Afterward, repentant, I wrote in my journal: “Religion, reputation, life itself, ready to put all at stake for a few moments enjoyment! I never felt so much like a wretch as I do now! If only I had thought more of the love of Christ to me, I might not have so far yielded! For a month nearly all my reading has been of a religious character; I have for a month been in close communion with God; yet in a moment I can so fall away! O to understand more fully salvation from sin through Christ, and to experience more of it in my own life!... I feel this morning that I can never enter the ministry. I feel that I must give up all my plans, and that maybe I shall come to a miserable end.”
All my life corduroy trousers and rubber boots have attracted me sexually more than any other articles of civilian dress. I have always considered both articles too masculine for me to wear. It would have filled me with shame to be seen wearing boots. At the age of ten I would go secretly to the closet where a brother’s corduroy braccas hung and do as described above. On other occasions prior to my fifteenth year I have arisen at night and similarly osculated braccas puerorum who were our guests, creeping stealthily into their rooms in a highly excited state and trembling violently. On only two occasions I approached their bed and touched them, but did not dare go further for fear they would awake. I have no doubt now that I was irresponsible, and any girl-boys ever found guilty of similar conduct should be dealt with compassionately.
Fetishes.
Speaking of fetishes,—from boyhood the military uniform has been a magnet. During my twenties the sight of it would bring on a sort of babyish and effeminate dance of various members of the body and a sort of pouting. It would rivet my gaze, I would halt and turn around as the soldier passed, and mark his every movement until he disappeared. I would consider his gait and his every sway and swagger as marvellously manly and in every way wonderful.
Of those under thirty years of age, nineteen out of twenty soldiers or sailors in uniform have captivated me, but hardly one out of twenty civilians. But I generally had to get used to the uniform. When the olive drab was first adopted for American soldiers, I had only disgust for it and its wearer, while fascinated by the older blue uniform. But after the olive drab had been worn for two years, it appealed to me far more strongly than what I now regarded as the “old-fashioned” blue, though the latter was still often worn by soldiers.
The following was written in my diary about the middle of my freshman year:
Dawning Sense of Irresponsibility.
“I sometimes think I am an irresponsible being. De Quincey is exonerated from censure for his opium habit. May God not also pardon my cherishing amorous thoughts of the kind peculiar to me—abnormal for others, yet for me normal? I am by nature very amorous, and have been all my life, even in infancy, when I could not distinguish between good and evil. Further, all my life I have been thrown in with what is to me the opposite sex—compelled to mingle and live with them. I had nothing to do with the bringing about of this peculiar nature and environment of mine. Has it been my fault that my amorous desires have run into the channel they have, the channel opened to them when I was in the state of innocence and ignorance of a three-year-old child? I am really a woman, and a very amorous one at that, although regarded as a man because the majority of my physical traits are those of the male sex. Did society ever compel any other woman, except those like me, to live, eat, sleep, frequent the same comfort-rooms and baths, lie sometimes in the same bed, with men, and sometimes to listen to the unclean talk of men? I am driven wild by instinctive cravings more than any other human being ever was....
“I wish I was not of an amorous nature. It makes my life miserable. If I had my choice, it would be a life entirely free from all sexual phenomena—complete sexual indifference. How gladly would I be free from all passion, so that I could make a name for myself in the world! My highest ideal is to be a Christian philosopher, and to preach the Gospel to those who are living in sin and sorrow. An amorous person can hardly be a philosopher, a scholar, and a preacher....”