HISTORY I.--The following narrative has been written by a
university man trained in psychology:--
So far as I have been able to learn, none of my ancestors for at
least three generations have suffered from any nervous or mental
disease; and of those more remote I can learn nothing at all. It
appears probable, then, that any peculiarities of my own sexual
development must be explained by reference to the somewhat
peculiar environment.
I was the first child and was, naturally, somewhat spoiled--a
process which tended to increase my natural tendency to
sentimentality. On the other hand, I was shy and undemonstrative
with all except my nearest relatives, and with them as well after
my seventh or eighth year. And here it may be well to describe my
"mental type," as this is probably the most important factor in
determining the direction of one's mental development. Of mental
types the "visual" is, of course, by far the most common, but in
my own case visual imagery was never strong or vivid, and has
constantly grown weaker. The dominant part has been played by
tactual, muscular and organic sensations, placing me as one of
the "tactual motor" type, with strong "verbal motor" and
"organic" tendencies. In reading a novel I seldom have a mental
picture of the character or situation, but easily imagine the
sensations (except the visual) and feel something of the emotions
described. When telling of any event I have a strong impulse to
make the movements described and to gesticulate. I remember
events in terms of movements and the words to be used in giving
an account of them; and in thinking of any subject I can feel the
movements of the larynx and, in a less degree, of the lips and
tongue that would be involved in putting my thoughts into words.
I am easily moved to emotion, even to sentimentality, but am
seldom if ever deeply affected and am so averse to any display of
my feelings that I have the reputation among my acquaintances of
being cold, unfeeling and unemotional. I am naturally quiet and
bashful to a degree, which has rendered all forms of social
intercourse painful through much of my life, and this in spite of
a real longing to associate with people on terms of intimacy. As
a child I was sensitive and solitary; later I became morbid as
well. In a character so constituted the feelings and impulses of
the moment are likely to rule, and such has been my constant
experience, though a large element of obstinacy in my character
has kept me from appearing impulsive, and slight influences will
bring about reactions which seem out of all proportion to their
cause. For instance, I cannot, even now, read the more erotic of
Boccaccio's stories without a good deal of sexual excitement and
restlessness, which can be relieved only by vigorous exercise or
masturbation.
The first ten years of my life were passed on a farm, most of the
time without playmates or companions of my own age.
As far back as I can remember I indulged in elaborate day-dreams
in which I figured as the chief character along with a few others
who were chiefly creatures of my imagination, but at times
borrowed from reality. These others were always boys until I
learned the proper function of the sexual organs, when girls
usurped the whole stage in numbers beyond the limits of a Turkish
harem. Even at school my day-dreams were scarcely interrupted,
for my shyness and timidity made me very unpopular among my
schoolmates, who tormented me after the fashion of small boys or
neglected me, as the spirit moved them. To make matters worse, I
was brought up under the "sheltered life system," kept carefully
away from the "bad boys," which category included nearly all the
youngsters of the community, and deluged with moral homilies and
tirades on things religious until I was thoroughly convinced that
goodness and discomfort, the right and the unpleasant, were
strictly synonymous; and I was kept through much of the time
facing the prospect of an early death, to be followed by the good
old orthodox hell or the equal miseries of its gorgeous
alternative. I may say in all seriousness that this is a
conservative and unexaggerated account of one phase of my early
life--the one, I think, that tended most strongly to make me
introspective and morbid. Later on, when I was trying to abandon
the habit of masturbation, this early training greatly increased
the despair I felt at each successive failure.
The first traces of sexual excitement that I can now recall
occurred when I was about 4 years old. I had erections quite
frequently and found a mild pleasure in fondling my genitals when
these occurred, especially just after waking in the morning. I
had no notion of an orgasm, and never succeeded in producing one
until I was 13 years of age. In the summer of my sixth year I
experienced pleasurable sensations in daubing my genitals with
oil and then fondling or rubbing them, but I abandoned this
amusement after getting some irritating substance into the
meatus. A year later my mother warned me that playing with my
penis would "make me very sick," but since experience had taught
me that this was not true, my conviction that what was forbidden
must necessarily be pleasant, sent me directly to my favorite
retreat in the barn loft to experiment. Since, however, I failed,
in spite of persistent effort, to produce any such pleasant
results as I had expected, I soon gave up my attempts for other
kinds of amusement.
A few months after this, in midsummer, a very sensual servant
girl began a series of attempts to satisfy herself sexually with
my help. She came nearly every day into the loft where I was
playing and did her best to initiate me into the mysteries of
sexual relationships, but I proved a sorry pupil. She would rub
my penis until it became erect and then, placing me upon her,
would insert the penis in her vulva and make movements of her
thighs and hips calculated to cause friction. At times she varied
the program by lying upon me and embracing me passionately. I can
remember distinctly her quick, gasping breath and convulsive
movements. She generally ended the seance by persuading me to
perform cunnilingus upon her. None of these performances were
intelligible to me and I invariably protested against being
compelled to leave my play to amuse her. Even her fondling of my
genitals annoyed me; and, stranger still, I preferred satisfying
her by cunnilingus to the attempts at coitus.
It was nearly a year later that I experienced the first
unmistakable manifestations of the sexual impulse--erections
accompanied by lustful feeling and vague desires of whose proper
satisfaction I had no notion whatever. It never occurred to me to
associate my experiences with the servant girl with these new
sensations. The peculiar fact about them was that they were
generally occasioned by the infliction of pain upon animals. I do
not remember how I first discovered that they could be evoked in
this way, but I can clearly recollect many of my efforts to
arouse this pleasurable excitement by abusing the dog or the
cats, or by prodding the calves with a nail set in the end of a
broom handle. I seldom manipulated my genitals at this time, and
when I did it was for the purpose of causing sexual excitement
rather than allaying it.
During this same year I got my first idea of sexual intercourse
by watching animals copulate; but my powers of observation must
have been limited, for I supposed that the penis of the male
entered the anus of the female. In watching the coitus of animals
I experienced lively sexual excitement and lustful sensations,
located not only in the genitals, but apparently in the anus as
well. I often excited, myself by imagining myself playing the
part of the female animal--a peculiar combination of passive
pederasty and bestiality. A servant girl put me to right on the
error of observation just mentioned, but neglected to apply the
principle to human animals, and I remained for another year in
complete ignorance of the structure of woman's sexual organs and
of the intercourse between man and woman. In the meantime I
cultivated my fancies of intercourse with animals, often still
perversely imagining myself taking the part of the female; and
the notion of such relationships gradually became so familiar as
to seem possible and desirable. This is especially significant in
view of later developments.
Up to my eleventh or twelfth year the erotic element in my
daydreaming varied with the seasons. In the summer it played a
dominant part, while in the winter it was almost entirely absent,
owing, it may be, to the fact that most of my time was spent
indoors or on long, tiresome tramps to and from school, and the
further fact that during the winter I saw but little of the
animals which had acted as a stimulus to sexual excitement. So
little was I troubled in winter and so ignorant was I of normal
intercourse that sleeping with a cousin, a girl of about my own
age (7 or 8 years), resulted in no addition to my knowledge of
things sexual.
It was early in my ninth year that I first learned something of
the anatomical difference between man and woman and of the
functions of the sexual organs in coitus. These were explained to
me by a young male servant, who, however, told me nothing of
conception or pregnancy. At first I was very little interested,
as it did not immediately occur to me to associate my own erotic
experiences with the matter of these revelations; but under the
faithful tuition of my new instructor I soon began to desire
normal coitus, and my interest in the sexual affairs of animals
weakened accordingly. His teachings went still further, for he
masturbated before me, then persuaded me to masturbate him, and
finally practiced coitus inter femora upon me. He also tried to
masturbate me, but was unable to produce an orgasm, though I
found the experiment mildly pleasurable.
Early in my eleventh year we left the farm and lived in the city
for several months. In the meantime there had been no
developments in my sexual life beyond what has already been
indicated. In the city I found so much to interest and amuse me
that I almost entirely forgot my erotic day-dreams and desires.
Though my chief playmates were two girls of about my own age I
never thought of attempting sexual intercourse with them, as I
might easily have done, for they were much wiser and more
experienced in these things than myself. Shortly before the end
of our stay in town an older schoolmate explained to me as much
of the process of reproduction as is usually known by a
precocious youngster of 12 years, but I firmly refused to credit
his statements. He adduced the fact of lactation in proof of the
correctness of his views, but I had been too thoroughly steeped
in supernaturalism to be very amenable to naturalistic evidence
of this sort and remained obdurate. But the suggestion stayed
with me and perplexed me not a little; when we returned to the
farm I began to watch the reproductive process in animals.
The following two years were decidedly unpleasant. I was growing
rapidly and was sluggish, awkward and stupid. At school I was
more unpopular than ever and seemed to have a positive genius
for doing the wrong thing. On the rare occasions when my
companions admitted me to their counsels I was a willing dupe and
catspaw, with the result that I was much in trouble with my
teachers. Being morbidly sensitive I suffered keenly under these
circumstances and, as my health was not at all good, I often made
of my frequent headaches excuses to stay at home, where I would
lie abed brooding over my small troubles or, more often, dreaming
erotic day-dreams and making repeated attempts to produce an
orgasm. But though these efforts were accompanied by the most
lustful thoughts and my imagination created situations of
oriental extravagance, I was 13 years old when they first met
with success. I remember the occasion very distinctly, the more
so because I thought of it much and bitterly when shortly
afterwards I tried to abandon a habit which the family "doctor
book" assured me must result in every variety of damnation. At
the moment, however, I was greatly surprised and gratified and
tried at once to repeat the delightful sensation, but was unable
to do so until the following day. From that time to the present I
think I have masturbated an average of ten times per week, and
this is certainly a very conservative estimate; for though up to
my sixteenth year I could seldom produce an orgasm more than once
a day I have often, during the last four or five years, produced
it from four to seven times per day without difficulty and this
for days and even weeks in succession. During these periods of
excessive masturbation very little liquid was ejaculated and the
pleasurable sensations were slight or entirely lacking.
From the time when I began masturbating regularly practically my
whole interest centered in things pertaining to sex. I read the
chapters of the family "doctor book" which treated of sexual
matters; my day-dreams were almost exclusively erotic; I sought
opportunities to talk about sex-relationships with my
schoolmates, with whom I was now slowly getting on better terms;
I collected pictures of nude women, learned a great number of
obscene stories, read such obscene books as I could obtain and
even searched the dictionary for words having a sexual
connotation. Up to my fifteenth year, when ejaculation of semen
began, there was a strong sadistic coloring to my day-dreams.
Through this period, too, my bashfulness in the presence of the
opposite sex increased until it reached the point of absurdity.
When fifteen years old I began to practice coitus inter femora on
my brother and continued it intermittently for about two years.
The experience was disappointing, for I had confidently expected
a great increase of pleasure over masturbation in this act; and
in casting about for some stronger stimulus I recurred to the
forgotten idea of intercourse with animals. I promptly tried to
put the idea to a test, but failed several times, and finally
succeeded, only to find that the result fell far short of my
expectations. Nevertheless I continued the practice irregularly
for about three years--or rather through that part of the three
years that I spent at home, for while I was at school opportunity
for such indulgence was lacking. Long familiarity with the idea
of intercourse with animals had made it impossible for me to feel
the disgust with the practice which it inspires in most people;
and even the perusal of Exodus xxii: 19 failed to make me abandon
it. Firmly as I believed in the Mosaic law the supremacy of the
sexual impulse was complete.
As early as my sixteenth year I tried to abandon "self-abuse" in
all its forms and have repeatedly made the same effort since that
time but never with more than very partial success. On two or
three occasions I have stopped for periods of several weeks, but
only to begin again and indulge more recklessly than before. The
deep depression which followed each failure, and often each act
of masturbation, I attributed solely to the loss of semen,
leaving out of account the fact that I expected to feel depressed
and the utter discouragement and self-contempt which accompanied
the sense of failure and weakness when, in the face of my
resolution, I repeatedly gave way and yielded to the temptation
to an act whose consequences I firmly believed must be ruinous. I
am now convinced that by far the greater part of this depression
was due to suggestion and the humiliating sense of defeat. And
this feeling of moral impotence, this seeming helplessness
against an overpowering impulse which, on the other hand, seemed
so trivial when viewed without passion, eventually weakened my
self-control to a degree guessed by no one but myself and sapped
the foundations of my moral life in a way which I have constant
occasion to deplore.
The foregoing paragraphs give, I think, a fair idea of my
condition when I left home for a boarding school at the beginning
of my seventeenth year. From this time my experiences may be said
to have run on in two distinct cycles--that of the summer months
when I was at home, and that of the remainder of the year when I
was at school. This fact will make some confusion and apparent
inconsistency in the rest of this "history" unavoidable. When I
left home I was shy, retiring, totally ignorant of social usage,
without self-confidence, unambitious, dreamy, and subject to fits
of melancholy. I masturbated at least once a day, though I was in
almost constant rebellion against the habit. In my more idle
moments I elaborated erotic day dreams in which there was a
peculiar mixture of the purely sensual and the purely ideal
element; which never fused in my experience, but held the field
alternately or mingled somewhat in the manner of air and water.
One person usually served as the object of my ideal attachment,
another as the center round which I grouped my sensual dreams and
desires.
At school I found more congenial companions than I had fallen in
with elsewhere, and the necessary contact with people of both
sexes gradually wore off some of the rougher corners and brought
a measure of self-confidence. I had two or three incipient love
affairs which my backwardness kept from growing serious. Out of
this change of environment came a sense of expansion, of escape
from self, which was distinctly pleasant. I still masturbated
regularly, but no longer experienced the former depression except
when at home during vacation. Relatively to the past, life was
now so varied and interesting that I had less and less time for
melancholy; and the discovery that I could lead my classes and
hold my own in athletic sports seemed to indicate that my past
fears had been exaggerated. Nevertheless I was never reconciled
to the habit and often rebelled at the weakness that kept me its
slave.
When I entered the university the effects of my useless struggle
with the practice of masturbation were pretty well developed. I
could no longer fix my attention steadily upon my work and found
that only by "cribbing" and "bluffing" could I keep my place at
the head of my classes. I was troubled not a little by the
shoddiness of my work, and tried again and again during the
course of the two years spent at this college to shake off the
habit. At the university I was introduced gradually to a wider
social circle and so far outgrew my bashfulness that I began to
seek the society of the opposite sex assiduously. As I gained
self-confidence I became reckless, getting at one time into
serious trouble with the authorities which came near resulting in
my expulsion. I became one of the more popular members of the
clique to which I belonged--much to my surprise and even more to
that of my acquaintances. The physical culture craze attacked me
at this time and my pet ambition was the attainment of strength
and agility. My bump of vanity also grew apace, but an unmeasured
hatred of all kinds of foppishness kept me on the safe side of
moderation in my dress and behavior.
During my second year of university life I had two love affairs
in the course of which I found that my interest in any particular
member of the fair sex disappeared as soon as it was returned.
The pursuit was fascinating enough, but I cared nothing at all
for the prize when once it was within reach. I may add that the
interest I had in the girls was purely ideal. While at this
school I do not think I masturbated half as often as while at the
preparatory school.
When I left this college for ---- University I took with me a
formidable catalogue of good resolutions, first among which was
the determination to abandon all kinds of "self-abuse." I think I
kept this one about a month. As I had gone from a comparatively
small school to one of the largest of American universities the
change was great and the revelations it brought me frequently
humiliating. I was lonesome, home-sick, and my bump of
self-esteem was woefully bruised; and not unnaturally I soon
began to seek a partial solace in day-dreams and masturbation.
After I had become somewhat adapted to my new environment I
indulged less frequently in either, and from that time to the
present I have masturbated very irregularly, sometimes but little
and again to excess.
Not long after I came to this place I met a young lady with whom
I soon became quite intimate. For over a year our friendship was
strictly platonic and then swung suddenly around to a sexual
basis. We were ardent lovers for a few weeks, after which I tired
of the game as I had before in other cases, and broke off all
relations with her as abruptly as was possible. Since then I have
almost wholly withdrawn from the society and companionship of
women and have almost entirely lost whatever tact and assurance I
once possessed in their company. Things pertaining to sexual life
have interested me rather more than less, but have occupied my
attention much less exclusively than before this episode. Though
I have never intended to marry, my breaking off relations with
this girl affected me much. At any rate it marked an abrupt
change in the character of my sexual experiences. The sexual
impulse seems to have lost its power to rouse me to action.
Hitherto I had practiced masturbation always under protest, as it
were--as the only available form of sexual satisfaction; while
now I resigned myself to it as all that there was to hope for in
that field. Of course I knew that a little effort or a little
money would procure natural satisfaction of my sexual needs, but
I also knew that I would never, under any ordinary circumstances,
put forth the necessary effort, and fear of venereal disease has
been more than enough to keep me away from houses of
prostitution.
Some months ago I refrained from masturbation for a period of
about six weeks and watched carefully for any change in my health
or spirits, but noticed none at all. The only impulse to
masturbate was occasioned by fits of restlessness accompanied by
erections and a mildly pleasurable feeling of fullness in the
penis and scrotum. I think that over 75 per cent, of my acts of
masturbation are provoked by these fits of restlessness and are
unaccompanied by fancy images, erotic thoughts, lustful desires,
or marked pleasure. At other times the act is occasioned by
erotic thoughts and images, and is accompanied by a considerable
degree of lustful pleasure which, however, is never so intense as
in my earlier experiences and has steadily decreased from the
first. Usually the orgasm is accompanied by a strong contraction
of all the voluntary muscles, particularly the extensors,
followed by a slight giddiness and slight feeling of exhaustion.
If repeated several times in the course of a single day the acts
are followed by dullness and lassitude; otherwise the feeling of
exhaustion passes away quickly and a sense of relief and quiet
takes its place. So natural or rather habitual has this resort
to masturbation as a means of relief from nervousness and
restlessness become that the act is almost instinctive in its
unconsciousness.
I am extremely sensitive to all kinds of sexual influences, and
have an insatiable curiosity regarding everything that pertains
to the sexual life of men or women. I am not, however, excited
sexually by conversation about sexual facts and relationships, no
matter what its nature, though in reading erotic literature my
excitement is often intense.
The tendency to day dream has never left me, but there are no
longer any elaborate scenes or long-continued "stories," these
having been replaced by vaguely imagined incidents which are
usually broken off before they reach a satisfactory climax. They
are always interrupted by the intrusion of other matters, usually
of more practical interest; and the long-continued habit of
satisfying myself by masturbation has made erotic dreams rather
tantalizing than pleasurable. I dream very seldom at night--at
least I can scarcely ever remember any dreams upon waking--and
practically never of sexual relations. I have not had a nocturnal
emission for over three years, and probably not more than
twenty-five in my life.
In my "love passages" with girls there has been no serious
thought of coitus on my part, and I have never had intercourse
with a woman--unless my early experiences with the servant girl
be called such. Like all masturbators I always idealized "love"
to the utter exclusion of all sensual cravings; and the notion
that the physical act of coitus was something degrading and
destructive of real love rather than its consummation was, of all
prejudices I have ever formed, the most difficult to escape--a
circumstance due, I suppose, to the fact that all I had ever been
taught on the subject tended to the complete divorce of what was
called "love" from what was stigmatized as a "base sensual
desire." Judging from my own experience and observation I should
say that "ideal love" is a mere surface feeling, bound to
disappear as soon as it has gained its object by arousing a
reciprocal interest on the part of the one to whom it is
directed. So little did I "materialize" the objects of my "love"
that I have never cared for kissing or the warm embraces in which
lovers usually indulge. I have never kissed but one girl, and her
with far too little enthusiasm to satisfy her. My last sweetheart
was a very passionate girl, the warmth of whose embraces was
somewhat torrid and, to me, both puzzling and annoying. The
intensity of feeling which demanded such strenuous expression was
beyond my knowledge of human nature. A somewhat peculiar
circumstance in connection with these experiences is the fact
that I often found myself trying to analyze my emotions with a
purely psychological interest while playing the part of the
intoxicated lover in his mistress's arms.
There is but little left to say on the subject of my sexual
development. During the last two or three years my knowledge of
the facts of the sexual life has been very greatly increased,
and I have become acquainted with phases of human nature which
were wholly unknown to me before. The part played by things
sexual in my life is still, I suppose, abnormally large; it is
undoubtedly the largest single interest, though my outer life is
determined almost wholly by other considerations.
Of course I know nothing of the effect which long-continued
masturbation may have had on my ability to perform normal coitus.
I do not think I am subject to any kind of sexual perversion, for
all my indulgence has been _faute de mieux_ and, at least since I
began masturbation, all my desires and erotic day-dreams have had
to do only with normal coitus. The mystery which surrounds the
sexual act seems at times to be regaining its former influence
and power of fascination. I have no doubt, however, but that I
should be greatly disillusioned should I ever perform coitus; and
I greatly regret that I have not been able to test this
conviction and so round out and complete this "history."
It may be worth while to say a word about my religious
experiences, as, in many cases, they are closely bound up with
the sexual impulse. I was never "converted," but on a dozen or
more occasions approached the crisis more or less closely. The
dominant emotion in these experiences was always fear, sometimes
with anger and despair intermixed in varying proportions. A
complete analysis of these experiences is, of course, impossible,
but the various pleasurable feelings of which converts spoke in
the revivals which I attended were a closed book to me. Following
my revival-meeting experiences came a few days spent in a sort of
moral exaltation during which I eschewed all my habits of which
conventional morality disapproved, save masturbation, and felt no
small satisfaction with my moral conditions. I became a
first-rate Pharisee. Toward the women who had figured in my day
dreams I suddenly conceived the chastest affection, resolutely
smothering every sensual thought and fancy when thinking of them,
and putting in place of these elements ideal love,
self-sacrifice, knightly devotion--Sunday-school Garden-of-Eden
pictures with a mediæval, romantic coloring. These day-dreams
were always sexual, involving situations of extreme complexity
and monumental silliness. Masturbation was always continued and
usually with increased frequency. The end of these periods was
always abrupt and much like awaking from a dream in which the
dreamer has been behaving in a manner to arouse his own disgust.
They were followed by feelings of sheepishness and self-contempt
mingled with anger and a dislike of all things having to do with
religion. My inability to pass the conversion crisis and a
growing contempt for empty enthusiasm finally led me to a saner
attitude toward religion, from which I passed easily into
religious scepticism; and later the study of philosophy and
science, and particularly of psychology, banished the last
lingering remnant of faith in a supernatural agency and led me
to the passion for facts and indifference to values which have
caused me to be often called "dead to all morality."
HISTORY II.--C.A., aged 25, unmarried; tutor, preparing to take
Holy Orders:--
My paternal ancestry (which is largely Huguenot) is noteworthy
for its patriotism and its large families. My father, who died
when I was a year old, is remembered for the singular uprightness
and purity of his life from his earliest childhood. The
photograph which I have shows him as possessed of a rare classic
beauty of features. He was an ideal husband and father. At the
time of his death he was a Master of Arts and a school principal.
My mother is an extraordinarily neurotic woman, yet famed among
her friends for her great domesticity, attachment to her
husbands, and an almost abnormal love of babies. She has nobly
borne the ill-treatment of her second husband, who for several
years has been in a state of melancholia. My mother has been
"highly-wrought" all her life, and has suffered intensely from
fears of all kinds. As a young girl she was somnambulistic, and
once fell down a stairhead during sleep. In spite of her bodily
sufferings with indigestion, eye-strain, and depression she
retains her youthfulness. She has slight powers of reasoning. She
has had times of unconsciousness and rigidity, I have never heard
any mention of epilepsy. She has a horror of showing prudishness
in regard to the healthful manifestations of sex life, and is
always praising examples of what she terms "a natural woman."
I have heard that during my first year my mother detected my
nurse in the act of putting a morphine powder on my tongue for
the purpose of keeping me quiet. I was subject to convulsions at
this period, and narrowly escaped a permanent hernia. My family
tell me that from the beginning I was a well-developed and boyish
boy, full of mischief, impulsive, good to look upon, unusually
affectionate, beloved by all.
In my third year I took pleasure in crawling under the bed with
my boy-cousin who was nine months my senior, and after we had
taken down our drawers, in kissing each other's nates. I do not
remember which of us first thought of this pastime.
At the age of 4 I gave myself a treat by gazing upward through a
cellar window at the nates of a woman who was defecating from
several feet above into a cesspool that lay beneath. It was
during this summer also that I frightened myself by pulling back
my prepuce far enough to disclose the purple glans, which I had
never seen before. But this act gave me no desire to masturbate.
When 5 years old, and living in a great city, I drew indecent
pictures in company with a little girl and her younger brother.
These pictures represented men in the act of urinating. The
penes were drawn large, and the streams of urine plainly
indicated. One afternoon I induced the boy to go to the
bath-room, lie on his back, and allow me to perform _fellatio_ on
him. I did not ask him to return the favor. I remember the
curious tar-like smell of his clothing and the region about his
genitals. It is possible that I gained my knowledge of _fellatio_
from an unknown boy of 10, who had induced me, during the
preceding summer to enter a sandy lot with him, watch him
urinate, and then, kneeling before him, commit _fellatio_. A year
later, as I was walking home in the rain to our summer cottage,
with an open umbrella over my shoulder, a boy of 15, who was
leaning against our fence, exhibited a large, erect penis, and
when I had passed him urinated upon me and my umbrella. I never
saw the boy again. I felt peculiarly insulted by his act. Back of
the house there lived a 12-year-old boy who invited me to watch
him defecate in the outdoor privy, and during the act told me a
number of indecent stories and words which I cannot remember.
About this time I fell in love with a little Jewish boy next
door. Often I cried myself to sleep over the thought that perhaps
he was lying on a sofa alone and crying with a stomach-ache. I
longed to embrace him; and yet I saw little of him, and made
little of him when I was with him.
Living in a Western city a few months later, some girls of 12 and
14 led me to their barn, where they dressed themselves in boys'
clothing and made believe that they were cowboys. One of them
told me to "shut my eyes, open my mouth, and get a surprise."
When I opened my eyes once more a piece of hen-dung lay in my
mouth. I have a vague remembrance of one of the girls asking me
to enter a water-closet with her. She uttered some indelicate
phrase, but I performed no act with her. In the house where I
lived I once entered the bedroom of a half-grown girl while she
was dressing. She knelt to kiss me innocently enough, and I, by a
sudden impulse, ran my hand between her bare neck and her corset
as far as I could reach. Apparently she took no notice of my
movement. Although I did not masturbate, yet during this winter I
experienced a tickling sensation about my genitals when I placed
my hand beneath them as I lay on my stomach in bed. One evening I
pulled up my night-dress and, holding my penis in my hand, I
danced to and fro on the carpet. I imagined that I was one of a
line of naked men and women who were advancing toward another
similar line that faced them. I imagined myself as pleasurably
coming in contact with my female partner who possessed male
genitals.
The following summer I lived in the woods. My next-door playmate
was a little girl of my own age--6 years. She sat down before me
in the barn and exposed her genitals. This was the first time I
had seen female organs, or had thought for a moment that they
differed from my own. In great perplexity I asked the little
girl: "Has it been cut off?" She and I defecated in peach baskets
that we found in the upper part of the barn.
When I was 7 years old and back in the Eastern city I lived in
the house of a physician. Alone with his 3-year-old daughter one
day, I showed her my erect organ, and felt a delicious
gratification when she stroked it with the words: "Nice! Nice!" I
confessed my fault to my guardian that night after I had said my
prayers. I had complained to my mother a year before of the
inconvenience I found in my penis being "so long sometimes." She
said that she would "see about having the end taken off." But I
was never circumcised. Her words gave me the doubly unpleasant
impression that my _glans_ was to be cut off.
There came occasionally to the kitchen of Dr. W.'s house a
foul-mouthed Irish laundress who used coarse language to me
concerning urination. I loathed the woman, and yet one night I
dreamed that I was embracing her naked form and rolling over and
over with her on the bed; and in spite of my sight of female
genitals a few months before, I thought of her as having organs
of my own kind and size. At my first school I watched a
red-haired boy of 12 expose the penis of a 7-year-old boy as he
lay on his back in the bath-room. I do not remember that the
sight gave me sexual pleasure.
I spent the summer before I was 8 in a double house. The adopted
daughter of our neighbor (a neurotic, retired physician) was a
girl of 13 who had been taken from a poor laboring family. She
got me to show her my parts, touched them, and asked whether I
urinated from my scrotum. She also induced me to play with her
genitals as we sat on a sofa in the twilight, and to spank her
naked nates with the back of a hair-brush as she lay on a bed;
but from none of these performances did I derive physical
satisfaction. The girl E. and I took delight in "talking dirty
secrets," as she expressed it. Her young cousin H. (nephew of her
adopted mother) never heard me use the word "thing" without
suggestively smiling. E. recalled the pleasant hours that she had
spent with her cousin when they were in their night-gowns. She
did not particularize these sexual relations. Under the
board-walk the boy H. and I once defecated in bottles. Some
little girls who lived opposite us pulled up their dresses one
night and "dared" each other to dance out beyond the end of the
house, in full view of the road. We boys merely looked on.
I now fell passionately in love with a remarkably handsome little
boy of my own age. I longed to kiss and hug him, but I did not
dare to do so, for he was haughty and intolerant of my
attentions. I even allowed him to stand with one foot on me and
remark in a loud tone: "I am Conqueror!" I endured no end of
petty insults and much ill-treatment from this boy. I reached the
height of my passion on the night that he appeared at our
cottage in a tight-fitting suit of pepper-and-salt. I gloried in
his perfect legs and besought my guardian that she would buy me a
similar suit of clothes.
For the summer after I was 8 years old I lived in a cottage in a
country town. The servant maid M. was a young girl of 16 who
listened eagerly to my accounts of the "secrets" and actions in
which the girl E. and I had taken delight a year before. I think
that M. arranged a meeting between a little black-haired girl and
me in order that we might take a walk and play sexually with each
other. Just as we were starting on our walk one of my relatives
said that I must not leave the yard.
The little girl and I had see-sawed together and I had been
interested in her legs as she rose in the air. (When I was 13
years old and see-sawing at a picnic with a stout girl, the
motion of the board and the sight of her straddled form filled me
with longing to embrace her sexually.) One afternoon M. took me
to the house of an acquaintance of hers. M's brother was in the
room and made a number of unremembered remarks which struck me as
being rather "free," and M. told me later that she and the girl
once dressed as ballet dancers and danced before M.'s brother. I
felt that he was lascivious. I was always remarkably intuitive.
I fell in love with a handsome, stout, black-haired boy who lived
on a farm; but he was not a "farmer's son" in the common sense of
the word. I visited him for two or three days, and we slept with
each other, to my boundless joy. For his freckled girl cousin I
did not care the turn of my wrist, although she was a nice enough
little thing. One night when we three lay on a bed in the dark,
and neither of us boys had eyes or words for her, she silently
left us. He and I never committed the slightest sexual fault. I
left him with tears at the summer-end, and I often kissed his
photograph during the following winter.
In the flat-house where I began to live when I was 8 years old, I
once practiced mutual tickling of a very slight character with a
boy of my own age. We sat on chairs placed opposite to each other
and we inserted our fingers through the openings in our trousers.
Just as we were beginning to enjoy the titillation we were
interrupted by the approach of one of my family who, however, was
not quick enough to discover us. Down cellar I often saw the
genitals of the janitor's little girls--they were fond of lifting
their skirts and they did not wear drawers--but I had no desire
to attempt conjunction. I once caught an older friend of mine (he
was 13) in the act of leaving one of the girls. The pair had been
in a coal-compartment. The boy was buttoning his trousers and I
guessed what he had been doing. When I began to sleep alone in my
tenth year I had no desire to masturbate, and was loath to do so
by reason of ample warnings given me by my guardian and by the
family physician. One afternoon a stunted friend of mine sat down
in the back yard and astonished me by tying a piece of string to
his penis. At a large private school which I now attended I made
the acquaintance of the principal's son, and wondered why he had
such a fancy for dressing his 5-year-old sister in boy's clothes.
He closed the door on me while he was thus engaged. At my house
we went to the bath-room together, and he showed me his
circumcised and much-ridged penis. Neither of us made any mention
of masturbating.
At this period I fell slightly in love with a 5-year-old boy with
intensely black eyes. I would kiss him whenever we were alone,
but I had no wish to seduce him. I was always interested in
watching the urination of younger children. When I was 5 years
old I went on my knees to a strange little boy in order to
whisper in his ear an inquiry as to whether he wanted to urinate.
I experienced a pleasurable thrill when I was 10 years old in
leading a small girl cousin to the outdoor privy, in helping her
on and off the open seat, in buttoning and unbuttoning her
drawers, and in gazing at her vulva.
The summer before I was 10 I lived a wild life in the mountains.
My companions were a negro girl, the two daughters of a
clergyman, the two sons of a questionable woman hotel-keeper, and
the daughter of the Irish scavenger. All of these children were
extraordinarily sensual. Their leading pastime, from morning
until night, was varying forms of indecency, with the supreme
caress--which they termed "raising dickie"--as the most frequent
enjoyment. The 5-year-old daughter of the scavenger explained to
us how she had seen her father approaching her stout mother with
an erect penis, the pair standing up before the lamplight during
the act. This curly-headed, rosy-cheeked child handled her
genitals so much that they were inflamed. I once saw her sitting
in the road and rubbing dust against her vulva. I saw little of
the elder daughter of the minister (she was 12 years old). She
persuaded me to expose myself before her in the cellar of a
partially-built house. In return for my favor she allowed me to
look at her genitals. She did not ask for _conjunctio_. The two
younger daughters were my intimates. With the middle one I was
forever performing a weak conjunction that consisted in the
laying of my member against her vulva. Notwithstanding all the
entreaties of my little friend, I could not be persuaded to
protrude my penis against her vagina; and not on one occasion can
I remember obtaining an erection or extreme pleasure. Up in the
garret she straddled slanting beams with her genitals exposed,
and I followed her example. The negro girl and my little friend
both urinated on a tent floor at my request. I did not fancy the
odor of a girl's genitals, nor the appearance of the vulva when
the labia were held apart.
The following summer, when I was almost 11, I took a long walk
one day with my old friend, the girl E. We entered a patch of
woods and ate our lunch, but no sense of sexual drawing toward
the girl came over me and she did not offer to entice me. I
slept with her boy-cousin one night, and her neuropathic aunt, a
retired lady physician, bothered us by repeatedly creeping into
our room. I felt intuitively that she was watching to see whether
we would commit mutual masturbation--which we had no thought of
doing. Three years before I had opened the door of her bedroom
suddenly and saw E.'s naked form. The physician had been
examining her, E. told me later. My guardian also annoyed me by
repeated warnings not to play with myself.
Just before I turned 11 I was sent to a small and so-called
"home" boarding-school. Eight of us lived in the smaller
dormitory. The matron roomed downstairs. There was no resident
master--a serious error. We small boys were told to strip one
evening. We were then tied neck-to-neck and made to dance a
"slave-dance," which was marked by no sexuality. A boy of 15, R.,
one afternoon gave me the astonishing information that my father
had taken a part in my procreation. Up to this moment I had known
only of the maternal offices, information of which had been
beautifully supplied to me by my guardian when I was 7 years old.
At that time I talked freely about the coming of a baby brother
in a distant city; I watched the construction of baby clothes; I
named the newcomer, and I was momentarily disappointed when he
proved to be a girl. This same R., a strong boy with a large
penis, got into the custom of lying in bed with me just before
lights were put out. He would read to himself and occasionally
pause to pump his penis and make with his lips the sound of a
laboring locomotive. I felt impelled to handle his organ, for I
was fascinated by its size, and stiffness, and warmth. Rarely he
would titillate my then small and unerect penis. R. never
ejaculated when he was with me; hence not until my third year was
I acquainted with the appearance of a flow of semen. Sometimes R.
would stop during his dressing to manipulate his penis, but was
such a picture of rosy health that I doubt whether he brought
himself often to ejaculation. R. told me that he had been to a
brothel where his genitals were examined to determine whether
they were large enough and not diseased. He also related how he
"played cow" with a girl of his own age, she consenting to
perform _fellatio_ upon him. A dark-skinned, unwashed, pimpled
but fairly vigorous boy of 16, with an irritable domineering
manner, told me the delights of coitus with a girl in a
bath-house, and I overheard his conversation with another "old"
boy concerning the purchase of a girl in a big city for the sum
of five dollars. No details were given.
I will now pass to my third year, when I was 13 years old. A
large, well-set-up boy of 16, A., became my idol. His toleration
of my presence in his room filled me with endless love. When I
lied about a matter in which he was concerned, his denunciation
of me brought me to a state of shuddering and weeping
unspeakable. When our relations were established again A.
allowed me to creep into his bed after the lights were out, and
there I passionately embraced him, but without performing any
definite act. When I turned over on my side with my back to him
he drew my prepuce back and forth until I experienced orgasm, but
not ejaculation. I would return his favor by pumping his erect
penis, but with no ejaculation on his part. He did not propose
_fellatio_, and I did not think of it. One night when he was in
my bed I began to masturbate very slightly, whereupon he laughed,
saying: "So that is the way you amuse yourself!" As a matter of
fact the habit was not fastened upon me. He always laughed when
the rubbing of his finger on my exposed glans caused me to
shrink. Another boy, H., now began to show me his erect penis and
we practiced mutual manipulations. A. laughingly told me how me
had caught H. in the act of masturbating as he stood in the
bath-tub. A. told me a number of sexual stories--how he enjoyed
coitus in the bushes with a girl on the way home from
entertainments; how half a dozen boys and girls stripped in the
basement of a church and performed coitus on the velvet chairs
which stood behind the pulpit; and how he and a younger boy, who
camped out together, played with each other's genitals. F., a boy
of 11, was highly nervous, subject to timidity and tears on the
slightest provocation, often morose, and under treatment for
kidney trouble. His penis was erect whenever I saw him undress.
He told me that a partially idiotic man taught F. and his
companion how to masturbate. The man invited the boys to his tent
and there pumped his organ until "some white stuff came out of
it." F. also told me that an Indian princess in his part of the
country would permit coitus for fifty cents. A. sometimes slept
with F., and I could imagine their embraces. S., a secretive,
handsome boy of 13, wetted his bed with urine every night. The
only sign that he gave of an interest in sexuality was his
laughing remark concerning the coupling of rose-bugs. Of his
chum, my beloved C., I will speak later. My small room-mate
handled himself only slightly. I never had a desire to lie with
him, since I disliked him, nor with my first room-mate, a
"chunky," fiery boy of 10, whose penis interested me merely
because it was circumcised and almost always erect. His
masturbation was also so slight as not to attract any particular
attention. A lusty German boy, B., showed no signs of sexuality
until his third year, when he laughed about his newly-appearing
pubic hair, and told several of us openly of how he enjoyed to
play "a drum-beat" on his penis before going to sleep. "I don't
do it too much, though," he explained. He showed a mild curiosity
when I gave him the resumé of a book on cohabitation which
contained illustrations of the erect penis and the female organs.
I had found this book in the woods and I read it eagerly during
my third year.
I came to the point of agreeing with A., who said: "Everyone is
smutty." Indeed I lived in a lustful world, and yet my mind was
bent also on books, and writing, and the outdoor world. I was
overgrown and splendidly developed, with a medium-sized penis and
a scant growth of pubic hair. My face wore a somewhat infantile
expression. My mouth was a perfect "Cupid's bow," my hair thin
and light. I was troubled about my snub-nose, which gave the boys
a great deal of amusement. As a matter of fact I exaggerated its
upward tendency out of my morbid self-consciousness and
cowardice. My imagination was extraordinarily intense, as it had
always been. I was sensitive to smells and sounds and colors and
personalities, and to the subtle influence of the night. I was
timid and easily moved to tears, but not from any physical
weakness until after. At the lower house there was the boy Z.,
famed for his large penis; and the older G., a boy of 15, who was
the leader in sexuality at his dormitory. Z. showed me his penis
and exposed his glans often enough, but we did not manipulate
each other. G. told us to notice how large a space his penis
occupied in his trousers, and laughed over Z.'s custom of
masturbating by means of a narrow vase. G.'s special lover was a
nervous boy of ten. It is remarkable that none of us mentioned
_fellatio_ or _pædicatio_. These acts may have occurred at
school, but not to my knowledge. We did not have much to say
sexually about the girls. We heard rumors of a 16-year-old, V.,
who had been sent away from school for coitus; and my first
room-mate was said to have obtained _conjunctio_ with a girl
under cover of the chapel shed. Once A. and I pointed a telescope
at the open windows of the girls' dormitory, but we saw nothing
to interest us. A day-scholar, J., a pale, nervous, bright boy of
13, took me into the study of his uncle-physician and together we
gloated over pictures of the sexual organs. A. was with us on one
occasion. J. told me how he liked to roll over and over in bed
with his hand placed under his scrotum. This act, he said, made
him imagine that he was obtaining coitus. He advised me to slide
my penis back and forth in the vagina whenever I should actually
obtain coitus. In my room at school J. once drew an imaginary map
of a bagnio, in which the water-closet was carefully displayed
_en suite_ with the bedrooms. J. and I never masturbated
together. Indeed, I cannot remember seeing his organ. A hulking
boy of 16, who lived opposite the school-grounds, became intimate
with J., and we three went on a walk up the railroad track. The
big boy, W., tried to inflame my passions by telling me how he
and J. had had coitus with a handsome black-haired widow in town,
but I remained cold.
During this year I fell in love with C., a popular, talkative,
witty boy of my own age, or perhaps a year younger. He fancied me
and we slept together one night under the most innocent
circumstances. I never dreamed of having sexual relations with
him, and yet I fairly burned with love for him. My stay at his
beautiful home over Sunday while his parents were away was one
long delight. We slept in each other's arms, but there was no
sexuality. En route to C.'s home he pointed with a glove to a
little working-girl, saying he would like to have intercourse
with her, but this was the only remark of the kind that ever
passed his lips in my presence. When undressed save for his
undershirt, he laughingly held his unerect organ in his hand and
made the motions of obtaining conjunction with an imaginary
partner. Once we spoke of masturbation (I could recite the
information of my good physician with a marvelous show of
virtue), and C. remarked: "Yes, doing that makes boys crazy." C.
finally grew tired of my deceptive, babyish nature and
ultra-interest in books and puzzles, but I cherished an
undiminished affection for him, and when he was detained at home
for a fortnight with a broken arm, I wrote him a passionate
letter, which I sobbed over and actually wetted with my tears.
But the fervor of my passion died at the close of the year. I
consider this unsullied friendship to be the only redeeming
feature of my sensual days at school.
Versed as I was in the warnings against masturbation, I found
pleasure one afternoon when I was alone in slipping my penis
through the open handle of a pair of scissors and in violently
flapping my partially erect organ until a strange, sweet thrill
crept over me from top to toe and a drop of clear liquid oozed
from my member. But I gave up the manipulation with scissors,
finding a greater satisfaction in masturbating while I was
defecating or just after it. I either pumped my organ by slipping
the prepuce back and forth, or I grasped the organ at its root
and violently jerked it back and forth. I soon began to
masturbate not only every time that I defecated, but also at
night just before I went to sleep, and sometimes early in the
morning. On the whole I preferred the jerking just described. I
always brought about ejaculation after perhaps five minutes of
violent exertion.
My penis became chafed at the root, but I did not especially
care. I remember the afternoon that I masturbated for the first
time while I was defecating in the school water-closet. I cannot
recall that at first I thought of coitus while I masturbated. On
one occasion I masturbated over the _vase de nuit_ after a
delightful afternoon of tobogganing exploration up and down the
mountain.
During this first year of abuse, I felt no ill effects
whatsoever, although I realized, in an unthinking way, that I was
doing wrong. But sexuality had assumed the proportion of a
regular feature of our school life. It was difficult for me to
place a "universal" view in its true perspective. I used to smile
at the glazed, dull morning eye of poor H., who was a stunted boy
of 15, and thus could not endure his losses so well as I could
endure them. The qualms of conscience which I suffered were lost
in my delight in my dawning sexual life. Sometimes I lay on my
stomach in bed, and by placing my hand under my scrotum,
according to the directions of J., brought up a pretty girl to
mind. Just before Sunday school G., our chief reprobate, and the
rest of us would hunt out what we considered to be nasty texts of
Scripture. The chapter concerning the whoredoms of Aholah and
Aholibah gave me an especial pleasure. T. mentioned the giggling
that occurred at prayers in the lower dormitory when the details
of Esau's birth were read out. A few days before G. was
expelled--for exactly what cause I do not know--he told me of how
greatly he enjoyed coitus on his grandmother's sofa with a girl
of fifteen. When I went home on the boat for holidays I noted the
large, black-haired penis of the strong boy of our school. He
occupied a state-room with me, but made no sexual overtures.
Since my twelfth year I had been wrapped up all summer long in a
boy who was six months my senior. We slept together constantly,
but not once did we think of obtaining mutual gratification. On
the contrary, we held up high ideals to each other and frowned on
masturbation. I took delight in saying that I never had handled
myself, and never would do so. Even at the height of my
"auto-erotic" period, I skillfully concealed my habits from all
my boy friends. A neurotic solo choir boy friend once spoke of
obtaining ejaculation, whereupon I expressed utter ignorance of
such an act, little hypocrite that I was. This boy told how the
house servants joked with him about coitus and made laughing
lunges at his organs.
But much as I loved my chum, my most passionate regard went out
in my thirteenth year to N., a chubby, blue-eyed, choir-boy of
12. He was a pretty boy to any eye. He was not gifted, except in
water-sports, and anything but popular either with girls or with
boys; yet I grew warm at the mention of his name. He did not care
a fig for me. From first to last I had no consciousness of the
sexual nature of my passion, and the thought of doing more than
embrace and kiss him in an innocent manner never crossed my mind.
For two summers I had nights of tossing on my bed (although I
almost never was sleepless for any cause) when I would see his
dear face and form, in and out of the swimming pool, or engaged
perhaps in singing or in showing his beautiful teeth. I seldom
was smitten with little girls, and I found myself embarrassed in
their company after my ninth year; yet I thought well enough of
their looks and ways to enjoy their company at dances. The girls
liked me in a platonic way, for I was accounted a good, big,
kind, blundering boy with a helping hand for the smallest fry.
During the summer after I was 13, I imagined myself in the early
morning, when I was half awake, as persuading my wife to have
coitus with me. In the course of my spoken words I kept my hand
under my scrotum.
A plump girl-cousin of my own age was visiting at my uncle's
during the summer after I was 13. With her I greatly desired to
satisfy myself, but I could not be sure that my boy cousin (5
years old) might not find us out, even though she should consent.
Once when we three were in the hay-loft a wave of lust rolled
over me, but I made no proposal. Night and gaslight greatly
increased my _libido_. On one occasion my aunt had gone to the
village for ice-cream, and L. and I were left alone in the
dining-room. I took her on my lap and had a powerful erection. I
almost asked her to play sexually with me in the barn, but
instead I spoke of an imaginary girl, the first letters of whose
successive names spelled an indecent word for coitus--a word
known to almost every Anglo-Saxon child, I fear. L. laughed, but
gave no sign of assent. For a neighboring girl of 15 I felt such
a drawing that early in the morning I would roll on the floor
with my erect organ in my hand in riotous imagining of coitus
with her. I walked with her in the woods and sat at her feet, but
although I felt instinctively that she would satisfy me without
much persuasion, yet I _could not_ ask her. One night I started
to church in order to walk home with her, and lead her (if
possible) to a field where we might gratify ourselves (I picked
out the exact grassy spot where we might lie); but when I was
almost at the church door my "moral sense" (if that is what it
was) rose and dragged me home again.
During the swimming hour I watched the genitals of the boys,
comparing them carefully in the most minute details. Circumcised
organs affected me as being disagreeable, and men's hairy, coarse
genitals I abhorred.
When 13 I became acquainted with the new mail-boy at the inn. He
was a city "street-boy," and got me into smoking cigarettes
occasionally. I did not definitely take up smoking until I was
16. He told me that a mason once offered him ten cents if he
would masturbate the man in a cellar. The boy said that he
refused. I slept a few times with an ill-favored boy of fine
parentage. He was of my own age, and I had played with him in a
natural way for several years, but my increasing sexual desires
led me to mutually masturbate with him, and even unsuccessfully
to attempt with him mutual pædicatio. On the morning after our
nights of sensuality I felt "gone" and miserable, but not
repentant. By afternoon I was myself again. My relations with G.
were purely animal, for I disliked his jealous disposition, his
horse-laugh, his features, his form, his withdrawn scrotum and
his undersized penis. At home in the evening I often found myself
inflamed with a mental picture of active _fellatio_ with him, but
I never performed this act, so far as I remember.
One of my great sexual desires was to walk along a fence on which
a girl was seated. In order that I might feast my eyes on her
pudenda she must not wear drawers.