Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/67

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Bent for Feminine Activities.
37

their bosoms because of amorousness. Several would hug and kiss me right in school, and in private request fellatio, but I always turned from the latter proposition in shame. To yield would have been my highest earthly pleasure, but I could not bear the disgrace. Mean-spirited boys would call me a girl in derision, and twit me about my conduct of early childhood, thus awakening a violent desire to commit suicide.

I was as fond of dolls as is a little girl. Two other characteristic pastimes were playing preacher and playing school, generally all by myself. I spent a large part of my time in the house singing, but have never been able to learn to whistle. Inability to whistle is a general characteristic of passive inverts. I learned to sew and crochet, and naturally took to most other feminine lines of activity, so that my mother has remarked that I was "the best daughter" she had. Indeed none of the family looked upon me as a boy, all unconsciously. Nevertheless there is little evidence that any of them ever suspected that I was attracted toward the male sex.

As a child and youth I was rather odd even apart from my androgynism. For example, from my eleventh to my thirteenth year, while sitting at my desk or walking the streets alone, I would, without raising the head, direct my eyes upward for about two seconds at intervals of from five to ten minutes in order to breathe a short prayer for acquaintances or for pitiable looking individuals whom I passed. It was probably a sort of St. Vitus dance of the muscles about the eye. Another peculiar action, and one which I have never seen in any other person, is the