The
conception of retarded inversion,--that is to say a latent congenital
inversion becoming manifest at a late period in life,--was first brought
forward by Thoinot in 1898 in his _Attentats aux Moeurs_, in order to
supersede the unsatisfactory conception, as he considered it to be, of
acquired inversion. Thoinot regarded retarded inversion as relatively rare
and of no great importance but more accessible to therapeutic measures.
Three years later, Krafft-Ebing, toward the close of his life, adopted the
same conception; the cases to which he applied it were all, he considered,
of bisexual disposition and usually, also, marked by sexual hyperesthesia.
This way of looking at the matter was speedily championed by Naecke and may
now be said to be widely accepted.[132]
Moll, earlier than Thoinot, had pointed out that it is difficult to
believe that homosexuality in late life can ever be produced without at
least some inborn weakness of the heterosexual impulse, and that we must
not deny the possibility of heredity even when homosexuality appears at
the age of 50 or 60.[133]
Moll believes it is very doubtful whether heterosexual satiety
alone can ever suffice to produce homosexuality.
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