In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

I Man and Woman All that a man does is physiognomical of him —Carlyle The way is cleared for the exploration of all the real contrasts between the sexes when we recognize that Man and Woman can only be understood as types, and that the confusing reality, which will forever supply the familiar controversies with new fuel, can only be reproduced by a mixture of these two types. The only really intermediate sexual forms were dealt with in the ¤rst part of this study and, as I must now emphasize, in a somewhat schematic manner. This was the result of the need to consider the general biological validity of the principles I was developing. Now that the human being is to become the object of consideration even more exclusively than before, and the psycho-physiological alignments are about to give way to introspective analysis, the universal claim of the principle of intermediate sexual stages must undergo a signi¤cant quali¤cation. Among plants and animals the occurrence of genuine hermaphroditism is a fact established beyond any doubt. But even among animals hermaphroditism often seems to signify a juxtaposition of the male and female gonads, rather than a balance of the two sexes, in the same individual, a co-existence of the two extremes, rather than a totally neutral condition in the middle between them. Of human beings, however, it may be said with the greatest certainty that psychologically a person must necessarily be either male or female, at least initially and at one and the same time. This unisexuality is not only in keeping with the observation that all those who regard themselves simply as male or female believe their complement to be “Woman” or “Man” pure and simple.1 It is also most powerfully demonstrated by the fact, the theoretical importance of which can hardly be overrated, that within the relationship of two homosexuals, whether 1. I once heard a bisexual man exclaim at the sight of a bisexually active actress with a slight hint of a beard, a deep sonorous voice, and almost no hair on her head: “What a gorgeous woman!” To every man “woman” means something different and yet the same; in “woman” every poet has celebrated something different and yet identical. male or female, one always plays the physical and psychological role of the man and, in the course of a prolonged relationship, keeps or assumes a masculine¤rst name, while the other plays that of the woman, keeping or assuming a feminine ¤rst name or—even more frequently and characteristically—being given one by the former. In the sexual relations between two female or male homosexuals, then, one always performs the function of the male and the other that of the female, which is a fact of the greatest signi¤cance. The man-woman relationship, at the decisive point, proves to be something fundamental and inescapable. All intermediate sexual forms notwithstanding, a human being is ultimately one of two things, either a man or a woman. This most ancient empirical duality (which is not merely anatomical and which in concrete cases does not correspond at all regularly and precisely to the morphological ¤ndings) contains a profound truth that is not neglected with impunity. By recognizing this, a step of the greatest consequence has been taken, which could prove equally bene¤cial or disastrous for all further insights. Such a view establishes a being. The task set for the entire investigation which follows is to investigate the meaning of this being. But as this problematic being touches directly on the main dif¤culty of characterology, it will be advisable, before beginning the work naïvely and boldly, to attempt a brief orientation about this most delicate problem, at the very threshold of which all audacity falters. The obstacles facing any characterological investigation are enormous, if only because of the complicated nature of the material. Again and again the path that one believes to have found through the forest is lost in the dense undergrowth , and the thread can no longer be unraveled from the in¤nitely tangled mass. The worst thing, however, is that as the interpreter tries to derive general principles, even from successful beginnings, time and again the gravest doubts arise concerning the method for a systematic presentation of any disentangled material, forming a formidable obstacle in particular to the establishment of types. In respect of the contrasts between the sexes, for example, so far only the assumption of a certain kind of...

Share