Studies in the Psychology of Sex (Vol. 1-6). Havelock Ellis
physical pains begin abruptly. Sudden congestions of blood in the brain and in the abdomen. Sudden perspirations, heat and cold. Great nervous pains in the small of the back, also in the nerve-centers of abdomen and stomach. Sharp, shooting pains in the breasts and especially the nipples. Sudden toothache which stops as suddenly. The skin becomes darker, sometimes mottled. I have the whole time a taste of blood in my mouth and often everything I eat tastes of blood. I have great difficulty at that time in eating meat. Physical longings for erotic adventure, counterbalanced by mental nausea at the bare idea.
"The mental symptoms are: sudden feeling of deep depression, suicidal tendencies, alternating with sudden inexplicable lightheartedness. Capriciousness and great dissatisfaction with myself and life generally. Horror at my own incompleteness of sex and sudden fits of hatred toward women and a great longing to be loved by men. This condition changes slowly back to the normal one. It takes several days for me to lose my physical weakness owing to it.
"Physically I was developed at 16 years of age. Mentally I was developed at a very early age, but I kept my inner life quite dark, always playing the innocent. Nobody at home believed me to know anything about life. They were at times very surprised when I fell out of the rôle I had planned for myself. Up till I was 17 years of age nothing to do with other people's morals was ever discussed before me. I looked so pure, and do now, that people are always careful in front of me. My father never discussed such things with me. From my earliest childhood I loved men dearly, though I was always at daggers drawn with my father and brother. I worshipped my mother then, as I do now. My sister and I did not at all get on as children, though we are the best of friends now. She and her husband as well as my mother have been kindness itself ever since they knew of my condition. Not till I was over 30 years did I meet a man I loved as well as my mother, and he is heterosexual. I must have loved my father and brother at first, but continual conflicts, incompatible temperaments and mutual misunderstandings and want of sympathy made life at home horrible. I must admit from my earliest childhood I had a certain contempt for my father and brother because I found them so materialistic. I had all my childhood rows with my brother. My father took his part, my mother mine. After I had recovered from my father's sudden death (my first words were after reading the letter: 'Thank God it isn't mother!') I felt a great relief, but it took a long time for me to grasp that I was really free.
"I have always liked women's society and, as a youth, I was very fond of gossip, which I by no means am now. I have many women friends, more than men friends. These women friends are all heterosexual except one. I very often like elderly women; I suppose I see mother in such women. A woman never could make me blush, but a man I admired could easily.
"I was 23 years of age when a married woman of good family asked me to come and spend the night with her. I went, and though she was beautifully built, cleanly, and though her garments and apartments were of the utmost good taste, I did not have any erection. On the other hand, I felt myself to be most unclean and bathed three times each of the following three days. Since then I have never tried to have sexual intercourse with women.
"In Copenhagen I tried to excite my feelings with every class of woman, in vain. I suppose it is that my nature is so like woman's that there can be no reaction. With men I am often very shy and nervous, tongue-tied, and my hands perspire. Never so with women.
"As a child I loved men and used to fall desperately in love with some who came to the house. I would, when no one was there, kiss their hats, or gloves, or even their sticks.
"I can remember, when I was about 6 years, how I fell in love with a very good-looking 26-year-old German. He had very curly hair and his hands were very beautiful. He was very fond of me and I used to call him 'my Boy.' When visiting us he often used to 'tuck me in' after the nurse had gone down. He always had sweets or something for me. I can remember how I used to fling my arms round his neck and cover his face with kisses. I would then draw his head down on my pillow and he would tell me fairy-tales and I would go off to sleep quite happy.
"At 7 years of age, while staying in the country, a very good-looking groom, about 25 years of age, misbehaved himself with me. I often used to visit him in the stables, as this man had a strange attraction for me. One day he tickled me. While doing so he produced my penis and also his own, which was in full erection. He tried in every way to excite my feelings, in vain. For him the occasion terminated in an ejaculation. He forbade me to tell anyone, and I did not do so, but tried to find out all I could on the subject, with little or no result. From that day I hated the groom and I felt a sort of guilt, as if I had 'lost something.' Not till I was 12 years did I understand.
"From my earliest childhood I had one ideal of a man. From that ideal I have never swerved. At the age of 30 I found a friend who, though quite heterosexual, has, without giving me any sexual intercourse, given me the love I have always needed. He has been for the last couple of years a second mother, father, sister, brother, and lover. Through him I have regained my health, my love of nature, and he has helped to deaden my hatred toward human nature and my bitterness. A better friend I never wish to find. It has made up for all the years of mental and physical suffering. One strange thing is that the feeling is mutual. He has had a tragic life, for his wife, whom he loved beyond everything, died under very sad circumstances. He says I am the best male friend he has ever had. While with him, much of the lower nature in me was stamped out. I shall always look upon him as the turning point in my life. I think he wrought some of his finest influence through his music. He played Beethoven and Wagner for me for a couple of hours every day for months, and thus opened up a new world to me. … He is six years older than I am.
"At 10 years of age we moved to Sweden, a country I hated from first to last. About this time I began to notice that there was something strange about myself. I felt myself an alien, and have done so ever since. An event of importance in my life was, I feel sure, when my father's sister tried to take away my mother's character. It was done in jealousy and spite, and my aunt had to beg my parents' pardon. Outwardly the affair was patched up; but I feel sure my father never really forgave his sister. Jews never forgive.
"This event awoke in me a great hatred toward women, and it was many years before I could at all control it.
"At the age of 14 I was much with a good-looking, musical American, a year older than myself. One day, while romping, very much the same thing occurred as with the groom. I still had no sexual feelings. We remained good friends. I often wished to kiss him. After the first time he would not allow it. He was very much liked among the officers and so-called high society men, and had always much money. About ten years later I heard he used to accept money after intimate intercourse with those society men.
"During my fifteenth year I had great longing for sexual intercourse with men. At this time the first signs of hair were to be seen on my abdomen.
"At the age of 16 a gardener, a married man with family, initiated me into mutual self-abuse. He lived in the back house of the apartment house we then inhabited. He was about 40 years of age, an ugly but muscularly developed man. These practices took place in the cellar, to which there were three entrances. I never allowed him to kiss me and the sight of his children always awoke in me a great feeling of nausea. That was the natural reaction of a bad conscience. For the man himself I had the utmost contempt. This man told me of several parks and pissoirs where men met, and I went to these places now and again for erotic adventure.
"I must here relate that at the age of 16 my mother warned me against self-abuse. It had the opposite effect, made me curious, so I began at once. I have continued ever since, at least once a day. (I have never had an involuntary emission in my whole life.) Between 17 and 22 it became necessary for me to do so several times a day. Working at art, painting, and above all music and beauty have a strong influence over me and set my erotic longings in violent motion. I have never found this do me any harm. Abstinence, on the other hand, has a very harmful effect on me, upsetting the whole nervous and physical system. I often find that there is a something very much wanting in self-abuse: the commingling of two human bodies who are mentally as well as physically in sympathy gives an electrical satisfaction which quiets the whole nervous system. That at least has been my experience.
"The gardener left and moved to the country. I then sometimes visited pissoirs or, as they are often called, 'panoramas'