positively, especially in a youth whose adolescent
undifferentiated or homosexual impulses are fostered
by university life. This proved to be! the case
with T.D., who, though doubtless possessing a
psychically anomalous strain, is yet predominantly
masculine. On leaving the university his
heterosexuality asserted itself normally. About
six years after the earlier statement, he wrote
that he had fallen in love. “I am on
the eve of marrying a girl of nearly my own age.
She has sympathy as well as knowledge in my fields
of study; it was thus easier for me to explain
my past, and I found that she could not understand
the moral objections to homosexual practices.
My own opinion always was that the moral objections
were very considerable, but might in some cases
be overcome. In any case I have entirely
lost my sexual attraction toward boys; though I am
glad to say that the appreciation of their charm
and grace remains. My instincts, therefore,
have undergone a considerable change, but the
change is not entirely in the direction of normality.
The instinct for sodomy in the proper sense of the
word used to be unintelligible to me; since the
object of attraction has become a woman this instinct
is mixed with the normal in my desire. Further,
an element which much troubled me, as being most
foreign to my ideal feelings, has not quite left me—the
indecent and often scatologic curiosity about immature
girls. I can only hope that the realization
of the normal in marriage may finally kill these
painful aberrations. I should add that the
practice of masturbation has been abandoned.”
HISTORY XII.—Aged 24. Father and mother both living; the latter is of a better social standing than the father. He is much attached to his mother, and she gives him some sympathy. He has a brother who is normally attracted to women. He himself has never been attracted to women, and takes no interest in them nor in their society.
At the age of 4 he first became conscious of an attraction for older males. From the ages of 11 and 19, at a large grammar-school, he had relationships with about one hundred boys. Needless to add, he considers homosexuality extremely common in schools. It was, however, the Oscar Wilde case which first opened his eyes to the wide prevalence of homosexuality, and he considers that the publicity of that case has done much, if not to increase homosexuality, at all events to make it more conspicuous and outspoken.
He is now attracted to youths about 5 or 6 years younger than himself; they must be good-looking. He has never perverted a boy not already inclined to homosexuality. In his relationship he does not feel exclusively like a male or a female: sometimes one, sometimes the other. He is often liked, he says, because of his masculine character.
He is fully developed and healthy, well over middle height, inclined to be plump, with full face and small moustache. He smokes