of self-gratification. But I presently
found myself committed to the repetition of the act three times a
day. On almost the last occasion I met my intimate he showed an
exceptional ardor. At that meeting he proposed to attempt an act
I had not previously considered possible, far less had I heard
that it was considered the worst criminal connection that could
take place. I had a slight fear of pain, but was willing to
gratify him, and for the first time found in my submission a
union of the two amative instincts which had before disputed sway
in me: the instinct for tenderness and the instinct for cruelty.
_Pedicatio_ failed to take place, but I received an embrace which
for the first time gave me full satisfaction. My delight was
enormous; I was filled with emotions. I have no words to describe
the extraordinary charm of the warm, smooth flesh upon mine, and
the rougher contact of the hairy parts. Yet I was conscious, even
at the time, that this was but the physical side of pleasure, and
that he was not and never could be one whom I might truly be said
to love.

"I was now in my sixteenth year, and under the influence of these
and many other emotions then, for the first time, beginning to
seize me, a sense of literary power and a desire to express
myself through imaginative channels began to take hold of me. I
feared that my indulgence was having an enfeebling power on my
faculties (I had begun to experience physical languor and
depression), and certain religious scruples, the result of my
early training, took hold of me. For the first time I became
conscious that the ardors I felt toward my own sex were a
diversion of the sex-instinct itself, and to my astonishment and
consternation I found by chance the practices I had already
indulged in definitely denounced in the Bible as an abomination.
From that moment began a struggle which lasted for years. I made
a final breach with my former intimate, and thereupon a long
dispute took place between the conflicting influences that strove
for possession of my body. For a time I broke off the habit of
masturbation, but I could not so easily rid myself of the mental
indulgence, which was now almost an essential sedative for
inducing sleep. At this time a visit to the seaside, where, for
the first time, I was able to see men bathing