and at a later, as wife and mother. This reputed transposition is in accord with the observed phenomenon[1] of an individual's passing over from one sex class to another at the climacteric corresponding to menopause in woman. ********
I have a theory that the sex class of an individual male depends on the size, but particularly the vigor, of his physical reproductive apparatus. I have ascertained such variety to be practically infinite, and psychicly as well as physically.
There exist no sharp dividing lines among the six classes of males. While the bulk of a particular class correspond closely to the description, there are individuals on each side of such mode who constitute slight gradations over to the next class. Thus each class gradually and almost imperceptibly shades off into the next. There exists indeed a sex scale along which all human beings can be theoretically arranged. At one pole stands the tremendously virile man—for example, the rough volunteer common soldier, as a rule intensely polygamous; at the other the petite, crybaby species of woman. Androgynes and gynanders occupy exactly the middle section, looking toward both the male and the female side.
It is quasi-instinctive with each sex class to scorn members of another class just because they happen to be built on a different plan. It is the same phenomenon prevalent in the religious domain in past centuries, when the Roman Catholic yearned to murder the Protestant and vice versa. Which intolerance the
- ↑ See later chapter: THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE HERMAPHRODITOI IN GENERAL.
