ion in an early stage of
morbid cerebral disturbance, not amounting to insanity and not
involving complete irresponsibility. In such cases, Leppmann
believes, the subject may, through his lack of power, be brought
back to the beginning of his sexual life and to the perhaps
unconsciously homosexual attractions of that age.

With the recognition that homosexuality in youth may be due to an as yet
undifferentiated sexual impulse, homosexuality in mature age to a retarded
development on a congenital basis, and homosexuality in sold age to a
return to the attitude of youth, the area of spurious or "pseudo"
homosexuality seems to me to be very much restricted. Most, perhaps all,
authorities still accept the reality of this spurious homosexuality in
heterosexual persons. But they enter into no details concerning it, and
they bring forward no minutely observed cases in which it occurred.
Hirschfeld, in discussing the diagnosis of homosexuality and seeking to
distinguish genuine from spurious inverts,[134] enumerates three classes
of the latter: (1) those who practise homosexuality for purposes of gain,
more especially male prostitutes and blackmailers; (2) persons who, from
motives of pity, good nature, friendship, etc., allow themselves to be the
objects of homosexual desire; (3) normal persons who, when excluded from
the society of the opposite sex, as in schools, barracks, on board ship,
or in prison, have sexual relations with persons of their own sex. Now
Hirschfeld clearly realizes that the mere sexual act is no proof of the
direction of the sexual impulse; it may be rendered possible by mechanical
irritation (as by the stimulation of a full bladder) and in women without
any stimulation at all; such cases can have little psychological
significance. Moreover, he seems to admit that some subdivisions of his
first class are true inverts. He further mentions that some 75 per cent.
of the individuals included in these classes are between 15 and 25 years
of age, that is to say, that they have scarcely emerged from the period
when we have reason to believe that, in a large number of individuals at
all events, the sexual impulse is not yet definitely differentiated; so
that neither its homosexual nor its heterosexual tendencies can properly
be regarded as spurious.

If, indeed, we really accept the very reasonable view, that the basis of
the sexual life is bisexual, although its direction may be definitely
fi