Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 - Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis
page 17 of 587 (02%)
page 17 of 587 (02%)
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male Australian sheldrake was paired to a male of another species.[12]
Among birds generally, inverted sexuality seems to accompany the development of the secondary sexual characters of the opposite sex which is sometimes found. Thus, a poultry-breeder describes a hen (colored Dorking) crowing like a cock, only somewhat more harshly, as a cockerel crows, and with an enormous comb, larger than is ever seen in the male. This bird used to try to tread her fellow-hens. At the same time she laid early and regularly, and produced "grand chickens."[13] Among ducks, also, it has occasionally been observed that the female assumes at the same time both male livery and male sexual tendencies. It is probable that such observations will be multiplied in the future, and that sexual inversion in the true sense will be found commoner among animals than at present it appears to be. Traces of homosexual practices, sometimes on a large scale, have been found among all the great divisions of the human race. It would be possible to collect a considerable body of evidence under 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 |
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