I will now pass to my third year, when I was 13 years old. A large, well-set-up boy of 16, A., became my idol. His toleration of my presence in his room filled me with endless love. When I lied about a matter in which he was concerned, his denunciation of me brought me to a state of shuddering and weeping unspeakable. When our relations were established again A. allowed me to creep into his bed after the lights were out, and there I passionately embraced him, but without performing any definite act. When I turned over on my side with my back to him he drew my prepuce back and forth until I experienced orgasm, but not ejaculation. I would return his favor by pumping his erect penis, but with no ejaculation on his part. He did not propose fellatio, and I did not think of it. One night when he was in my bed I began to masturbate very slightly, whereupon he laughed, saying: "So that is the way you amuse yourself!" As a matter of fact the habit was not fastened upon me. He always laughed when the rubbing of his finger on my exposed glans caused me to shrink. Another boy, H., now began to show me his erect penis and we practiced mutual manipulations. A. laughingly told me how me had caught H. in the act of masturbating as he stood in the bath-tub. A. told me a number of sexual stories—how he enjoyed coitus in the bushes with a girl on the way home from entertainments; how half a dozen boys and girls stripped in the basement of a church and performed coitus on the velvet chairs which stood behind the pulpit; and how he and a younger boy, who camped out together, played with each other's genitals. F., a boy of 11, was highly nervous, subject to timidity and tears on the slightest provocation, often morose, and under treatment for kidney trouble. His penis was erect whenever I saw him undress. He told me that a partially idiotic man taught F. and his companion how to masturbate. The man invited the boys to his tent and there pumped his organ until "some white stuff came out of it." F. also told me that an Indian princess in his part of the country would permit coitus for fifty cents. A. sometimes slept with F., and I could imagine their embraces. S., a secretive, handsome boy of 13, wetted his bed with urine every night. The only sign that he gave of an interest in sexuality was his laughing remark concerning the coupling of rose-bugs. Of his chum, my beloved C., I will speak later. My small room-mate handled himself only slightly. I never had a desire to lie with him, since I disliked him, nor with my first room-mate, a "chunky," fiery boy of 10, whose penis interested me merely because it was circumcised and almost always erect. His masturbation was also so slight as not to attract any particular attention. A lusty German boy, B., showed no signs of sexuality until his third year, when he laughed about his newly-appearing pubic hair, and told several of us openly of how he enjoyed to play "a drum-beat" on his penis before going to sleep. "I don't do it too much, though," he explained. He showed a mild curiosity when I gave him the resumé of a book on cohabitation which contained illustrations of the erect penis and the female organs. I had found this book in the woods and I read it eagerly during my third year.
I came to the point of agreeing with A., who said: "Everyone is smutty." Indeed I lived in a lustful world, and yet my mind was bent also on books, and writing, and the outdoor world. I was overgrown and splendidly developed, with a medium-sized penis and a scant growth of pubic hair. My face wore a somewhat infantile expression. My mouth was a perfect "Cupid's bow," my hair thin and light. I was troubled about my snub-nose, which gave the boys a great deal of amusement. As a matter of fact I exaggerated its upward tendency out of my morbid self-consciousness and cowardice. My imagination was extraordinarily intense, as it had always been. I was sensitive to smells and sounds and colors and personalities, and to the subtle influence of the night. I was timid and easily moved to tears, but not from any physical weakness until after. At the lower house there was the boy Z., famed for his large penis; and the older G., a boy of 15, who was the leader in sexuality at his dormitory. Z. showed me his penis and exposed his glans often enough, but we did not manipulate each other. G. told us to notice how large a space his penis occupied in his trousers, and laughed over Z.'s custom of masturbating by means of a narrow vase. G.'s special lover was a nervous boy of ten. It is remarkable that none of us mentioned fellatio or pædicatio. These acts may have occurred at school, but not to my knowledge. We did not have much to say sexually about the girls. We heard rumors of a 16-year-old, V., who had been sent away from school for coitus; and my first room-mate was said to have obtained conjunctio with a girl under cover of the chapel shed. Once A. and I pointed a telescope at the open windows of the girls' dormitory, but we saw nothing to interest us. A day-scholar, J., a pale, nervous, bright boy of 13, took me into the study of his uncle-physician and together we gloated over pictures of the sexual organs. A. was with us on one occasion. J. told me how he liked to roll over and over in bed with his hand placed under his scrotum. This act, he said, made him imagine that he was obtaining coitus. He advised me to slide my penis back and forth in the vagina whenever I should actually obtain coitus. In my room at school J. once drew an imaginary map of a bagnio, in which the water-closet was carefully displayed en suite with the bedrooms. J. and I never masturbated together. Indeed, I cannot remember seeing his organ. A hulking boy of 16, who lived opposite the school-grounds, became intimate with J., and we three went on a walk up the railroad track. The big boy, W., tried to inflame my passions by telling me how he and J. had had coitus with a handsome black-haired widow in town, but I remained cold.
During this year I fell in love with C., a popular, talkative, witty boy of my own age, or perhaps a year younger. He fancied me and we slept together one night under the most innocent circumstances. I never dreamed of having sexual relations with him, and yet I fairly burned with love for him. My stay at his beautiful home over Sunday while his parents were away was one long delight. We slept in each other's arms, but there was no sexuality. En route to C.'s home he pointed with a glove to a little working-girl, saying he would like to have intercourse with her, but this was the only remark of the kind that ever passed his lips in my presence. When undressed save for his undershirt, he laughingly held his unerect organ in his hand and made the motions of obtaining conjunction with an imaginary partner. Once we spoke of masturbation (I could recite the information of my good physician with a marvelous show of virtue), and C. remarked: "Yes, doing that makes boys crazy." C. finally grew tired of my deceptive, babyish nature and ultra-interest in books and puzzles, but I cherished an undiminished affection for him, and when he was detained at home for a fortnight with a broken arm, I wrote him a passionate letter, which I sobbed over and actually wetted with my tears. But the fervor of my passion died at the close of the year. I consider this unsullied friendship to be the only redeeming feature of my sensual days at school.
Versed as I was in the warnings against masturbation, I found pleasure one afternoon when I was alone in slipping my penis through the open handle of a pair of scissors and in violently flapping my partially erect organ until a strange, sweet thrill crept over me from top to toe and a drop of clear liquid oozed from my member. But I gave up the manipulation with scissors, finding a greater satisfaction in masturbating while I was defecating or just after it. I either pumped my organ by slipping the prepuce back and forth, or I grasped the organ at its root and violently jerked it back and forth. I soon began to masturbate not only every time that I defecated, but also at night just before I went to sleep, and sometimes early in the morning. On the whole I preferred the jerking just described. I always brought about ejaculation after perhaps five minutes of violent exertion.
My penis became chafed at the root, but I did not especially care. I remember the afternoon that I masturbated for the first time while I was defecating in the school water-closet. I cannot recall that at first I thought of coitus while I masturbated. On one occasion I masturbated over the vase de nuit after a delightful afternoon of tobogganing exploration up and down the mountain.
During this first year of abuse, I felt no ill effects whatsoever, although I realized, in an unthinking way, that I was doing wrong. But sexuality had assumed the proportion of a regular feature of our school life. It was difficult for me to place a "universal" view in its true perspective. I used to smile at the glazed, dull morning eye of poor H., who was a stunted boy of 15, and thus could not endure his losses so well as I could endure them. The qualms of conscience which I suffered were lost in my delight in my dawning sexual life. Sometimes I lay on my stomach in bed, and by placing my hand under my scrotum, according to the directions of J., brought up a pretty girl to mind. Just before Sunday school G., our chief reprobate, and the rest of us would hunt out what we considered to be nasty texts of Scripture. The chapter concerning the whoredoms of Aholah and Aholibah gave me an especial pleasure. T. mentioned the giggling that occurred at prayers in the lower dormitory when the details of Esau's birth were read out. A few days before G. was expelled—for exactly what cause I do not know—he told me of how greatly he enjoyed coitus on his grandmother's sofa with a girl of fifteen. When I went home on the boat for holidays I noted the large, black-haired penis of the strong boy of our school. He occupied a state-room with me, but made no sexual overtures.
Since my twelfth year I had been wrapped up all summer long in a boy who was six months my senior. We slept together constantly, but not once did we think of obtaining mutual gratification. On the contrary, we held up high ideals to each other and frowned on masturbation. I took delight in saying that I never had handled myself, and never would do so. Even at the height of my "auto-erotic" period, I skillfully concealed my habits from all my boy friends. A neurotic solo choir boy friend once spoke of obtaining ejaculation, whereupon I expressed utter ignorance of such an act, little hypocrite that I was. This boy told how the house servants joked with him about coitus and made laughing lunges at his organs.
But much as I loved my chum, my most passionate regard went out in my thirteenth year to N., a chubby, blue-eyed, choir-boy of 12. He was a pretty boy to any eye. He was not gifted, except in water-sports, and anything but popular either with girls or with boys; yet I grew warm at the mention of his name. He did not care a fig for me. From first to last I had no consciousness of the sexual nature of my passion, and the thought of doing more than embrace and kiss him in an innocent manner never crossed my mind. For two summers I had nights of tossing on my bed (although I almost never was sleepless for any cause) when I would see his dear face and form, in and out of the swimming pool, or engaged perhaps in singing or in showing his beautiful teeth. I seldom was smitten with little girls, and I found myself embarrassed in their company after my ninth year; yet I thought well enough of their looks and ways to enjoy their company at dances. The girls liked me in a platonic way, for I was accounted a good, big, kind, blundering boy with a helping hand for the smallest fry.
During the summer after I was 13, I imagined myself in the early morning, when I was half awake, as persuading my wife to have coitus with me. In the course of my spoken words I kept my hand under my scrotum.
A plump girl-cousin of my own age was visiting at my uncle's during the summer after I was 13. With her I greatly desired to satisfy myself, but I could not be sure that my boy cousin (5 years old) might not find us out, even though she should consent. Once when we three were in the hay-loft a wave of lust rolled over me, but I made no proposal. Night and gaslight greatly increased my libido. On one occasion my aunt had gone to the village for ice-cream, and L. and I were left alone in the dining-room. I took her on my lap and had a powerful erection. I almost asked her to play sexually with me in the barn, but instead I spoke of an imaginary girl, the first letters of whose successive names spelled an indecent word for coitus—a word known to almost every Anglo-Saxon child, I fear. L. laughed, but gave no sign of assent. For a neighboring girl of 15 I felt such a drawing that early in the morning I would roll on the floor with my erect organ in my hand in riotous imagining of coitus with her. I walked with her in the woods and sat at her feet, but although I felt instinctively that she would satisfy me without much persuasion, yet I could not ask her. One night I started to church in order to walk home with her, and lead her (if possible) to a field where we might gratify ourselves (I picked out the exact grassy spot where we might lie); but when I was almost at the church door my "moral sense" (if that is what it was) rose and dragged me home again.