ghts and
desires knew no such curb. I remember also an elder brother of
his, perhaps three or four years my senior, once showing me (then
about 12, I suppose) his semierect penis. He would not allow me
to touch it, but showed me how to draw back the foreskin so as to
uncover the glans. His penis was large, and the incident was not
forgotten. We had no other relation and I know that both he and
my own friend grew up to be quite normal men.

"I think I must have been about 17 when I got frightened about
the occurrence of nocturnal emissions, which I believed were the
evil result of masturbation, and for two or three years I
continued in considerable mental distress until, when in my
second or third year at college, I summoned up courage enough to
consult our good old family doctor, who reassured me, but made, I
now think, too light of my confidences, so that I relapsed the
more readily, although much later on, into old habits.

"From our windows at home we looked over a bit of common or down
to the beach, and I used to keep watch on warm summer afternoons;
over boys who might be bathing, to observe them through our
telescope. All this I kept strictly secret and I was never
surprised. I might just as well, and without arousing the
slightest suspicion of my motive, have walked down to the beach
and seen them and chatted with them; but this I could not have
brought myself to do. It gave me considerable sexual satisfaction
when I was able to see them bathing without pants. I also used to
watch them at play on the common, and felt rewarded when I saw,
as I not infrequently did, sexual familiarities taking place.
These violently excited me and sometimes brought on orgasm,
always erection with pleasure. Indeed, it was an experience of
this kind that made me return to masturbation after I had given
it up for a while. I remember one day seeing two lads of about 16
lying on the grass in the sunshine; all at once the bigger lad
put out his hand and tried to open his companion's trousers. He
resisted with all his might, and a long struggle ensued, ending
in the smaller lad having his penis exposed and manipulated by
the other. Even at this day the recollection of this excites me.
Both lads grew up to be normal men.

"Twice only have I been approached by grown-up people. When I was