by me and my acquaintances as one of the handsomest men we know. After an absence of more than two years, on invitation, he visited me a few weeks ago. I knew how to arrange matters so that we slept in the same room, and I burned with desire to be nearer to him. As a preliminary, however, I sounded him in confidential talk; and, when I found that he despised everything connected with male-love, I had not the heart to approach him more closely. For weeks we slept in the same room, and I took constant delight in his divine form (at first, was sexually excited, in fact); I bathed with him, in the Roman manner, in order to see his beautiful form naked,—but he never learned anything of my passion. I still have an ideal, platonic relation with this young man, who, for one of his position, has an unusual education and fine talent for poetry.
“Until my thirty-eighth year I had not a clear understanding of my condition. I always thought that, by early and frequent masturbation, I had become averse to women, and hoped always that, when the right woman came, I should be able to abandon onanism and find pleasure in her. Here it was that I first came to fully understand my condition, after making the acquaintance of others suffering and feeling like myself. At first I was frightened; later I came to look upon my fate as something not dependent on myself. Too, I made no further effort to resist temptation.
“Two or three weeks ago ‘Psychopathia Sexualis’ fell into my hands. The work has made an unexpectedly deep impression on me. At first I read the work with an interest that was undoubtedly lascivious. The description of the cultivation of mujerados, for example, excited me uncommonly. The thought of a young, powerful man being emasculated in this manner, in order, later, to be used for pederasty by a whole tribe of wild, powerful, and sensual Indians, so excited me that I masturbated five times during the next two days, fancying myself such a presumptive mujerado. The farther I read in the book, however, the more I saw its moral earnestness; the more I felt disgust with my condition; and the more I saw that I must do everything, if it were possible, to bring about a change in my condition. When I had finished the book, I was determined to seek assistance from its author.
“The reading of this work had an undoubted effect. Since then I have masturbated only twice, and have practiced onanism with cavalrymen only twice. In every instance I have had really less pleasure and satisfaction than before, and I always have the feeling: ‘Ah, if I could only be free from it!’ Nevertheless, I confess that, even now, in the society of handsome soldiers, I immediately have erection.
“In conclusion, I may add that, in spite of, or, perhaps, on account of, onanism, I have never had pollutions. The ejaculation of semen, which usually consists of only a few drops, and it has always been so, takes place only after prolonged friction. If, for any reason, I have not