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Excerpts from:

Iwan Bloch, Beitraege zur Aetiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Erster Teil, Dresden, 1902

pp. 1-17 (introduction) and
pp. 120-123 (on religion and homosexuality)
 
 

[pp. 1-17:]

Just as the physiological manifestations of sexual life are as old as mankind, so too are its pathological manifestations. Ages ago the same aberrations of the sexual drive occurred that we observe today among primitive and civilized peoples. In the Bible, the Vedas, in numerous ancient Egyptian papyri, and in the documents of pre-Columbian Mexico, we find reports and insinuations of homosexuality, anal intercourse, of the many refined types of unnatural sexual debauchery associated with the obscene cults of the sexual deities. These uses of the sexual drive that deviate from the normal act, which still today are observed among many primitive peoples with shocking frequency, are most definitely not linked necessarily with "civilization" or in particular with the "age of nervosity."
On the contrary: If there is anything that expresses itself with the very same elementary force outside of civilization as well as within it, it is the sexual drive. In general, the statement holds true that the sexual drive, as a purely physical function, can form neither an object for comparison nor a marker of difference between primitive and civilized man.
Therefore, it is not valid to invoke culture and civilization as such and their various manifestations, in particular the cultural diseases, the "fin-de-siécle malaises" and whatever other names there may be for the pains of our time, as the main etiological factors for the sexual abnormalities and aberrations. There are certainly supporting conditions which these times of highly developed civilization, of "Überkultur," may offer for the development and spread of an abnormal sexual life, which can explain the quantitative increase in these aberrations that exists in fact in eras like the Roman imperial period, for example. But this factor alone is not sufficient to explain the appearance and genesis of unnatural expressions of the libido sexualis, since the same manifestations are observed among primitive peoples that lack any higher culture, and in fact still live in Stone Age conditions (certain Australian tribes).
With this in mind, the view of those researchers who assign to civilization the lead role in the etiology of the psychopathia sexualis must be regarded with suspicion from the start. The founder of this, in my view, incorrect general view of the psychopathia sexualis is R. v. Krafft-Ebing. In his view, the perverse expressions of the sexual drive are connected to the rampant nervosity, created by modern social cultural life, of the most recent generation, a generation excited by the sexual sphere, driven to sexual abuse, and finally led to perverse acts.1 The frequent occurrence of abnormal sexual functions among civilized man is explained by Krafft-Ebing in part by the "frequent abuse of the reproductive organs", in part by the circumstance that "such functional anomalies are often the a sign of a usually hereditary, morbid constitution of the central nervous system."2 It is certainly correct that an increased nervosity in times of Überkultur adversely impacts the sexual life and calls forth neuropathological conditions in the respective generation, which are associated with "monstrous aberrations of the sexual drive life."3 On the other hand, one can see from the book by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib in der Natur- und Völkerkunde [Woman in the Natural and Social Sciences], that the same "monstrous aberrations" occur with quite primitive peoples, about whom there can be no talk of the effects of a refined, sophisticated culture intensively attacking the nervous system. And these perversities do not appear in isolated cases among these peoples, but rather they sometimes occur in much greater distribution than is observed even among the most civilized peoples.
The essence of the sexual drive and of its anomalies is in fact independent of all culture and shows the same traits among primitive and civilized peoples,4 it is independent of the physical and mental damage associated with culture, independent of degeneration in the anthropological and pathological sense. Culture and degeneration come into consideration only as supporting, frequency-boosting influences.
Besides that, there are a large number of external factors having nothing to do with culture, degeneration, or degenerative heredity, whose impact in the creation of sexual anomalies among primitive and developed peoples is nonetheless of the greatest significance.
To present these important etiological factors in context is the purpose of the following studies.

* *
*
In general, two opposing views have established themselves concerning the genesis of the sexual anomalies. Either the inherited-ness or the acquired-ness of sexual perversions is emphasized.
Krafft-Ebing was the first to describe these perversions as "functional signs of degeneration" and in this way emphasized the primarily innate nature of them, following Casper (1852). Krafft-Ebing declares, in particular, that homosexuality is innate.5
The second major author in this field, Albert Moll, adheres in general to this view,6 but he acknowledges that a "remainder" of homosexuals and sexual perverse persons are left over for whom neither a hereditary predisposition nor other diseases are effective from an etiological standpoint.7 He points in particular to the ancient Greeks, among whom homosexuality was nearly as widespread as normal love, without being based on any degeneration.8
Moll's reference to this manifestation among the undoubtedly physically and mentally healthy Hellenes is even more significant because these were not occasional perverse pederastic acts, but rather a typically developed homosexual culture [Urningtum], which is something that otherwise Krafft-Ebing and Moll explain as due solely to a morbid, innate constitution on a degenerative basis.9
The third one of these authors, who are justly viewed as the pioneers in the field of scientific research on the various forms of "psycho- or neuropathia sexualis," namely Albert Eulenberg, likewise tends toward a stronger emphasis of heredity and morbid constitution, especially with reference to contrary sexual feeling [i.e., homosexuality]; but he especially makes very noteworthy arguments concerning the non-pathological basis of many heterosexual anomalies and aberrations.10 But if he vindicates these sexual montrosities, which he quite rightly understands as sexual "epicureanism," only for the "civilized human being, so far removed and alienated in every respect from natural life," it must be remembered that "sexual picacism," fetishism, sadism, and so forth are manifested in exactly the same way among peoples who exist in the most idyllic natural condition imaginable, who have not yet experienced a wit of civilization. If, for example, as Ploss-Bartels report, there is a custom in one primitive people that the man introduces fishes and the like into the female sexual parts and then draws them out by cunnilingus, that is no lesser sexual "gourmandism" than what occurs in Parisian brothels in the form of "pollution labiale."11 Thus these are general human aberrations, independent of the level of civilization, which -- I need mention only the refined and elaborate system of the Indian arts of love -- certainly can occur without any neuropathological basis, as simple heightening of stimulation, and which can become a national custom (as among the Indians).
Of the remaining researchers who emphasize the primary innateness of the sexual perversions, I will mention only Havelock Ellis12 and Magnan.13
It cannot be denied that the aforementioned representatives of this view, who indeed include the founders of scientific research into the pyschopathia sexualis, have for the moment carried their view to victory, so that the opposing doctrine of the acquired-ness of most sexual anomalies has receded more into the background.
The first person to argue the latter emphatically was A. v. Schrenk-Notzing,14 who was the first to discover the surprising fact that a complete healing of contrary sexual feeling and other sexual perversions could be achieved by suggestion therapy, and indeed even in cases which had previously been viewed as innate. This led for Schrenck-Notzing to the inescapable conclusion that in the understanding of these sexual abnormalities, the hereditary aspect had been quite significantly overestimated, while a much greater share in the pathogenesis of the sexual aberrations should be attributed to external conditions (situational factors, upbringing).15
Even before Schrenck-Notzing, in 1886 the famour Peterburg syphilis expert Professor Benjamin Tarnowsky, in his brilliant monograph on the "morbid manifestations of the sexual instinct" (Berlin, 1886), pointed out the frequent occurrence and the mode of acquired-ness of sexual perversions. He had already emphasized that the latter occur relatively frequently as the result of lasciviousness and seduction even among physically and mentally healthy persons.
This latter aspect was then elaborated and demonstrated in greater detail especially by A. Hoche in an important work,16 which was soon followed by A. Cramer.17 Both of them proved that typical homosexuality [Urningtum] occurs together with full mental and physical health, and that in only rare cases are the sexual perversions based on a severe hereditary problem, while much more frequently masturbation and debauchery are to be considered as etiological factors. The possibility of an innate contrary sexual feeling is quite vehemently denied by Cramer.
Similar thoughts were developed by K. Kautzner in a very noteworthy article.18 Kautzner likewise attacks the biogenetic view of homosexuality as incorrect, and sees seduction as a major cause of contrary sexual feeling.
* *
*
Therefore, according to the arguments presented above, there are in general two groups of sexual perversions: the innate ones, i.e. those existing since earliest childhood, and those acquired in later life. The latter are divided in turn into those sexual aberrations which are caused by diseases and those which occur in healthy persons. In the present document, I intend to present only the etiological conditions of this last group, i.e. the causes of the development of sexual perversions in otherwise healthy persons. Once these are clarified, then at the same time the realizable possibilities of a general prophylaxis against sexual aberrations will be provided. These aberrations are based for the most part on general human conditions, which are distributed qualititatively equally over the whole world and which exert the same effects everywhere, even if they may show quantitative differences among different peoples and in different times.
Compared to these external factors, based on the nature and malleability of the human sexual drive, the influences of heredity and diseases, which have been emphasized so much to date, will recede extraordinarily into the background.
The doctrine once put forth by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs regarding homosexuality, that it represented an innate condition in which a "woman's soul was trapped in a male body,"19 which A. Geigel attacked already in his writing Das Paradoxon der Venus Urania (Würzburg, 1869) with the objection that body and soul together form a single being, has been recently resurrected by Magnan and Krafft-Ebing. The former spoke of a "female brain" in a male body. Already Schrenck-Notzing20 rejected this theory as lacking any scientific basis and based solely on the very untrustworthy statements of the homosexuals. Cramer spoke out against this theory with particular vehemence. "Assuming the case," he wrote, "that the respective centers for the two sexes are preformed in the brain even before the differentiation of the sex in the third month, for which all evidence is lacking, it is hard for me to understand how a brain not suited to this sexual character should develop once an individual has taken on a definite character as regards his sexual apparatus in the third month of pregnancy. For it is a known fact that, in case of an amputation of any extremity or extirpation of any sensory organ during youth, the respective centers do not develop. For what reason, then, should the brain of a man with a normally-formed sexual apparatus develop for the minimal remainders of the originally present female constitution? That would definitely contradict an indisputable pathologic-anatomical law. For the brain and the organ have a reciprocal relationship. If the center does not develop, the organ atrophies, and vice-versa. Such a development would be inconceivable without some other significant malformation."21 Cramer quite rightly recalls the eunuchs who, in spite of lacking the sexual glands, never develop a female center.
The "innate" cases of homosexuality probably do not exist at all. Most of the cases so-named are those in which the sexual perversion appeared in earliest childhood, and even these are very rare.22 The respective conditions are probably best studied among the primitive peoples, untouched as far as possible by civilization, and in this case it is remarkable that the experienced African traveler Dr. Oscar Baumann,, for example, who has occupied himself much with the sexual aberrations of the African natives, has encountered only two cases of "innate" homosexuality among the numerous peoples of inner Africa, one in Unyamwesi, the other in Uganda.23 In the civilized countries, the alleged innateness of the sexual perversions is usually derived only from the anamnesic statements and autobiographies of homosexuals and other perverse persons. In what way their value should be assessed has been emphasized by various authors. Priapus is a god of lies,24 and in no sexual area does this appear more clearly than in the area of aberrations of the normal sexual drive. Here subjective delusion is combined with auto-suggestion, the role of which has been presented especially by Schrenck-Notzing.25 The uncritical theories of an Ulrich were taken for truth by many homosexuals and transferred to their own condition. Many of the autobiographies and descriptions of their condition by sexual perverts, recorded by Krafft-Ebing with all-too-great credulity, show clear traces of the effects of fantasy, whereby the actual facts are usually falsified in a clearly apparent way.
Those cases of sexual perversity appearing in early youth usually fall under the heading of those acquired by illness, or morbid constitution. But in this case, the subjective statements of the sick can always be disregarded, insofar as the doctor will easily be able to discover objective characteristics of a morbid condition causing the sexual anomaly, whether these characteristics are anatomical-somatic or psychological in nature.
Every sexual pervert must first be examined in reference to the existence of severe hereditary problems, as well as so-called signs of degeneration. If a multiple occurrence of severe psychoses, alcoholism, diabetes, syphilis, and other diseases leading to degenerescence is found in the family of the subject, then suspicion of a psychopathological basis of the abnormal sexual actions is justified. However, it should be recalled that a hereditary problem does not always manifest itself,26 therefore it cannot always be blamed for the appearance of a sexual perversion.
Whether sexual perversion as such is a sign of degeneration is rightly doubted by Havelock Ellis,27 since it occurs among otherwise healthy and normal individuals, as Moll also confirms. Another more important question, however, is that of the occurrence of the usual signs of degeneration with sexual perverts, for which Havelock Ellis has established the very correct principle that the abnormalities must be very pronounced and represented in multiple fashion, in order to count as signs of degeneration.28 In fact, the presence of multiple signs of degeneration in a single individual is a rather unmistakable marker of a neuro- or psychopathological disposition.
In addition to skull assymetries, narrowness of the palate, harelip, cleft palate, dental anomalies, hypertrichosis, tic convulsif, speech impediments, we see here primarily Morel's ear (total or partial lack of the helix or antihelix) and other malformations of the ears (Darwinian pointed ears), as well as abnormal and morbid conditions of the genitals and the genital region, as well as an abnormally active fantasy life. I will address these last two conditions more thoroughly below.
Finally, actual diseases may be considered in the etiology of acquired sexual perversions. It is of great interest that Tarnowsky assigns a major role to syphilis in the pathogenesis of sexual anomalies. Hereditarily syphilitic children, or even those produced by syphilitic parents but not showing perceptible symptoms, later exhibit signs of a perverse sexual sense.29 Apparently, this is to be explained by the same effect, intensely damaging to the nervous system, which is attributed to syphilis in the etiology of tabes and dementia paralytica. In the anamnesic examination of sexual perverts, prior syphilis may therefore attain a certain significance.
Doctors have long been familiar with the appearance of sexual aberrations in various mental illnesses. We know that epilepsy and epileptic insanity are associated extraordinarily often with disturbances in the sexual area, which appear particularly in the form of sudden outburts of the normal or abnormal sexual drive (debauched offenses, pederasty, bestiality, etc.). The same epileptic may commit the most varied sexual offenses in a state of psychic disturbance. Whether Tarnowsky is therefore justified in deducing a particular form of "epileptic pederasty"30 may remained unanswered. One will seldom observe a single form of sexual perversion in an epileptic. Also remarkable is the periodic appearance of sexual aberrations, which can thus be classified in the category of periodic insanity. Tarnowsky's "periodic pederasts" differ from healthy homosexuals31 in that they anxiously avoid the company of the latter and hide their condition as much as possible. These sick persons satisfy their perverse drive twice or three times a year at defined, recurring times, and in the remaining period they have normal intercourse with women. Even flagellation and necrophilia can occur in a clearly periodic manner and thus be characterized as morbid. Imbeciles, idiots, alcoholics, and persons with dementia senilis or paralytica very often present sexual abnormalities. Senile dementia in particular delivers a strong contingent to the sexual offenses of the most varied kinds (pederasty, exhibitionism, debauchery with children, masochism and sadism, etc.).
Current medical science is able to detect all these aforementioned morbid causes of sexual perversions with certainty and accordingly to decide on the greater or lesser accountability of the respective sexually perverse individual. However, in the great majority of cases, medical examination provides no indications for the existence of a morbid basis for the sexual abnormality. Individual minor symptoms or even mere "nervosity," which is so common today in all classes of people, are certainly not sufficient to categorize sexually perverse acts or conditions as "morbid." Rather, there is no doubt that all sexual perversions may appear in exactly the same manner even with mentally and physically healthy people, who must in every respect be viewed as "accountable."
Comprehension of the possibility and surprising frequency of this occurrence will be gained only by observing the many varied etiological factors which give us a satisfactory explanation of the establishment of sexual anomalies in healthy people. Therefore, I will now turn to the study of these causative conditions...
 

Footnotes for pp. 1-17
 

1 R. v. Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia sexualis, 10th edition, Stuttgart, 1898, pp. 304-305.
2 ibid. p. 33.
3 ibid. p. 6 Similar to Krafft-Ebing, A. Eulenberg is also of the opinion that a "certain level of civilization" has etiological significance for the genesis of sexual anomalies. Cf. Sexuelle Neuropathie, Leipzig, 1895, p. 97.
4 Here, let us only cite the judgment of the most influential researchers in this area: "One encounters not rarely the view that everything which is generally designated as unnatural sexual enjoyment owes its initial origin to the overstimulated sensuality of a developed culture. But that is totally incorrect, and on the contrary we find not rarely a highly refined sexual debauchery among tribes with a very low level of civilization, whom one is generally so fond of thinking of as living in an idyllic natural state, of whom one sometimes hears descriptions as though the Golden Age with all its blessings still existed among them." H. Ploss & M. Bartels, Das Weib in der Natur- und Völkerkunde, 6th edition, Leipzig, 1899, p. 451.
5 Compare his statements in the preface to A. Moll's Die konträre Sexualempfindung, 3rd edition, Berlin 1899, pp. IV-V.
6 op. cit. and in Untersuchungen über die Libido sexualis, Berlin 1898, Vol. I.
7 ibid., I, 674.
8 "When we consider what the ancient Greeks accomplished in the arts and sciences, or in terms of moral power, we will be hard pressed to believe that the ancient Greeks suffered from a morbid constitution ... It is also undoubtedly false to assert that the homosexual manifestations appeared in precisely the period in which the Greeks were already in decline. On the contrary, homosexual love emerged in a most extraordinary manner precisely in the period of flourishing." ibid., p. 676.
9 I have gotten the general impression from reading Moll's writings that, in spite of the author's fundamental assumption of the hereditary nature of sexual perversions, in many ways he is inclined toward a different explanation of them. This entangles him in numerous contradictions, of which a large number could be compiled. This uncertainty comes to light particularly in the case summaries. For example, compare in Libido Sexualis, pp. 692-693: "To start, one observes other manifestations of illness extraordinarily often along with the perversion of the sexual drive, which are to some degree neuropathological but some of which are even psychopathological. Aside from that, it is possible to observe in a very large number of cases that a hereditary problem is often present simultaneously with the perverse sexual drive. Nonetheless, there are authors who deny this, and we will do well to refrain from all apriorism and thus to regard a portion of the cases, in this respect at least, as unexplained." If even Havelock Ellis (Das konträre Geschlechtsgefühl, German translation by H. Kurella, Leipzig, 1896, p. 30) notes: "Krafft-Ebing's method is not without problems; his is not a very critical mind," then that should give us something to think about. Theoretical one-sidedness, particularly in the area being treated of here, leads rather to the obscuring than to the clarification of the essential issues.
10 A. Eulenberg, Sexual Neuropathie, pp. 96-97 and passim.
11 "The lower in civilization a tribe is, the more frequently lasciviousness and animalistic sensuality are manifested. Many primitive peoples use excessive stimulants to arouse female lust. On the island of Pohnpei (West Carolines), it is considered a special mark of feminine beauty for the smaller labia to be lengthened considerably, and their lengthening, as well as that of the clitoris, was caused artificially even in small girls, as we saw. The man arouses lust in the woman by grabbing the lengthened labia with his teeth, in order to stretch them further, and, as Kubary reports, some men go so far as to insert a fish into the vulva in order to lick it out again bit by bit. Such disgusting and horrid experiments are carried on with the main wife, with whom the man intends to produce a child, so long until she starts to urinate, and only after that does coitus begin." Ploss-Bartels, op. cit. I, 433. - P. Mantegazza correctly notes as well regarding this custom: "In this area, the most highly educated men of the purest Aryan race and the basest men of the lowest ethnic hierarchy partake as equals in brotherly bestialness." Anthropologisch-kulturhistorische Studien über die Geschlechtsverhältnisse des Menschen, 3rd edition, Jena, no date, p. 197. As a "civilized" counterpart, let us recall that earl who inserted strawberries into his mistress's genitalia and later ate the fruits thus marinated. (Eulenberg, op. cit., p. 101). The "renifleurs," who sniff female urine, also belong in this category.
12 Die Theorie der conträren Sexualempfindung, from the Centralblatt für Nervenheilkunde und Psychiatrie, February 1896; Das konträre Geschlechtsgefühl, German translation by H. Kurella, Leipzig, 1896.
13 V. Magnan, "Des anomalies, des aberrations et des perversions sexuelles" in: Annales médico-psychologiques, 7th series. T. I. Paris, 1885, p. 454ff. (German translation by P.J. Möbius in: Magnan, Psychiatrische Vorlesungen, No. 2/3, Leipzig, 1892, p. 43ff.)
14 Die Suggestions-Therapie bei krankhaften Erscheinungen des Geschlechtssinnes, Stuttgart, 1892.
15 op. cit., p. 11.
16 A. Hoche, "Zur Frage der forensischen Beurteilung sexueller Vergehen" in: Neurologisches Centralblatt, 1896, pp. 57-68.
17 A. Cramer, "Die konträre Sexualempfindung in ihren Beziehungen zum § 175 des Strafgesetzbuches" in: Berliner klinische Wochenschrift, 1897, No. 43, pp. 934-936; No. 44, pp. 962-965.
18 K. Kautzner, "Homosexualität," in: Archiv für Kriminalanthropologie, 1899, Vol. II, pp. 152-63.
19 "The sex of the body of the homosexual [Urning] is male, that of his soul female. He is anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa [a woman's soul trapped in a male body]. That is why, like a woman, he feels sexually repulsed by the woman, but drawn to the man. By the influence of the male body, however, the homosexual's soul is made similar to a man in particular parts. While remaining female in its essence, it has taken on male coloring here and there." K.H. Ulrichs, Argonauticus, Leipzig, 1869, p. 87.
20 op. cit., p. 193.
21 Cramer, op. cit., p. 936.
22 Tarnowsky, op. cit. p. 33.
23 Verhandlungen der Berliner Anthropologischen Gesellschaft, 1899, p. 668.
24 An inscription on a medieval Priapus column in the catacombs of San Gennaro dei Poveri in Naples says: "Priapus a god of lies the cave of the Cimmerian is vain deceit, it is wicked to serve the idol Phallus." Cf. Victor Schultze, Die Katakomben von San Gennaro dei Poveri in Neapel, eine kunsthistorische Studie, Jena, 1877, p. 28.
25 op. cit. p. 196. Cramer notes (op. cit., p. 964): "The masturbator who reflects much on his condition reads everything related to it. Given the wide circulation of 'perverse-sexual' literature, he easily obtains this reading material ... Suddenly everything becomes clear to him; he thinks back on his youth and, unconsciously, by way of auto-suggestion, he arrives at the conclusion that he was sexually abnormal starting from his youth onward."
26 Ziehen, article on "Degeneratives Irresein" in: Real-Encyclopädie der gesamten Heilkunde, published by A. Eulenberg, Vienna, 1895, Vol. V, p. 448.
27 Havelock Ellis, Die Theorie der conträren Sexualempfindung, S.A. p. 5.
28 ibid., p. 5.
29 Tarnowsky, op. cit., pp. 34-35.
30 Tarnowsky, op. cit., p. 8 and p. 51.
31 ibid., p. 43.

 
 
 
 
 
 

[pp. 120-123:]

Finally, we come to the strangest of all religio-sexual phenomena: homosexuality and pederasty for religious reasons, a phenomenon that is characteristic of primitive and civilized peoples in equal measure. How can religious pederasty, or its ubiquitous spread, be explained? The fact that homosexuality for religious reasons exists is a matter beyond doubt, but the explanation of it is very difficult and uncertain. My suppositions about the origin of this astonishing custom are as follows.

If the usual, normal sex act appeared to primitive man as something miraculous, demonic, supernatural, in which the gods must have a hand, then the observance of same-sex relationships between men must have definitely seemed to him to be a pure miracle, as the effect of a higher spirit infusing these unnatural inclinations into the human being.[1] Thus these first few beings "disinherited from the joy of love" were brought into mysterious relation with higher beings and viewed as earthly representatives of the gods. The abnormal, miraculous, unusual expression of a perverse orientation of the sexual drive was interpreted as a higher, more holy one. One should always remember that primitive man is far removed from applying our moral standards to these phenomena. His indifference with regard to them offers a precise analogy to that [indifference] which even today our lower classes exhibit with respect to these things. If the moral standpoint is removed, then the primitive human being caught up in animism and demonism sees only the puzzling, physical act itself, which requires an explanation in the given sense.

This religious understanding of homosexuality condensed then into a religious practice, insofar as those womanish, homosexually-inclined men were designated as priests. However, since they were usually not present in sufficient number, they were artificially cultivated; or at least the attempt was made to create the appearance as though the male priests were women. When it is reported of South and Central American tribes that the male priests had to wear women's clothes,[2] this corresponds in folk-psychological terms with the report by Herodotus (II, 36) that the priests of the gods in ancient Europe, except in Egypt, had to wear long hair. We have already become acquainted in the aforementioned reports from Martius with the intimate relationships between magic and artificially cultivated pederasty among the South American Indians. Falkner and Bastian report that among the Arauks the male magicians are plainly forced to abandon their sex and don feminine clothing. They are also forbidden to marry and are usually selected already as children, with particularly feminine-looking ones being preferred.[3] Hammond reports about the "Mujerados" of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico that they are absolutely indispensable for the religious orgies. Pederastic practices constitute a significant component of the religious ceremonies of the Pueblos. Likewise, the effeminates of Florida were particularly fond of attending religious celebrations.[4]

Similar situations are found among the civilized peoples. The "holy" pederasts of the Sakalaves of Madagascar,[5] find their counterpart among the civilized peoples of antiquity in the pederastic priests of Baal Peor, Kybele, Aphrodite, and the Dea Syria.[6]

Pederasts are called "holy ones" (qadeshim)[7] in the Old Testament for the same reasons as this attribute is given to them by primitive peoples. Even the pederastic act itself, or at least disgusting insinuations of it, were viewed by Baal Pegor as "holy" and were dedicated to him.[8]

The temple of Aphrodite Hetaira in Athens served, according to Apollodorus, as a residence for female and male hetairai, [9] and the cult of the "Mother of the Gods" Kybele exhibits no less indications of religious homosexuality in its castrated priests (galli).

It is known that in the Satanic cult of the Christian Middle Ages, unnatural sexual offenses between the same sexes were viewed as something sanctified.

Even female homosexuality, or tribadism, can arise for religious reasons. A female branch of the Cainite sect founded by Quintilla "led back to the famous Sappho in every respect" and gained wide distribution in North Africa thanks to the zealous sermons of its founder.[10]

In any case, especially among religious fanatics who joined together in particular sects, we find a whole number of sexual anomalies combined which are all justified by religious reasons. However, it can scarcely be assumed that all members of these religious communities were afflicted by congenital sexual perversions. No, the profound association of religious mysticism with the sexual drive is what reveals itself here in the sexual degenerations of an unleashed imagination. This can be demonstrated from the relatively harmless, but worrisome in its consequences, "aseminal cohabitation" of the recent Oneida sect in North America to the Satanic cult of the Cainites, the Manicheans, and the Templars, which embrace the most heinous sexual vices, the latter of whom aped the holy rites of the Christian church in order to glorify the principle of evil, but in so doing [word missing] into the purely sexual ...
 

Footnotes for pp. 120-123
 

1 Usually in the form of dreams, as with the Otoe Indians in North America. Karsch, "Uranismus oder Paederastie bei den Naturvoelkern" in: Jahrbuch fuer sexuelle Zwischenstufen, Leipzig, 1901, vol. III, p. 132, and Sauk Indians, ibid. p. 121.
2 F. Karsch, op. cit., p. 123.
3 Karsch, op. cit., pp. 157-158.
4 Ibid., p. 119.
5 Ibid., p. 102.
6 That the pederastic effeminization of the Scythians, known as theleia noesos, has a religious origin, is shown by W.H. Roscher ("Das von der 'Kynanthropie' handelnde Fragment des Marcellus von Side," Leipzig, 1896, p. 25, note 61).
7 Cf. J. Rosenbaum, Geschichte der Lustseuche im Altertum, 6th edition, Halle, 1893, p. 122-123.
8 Cf. Rabbi Salomon Jarchi's commentary on Numbers 25: Eo quod distendebat coram illo foramen podicis, et stereus offerebant." In J.A. Dulaure, Des divinités generatrices ou du culte du phallus chez les Anciens et les Modernes, Paris, 1885, p. 67.
9 W.H. Roscher, Nektar und Ambrosia, Leipzig, 1883, p. 89.
10 P. Dufour (pseud. of P.L. Jacob), Geschichte der Prostitution, vol. III, Berlin, 1901, p. 35.