Page:Symonds - A Problem in Modern Ethics.djvu/99

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Literature—Polemical
87

men. That is to say, some prefer effeminate males, dressed in feminine clothes and addicted to female occupations. Others prefer powerful adults of an ultra-masculine stamp. A third class manifest their predilection for healthy young men in the bloom of adolescence, between nineteen and twenty. The attitude of such persons towards women also varies. In genuine cases of inborn sexual inversion a positive horror is felt when the woman has to be carnally known; and this horror is of the same sort as that which normal men experience when they think of cohabitation with a male.[1] In others the disinclination does not amount to repugnance; but the abnormal man finds considerable difficulty in stimulating himself to the sexual act with females, and derives a very imperfect satisfaction from the same. A certain type of man, in the last place, seems to be indifferent, desiring males at one time and females at another.

In order to gain clearness in his exposition, Ulrichs has invented names for these several species. The so-called hermaphrodite he dismisses with the German designation of Zwitter. Imperfect individuals of this type are not to be considered, because it is well known that the male or female organs are never developed in one and the same body. It is also, as we shall presently discover, an essential part of his theory to regard the problem of inversion psychologically.

The normal man he calls Dioning, the abnormal man Urning. Among Urnings, those who prefer effeminate males are christened by the name of Mannling; those

  1. See above, p. 55, note