“I believe I am like a man who is the victim of an insatiable hunger. I have often thought of poor Prometheus, condemned always to linger in hunger and thirst. In the same way I feel within me an unquenchable thirst for love and its pleasures and I have no other thought than to satisfy this thirst in some way. I feel like a mechanism destined only to serve the penis in its demand for gratification.
“I have often resolved to change. But I am unable to carry out any resolution, I cannot undertake a thing. I can only hunt after women. Ich kann nur coitieren, (I can only ——,) every other activity about me is in a state of suspension. I am uncertain and vaccilating about everything. Today I feel a little religious twinge, tomorrow I poke fun at church and priest. Today I decide to learn something new or to find a job, tomorrow I think something else entirely. I want to buy a new hat. I decide today to go to a certain store. I go to the place but linger before the windows, unable to make up my mind to step in. “No,” I say to myself, “I don’t want to buy a hat just yet.” And meanwhile I also think about women for that is a subject which never leaves my mind for a moment. I stroll up and down the street watching the hundreds of women before I make up my mind to speak to one.
“I draw no distinction between old and young, pretty or plain ones. I weigh the matter over considerably but in the end I pick up the first one that comes along. If it only quieted me! But it lasts only an hour, sometimes, at best, a whole day, then I must rush out again to the street and hunt. Sometimes I cohabit with three women in a day.
“My worst time was when I had gonorrhea (not yet completely healed). I was forbidden to have intercourse for a time. But I could not listen to the doctor, because I was afraid that I would go literally to pieces. I kept up intercourse right along and was inwardly glad to think that so many others will also have to suffer what I suffered. Then I felt remorse over my meanness, I felt myself a reprobate, a criminal, and resolved that I must change my ways. I fell into a deep depression and for a few hours I was free of my usual erotic thoughts. Then they started again and the same thoughts now plague me night and day as before.” ...
We have listened to the poor man’s terrible confession. His hunt after gratification has that tragical quality which the poet has so fittingly expressed: “Und im Genuss verschmacht’ ich nach Begierde.”—“And I starved with yearning even while I tasted.” The deep depressions indicate that this trouble is approaching a crisis. For the depressions occur at closer intervals and satisfying experiences are more rare. That is also the reason why he seeks professional advice. He feels that this cannot go on. He cannot and does not want to endure life under such conditions. He wants to work like other men and to be capable of turning his mind to other matters than sexual.
Two things stand out in the patient’s account. First, his complete amnesia regarding his first journey through Thuringen, as pointed out by himself—except for the slight accident of tripping—and next, the fact that his condition became so much more serious during his stay in Berlin, when he was already on the way to get well. He had given up masturbation of his own initiative, substituting for it intercourse with women, he was working, he held a responsible position, and kept up his work, according to the statement of his superiors in office, in spite of disturbances ... then suddenly his condition made a turn for the worse. Some strong impression or unusual experience in Berlin must have brought on this sudden change.
It is noteworthy that the subject denies having ever carried on any homosexual act. He claims such men only fill him with extreme disgust. The childhood experiences, of course, do not count. All children did the same things; one would conclude that all boys were homosexual. As a matter of fact they are married and happy, most of them heads of happy families. “I have a frightful passion,” he says, “exclusively for women. Men do not exist for me.”
At night he dreams:
I see a turbulent ocean before me. The waves are in continuous agitation. I think to myself: it were a pity if the waves ceased their agitation. A ship passes by, and the boat carries everything that I love. I believe my mother is also upon that ship. There is an orchestra playing on board: “Oh, how could I possibly leave you!” I awake feeling sad and depressed.