While in college I shrunk from the required gymnasium exercises. I felt that they were proper for young men, but my feminine nature made me exceedingly shy while in line in the drill. In the gymnasium dressing-room I would enjoy seeing the naked forms, but concealed my own. If military drill had been required, as is the case in some universities in 1918, it would have caused me to omit a university education.
Beginning about this time, my twenty-first year, and continuing down to the date when this book goes to press, I have commonly worn in my home an ornamental bathrobe, just like a woman’s dress. Clad in it, I have gazed at my reflection in the mirror, imagining I was a woman. Walking in it to and fro and up and down the stairs, I have taken pleasure in hearing it rustle like a woman’s dress, in feeling it strike against my legs, and in holding it up when ascending the stairs, as a woman her skirts. In my college days, while home for week-ends, I would occasionally, when alone, put on a sister’s hat and gaze at myself in the mirror with rare pleasure, wishing that I might wear that style of hat.
In this summer of 1894, when away from New York, where temptation was less strong, I became for several weeks weaned away from my peculiar habits. In my present rather puritanical circle, I felt like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Under the unusual religious influences, I even thought I might never again seek the gratification of my peculiar cravings.
Sexual Starvation.
Nevertheless, before many weeks, I began to suffer intensely from sexual starvation and melancholia. Being then a nervous wreck, I saw before me only insanity or suicide. I would walk deserted streets at night beating my breast and waving my arms in anguish. Even in broad daylight and on the main street, I several times wept openly while walking along, so that people who knew me probably thought I was insane. In the privacy of my room I would writhe on my bed in an agony of tears.
My sexual cravings began to render me sleepless after retiring, and throw me into paroxysms. Driven by my importunate craving for fellatio, I would occasionally rise from bed around midnight, and roam through the poor quarters, looking for a thoroughly intoxicated man who would not be able to recognize me, but I never found one. I now believe I was irresponsible.
The only ray of hope I had was the possibility of securing a steady mate. When in my imagination I could see the feasibility and certainty of this, I was happy and hopeful. I felt that then a successful life would be a certainty. Without a mate I feared for my virtue and my reputation. With one I felt that I could live a virtuous life outside of occasional fellatio with him. At the present time (1918), I am convinced that I had a right view of the matter back there in 1894. Possession of a mate would have been the panacea for all my ills.
Appeal to a Highminded Adolescent.
My New York physician, to whom I confided my woes, wrote that the only remedy to make me well and happy was the possession of a mate, and urged me to apply immediately to some stalwart acquaintance. I decided to appeal to a cousin, an adolescent fair to look upon, and possessed of all the qualities of mind attractive to the female sex. Moreover, in my early childhood, he had been one of my intimates. Too much ashamed to speak, I handed him the following argument:
“... I am driven to make these disclosures to you, or else go insane or commit suicide. I am madly in love with you. I say it before God—this impulse of my being is entirely opposed to my will. I bewail the fact that this animality is a part of my nature. I abhor sensual love and sensual enjoyment, and if I had my choice, would never stoop to them. Nevertheless, sometimes a person cannot do what he would but what he must. My physician says my health demands that I do not resist this overpowering impulse. Last night I went to bed drowsy and tired. But the impossibility of my possessing the masculine counterpart which nature ordained I should have, threw me for an hour into paroxysms which threatened to take away all my strength. I had finally to leave my bed, and spend two hours reading in order to save myself from insane raving. The statement of the few specialists who have studied into the nature of sexual inversion is that the craving of a person like myself for his sexual counterpart is abnormally intense, and that it is, for the ends of health, more necessary for his peculiar craving to be met than it is necessary for the normal man or woman’s.