"I don't remember whether it was while I was at school or later that I first began again to take a sexual interest in animals. I used to masturbate a good deal and was always trying to find new ways of doing it and new substances to lie on. It was while feeling the vulva of a young mare that the brilliant thought struck me of trying to copulate with her, and thus getting the advantage of the soft vagina. It afforded me great satisfaction and I had an emission, though I did not then, nor at any other time with any other animal, succeed in penetrating properly. I afterward did the same with other mares and with a certain cow whenever I got a safe opportunity, which was not as often as I could have wished. I have not had connection with an animal for about ten years, but would have no objection to doing so, and feel sure I could perform the act properly now. After I left school at 17, I occasionally had longings for boys, but it was the exception and not the rule. I continued to masturbate, but not to excess, and used to make ineffectual efforts to stop it, but never succeeded for very long. When I was confirmed, at the age of 15, I became intensely religious, and was so remorseful at my first lapse from virtue that I burnt my leg with a red-hot poker, and I bear the scar still. On leaving school I went to Germany and there had my first coitus with a woman, a fat old German who gave me very little satisfaction. My next, a Jewess, gave me more than I asked for, in the shape of a soft chancre. In my ignorance I never had it treated, but it must have been very mild, for it disappeared of its own accord. When cramming in England I occasionally went home with a prostitute, but did not care much about them and could not afford good ones. On one occasion I was impotent. It may have been through drink, but it disgusted me with myself. I liked seeing the women naked, and always insisted that they should strip, especially the breasts, which I liked large and full. I had not learned to kiss on the lips, and had no desire to kiss the body, except the breasts, which I was generally too shy to do. But as I nearly always wore a condom and found penetration difficult I did not much enjoy the actual coitus. I am fully convinced that if women had been more accessible, if I had not thought myself bound to use preventives in self-defense, and if the act had not been looked upon with such disfavor by those in authority over me, I should have masturbated less or not at all, and would not have been tempted to bestiality. When I was 22 I had coitus with a girl who was not a prostitute for the first time. I was violently excited and enjoyed it more than anything I had yet experienced, in spite of the facts that she would not undress and insisted on withdrawal before emission. On one other occasion only have I had coitus with a non-professional unmarried woman. Shortly after this I caught syphilis from a girl of the streets. I was circumcised and stayed in a private hospital for six weeks. It never went beyond the primary stage, and I have felt no ill effects from it, except that I have got a hydrocele in the right testicle. Of course, this incident necessitated the use of a condom on every occasion, and it greatly spoiled my pleasure. About this time a brother-officer older than myself made advances to me. He compared me to a Greek statue, and wanted to kiss me. I would have nothing to do with him, but was glad to have his confessions of homosexuality and somewhat surprised to learn that he was not alone in the regiment. I afterward fell in love with his sister, and he married and had children. He was bisexual in his inclinations, but was really in love with me for a short time.

"I had little to do with professionals until I went to South Africa, and though I was fond of ladies' society, and liked by ladies, I looked upon them as something apart, especially married women, and never attempted to take liberties with them; though I used to with shopgirls, etc., in my cramming days, and had often been in love. In South Africa I first began really to enjoy coitus, and on going to India continued to do so; in fact, I thought sexually of nothing else and rarely masturbated,—perhaps once in three weeks. I would go to brothels wherever they were available, Durban, Cape Town, Colombo, Calcutta, Bombay, and at one time preferred black women to white. I used to have horrible orgies with my brother-officers, and on one occasion I ordered six women to my bungalow in order to celebrate my birthday, and made a present of them to five of my friends after dinner. During this period, and until I went home, I rarely spoke to a lady, the chief exception being No. 1, a brother-officer's wife, with whom I began to be in love.

"Shortly after the South African War I fell violently in love with a young brother-officer, 'Z.' It amounted to a passion and I was forced to make overtures to him. He did not understand, being ignorant of homosexuality and quite virile, and would have nothing to do with me, though he was very nice about it. This lasted for about a year, and then, thinking no doubt that he had better stop it, as I was really making myself very ridiculous and was mad with love, he threw me up altogether. I was intensely miserable for some time, and then I recovered and we made it up, and are now firm friends. I still want to kiss and stroke him when I see him naked, but would do nothing more. I went home by way of Japan after several years' absence from home, taking the women of the Eastern ports as I went, until I contracted gonorrhea in the Tokio Yoshiwara. I could not get rid of it, and arrived home in that state, having been deprived of the pleasure of trying several new races on the way in consequence. In England I rushed into a society which I had quit on such different terms, and it received me with open arms. I very soon began a flirtation with a married woman, and she completed my education in kissing which had been begun by the Japanese harlots. I was just coming to the point with this woman when I met No. 1 again, and my love for her was at once renewed. I told her so, but I knew that she did not return it. I then became attracted to No. 2, a girl older than myself, whom I had known all my life. I kissed her and fondled her breasts; but she would not allow anything else, until one night, when in the train with her, I got my hand down farther than she intended. It ended in my performing cunnilingus on her first, and then obtaining satisfaction between her thighs—a large step to take after the former limitations. Previous to this I had on several occasions obtained an emission, without meaning to, by lying on her fully dressed. She was aware of my disease, which by that time had become a gleet and did not inconvenience me in any way. From that time until I went back to India we went through the same performance whenever possible, I masturbating her sometimes with the finger, sometimes with the tongue, and having connection with various parts of her body, including the breasts, but always with a condom on account of my disease. She used to strip for my edification, and we frequently spent the night in the same bed. I was attracted to her mentally, but not very much physically; that is to say, that if circumstances had not thrown us together I should never have picked her out from other girls as being sexually attractive to me. I returned to India, and to No. 1, though I kept faithful to No. 2 in word and deed for five months, but gradually the overmastering influence of No. 1 reasserted itself over me. And then I met No. 3. We were attracted to each other at first acquaintance, and the attraction was mental and sexual. She was married and in love with another man, but that did not prevent her from kissing me. I felt her breasts, masturbated her, and had emissions by lying on her, but she drew the line at one thing, viz., kissing on the lips; and I drew it at coitus. We arranged a trip together during which I went to bed with her, but never had coitus, though we both had frequent orgasms in other ways. Before starting on this trip I had thought that I should not see No. 1 again, and she let me kiss her, to my unspeakable joy. Circumstances, however, intervened, and I went straight to No. 1 after parting with No. 3, told her all I had done, and then kissed her again, leaving her just before her real lover, with whom she was then living, arrived. Later I returned again to No. 1, now in child to her lover. We lived together for three nights in spite of this. She then went home, and I had no connection with any woman for two years, except one black woman, being consumed with love and worship for No. 1. I was much in society, but never had any luck. At the end of this time I was traveling one night with a young officer ('X'), slight and effeminate and preferring men to women, with whom I had been until then on friendly but not intimate terms. I watched him undress and go to bed, and then, having myself undressed, went over to his bunk and put my hand under his clothes. He at once responded, and I got into his bed, both of us being in a frenzy of passion and surprise. But I was fairly sure of my ground or I would not have dared to take the risk. I used often to go to his bed after this, and on one occasion had coitus with a girl on a chair at a ball and the next night with my young officer. I scarcely knew the girl, and don't know her name now, but I took her measure, made her excited by manipulation and kissing, and then got her consent. I did not harm her, even if I had been the first, for orgasm occurred before I had penetrated beyond the lips. X surprised me by telling me that he had had connection with three other officers in my regiment, as well as with several others in the same station. He would not tell me their names, but I guessed easily enough. He used to drink heavily, and once I got into his bed when he was in a drunken stupor and he was quite unaware that I was there for some time. I myself was drinking too much at this time, and was frequently drunk before dinner. In the hot weather that followed I had one orgy in Bombay which lasted three nights. I started on a Greek and a Pole and finished up with a Japanese, two brother-officers accompanying me. Afterward I was much alone during the day in my bungalow, and used to become possessed by intense desire. I masturbated occasionally, but by this time took but little pleasure in it, always craving for the moist human vagina. I had often heard, and myself quoted, the Pathan proverb 'Women for breeding; boys for pleasure; melons for delight,' and one day when seeking for some novelty with which to masturbate, and my eye being caught by a melon put ready for me to eat, it flashed across me to try whether the proverb was in any way true. I found it most satisfactory, and practised it several times after that, the pepita (papaye or pawpaw) being the nearest approach to the human vagina. The opportune arrival of a fairly good-looking punkah woman, however, put an end to this form of enjoyment by providing me with what I wanted. Soon afterward I went home again, taking the Japanese at Bombay on my way.

"I had kept up a correspondence with No. 1 all this time, but we had made a compact that whatever each did until we met again was not to count, and I knew that she had had at least one liaison since our parting, and was in entire ignorance of the state of her feelings toward me. Therefore, while trying to arrange a meeting with her, I took the first thing that chance threw in my way, thinking a bird in the hand better than the off chance of a better one in the bush. This was No. 4, with whom I spent three days at the seaside after having first had coitus with her in my own home while she was in the monthly state. Immediately on parting from her I came home to receive No. 1. The first time we were alone she kissed me, and this was followed by mutual confessions and coitus, though at first she said my affair was too recent. I agreed not to have connection again with No. 4, and kept to this until when staying in the same house again with her I was tempted beyond my powers; and I may add that she gave me no assistance in keeping this promise, of which she was fully cognizant. I at once wrote and confessed to No. 1, and she very naturally would have nothing more to do with me. But I managed to reconcile her, and we afterward lived together for three days in the country, as well as in London and in her own house. Meanwhile No. 5 had been making advances to me which I could not well refuse, being a very old friend. Nos. 4 and 5 were on one occasion staying together at my house, just after I had been faithless to No. 1 with No. 4. I could not very well sleep with them both, so at the earnest entreaty of No. 4 I went to her room first, told her my reasons for not having connection with her, left her in tears, and then went and slept with No. 5. This is the only transaction I have ever concealed from No. 1; but No. 5 knows my whole story and accepts the situation of being only second so long as I give her satisfaction whenever possible. About this time I again met No. 3 and kissed and masturbated her in a cab, but she would not allow me to go home with her. At the bidding of No. 1 I now broke entirely with No. 4, to the great grief and astonishment of my sister, whose friend she was. Shortly after this I again returned to India, where I quarreled hopelessly with No. 1, and I don't know to this day what my fault was, except that she had got tired of me. Her influence over me is, however, too great to be so easily broken, and I would return to her tomorrow if she moved a finger in reconciliation. During the following hot weather I slowly but surely, albeit quite unconsciously, obtained an influence over No. 6, and it ended by her falling desperately in love with me and allowing me to do what I liked. I did not love her, and told her about No. 1, whose image always remained in the back of my vision, whatever I was doing. She also accepted the situation, and I don't think has any grievance against me. For my part I have nothing but thanks and gratitude and as much love as I am capable of to give her, and all the other women with whom I have had any sexual relations. The following is a short account of the above women:—

"No. 1. Had coitus before marriage, for love and with full knowledge of the nature of the act. Agreement with her husband not to have coitus rigidly adhered to by both. Has had connection with five other men since marriage. Very passionate, but faddy and particular. Slow at producing orgasm. Likes being in bed naked, and liked me once for having kissed her mons veneris. Thin, with undeveloped breasts. Brilliant, good-looking. Artistic and highly intellectual. Never masturbated, and did not know of homosexuality among women; very sensitive to touch on the pudenda.

"No. 2. Has had sexual relations, but never coitus, with many men. Mutually masturbated with one man. Masturbated herself frequently, and took a long time to produce orgasm, even with cunnilingus, which delighted her immensely. After having it performed, she would stoop down and passionately kiss my lips. Fond of prolonged kisses, during which the tongue played a prominent part. Tall and fully developed, but no looks. Clever, masculine brain, and strong physically. Skillfully concealed her passionate nature, which, however, was long in developing and was long kept in check by maidenly modesty.

"No. 3. Innocent before marriage, and hated her fiance even to touch her, which feeling still persists. Has had liaisons with many men, and several miscarriages, one legitimate, others illegitimate, and one illegitimate child. Does not masturbate herself, but readily yields to its seduction when performed by others. The most passionate woman I have ever met. Good, typical, womanly figure, but thin and weak. Not much looks, but very fascinating to men. Clever and intellectual.

"No. 4. Coitus only with her husband before myself. Not very passionate. I know nothing about masturbation or homosexuality in her case. Very broad hips, large breasts, and well-developed nates. Deserted by her husband. No children. Rather foolish and weak-minded. Penetration difficult owing to long labia majora.

"No. 5. Knows all about homosexuality of both sexes and wants to know more about everything. Probably masturbates. Several children. In love with her husband at first, but now tired of him and took to other men for variety and because her husband had ceased to give her sexual pleasure. Very passionate; has slow orgasm; likes nakedness and contact of body. Very large vagina. Broad hips and full breasts. Intellectual, but not so by nature. Artistic and very musical.

"No. 6. Absolutely innocent before marriage. Was practically raped by her husband on her marriage night. This disgusted her with the whole performance, and she could not bear her husband's caresses. During pregnancy she was frightened because she did not know what was going to happen, i.e., how the child was going to be born; and no one enlightened her,—doctor, nurse, or mother. Did not know the meaning of the words sexual feeling, and never thought about sexual matters at all until marriage. I roused her passion, put things in their true light, made her have an orgasm, and told her what it meant. The orgasms at first made her cry and nearly faint, and she thereafter became intensely passionate. Very excited at cunnilingus, which I practised on her more than once. She confessed that the orgasm was stronger and more complete during coitus than during masturbation, which relieved my mind. She volunteered to strip naked and has but little shyness with me. Cannot bear her husband yet. She admits that she was only half a woman before she knew me, but now regrets her marriage. Short, thin, and slight, with narrow hips and no breasts. Quick woman's wit, but not intellectual.

"Of the prostitutes I have known, perhaps 60 in number, the Japanese easily take the palm. They are scrupulously clean, have charming manners and beautiful bodies, and take an intelligent interest in the proceedings. Also they are not always thinking about the money. Perhaps the Kashmiris come next, though the Chinese run them very close. Some of the more expensive London women are bearable, but they are such harlots! The white women in the East are insupportable, and small wonder, for they consist of the dregs of the European and American markets. My list comprises English, French, German, Italian, Spanish-American, American, Bengali, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Kaffir, Singhalese, Tamil, Burmese, Malay, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, and Pole.

"I naturally prefer to satisfy myself with a woman, a friend and a lady of my own class; but in the absence of the best I gladly take the next best available, down the scale from a lady for whom I do not care to prostitutes of all classes and colors, men, boys, animals, melons, and masturbation. I would as cheerfully have connection with my sister, or any other female relative. I have frequent erotic dreams about the most extraordinary subjects—male and female relations, casual acquaintances of both sexes, and animals. When I have got an intrigue in hand with a woman, I have no wish to masturbate, and often restrain myself when I know that I am going to have access before long to prostitutes. After coitus it takes a long time before I am ready for the next, sometimes two hours; and the first is always very quick, nearly always too quick for the woman. With a strange woman I have difficulty in maintaining erection at the instant of penetration, and this has often given me trouble.

"I know that most women like, and few dislike, being touched by me. My favorite colors are green and red, and I can whistle quite well.

"I would be very glad to know whether I may be considered sexually normal or not, but I do not desire any opinion on the morality of my acts, for the simple reason that without knowing all the circumstances it would be impossible to judge. But I cannot help saying that I do not consider anything I have done is wrong in itself, and I am quite certain that I have never harmed in any way any of the ladies with whom I have had relations. I am certain, if I had made promises which I knew I could not keep, I might have married one of them. But the result would have been great unhappiness to both, quarrels, and ultimate separation or divorce—and she realized that as well as I did. I may seem egotistical in my attitude and assurance toward ladies, but I only speak the honest truth; and I know that No. 6, for instance, has only gratitude and worship to give me for having opened her eyes. I have made her promise to have intercourse with her husband as soon as she can bear it, and I have satisfied myself that I have not started her on the road to sexual perversion. So much in self-explanation. I may add that I do not deliberately seek 'affaires de coeur,' and that, when they come my way, I do my utmost to use all consideration for the lady, thinking, as I do, that I owe them a far bigger debt than I shall ever be able to pay."

HISTORY XIV.—J.E., professional man, aged 32. Public school and university education, in which he did well. From age of 6 or 7 had strong sexual emotions, and from 9 sexually pleasurable dreams, though no emission till 12 or 13. He remembers the association of sexual excitement with whipping, either at sight or imagination of it, and this feeling was certainly shared by boys aged 9 to 12 at his private boarding-school and others at the public school later on. His nurse-maid used to invent excuses for beating his nates with a long lead-pencil when he was aged about 7, and he saw occasional whippings with clothes removed in the family nursery.

When nearly 16 he was initiated into masturbation, which at once coincided with rapid mental development and success at school. He has practised it ever since under same conditions and restrictions as marital intercourse. Religion has never acted as any restraint, and the best restraint to all young people, in his opinion, is to warn them on hygienic grounds. (He became a freethinker at 17, partly on observing the inconsistency of religious persons in this connection. He was twice set upon by Catholics when 16, who attempted mutual masturbation.) He can vaguely remember some such warning when very young from his mother.

No intercourse with women till age of 19, though strong homosexual feelings from 10 upward, associated with feminine youths. These feelings were quite distinct from feelings of affection and friendship for more virile youths. An attack of gonorrhea at 21 was followed by an operation for circumcision, which had beneficial effects, but did not prevent an attack of syphilis at age of 23, caught at a guaranteed state establishment in France. Intercourse almost always with prostitutes, on prudential and worldly grounds, though what he approves would be greater laxity between boys and girls, with proper safeguards against undesired offspring. He is now happily married. He only indulges in masturbation at times when intercourse is impossible (e.g., childbirth). It is then practised once or twice a week in the early morning; overnight it causes troubled sleep, brain activity, and constipation. This seems ethically more desirable unless the wife were to condone physical infidelity, which she would not, and even then there might be risks of venereal disease. His general health and working power are in all respects excellent, as the venereal diseases were speedily and thoroughly cured. Homosexual feeling has entirely disappeared since marriage.

HISTORY XV.—G.D., English; aged 60. "My earliest essays in juvenile vice were due not so much to unguarded as to unguided ignorance. I slipped where my natural protectors suspected no danger, and I fell because I had never been warned of the treacherous nature of the ground. Before or soon after I was 7 years old, the example of an elder brother, who had lately begun to go to school as a day-boy, initiated me into the mysteries of masturbation, which seemed to me then as harmless as it was fascinating; and the novel pleasure was almost daily indulged in, after I had acquired sufficient dexterity to accomplish the act within a reasonable time, without a twinge of conscience, either in that brother's company or when alone. Decency demanded secrecy in the gratification of what soon became an imperious desire, and the preliminary operations included, almost from the first, mutual fellatio and approximation of the excited organs; but similar privacy was very properly sought during the performance of other bodily acts associated with those 'less honorable members,' and it appeared to me quite as natural and right for us to amuse ourselves together in that way as for a married couple to hide their most intimate embraces from the observation of others. Indeed, I went farther than that, and even came to regard the absence of all shame between us as akin to the primeval innocence which Adam and Eve exhibited before the Fall. I believed for long that we two were specially privileged and possessed a peculiar sense denied to other boys, for I had never heard of masturbation till I learnt, not the word indeed, but the thing itself.

"My curiosity about the real nature of sexual union in the case of human beings set my intelligence to work at the interesting problem, and by carefully studying certain parts of the Bible, Lempriere's classical and other dictionaries, as well as by persistently watching when I could the amorous proceedings of domestic animals, I learnt enough to make its most prominent features pretty clear before I was 11 years of age. I was then all eagerness to have the opportunity of inspecting at close quarters the genitals of women or young girls, and a stay at the seaside when I was 12 made the latter at least feasible. When the shore was nearly deserted, between 1 and 2 P.M., the daughters of the fisherfolk used to besiege the bathing machines and disport themselves in the water, bathing and paddling in various stages of nudity. I would pretend that my whole attention was being given to the making of miniature tunnels in the sand, while all the time I slyly peeped at what I most desired to see, whether in front or from behind, as the dancing damsels stood upright or stooped till their haunches were higher than their heads. I had already read something somewhere about the clitoris, and wanted especially to see it, but indistinct glimpses were all that I could obtain; nor was it until I visited an anatomical museum, which then existed at the top of the Haymarket in London, that I learned, a good many years later, from several life-sized models there displayed, the characteristic features of that part, as well as the abnormal modifications to which it is subject, either congenitally or in consequence of profligate habits. I was 15, I think, when I first came to know that girls can masturbate as well as boys.

"Long after I had realized why the terms male and female are so distinguished, my imagination was occupied with the possible postures in which the act of copulation may be accomplished by a man and woman; from Horace, Lucretius, Martial, Aristophanes, and, above all, from Ovid's Ars Amatoria I obtained much, but not always very clear, information while still a schoolboy. This was supplemented later by photographic pictures from Pompeiian brothels and photographs from life, purchased at Florence and gloated over one night, with twice-repeated masturbation, and afterward destroyed in a revulsion of shame.

"But while continuing to practise self-abuse (with a certain degree of restraint indeed, but seldom less often than once or even twice a week), after I had been made fully aware of its perils by Dr. Adam Clarke's alarming comments on Genesis xxxviii, 9, when I was about 12 or 13, I never had connection with a woman until I married somewhat late in life. This abstinence was not due to any frigidity of disposition, but from prudential and religious motives, and, to some extent perhaps, from the imperfect but genuine satisfaction afforded by solitary indulgence. My imagination, like that of young J.J. Rousseau, as set forth in his Confessions, was allowed free scope for its exercise, but in practice I confined myself to what seemed to me comparatively innocent as compared with fornication. I was never an unreserved 'exhibitionist' like Rousseau, but I have on more than one occasion turned toward a hedge and pretended to make water, when a girl had just passed me on the road, showing a turgens cauda if she should chance out of curiosity to look back, as once, at any rate, happened.

"I watched with interest the first indications of puberty in my own person. I had, of course, seen the pubic hair on many of my own sex, but I was 17 when I first saw a naked woman. She was standing at the door of her machine, wringing out her bathing-dress, as I swam past, and her face was hidden by the awning then used, so that she could not see me. A slight effusion of limpid mucus began to characterize the orgasm, at the age of 12 or 13 (before any ejaculation of semen was experienced), such as exuded later from the urethra when salacious excitement reached a certain pitch, even though the final climax might be postponed or prevented altogether. I found it a refinement of luxury to prolong the period of tumescence as far as possible, by frequently checking a too rapid progress toward the goal. By this practice of repeated arrest when the orgasm was imminent, and the mental debauchery which was its habitual accompaniment, I believe I did my nervous system more damage than by anything else—even the early age at which the dangerous indulgence became established. Nocturnal emissions (the sequel of lascivious dreams) commenced when I was about 15, at which age I had my first experience of an involuntary discharge when awake, under the influence of purely mental emotion; but this latter mode of escape did not often happen, and later on ceased altogether. My muscular strength was not impaired by too frequent indulgence, and I acquired some athletic prowess on the football field and on the running path, both as a boy and as a young man. Walking tours were for long my favorite recreation, even after the bicycle became an increasing attraction. My health, however, suffered in other ways from too constant absorption in lustful thoughts, which found vent in erotic verses and tales, generally destroyed soon after they were written. I have been subject since I was a boy to more or less prolonged fits of mental depression. How far I have inherited this tendency (my father and his father both married first cousins, and a neurotic diathesis has been characteristic of our family), or how far it has been aggravated by pernicious habits, I cannot say; cause and effect have no doubt acted and reacted on each other.

"As I grew toward adolescence I endeavored to make self-abuse as close an imitation as possible of sexual intercourse by such methods as may be easily imagined. My biological studies (I won a scholarship and took honors at my university) were directed with most intent predilection toward the reproductive system, particularly the modifications of the copulatory organs in different animals and the diverse manner of their employment. The sexual instinct, whether in its normal or abnormal manifestations, is a subject which has always had a strong attraction for me, nor has it lost its fascination with the growth of years (I am now 60) nor the competition of other interests.

"My very limited experience of the sexual system in women would lead me to believe that the clitoris is the only peculiarly sensitive part of the female genitalia, coition giving no pleasure unless 'the trigger of love' is simultaneously manipulated, as can be done when intromission is effected a tergo; that the mind of a normally healthy maiden is altogether free from sexual excitement of a physical kind, and that little curiosity is felt about the precise modus operandi of conjugal intercourse; but, nevertheless, I have good reason to believe that this, if not an unusual type, is by no means the only one that exists.

"As to sexual inversion my personal experience has been confined to two or three grandes passions for boys, the first of which possessed me when between the ages of 16 and 18, and involved, when I was 17, the most intense mental emotion, of a romantic kind, tinged with poignant jealousy and vexation at comparative coldness toward myself. These love passages never led me into indelicate behavior (I was once threatened with such treatment myself by a stranger whose acquaintance I made one day at the British Museum, when a lad of 15. He took me to his bedroom at an inn, locked the door, and showed me a collection of coins, giving me some, and, while doing so, attempted to take indecent liberties; but I pretended that I must catch a certain train, unlocked the door, and made a hasty escape), nor was any gratification sought beyond occasional kisses and other innocent endearments, though such caresses would sometimes excite an erection, which I carefully concealed. These amours were, however, no outcome of perverted instinct, nor were they any bar to fancies for the opposite sex which affected my imagination rather than my heart."

HISTORY XVI.—This history is given in the subject's own words: A.N., 34 years of age, a university graduate, devoted to learning and interested in philosophy and theology. He is happily married and the father of an only daughter. Since puberty he has enjoyed excellent health.

"Looking back he finds the beginnings of sexual feeling obscure. This feeling is by no means identical in its progress with the knowledge of the phenomena of sex generally. The latter he acquired thus: His mother told him at a very early age the outlines of the phenomena of birth and explained to him (perhaps at that time unnecessarily) that the genital organs of little girls were different from his own. This piece of knowledge led to his asking, when 9 years old, a little girl cousin who came to live with the family (he was an only child) and who shared his bed to let him see her genitalia. This she readily did and also invited him to coitus, which she described as a 'nice game.' He complied, but without, of course, any feeling of pleasure or any understanding of the nature of what he was doing. Shortly after this he went to a day school, where, amid the extraordinarily coarse conversation of the boys, he was initiated into all the more obvious phenomena of sex. But still it was only a matter of intellectual curiosity. As such it had a strange fascination for him, and to this day he remembers many of the obscene words and phrases, as, for example, a set of indecent verses beginning 'William, the milkman, sat under a tree,' describing coitus, though some of the details were yet misunderstood by him. That up to his tenth or eleventh year no real sexual desire was awakened is plain from the fact that there was no desire for any repetition of attempts at coitus with his cousin, though he did indeed, again out of curiosity, finger her genitals sometimes, a thing which she, grown evidently more fastidious, reported to his mother, who gravely reprimanded him, telling him that it was the 'beginning of all evil.'

"Desire was awakened gradually and, as I have said, obscurely. Not only at school, but among his own cousins, especially two girls (other than the one above mentioned) and a boy, the conversation was lascivious in the extreme, though words never proceeded to deeds as between the boys and the girls. He was soon, however, about his fifteenth year, so far as he can remember, initiated into the practice of masturbation, first, sleeping with his boy cousin, the two used to play at 'husband and wife,' and then, more directly, a neighbor, a heavy, sensual type of boy, took him aside one day and drawing out his own penis asked him 'if he knew how to make some buttermilk.' Out of curiosity at first, and to obtain the new and voluptuous sensation afterward, he began assiduously to practise this vice, which, as he afterward found out, was very common, if not universal about him. That it was morally reprehensible he had not at that time the ghost of a notion; he considered that it belonged to the category of the 'dirty' only. His father quite neglected this development, believing, I suppose, in the superstition of the 'innocence of childhood.'

"This practice of masturbation went on assiduously to his sixteenth year, when its true nature and danger were revealed to him by a good clergyman who prepared him for confirmation. He had at this time gone far, in both solitary vice and vice 'a deux,' with his male cousin, with whom he practised even 'fellatio' and 'intromissio in anum.' But now he began to struggle against it and made some headway, but never entirely shook it off before his marriage at 26, so deeply rooted was the hold it had on him. Especially at the time between sleeping and waking, or while lying sleepless at night—when the monks prayed 'ne polluantur corpora'—did its attacks come insidiously upon him. He would struggle for weeks and then would come a relapse. On one occasion he slept with a young uncle who amused himself, thinking he was asleep, by playing with his penis until he had an emission. A.N. hailed the occasion with keen joy—he caustically argued that he experienced the pleasure without being culpable in its production! Then on 'coming to himself' he would agonize over his vice, remembering, for example, that, while he had rejoiced in what had been done, the very cousin who some time before used to share his sin was genuinely annoyed at the same uncle's attentions when it was he who suffered them.

"Looking back over the whole period of his youth and adolescence, he can trace the psychological effect of what was going on secretly, in his relations to girls and women. In a word, these relations were sentimental only. He often imagined himself in love; but it was imagination only. He was in love with a wraith, not a girl of flesh and blood. He hesitated to regard in any sexual way any girl of whom he had a high opinion; sexual desire and 'love' seemed for him to inhabit different worlds and that it would be a pollution to bring them together. In hours of relaxation from the very hard intellectual work which he was at this time engaged on at school and at the university, he was quite content with the society of quite young girls or even children when most of his friends would have sought out females of their own age. Nothing could have been farther from his desires or intention than any lascivious or, indeed, unseemly act toward any female in whose company he might be: no mother need have hesitated to trust her daughter in his company. I firmly believe that the discipline of the same bed which Gibbon (Decline and Fall, ed. Bury, vol. ii, p. 37) makes so merry over could have been endured by him without difficulty. His outward conduct was in all these respects most seemly and decorous, yet night after night he could masturbate, his imagination glowing with visions of female nakedness.

"Curiously the one and only actual female for whom he felt any desire at the earlier period (aged 14 to 16) began to be the cousin who lived in the house. On one occasion he touched her breasts, on another her naked thighs—and that was all! As she grew to puberty, she would have allowed far more liberties, but he contented himself with a sly glance now and again, when he could procure it, at her swelling bosom. The fear of putting her with child was ample to keep him away from her bed. Later on even so much as the foregoing occurred no more, and, as I have said, his outward life became absolutely decorous.

"Consequently he was in no danger of having dealings with prostitutes. The preliminaries, the conversation of such women, especially their drinking habits, would have been disgusting and repugnant to him in the extreme. He would have shunned the possibility of acquiring venereal disease like the plague. But he was never free from solitary vice; he secretly envied those who had occasions for coitus in what I may call a seemly and cleanly manner, friends in the country with farm girls, etc., of whom he had heard. He indulged also in lascivious reading, the obscene when he could procure it, rather than the merely suggestive, which has never been to his taste. He was familiar with quite a large number of Latin and Greek indecent passages, knew the broader farces of the Canterbury Tales and of the Decameron, and, later, the 'contes' of La Fontaine and the Facetiae of Poggio. As Ste.-Beuve says of Gibbon, I think, he acquired an 'erudite and cold' sort of obscenity in this way.

"All this, of course, is only one half, and by no means always the dominant half, of his nature. He was often repentant for these delinquencies, and he was sincerely religious. He was also fond of serious learning and contrived to take a first-class university degree. Yet, ever and anon, the deeply sensual side of his nature made itself felt. Scotched for a time it could be, but killed never.

"Yet, I do not think it could be said that he had the sexual instinct in any really high degree. It was more like a small fly that makes a large buzz than any considerable factor in his constitution. He had a companion about this time of whom such a remark is even more true. This man's mind was replete with all manner of risky stories, all sorts of sexual details. He would take long walks with girls of loose character, talk with prostitutes at home and abroad, and yet, I believe, he never proceeded to coitus.

"Such then, was the subject of this notice up to the time of his marriage. Two men, one might say, in one skin. One learned, one merely obscene; one a pattern of decorousness, the other a self-polluter.

"On the sexual side he was as one knowing everything there is to know—yet knowing nothing. Like the boy-hero in Wedekind's Fruehling's Erwachen, he had been long in Egypt, yet he had never seen the pyramids. He began to distress himself with questions as to whether he was yet capable; whether his recurring vice had not permanently injured him; whether he had made himself unfit for marriage. So shy and reserved was he about his secret that he could never have brought himself to mention it to a medical man. 'What! he! the good, the religious! the wholly moral and decorous!' (such was, indeed, the reputation he had among his friends); 'he, the victim of a vice so black!' No, no! 'Secretum meum mihi,' he cried.

"Fortune, however, was kind to him. He was at an early age free from financial worries, which had almost crushed him earlier in his career, and he met in course of time the family from which he selected his excellent wife.

"The society in which he lived was of all English classes, I should suppose, the most reticent in matters of sex—the respectable, lower middle class; shopkeepers and the like, with a tradition of homely religion and virtue. The classes a little higher in the scale (to which, by the way, his mother had belonged) could far better sympathize with one in his position. Well, the family of his future wife was of a higher class and, what is far more, of foreign origin, for whom a large number of our English 'convenances' do not exist. To them sex was frankly recognized as a factor in life, and the mother of this household, as he grew more intimate, broached subjects which he had never, in such a manner, discussed before. It is unnecessary to give here any general history of his relationships with this household, as they have nothing to do with the matter in hand. After some time he became engaged to the youngest daughter, two years his senior, a woman of remarkable beauty and splendid development, one who attracted him as none other had done, both on account of her intellectual and social qualities and her physical beauty (he had hitherto despaired of finding the two combined in one person), for she is certainly the most beautiful woman with whom he has ever been acquainted.

"He now began to make the practical acquaintance of a woman—and one who, in impulses, temper, manner, and habit of thought, differed toto caelo from the girls he had known in his old home. Her sexual nature was ripe and developed, and it is lucky that the engagement was of short duration, or the strain and anticipation of that time might have been injurious to the health of both. As usual, in his outward relations toward women, so toward his fiancee, he was prepared for chaste caresses only. This, however, did not suffice for her hot and passionate nature. They went as far as possible short of actual coitus.

"After a few months, however, the marriage took place, and, at first, this brought him bitter disappointment and seemed to confirm his worst fears. He found himself quite unable to have pleasure or satisfactory coitus; quite incapable, with any erection that he could command, of introducing his well-developed penis into his wife's extremely narrow and contracted vagina. About a fortnight after the marriage, however, on his return from their short wedding tour, he felt much stronger and copulated with her, especially in the early mornings, so satisfactorily that she soon found herself with child. Coitus now began to be much more pleasurable for him, but to his wife still attended with pain.

"After nine months of married life, the child, the only offspring of the marriage, a healthy girl, was born. The stress of this time, the upsetting of his wife's health, her nervous breakdown and consequently uncertain temper, seemed for a period of nearly two years effectually to repress any sexual desire in the husband, and this period is perhaps the chastest of his life. Desire seemed to be the one thing absent. The revulsion of feeling in his wife was remarkable. The erstwhile amorous fiancee, who could hardly wait until marriage to test her lover, became now the wife and mother who hardly wished to be touched by her husband.

"Her health, however, gradually improved and a more normal state of affairs was brought about, which has continued to the present day, broken only by periods of abstention, chiefly caused by the attacks of anemia and menstrual irregularities from which his wife suffers from time to time. Ordinarily, he enjoys coitus once or twice in the month, hardly oftener, taking one month with another. At one time he exemplified in his own person the saying omne animal post coitum triste, but now happily this depression of spirits is rarely felt. Sometimes he has felt a depression of spirits, a general discontentedness, before experiencing a strong erection; in these cases coitus has cleared his spirits. He would naturally look upon coitus as an evacuation, although he recognizes the imperfectness of that view. For one thing he is constantly sorry, viz., that the act gives no pleasure to his wife, and that he has never been able to induce a crisis with her by normal means. In this state of affairs, knowing that 'apres coup' she was still unsatisfied, he slipped into the practice of rubbing the clitoris with his fingers until the emission takes place. To do this, they assume the position 'ille sub, illa super.' From his own limited marital experience, he has never been able to understand the stories of women who masturbate several times a day, as his wife would be physically incapable (so he believes) of anything of the kind, and only easily reaches the crisis in any circumstances during the first few days after the menstrual flow has ceased. In fine, while agreeing theoretically with Sir Richard Burton and others that the eastern style of coitus (directed with a view to the pleasure of your partner) is the right one, it is one of his standing regrets that he is unable to practise it. In the place of the twenty minutes required by the women of India (according to Burton) he is happy if he can give two or three at the most, much as he would wish to prolong a pleasure as keen to himself as he could desire it to be to his dear and excellent spouse."

HISTORY XVII.—R.L., American; aged 43; height, 5 ft. 7 in.; weight, about 145 lbs.; occupation, teacher; somewhat neurotic; a slight myopia associated with acute astigmatism and muscular weakness of the eyes, producing a tendency to migraine. Uric acid diathesis, producing occasionally severe neuralgia, particularly in the intestines. These symptoms have been more or less constant since very early childhood. General health very good. Not inclined to indulge in athletic sports, but prefers sedentary occupations and recreations.

"My early ideas of sexual things are not very clear in recollection. I think that when 7 or 8 years of age I had a knowledge of the common or vulgar terms for intercourse and for the genital organs. Boys of my own age and slightly older would discuss sex relations, and I had a general knowledge that, in some way connected with the sexual act, 'babies were made.' We would tell, occasionally, lewd stories, and a few times attempted sexual practices with one another. Not till after puberty did I ever attempt masturbation. I must have been 9 or 10 years old before I learned that there was a difference in the sex organs of boys and girls. Up to this time I had supposed that intercourse was per anum. I attended a public school with both sexes. Talk among my boy associates was often nasty and concerned the sexual act with girls. At about 12 years I began to have erotic day dreams. I always had a sentimental attachment for some girl acquaintance whom I would idealize and with whom I would imagine myself having sex relations. As a matter of fact, there was no real sexual feeling about this. As I was very shy and timid naturally, I never made any kind of advances toward any of them, and they were entirely ignorant of any sentiments of affection in me.

"Pubertal changes commenced, I presume, about the age of 131/2 years. I place it at this period from the following circumstances, which are fixed very strongly in my memory: I had, as a child, a soprano voice that was praised considerably by older friends, and about which I was inordinately conceited, I enjoyed greatly taking part in operettas, cantatas, etc. The dramatic instinct, if so it may be called, has always been marked with me, and amateur dramatics are still my chief diversion. When I was about the age mentioned above my voice changed quite rapidly, greatly to my distress of mind, as I was obliged to give up taking a part for which I had been cast in a school entertainment. The memory of that disappointment is still poignant. Other changes, such as the appearance of the pubertal hair, must have made no impression on my mind, as I cannot recollect anything in connection therewith. No involuntary emissions occurred. Indeed, during periods of continence in later life, when the sexual tension has been very strong, I have had very few such emissions.

"As a lad of 11 or 12, I had heard frequent allusions to masturbation by other boys who were older, but always in a way that indicated contempt. Yet there is no doubt now in my mind that the practice was very general. I think that I was probably about 15 when I decided to try the act. I think that there was little sex impulse in this decision. The animating purpose was rather curiosity. I succeeded in producing the complete orgasm and found it pleasurable, though there was a considerable shock of surprise at the ejaculation of semen. As nearly as I can estimate in my memory of an event as far back as this was, this was the beginning of definite sexual sensibility in me. I cannot but believe, however, that it would have been aroused sooner or later in some other way. Thereafter I would imagine myself embracing some of the girl friends to whom I have referred above, and, when excited, would masturbate. The act was in every instance a psychic intercourse. For some time I did not know that the practice was considered harmful. I indulged whenever I felt the inclination. This at times was rather frequent; again only at considerable intervals. I did know that it was looked upon as being unmanly, and never admitted, except to perhaps two or three boy friends, that I ever indulged. With these boys I practised mutual masturbation a few times. There was no homosexual feeling connected with these acts in any of us. It was only that the normal method of gratifying our desires was not available. I know the subsequent history of each of these boys, and there has been nothing to indicate any perverted instinct in any of them. About the age of 16 I heard a talk on sexual matters by a traveling evangelist, who portrayed the effects of masturbation in fearful colors. I now realize that he was an ignorant though well-intentioned man; but the general effect of his talk upon me was a bad one. One of the results of the habit, according to his statements, was insanity. Therefore I expected at any moment to lose my mind. I felt that I must stop the practice at once, but the matter became so great an obsession that again and again I broke my resolutions for reform. I undertook exercise, dieting, the reading of serious literature: all of which I had seen referred to in books as methods of lessening sexual desire. The object of these disciplinary practices was always the thing most prominently in mind, and so they were of no avail. Fortunately I entered college a little later, and the affairs of school life gradually took a commanding place in my thoughts, and the practice was not so much in mind. I did not, however, completely break away from it until almost the time of my marriage. If the present attitude of the scientific medical world toward the subject had been known to me, I do not believe that any evil would have come to me from the practice. At a later period of my life, say between 21 and 24, I would not indulge the habit for a considerable interval. At times I did not notice the presence or lack of desire. But then there would come periods when I would be under a severe sexual tension. This would be marked by intense nervousness, an inability to fix my attention upon any one thing, and a great desire to have intercourse. An act of masturbation at such a time would generally give relief. However, when I yielded to this form of relief, there would always follow feelings of profound self-reproach and of self-repugnance. Had I had nocturnal emissions they might have relieved me; but, as I have said before, they very rarely occurred. When, rarely, one did occur I would be greatly frightened, for I had the old, erroneous idea that they meant serious weakness and always ascribed them to my bad habit. That my habit of masturbation had any relation to the rarity of the involuntary emissions would, of course, be a matter of pure conjecture. In passing from the discussion of personal masturbation, I wish to say that my associations with boys as a pupil and as a teacher lead me to believe that the practice is practically universal. When discussing the hygienic evils of prostitution with boy pupils I have noted that, whereas not infrequently a boy will voluntarily protest that he has never had intercourse, there has always been a significant silence when masturbation is mentioned. I have never heard a boy make a denial, direct or indirect, that he had indulged in the practice. But it has seldom been a perversion. It has rather been, as in my own case, an available means of relieving a sexual impulse.

"During my college life I associated with many boys who had more or less regular sexual relations with prostitutes or with girls who were not virtuous. Their attitude toward the practice was an immoral one. The ethical aspect of irregular sexual relations never concerned them. It certainly did not concern me. What I have learned through my conversations on the subject with my pupils makes it evident to me that this is the common feeling of most boys of the adolescent period. I think of two things which operated strongly to prevent my entering into sexual relations with girls during this period of my life. One was an esthetic repugnance to the average prostitute. These are the women most easily available to the youth whose sexual desires are developed. I do not remember ever having seen an avowed prostitute who did not seem repulsive to me. I confess to an inclination to priggishness. I preferred to associate with people whom I called 'nice people.' It was fortunate for me that I was thrown into the society of a rather rough crowd of youths, who knocked a great deal of this snobbishness out of me. But it did act to prevent my having recourse to prostitution. A second preventive was my natural timidity in making advances to people. This has been a trait that I have never completely overcome. In my professional life this has been some detriment to my advancement. In the matter of sex relationship it tended to prevent my taking advantage of association with and even of advances from girls who, not prostitutes, were nevertheless not virtuous. There were a number of such in the town and neighborhood in which I lived, and I undoubtedly could have had sexual relations with them if I had only been able to overcome my shyness. The desire was not wanting. I really craved intercourse with them. It was simply a matter of cowardice. There was one girl whom I knew very well, with whom I was on friendly terms, who I knew had had sexual relations with other boys. She showed, at times, a marked preference for me, and I am sure would have welcomed any advances that I should have made. A number of times I sought her company with the intention of suggesting intercourse, but my resolution always failed.

"All through my college course I was much in the society of girls. We were in class together, associated very freely in society, frequently studied together. This is the most usual state of things in the western part of our country. But they were simply comrades: sex thoughts never arose in connection with such association. And I am quite certain that this was the general attitude of the other boys. Although the talk among the boy students was at times, very frankly and crudely, about sexual relations, no breath of scandal ever touched one of the college girls. Again my experience as teacher and student brings a conclusion that coeducation of the sexes does not affect, in one way or the other, the strictly sexual life of the male student. A very intimate friend who has had a varied experience in school work has told me recently that his conclusions are the same.

"When I was about 20 years old I became acquainted with a very beautiful girl, four years my junior. Our acquaintance very rapidly developed into deeper affection, and about five years later we were married. During all this time very little of the physical aspects of love entered into our attachment. My sweetheart had much of the same shyness as was so pronounced in my own character. For several years I think that the thought of marriage was never distinctly present in our minds. A formal betrothal between us did not take place until within a year and a half of our marriage. Yet each of us had a very distinct understanding of the feelings of the other. But until our betrothal there were none of even those very innocent expressions of endearment common, I imagine, to all lovers. I am sure that during this period of our attachment no thought of any physical relations between us was ever in my mind; or, at any rate, was promptly banished if it occurred. Yet all this time my sex desires were very strong and at times became an obsession. Never, though, were they directed toward my sweetheart. The first time that we engaged in the endearments and caresses allowed to lovers I became conscious, after a time, of a state of sexual excitement. I experienced an erection. It was absolutely reflex; no thought had entered into it. I was at once overwhelmed with a feeling of shame. I felt that I had been guilty of unthinkable indecency toward my betrothed. Then there arose a fear that it might be noticed. (Men at that time wore abominably tight clothing.) As a matter of fact, I now know that there was no real danger of this, for she was absolutely ignorant of the nature of the male sexual organs. But I made a pretext for withdrawing from the room and tried to adjust my clothing so that no exposure could occur. I was fearful of coming into close proximity to her again, lest there should be a recurrence of the feeling. As a matter of fact it did occur a number of times, but my good sense finally suggested the explanation and after a time it ceased to trouble me. The thought was latent in my mind that sexual excitement was necessarily more or less indecent at all times, and I could not reconcile its manifestation with a pure love.

"I have said that my sexual desire was strong. Up to the time of marriage it was never gratified in the normal manner. My esthetic abhorrence of prostitutes continued to prevent its gratification in that manner. No other opportunity offered. I am positive that moral considerations did not enter into the matter at all. I think now that it was strange that the thought that it would be disloyal to my promised wife to have connection with other women did not affect me. But I am sure that it did not. I am inclined to think that conscientious scruples very rarely enter into the average young man's considerations of contemplated sexual relations.

"As the time of my marriage drew near, thoughts of the physical relationship of husband and wife became, of course, more insistent. The idea of establishing sexual relations was not at all a pleasant one. I dreaded it as an ordeal. I wondered if it would be possible for us to retain the same love and affection for one another after such intimate relations were established. This was a recurrence of the fallacious notion that there was something inherently indecent in sexual things. I am in hopes that other ideas are replacing this wrong one, in the minds of the younger generation, as the result of the saner and franker discussion of sex. By a great effort, I had practically stopped masturbating. At times I felt almost maddened by desire. But never did the prospect of marriage seem desirable from this point of view. Up to the very day of our wedding my affection for my betrothed seemed free from sexual desire. But my physical being was craving sexual companionship.

"Theoretically I knew a great deal of the nature of intercourse. Practically I was absolutely ignorant. In some ways I was better informed, on matters that a new husband should know, than the average man entering the married life. A physician's library had been at my disposal, and I had read somewhat extensively on physiology and hygiene. My chosen lines of study had given me a theoretical knowledge of the anatomy of the female genital organs that was fairly thorough. I knew a little about the physiology of reproduction and rather less of intercourse. Fortunately, I learned in the course of my reading that the first sexual approaches were likely to be quite painful to a woman, and that great care should be exercised at this time. I tried to put into practice what little I had learned in theory and I imagine that we got through the introductory attempts with less than the average difficulties. Our first efforts were not satisfactory to either of us. My wife was absolutely unprepared so far as any definite knowledge of the act was concerned. I sincerely hope that the prudish notions of the past generations will give way to more sensible views in the future, and that the girl becoming a wife will be just as chaste, but wiser in matters of such importance to her happiness. I presume that my timidity was a valuable asset at this time; for I was afraid to force matters in any way, and time and repeated attempts finally overcame our difficulties. And when our sexual relations were once established, the whole tenor of my life was changed. All the former sexual unrest disappeared. My former feeling toward sexual relations was altered. They no longer seemed that which, though very desirable, was yet necessarily indecent. Fortunately, after the first few weeks, they have been quite pleasurable to my wife. I am sure that our sexual life since marriage has been a large factor in deepening the love that has made our married life an ideal one. As I look back at the first year of marriage, I wonder that we got through it so well. My knowledge of sexual hygiene was a strange mixture of fact and nonsense. If the frequency of acts of intercourse advocated by some of the authorities I have lately read is correct, then we must have passed the bounds of moderation. But it is certain that our general health has been very good: better in both cases than before marriage.

"In reviewing these phases of the development of my sexual life, one or two conclusions seem to me to be strongly emphasized. It was unfortunate that the real sexual desire was aroused as early and in the manner that it was. Whether this would have been prevented by more definite education in the hygiene and the purpose of the function, I can only conjecture. I believe that mine was and is the common experience of boys. I am decidedly of the opinion that there should be instruction given of the anatomy of the genital organs and of the hygiene of intercourse, and this shortly after the youth has reached puberty. How this is to be done is a grave question. It will require tact and knowledge not possessed by the average teacher and parent. However it is done, it should be honest, frank, and free from piosity.

"I am certain that, in my own case, rather frequent intercourse is decidedly beneficial. Any prolonged abstinence always brings about the same nervous disturbances that I have referred to above. It is fortunate for me that this repetition of the act is satisfactory to both concerned."

HISTORY XVIII.—E.W., dentist, aged 32, of New England Puritan stock. Height, 5 ft. 101/2 in.; weight, 144 lbs. Spare and active, of nervobilious temperament.

"My earliest recollection is being punished for 'playing with myself' when I could not have been more than 3 or 4 years of age. I distinctly remember my exultation on discovering that I could excite myself (while my hands were tied behind my back for punishment) by rubbing my small but erect penis against the carpet while lying on my stomach. At this time, of course, I knew nothing of sex or of what I was doing. I did what my desires and instincts at that time prompted me to do. However, punishments and lectures failed utterly to break up this habit, and, though I always wished and tried faithfully to obey my parents, I soon grew to indulge quietly in bed when I was thought to be asleep. The matter apparently passed out of the minds of my parents as soon as they ceased to detect me further in the act, and they regarded it as abandoned. I now feel reasonably certain that this precocity was due to an adherent foreskin which covered the glans tightly almost to the meatus, and so kept up a continual irritation.

"I have no recollection that anyone ever taught me the habit, and I know beyond a doubt that no one ever learned of the habit or even a word as to the possibility of autoexcitement through word or deed of mine. My recollection of the sensations is that there was a short period of excitation, usually by rubbing, which was not particularly, often not at all, pleasurable, and this was followed by a single thrill of pleasure that extended all over my little body. The curious thing was, however, that there seemed to be no limit to the number of times I could consecutively produce this sensation. My recollection is perfectly clear of how I would lie in bed of a morning and thus excite myself time after time. As I grew older this condition, of course, changed. Masturbation was not a consuming passion with me at this or any other time. I enjoyed it and felt that in it I had a means of entertainment when other sources of enjoyment were not at hand.

"By the time I was 6 or 7 I had figured out the difference in sex in animals and suspected that 'all was not as it should be' in some portions of a girl's anatomy. This suspicion was suddenly confirmed one never-to-be-forgotten morning, when I induced my dearest playmate, a little girl, to urinate in my presence. I was more thunderstruck than excited over this discovery, and it led to no results in any other way, nor did we ever again unveil ourselves to each other. At this time I began to learn from the older boys the pitiful, childish vulgarities and common terms of sex, and to invent and exchange rhymes and stories that were pathetic in their attempts at vulgarity.

"At the age of 11 a buxom servant-girl threw out some vague hints to me,—I was very tall for my age,—and tried to induce me to take liberties with her, at least to the extent of telling her vulgar stories, but I would not rise to the lure. I believe that the thing which held me in check was fear of discovery by my parents and the consequent humiliation. A short time previous to this my father had enlightened me as to the means and manner of reproduction and had encouraged me to talk to him and to my mother on such subjects rather than with anyone else. I think this had a great influence for good, as it made me feel that I had some authoritative knowledge and that I was trusted by my parents. My determination not to prove entirely unworthy of their trust has been the anchor that has held through all the storms and temptations of youth and young manhood.

"About the age of puberty I began to long for more realistic experiences and tried through a period of a year or so the disgusting experiments of intercourse with animals, using hens and a cow for this purpose. Details are of no importance, and I spare myself their repetition. My better nature or general mental development soon overcame my desires in this direction, and the practice was abandoned.

"With the dawning of the power of emission I noticed that the adherent foreskin before alluded to, which had never been examined during all these years (as I had discovered that I was different from other boys and so was shy about exposing myself), began to trouble me by being painful during erections. Accordingly I took a buttonhook and tore all the adhesions loose. A very painful though ultimately entirely satisfactory operation!

"(I may mention in this connection that my two sons were afflicted with adherent foreskins to such an extent as to render circumcision necessary a few days after birth, in order that the function of urination might become fully established.)

"As my powers developed I had my first wet dream at about the age of 15, and was much surprised thereat. My father, however, told me not to be alarmed and soothed my anxious fears, which were easily aroused by my guilty feelings on account of my habit of masturbation, in which I still indulged from one to three times a week.

"Between the ages of 12 and 17 my father had the good judgment to require a large amount of active outdoor labor from me, as well as sending me to excellent schools. Certain kinds of study had a distinct effect upon the sexual organs, namely, difficult Latin and German translations and problems in fractions. I considered at the time that it was because my mind wandered from the subject I was studying. Now I am perfectly sure it was because my mind focused on the subject I was studying. At any rate the fact existed, and when alone in my room, wrestling with a knotty problem, I used almost as a rule to keep myself in the most violent state of erection for long periods—an hour or so—sometimes ending with an emission, but more often I forced myself to forego this climax through fear of overindulgence. During these years my curiosity as to the exact nature of the female organs was something terrible, and I wasted many hours and much ingenuity in the attempt to surreptitiously gratify it. My perseverance in the face of failure along this line was surely worthy of a nobler cause.

"I was much in the society of girls of my own age or older during these years and until I was 19. I found with them a keen and entirely pure and wholesome enjoyment utterly separate and apart from the desires and indulgences which I have been describing. I never cared for any girl who was 'forward' or in any way unladylike, and the idea of taking any undue liberties with any of my youthful sweethearts was as remote from my thoughts as a trip to the moon. Perhaps I can say this better and more distinctly by stating that I would be perfectly willing to have my wife know of, or my boys repeat, any action that I ever took with any woman.

"I spent my spare time in their society and lavished upon my girl companions every cent I could spare, but had no thought of immediate sex desire or gratification. At the age of 17 I went as an apprentice in my present profession of dentistry. Whenever it became necessary for me, in assisting at the operating chair, to touch a lady's hair or face, I would be seized with the utmost confusion and could with difficulty control my hands so that they did not tremble. This soon wore off as I came to a realization of the true professional spirit and attitude toward all patients, and, needless to say, has now become a matter of the utmost indifference to me.

"From 19 to 22 I attended a professional school in a large city, remote from my home, where I was an utter stranger. During these years I devoted myself to my professional studies and to music with much diligence. I took an active part in all student life and problems save only that of the 'eternal feminine.'

"Frequently I have been out with a crowd of 'the boys' when they headed for a brothel, and have been the only one to turn back or to remain on the sidewalk as the door closed behind my last companion. I say this not in self-praise, but in the same spirit of accuracy which has prompted me to put down everything concerning this greatest mystery of our natures as I have experienced it and worked it out.

"It was during these three years at school that I placed upon myself the most stringent and effective curbs to my sex nature. I somehow never could 'get my own consent' to go to a brothel or stay with a 'soiled dove,' for I had by this time firmly resolved that I would bring to my wife, whoever she might turn out to be, a clean body at least. I limited myself in my autoexcitement to one emission a week and on one or two occasions went two weeks without inducing an emission. Spontaneous nocturnal emissions were quite common during these years. I cannot state just how frequent they were, but perhaps one a week would be a fair average.

"Shortly after graduation at the age of 22 I became engaged to the woman who is now my wife. (She was 17 at the time of our engagement, brunette, well developed, and with a wisdom and charm that have held me a willing captive for ten years and no prospect of escape!)

"With our engagement began for each of us that divine and mysterious unfolding of the nature of one to the nature of the other. Our engagement lasted two years and a half and, ignorant as we both were, I am sure that it was none too long. Never shall I forget the surprise I felt—to say nothing of the delight—when I discovered that my sweetheart was as anxious to find out the uttermost facts about me as I was to explore the divine mystery of her sweet body.

"We lived in different towns and I used to spend Sundays at her home. I slept in a room adjoining that occupied by my betrothed and a friend. There was a transom with clear glass over the door which connected these two rooms, and to have stood upon the foot of the bed and looked through this transom would have been the easiest thing in the world, and was such an opportunity as I would have given years of my life to have obtained in my adolescence; but now that the chance was afforded me to freely spy upon the chamber of my future bride my soul revolted, for the feeling was upon me that not until it was revealed to me because she could no longer bear to keep it concealed from me would I look upon the blessed vision of her maiden loveliness. Nor was I disappointed, for gradually we became acquainted with each other's bodies, and this gradual unveiling of each to the other led, during the last months of our engagement, to mutual manual manipulations, excitement and gratification. Intercourse did not take place until the second night after our marriage, and our first baby was born nine months and three days after our marriage, though my wife was ten days past the cessation of her period at the time of my first entering.

"Since marriage I have made it my first duty to study my wife's inclinations and desires with regard to our sexual relations, and can say that now, after seven years of married life, and after she has borne me two sons, we are enjoying a fullness of happiness that neither of us would have believed possible during the first year of our married life.

"I have found that the woman must have the entire charge of the time and number of approaches in a week or month, and that when she is for any reason disinclined to the sexual act the husband must keep away, no matter how he feels about the matter. Also the man must be sure that his wife reaches the orgasm or is at the point of it before he allows himself to 'let go.'

"Our meetings have averaged eight or nine a month. During the latter months of pregnancy they were nil, and in the month following an enforced separation of several weeks they were fourteen. We have never tried nor had the slightest curiosity to know how far we could indulge ourselves.

"For myself I seem to demand a gratification of the sexual desire rather oftener than my wife, and when I feel I cannot get a good night's rest without first being relieved of my seminal burden, while at the same time my wife is disinclined to the sexual act, I have her perform manual manipulation until relief is effected. Mind, I say relief, for the emission gives me very little pleasure under these circumstances, but it does give relief. In my present health I find I cannot sleep well if I go over more than two nights without an emission. My wife understands my condition, and is entirely willing to assist me in this way when she feels she cannot give me the gratification which I crave. We have come to see sex matters as they are, and respect and reverence have taken the place of ignorance and fear.

"To sum up, owing to lack of circumcision the sex instinct developed too soon and out of all proportion during my early youth. I cannot see that masturbation has ever had the slightest bad effect upon my health or mental state (except as I was constantly loathing myself more or less for being unable to stop it).

"The husband must subordinate himself to the wife in order to obtain the highest good and pleasure of both.

"I have always been successful in my undertakings. Stood at the head of my class at school, and in my professional work graduated with highest honors. I have a memory for prose or verse that is the cause of envy to many of my friends. The facts here set down are recorded in the interest of advancing study along this most important but neglected and ignored line. That they have been truthfully recorded without favor to the black or light on the white is my sincere belief."

HISTORY XIX.—E.B. Parents sound; strong constitution in mother, moderately so in father; vigorous and healthy, but of refined nature. Breast-milk for six months.

"Age 4-5. Took great delight in the little waterworks. Severely punished for this. Interest in the parts morbidly increased thereby.

"Age 5. Earliest recollection of 'counter-erection'—the penis shrinking tensely into itself, producing local and general discomfort. This resulted from certain kinds of mauvaise-honte,—having to kiss aged persons, having officious help at micturition, bathing, dressing, etc., which caused a sort of physical disgust. Toward puberty the experience grew rare. One such occasion was at about eighteen, when solicited on the street by a prostitute. The very idea of homosexual relations produces it. It would appear to be a powerful safeguard against promiscuous sex relations. I have met two men subject to the same thing, and have heard of one woman subject to something analogous. It might be called a nausea of the 'nether heart' in Georg Hirth's phrase.

"Age 6-7. Earliest recollection of erection. Unprovoked at first. A disposition to punish the organ and satisfaction in doing so. From this time erection took place whenever it was thought about.

"Age 10. Present at a discussion in the playground about the best way of intercourse, which I heard of for the first time. This was followed by enlightenment on the source of children. Concluded it must be very painful to both parties. 'Just the other way,' I was told. But the idea of pain to the genitals was 'interesting' to me. Pain felt by the other sex was 'interesting.' Pained looks captivated me—I liked to imagine some mysterious trouble; and, as I learned more, 'female complaints' interested me greatly in their subjects. I got a 'grateful pang' at the pit of the stomach at the thought, but neither erection nor the opposite. This hypogastric feeling has continued to associate itself with certain sexual impressions. The thought of a woman mortifying herself later on excited me sexually. Once, pulling a stay-string for fun (my wife never laced) gave me a powerful and quite unexpected erection.

"Age 12. A girl visitor of the same age got me talking about the genitals, and at bedtime came and proposed coitus. We failed to manage it. The vulva stripped back the foreskin, which was a voluptuous feeling; then we were alarmed by something and separated. I never saw her again. She too liked to 'punish' her vulva. She put whole pepper in it, and advised me to use the same. I continued greatly excited when she had gone; the hand flew to the phallus and worried it, and orgasm came on at once—the childish orgasm consisting of well-spaced spasms of the ejaculators, without the poignant preliminary nisus of the adult orgasm. There was no reaction or depression, except that the phallus—which did not subside at once—was painful to touch. A week or so later I tried again, but failed. A month later, being more excited, I succeeded. I found that I could only compass it about once in three weeks. There were no emissions. I used to have a spontaneous mental image of a small Grecian temple in a sunny park, which charmed me, and I had no scruples.

"Age 12-13. Masturbated once or twice a month.

"Age 13-14. Was sent to a small public school, where it happened that a very good tone prevailed. I learned that masturbation was bad form and unmanly. The proper thing was to save one's self up for women—at about 18. I dropped the practice easily, in spite of indulging my imagination about coitus. I thought of the initiation with prostitutes at 18, with the mixed feelings that even the most combative soldier must regard the fray. The hypogastric feeling above referred to would come on—which I liked and disliked at the same time. The first occasion on which I remember this feeling was when I got my first braces. Anything that harped on my sex produced it. Every time I received the sacrament, which I was forced to do very young, I repented of my intention of whoring at 18—as a man 'must' do—and afterward I relapsed to the expectation. Religion was a great reality to me, but it did not produce the radical effect that the development of the romantic sentiment did later on. (Both my wife and I became free-thinkers at about 30.)

"Age 15-17. Read poetry and romance. Conceived a high ideal of faithfulness and constancy. What a mockery all this loyalty is, I said to myself, if a man has stultified it beforehand. That was no mere castle-building. I had not understood what I was about in expecting to whore. The critical feelings were now awakening, and what they produced was revulsion against the abuse of sex, which got stronger every year. It became plain that there would be no whoring or the like for me; I was far too proud and fastidious. I neglected my tasks, which were uncongenial, and read a great deal of anatomy and physiology, which stood me in good stead later. As I rose in the school I was surprised to find the tone worse, but quite at the top it was better again, and with my latest companions sex was never even mentioned. At 14 I had a friend who importuned me to come into his bed, but I never would get under his bedclothes, for the male sex repels me powerfully in personal contact; he began to talk of masturbation, and now I can understand what he was aiming at. But my day-dreams of nymphs and dryads kept me in a state of perpetual tension, and erection was very frequent. The early morbid admiration of delicate women became replaced by admiration of health and strength combined with grace.

"Age 17-18. I was given a cubicle in which my neighbor on the right masturbated noisily two or three times a week, and the one on the left every night, using intermittent friction to drag it out longer. One night, kneeling at my bedside, saying prayers, my attention was divided between these and the occupation of my neighbor, when, after not having masturbated for four years,—the critical years of development,—the hand flew to the phallus and

"'pulses pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers'

"procured, in Walt Whitman's language,

"'the wholesome relief,—repose, content.'

"I slept well and had a sense of elation at the proof of manhood, for we boys were anxious about whether we secreted semen or not. The sexual obsession was tempered, and about three weeks later I had my first 'pollution'—the 'angel of the night,' as Mantegazza with better sense calls it. From that time on I had pollutions every two or three weeks, with dreams sometimes of masturbation or of nymphs, or quite irrelevant matters. For a time these gave me perfect relief; then my 'dilectatio morosa' began to grow again, and the phallus would become so sensitive that working about on the belly would liberate the orgasm.

"Age 18-19. I had kept on persuading myself I was not masturbating—avoiding the use of the hand—but now I dropped this pretense, and frankly conceded the need to myself. I got done with it in a peremptory way and thought no more of it. I had no evil effects, moral or physical, and my mother would often compliment me on my bright appearance the morning after. At that time the appetite matured every seven to ten days, and, though I dreaded the idea of slavery to it, it would have been very hard to forego it. Headaches, which had begun to plague me from puberty on, grew rarer. Pollutions occurred in between, but were less effectual. I had up to this point accepted the incidental pleasure under a sort of protest; but now I got over that too and I allowed what I would prefer to call an idio-erotism (rather than an auto-erotism) its way, always picturing beautiful nymphs to myself. Surroundings of natural beauty moved me to this kind of reverie, partly perhaps because I had once secretly observed a lad basking naked on the sandy beach and toying with himself. The recollection is wholly unsullied to me. Happening on one occasion to check the stimulation about two-thirds way to orgasm, I experienced a miniature orgasm like the childish one, but with no declension of the tumescence, and I was able to repeat this maneuver several times before the full orgasm. This I later practised in Coitus prolongatus—giving the partner time to come up. I had already got into the way of poising the feeling on its climax. The ejaculator reflex, being habituated to this, seems to set in with its throbs when the maneuver is simulated, though no semen has yet been poured into the bulbous portion for the ejaculators to act upon. If this play be broken off before the critical spasm—as in the American 'Karezza,' etc.—there is no perceptible reaction, though an unsatisfied feeling remains. But when the act proceeds to emission and the poignant undercurrent of feeling sets in that ushers the ejaculation and may only last two to five seconds, it makes all the difference, and constitutional signs appear—perspiration, etc. This leads to the question whether the critical sensation specially involves the sympathetic nervous system? Up to that point the process is under control, but then automatic.