THREE ESSAYS ON SEXUALITY I. THE SEXUAL ABERRATIONS tstinct. This second view is based on the following conside his sexual instinct attached to a particular sexual object. In the latter case it may be questioned whether the various accidental In the case of many inverts, even absolut t influences would be sufficient to explain the acquisition of in- ossible to show that very carly in their lives a sexual impression version without the co-operation of something in the subject occurred which left a permanent after-effect in the shape of a himself. As we have already shown, the existence of this las tendency to homosexuality. factor is not to be denied (2) In the case of many others, it is possible to point to external influences in their lives, whether of a favourable or BISEXUALITy A fresh contradiction of popular views is in- inhibiting character, which have led sooner or later to a fixation volved in the considerations put forward by of their inversion( Such influences are exclusive relations with Lydston [1889], Kiernan [1 evaller [893] persons of their own sex, comradeship in war, detention in endeavour to account for the possibility of sexual inversion. It prison, the dangers of heterosexual intercourse, celibacy, sexual is popularly believed that a human being is either a man or a (3)Inversion can be removed by hypnotic suggestion, which characters are obscured, and in which it is consequently diff would be astonishing in an innate characteristic cult to determine the sex. This arises in the first instance in the In view of these considerations it is even possible field of anatomy. The genitals of the individuals concerned the very existence of such a thing as innate inversion combine male and female characteristics. ( This condition is argued(cf. Havelock Ellis [1915])that, if the cases of of their early childhood would probably come to light which apparatus are found side by side fully developed(true her. maphroditism); but far more frequently both sets of organs are had a determining effect upon the direction taken by their rophied condition libido. This experience would simply have passed out of the subject,'s conscious recollection, but could be recalled to his s The importance of these abnormalities lies in the unexpected act that they facilitate our understanding of normal develop- uence In the opinion of these ment For it appears that a certain degree of anatomical writers inversion can only be described as a frequent variation hermaphroditism occurs normally. In every normal male of the sexual instinct, which can be determined by a number of female individual, traces are found of the apparatus of the external circumstances in the subject's life pposite sex. These either t without function The apparent certainty of this conclusion is, however, com- nentary organs or become modified and take on other functions pletely countered by the reflection that many people These long-familiar facts of anatomy lead us to suppose that jected to the same sexual influences(e.g to seduction or mutual an originally bisexual physical disposition has, in the course of ation, which evolution, become modified into a unisexual one, leaving behind coming inverted or without remaining so permanently. We only a few traces of the sex that has become atrophied are therefore forced to a suspicion that the choice between It was tempting to extend this hypothesis to the mental innate'andacquired' is not an exclusive one or that it does sphere and to explain inversion in all its varieties as the expres- not cover all the issues involved in inversion sion of a psychical hermaphroditism. All that was required further in order to settle the question was that inversion should The nature of inversion is explained nei be regularly accompanied by the mental and somatic signs of OF INvERSion by the hypothesis that it is innate nor by the former case we must ask in what respect it is innate, unless we a For the most recent descriptions of somatic hermaphroditism, se Taruffi(1903), and numerous papers by Neugebauer are to accept the crude explanation that everyone is born wit volumes of the Jahrbuch fur sexuelle wisch