"As a child I loved men and used to fall desperately in love with some who came to the house. I would, when no one was there, kiss their hats, or gloves, or even their sticks.
"I can remember, when I was about 6 years, how I fell in love with a very good-looking 26-year-old German. He had very curly hair and his hands were very beautiful. He was very fond of me and I used to call him "my Boy." When visiting us he often used to "tuck me in" after the nurse had gone down. He always had sweets or something for me. I can remember how I used to fling my arms round his neck and cover his face with kisses. I would then draw his head down on my pillow and he would tell me fairy-tales and I would go off to sleep quite happy.
"At 7 years of age, while staying in the country, a very good-looking groom, about 25 years of age, misbehaved himself with me. I often used to visit him in the stables, as this man had a strange attraction for me. One day he tickled me. While doing so he produced my p.e.n.i.s and also his own, which was in full erection. He tried in every way to excite my feelings, in vain. For him the occasion terminated in an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. He forbade me to tell anyone, and I did not do so, but tried to find out all I could on the subject, with little or no result. From that day I hated the groom and I felt a sort of guilt, as if I had "lost something." Not till I was 12 years did I understand.
"From my earliest childhood I had one ideal of a man. From that ideal I have never swerved. At the age of 30 I found a friend who, though quite heteros.e.xual, has, without giving me any s.e.xual intercourse, given me the love I have always needed. He has been for the last couple of years a second mother, father, sister, brother, and lover. Through him I have regained my health, my love of nature, and he has helped to deaden my hatred toward human nature and my bitterness. A better friend I never wish to find. It has made up for all the years of mental and physical suffering. One strange thing is that the feeling is mutual. He has had a tragic life, for his wife, whom he loved beyond everything, died under very sad circ.u.mstances. He says I am the best male friend he has ever had. While with him, much of the lower nature in me was stamped out. I shall always look upon him as the turning point in my life. I think he wrought some of his finest influence through his music. He played Beethoven and Wagner for me for a couple of hours every day for months, and thus opened up a new world to me.... He is six years older than I am.
"At 10 years of age we moved to Sweden, a country I hated from first to last. About this time I began to notice that there was something strange about myself. I felt myself an alien, and have done so ever since. An event of importance in my life was, I feel sure, when my father"s sister tried to take away my mother"s character. It was done in jealousy and spite, and my aunt had to beg my parents" pardon. Outwardly the affair was patched up; but I feel sure my father never really forgave his sister. Jews never forgive.
"This event awoke in me a great hatred toward women, and it was many years before I could at all control it.
"At the age of 14 I was much with a good-looking, musical American, a year older than myself. One day, while romping, very much the same thing occurred as with the groom. I still had no s.e.xual feelings. We remained good friends. I often wished to kiss him. After the first time he would not allow it. He was very much liked among the officers and so-called high society men, and had always much money. About ten years later I heard he used to accept money after intimate intercourse with those society men.
"During my fifteenth year I had great longing for s.e.xual intercourse with men. At this time the first signs of hair were to be seen on my abdomen.
"At the age of 16 a gardener, a married man with family, initiated me into mutual self-abuse. He lived in the back house of the apartment house we then inhabited. He was about 40 years of age, an ugly but muscularly developed man. These practices took place in the cellar, to which there were three entrances. I never allowed him to kiss me and the sight of his children always awoke in me a great feeling of nausea. That was the natural reaction of a bad conscience. For the man himself I had the utmost contempt. This man told me of several parks and p.i.s.soirs where men met, and I went to these places now and again for erotic adventure.
"I must here relate that at the age of 16 my mother warned me against self-abuse. It had the opposite effect, made me curious, so I began at once. I have continued ever since, at least once a day. (I have never had an involuntary emission in my whole life.) Between 17 and 22 it became necessary for me to do so several times a day. Working at art, painting, and above all music and beauty have a strong influence over me and set my erotic longings in violent motion. I have never found this do me any harm. Abstinence, on the other hand, has a very harmful effect on me, upsetting the whole nervous and physical system. I often find that there is a something very much wanting in self-abuse: the commingling of two human bodies who are mentally as well as physically in sympathy gives an electrical satisfaction which quiets the whole nervous system. That at least has been my experience.
"The gardener left and moved to the country. I then sometimes visited p.i.s.soirs or, as they are often called, "panoramas" (because they are round and one sees much there). What I saw in the parks during the long summer nights was quite a revelation. During the summer, when the husbands had sent their families in the country, many of them led a very indiscreet life. What I saw the first summer killed all the respect I had for elderly people. I had always connected marriage and gray hairs with virtue and morals; then I learnt otherwise. I must say I became about this time a sensual pig. I knew how dangerous these places were on account of the police and blackmailers, but that gave the hunt a double zest. At this time I led a double life and was always watching and a.n.a.lyzing myself. I had to do with heaps of men of all cla.s.ses. I was often offered money, but that I would on no condition accept. To pay or to be paid kills every sort of erotic feeling in me and always has done so. I once wished to experiment with myself. I was offered a small sum of money by a former schoolmaster. I accepted this just to see how it would affect me. The next moment I threw the money as far away as possible. Then I saw I had none of the prost.i.tute nature in me. I was simply overwhelmed with sensuality. I considered I was a criminal and wished to see in how many ways my nature had the criminal instinct. I wanted to see if I could become a thief. I stole a silver b.u.t.ton in a shop where antiquities were sold, but I went to the shop the same day again and returned the b.u.t.ton, without the people knowing. I found I could not become a thief. Then the question came. Why had I felt a criminal since my seventh year? Was it my fault? If not, whose fault was it? Not till I studied Freud"s psychoa.n.a.lytical system did I get a clear insight into my own character.
"When I was 20 years of age I met a gentleman one night in a heavy snow-storm. We walked and talked and understood each other. He belonged to one of Sweden"s first aristocratic families. He was extremely refined. He asked me to his rooms. We undressed and lay down. He had a very beautiful head and a still more beautiful body. I think that all my erotic feelings were numbed by looking at his beautiful body. To me anything sensual would have been sacrilege, I thought, and I can remember the feeling of awe which came over me. He was them 20 years of age, but his hair was quite white. First he did not understand, and then he was very gentle to me. I kept perfectly chaste for three whole months after the sight of his body. We saw each other often. Eight years later we met for the last time. He suffered much from melancholia. At that time I prevented him from committing suicide. This winter, however, he shot himself.
"At the age of 22 my sister introduced me to a charming, intelligent and refined, half-English, half-Swedish painter. We "recognized" each other at once, though we had never seen each other before, and even knew each other"s characters to the smallest traits. My parents liked him better than any friend I had ever had. My sister and he were from the first like sister and brother. The first evening in my home he and I kissed each other. The women were mad about him. Later I found many men were too. I was three weeks his senior. He had his own rooms. I have never felt any such wonderful harmony as when our naked bodies mingled. It was like floating in ether. With him it was the only time I had been active in f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o. We were much together, though not much physically, for he had many love affairs with women. What I loved was the way he would cut off all advances of men, I was his "little brother" and so he calls me to this day. He is now married in America, and the father of a pretty little daughter. We are the best of friends to this day.
"The two years in Copenhagen were some of the happiest I have spent, though nearly the whole time I was in physical pain. In Austria I found, among the Tyrolese peasants, that the Englishmen, who come there in winter for sports and in the summer for mountain climbing, have demoralized the young male peasants with money. h.o.m.os.e.xual intercourse is easy to get if you are willing to pay the price,-larger in season, less out of season.
"In Italy it is merely a question of money or pa.s.sion, but everything in love there is quite transient.
"In Bavaria I found the love and peace "which pa.s.seth all understanding." This love and friendship without anything of a physically intimate nature brought me back from the "deep black gulf" to which I was swiftly floating. When I met my friend I was nearly at the end of my tether. What his love and friendship has done for me, together with Freud"s psychoa.n.a.lytical system, n.o.body will ever know.
"Since being in Berlin, a town I like very much, a new life has opened for me, a life where one lives as one likes if one does not have to do with young boys. Here are h.o.m.os.e.xual baths, pensions, restaurants, and hotels, where you can go with one of your own s.e.x at a certain fee per hour. Berlin is a revelation. But since being here I find the physical erotic side of my nature is little excited. I suppose it is the old story of "forbidden fruit."
"My parents kept a very hospitable home. The last two years in Sweden I was never at home. I hated society and knew much too much about the private histories of those who came to my home. They all belonged to the highest society. The highest society and the lowest are very much alike. Of course my parents knew nothing about these people. When I told my mother a great deal of private history of people who came to our house, she was thunderstruck and could at last understand my contempt for so-called good society. I have visited in later years only in artistic and theatrical circles; I consider that cla.s.s of people more natural than the other cla.s.s and much more kind-hearted.
"My life has quite another side, the mystic side. But that would be a much longer story than this. Suffice it to say, I am of a highly sensitive nature, gifted with second sight." [A detailed record of the subject"s visions, premonitions of death of acquaintances, etc., has been furnished by him.]
"I tried on four occasions to commit suicide, but I now see there is nothing to be gained by doing so.
"Two years ago I told my parents about my s.e.xual condition. It was a frightful blow to them. My father had the circ.u.mstances explained to him; he never understood the matter and never discussed it with me. Had I told him earlier I feel quite certain that, with his despotic nature, he would have put me in a madhouse. My mother and sister have treated me very kindly always. My brother has disowned me."
HISTORY XVI.-Irish, aged 36; knows of nothing unusual in his ancestry. His tastes are masculine in every respect. He is strong, healthy, and fond of exercises and sports. The s.e.xual instincts are abnormally developed; he confesses to an, enormous appet.i.te for almost everything,-food, drink, smoking, and all the good things of life.
At about the age of 14 he practised masturbation with other boys of the same age, and also had much pleasure in being in bed with an uncle with whom the same thing was practised. Later on he practised masturbation with every boy or man with whom he was on terms of intimacy; to have been in bed with anyone without anything of the sort taking place would have made sleep impossible, and rendered him utterly wretched. His erotic dreams at first were concerned with women, but more recently they are usually of young men, and very rarely of women. He is mostly indifferent to women, as also they have always been to him. Although good-looking, strong, and masculine, he has never known a woman to be in love with him. When about the age of 18 he imagined he was in love with a girl; and he had often, between the ages of 20 to 30, cohabited with prost.i.tutes. He remembers on one occasion, many years ago, having connection with a woman seven or eight times in one night, and then having to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e at noon the next day. He is unmarried, and thinks it is unlikely that he ever will marry, but he adds that if a healthy, handsome, and intelligent woman fell in love with him he might change his mind, as it would be lonely to be old and alone, and he would like to have children.
He is never attracted to men older than himself, and prefers youths between the ages of 18 and 25. They may be of any cla.s.s, but he does not like common people, and is not attached to uniforms or liveries. The requisite attractions are an intelligent eye, a voluptuous mouth, and "intelligent teeth." "If Alcibiades himself tried to woo me," he says, "and had bad teeth, his labor would be in vain." He has sometimes been the active partic.i.p.ant in pedicatio, and has tried the pa.s.sive role out of curiosity, but prefers f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o.
He does not consider that he is doing anything wrong, and regards his acts as quite natural. His only regret is the absorbing nature of his pa.s.sions, which obtrude themselves in season and out of season, seldom or never leaving him quiet, and sometimes making his life a h.e.l.l. Yet he doubts whether he would change himself, even if he had the power.
HISTORY XVII.-Age 25; is employed in an ordinary workshop, and lives in the back alley of a large town in which he was born and bred. Fair, slight, and refined in appearance. The s.e.xual organs are normal and well developed, and the s.e.xual pa.s.sions strong. His mother is a big masculine woman, and he is much attached to her. Father is slight and weakly. He has seven brothers and one sister. h.o.m.os.e.xual desires began at an early age, though he does not seem to have come under any perverse influences. He is not inclined to masturbation. Erotic dreams are always of males. He declares he never cared for any woman except his mother, and that he could not endure to sleep with a woman.
He says he generally falls in love with a man at first sight-as a rule, some one older than himself and of higher cla.s.s-and longs to sleep and be with him. In one case he fell in love with a man twice his own age, and would not rest until he had won his affection. He does not much care what form the s.e.xual relation takes. He is sensitive and feminine by nature, gentle, and affectionate. He is neat and orderly in his habits, and fond of housework; helps his mother in washing, etc. He appears to think that male attachments are perfectly natural.
HISTORY XVIII.-Englishman, born in Paris; aged 26; an actor. He belongs to an old English family; his father, so far as he is aware, had no h.o.m.os.e.xual inclinations, nor had any of his ancestors on the paternal side; but he believes that his mother"s family, and especially a maternal uncle who had a strong feeling for beauty of form, were more akin to him in this respect.
His earliest recollections show an attraction for males. At children"s parties he incurred his father"s anger by kissing other small boys, and his feelings grew in intensity with years. He has never practised self-abuse, and seldom had erotic dreams; when they do occur they are about males.
His physical feeling for women is one of absolute indifference. He admires beautiful women in the same way as one admires beautiful scenery. At the same time he likes to talk with clever women, and has formed many friendships with frank, pure, and cultivated English girls, for whom he has the utmost admiration and respect. Marriage is impossible, because physical pleasure with women is impossible; he has tried, but cannot obtain, the slightest s.e.xual feeling or excitement.
He especially admires youths (though they must not be immature) from 16 or 17 to about 25. The type which physically appeals to him most, and to which he appeals, is fair, smooth-skinned, gentle, rather girlish and effeminate, with the effeminacy of the ingenue, not the cocotte. His favorite to attract him must be submissive and womanly; he likes to be the man and the master. On this point he adds: "The great pa.s.sion of my life is an exception, and stands on an utterly different level. It realizes an ideal of marriage in which neither is master, but both share a joint empire, and in which tyranny would be equally painful to both. But this friendship and love is for an equal, a year younger than myself, and does not preclude other and less creditable liaisons, physical constancy being impossible to men of our caliber."
Pedicatio is the satisfaction he prefers, provided he takes the active, never the pa.s.sive, role. He is handsome, with broad shoulders, good figure, and somewhat cla.s.sic type of face, with fine blue eyes. He likes boating and skating, though not cricket or football, and is usually ready for fun, but has, at the same time, a taste for reading.
He has no moral feelings on these matters; he regards them as outside ethics, mere matters of temperament and social feeling. If England were underpopulated he thinks he might possibly feel some slight pangs of remorse; but, as things are, he feels that in prost.i.tuting males rather than females he is doing a meritorious action.
HISTORY XIX.-T. N. His history is given in his own words.
"From the time of my earliest imaginings I have always been attached by strength in men and often thought about being carried off by big warriors and living with them in caves and elsewhere. When about 7 a young man used to show me his p.e.n.i.s and handle mine occasionally. At private boarding school masturbation was fairly frequent and I suppose I was initiated about 12 or 13. After leaving I occasionally indulged, but nothing happened until I was about 20, except that I was often attracted by strong, well-built young men of good character; a man who was not honest and good-hearted had no attraction. At 20 I was much attached to a young man of my own age. He was engaged. This did not prevent him on one occasion endeavoring playfully and with his brother to obtain access to my person. I successfully resisted, although if he only had been present I should not have done so, but welcomed the attempt, and I have often regretted I did not let him know this. But I had a dim idea that my p.e.n.i.s was somewhat undeveloped and this made me shy. Circ.u.mstances separated us. About two years later I was crossing the Channel when I engaged in conversation with a man about eight years older, who was one of our travelling party. I think the attraction was a case of love at sight, certainly on my side. A few nights later he had so arranged that we shared a bedroom, and he very soon came over to me and tenderly handled my person. I reciprocated and I look back all these years to that night with pleasure and no feeling of shame. On one occasion, about this time, I happened to be sleeping with another young fellow (an office mate) on a holiday, when I awoke and found him handling my p.e.n.i.s caressingly. I gently removed his hand and turned over. I thought none the less of him, but my body seemed to belong only to myself and the friend I loved. He was not an urning, I am sure, but we Were often together and I much entered into his interests and felt infinite satisfaction with life, made good progress and many friends. Our physical intimacy was repeated, he taking the active part in intercrural contact. Then he married very happily. Our friendship remains, but circ.u.mstances prevent our often meeting, and there is no longer desire on either part.
"For some years I was rather lonely in spite of friends. I was somewhat attracted to another man, but his superior social position was a defect to me. Then when about 28 I came in contact with a young man of 24, of the artisan cla.s.s, but superior in ideals and intelligence to most men. I loved him at first glance and to this day. At first it was just friendship, but soon his form, voice, and thoughts entered into my very soul by day and night. I longed always to be near him, to see him progress and help him if I could. I would joyfully have given up home, friends, and income, and followed him to the end of the world, preferably an island where we two might at least be the only white men. He seemed to embody all I longed for in the way of knowledge of nature, of strength, of practical ability, and the desire to imitate him in these things widened and strengthened my character. The first time I slept with him I could only summon courage to put my arm over his chest, but I could not sleep for unsatisfied desire, and the unrelieved erection caused a dull pain on the morrow. I had always disliked conversation that might be regarded as bordering on the obscene, and consequently was very ignorant on most matters; it pained me even to hear him laugh at such remarks. I think if he had been intimate with me I should have not conversed much on such topics, but now I felt pleasure in such things with him as they expressed intimacy. I dreamed about him and was never really happy in his absence; the greatest joy would have been to have slept in his arms; the hairiness of his legs and arms were also most fascinating. Perhaps a year later, we were again at night together, and this time I by degrees felt his private organs, but he was cold and I felt a little unsatisfied. I wanted to be hugged. This happened once more, and then on a later occasion,-not that it afforded me much gratification, but because I wanted to stimulate him to ardor,-I attempted masturbation. This aroused his disgust and I was consequently dismayed. He told me I ought to marry and, although I knew his love was all I wanted, I did not feel but what I could make a woman happy. The constant unrelieved erections which took place when I saw my friend adopt a graceful att.i.tude caused pain at the bottom of my back, and I consulted two specialists, who also advised marriage. I did not tell them I was an "invert," for I hardly knew it was a recognized thing, but I did tell them something of what had taken place, and they made next to no comment, but implied it was frequent. My friend now felt repulsion toward me, but did not express himself, and as other circ.u.mstances then caused a barrier between us to a certain extent, I did not realize the true reason of his coldness. But I felt utterly miserable. When I met a n.o.ble woman whom I had long known I asked her to be my wife and she consented. Although I told her very soon, and long before our marriage, of my limitations as a husband and of my continued longing for my friend, I feel now I did a great wrong, and I cannot understand why I was not more conscious of this at the time; that I was to a certain extent deceiving her relations was inevitable. I had expected to devote my life in making her happy, but I soon found that the true reason of my friend"s apparent unfaithfulness was my own action, combined with a feeling on his part that it was as well that our affection should cease even at the cost of misunderstanding. Since then, three years ago, I have not had a happy day or night, and am therefore quite unable to promote happiness in others. Without my friend, I can find no satisfaction with wife, child, or home. Life has become almost unbearable. Often I have seriously thought of committing suicide, only to postpone it to a time which would be less cruelly inopportune to others. I see my friend (now married) almost daily, and suffer tortures at seeing others nearer to him than myself. No explanation seems possible, as the whole idea of inversion is so repugnant to him, and being an honorable man he would feel marital ties preclude any warmth of affection. But all the longing of my life seems to be culminating in a driving force which will carry me to the male prost.i.tute or to death. I can concentrate my mind on nothing else, and consequently have become inefficient in work and have no heart for play. I know if my longings could be occasionally satisfied I should immediately recover, but my fear is that if I killed myself those who knew me in happier days would only be confirmed in the impression of my degeneracy and would feel my instincts had caused it, whereas it is the denial and starvation of them which would have brought about the result. I know now by experience of self and others that my disposition is congenital and that I have been rendered unhappy myself and a cause of unhappiness to others by the too late knowledge of myself. The example of my former friend who married misled me to think I too could marry and make a happy home; so that when the man I loved advised me I resolved to do so, as I would have done almost anything else he suggested. If I could have withdrawn from the engagement without embarra.s.sment to the devoted woman who became my wife I would have done so, if she gave me the opportunity. Nothing in my married state has brought me pleasure and I often wish my wife would cease to love me so that we might separate. But she would be heart-broken at the suggestion and I feel driven to attempt to relieve my feelings even in a way that has previously seemed repulsive to me,-I mean by use of money.
"About my feelings toward my child there is not much to say, as they are not very strong. I believe I carry him and help bathe and attend to him as much as most fathers, and when he is a few years older I hope I may find him very companionable. But he has brought me no real joy, though I see other men look at him almost with affection. But he has brought added happiness to his mother."
The next case is interesting as showing the mental and emotional development in a very radical case of s.e.xual inversion.
HISTORY XX.-Englishman, of independent means, aged 49. His father and his father"s family were robust, healthy, and prolific. On his mother"s side, phthisis, insanity, and eccentricity are traceable. He belongs to a large family, some of whom died in early childhood and at birth, while others are normal. He himself was a weakly and highly nervous child, subject to night-terrors and somnambulism, excessive shyness and religious disquietude.
s.e.xual consciousness awoke before the age of 8, when his attention was directed to his own p.e.n.i.s. His nurse, while out walking with him one day, told him that when little boys grow" up their penes fall off. The nursery-maid sn.i.g.g.e.red, and he felt that there must be something peculiar about the p.e.n.i.s. He suffered from; irritability of the prepuce, and the nurse powdered it before he went to sleep. There was no transition from this to self-abuse.
About the same time he became subject to curious half-waking dreams. In these he imagined himself the servant of several adult naked sailors; he crouched between their thighs and called himself their dirty pig, and by their orders he performed services for their genitals and b.u.t.tocks, which he contemplated and handled with relish. At about the same period, when these visions began to come to him, he casually heard that a man used to come and expose his person before the window of a room where the maids sat; this troubled him vaguely. Between the age of 8 and 11 he twice took the p.e.n.i.s of a cousin into his mouth, after they had slept together; the feeling of the p.e.n.i.s pleased him. When sleeping with another cousin, they used to lie with hands outstretched to cover each other"s p.e.n.i.s or nates. He preferred the nates, but his cousin the p.e.n.i.s. Neither of these cousins was h.o.m.os.e.xual, and there was no attempt at mutual masturbation. He was in the habit of playing with five male cousins. One of these boys was unpopular with the others, and they invented a method of punishing him for supposed offenses. They sat around the room on chairs, each with his p.e.n.i.s exposed, and the boy to be punished went around the room on his knees and took each p.e.n.i.s into his mouth in turn. This was supposed to humiliate him. It did not lead to masturbation. On one occasion the child accidentally observed a boy who sat next to him in school playing with his p.e.n.i.s and caressing it. This gave him a powerful, uneasy sensation. With regard to all these points the subject observes that none of the boys with whom he was connected at this period, and who were exposed to precisely the same influences, became h.o.m.os.e.xual.
He was himself, from the first, indifferent to the opposite s.e.x. In early childhood, and up to the age of 13, he had frequent opportunities of closely inspecting the s.e.xual organs of girls, his playfellows. These roused no s.e.xual excitement. On the contrary, the smell of the female parts affected him disagreeably. When he once saw a schoolfellow copulating with a little girl, it gave him a sense of mystical horror. Nor did the sight of the male organs arouse any particular sensations. He is, however, of opinion that, living with his sisters in childhood, he felt more curious about his own s.e.x as being more remote from him. He showed no effeminacy in his preferences for games or work.
He went to a public school. Here he was provoked by boy friends to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e, but, though he often saw the act in process, it only inspired him with a sense of indecency. In his fifteenth year p.u.b.erty commenced with nocturnal emissions, and, at the same time, he began to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e, and continued to do so about once a week, or once a fortnight, during a period of eight months; always with a feeling that that was a poor satisfaction and repulsive. His thoughts were not directed either to males or females while masturbating. He spoke to his father about these signs of p.u.b.erty, and by his father"s advice he entirely abandoned onanism; he only resumed the practice, to some extent, after the age of 30, when he was without male comradeship.
The nocturnal emissions, after he had abandoned self-abuse, became very frequent and exhausting. They were medically treated by tonics such as quinine and strychnine. He thinks this treatment exaggerated his neurosis.
All this time, no kind of s.e.xual feeling for girls made itself felt. He could not understand what his schoolfellows found in women, or the stories they told about wantonness and delight of coitus.
His old dreams about the sailors had disappeared. But now he enjoyed visions of beautiful young men and exquisite statues; he often shed tears when he thought of them. These dreams persisted for years. But another kind gradually usurped their place to some extent. These second visions took the form of the large, erect organs of naked young grooms or peasants. These gross visions offended his taste and hurt him, though, at the same time, they evoked a strong, active desire for possession; he took a strange, poetic pleasure in the ideal form. But the seminal losses which accompanied both kinds of dreams were a perpetual source of misery to him.
There is no doubt that at this time-that is, between the fifteenth and seventeenth years-a h.o.m.os.e.xual diathesis had become established. He never frequented loose women, though he sometimes thought that would be the best way of combating his growing inclination for males. And he thinks that he might have brought himself to indulge freely in purely s.e.xual pleasure with women if he made their first acquaintance in a male costume, as debardeuses, Cherubino, court-pages, young halberdiers, as it is only when so clothed that women on the stage or in the ball-room have excited him.
His ideal of morality and fear of venereal infection, more than physical incapacity, kept him what is called chaste. He never dreamed of women, never sought their society, never felt the slightest s.e.xual excitement in their presence, never idealized them. Esthetically, he thought them far less beautiful than men. Statues and pictures of naked women had no attraction for him, while all objects of art which represented handsome males deeply stirred him.