Page:Homo-sexual Life by William John Fielding (1925).pdf/6

 AUTO-SEXUALITY, as the term implies, means that an individual's sexual interest is turned upon himself. This condition is normal to infants. It also is more pronounced in primitive and savage tribes, and has its analogy, in more practical form, in the lower order of the animal and vegetable world in those species whose individuals are self-sufficient sexually.

These types, which are capable of reproducing their kind without depending for fertilization upon another individual of the same species, are called hermaphrodites. This latter term, in its real sense, means combining the sexual organs of the two sexes.

There are some human beings—variants—who possess hermaphrodite characteristics, usually combining the more or less completely developed organs of one sex with the rudimentary organs of the opposite sex.

These hermaphrodite characters are not without their significance—namely, the innate bisexuality of man. While in the normal person, the attributes of one sex are dominant, there are always present in latent form some evidences of the opposite sex. This is no new discovery. In fact the concept of bisexuality is very ancient. Traces of it are to be found in Chinese mythology. The classical Greek mind seems to have had a particular interest in speculating about it. The mythical personification of bisexuality in the Hermaphroditos, the narrative of Aristophanes in the Platonic dialogue, and at a later period the  suggestion of a Gnostic sect (Theophites) that primitive man was a "man-woman," are all based on this pre-