Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/338

320 2. The homo-sexual instinct, as long as inversio sexualis has not taken place, is looked upon, by the individual affected, as vicious and abnormal, and yielded to only faute de mieux.

3. The hetero-sexual instinct long remains predominant, and the impossibility of its satisfaction gives pain. It weakens in proportion as the homo-sexual feeling gains in strength.

On the other hand, in congenital cases (a) the homo-sexual instinct is the one that occurs primarily, and becomes dominant in the vita sexualis. It appears as the natural manner of satisfaction, and also dominates the dream-life of the individual. (b) The hetero-sexual instinct fails completely, or, if it should make its appearance during the life of the individual (psycho-sexual hermaphroditism), it is still but an episodical phenomenon which has no root in the mental constitution of the individual, and is essentially but a means of satisfaction of sexual desire.

The differentiation of the above groups of congenital contrary sexuality from one another, and from the cases in which the anomaly is acquired, will, after the foregoing, present no difficulties.

The prognosis of the cases of acquired contrary sexual instinct is, at all events, much more favorable than that of the congenital cases. In the former, the occurrence of effemination—the mental inversion of the individual, in the sense of perverse sexual feeling—is the limit beyond which there is no longer hope of benefit from therapy. In the congenital cases, the various categories established in this book form as many stages of psycho-sexual taint, and benefit is probable only within the category of the psychical hermaphrodites, though possible (vide the case of Schrenk-Notzing) in that of the urnings.

The prophylaxis of these conditions becomes thus the more important,—for the congenital cases, prohibition of the reproduction of such unfortunates; for the acquired cases, protection from the injurious influences which experience teaches may lead to the fatal inversion of the sexual instinct.

Numerous predisposed individuals meet this sad fate, because parents and teachers have no suspicion of the danger which masturbation brings in its train to such children.