During this period I knowingly encountered the first case of gonorrhea
in a companion. Until eleven years later, when I contracted syphilis, I
had an unreasonable horror of venereal disease because of what I had
heard in personal purity lectures to students. Nevertheless I was ready
to take every risk for the satisfaction of my craving. For my entire
open career of twelve years as a fairie—for I did not happen to contract
syphilis until its very close—I conceived that in buccal syphilis, the
buccal cavity is completely filled with burning, excruciatingly painful
ulcers, and no solid nourishment can be taken. A lay confidant almost at
the beginning of my fairie days had told me he had seen such a case in a
hospital—probably fabricating in order to scare me away from the
indulgence of my proclivities. When I finally did contract buccal
syphilis I found it not even one-thousandth as serious as it had been
represented to me. (See events of 1905.) I always rinsed the buccal
cavity as soon as possible subsequently to fellatio, and always kept my
system entirely free from alcohol and other narcotics. Throughout my
twelve years’ association with young men who drank habitually, I always
totally abstained from and abhorred alcoholic beverages. So far as I
know, I did not contract gonorrhea until 1917, after twenty-four years
of promiscuity with the exception of several periods of abstinence or of
monandry each of several months duration.
In the ninth year of promiscuity, several long slender venereal warts
grew downward from the inside of the upper lip, not visible on the
exterior, but troubling me somewhat in articulation. A surgeon excised
them and they never returned. In the twelfth year, a large wart appeared
just outside the sphincter anus and disappeared without any treatment
about twenty months later. I have here indicated all my personal
experience with venereal diseases.
[Sidenote: _Anatomical Peculiarities, Etc., Encountered._]
In my approximately sixteen hundred intimacies with about eight hundred
different companions, I found only about three cases of venereal warts,
and about the same number of cases of chancre. Only one confessed to
having gonorrhea, and I myself detected it by the discharge on only one
other. Young men suffering from syphilis or gonorrhea in membro virili
who have a conscience are not likely to permit fellatio. I have,
however, encountered the superstition that if a man afflicted with
venereal disease can secure fellatio, the malady is imbibed out of the
system.
I encountered only four or five monorchids, about five cases of
pronounced varicocele, and about five bad cases of phimosis. Slight
phimosis was often encountered. I would never have gone to extremes with
a monorchid or with one suffering from a bad phimosis if I could have
avoided disappointing him or hurting his feelings; and even regretted
being thrown with one with only slight phimosis. I was attracted only ad
glandem magnam atque de more nudatam. I never encountered a case of
hypospade, of epispade, or of noticeably short frenum. Only about four
were absolutely incapable of orgasm in my presence, while perhaps two
dozen out of the eight hundred found it dilatory or incomplete. With
myself orgasm was practically always prompt and complete, but was
disagreeable. About a dozen cum orgasmo perfecto non potuerunt
ejaculari. Alii duodecim habuerunt tres ejaculationes in semihora.
[Sidenote: _Manner of Life of a High-Class Fairie._]
Solum circiter triginta voluerunt duo aut tres eadem nocte, atque nemo
plus. In ninety-five per cent. of cases, incubuimus solum from twenty to
thirty minutes. I never took the initiative in parting, although I was
generally quite reconciled. Even in the less than five per cent. of
cases where we passed the night in the same house, I nearly
always—because of my inability to fall asleep otherwise—occupied a
separate bed except for one hour after retiring and another hour prior
to rising.
* * * * *
To return to the events of my Fourteenth Street days, I would sometimes,
in the public parlors of the houses of assignation in that vicinity, be
a member of a jolly party of adolescents and filles de joie. Everybody
would be exceedingly kind and courteous to me, and in general displayed
toward one another the most extreme politeness. I have never been in a
more charming circle, and would experience the highest earthly bliss.
The young men would hold me on their laps and fondle me before the eyes
of all, even of strange parties of patrons who were simultaneously
occupying the large parlors or drinking saloons. I feared some member of
these other parties might recognize me. Occasionally we repaired to a
private chamber. In my fairie apprenticeship and during my career around
the military posts, I was the financier. But during the present period,
that function fell entirely to my associates.
On other occasions, my associates were boisterous and outrageously
indecent in their conduct toward me in the public parlors. The following
are quotations from my journal: “I have to weep when I reflect that I, a
scholar, a litterateur, and a philosopher, am so often made the sport
and laughing-stock of the immoral and godless crowd which assembles in
the parlor of the X—— Hotel. To think of my acting like a simpleton, and
being looked upon as a simpleton by those greatly inferior to me in
mental ability!”
[Sidenote: _Conflict of My Two Lives._]
“I am satiated with sensual pleasure. It is the vanity of vanities. Good
deeds done our fellow men are the best investment in life. I pray God to
send forth laborers into His harvest, and to let me be one. When I see
the multitude of young people wandering astray, as sheep without a
shepherd, the words of scripture ring through my ears, ‘Comfort ye,
comfort ye, my people!’ Sometimes I seem to have a clairvoyant vision
into the future, and behold myself, finally saved from animality,
commissioned by the great I AM to be a proclaimer of the blessed Gospel
of peace and good will among men.”
* * * * *
One evening a strange adolescent accosted me on the street: “You are a
fairie, aren’t you?”
“What makes you think so?”
“No one but a fairie would stare at a fellow like you do. Don’t you want
to take a walk with me over to the East River?” [Where the streets were
entirely deserted at night.]
On the way he inquired my real name, occupation, residence, and all
about me, and feigned a friendly interest. I of course gave false
answers. Arrived in the deserted region, he allowed me to incriminate
myself for a single second. Then he seized me violently and exclaimed:
“I was just laying for fellows like you. You have been lying to me. You
don’t live down on the Bowery, and you are no tailor. I know you! I have
seen you uptown! Now I have evidence against you! That is all I was
after! I am a detective, and you are under arrest!”
[Sidenote: _Adventure with Reputed Detective._]
“What have I done to you that you should treat me like this? I did not
accost you! You accosted me! Have mercy on me, a poor unfortunate, and
let me go!”
As we walked along, I, unexpectedly to him, wrenched myself from his
grip and escaped. A kind Providence made me unusually fleet of foot, and
many times in my subsequent career, I outran a persecutor. The young man
may have been fabricating, but detectives have been actually sent out by
the authorities to entrap inverts. The author knows of a case where the
invert was induced by the detective to incriminate himself where he
could be photographed in the act, and as a result spent several years in
state’s prison.
On another warm evening, I was skylarking with several high-class
adolescents in the deserted region in question. A gang of youthful
dockrats surprised us, and we fled in a panic. I happened to be
captured. Having perceived that I was an invert, they at first conducted
themselves in what was to me the most pleasing manner and then robbed
me.
One of my associates on a summer evening conducted me to Stuyvesant
Square, a few blocks from my usual haunts, and introduced me to his
circle of friends, who in good weather spent part of nearly every
evening on the park benches. All these adolescents were members of a
young men’s club in the neighborhood, with about three score members of
which I soon became acquainted. Morally and religiously, these young men
stood higher than any other class that I ever associated with as “Jennie
June.” No virile young men in New York City stand higher than they,
being of the best “Y. M. C. A. type.” In summer, for about ten years
subsequently, I occasionally called on my many friends some of whom were
almost sure to be seated in this small park during part of a pleasant
evening. I saw some successively reach puberty, young manhood, marriage,
and fatherhood.
[Sidenote: _Debut in Stuyvesant Square._]
The majority of this superior class of young men treated me kindly, but
only about one in eight ever went to extremes, and these never more than
six times individually. A considerable proportion of those who knew me
to be a fairie, however, thought I must therefore be a monster of
wickedness, and of the many different sets of adolescents with whom I
associated as “Jennie June,” only one other inflicted on me as much
suffering as did this Stuyvesant Square group. An extenuating
circumstance is that I could not let them know that I was a person of
strong religious and moral convictions, and habitually led a respectable
life. I was always entirely inoffensive, merely coquetting with those to
whom I had been introduced. My influence on their lives was not at all
bad. I even encouraged them to live the higher Christian life, as about
one-half were church members, and practically all, regular attendants on
its services.
[Sidenote: _Persecution by High-Class Adolescents._]
Some of their number who looked upon a fairie as necessarily a monster
of wickedness—for why otherwise would the law place upon his sexual
conduct a penalty of ten years in state’s prison?—gave me several severe
thrashings, so that I always visited the Square in great fear, but took
the risk for the affection that I had for those who were glad to have me
talk and coquet with them.
The following was my extreme suffering at their hands: I happened to be
one evening seated alone on a park bench. Several of my enemies
discovered and surrounded me. Very much frightened I attempted to leave,
but they would not permit it. They stuck pins into me, inflicted slight
burns with lighted matches, and pinched me unmercifully, particularly
the penis. There were policemen within hailing distance, but I was told
I would be arrested if I called for help. I was entirely innocent, but
the police would have believed the false testimony against me of a
half-dozen accusers. When satisfied with wreaking their vengeance, they
turned me over to a policeman with charges, but he simply ordered me out
of the park. Seemingly the higher the standard of morality of
adolescents as at present trained, the greater the physical violence
that they inflict on fairies. One lecturer to students on personal
purity whom I heard counselled his adolescent hearers to give a blow in
the face to any associate who ever suggested homosexuality.
[Sidenote: _Anti-Invert Laws Worse Than Useless._]
I wish here to emphasize the fact that there would be no risk of the
spread of homosexual practices through the removal of the legal
penalties attached to them and the consequent removal, at least in large
part, of the practice of our best adolescents in beating up and
torturing androgynes because the latter are outlaws. Almost exclusively,
those addicted by birth to these relations—regarded by the normal males
as highly unaesthetic—and largely irresponsible for their conduct, can
alone occasion these so-called “crimes.” What is the use then of laws
against practices really harmless to society and to the adolescent—while
perhaps harmful to the invert to the same degree that marital relations
are harmful to a wife and mother—and occasioned alone by those who are
driven by an innate impulse, often uncontrollable? The law does not
imprison deaf-mutes for being born with abnormal inner ears, and why
should it imprison members of this other congenitally defective class?
The invert asks only for the same standing before the law accorded all
other men. But as law and custom always make special exemptions for the
congenitally defective, perhaps it would be right to show special mercy
to the invert.
* * * * *
One evening at the close of about eighteen months of my avocation as a
Fourteenth Street “street-walker,” I was promenading up and down. Now
and then some habitue of the district would recognize me, stop, and
flirt for a few minutes. Finally I encountered a party of six
adolescents. Four had never met me previously, yet all talked in a most
free and unrestrained, as well as indecent manner. After a while, one
proposed that I accompany him to his room.
“I am afraid those other fellows will follow us and hurt me.”
[Sidenote: _Farewell Night to Fourteenth Street._]
“They are all friends of yours.”
“I am not so sure about that. You know some fellows hate a fairie, and
some of those boys appear very heartless. You saw how rough they were to
me right on the street! If they should try to hurt me, would you fight
for me?”
“Of course.”
“How could you alone fight against five fellows?”
“Well, I would do the best I could, and depend on you to help me.”
“Don’t think of depending on me. You know a girl can’t fight. All a girl
can do when fellows fight is to look on.”
“You could at least scream, couldn’t you?”
“Yes, I could scream.”
“Well, you do the screaming, and I’ll do the fighting.”
A few minutes after we arrived in the young man’s quarters in a
furnished-room house, the other five burst in. They proved to be as
heartless a gang as I had ever met, although belonging to the prosperous
class of society. Micturiverunt super meis vestibus atque me coegerunt
facere rem mihi horribilissimam (balneum ani cum lingua, non aliter quam
meretrices faciunt). Me coegerunt recipere tres eodem tempore, fellatio,
pædicatio, atque manustupratio. Ultimum mihi imperatum cum adolescens
non potuit facere inter femora eodem tempore. Later one who had
difficulty in achieving the desired results me coegit ad fellationem
unam semihoram continuously, repeatedly punching me in the head and face
because I did not do better by him. Again for a half hour continuously
me coegerunt ut supinum cubem atque usi erunt ore meo sicuti cunno, sic
me strangulantes horribiliter. Cum priapus concurreret meas dentes, they
would punch me in the face, atque mandabant ut desisterem eos mordere.
[Sidenote: _One of the Worst Assaults._]
This was one of my three very worst experiences of sexual abuse. The
physical suffering and discomfort were extreme, but I was so fascinated
by the savagery and the beauty of my tormentors that I experienced a
species of mental satisfaction, being willing to suffer death if only I
could contribute to their pleasure. During my career I had numerous
experiences, but much less trying, along this same line. A fairie is
often thus treated by cruel, lecherous adolescents, since they know he
is an outlaw and can not bring them to justice.
Their lechery finally satiated, one of them stuck a handkerchief into my
mouth, and said: “Do you know you are worse than a hog? You d—— fairie,
going around to corrupt young fellows! We will teach you to keep away
from Fourteenth Street hereafter!” Another cried: “You’ve got to let me
have first whack at him!”
I was conducted to a dark, deserted street, where one of them rained
violent blows in my face, while I did nothing except to seek to protect
my features as much as possible with my hands. Finally it occurred to me
to feign unconsciousness—my first adoption of this ruse—when they all
hurried away.
Only through the special mercy of an overruling Providence I was saved
from permanent injury that night, and on several other subsequent nights
of my career as a fairie. During my Mulberry Street career I never
received the least blow, and during my years of association with
hundreds of soldiers of four forts, I never received a blow deserving of
mention. But I was seriously assaulted three times by soldiers of a
fifth fort, several times by Stuyvesant Square acquaintances, several
times by acquaintances of my Bowery period, and only the one time just
described, by Fourteenth Street acquaintances. A certain class of
adolescents, regarding the conduct of a fairie as the depth of
depravity, yearn to lay violent hands on him.
[Sidenote: _Serious Assaults._]
I was compelled immediately after the assault described to have my
wounds dressed by a physician. On subsequently arriving in my room, I
followed my universal custom after a return from a female-impersonation
spree: that is, the first thing I did was to fall on my knees and thank
the Omnipresent, All-pervading Spirit, that I had been permitted to see
home again and resume for a season the ordinary course of my life as a
scholar. But after retiring, I could not sleep, but tossed about all
night in a half-waking delirium. Every moment it seemed as if I would
become a raving maniac. I moaned repeatedly, and called upon God to show
mercy and deliver me from my mental agony.
Is it just that inoffensive inverts should be subjected to such
outrages, and have no redress? A confidant, with whom I discussed
proceedings against these conscienceless young men, gave it as his
opinion that the court would immediately turn around and make me—who, if
I must say it myself, have always been unusually conscientious
notwithstanding my sensuality—the defendant against the most serious
charges. (This practically happened in 1905.) What other class of men is
treated thus by the law and public opinion?
[Sidenote: _Incognito Adventures Practically Inevitable._]
The reader may reply: “If they don’t want to suffer in this way, let
them stay home and keep away from people who deal thus with them.” But
inverts often have to follow their own nature, although they have
striven hard to act according to the nature of the majority of men. With
the present organization of society, and the present extreme scorn
manifested toward victims of inversion, it is only natural, and almost
necessary, if inverts desire to preserve the respect of their every-day
circles, that they should visit incognito some section of a great city
remote from their own. Suppose in a war between two tribes of red men, a
brave is captured, consigned to adopt the dress and occupation of a
squaw, and is in every way treated as a squaw. Would this unnatural life
be to the brave’s tastes? Would he be blamed if he sought to escape
where he could live according to his masculine inclinations? No more is
the passive invert to be blamed for escaping occasionally where he can
live according to his quasi-feminine instincts.
The remedy lies in the dissemination of just and correct views of
inversion, the removal of the deepseated but ill founded prejudice
against individuals thus marked by Nature which is regnant in all
classes of society, and the repeal of the unjustified laws against
inverts, which more than anything else account for the unthinking man’s
persecution of these stepchildren of Nature. Then like the red-man
androgyne, his cultured counterpart can, without losing his economic and
social position, choose a mate from among his every-day circle. As long
as he is outwardly modest and chaste, he should receive only
commiseration and condonation for his homosexuality.
[Sidenote: _Period of Monandry._]
For a week following the assault described, my terribly disfigured face
confined me to my room. When somewhat healed, I was compelled to give my
every-day circle a false explanation. For several weeks I felt only
hatred for all adolescent libertines. At the end of that period I
chanced to witness a youthful artilleryman reeling around a ferry
waiting-room. Fascinated, I entered into conversation, told him I was an
invert, and requested quasi-permanent monandry. His exact words were:
“With all my heart.”
I began to frequent one evening a week the fort where he was stationed,
but we disclosed to no one that I was other than an ordinary young man.
I was, moreover, so fascinated with him that I did not seriously
consider flirtation with his comrades. We exchanged numerous passionate
love letters—my first essay in this field. I was also now inspired to
compose my first amatory ballads, which were in praise of my “Man behind
the guns,” and transmitted to him.
Our intimacy continued for several months, until, having become an
outcast and penniless, I was unable to make him presents, and he
consequently became negligent in keeping his appointments.
During this year 1896, I read Krafft-Ebing’s “Psychopathia Sexualis,”
besides a number of articles on inversion which had been published in
American and European journals. I availed myself of the library of the
New York Academy of Medicine. Some years later I read there Havelock
Ellis’s “Sexual Inversion.”
[Sidenote: _My Twenty-Third Year._]
This autobiography has now reached my twenty-third year. I had received
my baccalaureate degree with honors, and was in my second year of
graduate study. I had not really degenerated morally or religiously. For
the entire year ending at the date at which I had now arrived, the
aggregate time devoted to female-impersonation and coquetry was
approximately one hundred hours, as compared with about twenty-one
hundred devoted to my studies and two hundred and fifty to the worship
of my Creator and religious culture. Surely I was not to be tabooed as a
moral leper. While the average church member, through lack of
understanding of the conditions surrounding my life, would have branded
me as a hypocrite, I sincerely believed and lived up to the fundamental
truths of the Christian religion.
I still enjoyed an unblemished reputation. I associated with all my
beaux, including my soldier friend, incognito. Always on returning home
after an evening passed as “Jennie June,” I took precautions that I was
not followed.
The wreck of my happy and highly successful student-career was now
brought about by a physician whom I had consulted in hope of a cure for
my inversion, but not one of the two gentlemen already named. He
happened to number the president of the university among his friends,
and whispered to him that I ought not to be continued as a student. I
was immediately expelled.
[Sidenote: _Expelled from University._]
I earned my living in a minor capacity in the university, and expulsion
also meant that my income was cut off. The shock of expulsion rendered
me a mental wreck. But I did not have the courage to return to my
village home. Nor could I even apply to my father for money. Since soon
after my arrest two years prior to the present date, he had, as already
described, displayed a pronounced antipathy for me, rendering my visits
home almost intolerable. In addition, because of the double-life my
nature forced me to lead, I decided I must remain in New York.