Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 | Page 6

this head.[14]
Unfortunately, however, the travellers and others on whose records we
are dependent have been so shy of touching these subjects, and so
ignorant of the main points for investigation, that it is very difficult to
discover sexual inversion in the proper sense in any lower race.
Travellers have spoken vaguely of crimes against nature without
defining the precise relationship involved nor inquiring how far any
congenital impulse could be distinguished.
Looking at the phenomena generally, so far as they have been recorded
among various lower races, we seem bound to recognize that there is a

widespread natural instinct impelling men toward homosexual
relationships, and that this has been sometimes, though very
exceptionally, seized upon and developed for advantageous social
purposes. On the whole, however, unnatural intercourse (sodomy) has
been regarded as an antisocial offense, and punishable sometimes by
the most serious penalties that could be invented. This was, for instance,
the case in ancient Mexico, in Peru, among the Persians, in China, and
among the Hebrews and Mohammedans.
Even in very early history it is possible to find traces of homosexuality,
with or without an implied disapproval. Its existence in Assyria and
Babylonia is indicated by the Codex Hamurabi and by inscriptions
which do not on the whole refer to it favorably.[15] As regards Egypt
we learn from a Fayum papyrus, found by Flinders Petrie, translated by
Griffiths, and discussed by Oefele,[16] that more than four thousand
years ago homosexual practices were so ancient that they were
attributed to the gods Horus and Set. The Egyptians showed great
admiration of masculine beauty, and it would seem that they never
regarded homosexuality as punishable or even reprehensible. It is
notable, also, that Egyptian women were sometimes of very virile type,
and Hirschfeld considers that intermediate sexual types were specially
widespread among the Egyptians.[17]
One might be tempted to expect that homosexual practices would be
encouraged whenever it was necessary to keep down the population.
Aristotle says that it was allowed by law in Crete for this end. And
Professor Haddon tells me that at Torres Straits a native advocated
sodomy on this ground.[18] There seems, however, on the whole, to be
little evidence pointing to this utilization of the practice. The
homosexual tendency appears to have flourished chiefly among
warriors and warlike peoples. During war and the separation from
women that war involves, the homosexual instinct tends to develop; it
flourished, for instance, among the Carthaginians and among the
Normans, as well as among the warlike Dorians, Scythians, Tartars,
and Celts,[19] and, when there has been an absence of any strong moral
feeling against it, the instinct has been cultivated and, idealized as a
military virtue, partly because it counteracts the longing for the

softening feminine influences of the home and partly because it seems
to have an inspiring influence in promoting heroism and heightening
esprit de corps. In the lament of David over Jonathan we have a picture
of intimate friendship--"passing the love of women"--between
comrades in arms among a barbarous, warlike race. There is nothing to
show that such a relationship was sexual, but among warriors in New
Caledonia friendships that were undoubtedly homosexual were
recognized and regulated; the fraternity of arms, according to Foley,[20]
complicated with pederasty, was more sacred than uterine fraternity.
We have, moreover, a recent example of the same relationships
recognized in a modern European race--the Albanians.
Hahn, in the course of his Albanische Studien (1854, p. 166), says that
the young men between 16 and 24 lore boys from about 12 to 17. A
Gege marries at the age of 24 or 25, and then he usually, but not always,
gives up boy-love. The following passage is reported by Hahn as the
actual language used to him by an Albanian Gege: "The lover's feeling
for the boy is pure as sunshine. It places the beloved on the same
pedestal as a saint. It is the highest and most exalted passion of which
the human breast is capable. The sight of a beautiful youth awakens
astonishment in the lover, and opens the door of his heart to the delight
which the contemplation of this loveliness affords. Love takes
possession of him so completely that all his thought and feeling goes
out in it. If he finds himself in the presence of the beloved, he rests
absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, he thinks of nought but him. If the
beloved unexpectedly appears, he falls into confusion, changes color,
turns alternately pale and red. His heart beats faster and impedes his
breathing. He has ears and eyes only for the beloved. He shuns
touching him with the hand, kisses him only on the forehead, sings his
praise in verse, a woman's never." One of these love-poems of an
Albanian Gege runs as follows: "The sun, when