[182] Homosexual women, like homosexual men, now insert advertisements in the newspapers, seeking a “friend.”  Naecke ("Zeitungsannoncen von weiblichen Homosexuellen,” Archiv fuer Kriminal-Anthropologie, 1902, p. 225) brought together from Munich newspapers a collection of such advertisements, most of which were fairly unambiguous:  “Actress with modern ideas desires to know rich lady with similar views, for the sake of friendly relations, etc.;” “Young lady of 19, a pretty blonde, seeks another like herself for walks, theatre, etc.,” and so on.

CHAPTER V.

THE NATURE OF SEXUAL INVERSION.

Analysis of Histories—­Race—­Heredity—­General Health—­First Appearance of
Homosexual Impulse—­Sexual Precocity and Hyperesthesia—­Suggestion and
Other Exciting Causes of Inversion—­Masturbation—­Attitude Toward
Women—­Erotic Dreams—­Methods of Sexual Relationship—­Pseudo-sexual
Attraction—­Physical Sexual Abnormalities—­Artistic and Other
Aptitudes—­Moral Attitude of the Invert.

Before stating briefly my own conclusions as to the nature of sexual inversion, I propose to analyze the facts brought out in the histories which I have been able to study.[183]

RACE.—­All my cases, 80 in number, are British and American, 20 living in the United States and the rest being British.  Ancestry, from the point of view of race, was not made a matter of special investigation.  It appears, however, that at least 44 are English or mainly English; at least 10 are Scotch or of Scotch extraction; 2 are Irish and 4 others largely Irish; 4 have German fathers or mothers; another is of German descent on both sides, while 2 others are of remote German extraction; 2 are partly, and 1 entirely, French; 2 have a Portuguese strain, and at least 2 are more or less Jewish.  Except the apparently frequent presence of the German element, there is nothing remarkable in this ancestry.

HEREDITY.—­It is always difficult to deal securely with the significance of heredity, or even to establish a definite basis of facts.  I have by no means escaped this difficulty, for in some cases I have not even had an opportunity of cross-examining the subjects whose histories I have obtained.  Still, the facts, so far as they emerge, have some interest.  I possess some record of heredity in 62 of my cases.  Of these, not less than 24, or in the proportion of nearly 39 per cent., assert that they have reason to believe that other cases of inversion have occurred in their families, and, while in some it is only a strong suspicion, in others there is no doubt whatever.  In one case there is reason to suspect inversion on both sides.  Usually the inverted relatives have been brothers, sisters, cousins, or uncles.  In one case a bisexual son seems to have had a bisexual father.