r me is
that moment of abject abasement to one who, with no warmth of
feeling, had yet once had sufficient energy to be brutal to me.

"It must have been from this incident that the calculated effect
of flagellation began to have weight with me when I indulged my
imagination. A wish to be repulsed, trampled, violated by the
object of my passion took hold of my instincts. Even then--and,
indeed, up to my 13th year--I had no idea of normal sexual
connection. I knew vaguely that children were born from women's
bodies; I did not know--and when told I did not believe--the true
facts of the marital relationship. All that I had
experienced--both in fact and imagination--was to me so highly
individual that I had no notion anything kindred to it could
exist outside of my own experience. I had no notion of sex as the
basis of life. Even when I came gradually to realize that men and
women were formed in a way that argued connection with each
other, I still believed it to be a dissolute sort of conduct, not
to be indulged in by those who had claims to respectability.

"I had, however, by this time arrived at a strong attraction
toward the organs of generation and all aspects of puberty, and
my imagination spent Itself in a fantastic worship of every sign
of masculinity. My enjoyment now was to imagine myself forced to
undergo physical humiliation and submission to the caprice of my
male captors, and the central fact became the discharge of urine
from my lover over my body and limbs, or, if I were very fond of
him, I let it be in my face. This was followed usually by a
half-caressing castigation, in which the hand only was
instrumental.

"The period of which I am now writing was that of my entry into
school life. My imaginary lovers immediately became numerous; all
the masters and all the boys above a certain age attracted me;
for two I had in addition a feeling of romantic as well as
physical attachment. Indeed, from this time onward I was never
without some heroes toward whom I indulged a perfectly separate
and tenderly ideal passion. The announcement that one was about
to leave surprised me into a passionate fit of weeping; yet my
reserve was so great and my sense of isolation so crushing that I
made no effort at intimacy, and to one for whom I felt
inexhaustible devotion I ba