GLR September-October 2024

new house. Dr. Hamilton with great difficulty managed to schedule a con sultation with Miss A., and was sur prised by her attitude toward what he considered to be a loving family only trying to rescue their daughter and sis ter from a nasty predator. “On this oc casion she manifested a great deal of hatred to her family, which was unrea sonable, and avowed her loyalty to her ‘good friends,’ and ‘defied’ me to find her insane. No amount of reassurance and no appeal to her self-respect was of the least use, and she left me in an angry and obstinate mood. At this in terview I was impressed with the pecu liarity of manner and the intensity of feeling which might be exhibited by a woman who was defending her lover, and her defiant utterances were utterly unwarranted.”

sulted me for treatment of pederastic tendencies to which he was subject, and to which he had repeatedly yielded, though always afterwards experiencing the most intense feelings of remorse.” (Here “pederastic” meant “homosex ual.”) The man was well-educated, well traveled, and “had ample means at this command,” and while he had repeatedly tried to divert his impulses by attempt ing to become attracted to women, he despaired that he was aroused only by men. “The origin of the impulse was sud den,” reported the doctor, “and occurred when he was about twelve years of age. He had been severely flogged at school for some boyish offense, and soon after ward experienced in the sexual organs sensations which he had never felt be fore, accompanied by an erection which

Allan McLane Hamilton, ca. 1920. Lib. of Congress.

Dr. Hamilton decided to hire a private detective to tail the couple, hoping to collect evidence that could be used in court. “The latter very diligently hunted up evidence, with the result that I learned that a veritable infatuation existed upon the part of Miss A., who went everywhere with [the doctor], and who even, at times, occupied her bed. Other information, of a more convicting kind, was subsequently ascertained, and was veri fied by letters that burned with love and had been written by the older woman to the girl. No lover could have expressed him self more ardently to his mistress, and there was no doubt but what the stronger woman had not only poisoned the girl’s morals, but had alienated her from her home and worked upon her for the purpose of getting her money, which she did.” Dr. Hamilton was repulsed by what he learned, but reluc tantly concluded that, while Miss A. was clearly deluded in her attachment to her female lover, she was not technically in sane. “So far as the intellectual condition of the girl was con cerned there was nothing in her conversation that would have convinced an ordinary jury that she was of unsound mind, and at that time her mental perversion was not of a recognized kind.” The amounts of money she had withdrawn from her bank account were indeed significant, but not really extrava gant, given her large fortune, and she was legally free to spend her money in any way she chose. The best he could recom mend to the family was perhaps to sue the doctor herself for “undue influence.” This they were reluctant to do, because such a dispute would necessarily lead to unpleasantness in the newspapers, and prove an embarrassment to the entire family. They thanked Dr. Hamilton for his tact and discretion, and left Miss A. to the woman she loved. § D R .W ILLIAM A. H AMMOND , Professor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System at the New York Post-Graduate Medical School, represented perhaps the most typical response of Amer ican physicians when they were consulted by patients with “contrary” sexual desires. In 1883, Hammond published a case study of “a young man, twenty-eight years of age, [who] con

lasted fully half an hour. That afternoon, he went into a river near by to bathe, in company with another boy, and, while in the water, he swam with his hands resting on the other boy’s shoulders. He had often done this before, without having any sexual excitement provoked, but upon this occasion his penis came in contact with the gluteal region of his companion, and, instantly, he felt just such sensations as he had experienced when he had been flogged, and, like them, accompanied by an erection. They were close to shore, and before he knew what he was doing, he was performing a pederastic act.” The students at the boy’s school engaged in frequent ho mosexual couplings among themselves, and after his initial en counter in the river, Hammond’s patient began to join in these activities, sometimes bottoming but usually on top. His feelings of guilt eventually prevailed though, and for his four years of college, he remained entirely celibate. “He, however, frequently practised masturbation, and during the act always directed his mind toward the subject of the gluteal region of man, of naked men, and images of men committing pederasty. There was scarcely a night that he did not commit self-pollution. Noctur nal emissions, also, were common, and were always accompa nied by lascivious dreams, of which pederastic acts were the principal features.” The patient avoided the company of “virtu ous women” because he felt he was morally unfit to associate with them, and since he could not allow himself to act on his de sires, he developed instead a vivid fantasy life. “For instance, he spent the whole of one evening drawing the gluteal regions of the great men of the world, and imagining that he was having pederastic relations with them.” But the suppression of his desires could not be sustained forever. “Soon after leaving college, while stopping at a hotel in this city, a telegraphic message arrived for him late in the evening, just as he had undressed, and was going to bed. The bell-boy of the hotel, who brought it to him, was a rather hand some lad, and excited the desires of the patient to an inordinate degree. He offered him a considerable sum of money to remain with him all night, and, without much persuasion, consent was obtained. He had never experienced such intense venereal ex

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