“When you presume that there is often an hereditary tainted condition, perhaps you are right. My father was subject to spinal disease before my birth; later, he became mentally unsound, and took his own life.
“Another point, which I am inclined to doubt, is the one mentioned by you in another place,—i.e., that onanism practiced from youth may lead to perverse instinct.
“I (merchant, owner of a small business, unmarried) am in the beginning of my thirtieth year. I am apparently healthy, and show scarcely a deviation from the normal masculine type. The first sexual impulses were immediately and exclusively directed to the male sex, and I experienced them from my tenth year. I have masturbated since my twelfth year. Since, in spite of all attempts, coitus with women was always absolutely impossible for me; and since I have never had desire for women—on the contrary, rather aversion; and since my attempts have never resulted in the slightest erection, I have been compelled to satisfy myself by onanism.
“If now I am to confess the manner of my sexual satisfaction, I may say that in my earlier years my fellow-pupils and companions excited me sexually. Now my impulse consists in a desire for boys of about ten, but mostly for youths of from fifteen to twenty years.
“For a long time, strong and healthy cadets, of fine form, have had a particular charm for me; and by their handsome uniforms and fine presence they especially excite my desire. I have no opportunity to approach them, or even to enter into distant social intercourse with them; but I am compelled to satisfy myself with following them in the streets and squares; or in restaurants, horse-cars or railways, by sitting near them, and, when it is possible to do it unnoticed, under such circumstances, by practicing onanism. My most ardent wish has often been to become the friend, servant, or slave of such a young man.
“I have never even dreamed of direct pederasty; my desire has always been bodily contact, embrace, manustupration of my genitals by my lover, and, on my part, a kiss on his genitals or podex.
“I often have the desire, however, to represent Sacher-Masoch in his ‘Venus in Furs.’ There a man makes himself the voluntary slave of a woman, and feels an intense thrill of lustful pleasure, if he is only chastised and humiliated by her. But I naturally feel that I could, under no circumstances, become the slave of a woman, but only of a man; more correctly, of a young man; one, however, for whom I should have such an infinite love that I could give myself up entirely to his mercy or cruelty.
“The lustful images that float before my mind in masturbation are those of this or that young man that I have just seen. As a sad and incomplete substitute, I practice this onanism constantly.
“I pass into a lustful dream in this way (and I say all here, because I wish to write only the truth and the whole truth): I choose a young man that pleases me by his form, and in imagination give myself up to involuntary obedience to him. I imagine that he wishes to humiliate me, and that he commands me, for example, to kiss his feet; or compels me to smell his socks. For want of the desired actuality, I take my own socks, smell of them, take them into my mouth, rub them over my genitals, and immediately erection and ejaculation, with sensual pleasure, take place.
“Yes, I am so dominated by this mental imagery that I imagine that the young man is my confessor, and, in order to humiliate me, orders me to eat of his excrement. Here again, in want of actuality, I eat of my own excrement, but only in small quantity. Then, with an imperfect feeling of disgust and violent palpitation of the heart, erection and ejaculation take place.