true irradiated
love. Inverts want to marry and swear eternal fidelity; they celebrate
their betrothals, even openly, the invert in male attire representing
the bridegroom; or sometimes they have secret symbols, such as
exchanging rings, etc. These sexual orgies are often seasoned with
alcohol.

_The excesses of female inverts exceed those of the male. This is
their one thought, night and day, almost without interruption.
Jealousy is also as strong as among male inverts. However, these
nymphomaniac inverts are not very common._

A characteristic peculiarity of feminine inversion depends on the
irradiation of the sexual appetite in woman (_vide_ Chapters IV and
V). We have seen that there is much less distinction in woman between
love and local sensations of pleasure, and between friendship and
love, than in man. When a woman invert wishes to seduce a normal girl,
it is easy for her to do so. She first wins her affection by the aid
of the caresses of an exalted platonic love, which is not uncommon
among women; kisses, embraces, and sleeping in the same bed are much
more common among girls than boys, and little by little the invert
succeeds in causing voluptuous sensations in her victim. Very often
the object of these caresses does not recognize that there is anything
abnormal in all this, or gives way to her sensations without
reflection, and then becomes amorous in her turn. I will give an
example:

A female invert, dressed as a young man, succeeded in winning the love
of a normal girl, and was formally betrothed to her. Soon afterwards
the woman was unmasked, arrested and sent to an asylum, where she was
made to put on woman's clothes. But the young girl who had been
deceived continued to be amorous and visited her "lover," who embraced
her before every one, in a state of voluptuous ecstasy, which I
witnessed myself. When this scene was over, I took the young girl
aside and expressed my astonishment at seeing her continue to have any
regard for the sham "young man" who had deceived her. Her reply was
characteristic of a woman: "Ah! you see, doctor, I love him, and I
cannot help it!"

What can one reply to such logic? A psychic love of this kind is
hardly possible in man; but if we go to the bottom of the matter and
study the nature of woman, we can understand how certain feminine
exaltations may be unconsciously transformed into love, platonic at
first, afterwards sexual. At first, "they understand each other so