Regarding his sexual life, X. made the following communication:  “During the last two years I have become convinced of the perversion of my sexual instinct.  I had often previously thought that in me the impulse was not quite normal, but it is only lately that I have become convinced of my complete perversion.  I have never read or heard of any case in which the sexual feelings were of the same kind.  Although I can feel a lively inclination towards superior representatives of the female sex, and have twice felt something like love, the sight or the recollection even of a beautiful woman have never caused sexual excitement.”  In the two exceptional instances mentioned it appears that X. had an inclination to kiss the women in question, but that the thought of coitus had no attraction.  “In my voluptuous dreams, connected with the emission of semen, women in seductive situations have never appeared.  I have never had any desire to visit a puella publica.  The love-stories of my fellow-students seemed very silly, dances and balls were a horror to me, and only on very rare occasions could I be persuaded to go into society.  It will be easy to guess the diagnosis in my case:  I suffer from the sexual attraction of my own sex, I am a lover of boys.

“You cannot imagine what a world of thoughts, wishes, feelings and impulses the words ‘knabe,’ ‘pais,’ ‘garcon,’ ‘boy,’ ‘ragazzo’ have for me; one of these words, even in an unmeaning clause of a translation-book, calls before me the whole sum of associations which in course of time have become bound up with this idea, and it is only with an effort that I can scare away the wild band.  This group of thoughts shows a wonderful mixture of warm sensuality and ideal love, it unites my lowest and highest impulses, the strength and the weakness of my nature, my curse and my blessing.  My inclination is especially towards boys of the age of 12 to 15; though they may be rather younger or older.  That I should prefer beautiful and intelligent boys is comprehensible.  I do not want a prostitute, but a friend or a son, whose soul I love, whom I can help to become a more perfect man, such as I myself would willingly be.

“When I myself belonged to that happy age (i.e., below 15) I had no dearer wish than to possess a friend of similar tastes.  I have sought, hoped, waited, grieved, and been at last disillusioned, overcome by desire and despair, and have not found that friend.  Even later the hope often reappeared, but always in vain, and I cannot boast of that sure recognition which one reads of in the autobiographies of Urnings.  I do not know personally a single fellow-sufferer.  It is also doubtful whether such an acquaintanceship would greatly help me, for I have a very peculiar conception of homosexuality.  As you will see, I have little more in common with what are called paederasts than sexual indifference to the female sex, and I often ask myself:  ’Does any