Sexual Autoidentification
When in this life I was 5 years old our family lived in one of terrible communal flats, which Vladimir Vysotskiy mentions in his song: “… for thirty-nine rooms — only one lavatory.” Apart from constantly coughing and expectorating consumptives I remember one of the inhabitants: Kuzya, a tomcat.
He was a little kitten taken in. Then he grew up and suddenly… — to surprise of everyone — gave birth to several kittens. He turned out to be a female…
I was stupefied the most. Because I could not solve the problem and stuck with it to adults:
And Kuzya himself, does he know that he is — a she-cat?…
But behind this childish naivete there was one of the most interesting problems of biology and psychology: sexual autoidentification, i.e. relating oneself to a certain sex.
We come to know that our physical bodies are of one or another sex from upbringing. Parents call, dress, comb us accordingly, saying that you and they are — of one sex, and those — of another.
But the problem is that sometimes the perception of own sex conflicts with this knowledge.
For example, one objects internally to his evident anatomic signs since childhood. Sometimes it may be related to remembrance of the previous life in a body of the opposite sex. In this case such protest will disappear with time. But in other cases the protest becomes stronger with one’s puberty. Attempts to behave “properly” or “as one should”, including “normal marriage” leads to inner and outer discomfort that can be tremendous sometimes. These are events of inversion (morbid perversion) of sexual autoidentification. Since these incidents are always traced from childhood therefore no doubts that such inversion is of the congenital category.
The mechanism of distortion of sexual autoidentification was intensively studied by scientists during last decades, especially in Germany (G.D?rner and others; see in [21]). It was discovered that the brain of a fetus and of a maturing child develops non-uniformly. Tissues of various brain parts ripen in a certain sequence. There are genetically fixed terms of differentiation and formation of their cells. And during these terms, called critical, according brain parts are extremely vulnerable to damaging influences. Once an injury was done its consequences remain for the whole life.
In particular, it was discovered that there are two specific cerebrum centers — male and female — that are responsible for sexual autoidentification in animal organism and in human too. Different damaging factors — hormonal, medicinal or even such as severe illness, strong negative-emotional stress, etc of pregnant woman at the time of the critical period of fetus development — can entail the abnormalities of fetus’ brain development that will manifest brightly only after puberty [14,16,17,21]. Such people are doomed to form a part of sexual minorities becoming homosexual or bisexual (it depends on the severity of the injury).
… But there is another mechanism of formation of homosexuality and other sexual deflections. It is the conditioned” reflex.
… But to understand it we must talk about pubescence stages first.
… In fact, a child has no inclination to sexual intercourse at all (normally). Also there is no erogeneity of genitals or it is minimal, though blood filling of the cavernous bodies may happen occasionally. On the contrary, there is natural erogeneity of mouth that stimulates a bent for mother’s milk nutrition [8]; it was first noted by Z. Freud [19].
And only at puberty — under the influence of sex hormones production — the erogeneity of the external genital organs gradually develops. But — and it is important! — the inclination to coitus appears not at this time, but only after several years.
This second stage of the development of sexuality is called stage of undifferentiated adolescent sexuality. At this age the sexual interest only begins to develop: boys talk over sex subjects, girls often “try themselves” by teasing sexually men — it is interesting for them to see: “what will happen…” But the prospective of real beginning of the sexual life is usually scaring for them at this age. This is understandable: the process of anatomical maturing of the human reproductive system under the influence of sex hormones lasts for years.
The third stage of sexuality development is sexual maturity. It starts for people of both sexes with real urge to sexual intercourse. At that age in male individuals of all studied in this respect animal species and in men appears for the first time the innate reaction of sexual arousal to their species-specific (i.e. peculiar to this species) key sexual signals. For insects and mammals, except primates these signals are odorous substances secreted by the female genitals (sex pheromones). Birds and primates have visual signals. In case of primates, including humans, such key sexual signal for males is a view of the female’s genitals.
… Within the theme of this chapter the most interesting subject is the stage of undifferentiated sexuality: when the proper sexual orientation has not manifested fully, but sexual arousals, that often accompanied by masturbation and orgasms, take place. It is at this age that the sexual conditioned reflexes may appear, sometimes so strong that they remain for the rest of life accompanying the normal sexuality or even displacing it completely. In this way such sexual abnormalities as fetishism, zoophilias (sexual attraction to animals), masochism, necrophilia and many cases of homosexual attractions are formed. I succeeded in proving it experimentally [4,21,34] and verifying on researches with people [21]. In particular, I raised male dogs with various forms of sexual inversions that displace the normal sexuality in their maturity. Such distortions developed through the mechanism of the conditioned reflex provided that in early age the dogs did not have adequate contacts with coevals of their species [4,21,34].
As to homosexuality, I managed to provide for the first time an integrated concept of this abnormality, despite that it may develop in different ways [21].
* * *
The penal code of the USSR at those years contained an outrageous in its absurdity, and I would even say wicked article added by a Stalin’s personal direction. It reflected the absurdity and criminality of the regime at that time: the article declared punishments in the form of imprisonment in concentration camps for many years men who have homosexual attraction and formed homosexual couples.
I was the first scientist in the USSR who stood up — from the scientific positions — for theirs rights. Precaution required that I put the name of a known sexologist professor A.M. Svyadosch on my first publication [52]. Only later I published my own book [21].
Nevertheless I fall under investigation.
It turned out that I — a scientist conducting questioning among homosexuals — was suspected to be a homosexual and that I use questionnaires to establish new personal homosexual contacts.
Then God showed me two opposite types of investigators.
One of the investigators was — by his vile soul’s features — a criminal.
… Well, who does became an employee of the state power structures? “Healthy” part of their contingent includes people who are ready to sacrifice themselves fighting with social evil for the other’s good. But others go there for the sake of satisfying “on legal ground” their vile aggressive and sadistic inclinations. It is they who torture their victims with pleasure. It does not matter for them whether the suspected person is really guilty. They are not interested in justice, but only in their attraction to humiliate, torment, destroy others. When you are in their grip — even if you have never heard that what you are imputed of — there is no way out. That is because discharge of the suspected is not in the plans of such incarnated devils. They are worried only about personal sadistic satisfaction.
… And one of them started to interrogate me…
But soon the chief officer of the criminal investigation department interfered. He promptly understood the situation, send the investigator-devil out, asked me some questions using non-verbal suggestion (see below), got fully satisfied with answers, determined that I have “medical” handwriting, requested me to write explanatory note (that I am a scientist), closed the file and let me go.
… And the penal prosecution of people with sexual deviations in Russia was repealed. (Except for cases of sexual seduction of infants and coercion, of course).
