Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/452

 of a refined type—socially, physically or psychically—or would joyfully marry the wife worthy respect as well as love, must often content himself with the embraces of female prostitutes or by trivial liaisons. Exactly such is the case with thousands of Uranians. The sexual physique claims appeasement. What dangers are run, personally, socially and legally, by intimacies with low-grade homosexual acquaintances, we will presently see. But when a starving man cannot get appetizing viands, he will eat moulded bread; if he cannot find clean water for his long thirst, he drinks of a brackish, fetid springs. The superiour Uranian, tormented in body, turns to vulgar and utterly unæsthetic elements, buys the street-pederast, surrenders to the obscene; and therewith mixes in the strangest, (often the most dangerous) cross-currents of the democracy of Uranianism.

The proportion of homosexual prostitution in many capitals is notably large. In London, Paris, Berlin, Naples, New York it is an armée de vice. Berlin's male prostitution is calculated at 20 per-cent of the whole prostitution of the city. In 1909, an official Commission in Paris reported a startling percentage of habitual prostitution by minor youths under eighteen years, including a vast proportion of small boys—eleven, twelve and thirteen years old, or even younger. The adult male prostitutes were stated to be thousands; a formidable rivalry to the female battalions. The Eighth Chamber of the Paris Police Tribunal, in the Palais de Justice, deals with dozens of flagrant cases each week, such offenders being the special charge of the tribunal named. According to such students of the topic in France as MM. Berenger, Joly, Prévost, Meunier, Bourdon and Brun, male prostitution, especially by minor youth—younger or older—"is alarmingly increasing in Paris."