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accompanied by erection. I can only recall that his attention and
caresses made a greater impression upon me than those of women.
When about that age too I was often aroused when sleeping with my
mother, and told not to lie on my face. I remember that erection
was always present on these occasions. The dream was the first of
many of its kind, and in my case they have never been accompanied
by emission. They have always been of an 'inverted' character,
though I have occasionally had dreams about women. These latter,
however, have usually partaken somewhat of the nature of a
nightmare!
"Up to the age of 14 I felt much perplexed and depressed by my
views on sexual desire, and was convinced that they were peculiar
to myself. This, combined with the solitary condition of my
life, and about four years' continued ill-treatment prior to my
mother's death (she had given way to drink for that period), had
a very injurious effect on my health, mental and bodily. Looking
back from my present point of view, I can understand and forgive
many things which appeared monstrous and unjust to me as a child.
My mother's life must have been a very unhappy one, and she was
bitterly disappointed in many ways, very likely in me as well. My
unfortunate, misunderstood temperament led me to be shy and
secretive, and I was often ailing, and my training was not
calculated to improve matters. At last, however, change and
freedom came, and I was sent to a boarding-school. Here, of
course, I soon met with attachments and gratifications with other
boys. I arrived at puberty, and my health improved under happier
surroundings. I was not long in discovering that my companions
viewed the pleasures that meant so much to me from an entirely
different standpoint. Their gratifications were usually
accompanied by conversation about, and a general direction of
thought toward, females. When I had turned 15, owing to monetary
difficulties I was obliged to leave school, and was soon not only
thrown on my own resources, but accountable to no one but myself
for my conduct. Of course, my next discovery was that my case, so
far from being peculiar, was a most common one, and I was quickly
initiated into all the mysteries of inversion, with its
freemasonry and 'argot.' Altogether my experience of inverts has
been a pretty wide and varied one, and I have always endeavored
to classify and compare cases which have come under my notice
with a view to arriving at some sort of conclusion or
explanation.
"I suppose it is due to female versatility or impressibility that
it is possible for me to experience mentally the emotions
attributable to either sex, according to the age and temperament
of my companion; for instance, with one older than myself,
possessing well-marked male characteristics, I am able to feel
all that surrender and dependence which is so essentially
feminine. On the other hand, if with a youth of feminine type and
behavior I can realize, with an equal amount of pleasure, the
tender, yet dominant, attitude of the male.
"I experience no particular 'horror' of women sexually. I should
imagine that my feeling toward them resembles very much what
normal people feel with regard to others of their own sex." M.N.
remarks that he cannot whistle, and that his favorite color is
green.
In this case the subject easily found a moral _modus vivendi_ with his
inverted instinct, and he takes its gratification for granted. In the
following case, which, I believe, is typical of a large group, the subject
has never yielded to his inverted impulses, and, except so far as
masturbation is concerned, has preserved strict chastity.
HISTORY IX.--R.S., aged 31, American of French descent. "Upon the
question of heredity I may say that I belong to a reasonably
healthy, prolific, and long-lived family. On my father's side,
however, there is a tendency toward pulmonary troubles. He
himself died of pneumonia, and two of his brothers and a nephew
of consumption. Neither of my parents were morbid or eccentric.
Excepting for a certain shyness with strangers, my father was a
very masculine man. My mother is somewhat nervous, but is not
imaginative, nor at all demonstrative in her affections. I think
that my own imaginative and artistic temperament must come from
my father's side. Perhaps my French ancestry has something to do
with it. With the exception of my maternal grandfather, all my
progenitors have been of French descent. My mother's father was
English.
"I possess a mercurial temperament and a strong sense of the
ludicrous. Though my _physique_ is slight, my health has always
been excellent. Of late years especially I have been greatly
given to introspection and self-scrutiny, but have never had any
hallucinations, mental delusions, nor hysterics, and am not at
all superstitious. Spiritualistic manifestations, hypnotic
dabblings, and the other psychical fads of the day have little or
no attraction for me. In fact, I have always been skeptical of
them, and they rather bore me.
"At school I was an indolent, dreamy boy, shirking study, but
otherwise fairly docile to my teachers. From earliest childhood I
have indulged in omnivorous taste for reading, my particular
likings being for travels, esthetics, metaphysical and
theological subjects, and more recently for poetry and certain
forms of mysticism. I never cared much for history or for
scientific subjects. From the beginning, too, I showed a strong
artistic bent, and possessed an overpowering love for all things
beautiful. As a child I was passionately fond of flowers, loved
to be in the woods and alone, and wanted to become an artist. My
parents opposed the latter wish and I gave way before their
opposition.
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