a typical bisexual 
 strongly on the way to become a genuine homosex- 
 ual. Let us turn to his psychoanalytic treatment 
 before we examine his sexual attitude. He went to 
 a psychoanalyst who had been recommended to him
 
 214 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 by Freud. He was wholly unable to work, impotent 
 with women at the time, and had recourse to mas- 
 turbation. During the first sitting he learned that 
 he had been in love with his mother. The knowledge 
 of this fact acted as a "relief," according to his tes- 
 timony. (He even told it to his mother.) Shortly 
 afterwards he had his first successful coitus with a 
 woman. But the neurosis did not change and in a 
 short time he came to me for analysis. I found a 
 tremendous resistance against the discovery of the 
 true attitude. He employed all sorts of subterfuges 
 to take up the time during the consultation hours 
 and to disclose only what he wanted. He soon ex- 
 hausted the account of his pronounced sadism and 
 of his masochistic tendencies. But concerning his 
 relations to his father he was very hazy. He be- 
 came able to go to work, attended the lectures and 
 turned once more diligently to his studies. I saw 
 the hopelessness of my endeavors and broke the 
 analysis under some pretext or other. . . . There 
 are patients, whom I have described as the psycho- 
 analytic Ahasverus-type 9 who are among the most 
 thankless of subjects for our professional en- 
 deavors. They rush from one analyst to another, 
 imploring the new consultant to remove the last of 
 their troublous symptoms, and stay all the time 
 very much as they have been from the beginning. 
 They look upon the analysis, too, as a test of 
 * Zentralblatt fiir Psychoanalyse, Vol. IV.
 
 The Ahasverus Type 215 
 
 power, they want to triumph over their consultant, 
 they want to come out stronger than he and what 
 is most important they do not want to recognize 
 the real background of their attitude. They stub- 
 bornly overlook the real foundation of their neu- 
 rotic trouble and their *unwillingness to see' is made 
 worse by their superficial acquaintance with psycho- 
 analysis and their fragmentary introspection. 
 They thus run from one physician to another, criti- 
 cize the first to the second, the second to a third, 
 the third to a fourth. This conduct stands partly 
 in relation to their attitude towards the father, a 
 subject to which we shall have occasion to revert 
 more fully later. 
 
 It happened precisely as I had surmised. He 
 went back to Freud, who recommended a third 
 analyst, because he refused stubbornly to return to 
 the first. After a few months he gave up the treat- 
 ment and considered himself well. One half year 
 later he came back to me and told me that since 
 adopting exclusively homosexual relations he was 
 entirely well, able to work, and as lively "as a fish 
 in the brook." But something still seemed to be 
 lacking. At my request he wrote the account which 
 I have given above, stating that he had no objec- 
 tion to its publication. He added orally a few 
 statements which I shall use later. 
 
 The characteristic feature of his attitude towards 
 woman is emphasized in his own written statement.
 
 216 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 Either he must torture or he must be tortured he 
 can either love or must hate, and only to excess. 
 He is afraid of his terrific love passion. Therefore 
 he feels impelled to humble himself before woman, to 
 serve her as a slave, which is his symbolic expression 
 for the longing after cunnilingus and for his willing- 
 ness to submit to mictio in os. He wants to serve 
 woman as a means for the attainment of gratifica- 
 tion, as a vessel for her excreta, to be a submissive 
 slave to all her whims. His submissiveness goes so 
 far that he is willing to be killed by woman. This 
 sadistic transposition of this attitude signifies: 
 only through doing away with the sexual partner 
 one achieves complete mastery and may claim com- 
 plete possession. 
 
 In his feeling-attitude towards woman he vacil- 
 lates between two extremes : hatred to the point of 
 annihilation and a love so great as to include the 
 willingness to be sacrificed. Clearly, he must pro- 
 tect himself so as not to give way to his hatred 
 and become a murderer. A deeper insight into the 
 parallelogram of the psychic forces involved in such 
 situations leads plainly to the conviction that the 
 instinct to live and the will to power prevent him 
 from subjecting himself to woman actually to the 
 point of self-annihilation. His feeling-attitude to- 
 wards woman is too affective for him to be able 
 to reduce it to a proper emotional level. How 
 plain is the significance of his boyhood experience,
 
 Fear of Degradation 217 
 
 his great passion for the girl whom he followed 
 like a shadow. But he did not dare to bring that 
 love affair down to reality. He was afraid of him- 
 self, afraid of the subjection. The girl gave him 
 to understand that he need not belittle himself at 
 all. In his eyes that was enough for her to lose her 
 charm after he became acquainted with her; she 
 attracted him again only after all danger of his 
 trying himself out with her was over. He con- 
 sidered himself plain looking and thought he could 
 not attract any one. He hated the women on ac- 
 count of their charm, because he himself would have 
 liked to have been a pretty woman. 
 
 He also cleverly covered that wish by beginning 
 to overstress the value of manliness. "I had a feel- 
 ing," he states, "that a man loses something of his 
 manliness and dignity through his intimacy with a 
 female person." One must bear in mind that this 
 man esteemed his mother very highly, holding her 
 above all others as a person and as a woman. The 
 normal person forms the image of his ideal woman 
 after his mother. But he looks upon his mother as 
 an exception and, like many other homosexuals, ex- 
 cepts his mother alone from the scorn with which 
 he looks down upon the whole female sex. Now he 
 tolerates woman but only with a sadistic feeling- 
 attitude. For hatred vanquishes woman easier than 
 love. 
 
 The question, what is he seeking in man and why
 
 218 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 does he prefer men to women?, he answers as 
 follows : "I seek the penis in man. I think chiefly 
 of his penis. With men I find no resistance at all. 
 Woman I consider ugly while man is beautiful. I 
 look chiefly for womanly men who to me stand for 
 the girl with the penis. I was attracted only once 
 to an elderly man with a very energetic face. And 
 what particularly attracts me to man: there is no 
 question of any submissiveness with him. Man does 
 not humble himself, only woman does that." 
 
 But he does not seek the submissive woman. He 
 needs a strong woman who shall domineer over him. 
 He confesses that intercourse with a woman sadist 
 would gratify him. But, as he states in his written 
 account : women do not care to domineer, they want 
 to be overpowered themselves. 
 
 We note that the polar sexual tension between 
 male and female is most extreme in his case. He 
 could kill the woman who humiliates him, belittles 
 him, as Judith killed Holofernes, because he had 
 conquered her sexually. 10 
 
 His peculiar manner of masturbating (squeezing 
 flies to death against the penis) discloses his spe- 
 cific onanistic fancy. He squeezes a woman to death, 
 he strangles her, while cohabiting with her. A short 
 
 10 Of. also my essay, Der Kampf der Oeschlechter, the Strug- 
 gle between the Sexes, in my work, The Beloved Ego, Moffat, 
 Yard & Co., N. Y. I have now under treatment a very sick 
 woman who has gone to pieces over a similar problem. She 
 was anesthetic with all men. The one man who had just once 
 roused her during sexual intercourse she hated and could kill.
 
 FUght from Woman 219 
 
 time after the first analysis he had sexual inter- 
 course with a servant girl. He described her to 
 me: "a gigantic girl, and so powerful that she could 
 have overpowered me with one hand !" With such 
 a girl he felt safe. But he never dared to have 
 sexual intercourse with weak persons, even though 
 they exerted a stronger sexual attraction on him. 
 He had every reason to flee from woman, because 
 he feared the transposition of his excessive love 
 passion into a deadly aggressive hatred. He claims 
 he could have intercourse now only with a woman 
 addicted to all sorts of perversities. Only such a 
 woman could rouse his passion and could offer him 
 something. He has never tried this out. It looks 
 as if he feared the involvement of his heart, but that 
 could use woman merely as a vehicle for his lust. 
 A perverse woman would drown the urgings of his 
 strongest paraphilia: the impulse to kill a woman. 
 
 Now we may understand through his family his- 
 tory how this attitude must have arisen. 
 
 He belonged to a family where both parents had 
 very pronounced individualities of their own. The 
 father was a self-made man, who rose through his 
 own efforts and became a millionaire. He was 
 strict, energetic, always preoccupied with his busi- 
 ness, and never had any spare time for his family. 
 With the children he was tender while they were 
 small and pretty playthings. Later he changed 
 completely his attitude and the patient was re-
 
 220 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 quired and expected to show a good record of his 
 conduct at school. He continued to be tender with 
 the girls, so that the boy must have unconsciously 
 envied his sisters. This change from tenderness to 
 severity on the part of parents is very common and 
 is responsible for many instances of stubborn con- 
 trariness on the part of children, especially to- 
 wards the father. The child always longs for the 
 early childhood when the father was so loving and 
 tender. Perhaps this longing for early childhood 
 is the reason why so many homosexuals are of a 
 decidedly infantile type. 11 The kindly old gentle- 
 man sought by so many homosexuals is perhaps 
 merely the affectionate father of their youth, who 
 never punished severely. . . . 
 
 Our patient's mother was a remarkably intelli- 
 gent and very beautiful woman, who all her life 
 contended with her husband for rulership over the 
 house. I had an opportunity to obtain a deep in- 
 sight into that marriage situation. I know of no 
 
 " Havelock Ellis and Moll (Handbuch der Sexualwissen- 
 schaften, Leipzig, F. C. W. Vogel, 1912) draw attention to 
 this fact: "Both sexes often show a remarkable youth fulness 
 in appearance which is preserved late into the adult state. 
 The love of green, which is chiefly, normally, a favorite color 
 with children, and especially with girls, is often observed. A 
 certain degree of histrionic talent is not uncommon as well 
 as an inclination towards tenderness, occasionally also a fem- 
 inine love of adornments and jewels. It may be said of 
 many of these physical and psychic characteristics that they 
 denote a certain degree of infantilism, and this fits in with 
 the view that homosexuality is traceable to aboriginal bisex- 
 uality; for the deeper we penetrate into the life history of 
 the individual, the nearer we approach the bisexual stage.
 
 Struggle for Supremacy 221 
 
 other marriage where the struggle for supremacy 
 was so bitter between the two personalities. There 
 were constantly quarrels in the house, often on the 
 point of breaking out in violence. Each one avoided 
 showing any affection for the other. To do so 
 would have meant acknowledging the other's su- 
 periority. They did everything they could to each 
 other. They bore themselves with aloofness and 
 appeared indifferent towards one another, though 
 keeping up a continuous quarrel. If the husband 
 noticed some other man courting his handsome wife, 
 he smiled indulgently and accorded his rival a free 
 field, as if to prove to his wife that he was not jeal- 
 ous in the least, and was willing to accord her every 
 freedom. She also seemed to overlook the seamy 
 side, in her husband's conduct. Nevertheless they 
 were ready to jump at each other on the slightest 
 provocation. Once the situation reached a crisis 
 and the woman pointed a revolver at her husband 
 threatening to end everything in a terrible tragedy. 
 The children divided between the contesting pa- 
 rents, taking sides. The son was entirely with his 
 mother. He was unhappy because she had to put 
 up with so much and he goaded her on all the time, 
 urging her to carry the fight to a successful issue 
 and even advising her to seek separation from her 
 husband. He had nothing good to say about his 
 father, outside the latter's business ability. He de- 
 scribed the father as a cold-blooded fellow without
 
 222 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 a heart, a mere adding machine, etc. . . . On a 
 superficial examination it looked as if he loved his 
 mother and hated his father. But back of that 
 hatred there stood the carefully preserved love of 
 his earlier years. That love, however, he was un- 
 willing to acknowledge. That was the critical point 
 in the analysis. He always recoiled whenever the 
 analysis led to his fondness of the father, or various 
 signs pointed out his aboriginal attitude towards 
 the father. Any analysis leads sooner or later to a 
 similar experience. Nothing is more difficult than 
 to dissolve the father hatred and reduce it back to 
 its infantile components, love. 
 
 But in his homosexual acts he played the role of 
 the father who is tender with the child. We also 
 perceive now why he felt himself suddenly attracted 
 to that elderly gentleman with the energetic face. 
 He was an image of his own strict father. 
 
 Having witnessed in his childhood a terrific 
 struggle between man and woman, and having him- 
 self taken a part in that merciless struggle for su- 
 premacy, he was bound to conceive the problem of 
 love as a struggle for supremacy, a competitive 
 struggle in the will to power. His supreme ques- 
 tion always was: "Who is the stronger one?" This 
 case shows us with remarkable clearness the mechan- 
 isms on which Alfred Adler lays such great stress. 
 But it also shows the incestuous love for the sister, 
 a tendency of which he was aware. In the young
 
 "Male and Female" 223 
 
 men he sought the reproductions of his sister's pic- 
 ture. He also showed a fixation upon the mother, 
 with whom he was seldom on agreeable pleasant 
 terms. Nevertheless he has not forgotten the early 
 tendernesses of his father. In the wish to be 
 squeezed to death, his masochistic fancies revolve 
 around the masked image of his severe father stand- 
 ing like a shadow. To be master, to be slave his 
 whole system of thinking revolved around these two 
 notions. He has social intercourse only with men 
 towards whom he feels himself superior. Already 
 as a child he chose his comrades among the children 
 of the poor, because he could domineer them. He 
 abandoned one friendship because his friend made 
 jokes at his expense. He was not a handsome child. 
 That drove him into the path of hatred and envy. 
 He hated all women because they were his rivals 
 with the father. He thought he would have been 
 liked better if he had been a handsomer fellow. 
 
 He was a slave to his family and unable to wean 
 himself away. He moved to another city in order 
 to free himself of the family ties. That made him 
 homesick. His mother had to visit him. He was 
 proud when they went on walks together and were 
 taken for a pair of lovers. But secretly he really 
 yearned for his father, and never forgives himself 
 that he did not interrupt that vacation journey to 
 go to his father. 
 
 In reality he continued the struggle between his
 
 224 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 parents. Within him struggled man and wife. Pos- 
 sibly also the child, though acting more in the role 
 of a bystander, and ready to give the stereotypic 
 answer "both" to the question, "whom do you like 
 better?" He thinks he has overcome the man in 
 him. I consider his homosexuality a passing phase. 
 He will achieve health only after complete emotional 
 detachment from the family circle. 
 
 We often note that the neurotic gets well only 
 after the death of one of the parents or of both. 
 But in many cases, the parents even after they are 
 dead continue to hold their sway over the in- 
 fantile soul and their dominion ends only with 
 the death of their child who, in that devotion to 
 them, loved but himself and loved himself unto 
 death.
 
 VI 
 
 HISTOEY AND ANALYSIS OF A HOMOSEXUAL CHILD- 
 HOOD REMINISCENCES ANAL EROTISM ATTACH- 
 MENT TO THE MOTHER INTERPRETATION OF 
 
 DREAM SYMBOLISMS LOVE OF THE FATHER 
 
 EEGRESSION THEORY OF HOMOSEXUALITY.
 
 Was ist das Siegel der erreichten Freiheit? Sich 
 nicht mehr von sich selber schamen. 
 
 Nietzsche.
 
 VI 
 
 What is the stamp of achieved freedom? To be 
 
 no longer ashamed of one's self. 
 
 Nietzsche. 
 
 The complete analysis of a homosexual would 
 require a whole volume. Before concluding the pres- 
 ent work I propose to give a portion of such an 
 analysis. The treatment lasted six weeks, when it 
 was interrupted by the war. This analysis, too, 
 only led as far as the father complex. But even 
 so it yields important data and enables us to draw 
 together the observations made in connection with 
 the various briefer illustrations already discussed. 
 
 84. Mr. Sigma, a student from Denmark, 28 
 years of age, consults me on account of various ner- 
 vous difficulties. For a number of months past he 
 has felt very depressed, is always fatigued, generally 
 unable to sleep and unable to concentrate on his 
 work. He is facing his final examinations but is 
 unable to study. He complains of a lack of any 
 
 227
 
 228 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 sense of joy in living. He admits having enter- 
 tained also ideas of suicide which he has rejected 
 chiefly on account of his mother. He is very much 
 afraid that he may yield some day to just such a 
 temptation. 
 
 Sigma is consciously homosexual. He empha- 
 sizes: He has never felt any interest in the female 
 sex and already as a child he fell in love only with 
 boys. He is the only son of a very hard-working, 
 brave, mother in comfortable circumstances who is 
 wholly wrapped up in him. His father died a few 
 years ago. He lives a wholly retired existence, he 
 has no friends, for his mother prevents that. 
 Once he was 17 years of age at the time he had 
 a close friend to whom he felt very attached, but 
 his mother interfered and broke up their friendship. 
 Now he is completely isolated. All his spare time 
 he devotes to his mother, when he is not gone to the 
 theater or to a concert. He also visits no families; 
 his mother prevents it. 
 
 He begins spontaneously an account of his 
 life with his first recollections: 
 
 I was 2 years of age and we a number of chil- 
 dren played out of doors. A pretty lady walked 
 up and threw a ball into the grass. She said: He 
 who catches the ball may keep it. I was nearest to 
 it but did not dare to trespass upon the finely kept 
 lawn. Therefore another one caught the ball. . . . 
 
 This recollection seems typical of Sigma. Like
 
 Early Sexual History 229 
 
 all first recollections it contains the determinants of 
 his whole life. 1 It shows us a man who lacks self- 
 confidence, whose activity is inhibited by considera- 
 tions regarding others. He explains that for the 
 sake of his mother he has renounced all pleasures in 
 life. He is always hesitant (kleinmiitig) , over- 
 whelmed by his feeling of inferiority and dares not 
 assume any important enterprise. 
 
 His sexuality awoke very early. He played al- 
 ways with girls and felt more like a girl. He liked 
 to put on his mother's hat and clothing. His mother 
 was the master in the house, the breadwinner and 
 law giver. The father always played a subordinate 
 role. We see again a reiteration of the fact that the 
 child identifies itself with the stronger parent. 
 Under the circumstances it was natural that Sigma 
 should identify himself with the mother. . . . 
 
 Already, in the public school, at seven years of 
 age, he fell in love with his teacher. That is why 
 he became one of the best scholars. He also loved 
 some of his colleagues, but was too bashful to be- 
 tray himself to them. At 12 years of age he began 
 to masturbate and during the act his fancies were 
 centered on the image of a naked man. He was 
 very religious up till that time and during con- 
 fession distinguished himself by the lengthy list of 
 
 1 Dr. Paul Schrecker, Die Individualpsychologische Bedevr 
 tung der Kindheitserrinnerungen, Zentralbl. f. Psychoanalyse, 
 Vol. IV.
 
 230 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 his sins and the depth of his dejection. At 12 years 
 of age he became free and progressively developed 
 into a full-fledged atheist. The struggle against 
 masturbation began at 14 years of age, when he 
 heard that the habit was very harmful. After that 
 he indulged more rarely. Great feeling of fatigue 
 on day after pollution. The subject regards his 
 present condition a consequence of his masturbation 
 habit. 
 
 Already during his gymnasium years (high- 
 school) his mind was distracted and he barely man- 
 aged to squeeze through his finals (Matura). He 
 was always bashful and avoided the colleagues who 
 spoke cynically among themselves about girls so that 
 he was called "Miss Sigma." For a few years he 
 lived away from home. They lived formerly in the 
 country and he had to stay in Copenhagen. He 
 lived with some older sisters with whom he did not 
 get along very well. He played music with them, 
 joined them on walks, experienced considerable ex- 
 citation . . . short of erotism. His whole erotic 
 feeling was directed only to men and boys. In the 
 course of his endless day dream fancies he never 
 thought of a woman at any time in his life. He 
 dreams only of men and thinks only of them. That 
 concludes the first visit. 
 
 Sigma again emphasizes his one-sided inclination 
 towards men. Nevertheless he must correct a small 
 detail of his account as given on the previous day.
 
 Early Sexual History 231 
 
 This, I repeat, is a common typical occurrence in 
 the anamnesis of homosexuals. When giving an 
 account of their life they neglect entirely all the 
 heterosexual episodes. But today Sigma adds that 
 occasionally he did have erotic dreams concerning 
 women ; perhaps four or five times. But not more 
 often than that. These dreams led to pollutions 
 and were rather indefinite as to content. Sigma 
 was also in love, transiently, with a girl cousin, at 
 sixteen years of age. He at once attempts to 
 weaken the force of this declaration: it was merely 
 a pastime, a pose, because an uncle was in love with 
 the same girl. He thought it was his duty also to 
 make love to this girl cousin. But it was soon over. 
 And he must emphasize again that he never in- 
 dulged in any phantasies centering on women. He 
 had such phantasies. But they were always about 
 men. 
 
 He was brought up almost wholly in female so- 
 ciety. If his mother was away, there was an aunt 
 in the house who looked after him. He was taken 
 to school and was called for when he was already 
 a grown-up boy the typical training for depend- 
 ence. His mother wanted to procure friends for 
 him. There were always some boys whom she wished 
 he would accept as his friends. But usually he 
 himself found nothing in those particular boys to 
 interest him. If he himself chose some boy for a 
 friend his mother was sure to interpose her veto as
 
 232 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 soon as their friendship became too warm. And he 
 was always prone to fall in love with his friends. 
 He composed poetry at a very early age, deifying 
 his friends; to this day his poems are devoted al- 
 most wholly to Eros Uranos. 
 
 At this point he reflects for a while; and he con- 
 tinues: "I identified myself always with the female 
 figures who were mostly strong, aggressive women. 
 I could always enthuse over such strong, energetic 
 women displaying male aggressiveness about them. 
 If a woman or a girl ever interested me and played 
 a role in my day dreams, she was of this type." 
 Next he recalls a heterosexual episode. He ad- 
 mired for a tims the landlady's daughter, kept com- 
 pany with her, they played music together, but he 
 felt very unhappy when she married off afterwards. 
 
 The Eulenberg trial made him aware of his own 
 homosexuality. That made him very unhappy for 
 he discovered that he was unlike others. In the 
 high-school he was always looked upon as peculiar 
 and he kept aloof from his schoolmates. The fa- 
 mous trial made it clear to him that his end would 
 be either insanity or jail. He went through some 
 dreadful days. He was in love with a friend and 
 when the latter asked him why he was so depressed, 
 he broke into bitter tears and poured out his heart 
 circuitously describing his passion. He felt that 
 he was not like others, he felt lonely and closed in, 
 unrecognized and weak. His friend advised him to
 
 Pursuit Dreams 233 
 
 devote himself more to art. He looked upon the 
 subject's suffering as due to thwarted ambition. 
 
 His typical dreams are concerned with pursuit 
 by men and breaking in. A particular dream made 
 a strong impression on him : He was pursued in bed 
 by a great mass of bedbugs and finally himself 
 turned into a bedbug. 2 Like all homosexuals he 
 had for a time the fear of infection and especially 
 of tuberculosis. He was almost convinced that he 
 would die prematurely of tuberculosis. 
 
 We are also familiar with tuberculosis (as well 
 as syphilis) as the representative of what is evil, 
 of incest and homosexuality. But for the present 
 our patient sheds no light on this aspect of the sub- 
 ject. We do not care to influence Sigma and there- 
 fore do not disturb the course of his associations. 
 Sigma shows but little interest in the analysis. He 
 is mistrusting and hesitant. He does not have much 
 time and seems relieved when the sitting is over. 
 
 The next sitting opens as follows : "I have come 
 to ask you to make an appointment with me for 
 tomorrow. I want to skip today. I must take a 
 little rest and gather strength. Yesterday's sitting 
 has sort of taken me to pieces. . . ." 
 
 During the first couple of sittings I had hardly 
 
 *Cp. the novel by Kafka, Die Verwandlung (Verlag von 
 Kurt Wolff). It portrays the transformation of a man into 
 a bedbug. It is obviously a sadistic fancy (the bedbug sucks 
 blood). This meaning is not imparted to the patient so as 
 not to influence the course of his associations.
 
 234 The Homosexual Neuiosis 
 
 spoken a word and had allowed Sigma to do all the 
 talking. But the flight reflex, which dominates all 
 homosexuals, because they are afraid of the truth, 
 is here already coming to surface: 
 
 "What roused you so yesterday?" 
 
 "That you kept so quiet. It was an uncanny 
 silence. . . ." 
 
 "Would you have preferred to see me excited?" 
 
 "No ... I know, of course, that the physician 
 must keep his balance. But that is precisely what I 
 lack. What an awful impression I must have made 
 on you !" 
 
 Hinc illae lacrimae! The subject is concerned 
 over the impression he makes upon the physician. 
 He wants to know whether the physician has sym- 
 pathy for him, whether he is impressed or indif- 
 ferent. He is afraid of making himself appear ridic- 
 ulous. The physician becomes the chief person 
 around whom his own life interests are being cen- 
 tered for the time. 
 
 "But that is irrelevant. You want to get well; 
 and that has nothing to do with personal matters." 
 
 "To be sure, that is just what I was saying to 
 myself. Doctor, you are my last hope. And yet, 
 I am already losing patience and feel like running 
 off. It is less than two weeks since I went to pur- 
 chase a revolver intending to shoot myself. The 
 plan fell through only on account of my lack of 
 adroitness. I was unable to procure a revolver.
 
 Fixation on Friend 235 
 
 The saleslady demanded to be shown a purchase 
 permit and I did not have one. There must have 
 also been a tremor in my voice. I was so excited. 
 ... If I had been able to procure that revolver I 
 would not be now sitting in your office." 
 
 "Why did you want to die?" 
 
 "A life full of trouble! No friends! No pros- 
 pect of improvement ! The everlasting depression !" 
 
 "And did you not think of the suffering you would 
 have caused your mother? To your mother who 
 sacrificed her life for you?" 
 
 "No, I was indifferent about that. It would have 
 only served her right, because it is she who has 
 ruined my life. It might have been the end of her 
 too. . . . But I was truly sorry for my friend. He 
 has so many cares and so much to think about. It 
 would have shaken him up. He is a writer and is 
 now at work on a new novel. It would have cer- 
 tainly thrown him out of the writing mood and it 
 would have interfered with his creative activity," 
 
 "What has your mother done you that you should 
 want to punish her so severely?" 
 
 This brings out the last repressed grudge against 
 the mother who came near separating him from his 
 much beloved friend. 
 
 "Mother has ruined my whole life," he continues, 
 "she has separated me from my only and best friend. 
 You have no idea what I suffered. He came daily 
 to our house. He accompanied me on the piano so
 
 236 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 that we enjoyed unforgettable evenings together. 
 Father was once a good singer. As there was no 
 accompanist at hand he neglected the beautiful gift. 
 Now we resurrected the old songs once more. Every 
 evening was a festival. On account of a pulmonary 
 apical catarrh I had to go to Egypt. During my 
 absence a catastrophe occurred. Mother found 
 that my friend was robbing her of a son's love. She 
 was jealous because he heard more often and re- 
 ceived longer letters from me than the parents. She 
 compelled my father to write Ernst a curt letter 
 forbidding him to come to the house any longer or 
 to correspond with me. From Ernst, to whom I 
 wrote regularly three times weekly while he an- 
 swered once, I received next an ironic letter, stating 
 that I ought to enclose the parent's permission next 
 time I write him. Only then will he write me again. 
 I did not understand what that meant until I read 
 the enclosed father's letter. I felt like one against 
 whom the gates of heaven have been suddenly closed 
 tight. I returned to Copenhagen at once, but did 
 not dare to take openly a stand against mother. 
 She had a bad heart spell the first time I reproached 
 her bitterly and all the relatives called me her mur- 
 derer. I made up secretly with Ernst and met him 
 on the street. But mother found out. She followed 
 me stealthily and when she discovered that I was 
 meeting Ernst there followed terrible quarrels which 
 I am unable to relate. I was thus very badly em-
 
 Fixation on Friend 237 
 
 bittered and that innocent relationship was turned 
 into a morbid whim. You will appreciate, there- 
 fore, that I cannot but hold a grudge against 
 mother. . . ." 
 
 "Have you not tried to rebel openly against the 
 situation ?" 
 
 "I was too weak for that. Father begged me not 
 to disturb the happiness of our family circle. It 
 was a terrible situation and I did not see my way 
 out of it. That happened when I was 19 years of 
 age. I have since told mother that I must meet 
 Ernst once in a while. She is against the idea and 
 wants to link me up to other friends. I am brought 
 into contact with girls in the hope that I will take 
 an interest in them. But the very fact that they 
 are brought in my way under mother's patronage, 
 as it were, makes them repulsive to me from the 
 outset. Moreover, I know that mother would be 
 equally jealous if I should really love a girl. She 
 will stand for no other love besides her. I am too 
 broken up to ever break away and be self-reliant. 
 So I remain everlastingly a mother's boy. But I 
 cannot endure this sort of thing any longer. I have 
 had enough of this torture and want to see an end 
 to it. . . ." 
 
 "I feel much better. Last evening I worked fairly 
 well, for the first time in a long period. I am be- 
 ginning to like Vienna. I was out in the woods
 
 238 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 (Wienerwald) and I was pleased with the sight of 
 the first violet. I am again beginning to feel pleas- 
 ure in nature's beauties. It was my first excursion." 
 "Don't you go out of doors otherwise?" 
 "Yes, every Sunday. Always in mother's com- 
 pany. We start in the morning, have our lunch out 
 of doors and spend the day together." 
 
 "Do you not go on excursions with your friend?" 
 "Unfortunately, I do not. But hold on! I did, 
 just once. I was going to tell you about it any- 
 way, today. He invited me to join him with a num- 
 ber of his colleagues on an excursion to a distant 
 island. I was enthusiastic over the plan at once 
 for I hoped that it would prove an opportunity for 
 greater intimacy between us. But I was disillu- 
 sioned. We were happy the whole day. I was 
 thinking all the time of the night. I hoped we would 
 have a room with double bed. . . . Unfortunately 
 all the rooms in the hotel were taken and we had to 
 be content with occupying quarters in common. 
 Here, too, luck failed to serve me. My friend slept 
 next to another member of the party. Next day, 
 under the pretext of fatigue, I started back. I 
 felt unhappy and was all day long on the point of 
 tears. I reached the next village alone. . It was on 
 a holiday. I did not know what to do. So I went 
 into the church. . . ." 
 "To pray?" 
 "Not at all. I was no longer religious at the
 
 Fixation on Friend 239 
 
 time. I went to be among people. It did no good. 
 The many dressed up folks, the holiday atmosphere, 
 the music, the songs, the organ. I calmed down a 
 little. Next I went to a restaurant because I felt 
 a great craving for something sweet. Thus the 
 majestic and the trivial stand close in my case. 3 
 Then I returned home, after first driving around 
 through the streets and was happy when it was so 
 late that I had to go back to the house. . . ." 
 
 There follow various accounts of his passion for 
 his friend Ernst. He always dreams of physical 
 union with the friend and has no other thought. 
 Only once he attempted aggression on his friend. 
 In a urinal he suddenly reached for his friend's 
 penis. The latter good-naturedly avoided him and 
 never afterwards referred to the incident. But he 
 saw clearly that he would never achieve his aim. 
 Meanwhile his friend fell in love with an actress. 
 He was jealous only so long as his friend did not 
 confide in him. Thereafter he was happy because 
 the actress preferred another man and paid no 
 attention to Ernst. He was in a position to con- 
 sole his friend like a mother. He emphasizes that 
 his feelings are distinctly maternal towards men 
 who are ill or unhappy and that he makes an ex- 
 cellent nurse, thus bringing out his pronounced 
 
 * The mouth as an erogenous zone. He expected kisses and 
 meanwhile was satisfied with other sweets as a substitute. He 
 is a confirmed lover of dainties and still relies on sweets which 
 he is in the habit of carrying in his pockets.
 
 240 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 identification with the mother. But he was unable 
 to nurse his father when the latter was taken with 
 gastric cancer; the disease was terribly repulsive 
 to him. . . . 
 
 He has dreamed the following dream : 
 
 / am called up in school. I had to solve a mathe- 
 matical problem but could not arrive at the right 
 result. Next it was an English translation from 
 Shakespeare. I did not know the vowels. It seemed 
 that the various persons of the play were repre- 
 sented by some of the colleagues in theatrical cos- 
 tumes. 
 
 The analysis of this dream would lead us into 
 endless bypaths. The most important feature is the 
 affective character of the dream which in simplest 
 terms may be formulated as follows: "I am facing 
 problems in life for which I do not feel prepared. 
 I am an actor and I am wearing a theatrical cos- 
 tume. I am playing the homosexual, I have trans- 
 posed one aboriginal trend into another. The 
 English play, The Merchant of Venice, comes to his 
 mind. The teacher who examined him in mathe- 
 matics was also Kaufmann (merchant) by name. 
 This Kaufmann is the center of a rather tragic 
 episode in his life. He was studying "exact" branches 
 (Realschule) but was interested in the classical 
 (Gymnasium) course; he was always weak in mathe-
 
 Dreams 241 
 
 matics; he failed in his last examination for engi- 
 neering. His attitude towards money matters has 
 always been morbid. His mother continually re- 
 proaches him for not appreciating the value of 
 money and for being unable to handle money wisely. 
 He is different from his parents, both of whom are 
 merchants. 
 
 The Merchant of Venice portrays the tragedy of 
 the relations of a Jew to his only daughter. She 
 runs off with her beloved and abandons the greedy 
 father, who, however, never begrudged her any- 
 thing. He wants to do likewise. He would like to 
 flee with his friend and abandon the mother. His 
 basic problem is : how to get around his mother, how 
 to free himself of her. 
 
 He places great weight on the jewel box scene, 
 which has always impressed him. He, too, is con- 
 fronted by the difficult problem of a choosing among 
 the boxes. There are three paths open before him: 
 man, woman and child. He is a child, would like 
 to be a woman and is afraid to be a man. His inner 
 conflicts are locked up like the valuables in the 
 box. We shall see whether analysis is capable of 
 disclosing them. . . . 
 
 There are some vague relations to Shylock's cold- 
 bloodedness. He emphasizes the pound of flesh. The 
 associations lead to certain sadistic trends which 
 are wholly unconscious. At any rate, the first 
 dream in the analysis is of greatest significance. Its
 
 242 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 complete solution and interpretation becomes pos- 
 sible much later. . . . 
 
 He dwells for a long time on his attitude towards 
 money. One familiar with dream analysis at once 
 suspects that this money complex has its bearing 
 on anal eroticism. He keeps to his theme. Re- 
 quests to leave early. 
 
 Again comes very late and asks whether he may 
 leave early. He is hungry. (One notices his ex- 
 tremely resistant attitude. He is afraid he might 
 disclose something.) He has dreamed wild and pro- 
 fuse dreams, he can no longer remember what. He 
 must have spoiled his stomach for he vomited in 
 the morning. 
 
 This vomiting in the morning, a symptom which 
 appears in many neurotics and also in the case of 
 many neurotic children is a reaction of the ethical, 
 moral self against the dreams of the previous night. 
 Plainly, one is disgusted with one's self. Hence the 
 vomiting which is subsequently ascribed to some- 
 thing inoffensive that may have been eaten on the 
 previous evening. But the subject believes that the 
 beer he drank did not agree with the dessert. . . . 
 
 He is asked whether he can recall at all the dream. 
 
 "No, not a trace." 
 
 "Better try and see." 
 
 "I only remember scraps; nothing worth men- 
 tioning." 
 
 "Please tell me these scraps."
 
 Urolagnla 243 
 
 "I have dreamed only about various water closets 
 and urinals. There was a urinal here and one in the 
 office . . . the rest is gone. I cannot recall." 
 
 "The vomiting in the morning seems to me to 
 point at something going on in the urinal which 
 strikes you as disgusting." 
 
 "May I not have simply spoiled my stomach?" 
 
 "Indeed. That is a possibility not to be ex- 
 cluded. But the other is also a possibility to be 
 thought of. Do you often vomit in the morning?" 
 
 "Yes, but only as I did today. Only fluid. It is 
 more a nausea than real vomiting. May I leave 
 now?" 
 
 "You know that I never compel you to stay. 
 Only I want to draw your attention that I am fully 
 aware you want to hide something from me. How 
 do you imagine you can get well if you do not have 
 the courage to confide in your consultant? Or per- 
 haps you are afraid that you will lose something of 
 my respect if you should disclose the peculiarities 
 of your sexual life? You are anxious to run off 
 and keep your secret. Very well. You are free to 
 do as you wish. But do not expect, under the cir- 
 cumstances, that a consultant should spend his time 
 on your case. One who wants really to get well 
 must first be willing to face his problems clearly." 
 
 "You are right, doctor. I have kept from you 
 the most important thing: I do indulge in a form 
 of sexual excitation which is perhaps the most un-
 
 244 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 pleasant possible. You will appreciate at once why 
 I have kept the knowledge of this from you so long. 
 I thought I have told you already too much and I 
 wanted to keep to myself this particular morbid 
 turn. But you will surely despise me." 
 
 "I despise no sufferer." 
 
 "Already as a small boy I had felt the greatest 
 interest in the water closet. My wish was always : 
 to see another man in the act of defecating. In 
 my school fancies I always thought of the teacher 
 being compelled to defecate in my presence. I was 
 always trying to watch other men in the act. If I 
 succeeded in witnessing the act I became very ex- 
 cited and masturbated. My whole mind and thought 
 to this day revolves around the water closet and the 
 feces. Think of it! I, a person with certain aes- 
 thetic tastes, an artist, poet, enthusiastic musician, 
 a man aspiring to all that is beautiful and noble, 
 to be fettered down to so horrible a perversion! 
 Think of this abyss between my body and my soul! 
 If I become acquainted with a new man and I like 
 him, my first thought is: I should like to see him 
 empty his bowels." 4 
 
 "Have you perhaps, as a child, witnessed such a 
 scene which may have made a deep impression on 
 you?" 
 
 "I do not remember. I only know that already 
 
 *This is a thought which troubles many neurotics. It is 
 their way of belittling the persons who impress them and 
 who thus make them realize their own inferiority.
 
 Urolagnia 245 
 
 in the primary grades I was interested in watching 
 my schoolmates. In Denmark there is a greater 
 freedom about these matters than elsewhere. Sexual 
 freedom, too, seems to me to be greater in our 
 ^country. In later years I found sufficient oppor- 
 tunity to satisfy my craving. Finally I had re- 
 course to a tiny augur which I keep always with me 
 as an aid to secure the opportunities for observa- 
 tion which have now become indispensable to me. 
 But usually I find boring holes unnecessary. Little 
 appropriate convenient holes may be found when 
 one looks for them. I must have many colleagues 
 for I have found that most closets show these ob- 
 servation spots. Here in Vienna, too, I have seldom 
 come across a water closet, where it was not possible 
 to watch the act. I fight with all my powers against 
 this unfortunate trend. But I give in each time 
 again. I think of it all forenoon. By noontime I 
 am wholly out of patience. I am impelled to seek 
 a public lavatory. There I wait till a man comes 
 along. When I see him defecate, I mastur- 
 bate. . . ." 
 
 "Have you watched women, too?*' 
 
 "No, I find women disgusting when I think of 
 them in this situation." 
 
 We are here confronted with a form of anal 
 erotism of a pronounced infantile character. All 
 children without exception show a great interest in 
 the lavatory and in the processes of micturition and
 
 246 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 defecation. These processes form the theme of a 
 whole group of infantile sexual theories. The chil- 
 dren come through the anus, they are generated 
 through the urine, etc. It is quite likely that we 
 have here an instance of the fixation of certain in- 
 fantile impressions. The fact that the first phan- 
 tasies which he is able to recall revolve around his 
 teacher, proves that someone who was an authority 
 played a role as the intermediary for these early 
 infantile impressions. Who can that authority be? 
 We can only surmise. We must await patiently 
 the further development of the analysis. 
 
 He complains that he has an ugly appearance, 
 because everything about him is so unprepossessing ; 
 his whole physiognomy seems to him womanly, soft, 
 and the obverse of striking. He often turns to the 
 looking-glass and examines himself. As in the pic- 
 ture of Dorian Grey he finds the traces of his para- 
 philia expressed in his features. He symbolizes his 
 mental processes and localizes them in his face. He 
 fights, a relentless fight against his scatologic phan- 
 tasies and trends, he seems to himself weak, womanly, 
 repulsive. Vice, low thoughts, animal cravings, low 
 passion all that he sees expressed in his face. 
 
 His first recollection of his paraphilia is note- 
 worthy. He is playing with a little friend, an uncle, 
 who wants to defecate near the street. He points
 
 Coprophilia 247 
 
 out that people may pass and prevents the deed. 
 . . . This recollection already indicates the two 
 tendencies : the coprophiliac trend and the struggle 
 against it. 
 
 Moreover, his coprophilia reaches farther than 
 he has confessed thus far. We discover today that 
 there is present a predisposition to coprophagia, 
 that the condition is really a mixture of homo- 
 sexuality and stark infantilism. He would like to 
 allow the partner to defecate on him. Identifica- 
 tions with lavatory come to surface. The place 
 chosen for the deposition of the feces is the abdo- 
 men, occasionally the mouth. There are also fre- 
 quent phantasies of fellatio, active and passive. The 
 reading of various medical and popular books ex- 
 cites his phantasy and feeds his paraphilia. 
 
 He relates two dreams. In the first he was run- 
 ning after an electric car which he could not reach. 
 He tried to jump on but in vain, the car just passed 
 before his nose. In the second dream he led his dog 
 for a walk, the dog met another and copulated while 
 he himself ran off. The first dream represents an 
 unattainable ideal. The second illustrates the en- 
 deavor to get rid of the animal-like trends (within 
 himself). He avoids similarly coitus with a 
 woman. 
 
 He relates that for a long time he has been in
 
 248 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 the habit of writing up phantastic homosexual or- 
 gies and that he carries around these erotic stories 
 for months. The last story he wrote some 14 days 
 ago. He is much interested in these doings, because 
 the writing and the reading excite him tremendously. 
 He tells me the content of the last phantasy which 
 he has written up: A round table of sixteen sol- 
 diers. One of them holds a naked, woman on his 
 knees. She must urinate in a glass. The soldier 
 pours beer in that glass. Then all those present 
 partake of the beer. 5 
 
 He confesses next that he has already carried out 
 a number of times various urolagnic acts and felt 
 great pleasure doing so. In fact these cravings did 
 not bother him only so long as the friend visited 
 him daily and he was keeping up his spiritual love 
 for the fellow. That is why he was so broken up 
 when his mother deprived him of that friend. 
 
 He relates a number of episodes illustrating his 
 activity as voyeur. At first it was chiefly men of 
 advanced age who roused him. They had to have 
 very clean and attractive linen. Ejaculation en- 
 sued when he had an opportunity to see the man 
 naked and the phallus interested him more than the 
 podex. 
 
 He also admits having entertained phantasies 
 about his father. But he found these phantasies 
 
 Later will be shown the sadistic meaning of this phantasy. 
 Urine is often a substitute for blood in the dream. . . .
 
 Attitude towards the Mother 249 
 
 unbearable and they proved at last so discomforting 
 that he had to abandon them. On the other hand 
 he was able to state emphatically that his mother 
 never figured as an erotic object in his fancies. 
 
 As a genuine homosexual he was very much sur- 
 ' prised that a "naked woman" should figure in his 
 last phantasy or story and he could not explain 
 the intrusion. But he is telling me everything with- 
 out reserve. . . . 
 
 He fears that perhaps his mother is having some 
 understanding with me. She is in the habit of trac- 
 ing all his secrets. ... I point out to him the fact 
 that the mothers of homosexuals always, show the 
 strongest opposition against the analysis when they 
 find out that their sons free themselves and turn 
 their affection (temporarily, of course) to the 
 analyst. Sigma's mother, who has accompanied him 
 to Vienna, also tolerates no intimate friendship on 
 her son's part, as we know. Thus he tells me that she 
 had reproached him yesterday for leaving her alone 
 on Sunday. She wants to be everything to him. 
 She also tries to be tender with him, to coddle him, 
 a habit which he strongly resents. He believes that 
 this resentment is due to his aversion against all 
 womanhood. This sort of protection against all 
 tendernesses on mother's part is typical of all sons 
 who are incestuously fixed on their mother. 
 
 He relates how his mother once confessed to him 
 that she found no support in his father and ac-
 
 250 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 tually felt lonely. On that occasion he wept over 
 his mother's plight and passed a sleepless night. 
 . . . His further associations lead him to his 
 father's fatal illness: it was a slow breaking down 
 due to cancer. He could not take care of his father, 
 and was but of little service to the latter. It was 
 shortly after his father had dismissed his friend. 
 He was still too absorbed in his own troubles. He 
 witnessed with detachment the terrible phases of 
 the dying man's last struggle. A few days before 
 the end he dreamed that he saw his father's body 
 lying peacefully on the bier. It was plainly a dream 
 of impatience. He could hardly await his father's 
 passing away. He declares that he hated his father 
 heartily at the time, because the latter had allowed 
 himself to be induced by the mother to write that 
 letter to his friend. Strangely, he was never so 
 angry with his determined mother as he was with 
 his weak-willed father. During the father's funeral 
 and upon returning home he was unable to weep. 
 This occurrence is typical of those men for whom 
 a death is the fulfillment of an old wish. In point 
 of fact the father was a burden and drag in the 
 house. The mother sacrificed herself and his death 
 was a release for everybody. Moreover his atti- 
 tude towards his father had always been rather 
 peculiar. They had never had much in com- 
 mon. . . . 
 
 He reports a number of small details illustrating
 
 Attitude towards the Mother 251 
 
 how tirelessly his mother endeavors to bind him to 
 herself. Yesterday afternoon he was at the theater 
 and later went to the Prater. In the evening he 
 found his mother morose and pouting. She looked 
 At him reproachfully saying: "Did it not occur to 
 you during your rounds of pleasure that you are 
 leaving your poor mother alone?" 
 
 He must think only of his mother and always feel 
 that he is bound to her forever. Aunts and neigh- 
 bors always come to him to tell him how much suf- 
 fering he causes his poor mother by neglecting her. 
 While he was still suffering acutely the distress 
 caused by his mother's breaking up his friendship 
 with Ernst, he met the latter once secretly and they 
 went to a theater together. The mother knew it 
 in some way and when he returned home he found 
 her in bed, her head wrapped in towels. Her dis- 
 appointment made her ill and she had to keep to her 
 bed for a week. Finally an aunt accused him of 
 behaving like, a murderer towards his mother. She 
 cannot understand that passion of his for that 
 friend! Was he perhaps in love with the young 
 man's sister? Happy to have a way out of his 
 difficulty suggested to him he answered the question 
 in the affirmative. That roused his mother's jeal- 
 ousy to the highest pitch. But she soon convinced 
 herself that she had been fooled by him and that he 
 had no interest whatever in the girl. 
 
 He found the household ties so unbearable that at
 
 252 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 one time he entertained the notion of shooting his 
 parents and running off. There were frequent quar- 
 rels during which he displayed unexpectedly a ter- 
 rible venom against his mother and an unexplain- 
 able tendency to violence. But these episodes soon 
 blew over, and he again felt himself helpless under 
 the tyrannic sway of her love. Perhaps not as un- 
 willingly as he makes out . . . for there were op- 
 portunities available for freeing himself and he did 
 not take advantage of them. He remained inac- 
 tively at home, to be taken care of and to allow his 
 mother to worry over him. . . . 
 
 He dreamed of visiting numerous urinals running 
 from one to the other. This dream portrays him 
 as searching for something. It appears that he is 
 trying to trace down a particular infantile scene. 
 He relates how obsessed he becomes with the desire 
 to go from lavatory to lavatory until he finally sees 
 the longed-for scene. He is seldom satisfied. Often 
 there follows a feeling of disappointment and dis- 
 gust. Occasionally an uncommon sense of peace 
 during which he is able to gather his thoughts. 
 
 "I did not tell you the truth when I denied trans- 
 vestitism (Verkleidungstrieb). I often entertain 
 such fancies. I am particularly fond of Salome 
 and I often portrayed myself in that role with 
 keenest interest. My teachers were the prophets 
 whose cold, severed head I kissed." 
 
 This trend distinctly sadistic is fortified by nu-
 
 Jealousy Fancies 253 
 
 merous small details. He is jealous. He saw once 
 his friend entertaining himself in friendly and 
 lengthy conversation with a lady and the thought 
 occurred to him that perhaps his friend was in love 
 with her. He figured that he would be justified to 
 take his friend's life for he loved him more than any 
 one else in the world. He pictured to himself that 
 deed and what he would do to his friend. The chief 
 motive he confessed reluctantly: "I should abuse 
 sexually his body." With that fancy there is linked 
 also the portrayal of immense sadness. 
 
 The two features he mentions today are repre- 
 sented in the Merchant of Venice. A scene which 
 always excited him, representing transvestitism. 
 Portia as judge and the Jew bent on carving out a 
 pound of flesh. Shylock and Salome. The bloody 
 head of John is obvious enough. 
 
 Today, too, he is in a hurry and must get through 
 quickly. He is always relieved when the hour is 
 over. This raises the suspicion that he is trying to 
 cover up further revelations. . . . 
 
 He relates particulars regarding his homicidal 
 fancies against his friends. His favored phantasy 
 is the thought of pushing his favored friend into 
 an abyss. They often take walks on the seashore. 
 At a certain spot the coast is very steep and rocky 
 and a fall there would mean certain death. He is 
 also obsessed with the reflection: what would he do 
 afterwards? Run away? No ... he would jump
 
 254 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 after his friend to be united with the latter in 
 death. . . . 
 
 The next dream carries us deeply into the struc- 
 ture of his homosexuality. First he relates the 
 dream as he had written it down and then he adds 
 reluctantly the portion indicated as "additional." 
 The addition usually contains the most important 
 features. 
 
 The dream just before falling asleep: 
 
 Place: the grotto across the Schonbrunn Castle. 
 I was descending the rocky incline and reached the 
 lowermost declivity. I was very much afraid of 
 falling into the water basin. I was wondering what 
 to do, and I had the feeling that back of me, in- 
 stead of rocks there were high stairs which I could 
 never climb up. Suddenly I found myself on level 
 ground, beyond the water. An automobile passed 
 me by noiselessly and with lightning rapidity dis- 
 appearing specter-like in the bushes. I saw no 
 driver and nobody else in the machine. It seemed 
 very uncanny but presently I knew that I was at 
 home and in my bed. I should have liked to keep 
 on dreaming but the wish to hold on to what I had 
 dreamed thus far prevailed over all other desires. 
 I was afraid I should forget my phantasy so far 
 as it had unfolded and that I should have nothing 
 to report to my consultant. 
 
 Shortly afterwards I fell actually asleep and I
 
 Dreams 255 
 
 dreamed a great deal. I have tried to recall some 
 of the things in the morning. It seems noteworthy 
 that the dreams were but lightly intimated rather 
 than carried out; there was always still something 
 more about to take place but the next dream pic- 
 ture intruded before the previous one was all done. 
 Additional: Once I found myself in a theater 
 in the first row of a balcony. Tristan was being 
 given for the occasion. Instead of the orchestra 
 leader, Andre Rose was leading. A fine one-year 
 volunteer, Einjahrig-Freiwilliger, back of me, in the 
 second row, was singing Tristan in the style of the 
 modern recital song. Next to me sat my aunt who 
 is linked with memories of my kindergarten age. I 
 had the unpleasant feeling that I was involuntarily 
 sliding down towards the ground floor, and there- 
 fore I leaned heavily back in my seat stretching out 
 my legs and trying to support myself by pressing 
 my toes against tJie foot support (bed foot-board?). 
 I had the uncanny feeling that the foot rest might 
 give way and fall off like a piece of paste board. I 
 begged my aunt to lift me carefully. I felt like a 
 very sick person. Sitting again upright I felt well 
 and refreshed and I was just in time to see the cur- 
 tain drop over the stage and a number of persons 
 appearing in front of it, among them several gentle- 
 men in evening dress. Obviously the performance it 
 being cancelled. The public broke into ironic ap- 
 plause, whistled and howled.
 
 256 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 Another dream: Late at night in a big garden. 
 Many people about to take their leave after an 
 afternoon spent in irrelevant gossip. My parents 
 were also among those present. My -father was in 
 a hurry to get to town. He leaves. It is very dark. 
 Presently a station bell, the whistle of a locomotive. 
 I shout into the night's darkness not knowing 
 whether any one hears me or not: he is lucky! He 
 is just in time to catch the train. And I think of 
 following in an hour. I am very tired. I am happy 
 in my bed at home. 
 
 Sunny afternoon in a poor quarter of a suburb. 
 Under a window of an apartment window there are 
 a number of tin vessels which I know, belong to the 
 woman above. An elderly woman is preoccupied 
 with the vessels, holding each vessel up to the light, 
 as if testing them, but I know that she is merely 
 awaiting the opportunity to run off with them. A 
 window is raised in the neighboring house, a woman 
 calls out to the woman living in the apartment 
 under whose window the vessels are lying, to watch 
 out for the stranger. By that time I myself am 
 standing in the owner's room. She is just putting 
 on her best toilette. The warning neighbor appears 
 and scolds the vain woman who on account of her 
 vanity neglects to watch out for her things. 
 
 Addition: / was in the next room. The woman 
 had a little girl with her. I held my penis in hand
 
 Dreams 257 
 
 pursued the two and wanted them to take it in their 
 hand; and thus the ejaculation. . . . 
 
 The woman's hands disgusted me because they 
 were dirty. 
 
 ' This is hardly the place for a complete analysis 
 of the whole dream. The first part, the falling into 
 a deep basin is a hypnagogic vision and represents 
 the process of falling asleep, the descent into the 
 depths of primordial man. The rapidly passing 
 automobile, the danger. The representation of 
 Tristan refers to a great passion for a queen. 
 Schceribrunn, the former Kaiser's summer residence, 
 refers to the parental home. Isolde is also a queen, 
 who is lost forever for Tristan. Is it not rather 
 remarkable that he should dream of Tristan and 
 Isolde, the quintessential epic of heterosexual love? 
 And does not the cancellation correspond precisely 
 to his cryptic wish? The thought of a fall into the 
 depths is continually recurring as well as the in- 
 hibitions about things not holding out (hence the 
 steadying with the feet for support). The man in 
 evening dress represents the love of a modern cul- 
 tural man in contrast with a Tristan. He himself 
 is Tristan, the onlooker and the singing Einjdhrig- 
 Freitvillige. Finally another picture: parting, i.e., 
 his father's death: "He was lucky." What is the 
 meaning of that? He has caught the train on time!
 
 258 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 Recalling that in one of his previous dreams the 
 subject was unable to catch the electric car, we 
 understand that his father found time to attain his 
 aim, a tempo while he himself is late. We shall 
 be informed presently about the meaning of this 
 aim. And back of all inhibitions another picture 
 breaks forth: he runs after an old woman with his 
 erect membrum (the child is a symbol for the geni- 
 talia. Cp., in this connection, The Language of 
 Dreams, Dreams and Sex, Chapter, "Children in 
 Dreams," translation by James S. Van Teslaar, Bad- 
 ger, Gorham Press, Boston, 1922). 
 
 He is not a little surprised that his dreams por- 
 tray heterosexual feelings. Heretofore he had paid 
 no attention to his dreams. 
 
 I have not yet stated whom the old woman repre- 
 sents. He is asked to mention any woman that 
 occurs to him and after some hesitation he states: 
 my mother. 
 
 Here we come across one of the roots of his homo- 
 sexuality, one that perhaps we anticipated. But 
 thus far I avoided any inquiries about his attitude 
 towards the mother. 
 
 What is the meaning of that portion of the dream 
 which portrays a number of tin dishes? I perceive 
 this as follows : He does not possess many treasures, 
 it is all mere tin, but such as it is it all belongs to 
 the woman above . . . the mother. The neighbor 
 warns the mother that another woman might rob her
 
 Dreams 259 
 
 of her son's affection. The mother is very vain and 
 spends considerable time preparing her toilette. 
 
 The key to the dream rests in the. pollution with 
 which it ends and the deepest effect: the disgust on 
 account of the dirty, unclean hands of the woman 
 above. 
 
 We see that the pollution is slowly prepared. 
 First there is a representation of the heterosexual 
 love (Tristan). But his inner voices the public 
 express themselves against that love, the latter is 
 deprecated: there is whistling and shouting and 
 ironic applause. Next the father is upon the scene 
 of action. He is represented in the act of leaving. 
 Other women appear, the old woman, the neighbor. 
 But the orgasm is achieved only through the "woman 
 above" ("upstairs," Frau da oben, literally, woman 
 above), the mother. This form of pollution, which 
 at bottom represents merely an unconscious onanism 
 (unclean hands!) brings on a feeling of disgust in 
 him. 
 
 The next dream portrays a scene in which a man 
 talks about his son. The scene takes place in a 
 lavatory. Probably this reproduces an infantile 
 scene wherein he may have observed his father at 
 the lavatory. The dream following that is much 
 clearer. I reproduce here both: 
 
 / found myself in a lavatory compartment and 1 
 watched my "victim" The man turned his back to
 
 260 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 me and spoke to himself about his son. I noticed 
 that the woman guardian was keeping watch on me 
 from the outside and I started to leave, grabbing 
 my hat just as she was opening the door to catch me 
 at my observation post. I acted as if I were un- 
 concerned, quietly picked up my handkerchief on 
 which I had knelt down, picked off the floor the 
 various things of mine that were still strewn about, 
 gloves, muffler, etc., and went off with the feeling 
 that through my cool behavior I disarmed the 
 woman of her suspicions and had avoided a public 
 scandal. . . . 
 
 I went upstairs to a wide open store. Half way 
 across I saw the saleswoman standing in a corner. 
 At the sight of her I am seized with tremendous 
 bowel cramps. I turned around and defecate pub- 
 licly in the room. The woman over there will not 
 see me? 
 
 This dream reminds him of the childhood incident 
 already mentioned: When he was two years of age 
 he was playing out of doors with another boy who 
 prepared himself to move his bowels close to the 
 street, in the open. Now he admits also that his own 
 libido is greatly increased if he imagines he is 
 watched during defecation. This is a typical in- 
 stance of sexual infantilism. He is not only voyeur ; 
 he is also exhibitionist. 
 
 The first dream discloses the fear that the mother,
 
 Dreams 261 
 
 the guardian, might find out his scatological ten- 
 dencies. In the second, the woman upstairs was the 
 onlooker during an infantile scene. It reproduces 
 undoubtedly a frequent scene of childhood. 
 
 He has carried out a number of homosexual acts 
 at public baths. In Denmark the men bathe to- 
 gether in steam rooms. Thus he had opportunity 
 to permit himself bodily contact with others to the 
 extent of inducing ejaculatio. He must also add 
 something to yesterday's dream about defecation. 
 Once at the seashore he heard a man groan in the 
 lavatory. He climbed upon the side wall and saw 
 the man masturbate. This so excited him that he 
 climbed down at once and also masturbated. The 
 stranger revenged himself by looking on in his turn 
 and that increased tremendously the subject's libido. 
 
 His dreams today are very characteristic. 
 
 / am in a carriage and I am playing with an infant 
 in swaddling clothes. I would gladly be rid of it. A 
 man advises me to pack the child in a tin box* and I 
 actually do so. 
 
 Interpretation : he wants to be rid of his infantil- 
 ism; he preserves it in a tin box. Compromise be- 
 tween the two trends. The next dream relates about 
 a minister of the gospel who stands before a big hole 
 in the ground and who interprets that hole to mean 
 that asceticism is not a possible ideal. It is neces- 
 *Cp. the boxes in the first dream (Merchant of Venice).
 
 262 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 sary to masturbate, at least occasionally. There 
 were roots in that hole, which looked like hair. Next 
 he is with his mother in a carriage. The mother 
 turns into the holy Madonna or the holy Zara (?) 
 
 The earth, too, stands for the mother: mother 
 earth. The hole refers to both, birth and death. 
 One comes from the mother and returns to the 
 mother. The mother appears again as the holy one, 
 and as the Czarina, hence the mystifying Zara. The 
 father is the Czar, just as in the Tristan dream he 
 is represented by the king. Further meaning is 
 obvious. 
 
 Hairs recall his peculiar attitude. Women's hairs 
 are abhorrent to him. His mother has long blond 
 hair. The father was very hairy. Formerly all 
 hairy men were abhorrent to him. Downy, young, 
 feminine men are his ideal. He is continually seeking 
 woman in man. . . . 
 
 He reverts once more to the dream about the hole 
 in the ground. He now recalls that dream very 
 clearly. 
 
 I am again a pupil at school and I am being con- 
 ducted to confession along with the other school 
 mates. We stand in a wide, round amphitheater 
 scooped out of the ground. The natural wall rises 
 to a height of about 2 meters, all around. Above 
 it there stands a wonderful temple-like edifice. A 
 monk points to the wet spots upon the earthen walls 
 and compares them to the erotic thoughts, which
 
 Dreams 263 
 
 are also not to be rooted out of the believer's con- 
 science. I notice a bunch of roots on the wall and 
 involuntarily I think of pudendal hair. The monk 
 condemns asceticism. 
 
 A dream full of religious meaning. Already in 
 some of the previous dreams the woman "upstairs," 
 or "above," was perceived through religious overde- 
 termination as mother Mary to whom alone his love 
 belongs and which he therefore must not squander on 
 any earthly woman. He sees his grave which like a 
 memento mori admonishes him to regard this life as 
 a preparation for the next. 
 
 Woman seems to be here the quintessence of sin- 
 fulness. Now we understand why the woman up- 
 stairs had a little child by her. It was little Jesus. 
 He has soiled his pure faith. The brain which holds 
 his belief (the earthen wall!) is likewise stained with 
 his sinful erotic thoughts. 
 
 The great wall surrounding the place to a height 
 of a couple of meters symbolizes all the inhibitions. 
 He himself is the monk, he had a passing desire to 
 become an ecclesiastic, he is a heterosexual 
 ascete. . . . 
 
 Last night many dreams of going through urinals. 
 In one urinal he found a man who instead of a phal- 
 lus had a vagina. 
 
 Dissolute dreams. Among others a dream that he 
 podicem lambit a friend. He also entertains con- 
 sciously fancies of like character. . . . Further
 
 264 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 dreams of mutual masturbation with a strange man. 
 Finally the scraps of dreams culminate in a length- 
 ier one in which he finds himself in the company of 
 the girl he was very fond of as a boy. The struggle 
 against the heterosexual tendencies goes on through- 
 out the night and finally he is conquered. 
 
 Obvious resistance against the uncovering of the 
 heterosexual tendencies. 
 
 One dream out of a large number deserves to be 
 reproduced : 
 
 I go on a walk with mother. We are tender with 
 one another and she tells me sweet words. I pluck 
 wonderful anemones from a river and want to make 
 a garland to crown my mother with it. But the 
 petals fall off and only the empty green stems re- 
 main in my hand. 
 
 Any one familiar with the symbolism of plucking 
 flowers (vid. my Dreams and Sex: The Language of 
 Dreams, translated by Dr. James S. Van Teslaar, 
 Badger, Gorham Press, Boston, 1922, Publisher) 
 will readily recognize that this is a reference to an 
 indulgence of an erotic nature. These love pats lead 
 to empty stems. The love cannot come to blossoms or 
 fruition. 
 
 He dwells on his relations with his mother. It is 
 virtually a marriage without any erotic elements. 
 He does not tolerate his mother's tendernesses and 
 he has asked her to refrain. There is now between
 
 Bipolarity 265 
 
 them genuine shyness. Erotic matters are never 
 so much as touched upon. Against his incestuous 
 leanings he secures himself by the wall of an apparent 
 aloofness. But they live together, they go out to- 
 gether, they share every enjoyment. His mother 
 is a woman who has a grip on his whole life. And at 
 bottom he is not angry because she has interfered 
 with his other friendship. He understands her, that 
 is, he sympathizes with her. That friendship was 
 an attempt to free himself of the mother. But the 
 mother instinctively did the right thing when she 
 stepped in between her son and his friend. He does 
 not at bottom care to be liberated from the slavery 
 of his affection. He allows himself to be led about 
 and to be treated as a child. He talks as if the love 
 and the chain were disagreeable to him. Both trends 
 towards the mother and away from her are ac- 
 tive in his soul : bipolarity. 
 
 The treatment should improve his neurotic condi- 
 tion only but should not interfere with his attitude 
 towards his mother. He dreams that he is well and 
 that he tells his mother, now he is all well and they 
 are going to be happier together than ever. 
 
 In connection with a dream another love affair 
 comes to surface, dating some 16 years back. He 
 courted a certain girl and sent her some poems. He 
 thinks it was mere play, an attempt to "imagine" 
 that he was also capable of loving girls. That is 
 how he endeavors to dismiss lightly his heterosexual
 
 266 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 tendencies. But he thinks that the love poems were 
 irrelevant. He also composed poems to his mother, 
 when he was away from home for a short time : 
 
 "Du mei/nes keuschen Herzens Allgebieterin, 
 Der ich mich neige in tiefer Demut . . . ' 
 
 "You, mistress of my chaste heart, 
 To whom I bow in deep humility . . ." 
 
 The verses are full of yearning and passion. His 
 blood calls for her, his heart is filled only with yearn- 
 ing for her. These are the utterances of a man who 
 has lost his head by falling in love. 
 
 This case illustrates plainly the manner in which 
 monosexuality leads to homosexuality. But the sub- 
 ject himself did not want to recognize any of these 
 relations. All the powers of sublimation at his dis- 
 posal he had turned into his love for the mother. 
 Therefore he had to cling to a portion of his myso- 
 philia (dirt compulsion). What he overdid on one 
 side in the way of cleanliness was compensated for 
 on the other by a sinking into filth. It is noteworthy 
 that he does not care to be cleared of his homo- 
 sexuality. He looks upon it as a protection and as 
 something that sets him apart from other men. This 
 again shows the hopelessness of any therapeutic en- 
 deavors in most cases of this type. 
 
 Since taking account of his dreams he is astonished
 
 Dreams 267 
 
 how often heterosexual excitations come to the sur- 
 face. Last night he dreamed, first, that he was with 
 a naked woman, of wonderful build and that he m 
 vaginam et m anum immisit his finger. 
 
 Further, another remarkable dream, which played 
 an important role in the solution of his neurosis : 
 
 / am with mother at the Opera. A long hallway 
 at the end of which one obtains a view of Vienna. 
 One sees the wonderful St. Stephen's Church, a fine 
 cloud like a smoke or like a fine powdery water spray 
 over its tower. The Opera is changed. Instead of 
 Don Juan, the Donna carissima. 
 
 Already the first dream indicated a definite trend 
 towards woman and now the change of program dis- 
 closes the source of his neurosis. I ask him for a 
 description of the woman in the first dream. He 
 did not see her face at all. He merely saw the won- 
 derful bewitching white body. 
 
 Such dreams figures without faces are very fre- 
 quent and serve to hide the beloved person and to 
 prevent recognition. I know dreamers who have pol- 
 lutions with such half figures. The face is never 
 visible. Often only a portion of the body. Through 
 the second dream we may assume that the figure 
 represents the mother. Otherwise it is hardily pos- 
 sible to explain why the face should have been sub- 
 jected to the dream's censorship.
 
 268 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 The second dream belongs to the category of ma- 
 ternal body fancies. He is within the mother's 
 womb. The long passage he associates with: life's 
 pathway. It is in fact the pathway through which 
 he came into life. Stephen's tower A a phallic sym- 
 bol. The smoking room, ejaculatio or mictio. It is 
 a representation of the illusion that he is within the 
 maternal body and is able to observe from that 
 point of vantage the process of generation. The 
 dream becomes even more transparent when we learn 
 that his father's name is Stephen. 7 
 
 Now his sexual infantilism becomes intelligible. 
 He is under the spell of Mutterleibsphantasie, ma- 
 ternal body phantasy. Every lavatory becomes for 
 him the symbol of the maternal body. There he 
 watches the man urinating as he might have watched 
 the father in the maternal body if he had had enough 
 intelligence to do so as an embryo. It seems unbe- 
 lievable that intelligent persons should become vic- 
 tims of so puerile a phantasy. Various facts al- 
 ways uphold the sense of such a phantasy. In this 
 particular instance there was dislike for, and un- 
 pleasant sensations in, closed rooms, also a series 
 of paraphiliac trend which found the.r explanation 
 only through that phantasy. He revelled in the 
 thought of permitting himself to be besprinkled 
 with the spermatic fluid by his beloved male friend; 
 
 7 Cp. Sex and Dreams: The Language of Dreams, vol. I. 
 Translation by James S. Van Teslaar.
 
 Dreams 269 
 
 he had a craving membrum erectum amati viri fel- 
 lare; his urolagnic and coprolagnic proclivities, too, 
 were dominated by the same phantasy. He behaved 
 as if he were still in the maternal body. 
 
 But the dream declares clearly that a change of 
 program is taking place in the play of his life. Don 
 Juan becomes a Donna Carissima, she who is 
 most dear to him. He has changed programs; and 
 the love for the father he has transferred to his 
 mother. He is within the maternal body, he him- 
 self is the mother. He seeks himself, he is his dearest 
 woman, he loves the womanly in himself. We have 
 here the never absent love of the homosexual for 
 himself narcissism. 
 
 Various recollections come to surface, all showing 
 alike that his earliest predisposition was distinctly 
 heterosexual. Thus, for instance, at five years of 
 age he fell in love with a girl, wanted to marry her, 
 and called her his bride. We hear only of three 
 heterosexual episodes belonging to his later life. 
 It is not yet clear how this complete turning away 
 from woman came about. Further inquiries reveal 
 dreams of which I can only give a part. Thus he 
 dreams : 
 
 / study for an hour. My textbook is on various 
 physical experiments, further on it turns into his- 
 tory. There is something in it about Bavarian 
 history. The year IflOb plays an important role. 
 The whole thing ends with a fairy tale about three
 
 270 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 pines which stand on a winter's night before the 
 house and signify three dead women. 
 
 Later I act successfully as an imitator of women. 
 
 The figure 4005 brings the following associations : 
 00 is the sign for lavatory; 45 is the opus number 
 of one of his favorite opera scores, the Salome of 
 Richard Strauss; 4 and 5 are the bad marks at 
 school. 
 
 The Salome of Strauss and a previous dream lead 
 us to his sadistic trends. It becomes progressively 
 clearer that his aboriginal sadism was extraordi- 
 narily great. To this day he revels in phantasies 
 about sexual crimes, violent murders, etc. He toyed 
 with the plan of killing himself as well as his whole 
 family. Any opposition at home immediately sug- 
 gests to him thoughts of murder. His original at- 
 titude towards woman, too, was sadistic. The chief 
 motive of Salome is the severed head of the prophet. 
 Also the pound of flesh in Shylock, in the first dream, 
 refers to this trend ; finally the dream about the bed- 
 bug. His religious trend set in early, thus protect- 
 ing him against the wild beast within him. At six 
 years of age he played that he was a preacher and he 
 had his own altar. He fled from woman because he 
 was not sure of himself. . . . 
 
 He has a large number of idiosyncrasies which may 
 be explained through a repressed sadism. He can- 
 not eat peaches because their skins resemble human
 
 Peculiarities 271 
 
 skin ; he cannot tolerate the skin on parboiled milk, 
 it brings on disgust and nausea; he often turns 
 against meat and for a long time he confined himself 
 to vegetarianism. Meat he calls animal carcass. The 
 thought of a menstruating woman is particularly re- 
 pulsive to him. All associations with blood are 
 strongly affective, partly in a positive and partly in 
 a negative way. 
 
 What is the meaning of the three pines which 
 symbolize dead women in the dream? Has he lost 
 three female ideals? He associates with "Ein Fich- 
 tenbaum stand einsam im Norden auf kahler Hohe" 
 etc., "a pine tree stood lonely on the bleak heights 
 of the north," the famous poem by Heine. That pine 
 tree dreams of palms in the glowing climate of the 
 Southern Country. There are no further associa- 
 tions. The theme "dead women" is met with con- 
 siderable resistance. 
 
 I pass over a number of days which amounted 
 merely to a preparation for the coming solution; 
 and I shall report merely the most significant of the 
 dream material. 
 
 Very important appears the following dream : 
 
 Standing with -father at a wide stream. A little 
 white steamboat departs from us, turning and twist- 
 ing like a reptile. I would have liked very much to 
 be on it (though I do not know where I could have 
 found place, it was like a microcosm). The ship is
 
 272 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 delayed and now we have to return by tram. That 
 the ship would have made better time is an opinion 
 I dare not share with father. 
 
 Next day I enter a grotto through which a number 
 of others are wandering ahead of me. The pathway 
 is tortuous and leads upwards. Who among my ac- 
 quaintances is joining me I do not know. My whole 
 attention is centered on snakes which I carry on a 
 cord. They have very friendly heads, yet some- 
 how I have the impression they can bite. I say to 
 some one close by that their poison glands have 
 already been removed. Eventually I reach a house in 
 full daylight and at the top they turn into dogs 
 who escape my control and quickly clatter down the 
 deep stairway. Presently they are back and allow 
 meekly to be held in leash. 
 
 A t home I find a package of handkerchiefs neatly 
 wrapped m tissue paper, 
 
 This is a combination of a spermatozoon dream 
 and a maternal body phantasy. The stream in which 
 the tiny boat is moving about, the life stream, the 
 stream of spermatic fluid carries a particular sper- 
 matozoon, himself. He, now grown up, wants to re- 
 vert back to the tiny thing, wiggling like a reptile. 
 He wants to be tiny again, not a child merely, a 
 spermatozoon (Samenfaden). He is dissatisfied with 
 life and would like to begin his life all over. The 
 path leads from the stream into a grotto cave, the
 
 Dreams 273 
 
 maternal body. At the same time the dream symbo- 
 lizes his whole life, which leads him upwards through 
 pitfalls and dangers to the sunshiny heights. His 
 thoughts are represented here as snakes. They 
 have friendly heads, to be sure, i. e. f sin beckons, but 
 he holds them captive. All sins are overcome, all 
 snakes are captive and wear muzzles. The shiny 
 house is the church. Thus this dream shows the 
 life's beginning and end. 
 
 The next dream about handkerchiefs, becomes in- 
 telligible when we find out that he masturbates into 
 his handkerchiefs. The packing in tissue paper 
 shows that the specific masturbatory phantasy is 
 covered up. 
 
 The dream is concerned with the father. During 
 the last few days he has been thinking a great deal 
 about his father. He tells me about that : 
 
 "I have had some hard days and I only see now 
 how strongly I was fixed on father and what a tre- 
 mendous role he has played in my life. Yesterday 
 I felt in me all the strong hatred that I bore for 
 years against father." 
 
 "Why did you hate your father?" 
 
 "In the first place because he made me and passed 
 on to me his weakly characteristics. Such men 
 should have no children. I have taken over all his 
 morbid predispositions. Then I hated him because 
 he parted me from my friend through that letter 
 which he wrote at mother's behest."
 
 274 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 "Then you ought to hate your mother. Is it 
 not strange that you should condone the same con- 
 duct in the mother but not in the father? You seem 
 to appreciate your mother's side but not your 
 father's." 
 
 "Naturally, when you put it that way I see clearly 
 that I was unfair to father. The letter was but an 
 excuse for the great hatred. I recall with shudder- 
 ing his last day. I had the feeling that father was 
 afraid of me. He gazed at me continually with his 
 great glassy eyes while holding on to mother's hand. 
 I felt something like jealousy over mother, now I 
 know that I was always jealous. My maternal body 
 phantasy means, of course, that I want to be present 
 at the parental love act. I want to replace the fa- 
 ther in mother's life. As a small child I loved him 
 very devotedly and I suffered on account of his cool- 
 ness. He was immeasurably loving and devoted; 
 nevertheless I felt that there was something lack- 
 ing." 
 
 He looked for tendernesses from his father. To 
 this day he indulges in two phantasies during his 
 sexual acts. He is the boy watching his father dur- 
 ing coitus. That is the particular lavatory phantasy 
 when he watches elderly men. He permits himself to 
 be used as a receptaculum seminis by a favored per- 
 son. (Strong desire to carry on fellatio on his teach- 
 ers or to subject himeslf to pederasty.) He is within
 
 Dream* 275 
 
 the maternal body wnd wird vom Vater pdderastiert 
 oder felliert. Or else, he himself is the father, he 
 identifies himself with the latter, and seeks young 
 boys who in that case stand for himself. 
 
 But we see that these phantasies differ as widely 
 as possible from reality. He is unable to secure 
 his contact with reality, because he is continually un- 
 der the sway of the maternal body phantasy, as 
 shows by his peeping into lavatories. 
 
 His love for the father proves to be the strongest 
 root of his homosexuality. He wanted to assume 
 the mother's place in the father's life. In his phan- 
 tasies he is either the father or the mother; he 
 has not attained his own individuality. He loves 
 himself either with maternal or with paternal feel- 
 ings. 
 
 I record the following dream among many others. 
 It shows us his typical attitude towards the mother: 
 
 Am going with mother to the country where "we 
 expect to spend a few days to recuperate ourselves. 
 Locality: forest neighborhood. The journey, stop- 
 ping station, roadway familiar partly from actuality 
 partly through previous dreams. Wonderful woods 
 with fragrant blooming flowers. But the blooms 
 show numerous brown spots of decay, as after ex- 
 cessive rains. Elder bushes badly torn up by the 
 weather and by plunderers. The path leads to an
 
 270 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 incline which offers a view of the numerous villas in 
 the valley. I find that we have wandered off, in 
 order to reach the place where we proposed to stay 
 for a while; we should have taken the path to the 
 right half way up the road. 
 
 This dream represents a love whose bloom is de~ 
 caying. They have wandered off (note the double 
 meaning of the expression, vergeheri), and they are 
 off the right path. 
 
 His past is illumined not only by his dreams. 
 Among his youthful compositions he finds a poem 
 which portrays clearly a paternal body phantasy and 
 speaks longingly of the time when he was yet "un- 
 formed and rested quietly in his father's loins." . . . 
 
 The revelations in the course of the following days 
 bring to light new associations. His reveries con- 
 tinually slight the immediate past and carry him 
 back over a number of generations. He is a person 
 of wonderful ancestry, he is not at all the son of his 
 father, he is a child whom gypsies have changed in 
 the cradle, he has fallen into the midst of his family 
 by accident. 
 
 It turns out that two lives were much talked of 
 at home and that has had a great deal to do with de- 
 termining his life course and specifically his fear of 
 woman. In the first place, there was his father's life. 
 The man had been previously married to a woman 
 whom he caught in a breach of marital faithfulness
 
 Dream Associations 277 
 
 and it led him to fight a duel. He carried a scar on 
 his forehead as a memento. Then, an uncle took his 
 life when he found out that his wife whom he con- 
 sidered loyal, proved unfaithful. 
 
 These lessons stood before his eyes already when 
 he was a mere boy. They served as terrible warn- 
 ings : beware of woman ! 
 
 During the next days his fear of woman is the 
 chief theme of his associations. His father's and 
 his uncle's fate stand before him as a perpetual 
 warning. Already as a small child he had absorbed 
 very clearly the thought : one must beware of women ! 
 His mother did everything to fix permanently this 
 fear in his mind. 
 
 But every fear is the fear of self. This fear 
 of women must have a deeper determinant. The 
 deeper relations are indicated by the following 
 dream: 
 
 I am on the street and it is towards evening. The 
 roadbed in front of me is badly torn up. A wagon 
 drives by; it rolls past at dusk and the farther end 
 of the street is already plunged in darkness. Horse 
 and driver will not be able to see that the road is 
 torn. A powerful bear jumps up to warn the horse, 
 the driver draws tight his reins, the animal turns 
 around at the same time holding his head anxiously 
 away from the torn pavement until he finally reaches 
 again the straight road. Before the wagon disap-
 
 278 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 pears into the night the powerful bear jumps once 
 more at it. 
 
 I am tremendously roused to think that such wild 
 animals are sent out as warning. There might be 
 small children in the wagon who would be frightened 
 to death. 
 
 Every statement in this dream is a psychic dis- 
 closure. The dream records his life's journey. A 
 portion of the street is torn and impassable. He can 
 only go through the homosexual pathway. The het- 
 erosexual is so broken up as to be unusable. It is 
 dark and he might easily meet with disaster in*his 
 life's journey over this point. The darkness sym- 
 bolizes the forgetting, of 'the aboriginal determinants; 
 the driver is consciousness, the horses are the in- 
 stincts. 
 
 A bear warns him of the dangers of the torn-up 
 road. He is angered at this form of warning. The 
 reference to small children shows that the warnings 
 date back to childhood, when he was actually threat- 
 ened with a bear. 
 
 "There may be small children in the wagon who 
 would be frightened to death," records the dream. 
 As a child he has heard repeatedly about his uncle's 
 suicide, because of the wife's faithlessness. In the 
 depths of his soul this story could not but act as a 
 perpetual warning against woman. The story of his 
 father's duel, too, and the latter*s scar on the fore-
 
 Dream, Associations 279 
 
 head influenced his childhood and filled him with 
 fear of woman. 8 It made him resolve to submit to no 
 woman. And is not hatred the surest self-defence 
 against the dangers of love? 
 
 Who or what is the mysterious bear in the dreams ? 
 Naturally, like every figure in the dream, it is the 
 dreamer himself. There is the power of a wild beast 
 in his breast. We recall that one of his dreams was 
 staged at Schoribrun, the Zoological Garden of 
 Vienna, where the wild beasts may be seen. We 
 recall Shylock, the pound of flesh, and the various 
 sadistic determinants of his neurosis. 
 
 We now approach the kernel of his homosexual 
 neurosis which turns out to consist of a powerful 
 protective wall against his criminal self. His at- 
 titude towards woman is characterized by a tre- 
 mendous hatred. He is a Lusttnorder, the wild bear 
 who attacks women, who strangles them and would 
 drink their blood. The bear represents his own im- 
 age and a terrible warning. 
 
 Beware of the women! It will turn you into a 
 murderer. Better remain a child, enjoy whatever 
 brings gratification to a child. Woe to you if your 
 life's journey should lead you through the open road 
 where all wild passions lurk which have already filled 
 you as a child! Oh, better if you had never been 
 born, or if you could begin life all over. . . . 
 
 * Cp. Chapter on Maternal Body Dreamt, in work mentioned 
 above, Vol. II.
 
 280 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 Blood is his true requirement. Spermatic fluid, 
 urine, faeces, all these are substitutions represent- 
 ing blood. 9 
 
 Now we begin to understand why he must not be a 
 man and why he wants to be a woman. His great 
 aggressive trend is linked with the notion of maleness. 
 The passive attitude, suffering, patience, is identi- 
 fied with femaleness. 
 
 After these revelations, which were supported by 
 a large mass of memories, the patient stayed away 
 for a few days. Then he reappeared and told me 
 that he had successful intercourse with a pueUa pub- 
 lica. He thought he might be able to overcome his 
 homosexuality. But he received a telegram recalling 
 him to Denmark. 
 
 I have not heard anything about his subsequent 
 history. Did he become bisexual? Did he overcome 
 his infantilism? Did the torn portion of the road 
 become passable at last? 
 
 I am unable to state anything definite. But we 
 have obtained here a clear insight into the psycho- 
 genesis of homosexuality and we have seen that many 
 determinants are at work shaping the original pre- 
 disposition. 
 
 Let us briefly mention the most important data in 
 this clinical history. It must be looked upon really 
 
 In the Tristan phantasy these reminiscences return. The 
 father is the betrayed King. The episode of the father's 
 departure in that dream becomes clear only now. He died 
 in time to avoid the experience of a second deception in love.
 
 Dream Interpretation 281 
 
 as but a fragment of an analysis. But it leads us to 
 the core of the neurosis and shows us the subject's 
 inner predisposition, so sharply contrasting with his 
 conscious attitude. 
 
 This man carries within himself the aboriginal in- 
 stincts of mankind. His dreams carry him back to 
 the paternal body and back to the prehistoric phase 
 of his existence not without reason. He carries within 
 himself the engrams of thousands of years, the rem- 
 nants of the wildest instinct of primordial man. The 
 phylogenesis of his being corresponds with his onto- 
 genesis. What does he lack for a typical primordial 
 being? In his dreams and phantasies he shows the 
 terrible blood lust, the imperativeness of wishes, the 
 brutal egoism of the periods of long past. Even 
 man's primordial toleration of filth is not absent; 
 this subject's history discloses urolagnistic and co- 
 prophagic tendencies. 
 
 Consider the contrast between his instinctive and 
 his cultural self. He is a man of refinement and a 
 marked personality, a genuine artist, a man who ap- 
 preciates the beautiful, a man who is transfixed be- 
 fore a representation of Tristan, or before a statue 
 and whom the beauties of nature plunge into ecstasy ; 
 a man who seems capable of adding some day to the 
 world's art possessions a worthy contribution. 
 
 This case proves most decidedly that my view that 
 homosexuality represents a regression is correct.
 
 282 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 Other physicians will prefer to speak of degenera- 
 tion. Indeed, but this subject has no sign of physi- 
 cal degeneration, there is no pathologic family his- 
 tory such as might be regarded as predisposing to 
 degeneration. One might as well consider all artists 
 degenerates inasmuch as all artists show the primor- 
 dial cravings which we find in our patients. The very 
 fact that all human progress is brought about 
 through individuals who represent regressions 
 should teach us more carefully the term degenera- 
 tion and to apply it only to the cases in which the 
 conjunction of physical signs of degeneration with 
 moral inferiority leaves no doubt. 
 
 We trace here the operation of that primordial 
 hatred which threatens to smother the mind's safety 
 valve as it presses for expression. A portion of this 
 hatred may turn into love and lead the subject into 
 the pathway which makes prophets, religious reform- 
 ers, philanthropists or champions of the people. An- 
 other part of it persists and strengthens infantile 
 trends. 
 
 What is Sigma'g conscious attitude? Love for 
 men, indifference towards women, hatred of the fa- 
 ther, a bipolar vacillation towards his mother, love 
 and hate ! 10 But unconsciously he loves his father 
 and hates all women, perhaps because he must 
 love them. His ordinary attitude requires the pro- 
 
 10 <7p. my laws of symbolic equivalents in Language of 
 Dreams: All secretions and excreta are equal to one another 
 as symbols.
 
 Homosexuality a Regression 283 
 
 jection of his love feeling in its bipolar form upon 
 all the objectives of his affection. One loves and 
 hates at the same time. But he hates only the 
 women. How has this primordial hatred been at- 
 tained by the subject? Why is he incapable of as- 
 suming the usual bipolar attitude towards women? 
 
 If we go far back into his childhood we find that 
 he was in love with his father and jealous of his 
 mother. At that time all women were possible rivals 
 in love for the father. He himself wanted to be a 
 woman, the woman to love his father. This father 
 Imago he seeks to this day in all his teachers, older 
 friends, in his superiors. He must necessarily stand 
 in a homosexual relationship towards them so long 
 as he is unable to overcome his infantile constella- 
 tions. Everything peculiar about his attachment to 
 the mother is traceable back to his identification with 
 the father. From the latter he has derived his quiet, 
 timid, patient temperament, that attitude of pas- 
 sivity which really masks a tremendous aggressivity. 
 That infantile attitude determines the survival of all 
 infantile excitations in his vita sexualis. 
 
 How may the cure be effected? The subject must 
 be made to understand that he will never really carry 
 out the crimes which contact with women suggest 
 to his unconscious. He must learn to apply love in 
 its bipolar form alike to men and women. His pleth- 
 ora of cravings should enable him to awaken within 
 himself the hitherto badly neglected love for woman.
 
 284 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 Before the analysis all his erotic trends were di- 
 rected towards male friends. The cure leads through 
 approach of woman as friend. First she is a friend, 
 and subsequently after much struggle and search- 
 ing the beloved. He must learn to play the role 
 of father to some strange woman. 
 
 Is analysis the proper means? Who, in the 
 present state of our knowledge, knows another? 
 What can we accomplish through commands, punish- 
 ment, formal training, or hypnosis ? Primordial love 
 achieves supremacy only through the exacting proc- 
 ess of self-knowledge and through the recognition of 
 the primordial instincts, including the primordial 
 hatred. The subject has concentrated his primordial 
 love feeling wholly upon his own person. 
 
 Like all homosexuals he loves only himself. This 
 peculiarity, too, he shares with all primordial be- 
 ings. Does primordial man know any other love than 
 love of self? " 
 
 I have already pointed out that urnings always 
 seek themselves first and assume subsequently the role 
 of another person ; or else they seek in the male dif- 
 ferent variants of their own childhood. The same is 
 true pan passu also of the urUnds. To be in love al- 
 
 11 Raffalovich, author of a small monograph on Die Ent- 
 wickelung der Homosexualitat (The Development of H.), Ber- 
 lin, 1895, states in a few pages more truths than many authors 
 disclose in heavy volumes of writing. He states, for instance, 
 that "there are no distinct barriers between heterosexuals and 
 homosexuals." He also emphasizes the strong self-love of 
 homosexuals: "They have die Leidentchaft der JShnlichkeit."
 
 Homosexuality a Regression 285 
 
 ways means to find one's self in another. But why 
 do urnings not find themselves in the female Imago? 
 This question cannot be covered with a generaliza- 
 tion that will hold good for all cases. In the two 
 last cases the fact that the subjects regarded them- 
 selves as the reverse of handsome played an impor- 
 tant role. They had a sense of inferiority with re- 
 gard to woman and a feeling of envy. Self-love in- 
 duced fear of defeat by woman on account of lack 
 of attractiveness. How could they feel confident of 
 conquering woman in view of their ugliness? How 
 could they play the role of a Don Juan to which their 
 latent homosexuality might otherwise have driven 
 them? Among men physical beauty does not matter. 
 What is important is the size of the genitalia. 
 
 If love capacity be measured by the size of one's 
 genitalia, the patient Delta (Case 83) could measure 
 himself against any one. He took ridiculous pride 
 in his great penis, a pride shown by many men. 
 His whole sexuality was centered upon the symbol of 
 masculinity. With Sigma, with whom the penis 
 played but a secondary role, the case was different. 
 Sadger who sees in narcissism the love of one's geni- 
 talia would find his view corroborated by the history 
 of the first case but not by the second, the subject 
 in the latter instance showing not the least interest 
 in his penis. 
 
 The first of these cases portrays the mechanisms 
 described by Adler, the second barely a trace. This
 
 286 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 shows how easy it is to build certain assumptions 
 through a one-sided selection of cases. It is obvious 
 that every earnest investigator must come upon cer- 
 tain aspects of the truth. What we obtain always 
 are mere sectional views of homosexuality. A cross 
 section yields merely a corresponding view of the pic- 
 ture. Only the apposition of the various sectional 
 views can furnish us the proper perspective for re- 
 constructing the whole picture of homosexuality. 
 
 Infantile reminiscences in both cases were partial 
 determinants which lead to a lasting fear of women 
 and to withdrawal from heterosexual love. Delta had 
 witnessed an unhappy marriage as a child, Sigma 
 heard a great deal about faithlessness and about 
 woman's lack of loyalty. Both shared also a strong 
 sadism, a feature which we have observed in all cases 
 of homosexuality thus far analyzed. 
 
 We are thus led to a synthetic formulation of 
 male homosexuality which, in reversed terms, holds 
 true also of women: 
 
 The homosexual neurosis is a flight back to one's 
 own sex induced by a sadistic predisposition towards 
 the opposite sex.
 
 vn 
 
 THE NEUROTIC S INABILITY TO LOVE THE NARCISSISM 
 
 OF THE HOMOSEXUAL PROGRESSIVE SEXUAL DIF- 
 FERENTIATION WITH THE GROWTH OF CULTURE 
 
 THE POSITION OF THE HOMOSEXUAL IN THE 
 
 STRUGGLE BETWEEN SEXES THE SOCIAL CAUSES 
 
 OF HOMOSEXUALITY HOMOSEXUALITY AMONG 
 
 GREEKS INCREASE OF POLAR SEXUAL TENSION 
 
 VARIOUS THERAPEUTIC MEASURES HYPNOSIS 
 
 MOLL'S ASSOCIATION THERAPY PSYCHOANALYSIS 
 
 THE PATH TOWARDS CURE AND THE CONDITIONS 
 
 FOR RECOVERY.
 
 Im Hass 1st Furcht, ein grosser, guter Tett 
 Furcht. Wir Furchtlosen aber, wir geistigeren Men- 
 schen dieses Zeitalters, wir kennen unseren Vorteil 
 gut genug, um gerade als die Geistigeren in Hinsicht 
 auf dieser Zeit ohne Furcht zu Leben. Man wird uns 
 schwerlich Icopfen, einsperren, verbrennen; man wird 
 nicht einmal unsere Biicher verbieten und verbrennen. 
 Man ist seines F 'aches um den Preis, auch das Opfer 
 seines Faches zu sein t Nietzsche.
 
 VII 
 
 Hatred means fear, it contains a great, big part of 
 fear. But we the Fearless ones, we the more intel- 
 lectual men of our age, precisely as the more eman- 
 cipated ones, with reference to our age, are well 
 aware of our advantage of living without fear. We 
 shall be bitterly pursued, jailed, burned at the stake; 
 our books will more than once fall under the ban and 
 be burned. One is a man after one's own kind only 
 at the risk of paying the price demanded of one's 
 kind. Nietzsche. 
 
 We have seen with what powerful hatred the homo- 
 sexual encounters his environment. Whether he 
 turns his hatred towards the other sex, his own, or, 
 under certain circumstances, against himself, he re- 
 mains the inveterate hater vainly trying to reconcile 
 the feeling of man's aboriginal nature with the 
 ethical requirements of later culture. The question 
 rises whether he is at all capable of loving. One may 
 point out that in a certain sense he does love his 
 mother, father, some friend or that perhaps he even 
 has a "sweetheart." But it only seems that he loves 
 them ! The truth is that he is unable to love. That 
 
 289
 
 290 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 peculiarity he shares with all artists who, in fact, 
 are also incapable of loving. I repeat myself and 
 reproduce below my statements on this point as in- 
 corporated in my work "Die Trdume der Dichter." * 
 
 All my inquiries into the psychogenesis of these 
 disorders have led me back to the manifestations 
 of hatred. Already in my work, Die Sprache Des 
 Traumes (the Language of Dreams), I have pointed 
 out that antagonism (or hatred) is man's primary 
 feeling responsible for the development of neuroses 
 in those ethical-minded persons who still preserve 
 strongly their aboriginal instinctive cravings. "The 
 neurosis is the endopsychic perception of hatred m 
 terms of a guilty conscience" {The Language of 
 Dreams, page 563 of the 1st German edition; Eng- 
 lish version of the latter edition is now in prepara- 
 tion by the translator of the present volume.) 
 
 I believe I have proven successfully that the 
 homosexual is a neurotic, that he represents a type 
 of regression to man's primordial instincts ; and that 
 homosexuality is a sort of compromise healing proc- 
 ess in the mental conflict between the abnormal, raw 
 
 1 Page 248, of the German edition. "The neurotic's attach- 
 ment to the family is an overcorrection of former lack of love 
 and is induced by a feeling of remorse." "Poets formulate a 
 longing for love because of their inability to love and that 
 drives them to their continuous chase after love adventure. 
 Love becomes the overstressed idea and the unattainable ideal 
 of poets." "The poet differs from the criminal because he 
 is aware of his incapacity to love as a handicap, and from 
 hatred and scorn of humanity he turns to love his fellow 
 men."
 
 Nature of Love 291 
 
 cravings, and the cultural need for their suppres- 
 sion. 
 
 But we must not think that, like the average neu- 
 rotic, the homosexual is incapable of love. Only, all 
 his love is a love centered exclusively on self. Yet 
 all cultural progress consists of the sublimation of 
 self-love into social love. That is the meaning of the 
 majestic injunction: love thy neighbor as thyself! 
 
 Since the homosexual loves only himself he seeks 
 only himself in others. That, however, is a feature 
 of all love. What appears to be the most extreme 
 manifestation of altruistic feeling is at bottom but 
 the outcome of egoistic cravings. Love is but ego- 
 ism potentialized. Every neurotic suffers of nar- 
 cissism. He is a slave to self and cannot escape that 
 bondage. The homosexual loves, or appears to love, 
 his own sex, but even superficial examination shows 
 this to be but part of his narcissism. In truth he 
 loves neither man nor woman. He has to overcome 
 a hatred stronger than the corresponding feeling in 
 the normal. That hatred is the theme of his child- 
 hood. As perpetual infant, he fails to sublimate suf- 
 ficiently that hatred, or to fix it upon objectives con- 
 sidered proper in our current cultural development. 
 
 All who investigate homesexuality find an early 
 awakening of the sexual instinct. It is perhaps the 
 greatest social function of sexual instinct, next to 
 reproduction, to provide for the conquest of hatred. 
 Though the selfish child becomes a loving person, the
 
 292 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 child's love is still entirely self-centered. The child 
 loves the persons who serve it. In vain one tries to 
 point out that it ought to love also the teachers 
 who are severe but mean well, that parents must 
 punish in order to teach! This view belongs to the 
 adult mind and is what enables the adult to forget 
 the childish notions of revenge which he entertained 
 as a child whenever he suffered punishment which he 
 looked upon as unjust before his higher sense of re- 
 sponsibility had asserted itself. But in the neurotics, 
 including homosexuals, sexual precocity brings early 
 to surface cravings which involve the love of others ; 
 they are therefore inclined to renounce or modify 
 their hatred. The proportionate share of hatred 
 against some beloved person is withdrawn and turned 
 against the others. These infantile feeling-attitudes 
 may undergo a second transformation in later years. 
 A boy may love the father and hate the mother, be- 
 cause she is his rival in the father's affection. At 
 the same time the sisters may be hated because they 
 draw to themselves a certain quantum of the father's 
 love, which the self-centered jealous boy wishes to 
 secure exclusively for himself. Later the mother 
 and sisters are loved, and the father recedes to the 
 background. 
 
 Jealousy is an infantile feeling. Its appearance in 
 later years always signifies a regression to infantile 
 attitudes. The homosexual spreads his hatred from 
 one persons to the whole sex under the form of jeal-
 
 Nature of Jealousy 293 
 
 ousy. Let us assume that he loves the father inso- 
 far as he is at all capable of loving. The mother is 
 looked upon as a rival. With the formulation of 
 that attitude, all other women become likewise poten- 
 tial rivals, capable of robbing him of his father's 
 affection. Therefore he hates all women, the sub- 
 ject is on the road to homosexual neurosis. At the 
 onset of homosexuality stands jealousy and the lat- 
 ter, therefore, preserves its infantile value through- 
 out life. 
 
 I have already mentioned that it is the function 
 of sexuality to conquer hatred. But that task is 
 never completely carried out. An eternal rivalry per- 
 sists between the two sexes giving rise to the so-called 
 "struggle between the sexes.'* I have no doubt that 
 man's capacity for loving has increased in the course 
 of our racial evolution. What subtle refinements our 
 erotism has undergone! How complicated the 
 psychic processes displayed by the man and the 
 woman in love ! But the antagonism or hatred which 
 divides the two sexes has grown apace. Modern love 
 owes its profuse aifectivity to this conquest of hatred, 
 this periodic regression back to the feeling-attitude 
 of hatred and its renewed subdual. 
 
 The question arises : Have we in fact any proof 
 that the polar tension between man and woman has 
 diminished? He who fails to see a proof of this in 
 the improvement of woman's social position and her 
 acquisition of equal rights may turn to biologic facts.
 
 294 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 These biologic data prove that the sexual differen- 
 tiation between man and woman has increased with 
 growth of culture. In primitive times woman was 
 not so womanly, the man less manly, than the man 
 and woman of civilization. Fehlinger ~ compares 
 the primitive peoples with the Europeans and shows 
 that the secondary sexual characters are much more 
 pronounced among the civilized peoples than among 
 the savages. Subtler stimuli are required to excite 
 the domesticated sexual instinct. 
 
 That sexual differentiation is more pronounced 
 among Europeans is shown also by the fact that the 
 period from the onset of sexual adolescence to the at- 
 tainment of complete physical growth is more pro- 
 longed among civilized peoples than among the col- 
 ored races. The primitive races show a great simi- 
 larity between male and female types and that is 
 most pronounced among the various pygmean races. 
 The latter are characterized bv an infantile physique, 
 which, as is well known, is sexually but little differ- 
 entiated. 
 
 Since the homosexual represents retrogressively a 
 stage of racial development during which the bisexual 
 character of the organism was more pronounced, he 
 carries a b o v o the inclmation to project himself 
 unto both sexes. He passes into the world of sexual 
 differentiation as into some strange, inimical, and, to 
 
 * Domestikation und die secundaren Qeschlechtsmerkmale. 
 Zeitschrift f. Sexualwissenschaft, Vol. Ill, No. 6-7, 1916.
 
 Nature of Hatred 295 
 
 his mind, incomprehensible realm of existence. He 
 belongs to the primordial period in which a man, if 
 necessary, could have replaced the woman. His en- 
 grams perceive the homosexual feeling as something 
 as natural as if he had come a few hundreds of thou- 
 sands of years sooner into the world. But into the 
 cultural age in which love plays such a tremendous 
 role he brings with him also the antagonism of by- 
 gone ages. That feeling of hatred becomes a power- 
 ful lever in the struggle between the sexes. Physi- 
 cally he stands between man and woman but he is not 
 suited for the role of mediator because he has not 
 learned to subdue the eternal struggle between male 
 and female within his breast. The love-attitude 
 which is a mixture of love and hatred, he splits into 
 its two components directing one separately towards 
 each of the two sexes. Towards woman he turns his 
 primordial hatred, while man he loves as a represen- 
 tative of culture. When he is grown up that deadly 
 hatred is repressed and stands a hidden stumbling- 
 block between himself and woman. Unable to be a 
 complete man, unable to extricate himself from that 
 infantile feeling-attitude, he also hates the woman in 
 him. He overvalues manliness and in his excessive 
 appraisal of it turns to it with his whole love. The 
 hatred of all women corresponds to his scorn of the 
 woman in himself, a reaction due to his personal 
 inability to overcome the woman in his own make-up 
 and to become a complete man. Finally in the course
 
 296 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 of the continuous struggle between the man and the 
 woman within his breast he reaches the curious com- 
 promise of accepting the feeling that he is a woman. 
 That is: he excepts a single woman from his hatred 
 . . . himself. In that manner he becomes a trans- 
 vestite. He may be active heterosexually, he may, 
 apparently, have overcome his homosexuality, yet, as 
 penance for his hatred, he puts on the clothes which 
 had seemed once so hateful to him. The latent homo- 
 sexual becomes a transvestite only on account of Ms 
 guilty conscience. 
 
 Our investigations have proven that homosexu- 
 ality has no uniform psychogenesis. But all cases 
 showed an archaic emphasis on bisexuality. Al- 
 though I speak of regressive manifestations I should 
 not care to see that conception confused with the 
 notion of "hereditary taint" or of "degeneration." 
 For my investigations of artists have convinced me 
 that they present the same tendencies as the homo- 
 sexuals. They, too, are neurotics. In fact, the 
 number of homosexual artists, even of homosexual 
 persons of rare genius, as given by Hirschfeld, is 
 impressive. I hold the view that every great creative 
 work has been and is being achieved through these 
 regressions. It is as if nature attempted to rejuven- 
 ate herself and once more to absorb creative energy 
 by dipping down into the primordial source of all 
 energy. It might be more proper, perhaps, to speak 
 of them as degeneres superieurs, in the sense of Mag-
 
 Sexual Differentiation 297 
 
 nan. It seems to me that true degeneration, as seen 
 in the stigmata of physical decay, and which mani- 
 fests itself in an insufficient adjustment to the ethi- 
 cal requirements of society, represents rather the ter- 
 ,minal point of an exhausted stem, gravitating down- 
 wards, while the neurotic represents a progression. 
 Degeneration and regressions certainly have a great 
 deal in common. But similar causes often bring on 
 varying results. I need refer only to the well-known 
 laws of inbreeding, for instance. The summation of 
 good qualities through the intermarriage of relatives 
 may lead to the birth of a true genius, but the same 
 step causes more or less degeneration by reinforcing 
 morbid tendencies. 
 
 I see in such an atavistic tendency the predispo- 
 sition to homosexuality, common to all neurotics. 
 Perhaps organic changes, such as I have found in 
 more or less pronounced form in most homosexuals 
 also play a certain role. Persons of pronounced bi- 
 sexual type do not necessarily become homosexual, 
 but this does not disprove that the organic condi- 
 tion may be a factor. Here is where I agree with 
 Hirschf eld's "intermediate sex" theory. But beyond 
 this point our standpoints diverge. The organic 
 factors remain yet to be investigated. We are but 
 at the beginning of our studies of organic bisexu- 
 ality. The ascertainment of unilateral hermaphro- 
 ditism, it seems to me, will play a particularly impor- 
 tant role in future investigations. Already the data
 
 298 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 obtained through the examination of large groups 
 of persons, for which the World War furnished me an 
 opportunity, impressed me with the fact, that con- 
 trary sexual Arilage is to be found particularly 
 often on the left side of the body. (In men this shows 
 itself in the form of unilateral gynecomasty, scant 
 hair growth, asymmetry of the face, the left side 
 being more pronouncedly of feminine type.) The 
 finding of infantile features must also be considered 
 of significance in the diagnosis of an organic predis- 
 position to homosexuality. 
 
 These interesting facts do not relieve us of the 
 need of establishing the psychogenesis of homosexu- 
 ality on a sound basis. But the multitude of condi- 
 tions which may lead to homosexuality admit no 
 hard-and-fast line. Every case is a problem of its 
 own; these are the very cases where we must care- 
 fully individualize and guard ourselves against hin- 
 dering future research by laying down any hard-and- 
 fast rules. 
 
 A question which no investigator of sexual prob- 
 lems has thus far satisfactorily answered, now sug- 
 gests itself: Why is it that homosexuality and par- 
 ticularly male homosexuality has become the object 
 of such terrific social abhorrence? Why is our 
 penal code so backward in that respect? 
 
 We can understand the reasons for that only in 
 the light of the historic aspect of the problem. It 
 is a striking fact that although female homosexu-
 
 Historic Attitude 299 
 
 ality always appears along with the male, it is not 
 nearly so abhorred but is rather tolerated under the 
 cover of silence. Austria is the only European 
 country in which sexual intimacy between women is 
 a penal offence. Probably the difference in this at- 
 titude bears some relation to the problem of repro- 
 duction, since man, as the fertilizing agent, plays 
 a more active role than the woman. 3 The seed, 
 that most precious possession with which a man 
 may fructify several women, must not be squan- 
 dered. 
 
 The decided struggle against homosexuality be- 
 gan energetically with Judaism. Monosexualism de- 
 veloped with monotheism. The Bible hardly refers to 
 homosexuality. The blessings of children, of repro- 
 duction, the advantage of numbers were the needs 
 to which the sexual cravings had to be subordinated. 
 There is, therefore, justification for the contention 
 that Judaism has fought against homosexuality, 
 impelled by social motives. On the other hand it 
 was also an account of another set of social mo- 
 tives that, in Greece, homosexuality was not only 
 tolerated but permitted and even expressly intro- 
 duced. Aristotle is of the opinion that in accor- 
 dance with their customs and beliefs the Dorians ex- 
 pressly intended to limit the increase in population 
 through the encouragement of boy love and the sep- 
 
 *An excellent account of the history of homosexuality may 
 be found in the work of Hirschfeld (loc. clt.).
 
 300 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 aration of women from society. 4 But that in itself 
 would not explain the high regard in which homo- 
 sexuality was held in ancient Greece. 
 
 I refer those interested in the subject to the in- 
 teresting work of a philologist, Prof. E. Bethel 
 
 4 Politics, II. Quoted after Havelock Ellis and I. A. 
 Symonds, Das kontrdre Oeschlechtsgefiihl, Leipzig, George E. 
 Wiegands Verlag, 1896. 
 
 8 Die dorische Knabenliebe (Ihre Ethik und ihre Idee), 
 Rheinisches Museum f. Philologie (Neue Folge), vol. 62, 1907. 
 
 The authors prove that boy love in Hellas was introduced by 
 the Dorians. Although traces of the custom are found also 
 among the lonians, boy love, like knighthood, became fash- 
 ionable in Greece through the Dorians. "It was permitted 
 only to the free citizen, the knight, while slaves were for- 
 bidden to indulge in the practice often under penalty of 
 death. The practice was regulated by strict rules and became 
 a state institution. In Sparta, Crete, Thebes the training for 
 (arety) ipffffj, among the dominant class was based on 
 pederasty. The lovers in Sparta were held to a strict account- 
 ability for their 'companions' who became attached to them 
 from their 12th year; so that they and not their youthful com- 
 panions were punished for any shameful act on the part of 
 the latter." "The battlefield at Chaironeia was covered with 
 the lovers . . . lying in pairs." In Crete the choice of boy 
 lovers assumed the form of bridal theft. The lover advised 
 the boy's family of his intention of stealing the boy. If the 
 family did not like the "match" it tried to avoid the capture 
 of the boy. The higher the lover's social position the greater 
 was the honor felt by the boy and his family. The chosen 
 one was afterwards sent home carrying gifts. . . . 
 
 In fact, at Thebes, Thera and in Crete such unions even 
 enjoyed religious sanction. "The engagement of the lovers or 
 rather their physical union certainly occurred under the pro- 
 tection of some god or hero at Thera and at Thebes. At 
 Thebes we find the language unmistakably clear in the high 
 archaic field inscriptions of the Seventh Century, chiselled 
 in large letters upon the holy promontory near the City, at a 
 distance of 50-70 meters from the temple of Apollo Karneies 
 and on the holy site dedicated to Zeus. They read as follows: 
 "On this holy place, under protection of Zeus, Krion has con- 
 summated his union with the son of Bathykles and proclaim- 
 ing it proudly to the world dedicates to it this imperishable
 
 Attitude of the Church 301 
 
 Like many other philosophers and investigators of 
 history, Eeihe falls into the error of pointing to the 
 Christian church as the agent responsible for the 
 newer orientation in sexual matters. In the first 
 place these writers overlook the fact that the new 
 attitude had set in already with Judaism. Secondly, 
 they fail to see that religions are, themselves, but 
 the result of social conditions. Religious teachings 
 always adjust themselves to the social needs of their 
 day and even fulfill them. Religious formulae prove 
 meaningless only to the progressive, emancipated, 
 
 memorial. And many Thereans with him, and after him, have 
 united themselves with their boys on this same holy spot." 
 
 At Crete it was considered a shame for a boy to possess no 
 knightly lover. On the other hand it was a great honor for 
 a boy to be wanted by many lovers. 
 
 For the lovers and for the boys these relations had an excel- 
 lent effect. Each was inspired to do his best in order to 
 prove his mettle and be &yados avfip (agathos anyr). The 
 heroic tales even took note of this love. The wondrous deeds 
 of a Herakles were carried out in honor of the male lover 
 Eurystheus. Repelling a wooing knight was considered 
 ignominious, a blot on one's honor. Plutarch relates the 
 story how Aristodamus struck down with his sword an obsti- 
 nate boy: "Man gerat unwilkurlich in die Sprache unseres 
 ritterlichen Ehrenkomments," states Betlie. 
 
 With that act the knight transferred his Aperi? (arety), 
 knighthood, upon the boy. It had a symbolic meaning. Among 
 the Spartans the paederast was called efoirj^Xaj (eiopnylas), 
 from f'oirvdit (eiopnein), meaning, the one who blows some- 
 thing in (the inblower). But what was it that the pederast 
 blew into the boy? Clearly the irvevna (pneuma), the soul, a 
 belief which has come down from the oldest period (Bible) 
 surviving to this day in Christianity. According to primitive 
 conceptions the soul of man resided in his various secreta and 
 excreta. Urine, faeces, blood and semen were magical sub- 
 stances inasmuch as they contained the life principle. With 
 his male seed the Dorian endowed his boy with knightly 
 prowess. (Similarly the savages in New Guinea drink the
 
 302 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 free and forward-striving persons, the imperatives 
 of religion are superfluous only for those above the 
 average. The crowds must cling to religious for- 
 mulae and will always need sexual inhibitions of a 
 religious character. 
 
 Sexuality is changing all the time, it undergoes 
 progressive refinement. No careful observer can deny 
 that fact. More and more of our instinctive crav- 
 ings are gradually throttled. But when the process 
 of repression becomes too severe there are regres- 
 sions such as we have witnessed in the agitation for 
 free love of the last decades and in the current more 
 
 urine of the chieftain in order to acquire his skill and 
 strength. Bethe mentions numerous similar instances.) The 
 semen was regarded as the seat of the soul. 
 
 Bethe points out also that the liver, the heart and more 
 particularly the phallus were similarly identified with the soul. 
 The reader is referred to the original study for further details. 
 
 The remarkable notion of blowing one's soul into another 
 a posteriori, is traced by the author to primitive beliefs. 
 Animals showed no objection to these love-offerings; and men 
 who ascribed magical properties to urine and faeces undoubt- 
 edly lacked any feeling of revulsion against these excreta. . . . 
 Since the anus was looked upon as the portal for angry 
 demons, why should not the benevolent magical power of 
 heroes be introduced the same way? 
 
 "The notion which led to the development of paederasty as a 
 State Institution among the Dorians, could not long endure. 
 It had to give way finally. . . . But boy love persisted as a 
 widespread custom and stood throughout antiquity and 
 throughout the whole extent of Greek culture as a necessary 
 feature of decent superior Greek citizenship. The Christian 
 church fought the heathen custom from the beginning and 
 was the first to drive paederasty from Christian society; un- 
 able to root it out by spiritual means, it adopted criminal pun- 
 ishment in the year 342." 
 
 That is, briefly, the philologist's account, who also states 
 that during the pre-Doric period (Homer, for instance) the 
 custom of boy love had as yet no roots as an Institution.
 
 Growth of Polar Tension 303 
 
 frank discussion of sexual matters. But if all signs 
 do not fail the high tide of the agitation for sexual 
 freedom has passed and the wave of that agitation 
 is receding. Pioneers in the movement for sexual 
 freedom are beginning to uphold monogamy; and 
 the problem of population made pressing by the 
 World War does not favor the abandonment of the 
 current social and legal proscriptions against homo- 
 sexuality. On the contrary. There is likely to be in 
 the near future a stronger revulsion against homo- 
 sexuality inasmuch as society finds itself compelled to 
 revert at all costs back to the Old Testament atti- 
 tude of fostering reproduction. 
 
 I have already pointed out that the secondary 
 sexual characters are becoming more strongly ac- 
 centuated through culture. The prehistoric stage 
 was probably characterized by an undifferentiated 
 sexual feeling, such as Max Dessoir ascribes to the 
 pre-adolescent stage. The polar tension between 
 male and 'female has increased! That explains the 
 difference between the old Greek and the modern at- 
 titude towards homosexuality. The Greek was a 
 bisexual being. He was capable of loving his friend 
 and wife and woman slave alongside the boy. The 
 modern homosexual, carrying within him the bisexual 
 instincts of the most archaic developmental stage, 
 finds himself confronted with another sex-attitude. 
 He is confronted, so to speak, with the need of mak- 
 ing a new choice, and therefore he seeks always the
 
 304 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 type to which he himself belongs, the man who is a 
 woman, or the woman who is a man. Exceptions do 
 not disprove this rule. But in proportion as the 
 polar tension between the sexes increases, the basic 
 antagonism between man and woman also grows. As 
 we have seen the last case was particularly instruc- 
 tive in that regard the homosexual, who apparently 
 stands above that struggle, is inspired from within 
 by a feeling-attitude of extreme hatred. He hates 
 woman with such deadly antagonism that the fear 
 of his own passion makes him avoid woman. His 
 hatred is a will of annihilation. But that feeling 
 involves its polar alternative: love to the point of 
 self-annihilation, a willingness to be utterly hum- 
 bled. Subject No. 83 gives us a history clearly il- 
 lustrating this interplay of forces. 
 
 But it is plain that the number of homosexuals 
 will not decrease. On the contrary. / am of the 
 opinion that under certain conditions the extreme 
 polar tension between man and woman will always 
 drive to homosexuality certain individuals possessing 
 the requisite bisexual predispostion and that the 
 number of homosexuals will increase. Since I look 
 upon homosexuality as a neurosis, a morbid condi- 
 tion, if one insists on the term, I am decidedly op- 
 posed to the policy of penalizing the homosexual, 
 and against those legal proscriptions which have been 
 and are the cause of much misery. It is a striking 
 fact that in France and Italy homosexuality plays
 
 Growth of Polar Tension 305 
 
 a lesser role than in Germany, for instance, although 
 in those countries the offence is not so severely pen- 
 alized. Dangers and prohibitory laws often excite 
 the strongest attraction and the neurotic is the very 
 person who likes to become a martyr. Homosexual 
 relations or acts, carried on under mutual under- 
 standing and with the consent of the parties thereto, 
 should not come under the province of penal law, as 
 provided in the Codex Napoleonis. The latter pen- 
 alizes only public nuisances (outrage a la pudeur) 
 that is, acts committed in public or carried on in the 
 presence of witnesses ; the Code Napoleon penalizes 
 coercion and protects the minors and the feeble- 
 minded. 
 
 With these provisions the requirements of our cur- 
 rent ethical standards are fully met. I cannot con- 
 ceive the State compelling the homosexuals to re- 
 produce. Although I do not accept Tarnowsky's 
 viewpoint that their offspring is degenerate, be- 
 cause personal observation has often convinced me 
 of the contrary I look upon the rise of the homo- 
 sexual neurosis as a sort of social instinct. The 
 homosexual possesses an endopsychic perception of 
 his asocial tendencies. He feels himself beyond the 
 pale of society and does not care to adjust himself 
 into the social order with regard to his sexuality. 
 His struggle against reproduction is perhaps best 
 for society. Considering the strength of his sadistic 
 inclinations we can appreciate that through his
 
 306 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 voluntary sterilization in certain cases he renders so- 
 ciety a genuine service. 
 
 The question rises whether it is advisable to clear 
 the homosexual's path towards woman through 
 psychoanalysis. That brings up the chief question 
 whether homosexuality is at all amenable to therapy. 
 
 My personal experience has convinced me that 
 here and there psychoanalysis is successful in effect- 
 ing a cure. But only under certain conditions. The 
 homosexual must be genuinely willing to be cured. 
 He must actively desire a change in his leaning. 
 
 But experience shows also that this will to health 
 is found only in the lighter forms of homosexuality 
 in which latent sadism does not dominate the condi- 
 tion. 6 That in a certain sense the homosexual of this 
 type is curable I am in a position to affirm on the 
 basis of my personal experience. The cure proceeds 
 spontaneously but it may be hastened through psy- 
 chotherapeutic endeavor. 
 
 The proper psychotherapeutic method can never 
 be hypnosis. What may we expect hypnosis to 
 accomplish so long as the homosexual himself re- 
 mains in the dark regarding his false attitude, so 1 
 long as he has not learned to acknowledge openly 
 the repressions against which he has fought so long? 
 Contrary to Krafft-Ebing, Schrenk-Notzing, and Al- 
 fred Fuchs, I have never met with a lasting cure 
 
 fl Zur Psychologic der Vita Sexualis, Allg. Zeitschr. f. 
 Psychol, 1894.
 
 Psychoanalysis 307 
 
 through hypnotic treatment. We must accept with 
 greatest caution the statements of homosexuals 
 claiming to have been cured by us. 7 Case 62 re- 
 corded in this work, illustrates that there are some 
 homosexuals who in order to please the physician 
 and conclude the treatment with flying colors, claim 
 they are well without having changed in the least 
 their deeply rooted feeling-attitude. Moll's associa- 
 tion therapy I am also unable to accept. That 
 method of treatment consists of the systematic de- 
 velopment of normal and the equally deliberate de- 
 struction of the perverse, associations. Moll, who 
 has proposed this therapy and given it that designa- 
 tion, has the homosexual cultivate deliberately fem- 
 
 7 1 am unable to corroborate the contention of Ferenczi in 
 his Zur Nosologie der mannlichen Homosexualitat (Homo- 
 erotik), published in Zeitschrift f. arztl. Psychoanalyse, Vol. 
 II, 189, 1914. He assumes two forms of homosexuality: 1. 
 the passive subject-homoerotic, who represents an inborn state 
 and stands for an intermediary type in Hirschfeld's sense 
 and is incurable and 2. the active object-homoerotic, a type 
 he describes as a special form of compulsion neurosis. The 
 passive type never consults the physician for his trouble, he 
 is a genuine homosexual; the active type is unhappy over his 
 condition, he shows the typical symptoms. Both share in 
 common the peculiarity that their own sex is an essential con- 
 dition for the attainment of their love-object and remains 
 so throughout life. 
 
 I have seen many homosexuals who are interchangeably 
 active or passive. On the other hand I have seen active homo- 
 sexuals who were very much troubled over their condition 
 and passive homosexuals who have been cured. Incidentally 
 I may mention that Ferenczi borrows thoughts from my essay 
 on Hasken der Homosexualitat, without indicating the source. 
 Since Freud has decreed against me his anathema, the nar- 
 rower Freudian school looks upon my work as common prop- 
 erty to be appropriated at will by any one.
 
 308 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 inine company so as to come strongly under the 
 specific female influences, he regulates the subject's 
 reading and helps him overcome the homosexual 
 phantasies. The subject must think of "normal 
 pictures" only, before going to sleep and thus in- 
 fluence his dreams in the proper direction. 8 But one 
 must not think, as MoU concludes, that the hetero- 
 sexual dream pictures which follow are due to the as- 
 sociation therapy. The pictures thereby are merely 
 rendered bewusstseinsfahig, tolerable to conscious- 
 ness. They were always present. But the patient 
 lacked the courage to acknowledge them. 
 
 I do not mean to deny a certain relative value to 
 the association method. It is certainly not an ad- 
 vantage for the homosexual who earnestly strives to 
 get cured to continue to frequent homosexual cir- 
 cles and to have constantly dinned into his ears 
 the assertion that his condition is inborn and hope- 
 less. I have quoted some cases showing that latent 
 homosexuality may become manifest through con- 
 tact with and the example of homosexuals while the 
 heterosexual leaning may be disturbed thereby. But 
 I did not intend to suggest the advisability of any 
 compulsory measures for restricting the homo- 
 sexual's freedom of action or social intercourse. I 
 have already expressed myself clearly against com- 
 pulsions and punishments. It is advisable to urge 
 8 Handbuch der Sexualwissenschaften, p. 664.
 
 Association Therapy 309 
 
 the homosexual anxious to get cured to give up 
 contact with homosexual circles. 
 
 But that the association therapy alone is capable 
 of effecting a complete cure I cannot but doubt. The 
 subject must first learn to see himself clearly and 
 to recognize the source of the evil against which 
 he is fighting. We must bear in mind the many 
 subjects with whom repressed sadism is the true cause 
 of the fear of woman. Such subjects must first 
 consciously overcome their sadism, they must recog- 
 nize that the fear is a ridiculous attempt at protect- 
 ing themselves against leanings which under normal 
 conditions never break through. 
 
 The first condition for the successful cure of homo- 
 sexuality is adequate self-knowledge. That can be 
 accomplished only through persistent psychoanaly- 
 sis. The physician must devote himself to the sub- 
 ject for some months until the side-tracked leanings 
 which the patient has stubbornly overlooked are 
 brought into the field of consciousness and clearly ac- 
 knowledged. The subject is like a person with torti- 
 collis looking constantly in one direction and avoid- 
 ing a turn of his head on account of the pain. This 
 mental torticollis must be overcome. The homo- 
 sexual if he is to get well must be able to turn 
 his gaze unrestrictedly over his whole mental horizon 
 
 That is by no means a simple task. It is an 
 achievement challenging the whole medical art, re-
 
 310 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 quiring insight, diplomacy, sympathy, friendliness, 
 and patience. But few physicians are fitted for the 
 task. Perhaps the opposition to psychoanalysis 
 would not be so sharp if it were practiced only by 
 competent psychotherapeutists and experienced pro- 
 fessional men possessing the requisite tact. The 
 physician is like the sculptor engaged in the task 
 of bringing forth a certain form out of raw ma- 
 terial. 
 
 Unfortunately I must point out in this connection 
 that the psychoanalytic method inaugurated by 
 Freud is in danger of falling into discredit through 
 careless application. On the one hand the exaggera- 
 tions of the master and his pupils have repelled 
 many practitioners ; on the other many of the pa- 
 tients have themselves become psychoanalysts, with- 
 out being completely cured of their own trouble. 
 What would one think of a hydrotherapeutist, ex- 
 pert though he be in his own specialty, who under- 
 took a laparotomy? Analysis is comparable to a 
 serious operation requiring a steady, experienced 
 and skilful hand. Psychoanalysis does not permit 
 dilletantism like hypnosis. Only from an experienced 
 master may one learn the difficult art of psycho- 
 analysis and in turn become a master of the art. 
 
 It is quite likely that the analysis of today will be 
 ridiculed in the future as a raw beginning. Various 
 subtleties and gradations remain to be uncovered 
 by the future generations.
 
 Psychoanalysis 311 
 
 The psychoanalytic realm is not yet completely 
 laid out. 
 
 How firmly I held to all the Freudian mechanisms 
 so long as the deceptive proximity of the great 
 founder confused my own understanding! How 
 much I had to unlearn, correct, tone down, or un- 
 derscore, overcome or forget, or see with a different 
 eye, before I realized that we are as yet but at the 
 beginnings of our knowledge and that we must use 
 our present findings as but so many spring boards 
 to enable us to reach a little farther out ! Finally, 
 each psychotlurapeutist formulates in the end his 
 own technique. The most important prerequisite for 
 psychoanalysis as for every scientific investigator 
 is to approach the subject without any preconcep- 
 tions, to look upon every patient as a new problem 
 and not to be surprised if one's case does not fit in 
 with one's ready-made systems or if it disproves one's 
 favorite notion. For even the physician with years 
 of experience is startled to meet so many new forms 
 under which neurosis manifests itself. 
 
 But in spite of the variegated pictures, this be- 
 wildering variety of causes leading to the trouble, 
 one thing remains true and unalterable: the neu- 
 rotic's unwillingness to see, that peculiarity which 
 Freud has called repression, and the consequent 
 psychic conflict. We must first appreciate that the 
 patient's mind is shattered over the hopeless char- 
 acter of his conflict, that for him the neurosis is a
 
 312 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 necessity, ; something that enables him in one way 
 or another to put up with his hardships, some- 
 thing with which softly to hide his wounds on the one 
 hand and on the other, show his suffering to the 
 world ; , when we appreciate all that, we may gradu- 
 ally acquire the subtle skill of dissolving the ties 
 and bringing the wound to light. We see the wound 
 but the patient will not, cannot, see it. He may go 
 so far as to claim that he has no wound and is well; 
 that he was born with the ties that bind him; or 
 else, that he came with that wound into the world. 
 
 These difficulties are in no psychoneurosis so great 
 as in homosexuality. As I have already stated: the 
 homosexual neurosis is a flight to one's own sex 
 induced by the sadistic feeling-attitude towards the 
 opposite sex. It is the task of analysis to uncover 
 the mental conflict which finds expression in this one- 
 sidedness and to enable the patient to see the cruelty 
 trend which he has derived from the childhood of 
 the race and has carried through his own childhood 
 into his adult life. When the homosexual becomes 
 aware of his bisexuality and sees the causes of his 
 monosexual leaning we have accomplished the requis- 
 ite educational task. Beyond that point the patient 
 must help himself. If he is truly earnest about his 
 desire to get well he rentt accomplish it without being 
 pushed to it. If he lacks the inner will the situation 
 is hopeless in spite of the analysis. 
 
 For that reason I am not in favor of the practical
 
 Psychoanalysis 313 
 
 management of homosexuality as carried out by 
 many physicians and particularly by some psycho- 
 analysts. They urge the homosexual to adopt hetero- 
 sexual ways, and consider the subject cured when 
 he is able to have normal coitus a few times. Unfor- 
 tunately unpleasant reactions often follow alleged 
 cures such as are often claimed for persuasion-ther- 
 apy and hypnosis. The homosexual abandons all 
 further attempts and prefers his original monosexual 
 attitude. 
 
 We may claim a cure only after the subject under 
 treatment falls in love with a suitable person of the 
 other sex. Potentia caeundi is not enough. He must 
 be able to give up dividing the feeling-complex hatred 
 love between the two sexes and to achieve the bi- 
 polar attitude "hatred and love" towards the oppo- 
 site sex. Such a miracle only love can perform. Ex- 
 perience proves that the homosexual flees from the 
 heterosexual love to save himself. The latter looms 
 up in his mind as a test of power, in which he is 
 anxious to come out the winner, even at the cost of 
 doing away with his heterosexual partner. He must 
 accept the subjection to woman implied in love and 
 recognize that in true love both lovers rule and 
 both obey. He must also learn to recognize the es- 
 sential unity of erotism and sexuality. Only when 
 the homosexual finds it possible to fix his erotism and 
 sexuality upon the same goal, in a person of the 
 opposite sex, in other words, when he learns to
 
 314 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 love in adult manner, have we the right to claim 
 a cure. It is only then, at any rate, that the great- 
 est healer of all ages, love, achieves its easy victory 
 and the former patient, like all neurotics, thinks 
 that mere chance has brought him face to face with 
 his ideal. With that end in view the fixation on the 
 family through which the homosexual loses his 
 erotic freedom, occasionally also the sexual must be 
 severed. I have brought strong proofs to show that 
 we must transform the homosexual into a bisexual 
 being, in order to cure him. Practical experience 
 does not favor bisexuality. We must reckon with 
 the fact that we live in a monosexual age. The 
 homosexual must transpose his whole sexuality and 
 must try to overcome or sublimate his one-sided 
 leanings. 
 
 The necessary educational discipline takes a long 
 time. The treatment of homosexuality therefore is 
 a formidable task, both for the analyst and for the 
 patient. The end-result of the treatment may not 
 be known definitely for some years. 
 
 I have tried to describe the technique of the an- 
 alysis in the individual cases. From those various 
 indications the reader may form a picture of the dif- 
 ficulties. A systematic account of the technique 
 of the analysis would require a volume in itself. Per- 
 haps after finishing my Disorders of the Instincts 
 and Emotions Series I may write such a work in or-
 
 Psychoanalysis 315 
 
 der to acquaint with my experience the practitioners 
 who want to grapple with the same problems. 
 
 A new generation of physicians, not brought up 
 in the midst of the prejudices of the older, will fur- 
 ther the psychologic investigation of the neuroses. 
 
 Naturally the high school must change its attitude 
 towards the problem of sex. Departments of Sex- 
 ology and Psychotherapy are necessary to instruct 
 the young physicians in the essentials of sexual life 
 and its morbid changes, in order to prepare the fu- 
 ture practitioner to deal effectively with these trou- 
 bles, heretofore erroneously looked upon as hope- 
 less. The next volumes in this Series will prove how 
 little the paraphilias are inborn and how much they 
 are the result of training and environment. But 
 what is formulated through faulty training may be 
 corrected by proper reeducation, even though the 
 hold of infantilism appears unconquerable. 
 
 I have called the paraphilias the struggle between 
 spinal cord and brain. They are, even more truly, 
 the Struggle of Child against Adult. For at bottom 
 these neuroses are but inf antilisms struggling for sur- 
 vival. The adult fights against the child; the adult 
 race, ripe for monosexuality, fights against its child- 
 hood manifesting itself in bisexuality and sadism. 
 The physician can see to it that the warfare is car- 
 ried on in humane fashion and with means worthy of 
 civilization. He can turn the hidden into an open
 
 316 The Homosexual Neurosis 
 
 warfare. It means overcoming the evil or that 
 which the moralists call evil by meeting it face to 
 face. 
 
 He who looks for more than a few words on the 
 subject of the prophylaxis of homosexuality and 
 onanism will be disappointed. I believe it is best 
 that we turn our attention to these themes only 
 when we are called upon to do so in our professional 
 capacity. I advise all parents and educators not to 
 watch whether a child masturbates or not. The child 
 quits the habit when it finds other ways for releasing 
 the tension. And our analyses have abundantly 
 shown us that it is almost impossible to prevent 
 masturbation. The evil effects produced upon the 
 child witnessing marital bickerings, the household 
 inspiration it receives with regard to judgment-feel- 
 ings about women and men, the decisive manner in 
 which parents affect it when they transfer their con- 
 flicts on the child, these capital facts the life his- 
 tories of homosexuals given above illustrate very 
 clearly for any one willing to look squarely at the 
 truth. We do not as yet appreciate how careful we 
 must be in our relations with the children. Our edu- 
 cators are still guilty of a serious blunder when they 
 conceive their duty to be to instill goodness in the 
 child through the instrumentality of fear. There are 
 only two educational levers: one's own example and 
 love. The healthiest children come from happy 
 marriages. It is love that determines whether a mar-
 
 Prophylaxis 317 
 
 riage shall be a happy one and whether the offspring 
 will be healthy or weak. The unconscious sexual in- 
 stinct, manifesting itself in love is the guide for the 
 regeneration of the human race. 9 Social conditions 
 favoring early love marriages are the only social re- 
 form to which I look for results. . . . 
 
 ' A new orientation in matters of sexual morality is on the 
 way in spite of tremendous opposition. I refer those inter- 
 ested to Eulenburg's excellent work, Moral und Sexualitat 
 (Verlag, Marcus & Webster, Bonn, 1916).
 
 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 Abstinence, 81, 191 
 Adult Love, 314 
 Age, 50 
 
 Aggressivity, 283 
 Ahasuerus-Type, 214 
 Alcoholism, 27, 69, 178, 183 
 Ambisexuality, 12 
 Anal Eroticism, 245 
 Anamnesis (of H.), 231 
 Anger, 69, 120, 152 
 Antagonism, 94, 304 
 Anxiety, 15, 164, 178 
 neurosis, 28, 76, 191 
 Asocial (Cravings), 194 
 Associations, 250 
 Association-Therapy, 307 
 Atavism, 162, 297 
 Attachment (to Father), 182 
 Autism, 173 
 Aversion, 29, 31, 57, 97 
 
 Bipolarity, 157, 206, 218, 265, 
 
 283 
 Bisexuality, 12, 296 
 
 Censorship, 267 
 Christianity, 301 
 Compromise, 189, 290 
 Compulsion Neurosis, 192 
 Conflict, Psychic, 311 
 
 Psychology of, 93 
 Confusion States, 176 
 Conscience, 144 
 Coprophilia, 247 
 Cravings, 180 
 Creative Energy, 296 
 Crime Passionelle, 23, 158 
 
 Criminality, 13, 18 pacsim, 20, 
 70, 133, 138, 144, 151, 157, 
 187 
 
 Culture, 159 
 
 Cunnilingus, 209, 216 
 
 Day Dreaming, 138 
 Defence of Jealousy, 123 
 Degeneration Theory, 282, 296 
 
 passim 
 Delusion of Jealousy, 161 
 
 vs. Reality, 177 
 Depression, 96, 104, 187 
 Differentiation, Sexual, 294 
 Disgust, 15, 21, 29, 62, 63, 
 
 207 
 
 Dorian Love, 300 
 Dreams, 82, 131 passim, 176, 
 
 240, 247, 254 passim, 267, 
 
 269, 271, 277 
 Drinkers' Jealousy, 183 
 Drug Addiction, 176, 178 
 Dyspareunia, 18, 95 
 Dyspnoea, 72 
 
 Egoism, 291 
 Elektra, 195 
 Engrams, 295 
 Epilepsy, 22 passim 
 Ethics, Sexual, 317 
 
 Family, Love of, 91 
 Fancies, Homosexual, 247, 
 
 253 
 
 Father Complex, 227 
 Father Imago, 35, 36, 39, 49, 
 
 61 passim, 77, 283 
 
 319
 
 320 
 
 Index of Subjects 
 
 Fear, 57, 62, 67 
 
 of Sexual Partner, 15 pas- 
 sim, 17, 20, 38 
 
 of Women. 286 
 Feeling Attitude, 216 
 Fellatio, 73, 247 
 Fetichism, 44 
 Fixation, 47, 70, 79, 81 
 
 Emotional, 223 
 Flight Reflex, 234 
 
 Greek Love, 82 passim 
 Guilty Conscience, 296 
 Guilt, Feeling of, 207 
 
 Hair Symbolism, 262 
 Hatred, 19, 38, 79, 80, 103, 
 
 132, 134, 145, 273, 289, 
 
 304 
 Hermaphroditism, Unilateral, 
 
 297 
 
 Heterosexuality, 269 
 Horror Feminae, 14 
 Hypnosis, 306 
 Hysteria, 22 
 
 Identification, 49, 103, 110 
 Impotentia, 40, 69 
 Inability to Love, 289 
 Inbreeding, 297 
 Incest Phantasy, 33, 105, 146, 
 155, 181, 187, 194, 222, 
 265 
 
 Infantile Attitude, 283, 292, 
 295 
 
 Reminiscences, 286 
 
 Sexual Theory, 211, 246 
 Infantilism, 44, 133, 220 
 Inferiority, Feeling of, 229 
 Insanity, 156, 158 
 
 Fear of, 176, 177 
 
 Periodic, 176 
 
 Intermediate Sex Theory, 217 
 Inversion, 41, 43, 49 
 
 Jealousy, 76, 102, 109, 127 
 passim, 131 135, 156, 292 
 Judaism, 299 
 
 Late Homosexuality, 50 
 Latent Criminality, 137 
 
 Homosexuality, 296, 308 
 Law of Substitution, 89, 90 
 Libido, 29, 44, 260 
 Love, 157 
 
 Attitude, 295 
 
 Masochism, 207 
 Masturbation, 16, 55, 64, 66, 
 
 155, 230, 245 
 Maternal Body Phantasy 
 
 268, 272 
 
 Melancholia, 118 
 Monogamy, 303 
 Monosexuality, 187 passim, 
 
 299 
 
 Monotheism, Sexual, 193 
 Mother Imago, 34, 41, 49, 89, 
 
 144, 146 
 
 Mother-in-Law, 118 
 Motherhood, 95 
 Motivations, 159 
 
 Narcissism, 47, 48, 91, 269, 
 
 291 
 
 Neurasthenia, 72 
 Neurosis, Epileptic, 27 
 Non-Conscious H., 117 
 
 Oedipus, 195 
 Ontogenesis, 156, 281 
 Orgasm, 63 
 Overcleanliness, 266 
 Over-valuation (of Manli- 
 ness), 217, 295 
 
 Pansexualism, 193 
 Paranoia, 156, 163, 166, 190 
 Paraphilia, 200, 219 
 Pederasty, Epileptic, 26 
 "Penetrating Eye" Symbolism, 
 
 61 
 
 Permanence of H., 46 
 Persecution, Delusion of, 159, 
 
 171, 192 
 Philogenesis, 156, 281
 
 Index of Subjects 
 
 321 
 
 Philosophy, 39 
 Polar iension, 293, 303 
 Pollution Symbolism, 259 
 Precocity, Sexual, 291 
 Primordial Hatred, 282 
 Progression, 297 
 Projection, Psychic, 159 
 Prophylaxis, 316 
 Protection, 80 
 Pseudo-Heterosexuality, 14 
 Psychoanalysis, 139, 146, 170, 
 
 176, 200, 208, 284, 310 
 Psychogenesis of H., 105, 181, 
 
 280, 298 
 Paranoia, 171 
 
 Psychosexual Infantilism, 148 
 Psychosis, 156 
 Puella Publics, 194 
 Purity, 105 
 
 Querrulants, 172 
 
 Rage, 19, 158 
 
 Regression, 90, 132, 163, 194, 
 
 195, 282, 292 
 Religion, 301 
 Reminiscences, 179 
 Repressed Sadism, 270 
 Repression, 34, 43, 49, 190, 
 
 194 
 
 Revenge Fancies, 169, 292 
 Revolt, 92 
 Rivalry, between Sexes, 293 
 
 Sadism, 38, 49, 69, 159, 161 
 
 passim, 200 
 Sadistic Trend, 177 
 Scatologic Fancies, 244, 246, 
 
 260 
 
 Scent, 46 
 Scorn, 15, 32 
 Self-Knowledge, 309 
 Self-Love, 284, 291 
 
 Pathologic, 193 
 
 Punishment, 135 
 
 Torture, 202 
 
 Servant Girl, 119 
 Severity, Parental, 220 
 Sexual Infantilism, 260 
 Sister Imago, 88 
 Social Abhorrence of H., 298 
 Specific Phantasy, 78 
 Spermatozoan Dream, 272 
 Spiritual Marriage, 166, 264 
 Sublimation, 88, 90 
 Submissiveness, 135 
 Suicide, 76 
 Supremacy, Struggle for, 220, 
 
 222 
 
 Symbolism, 44 
 Sympathetic Act, 111 
 
 Telepathy, 186 
 
 Tenderness, Craving for, 274 
 
 Parental, 220 
 Third Sex Theory, 15 
 Transposition, Emotional, 162 
 Transvestitism, 252, 296 
 Trauma, Psychic, 98 
 Tuberculosis, Symbolism of, 
 233 
 
 Uncertainty, 168 
 Unconscious, 160, 194 
 Uranism, 34, 189 
 Urlind, 95, 133, 195, 284 
 Urning, 14, 31, 33, 47, 48 
 
 passim, 194, 284 
 Urolagnia, 248 
 
 Voyeurism, 117 
 
 Vomiting, Symptomatic, 242 
 
 Warning, 105 
 
 Water Closet Symbolism, 244 
 
 passim 
 Wish, 207 
 
 Fulfillment, 111 
 
 Incestuous, 131, 133 
 
 Zoophily, 155
 
 INDEX OF NAMES 
 
 Adler, 15, 222, 285 
 Aristotle, 299 
 
 Beaussart, 155 
 Berg, 91, 92 passim 
 Bjerre, 170 
 Bloch, 14 
 Bethe, 300 passim 
 Burchard, 27 
 
 Dessoir, 303 
 Eulenburg, 21, 317 
 
 Fehlinger, 294 
 Fleischmann, 200, 206, 208 
 Freimark, 93 
 Freud, 156, 161, 213, 215, 310, 
 
 311 
 Fuchs, 306 
 
 Havelock Ellis, 220 
 
 Heine, 271 
 
 Hirschfeld, 11, 12 passim, 14, 
 21, 26, 27, 29, 30 passim, 
 48, 90, 95, 188 passim, 193, 
 296 passim, 297, 299 
 
 Ibsen, 89 
 Juliusburger, 159, 160 
 
 Kaffka, 233 
 Krafft-Ebing, 190 passim 
 
 Magnan, 296 
 Moll, 307 
 
 Nietzsche, 10, 11, 198, 199, 288, 
 289 
 
 Oppenheim, 161 
 
 Paul (Jean), 138 
 
 Platen, 43 
 
 Praetorius (Numa), 29 
 
 Raffalovich, 284 
 Rank, 90 
 
 Rochefoucauld, 108, 109, 154, 
 155 
 
 Sadger, 35 passim, 38, 39, 43, 
 
 45, 48, 71, 285 
 Schnitzler, 125 
 Schopenhauer, 52, 53 
 Schrenk-Notzing, 306 
 Schrecker, 229 
 
 Stekel, 200, 258, 264, 268, 290 
 Strindberg, 80 
 
 Tannenbaum, 125 
 Tarnowsky, 305 
 
 Van Teslaar, 18, 23, 90, 207, 
 258, 264, 268, 290 
 
 Weininger, 80 
 Ziemcke, 205 
 
 322
 
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