Hermaphroditos. (continued 2)

I made my way to the quarter of the city bordering the Hudson River that is given over largely to factories and freight yards and is known as “Hell’s Kitchen” because of the many steam vents. In this lonely and at night little frequented neighborhood, perhaps the most advantageous in the city for highway robbery, where nothing else than burning passion could have induced me to go at night, I ran across a stalwart adolescent of about my own age seated alone on a beer keg in front of a bar-room. By a great effort of the will I accosted him. My voice trembled and my whole body shook as if I had the ague.

Ruffians’ Attitude Toward Inverts.

63I had anticipated little difficulty in securing a companion, but events showed it to be otherwise. For years subsequently I associated intimately with hundreds of unmarried toughs of the slums from seventeen to twenty-four years of age, and so I know their nature. Approximately one-third have a distaste for coitus with an invert. The other two-thirds would accommodate him provided their sexual needs were not fully met by normal intercourse—which is generally the case. Moreover, there is a difference between their attitude toward a perfect stranger who accosts them, and an invert with whom they have become somewhat acquainted. The impulse to rob a perfect stranger tends to drown out all the movings of carnality. In addition, the feeling that he is a stranger and an outlaw—the latter fact being almost universally known—prompts them to assault him.

Along with an outline of what happened on this my first nocturnal ramble, I describe below my general method of approaching strangers in the poor quarters of the city. Of course I cannot recall the exact dialogue in a particular case, but all the sample conversations given in this autobiography are woven from actual remarks passed at different times. I have taken part in hundreds of dialogues of the kind sampled here and there in this book, and the reader can be assured of obtaining a truthful impression of the words exchanged by me—an androgyne—with my youthful virile associates. On the present occasion, after a few commonplace remarks, the conversation was of the following character:

“What big, big strong hands you have! I bet you 64are a good fighter.” My aim was to talk rather babyishly so as gradually to betray my nature.

Method of Leading Up.

“There’s a few as kin lick me but not many.”

“I love fighters. If you and I had a fight, who do you think would win?”

“I could lick a dozen like yer together.”

“I know you could. I am only a baby.”

“Hah hah! A baby!”

“Say, you have a handsome face.”

“Me hansome! Stop your kiddin.”

“Really you are handsome. I am going to tell you a secret. I am a woman-hater. I am really a girl in a fellow’s clothes. I would like to get some fellow to marry me. You look beautiful to me. Would you be willing to?”

“How much does it cost yer to git married? Give me a V [meaning five dollars] and I’ll be yourn, or else git out of here.”

My statement that I had not that amount with me brought the threat of a pummeling. I was beginning to wish I was far away, but concealed my uneasiness as best I could. After a few minutes more of conversation, several pals happened to come along. He called out, “I’ve got a fairie here!” and clutching my shoulder with one hand, he clinched his other fist, shook it threateningly in my face, and demanded: “Hand out your money! Hand out your money!”

First Robbery and Assault.

Frightened to death, I handed him all the coin I had, amounting to a little more than a dollar. I protested I had no more, and after they had searched my pockets 65and felt my clothing all over for concealed bills, one of them gave me a blow in the face. With that wonderful agility which supposedly grave danger to one’s life can arouse, I sprinted away, one of the ruffians pursuing a few steps and giving me several blows in the back. But I was so terrified that I did not halt until I had run several blocks. Panting and exhausted, I seated myself on a door-step and felt that I was forever cured of seeking a paramour. I called to mind the biblical text, “The way of the transgressor is hard,” and I felt glad that it was hard so as to help me never to transgress again.

But after I had rested, my intense desire for fellatio induced me to make an endeavor in another poor neighborhood. I passed many groups of ruffians congregated in front of bar-rooms, but must find some solitary adolescent. At last I ran across one standing in front of a factory, evidently, as I later concluded, its watchman. I walked past him several times, unable to pluck up courage to speak. But he called out angrily: “Who are you looking at?”

“Pardon me for my rudeness, but I was wishing I could get acquainted with you. I am a baby, and I want a big, strong, brave fellow like you to pet me. I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll pet me for a few minutes, and let me sit on your lap.”

Much to my surprise and disappointment, he sent me away with a curse. Twice repulsed, I decided to try again in a part of the city where the immigrant element predominates. Both the neighborhoods tried were quasi-American. I strolled down the Bowery, staring longingly 66and beseechingly into the eyes of the adolescents I passed, but too timid to accost any. Those who had known me all my life, had they met me now, would have wondered what could have brought into the then theatre and red-light district of the foreign laboring classes of the city, at an hour approaching midnight, a timid youth, hitherto called an “innocent,” naturally pious, and generally esteemed for his intellectual tastes. My friends would never have dreamed that I would frequent that red-light district near midnight, and would never have believed it if any one told them that I was there for no good purpose.

The “Innocent” in Red-light District.

Arrived at the southern end of the Bowery, I turned into New Bowery, because it looked dark and crime-inviting. I roamed for another half hour in the dark, deserted streets of this quarter, accosting one or two young dockrats who were still abroad, but they simply ransacked my pockets, gave me a parting blow, and went on their way. Moistening my handkerchief at a drinking fountain, I washed my bloodstained face. Finally, after midnight, thoroughly sobered by my disappointments and physical smarting, I boarded a car. Securing my key from its hiding place, I let myself into my lodgings without any one ever learning of my nocturnal ramble.

How shall such conduct on the part of one of the members of an intellectual and decent community be judged? Let not the reader in pharisaical self-complacency—an attitude of mind all too common in dealing with the victims of congenital defects of mind or brain—begin to set his own virtue over against the apparent depravity of 67such as I. If he has not fallen as low as I, it is not necessarily because he is morally good, and I morally bad, but because in him there has been no overpowering impulse to do what mankind regards as unspeakably low. As to yielding to the sexual instinct, many have comparatively weak impulses in that direction, and could remain celibate all their lives without experiencing any kind or degree of suffering. Others would be rendered semi-mad by such abstinence, as was the case with me. The Rev. Robert Collyer has stated the matter well. It is like two young men to each of whom is given a field to cultivate. That of the one is fertile, free from stones, thicket, and weeds; that of the other a dense marshy jungle. Can the two contestants be expected in the same time to produce equally good crops of grain from their widely different pieces of land? Some men are born with much in their mental make-up that disposes them to evil, while others find it no effort to live virtuous lives.

Judgment on My Slumming.

While I have thus in my more mature judgment considered myself practically irresponsible for the conduct just described, in that early stage of my career, I was not so sure, and during the day following this first nocturnal ramble, was overwhelmed with a sense of shame and guilt. When night came on, I made my way to a solitary spot in a large park, where I threw myself on the ground to weep and shriek and pray. The burden of my prayer was that God would change my nature that very moment and give me the mind and powers of a man. I soon heard footsteps approaching, arose instantly, and walked from the spot. The men said they were looking 68for an owl which they had heard hooting. It was probably only my peculiar insane, half-suppressed shrieks they had heard.

Faith-cure Tried.

At this time I entered the following in my diary: “I am experiencing the enslaving power of sin. I now know how to sympathize with poor sinners, drunkards and harlots.... Do such perverse passions spring from idolatry and forgetting God, as St. Paul says? But for several years I have lived in communion with God. Several different times in my life I have passed a month without conscious sin. How can this accord with the fact that I have repeatedly in childhood and several times in youth committed the act [fellatio] recognized by men as the most heinous of crimes?”

I soon went to my village home for the summer, where I found the struggle against sensuality much less severe. For the first month there I lived without conscious sin. Through occupying my mind diligently with the high ethical ideals presented in the New Testament, and living continually in the spirit of prayer, I was able to bar completely from my life all the movings of the sensual nature, and all regard for self. Indeed I lived in this state of “entire sanctification” almost throughout the summer vacation, spending several hours a day in religious exercises. I came into intimate relations with a Christian faith-curist, and felt it to be my religious duty to be anointed by him for the removal of my perverted nature and for the reception of the normal instincts of a man. For over a month after the anointing, I persisted in the confident belief that God had miraculously brought about 69the change desired, and that I was now in full possession of the powers of a man. But gradually I had to admit the truth that no change had taken place.

Mourning Over Fate.

My return to college in the fall of 1892 was followed by a decline from the high spiritual level attained during the summer vacation, this decline being especially marked by periods of depression, during which I would lament to myself that I was practically, by birth, an outcast from society, with a deformed nature, and despicable in the eyes of all people. I felt that I was a soft effeminate man who was wanted nowhere. At the sight of other young men rejoicing in their manly vigor, I would exclaim, “I want to die! I want to die!”

Moreover, possible ways of gratifying my sensual desires began to haunt me. Occasionally while walking the streets, I was powerfully constrained to embrace every young ruffian I met. I felt that I would gladly give up everything else in order to pass the rest of my days in the worst slums of the city in the company of the most vicious and degraded of mankind. At the same time I often had to sob violently while walking the streets when I would have a mental vision of myself given up to a life of shame in the slums, after having abandoned all my family ties in order to give free rein to my carnal desires. Sometimes I raved and wept like a mad man, and again I feared I might become completely insane.

About this time I came across two articles in a journal of anthropology which treated of eunuchs. I read that there is a class of abnormal human beings in India who are called “eunuchs by birth.” The description given of 70their natures suited mine exactly. Though male in body—as stated in the article—they are feminine in manners and tastes, always wear women’s clothes, let their hair grow long, and keep themselves clean-shaven. They are filles de joie, and are happy in their lot. I now recalled that Bayard Taylor and other travellers in the east vaguely refer to them in their books. Not until now did I know the meaning of these references.

First Reading About Abnormality.

I now read also that males with such non-masculine and non-virile natures are found among the tribes of American Indians, by whom—according to the author I read—they are called “squaw-men.” At a certain age, all the young males are called upon to choose between the weapons of the warrior and the staff of the squaw. These non-masculine males always choose the latter and are thenceforth looked upon as squaws, adopting the dress and occupations of the squaw, and becoming married to a brave. The hair that grows on their faces is plucked out as soon as long enough to get hold of.

I read further that such a class of males were found among the ancient Greeks, and recognized in their true character as not belonging to the warrior and ruling sex. I now recalled that my Greek professor had recently remarked that Phaedo had been a slave “devoted to unmentionable uses.”

The immediate effect of this greatly increased self-knowledge was one of my most violent fits of weeping. I felt that there was nothing which could henceforth give me interest in life. I felt so mortified at thinking that I was a “man-woman,” as such people are called in India. 71At this time I wrote in my diary: “People see that I am an effeminate man! an effeminate man! And one of my sisters remarked the last time I was home that she did not like effeminate men! Who can like them? Oh it looks as if there were no God in the world!”

Second Nocturnal Ramble.

If the reader had been on Mulberry Street between Grand and Broome on an evening in November of 1892, he would have seen meandering slowly along from one side of the street to the other with a mincing gait, a haggard, tired-looking, short and slender youth between eighteen and nineteen, clad in shabby clothes, and with a skull cap on his head. As he walks along, whenever he meets any robust, well-built young man of about his own age, who is alone, he is seen to stop and address to him a few words. If we had been able to follow this queer-acting individual for the previous hour before he passed us on Mulberry street, we would have seen him roaming about through all the streets of the then dark and criminal 4th Ward, occasionally halting near the groups of ruffians congregated in front of the bar-rooms, and then failing of courage to speak, pass along.

Finally on the corner of Broome and Mulberry Streets, he addresses a tall, muscular, splendid specimen of the adolescent [subsequently a member of the New York police force] who continues in conversation with him, and walks along by his side. The little adolescent takes the arm of the big one into his own, and presses as closely as possible against him. The spirits of the little one are visibly heightened, he appears more lively and animated, 72and walks along with a quicker but extremely nervous step. He is soon seized with a sort of ague—due to sexual excitement—which causes his whole body to shake, and hardly permits him to speak. If we watched closely whenever the pair passed under a shadow, we would have seen the little one throw his arms rapturously around the neck of his big companion, and kiss him passionately. They finally pass out of sight down one of the dark covered alleys leading to tenements in the rear.

The First Catch.

When after an interval the pair again emerge, the smaller is clinging tighter than ever to his big companion, as if afraid he might escape. They walk a block together, and then the big fellow tries to get rid of the little one, much against the latter’s wishes. He tells the little fellow to go on his way, but adds, “Come round again, do yer hear?”

“I don’t know whether I shall or not. I am afraid we shall never meet again. How it pains me to part from you!”

“What do yer call yourself, and where do yer hang out?”

“I call myself Jennie, and I work in a restaurant up on Third Avenue. What’s your name, and where could I find you again?”

“You kin find me round on this block any time. Just ask any one fur Red Mike.”

“Well, good-by. The Lord bless you. I never expect to see you again, although I love you with all my heart, and would like to live with you and be your slave.”

The two start off in opposite directions. The little fellow 73walks rapidly, turns the first corner, sprints, turns another corner and sprints, and repeats this maneuver several times, as if bent on giving the slip to any possible follower. He finally reaches the Bowery and takes a train uptown from the Grand Street station.

Recourse to Medical Professors.

For several days following I suffered from shame and remorse. In order, if possible, to be cured of my abnormality, I now resolved to consult a specialist in venereal diseases, because at that time I believed my ailment came under that head. I was led to go to Dr. Prince A. Morrow, then the leading specialist in that line in New York City, who declared that either castration or marriage would be a sure cure for my abnormal passion! How many inverts have followed such advice of a physician, and seeking a cure in marriage, have been plunged into insanity or suicide, either on the eve of marriage, or soon after! Individuals like myself are women mentally. How is one woman to marry another, unless indeed one of the pair be a gynander, when marriage de facto often takes place. I could never think of tying myself to a wife until I felt myself to be a man.

Not satisfied, I immediately consulted another medical-college professor, this time an alienist, Dr. Robert S. Newton. Both drugs and electrical stimulation of the brain and spinal cord were tried. Hypnotism was attempted unsuccessfully. During the first month of treatment, I excluded from my mind all thoughts of sexual admiration. Then, though I continued to struggle against them, they would occasionally be present in the stream of 74thought for a few days, when with a fresh dedication of myself to God and to a life of self-renunciation, I would again completely banish them for another half-month.

Early Appeal for Castration.

After several months treatment, I was rendered almost a physical and nervous wreck by the powerful drugs administered, but my amorous desires showed no change. I now repeatedly appealed for castration. I argued that Nature had designed me to be a fille de joie—the worst fate possible as I then believed—and that castration alone could save me from it. But the answer was that I might in later years regret such a measure. I had recently read in a medical journal of a man similarly but not identically afflicted who was placed in possession of the normal procreative instinct through castration. During these months I had made diligent search at the library of the New York Academy of Medicine for light on my abnormality, and discovered a number of articles in American and foreign journals bearing on it.

During this course of treatment occurred one of the crises of my life. I had been appointed a delegate to a student’s missionary convention in another city, and was assigned to a room with a rather athletic student from another college. The first night, after he had fallen asleep, I left the bed and lay on the floor, but was driven back by the cold. All possible alternatives were out of the question. Previous to that day, I had not known how I would have to pass the night. The chances were good that I would be assigned to a room alone, or else have an unattractive bed-fellow inasmuch as nine out of ten religious and studious adolescents were sexually repulsive, 75although highly esteemed as friends. Possibly I was cold to them because I myself am of a religious and studious disposition, as well as deficient in physical stamina, as they also are inclined to be.

Usual Treatment of Inverts.

I lay awake the whole night, but during the last half was in a sort of delirium. I partially yielded. The next morning, before several other students, my bed-fellow spoke sarcastically of me, evidently intending to visit on me what he considered to be deserved punishment. I was crushed by reason of shame, and they never saw me again, as I left by the next train. At the time I wrote in my diary:

“What have I ever done that God should make me suffer so? I feel that my abnormality bars me out of the ministry, the profession of my choice, and most likely out of all other professions. I feel that this passion is going to wreck my life, and never permit me to make any return to my parents for all they have done for me. I have no hope for the future. In the convention, while I would be singing, I was in thought hacking my body to pieces with a sword, or piercing my breast with a dagger. My continuous prayer was:

‘Father, Father, hear my humble cry,

While on others thou art smiling,

Do not pass me by!’

“The convention, to me, was a lesson in resignation. The other young men were divinely brought there to be inspired with the Holy Spirit, to be instructed in regard to missionary fields and methods, to be called to preach 76the Gospel among those who sit in darkness; but I was brought there to learn the lesson of resignation in affliction, to experience the crushing to the earth by the mighty hand of God, to be tried like Isaac to see whether I am willing to be morally slain in my youth in a way which seems inexplicable. I have been preparing myself to become a foreign missionary, having had this career in mind from childhood; but God and Nature have undoubtedly destined me to be a [fille de joie]. When a child of nine or ten years, although I had not learned that there were in the world such persons as fallen women, I often aspired to be a young woman, and to be a fallen one at that. I have resisted my fate with all the powers of my will and of my religious nature, but you cannot dam Niagara.”

Rejected by Providence from Ministry.

Not long afterwards I wrote: “Two ways open before me: one of sensual gratification, unrighteousness, falsehood, hypocrisy, dishonor; the other of blessing to the poor and the afflicted, a life which is holy and worthy of the good name given to it, a life which promises to my dear ones, on my account, more of health, happiness, and honor.”

Shortly after writing the above, I brought the course of medical treatment to an abrupt termination. I would have continued longer if I had shown any improvement. I had lost all faith in the physician’s ability to benefit me. Seeing that the science of medicine held out no hope, I felt more than ever that I was irresponsible for my abnormal sexual nature.

Over five months after my previous visit, I again found myself on Mulberry Street, corner of Grand. I have always 77suspected that I was incited to this particular quest by an aphrodisiac. On or about that day, my physician administered a new drug. He probably hoped it would incite me to seek normal relations, but it acted along the line of my peculiar instincts.

Year 1893—Fairie Apprenticeship Begins.

Walking northward on the west side of the street, I encountered a mixed group of Italian and Irish “sports” of foreign parentage between sixteen and twenty-one years of age seated or standing around the portal of a warehouse. I timidly addressed them: “I am looking for a friend named Red Mike. Do any of you know him?”

One of them replied that he had just seen him up the street. Proceeding in that direction, I stopped occasionally to make the same inquiry of other adolescents. After walking several blocks in vain, I returned to the “gang” at the warehouse’s portal, and asked: “Do you mind if I sit down to rest here? I am tired and lonesome. I have not been in the city long and don’t know any one.”

“Where did yez come from?”

“Philadelphia. I couldn’t get any work there, so I came here.”

It was not long before Red Mike happened to stroll by and recognized me even before I did him. An hour now passed, while they smoked and drank, hiding the beer-pail whenever a policeman went by. I had no desire to join in the drinking and smoking, and indeed up to my middle forties, when this autobiography goes to press, have never had any desire to learn to smoke, although having a few times put the lighted cigarette of a paramour in my mouth. I have always considered myself too feminine to 78smoke. Moreover, all my life I have been practically a total abstainer from alcoholic beverages.

An Evening with a “Gang.”

But I reclined in the arms of one after another, covering face, neck, hands, arms, and clothing with kisses, while they caressed me and called me pet-names. I was supremely happy. For the first time in my life I learned about the fairie inmates of the lowest dives. They proposed to install me in one. I told them the story of my own life, only with such variations from the truth as were necessary for my own protection. We sang plantation songs, “Old Black Joe,” “Uncle Ned,” etc. These they had learned from Bixby’s “Home Songs,” published in that very neighborhood by the well-known shoe-blacking firm as an advertisement. I sang with them in the mock soprano or falsetto that fairies employ, trying to imitate the voice of a woman. Singing in this voice was not a novelty to me, as I had previously at times aped the warbling of a woman instinctively.

At the end of an hour, we adjourned down an alley, where the drinking and love-making continued even more intensely. After I had refused their repeated solicitations, one of them grasped my throat tightly to prevent any outcry and threw me down, while another removed part of my clothing, appropriating whatever of value he found in my pockets. With my face in the dust, and half-suffocated by the one ruffian’s tight grip on my throat, I moaned and struggled with all my might, because of the excruciating pain. But in their single thought to experience an animal pleasure, they did not heed my moans and broken entreaties to spare me the suffering they were 79inflicting. For two months afterward I suffered pain at every step because of fissures and lacerations about the anus.

At Age of Nineteen.

When finally released, terror-stricken and with only half my clothing, I rushed out through the alley and down Mulberry Street, and did not halt until I reached what I considered a safe refuge on brightly lighted Grand Street. Breathless and exhausted, I seated myself on the curb. “I am cured of my slumming,” I said to myself. “God’s will be done. It is His hand which has brought this about, in order to drive me back to the path of virtue. Truly the Lord ruleth in all things.”

Because of my exhausted condition, I remained seated for several minutes. In the meantime, two of my assailants had followed me up, and expressed their regret that one of their number had stolen my cap and coat, promising to get them back, and assuring me of their friendly feelings. “You are only a baby,” they said, “and so we will fight for you and protect you.”

I was so touched by their gallantry, so enamoured of them, and so sure that the assault was not committed through malevolence, that I accompanied them back to our first meeting place on the warehouse steps. I still had great fear of violence at their hands—rape, not a beating—but I was powerfully drawn toward them. Fellatio was welcome; pædicatio, horrible to my moral sense, and physically, accompanied by excruciating pain. The “gang” received me kindly, petted and soothed me as one would a peevish baby, which I resembled in my actions, fretting and sobbing in happiness as I rested my head 80against their bodies. To lie in the bosom of these sturdy young manual laborers, all of whom were good-looking and approximately my own age, was the highest earthly happiness I had yet tasted. With all my money gone, and cap and coat stolen besides, I finally had to walk home, a distance of several miles. Obtaining my keys in their hiding place, I succeeded in reaching my room without attracting attention.

Psychical Infantilism.

The next day I wrote in my journal: “What a strange thing is life! Mephistopheles last night carried me through one of the experiences through which he carried Faust.... My carnal nature was aroused as never before. I groaned in despair. Never before in all my experience have I seen such a conflict between the flesh and the spirit.... How like an animal is man! Thus God has seen fit to make him.”

A few days later I again wrote: “My present psychical state is most strange. I cannot yet repent of my conduct last Friday night, yet on the Sunday following I had one of the happiest experiences of nearness to God that I ever had. That afternoon I presented the Gospel in love for my Savior and for perishing souls. I have in my heart an intense desire to save from their lives of sin those in whose company I was Friday night, especially my Bill, so young, and yet so deep in sin. I want to rescue him, and make of him a strong educated champion for Christ. My heart yearns to carry blessings and peace to all those who are suffering in the slums of New York.”

In a letter received shortly afterward from a venerable doctor of divinity and former pastor, whom for years I 81made my confidant, he expressed his judgment of my conduct as follows: “I believe God will overlook in you what He would not in others.”

Verdicts of Pastor and Alienist.

The judgment of the alienist, to whom also I confided the occurrences, was approximately as follows: “It was a physical impossibility for you to have withstood longer. The only thing for you to do is to follow out your instincts in moderation. If you do not, you will continue to be a nervous wreck, and may even become insane. The majority of men can live celibate lives without suffering in mind or body, but you are extraordinarily amorous, and celibacy with you is out of the question. Only don’t go into the slums any more. Confide in some stalwart young man of your own class. You run great risk of being killed, or at least contracting disease, in running around after strangers in the slums.”

On now making my decision henceforth to follow Nature’s behests, I gave up the city mission work I was engaged in, and also finally gave up my purpose of entering the Christian ministry. The presentation of religious truths spoken of above, on the Sunday following my third nocturnal ramble, was unavoidable, unless I wished to disappoint others by failing to keep an engagement. I gave up religious work, not because of lack of religious faith, but because I felt myself unworthy and unfit by reason of my recent change in habits, and because I might bring reproach on the Church.

I could not bring myself to follow the physician’s advice to confide in a stalwart young man of my own class. I felt too much ashamed of my abnormality. So I formed 82the habit of visiting my Mulberry Street friends once a week, the visits continuing altogether for about a year. I preferred the society of these adolescent roughs to that of all other human beings, and woe to the friend of my ordinary circle who should hinder or delay me on the evenings on which I had planned a visit to Mulberry Street! If necessary to get rid of him, I would even insult any friend who happened to call at this inopportune time. At first exceedingly nervous for fear something would interfere with my setting out, I became, when safe from interruption after I had boarded the elevated train, blissfully intoxicated at the thought of meeting my beaux again.

Obedience to Nature a Panacea.

During this period of living one evening a week according to the dictates of my peculiar instincts, I was happier than I had ever been before, notwithstanding my suffering for the first two months from a continuously painful sphincter ani. Recognizing the horror I had for pædicatio, and not wishing to drive me away from their “gang,” particularly as my visits made them on those evenings what they regarded as flush with money, none ever again subjected me to it. But the lacerations of the first night required two months for healing. Moreover, I was never again robbed of my clothing.

The contrast in my own life between total abstinence and indulgence one evening a week was that the latter made me sing continually on the proper occasions, whereas with abstinence, I had been as continually weeping and moaning. I felt that I had come into possession of the earthly summum bonum, hitherto denied me. I had arrived at the 83conviction that while the voice of the world would cry “Shame!” I was acting according to the dictates of reason and conscience, and not sinning against the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless this conviction was occasionally shaken and I would be plunged into short spells of melancholia due to remorse over my sensual practices.

Cementing an Androgyne’s Marriage Bond.

My favorite was an American-born Irish lad of nineteen, since he was both the handsomest and the most athletic. Because he soon became my “husband” par excellence, I foolishly thought I did wrong to deceive him as to my identity, as I did those who were not so closely related to me. But before I revealed the facts, I submitted the following declaration to be sworn to on a Bible:

“Do you solemnly swear that you will always keep inviolably secret my name, residence, our relations, and all that I confide to you, not revealing any of these things to your friends and pals without my permission?”

Although strongly urged, he refused to be sworn. He did not intend to keep what he was about to promise, and so was willing to give his word, but too superstitious to give his oath. He said that any way it was a Protestant Bible, and he would be sworn only on a Catholic Bible! Seeing that it was hopeless to get him to take his oath, I reluctantly accepted his word alone, and then told him nearly all the truth about myself. I now look upon it as almost an insane procedure. Fortunately, nothing ever resulted from my disclosures. Strangely, although it soon became known to all my associates of Mulberry Street that I was a college student and came from the best quarter of the city, no one ever attempted to follow me home 84or to blackmail me. These young men had never heard of this kind of blackmail.

An Inner Circle of Associates.

After revealing who I was, I solemnly put the following questions, to all of which he answered in the affirmative, although never meaning to keep his word:

“Will you place me higher in your regard than any of your pals, seeing I am to you as a wife?

“Do you realize that you and I are united by a closer bond than that which unites you to your most intimate chums and pals?

“Will you then confide to me your secrets as to no one else in the world, and also share all my secrets?

“Will you regard our association as not merely for sensuous enjoyment, but also for close friendship, and for mutual help in the trials of life?”

Thus was cemented an androgyne’s marriage bond. My purpose was to draw him away from his environment, and bring him up to my own social level, but my efforts met with complete failure.

Though having had in my career as a fairie about eight hundred intimates, I have had less than a score who formed an inner circle and whom I regarded as “husbands” par excellence. I only had one of them at a time, and our relations were long-continued. In the case of nearly every one of them, if it had been a matter dependent on my will, he would have been my life partner. But circumstances beyond my control brought a change on an average once a year. As a fairie, however, I was not satisfied with monandry. I sometimes applied the term “husband” playfully to my ordinary intimates.

A Night on Mulberry Street.

85These nights on Mulberry Street or vicinity had a great fascination for me, and in subsequent years continued to have a fascination. For a decade I occasionally yearned to be back there with the companions of these days of my fairie apprenticeship. With half a score of adolescents and two or three young women, an evening would be spent in some humble two-room apartment. Everybody was exceedingly happy, and I perhaps the happiest of all, sitting now in one young man’s lap, and now in that of another. And how we all did sing! The young men petted and babied me more than they did any of the girls, and even right before the eyes of the girls. The latter were not jealous of me, especially because I was the one who financed these parties. In my actions I was far more feminine and babyish than any of the girls, and also far more amorous and skilled in coquetry. The girls thought nothing strange of me, as the nature of fairies was well known to them. I wish it understood, however, that these gatherings were no more indecent than a children’s party in the best social stratum. Even these knights of Mulberry Street had their sense of decency. At these home parties, extreme intimacies were allowed only in private. The only refreshment was beer, the three-quart pail passing around the room from mouth to mouth, and being repeatedly sent out to be refilled. I alone did not partake, having, as already indicated, been brought up a total abstainer.

I have always been indifferent to the vast majority of men. I could sleep with them without becoming in the 86least excited. It was necessary to be under thirty, athletic, physically brave, smooth-shaven, and in no way deformed. On the other hand, throughout my open career of twelve years as a fairie, the proportion of men over thirty years old that sought intimacy was hardly more than one per cent., while ninety-five per cent. were between eighteen and twenty-five.

What Constituted Attractiveness.

During my apprenticeship just described, however, I was attracted only toward the ages sixteen to twenty-five, inclusive. Throughout this autobiography, I use the term “adolescent” to denote men within these age limits. Always has it seemed to me that men gradually grow less masculine and less virile (in coitus) after passing twenty-five. They have also appeared to me to lose their good looks soon after that age. To me man appears to grow old and his beauty fade a decade earlier than woman, which is just the opposite of the normal man’s impression. When I was a boy of twelve, all males over sixteen appeared ugly, and I had only sexual disgust for them. But in 1918, when I have arrived at my middle forties, the age of male beauty in my eyes is confined between eighteen and thirty years.

I have always preferred the brunette to the blonde type, although I myself am of the former. For years after my fairie apprenticeship I seemed to be especially drawn toward young men of Irish blood. The pure Italian type of beauty, however, appears to me the highest. In my own veins flows blood of five different nationalities of western Europe, but no Irish or Italian. Perhaps my predilection for these two is due to the fact that they constituted 87exclusively my associates during my apprenticeship.

Sexual Preferences.

Large frame counted for a great deal, as also large and well-developed membra virilia. Variety exists as much in the latter respect as in respect to frame. There is often an inverse proportion between the two.

I much preferred the rough to the gentleman, and the profane boozing libertine to the morally upright. I have always been strongly attracted by disregard for personal danger. When reading accounts of exploration and adventure, I have sometimes fallen in love with the adventurer. For example, I fell in love with a noted Arctic explorer while reading his book, as well as with the kayak-men whose courageous deeds he describes. To me tattooing has always been the mark of supreme masculinity. It was a habit with me to seek for it on my beaux, and if found, I would rave over it, osculate it, kneel before the young blood in adoration, and call him all the glorious idealizing names I could think of. That one of my eight hundred beaux with whom I would have chosen to live out my life in daily comradeship was by far the most tattooed of all, and he did actually live with me for several months when I was forty years of age, besides being my “adopted son” for nine years. But it was not the tattooing alone that attracted me. In practically every manly charm, he stood supreme.

After an hour or so spent with a companion, it was painful to say good-by, and I generally hoped for another meeting. But subsequently to my apprenticeship just described, I generally had the same companion only once, or at most several times, as it was a long time, if ever, before 88we saw one another again. I usually felt for my companions a non-sensual wifely love in addition to the mere sexual attraction, which wifely love was transformed into a parental love after I had reached my middle thirties and my associates were ten or more years younger than myself. Throughout my life as a fairie, I always longed to have a young man live with me as my husband. If this had been practicable, monandry would possibly have been sufficient, as it proved to be in my early forties. But until long after the close of my open career, I was reluctant to reveal my identity, and was also deterred by the fear of blackmail.

Polyandry Versus Monandry.

At my middle forties, however, I am of the opinion that in the case of inverts, promiscuity is preferable to monandry for the welfare of the human race, the invert’s associates individually, and the naturally polyandrous invert himself. Promiscuity does not affect the increase of the race, whereas monandry might by interfering with the young man’s ultimately marrying a woman. Practically all the invert’s intimates do this ultimately, and raise a family. It appears to be the natural function of the invert to minister to the ultra-virile until they reach marriageable age according to present-day standards. These relations merely supplant solitary onanism on the part of the virile, or else extra-marital relations with a young member of the gentle sex.

In my extensive experience, I have come across nothing to support the a priori view of some medical men that the adolescent tends to become a pervert, losing his normal instinct in whole or in part. My intimates of early childhood 89grew up to be fathers. None of my beaux of my apprenticeship just described—the only period of my adult career when I went repeatedly with the same ones—ever gave evidence of any growing coldness toward the gentle sex. Dozens of experiences that they individually had were without any such effect. Why should fellatio have such a tendency any more than occasional solitary onanism, to which practically all ultra-virile adolescents are subject? That this tendency is at most only a very remote possibility is indicated by the fact that the young man who was my “adopted son” for nine years was as much of a Don Juan at the end as at the beginning.

Fellatio Efficiendi.

Secondly, invert promiscuity is to the interest of the young man because it would be cruel and unnatural to ask any one to remain permanently in the relation, and the promiscuity in question would obviate practically all risk of his ever becoming a pervert, if there be such risk.

Associates have told me that in coitus I was the most violently excited of any one they ever saw, and manifested the intensest feeling (i.e., mental). A few have said that they preferred fellatio with me to the normal with a physical girl, while many have said whether the latter or a fairie was indifferent. Up to my early thirties, they always regarded me as a girl and used the feminine pronoun.

My original and fundamental method was active fellatio, the identical act of an infant ad matrem, quoad fuit emissio in comite, who would lie absolutely inactive. Time from a second to over an hour. Average time, about five minutes. In a very few, there was no result. If it had not been for the extreme weakening effect I would have been 90glad to lie inactive for an hour preceding and for another hour following, merely cum membro virili in ore. Generally cruria involvebant corpus meum, and I desired that premeret me cum iis aliquando. I would occasionally emit infantile vocables; for example, half-sobbing, or the natural language expressive of satisfaction and contentment. At other times I would express my admiration in a rather babyish manner: “Big, big, fierce fighter! Big, big desperado!” He would stroke my hair or face or pat me on the back, and say, “Poor baby!” “My cry-baby!” “Pet!” etc.

Fellatio Patiendi.

All other methods were taught me, for example, passive fellatio, which occurred at least as often as active because my companion preferred it, while I preferred the active. In the passive, I was completely so, and would often lie flat on my back. He would conduct himself the same as in normal coitus, often cum manibus conjunctis post caput meum, quoad habuit emissionem. During this action on the part of the majority, I suffered the greatest physical discomfort and saepe strangulatus sum. Dorsum oris has been often rendered sore, and the uvula was elongated, necessitating truncation because the elongation caused a chronic cough. I know of another invert who had to undergo the same operation. But I counted it happiness to suffer thus and endure pain when inflicted by a strong, brave, and rough young blood.

I say to readers who judge me to be horribly depraved for submitting to such usage: Nature created me puellam sine vagina, and then drew me toward the sturdy sex as few of the gentle sex are drawn. In such a case, what is 91more natural than to use the next best foramen? Furthermore, instinct pointed out the makeshift. It came just as natural for me utor ore as for physical women to use what Nature has provided them. In general, all through my life, whenever I have encountered virum who appeared to me as exceptionally beautiful, a strong desire has immediately arisen membrum virile in ore recipere. There are inverts guilty of such practices who in all other respects are exemplars of the highest morality. They even sometimes occupy the highest social station. They are blameless, and simply to be pitied.

Nature of the Satisfaction.

Sometimes there was an alternation between the two methods, or both were adopted simultaneously. In the active, I did not have a fixed purpose inducendi ejaculationem in comite, neque desideravi semen. It was the mere act sugere that was my objective, and that gave me a sense of restful satisfaction. Nevertheless I practically semper devorabam. For days afterward it was a pleasure to reflect that what had once been the substance amatissimi was now my substance, and that the particles of matter that were once carried along in his veins, now floated in mine. In many cases I yearned to become the mother of his child, and often playfully spoke with an associate as if I had. Sometimes on meeting a young mother with her infant in her arms, I have wished to be in her place.

While lying cum membro virili in ore, I often feigned sleep, experiencing a sort of blissful dreaming, realizing that I was for a short season physically united to my mental and physical complement and opposite from whom fate and necessity separated me most of the time.

Fellatio Not Rare.

92Even before castration, rarely expertus sum ejaculationem. During my fairie apprenticeship, however, it occurred about once in ten fellationes. But it was accompanied by such horrible feelings and thoughts that I used my will power to prevent it. This probably made it become less and less common during coitus, although from the age of sixteen until I was castrated at the age of twenty-eight, it averaged twice a week during sleep. When it occurred during coitus, I wanted everything to stop immediately, and felt like never again indulging therein. From the age of nineteen on, however, it was not quite so terrible as in my early teens. Pædicatio nunquam induxit ejaculationem in me, and under force, not even an orgasm.

Fellatio appears to be deeply rooted in the constitution of man and of the mammals in general, although usually coming to the surface only in exceptional individuals or under exceptional circumstances. It has been witnessed between dogs on the street and between monkeys in zoos. Guinea sows, when the boar is disinclined to coitus, repeatedly resort to a sort of fellatio, which appears to give the boar pleasure. Fellatio is common in the underworld between the two sexes. In a 1915 issue of the Alienist and Neurologist, a writer maintained that fellatio is common among ordinary respectable married pairs.

My peculiar instinct was the occasion recipiendi in stomachum in tantum novem portiones liquoris vitæ in one evening. There was never any tonic or other beneficial effect. The apparent effect is an immediate disagreeable stimulation, followed the next day by a serious mental and 93physical collapse. This depression was, however, not specially serious during my first two or three years of promiscuity. Possibly later my constitution had become somewhat undermined and coitus therefore became more fatiguing. The collapse was particularly severe after I was castrated at the age of twenty-eight. Cultured inverts of strong passions realize the detriment to their health from coitus, yet they feel that it is the summum bonum for which everything else should be sacrificed. My own fascination for the rough and wild-natured was so great that for a decade I could not let slip a single opportunity.

Liquor Vitæ as Medicament.

Sometimes for several days following fellatio, I would suffer from a slight fever and all my organs and muscles would seem to be used up, as if I was just about to expire from exhaustion. I would be very irritable, and nothing seemed to go as it should. My brain was particularly affected, and during the latter half of my open career as a fairie, I would be incapable of doing good mental work for two or three days following an indulgence. My judgment and critical faculties were clouded, and I could do only such work as was mechanical in its nature. Providence endowed me with powers of mind such as are met with in approximately one alone out of two score university graduates. In life I have achieved about the average success of a university graduate. I have every reason to believe that if it had not been for my suffering for twelve years from acute spermatorrhea, and if I had been able to abstain wholly from coitus, I would have reached the front rank among university men. I therefore 94exhort young intellectual inverts to be continent as far as possible. For every indulgence, a heavy penalty must be paid in diminished efficiency. For each minute of bodily contact with a counterpart that I have enjoyed, I have had to pay one hour of resultant serious suffering, physical or mental.

Author’s Chronic Hyperæsthesia.

My mind and body have, however, always been hypersensitive to all stimuli and impressions. A few swallows of tea or coffee after one P. M. would make me lie awake half the night. A slightly tainted article of food which would have no effect on most people would prostrate me mentally and physically for hours afterward. A business worry would cause me to lie awake for hours. When spending the night in bed with one to whom I was attracted, I generally lay awake the whole night, and for this reason, I usually sought a separate place to sleep in.

But all these bad effects following fellatio I have sometimes fancied might be due rather to the mere presence of membri virilis in ore and in juxtaposition to the brain. The debilitating effects of coitus inter femora or of pædicatio were not one-quarter as marked as those of fellatio. Moreover, perhaps the ill effects of departures from the entirely normal form of coitus are roughly proportional to the extent of departure. Fellatio is further removed from normal coitus than inter femora or pædicatio. On a few occasions, as an experiment, exspui semen, but it seemed to make no difference in the aftereffects. Quite probably the bad effects were due to a relapse after intense nervous excitement, which in my case always accompanied fellatio, but not pædicatio, which 95latter I never sought. Or it might have been largely due to my habitual inhibition of the ejaculatory center. I now believe that I made a mistake in respect to this inhibition, and that it is more healthful to experience the ejaculation than to check it by force of will.

Alleviating Ill Effects—Inter Femora.

Not until I reached the age of thirty-nine did I, by chance, discover a means to alleviate decidedly the exhausting effects of fellatio. I had used potassium iodide extensively in tablet form dissolved in water for syphilis. I discovered it to be for me an excellent sedative and soporific, and occasionally used it to secure this effect alone. I further discovered that fifteen to twenty grains taken at night after fellatio almost entirely forestalled the exhaustion otherwise supervening on the following days. Experience further taught me at about the age of thirty-nine that the supervening exhaustion was in large measure forestalled by eating a light lunch several minutes before fellatio, and a hearty meal as soon afterwards as possible. Fellatio occurring just before rising in the morning was found to induce far less fatigue than when occurring in the evening, or at night just before going to sleep.

On rare occasions—about one hundred out of sixteen hundred—we adopted the normal position, cum peni ejus inter femora mea. I was entirely passive. It was necessary for me ponere femur unum transversum altero in order to form a foramen strictum. Sometimes I requested this pose, and sometimes my companion. This was the nearest to normal coitus. I was curious to see 96how my companion would conduct himself with a genuine fille.

Pædicatio.

Only when I could not avoid it, either because of force or because of insistent entreaty on the part of a kind companion, pædicatio took place. I would sometimes be beaten into submission, and knives would be drawn on me by the most desperate ruffians of the slums. Anus evidenter attrahit a very small percentage of men, just as the pudenda does the normal individual. Tangebant atque dicebant, “Anus pulcher.” My intense moral horror of pædicatio experienced at the beginning of my fairie days gradually declined. I later enjoyed it somewhat only because I enjoyed witnessing all kinds of amorous conduct on the part of ultra-virile young men. I had a craze to see them sexually excited, and to see the means they instinctively took to appease their ardor. The pain to me was generally excruciating—ad magnitudinem priapi—and has sometimes rendered walking painful for months together. It also occasionally brought on hemorrhoids of brief duration, but so painful as to render walking almost impossible. It is attended with much risk to the pathic. I know of two who were compelled to undergo serious operations as a result of repeatedly permitting it, one of whom in his early forties was invalided for the rest of his life. In my own case, pædicatio occurred only about fifty times out of sixteen hundred instances of coitus.

Up to the age of thirty, two years after castration, I was seemingly never satisfied. I have expressed to a group of companions the wish to die through them as 97did the Levite’s concubine at Gibeah, as related in the Book of Judges. In the subsequent physical and mental collapse, I received comfort from the consciousness that it was the result of devotion to adored beings.

Manustupration—Nature of Satisfaction.

When spasmus in my companion was impossible otherwise, I would resort to manustupration. My companions preferred me to do this rather than do it themselves. Only twice in all my career did my companion do it to me, much against my wishes. I have always had a horror of this experience, including solitary onanism.

Except for these two instances, and one instance when a companion to my disgust attempted fellatio, my pudenda never had any part in coitus, and I always wished I was rid of them. No method ever brought me any kind of local physical pleasure. That is, I am entirely devoid of any erogenous center. Companions have remarked that sensus gratissimus suffunderet corpus totum. I never experienced anything of the kind in the least degree. With me the satisfaction was practically all mental. I found it exclusively in the body of my associate, not at all in my own. I was satisfied with the realization that I was instrumental in efficiendo ei voluptatem acutam. I had my pleasure in seeing his vita sexualis strongly aroused and in witnessing the manifestations of the procreative instinct in him, e.g., his me cogendum, detrahendum mihi vestem, ejus appetitionem propellendi, anhelandum, etc. I was happy in the thought that I was being received tanquam uxorem by a handsome high-spirited adolescent. He called me uxorem, and I called him maritum. There was also a life-long satisfaction 98in the remembrance that I had possessed him in amplexu sexuali. To mimic the baby and the woman in his presence was a rare pleasure. Up to my early thirties, in all my conduct with him, I was more feminine than any woman and as babyish as a three-year old. Sexually I have never grown out of babyhood.

Sadism.

I liked to be regarded as the slave. In the “Enslaving Ceremony,” I lay prostrate on the floor, my companion towered above, placed his foot on my head, and pronounced me his slave. I have always felt that a woman should adore her husband so much as to delight in being treated as a slave, and to suffer gladly any abuse by her lord.

In the “Ceremony of Adoration,” my companion stood upright, I prostrated myself, clasped his legs, pressed my lips against his feet, recited all the heroic qualities which enslaved me to him, and cried out over and over again my love and adoration for him. Associates have said they only hoped they would ultimately secure a wife who would adore them as I.

I sometimes found pleasure in my companion being vexed with me and striking me. I would playfully slap him until he was provoked to give me a blow meant seriously. With heartless associates who were bent merely on the pleasure spasmi and would choke and otherwise maltreat me into submission to pædicatio, I often enjoyed being thus forced. Occasionally I even insisted that friendly ones rapere for the pleasure of struggling to get away and feeling their conquering strength.

There was a great difference in respect to the extent to which they responded. Some would not allow osculation 99above the waist and only desired spasmum. From this coldness there were all grades up to the associates who would kiss and hug me, and even let me protrudere linguam in os ejus, atque vice versa.

Farewell to Mulberry Street.

Although a girl only in mind, though to some extent in body, this deficiency seemed not to detract from my success in the vocation of a fille de joie. Few filles have had a clientele the equal of mine in youthfulness, beauty, and virility. Providence compensated me for my years of grief over being an invert by throwing in my way this exceptional clientele. My enterprise in seeking conquests was that usually found in the male, and rarely in the female.

Practically all my companions have remained permanently a part of me. Now and then through life when the memory of a particular one arises, it has been accompanied by regret at the thought of our eternal separation, and by the consciousness that I was offering him an eternal worship of which he could never know. From my late twenties on, I impressed it upon my ever changing companions that I offered them an eternal worship, and that down through life, when we must be forever separated, they should think of me as still offering them my adoration.

I am now going to recount how I happened to abandon Mulberry Street as my “stamping ground” when I had so many accommodating friends there. On account of a nervous breakdown, due partly to overstudy, partly to debauchery, but chiefly to emissions during sleep which had afflicted me twice a week since the age of sixteen, 100I was unable to stay out my junior year in college and left the city the middle of May. I was to spend my last evening with my “husband” par excellence at a theatre. I was to meet him at seven o’clock on a Broadway corner several blocks from his usual haunts. Since I did not expect to be with him where he could help himself to my belongings, and also since I had to leave my residence before dark, instead of putting on cast-off clothing as usual on my visits to the foreign-born quarters, I clad myself in my best and wore a gold ring and watch and chain.

Close of Junior Year.

But he did not come, though I waited a half hour in anguish. It was only five minutes’ walk from his usual haunts, but clad as I was, I was afraid to seek him there. Finally two Italian bootblacks happened to pass. Even the boys of that part of Mulberry Street knew me. I however never had anything to do with them, not being attracted toward those immature sexually. Even my companions would always drive away boys who sought to stand around our group. The bootblacks now called out: “Hello Jennie! Where yer goin’ all dressed up?”

I sent a message by them, and waited still another half hour. Of all things in the world, I wanted at that moment a sight of my idol. Though realizing the risk I was running, I decided that I must go nearer to his usual haunts. I walked to the corner of Mulberry. I said to myself that I would not venture any farther. I would wait on this corner until he happened to pass, since it was on his route home. I considered myself safe since the street was well lighted and there were numerous pedestrians.

In the Slums in My Best.

101After waiting here also a half hour in vain, I became hysterical, wept, wrung my hands, and gave utterance to suppressed shrieks. I finally decided the only thing to do was to walk up Mulberry Street. About the middle of the block, I happened to find him seated, as usual, in a group of my beaux. They all made exclamations of surprise and pleasure when they caught sight of me. It was my first and only appearance there dressed up. My mate called out: “Hello pretty little girl!”

“Hello big, brave, bouncing boy!”

They immediately pulled me down to a seat among them and several hands were stuck into my pockets. I had tucked my bills away in the waistband of my trousers. The street was alive with recent Italian immigrants, and I might have saved my coin by raising an alarm, but of course did not choose to. On every visit here I had my pockets rifled, and did not mind the loss of the coin.

My mate sought to be as captivating as possible, and put me in a state of perfect happiness. Before long he asked me to sleep with him and a pal that night. All this time, among this group of young bloods, there was but one female, only sixteen years of age, whose home was on this block. It was decided that we should spend the night in her rooms. Accompanied by the two ruffians and the young woman, I thus finally sauntered down a pitch-dark alley and descended some steps to the basement of a ramshackle rear tenement, occupied entirely by illiterate Italians recently immigrated. I revolted at what I saw and smelt, but on this and other occasions was drawn by sexual attraction into pestilential places 102where nothing else would have induced me to remain a minute.

In the Lair of a Strumpet.

When the lamp was lighted, I found myself in a suite of two dilapidated rooms, scantily and poorly furnished. On a century-old bedstead rested a dirty mattress filled with straw, and no pillows or bed-linen. Benefiting by my money, my associates drank to excess as the evening wore away, while I found my pleasure in the usual manner. Toward midnight, after the two ruffians had become half-intoxicated, my mate placed the muzzle of a revolver, which the young woman kept for self-defence, against my head, saying he would blow my brains out if I got him into any trouble. Because of the maudlin condition of the two young men, and because I had something on me that they might consider worth committing a grave crime for, I now half expected never to leave the place alive, and repeatedly breathed a prayer that no serious harm might be permitted to befall me. I now let them dispossess me of the balance of my bills and my other valuables in dismay and without the slightest protest, for fear of angering them.

Finally, in order to frighten me further from making complaint to the police, one of the ruffians asked the other whether they should put a bullet through my head or turn me over to the police because of my peculiar addiction. Thoroughly frightened, I implored them to let me go home. After some deliberation, designed to show how they had me in their power, including the assurance that I had that night rendered myself liable to a long term of imprisonment—ignorant men always thinking only 103the androgyne is amenable to the law—they finally decided to let me go if I ran away from the neighborhood as fast as my legs would carry me. The three of them escorted me to the mouth of the alley, and the last words I caught were: “Run faster! Run faster!”

Yearning for Feminine Apparel.

While in college I shrunk from the required gymnasium exercises. I felt that they were proper for young men, but my feminine nature made me exceedingly shy while in line in the drill. In the gymnasium dressing-room I would enjoy seeing the naked forms, but concealed my own. If military drill had been required, as is the case in some universities in 1918, it would have caused me to omit a university education.

Beginning about this time, my twenty-first year, and continuing down to the date when this book goes to press, I have commonly worn in my home an ornamental bathrobe, just like a woman’s dress. Clad in it, I have gazed at my reflection in the mirror, imagining I was a woman. Walking in it to and fro and up and down the stairs, I have taken pleasure in hearing it rustle like a woman’s dress, in feeling it strike against my legs, and in holding it up when ascending the stairs, as a woman her skirts. In my college days, while home for week-ends, I would occasionally, when alone, put on a sister’s hat and gaze at myself in the mirror with rare pleasure, wishing that I might wear that style of hat.

In this summer of 1894, when away from New York, where temptation was less strong, I became for several weeks weaned away from my peculiar habits. In my 104present rather puritanical circle, I felt like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Under the unusual religious influences, I even thought I might never again seek the gratification of my peculiar cravings.

Sexual Starvation.

Nevertheless, before many weeks, I began to suffer intensely from sexual starvation and melancholia. Being then a nervous wreck, I saw before me only insanity or suicide. I would walk deserted streets at night beating my breast and waving my arms in anguish. Even in broad daylight and on the main street, I several times wept openly while walking along, so that people who knew me probably thought I was insane. In the privacy of my room I would writhe on my bed in an agony of tears.

My sexual cravings began to render me sleepless after retiring, and throw me into paroxysms. Driven by my importunate craving for fellatio, I would occasionally rise from bed around midnight, and roam through the poor quarters, looking for a thoroughly intoxicated man who would not be able to recognize me, but I never found one. I now believe I was irresponsible.

The only ray of hope I had was the possibility of securing a steady mate. When in my imagination I could see the feasibility and certainty of this, I was happy and hopeful. I felt that then a successful life would be a certainty. Without a mate I feared for my virtue and my reputation. With one I felt that I could live a virtuous life outside of occasional fellatio with him. At the present time (1918), I am convinced that I had a right view of the matter back there in 1894. Possession of a 105mate would have been the panacea for all my ills.

Appeal to a Highminded Adolescent.

My New York physician, to whom I confided my woes, wrote that the only remedy to make me well and happy was the possession of a mate, and urged me to apply immediately to some stalwart acquaintance. I decided to appeal to a cousin, an adolescent fair to look upon, and possessed of all the qualities of mind attractive to the female sex. Moreover, in my early childhood, he had been one of my intimates. Too much ashamed to speak, I handed him the following argument:

“... I am driven to make these disclosures to you, or else go insane or commit suicide. I am madly in love with you. I say it before God—this impulse of my being is entirely opposed to my will. I bewail the fact that this animality is a part of my nature. I abhor sensual love and sensual enjoyment, and if I had my choice, would never stoop to them. Nevertheless, sometimes a person cannot do what he would but what he must. My physician says my health demands that I do not resist this overpowering impulse. Last night I went to bed drowsy and tired. But the impossibility of my possessing the masculine counterpart which nature ordained I should have, threw me for an hour into paroxysms which threatened to take away all my strength. I had finally to leave my bed, and spend two hours reading in order to save myself from insane raving. The statement of the few specialists who have studied into the nature of sexual inversion is that the craving of a person like myself for his sexual counterpart is abnormally intense, and that it is, for the ends of health, more necessary for his peculiar 106craving to be met than it is necessary for the normal man or woman’s.

Abstinence Would Wreck Life.

“Judging from the past, my life is likely to be a wreck if I deny this instinctive craving. In leading a life of chastity, I have endured a melancholy existence, and have often deliberated suicide. Recently I have meditated it daily. All my privileges, which one would think must make my life a happy one, have failed to make life to me worth living. You may say it is my own fault, and that I just make my own life miserable. But truly, it is a matter to me not dependent on my will power, but on physiological and psychological laws, over which the will has no more control than over the diphtheria.

“That I desire such indulgence does not spring from the fact that I have become licentious or a debauchee, placing my own selfish sensual enjoyment above everything else. I am as ardent as ever in my yearnings to alleviate human misery and to deny myself for others. But in this matter, the result of my denying myself would be almost as serious as to resolve to give up eating for the sake of saving the money for the cause of missions. There are some things which it would be fatal to us to give up, even if we did it through motives of altruism. I assure you that I have not abandoned my high aspirations and worthy aims of life.

“I assert before God that I am confident that I commit no sin in obeying this instinct. During my moments of closest communion with God, I am sensible of His smile on my conduct in this matter. In general the only legitimate relations are between a legally married pair. The 107marriage state is open to the normal man and he is duty bound to marry when passion becomes too strong. This duty however is not binding on urnings,^[2] because they cannot get any one to marry them. I endeavored to marry a young man in New York, but failed. Therefore it is in consonance with the moral law for urnings to enjoy the company of those they love without marrying.

Androgyne’s Propensities Not Under Biblical Ban.

“You may reply that such relations are prohibited in the Bible. Relations between man and man, both of whom are normal, are prohibited. But in the past year I have learned that I am seven-eighths a woman, and only one-eighth man.^[3] Were it not for certain masculine conformations of the body, I ought to go about in dresses as a woman, and always identify myself with the female sex. Therefore, I being more a woman than a man, these prohibitions in the Bible do not apply to me.

“I think I have satisfied you that I can without sin follow out my desire in the way Nature prompts. But I would convince you that my companion also acquiesces in my desire without sin. I would not wish to allure any one into obliging me unless he could see that he was thereby committing no sin. There is sin only in those things which rob God of His glory, or which bring unhappiness and detriment to some sentient being. In this 108case, if sin at all, it would be sin against self. But by it you harm yourself in no way, as the physician told me.

Androgynes the Handiwork of God.

“Then too, urnings, congenital as I, are the work of God, the divine purpose in their creation being probably to check a too rapid increase in the population; and God must therefore have meant that their instinctive cravings for a sexual counterpart should be gratified, especially since he has made these cravings doubly intense. But how could they be gratified without the acquiescence of some normal individual? Therefore the latter is also without sin.

“I am not now, as you may think, writing in a state of extreme excitement, such as I might be in in the presence of the attractive person, when I would not be my true self; but I am writing in a comparatively calm, rational frame of mind. I am backed up in what I write by an experienced physician, whose letter I can show you, and who says that if I had the occasional satisfaction of this craving, I would become healthy, get rid of my morbid thoughts, and have some vim for work, and for distinguishing myself as a scholar. I am myself confident that with this occasional gratification I would some day win the admiration of the circles of religion and learning for my scholarly attainments and for my work for humanity.

“All I ask is that you take a common-sense, rational view of the matter. If there is still any doubt in your mind about your possible compliance being compatible with honor and morality, please state your difficulty, and 109I assure you I can remove it, since I have given much study to the ethics of this question....”

The Androgyne Merits Forbearance.

But he absolutely declined to grant the favor asked, giving as his only reason that it would be “self-pollution.” In culture, education, and broadness of mind, he stood much below me, but he had some religious scruples, and also his tastes were naturally against compliance. I made further oral solicitations, but he remained deaf to them. I was plunged into despair at his refusal to listen to reason, and my head was drooping in shame. With an intense impulse for self-destruction possessing me, I turned my steps toward a stream about a mile away, where I intended to blot out my miserable existence. But when I had walked some distance, the beauties of nature gradually drew away my thoughts from my chagrin.

Since this cousin was my only hope during the many weeks that I had still to remain in the village, and since I was madly attracted to him, I did not give up all endeavor. Later happenings are described in the following letter to my New York physician:

“... I write to you in order to see if I can be saved from insanity. Last night I again appealed to my cousin, with whom I am deeply in love. I called at his house about nine o’clock, but he was not in. I told his mother I would go up to his room and wait for him. Finally he appeared. I was simply going to ask him to let me kiss him. If he had granted only this, I would have gone home happy and contented. He could not see me, as the room was in darkness, but as soon as he heard 110me, he said he would shoot me if I did not clear out immediately, and he made a move to get his revolver, which he always keeps loaded under his pillow. I entreated him not to shoot, and to let me say merely a few words; but he answered angrily, ‘If you do not leave the house immediately, I will put a bullet through your head!’

Inhumanity Now Shown Androgynes.

“I immediately left quite calmly, but after I got in my own bed, I began to cry over my cousin’s treatment of me. All of a sudden, without any conscious volition, I sat up in bed, threw my legs and arms about wildly, and for a few seconds shrieked loudly and frightfully. This paroxysm has left me in a state of complete exhaustion, and I now do not know whether I am sane or insane.

“No one can sympathize with me. My cousin, an honorable and intelligent young man, now knows much about my case, and how I have suffered for years, and yet I received from him last night only harsh words, emphasized by a revolver. Such treatment by one I dearly love drives me crazy. If only he had denied my request in gentle words, I would have gone home and merely wept tears of gratitude at his forbearance....”

I longed to be back in a great city, where alone life is possible for such as me provided one wishes to preserve a good reputation. But I did not have the means to go, nor anything I could give my parents as a pretext. After the last terrible repulse, I left my cousin alone. But I was still frequently driven late at night to wander about the village, hoping to find some man in a thoroughly 111intoxicated condition, but many, many weary hours were thus spent in a vain search.

First Soldier Companion.

I now learned that a detachment of light artillery, stationed at a fort near New York City, who were out on a practice march, would camp in a neighboring town. This news enchanted me, and I informed my parents that I was going off for a trip afoot for a few days, of course not making known my motive. Though a nervous wreck, I was at the time able to walk twenty miles a day.

I reached the camp toward sunset. With other civilians, I lingered around until late in the evening. I tried to enter into conversation with the young soldiers, who fascinated me, but could not overcome my bashfulness. Finally, after most of them had retired, I left the camp, and started off to seek lodging for the night. But on the way I unexpectedly met a tall soldier of imposing appearance, and by a great effort of the will, I stepped up, walked along by his side, and entered into conversation.

When from his words and manner I judged that he was kind-hearted and would not take advantage of my own unfortunate position in society, I threw off the role of a male, and gave full swing to the feminine side of my nature. My long enforced abstinence had driven me wild, and I now poured out hot protestations of love and adoration. Finding that they were received sympathetically, I threw myself into his arms, clasped my hands around his neck, and wept for happiness. The effect on me of the soldier’s charms was beyond description. His 112face and head seemed to be surrounded with a halo of glory. There was an air about him so careless, so sensual, so brave, so manly, and yet so kind. I called him by all the names which love can invent in order to deify its object. He however soon had to retire to the camp, and left me heartsick.

First Arrest.

I again started toward town, and soon met another soldier, who happened to be in a maudlin condition. Because of this, I thought I had nothing to fear, and accosted him in such a way as to disclose my nature immediately without first sounding to see if he was of a compassionate nature. Though not at all offended, but laughing at what he considered an amusing experience, and expressing his willingness, he demanded five dollars, and said that unless I handed it over, he would take me before the captain of his company. This was said merely to frighten me, but in my greenness, I fully believed he would do it. Thoroughly alarmed, I started off on a run. The soldier staggered after, crying, “Catch him! Catch him!” In a moment there were three other soldiers and a constable in pursuit. I was caught, the constable took me in hand, and asked what it was all about. Before any one else could reply, I addressed the five supplicatingly:

“I am ashamed to tell it, but I am an urning.^[4] I simply asked this soldier to do me a favor, to which he certainly did not object, because he only laughed. I have not done anything to him wrong or criminal. I only proposed something, and then he said he would take me before his captain unless I paid him five dollars. I became frightened 113and ran away. I pray you, have mercy on me, and let me go. If you knew what a sad life I have had, you would feel sorry for me. I have felt like committing suicide a thousand times. I am not willingly what I am. It is my misfortune and not my fault that I am an urning. If you are ever capable of compassion, let my fate move you to pity. Please let me go and don’t arrest me!”

Reflections in Jail.

The soldiers soon went on their way, and the constable conducted me in the direction of the lockup. He acted toward me as if I was a low criminal, while I continued to supplicate him to let me go. As we came nearer the lockup, in my highly excited condition over the fear of disgracing my family, who lived only four miles away, and the prospect that if my secret was disclosed, I could never see any of my loved ones again, I thoughtlessly declared I would not go any farther, which caused him to rap my head with his club.

I was locked up for the night. Through nervous shock, I did not sleep a wink. Only to the few is it given ever to taste such a night of misery as I passed. “I, whom all think the purest and most pious of men, being arrested!” I meditated. “I, the last one whom anybody would have expected ever to be arrested! But God’s will be done.... Am I to be the one to disgrace my family? Hitherto I have been the scholar, the litterateur, the only collegian of my father’s family, and have by my achievements in learning brought the most honor on my father’s house of all his children. I shall also be the one to bring the deepest disgrace upon it.”

Chronic Fear of Arrest.

114The following morning I was sentenced to three days in the lockup. As the village of my incarceration was only four miles from my home, and I was known at least by sight to some of its inhabitants, my father evidently soon learned of my disgrace, notwithstanding that I had sought to conceal my identity. Although he never mentioned the episode, he soon began to treat me regularly with extreme bitterness, as if he wished I had never been born. I was the only one of his children to whom he manifested any such spirit, notwithstanding I was the brightest of them.

Throughout an entire decade subsequent to this episode, I had an unreasonable nervousness about arrest and about policemen. Whenever any one whose name was unfamiliar was announced as waiting to see me, my first thought and fear were that a policeman had come to arrest me. Whenever any one called me up on the telephone, I always feared that it was in connection with my forthcoming arrest.

A few days after being restored to liberty, I informed my parents of my intention to go off on another trip afoot, this time for a couple of weeks. My secret object was to mingle with this detachment of troops, whom I knew to be encamped for some weeks about two days’ easy journey on foot from my home. That just described was my first experience with soldiers, and I had become fascinated as never before. All my reveries were now to relinquish the career of a scholar and become a sutler near some fort in the wild west so that I could mingle daily with these demigods, whom I most abjectly worshipped. 115I was in misery because my lot in life separated me from these ferocious young men.

Soldiers Are Demigods.

I look upon a youthful professional soldier as a most wonderful being, different from all other human beings. There seems to be a sort of enchantment about him. Merely the process of enlistment, the donning of the uniform, and the acquiring of skill in handling the weapons of warfare make a demigod out of the young man, as your author looks upon it. When a newspaper item states that a trainload of regular soldiers passed through a certain town, I reflect with a thrill on what a wonderful burden that train bore, and experience a sense of pain that I could not be along and make known the adoration I feel. Ever since this my first encounter with regular soldiers, I have wished for omnipresence with the men of the regular army. Privates, corporals, and sergeants are men after my own heart. I was never attracted toward commissioned officers, and they have appeared to me as being less manly than the classes named. Perhaps my predilection is due to the fact that the commissioned officers are as a rule intellectual like myself. Subsequently to my reaching the age of twenty-five, regular soldiers have been practically the only young men to whom I have been strongly attracted. After that age I found it easy to relinquish coquetry with all other young men. Now (1918) when I have arrived at my middle forties, I pine alone not to be able longer—on account of my age—to mingle with regular soldiers as a mignon. As Ophelia with Othello, I love them and adore them for the dangers they have passed through, as well as those attached to 116their vocation. Furthermore, in man’s natural state, fighting—next to procreating—is the pre-eminent function of the male. For this reason the war-loving man is my sexual ideal.

Music Overwhelms.

Arrived a short distance from the camp, I, for only the second time in my life, caught the thrilling notes of the bugle-call. It took all the strength out of my legs so that I felt as if I would fall to the ground. Since I began to associate with soldiers, the notes of the bugle have had an unearthly—I might say, an eternal, overwhelming—beauty. Subsequently to 1905, when my open career as a soldiers’ mignon became a thing of the past, the bugle-call has made me live that career over again in a few moments. It brings up fond memories of the many evenings spent in the long, long ago with the “mighty men of war.” It fills my soul with adoration for these “mighty men of valor,” these “mighty men of renown.” I have sometimes been seized with a babyish cooing or gasping, and have ardently wished that I were youthful again and in the arms of one of these wonderful beings.

The effect on me of secular music in general has been to arouse reveries of my amours and paramours. I have been an unusual lover and patron of grand opera, the soprano and alto solos having an overwhelming effect particularly (because that is the manner in which I would have wished to sing). I have often been raised into sublime heights of ecstasy, generally with a sensual tinge.

Arrived at the camp, I strolled about and was soon recognized: “Hello Pretty! Where did you come from?” Filled with bliss, and thrown into my most babyish 117and effeminate mood, I responded: “You adorable artilleryman, I was pining for you, and followed you here from X——.” He told me to meet him outside the camp after retreat, when he appeared with several comrades. I was in ecstasy on this first walk of my life on a country road with a party of bewitching adolescent soldiers as daylight was fast fading into darkness. In my years of subsequent association with soldiers, I found that those over twenty-five years of age were in general disinclined to talk with me. They appeared to have been already satiated with flirtation, while numerous youngsters were desirous of a frolic with me.

Milites Easiest of Conquests.

Havelock Ellis says: “The homosexual tendency appears to have flourished chiefly among warriors and warlike peoples.” In another place he says: “I have been told by medical men in India that it is specially common among the Sikhs, the finest soldier-race in India.” I have myself found adolescent professional soldiers the easiest of conquests and the most inclined of any class of men to take the virile part with me. I speak from experience in flirtation with at least two thousand different professional soldiers, only about four hundred of whom, however, went to extremes. I saw not the least tendency toward homosexuality amongst themselves, although I frequented to some extent their barracks and even their bunks. They are only capable of taking the virile part with an individual like your author. In general the common soldiers of the regular army are particularly rough, coarse-grained, vigorous, and sensual men, constituting physically the best blood of the race. As already indicated, 118practically all civilians who were intimate with me were of this same type, and there appears to be some connection between tremendous virility and active homosexuality. Furthermore, along with this ultra-virility of the professional common soldier, he is almost entirely shut off from the gentle sex, whereas the young civilian of the laboring classes has usually an acquaintance who gladly yields as his mistress. Of course many of the nation’s fighters have a natural distaste. As just indicated, only about one in five with whom I coquetted went to extremes, while about fifty per cent. of those who knew me by sight would never even speak to me. But the line of cleavage did not at all correspond with that between the religious or conscientious and the vicious. It was a matter as much outside the province of ethics as is vegetarianism.

Actives Are Ultravirile.

Moreover, soldiers lead comparatively idle lives, and also monotonous lives, and these two conditions add to their susceptibility to the wiles of a fairie. A bright and facile fairie is capable of furnishing them a great deal of entertainment, aside from the opportunity of exercising their fundamental impulse. With myself also, coitus was a comparatively small element in our mutual relations. Innocent coquetry, including “taking off” the baby and the woman, occupied a far larger place.

Author’s Two-Sided Life.

My relations with a coterie of beaux, and particularly with soldiers around the camps and forts, reminded me sometimes of a play. I was, as it were, acting a part. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that another personality was in possession of me. I was conscious that I was the same “I” who was one of the leaders in 119scholarship at the university and who was there looked upon as a particularly innocent and pure-minded youth. I was also conscious that in the society of my beaux I was not acting as became the sensible, rational, respectable collegian of other occasions. I felt that I had temporarily relinquished my mind and body to the dictates of another spirit, that of a “baby girl”—a combination of baby and girl. It was however a spirit not alien to me. It was a spirit which had dwelt in my brain from infancy. It was a spirit that had always been called up by the sight of beautiful stalwart males of the proper age. For the work of life I realized that this spirit would not do. If I was to make a name for myself in the world, I must dethrone this baby-spirit in me. When in my study, I sought to forget this baby-spirit. I even turned against it at times with a sort of abhorrence, and asked myself how I could give way to it. Thus I lived a sort of a two-sided life. Part of the time I was a sober-minded intellectual worker. Part of the time, when under sexual excitement, even to a slight degree, I displayed the mental traits of a baby. I knew that these two states, babyhood and adult manhood, were incongruous, but to have a contented mind and to be in a mood which would render a career devoted to scholarly pursuits possible, it was necessary occasionally to follow out my feminine and babyish instincts. It should be remembered, however, that I have never developed into a full-fledged man either physically or mentally. If my business associates tell the truth, I am still in 1918 a child nearly half a century old. Childlikeness is a common characteristic of androgynes.