one. It takes several days for me to lose my physical weakness
owing to it.
"Physically I was developed at 16 years of age.
Mentally I was
developed at a very early age, but I kept my inner life quite
dark, always playing the innocent. Nobody at home believed me to
know anything about life. They were at times very surprised when
I fell out of the rôle I had planned for myself. Up till I was 17
years of age nothing to do with other people's morals was ever
discussed before me. I looked so pure, and do now, that people
are always careful in front of me. My father never discussed such
things with me. From my earliest childhood I loved men dearly,
though I was always at daggers drawn with my father and brother.
I worshipped my mother then, as I do now. My sister and I did not
at all get on as children, though we are the best of friends now.
She and her husband as well as my mother have been kindness
itself ever since they knew of my condition. Not till I was over
30 years did I meet a man I loved as well as my mother, and he is
heterosexual. I must have loved my father and brother at first,
but continual conflicts, incompatible temperaments and mutual
misunderstandings and want of sympathy made life at home
horrible. I must admit from my earliest childhood I had a certain
contempt for my father and brother because I found them so
materialistic. I had all my childhood rows with my brother. My
father took his part, my mother mine. After I had recovered from
my father's sudden death (my first words were after reading the
letter: 'Thank God it isn't mother!') I felt a great relief, but
it took a long time for me to grasp that I was really free.
"I have always liked women's society and, as a youth, I was very
fond of gossip, which I by no means am now. I have many women
friends, more than men friends. These women friends are all
heterosexual except one. I very often like elderly women; I
suppose I see mother in such women. A woman never could make me
blush, but a man I admired could easily.
"I was 23 years of age when a married woman of good family asked
me to come and spend the night with her. I went, and though she
was beautifully built, cleanly, and though her garments and
apartments were of the utmost good taste, I did not have any
erection. On the other hand, I felt myself to be most unclean and
bathed three times each of the following three days.
Since then I
have never tried to have sexual intercourse with women.
"In Copenhagen I tried to excite my feelings with every class of
woman, in vain. I suppose it is that my nature is so like woman's
that there can be no reaction. With men I am often very shy and
nervous, tongue-tied, and my hands perspire. Never so with women.
"As a child I loved men and used to fall desperately in love with
some who came to the house. I would, when no one was there, kiss
their hats, or gloves, or even their sticks.
"I can remember, when I was about 6 years, how I fell in love
with a very good-looking 26-year-old German. He had very curly
hair and his hands were very beautiful. He was very fond of me
and I used to call him 'my Boy.' When visiting us he often used
to 'tuck me in' after the nurse had gone down. He always had
sweets or something for me. I can remember how I used to fling my
arms round his neck and cover his face with kisses.
I would then
draw his head down on my pillow and he would tell me fairy-tales
and I would go off to sleep quite happy.
"At 7 years of age, while staying in the country, a very
good-looking groom, about 25 years of age, misbehaved himself
with me. I often used to visit him in the stables, as this man
had a strange attraction for me. One day he tickled me. While
doing so he produced my penis and also his own, which was in full
erection. He tried in every way to excite my feelings, in vain.
For him the occasion terminated in an ejaculation.
He forbade me
to tell anyone, and I did not do so, but tried to find out all I
could on the subject, with little or no result. From that day I
hated the groom and I felt a sort of guilt, as if I had 'lost
something.' Not till I was 12 years did I understand.
"From my earliest childhood I had one ideal of a man. From that
ideal I have never swerved. At the age of 30 I found a friend
who, though quite heterosexual, has, without giving me any sexual
intercourse, given me the love I have always needed.
He has been
for the last couple of years a second mother, father, sister,
brother, and lover. Through him I have regained my health, my
love of nature, and he has helped to deaden my hatred toward
human nature and my bitterness. A better friend I never wish to
find. It has made up for all the years of mental and physical
suffering. One strange thing is that the feeling is mutual. He
has had a tragic life, for his wife, whom he loved beyond
everything, died under very sad circumstances. He says I am the
best male friend he has ever had. While with him, much of the
lower nature in me was stamped out. I shall always look upon him
as the turning point in my life. I think he wrought some of his
finest influence through his music. He played Beethoven and
Wagner for me for a couple of hours every day for months, and
thus opened up a new world to me.... He is six years older than I
am.
"At 10 years of age we moved to Sweden, a country I hated from
first to last. About this time I began to notice that there was
something strange about myself. I felt myself an alien, and have
done so ever since. An event of importance in my life was, I feel
sure, when my father's sister tried to take away my mother's
character. It was done in jealousy and spite, and my aunt had to
beg my parents' pardon. Outwardly the affair was patched up; but
I feel sure my father never really forgave his sister. Jews never
forgive.
"This event awoke in me a great hatred toward women, and it was
many years before I could at all control it.
"At the age of 14 I was much with a good-looking, musical
American, a year older than myself. One day, while romping, very
much the same thing occurred as with the groom. I still had no
sexual feelings. We remained good friends. I often wished to kiss
him. After the first time he would not allow it. He was very much
liked among the officers and so-called high society men, and had
always much money. About ten years later I heard he used to
accept money after intimate intercourse with those society men.
"During my fifteenth year I had great longing for sexual
intercourse with men. At this time the first signs of hair were
to be seen on my abdomen.
"At the age of 16 a gardener, a married man with family,
initiated me into mutual self-abuse. He lived in the back house
of the apartment house we then inhabited. He was about 40 years
of age, an ugly but muscularly developed man. These practices
took place in the cellar, to which there were three entrances. I
never allowed him to kiss me and the sight of his children always
awoke in me a great feeling of nausea. That was the natural
reaction of a bad conscience. For the man himself I had the
utmost contempt. This man told me of several parks and _pissoirs_
where men met, and I went to these places now and again for
erotic adventure.
"I must here relate that at the age of 16 my mother warned me
against self-abuse. It had the opposite effect, made me curious,
so I began at once. I have continued ever since, at least once a
day. (I have never had an involuntary emission in my whole life.)
Between 17 and 22 it became necessary for me to do so several
times a day. Working at art, painting, and above all music and
beauty have a strong influence over me and set my erotic longings
in violent motion. I have never found this do me any harm.
Abstinence, on the other hand, has a very harmful effect on me,
upsetting the whole nervous and physical system. I often find
that there is a something very much wanting in self-abuse: the
commingling of two human bodies who are _mentally_
as well as
physically in sympathy gives an electrical satisfaction which
quiets the whole nervous system. That at least has been my
experience.
"The gardener left and moved to the country. I then sometimes
visited _pissoirs_ or, as they are often called,
'panoramas'
(because they are round and one sees much there).
What I saw in
the parks during the long summer nights was quite a revelation.
During the summer, when the husbands had sent their families in
the country, many of them led a very indiscreet life. What I saw
the first summer killed all the respect I had for elderly people.
I had always connected marriage and gray hairs with virtue and
morals; then I learnt otherwise. I must say I became about this
time a _sensual pig_. I knew how dangerous these places were on
account of the police and blackmailers, but that gave the hunt a
double zest. At this time I led a double life and was always
watching and analyzing myself. I had to do with heaps of men of
all classes. I was often offered money, but that I would on no
condition accept. To pay or to be paid kills every sort of erotic
feeling in me and always has done so. I once wished to experiment
with myself. I was offered a small sum of money by a former
schoolmaster. I accepted this just to see how it would affect me.
The next moment I threw the money as far away as possible. Then I
saw I had none of the prostitute nature in me. I was simply
overwhelmed with sensuality. I considered I was a criminal and
wished to see in how many ways my nature had the criminal
instinct. I wanted to see if I could become a thief.
I stole a
silver button in a shop where antiquities were sold, but I went
to the shop the same day again and returned the button, without
the people knowing. I found I could not become a thief. Then the
question came. Why had I felt a criminal since my seventh year?
Was it my fault? If not, whose fault was it? Not till I studied
Freud's psychoanalytical system did I get a clear insight into my
own character.
"When I was 20 years of age I met a gentleman one night in a
heavy snow-storm. We walked and talked and understood each other.
He belonged to one of Sweden's first aristocratic families. He
was extremely refined. He asked me to his rooms. We undressed and
lay down. He had a very beautiful head and a still more beautiful
body. I think that all my erotic feelings were numbed by looking
at his beautiful body. To me anything sensual would have been
sacrilege, I thought, and I can remember the feeling of awe which
came over me. He was them 20 years of age, but his hair was quite
white. First he did not understand, and then he was very gentle
to me. I kept perfectly chaste for three whole months after the
sight of his body. We saw each other often. Eight years later we
met for the last time. He suffered much from melancholia. At that
time I prevented him from committing suicide. This winter,
however, he shot himself.
"At the age of 22 my sister introduced me to a charming,
intelligent and refined, half-English, half-Swedish painter. We
'recognized' each other at once, though we had never seen each
other before, and even knew each other's characters to the
smallest traits. My parents liked him better than any friend I
had ever had. My sister and he were from the first like sister
and brother. The first evening in my home he and I kissed each
other. The women were mad about him. Later I found many men were
too. I was three weeks his senior. He had his own rooms. I have
never felt any such wonderful harmony as when our naked bodies
mingled. It was like floating in ether. With him it was the only
time I had been active in _fellatio_. We were much together,
though not much physically, for he had many love affairs with
women. What I loved was the way he would cut off all advances of
men, I was his 'little brother' and so he calls me to this day.
He is now married in America, and the father of a pretty little
daughter. We are the best of friends to this day.
"The two years in Copenhagen were some of the happiest I have
spent, though nearly the whole time I was in physical pain. In
Austria I found, among the Tyrolese peasants, that the
Englishmen, who come there in winter for sports and in the summer
for mountain climbing, have demoralized the young male peasants
with money. Homosexual intercourse is easy to get if you are
willing to pay the price,--larger in season, less out of season.
"In Italy it is merely a question of money or passion, but
everything in love there is quite transient.
"In Bavaria I found the love and peace 'which passeth all
understanding.' This love and friendship without anything of a
physically intimate nature brought me back from the
'deep black
gulf' to which I was swiftly floating. When I met my friend I was
nearly at the end of my tether. What his love and friendship has
done for me, together with Freud's psychoanalytical system,
nobody will ever know.
"Since being in Berlin, a town I like very much, a new life has
opened for me, a life where one lives as one likes if one does
not have to do with young boys. Here are homosexual baths,
pensions, restaurants, and hotels, where you can go with one of
your own sex at a certain fee per hour. Berlin is a revelation.
But since being here I find the physical erotic side of my nature
is little excited. I suppose it is the old story of
'forbidden
fruit.'
"My parents kept a very hospitable home. The last two years in
Sweden I was never at home. I hated society and knew much too
much about the private histories of those who came to my home.
They all belonged to the highest society. The highest society and
the lowest are very much alike. Of course my parents knew nothing
about these people. When I told my mother a great deal of private
history of people who came to our house, she was thunderstruck
and could at last understand my contempt for so-called good
society. I have visited in later years only in artistic and
theatrical circles; I consider that class of people more natural
than the other class and much more kind-hearted.
"My life has quite another side, the mystic side.
But that would
be a much longer story than this. Suffice it to say, I am of a
highly sensitive nature, gifted with second sight."
[A detailed
record of the subject's visions, premonitions of death of
acquaintances, etc., has been furnished by him.]
"I tried on four occasions to commit suicide, but I now see there
is nothing to be gained by doing so.
"Two years ago I told my parents about my sexual condition. It
was a frightful blow to them. My father had the circumstances
explained to him; he never understood the matter and never
discussed it with me. Had I told him earlier I feel quite certain
that, with his despotic nature, he would have put me in a
madhouse. My mother and sister have treated me very kindly
always. My brother has disowned me."
HISTORY XVI.--Irish, aged 36; knows of nothing unusual in his
ancestry. His tastes are masculine in every respect.
He is
strong, healthy, and fond of exercises and sports.
The sexual
instincts are abnormally developed; he confesses to an, enormous
appetite for almost everything,--food, drink, smoking, and all
the good things of life.
At about the age of 14 he practised masturbation with other boys
of the same age, and also had much pleasure in being in bed with
an uncle with whom the same thing was practised.
Later on he
practised masturbation with every boy or man with whom he was on
terms of intimacy; to have been in bed with anyone without
anything of the sort taking place would have made sleep
impossible, and rendered him utterly wretched. His erotic dreams
at first were concerned with women, but more recently they are
usually of young men, and very rarely of women. He is mostly
indifferent to women, as also they have always been to him.
Although good-looking, strong, and masculine, he has never known
a woman to be in love with him. When about the age of 18 he
imagined he was in love with a girl; and he had often, between
the ages of 20 to 30, cohabited with prostitutes. He remembers on
one occasion, many years ago, having connection with a woman
seven or eight times in one night, and then having to masturbate
at noon the next day. He is unmarried, and thinks it is unlikely
that he ever will marry, but he adds that if a healthy, handsome,
and intelligent woman fell in love with him he might change his
mind, as it would be lonely to be old and alone, and he would
like to have children.
He is never attracted to men older than himself, and prefers
youths between the ages of 18 and 25. They may be of any class,
but he does not like common people, and is not attached to
uniforms or liveries. The requisite attractions are an
intelligent eye, a voluptuous mouth, and
"intelligent teeth." "If Alcibiades himself tried to woo me," he says, "and had bad teeth,
his labor would be in vain." He has sometimes been the active
participant in _pedicatio_, and has tried the passive rôle out of
curiosity, but prefers _fellatio_.
He does not consider that he is doing anything wrong, and regards
his acts as quite natural. His only regret is the absorbing
nature of his passions, which obtrude themselves in season and
out of season, seldom or never leaving him quiet, and sometimes
making his life a hell. Yet he doubts whether he would change
himself, even if he had the power.
HISTORY XVII.--Age 25; is employed in an ordinary workshop, and
lives in the back alley of a large town in which he was born and
bred. Fair, slight, and refined in appearance. The sexual organs
are normal and well developed, and the sexual passions strong.
His mother is a big masculine woman, and he is much attached to
her. Father is slight and weakly. He has seven brothers and one
sister. Homosexual desires began at an early age, though he does
not seem to have come under any perverse influences.
He is not
inclined to masturbation. Erotic dreams are always of males. He
declares he never cared for any woman except his mother, and that
he could not endure to sleep with a woman.
He says he generally falls in love with a man at first sight--as
a rule, some one older than himself and of higher class--and
longs to sleep and be with him. In one case he fell in love with
a man twice his own age, and would not rest until he had won his
affection. He does not much care what form the sexual relation
takes. He is sensitive and feminine by nature, gentle, and
affectionate. He is neat and orderly in his habits, and fond of
housework; helps his mother in washing, etc. He appears to think
that male attachments are perfectly natural.
HISTORY XVIII.--Englishman, born in Paris; aged 26; an actor. He
belongs to an old English family; his father, so far as he is
aware, had no homosexual inclinations, nor had any of his
ancestors on the paternal side; but he believes that his
mother's family, and especially a maternal uncle who had a strong
feeling for beauty of form, were more akin to him in this
respect.
His earliest recollections show an attraction for males. At
children's parties he incurred his father's anger by kissing
other small boys, and his feelings grew in intensity with years.
He has never practised self-abuse, and seldom had erotic dreams;
when they do occur they are about males.
His physical feeling for women is one of absolute indifference.
He admires beautiful women in the same way as one admires
beautiful scenery. At the same time he likes to talk with clever
women, and has formed many friendships with frank, pure, and
cultivated English girls, for whom he has the utmost admiration
and respect. Marriage is impossible, because physical pleasure
with women is impossible; he has tried, but cannot obtain, the
slightest sexual feeling or excitement.
He especially admires youths (though they must not be immature)
from 16 or 17 to about 25. The type which physically appeals to
him most, and to which he appeals, is fair, smooth-skinned,
gentle, rather girlish and effeminate, with the effeminacy of the
_ingénue_, not the _cocotte_. His favorite to attract him must be
submissive and womanly; he likes to be the man and the master. On
this point he adds: "The great passion of my life is an
exception, and stands on an utterly different level.
It realizes
an ideal of marriage in which neither is master, but both share a
joint empire, and in which tyranny would be equally painful to
both. But this friendship and love is for an equal, a year
younger than myself, and does not preclude other and less
creditable _liaisons, physical_ constancy being impossible to men
of our caliber."
_Pedicatio_ is the satisfaction he prefers, provided he takes the
active, never the passive, rôle. He is handsome, with broad
shoulders, good figure, and somewhat classic type of face, with
fine blue eyes. He likes boating and skating, though not cricket
or football, and is usually ready for fun, but has, at the same
time, a taste for reading.
He has no moral feelings on these matters; he regards them as
outside ethics, mere matters of temperament and social feeling.
If England were underpopulated he thinks he might possibly feel
some slight pangs of remorse; but, as things are, he feels that
in prostituting males rather than females he is doing a
meritorious action.
HISTORY XIX.--T.N. His history is given in his own words.
"From the time of my earliest imaginings I have always been
attached by strength in men and often thought about being carried
off by big warriors and living with them in caves and elsewhere.
When about 7 a young man used to show me his penis and handle
mine occasionally. At private boarding school masturbation was
fairly frequent and I suppose I was initiated about 12 or 13.
After leaving I occasionally indulged, but nothing happened until
I was about 20, except that I was often attracted by strong,
well-built young men of good character; a man who was not honest
and good-hearted had no attraction. At 20 I was much attached to
a y