It was early in my ninth year that I first learned something of the anatomical difference between man and woman and of the functions of the sexual organs in coitus. These were explained to me by a young male servant, who, however, told me nothing of conception or pregnancy. At first I was very little interested, as it did not immediately occur to me to associate my own erotic experiences with the matter of these revelations; but under the faithful tuition of my new instructor I soon began to desire normal coitus, and my interest in the sexual affairs of animals weakened accordingly. His teachings went still further, for he masturbated before me, then persuaded me to masturbate him, and finally practiced coitus inter femora upon me. He also tried to masturbate me, but was unable to produce an orgasm, though I found the experiment mildly pleasurable.
Early in my eleventh year we left the farm and lived in the city for several months. In the meantime there had been no developments in my sexual life beyond what has already been indicated. In the city I found so much to interest and amuse me that I almost entirely forgot my erotic day-dreams and desires. Though my chief playmates were two girls of about my own age I never thought of attempting sexual intercourse with them, as I might easily have done, for they were much wiser and more experienced in these things than myself. Shortly before the end of our stay in town an older schoolmate explained to me as much of the process of reproduction as is usually known by a precocious youngster of 12 years, but I firmly refused to credit his statements. He adduced the fact of lactation in proof of the correctness of his views, but I had been too thoroughly steeped in supernaturalism to be very amenable to naturalistic evidence of this sort and remained obdurate. But the suggestion stayed with me and perplexed me not a little; when we returned to the farm I began to watch the reproductive process in animals.
The following two years were decidedly unpleasant. I was growing rapidly and was sluggish, awkward and stupid. At school I was more unpopular than ever and seemed to have a positive genius for doing the wrong thing. On the rare occasions when my companions admitted me to their counsels I was a willing dupe and catspaw, with the result that I was much in trouble with my teachers. Being morbidly sensitive I suffered keenly under these circumstances and, as my health was not at all good, I often made of my frequent headaches excuses to stay at home, where I would lie abed brooding over my small troubles or, more often, dreaming erotic day-dreams and making repeated attempts to produce an orgasm. But though these efforts were accompanied by the most lustful thoughts and my imagination created situations of oriental extravagance, I was 13 years old when they first met with success. I remember the occasion very distinctly, the more so because I thought of it much and bitterly when shortly afterwards I tried to abandon a habit which the family "doctor book" assured me must result in every variety of damnation. At the moment, however, I was greatly surprised and gratified and tried at once to repeat the delightful sensation, but was unable to do so until the following day. From that time to the present I think I have masturbated an average of ten times per week, and this is certainly a very conservative estimate; for though up to my sixteenth year I could seldom produce an orgasm more than once a day I have often, during the last four or five years, produced it from four to seven times per day without difficulty and this for days and even weeks in succession. During these periods of excessive masturbation very little liquid was ejaculated and the pleasurable sensations were slight or entirely lacking.
From the time when I began masturbating regularly practically my whole interest centered in things pertaining to sex. I read the chapters of the family "doctor book" which treated of sexual matters; my day-dreams were almost exclusively erotic; I sought opportunities to talk about sex-relationships with my schoolmates, with whom I was now slowly getting on better terms; I collected pictures of nude women, learned a great number of obscene stories, read such obscene books as I could obtain and even searched the dictionary for words having a sexual connotation. Up to my fifteenth year, when ejaculation of semen began, there was a strong sadistic coloring to my day-dreams. Through this period, too, my bashfulness in the presence of the opposite sex increased until it reached the point of absurdity.
When fifteen years old I began to practice coitus inter femora on my brother and continued it intermittently for about two years. The experience was disappointing, for I had confidently expected a great increase of pleasure over masturbation in this act; and in casting about for some stronger stimulus I recurred to the forgotten idea of intercourse with animals. I promptly tried to put the idea to a test, but failed several times, and finally succeeded, only to find that the result fell far short of my expectations. Nevertheless I continued the practice irregularly for about three years—or rather through that part of the three years that I spent at home, for while I was at school opportunity for such indulgence was lacking. Long familiarity with the idea of intercourse with animals had made it impossible for me to feel the disgust with the practice which it inspires in most people; and even the perusal of Exodus xxii: 19 failed to make me abandon it. Firmly as I believed in the Mosaic law the supremacy of the sexual impulse was complete.
As early as my sixteenth year I tried to abandon "self-abuse" in all its forms and have repeatedly made the same effort since that time but never with more than very partial success. On two or three occasions I have stopped for periods of several weeks, but only to begin again and indulge more recklessly than before. The deep depression which followed each failure, and often each act of masturbation, I attributed solely to the loss of semen, leaving out of account the fact that I expected to feel depressed and the utter discouragement and self-contempt which accompanied the sense of failure and weakness when, in the face of my resolution, I repeatedly gave way and yielded to the temptation to an act whose consequences I firmly believed must be ruinous. I am now convinced that by far the greater part of this depression was due to suggestion and the humiliating sense of defeat. And this feeling of moral impotence, this seeming helplessness against an overpowering impulse which, on the other hand, seemed so trivial when viewed without passion, eventually weakened my self-control to a degree guessed by no one but myself and sapped the foundations of my moral life in a way which I have constant occasion to deplore.
The foregoing paragraphs give, I think, a fair idea of my condition when I left home for a boarding school at the beginning of my seventeenth year. From this time my experiences may be said to have run on in two distinct cycles—that of the summer months when I was at home, and that of the remainder of the year when I was at school. This fact will make some confusion and apparent inconsistency in the rest of this "history" unavoidable. When I left home I was shy, retiring, totally ignorant of social usage, without self-confidence, unambitious, dreamy, and subject to fits of melancholy. I masturbated at least once a day, though I was in almost constant rebellion against the habit. In my more idle moments I elaborated erotic day dreams in which there was a peculiar mixture of the purely sensual and the purely ideal element; which never fused in my experience, but held the field alternately or mingled somewhat in the manner of air and water. One person usually served as the object of my ideal attachment, another as the center round which I grouped my sensual dreams and desires.
At school I found more congenial companions than I had fallen in with elsewhere, and the necessary contact with people of both sexes gradually wore off some of the rougher corners and brought a measure of self-confidence. I had two or three incipient love affairs which my backwardness kept from growing serious. Out of this change of environment came a sense of expansion, of escape from self, which was distinctly pleasant. I still masturbated regularly, but no longer experienced the former depression except when at home during vacation. Relatively to the past, life was now so varied and interesting that I had less and less time for melancholy; and the discovery that I could lead my classes and hold my own in athletic sports seemed to indicate that my past fears had been exaggerated. Nevertheless I was never reconciled to the habit and often rebelled at the weakness that kept me its slave.
When I entered the university the effects of my useless struggle with the practice of masturbation were pretty well developed. I could no longer fix my attention steadily upon my work and found that only by "cribbing" and "bluffing" could I keep my place at the head of my classes. I was troubled not a little by the shoddiness of my work, and tried again and again during the course of the two years spent at this college to shake off the habit. At the university I was introduced gradually to a wider social circle and so far outgrew my bashfulness that I began to seek the society of the opposite sex assiduously. As I gained self-confidence I became reckless, getting at one time into serious trouble with the authorities which came near resulting in my expulsion. I became one of the more popular members of the clique to which I belonged—much to my surprise and even more to that of my acquaintances. The physical culture craze attacked me at this time and my pet ambition was the attainment of strength and agility. My bump of vanity also grew apace, but an unmeasured hatred of all kinds of foppishness kept me on the safe side of moderation in my dress and behavior.
During my second year of university life I had two love affairs in the course of which I found that my interest in any particular member of the fair sex disappeared as soon as it was returned. The pursuit was fascinating enough, but I cared nothing at all for the prize when once it was within reach. I may add that the interest I had in the girls was purely ideal. While at this school I do not think I masturbated half as often as while at the preparatory school.