Page:Symonds - A Problem in Modern Ethics.djvu/138



conclusions to which I am led by this enquiry into sexual inversion are that its several manifestations may be classified under the following categories: (1) Forced abstinence from intercourse with females, or faute de mieux; (2) Wantonness and curious seeking after novel pleasure; (3) Pronounced morbidity; (4) Inborn instinctive preference for the male and indifference to the female sex; (5) Epochs of history when the habit has become established and endemic in whole nations.

Under the first category we group the phenomena presented by schools, prisons, convents, ships, garrisons in solitary stations, nomadic tribes of marauding conquerors.

To the second belong those individuals who amuse themselves with experiments in sensual pleasure, men jaded with ordinary sexual indulgence, and indifferent voluptuaries. It is possible that something morbid or abnormal usually marks this class.

To the third we assign clear cases of hereditary malady, in which a want of self-control is prominent, together with sufferers from nervous lesion, wounds,