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BOOK REVIEWS
be sexual in the erotic sense. Secondly it is to be noted — and this
Lipschiitz admits in other places — that the puberty glands and the
secondary sexual characteristics in part dependent on them may not be
the sole sources and expressions of sexuality. Our psycho-analytical
experiences compel us to assume that there are sexual components
peculiar to the individual organs of the body themselves, even apart
from their having been previously "erotised" by the secretion of the
puberty glands; these components attain the fuller incorporation, so to
speak the fuller initiation, through the cooperation of the genital and |
secondary sexual characteristics (which of course are largely dependent Jr
on the puberty glands). We have not the least doubt that further bio- logical experience will also corroborate this observation so conclusive to psycho-analysts.
With a certain air of intent the author seems to evade the question of the general bisexuality (with the ultimate prevalence of the one sex) postulated by psycho-analysis. We expect that he does this because he has gained his psychological knowledge chiefly from the literature of the advocates of homosexuality (particularly Magnus Hirschfeld) who do not wish to recognise that homosexuals are rudimentary and incomplete sexual types who have remained fixed in a preliminary stage of develop- ment but would like to assign to them the r61e of a particular (perhaps especially privileged) intermediate stage. And yet the brilliant "mas- culinations" achieved by operation, by means of which Steinach has transformed male homosexuals of the feminine type in such a way that there developed in them normal male characteristics and a corresponding attitude of libido, change nothing in the conception we are led to by psycho-analysis. It would be a gross error to confound femininity of the man with homosexuality altogether. Psycho-analysis shows us many cases in which the homo-erotic tendency develops as a neurotic symptom without there being any femininity in the predisposition ; in such cases the "masculination" would only increase the psychical conflicts and aggravate the neurosis, perhaps also the homosexuality. Therefore great caution is necessary in recommending these operations.
The reviewer had the opportunity of recommending to Professor Steinach a few themes which present themselves in this biological pro- vince; for instance, the biochemical influencing of the paranoiac homo- sexuals, biochemical-macrobiotic and therapeutic experiments (by means of transplantation of puberty glands or ligaturing the vas deferens). Fortunately he came too late with his proposals, since these works had already been started by Steinach and partly carried through already. We await with great interest the communication of these results.
S. Ferenczi.
