Raffalovich, Uranism. 47 



some heterosexual men who break away from their genital Hfe 

 at some period of their growth. 



It is an error (which the writers on inversion tend to- 

 wards) to suppose that the inverts are necessarily wayward, or 

 deranged or bent on indulgence with some compliant individual. 

 Many heterosexuals if they are in good health are not always 

 thinking about women. 



As puberty approaches the peril of the invert increases. 

 If he is a day pupil or is being taught at home his ignorance 

 and anxiety are put into a ferment. Every accident now has 

 its importance. He is probably ignorant of the physical side 

 of the sexual act. He imagines perhaps that the relations 

 among men are like those between women and men ; he knows, 

 however, that the realization of his desire w^ill be sterile. He 

 may be sufficiently mature for the sexual act and thinks that it 

 consists in a superficial contact more or less prolonged. 



If any man, especially a man of the lower classes, as a do- 

 mestic, is thrown into the company of a young invert, 

 this man becomes the fixed idea of the child. I say the child, 

 for at 13, 14, or 15 years, a boy trained in this way is a child. 

 The young boy will contrive every day unexpected meetings 

 with this man. He knows the hours of his duties and will put 

 himself in his way several times a day if possible. He tries 

 especially to meet him in the dark in order to feel the contact 

 of his body against that of the man or to take him by the hand. 

 Though previously modest, he will contrive occasions to show 

 himself nude or semi-nude. 



I do not know whether it is instinctive or whether it fol- 

 lows from the tales of feminine seduction which he has read, 

 but he acts like a shameless and amorous woman. Such perse- 

 verance will sooner or later be duly rewarded and some gloomy 

 afternoon or some dark night the man will yield to the audacity 

 of the young boy. 



Here again the details and the consequences of this 

 downfall will all depend upon chance. The inverts who read 

 this and the medical psychologists will acknowledge the truth 

 of what I have written, though the family may not even know 



