The helplessly gross sexual appetite cannot thus be
influenced; but that remains true whether the appetite is homosexual or
heterosexual, and nothing is gained by enabling it to feed on women as
well as on men.
A strictly ascetic life, it needs scarcely be said, is with difficulty
possible for all persons, either homosexual or heterosexual. It is,
however, outside the province of the physician to recommend his inverted
patients to live according to their homosexual impulses, even when those
impulses seem to be natural to the person displaying them. The most that
the physician is entitled to do, it seems to me, is to present the
situation clearly, and leave to the patient a decision for which he must
himself accept the responsibility. Forel goes so far as to say that he
sees no reason why inverts should not build cities of their own and marry
each other if they so please, since they can do no harm to normal adults,
while children can be protected from them.[264] Such notions are, however,
too far removed from our existing social conventions to be worth serious
consideration.
The standpoint here taken up, it may be remarked, by no means
denies to the invert a right to the fulfillment of his impulses.
Pages:
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786