the normal position, cum peni ejus inter femora mea. I was entirely
passive. It was necessary for me ponere femur unum transversum altero in
order to form a foramen strictum. Sometimes I requested this pose, and
sometimes my companion. This was the nearest to normal coitus. I was
curious to see how my companion would conduct himself with a genuine
fille.
[Sidenote: _Pædicatio._]
Only when I could not avoid it, either because of force or because of
insistent entreaty on the part of a kind companion, pædicatio took
place. I would sometimes be beaten into submission, and knives would be
drawn on me by the most desperate ruffians of the slums. Anus evidenter
attrahit a very small percentage of men, just as the pudenda does the
normal individual. Tangebant atque dicebant, “Anus pulcher.” My intense
moral horror of pædicatio experienced at the beginning of my fairie days
gradually declined. I later enjoyed it somewhat only because I enjoyed
witnessing all kinds of amorous conduct on the part of ultra-virile
young men. I had a craze to see them sexually excited, and to see the
means they instinctively took to appease their ardor. The pain to me was
generally excruciating—ad magnitudinem priapi—and has sometimes rendered
walking painful for months together. It also occasionally brought on
hemorrhoids of brief duration, but so painful as to render walking
almost impossible. It is attended with much risk to the pathic. I know
of two who were compelled to undergo serious operations as a result of
repeatedly permitting it, one of whom in his early forties was invalided
for the rest of his life. In my own case, pædicatio occurred only about
fifty times out of sixteen hundred instances of coitus.
Up to the age of thirty, two years after castration, I was seemingly
never satisfied. I have expressed to a group of companions the wish to
die through them as did the Levite’s concubine at Gibeah, as related in
the Book of Judges. In the subsequent physical and mental collapse, I
received comfort from the consciousness that it was the result of
devotion to adored beings.
[Sidenote: _Manustupration—Nature of Satisfaction._]
When spasmus in my companion was impossible otherwise, I would resort to
manustupration. My companions preferred me to do this rather than do it
themselves. Only twice in all my career did my companion do it to me,
much against my wishes. I have always had a horror of this experience,
including solitary onanism.
Except for these two instances, and one instance when a companion to my
disgust attempted fellatio, my pudenda never had any part in coitus, and
I always wished I was rid of them. No method ever brought me any kind of
local physical pleasure. That is, I am entirely devoid of any erogenous
center. Companions have remarked that sensus gratissimus suffunderet
corpus totum. I never experienced anything of the kind in the least
degree. With me the satisfaction was practically all mental. I found it
exclusively in the body of my associate, not at all in my own. I was
satisfied with the realization that I was instrumental in efficiendo ei
voluptatem acutam. I had my pleasure in seeing his vita sexualis
strongly aroused and in witnessing the manifestations of the procreative
instinct in him, e.g., his me cogendum, detrahendum mihi vestem, ejus
appetitionem propellendi, anhelandum, etc. I was happy in the thought
that I was being received tanquam uxorem by a handsome high-spirited
adolescent. He called me uxorem, and I called him maritum. There was
also a life-long satisfaction in the remembrance that I had possessed
him in amplexu sexuali. To mimic the baby and the woman in his presence
was a rare pleasure. Up to my early thirties, in all my conduct with
him, I was more feminine than any woman and as babyish as a three-year
old. Sexually I have never grown out of babyhood.
[Sidenote: _Sadism._]
I liked to be regarded as the slave. In the “Enslaving Ceremony,” I lay
prostrate on the floor, my companion towered above, placed his foot on
my head, and pronounced me his slave. I have always felt that a woman
should adore her husband so much as to delight in being treated as a
slave, and to suffer gladly any abuse by her lord.
In the “Ceremony of Adoration,” my companion stood upright, I prostrated
myself, clasped his legs, pressed my lips against his feet, recited all
the heroic qualities which enslaved me to him, and cried out over and
over again my love and adoration for him. Associates have said they only
hoped they would ultimately secure a wife who would adore them as I.
I sometimes found pleasure in my companion being vexed with me and
striking me. I would playfully slap him until he was provoked to give me
a blow meant seriously. With heartless associates who were bent merely
on the pleasure spasmi and would choke and otherwise maltreat me into
submission to pædicatio, I often enjoyed being thus forced. Occasionally
I even insisted that friendly ones rapere for the pleasure of struggling
to get away and feeling their conquering strength.
There was a great difference in respect to the extent to which they
responded. Some would not allow osculation above the waist and only
desired spasmum. From this coldness there were all grades up to the
associates who would kiss and hug me, and even let me protrudere linguam
in os ejus, atque vice versa.
[Sidenote: _Farewell to Mulberry Street._]
Although a girl only in mind, though to some extent in body, this
deficiency seemed not to detract from my success in the vocation of a
fille de joie. Few filles have had a clientele the equal of mine in
youthfulness, beauty, and virility. Providence compensated me for my
years of grief over being an invert by throwing in my way this
exceptional clientele. My enterprise in seeking conquests was that
usually found in the male, and rarely in the female.
Practically all my companions have remained permanently a part of me.
Now and then through life when the memory of a particular one arises, it
has been accompanied by regret at the thought of our eternal separation,
and by the consciousness that I was offering him an eternal worship of
which he could never know. From my late twenties on, I impressed it upon
my ever changing companions that I offered them an eternal worship, and
that down through life, when we must be forever separated, they should
think of me as still offering them my adoration.
* * * * *
I am now going to recount how I happened to abandon Mulberry Street as
my “stamping ground” when I had so many accommodating friends there. On
account of a nervous breakdown, due partly to overstudy, partly to
debauchery, but chiefly to emissions during sleep which had afflicted me
twice a week since the age of sixteen, I was unable to stay out my
junior year in college and left the city the middle of May. I was to
spend my last evening with my “husband” _par excellence_ at a theatre. I
was to meet him at seven o’clock on a Broadway corner several blocks
from his usual haunts. Since I did not expect to be with him where he
could help himself to my belongings, and also since I had to leave my
residence before dark, instead of putting on cast-off clothing as usual
on my visits to the foreign-born quarters, I clad myself in my best and
wore a gold ring and watch and chain.
[Sidenote: _Close of Junior Year._]
But he did not come, though I waited a half hour in anguish. It was only
five minutes’ walk from his usual haunts, but clad as I was, I was
afraid to seek him there. Finally two Italian bootblacks happened to
pass. Even the boys of that part of Mulberry Street knew me. I however
never had anything to do with them, not being attracted toward those
immature sexually. Even my companions would always drive away boys who
sought to stand around our group. The bootblacks now called out: “Hello
Jennie! Where yer goin’ all dressed up?”
I sent a message by them, and waited still another half hour. Of all
things in the world, I wanted at that moment a sight of my idol. Though
realizing the risk I was running, I decided that I must go nearer to his
usual haunts. I walked to the corner of Mulberry. I said to myself that
I would not venture any farther. I would wait on this corner until he
happened to pass, since it was on his route home. I considered myself
safe since the street was well lighted and there were numerous
pedestrians.
[Sidenote: _In the Slums in My Best._]
After waiting here also a half hour in vain, I became hysterical, wept,
wrung my hands, and gave utterance to suppressed shrieks. I finally
decided the only thing to do was to walk up Mulberry Street. About the
middle of the block, I happened to find him seated, as usual, in a group
of my beaux. They all made exclamations of surprise and pleasure when
they caught sight of me. It was my first and only appearance there
dressed up. My mate called out: “Hello pretty little girl!”
“Hello big, brave, bouncing boy!”
They immediately pulled me down to a seat among them and several hands
were stuck into my pockets. I had tucked my bills away in the waistband
of my trousers. The street was alive with recent Italian immigrants, and
I might have saved my coin by raising an alarm, but of course did not
choose to. On every visit here I had my pockets rifled, and did not mind
the loss of the coin.
My mate sought to be as captivating as possible, and put me in a state
of perfect happiness. Before long he asked me to sleep with him and a
pal that night. All this time, among this group of young bloods, there
was but one female, only sixteen years of age, whose home was on this
block. It was decided that we should spend the night in her rooms.
Accompanied by the two ruffians and the young woman, I thus finally
sauntered down a pitch-dark alley and descended some steps to the
basement of a ramshackle rear tenement, occupied entirely by illiterate
Italians recently immigrated. I revolted at what I saw and smelt, but on
this and other occasions was drawn by sexual attraction into
pestilential places where nothing else would have induced me to remain a
minute.
[Sidenote: _In the Lair of a Strumpet._]
When the lamp was lighted, I found myself in a suite of two dilapidated
rooms, scantily and poorly furnished. On a century-old bedstead rested a
dirty mattress filled with straw, and no pillows or bed-linen.
Benefiting by my money, my associates drank to excess as the evening
wore away, while I found my pleasure in the usual manner. Toward
midnight, after the two ruffians had become half-intoxicated, my mate
placed the muzzle of a revolver, which the young woman kept for
self-defence, against my head, saying he would blow my brains out if I
got him into any trouble. Because of the maudlin condition of the two
young men, and because I had something on me that they might consider
worth committing a grave crime for, I now half expected never to leave
the place alive, and repeatedly breathed a prayer that no serious harm
might be permitted to befall me. I now let them dispossess me of the
balance of my bills and my other valuables in dismay and without the
slightest protest, for fear of angering them.
Finally, in order to frighten me further from making complaint to the
police, one of the ruffians asked the other whether they should put a
bullet through my head or turn me over to the police because of my
peculiar addiction. Thoroughly frightened, I implored them to let me go
home. After some deliberation, designed to show how they had me in their
power, including the assurance that I had that night rendered myself
liable to a long term of imprisonment—ignorant men always thinking only
the androgyne is amenable to the law—they finally decided to let me go
if I ran away from the neighborhood as fast as my legs would carry me.
The three of them escorted me to the mouth of the alley, and the last
words I caught were: “Run faster! Run faster!”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Yearning for Feminine Apparel._]
While in college I shrunk from the required gymnasium exercises. I felt
that they were proper for young men, but my feminine nature made me
exceedingly shy while in line in the drill. In the gymnasium
dressing-room I would enjoy seeing the naked forms, but concealed my
own. If military drill had been required, as is the case in some
universities in 1918, it would have caused me to omit a university
education.
Beginning about this time, my twenty-first year, and continuing down to
the date when this book goes to press, I have commonly worn in my home
an ornamental bathrobe, just like a woman’s dress. Clad in it, I have
gazed at my reflection in the mirror, imagining I was a woman. Walking
in it to and fro and up and down the stairs, I have taken pleasure in
hearing it rustle like a woman’s dress, in feeling it strike against my
legs, and in holding it up when ascending the stairs, as a woman her
skirts. In my college days, while home for week-ends, I would
occasionally, when alone, put on a sister’s hat and gaze at myself in
the mirror with rare pleasure, wishing that I might wear that style of
hat.
In this summer of 1894, when away from New York, where temptation was
less strong, I became for several weeks weaned away from my peculiar
habits. In my present rather puritanical circle, I felt like a wolf in
sheep’s clothing. Under the unusual religious influences, I even thought
I might never again seek the gratification of my peculiar cravings.
[Sidenote: _Sexual Starvation._]
Nevertheless, before many weeks, I began to suffer intensely from sexual
starvation and melancholia. Being then a nervous wreck, I saw before me
only insanity or suicide. I would walk deserted streets at night beating
my breast and waving my arms in anguish. Even in broad daylight and on
the main street, I several times wept openly while walking along, so
that people who knew me probably thought I was insane. In the privacy of
my room I would writhe on my bed in an agony of tears.
My sexual cravings began to render me sleepless after retiring, and
throw me into paroxysms. Driven by my importunate craving for fellatio,
I would occasionally rise from bed around midnight, and roam through the
poor quarters, looking for a thoroughly intoxicated man who would not be
able to recognize me, but I never found one. I now believe I was
irresponsible.
The only ray of hope I had was the possibility of securing a steady
mate. When in my imagination I could see the feasibility and certainty
of this, I was happy and hopeful. I felt that then a successful life
would be a certainty. Without a mate I feared for my virtue and my
reputation. With one I felt that I could live a virtuous life outside of
occasional fellatio with him. At the present time (1918), I am convinced
that I had a right view of the matter back there in 1894. Possession of
a mate would have been the panacea for all my ills.
[Sidenote: _Appeal to a Highminded Adolescent._]
My New York physician, to whom I confided my woes, wrote that the only
remedy to make me well and happy was the possession of a mate, and urged
me to apply immediately to some stalwart acquaintance. I decided to
appeal to a cousin, an adolescent fair to look upon, and possessed of
all the qualities of mind attractive to the female sex. Moreover, in my
early childhood, he had been one of my intimates. Too much ashamed to
speak, I handed him the following argument:
“... I am driven to make these disclosures to you, or else go insane or
commit suicide. I am madly in love with you. I say it before God—this
impulse of my being is entirely opposed to my will. I bewail the fact
that this animality is a part of my nature. I abhor sensual love and
sensual enjoyment, and if I had my choice, would never stoop to them.
Nevertheless, sometimes a person cannot do what he would but what he
must. My physician says my health demands that I do not resist this
overpowering impulse. Last night I went to bed drowsy and tired. But the
impossibility of my possessing the masculine counterpart which nature
ordained I should have, threw me for an hour into paroxysms which
threatened to take away all my strength. I had finally to leave my bed,
and spend two hours reading in order to save myself from insane raving.
The statement of the few specialists who have studied into the nature of
sexual inversion is that the craving of a person like myself for his
sexual counterpart is abnormally intense, and that it is, for the ends
of health, more necessary for his peculiar craving to be met than it is
necessary for the normal man or woman’s.
[Sidenote: _Abstinence Would Wreck Life._]
“Judging from the past, my life is likely to be a wreck if I deny this
instinctive craving. In leading a life of chastity, I have endured a
melancholy existence, and have often deliberated suicide. Recently I
have meditated it daily. All my privileges, which one would think must
make my life a happy one, have failed to make life to me worth living.
You may say it is my own fault, and that I just make my own life
miserable. But truly, it is a matter to me not dependent on my will
power, but on physiological and psychological laws, over which the will
has no more control than over the diphtheria.
“That I desire such indulgence does not spring from the fact that I have
become licentious or a debauchee, placing my own selfish sensual
enjoyment above everything else. I am as ardent as ever in my yearnings
to alleviate human misery and to deny myself for others. But in this
matter, the result of my denying myself would be almost as serious as to
resolve to give up eating for the sake of saving the money for the cause
of missions. There are some things which it would be fatal to us to give
up, even if we did it through motives of altruism. I assure you that I
have not abandoned my high aspirations and worthy aims of life.
“I assert before God that I am confident that I commit no sin in obeying
this instinct. During my moments of closest communion with God, I am
sensible of His smile on my conduct in this matter. In general the only
legitimate relations are between a legally married pair. The marriage
state is open to the normal man and he is duty bound to marry when
passion becomes too strong. This duty however is not binding on
urnings,[2] because they cannot get any one to marry them. I endeavored
to marry a young man in New York, but failed. Therefore it is in
consonance with the moral law for urnings to enjoy the company of those
they love without marrying.
Footnote 2:
At that time I incorrectly described myself as an urning. Urnings are,
at least usually, active pederasts, or else addicted to mutual
onanism.
[Sidenote: _Androgyne’s Propensities Not Under Biblical Ban._]
“You may reply that such relations are prohibited in the Bible.
Relations between man and man, both of whom are normal, are prohibited.
But in the past year I have learned that I am seven-eighths a woman, and
only one-eighth man.[3] Were it not for certain masculine conformations
of the body, I ought to go about in dresses as a woman, and always
identify myself with the female sex. Therefore, I being more a woman
than a man, these prohibitions in the Bible do not apply to me.
Footnote 3:
This early statement may be too strong. Psychically I am practically
all woman, and physically at least one-third, although the organs of
generation are completely male.
“I think I have satisfied you that I can without sin follow out my
desire in the way Nature prompts. But I would convince you that my
companion also acquiesces in my desire without sin. I would not wish to
allure any one into obliging me unless he could see that he was thereby
committing no sin. There is sin only in those things which rob God of
His glory, or which bring unhappiness and detriment to some sentient
being. In this case, if sin at all, it would be sin against self. But by
it you harm yourself in no way, as the physician told me.
[Sidenote: _Androgynes the Handiwork of God._]
“Then too, urnings, congenital as I, are the work of God, the divine
purpose in their creation being probably to check a too rapid increase
in the population; and God must therefore have meant that their
instinctive cravings for a sexual counterpart should be gratified,
especially since he has made these cravings doubly intense. But how
could they be gratified without the acquiescence of some normal
individual? Therefore the latter is also without sin.
“I am not now, as you may think, writing in a state of extreme
excitement, such as I might be in in the presence of the attractive
person, when I would not be my true self; but I am writing in a
comparatively calm, rational frame of mind. I am backed up in what I
write by an experienced physician, whose letter I can show you, and who
says that if I had the occasional satisfaction of this craving, I would
become healthy, get rid of my morbid thoughts, and have some vim for
work, and for distinguishing myself as a scholar. I am myself confident
that with this occasional gratification I would some day win the
admiration of the circles of religion and learning for my scholarly
attainments and for my work for humanity.
“All I ask is that you take a common-sense, rational view of the matter.
If there is still any doubt in your mind about your possible compliance
being compatible with honor and morality, please state your difficulty,
and I assure you I can remove it, since I have given much study to the
ethics of this question....”
[Sidenote: _The Androgyne Merits Forbearance._]
But he absolutely declined to grant the favor asked, giving as his only
reason that it would be “self-pollution.” In culture, education, and
broadness of mind, he stood much below me, but he had some religious
scruples, and also his tastes were naturally against compliance. I made
further oral solicitations, but he remained deaf to them. I was plunged
into despair at his refusal to listen to reason, and my head was
drooping in shame. With an intense impulse for self-destruction
possessing me, I turned my steps toward a stream about a mile away,
where I intended to blot out my miserable existence. But when I had
walked some distance, the beauties of nature gradually drew away my
thoughts from my chagrin.
Since this cousin was my only hope during the many weeks that I had
still to remain in the village, and since I was madly attracted to him,
I did not give up all endeavor. Later happenings are described in the
following letter to my New York physician:
“... I write to you in order to see if I can be saved from insanity.
Last night I again appealed to my cousin, with whom I am deeply in love.
I called at his house about nine o’clock, but he was not in. I told his
mother I would go up to his room and wait for him. Finally he appeared.
I was simply going to ask him to let me kiss him. If he had granted only
this, I would have gone home happy and contented. He could not see me,
as the room was in darkness, but as soon as he heard me, he said he
would shoot me if I did not clear out immediately, and he made a move to
get his revolver, which he always keeps loaded under his pillow. I
entreated him not to shoot, and to let me say merely a few words; but he
answered angrily, ‘If you do not leave the house immediately, I will put
a bullet through your head!’
[Sidenote: _Inhumanity Now Shown Androgynes._]
“I immediately left quite calmly, but after I got in my own bed, I began
to cry over my cousin’s treatment of me. All of a sudden, without any
conscious volition, I sat up in bed, threw my legs and arms about
wildly, and for a few seconds shrieked loudly and frightfully. This
paroxysm has left me in a state of complete exhaustion, and I now do not
know whether I am sane or insane.
“No one can sympathize with me. My cousin, an honorable and intelligent
young man, now knows much about my case, and how I have suffered for
years, and yet I received from him last night only harsh words,
emphasized by a revolver. Such treatment by one I dearly love drives me
crazy. If only he had denied my request in gentle words, I would have
gone home and merely wept tears of gratitude at his forbearance....”