When I left this college for —— University I took with me a formidable catalogue of good resolutions, first among which was the determination to abandon all kinds of "self-abuse." I think I kept this one about a month. As I had gone from a comparatively small school to one of the largest of American universities the change was great and the revelations it brought me frequently humiliating. I was lonesome, home-sick, and my bump of self-esteem was woefully bruised; and not unnaturally I soon began to seek a partial solace in day-dreams and masturbation. After I had become somewhat adapted to my new environment I indulged less frequently in either, and from that time to the present I have masturbated very irregularly, sometimes but little and again to excess.
Not long after I came to this place I met a young lady with whom I soon became quite intimate. For over a year our friendship was strictly platonic and then swung suddenly around to a sexual basis. We were ardent lovers for a few weeks, after which I tired of the game as I had before in other cases, and broke off all relations with her as abruptly as was possible. Since then I have almost wholly withdrawn from the society and companionship of women and have almost entirely lost whatever tact and assurance I once possessed in their company. Things pertaining to sexual life have interested me rather more than less, but have occupied my attention much less exclusively than before this episode. Though I have never intended to marry, my breaking off relations with this girl affected me much. At any rate it marked an abrupt change in the character of my sexual experiences. The sexual impulse seems to have lost its power to rouse me to action. Hitherto I had practiced masturbation always under protest, as it were—as the only available form of sexual satisfaction; while now I resigned myself to it as all that there was to hope for in that field. Of course I knew that a little effort or a little money would procure natural satisfaction of my sexual needs, but I also knew that I would never, under any ordinary circumstances, put forth the necessary effort, and fear of venereal disease has been more than enough to keep me away from houses of prostitution.
Some months ago I refrained from masturbation for a period of about six weeks and watched carefully for any change in my health or spirits, but noticed none at all. The only impulse to masturbate was occasioned by fits of restlessness accompanied by erections and a mildly pleasurable feeling of fullness in the penis and scrotum. I think that over 75 per cent, of my acts of masturbation are provoked by these fits of restlessness and are unaccompanied by fancy images, erotic thoughts, lustful desires, or marked pleasure. At other times the act is occasioned by erotic thoughts and images, and is accompanied by a considerable degree of lustful pleasure which, however, is never so intense as in my earlier experiences and has steadily decreased from the first. Usually the orgasm is accompanied by a strong contraction of all the voluntary muscles, particularly the extensors, followed by a slight giddiness and slight feeling of exhaustion. If repeated several times in the course of a single day the acts are followed by dullness and lassitude; otherwise the feeling of exhaustion passes away quickly and a sense of relief and quiet takes its place. So natural or rather habitual has this resort to masturbation as a means of relief from nervousness and restlessness become that the act is almost instinctive in its unconsciousness.
I am extremely sensitive to all kinds of sexual influences, and have an insatiable curiosity regarding everything that pertains to the sexual life of men or women. I am not, however, excited sexually by conversation about sexual facts and relationships, no matter what its nature, though in reading erotic literature my excitement is often intense.
The tendency to day dream has never left me, but there are no longer any elaborate scenes or long-continued "stories," these having been replaced by vaguely imagined incidents which are usually broken off before they reach a satisfactory climax. They are always interrupted by the intrusion of other matters, usually of more practical interest; and the long-continued habit of satisfying myself by masturbation has made erotic dreams rather tantalizing than pleasurable. I dream very seldom at night—at least I can scarcely ever remember any dreams upon waking—and practically never of sexual relations. I have not had a nocturnal emission for over three years, and probably not more than twenty-five in my life.
In my "love passages" with girls there has been no serious thought of coitus on my part, and I have never had intercourse with a woman—unless my early experiences with the servant girl be called such. Like all masturbators I always idealized "love" to the utter exclusion of all sensual cravings; and the notion that the physical act of coitus was something degrading and destructive of real love rather than its consummation was, of all prejudices I have ever formed, the most difficult to escape—a circumstance due, I suppose, to the fact that all I had ever been taught on the subject tended to the complete divorce of what was called "love" from what was stigmatized as a "base sensual desire." Judging from my own experience and observation I should say that "ideal love" is a mere surface feeling, bound to disappear as soon as it has gained its object by arousing a reciprocal interest on the part of the one to whom it is directed. So little did I "materialize" the objects of my "love" that I have never cared for kissing or the warm embraces in which lovers usually indulge. I have never kissed but one girl, and her with far too little enthusiasm to satisfy her. My last sweetheart was a very passionate girl, the warmth of whose embraces was somewhat torrid and, to me, both puzzling and annoying. The intensity of feeling which demanded such strenuous expression was beyond my knowledge of human nature. A somewhat peculiar circumstance in connection with these experiences is the fact that I often found myself trying to analyze my emotions with a purely psychological interest while playing the part of the intoxicated lover in his mistress's arms.
There is but little left to say on the subject of my sexual development. During the last two or three years my knowledge of the facts of the sexual life has been very greatly increased, and I have become acquainted with phases of human nature which were wholly unknown to me before. The part played by things sexual in my life is still, I suppose, abnormally large; it is undoubtedly the largest single interest, though my outer life is determined almost wholly by other considerations.
Of course I know nothing of the effect which long-continued masturbation may have had on my ability to perform normal coitus. I do not think I am subject to any kind of sexual perversion, for all my indulgence has been faute de mieux and, at least since I began masturbation, all my desires and erotic day-dreams have had to do only with normal coitus. The mystery which surrounds the sexual act seems at times to be regaining its former influence and power of fascination. I have no doubt, however, but that I should be greatly disillusioned should I ever perform coitus; and I greatly regret that I have not been able to test this conviction and so round out and complete this "history."
It may be worth while to say a word about my religious experiences, as, in many cases, they are closely bound up with the sexual impulse. I was never "converted," but on a dozen or more occasions approached the crisis more or less closely. The dominant emotion in these experiences was always fear, sometimes with anger and despair intermixed in varying proportions. A complete analysis of these experiences is, of course, impossible, but the various pleasurable feelings of which converts spoke in the revivals which I attended were a closed book to me. Following my revival-meeting experiences came a few days spent in a sort of moral exaltation during which I eschewed all my habits of which conventional morality disapproved, save masturbation, and felt no small satisfaction with my moral conditions. I became a first-rate Pharisee. Toward the women who had figured in my day dreams I suddenly conceived the chastest affection, resolutely smothering every sensual thought and fancy when thinking of them, and putting in place of these elements ideal love, self-sacrifice, knightly devotion—Sunday-school Garden-of-Eden pictures with a mediæval, romantic coloring. These day-dreams were always sexual, involving situations of extreme complexity and monumental silliness. Masturbation was always continued and usually with increased frequency. The end of these periods was always abrupt and much like awaking from a dream in which the dreamer has been behaving in a manner to arouse his own disgust. They were followed by feelings of sheepishness and self-contempt mingled with anger and a dislike of all things having to do with religion. My inability to pass the conversion crisis and a growing contempt for empty enthusiasm finally led me to a saner attitude toward religion, from which I passed easily into religious scepticism; and later the study of philosophy and science, and particularly of psychology, banished the last lingering remnant of faith in a supernatural agency and led me to the passion for facts and indifference to values which have caused me to be often called "dead to all morality."
HISTORY II.—C. A., aged 25, unmarried; tutor, preparing to take Holy Orders:—