Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 by Havelock Ellis

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

homosexuality. To some extent it is a matter of race; thus in the Pera
district of Constantinople, Weissenberg, among nearly seven hundred women
between about 18 and 50 years of age, noted that 10 per cent, showed hair
on the upper lip; they were most often Armenians, the Greeks coming
next.[168]
There has been some dispute as to whether, apart from
homosexuality, hypertrichosis in a woman can be regarded as an
indication of a general masculinity. This is denied by Max
Bartels (in his elaborate study, "Ueber abnorme Behaarung beim
Menschen," _Zeitschrift f�r Ethnologie_, 1876, p. 127; 1881, p.
219) and, as regards insanity, by L. Harris-Liston ("Cases of
Bearded Women," _British Medical Journal_, June 2, 1894). On the
other hand, J.H. Claiborne ("Hypertrichosis in Women," _New York
Medical Journal_, June 13, 1914) believes that hair on the face
and body in a woman is a sign of masculinity; "women with
hypertrichosis possess masculine traits."
There seems to be very little doubt that fully developed "bearded
women" are in most, possibly not all, cases decidedly feminine in
all other respects. A typical instance is furnished by Annie
Jones, the "Esau Lady" of Virginia. She belonged to a large and
entirely normal family, but herself possessed a full beard with
thick whiskers and moustache of an entirely masculine type; she
also showed short, dark hair on arms and hands resembling a man.
Apart from this heterogeny, she was entirely normal and feminine.
At the age of 26, when examined in Berlin, the hair of the head
was very long, the expression of the face entirely feminine, the
voice also feminine, the figure elegant, the hands and feet
entirely of feminine type, the external and internal genitalia
altogether feminine. Annie Jones was married. Max Bartels, who
studied Annie Jones and published her portrait (_Zeitschrift f�r
Ethnologie_, 1891, Heft 3, p. 243), remarks that in these
respects Annie Jones resembles other "bearded women"; they marry,
have children, and are able to suckle them. A beard in women
seems, as Dupr� and Duflos believe (_Revue Neurologique_, Aug.
30, 1901), to be more closely correlated with neuropathy than
with masculinity; comparing a thousand sane women with a thousand
insane women in Paris, they found unusual degree of hair or down
on the face in 23 per cent. of the former and 50 per cent. of the
latter; but even the sane bearded women frequently belonged to
neuropathic families.
A tendency to slight widely diffused hypertrichosis of the body
generally, not localized or highly developed on the face, seems
much more likely than a beard to be associated with masculinity,
even when it occurs in little girls. Thus Virchow once presented
to the Berlin Anthropological Society a little girl of 5 of this
type who also possessed a deep and rough voice (_Zeitschrift f�r
Ethnologie_, 1891, Heft 4, p. 469). A typical example of slight
hypertrichosis in a woman associated with general masculine
traits is furnished by a description and figure of the body of a
woman of 56 in an anatomical institute, furnished by C. Strauch
(_Zeitschrift f�r Ethnologie_, 1901, Heft 6, p. 534). In this
case there was a growth of hair around both nipples and a line of
hair extended from the pubes to the navel; both these two
dispositions of hair are very rare in women. (In Vienna among
nearly 700 women Coe only found a tendency to hair distribution
toward the navel in about 1 per cent.). While the hair in this
subject was otherwise fairly normal, there were many
approximations to the masculine type in other respects: the
muscles were strongly developed, the bones massive, the limbs
long, the joints powerful, the hands and feet large, the thorax
well developed, the lower jaw massive; there was an absence of
feminine curves on the body and the breasts were scarcely
perceptible. At the same time the genital organs were normal and
there had been childbirth. It was further notable that this woman
had committed suicide by self-strangulation, a rare method which
requires great resolution and strength of will, as at any moment
of the process the pressure can be removed.
There seems little doubt that inverted women frequently tend to show minor
anomalies of the piliferous system, and especially slight hypertrichosis
and a masculine distribution of hair. Thus in a very typical case of
inversion in an Italian girl of 19 who dressed as a man and ran away from
home, the down on the arms and legs was marked to an unusual extent, and
there was very abundant hair in the armpits and on the pubes, with a
tendency to the masculine distribution.[169] Of the three cases described
in this chapter which I am best acquainted with, one possesses an
unusually small amount of hair on the pubes and in the axill�
(oligotrichosis terminalis), approximating to the infantile type, while
another presents a complex and very rare piliferous heterogeny. There is
marked dark down on the upper lip; the pubic hair is thick, and there is
hair on toes and feet and legs to umbilicus; there are also a few hairs
around the nipples. A woman physician in the United States who knows many
female inverts similarly tells me that she has observed the tendency to
growth of hair on the legs. If, as is not improbable, inversion is
associated with some abnormal balance in the internal secretions, it is
not difficult to understand this tendency to piliferous anomalies; and we
know that the thyroid secretion, for instance, and much more the
testicular and ovarian secretions, have a powerful influence on the hair.
Ballantyne, some years ago, in discussing congenital
hypertrichosis (_Manual of Antenatal Pathology_, 1902, pp. 321-6) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

pobieranie @ do ÂściÂągnięcia @ ebook @ download @ pdf