Studies in the Psychology of Sex (Vol. 1-6). Havelock Ellis
embracing and reciprocal masturbation; when he really loves a man he desires pedicatio in which he is himself the passive subject.
He has curly hair and moustache, and well-developed sexual organs. His habits are masculine; he has always enjoyed field sports, and can swim, ride, drive, and skate. At the same time, he is devoted to music, can draw and paint, and is an ardent admirer of male statuary. While fond of practical occupations of every sort, he dislikes anything that is theoretical.
He adds: "As a medical man, I fail to see morally any unhealthiness, or anything that nature should be ashamed of, in connection with, and sympathy for, men."
HISTORY XXV.—A. S. Schoolmaster, aged 46.
"My father was, I should say, below the average in capacity for friendship. He liked young girls, and was never interested in boys. He was a man of strongly Puritanical morality, capable of condemning with gloomy bitterness. He was also a man capable of great sacrifice for principle, and mentally very well endowed. My mother was a clever, practical woman, with wide sympathies. She was capable of warm friendship, especially toward those younger than herself. Her father (whom I never saw) was a teacher. He was devoted to his wife, but also delighted in the company of young men. He had always some young man on his arm, my mother would tell me. My mother's family is of Welsh descent. I learned to read at 5, and I can scarcely have been more than 6 when I used to read again and again David's lament for Absalom. Even now I can dimly recall the siren charm for me of that melancholy refrain, 'O my son Absalom. … O Absalom, my son, my son!' Of late, when I have thought of the amount of devotion I have shown to lads, and the amount I have sometimes suffered for them, I have felt as if there were something almost weirdly prophetic in that early incident.
"I was always an impressionable creature. My mother was very musical, and her singing 'got hold' of me wonderfully. The dramatic and the poetic always strongly appealed to me.
"I felt I should like to act; but I never dared. In the same way I felt that one day I should like to be a schoolmaster, but I dared not say so. A shy, retiring creature was obviously unfitted for such occupations. Well, the teaching came about, and the strange part was that the boys were somehow or other attracted by me, and the 'worst' customers were attracted most. And there came a chance of acting too. Owing to some difficulties about the cast in a play at school, I took a part. After that I knew that (within a certain range) I could act. I spent two holidays with a dramatic company. I should undoubtedly have remained on the stage, but for one thing. I don't wish to be sanctimonious, but dirty and ugly jokes are odious to me. It was this sort of thing that drove me away. I threw myself into the school work instead.
"It was partly the dramatic interest, partly a quite genuine interest in human nature, that led me to do some preaching too. When I had been badly hurt by one or two youngsters whom I loved, I thought of going in for pastoral work, but this too was given up—and very wisely. I should never be able to work comfortably with any organization. For one thing I have a way of taking on new ideas, and organizations do not like that. For another, all social functions are anathema to me.
"Interest in 'art' as usually understood began to be marked only after I was 30. It started with architecture and passed on to painting and sculpture. The tendency to do rather a variety (too great a variety) of things characterizes many uranians. We are rather like the labile chemical compounds: our molecules readily rearrange themselves.
"As a boy of 10 I had the ordinary sweethearting with a girl of the same age. The incident is worth perhaps a little further comment for the following reason: When I was 16 years old the girl lived with us for a year. She was a nice, pleasant, bright girl, and she thought a great deal of me. I was strongly attracted by her. I remember especially one little incident. I had been showing her how to do some algebra and she was kneeling at the table by the side of my chair. Her hair was flowing over her shoulders and she looked rather charming. She expressed warm admiration of the way I had worked the problem out. I remember that I deliberately squashed out the feeling of attraction that came over me. I scarcely know why I did this; but I fancy there was a vague sense that I did not want my work disturbed. There was no sexual attraction or, at least, none that was manifest. The girl, there is no doubt, grew to love me. I am sorry to say that in two other cases, later, women loved me, and have both permanently remained unmarried on my account. I sometimes feel that in a wisely free society I should be able to give both of these women children. That I believe I could do, and I think it would be an immense satisfaction to them. A permanent union with a woman would, however, be impossible to me. A permanent union with a man would, I believe, be possible. At least I know that attractions which have been at all homosexual in character have in my case been very lasting.
"I was strongly attracted when not more than 13 to a lad slightly older. It was a love story, there is no doubt, but I do not recollect any outer sexual signs. There were other passing cases, but in no case was there any warm response till I was 15. I then made friends with a lad of entirely different type from myself. I was a reader. I liked long walks and fresh air, but I was too shy to go in for sports. Indeed I was frightfully shy. He was a great sportsman and always at home in society. But he asked me to help him with some work, and we took to working together. I grew passionately fond of him. His caresses always caused some erection. Personally, I believe it would have been wiser to have obtained complete sexual expression. The absence of knowledge led to two distinctly undesirable results. The first was marked congestion and pain at times; the second was a tendency to a sort of modified masochism. There is always, I suppose, some erotic attraction about the buttocks, and of course also, to boys, they afford an irresistibly attractive mark for a good smack. I found that when this lad spanked me it produced some amount of sexual excitement, and the desire for this form of stimulus grew upon me. The result, in my case, was bad. It was sensualism, not love. I can say this with confidence, because in a much later case of deeply passionate love, I shrank from any such method, but the mutual, naked embrace I found was for me an absolutely natural and pure expression of love. I never felt any touch of grossness in it, and it destroyed the earlier and (for me at least) less wholesome desire.
"The school friendship disappeared with the marriage of my friend. I was furiously jealous, and the young man's mother was opposed to me, but I still think of that early friendship with tenderness. I know that my boy friend was the first who made me capable of self-expression, the first who taught me how to make friends at all. And if he still cared for me, I know that his love would be dear to me still.
"My chief regret, as I look back, is that I did not know about these things early. I cannot but think that all youngsters should be spoken to about the love of comrades and encouraged to seek help in any sort of trouble that this may bring. We homogenic folk may be but a small percentage of mankind, but our numbers are still great, and surely the making or marring of our lives should count for something. At college I fell violently in love with a friend with whom I did work in science. He loved me too, though not with such heat. He also was largely uranian, but this I only realized a year or two back. He remains unmarried, and is still my friend. We did some research work together which is pretty well known. I am quite sure that the love we had for each other gave tremendous zest to our work and greatly increased our powers.
"While I was working at college I was interested in a lad who was working as errand boy for a city firm. I helped him to get better training, and spent money on him. My father was making me some allowance at the time and demurred. I said I would in future support myself, and in this way came to take up schoolmastering. I at once became quite absorbed in my work with the boys. Of course I loved them. And here I feel I must touch upon what seems to me a characteristic of most of us uranians. Our genital organs are with us ordinarily and usually organs of expression. The clean-minded heterogenic man is apt to look upon such a view of the genital organs as monstrous; we, on the other hand, are compelled (at least for ourselves) to regard it as the natural and pure one. For my own part I had many Puritan prejudices—prejudices that I retained for many a long and weary day—but my affection for those of my own sex so often expressed itself by some sexual stirring, and more or less erection, that I was obliged to look upon this as inevitable, and in general I paid no attention to it whatever. It was the older boys' who sometimes attracted me strongly. My love for them was I know a genuinely spiritual thing, though inevitably having some physical expression. I was