John Addington Symonds said, in his A Problem in Modern Ethics, that “the body of an Unrning is masculine, his soul feminine, so far as sex is concerned” (Symonds).  This meant that Urnings (homosexuals) were thought to have a masculine outer appearance, but have a feminine spirit and soul, which meant carrying out many of the features a female would have personality wise or spiritually.  He said that “the body of a male is visible to the eyes, is measurable, and ponderable, is clearly marked in its specific organs”, so that upon first glance one would recognize a male figure standing before them, “but what we call his soul … eludes the observation of the senses” (Symonds).  What Symonds means by this is that the soul would not be recognized as that of a male, but rather something unrecognizable at first, and perhaps even feminine.  He continues to say that “when I find that soul…had been directed in its sexual appetite from earliest boyhood towards persons of the male sex, I have the right to qualify it with the attribute of femininity” (Symonds).

Much like this passage, the attributes of the homosexual male talked about in the beginning of chapter 9 of Dorian Gray represent the feminine spirituality that is talked about in Symonds piece.  “The boyish beauty that had so fascinated Basil Hallward, and many others besides him, seemed to never leave him.  Even those who had heard the most evil things against him” (Wilde 91).  A beauty like this is normally not depicted unless a female is being talked about or described within a passage.  However, this time, the words were used to describe a homosexual male.  The passage goes on, saying “he had always the look of one who had kept himself unspotted from the world…there was something in the purity of his face that rebuked them” (Wilde 92).  Again, the beauty and purity used to describe Dorian Gray in this passage was language used to represent females.   Finally the passage ends saying, “They wondered how one so charming and graceful as he was could have escaped the stain of an age that was once sordid and sensuous” (Wilde 92).  The words “charming” and “graceful” are two strong words often used to describe something feminine.  It is through the specific words Wilde uses to describe the homosexual boy that we can see the similarities to Symonds article.