# The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life

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Original orthography preserved except for errors listed in "Errata"; they were corrected for the convenience of reader.
THE INTERSEXES:
A
HISTORY OF SIMILISEXUALISM
AS A PROBLEM IN SOCIAL LIFE.
BY
XAVIER MAYNE,
AUTHOUR OF "IMRE: A MEMORANDUM."
"Before we loathe the homosexual as anarchist against Nature, as renegade
toward religion, as pariah in society, as monster in immorality, as criminal in law, let us feel sure that we have considered well whatever the complex mystery of Life presents as his defense …"
PRIVATELY PRINTED, AND ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
TO THE MEMORY
OF THAT PIONEER IN DISPASSIONATE,
HUMANE, SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF SIMILISEXUALISM,
Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK, WITH HUMILITY;
REMEMBERING THAT WITHOUT HIS SUGGESTION
AND AID IT WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BEGUN
NOR CARRIED ON TO ITS CLOSE
X. M.
THIS BOOK IS PRIVATELY PRINTED
IN A LIMITED EDITION 125 COPIES, OF WHICH
THIS COPY IS NUMBER 87.
THE INTERSEXES.
PREFACE
The following work was undertaken and completed several years ago, with the aim of offering to Anglo-Saxon readers, whether personally interested in the subject or not, a general but condensed survey, for popular information, of the problem of homosexualism, similisexualism, urningism, inverted sexuality, uranianism, as it is variously termed. There is no large summary of the sort in English for intelligent lay-readers, whose interest in the topic is widely a specially serious one, nor easy sources of information for persons quite unacquainted with its extremely important bearings—social, legislative, psycho-pathological, and so on. The distinctively medical, the psychiatric, observations, however numerous, are not predominantly in English; are not readily procurable by laymen; and largely are in languages not sufficiently familiar to Anglo-Saxons in their own countries to be helpfully circulated there. Many such are not studies of just the sort undertaken in this review.
The present book therefore essentially is one not written for active professional psychiaters, of any nationality. To such an aim it does not presume. It is addressed particularly to the individual layman, intelligently inclined to social sciences; whether he has has any immediate reason to study similisexuality, or none. If he have such personal reason, the book may be particularly useful to him. Physicians not familiar with contemporary German and other explorations and discussions of homosexualism as a mysterious instinct that is often ineradicable, enormously diffused, and of a ​social-ethical importance that cannot any longer be merely theorized-on, much less reserved from thoughtful public consideration, also may find the present survey of service. Many British and American physicians are not well-informed on such lines. The authour's conclusions are particularly in key with the psychiatric theories that the similisexual instinct defines a series of originally intermediary sexes—the so called intersexual theory—rather than mere aberrations, degeneracies, psychic tangents, from the male and female. The latter opinion is somewhat distinctive nowadays to England and to the United States and Anglo-Saxondom in general—as a sort of nebular hypothesis of homosexuaism. But the desire of the authour has been to avoid impairing the wider usefulness of the study by the intrusion of many an open theory; in fact, to subordinate to useful practical observations the theoretics of disputing psychiaters.
So much is the writer indebted to materials from others that he feels that only a limited part of this study is his own. A vast mass of varied matter already current has been utilized as far as possible; condensed from as many authorities as practicable. Psychiatric works, medical surveys and observations, communications by similisexuals, criminological studies, psychologies of many sorts, biography, history, belles-lettres, journals, newspapers, have been cited constantly. But there will be met a considerable number of observations and communications not till now in print, from similisexuals, from psychiaters, or from others who have kindly furnished notes. As to materials already in print let me acknowledge my indirect or direct debts to the late Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, who kindly took much interest in this volume; to the not less distinguished and wide-extended labours of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, of Berlin, through my extracts from his printed studies of so many phases of homosexualism; to Dr. Moll, to Ulrichs, to Tardieu, to Lombroso, to dozens of other psychiaters, professional or lay. Notably am I indebted for examples, incidents, biographical ​notices, etc. to one German specialists publication on homosexualism, viz. contributions to the large annual volume entitled "Jahrbuch des Sexuelle Zwischenstufen" issued at Leipzig under Dr. Hirschfeld's editing, with a large staff of authoritative contributors. This noted specialistic review, now in its ninth or tenth year of appearance, is invaluable to students, medical or not at all so, of the homosexual problem, its theoretics or practicalities.
I desire to point out one element of the book not likely to be any more unacceptable to some readers than to myself; but which I hope will not much injure its general interest or usefulness. The book was prepared several years ago. Circumstances have withheld it from publication till now. Many of the "instances", episodes and so on, cited as illustrations of the similisexual instinct and its world, were taken from publications new at the time when the manuscript was completing: or were then relatively new. The delay in printing this book has made them seem more or less staled, compared with the constantly increasing mass of new data, of the same illustrative kind. Numerous such new "instances", references, studies, citations, etc. cannot have place here at all. There are many such groups, recent, pertinent and highly interesting, not represented here; to my great regret. But that is a dilemma to which any such work is subject by delay in going to press. To substitute now the new matters, recenter data, as I would so gladly do, would oblige practically re-adjusting and even rewriting, expanding etc., several sections of the book, passim. Neither health, time, facilities nor a milieu for such a labour are now at my service. I most seriously have considered such a partial revision. A very few observations only have been inserted, a few instances instead of the many I would like to add. Every few months present much matter, fresh, interesting and significant to a survey like the present one. But as, after all, the data already here are of as permanent authority and illustrative value as could be ​most newer ones, not to speak of those I cite being now to the majority of the class of readers to which my little work is directed, the wisdom of letting it pass on as it is seems maintainable. I have reluctantly withdrawn from my pages one large inclusion in the manuscript, a full and classified Bibliography of homosexualism, that included many hundreds of publications in all departments, from psychiatric etudes to novels and verse, solely because I cannot now advance it beyond the year 1901, when I laid it aside.
A particular difficulty in now putting the book into print at all has been the fact that it necessarily has been printed in a country where English is a language peculiarly foreign even to intelligent type-setters and proofreaders. Every correction has been made only through the vigilance of the authour as best he could exercise it. But errors have been inevitable under such circumstances. in spite of constant care and patience. For many slips of the press, or errors of other sort that should have been corrected, the lenience of the reader is asked. Only those persons who have undertaken to see a book through press when not one type-setter or corrector knows the orthography, punctuation, syllable-division and so on of the words in hand, much less the meaning of one of them in a hundred, or is wonted to Anglo-Saxon proof-corrections. can appreciate the chances of errata more or less important in such a volume. Also the press corrections have been carried on almost wholly, week after week, by post: a most tedious process, with increased chances of uncorrected slips. The writer however hopes-that disfiguring or misleading errata are not too numerous.
For the last-mentioned reason, as Well as by the causes alluded to earlier, the authour has been unable to include an Index: greatly to his regret, and unexpectedly. The many topical headings in the paragrahs he hopes will considerably atone for the omission.
X. M.
CONTENTS.
APPENDICES.
ERRATA
The following list of errata does not include numerous small slips in English orthography, punctuation, syllabic divisions, etc., almost inevitably of as frequent occurrence in so large a volume if printed under the difficult circumstances mentioned in the Preface. Slips of the press that are of more or less importance to the context are the chief ones noted here.
p. 16, l. 15: for "charter-right guidance", read "charter-right, guidance", etc.
p. 19, l. 7: for "males' re-affirming," read "males; reaffirming," etc.
p. 25, l. 1: for "thought, With, which," read "thought with which", etc.
p. 28, l. 22: for "respects as", read "respect as", etc,
Ibid, l. 29: for "facts. "'Tis an", read "facts—"'Tis an", etc.
p. 33, l. 10: for "our heart the street," read "our heart, the street", etc.
p. 36, l. 9: for "better than than!" read "better than that!", etc.
Ibid, l. 20: for "can not conceive", read "cannot conceive", etc.
p. 37, l. 21: for "Natures initiative," read "Nature's initiative," etc.
p. 44, l. 13: for "Judges, XIX, v. 16-27 (retold in Chap. XX, 13)", read "Judges XIX, vv. 16-26 (retold in Chap. XX, vv. 4-5)."
p. 46, ll. 15-16: for "should ignore homosexualism. When we look", etc., read "should ignore homosexualism, when we look", etc.
p. 53 first inset: for "Grece", read Greece".
p. 55, l. 28: for "Bythinia", read "Bithynia".
p. 56, l. 6: for "to disclose the plot against the commander to his minion", read "to disclose to his minion the plot against his commander," etc.
p. 59, l. 2: for "Mary worship", read "Mary-worship".
p. 60, l. 21: for "all towns of Sicily," read "many towns of Sicily", etc.
p. 65, l. 4: for "criminology found," read "criminology, found", etc.
Ibid, l. 21: for "offendingby", read "offending by", etc.
Ibid, l. 25: for "particularly the passion", read" particularly as to the passion", etc.
p. 80, l. 10: for "Uranid", read "uranian".
p. 82, l. 6: for "equipement", read "equipment".
p. 94, l. 3: for "ndividual", read "individual".
p. 99, last l: for "continuied", read "continued".
p. 101, l. 7: for "sexual history", read "sexual history:—"
p. 102, l. 12: for "condition", read "conditions".
​p. 112, l. 9, and p. 346, 1. 33: for "La Mercure de France", read "Le Mercure de France".
p. 127, l. 36: for "amours", read "amorous".
p. 129, l. 12: for "physical moral", read "physical, moral", etc.
Ibid, second inset: for "intellectual and Esthetic", read "Intellectual and Æsthetic", etc.
p. 132, l. 7: for "family trouble when", read "family-trouble. When", etc.
p. 132, l. 34: for "hystorical", read "hysterical".
p. 133, l. 3: for "novel-reaer, dbut of", read "novel-reader, but of", etc.
p. 135, l. 17: for "hers", read "her", etc.
p. 137, l. 1: for "observe", read "observer", etc.
p. 139, l. 3: for "sings svery", read "sings very, etc.
p. 144, l. 9: for "Mr. Z—," read "Mr. Z—'s", etc.
p. 155, l. 33: for "or boy that, they" read "or boy, that they", etc.
p. 160, l. 15: for "thering of", read "the ring of", etc.
Ibid, l. 33: for "continent", read "Continent".
p. 161, l. 27: for "used to feel", read "I used to feel", etc.
p. 164, l. 31: for "all that there", read "all that, there", etc.
p. 169, last line: for "gynasium", read "Gymnasium".
p. 187, l. 9: for "boacuse", read "because".
p. 195, l. 29: for "officers", read "officer's",
p. 202. l. 32: for "there two", read these two".
p. 246, l. 6: for "douhtful", read "doubtful",
p. 254, l. 9: for "of the se", read "of these", etc.
p. 287. l. 3: for "considerbly", read "considerably",
p. 293, l. 35: insert after "not"—"The French version by Mardrus is even more illustrative, passim."
p. 301, l. 32: for "Hallermünde" read "Hallermund."
p. 320, l. 17: for "degeneratcy", read "degeneracy".
p. 322, l. 20: for "pubblic", read "public",
p. 328, l. 33: for "last vista him", read "last vista of him", etc.
p. 341, l. 13: for "inderited", read "inherited".
p. 347, l. 1: for Eekhoud", read "Eckhoud".
p. 354, l. 5: for "suggestion, of", read "suggestion of", etc.
p. 360, l. 5: for "and to the … M affairs …", read "and to the M… affairs …".
p. 386, l. 3: for "Cattalani", read "Cattelani".
p. 410, l. 7: for "to any the distortion of", read "to any distortion of the", etc.
Ibid, l. 16: for "demostrable", read "demonstrable".
​p. 413, l. 32: for "ladies much demanded" read "—one much demanded."
p. 430, l. 9: for "first fantasies in", read "fantasies in", etc.
p. 452, last line: for "trulz", read "truly".
p. 500, l. 30: for "got of bed", read "got out of bed", etc.
p. 517, l. 11: for "need sounder", read "sounder", etc.
p. 521, l. 13: for "Uranian's. Inconsistence", read "Uranian's instinct. Inconsistence", etc.
p. 559, l. 19: for "reclutant", read "reluctant".
p. 584, l. 17: for "find Platen that, read "find that Platen", etc.
p. 613, l. 20: for "to continue his studies. Platen was not,", read "to continue his studies, Platen was not", etc.
| Obs. | The anglicized orthography of the term "philarrene" being somewhat disputable, the form which omits the aspirate in English has been preferred in the course of this book. |
* XAVIER MAYNE,
* AUTHOUR OF "IMRE: A MEMORANDUM,"
* THE INTERSEXES:
* A
* HISTORY of SIMILISEXUALISM
* AS A PROBLEM IN SOCIAL LIFE.
* Separator
* "Before we loathe the homosexual as anarchist against Nature, as renegade
* toward religion, as pariah in society, as monster in immorality, as criminal in law,
* let us feel sure that we have considered well whatever the complex mystery of
* Life presents as his defense …"
* Decorative element
* PRIVATELY PRINTED, AND ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1942, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 81 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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