Human sexuality: biology, psychology, and social dimensions

¶ … homosexual practices might have begun in the early centuries, the word "sodomy" was first used by a Catholic missionary, now a saint, Father Peter Damien around 1050. By sodomy, he meant masturbation and anal intercourse between men, a sin he condemned as the most perverse of sexual sins in his long letter to the Pope, entitled "the Book of Gomorrah." He emphasized that God designed sex exclusively for procreation and that the enjoyment of the sexual act outside this divine purpose was unnatural and therefore summarily grievously and wickedly sinful.

The unnaturalness of sodomy remained more or less the same through the centuries, till the 1700s when the so-called modern homosexual subcultures made themselves visible in London, Paris and Amsterdam. The rest soon perceived them as "sodomites (who were merely) ... constitutionally different from other men" (Wikholm 1999) and effeminate woman-haters who refused to have sex with women. Things were to evolve further for them 150 years later.

Doctors of those times came to adopt the term "homosexual" to refer to this class of men, whom, in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's belief, must have developed this mental illness, among others, from degenerative genes of their parents. Sigmund Freud, however, suggested that the subculture must be due to a defective upbringing of children. His followers, though, believed that homosexuality is a very serious mental disease, even a "severe personality disorder" (Wikholm).Others offered the opinions that such men's emotions were infantile and thus rendered them incapable of love; that homosexuality is extreme self-admiration or narcissism; or "injustice collectors." (Wikholm). Though making its reality felt, homosexuality in those times was generally camouflaged.

The first to publicly acknowledge his gender preference was Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a German jurist, in 1864. Ulrichs published 12 pamphlets in defense of homosexuals whom he called "Urnings," or men who are attracted to other men. At first, he used the pseudonym Numa Numantius until he sufficiently revealed his identity in 1868. Ulrichs advanced the cause of Urningism and opposed Paragraph 175, a law that prohibited sex between men (Wikholm), through his pamphlets. Doctors of the period immediately rejected his campaign and frowned at Urnings as "diseased creatures." So widespread was the rejection that even Ulrichs' own fans withdrew open support from him and he had to live as an exile in an Italian village to the end of his life.

The term "homosexual" was first used by writer Karl Maria Kertbeny for the technical classification of people's sexual types (Wikholm). Heterosexuals were men who are attracted to women (and vice versa), monosexualists are masturbators, and pygists are devotees of anal intercourse. He named many other categories of other sexual orientations and practices, and believed that these variations were genetically determined. He used this argument to oppose Paragraph 175 and other laws against sex between men but to no avail. Doctors, including Richard von Krafft-Ebing, even borrowed his term in their diagnostic work on mental illness.

Another German, a physician, professor and editor, Karl Westphal, wrote an article which identified homosexuality in both sexes in 1869. He considered the condition a psychiatric disorder and assumed that such men and women who desired members of their own sex as possessing "contrary sexual feeling" or sexual inversion (Wikholm 1998). Like other physicians, he assumed that the condition was part of or associated with a mental illness. He also described such women as masculine-looking and such men as effeminate, believing the cause to be congenital (Wikholm). He likewise opposed the passage of Paragraph 175 and instead suggested, medical treatment for these men and women with sexual inversion.

Paragraph 175 was nonetheless passed and adopted in 1871 in the newly unified German kingdoms (which we now call Germany) under King William I. This law, which forbade sex between men was part of Prussia's native and conservative code imposed on all the German states in place of liberal laws based on the Napoleonic Code before the unification (Wikholm).

The theories and views of Ulrichs and BA Morel, a French physician, were incorporated by Richard von Krafft-Ebing into his book, Psychopathia Sexualis, in 1886. He borrowed Ulrichs' term, Urnings, but not his belief that homosexual desire was natural or healthy. Krafft-Ebing instead built on Morel's disease theory on degenerate heredity, setting forth that most homosexuals were mentally ill and their illnesses were genetically caused (Wikholm). His book both took pity on these "unfortunate effeminates" and also denigrated them as "cultivated pederasts" -- men believed to have been born heterosexual but grew up with homosexual preferences for the pleasure of sexual perversion. His theory was the prevalent belief in this respect until Sigmund Freud came up with his own view in the early 20th century.

The sexual inversion theory went on and became the subject of the first edition of a book an Englishman, Havelock Ellis, in 1896 as Das Kontrare Geschlechtsgefuhle in Leipzig, Germany. English publishers refused to publish it out of fear. Ellis was not himself an invert, but his book gave inverts a sort of mouthpiece, whereby they could speak and be heard. He insisted that sexual inversion was not a disease, but only a congenital variation. He rejected the combined theories of Ulrichs, Westphal and Hirschfeld that male inverts were effeminate, but that they were as variable as "normal heterosexual" men, based on case studies he conducted and presented in his book.

Because he was an objective and systematic thinker and not an invert himself, he soon gained respect as an American publisher without gaining the unpopularity of Freud, a contemporary in the field.

In the same year of the publication of Ellis' book, a book entitled Uranisme et Unisexualite was also published in France and which immediately earned the repulsion of French physicians. The author, Marc Andre Raffalovich, a Russian Jewish brought up in France, railed against the unfounded, erroneous and ridiculous medical opinion on sexual inversion, i.e., "male inverts are effeminate degenerates." (Wikholm) He introduced his own terminology, "unisexuality," to mean sexual attraction between men.

While he was known to have maintained "unisexual" friends, he was particularly touchy about his friendship with a John Gray, supposed to be a former lover of American poet Oscar Wilde. Raffalovich was especially sensitive about congenital unisexuals' being described as effeminate, reasoning that:

"Effeminacy ... is usually a sign that a man had taken up inverted practices out of debauchery and isn't really a congenital unisexual."(Wikholm)

Havelock Ellis significantly influenced Raffalovich, whose thought was introduced by Raffalovich into French medical literature. But his works were objects of derision at the French medical sectors, unlike his model Ellis' work, Uranisme et Unisexualite, which was well received.

The Sexology Movement came to a head the following year with the founding of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee by another German physician and sex researcher, a homosexual. Magnus Hirschfeld wrote books and other publications that made him a leading figures in sexology, especially when he opened the world's first sexological school, the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Through his Institute, he fought very hard for the repeal of Paragraph 175, but failed. His career was to reach its peak in the third decade of the 20th century and to be recognized by the American press as a "great sex expert." But rumors that he was involved in the selling of useless patent medicines and that his obtaining money from known German homosexuals for his cause but through extortion. (Wikholm)

He was a supporter of Karl Ulrichs but was never a scientific and honest thinker. He maintained that homosexuality is a matter of hormones, and led others to use hormone injections to "cure" homosexuality. The Nazis destroyed his Institute in 1933 while he escaped to France as an exile and died there two years later.(Wikholm)

Homosexual or unisexual relationships were also known to have spilled over to or found in circles of literary greats in the United States and Europe in the late 19th century. One of them is acknowledged a great American poet after his time, as he was also an object of controversy in his time. (Wikholm). His most significant work, "Leaves of Grass," published in 1855, was a celebration of sensuality and intimate friendship with the common man. It contained verses about the bodily senses, sweat and "father-juice" that strongly hinted at his same-gender relationships, which he kept secret. He was said to have had a sexual relationship with a Peter Doyle.

His book was accepted and praised for its vision of a classless American society and focus on America's working class. But those who looked more closely found intimations of something else behind the "comradely love" Whitman professed. These critics sensed darker motives and avenues, perhaps bordering on the peccatum illud horribile, inter-Christianos non-nominandum (the horrible sin not to be named among Christians). (Wikholm)

Whitman explained "comradely love" as consisting only of "physical intimacies" when he was asked by an English devotee. Whitman expressed outrage for the "morbid inference" and subtle suspicion, which he considered "condemnable." Notwithstanding his denials and repugnance towards homosexuality, admirers like Edward Carpenter and some members of the Gemeinschaft der Eigene applied "love of comrades" as erotic terminology. (Wikholm)

One other literary great to have been associated with homosexuality was the Irish-born but London-educated playwright Oscar Wilde, who espoused the aesthetic movement. This movement was directed by its creed, "art for art's sake," and Wilde observed this norm in his whole life, which he lived in "sophistication and good taste." He attracted and married Constance Lloyd and they had two sons and worked as editor of The Woman's World magazine in 1886. He met and had a relationship with an admirer, an Oxford student, Robbie Ross. Wilde wrote a successful play, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," after one of his lovers. He then went to Paris for his play, "Lady Windemere's Fan." where he was received as an eventful visitor of the French literati. When he returned to London for the presentation of his play, he met another Oxford student, the young, lean and good-looking Lord Alfred Douglas (or Bossie) in 1891. It was an intense and indiscriminate sexual relationship between two spendthrifts who maintained and shared a number of teen-age male prostitutes who were police characters. Neither Wilde nor Bossie cared about their records, but the openness of their affairs eventually got them into trouble with the law and with Bossie's father, the Marquess of Queensbury. Wilde's passionately written letters to Bossie were carelessly given to one of his prostitutes (called "renters") who extracted blackmail money for them and which Wilde paid (Wikholm). That should have solved the problem, but one letter went all the way through London and into the hands of the Marquess. Bossie, who demanded a break-up between the two. But Bossie hated his father and instead instigated a court battle between his father and his love, Wilde. Eventually, Wilde was convicted for gross indecency particularly as a sodomite to male prostitutes.

Wilde retains the distinction as a literary image of homosexuals "as urbane sophisticates." His court trials, convictions and prison terms even led him to become a symbol and inspiration for homosexuals all over the world to continue fighting for their emancipation in society. (Wikholm). One such inspired supporter was Magnus Hirschfeld.

As established earlier, sexologists of the period -- from Ulrichs to Krafft-Ebing -- contended that "most men were born 'normal' or 'heterosexual', but that male inverts inherit female characteristics that lead him to be sexually attracted to other males" (Wikholm). But Sigmund Freud of Freiberg (now Pribor, Czech Republic) rejected the theory and introduced another which "invented sexuality" itself (Wikholm). He suggested that sexuality was different from the individual's gender, but that inherited sexual characteristics and the person's gender preference were two different and separate matters.

Freud held that everyone is born polymorphously perverse or possessing sexual desires capable of being drawn to a particular gender or object. Since most individuals are trained or oriented into preferring the opposite sex, most people are heterosexual. "It is a person's childhood experiences that direct their sex drive towards the opposite or same sex." Freud expressed this thinking in his "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality," published in 1905.

In his essays, Freud expressed no repulsion towards homosexuals and was not convinced that they could be cured or changed. Nonetheless, he continued using labels like "perversions' and "aberrations" on same-sex sexuality. He also offered hints to parents on how they can direct their children to become heterosexually adjusted individuals. (Wikholm)

Freud likewise disagreed that homosexuals were necessarily feminine or effeminate. A boy, according to him, may grow up looking masculine or feminine but his sexual orientation or desire may go another direction. He believed it was all a matter of upbringing. But the social effects this humane understanding of "perverts," "unisexuals," and "inverts" by the recognized Father of Psychoanalysis were to dissipate in the 50s.

In the meantime, another German physician and researcher, Eugen Steinach, in 1912, transplanted male guinea pig sex glands into females and vice versa, which suggested that the gland contained hormones that could be responsible for homosexuality. (Wikholm) At the end of his experiment, the male guinea pigs developed female sexual behavior (inviting copulation) and the female guinea pigs behaved as male in getting on other female guinea pigs. These secretions were the male testosterone and the female estrogen. It was also discovered that injections of testosterone could only intensify desire but not direct sexual orientation. His subsequent experiments on biological sexuality soon turned useless, except for his methods in sexual rejuvenation.

Other practitioners in his field tried other techniques, including shock, castration and lobotomy, to wipe out homosexuality, but all efforts failed. This occurred while Freud's psychoanalysis became popular and more responsive (1930) to the homosexual question, and it was not until much later (in the 70s and 80s) that interest in biological theories would be renewed, and this time, in "gay brains" and "gay genes." (Wikholm)

On Christmas Eve of 1924, Henry Gerber, an invert, received a charter from the State of Illinois for a non-profit organization, which he founded. It was the Society for Human Rights, the first to be formally organized homosexual organization in the United States. (Wikholm). It also published "Friendship and Freedom," the first for gays in America. It was, however, short-lived, after the wife of one of its members complained to the police and the police found papers of the Society. It was closed down after only a few months.

Hirschfeld's Scientific Humanitarian Committee inspired Gerber to organize this Society in his sustained fight against homosexual oppression in America. He did not foresee that the police would be so strict as that, nor that his followers would not be as enduring and unsupportive of his efforts. In the 40s, he communicated with Manuel Boyfrank who relished the same motivation but Gerber advised him against putting up such an organization and emphasized that Boyfrank's grass-root ideal would make sense only among the "better sort of homosexuals." (Wikholm)

Female inverts, or lesbians, made their own fervent call for recognition. In 1928, Radclyffe Hall, an English writer, published her book, the Well of Loneliness, which was automatically and consistently considered obscene and banned as well as seized by the authorities, although it had no sex scene at all. Hall's characters appealed for acceptance if not pity for their existence. The publisher was charged with obscenity and lost. A New York court ruled that it "tends to debauch public morals." But these court suits precisely made the book saleable in Hall's lifetime (1 million copies sold), even getting translated into several languages.

"The Well of Loneliness" was about a girl born to a wealthy family named Stephen due to her boyish manners. Her father discovered she was an invert but kept it secret from Stephen. Stephen became a successful novelist, met and fell in love with Mary and they lived together in harmony (Wikholm). They would frequent the bars and cabarets where they found refuge with those like themselves. But their escape is momentary and Stephen soon felt sorry and guilty towards Mary for leading her to share this lonely existence. Stephen decided to set Mary free to marry a friend by killing herself. Before she performed this sacrifice, she prayed to God for "the right to (their) existence."

There were varying reactions to the book when first published. Some secret inverts met through it. Some felt a kind of release and fulfillment, while others felt offended by the apologetic manner with which Stephen asked to be recognized by the world. Henry Gerber thought it was detestable and was a supreme anti-homosexual propaganda. The worst criticism hurled at Hall was her showing both male and female homosexuals are "tragic, alcoholic and suicide-prone" -- pathetic figures which these critics swore they were not.

The struggle for social acceptance and for their place in this world continued through the post modern era. And into the present. A book on Sex Variants was published by George Henry, a psychiatrist, with help from a Miss Jan Gay, chronicling and analyzing findings on case studies on 300 lesbians. The study was begun by the partners in the 1930s through a privately-funded medical and psychological experts team called The Committee for the Study of Sex Variants. It was aimed at studying variations from normal sex behavior or homosexuality in men and women (Wikholm). The group compiled a record on the interviews, which shared their "sexual abnormalities." The book findings demonstrate that some male homosexuals as inherently effeminate, that some others are not narcissists, and that others remained "abnormal" despite their parents' training and guidance. The lack of discipline with which the book was adjudged served to illustrate the furor, which American psychiatry went through during the period. There were other objections, but Henry refined his call for the improvement of the conditions of homosexuals and stressed their essential contributions to human culture and society.