“Well, Jennie, if you are a girl, why do you wear breeches? And why don’t you let your hair grow long?”
“Because I have the misfortune to be only part girl. I am only a girl incarnated in a boy’s body. But besides my girl’s mind, my entire body is shaped very much like a girl’s and I possess her bone and muscular systems. Because I am part boy, the law prohibits to me my natural or instinctive apparel. But you will be so kind as to overlook my not appearing before you in gown and picture hat, won’t you? I will make up for that lack by out-womaning woman in my actions. It is my nature to give up all I have, and do all I can, for the entertainment of heroes—as you manly fellows seem to be.”
The Hotel Comfort.
“Jennie, let’s walk around to the ladies’ parlor of the Hotel Comfort[[26]] and have a few drinks.”
We arrived in an artistically furnished room 25 feet by 75. At one side was a bar from which waiters continuously carried drinks to the fifty-odd couples seated around the small ornamental tables which occupied most of the floor. Nearly all the patrons were under thirty, and absolutely all, highfliers sexually. The vast bulk merely smoked, drank, and “chinned.” Only a few were playing cards for money. All were refined and orderly. I have never circulated among more delightful people than I met frequently at the Hotel Comfort.
I had become well acquainted with the proprietor and all his employees. For more than a year the “hotel” was substantially the home of my feminine personality, “Jennie June.” But this refined and luxurious “hotel” would have tolerated only a cultured and outwardly modest female-impersonator. Most examples of that biological sport were far below the standards of the Hotel Comfort, and would have been barred. But I was looked upon as a personality likely to attract a pecuniarily desirable class of patronage.
My five companions and I spent an hour sipping beverages.
[While during my twelve years as quasi-public female-impersonator, my companions always drank intoxicants, I always called for non-alcoholics. The latter’s price was double in order to discourage the consumption of temperance drinks. I had been brought up to loathe alcoholics, and during my twelve years intimacy with heavy drinkers, came to a more and more rational loathing.
No Alcohol, No Venereal Disease.
Alcoholics are by far the greatest curse of the Caucasian race. I have had almost unequalled opportunities for studying venereal diseases. My twelve years of having roues and filles de joies for bosom friends taught me that the presence of alcohol in the blood is the sine qua non of venereal disease. Perhaps my greatest contribution to the betterment and happiness of humanity is the epigram original with myself: No Alcohol, No Venereal Disease. But it is necessary to be a TOTAL ABSTAINER. Mere moderation does not confer immunity. The total abstainer may possibly contract venereal disease, but it is sure to be benign, almost negligible, and inflicting no permanent injury. Dr. Robert W. Shufeldt, who as army surgeon had extensive experience in the treatment of venereal disease, wrote in the Journal of Urology and Sexology, 1917, page 458: “In my opinion, alcohol bears the responsibility more than any other single agent—indeed more than all the others put together—for ensuring venereal infection.”]