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 HOMO-SEXUALITY AND PEDERASTY

The law of Sexual Attraction gives the long-sought-for explanation of sexual inversion, of sexual inclination towards members of the same sex, whether or no that be accompanied by aversion from members of the opposite sex. Without reference to a distinction which I shall deal with later on, I may say at once that it is exceedingly probable that, in all cases of sexual inversion, there will be found indications of the anatomical characters of the other sex. There is no such thing as a genuine "psycho-sexual hermaphroditism"; the men who are sexually attracted by men have outward marks of effeminacy, just as women of a similar disposition to those of their own sex exhibit male characters. That this should be so is quite intelligible if we admit the close parallelism between body and mind, and further light is thrown upon it by the facts explained in the second chapter of this book; the facts as to the male or female principle not being uniformly present all over the same body, but distributed in different amounts in different organs. In all cases of sexual inversion, there is invariably an anatomical approximation to the opposite sex.

Such a view is directly opposed to that of those who would maintain that sexual inversion is an acquired character, and one that has superseded normal sexual impulses. Schrenk-Notzing, Kraepelin, and Féré are amongst those writers who have urged the view that sexual inversion is an acquired habit, the result of abstinence from normal intercourse and particularly induced by example. But what about the first offender? Did the god