sailors in uniform have captivated me, but hardly one out of twenty
civilians. But I generally had to get used to the uniform. When the
olive drab was first adopted for American soldiers, I had only disgust
for it and its wearer, while fascinated by the older blue uniform. But
after the olive drab had been worn for two years, it appealed to me far
more strongly than what I now regarded as the “old-fashioned” blue,
though the latter was still often worn by soldiers.
* * * * *
The following was written in my diary about the middle of my freshman
year:
[Sidenote: _Dawning Sense of Irresponsibility._]
“I sometimes think I am an irresponsible being. De Quincey is exonerated
from censure for his opium habit. May God not also pardon my cherishing
amorous thoughts of the kind peculiar to me—abnormal for others, yet for
me normal? I am by nature very amorous, and have been all my life, even
in infancy, when I could not distinguish between good and evil. Further,
all my life I have been thrown in with what is to me the opposite
sex—compelled to mingle and live with them. I had nothing to do with the
bringing about of this peculiar nature and environment of mine. Has it
been my fault that my amorous desires have run into the channel they
have, the channel opened to them when I was in the state of innocence
and ignorance of a three-year-old child? I am really a woman, and a very
amorous one at that, although regarded as a man because the majority of
my physical traits are those of the male sex. Did society ever compel
any other woman, except those like me, to live, eat, sleep, frequent the
same comfort-rooms and baths, lie sometimes in the same bed, with men,
and sometimes to listen to the unclean talk of men? I am driven wild by
instinctive cravings more than any other human being ever was....
“I wish I was not of an amorous nature. It makes my life miserable. If I
had my choice, it would be a life entirely free from all sexual
phenomena—complete sexual indifference. How gladly would I be free from
all passion, so that I could make a name for myself in the world! My
highest ideal is to be a Christian philosopher, and to preach the Gospel
to those who are living in sin and sorrow. An amorous person can hardly
be a philosopher, a scholar, and a preacher....”
[Sidenote: _Dawning Doubts as to Sinfulness._]
Shortly afterward, in a letter to my family physician, I wrote as
follows:
“I would like to know if you think there is any possibility of my ever
following my instincts without sin? It is right for the normal
individual to appease natural craving in wedlock. Is it not also right
for me to do the same if the opportunity should offer? For instance, I
will suppose an almost impossible case. If I should ever come across a
young man whom I loved and who would marry me, would it be right for me
to live with him as his wife? This supposition is probably highly
repulsive to you, but absolutely, looking at it philosophically, it is
no more unseemly and monstrous for me to be joined in wedlock with the
man I would love above everything else in the world, than for a normal
individual to enter into the state of matrimony.
“I long to be made the pet of my classmates. Would it be unbecoming to
show my girlishness to them occasionally, and welcome and encourage
their caresses which I sometimes receive? I still often pray God to
deaden these desires to receive tokens of a reciprocated passion on the
part of those whom I sexually worship, but I am beginning to add, ‘If it
be Thy will;’ because maybe it is for my highest good and happiness to
have these feelings toward my associates.
“I desire to know the mysteries of my peculiar life. It seems to me I
have a right to know. I spent several days recently in ransacking the
college library for the information I desire, but found almost nothing.
If the science of medicine knows anything about my peculiarity, I demand
of you to know it.
[Sidenote: _First Knowledge of Other Adult Inverts._]
“Lately from a conversation of some students that I heard, I chanced to
learn more about my peculiar affliction than I ever knew before. I heard
brief accounts of four persons cursed as I am, ‘With their procreative
instincts centered in their heads instead of in the usual organs,’ as
one of the students expressed it. These four victims were all
intellectual men; one, a young clergyman; one, an elderly judge; and
two, principals of schools. They were found out by their communities.
The clergyman committed suicide, and the others had to flee from the
stern hand of the law....
“You thus see that I may some day have to flee from the wrath of men by
suicide, or by self-imposed exile in a distant land, where I doubt if I
could stand the misery I would suffer, forever removed from all my dear
ones, and worse than dead to them. No one would have any mercy on me,
and my name would be held up as that of a consummate hypocrite and the
most degraded of men. But more than anything I would suffer, I would
bring my parents in sorrow to the grave.”
* * * * *
About this time I read the eminent theologian Lange’s comments on St.
Paul’s teaching about marriage, and through these, as well as through my
own deep reflections, I was becoming more than ever persuaded that since
it was God who had planted these instincts in me at birth, they could
not be so horribly sinful as I had been led to believe. Nevertheless I
was not finally convinced. A month later I stayed up all of one night in
order to reconsider the question, desiring and purposing to convince
myself of the sinfulness of an invert’s harboring the suggestions of
instinct to the slightest degree. I weighed carefully all the passages
of sacred scripture bearing on the case, and finally determined to fight
harder than ever to annihilate in myself all the movings of the sexual
nature. In the following weeks, I occasionally did not leave my room all
day, fasting, praying, and studying the scriptures.
[Sidenote: _Paroxysms of Melancholia._]
During this winter of ’91–’92, paroxysms of melancholia occasionally
came upon me at night. When I felt their approach, I could not stand it
to remain in my room, where I must be noiseless, but went out to a
deserted spot in a large park near which I lived, where I would shriek
repeatedly. All my muscles seemed to be rigid, and my fists were
clinched. I would dig my finger nails into my palms, and wave my arms
wildly. Within a few minutes, my strength would be completely gone. I
looked upon these paroxysms as fits of insanity, and feared I would
become permanently and violently insane. I now attribute these attacks
largely to unsatisfied, involuntary yearnings for the mate which Nature
had designed me to have. If society had permitted me one, and I had been
taught that it was right for me to have one, I would have been saved an
enormous amount of suffering, as well as perhaps my subsequent career as
a fairie.
* * * * *
About the middle of April came a characteristic experience of an
invert’s life. Shortly before my usual hour of retiring, an old
schoolmate, a stalwart and handsome youth, who had spent the day in the
city, called and asked to remain over night. I experienced a shock,
knowing the temptation such an arrangement would be to me. For several
weeks I had been living a life almost free from amorous thoughts, due to
the lengthened seasons of religious exercises spoken of above.
[Sidenote: _Typical Temptation of Inverts._]
Out of considerations of hospitality, I could not but grant my friend’s
request. How could I bring myself to explain to him that I was
essentially a girl, and so our spending a night in the same room was not
to be thought of? I inquired if there was not a vacant room in the
house, but that night there was none. Of course I could have given up my
room and gone to a hotel, but I had to be saving, and such a course
would humiliate my friend. So I arranged for him to occupy my bed, and
for myself to sleep on the floor. Sleeping alone on the floor, I felt
strong enough to resist, as I had done before when forced to sleep in
the same room with a youth to whom I was attracted, and I would have
probably resisted on the present occasion if it had not been for an
unusual and unforeseen incident which inflamed me as never before.
My guest was moderately addicted to sensuality. As we were about to
retire, he handed me, without evil intentions, a libidinous rhyme to
read, the first I had ever seen. I became intoxicated, and my companion
happening to absent himself from the room for a few moments, I
passionately osculated the paper the rhyme was written upon. My fleshly
nature immediately determined to have its desire that night, but my
spiritual nature counselled otherwise. It was to be a struggle of hours.
“Self-praise goes but little ways,” but I believe that there are
comparatively few of the human race who, with a nature peculiarly
susceptible to sensuality, as mine was, would have resisted as long as I
did the force of so many evil suggestions.
[Sidenote: _The Spiritual versus the Carnal._]
After retiring, the young man soon slept. But I was unable to sleep, no
matter how hard I tried. My mind was unusually active. I continually
prayed that sleep might come and save me from yielding, because I felt
that my own poor will could not resist the long pent-up force of
passion. Notwithstanding all my prayers, nothing was further from me
that night than sleep.
It was a night following a Sabbath spent in communion with God, and with
a strong determination to live a life of self-abnegation for the sake of
others. But through the long hours of wakefulness, the influence of the
sexual nature grew stronger and stronger. For hours I vacillated between
cherishing the suggestions of the spiritual nature and those of the
flesh. My chief defence against the latter was the thought that if I
yielded this once, I must from now on give up all idea of ever becoming
a preacher of the Gospel.
Moreover, the young man knew I was engaged in religious work, and
expected to enter the ministry, and what would he henceforth think of
the genuineness and utility of religion? If it had not been for my
occupying an active position in religious work and my looking forward to
entering the Christian ministry, I would have yielded much sooner on the
present occasion, as well as indulged my instincts much earlier in my
career.
[Sidenote: _First Full Knowledge._]
As I grew more and more weary mentally and physically, I naturally grew
weaker and weaker in will power. The seducer of souls finally conquered.
I suddenly found myself lying on the foot of my guest’s bed. The
transition seemed to have taken place in a moment of unconsciousness.
Being exhausted, I had probably dozed off for a moment, walked there in
my sleep, and again fully waked up as I laid myself on the bed. As the
Ruth of the scriptures—but I wish to emphasize it, without premeditation
and unconsciously—I had come softly, uncovered the young man’s feet, and
lain down. Before long he awoke, and heartily acquiesced in my desires.
For fellatio, I at the moment felt ready to forsake all plans for
leading a useful and respected life—for I thought it meant that.
The next morning I was ashamed to look my guest in the face, and
stammered forth an apology. I was really irresponsible for my conduct,
but at the time believed I had wilfully sinned, and when the time of
temptation was past, sincerely repented. In my diary I wrote:
“What harm may I not have brought on Christ’s cause by my recent action!
I may have endangered the eternal welfare of my friend. I suppose he
thinks I am a nice one to be thinking of becoming a minister of the
Gospel. I feel ashamed to make any further profession of religion before
him. O to be holy and pure! I think I am holy enough to be a clergyman
if it were not for my sins arising from my abnormal passion....
[Sidenote: _Utmost Recourse to Religion._]
“Miserable wretch, miserable wretch, miserable wretch, that’s all I am!
I am ashamed to look any one in the face any more. I feel very much like
putting an end to my life, or else going off to some place where none of
my friends will know I am. I wish this morning to die speedily, to be
killed in an accident on the street. I would like just now to lay down
my life for others. I have nothing to live for. I am one of the
unhappiest of mortals. I may be disgraced, disgrace my family, bring
reproach upon the cause of Christ, be compelled to flee, be disowned by
my parents, be cursed and be despised throughout the land. I will flog
myself and starve myself, to see if I cannot conquer my body.
“Because of my many failures to follow Christ perfectly in the past, and
because something out of the ordinary is necessary to root out my
procreative instincts, I now vow before God to imitate the example of
Christ, who spent much time alone in meditation and prayer, and to spend
hereafter one hour every morning and one hour every evening in the study
of God’s word, in meditation, and in prayer.”
For some weeks I fulfilled this vow. But my seasons of devotion
gradually became less and less edifying, and at last I reached the point
where the spirit of prayer—that is, of conversation and communion with
the Great Omnipresent Spirit—left me entirely, and the words of sacred
scripture, formerly falling upon my eyes and mind with a strange power
and revealing to me, and enabling me to live, the larger, heavenly,
eternal life, where sensuality has disappeared, were now read
mechanically and failed to impress me except as being tedious.
[Sidenote: _Haunted by Sensual Images._]
Sensual thoughts now began to creep into my mind more and more. Interest
in my studies was declining. In the class-room I was absent-minded, and
when called upon, would be confused, and hardly able to reply to the
professor’s questions. Even here I would be thinking of the soft
satin-smooth cutis in inguine of my late guest which I had found
gratissima tactioni, praesertim labiali et linguali, and would regret
that it was always to be denied to me to touch again on viro this
marvellously fine integument. I pined for the repetition of other
similar pleasures which I had for the first time tasted in their fulness
only a few weeks before, such as pillowing caput super abdomene aut
femure nudo adolescentis, the fascinating sight membri virilis ejus
erecti, and the extremely smooth surface glandis, gratissima tactioni et
digitorum et oris.
While walking the street, my gaze would be riveted on stalwart
adolescents, and I would halt to look back at the handsomest that
passed. If a street-car conductor happened to be youthful and
good-looking, I became almost irrational. With a look of despair I would
gaze insolently and imploringly into the face of the blue-clad youth as
if I would compel him to read my thoughts, since I did not dare give
them expression. When in a crowded car he brushed against me in passing,
a tremor would pass over my body. Youthful policemen also at this time
particularly fascinated me. Blue clothing and brass buttons have always
made a young man appear to me as at his best.
[Sidenote: _Nymphomania._]
After retiring at night, my unwilling desire to be in amplexu
adolescentis did not permit me to sleep. Through long hours of
wakefulness I writhed on my bed and repeatedly groaned in despair. “Am I
being tried by fire?” I would ask myself. “‘For every one will be salted
with fire,’ says the scripture. Are others so tried by fire as I have
been through a large part of my life? Maybe this is what God is doing to
me in implanting the strongest of desires and then forbidding my
gratifying them.”
Even in the midst of almost continuous prayer, my delirious imagination
brought before me obscene images, which I repeatedly tried in vain to
expel from my mind. Several times during the struggle I would rise and
walk up and down the room for a few moments. After retiring for perhaps
the third or fourth time, I would rise once more, go raving about the
room like an insane person, and if it had not been for the lateness of
the hour, about midnight, I would have gone out in search of fellatio,
which could alone pacify me. I was at last able to fall asleep only by
making the resolution to undertake the search on the following evening.
But on several evenings I postponed it because of the overwhelming dread
of setting out, as well as because the desire was not so insistent until
it became time to go to bed.
During these terrible days, I felt that a crisis in my life was at hand.
I felt that I stood at the dividing of the ways, one leading to honor
and self-approbation the other to ignominy and the blasting of all my
legitimate ambitions. As each month of my first year in the university
went by, the struggle against sensuality had been growing harder and
harder.
[Sidenote: _First Nocturnal Ramble._]
Finally, on an evening in early June, I arose from my studies and
prepared for my first nocturnal ramble. I put on a cast-off suit which I
kept for wear only in my room, placed some coin in a pocket and several
bills in a shoe, stuffed a few matches in one pocket and in another a
wet sponge, wrapped in paper so as not to dry out, and then carefully
went through my clothing a second time to make sure that I had not by
oversight left on me some clue to my identity.
On account of my shabby clothing, precaution was necessary to leave my
place of residence—a high-class boarding-house—without being seen. I
crept stealthily out of my room, closing the door softly so as not to
attract attention. After listening to make sure that no one was about to
ascend the outside steps leading to the street, I opened the outer door
and glided out bare-headed, a cast-off soft cap crumpled up in my hand
because I was ashamed to be seen wearing it by any one who knew me.
Hurriedly crossing to the opposite side of the street, I put on the cap,
pulling the tip down over my eyes. Walking a few blocks to a park, I
took my house key from my pocket and hid it in the grass, so that it
could not be stolen and I thereby rendered unable to let myself in on my
return.
[Sidenote: _“Jennie June” Is Introduced._]
The reader now beholds me for the first time transformed into a sort of
secondary personality inhabiting the same corpus as my proper self, to
which personality I soon gave the name of “Jennie June,” and which
personality was to become far more widely known in the immediately
following dozen years than the other side of my dual nature, the
unremitting student and scholar, was ever to be known. The feminine side
of my dual nature, for many years, as a matter of conscience, repressed,
was now to find full expression in “Jennie June.” For it was not alone
fellatio that I craved, but also to be looked upon and treated as a
member of the gentler sex. Nothing would have pleased me more than to
adopt feminine attire on this and my multitudinous subsequent
female-impersonation sprees, as some other ordinarily respectable
androgynes are in the habit of doing when going out on similar
promenades, but my position in the social organism was much higher than
theirs, and the adoption of female apparel would in my case have been
attended with too great risk. The mere wearing of it on the street by an
adult male would render him liable to imprisonment.
I made my way to the quarter of the city bordering the Hudson River that
is given over largely to factories and freight yards and is known as
“Hell’s Kitchen” because of the many steam vents. In this lonely and at
night little frequented neighborhood, perhaps the most advantageous in
the city for highway robbery, where nothing else than burning passion
could have induced me to go at night, I ran across a stalwart adolescent
of about my own age seated alone on a beer keg in front of a bar-room.
By a great effort of the will I accosted him. My voice trembled and my
whole body shook as if I had the ague.
[Sidenote: _Ruffians’ Attitude Toward Inverts._]
I had anticipated little difficulty in securing a companion, but events
showed it to be otherwise. For years subsequently I associated
intimately with hundreds of unmarried toughs of the slums from seventeen
to twenty-four years of age, and so I know their nature. Approximately
one-third have a distaste for coitus with an invert. The other
two-thirds would accommodate him provided their sexual needs were not
fully met by normal intercourse—which is generally the case. Moreover,
there is a difference between their attitude toward a perfect stranger
who accosts them, and an invert with whom they have become somewhat
acquainted. The impulse to rob a perfect stranger tends to drown out all
the movings of carnality. In addition, the feeling that he is a stranger
and an outlaw—the latter fact being almost universally known—prompts
them to assault him.
Along with an outline of what happened on this my first nocturnal
ramble, I describe below my general method of approaching strangers in
the poor quarters of the city. Of course I cannot recall the exact
dialogue in a particular case, but all the sample conversations given in
this autobiography are woven from _actual_ remarks passed at different
times. I have taken part in hundreds of dialogues of the kind sampled
here and there in this book, and the reader can be assured of obtaining
a truthful impression of the words exchanged by me—an androgyne—with my
youthful virile associates. On the present occasion, after a few
commonplace remarks, the conversation was of the following character:
“What big, big strong hands you have! I bet you are a good fighter.” My
aim was to talk rather babyishly so as gradually to betray my nature.
[Sidenote: _Method of Leading Up._]
“There’s a few as kin lick me but not many.”
“I love fighters. If you and I had a fight, who do you think would win?”
“I could lick a dozen like yer together.”
“I know you could. I am only a baby.”
“Hah hah! A baby!”
“Say, you have a handsome face.”
“Me hansome! Stop your kiddin.”
“Really you are handsome. I am going to tell you a secret. I am a
woman-hater. I am really a girl in a fellow’s clothes. I would like to
get some fellow to marry me. You look beautiful to me. Would you be
willing to?”
“How much does it cost yer to git married? Give me a V [meaning five
dollars] and I’ll be yourn, or else git out of here.”
My statement that I had not that amount with me brought the threat of a
pummeling. I was beginning to wish I was far away, but concealed my
uneasiness as best I could. After a few minutes more of conversation,
several pals happened to come along. He called out, “I’ve got a fairie
here!” and clutching my shoulder with one hand, he clinched his other
fist, shook it threateningly in my face, and demanded: “Hand out your
money! Hand out your money!”
[Sidenote: _First Robbery and Assault._]
Frightened to death, I handed him all the coin I had, amounting to a
little more than a dollar. I protested I had no more, and after they had
searched my pockets and felt my clothing all over for concealed bills,
one of them gave me a blow in the face. With that wonderful agility
which supposedly grave danger to one’s life can arouse, I sprinted away,
one of the ruffians pursuing a few steps and giving me several blows in
the back. But I was so terrified that I did not halt until I had run
several blocks. Panting and exhausted, I seated myself on a door-step
and felt that I was forever cured of seeking a paramour. I called to
mind the biblical text, “The way of the transgressor is hard,” and I
felt glad that it was hard so as to help me never to transgress again.
But after I had rested, my intense desire for fellatio induced me to
make an endeavor in another poor neighborhood. I passed many groups of
ruffians congregated in front of bar-rooms, but must find some solitary
adolescent. At last I ran across one standing in front of a factory,
evidently, as I later concluded, its watchman. I walked past him several
times, unable to pluck up courage to speak. But he called out angrily:
“Who are you looking at?”
“Pardon me for my rudeness, but I was wishing I could get acquainted
with you. I am a baby, and I want a big, strong, brave fellow like you
to pet me. I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll pet me for a few minutes,
and let me sit on your lap.”