most cases, however, it seems to me that homosexual dreams in normal persons may be simply explained as due to the ordinary confusion and transition of dream imagery. (See Ellis, The World of Dreams, especially ch. ii.)

Methods of Sexual Relationship.—­The exact mode in which an inverted instinct finds satisfaction is frequently of importance from the medico-legal standpoint;[198] from a psychological standpoint it is of minor significance, being chiefly of interest as showing the degree to which the individual has departed from the instinctive feelings of his normal fellow-beings.

Taking 57 inverted men of whom I have definite knowledge, I find that 12, restrained by moral or other considerations, have never had any physical relationship with their own sex.  In some 22 cases the sexual relationship rarely goes beyond close physical contact and fondling, or at most mutual masturbation and intercrural intercourse.  In 10 or 11 cases fellatio (oral excitation)—­frequently in addition to some form of mutual masturbation, and usually, though not always, as the active agency—­is the form preferred.  In 14 cases, actual pedicatio[199]—­usually active, not passive—­has been exercised.  In these cases, however, pedicatio is by no means always the habitual or even the preferred method of gratification.  It seems to be the preferred method in about 7 cases.  Several who have never experienced it, including some who have never practised any form of physical relationship, state that they feel no objection to pedicatio; some have this feeling in regard to active, others in regard to passive, pedicatio.  The proportion of inverts who practise or have at some time experienced pedicatio thus revealed (nearly 25 per cent.) is large; in Germany Hirschfeld finds it to be only 8 per cent., and Merzbach only 6.  I believe, however, that a wider induction from a larger number of English and American cases would yield a proportion much nearer to that found in Germany.[200]

PSEUDOSEXUAL ATTRACTION.—­It is sometimes supposed that in homosexual relationships one person is always active, physically and emotionally, the other passive.  Between men, at all events, this is very frequently not the case, and the invert cannot tell if he feels like a man or like a woman.  Thus, one writes:—­

“In bed with my friend I feel as he feels, and he feels as I feel.  The result is masturbation, and nothing more or desire for more on my part.  I get it over, too, as soon as possible, in order to come to the best—­sleeping arms round each other, or talking so.”

It remains true, however, that there may usually be traced what it is possible to call pseudosexual attraction, by which I mean a tendency for the invert to be attracted toward persons unlike himself, so that in his sexual relationships there is a certain semblance of sexual opposition.  Numa Praetorius considers that in homosexuality the attraction of opposites—­the attraction for soldiers and other primitive vigorous types—­plays a greater part than among normal lovers.[201] This pseudosexual attraction is, however, as Hirschfeld points out,[202] and as we see by the Histories here presented, by no means invariable.