"My sister is a very womanly woman. As a girl she disapproved very much of girl friendships and always confided in her mother. At 13 years of age she met the man she is now married to. They waited ten years before marrying and are now an ideally happy couple. My sister is perfectly normal and very abstemious.
"I lived my first ten years in England, eighteen years in Sweden, two years in Denmark, two years in Bavaria, Austria, and Italy, and am now living in Berlin. I consider myself English. I am mentally a man, but all my physical feelings and desires are those of a woman.
"I am middle height and very slight. Weigh 106 English pounds, without clothes. My hands and feet are small and well-shaped. Head of normal size. Features small. Eyes green. Have worn glasses since I was 7 years old. Complexion fair. Appearance not Jewish. The skin of my body is very white, without blemish. Very little hair on my face. Hair on head and abdomen luxuriant. No hair whatever on stomach and chest. Color of hair auburn everywhere except below navel, that black. (My father's, mother's, and brother's hair was brown. My sister has auburn hair, and so had the aforementioned uncle.) My breasts are slightly round; my hips are normal. I do not gesticulate much. From my material self it would be difficult to draw the conclusion that I was homosexual. My sexual organs are normal.
"My disposition is apparently bright, but in reality melancholy. Have very little love for human nature, but have a partiality for the British and Jewish races. Hate business, politics, sports, and society. Love music, art, literature, and nature. Deep interest in mysticism. Am clairvoyant. Have been used many times as a medium. Lead two separate lives, an outer and inner psychic life. Am a fatalist and a theosophist. Profound belief in reincarnation, always have had, because when I was a little child I could 'remember' so much. Have an excellent memory, dating back to my third year. Have always been too self-analytical. Have from my earliest childhood felt myself an alien. Am very sensitive, physically and psychically. Have no wish to wear woman's clothing or do woman's work. As to clothes for myself, I prefer black and not much jewelry.
"I could only love a perfectly manly man from 21 to 40 years of age. He must be physically beautiful and well made. Size of sexual organs plays no part. The muscles must be developed and the hands must be especially well shaped. Hands are my fetish. (I could never love anyone with ugly hands.) He must have no odor issuing from his body (though I do not dislike faint perfume when clothed), and, above all, never have a bad breath. He must be intelligent, love music, art, literature, and nature. He must be refined and cultured and have been about the world. He must have simplicity in behavior, dress, and manner, and, above all, be clean-bodied as clean-minded. Cynicism I cannot stand. (Here I may state I once owned a St. Bernard dog which reminded me much of my ideal. He was always sedate, always loving, and faithful; generally quiet. He only got excited when out in the elements.) I have not been able to get on with people who have no sense of humor. From my birth I was physically weak. First I suffered from eczema. Being born with a double squint, I was operated on at 2½ and again at 3½ years of age, with excellent result. From 4 to 12 years of age I had convulsions (often), and all the illnesses of childhood. At the age of 12½ years I took scarlet fever, followed by a weak heart, which grew stronger after a year, and Bright's disease, which lasted fifteen years with hardly a break. This illness had its wonted effect of producing melancholia and upsetting the whole nervous system. Bright's disease stopped suddenly but was followed by a succession of illnesses. Then I had neuritis very badly. I then removed to Bavaria, and to regain nervous strength I was treated by Freud's psychoanalytical method, with great success. I had a very bad relapse, as my brother, who had just heard I was homosexual, came to visit me and threatened to have me put under guardians, if my father should die. It took me weeks to recover from the shock. We broke off all intercourse and though my brother has been several times in the same town where I have been, we remain strangers. At this time my father died suddenly. Last spring four suicides of friends in so many weeks had a very bad effect on my nerves. I am now in Berlin in better spirits, but the cramp continues badly at times.
"To this I must add that since my fourteenth year, independent of any illness, I have suffered mentally and physically from menstrual pains recurring every twenty-eight days and lasting from six to eight days. That these were the equivalent pains to a woman's menstruation periods I could get no doctor to admit till I was treated for a length of time by a German nerve specialist.
"The physical pains begin abruptly. Sudden congestions of blood in the brain and in the abdomen. Sudden perspirations, heat and cold. Great nervous pains in the small of the back, also in the nerve-centers of abdomen and stomach. Sharp, shooting pains in the breasts and especially the nipples. Sudden toothache which stops as suddenly. The skin becomes darker, sometimes mottled. I have the whole time a taste of blood in my mouth and often everything I eat tastes of blood. I have great difficulty at that time in eating meat. Physical longings for erotic adventure, counterbalanced by mental nausea at the bare idea.
"The mental symptoms are: sudden feeling of deep depression, suicidal tendencies, alternating with sudden inexplicable lightheartedness. Capriciousness and great dissatisfaction with myself and life generally. Horror at my own incompleteness of sex and sudden fits of hatred toward women and a great longing to be loved by men. This condition changes slowly back to the normal one. It takes several days for me to lose my physical weakness owing to it.
"Physically I was developed at 16 years of age. Mentally I was developed at a very early age, but I kept my inner life quite dark, always playing the innocent. Nobody at home believed me to know anything about life. They were at times very surprised when I fell out of the rôle I had planned for myself. Up till I was 17 years of age nothing to do with other people's morals was ever discussed before me. I looked so pure, and do now, that people are always careful in front of me. My father never discussed such things with me. From my earliest childhood I loved men dearly, though I was always at daggers drawn with my father and brother. I worshipped my mother then, as I do now. My sister and I did not at all get on as children, though we are the best of friends now. She and her husband as well as my mother have been kindness itself ever since they knew of my condition. Not till I was over 30 years did I meet a man I loved as well as my mother, and he is heterosexual. I must have loved my father and brother at first, but continual conflicts, incompatible temperaments and mutual misunderstandings and want of sympathy made life at home horrible. I must admit from my earliest childhood I had a certain contempt for my father and brother because I found them so materialistic. I had all my childhood rows with my brother. My father took his part, my mother mine. After I had recovered from my father's sudden death (my first words were after reading the letter: 'Thank God it isn't mother!') I felt a great relief, but it took a long time for me to grasp that I was really free.
"I have always liked women's society and, as a youth, I was very fond of gossip, which I by no means am now. I have many women friends, more than men friends. These women friends are all heterosexual except one. I very often like elderly women; I suppose I see mother in such women. A woman never could make me blush, but a man I admired could easily.
"I was 23 years of age when a married woman of good family asked me to come and spend the night with her. I went, and though she was beautifully built, cleanly, and though her garments and apartments were of the utmost good taste, I did not have any erection. On the other hand, I felt myself to be most unclean and bathed three times each of the following three days. Since then I have never tried to have sexual intercourse with women.
"In Copenhagen I tried to excite my feelings with every class of woman, in vain. I suppose it is that my nature is so like woman's that there can be no reaction. With men I am often very shy and nervous, tongue-tied, and my hands perspire. Never so with women.
"As a child I loved men and used to fall desperately in love with some who came to the house. I would, when no one was there, kiss their hats, or gloves, or even their sticks.
"I can remember, when I was about 6 years, how I fell in love with a very good-looking 26-year-old German. He had very curly hair and his hands were very beautiful. He was very fond of me and I used to call him 'my Boy.' When visiting us he often used to 'tuck me in' after the nurse had gone down. He always had sweets or something for me. I can remember how I used to fling my arms round his neck and cover his face with kisses. I would then draw his head down on my pillow and he would tell me fairy-tales and I would go off to sleep quite happy.
"At 7 years of age, while staying in the country, a very good-looking groom, about 25 years of age, misbehaved himself with me. I often used to visit him in the stables, as this man had a strange attraction for me. One day he tickled me. While doing so he produced my penis and also his own, which was in full erection. He tried in every way to excite my feelings, in vain. For him the occasion terminated in an ejaculation. He forbade me to tell anyone, and I did not do so, but tried to find out all I could on the subject, with little or no result. From that day I hated the groom and I felt a sort of guilt, as if I had 'lost something.' Not till I was 12 years did I understand.
"From my earliest childhood I had one ideal of a man. From that ideal I have never swerved. At the age of 30 I found a friend who, though quite heterosexual, has, without giving me any sexual intercourse, given me the love I have always needed. He has been for the last couple of years a second mother, father, sister, brother, and lover. Through him I have regained my health, my love of nature, and he has helped to deaden my hatred toward human nature and my bitterness. A better friend I never wish to find. It has made up for all the years of mental and physical suffering. One strange thing is that the feeling is mutual. He has had a tragic life, for his wife, whom he loved beyond everything, died under very sad circumstances. He says I am the best male friend he has ever had. While with him, much of the lower nature in me was stamped out. I shall always look upon him as the turning point in my life. I think he wrought some of his finest influence through his music. He played Beethoven and Wagner for me for a couple of hours every day for months, and thus opened up a new world to me...He is six years older than I am.
"At 10 years of age we moved to Sweden, a country I hated from first to last. About this time I began to notice that there was something strange about myself. I felt myself an alien, and have done so ever since. An event of importance in my life was, I feel sure, when my father's sister tried to take away my mother's character. It was done in jealousy and spite, and my aunt had to beg my parents' pardon. Outwardly the affair was patched up; but I feel sure my father never really forgave his sister. Jews never forgive.
"This event awoke in me a great hatred toward women, and it was many years before I could at all control it.
"At the age of 14 I was much with a good-looking, musical American, a year older than myself. One day, while romping, very much the same thing occurred as with the groom. I still had no sexual feelings. We remained good friends. I often wished to kiss him. After the first time he would not allow it. He was very much liked among the officers and so-called high society men, and had always much money. About ten years later I heard he used to accept money after intimate intercourse with those society men.
"During my fifteenth year I had great longing for sexual intercourse with men. At this time the first signs of hair were to be seen on my abdomen.
"At the age of 16 a gardener, a married man with family, initiated me into mutual self-abuse. He lived in the back house of the apartment house we then inhabited. He was about 40 years of age, an ugly but muscularly developed man. These practices took place in the cellar, to which there were three entrances. I never allowed him to kiss me and the sight of his children always awoke in me a great feeling of nausea. That was the natural reaction of a bad conscience. For the man himself I had the utmost contempt. This man told me of several parks and _pissoirs_ where men met, and I went to these places now and again for erotic adventure.
"I must here relate that at the age of 16 my mother warned me against self-abuse. It had the opposite effect, made me curious, so I began at once. I have continued ever since, at least once a day. (I have never had an involuntary emission in my whole life.) Between 17 and 22 it became necessary for me to do so several times a day. Working at art, painting, and above all music and beauty have a strong influence over me and set my erotic longings in violent motion. I have never found this do me any harm. Abstinence, on the other hand, has a very harmful effect on me, upsetting the whole nervous and physical system. I often find that there is a something very much wanting in self-abuse: the commingling of two human bodies who are _mentally_ as well as physically in sympathy gives an electrical satisfaction which quiets the whole nervous system. That at least has been my experience.
"The gardener left and moved to the country. I then sometimes visited _pissoirs_ or, as they are often called, 'panoramas' (because they are round and one sees much there). What I saw in the parks during the long summer nights was quite a revelation. During the summer, when the husbands had sent their families in the country, many of them led a very indiscreet life. What I saw the first summer killed all the respect I had for elderly people. I had always connected marriage and gray hairs with virtue and morals; then I learnt otherwise. I must say I became about this time a _sensual pig_. I knew how dangerous these places were on account of the police and blackmailers, but that gave the hunt a double zest. At this time I led a double life and was always watching and analyzing myself. I had to do with heaps of men of all classes. I was often offered money, but that I would on no condition accept. To pay or to be paid kills every sort of erotic feeling in me and always has done so. I once wished to experiment with myself. I was offered a small sum of money by a former schoolmaster. I accepted this just to see how it would affect me. The next moment I threw the money as far away as possible. Then I saw I had none of the prostitute nature in me. I was simply overwhelmed with sensuality. I considered I was a criminal and wished to see in how many ways my nature had the criminal instinct. I wanted to see if I could become a thief. I stole a silver button in a shop where antiquities were sold, but I went to the shop the same day again and returned the button, without the people knowing. I found I could not become a thief. Then the question came. Why had I felt a criminal since my seventh year? Was it my fault? If not, whose fault was it? Not till I studied Freud's psychoanalytical system did I get a clear insight into my own character.
"When I was 20 years of age I met a gentleman one night in a heavy snow-storm. We walked and talked and understood each other. He belonged to one of Sweden's first aristocratic families. He was extremely refined. He asked me to his rooms. We undressed and lay down. He had a very beautiful head and a still more beautiful body. I think that all my erotic feelings were numbed by looking at his beautiful body. To me anything sensual would have been sacrilege, I thought, and I can remember the feeling of awe which came over me. He was them 20 years of age, but his hair was quite white. First he did not understand, and then he was very gentle to me. I kept perfectly chaste for three whole months after the sight of his body. We saw each other often. Eight years later we met for the last time. He suffered much from melancholia. At that time I prevented him from committing suicide. This winter, however, he shot himself.
"At the age of 22 my sister introduced me to a charming, intelligent and refined, half-English, half-Swedish painter. We 'recognized' each other at once, though we had never seen each other before, and even knew each other's characters to the smallest traits. My parents liked him better than any friend I had ever had. My sister and he were from the first like sister and brother. The first evening in my home he and I kissed each other. The women were mad about him. Later I found many men were too. I was three weeks his senior. He had his own rooms. I have never felt any such wonderful harmony as when our naked bodies mingled. It was like floating in ether. With him it was the only time I had been active in _fellatio_. We were much together, though not much physically, for he had many love affairs with women. What I loved was the way he would cut off all advances of men, I was his 'little brother' and so he calls me to this day. He is now married in America, and the father of a pretty little daughter. We are the best of friends to this day.
"The two years in Copenhagen were some of the happiest I have spent, though nearly the whole time I was in physical pain. In Austria I found, among the Tyrolese peasants, that the Englishmen, who come there in winter for sports and in the summer for mountain climbing, have demoralized the young male peasants with money. Homosexual intercourse is easy to get if you are willing to pay the price,--larger in season, less out of season.
"In Italy it is merely a question of money or passion, but everything in love there is quite transient.
"In Bavaria I found the love and peace 'which passeth all understanding.' This love and friendship without anything of a physically intimate nature brought me back from the 'deep black gulf' to which I was swiftly floating. When I met my friend I was nearly at the end of my tether. What his love and friendship has done for me, together with Freud's psychoanalytical system, nobody will ever know.
"Since being in Berlin, a town I like very much, a new life has opened for me, a life where one lives as one likes if one does not have to do with young boys. Here are homosexual baths, pensions, restaurants, and hotels, where you can go with one of your own sex at a certain fee per hour. Berlin is a revelation. But since being here I find the physical erotic side of my nature is little excited. I suppose it is the old story of 'forbidden fruit.'
"My parents kept a very hospitable home. The last two years in Sweden I was never at home. I hated society and knew much too much about the private histories of those who came to my home. They all belonged to the highest society. The highest society and the lowest are very much alike. Of course my parents knew nothing about these people. When I told my mother a great deal of private history of people who came to our house, she was thunderstruck and could at last understand my contempt for so-called good society. I have visited in later years only in artistic and theatrical circles; I consider that class of people more natural than the other class and much more kind-hearted.
"My life has quite another side, the mystic side. But that would be a much longer story than this. Suffice it to say, I am of a highly sensitive nature, gifted with second sight." [A detailed record of the subject's visions, premonitions of death of acquaintances, etc., has been furnished by him.]
"I tried on four occasions to commit suicide, but I now see there is nothing to be gained by doing so.
"Two years ago I told my parents about my sexual condition. It was a frightful blow to them. My father had the circumstances explained to him; he never understood the matter and never discussed it with me. Had I told him earlier I feel quite certain that, with his despotic nature, he would have put me in a madhouse. My mother and sister have treated me very kindly always. My brother has disowned me."
HISTORY XVI.--Irish, aged 36; knows of nothing unusual in his ancestry. His tastes are masculine in every respect. He is strong, healthy, and fond of exercises and sports. The sexual instincts are abnormally developed; he confesses to an, enormous appetite for almost everything,--food, drink, smoking, and all the good things of life.
At about the age of 14 he practised masturbation with other boys of the same age, and also had much pleasure in being in bed with an uncle with whom the same thing was practised. Later on he practised masturbation with every boy or man with whom he was on terms of intimacy; to have been in bed with anyone without anything of the sort taking place would have made sleep impossible, and rendered him utterly wretched. His erotic dreams at first were concerned with women, but more recently they are usually of young men, and very rarely of women. He is mostly indifferent to women, as also they have always been to him. Although good-looking, strong, and masculine, he has never known a woman to be in love with him. When about the age of 18 he imagined he was in love with a girl; and he had often, between the ages of 20 to 30, cohabited with prostitutes. He remembers on one occasion, many years ago, having connection with a woman seven or eight times in one night, and then having to masturbate at noon the next day. He is unmarried, and thinks it is unlikely that he ever will marry, but he adds that if a healthy, handsome, and intelligent woman fell in love with him he might change his mind, as it would be lonely to be old and alone, and he would like to have children.
He is never attracted to men older than himself, and prefers youths between the ages of 18 and 25. They may be of any class, but he does not like common people, and is not attached to uniforms or liveries. The requisite attractions are an intelligent eye, a voluptuous mouth, and "intelligent teeth." "If Alcibiades himself tried to woo me," he says, "and had bad teeth, his labor would be in vain." He has sometimes been the active participant in _pedicatio_, and has tried the passive rôle out of curiosity, but prefers _fellatio_.
He does not consider that he is doing anything wrong, and regards his acts as quite natural. His only regret is the absorbing nature of his passions, which obtrude themselves in season and out of season, seldom or never leaving him quiet, and sometimes making his life a hell. Yet he doubts whether he would change himself, even if he had the power.
HISTORY XVII.--Age 25; is employed in an ordinary workshop, and lives in the back alley of a large town in which he was born and bred. Fair, slight, and refined in appearance. The sexual organs are normal and well developed, and the sexual passions strong. His mother is a big masculine woman, and he is much attached to her. Father is slight and weakly. He has seven brothers and one sister. Homosexual desires began at an early age, though he does not seem to have come under any perverse influences. He is not inclined to masturbation. Erotic dreams are always of males. He declares he never cared for any woman except his mother, and that he could not endure to sleep with a woman.
He says he generally falls in love with a man at first sight--as a rule, some one older than himself and of higher class--and longs to sleep and be with him. In one case he fell in love with a man twice his own age, and would not rest until he had won his affection. He does not much care what form the sexual relation takes. He is sensitive and feminine by nature, gentle, and affectionate. He is neat and orderly in his habits, and fond of housework; helps his mother in washing, etc. He appears to think that male attachments are perfectly natural.
HISTORY XVIII.--Englishman, born in Paris; aged 26; an actor. He belongs to an old English family; his father, so far as he is aware, had no homosexual inclinations, nor had any of his ancestors on the paternal side; but he believes that his mother's family, and especially a maternal uncle who had a strong feeling for beauty of form, were more akin to him in this respect.
His earliest recollections show an attraction for males. At children's parties he incurred his father's anger by kissing other small boys, and his feelings grew in intensity with years. He has never practised self-abuse, and seldom had erotic dreams; when they do occur they are about males.
His physical feeling for women is one of absolute indifference. He admires beautiful women in the same way as one admires beautiful scenery. At the same time he likes to talk with clever women, and has formed many friendships with frank, pure, and cultivated English girls, for whom he has the utmost admiration and respect. Marriage is impossible, because physical pleasure with women is impossible; he has tried, but cannot obtain, the slightest sexual feeling or excitement.
He especially admires youths (though they must not be immature) from 16 or 17 to about 25. The type which physically appeals to him most, and to which he appeals, is fair, smooth-skinned, gentle, rather girlish and effeminate, with the effeminacy of the _ingénue_, not the _cocotte_. His favorite to attract him must be submissive and womanly; he likes to be the man and the master. On this point he adds: "The great passion of my life is an exception, and stands on an utterly different level. It realizes an ideal of marriage in which neither is master, but both share a joint empire, and in which tyranny would be equally painful to both. But this friendship and love is for an equal, a year younger than myself, and does not preclude other and less creditable _liaisons, physical_ constancy being impossible to men of our caliber."
_Pedicatio_ is the satisfaction he prefers, provided he takes the active, never the passive, rôle. He is handsome, with broad shoulders, good figure, and somewhat classic type of face, with fine blue eyes. He likes boating and skating, though not cricket or football, and is usually ready for fun, but has, at the same time, a taste for reading.
He has no moral feelings on these matters; he regards them as outside ethics, mere matters of temperament and social feeling. If England were underpopulated he thinks he might possibly feel some slight pangs of remorse; but, as things are, he feels that in prostituting males rather than females he is doing a meritorious action.
HISTORY XIX.--T.N. His history is given in his own words.
"From the time of my earliest imaginings I have always been attached by strength in men and often thought about being carried off by big warriors and living with them in caves and elsewhere. When about 7 a young man used to show me his penis and handle mine occasionally. At private boarding school masturbation was fairly frequent and I suppose I was initiated about 12 or 13. After leaving I occasionally indulged, but nothing happened until I was about 20, except that I was often attracted by strong, well-built young men of good character; a man who was not honest and good-hearted had no attraction. At 20 I was much attached to a 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 penis was somewhat undeveloped and this made me shy. Circumstances 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