Page:Homo-sexual Life by William John Fielding (1925).pdf/11

 cive to proper sublimation of his primitive sexual tendencies, and particularly if his libido is not excessive, he may scarcely be conscious of his homosexual impulses. On the other hand, if he is endowed with an unusually strong hereditary sexual constitution, or if the repression and sublimation have been faulty in his upbringing, the homosexual tendencies may reflect themselves in various ways in his conscious attitudes.

It should be borne in mind that there is no abrupt line of demarcation between these stages of development. They overlap, and some of each of them, even the most primitive and infantile, are carried over in the unconscious mind throughout adult life. In the normal, well-adjusted adult, there are still extant rudiments of the previous stages of the emotional and affective life, just as the body contains vestiges of the bisexual organism, from which it evolved in the early weeks of intrauterine life.

The predominant homosexual element or primitive emotional character asserts itself in various typical forms that are apparent to those informed upon the subject. In this connection, Bousfield states: "Cruelty on the part of boys at school (bullying) is nearly always a sexual manifestation which, like homosexuality, should be only a passing phase, which is later repressed into the unconscious. The monks who denied themselves sexual intercourse, but found pleasure in flogging themselves or others, form an example of the way that sexual energy, when denied its normal course, finds a more primitive outlet. A schoolmaster with repressed and unconscious homosexuality will often be