During my apprenticeship just described, however, I was attracted only toward the ages sixteen to twenty-five, inclusive. Throughout this autobiography, I use the term “adolescent” to denote men within these age limits. Always has it seemed to me that men gradually grow less masculine and less virile (in coitus) after passing twenty-five. They have also appeared to me to lose their good looks soon after that age. To me man appears to grow old and his beauty fade a decade earlier than woman, which is just the opposite of the normal man’s impression. When I was a boy of twelve, all males over sixteen appeared ugly, and I had only sexual disgust for them. But in 1918, when I have arrived at my middle forties, the age of male beauty in my eyes is confined between eighteen and thirty years.
I have always preferred the brunette to the blonde type, although I myself am of the former. For years after my fairie apprenticeship I seemed to be especially drawn toward young men of Irish blood. The pure Italian type of beauty, however, appears to me the highest. In my own veins flows blood of five different nationalities of western Europe, but no Irish or Italian. Perhaps my predilection for these two is due to the fact that they constituted exclusively my associates during my apprenticeship.
Sexual Preferences.
Large frame counted for a great deal, as also large and well-developed membra virilia. Variety exists as much in the latter respect as in respect to frame. There is often an inverse proportion between the two.
I much preferred the rough to the gentleman, and the profane boozing libertine to the morally upright. I have always been strongly attracted by disregard for personal danger. When reading accounts of exploration and adventure, I have sometimes fallen in love with the adventurer. For example, I fell in love with a noted Arctic explorer while reading his book, as well as with the kayak-men whose courageous deeds he describes. To me tattooing has always been the mark of supreme masculinity. It was a habit with me to seek for it on my beaux, and if found, I would rave over it, osculate it, kneel before the young blood in adoration, and call him all the glorious idealizing names I could think of. That one of my eight hundred beaux with whom I would have chosen to live out my life in daily comradeship was by far the most tattooed of all, and he did actually live with me for several months when I was forty years of age, besides being my “adopted son” for nine years. But it was not the tattooing alone that attracted me. In practically every manly charm, he stood supreme.
After an hour or so spent with a companion, it was painful to say good-by, and I generally hoped for another meeting. But subsequently to my apprenticeship just described, I generally had the same companion only once, or at most several times, as it was a long time, if ever, before we saw one another again. I usually felt for my companions a non-sensual wifely love in addition to the mere sexual attraction, which wifely love was transformed into a parental love after I had reached my middle thirties and my associates were ten or more years younger than myself. Throughout my life as a fairie, I always longed to have a young man live with me as my husband. If this had been practicable, monandry would possibly have been sufficient, as it proved to be in my early forties. But until long after the close of my open career, I was reluctant to reveal my identity, and was also deterred by the fear of blackmail.
Polyandry Versus Monandry.
At my middle forties, however, I am of the opinion that in the case of inverts, promiscuity is preferable to monandry for the welfare of the human race, the invert’s associates individually, and the naturally polyandrous invert himself. Promiscuity does not affect the increase of the race, whereas monandry might by interfering with the young man’s ultimately marrying a woman. Practically all the invert’s intimates do this ultimately, and raise a family. It appears to be the natural function of the invert to minister to the ultra-virile until they reach marriageable age according to present-day standards. These relations merely supplant solitary onanism on the part of the virile, or else extra-marital relations with a young member of the gentle sex.
In my extensive experience, I have come across nothing to support the a priori view of some medical men that the adolescent tends to become a pervert, losing his normal instinct in whole or in part. My intimates of early childhood grew up to be fathers. None of my beaux of my apprenticeship just described—the only period of my adult career when I went repeatedly with the same ones—ever gave evidence of any growing coldness toward the gentle sex. Dozens of experiences that they individually had were without any such effect. Why should fellatio have such a tendency any more than occasional solitary onanism, to which practically all ultra-virile adolescents are subject? That this tendency is at most only a very remote possibility is indicated by the fact that the young man who was my “adopted son” for nine years was as much of a Don Juan at the end as at the beginning.
Fellatio Efficiendi.