The Italian Invert

"Each of us has his tastes inscribed in his brain and heart; whether he fulfills his urges with regret or with joy, he must fulfill them. He should let others act according to their own nature. It's fate that creates us and guides us throughout our lives: to fight against it would be little more than fruitless, foolish, and reckless!"
In the late 1880s, a dashing young Italian aristocrat made an astonishing confession to the novelist Émile Zola. In a series of revealing letters, he frankly described his sexual experiences with other men—including his seduction as a teenager by one of his father's friends and his first love affair, with a sergeant during his military service—as well as his "extraordinary" personality. Judging it too controversial, Zola gave it to a young doctor, who in 1896 published a censored version in a medical study on sexual inversion, as homosexuality was then known. When the Italian came across this book, he was shocked to discover…