Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Ii Part 8

Although he likes the society of women to a certain extent, he soon grows tired of it, and has never had any desire to marry. His s.e.xual dreams never have any relation to women. "I am generally doing or saying something," he remarks, "to some man whom I know when awake, something which I admit I might wish to do or say if it were not quite out of the question on grounds of propriety and self-respect."

He has, however, never had any intimate relations.h.i.+ps with men, and much that he has heard of such relations.h.i.+ps fills him with horror.

"What I feel about myself is," he writes, "that I have to a certain extent, or in some respects, a feminine mind in a male body; or, I might put it that I am a combination of an immoral (in tendency, rather than in act) woman and a religious man. From time to time I have felt strong affection for young men, but I cannot flatter myself that my affection has been reciprocated. At the present time there is a young fellow (23 years old) who acts as my clerk and sits in my room. He is extremely good-looking, and of a type which is generally considered 'aristocratic,' but so far as I (or he) know, he is quite of the lower middle cla.s.s. He has little to recommend him but a fine face and figure, and there is nothing approaching to mental or social equality between us. But I constantly feel the strongest desire to treat him as a man might a young girl he warmly loved. Various obvious considerations keep me from more than quasi-paternal caresses, and I feel sure he would resent very strongly anything more. This constant repression is trying beyond measure to the nerves, and I often feel quite ill from that cause. Having had no experiences of my own, I am always anxious to learn anything I can of the s.e.xual relations of other men, and their organs, but I have no curiosity whatever concerning the other s.e.x. My chief pleasure and source of gratification is found in the opportunities afforded by Turkish and other baths; wherever, in fact, there is the nude male to be found. But I seldom find in these places anyone who seems to have the same tendency as myself, and certainly I have not met with more than two cases among the attendants, who responded to my hinted desire to see everything. Under a shampooer, particularly an unfamiliar one, I occasionally experience an o.r.g.a.s.m, but less often now than when I was younger."

F. R. is very short-sighted. His favorite color is blue. He is able to whistle. His tastes are chiefly of a literary character, and he has never had any liking for sports. "I have been generally considered ineffective in the use of my hands," he writes, "and I am certainly not skillful. All I have ever been able to do in that way is to net and do the simpler forms of needlework; but it seems more natural to me to do, or try to do, everything of that sort, and to play on the piano, rather than to shoot or play games. I may add that I am fonder of babies than many women, and am generally considered to be surprisingly capable of holding them! Certainly I enjoy doing so. As a youth, I used to act in charades; but I was too shy to do so unless I was dressed as a woman and veiled; and when I took a woman's part I felt less like acting than I have done in propria persona. A remark made by an uncle once rather annoyed me: that it seemed more like nature than art. But he was quite right."

HISTORY IV.-Of Lowland Scotch parentage. Both sides of house healthy and without cerebral or nervous disease. h.o.m.os.e.xual desires began at p.u.b.erty. He practised onanism to a limited extent at school and up to the age of about 22. His erotic dreams are exclusively about males. While very friendly and intimate with women of all ages, he is instantly repelled by any display of s.e.xual affection on their side. This has happened in varying degree in three or four cases. With regard to marriage, he remarks: "As there seems no immediate danger of the race dying out, I leave marriage to those who like it." His male ideal has varied to some extent. It has for some years tended toward a healthy, well-developed, athletic or out-of-door working type, intelligent and sympathetic, but not specially intellectual.

At school his s.e.xual relations were of the simplest type. Since then there have been none. "This," he says, "is not due either to absence of desire or presence of 'morals.' To put it shortly, 'there were never the time and the place and the loved one together.' In another view, physical desire and the general affection have not always coexisted toward the same person; and the former without the latter is comparatively transient; while the latter stops the gratification of the former, if it is felt that that gratification could in any way make the object of affection unhappy, mentally or emotionally."

He is healthy and fairly well developed; of sensitive, emotional nature, but self-controlled; mentally he is receptive and aggressive by turns, sometimes uncritical, sometimes a.n.a.lytical. His temper is equable, and he is strongly affectionate. Very fond of music and other arts, but not highly imaginative.

Of s.e.xual inversion in the abstract he says he has no views, but he thus sums up his moral att.i.tude: "I presume that, if it is there, it is there for use or abuse, as men please. I condemn gratification of bodily desire at the expense of others, in whatever form it may take. I condemn it no more in its inverted form than in the ordinary. I believe that affection between persons of the same s.e.x, even when it includes the s.e.xual pa.s.sion and its indulgences, may lead to results as splendid as human nature can ever attain to. In short, I place it on an absolute equality with love as ordinarily understood."

HISTORY V.-S. W., aged 64, English, musical journalist. The communication which follows (somewhat abbreviated) was written before S. W. had heard or read anything about s.e.xual inversion, and when he still believed that his own case was absolutely unique.

"I am the son of a clergyman, and lived for the first thirteen years of my life in the country town where I was born. Then my father became the vicar of a country village, where I lived until I went out into the world at the age of 18. As during the whole of this time my father had a few pupils, I was educated with them, and never went to school. I was born, I fancy, with s.e.xual pa.s.sions about as strong as can well be imagined, and at the same time was very precocious in my entry into the stage of p.u.b.erty. s.e.m.e.n began to form a little before my twelfth birthday; hair soon followed, and in a year I was in that respect the equal of an average boy of 15 or 16. I conversed freely with my companions on the relations of the s.e.xes, but, unlike them, had no personal feeling toward girls. In time I became conscious that I was different, as I then believed, and believe now, from all other men. My s.e.xual organs were quite perfect. But in the frame of a man I had the s.e.xual mind of a female. I distinctly disclaim the faintest inclination to perform unnatural acts; the idea of committing sodomy would be most disgusting.

"To come to my actual condition of mind: While totally indifferent to the person of woman (I always enjoyed their friends.h.i.+p and companions.h.i.+p, and many of my best friends have been ladies), I had a burning desire to have carnal intercourse with a male, and had the capacity for falling in love, as it is called, to the utmost extent. In imagination, I possessed the female organ, and felt toward man exactly as an amorous female would. At the time when I became fully conscious of my condition, I attached little importance to it; I had not a notion of its terrible import, nor of the future misery it would entail. All that I had to learn by bitter experience.

"I did once think of forcing myself to have connection with a prost.i.tute in order to see whether the actual sensual enjoyment might bring a change, and so have the power to marry. But when it came to thinking over ways and means, my repugnance to the act became so strong that it was quite out of the question. In the case of any male to whom I became attached, I wanted to feel ourselves together, skin to skin, and to be privileged to take such liberties as an amorous female would take if that were all permitted. I sought no purely sensual gratification of any kind; my love was far too genuine for that.

"During the rather more than half a century which has elapsed since my twelfth birthday, I have been genuinely in love about thirteen times. I despair attempting to give an idea of the depth and reality of my feelings. I have alluded to my precocity. I was in love when 12 years old, the object being a man of 24, a well-known a.n.a.lytical chemist. He came to my father's house very frequently; and my heart beat almost at the mention of his name.

"The next serious time I was about 15. It was a farmer's son, about two years older. I don't think that I was ever alone with him, and really only knew him as a member of his family, yet for a time he was my chief interest in life.

"When 21 I had a 'chum,' a youth of 17, who entertained for me, at any rate, a brotherly affection. We were under the same roof, and early one summer morning he got out of bed and came direct to my room to talk about some matter or other. In order to talk more comfortably he got into bed with me and we lay there just as two school-girls might have done. This proximity was more than I could stand, and my heart began to beat so that it was impossible that he should not notice it. As, of course, he could not have the slightest notion of the reason, he said in all innocence, 'Why, how your heart beats. I can hear it quite plainly.'

"So far my details are purely innocent. Up to 18, familiarities pa.s.sed at intervals between me and the son of the village doctor, a youth about two years older than myself, and precociously immoral. I did not really care for him much, but he was my chief companion. Then I became a school-a.s.sistant, and for about six years managed to control myself, only, alas, to fall again. Another resolution I kept for eight years, one long fight with my nature. Again I sinned in three instances, extending over three or four years. I now come to a very painful and eventful episode in my unhappy life which I would gladly pa.s.s over were it possible. It was a case, in middle life, of sin, discovery, and great folly in addition.

"Before going into details, so far as may be necessary, I cannot help asking you to consider calmly and dispa.s.sionately my exact condition compared with that of my fellow-creatures as a whole. In my struggles to resist in the past, I have at times felt as if wrestling in the folds of a python. I again sinned, then, with a youth and his friend. Oddly enough, discovery followed through a man who was actuated by a feeling of revenge for a strictly right act on my part. The lads refused to state more than the truth, and this did not satisfy the man, and a third lad was introduced, who was prepared to say anything. This was not all; some twelve or fifteen more boys made similar accusations! The general belief, in consequence, was that I had committed 'nameless' crimes in all directions, ad lib. If you were to ask me for an explanation of the action of all these boys beyond the third, who, of course, had some special inducements, I can offer none. They may have thought that the original trio were regarded rather in the light of heroes; why should they not be heroes, too?

"I might well feel crushed under such a load of accusations, but that does not excuse the incredible folly of my conduct. I denied alike the modic.u.m of truth and the ma.s.s of lying, and went off to America. However, as time pa.s.sed on and my mind got into a proper state, I felt that the truth must be told some time or other. I accordingly wrote from America to the proper quarter a full confession of my sin with regard to the two youths who had told merely the truth, at the same time pointing out the falsehood of all the rest of the accusations.

"I remained in America six years, and actually made money, so that I could return to England with a small capital. I was also under a promise to my three sisters (all older than myself) that I would return in their lifetime. My programme was to purchase a small, light business in London, and quietly earn my living; at the same time making my presence known to no one. I did buy such a business, got swindled in the most clever way, and lost every farthing I possessed in the world! I had to make my plight known to old friends who all either gave or lent me money. Still my position was a very precarious one. I tried an insurance agency, one of the last resources of the educated dest.i.tute, but soon found out that I was unfitted for work in which impudence is a prime factor. Then an extraordinary stroke of good fortune took place; almost simultaneously I began to get a few music pupils, and literary work in connection with a good musical journal.

"Making my presence known to old friends involved the same information to those who were not friends. My ident.i.ty as a journalist became known, and as time pa.s.sed by it seemed to me as if half the world had heard of my alleged iniquities. People who have never set eyes on me seem to regard me in the light of a monster of iniquity who ought not to be suffered to exist. All these outsiders believe that I have committed 'nameless' offenses times innumerable and lift up their hands in speechless horror at the audacity of a man who, so situated, dares to appear openly in public, under his own name, and look people in the face. They have not even the brains to see that this very fearlessness proves the fict.i.tious character of their beliefs. Next, they believe that if only they could get my dismissal from my journalistic post I should be brought to starvation point. This up to a year ago was true. Then an old relative died and left me some property which I sold to invest in an annuity, and thus have just enough to live on quietly, apart from what I may earn. Under such strange conditions it might be asked whether life was not unendurable. Frankly speaking, I cannot say that I find it so. I have in London a few bachelor friends who go with me to theaters, etc. In the suburbs I have about half a dozen family friends. Here I meet with pleasant society and a hearty welcome. I am pa.s.sionately fond of music, have an excellent piano, and can hear the best concerts in Europe. I go to all good plays. I am a good chess player. Lastly, I am an omnivorous reader. You will allow that my resources for pa.s.sing the time are not limited.

"Of course, I am sorry that I sinned, and wish that I had not done so. But I disclaim any feeling of shame."

S. W. was the youngest of four children and the only boy. His father was 40 at his birth, his mother 33. The father was an intellectual man of weak character, the mother a woman of violent and eccentric temper, with, he believes, strong s.e.xual pa.s.sions. S. W. knows of nothing in the family to account for his own abnormal condition.

He is short (five feet five inches), but well built, with strong chest and a powerful voice. His arms are weak and flabby (feminine, he thinks), but the legs muscular. As a boy of 14 he could walk forty miles with ease, and he played football till near the age of 45. He is considered manly in character and tastes, but is easily moved to tears under strong excitement. There is no information as to the type of man to whom he is attracted. I may observe, however, that the a.n.a.lytical chemist who first evoked S. W.'s admiration was well known to me some thirty years later, as he was my own teacher in chemistry. At that time he was an elderly man of attractive appearance and character, sympathetic and winning in manner to an almost feminine extent.

S. W. has never felt the slightest s.e.xual attraction toward the opposite s.e.x. The first indications of inverted feeling were at the age of 6 or 7. Watching his father's pupils, boys of 13 or 14, from the windows, he speculated on what their organs of generation were like. "In connection with a girl," he writes, "I should no more have thought of such a thing than in the case of a block of marble." About this time, indeed, he at times slept with a sister of 10, who induced him to go through the form of s.e.xual connection, saying that it felt "so funny;" but he merely did this to please her, and without the slightest interest or feeling on his own part. This att.i.tude became more marked with increased knowledge, until he fell ardently in love at the age of 12. Throughout life he has practised masturbation to a certain extent, and is prepared to defend the practice in his own case. His erotic dreams have been of only the vaguest and most shadowy character. He is able to whistle. He takes a warm interest in politics and in philanthropic work. But his chief love is for music and he has published many musical compositions. On the whole, and notwithstanding the persecution he has endured, he does not regard his life as unhappy. At the same time he is keenly conscious of the atmosphere of "Pariahdom" which surrounds inverts, and in his own case this has never been alleviated by any sense of companions.h.i.+p in misery. The facility with which some inverts are said to recognize others of their own kind is quite incomprehensible to him; he has never to his knowledge met one.

HISTORY VI.-E. S., physician, aged 50.

"I have some reason," he writes, "for believing that some of my relatives (on the paternal side) were not normal in their s.e.xual life. But I am sure that no such suspicion was entertained by their friends or a.s.sociates; they were very reticent people. A great proportion of my near relatives have remained unmarried or deferred marriage until late in life. None of them have been good business men; all seem to have been more deeply concerned in other things than in making-or in keeping-money. They have mostly taken little or no share in public life, and not cared much for society. Yet they have been folk of more than average ability, with intellectual and aesthetic interests. We are p.r.o.ne to enthusiasms, but lack perseverance. We are discursive and superficial, perhaps, but none would call us stupid. We are perhaps abnormally self-centered and self-conscious-never cruel or vicious. Our powers of self-control are considerable; we are conventional people only because we are lazy and intensely dislike any open self-a.s.sertion. Yet we are nervous rather than phlegmatic. All that is on the father's side. My maternal ancestors have been concerned with farming and the sea and have also had a similar lack of business capacity, but with less mental adaptiveness and alertness, with more steadiness of purpose, however, always doers rather than dreamers. Among them I remember one cousin who was probably abnormal, although he died when I was too young to notice much. Again, they were all rather reserved people, but more genial with strangers, more socially inclined, and with less self-control.

"I was an only child and a spoilt one. I was always quick at school, fond of learning, and finding my lessons no trouble. Serious study I disliked. But for school purposes I did not find it necessary, and had no difficulty in carrying all before me. I was never fond of games, although very fond of being out of doors and of walking. Few of my relatives have been at all keen on sport. I made no close friends.h.i.+ps at school and was never very popular with my schoolfellows, who, however, tolerated my odd ways better than might have been expected. I was easily brought to appreciate good literature, but I never had much power of expression or of strenuous thought. I was extremely susceptible and impressible, moved by beauty of any kind, but never at all ambitious or in any way creative. I was easily stimulated to work, and then loved to work; but, unless the stimulus were maintained the natural indolence of my disposition a.s.serted itself, and I wasted my powers in dreams and trifles. My memory was very quick and retentive, in the main, but curiously capricious. I always lacked initiative and decision. At college my successes were continued. I gained medals and prizes, pa.s.sed my examinations easily, and graduated 'with first-cla.s.s honors.' In my professional lifework I have been successful rather beyond the average. I love it with all my heart.

"I cannot speak with any confidence about the first stirrings of my s.e.xual instincts, but I think I can a.s.sert that they have at no time led me to any desire for the opposite s.e.x. It is true that my earliest recollection of the kind is concerned with intimacies with a girl play-fellow, but as we had at the time reached only the mature age of 7 (at the most) I fancy that our mutual exhibitions-for there was nothing more-simply satisfied our natural curiosity. Certainly these memories are, in my mind, in no way set apart from the recollections of other kinds of play. Next to that I remember the usual schoolboy talk about things hidden and forbidden, but up till I was 12 or so this was simply dirty talk, concerned more with renal and intestinal functions than with any s.e.xual feelings or understanding. One boy was known to us all (and of my not inconsiderable circle of early friends, all grew up to be normal people, who married and had children in due course) for the unusual size of his parts and for the freedom with which he invited and satisfied the curiosity of his friends. He must have been precocious, for he could not have been more than 12, and I remember to have heard that he had a thick growth of pubic hair. Even then, although I know that my curiosity-to put it at that only-was active, I never allowed myself to have any dealings with him; and I think I should have discouraged them had they been suggested to me. That is the odd thing about my life: the things I longed intensely to do I would not let myself do, not from any religious or moral scruple, but from some inexplicable fastidiousness or scrupulosity which is yet as active as ever, although I am sure that it would not be able to hold its own could these favorable conditions be repeated, but would be overcome by the imperious and fully grown desires which, by long repression, or by unsatisfactory diversion, have grown to be so strong. Indeed, given the opportunity, and the a.s.surance that no first seduction or corruption of anyone was in question, they would prove quite irrepressible.

"Certainly, long before p.u.b.erty-which was early with me-I remember being greatly attracted to certain boys, and wis.h.i.+ng to have an opportunity of sleeping with them. Had I been able to do so, I am sure I should have been impelled to get into as close contact with their naked body as possible, and I do not think I should then have craved for anything more. I knew some boys-perhaps a little older-who even then had relations, which were certainly not innocent, with a girl who was a year or two older than any of us. She once kissed me, to my intense shame. But I felt that these relations would have been unspeakably disgusting and I took no particular interest in hearing about them. I remember being fondled and caressed by a very good-looking boy of 16 when I was three or four years younger and had sustained some hurt at play; and I am still able to recall the thrill of delight that I experienced at his touch. Nothing took place that all the world might not have seen, but I remember being taken between his knees as he sat, and his arms being put around my neck, and the warm, soft pressure of his thighs had an unspeakable effect on me.

"About this time, too, an older boy, perhaps about 18, used to get hold of smaller boys when on country walks, to throw them down and then look at and toy with their genitals. He was himself a handsome boy, and I was greatly excited when told about this by boys who had experienced it, and wished greatly to have it done to me. It never was; and if it had been attempted I know I should have resisted with all my strength, although my desires would have set me aflame. This boy died before he was 20, with a psoas abscess, and I remember crying myself to sleep the night I learned of his death. Another boy, about three years older than myself, who had very silky hair, I used to be attracted by and I was always trying to stroke his hair, but he always objected.

"I must have been about 12 when I first was taught to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e by a cousin who was slightly older. At first I thought it silly, but I used to watch him at it, and practised it myself from time to time until I became old enough to experience the proper sensation. Then I have reason to think I gave myself up to it rather freely, but it was generally done in solitude, although it was long before I realized that there was anything wrong about it or that it might prove hurtful. Looking back now, I feel perfectly certain that my instincts were wholly h.o.m.os.e.xual from the very first. This cousin, who possessed notable intellectual and artistic gifts, married, but I feel sure his liking for his own s.e.x was not normal.

"With another cousin, almost years my junior, I was always on terms of the most affectionate intimacy. My holidays at his parents' house were my greatest delight. We were always together by night or day; we slept in the same bed, literally in each other's arms. To me it afforded the keenest s.e.xual pleasure to press close to his naked body. We used mutually to handle and caress our parts, but without any attempt at mutual masturbation, although at that period I regularly practised it on myself. I asked him once about it, but he had not been taught it by others; and to my great pride and satisfaction I can say that I never either did it to him or asked him to do it to me. This I mention as an instance of my restraint in act, although my thoughts and desires knew no such curb. I remember also an elder brother of his, perhaps three or four years my senior, once showing me (then about 12, I suppose) his semierect p.e.n.i.s. He would not allow me to touch it, but showed me how to draw back the foreskin so as to uncover the glans. His p.e.n.i.s was large, and the incident was not forgotten. We had no other relation and I know that both he and my own friend grew up to be quite normal men.

"I think I must have been about 17 when I got frightened about the occurrence of nocturnal emissions, which I believed were the evil result of masturbation, and for two or three years I continued in considerable mental distress until, when in my second or third year at college, I summoned up courage enough to consult our good old family doctor, who rea.s.sured me, but made, I now think, too light of my confidences, so that I relapsed the more readily, although much later on, into old habits.

"From our windows at home we looked over a bit of common or down to the beach, and I used to keep watch on warm summer afternoons; over boys who might be bathing, to observe them through our telescope. All this I kept strictly secret and I was never surprised. I might just as well, and without arousing the slightest suspicion of my motive, have walked down to the beach and seen them and chatted with them; but this I could not have brought myself to do. It gave me considerable s.e.xual satisfaction when I was able to see them bathing without pants. I also used to watch them at play on the common, and felt rewarded when I saw, as I not infrequently did, s.e.xual familiarities taking place. These violently excited me and sometimes brought on o.r.g.a.s.m, always erection with pleasure. Indeed, it was an experience of this kind that made me return to masturbation after I had given it up for a while. I remember one day seeing two lads of about 16 lying on the gra.s.s in the suns.h.i.+ne; all at once the bigger lad put out his hand and tried to open his companion's trousers. He resisted with all his might, and a long struggle ensued, ending in the smaller lad having his p.e.n.i.s exposed and manipulated by the other. Even at this day the recollection of this excites me. Both lads grew up to be normal men.

"Twice only have I been approached by grown-up people. When I was about 13 I used to meet often, when going to school by train, an old gentleman who courted me, as it were, used often to talk to me and asked me to come to see his well-known scientific collections, but I always had a vague distrust of him and never went. One day in the summer during a spare hour I met him in an empty room in the museum, where there were usually very few visitors at that time of day, and where large show-cases gave concealment. He came up to me and told me he had been away in the country, and that, when making his way home through hedges and th.o.r.n.y bushes, some of the thorns got stuck amongst his clothes and were still giving him uneasiness. 'I would be very grateful,' he said, 'if you would put your hand down and try if you can feel any thorns sticking in my underflannels and pull them out.' He then unb.u.t.toned his braces on one side, undid his trousers and made me thrust my hand over his groin and lower abdomen. I avoided touching his genitals, but he pushed my hand down in that direction until, burning with shame, I made my escape and ran off, not stopping until I was safe in school. I scarcely understood it, but never spoke of it, and avoided him ever afterward. I learned later on that he was a well-off bachelor who took a great interest in working lads and young men and did much to help them on in life and keep them, so it was said, from falling into bad company. He died at a great age and left most of his fortune to an inst.i.tution for lads, as well as large legacies to youths in whom he had been interested.

"The other time was on top of a tramcar when a grown-up man who was near pressed as close to me as he could, began to talk, praised my dark eyes, then put his hand on my thigh under my loose cloak and felt up toward my parts. At the same time he took hold of my hand, caressed it and put it over his parts (it was in the dusk). This excited me and, if we had not been at our destination, I think I would gladly have permitted further familiarities. He tried to ask me where I lived, but there was no time to answer, and the female relative who was with me (on another seat) would no doubt have prevented this from having any further sequel.

"On more than one occasion I have experienced the s.e.xual o.r.g.a.s.m as the result of mental anxiety. The first time this occurred was when I was hurrying to avoid being late for school. Another time was when I was about 24, and was extremely anxious to fill an appointment for which I was late. So copious was the emission that I had to go home and change.

"As a medical student, the first reference bearing definitely on the subject of s.e.xual inversion was made in the cla.s.s of Medical Jurisprudence, where certain s.e.xual crimes were alluded to-very summarily and inadequately-but nothing was said of the existence of s.e.xual inversion as the 'normal' condition of certain unhappy people, nor was any distinction drawn between the various non-normal acts, which were all cla.s.sed together as manifestations of the criminal depravity of ordinary or insane people. To a student beginning to be acutely conscious that his s.e.xual nature differed profoundly from that of his fellows, nothing could be more perplexing and disturbing, and it shut me up more completely in my reserve than ever. I felt that this teaching must be based on some radical error or prejudice or misapprehension, for I knew from my own very clear remembrance of my own development that my peculiarity was not acquired, but inborn; my great misfortune undoubtedly, but not my fault.

"It was still more unfortunate that in the course of the lectures on Clinical Medicine there was not the slightest allusion to the subject. All sorts of rare diseases-some of which I have not yet met with in the course of twenty-one years of a busy practice-were fully discussed, but we were left entirely ignorant of a subject so vitally important to me personally, and, as it seems to me, to the profession to which I aspired. There might have been an incidental reference to masturbation-although I do not remember it-but its real significance received no attention; and what we students knew of it was the result of our reading or of our personal experiences.

"In the cla.s.s of Mental Disease there was, naturally, more detailed and systematic reference to facts in the s.e.xual life and to s.e.xual inversion as a rare pathological condition. But still there was not a comforting word to rea.s.sure me, growing ever more hopelessly ashamed of what it seemed was a criminal or a gravely morbid nature.

"Among all my fellow-students I knew of no one const.i.tuted like myself; but my natural reserve-increased, of course, by my consciousness of what I saw would be thought to be a criminal tendency-did not urge me to exchange of confidences or to the formation of; close friends.h.i.+ps.

"After graduation I became a resident medical officer in the hospital and private a.s.sistant to one of the professors-a physician and teacher of worldwide reputation. With him I a.s.sociated on the most cordial and affectionate terms; and often in the course of conversation I tried to bring him to discuss the subject, but without success. It was obviously unpleasant and uninteresting to him. Enough was said, however, to enable me to realize that he held the current ideas on the subject; and I would not for worlds have allowed him, to guess that I myself came under the despised and tainted category.

"I have seldom heard s.e.xual inversion discussed among my professional friends. They speak of it with disgust or amus.e.m.e.nt. I have never met a professional man who would consider it dispa.s.sionately and scientifically. For them it was a subject entirely belonging to psychological medicine.

"I have had no admitted case of it among my patients; but I have often instinctively felt that some who consulted me about other matters would have taken me into their confidence about that, but for their fear of being cruelly misunderstood.

"As to my moral att.i.tude I fear to speak. Grossness disgusts me; but I am not sure that I should be able to resist temptation placed in my way. But I am absolutely sure that I should never, under any circ.u.mstances, tempt others to any disgraceful act. If I ever committed any s.e.xual act with one of my own s.e.x whom I loved, I could not look at it or approach it in any other than a sacramental way. This sounds blasphemous and shocking, but I cannot otherwise express my meaning.

"As regards the marriage of inverts, my own feeling is that for a congenital invert-no matter how fully the situation be explained beforehand-it is a step fraught with too great possibilities of tragedy and of the deepest unhappiness, to be advised at all. My view is that for the invert, far more than for the ordinary person, there is no escape from the supreme necessity of self-control in any relations.h.i.+p he may form. If that be attained then the ideal is a relations.h.i.+p with another man of similar temperament-not a platonic one, necessarily-by means of which the highest happiness of both may be reached. But this can occur very seldom.

"To poetry and the fine arts I am very susceptible, and I have given a great deal of time to this study. I am devoted heart and soul to music, which is more and more to me every year I live. Trivial or light music I cannot endure, but of Beethoven, Bach, Handel, Schumann, Schubert, Brahms, Tschaikowsky, and Wagner I should never hear enough. Here, too, my sympathies, are very catholic, and I delight in McDowell, Debussy, Richard Strauss, and Hugo Wolf."

HISTORY VII.-"My parentage is very sound and healthy. Both my parents (who belong to the professional middle cla.s.s) have good general health; nor can I trace any marked abnormal or diseased tendency, of mind or body, in any records of the family.