“Small as my nipples are, they demand room, and I feel them as mammæ; just as during the beginning of puberty, the nipples swelled and pained. On this account, the white shirt, the waistcoat, and the coat trouble me. I feel as though the pelvis were female; and it is the same with the anus and nates. At first the sense of a female abdomen was troublesome to me; for it cannot bear trousers, and it always possesses or induces the feminine feeling. I also have the imperative feeling of a waist. It is as if I were robbed of my own skin, and put in a woman’s skin that fitted me perfectly, but which felt everything as if it covered a woman; and whose sensations passed through the man’s body, and exterminated the masculine element. The testes, even though not atrophied or degenerated, are still no longer testes, and often cause me pain, with the feeling that they belong in the abdomen, and should be fastened there; and their mobility often bothers me.
“Every four weeks, at the time of the full moon, I have the molimen of a woman for five days, physically and mentally, only I do not bleed; but I have the feeling of a loss of fluid; a feeling that the genitals and abdomen are (internally) swollen. A very pleasant period comes when, afterward and later in the interval for a day or two, the physiological desire for procreation comes, which with all power permeates the woman. My whole body is then filled with this sensation, as an immersed piece of sugar is filled with water, or as full as a soaked sponge. It is like this: first, a woman longing for love, and then, for a man; and, in fact, the desire, as it seems to me, is more a longing to be possessed than a wish for coitus. The intense natural instinct or the feminine concupiscence overcomes the feeling of modesty, so that indirectly coitus is desired. I have never felt coitus in a masculine way more than three times in my life; and even if it were so in general, I was always indifferent about it. But, during the last three years, I have experienced it passively, like a woman; in fact, oftentimes with the feeling of feminine ejaculation; and I always feel that I am impregnated. I am always fatigued as a woman is after it, and often feel ill, as a man never does. Sometimes it caused me so great pleasure that there is nothing with which I can compare it; it is the most blissful and powerful feeling in the world; at that moment the woman is simply a vulva that has devoured the whole person.
“During the last three years I have never lost for an instant the feeling of being a woman, and now, owing to habit, this is no longer annoying to me, though during this period I have felt debased; for a man could endure to feel like a woman without a desire for enjoyment; but when desires come! The happiness ceases; then come the burning, the heat, the feeling of turgor of the genitals (when the penis is not in a state of erection the genitals do not play any part). In case of intense desire, the feeling of sucking in the vagina and vulva is really terrible—a hellish pain of lust hardly to be endured. If I then have opportunity to perform coitus, it is better; but, owing to defective sense of being possessed by the other, it does not afford complete satisfaction; the feeling of sterility comes with its weight of shame, added to the feeling of passive copulation and injured modesty. I seem almost like a prostitute. Reason does not give any help; the imperative feeling of femininity dominates and rules everything. The difficulty in carrying on one’s occupation, under such circumstances, is easily appreciated; but it is possible to force one’s self to it. Of course, it is almost impossible to sit, walk, or lie down; at least, any one of these cannot be endured long; and with the constant touch of the trousers, etc., it is unendurable.
“Marriage then, except during coitus, where the man has to feel himself a woman, is like two women living together, one of whom regards herself as in the mask of a man. If the periodical molimen fail to occur, then come the feelings of pregnancy or of sexual satiety, which a man never experiences, but which take possession of the whole being, just as the feeling of femininity does, and are repugnant in themselves; and, therefore, I gladly welcome the regular molimen again. When erotic dreams or ideas occur, I see myself in the form I have as a woman, and see erected organs presenting. Since the anus feels feminine, it would not be hard to become a passive pederast; only positive religious command prevents it, as all other deterrent ideas would be overcome. Since such conditions are repugnant, as they would be to any one, I have a desire to be sexless, or to make myself sexless. If I had been single, I should long ago have taken leave of testes, scrotum, and penis.
“Of what use is female pleasure, when one does not conceive? What good comes from excitation of female love, when one has only a wife for gratification, even though copulation is felt as though it were with a man? What a terrible feeling of shame is caused by the feminine perspiration! How the feeling for dress and ornament lowers a man! Even in his changed form, even when he can no longer recall the masculine sexual feeling, he would not wish to be forced to feel like a woman. He still knows very well that, before, he did not constantly feel sexually; that he was merely a human being uninfluenced by sex. Now, suddenly, he has to regard his former individuality as a mask, and constantly feel like a woman, only having a change when, every four weeks, he has his periodical sickness, and in the intervals his insatiable female desire. If he could but awake without immediately being forced to feel like a woman! At last he longs for a moment in which he might raise his mask; but that moment does not come. He can only find amelioration of his misery when he can put on some bit of female attire or finery, an under-garment, etc.; for he dare not go about as a woman. To be compelled to fulfill all the duties of a calling with the feeling of being a woman costumed as a man, and to see no end of it, is no trifle. Religion alone saves from a great lapse; but it does not prevent the pain when temptation affects the man who feels as a woman; and so it must be felt and endured! When a respectable man who enjoys an unusual degree of public confidence, and possesses authority, must go about with his vulva—imaginary though it be; when one, leaving his arduous daily task, is compelled to examine the toilette of the first lady he meets, and criticise her with feminine eyes, and read her thoughts in her face; when a journal of fashions possesses an interest equal to that of a scientific work (I felt this as a child); when one must conceal his condition from his wife, whose thoughts, the moment he feels like a woman, he can read in her face, while it becomes perfectly clear to her that he has changed in body and soul,—what must all this be? The misery caused by the feminine gentleness that must be overcome! Oftentimes, of course, when I am away alone, it is possible to live for a time more like a woman; for example, to wear female attire, especially at night, to keep gloves on, or to wear a veil or a mask in my room, so that thus there is rest from excessive libido. But when the feminine feeling has once gained an entrance, it imperatively demands recognition. It is often satisfied with a moderate concession, such as the wearing of a bracelet above the cuff; but it imperatively demands some concession. My only happiness is to see myself dressed as a woman without a feeling of shame; indeed, when my face is veiled or masked, I prefer it so, and thus think of myself. Like every one of Fashion’s fools, I have a taste for the prevailing mode; so greatly am I transformed. To become accustomed to the thought of feeling only like a woman, and only to remember the previous manner of thought to a certain extent in contrast with it; and, at the same time, to express one’s self as a man,—it requires a long time and an infinite amount of persistence.
“Nevertheless, in spite of everything, it will happen that I betray myself by some expression of feminine feeling, either in sexualibus, when I say that I feel so and so, expressing what a man without the female feeling cannot know; or when I accidentally betray that female attire is my talent. Before women, of course, this does not amount to anything; for a woman is greatly flattered when a man understands something of her matters; but this must not be displayed to my own wife. How frightened I once was when my wife said to a friend that I had great taste in ladies’ dress! How a haughty, stylish lady was astonished when, as she was about to make a great error in the education of her little daughter, I described to her in writing and verbally all the feminine feelings! To be sure, I lied to her, saying that my knowledge had been gleaned from letters. But her confidence in me is as great as ever; and the child, who was on the road to insanity, is rational and happy. She had confessed all the feminine inclinations as sins; now she knows what, as a girl, she must bear and control by will and religion; and she feels that she is human. Both ladies would laugh heartily, if they knew that I had only drawn on my own sad experience. I must also add that I now have a finer sense of temperature and, besides, a sense of the elasticity of the skin and tension of the intestines, etc., in patients, that was unknown to me before; that in operations and autopsies, poisonous fluids more readily penetrate my (uninjured) skin. Every autopsy causes me pain; examination of a prostitute, or a woman having a discharge, a cancerous odor, or the like, is actually repugnant to me. In all respects I am now under the influence of antipathy and sympathy, from the sense of color to my judgment of a person. Women usually see in each other the periodical sexual disposition; and, therefore, a lady wears a veil, if she is not always accustomed to wear one, and usually she perfumes herself, even though it be only with handkerchief or gloves; for her olfactory sense in relation to her own sex is intense. Odors have an incredible effect on the female organism; thus, for example, the odors of violets and roses quiet me, while others disgust me; and with ihlang-ihlang I cannot contain myself for sexual excitement. Contact with a woman seems homogeneous to me; coitus with my wife seems possible to me because she is somewhat masculine, and has a firm skin; and yet it is more an amor lesbicus.
“Besides, I always feel passive. Often at night, when I cannot sleep for excitement, it is finally accomplished, si femora mea distensa habeo, sicut mulier cum viro concumbens, or if I lie on my side; but an arm or the bed-clothing must not touch the mammæ, or there is no sleep; and there must be no pressure on the abdomen. I sleep best in a chemise and night-robe, and with gloves on; for my hands easily get cold. I am also comfortable in female drawers and petticoats, because they do not touch the genitals. I liked female dresses best when crinoline was worn. Female dresses do not annoy the feminine-feeling man; for he, like every woman, feels them as belonging to his person, and not as something foreign.
“My dearest associate is a lady suffering with neurasthenia, who, since her last confinement, feels like a man, but who, since I explained these feelings to her, coitu abstinet as much as possible, a thing I, as a husband, dare not do. She, by her example, helps me to endure my condition. She has a more perfect memory of the female feelings, and has often given me good advice. Were she a man and I a young girl, I should seek to win her; for her I should be glad to endure the fate of a woman. But her present appearance is quite different from what it formerly was. She is a very elegantly dressed gentleman, notwithstanding bosom and hair; she also speaks quickly and concisely, and no longer takes pleasure in the things that please me. She has a kind of melancholy dissatisfaction with the world, but she bears her fate worthily and with resignation, finding her comfort only in religion and the fulfillment of duty. At the time of the menses, she almost dies. She no longer likes female society and conversation, and has no liking for delicacies.
“A youthful friend felt like a girl from the very first, but he had inclinations toward the male sex. His sister had the opposite condition; and when the uterus demanded its right, and she saw herself as a loving woman, in spite of her masculinity, she cut the matter short, and committed suicide by drowning.
“Since complete effemination, the principal changes I have observed in myself are:—