Mel Gordon - Voluptuous Panic - The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin

Hirschfeld embraced a doctrine known as “sexual relativity.” He wrote that it was “unscientific” to speak of only two sexes. Between “full man” and “full woman” was an infinite string of sexual/gender possibilities. Male and female hormones, which Hirschfeld believed determined basic sexual type, were never carried in the blood as pure agents within any individual.

Each body manufactures andrin and gynecin (male and female) compounds in various proportions. When the glands that regulate these secretions produce too few andrins or gynecins—or are metabolized incompletely—a sexual “indeterminacy” develops, according to Hirschfeldian analysis. By puberty the hormonally-imbalanced individual exhibits psychological or physical signs of the opposite gender.

Around 1919, Hirschfeld estimated that two percent of humanity could be characterized as constitutional Sexual Intermediates. But his field studies in Berlin and use of more refined typologies during the Twenties and Thirties caused him to upgrade that initial calculation repeatedly. Toward the end of his career, he believed that about 15 to 20% of any observed population manifested aspects of Sexual Intermediacy.

At first, Hirschfeld identified four main Intermediate groups: Hermaphrodites, Androgynes, Transvestites, and Homosexuals. And within each of these classifications were many subgroups and lesser categories. For instance, he divided Hermaphrodites into: 1) men with female organs, 2) women with male organs, 3) people with both sets of sexual organs, appearing in some rudimentary or arrested state, and 4) people possessing functional duel male-and-female genitalia.

Herr Bauer(41) confessed that he built this Masturbation Machine. He willingly demonstrated its unusual mechanism and allowed himself to be photographed while doing so.

At an earlier age, Bauer was observed rubbing his penis against a cow’s stomach until it became fully erect. He then inserted his member into the vagina of a nearby calf. On another occasion, Bauer’s 72-year-old mother was found naked and unconscious with her legs spread open. Authorities suspected the son had intercourse with her. These allegations of bestiality and incest were, of course, vehemently denied by the young Bauer.

Description of the Pictures.

Bauer built the Masturbation Machine with the following items:

1. Two Sewing Spools

2. A Bicycle Rim

3. Three Pairs of Used Women’s Shoes

4. One Chain Gear

5. Two Leather Ties

Bauer strapped the first leather piece around the small of his back—with the slack taken up by a spool over the spine. The other spool was placed vertically near his anus. The second leather piece held the soles of the three shoes firmly against his stomach. This allowed the head of his penis to penetrate the middle shoe. By rolling the bicycle rim forward and back, Bauer created the proper thrust and friction for a full ejaculatory release.

What united all types of Hermaphrodites, Hirschfeld maintained, was their confused sexual self-definition, a psychological state that was conditioned by a sustained ability to shield their abnormality from the world around them. He found cases of female-with-male sexual characteristics (Number Twos) particularly difficult to investigate because such individuals habitually altered their sexual identities two or three times during their troubled adolescence and adulthood.

One of Hirschfeld’s many astonishing case studies on Hermaphroditism: “Bertha D.,” a seamstress, was taunted as a child for her masculine voice. Later when she discovered that her face was sprouting facial hair, “D.” soon tired of shaving twice a day and began wearing male clothing and assumed a male identity. By 18, “Bert” successfully engaged in sex with teenage girls, but she suffered from fierce, premature ejaculations. Around age 20, “D.’s” sexual orientation included boys as well. Although “D.” was unable to maintain an erection with the young males, her engorged clitoris-penis discharged spermatic fluids during intercourse with them. “D.” told Papa that her desire for men peaked right after menstruation but she normally derived more intense sexual pleasure from female partners. Was “D.” a true bisexual, a lesbian with male homosexual tendencies, or a pansexual with straight urges? Hirschfeld merely assured her a coveted point on his Intersexual spectrum. “D.” was what she was ( Hermaphroditismus femininus #1,982).

Hirschfeld’s other Intermediate types cropped up more frequently in the general population. Androgyny involved the growth or adaptation of secondary sexual characteristics from the opposite gender. Male Androgynes, typically, lacked facial hair, had feminine breasts, sensitive nipples, soft fatty skin, and rounded pelvises. Female Androgynes, correspondingly, had flat breasts, little sensitivity around the nipple, and possessed a masculine build, vocal range, and distribution of hair. Unlike Hermaphrodites, both male and female Androgynes were likely to enhance, rather than hide, their constitutional state and seek the sexual company of their heterosexual or homosexual complements.

Hirschfeld punctured the Renaissance myth that Androgynes were divinely bisexual creatures—the vast majority he met were utterly “straight.” One of Papa’s favorite patients was a bearded lady who appeared in local freak shows. In spite of her super-masculine appearance, she was a tender and self-sacrificing mother. (When she was about to give birth to her fourth baby, the midwife naturally mistook her for the father.)

Transvestites were psychological Androgynes, people who voluntarily acquired the look of the opposite sex through dress, exaggerated mannerisms, and corporal deformation. While an apparent psychic phenomenon, Hirschfeld believed Transvestitism required an entirely separate psychosexual nomenclature, since its practitioners were neither exclusively heterosexual or queer. Among his clients, for example, was the Chief of Police of a Central European town, who was married and fathered several children. While normal in every other aspect, the Chief was never content in masculine attire. He liked to visit Papa during his vacations and spend the rest of the day dressed as a woman on the welcoming streets of Berlin.