Raffalovich, Uranism. 49 



and love each other. He justifies himself with the thought 

 that these are the sexual pleasures which are called by the 

 name of love and which according to the poets, the cynic mor- 

 alists and the romancers rule the world. Being naturally homo- 

 sexual, he does not see any difference between his vice and that 

 of the heterosexual ; and not finding heterosexuality treated as 

 it ought to be, that is without too much indulgence or enthusi- 

 asm, his conscience does not trouble him. It is only in learn- 

 ing to break down or despise or to surmount sexuality and sen- 

 suality that the congenital invert can turn away from homosex- 

 ality. He takes to himself all the excuses which there are for 

 heterosexuality and adds to them that homosexuality is sterile, 

 etc, — about what Schopenhauer seems to have said in favor 

 of pederasty. 



I am not here concerned with pederasty and pederasts, of 

 whom too much has already been said ; but I would remark 

 that the distinction between the pederasts and the inverts not 

 pederasts is not so absolute as people have recently (and in the 

 interest of the inverts) tried to show. The horror of inverts 

 for pederasty seems to me a little exaggerated. It is rather too 

 much like the pretence of modesty when none is left. 



But after all, since this is the only way perhaps to keep the 

 inverts under law and penalty, we accept this assertion. In all 

 cases sodomy, technically so-called, is not by any means neces- 

 sarily the end of the sexual life of the invert ; but it is certain 

 that some inverts love either to practice or to submit to sod- 

 omy. I understand how the students who have desired to re- 

 habilitate the inverts may be unreasonable upon this subject ; 

 but I believe that the truth is not as absolute as they affirm it. 

 And, too, they sometimes contradict themselves. I am alto- 

 gether of their mind if they wish to maintain that the pederasts 

 are the off-scouring of the earth and the most bestial. Physic- 

 ally they are puny, I imagine — and they deserve to be so. 



I have said that one could not blame the invert when he 

 has first fallen ; but if he is intelligent and if he has any strength, 

 he can rise and retrieve himself And it is not once in his life 

 only that he falls ; he will fall and rise again many times, and if 



