Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

HOMOSEXUALITYtowards the heterosexual, or else become genuinely bisexual.But at a much earlier period it may be possible to seegood reason to consider that we are dealing with a congenitalinvert. If we find unusual sexual precocity combinedwith complete sexual concentration on the same sexwithout any sexual attraction to the opposite sex, thoughwith perhaps an attraction to feminine interests and avocations,and if the family history shows a considerabletendency to nervous abnormality or to eccentricity, wemay suspect, although we cannot be certain, that we aredealing with a certain type of congenital invert.In other cases, however, the homosexual tendency maynot appear until late in life. It was formerly taken forgranted that in these cases the condition isacquired andnot congenital; this is, however, today disputed by manywho regard these cases as due to the late development ofa really inborn tendency, retarded congenital inversion.In this way it comes about that we have to distinguishbetween true congenital sexual inversion (early or retarded)bisexual attraction in which the individual's sexualimpulse goes out towards individuals of both sexes,(most though not all of these cases being apparently invertswho have acquired normal habits), and the largeand vague class of the pseudo-homosexuals, whose perversityis due either to temporary circumstances (asamong sailors) to senile impotency, or to a deliberate,search for abnormal sensations. Even in pseudo-homosexualitywe have to recognize, according to the prevailingview, that the homosexuality rests on a natural germinalbasis, and cannot therefore be regarded as completely acquired,but is the development of a latent aptitude.Sexual inversion has high significance in part becauseit tends to occur in individuals who are above the[237]