Raffalovich, Uranism. 57 



the woman, the voix fardee (to use the happy expression of the 

 sixteenth century poet; see the third note) and the feminine 

 motions. He may spend his time upon his toilette, upon his 

 person, in gossip, small talk and slander, may be timid, without 

 originality or opinions of his own, etc., and yet have sexual re- 

 lations with women, neither having nor ever having had any oth- 

 ers. I challenge the observer to show me a homosexual who 

 does not correspond to a heterosexual. I undertake to find a 

 heterosexual corresponding to every homosexual. 



Diderot explains homosexuality (if I remember correctly) 

 by scarcity of women, thinness of blood, fear of infection. 

 These causes are ingenious, but they are secondary. In the 

 prisons, colleges and barracks the lack of women, together with 

 the presence of males, encourages the uranist, tempts the heter- 

 osexual whose principles are not impregnable and leads astray 

 the indifferent, whose sexuality depends upon circumstances. 

 If we were more familiar with the laws of heredity we might 

 affirm that the children feel the effects of this encouraged, tempt- 

 ed or errant homosexuality, but we do not know whether uran- 

 ism alone is transmitted or whether acquired inversion is also 

 transmitted. 



One thing is sure, but like everything concerned with her- 

 edity it is a matter dificult of explanation, — there are some fam- 

 ilies where inverts are numerous, where the father and the sons, 

 the uncle and the nephews, or the brothers are conspicuous for 

 their inversion. A noble English family has recently been rep- 

 resented by two brothers (one of them married) in two of the 

 most notorious unisexual scandals. The father has a totally 

 different reputation. The scarcity of women does not satifac- 

 torily explain uranism, though it may develop it ; but how many 

 men have passed through all these conditions without becoming 

 homosexual, how many have been able to give up the madness 

 caused by the desire for that "Ygrec de chair" of which a 

 novelist has eloquently spoken in an attack upon the military 

 prison system (Birbi by G. Darien) and have returned to civili- 

 zation as heterosexual as before ? 



We too often forget that (if we exept those whose impo- 



