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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Inversion"

Cause was evidently suggestion and example on the part
of another female pervert with whom she associated before her
marriage. Marriage was late, at age of 35. In all these cases
there was an element of what may be called suggestion, but it was
really much more than this; it was probably in each case active
seduction by an elder person of a predisposed younger person. It
will be observed that in each case there was, at the least, an
organic neurotic basis for suggestion and seduction to work on. I
cannot regard these cases as entitled to modify our attitude
toward suggestion.

MASTURBATION.--Moreau believed that masturbation was a cause of sexual
inversion, and Krafft-Ebing looked upon it as leading to all sorts of
sexual perversions; the same opinion was currently repeated by many
writers. It is not now accepted. Moll emphatically rejected the idea that
masturbation can be the cause of inversion; Naecke repeatedly denies that
masturbation, any more than seduction, can ever produce true inversion;
Hirschfeld attaches to it no etiological significance.


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