workman, the cassock of the priest,
the epaulettes of the officer, the smock-frock of the ploughman, the wig
of the barrister, the mantle of the peer, the costume of the actor, the
tights of the athlete, the gown of the academician.

It is the common belief that one, and only one, unmentionable act is
what the lovers seek as the source of their unnatural gratification, and
that this produces spinal disease, epilepsy, consumption, dropsy, and
the like.[3] Nothing can be more mistaken, as the scientifically
reported cases of avowed and adult sinners amply demonstrate. Neither do
they invariably or even usually prefer the _aversa Venus_; nor, when
this happens, do they exhibit peculiar signs of suffering in health.[4]
Excess in any venereal pleasure will produce diseases of nervous
exhaustion and imperfect nutrition. But the indulgence of inverted
sexual instincts within due limits, cannot be proved to be especially
pernicious. Were it so, the Dorians and Athenians, including Sophocles,
Pindar, AEschines, Epaminondas, all the Spartan kings and generals, the
Theban legion, Pheidias, Plato, would have been one nation of rickety,
phthisical, dropsical paralytics. The grain of truth contained in this
vulgar error is that, under the prevalent laws and hostilities of modern
society, the inverted passion has to be indulged furtively,
spasmodically, hysterically; that the repression of it through fear and
shame frequently leads to habits of self-abuse; and that its
unconquerable solicitations sometimes convert it from a healthy outlet
of the sexual nature into a morbid monomania.[5] It is also true that
professional male prostitutes, like their female counterparts, suffer
from local and constitutional disorders, as is only natural.[6]

It is the common belief that boys under age are specially liable to
corruption. This error need not be confuted here. Anyone who chooses to
read the cases recorded by Casper-Liman, Casper in his Novellen,
Krafft-Ebing, and Ulrichs, or to follow the developments of the present
treatise, or to watch the manners of London after dark, will be
convicted of its absurdity. Young boys are less exposed to dangers from
abnormal than young girls from normal voluptuaries.

It is the common belief that all subjects from inverted instinct carry
their lusts written in their faces; that they are pale, languid,
scented, effeminate, painted, timid, oblique in expression. This vulgar
error rests upon imperfect obse