than quasi-paternal caresses, and I feel sure
he would resent very strongly anything more.
This constant repression is trying beyond measure
to the nerves, and I often feel quite ill from that
cause. Having had no experiences of my own,
I am always anxious to learn anything I can of
the sexual relations of other men, and their organs,
but I have no curiosity whatever concerning the other
sex. My chief pleasure and source of gratification
is found in the opportunities afforded by Turkish
and other baths; wherever, in fact, there is the
nude male to be found. But I seldom find
in these places anyone who seems to have the same
tendency as myself, and certainly I have not met
with more than two cases among the attendants,
who responded to my hinted desire to see everything.
Under a shampooer, particularly an unfamiliar one,
I occasionally experience an orgasm, but less often
now than when I was younger.”
F.R. is very short-sighted. His favorite color is blue. He is able to whistle. His tastes are chiefly of a literary character, and he has never had any liking for sports. “I have been generally considered ineffective in the use of my hands,” he writes, “and I am certainly not skillful. All I have ever been able to do in that way is to net and do the simpler forms of needlework; but it seems more natural to me to do, or try to do, everything of that sort, and to play on the piano, rather than to shoot or play games. I may add that I am fonder of babies than many women, and am generally considered to be surprisingly capable of holding them! Certainly I enjoy doing so. As a youth, I used to act in charades; but I was too shy to do so unless I was dressed as a woman and veiled; and when I took a woman’s part I felt less like acting than I have done in propria persona. A remark made by an uncle once rather annoyed me: that it seemed more like nature than art. But he was quite right.”
HISTORY IV.—Of Lowland Scotch parentage. Both sides of house healthy and without cerebral or nervous disease. Homosexual desires began at puberty. He practised onanism to a limited extent at school and up to the age of about 22. His erotic dreams are exclusively about males. While very friendly and intimate with women of all ages, he is instantly repelled by any display of sexual affection on their side. This has happened in varying degree in three or four cases. With regard to marriage, he remarks: “As there seems no immediate danger of the race dying out, I leave marriage to those who like it.” His male ideal has varied to some extent. It has for some years tended toward a healthy, well-developed, athletic or out-of-door working type, intelligent and sympathetic, but not specially intellectual.
At school his sexual relations were of the simplest type. Since then there have been none. “This,” he says, “is not due either to absence of desire or presence