Raffalovich, Uranism. 59 



If I say that there is no line of demarcation between the 

 homosexual and the heterosexual I do not really contradict the 

 title of these observations : Uranism, or congenital sexual inver- 

 sion. To explain : some men are born uranists ; they seem to 

 be predestined for uranism from their earliest childhood. It 

 seems to me that nothing can change or unsettle them. They 

 have perhaps fostered this predilection of theirs, they have 

 trained themselves up in it, and nothing can turn them from 

 their path. Other men are born heterosexual. They are pre- 

 destined to love women and nothing will prevent them, neither 

 strict education nor the career which they enter. They have 

 for inversion only the most profound disgust, the greatest ab- 

 horrence. Other men (and I wonder if they are not as numer- 

 ous as those in the preceding category) are born indifferent. 

 They are found in all grades between absolute homosexuality 

 and absolute heterosexuality. We should find complete psy- 

 chic hemaphroditism, the man-woman, and several varieties of 

 man-woman ; there would be the man who is masculine with 

 reference to men and to women, he who is so with reference to 

 one sex (no matter which) and not to the other. There would 

 be found all possibilities, all improbabilites. 



Education, moral and physical circumstances, friendships, 

 the influences in operation, every occurrence, great or small, 

 slowly determine the form the sexuality of the growing child 

 will take. The childish affections are stamped with this sexual 

 uncertainty. They show us, what we shall do wrong to forget 

 later, that the affections may be powerful and yet pure. If 

 nothing impedes the development of the child, if he is sur- 

 rounded by persons who unconsciously guide him toward hetero- 

 sexuality, he will become a man like the majority of men. On 

 the other hand, if those who surround him in one way or an- 

 other unconsciously direct him from heterosexuality by isolating 

 him, by making him early familiar with all that may be said 

 against women, by holding him down to too strict and rigorous 

 conduct, he will incline more or less toward homosexuality for a 

 longer or shorter time. Everything will depend or circum- 

 stances. 



