sexual practices among the people of ancient nations at the heights of their culture. Among the latter, as we have seen, inversion becomes an institution endowed with important functions.
From the standpoint of anatomical development and the libido, there are frequently found in the inverted a diminution of the sexual impulse, and a slight stunting of the generative organs. However, this is not preponderately the rule, so it must be recognized that inversion and somatic hermaphroditism (bodily bisexual characters) are quite independent of each other.
Freud has demonstrated how neurosis is definitely connected with some phase of the sexual instinct—often the suppression of its normal manifestations. In addition to that, he has shown that the symptoms of neurosis only too frequently represent the converted expression of impulses which in a broader sense may be designated as perverse, if they could manifest themselves directly in phantasies and acts without deviating from consciousness. The inference, therefore, is that the symptoms are partially formed at the cost of abnormal sexuality. "The neurosis is, so to say, the negative of the perversion."
Psychoanalysis has brought to light the fact that the well-known fancies of perverts which under favorable conditions are changed into contrivances, the delusional fears of paranoiacs which are in a hostile manner projected on others, and the unconscious fancies of hysterics, agree as to content often in the minutest details.
