Page:Homo-sexual Life by William John Fielding (1925).pdf/61

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HOMO-SEXUAL LIFE
59

must be woman haters. Quite the contrary. They are not seldom their faithfulest friends, the truest allies and most convinced defenders of women."

Havelock Ellis in Chapter VI of his "Sexual Inversion" also scouts the idea that the Uranian temperament is necessarily morbid, and states that the tendency should be considered an anomaly rather than a disease. He makes this interesting observation on the subject, comparing the invert to the "sport" or variation in the animal and vegetable world: "Thus in sexual inversion we have what may fairly be called a 'sport' or variation, one of those organic aberrations which we see throughout living nature in plants and in animals."

And Ellis writes, with reference to the artistic proclivities of the invert: "An examination of my cases reveals the interesting fact that thirty-two of them, or sixty-eight per cent, possess artistic aptitude in varying degrees.

"Galton found, from the investigation of nearly one thousand persons, that the general average showing artistic taste in England is only about thirty per cent. It must be said that my figures are probably below the truth, as no special point was made of investigating the matter, and also that in many cases their artistic aptitudes are of high order. With regard to the special avocations of my cases, it must, of course, be said that no occupation furnishes a safeguard against inversion. There are, however, certain occupations to which inverts are specially attracted. Acting is certainly one of the chief of these. Three of my cases belong to