"In presenting myself thus sexually transformed, I do not aver
having had at the outset any definitive inclination. The instinct
so freshly evolved remained for a while obscure. Its primary
expression was a feebly sensuous interest in the physical
character of boys--in their feminine resemblances especially. To
this interest I opposed no discountenance; for wantonness with
women under many and diverse conditions having long ago medicined
my sexual conscience to lethargy, no access of reasons came to me
now for its refreshment. On the other hand, intellectual delight
in the promises of the new world, as well as sensuality, conduced
to its deliberate exploration. Still, for a year, the yearning
settled with true lust upon no object more concrete than youths
whose only habitation was my fancy.

"A young surgeon, having read my copy of _Psychopathia Sexualis_,
fell one evening to discussing inverts with such relish that I
inquired ingenuously if he himself was one. He colored, whether
confirmatively or otherwise I could not guess, in spite of his
vehement no. Presently he very subtly recanted his denial. But to
his counter-question I maintained my own no, lest he propose some
sexual act, a point the esthetics of my developing inversion
would not yet concede, the boys of my imagination being still
predominant.

"One evening, soon after this, he convoyed me to several of the
cafe's where inverts are accustomed to foregather. These trysting
places were much alike: a long hall, with sparse orchestra at one
end, marble-topped tables lining the walls, leaving the floor
free for dancing. Round the tables sat boys and youths, Adonises
both by art and nature, ready for a drink or a chat with the
chance Samaritan, and shyly importunate for the pleasures for
which, upstairs, were small rooms to let. One of the boys,
supported by the orchestra, sang the 'Jewel Song' out of
'_Faust_.' His voice had the limpid, treble purity of a
clarinet, and his face the beauty of an angel. The song
concluded, we invited him to our table, where he sat sipping neat
brandy, as he mockingly encountered my book-begotten queries. The
boy-prostitutes gracing these halls, he apprised us, bore
fanciful names, some of well-known actresses, others of heroes in
fiction, his own being Dorian Gray. Rivals, he complained, had
assumed the same appellation, but he was the original Dorian; the
others were jealous impostors. His curly hair was golden; his
cheeks were pink; his lips, coral red, parted incessantly to
reveal the glistening pearliness of his teeth. Yet, though
deeming him the beautifulest youth in the world, I experienced no
sexual interest either in him or in the other boys, who indeed
were all beautiful--beauty was their chief asset. Dorian,
further, dilated on the splendor of his female attire, satin
corsets, low-cut evening gowns, etc., donned on gala nights to
display his gleaming shoulders and dimpled, plump, white arms.
Thus arrayed, he bantered, he would bewitch even me, now so
impassive, until I should throw myself, in tears of happiness,
into his loving embrace.

"My first venture upon _fellatio_ was a month later, with the
young surgeon. I confessed the whim to try it, and he acceded.
Though this nauseous and fatiguing act, very imperfectly
performed, was prompted mostly by curiosity, there arose soon a
passional hankering for repetition. In short, appetence for
_fellatio_ grew slowly from the night of that mawkish fiasco and
waxed eventually into a sovereign want.

"Perhaps miscarriage of that initiatory experiment was due to
precipitance, incubation of my perverse instinct being not yet
complete. A hiatus of a month now supervened, in which, while
further _fellatio_ was not attempted, my mind came always nearer
to a reconcilement with the grossness of the act, and began to
discover for its creatures some correlation in pretty boys beheld
in the flesh. One evening, in Broadway, I conceived suddenly a
full-fledged desire for a youth issuing from an hotel as I
passed. Our glances met and dwelled together. At a shop-window he
first accosted me. He was an invert. With him, in his room at the
hotel whence I had seen him emerge, I passed an apocalyptic
night. Thereafter commerce with boys only in the spirit ceased to
be an end; the images were carnalized, stepped from their
framework into the streets. That boy, that god out of the
machine, I see him clearly: his brown, curling hair; his eyes
blue as the sea; his chest both arched and so plump, his rounded
arms, his taper waist, the graceful swell of his hips and full,
snowy thighs; I recall as of yesterday the dimples in his knees,
the slenderness of his ankles, the softness of his little feet,
with insteps pink like the inside of a shell. How I gloated over
his ample roundness, his rich undulations!

"In the last eight years I have performed _fellatio_ (never
_pedicatio_) with more than three hundred men and boys. My
preference is for boys between 15 and 20, refined, pretty,
girlish, and themselves homosexual.

"Personally, barring this love for males, I am in all ways
masculine, given to outdoor sports, and to smoking and drinking
moderately. In appearance I am but a boy of 18. My face and
figure are generally considered beautiful: I am clean-shaved,
with black, curling hair, red cheeks and brown eyes; features
delicate and regular; body, of medium height, everywhere
practically hairless. By years of training I have attained alike
great strength and classic proportions, the muscular contours
smoothly rounded with adipose tissue. My hands and feet are
small. My penis, though perfectly shaped, is rather
enormous--erect, ten and a half inches in length, seven and a
quarter inches in circumference.

"Some abetment of my apostasy from orthodox methods was, no
doubt, this hypertrophy of the penis, which already in my
twentieth year had acquired its present redundance, rendering
coitus impracticable with most women I essayed and painful where
insertion was effected. Since falling heir to inversion, a unique
recurrence of normal desire, six years ago, persuaded me to
attempt coitus with eleven or twelve prostitutes, and, strangely
enough, with much of the old-time salacity and full erection,
but, as it chanced, always with too great disparity of parts for
success."

A certain preciosity in the manner of this communication may be
put down partly to the nature of the literary avocations with
which the writer is by preference occupied, and partly, no doubt
more fundamentally, to the special character of his predominantly
esthetic temperament and attraction to the exotic. An attraction
for exotic experiences will not, however, suffice to account for
the rather late development of homosexual tendencies, a late
development which may be held to place this case in the retarded
group of inverts. H.C. has himself pointed out to me that his
aversion to women, beginning to appear in the eighteenth year,
was already well pronounced before he had ever heard definitely
of specific homosexual acts, and fully a year before he
experienced the slightest sexual interest in men or boys.
Moreover, while it is true that the actual tendency to homosexual
attraction only appeared after he had read Krafft-Ebing and come
in contact with inverts, such influences would not suffice to
change the sexual nature of a normally constituted man.

It may be added that H.C. is not attracted to normal males. As
regards his moral attitude he remarks: "I have no scruples in the
indulgence of my passion. I perceive the moral objections
advanced, but how speculative they are, and constructive; while,
immediately, inversion is the source of so much good." He looks
upon the whole sexual question as largely a matter of taste.

I regard the foregoing case as of considerable interest. It presents what
is commonly supposed to be a very common type of inversion, Oscar Wilde
being the supreme exemplar, in which a heterosexual person apparently
becomes homosexual by the exercise of intellectual curiosity and esthetic
interest. In reality the type is far from common; indeed, an intellectual
curiosity and an esthetic interest, strong enough even apparently to
direct the sexual impulse in any new channel, are themselves far from
common. Moreover, a critical reading of this history suggests that the
apparent control over the sexual impulse by reason is merely a superficial
phenomenon. Here, as ever, reason is but a tool in the hands of the
passions. The apparent causes are really the results; we are witnessing
the gradual emergence of a retarded homosexual impulse.


HISTORY XXVIII.--English, aged 40, surgeon. Sexual experiences
began early, about the age of 10, when a companion induced him to
play at intercourse with their sisters. He experienced no
pleasure. A little later a servant-girl began to treat him
affectionately and at last called him into her bedroom when she
was partially undressed, fondled and kissed his member, and
taught him to masturbate her. On subsequent occasions she
attempted a simulation of intercourse, which gave her
satisfaction, but failed to induce emission in him. On returning
to school mutual masturbation was practised with schoolfellows,
and the first emission took place at the age of 14.

On leaving school he became a slave to the charms of women, and
had frequent coitus about the age of 17, but he preferred
masturbating girls and especially in persuading girls of good
position, to whom the experience was entirely novel, to allow him
to take liberties with them. At 25 he became engaged, and mutual
masturbation was practised to excess during the engagement; after
marriage connection generally took place twice every twenty-four
hours until pregnancy.

"At this time," he writes, "I stayed at the house of an old
school-fellow, due of my lovers of old days. There were so many
guests that I shared my friend's bedroom. The sight of his body
gave rise to lustful feelings, and when the light was out I stole
across to his bed. He made no objection, and we passed the night
in mutual masturbation. We passed the next fortnight together,
and I never took the same pleasure in coitus with my wife, though
I did my duty. She died five years later, and I devoted myself
heart and soul to my friend until his death by accident last
year. Since then I have lost all interest in life."

I am indebted for this case to a well-known English alienist, who
remarks that the patient is fairly healthy to look at, but with
neurasthenia and tendency to melancholia, and neurotic
temperament. The body is masculine and pubic hair abundant. One
testicle shows wasting.


HISTORIES XXIX AND XXX.--I give the following narrative in the
words of an intimate friend of one of the cases in question: "My
attention was first drawn to the study of inversion--though I
then regarded all forms of it as depraving and abominable--at a
public school, where in our dormitory a boy of 15 initiated his
select friends into the secrets of mutual masturbation, which he
had learned from his brother, a midshipman. I gave no heed to
this at the time, though I remembered it in after-years when
immersed in Plato, Lucretius, and the Epicurean writers. But my
attention was riveted to it at the age of 20, when I spent a
holiday with A., a companion with whom I was, and still am, on
terms of great friendship. We enjoyed many things in common,
studied together and discussed most unconventional matters, but
not this. Previously we had always occupied separate sleeping
apartments; on this occasion we were abroad in a country place,
and were compelled to put up with what we could get. We not only
had to share a room, but a bed. I was not surprised at his
throwing his arm over me, as I knew he was extraordinarily
attached to me, and I had always felt a brute for not returning
his affection so warmly. But I was surprised when later I awoke
to find him occupied in _fellatio_ and endeavoring to obtain my
response. Had it been anyone else I should have resented strongly
such a liberty, and our acquaintance would have ended, but I
cared for him too well, though never very demonstrative. This
episode led to discussion of the topic. He told me that his
sexual strength was great, that he had tested it in many ways,
and that it was essential to his well-being that he should have
satisfaction in some way. He loathed prostitution and considered
it degrading; he felt physically attracted to some women and
intellectually to others, but the two elements were never
combined, and though he had been intimate with a few he felt that
it was not right to them, as he could not marry them because he
held too high an ideal of marriage. He had always felt attracted
to his own sex, and had kept up a Platonic friendship with a
college chum, X (to whom I knew he was passionately attached),
for some years. Both considered it perfectly moral, and both,
felt better for it. Both abhor _pedicatio_. X., however, would
never discuss the subject, and seemed half-ashamed of it. A., on
the other hand, though showing a great self-respect in all things
else, feels no shame, though he says he would never discuss it
except with close friends or if asked for private advice.

"A. is the elder child of a military officer. His parents were 21
and 19, respectively, at the time of his birth. Both parents are
healthy, and the two children (both boys) have good
constitutions, though the elder has the better. He is of medium
height and slender limbs, proud carriage, handsome and
intellectual face (classic Greek type), excellent complexion,
charming manners, and good temper. The penis is large, the
foreskin very short. He is fond of philosophy, natural science,
history, and literature. He is reflective and patient rather than
smart, but strong-willed and very active when roused, never
resting till he has accomplished what he wants, even if this
takes years. He sings excellently, and is fond of cycling,
boating, swimming, and mountain-climbing. He enjoys excellent
health, and has never had a day's illness since he was 12 years
of age. He says the only time he cannot sleep has been when in
bed with some one who could not or would not satisfy him. He
requires satisfaction at least once a week, twice or thrice in
the hot season. He never smokes, nor drinks beer or spirits. He
is still single, but believes that marriage would meet all his
needs.

"X. is also an oldest child, of young and healthy parents
(between 21 and 24 at his birth) of different class; father a
builder. He is of pleasing, but not handsome, appearance; very
sensitive, very neat, and methodical in all things; not very
strong-willed, and very reserved to women. He is of very studious
disposition, especially fond of philosophy, politics, and natural
science; a good musician. Takes moderate exercise, but rather
easily fatigued. Is generally healthy, but not overstrong. He is
a vegetarian, and was brought up as a free-thinker. Until two
years ago he was never attracted toward a girl; indeed, he
disliked girls; but he is now engaged. For about eighteen months,
he has relinquished homosexuality, but has suffered from dreams,
bad digestion, and peevishness since. He thinks the only remedy
is marriage, which he is pushing on. He regards homosexuality as
quite natural and normal, though his desires are not strong, and
once a fortnight has always satisfied him. He was led to the
practice by the reasoning of A., and because he felt a certain
vague need, and this comforted him. He thinks it a matter of
temperament and not to be discussed, except by scientists. He
says he could never perform it except with his dearest friend,
whose request he could not resist. He has a long foreskin, flesh
like a woman's, and is well proportioned.

"Both men are ardent for social reform, the one actively, the
other passively engaged in it. Both also regard the law as to
homosexuality as absurd and demoralizing. They also think that
the law prohibiting polygamy is largely the cause of
prostitution, as many women are prevented from living honest
lives and being cared for by someone, and many men could marry
one woman for physical satisfaction and another for intellectual.

"They were devoted to each other when I first knew them; they are
still friends, but separated by distance. Both are exceedingly
honorable, and the latter is truthful to a fault."

According to later information X. had married and his homosexual
tendencies were almost completely in abeyance, partly, perhaps,
owing to the fact that he now lives quietly in the country. A.
has surprised his friends by his ardent attachment to a lady of
about his own age to whom he has become engaged. He declares that
he loves this woman better than any man, but nevertheless he
still feels strong passion for his men friends. It is evident
that the homosexual tendency in A. is distinctly more pronounced
than in his friend X. As is found more often in bisexual than in
homosexual persons, he is of predominantly masculine type,
possesses great vitality, and desires to exert all his faculties.
He has a sound nervous system and is very free from all
"nervousness." He has written a scientific treatise and can study
undisturbed amid violent noises. His voice is manly (in singing
deep base). He can whistle. He is not vain, though well formed,
and his hands are delicate. His favorite color is green. The
demonstrative warmth of his affection for his friends is the
chief feminine trait noted in him. He rarely dreams and has never
had an erotic dream; this he explains by saying (earlier than
Freud) that all dreams not caused by physical conditions are
wish-dreams, and as he always satisfies his sexual needs at once,
with a friend or by masturbation, his sexual needs have no
opportunity of affecting his subconscious life.

There may be some doubt as to the classification of the two foregoing
cases: they are not personally known to me. The following case, with which
I have been acquainted for many years, I regard as clearly a genuine
example of bisexuality:--


HISTORY XXXI.--Englishman, independent means, aged 52, married.
His ancestry is of a complicated character. Some of his mother's
forefathers in the last and earlier centuries are supposed to
have been inverted. He remembers liking the caresses of his
father's footmen when he was quite a little boy. He dreams
indifferently about men and women, and has strong sexual feeling
for women. Can copulate, but does not insist on this act; there
is a tendency to refined, voluptuous pleasure. He has been
married for many years, and there are several children by the
marriage.

He is not particular about the class or age of the men he loves.
He feels with regard to older men as a women does, and likes to
be caressed by them. He is immensely vain of his physical beauty;
he shuns _pedicatio_ and does not much care for the sexual act,
but likes long hours of voluptuous communion during which his
lover admires him. He feels the beauty of boyhood. At the same
time he is much attracted by young girls.

He is decidedly feminine in his dress, manner of walking, love of
scents, ornaments, and fine things. His body is excessively
smooth and white, the hips and buttocks rounded. Genital organs
normal. His temperament is feminine, especially in vanity,
irritability, and petty preoccupations. He is much preoccupied
with his personal appearance and fond of admiration; on one
occasion he was photographed naked as Bacchus. He is physically
and morally courageous. He has a genius for poetry and
speculation, with a tendency to mysticism.

He feels the discord between his love for men and society, also
between it and his love for his wife. He regards it as, in part,
at least, hereditary and inborn in him.


HISTORY XXXII.--C.R., physician; age 38. Nationality, Irish, with
a Portuguese strain. "My mother came of an old Quaker family. I
was quite unaware of sexual differences until I was about 14, as
I was carefully kept separate from my sisters and, although from
time to time strange longings which I did not understand
possessed me, I was a virgin in thought and deed until that
period of life.

"When I was 14 a cousin some years older than myself came to stay
with us and shared my bed. To my surprise he took hold of my
penis and rubbed it for a time, when a most pleasant feeling
seized me and increased until a discharge came out of my organ;
he then asked me to do the same to him. We frequently repeated
the process during the following month; I was quite unaware of
any harm resulting.

"The same year I went to school, but none of my schoolmates for
some time even suggested such actions until a friend staying with
us for the holidays one day in the bathroom repeated the process
and pressed his penis between my thighs, when a similar discharge
took place. I shortly found out that several of my school friends
and male cousins had the same desires, and an elder brother of my
first introducer into sexuality repeatedly spent the night with
me, when we would amuse ourselves in a similar way.

"A little later, my mother being away from home, I shared my
father's bed and he took my penis in his hand and pulled my
foreskin back. I in return took hold of his and found that he had
an erection. I proceeded to rub him when he stopped me and told
me that I should not do so, that when I was a little older I
should love a woman to do it and that if I did not rub myself and
allow other boys to do so, I would enjoy myself much more. I am
quite certain that my father was inverted, as he frequently, if
sleeping with me, used to press my naked body against his and he
always had a strong erection. On one occasion he rubbed me until
I had a discharge and then, turning over on his back, made me
take his penis in my hand and rub him for a few minutes. I used
to jest frequently with my father, as from my seventeenth year my
penis was larger than his. I will return to my father a little
later. When I was 17 a college friend shared my bed, and when
undressing he said that he envied me my penis being so much
larger than his; after getting into bed, he asked me to turn on
my side and I found that he was attempting _pedicatio_. I was
astonished at his doing so when he informed me that next to a
woman this process gave most pleasure. However, nothing resulted
and this is the only experience of _pedicatio_ that I have ever
had.

"When I was 18 one evening a college chum introduced me to a
woman and she was the first I ever had connection with. We went
behind some rocks and she took hold of my penis and pressed it
into her body, lying against me.

"My father evidently suspected me when I came home, and a few
days afterward told me that it was very dangerous to have
anything to do with women, that I should wait until I was older,
that when a boy became a man he ought to have a woman
occasionally, and that if I ever had a nasty disease I should
promptly tell him so that I could be properly cured.

"At college I found several chums who were fond of sharing my bed
and indulging in mutual masturbation, pressing our bodies
together face to face until there was mutual discharge, but never
again anyone who tried anal connection.

"A short time afterward I was in Brussels and I paid my first
visit to a brothel, a place close to the Cathedral. I picked a
girl of about 18 from eight naked beauties paraded for my choice.
She was avaricious and demanded 10 francs, I had paid 20 for my
room and had only 2 left. I wanted her to play with me, but she
only seized the penis and pulled me to her with such vigorous
action that I discharged very rapidly. I was so disgusted with
the result that I masturbated when I returned to my boarding
house.

"A year later I paid Portugal a visit and my friends there
frequently brought me to brothels and also introduced me to
ladies of easy virtue. I had connection with them; the Portuguese
prostitutes never suggested anything unnatural and in no instance
did a male approach me for sexual purposes.

"When I became a medical student, I used to visit a Turkish bath
frequently; on one occasion I playfully slapped a friend on the
buttocks, when my father, who was present, told me not to do so
as it was not proper conduct in public, that if I liked to do so
to him or one or two others it was no harm in private. Until I
was 21, in the bath my father always covered his penis from my
view, but after I attained my majority he always exposed himself
and repeatedly showed me pictures of naked women; he also taught
me the use of the condom.

"In my twenty-fourth year, a tall, handsome man who used to
frequent the baths one day sat down beside me and playfully
knocked my toes with his; he then pressed his naked thigh against
mine and a little later in the cooling room slipped his hand
under my sheet and grasped my penis; he then asked me to meet him
a few days later in the baths, saying I would be pleased with
what he would do.

"I kept the appointment and he took me into the hottest room,
where we lay on the floor; in a few minutes he turned on his side
and threw one of his legs across me; I got frightened and jumped
up; he had a powerful erection, but I refused to lie down again,
although he pulled his foreskin back to excite my desires; I was
afraid of being surprised by another bather. Twice on future
occasions I met this man and he made advances. I believe that I
would have yielded then if we had met at a private house.

"Shortly afterward I met an elderly gentleman at the baths who
also made advances to me, but from fear I resisted him. I also
disliked him as he had a foul breath and bad teeth; besides I was
now able to go to the Continent and enjoy female charms to my
heart's desire.

"After qualification I joined the army in South Africa and to my
astonishment found many of my comrades fond of male society; one
officer who had been wounded shared my bedroom at a military
hospital and when undressing frequently admired my penis; we used
to play with each other until we had powerful erections, but we
never masturbated or tried any unnatural vice.

"I used to have connection with women as frequently as I could,
and I frequently visited the Turkish baths and found that several
clients were abnormal, including one of the masseurs; the latter
enjoyed playing with my penis, kissing and tickling me.

"I married at 28. My married life has been normal and my wife and
I are still in love with one another; we have had several
children.

"My last sexual experiences have been in Australia; once in
Sydney at the baths a fellow-bather playfully began tickling me,
when I had an erection; he grasped my penis, I jumped up, and he
asked me to do anything that I liked with him. I refused. Once
on board a coasting steamer a fellow-passenger used to expose
himself, posing as a statue; we became very familiar and he
wanted me to spend a night with him. I also refused his offers.

"I am very healthy and strong, fond of riding, fishing, and
shooting. I lead a very active life. I am neither musician nor
artist, but fond of hearing music and I admire works of art.

"In person I am 6 feet high, inclined to fat; my body is very
strong; my penis is six inches long in repose and eight in
erection; I can without fatigue discharge twice in the night and
have connection at least twice a week. My scrotum is tense and
both testicles large. I am rather slow at discharging. I have
never had any desire to have connection with any other woman
since marriage, but several times I have met men who attracted
me. I have a friend (another doctor) who is very familiar with me
and if we spend a night together we will play with each other. I
have a great desire for him to circumcize me. We have never
indulged in anything beyond feeling or pressing our bodies
together like schoolboys.

"My favorite color is green.

"My erotic dreams, when I have any, are of my wife or of a male
lover.

"Sexual inversion is more widespread than is popularly supposed
and I have never had any twinge of conscience after any of my
affairs. I regard the homosexual instinct as quite natural, and,
except in regard to my wife, it is stronger in my case than the
heterosexual instinct. I have never initiated a youth into the
sexual life or had any desire to seduce a girl. Boys under 17, or
persons of lower social class, have no attraction for me."


HISTORY XXXIII.--M.O., 30 years of age, born in the United
States, of English father and of mother whose father was
Scotch,--the rest of his ancestry being English of long standing
in America, with a very little admixture of Dutch blood. He is 5
feet 8 inches in height, and has brown hair and eyes. No
hereditary troubles so far as known. In childhood, for some time
"threatened with chorea." Is subject to tonsillitis and a
stubborn though not severe form of indigestion, induced by
sedentary habits. He is of quick, nervous temperament. Has an
aversion from most outdoor sports, but a great esthetic
attraction to nature. Highly educated.

As far back as he can remember, he lived in a house from which
his parents removed when he was 4 years old. Before this removal,
he remembers two distinctly sexual experiences. A cousin five
years older was in the bathroom, seated, and M.O. was feeling his
sexual organs; his mother called him out. On another occasion he
was in a wagonhouse with a girl of his own age. They were lying
on a carriage-seat attempting intercourse. The girl's older
sister came in and found them. She said: "I am going to tell
mamma; you know she said for you not to do that any more." With
each of these clear memories comes the strong impression that it
was but one among many. Five years ago M.O. met a man of his own
age who had lived in that neighborhood at the same time.
Comparing notes, they found that nearly all the small children in
it had been given to such practices. The neighborhood was a
thoroughly "respectable" middle-class one.

From it, M.O. removed to another of just about the same
character, and lived there until he was 11 years old. Of this
period his memories are very fresh and abundant. With a single
exception, all the children between 5 and 14 years of age appear
to have indulged freely in promiscuous sexual play. In little
companies of from four to twelve they went where trees or long
grass hid them from observation, and exhibited their persons to
one another; sometimes, also, they handled one another, but not
in the way of masturbation. Of this last, M.O. was wholly
ignorant. Sometimes when but two or three were together,
intercourse was attempted. In M.O.'s case there was eager sexual
curiosity, and a more or less keen desire, but actual contact
brought no great satisfaction. On two or three occasions girls
practised _fellatio_, and he then reciprocated with
_cunnilinctus_, but without pleasure. In all these plays he is
sure that girls took the initiative as often as boys did.

During all this period, M.O. had now one girl sweetheart and now
another. This was conventional among the children, and was
fostered by the banter of older persons. M.O.'s sexual curiosity
was certainly greater in regard to the opposite sex. At this
time, however, his homosexual interests appeared. With a boy two
or more years older he frequently went to some hiding-place where
they looked at each other's organs and handled them. He and
another boy were once in an abandoned garden, and they took off
all their clothes, the better to examine each other. The other
boy then offered to kiss M.O.'s fundament, and did so. It caused
a surprisingly keen and distinctly sexual sensation, the first
sexual shock that he can remember experiencing. He refused to
reciprocate, however, when asked.

Toward the end of this period there was a new and increasing
development of another sort, not recognized then as at all sexual
in character. He began to feel toward certain boys in a way very
different and much keener than he had done thus far toward girls,
although at the time he made no comparisons. For instance there
was a boy whom he considered very pretty. They visited each other
often and spent long times playing together. In school they
looked and looked at each other until delicious, uncontrollable
giggling spells came on. Sexual matters were never discussed or
thought of. These experiences were, in their way, very
sentimental and ideal. M.O. is sure that with himself the main
consideration was always the other boy's beauty. He began to
recall with great fondness a certain much older and very handsome
youth who had lived near him in the first neighborhood, and had
at the time shown him, various little friendly attentions. He
seldom saw him now, and hardly sought to do so, yet was immensely
pleased by a casual word or look from him in the schoolyard, and
much interested when other people spoke of him.

A cousin about two years younger than M.O. often visited him and
slept with him. They were very fond of each other, and handled
each other's organs.

When M.O. was about 11 years of age the family removed to a
distant neighborhood, where there were almost no children of his
own age, and where any association with those in the one just
left was practically impossible. From this time until the changes
of puberty were well under way his sexual life contrasted
strongly, in its solitude, with the former promiscuity. He
remembers liking to wrestle with two or three schoolboys and to
get their heads between his legs. He thinks they were not aware
of his sexual impulses. He flirted, consciously flirted, with
certain school-girls, but never even suggested anything sexual to
them. He read a few family medical books.

One day, lying on an old uneven couch, innocently enough at
first, he induced a new and delicious sensation, altogether
different from any he had ever dreamed of--something far beyond
the satisfaction of mere curiosity. He repeated the thing and
before long produced emissions. Masturbation soon followed.
Certain days he would perform the act two or three times, but
again he would avoid it for days. He began at once to fight the
tendency, and felt very guilty and very ashamed for indulging it.
He prayed for help and at times wept over his failures to break
the habit so quickly formed. For a certain period, after two or
three years, he seemed to have succeeded, but he observed that he
had intense erotic dreams with copious emissions regularly every
eight days. Just then certain newspaper advertisements fell under
his eye, and these persuaded him that he had produced in himself
a diseased condition. He never resorted to the remedies
advertised, but he was discouraged in his efforts to overcome the
bad habit; and since the evil effects appeared to consist only in
the seminal losses, he concluded that he might as well have the
greater enjoyment of masturbation.

For a short time, he remembers that he had an intense but
revolting interest in the sexual organs of animals, especially
horses. The males were much more interesting.

Gradually he began to develop, entirely from within, the ideal of
a male comrade,--a beautiful, emotional boy between whom and
himself there might exist a powerful romantic passion. He lay for
hours dreaming of this, and inventing thrilling situations.
Suddenly, at church, he became acquainted with the very youth,
Edmund, who seemed to satisfy all his longings. M.O. was then 161/2
and Edmund 15. A real wooing ensued, Edmund finally yielding to
the physical appeals of M.O. after several fits of misgiving. The
yielding was in the end complete, however. The two spent night
after night together, enjoying intercrural intercourse and
sometimes mutual masturbation. Their parents may have been
slightly uneasy at times, but the connection continued
uninterruptedly for a year and a half or more. In the meantime
M.O. occasionally had relations with other boys, but never
wavered in his real preference for Edmund. For girls he had no
sexual desire whatever, though he was much associated with them.

Then M.O. and Edmund went to college at different places, but
they met in vacations and wrote frequent and ardent love-letters.
Both had genuine attacks of love-sickness and of jealousy. As
M.O. looks back on this first love passion he can by no means
regret it. It doubtless had great formative influence.

After the first year at college, Edmund transferred to another
school farther away from M.O. and the opportunities for meeting
became rarer, but their affection was maintained and the
intercourse resumed whenever it was possible. Gradually, however,
Edmund became interested in women and finally married. M.O. also
formed relations repeatedly with college friends and occasionally
with others.

On the whole M.O. preferred boys a year or two younger than
himself, but as he grew older the age difference increased. At 30
he regarded himself as virtually "engaged" to a youth of 17, one
unusually mature, however, and much larger than himself.

M.O. is always unhappy unless his affections have fairly free
course. Life has been very disappointing to him in other
respects. His greatest joys have come to him in this way. If he
is able to consummate his present plan of union with the youth
just referred to, he will feel that his life has been crowned by
what is for him the best possible end; otherwise, he declares, he
would not care to live at all.

He admires male beauty passionately. Feminine beauty he perceives
objectively, as he would any design of flowing curves and
delicate coloring, but it has no sexual charm for him whatever.
Women have put themselves in his way repeatedly, but he finds
himself more and more irritated by their specifically feminine
foibles. With men generally he is much more patient and
sympathetic.

The first literature that appealed to him was Plato's dialogues,
first read at 20 years of age. Until then he had not known but
what he stood alone in his peculiarity. He read what he could of
classic literature. He enjoys Pater, appreciating his attitude
toward his own sex. Four or five years, later he came across
Raffalovich's book, and ever since has felt a real debt of
gratitude to its author.

M.O. has no wish to injure society at large. As an individual he
holds that he has the same right to be himself that anyone else
has. He thinks that while boys of from 13 to 15 might possibly be
rendered inverts, those who reach 16 without it cannot be bent
that way. They may be devoted to an invert enough in other ways
to yield him what he wishes sexually, but they will remain
essentially normal themselves. His observations are based on
about 30 homosexual relationships that have lasted various
lengths of time.

M.O. feels strongly the poetic and elevated character of his
principal homosexual relationships, but he shrinks from appearing
too sentimental.

With regard to the traces of feminism in inverts he writes:--

"Up to the age of 11 I associated much with a cousin five years
older (the one referred to above) and took great delight in a
game we often played, in which I was a girl,--a never-ending
romance, a non-sexual love story.

"Somewhat later and until puberty, I took great delight in
acting, but generally took female roles, wearing skirts, shawls,
beads, wigs, head-dresses. When I was about 13 my family began to
make fun of me for it. I played secretly for a while, and then
the desire for it left, never to return.