arching his naked biceps. I was thirty feet away and his size was
magnified at least twice. I carefully watched for comparison with Harvey
Green. The protuberance was not equal to Harvey’s, who was far from
being approached by any of the scores of sluggers whose biceps I have
pinched. I can never forget Harvey’s mountains of biceps.
Footnote 32:
I had graduated more than a year before and was earning a good salary
during this summer vacation between my first and second post-graduate
years.
Footnote 33:
On one spree, when I left the key in my pocket, it had been stolen out
of meanness, necessitating the embarrassment, and risk of suspicion, of
having to ring at midnight for admission.
Footnote 34:
In a later catastrophe, one did call. I was compelled to tell the truth,
but he proved sympathetic and respected my confidences. He subsequently
asked his physician about homosexuality and was informed it was deepest
moral depravity and merited no sympathy. He himself happened to be one
of the most broadminded of men. He remarked that physicians as a class
are narrowminded since most have not taken a liberal-arts course.
Footnote 35:
In a later scrape, after being laid up for a week, I ventured to my
large publishing office with practically no skin on my nose, that member
having a week before been badly smashed. My physician had furnished me
with the explanation that he had applied a mustard plaster for a cold
and the nose resulted! But the better joke was that simultaneously
another university-trained androgyne working in the same room was
limping around with a crutch. He said he had been thrown off a horse,
but I never doubted he had been crippled by some sexually full-fledged
brute as a punishment for his androgynism.
Footnote 36:
Prudery is one of the foremost earmarks of anaphrodites and the mildly
virile, to which classes nearly all the leaders of thought belong. The
trait is completely absent from the more virile, as well as androgynes.
Some of the more virile, as Harvey Green, are prudes =only as to
homosexuality= because taught that fellators ought to be killed.
Footnote 37:
In the last decade of the nineteenth century also, there existed a
feminine craze for skirts as narrow as a pant-leg. “Merry Widow” hats
also had their day then. But in 1921 for the first time in Christendom,
respectable women have been crazy to display their bare breasts, bare
arms, and next-to-nude legs in the crowded streets. Respectable women
have to-day adopted for street wear the garb, for exclusive brothel
wear, of =filles de joie= of a quarter of a century ago.
Footnote 38:
See “=French Doll-Baby=” in Part VIII.
Footnote 39:
This anecdote deals with only one of a number of similar occurrences in
New York. Gynanders, as well as androgynes, are doomed to suffer murder
at the hands of hare-brained prudes because of the false teaching of the
leaders of thought.
Footnote 40:
The scientific names “androgyne” and “gynander” evidence a blunder of
their coiner. The order of their components is the reverse of their
English colloquial equivalents.
Footnote 41:
Havelock Ellis’s works on sex—the foremost in the English language—had
not yet been published in 1895.
Footnote 42:
In the year of writing (1921) sight-seeing busses feature the Bowery at
night. Years ago that formerly quaintest of New York’s streets lost most
of its character as red-light and amusement center for New York’s
manual-laborer foreign stock. For a brief history of New York’s
bright-light districts since 1800, see the author’s RIDDLE OF THE
UNDERWORLD, in its Table of Contents.
Footnote 43:
A warning to any unsophisticated androgyne who may be moved to an
impersonation spree in a red-light district. It is necessary to go slow
and be ultra-cautious. Numerous androgynes have been murdered by
gangsters. Frank—Eunice, Angelo—Phyllis, and myself were exceptionally
fortunate. Every time an androgyne puts himself in the power of a
stranger gangster, it is at the risk of murder. Several times I myself
have been half-murdered. A poverty-stricken aspect and concealment of
one’s culture constitute the best protection. By no means show fight if
assaulted.
Footnote 44:
Just the day I retyped the above (Jan. 24, 1921) I read how a girl-boy
of eighteen committed suicide in New York City by jumping from a
thirty-five foot bridge upon railroad tracks. Adolescent androgynes are
continually putting an end to their lives because bitterly persecuted
merely on account of their bisexuality and most unfeelingly told by
their closest associates that they are deeply depraved, and because
prohibited by the leaders of thought from acquiring scientific knowledge
of their idiosyncrasy.
Footnote 45:
The reader might omit this chapter because thinking it not a propos. It
is given because describing an actual episode in the life of the sexual
cripple being depicted. It also paints the type of fast young bachelor
after whom the cultured ultra-androgynes of New York commonly “run.” To
avoid any chance of a suit for slander, I merely substitute the real
name of one of my own half-dozen New York favorites—the half-dozen who
will live forever in the sanctum sanctorum of my memory—that one
favorite who physically much resembled Phyllis’s “adopted son,” but
whose character was ideal. The real George Greenwood—of immaculate
beauty and charm, and unsurpassed friendliness to a sexual cripple like
myself. In the words of Phyllis, I am “continuously burning incense in
my heart to his memory.” I would wish to confer on him immortality.
Footnote 46:
At the time I knew him slightly, he was very bald and possessed a rather
“passe” countenance. He was nearly six feet tall, perfectly
proportioned, and had a negroid complexion, charcoal eyes, and the
blackest of curly hair—that is, what was left of it. He was apparently
of Spanish extraction. Only when he had his hat on was he still of
entrancing appearance.
Footnote 47:
In the July, 1921, number of a prominent American medical journal, I saw
a tirade against androgynes, whom its author declared merited no mercy,
but ought to be crushed as a social menace. The invective proved merely
that its physician-author clings to the sexual ethics of the Dark Ages,
and at the same time belongs to the mildly virile type. That type lacks
a superfluity of sexual vigor. It is inconceivable that a young man of
that type should be intimate with an androgyne except for a rich
reward—which has occurred when the individual androgyne was cut off from
all access to the ultra-sexed, toward whom alone he gravitates. The
mildly virile young man shudders violently at the very thought and is
confident—=a priori=, as it is only a traditional phantasy—that his
=vita sexualis=, health, and morals would be seriously undermined. I
concede, however, that such might be the case with the mildly virile
because possessing only a modicum of sexual vigor (perhaps, for example,
merely enough for relations with his lawful wife once a fortnight or so)
and because tending to be overconscientious. I concede that the mildly
virile’s morals would be damaged, simply because he fancies such
relations the unpardonable sin. If once in his youth overcome by the
offer of a “bonanza,” he would ever afterwards regret the experience and
feel deep guilt. As I myself in my youthful verdancy, he would cry out a
thousand times: “‘O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from
the body of this death!’” And because of his meagre sexual energy, he
might possibly feel ill effects physically. But that by no means proves
that the ultra-sexed would also feel them. And morally, the latter look
upon the experience as entirely natural and sinless—the same as the
eating of a piece of mince pie. Instead of ever regretting it, they look
back with satisfaction that they had the experience.
Mildly virile writers on sex forget that there exist tens of thousands
of men of far superior sexual energy. While they themselves, for
example, may care for the services of their legal wife as seldom as
twice a month, the tremendously virile “fellow” is not satisfied with
less than an opportunity every night, and is at the same time “the
husband of all women.” In my opinion, Philippics against the androgyne
have their basis only in prudery and bigotry.
Footnote 48:
See note beginning bottom page 254.
Footnote 49:
I had fully described this adventure in my AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN
ANDROGYNE, but the details were cut out by its editor. I append them
here because tending to show that the sparser the population of a
district, the greater the repugnance of civilized young roues to
androgynism and the rarer is the latter phenomenon per thousand males.
In other words: My conclusion from extensive travel and intimate
mingling, as an ultra-androgyne, with native adolescent roues in every
corner of the United States and Europe is that among civilized nations,
the frequency of male bisexuals per thousand inhabitants and their
tolerance by the full-fledged are in general in direct proportion to the
density of population.
I, a woman-soul, but reputedly a young man, was delegated to write up an
unusual affair transpiring in a Rocky Mountain wilderness. I was in a
caravan with fifty men of the roughest type, cowboys, miners, etc. All
were bachelors or grass-widowers. Day in and day out, they hardly talked
of anything but prostitutes, some of whom enlivened every mining or
lumbering camp of any permanence, although their rates were seven times
city prices and they laid away fortunes. Some of the decidedly lucky
prospectors, as well as occasional city-ites on hunting trips, were
always accompanied by their mistresses—the city-ites doubtless glad to
get away from “friend wife” for a few weeks.
I found the adolescent cowboys and miners of the Rockies the most
prejudiced against effeminate males of any of the hundreds of circles of
adolescent roues with which I have mingled as a girl-boy. The first
hour, when I had not compromised myself in any way, they began to heap
up insults, particularly taking pains to refer to me within my hearing
by the obscene term most often used by roughs for a girl-boy. (My own
age was then thirty-three, but my friends told me I looked to be only
twenty-five. I still possessed the “small-boy” aspect common among
ultra-androgynes.) I feared my forced sojourn with those who so despised
effeminacy would be intolerable.
But my plan to win their respect succeeded. I exhibited my credentials
as representative of a journal of national reputation. They never again
insulted me and I even became popular. The more sensual began to resort
to terms of endearment and embraces. But, while fascinated by these
attentions, I distrusted them to the extent of not disclosing my secret
desires. I knew that prudes occasionally murder bisexuals in cities. In
the wilds of the Rockies these same prudes (only so far as concerns
homosexuality) could so easily push me over a [Sidenote: _Murdering
Androgynes Not Now Necessary._] precipice after tempting me to a stroll,
and no one ever learn my fate. The tradition is wide spread that
bisexuals must be murdered. Perhaps the practice of murdering is akin to
that prevalent among some savage tribes of children killing their
parents as soon as the latter become too feeble to hunt and work. It was
racial economy to put out of the way those who could not contribute
their share to the food supply, as well as those impotent to procreate
children. But as civilized man no longer finds it necessary to the
continued life of the nation to knock in the head all citizens as they
reach the age of sixty, equally there is now no call for murdering (or
even chastising) individuals incapable of generation.
But sleeping in the same tent and continuously having to listen to
confessions of their amorous adventures, I became wrought up as rarely
in my life. Therefore after a week of continuous Platonic association
with the cowboy who seemed naturally the most high-minded and
trustworthy, I invited him for an evening’s stroll in the forest
primæval. He had been brought up on a Wyoming ranch, never been inside
of a church, never heard a word read out of the Bible, and could not
read nor write. He asserted he had once been a rough rider in Buffalo
Bill’s show, and my test of his descriptions of the surroundings of
Madison Square Garden in New York evidenced his truthfulness. I
worshipped the very soil on which this “Nature’s nobleman” trod. For he
was, in addition, the handsomest adolescent in the caravan. On our
stroll I confessed myself an “hermaphrodite,” using that inaccurate term
because it is known to every rough (though by them always pronounced
incorrectly). He would not have understood “androgyne.” Since he was
only a servant in the caravan, I offered a large bill. But much to my
surprise and almost to my death, he abruptly jilted me with an
unparalleled display of horror. But he promised to keep the incident
locked in a chamber of his brain, and events proved him true blue. My
desolate stroll in the bear-infested wilderness followed immediately.
If these cowboys and miners, as well as all other men, instead of having
been, from boyhood, fed on the most crime-provoking of falsehoods,
namely, that homosexuals (so called, though psychicly and often in part
physically belonging to the opposite sex) are monsters of depravity for
whom no punishment is too severe, had been taught that these sexual
cripples merit only compassion, I would myself have been spared those
hours of excruciating anguish in the forest, and hundreds of youthful
androgynes would not have committed suicide.
=Note to page 240.=—This comment so developed that I was compelled to
make it a footnote. The assignment to shore duty might indicate that Z’s
immediate superiors might have noticed that he was of soft disposition,
an earmark of [Sidenote: _Visit to Fort “Y” in 1921._] androgynism. An
androgyne acquaintance, though perfectly sound physically, was rejected
in the World War draft merely on account of his softspokenness and
generally “soft” mannerisms. Another young androgyne acquaintance
enlisted in the Hospital Corps during the war so as to be able to pass
all his time among idols. Moreover, androgynes long to serve as nurses
to wounded virile young men, as did Walt Whitman during the American War
of the Rebellion. Androgynes make the best nurses of youthful warriors
because they slavishly adore them. From an eyewitness I heard of a third
androgyne who was drafted in the World War and “bobtailed” out of the
army because discovered to be addicted to fellatio. From another
eyewitness I heard of a fourth androgyne who was similarly “bobtailed”,
and as a result of the indignities heaped upon him at the time,
immediately committed suicide. Of course those who heaped up the
indignities thought the sexual cripple wilfully depraved. From still
another eyewitness I heard of another drafted androgyne who, on the eve
of his first battle in France, ate the heads off matches so as to assure
getting back into the hospital while his virile “buddies” were valiantly
“going over the top.” Virility confers bravery.
At the date of writing, I still “pal” only with regular soldiers, but am
instinctively such an industrious worker that I go into any kind of
fellowship only about once a fortnight. I still look upon youthful
regular soldiers as magic demigods to whom I wish to enslave myself. Two
days before the present writing, I happened to take a walk to Fort Y,
which played a large part in my AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ANDROGYNE, and
which, from 1902 to 1905, I visited, in the role of female-impersonator,
one evening out of fourteen, and where I was acquainted with practically
every one of the four hundred men not above the grade of sergeant. That
of two days ago was only my second trip there in the past sixteen years.
Because it is inconveniently located for a visit. After sixteen years, I
happened to be recognized by one soldier who had stuck to that post and
risen to the rank of sergeant. He told me there were still only about
four at the fort who served there when I had the honor to be “the
daughter of the regiment.” He expressed his amazement at my being so
well preserved, saying I look twenty years younger than I am. He told me
that only four or five fairies had run after the men of that fort in the
past sixteen years. That small number is due to the remoteness of Fort Y
from the city. At two other forts formerly frequented by me as a
female-impersonator which are right in the city, androgyne cultivators
of the common soldiers are numerous. A man serving at one of these forts
told me that common soldiers often speak with one another about their
“fairies.” Whenever any one of the former appears with a new watch,
ring, etc., a common query of his “buddies” is: “Did your fairie give it
to [Sidenote: _Author’s Conversations with Opposites._] you?” Seven out
of ten common soldiers appear exceedingly glad to have a prosperous
young androgyne in their midst, particularly because he showers them
with gifts and entertainment. Only one out of ten is such a prude as to
walk away from the circle of which I have hundreds of times had the
privilege of being the star. Some of these prudes would murder an
androgyne but for fear of being punished.
Because of this remoteness of Fort Y, however, I had found there, during
the hey-day of my career as female-impersonator, a specially hearty
welcome and specially rich pickings.
(See “=Emotion=” in Part VIII.)
The sergeant I met two days ago—as common soldiers in general—was very
much interested to hear the experiences of an androgyne as I narrated my
life-story for the sixteen years since I talked with him. I habitually
tell soldier associates the complete story of my life, and all who stay
in the circle to listen appear very glad for the chat. Of course I never
use any indecent language, although dealing frankly with sex questions.
I am a lecturer on sexology to them. Moreover, within three minutes
after becoming acquainted with a common soldier, I sometimes ask him, if
he is beyond twenty-five, if he is married. For I do not care to chat
with married men. I also commonly ask why he never married. I ask him to
enlighten me as to his feelings toward the gentle sex, and as to what
transpires when he and a girl are out for an evening’s stroll on a rural
road. They are very frank in telling me their outlook on life. If there
is no opportunity for assault and robbery (A large proportion of the
uncultured thinking the first thing of robbing a stranger androgyne, if
not of “beating him up”) I have, to strange young soldiers, confessed
myself an androgyne within three minutes after we exchanged our first
words, because their learning that fact proves, in general, the
strongest kind of a drawing card.
The sergeant of two days ago wanted to make a date with me. I absolutely
turned my back on such a proposition, chiefly on account of the dread of
the physical and mental debility always supervening the following day.
He urged me to resume my visits to Fort Y, to flaunt myself before all
the soldiers as female-impersonator, as sixteen years before. I replied
that I was now too old and too feeble. While sixteen years before I
never left the vicinity of the post without dalliance with intimates,
two days ago I did not entertain the least idea of, and hardly any wish
for, such relations. Age has sobered me. “Intimates” I just wrote—some
of whom, however, I had never laid eyes on until three minutes before.
Providence gave me this wealth of one kind to counterbalance the almost
unparalleled anguish I have been called upon to suffer because of my
fate of being a sorely persecuted androgyne.
[Sidenote: _Author’s Third “Adopted Son.”_]
Lest I should be misjudged (the reader will any way judge me the warmest
body that ever breathed, as intimates have told me) I further confess
that during the year ending March, 1921, I visited at another fort about
once a fortnight a 20-year-old private whom I planned to adopt (not
legally) as son to live with me the rest of my life. I previously looked
over, at ball games at the post, the entire common-soldier personnel of
several hundred in order to pick out one of the three or four
handsomest. Even at my first visit, one or two of the privates with whom
I exchanged words evidently took me for an androgyne looking for a
sweetheart, and did their best to be “the lucky dog.” But I passed the
poor fellows by until I could get intimately acquainted with one of the
three or four pre-eminent Adonises. I later ascertained that the one
selected—greatly to his joy and to the envy of numerous
“buddies”—excelled in disposition and character as much as in good
looks. I also learned he had been brought up in the back woods and had
never attended school a single day, although he had learned to read and
write a little after entering the army. After I had known him intimately
for nine months, his enlistment expired. Only now I disclosed my true
name and station and took him to live in my own home, where I had been
all by myself, doing my own housework like a woman. Although I had
loaded him with gifts, this my “third adopted son” took French leave
after only three days’ residence with me. His “buddies” told me he had
gone away to marry the girl with whom I had known he had been
corresponding.
Having lost him, I immediately started in to cultivate at the same
barracks its pre-eminent Adonis, and almost its pre-eminent Hercules,
with a view to his non-legal adoption to live with me as son the rest of
my life after a nine-months apprenticeship during which he would not
know my real name, station in life, or place of residence. It is easy to
conceal these things from common soldiers. They are not inquisitive.
They believe my misrepresentations of myself—necessary because
androgynes are the favorite victims of blackmailers. But after a month,
this latest favorite committed theft and I never saw him again. His
“buddies” told me that he had stolen two blankets, “=government
property=,” and was therefore sentenced to two years in military prison.
If I am correctly informed, court martials often impose on an enlisted
man caught in a misdemeanor a prison sentence several times as lengthy
as would a civil court. I take this opportunity to enter a plea for
better treatment of common soldiers, who have been my “pals” for a
quarter of a century—particularly for punishments by court martial no
more severe than by civil courts. Sometimes I have thought that when an
uneducated young man enlists to defend his country as a common soldier,
he thereby forfeits all rights of citizenship and all privileges
guaranteed by the [Sidenote: _An Adonis or a Hercules?_] American
constitution. The cowboys of the Rockies have mingled with common
soldiers because of the numerous forts scattered throughout the “Indian
country.” I asked one with whom I was well acquainted why he did not
serve a few years in the army. His words were: “Do you think I want to
be a slave?” But the lot of the common soldier has steadily improved
during my association with him, excepting during our war with Germany.
In 1921, he is better treated by his officers than ever before.
The context of this footnote moves me to reflect: Do I prefer an Adonis
or a Hercules? I incline to the latter slightly. My first “adopted son”
(for nine years, as described in my AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ANDROGYNE) was
an almost unmatched Hercules and at the same time an almost unmatched
Adonis. He was one young man out of ten thousand. My second “adopted
son” (for only a half-year, as described in same work) was neither a
Hercules nor an Adonis. Not more than one out of twenty adolescents can
qualify under either of these physically superior types, and I must
confess that these types are very much lacking in mental acumen. Bright
intellects nearly always go hand in hand with poor physical development.
My second “adopted son” (while only tolerably good-looking) commanded my
adoration because of his beautiful disposition and extreme passion for
myself. My third prospective “adopted son” was a pre-eminent Adonis, and
a fair Hercules.
There exist other attractive qualities in males that knit females to
them. The chief is intellectual brilliance. That to me has always been,
sexually considered, decidedly detractive—because I am myself of the
intellectual type. As a rule, only opposites attract.
Footnote 50: