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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Inversion"

227).
Krafft-Ebing himself at first simply asserted that, whether
congenital or acquired, there must be _Belastung_; inversion is a
"degenerate phenomenon," a functional sign of degeneration
(Krafft-Ebing, "Zur Erklaerung der contraeren Sexualempfindung,"
_Jahrbuch fuer Psychiatrie_, 1894). In the later editions of
_Psychopathia Sexualis_, however (1896 and onward and notably in
_Jahrbuch fuer sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. iii, 1901), he went
farther, adopting the explanation on the lines of original
bisexuality (English translation of tenth edition, pp. 336-7). In
much the same language as I have used he argued that there has
been a struggle in the centers, homosexuality resulting when the
center antagonistic to that represented by the sexual gland
conquers, and psycho-sexual hermaphroditism resulting when both
centers are too weak to obtain victory, in either case such
disturbance not being a psychic degeneration or disease, but
simply an anomaly comparable to a malformation and quite
consonant with psychic health.


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