In my nineteenth year I allowed myself, with outward reluctance, but with inward desire, to be taken by friends to visit prostitutes. But there I experienced nothing but repugnance and aversion, and left as soon as possible, without having felt the faintest trace of sensual excitement. Later, on my own initiative, I repeated the attempt, in order to convince myself as to whether I was impotent or not; for I was much troubled by my unexpected failure in the first instance. The result was always the same,—I felt no excitement at all, and had not the slightest erection. In the first place, it was not possible for me to regard a real woman as an object of sensual gratification; and, furthermore, I could not renounce the conditions and situations which were the principal things in sexualibus for me, and about which nothing could induce me to speak a word. Imissio penis—the act to be undertaken by me—seemed to me absolutely senseless and unclean. Again, in the second place, there was also my repugnance for common women, and fear of infection.
In the meantime, in secret, my sexual life went on in the old fashion. Whenever my old fancies came to mind, violent erection occurred, and I provoked ejaculations almost daily. I began to suffer with all kinds of nervous troubles, and now regarded myself as impotent, in spite of powerful erections and intense desire when I was alone. Nevertheless, from time to time I continued my experiments with prostitutes. In time I overcame my timidity, and in part my aversion to contact with common women; but I remained absolutely cold.
After I had, with advancing years, overcome to some extent my shyness and my inclination to indulge in dreams, in my sexual thought there was an approach to the normal, as I began to direct my interest to real persons. I was even successful in directing sensual thoughts to women of my acquaintance, without carrying over any of my peculiar ideas from the other sphere. Thus I had some affairs with respectable girls. Embracing and kissing occurred; desire was excited, but not the power,—at least, it was too weak to allow me to think that under normal circumstances I should be virile. Of course, the attention I gave to the excitation of my sexual power was not calculated to favor this. Thus, always greatly ashamed, I broke off the relations.
With this, my old habit continued. I was still a great onanist, even though with lessened power. But my fancy no longer satisfied me entirely. I now began to follow both respectable women and others on the street; in winter, particularly those wearing velvet and furs. I often followed prostitutes to their homes, and had them perform manustupration. I always thought I should find more real pleasure in that than in my fancies; but it was always less. When the woman took off her garments, my interest followed them. The empty clothing has never attracted me very strongly, but more than the nude female. The real object of my interest was the attired woman. In this, velvet and furs play the most important part; but also all other articles of attire attracted me, and particularly the form as brought out by lacing and padding. I had scarcely any other interest in the nude female form than an æsthetic one. I have always had a very great interest in the shoes of women, particularly in slippers with high heels, which is always connected with the thought of being trod upon, or of submissively kissing the foot.
At last I overcame the last vestige of my shyness, and one day, to realize my dreams, had myself whipped, trod upon, etc., by a prostitute. The result was a great disappointment. What was done to me I felt to be rough, repugnant, and silly. The blows caused me nothing but pain; the situation, repugnance and shame. Nevertheless, I induced an ejaculation mechanically, with which, with the help of my imagination, I transformed the real situation into that for which I longed. This—the really desired situation—differed from the actual essentially in that I created in imagination a woman who abused me with the same pleasure that I experienced in her maltreatment of me.
All my sexual fancies were erected on the assumption in the woman of a tyrannical, cruel disposition, to which I wished to be subject. The act expressing the relation was a secondary matter to me. After the first attempt at an impossible realization, it was perfectly clear to me toward what my longing was directed. To be sure, in my lustful dreams, I had often passed beyond all ideas of abuse, and conceived a commanding woman, with an imperious mien, a word of command, a kiss on the foot, etc; but now I fully realized what it was that attracted me, and that flagellation was only the strongest means of expressing the principle, and in itself secondary.
In spite of this disappointment, after the first step, I did not abandon my efforts to realize my erotic ideas. I was confident that, when once accustomed to the new reality, my fancy would find food in it for more intense activity. For my purpose I sought the most suitable women, and instructed them carefully in a complicated comedy. In this I occasionally found that the way had been prepared for me by predecessors of like disposition. The value of these comedies, for the effect of my fancy on my sensuality, remained problematical. What these acts and scenes did for me, in the way of intensifying the subsidiary circumstances of the desired situation, caused a diminution of the intensity of the principal element, which my unaided fancy, without the consciousness of planned, coarse deception, could more easily bring up before me. My physical sensations, under the various punishments, were changeable. The more perfect the self-deception, the more perfectly the pain was felt as pleasure.
Or, more correctly, the punishment was then conceived as a symbolic act. From this arose the illusion of the desired situation, which was then accompanied by an intense psychical feeling of pleasure. The lustful feeling then spread out over the whole body in lustful physical sensations, and thus the perception of the painful quality of the punishment was overcome. The process in the moral punishments—the humiliations to which I subjected myself—was similar, but simpler; because it was confined to the mental sphere. These were also attended with pleasurable feeling when the self-deception succeeded. It was seldom, however, that it succeeded well, and never perfectly; there always remained a disturbing element in consciousness. Therefore, in the intervals, I returned to solitary onanism. Moreover, in the other case, the conclusion of the act was usually an ejaculation provoked by onanism; often an ejaculation without the aid of mechanical means.
Thus I went on for many years, with diminishing power, but with slightly diminished desire, and with the power of my peculiar sexual idea over me unchanged. And at present the condition of my vita sexualis is the same. Coitus, which I have never performed, still seems to me a strange and unclean act. I learned about it from descriptions of sexual dissipations. My own sexual ideas seem natural, and do not in the least offend my sensitive taste. Their realization, as previously mentioned, for various reasons, leaves me unsatisfied. I am pleased with pretty girls and women of respectability, but for a long time I have ceased to approach them. I have never attained, not even partially, a direct, actual realization of my sexual fancy. As often as I have come into close relation with females, I have felt the woman’s will to be beneath mine, never vice versâ. I have never met a woman manifesting a desire of mastery in sexual things. Women who wish to rule in the household and exercise petticoat sovereignty are entirely different from my erotic ideals.
My whole personality presents many abnormalities besides the perversion of my vita sexualis; my neuropathic condition is expressed in many mental and physical symptoms. Besides, I think I recognize in myself an original abnormality of character in the nature of a resemblance to the feminine type; at least, I regard as of this nature my great weakness of will, and my great lack of courage in the presence of men and animals, which is in contrast with my coolness in the face of peril. My external appearance is entirely masculine.