To wear a red necktie on the street
is to invite remarks from newsboys and others--remarks that have the
practices of inverts for their theme. A friend told me once that when a
group of street-boys caught sight of the red necktie he was wearing they
sucked their fingers in imitation of _fellatio_. Male prostitutes who walk
the streets of Philadelphia and New York almost invariably wear red
neckties. It is the badge of all their tribe. The rooms of many of my
inverted friends have red as the prevailing color in decorations. Among my
classmates, at the medical school, few ever had the courage to wear a red
tie; those who did never repeated the experiment."
MORAL ATTITUDE OF THE INVERT.--There is some interest in tracing the
invert's own attitude toward his anomaly, and his estimate of its
morality. As my cases are not patients seeking to be cured of their
perversion, this attitude cannot be taken for granted. I have noted the
moral attitude in 57 cases. In 8 the subjects loathe themselves, and have
fought in vain against their perversion, which they often regard as a sin.
Nine or ten are doubtful, and have little to say in justification of their
condition, which they regard as perhaps morbid, a "moral disease.
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