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46 teach him? It might equally be sought to prove that the sexual inclination of a normal man for a normal woman was an unnatural, acquired habit—a habit, as some ancient writers have suggested, that arose from some accidental discovery of its agreeable nature. Just as a normal man discovers for himself what a woman is, so also, in the case of a sexual "invert" the attraction exercised on him by a person of his own sex is a normal product of his development from his birth. Naturally the opportunity must come in which the individual may put in practice his desire for inverted sexuality, but the opportunity will be taken only when his natural constitution has made the individual ready for it. That sexual abstinence (to take the second supposed cause of inversion) should result in anything more than masturbation may be explained by the supposition that inversion is acquired, but that it should be coveted and eagerly sought can only happen when the demand for it is rooted in the constitution. In the same fashion normal sexual attraction might be said to be an acquired character, if it could be proved definitely that, to fall in love, a normal man must first see a woman or a picture of a woman. Those who assert that sexual inversion is an acquired character, are making a merely incidental or accessory factor responsible for the whole constitution of an organism.

There is little reason for saying that sexual inversion is acquired, and there is just as little for regarding it as inherited from parents or grandparents. Such an assertion, it is true, has not been made, and seems contrary to all experience; but it has been suggested that it is clue to a neuropathic diathesis, and that general constitutional weakness is to be found in the descendants of those who have displayed sexual inversion. In fact sexual inversion has usually been regarded as psycho-pathological, as a symptom of degeneration, and those who exhibit it have been considered as physically unfit. This view, however, is falling into disrepute, especially as Krafft-Ebing, its principal champion, abandoned it in the later editions of his work.