Owing to the difference of age between the children, F. R. (who was three years younger than his elder brother, and more than four years older than his sister, the third child) had no male companionship and was constantly alone with his mother. "Being naturally imitative," he remarks, "I think I acquired her tastes and interests and habits of thought. However that may be, I feel sure that my interests and amusements were more girlish than boyish. By way of illustration, I may mention that I have often been told by a friend of my mother's that, on one occasion, I was wanting a new hat, and none being found of a size to fit me, I congratulated myself that I should therefore be obliged to have a bonnet! As regards my feminine tastes and instincts, I have always been conscious of taking interest in questions of family relationships, etiquette, dress (women's as much as, or more than, men's) and other things of that kind, which, as a rule, were treated with indifference or contempt. In the house I take more notice than my sister does of the servants' deficiencies and neglects, and am much more orderly in my arrangements than she is."
There is nothing markedly feminine in the general appearance. Pubertal development took place at an early age, long before fourteen, with nocturnal emissions, but without erotic dreams. The testicles are well developed, the penis perhaps rather below the average in size, and the prepuce long and narrow. Erection occurs with much facility, especially at night. When young he knew nothing of masturbation, but he began the habit about ten years ago, and has practised it occasionally ever since.
Although he likes the society of women to a certain extent, he soon grows tired of it, and has never had any desire to marry. His sexual dreams never have any relation to women. "I am generally doing or saying something," he remarks, "to some man whom I know when awake, something which I admit I might wish to do or say if it were not quite out of the question on grounds of propriety and self-respect."
He has, however, never had any intimate relationships with men, and much that he has heard of such relationships fills him with horror.
"What I feel about myself is," he writes, "that I have to a certain extent, or in some respects, a feminine mind in a male body; or, I might put it that I am a combination of an immoral (in tendency, rather than in act) woman and a religious man. From time to time I have felt strong affection for young men, but I cannot flatter myself that my affection has been reciprocated. At the present time there is a young fellow (23 years old) who acts as my clerk and sits in my room. He is extremely good-looking, and of a type which is generally considered 'aristocratic,' but so far as I (or he) know, he is quite of the lower middle class. He has little to recommend him but a fine face and figure, and there is nothing approaching to mental or social equality between us. But I constantly feel the strongest desire to treat him as a man might a young girl he warmly loved. Various obvious considerations keep me from more than quasi-paternal caresses, and I feel sure he would resent very strongly anything more. This constant repression is trying beyond measure to the nerves, and I often feel quite ill from that cause. Having had no experiences of my own, I am always anxious to learn anything I can of the sexual relations of other men, and their organs, but I have no curiosity whatever concerning the other sex. My chief pleasure and source of gratification is found in the opportunities afforded by Turkish and other baths; wherever, in fact, there is the nude male to be found. But I seldom find in these places anyone who seems to have the same tendency as myself, and certainly I have not met with more than two cases among the attendants, who responded to my hinted desire to see everything. Under a shampooer, particularly an unfamiliar one, I occasionally experience an orgasm, but less often now than when I was younger."
F. R. is very short-sighted. His favorite color is blue. He is able to whistle. His tastes are chiefly of a literary character, and he has never had any liking for sports. "I have been generally considered ineffective in the use of my hands," he writes, "and I am certainly not skillful. All I have ever been able to do in that way is to net and do the simpler forms of needlework; but it seems more natural to me to do, or try to do, everything of that sort, and to play on the piano, rather than to shoot or play games. I may add that I am fonder of babies than many women, and am generally considered to be surprisingly capable of holding them! Certainly I enjoy doing so. As a youth, I used to act in charades; but I was too shy to do so unless I was dressed as a woman and veiled; and when I took a woman's part I felt less like acting than I have done in propria persona. A remark made by an uncle once rather annoyed me: that it seemed more like nature than art. But he was quite right."
HISTORY IV.—Of Lowland Scotch parentage. Both sides of house healthy and without cerebral or nervous disease. Homosexual desires began at puberty. He practised onanism to a limited extent at school and up to the age of about 22. His erotic dreams are exclusively about males. While very friendly and intimate with women of all ages, he is instantly repelled by any display of sexual affection on their side. This has happened in varying degree in three or four cases. With regard to marriage, he remarks: "As there seems no immediate danger of the race dying out, I leave marriage to those who like it." His male ideal has varied to some extent. It has for some years tended toward a healthy, well-developed, athletic or out-of-door working type, intelligent and sympathetic, but not specially intellectual.
At school his sexual relations were of the simplest type. Since then there have been none. "This," he says, "is not due either to absence of desire or presence of 'morals.' To put it shortly, 'there were never the time and the place and the loved one together.' In another view, physical desire and the general affection have not always coexisted toward the same person; and the former without the latter is comparatively transient; while the latter stops the gratification of the former, if it is felt that that gratification could in any way make the object of affection unhappy, mentally or emotionally."
He is healthy and fairly well developed; of sensitive, emotional nature, but self-controlled; mentally he is receptive and aggressive by turns, sometimes uncritical, sometimes analytical. His temper is equable, and he is strongly affectionate. Very fond of music and other arts, but not highly imaginative.
Of sexual inversion in the abstract he says he has no views, but he thus sums up his moral attitude: "I presume that, if it is there, it is there for use or abuse, as men please. I condemn gratification of bodily desire at the expense of others, in whatever form it may take. I condemn it no more in its inverted form than in the ordinary. I believe that affection between persons of the same sex, even when it includes the sexual passion and its indulgences, may lead to results as splendid as human nature can ever attain to. In short, I place it on an absolute equality with love as ordinarily understood."