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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Inversion"

" Moll (_Kontraere Sexualempfindung_, 1889, pp. 6 and 356)
does not think it proved that a stage of undifferentiated sexual
feeling always occurs, although we have to recognize that it is
of frequent occurrence. In his later work (1909, _Das Sexualleben
des Kindes_, English translation, _The Sexual Life of the Child_,
ch. iv), Moll remains of the same opinion that a homosexual
tendency is very frequent in normal children, whose later
development is quite normal; it begins between the ages of 7 and
10 (or even at 5) and may last to 20.
In recent years Freud has accepted and developed the conception
of the homosexual strain; as normal in early life. Thus, in 1905,
in his "Bruchstueck einer Hysterie-Analyse" (reprinted in the
second series of _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_,
1909), Freud regards it as a well-known fact that boys and girls
at puberty normally show plain signs of the existence of a
homosexual tendency. Under favorable circumstances this tendency
is overcome, but when a happy heterosexual love is not
established it remains liable to reappear under the influence of
an appropriate stimulus.


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