any restraint, and the best restraint to all young people, in his
opinion, is to warn them on hygienic grounds. (He became a
freethinker at 17, partly on observing the inconsistency of
religious persons in this connection. He was twice set upon by
Catholics when 16, who attempted mutual masturbation.) He can
vaguely remember some such warning when very young from his
mother.

No intercourse with women till age of 19, though strong
homosexual feelings from 10 upward, associated with feminine
youths. These feelings were quite distinct from feelings of
affection and friendship for more virile youths. An attack of
gonorrhea at 21 was followed by an operation for circumcision,
which had beneficial effects, but did not prevent an attack of
syphilis at age of 23, caught at a guaranteed state establishment
in France. Intercourse almost always with prostitutes, on
prudential and worldly grounds, though what he approves would be
greater laxity between boys and girls, with proper safeguards
against undesired offspring. He is now happily married. He only
indulges in masturbation at times when intercourse is impossible
(e.g., childbirth). It is then practised once or twice a week in
the early morning; overnight it causes troubled sleep, brain
activity, and constipation. This seems ethically more desirable
unless the wife were to condone physical infidelity, which she
would not, and even then there might be risks of venereal
disease. His general health and working power are in all respects
excellent, as the venereal diseases were speedily and thoroughly
cured. Homosexual feeling has entirely disappeared since
marriage.

HISTORY XV.--G.D., English; aged 60. "My earliest essays in
juvenile vice were due not so much to unguarded as to unguided
ignorance. I slipped where my natural protectors suspected no
danger, and I fell because I had never been warned of the
treacherous nature of the ground. Before or soon after I was 7
years old, the example of an elder brother, who had lately begun
to go to school as a day-boy, initiated me into the mysteries of
masturbation, which seemed to me then as harmless as it was
fascinating; and the novel pleasure was almost daily indulged in,
after I had acquired sufficient dexterity to accomplish the act
within a reasonable time, without a twinge of conscience, either
in that brother's company or when alone. Decency demanded secrecy
in the gratification of what soon became an imperious desire,
and the preliminary operations included, almost from the first,
mutual _fellatio_ and approximation of the excited organs; but
similar privacy was very properly sought during the performance
of other bodily acts associated with those 'less honorable
members,' and it appeared to me quite as natural and right for us
to amuse ourselves together in that way as for a married couple
to hide their most intimate embraces from the observation of
others. Indeed, I went farther than that, and even came to regard
the absence of all shame between us as akin to the primeval
innocence which Adam and Eve exhibited before the Fall. I
believed for long that we two were specially privileged and
possessed a peculiar sense denied to other boys, for I had never
heard of masturbation till I learnt, not the word indeed, but the
thing itself.

"My curiosity about the real nature of sexual union in the case
of human beings set my intelligence to work at the interesting
problem, and by carefully studying certain parts of the Bible,
Lemprière's classical and other dictionaries, as well as by
persistently watching when I could the amorous proceedings of
domestic animals, I learnt enough to make its most prominent
features pretty clear before I was 11 years of age. I was then
all eagerness to have the opportunity of inspecting at close
quarters the genitals of women or young girls, and a stay at the
seaside when I was 12 made the latter at least feasible. When the
shore was nearly deserted, between 1 and 2 P.M., the daughters of
the fisherfolk used to besiege the bathing machines and disport
themselves in the water, bathing and paddling in various stages
of nudity. I would pretend that my whole attention was being
given to the making of miniature tunnels in the sand, while all
the time I slyly peeped at what I most desired to see, whether in
front or from behind, as the dancing damsels stood upright or
stooped till their haunches were higher than their heads. I had
already read something somewhere about the _clitoris_, and wanted
especially to see it, but indistinct glimpses were all that I
could obtain; nor was it until I visited an anatomical museum,
which then existed at the top of the Haymarket in London, that I
learned, a good many years later, from several life-sized models
there displayed, the characteristic features of that part, as
well as the abnormal modifications to which it is subject, either
congenitally or in consequence of profligate habits. I was 15, I
think, when I first came to know that girls can masturbate as
well as boys.

"Long after I had realized why the terms male and female are so
distinguished, my imagination was occupied with the possible
postures in which the act of copulation may be accomplished by a
man and woman; from Horace, Lucretius, Martial, Aristophanes,
and, above all, from Ovid's _Ars Amatoria_ I obtained much, but
not always very clear, information while still a schoolboy. This
was supplemented later by photographic pictures from Pompeiian
brothels and photographs from life, purchased at Florence and
gloated over one night, with twice-repeated masturbation, and
afterward destroyed in a revulsion of shame.

"But while continuing to practise self-abuse (with a certain
degree of restraint indeed, but seldom less often than once or
even twice a week), after I had been made fully aware of its
perils by Dr. Adam Clarke's alarming comments on Genesis xxxviii,
9, when I was about 12 or 13, I never had connection with a woman
until I married somewhat late in life. This abstinence was not
due to any frigidity of disposition, but from prudential and
religious motives, and, to some extent perhaps, from the
imperfect but genuine satisfaction afforded by solitary
indulgence. My imagination, like that of young J.J. Rousseau, as
set forth in his _Confessions_, was allowed free scope for its
exercise, but in practice I confined myself to what seemed to me
comparatively innocent as compared with fornication. I was never
an unreserved 'exhibitionist' like Rousseau, but I have on more
than one occasion turned toward a hedge and pretended to make
water, when a girl had just passed me on the road, showing a
_turgens cauda_ if she should chance out of curiosity to look
back, as once, at any rate, happened.

"I watched with interest the first indications of puberty in my
own person. I had, of course, seen the pubic hair on many of my
own sex, but I was 17 when I first saw a naked woman. She was
standing at the door of her machine, wringing out her
bathing-dress, as I swam past, and her face was hidden by the
awning then used, so that she could not see me. A slight effusion
of limpid mucus began to characterize the orgasm, at the age of
12 or 13 (before any ejaculation of semen was experienced), such
as exuded later from the _urethra_ when salacious excitement
reached a certain pitch, even though the final climax might be
postponed or prevented altogether. I found it a refinement of
luxury to prolong the period of tumescence as far as possible, by
frequently checking a too rapid progress toward the goal. By this
practice of repeated arrest when the orgasm was imminent, and the
mental debauchery which was its habitual accompaniment, I believe
I did my nervous system more damage than by anything else--even
the early age at which the dangerous indulgence became
established. Nocturnal emissions (the sequel of lascivious
dreams) commenced when I was about 15, at which age I had my
first experience of an involuntary discharge when awake, under
the influence of purely mental emotion; but this latter mode of
escape did not often happen, and later on ceased altogether. My
muscular strength was not impaired by too frequent indulgence,
and I acquired some athletic prowess on the football field and on
the running path, both as a boy and as a young man. Walking tours
were for long my favorite recreation, even after the bicycle
became an increasing attraction. My health, however, suffered in
other ways from too constant absorption in lustful thoughts,
which found vent in erotic verses and tales, generally destroyed
soon after they were written. I have been subject since I was a
boy to more or less prolonged fits of mental depression. How far
I have inherited this tendency (my father and his father both
married first cousins, and a neurotic diathesis has been
characteristic of our family), or how far it has been aggravated
by pernicious habits, I cannot say; cause and effect have no
doubt acted and reacted on each other.

"As I grew toward adolescence I endeavored to make self-abuse as
close an imitation as possible of sexual intercourse by such
methods as may be easily imagined. My biological studies (I won a
scholarship and took honors at my university) were directed with
most intent predilection toward the reproductive system,
particularly the modifications of the copulatory organs in
different animals and the diverse manner of their employment. The
sexual instinct, whether in its normal or abnormal
manifestations, is a subject which has always had a strong
attraction for me, nor has it lost its fascination with the
growth of years (I am now 60) nor the competition of other
interests.

"My very limited experience of the sexual system in women would
lead me to believe that the _clitoris_ is the only peculiarly
sensitive part of the female _genitalia_, coition giving no
pleasure unless 'the trigger of love' is simultaneously
manipulated, as can be done when intromission is effected _a
tergo_; that the mind of a normally healthy maiden is altogether
free from sexual excitement of a physical kind, and that little
curiosity is felt about the precise _modus operandi_ of conjugal
intercourse; but, nevertheless, I have good reason to believe
that this, if not an unusual type, is by no means the only one
that exists.

"As to sexual inversion my personal experience has been confined
to two or three _grandes passions_ for boys, the first of which
possessed me when between the ages of 16 and 18, and involved,
when I was 17, the most intense mental emotion, of a romantic
kind, tinged with poignant jealousy and vexation at comparative
coldness toward myself. These love passages never led me into
indelicate behavior (I was once threatened with such treatment
myself by a stranger whose acquaintance I made one day at the
British Museum, when a lad of 15. He took me to his bedroom at an
inn, locked the door, and showed me a collection of coins, giving
me some, and, while doing so, attempted to take indecent
liberties; but I pretended that I must catch a certain train,
unlocked the door, and made a hasty escape), nor was any
gratification sought beyond occasional kisses and other innocent
endearments, though such caresses would sometimes excite an
erection, which I carefully concealed. These amours were,
however, no outcome of perverted instinct, nor were they any bar
to fancies for the opposite sex which affected my imagination
rather than my heart."


HISTORY XVI.--This history is given in the subject's own words:
A.N., 34 years of age, a university graduate, devoted to learning
and interested in philosophy and theology. He is happily married
and the father of an only daughter. Since puberty he has enjoyed
excellent health.

"Looking back he finds the beginnings of sexual feeling obscure.
This feeling is by no means identical in its progress with the
knowledge of the phenomena of sex generally. The latter he
acquired thus: His mother told him at a very early age the
outlines of the phenomena of birth and explained to him (perhaps
at that time unnecessarily) that the genital organs of little
girls were different from his own. This piece of knowledge led to
his asking, when 9 years old, a little girl cousin who came to
live with the family (he was an only child) and who shared his
bed to let him see her genitalia. This she readily did and also
invited him to coitus, which she described as a 'nice game.' He
complied, but without, of course, any feeling of pleasure or any
understanding of the nature of what he was doing. Shortly after
this he went to a day school, where, amid the extraordinarily
coarse conversation of the boys, he was initiated into all the
more obvious phenomena of sex. But still it was only a matter of
intellectual curiosity. As such it had a strange fascination for
him, and to this day he remembers many of the obscene words and
phrases, as, for example, a set of indecent verses beginning
'William, the milkman, sat under a tree,' describing coitus,
though some of the details were yet misunderstood by him. That up
to his tenth or eleventh year no real sexual desire was awakened
is plain from the fact that there was no desire for any
repetition of attempts at coitus with his cousin, though he did
indeed, again out of curiosity, finger her genitals sometimes, a
thing which she, grown evidently more fastidious, reported to his
mother, who gravely reprimanded him, telling him that it was the
'beginning of all evil.'

"Desire was awakened gradually and, as I have said, obscurely.
Not only at school, but among his own cousins, especially two
girls (other than the one above mentioned) and a boy, the
conversation was lascivious in the extreme, though words never
proceeded to deeds as between the boys and the girls. He was
soon, however, about his fifteenth year, so far as he can
remember, initiated into the practice of masturbation, first,
sleeping with his boy cousin, the two used to play at 'husband
and wife,' and then, more directly, a neighbor, a heavy, sensual
type of boy, took him aside one day and drawing out his own penis
asked him 'if he knew how to make some buttermilk.' Out of
curiosity at first, and to obtain the new and voluptuous
sensation afterward, he began assiduously to practise this vice,
which, as he afterward found out, was very common, if not
universal about him. That it was morally reprehensible he had not
at that time the ghost of a notion; he considered that it
belonged to the category of the 'dirty' only. His father quite
neglected this development, believing, I suppose, in the
superstition of the 'innocence of childhood.'

"This practice of masturbation went on assiduously to his
sixteenth year, when its true nature and danger were revealed to
him by a good clergyman who prepared him for confirmation. He had
at this time gone far, in both solitary vice and vice 'à deux,'
with his male cousin, with whom he practised even 'fellatio' and
'intromissio in anum.' But now he began to struggle against it
and made some headway, but never entirely shook it off before his
marriage at 26, so deeply rooted was the hold it had on him.
Especially at the time between sleeping and waking, or while
lying sleepless at night--when the monks prayed 'ne polluantur
corpora'--did its attacks come insidiously upon him. He would
struggle for weeks and then would come a relapse. On one occasion
he slept with a young uncle who amused himself, thinking he was
asleep, by playing with his penis until he had an emission. A.N.
hailed the occasion with keen joy--he caustically argued that he
experienced the pleasure without being culpable in its
production! Then on 'coming to himself' he would agonize over his
vice, remembering, for example, that, while _he_ had rejoiced in
what had been done, the very cousin who some time before used to
share his sin was genuinely annoyed at the same uncle's
attentions when it was he who suffered them.

"Looking back over the whole period of his youth and adolescence,
he can trace the psychological effect of what was going on
secretly, in his relations to girls and women. In a word, these
relations were sentimental only. He often imagined himself in
love; but it was imagination only. He was in love with a wraith,
not a girl of flesh and blood. He hesitated to regard in any
sexual way any girl of whom he had a high opinion; sexual desire
and 'love' seemed for him to inhabit different worlds and that it
would be a pollution to bring them together. In hours of
relaxation from the very hard intellectual work which he was at
this time engaged on at school and at the university, he was
quite content with the society of quite young girls or even
children when most of his friends would have sought out females
of their own age. Nothing could have been farther from his
desires or intention than any lascivious or, indeed, unseemly act
toward any female in whose company he might be: no mother need
have hesitated to trust her daughter in his company. I firmly
believe that the discipline of the same bed which Gibbon
(_Decline and Fall_, ed. Bury, vol. ii, p. 37) makes so merry
over could have been endured by him without difficulty. His
outward conduct was in all these respects most seemly and
decorous, yet night after night he could masturbate, his
imagination glowing with visions of female nakedness.

"Curiously the one and only actual female for whom he felt any
desire at the earlier period (aged 14 to 16) began to be the
cousin who lived in the house. On one occasion he touched her
breasts, on another her naked thighs--and that was all! As she
grew to puberty, she would have allowed far more liberties, but
he contented himself with a sly glance now and again, when he
could procure it, at her swelling bosom. The fear of putting her
with child was ample to keep him away from her bed. Later on even
so much as the foregoing occurred no more, and, as I have said,
his outward life became absolutely decorous.

"Consequently he was in no danger of having dealings with
prostitutes. The preliminaries, the conversation of such women,
especially their drinking habits, would have been disgusting and
repugnant to him in the extreme. He would have shunned the
possibility of acquiring venereal disease like the plague. But he
was never free from solitary vice; he secretly envied those who
had occasions for coitus in what I may call a seemly and cleanly
manner, friends in the country with farm girls, etc., of whom he
had heard. He indulged also in lascivious reading, the obscene
when he could procure it, rather than the merely suggestive,
which has never been to his taste. He was familiar with quite a
large number of Latin and Greek indecent passages, knew the
broader farces of the _Canterbury Tales_ and of the _Decameron_,
and, later, the 'contes' of La Fontaine and the _Facetiæ_ of
Poggio. As Ste.-Beuve says of Gibbon, I think, he acquired an
'erudite and cold' sort of obscenity in this way.

"All this, of course, is only one half, and by no means always
the dominant half, of his nature. He was often repentant for
these delinquencies, and he was sincerely religious. He was also
fond of serious learning and contrived to take a first-class
university degree. Yet, ever and anon, the deeply sensual side of
his nature made itself felt. Scotched for a time it could be, but
killed never.

"Yet, I do not think it could be said that he had the sexual
instinct in any really high degree. It was more like a small fly
that makes a large buzz than any considerable factor in his
constitution. He had a companion about this time of whom such a
remark is even more true. This man's mind was replete with all
manner of risky stories, all sorts of sexual details. He would
take long walks with girls of loose character, talk with
prostitutes at home and abroad, and yet, I believe, he never
proceeded to coitus.

"Such then, was the subject of this notice up to the time of his
marriage. Two men, one might say, in one skin. One learned, one
merely obscene; one a pattern of decorousness, the other a
self-polluter.

"On the sexual side he was as one knowing everything there is to
know--yet knowing nothing. Like the boy-hero in Wedekind's
_Frühling's Erwachen_, he had been long in Egypt, yet he had
never seen the pyramids. He began to distress himself with
questions as to whether he was yet capable; whether his recurring
vice had not permanently injured him; whether he had made himself
unfit for marriage. So shy and reserved was he about his secret
that he could never have brought himself to mention it to a
medical man. 'What! he! the good, the religious! the wholly moral
and decorous!' (such was, indeed, the reputation he had among his
friends); 'he, the victim of a vice so black!' No, no! '_Secretum
meum mihi_,' he cried.

"Fortune, however, was kind to him. He was at an early age free
from financial worries, which had almost crushed him earlier in
his career, and he met in course of time the family from which he
selected his excellent wife.

"The society in which he lived was of all English classes, I
should suppose, the most reticent in matters of sex--the
respectable, lower middle class; shopkeepers and the like, with a
tradition of homely religion and virtue. The classes a little
higher in the scale (to which, by the way, his mother had
belonged) could far better sympathize with one in his position.
Well, the family of his future wife was of a higher class and,
what is far more, of foreign origin, for whom a large number of
our English 'convenances' do not exist. To them sex was frankly
recognized as a factor in life, and the mother of this household,
as he grew more intimate, broached subjects which he had never,
in such a manner, discussed before. It is unnecessary to give
here any general history of his relationships with this
household, as they have nothing to do with the matter in hand.
After some time he became engaged to the youngest daughter, two
years his senior, a woman of remarkable beauty and splendid
development, one who attracted him as none other had done, both
on account of her intellectual and social qualities and her
physical beauty (he had hitherto despaired of finding the two
combined in one person), for she is certainly the most beautiful
woman with whom he has ever been acquainted.

"He now began to make the practical acquaintance of a woman--and
one who, in impulses, temper, manner, and habit of thought,
differed _toto cælo_ from the girls he had known in his old home.
Her sexual nature was ripe and developed, and it is lucky that
the engagement was of short duration, or the strain and
anticipation of that time might have been injurious to the health
of both. As usual, in his outward relations toward women, so
toward his _fiancée_, he was prepared for chaste caresses only.
This, however, did not suffice for her hot and passionate nature.
They went as far as possible short of actual coitus.

"After a few months, however, the marriage took place, and, at
first, this brought him bitter disappointment and seemed to
confirm his worst fears. He found himself quite unable to have
pleasure or satisfactory coitus; quite incapable, with any
erection that he could command, of introducing his well-developed
penis into his wife's extremely narrow and contracted vagina.
About a fortnight after the marriage, however, on his return from
their short wedding tour, he felt much stronger and copulated
with her, especially in the early mornings, so satisfactorily
that she soon found herself with child. Coitus now began to be
much more pleasurable for him, but to his wife still attended
with pain.

"After nine months of married life, the child, the only offspring
of the marriage, a healthy girl, was born. The stress of this
time, the upsetting of his wife's health, her nervous breakdown
and consequently uncertain temper, seemed for a period of nearly
two years effectually to repress any sexual desire in the
husband, and this period is perhaps the chastest of his life.
Desire seemed to be the one thing absent. The revulsion of
feeling in his wife was remarkable. The erstwhile amorous
_fiancée_, who could hardly wait until marriage to test her
lover, became now the wife and mother who hardly wished to be
touched by her husband.

"Her health, however, gradually improved and a more normal state
of affairs was brought about, which has continued to the present
day, broken only by periods of abstention, chiefly caused by the
attacks of anemia and menstrual irregularities from which his
wife suffers from time to time. Ordinarily, he enjoys coitus once
or twice in the month, hardly oftener, taking one month with
another. At one time he exemplified in his own person the saying
_omne animal post coitum triste_, but now happily this depression
of spirits is rarely felt. Sometimes he has felt a depression of
spirits, a general discontentedness, before experiencing a strong
erection; in these cases coitus has cleared his spirits. He would
naturally look upon coitus as an evacuation, although he
recognizes the imperfectness of that view. For one thing he is
constantly sorry, viz., that the act gives no pleasure to his
wife, and that he has never been able to induce a crisis with her
by normal means. In this state of affairs, knowing that 'après
coup' she was still unsatisfied, he slipped into the practice of
rubbing the clitoris with his fingers until the emission takes
place. To do this, they assume the position 'ille sub, illa
super.' From his own limited marital experience, he has never
been able to understand the stories of women who masturbate
several times a day, as his wife would be physically incapable
(so he believes) of anything of the kind, and only easily reaches
the crisis in any circumstances during the first few days after
the menstrual flow has ceased. In fine, while agreeing
theoretically with Sir Richard Burton and others that the eastern
style of coitus (directed with a view to the pleasure of your
partner) is the right one, it is one of his standing regrets that
he is unable to practise it. In the place of the twenty minutes
required by the women of India (according to Burton) he is happy
if he can give two or three at the most, much as he would wish to
prolong a pleasure as keen to himself as he could desire it to be
to his dear and excellent spouse."

HISTORY XVII.--R.L., American; aged 43; height, 5 ft. 7 in.;
weight, about 145 lbs.; occupation, teacher; somewhat neurotic; a
slight myopia associated with acute astigmatism and muscular
weakness of the eyes, producing a tendency to migraine. Uric acid
diathesis, producing occasionally severe neuralgia, particularly
in the intestines. These symptoms have been more or less constant
since very early childhood. General health very good. Not
inclined to indulge in athletic sports, but prefers sedentary
occupations and recreations.

"My early ideas of sexual things are not very clear in
recollection. I think that when 7 or 8 years of age I had a
knowledge of the common or vulgar terms for intercourse and for
the genital organs. Boys of my own age and slightly older would
discuss sex relations, and I had a general knowledge that, in
some way connected with the sexual act, 'babies were made.' We
would tell, occasionally, lewd stories, and a few times attempted
sexual practices with one another. Not till after puberty did I
ever attempt masturbation. I must have been 9 or 10 years old
before I learned that there was a difference in the sex organs of
boys and girls. Up to this time I had supposed that intercourse
was _per anum._ I attended a public school with both sexes. Talk
among my boy associates was often nasty and concerned the sexual
act with girls. At about 12 years I began to have erotic day
dreams. I always had a sentimental attachment for some girl
acquaintance whom I would idealize and with whom I would imagine
myself having sex relations. As a matter of fact, there was no
real sexual feeling about this. As I was very shy and timid
naturally, I never made any kind of advances toward any of them,
and they were entirely ignorant of any sentiments of affection in
me.

"Pubertal changes commenced, I presume, about the age of 13½
years. I place it at this period from the following
circumstances, which are fixed very strongly in my memory: I had,
as a child, a soprano voice that was praised considerably by
older friends, and about which I was inordinately conceited, I
enjoyed greatly taking part in operettas, cantatas, etc. The
dramatic instinct, if so it may be called, has always been marked
with me, and amateur dramatics are still my chief diversion. When
I was about the age mentioned above my voice changed quite
rapidly, greatly to my distress of mind, as I was obliged to give
up taking a part for which I had been cast in a school
entertainment. The memory of that disappointment is still
poignant. Other changes, such as the appearance of the pubertal
hair, must have made no impression on my mind, as I cannot
recollect anything in connection therewith. No involuntary
emissions occurred. Indeed, during periods of continence in later
life, when the sexual tension has been very strong, I have had
very few such emissions.

"As a lad of 11 or 12, I had heard frequent allusions to
masturbation by other boys who were older, but always in a way
that indicated contempt. Yet there is no doubt now in my mind
that the practice was very general. I think that I was probably
about 15 when I decided to try the act. I think that there was
little sex impulse in this decision. The animating purpose was
rather curiosity. I succeeded in producing the complete orgasm
and found it pleasurable, though there was a considerable shock
of surprise at the ejaculation of semen. As nearly as I can
estimate in my memory of an event as far back as this was, this
was the beginning of definite sexual sensibility in me. I cannot
but believe, however, that it would have been aroused sooner or
later in some other way. Thereafter I would imagine myself
embracing some of the girl friends to whom I have referred above,
and, when excited, would masturbate. The act was in every
instance a psychic intercourse. For some time I did not know that
the practice was considered harmful. I indulged whenever I felt
the inclination. This at times was rather frequent; again only at
considerable intervals. I did know that it was looked upon as
being unmanly, and never admitted, except to perhaps two or three
boy friends, that I ever indulged. With these boys I practised
mutual masturbation a few times. There was no homosexual feeling
connected with these acts in any of us. It was only that the
normal method of gratifying our desires was not available. I know
the subsequent history of each of these boys, and there has been
nothing to indicate any perverted instinct in any of them. About
the age of 16 I heard a talk on sexual matters by a traveling
evangelist, who portrayed the effects of masturbation in fearful
colors. I now realize that he was an ignorant though
well-intentioned man; but the general effect of his talk upon me
was a bad one. One of the results of the habit, according to his
statements, was insanity. Therefore I expected at any moment to
lose my mind. I felt that I must stop the practice at once, but
the matter became so great an obsession that again and again I
broke my resolutions for reform. I undertook exercise, dieting,
the reading of serious literature: all of which I had seen
referred to in books as methods of lessening sexual desire. The
object of these disciplinary practices was always the thing most
prominently in mind, and so they were of no avail. Fortunately I
entered college a little later, and the affairs of school life
gradually took a commanding place in my thoughts, and the
practice was not so much in mind. I did not, however, completely
break away from it until almost the time of my marriage. If the
present attitude of the scientific medical world toward the
subject had been known to me, I do not believe that any evil
would have come to me from the practice. At a later period of my
life, say between 21 and 24, I would not indulge the habit for a
considerable interval. At times I did not notice the presence or
lack of desire. But then there would come periods when I would be
under a severe sexual tension. This would be marked by intense
nervousness, an inability to fix my attention upon any one thing,
and a great desire to have intercourse. An act of masturbation at
such a time would generally give relief. However, when I yielded
to this form of relief, there would always follow feelings of
profound self-reproach and of self-repugnance. Had I had
nocturnal emissions they might have relieved me; but, as I have
said before, they very rarely occurred. When, rarely, one did
occur I would be greatly frightened, for I had the old, erroneous
idea that they meant serious weakness and always ascribed them to
my bad habit. That my habit of masturbation had any relation to
the rarity of the involuntary emissions would, of course, be a
matter of pure conjecture. In passing from the discussion of
personal masturbation, I wish to say that my associations with
boys as a pupil and as a teacher lead me to believe that the
practice is practically universal. When discussing the hygienic
evils of prostitution with boy pupils I have noted that, whereas
not infrequently a boy will voluntarily protest that he has never
had intercourse, there has always been a significant silence when
masturbation is mentioned. I have never heard a boy make a
denial, direct or indirect, that he had indulged in the practice.
But it has seldom been a perversion. It has rather been, as in my
own case, an available means of relieving a sexual impulse.

"During my college life I associated with many boys who had more
or less regular sexual relations with prostitutes or with girls
who were not virtuous. Their attitude toward the practice was an
immoral one. The ethical aspect of irregular sexual relations
never concerned them. It certainly did not concern me. What I
have learned through my conversations on the subject with my
pupils makes it evident to me that this is the common feeling of
most boys of the adolescent period. I think of two things which
operated strongly to prevent my entering into sexual relations
with girls during this period of my life. One was an esthetic
repugnance to the average prostitute. These are the women most
easily available to the youth whose sexual desires are developed.
I do not remember ever having seen an avowed prostitute who did
not seem repulsive to me. I confess to an inclination to
priggishness. I preferred to associate with people whom I called
'nice people.' It was fortunate for me that I was thrown into the
society of a rather rough crowd of youths, who knocked a great
deal of this snobbishness out of me. But it did act to prevent my
having recourse to prostitution. A second preventive was my
natural timidity in making advances to people. This has been a
trait that I have never completely overcome. In my professional
life this has been some detriment to my advancement. In the
matter of sex relationship it tended to prevent my taking
advantage of association with and even of advances from girls
who, not prostitutes, were nevertheless not virtuous. There were
a number of such in the town and neighborhood in which I lived,
and I undoubtedly could have had sexual relations with them if I
had only been able to overcome my shyness. The desire was not
wanting. I really craved intercourse with them. It was simply a
matter of cowardice. There was one girl whom I knew very well,
with whom I was on friendly terms, who I knew had had sexual
relations with other boys. She showed, at times, a marked
preference for me, and I am sure would have welcomed any advances
that I should have made. A number of times I sought her company
with the intention of suggesting intercourse, but my resolution
always failed.

"All through my college course I was much in the society of
girls. We were in class together, associated very freely in
society, frequently studied together. This is the most usual
state of things in the western part of our country. But they were
simply comrades: sex thoughts never arose in connection with such
association. And I am quite certain that this was the general
attitude of the other boys. Although the talk among the boy
students was at times, very frankly and crudely, about sexual
relations, no breath of scandal ever touched one of the college
girls. Again my experience as teacher and student brings a
conclusion that coeducation of the sexes does not affect, in one
way or the other, the strictly sexual life of the male student. A
very intimate friend who has had a varied experience in school
work has told me recently that his conclusions are the same.

"When I was about 20 years old I became acquainted with a very
beautiful girl, four years my junior. Our acquaintance very
rapidly developed into deeper affection, and about five years
later we were married. During all this time very little of the
physical aspects of love entered into our attachment. My
sweetheart had much of the same shyness as was so pronounced in
my own character. For several years I think that the thought of
marriage was never distinctly present in our minds. A formal
betrothal between us did not take place until within a year and a
half of our marriage. Yet each of us had a very distinct
understanding of the feelings of the other. But until our
betrothal there were none of even those very innocent expressions
of endearment common, I imagine, to all lovers. I am sure that
during this period of our attachment no thought of any physical
relations between us was ever in my mind; or, at any rate, was
promptly banished if it occurred. Yet all this time my sex
desires were very strong and at times became an obsession. Never,
though, were they directed toward my sweetheart. The first time
that we engaged in the endearments and caresses allowed to lovers
I became conscious, after a time, of a state of sexual
excitement. I experienced an erection. It was absolutely reflex;
no thought had entered into it. I was at once overwhelmed with a
feeling of shame. I felt that I had been guilty of unthinkable
indecency toward my betrothed. Then there arose a fear that it
might be noticed. (Men at that time wore abominably tight
clothing.) As a matter of fact, I now know that there was no real
danger of this, for she was absolutely ignorant of the nature of
the male sexual organs. But I made a pretext for withdrawing from
the room and tried to adjust my clothing so that no exposure
could occur. I was fearful of coming into close proximity to her
again, lest there should be a recurrence of the feeling. As a
matter of fact it did occur a number of times, but my good sense
finally suggested the explanation and after a time it ceased to
trouble me. The thought was latent in my mind that sexual
excitement was necessarily more or less indecent at all times,
and I could not reconcile its manifestation with a pure love.

"I have said that my sexual desire was strong. Up to the time of
marriage it was never gratified in the normal manner. My esthetic
abhorrence of prostitutes continued to prevent its gratification
in that manner. No other opportunity offered. I am positive that
moral considerations did not enter into the matter at all. I
think now that it was strange that the thought that it would be
disloyal to my promised wife to have connection with other women
did not affect me. But I am sure that it did not. I am inclined
to think that conscientious scruples very rarely enter into the
average young man's considerations of contemplated sexual
relations.

"As the time of my marriage drew near, thoughts of the physical
relationship of husband and wife became, of course, more
insistent. The idea of establishing sexual relations was not at
all a pleasant one. I dreaded it as an ordeal. I wondered if it
would be possible for us to retain the same love and affection
for one another after such intimate relations were established.
This was a recurrence of the fallacious notion that there was
something inherently indecent in sexual things. I am in hopes
that other ideas are replacing this wrong one, in the minds of
the younger generation, as the result of the saner and franker
discussion of sex. By a great effort, I had practically stopped
masturbating. At times I felt almost maddened by desire. But
never did the prospect of marriage seem desirable from this point
of view. Up to the very day of our wedding my affection for my
betrothed seemed free from sexual desire. But my physical being
was craving sexual companionship.

"Theoretically I knew a great deal of the nature of intercourse.
Practically I was absolutely ignorant. In some ways I was better
informed, on matters that a new husband should know, than the
average man entering the married life. A physician's library had
been at my disposal, and I had read somewhat extensively on
physiology and hygiene. My chosen lines of study had given me a
theoretical knowledge of the anatomy of the female genital organs
that was fairly thorough. I knew a little about the physiology of
reproduction and rather less of intercourse. Fortunately, I
learned in the course of my reading that the first sexual
approaches were likely to be quite painful to a woman, and that
great care should be exercised at this time. I tried to put into
practice what little I had learned in theory and I imagine that
we got through the introductory attempts with less than the
average difficulties. Our first efforts were not satisfactory to
either of us. My wife was absolutely unprepared so far as any
definite knowledge of the act was concerned. I sincerely hope
that the prudish notions of the past generations will give way to
more sensible views in the future, and that the girl becoming a
wife will be just as chaste, but wiser in matters of such
importance to her happiness. I presume that my timidity was a
valuable asset at this time; for I was afraid to force matters in
any way, and time and repeated attempts finally overcame our
difficulties. And when our sexual relations were once
established, the whole tenor of my life was changed. All the
former sexual unrest disappeared. My former feeling toward sexual
relations was altered. They no longer seemed that which, though
very desirable, was yet necessarily indecent. Fortunately, after
the first few weeks, they have been quite pleasurable to my wife.
I am sure that our sexual life since marriage has been a large
factor in deepening the love that has made our married life an
ideal one. As I look back at the first year of marriage, I wonder
that we got through it so well. My knowledge of sexual hygiene
was a strange mixture of fact and nonsense. If the frequency of
acts of intercourse advocated by some of the authorities I have
lately read is correct, then we must have passed the bounds of
moderation. But it is certain that our general health has been
very good: better in both cases than before marriage.

"In reviewing these phases of the development of my sexual life,
one or two conclusions seem to me to be strongly emphasized. It
was unfortunate that the real sexual desire was aroused as early
and in the manner that it was. Whether this would have been
prevented by more definite education in the hygiene and the
purpose of the function, I can only conjecture. I believe that
mine was and is the common experience of boys. I am decidedly of
the opinion that there should be instruction given of the anatomy
of the genital organs and of the hygiene of intercourse, and this
shortly after the youth has reached puberty. How this is to be
done is a grave question. It will require tact and knowledge not
possessed by the average teacher and parent. However it is done,
it should be honest, frank, and free from piosity.

"I am certain that, in my own case, rather frequent intercourse
is decidedly beneficial. Any prolonged abstinence always brings
about the same nervous disturbances that I have referred to
above. It is fortunate for me that this repetition of the act is