ccording to immemorial legend man and woman were once a single creature. This being was cut into two by an angry god, and since then the halves have felt drawn to each other because of the love which exists for the primary purpose of restoring the original sexless creature. The earliest traces of this legend are to be found in the Upanishads of the Hindus and the Old Testament. Plato also tells us of this in his book entitled BANQUET.

This legend is the earliest in man's attempt to explain the wherefore of the existence of the two sexes. In addition it gives expression to the thought that has been uppermost in many minds for many years that man is a bisexual creature.

Among the favorite Greek gods was Hermaphroditus, the god of two sexes united into one. He was a divinity among the Romans for many years.

Anthropologists have found that bisexuality plays a vital role in the cults, customs and folklore of primitive peoples. It is and always has been a belief deeply rooted in the minds of both civilized and primitive peoples.

About the middle of the 19th century it was discovered that the urogenital systems of the two sexes came from a common origin. Was this original tissue neutral or was it hermaproditic? Research revealed the fact that this tissue contained cellular elements of both male and female sex glands and was for this reason bisexual or hermaphroditic.

Two-Sexed Individuals

Edward Podolsky, M.D.

Hermaphrodites, human beings in whom the elements of both sexes are to be found prominently displayed, have been known from the earliest times. Biologically this can be explained by the presence of both the male and female sex hormones in equal amounts. Sex is determined in the greatest measure by chemical means: in the male the predominant presence of the male sex hormone; in the female, the overwhelming amount of female sex hormones. There are both kinds of sex hormones in all human beings, but under normal conditions the male has much more of the male hormone than the female. Similarly, the female has much more of the female sex hormone than the male. But in the bisexual human both male and femole sex hormones are present in equal amounts.

The conception of bisexuality was approved by religious authorities. Certain Egyptian gods were frankly bisexual.

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In this way began the scientific attempts to explain bisexuality. The first modern explanation of bisexuality was given by Krafft-Ebing, the famous Viennese psychiatrist and sexologist. He explained it as follows: Since the sexual organs of man and woman are bisexual in their makeup, it must be true that the nerve centers that control these organs must also be bisexual in nature. Thus one must assume that the brain contains male and female centers whose antagonistic action and relative strength determines the individual's sexual behavior. Thus, according to Krafft-Ebing, homosexuality results from a victory of the wrong centers. But he realized that hermaphroditic abnormalities of the genitals and homosexuality are rarely found together. So Krafft-Ebing went a step further and said that the nervous system controlling sexual feeling is not too directly connected with the sex glands and that it could have its own disturb-