"In my eighth year, inclination for my own sex made its appearance. I experienced pleasure in looking at my brother's genitals, and, inducing him to mutual fondling of those parts, had an erection at once. Later, in bathing with school-children, the boys excited a lively interest in me; the girls none. I had so little interest in the latter that, as late as my fifteenth year, I believed they also had penises.

" In company with boys like myself I took great pleasure in mutual masturbation; and, at the age of eleven and a half years, amused my my comrades in this way, and by imitation-intercourse between the thighs. Violent erections caused me to play with my genitals, and I came finally to take my penis in my own mouth, which I succeeded in doing, after considerable and prolonged gymnastic training, by bending over.

"This induced the most pleasurable ejaculation; but, frightened by the act into the belief that I was a criminal, I confessed to a companion of sixteen. He quieted my apprehension, and we entered into a love-bond together. We were very happy in thi3, satisfying ourselves by mutual masturbation; and, even after a separation of some years, when I meet him now the old fire lights up anew.

" Later a physician, a friend of my father, seduced me by caressing me and practising masturbation on me. He advised me to give up solitary masturbation, as it was injurious to health; explaining that mutual onanism was not only harmless but the only way in which he could perform the sexual function.

" He had a horror of women, and had lived very unhappily with his deceased wife. This physician was a pompous man, the father of two sons, aged fourteen and fifteen respectively, with both of whom I, in the following year, entered into love relations similar to those I had with their father.

" While I was in relation with the latter, in our practice of mutual masturbation, he showed me both of our spermatozoa under the microscope, as well as various pornographic works, and pictures; from which, however, I got little pleasure, as I cared only for male forma.

" On the occasion of a later visit to him, he asked me to do him a favor which he had never yet enjoyed, and which he greatly desired to enjoy with me. He then dilated my anus with an instrument, and had intercourse that way, at the same time masturbating me, so that I had pain and pleasure at once.

" By this time I was quite grown, and had all sorts of signs made to me by women and girls; but I fled from them as Joseph did from Potiphar's wife.

" I was in my eighteenth year when, in a mild state of intoxication, I tried to have intercourse with a woman. It was accomplished by forcing myself; but I felt as guilty and degraded after it as 1 did after my first manustupration, and fled from the house in disgust. On another occasion, while perfectly sober, in spite of every effort of a beautiful, naked girl to give me an erection, I remained—no doubt to her unspeakable disgust— perfectly cold and unexcited, although at the same time the merest touch of a boy, or the sight of his naked genitals, would throw my penis into the most violent erection.

" When nineteen years old I made the acquaintance of two genuine timings like myself.1 One, aged fifty-six, was effeminate in appearance, beardless, of little mental endowment, possessing a powerful sexual instinct, that had been manifested at an abnormally early age, and had indulged in homosexual love since his sixth year. I used to sleep with him; and, along with being insatiable in mutual masturbation, he made me take a part in both active and passive intercourse by the rectum.

"The other was a merchant, aged thirty-six, of masculine appearance, and fully as passionate as myself. He, however, knew how to make his rectal intercourse so stimulating to me that I did not object to serve him passively. He was the only one with whom I ever found any pleasure in the method. He confessed to me that my mere presence gave him the most powerful erections, which, when I could not serve him, he had to relieve by masturbation.

" While pursuing these love affairs, I was clinical assistant in a hospital, and was considered capable and skillful in my work. I naturally sought out literature on the subject of my sexual peculiarity; finding that, while men regarded it as a crime, I could only recognize in it the natural satisfaction of ray sexual desire. I knew that it was congenital with me; but, finding myself thus in opposition to the whole world, came very near insanity and suicide.

" Seeking to escape, I again tried to cultivate intercourse with women; but only with the old result of impotence, disgust and horror of the act. Being a military surgeon for a time, I suffered terribly from touching the naked forms of the sick soldiers, finding escape only in a love-bond formed with a young lieutenant, similarly affected. Again I experienced happiness, consenting for his sake to rectal intercourse, for which, he said, he had always longed.

"At twenty-three I went to the country as a physician, and was sought and esteemed, I satisfied myself with young boys; interested myself in political affairs, and made an enemy of the local clergyman. One of my boy-lovers betraying me to the latter, he denounced me, and I was compelled to flee. I went to the war (1870) as a soldier, hoping to meet my death, but did not, returning instead much matured and with many marks of distinction.

"I hoped the hardships of the campaign, and my age, had extinguished ray old desires; but had no sooner recovered my health than they broke out anew, I sought then, as before, to force myself to intercourse with women; and it will seem strange to some that I, who at the sight or touch of the dirtiest male ragamuffin, had powerful erections, could not be brought to one by the coaxing and handling of the most beautiful naked woman. I knew a young girl, of whose respect and love for me I felt convinced, and married her, in the desperate hope that, through esteem and honor for my wife, I should be able to perform my conjugal duties and forget the past.

' The subject of this sketch, a physician himself, has anticipated me in the distinction drawn between genuine uminga (normal homosexuaKsts) and those whose homo-seTual impulses are only partial, or occasional; thus justifying, in the view of an educated member of the guild itself, the classification here adopted.

"The boyish appearance of my wife greatly assisted me. I called her my 'Raphael,' and, forcing into my fancy the image of a boy in embracing her, to induce erection, I actually became the father of four boys.

" But, if this fancy ceased for a moment, the erection failed. Finally I was unable to sleep with my wife; and, finding coitus more and more difficult, for two years past we have not slept together. My wife knows my mental condition, and her esteem and love for me may become estranged; but my sexual inclination for males is unchanged; and, unfortunately, too often forces me to become untrue to my wife.

"To this day, the sight of a youth of sixteen will put me into such a violent erection that I am compelled to masturbate. The sufferings I endure are indescribable. I have induced my wife to masturbate me, hoping to overcome my desire in that way; but what a boy's hand will accomplish, with infinite pleasure, in a few seconds, is only produced by her in half an hour, and with pain instead of pleasure. Thus I live miserably, a slave of law and of duty to my wife." 1

Remarks On Case I

It is interesting to note that, according to the authority quoted, this physician claims to have had intercourse in his time with no fewer than six hundred normal inverts; and that only ten per cent, of these came, subsequently, to sexual intercourse with women; possibly these few with the unfortunate pseudosexual experiences just recorded. Another portion did not avoid women, although more attracted to their own sex; while the overwhelming majority were lastingly and exclusively homosexual.

He found in no single case abnormal formation of the genitals; although quite frequently there were distinct approaches to femininity in form, voice, complexion, manners and absence of beard. Development of the breasts was not infrequent. Indeed the physician himself, from his thirteenth to his fifteenth year, had milk in his mammse which his boy-lovere sucked out. All his acquaintances seem to have been affected with abnormal sexual desire; which I have not found to be the case in the instances, comparatively few, however, coming under my own observation.

I have found the abnormality to be that of fashion, rather than force; the vita sexualis distinctly weak, as a rule; and its satisfaction far more quickly accomplished than in normal heterosexual intercourse. The majority of this physician's cases felt an instinct for the active or masculine role, the minority for the -passive, or subjective part.

I have given a very full history of this single case, in all its details, for two reasons. One is that clinical histories possess a considerable degree of sameness and tedium, even when given with the greatest heed to literary grace, and the other is that the case, better than any other I have met, embodies every feature and phenomenon which belongs to the true, normal, homosexual invert.

Better, therefore, than if confused with a hundred others, the reader will be able from this alone to fix the type in his mind.

A man with no desire for women, either innate or possible of cultivation; with congenital and lifelong desire for his own sex; and with or without those minor abnormalities which constitute the secondary characters of the class; this is the true, male, normal invert.

The cases appended, in condensed form, and from the same author, are only useful as confirming the two prime features of normal homosexuality, as indicated above; and in illustrating certain psychological phases of the question not so well set forth in the fuller history.