Part 7

It was not long before Red Mike happened to stroll by and recognized me even before I did him. An hour now passed, while they smoked and drank, hiding the beer-pail whenever a policeman went by. I had no desire to join in the drinking and smoking, and indeed up to my middle forties, when this autobiography goes to press, have never had any desire to learn to smoke, although having a few times put the lighted cigarette of a paramour in my mouth. I have always considered myself too feminine to smoke. Moreover, all my life I have been practically a total abstainer from alcoholic beverages.

[Sidenote: _An Evening with a “Gang.”_]

But I reclined in the arms of one after another, covering face, neck, hands, arms, and clothing with kisses, while they caressed me and called me pet-names. I was supremely happy. For the first time in my life I learned about the fairie inmates of the lowest dives. They proposed to install me in one. I told them the story of my own life, only with such variations from the truth as were necessary for my own protection. We sang plantation songs, “Old Black Joe,” “Uncle Ned,” etc. These they had learned from Bixby’s “Home Songs,” published in that very neighborhood by the well-known shoe-blacking firm as an advertisement. I sang with them in the mock soprano or falsetto that fairies employ, trying to imitate the voice of a woman. Singing in this voice was not a novelty to me, as I had previously at times aped the warbling of a woman instinctively.

At the end of an hour, we adjourned down an alley, where the drinking and love-making continued even more intensely. After I had refused their repeated solicitations, one of them grasped my throat tightly to prevent any outcry and threw me down, while another removed part of my clothing, appropriating whatever of value he found in my pockets. With my face in the dust, and half-suffocated by the one ruffian’s tight grip on my throat, I moaned and struggled with all my might, because of the excruciating pain. But in their single thought to experience an animal pleasure, they did not heed my moans and broken entreaties to spare me the suffering they were inflicting. For two months afterward I suffered pain at every step because of fissures and lacerations about the anus.

[Sidenote: _At Age of Nineteen._]

When finally released, terror-stricken and with only half my clothing, I rushed out through the alley and down Mulberry Street, and did not halt until I reached what I considered a safe refuge on brightly lighted Grand Street. Breathless and exhausted, I seated myself on the curb. “I am cured of my slumming,” I said to myself. “God’s will be done. It is His hand which has brought this about, in order to drive me back to the path of virtue. Truly the Lord ruleth in all things.”

Because of my exhausted condition, I remained seated for several minutes. In the meantime, two of my assailants had followed me up, and expressed their regret that one of their number had stolen my cap and coat, promising to get them back, and assuring me of their friendly feelings. “You are only a baby,” they said, “and so we will fight for you and protect you.”

I was so touched by their gallantry, so enamoured of them, and so sure that the assault was not committed through malevolence, that I accompanied them back to our first meeting place on the warehouse steps. I still had great fear of violence at their hands—rape, not a beating—but I was powerfully drawn toward them. Fellatio was welcome; pædicatio, horrible to my moral sense, and physically, accompanied by excruciating pain. The “gang” received me kindly, petted and soothed me as one would a peevish baby, which I resembled in my actions, fretting and sobbing in happiness as I rested my head against their bodies. To lie in the bosom of these sturdy young manual laborers, all of whom were good-looking and approximately my own age, was the highest earthly happiness I had yet tasted. With all my money gone, and cap and coat stolen besides, I finally had to walk home, a distance of several miles. Obtaining my keys in their hiding place, I succeeded in reaching my room without attracting attention.

[Sidenote: _Psychical Infantilism._]

The next day I wrote in my journal: “What a strange thing is life! Mephistopheles last night carried me through one of the experiences through which he carried Faust.... My carnal nature was aroused as never before. I groaned in despair. Never before in all my experience have I seen such a conflict between the flesh and the spirit.... How like an animal is man! Thus God has seen fit to make him.”

A few days later I again wrote: “My present psychical state is most strange. I cannot yet repent of my conduct last Friday night, yet on the Sunday following I had one of the happiest experiences of nearness to God that I ever had. That afternoon I presented the Gospel in love for my Savior and for perishing souls. I have in my heart an intense desire to save from their lives of sin those in whose company I was Friday night, especially my Bill, so young, and yet so deep in sin. I want to rescue him, and make of him a strong educated champion for Christ. My heart yearns to carry blessings and peace to all those who are suffering in the slums of New York.”

In a letter received shortly afterward from a venerable doctor of divinity and former pastor, whom for years I made my confidant, he expressed his judgment of my conduct as follows: “I believe God will overlook in you what He would not in others.”

[Sidenote: _Verdicts of Pastor and Alienist._]

The judgment of the alienist, to whom also I confided the occurrences, was approximately as follows: “It was a physical impossibility for you to have withstood longer. The only thing for you to do is to follow out your instincts in moderation. If you do not, you will continue to be a nervous wreck, and may even become insane. The majority of men can live celibate lives without suffering in mind or body, but you are extraordinarily amorous, and celibacy with you is out of the question. Only don’t go into the slums any more. Confide in some stalwart young man of your own class. You run great risk of being killed, or at least contracting disease, in running around after strangers in the slums.”

On now making my decision henceforth to follow Nature’s behests, I gave up the city mission work I was engaged in, and also finally gave up my purpose of entering the Christian ministry. The presentation of religious truths spoken of above, on the Sunday following my third nocturnal ramble, was unavoidable, unless I wished to disappoint others by failing to keep an engagement. I gave up religious work, not because of lack of religious faith, but because I felt myself unworthy and unfit by reason of my recent change in habits, and because I might bring reproach on the Church.

I could not bring myself to follow the physician’s advice to confide in a stalwart young man of my own class. I felt too much ashamed of my abnormality. So I formed the habit of visiting my Mulberry Street friends once a week, the visits continuing altogether for about a year. I preferred the society of these adolescent roughs to that of all other human beings, and woe to the friend of my ordinary circle who should hinder or delay me on the evenings on which I had planned a visit to Mulberry Street! If necessary to get rid of him, I would even insult any friend who happened to call at this inopportune time. At first exceedingly nervous for fear something would interfere with my setting out, I became, when safe from interruption after I had boarded the elevated train, blissfully intoxicated at the thought of meeting my beaux again.

[Sidenote: _Obedience to Nature a Panacea._]

During this period of living one evening a week according to the dictates of my peculiar instincts, I was happier than I had ever been before, notwithstanding my suffering for the first two months from a continuously painful sphincter ani. Recognizing the horror I had for pædicatio, and not wishing to drive me away from their “gang,” particularly as my visits made them on those evenings what they regarded as flush with money, none ever again subjected me to it. But the lacerations of the first night required two months for healing. Moreover, I was never again robbed of my clothing.

The contrast in my own life between total abstinence and indulgence one evening a week was that the latter made me sing continually on the proper occasions, whereas with abstinence, I had been as continually weeping and moaning. I felt that I had come into possession of the earthly _summum bonum_, hitherto denied me. I had arrived at the conviction that while the voice of the world would cry “Shame!” I was acting according to the dictates of reason and conscience, and not sinning against the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless this conviction was occasionally shaken and I would be plunged into short spells of melancholia due to remorse over my sensual practices.

[Sidenote: _Cementing an Androgyne’s Marriage Bond._]

My favorite was an American-born Irish lad of nineteen, since he was both the handsomest and the most athletic. Because he soon became my “husband” _par excellence_, I foolishly thought I did wrong to deceive him as to my identity, as I did those who were not so closely related to me. But before I revealed the facts, I submitted the following declaration to be sworn to on a Bible:

“Do you solemnly swear that you will always keep inviolably secret my name, residence, our relations, and all that I confide to you, not revealing any of these things to your friends and pals without my permission?”

Although strongly urged, he refused to be sworn. He did not intend to keep what he was about to promise, and so was willing to give his word, but too superstitious to give his oath. He said that any way it was a Protestant Bible, and he would be sworn only on a Catholic Bible! Seeing that it was hopeless to get him to take his oath, I reluctantly accepted his word alone, and then told him nearly all the truth about myself. I now look upon it as almost an insane procedure. Fortunately, nothing ever resulted from my disclosures. Strangely, although it soon became known to all my associates of Mulberry Street that I was a college student and came from the best quarter of the city, no one ever attempted to follow me home or to blackmail me. These young men had never heard of this kind of blackmail.

[Sidenote: _An Inner Circle of Associates._]

After revealing who I was, I solemnly put the following questions, to all of which he answered in the affirmative, although never meaning to keep his word:

“Will you place me higher in your regard than any of your pals, seeing I am to you as a wife?

“Do you realize that you and I are united by a closer bond than that which unites you to your most intimate chums and pals?

“Will you then confide to me your secrets as to no one else in the world, and also share all my secrets?

“Will you regard our association as not merely for sensuous enjoyment, but also for close friendship, and for mutual help in the trials of life?”

Thus was cemented an androgyne’s marriage bond. My purpose was to draw him away from his environment, and bring him up to my own social level, but my efforts met with complete failure.

Though having had in my career as a fairie about eight hundred intimates, I have had less than a score who formed an inner circle and whom I regarded as “husbands” _par excellence_. I only had one of them at a time, and our relations were long-continued. In the case of nearly every one of them, if it had been a matter dependent on my will, he would have been my life partner. But circumstances beyond my control brought a change on an average once a year. As a fairie, however, I was not satisfied with monandry. I sometimes applied the term “husband” playfully to my ordinary intimates.

[Sidenote: _A Night on Mulberry Street._]

These nights on Mulberry Street or vicinity had a great fascination for me, and in subsequent years continued to have a fascination. For a decade I occasionally yearned to be back there with the companions of these days of my fairie apprenticeship. With half a score of adolescents and two or three young women, an evening would be spent in some humble two-room apartment. Everybody was exceedingly happy, and I perhaps the happiest of all, sitting now in one young man’s lap, and now in that of another. And how we all did sing! The young men petted and babied me more than they did any of the girls, and even right before the eyes of the girls. The latter were not jealous of me, especially because I was the one who financed these parties. In my actions I was far more feminine and babyish than any of the girls, and also far more amorous and skilled in coquetry. The girls thought nothing strange of me, as the nature of fairies was well known to them. I wish it understood, however, that these gatherings were no more indecent than a children’s party in the best social stratum. Even these knights of Mulberry Street had their sense of decency. At these home parties, extreme intimacies were allowed only in private. The only refreshment was beer, the three-quart pail passing around the room from mouth to mouth, and being repeatedly sent out to be refilled. I alone did not partake, having, as already indicated, been brought up a total abstainer.

* * * * *

I have always been indifferent to the vast majority of men. I could sleep with them without becoming in the least excited. It was necessary to be under thirty, athletic, physically brave, smooth-shaven, and in no way deformed. On the other hand, throughout my open career of twelve years as a fairie, the proportion of men over thirty years old that sought intimacy was hardly more than one per cent., while ninety-five per cent. were between eighteen and twenty-five.

[Sidenote: _What Constituted Attractiveness._]

During my apprenticeship just described, however, I was attracted only toward the ages sixteen to twenty-five, inclusive. Throughout this autobiography, I use the term “adolescent” to denote men within these age limits. Always has it seemed to me that men gradually grow less masculine and less virile (in coitus) after passing twenty-five. They have also appeared to me to lose their good looks soon after that age. To me man appears to grow old and his beauty fade a decade earlier than woman, which is just the opposite of the normal man’s impression. When I was a boy of twelve, all males over sixteen appeared ugly, and I had only sexual disgust for them. But in 1918, when I have arrived at my middle forties, the age of male beauty in my eyes is confined between eighteen and thirty years.

I have always preferred the brunette to the blonde type, although I myself am of the former. For years after my fairie apprenticeship I seemed to be especially drawn toward young men of Irish blood. The pure Italian type of beauty, however, appears to me the highest. In my own veins flows blood of five different nationalities of western Europe, but no Irish or Italian. Perhaps my predilection for these two is due to the fact that they constituted exclusively my associates during my apprenticeship.

[Sidenote: _Sexual Preferences._]

Large frame counted for a great deal, as also large and well-developed membra virilia. Variety exists as much in the latter respect as in respect to frame. There is often an inverse proportion between the two.

I much preferred the rough to the gentleman, and the profane boozing libertine to the morally upright. I have always been strongly attracted by disregard for personal danger. When reading accounts of exploration and adventure, I have sometimes fallen in love with the adventurer. For example, I fell in love with a noted Arctic explorer while reading his book, as well as with the kayak-men whose courageous deeds he describes. To me tattooing has always been the mark of supreme masculinity. It was a habit with me to seek for it on my beaux, and if found, I would rave over it, osculate it, kneel before the young blood in adoration, and call him all the glorious idealizing names I could think of. That one of my eight hundred beaux with whom I would have chosen to live out my life in daily comradeship was by far the most tattooed of all, and he did actually live with me for several months when I was forty years of age, besides being my “adopted son” for nine years. But it was not the tattooing alone that attracted me. In practically every manly charm, he stood supreme.

After an hour or so spent with a companion, it was painful to say good-by, and I generally hoped for another meeting. But subsequently to my apprenticeship just described, I generally had the same companion only once, or at most several times, as it was a long time, if ever, before we saw one another again. I usually felt for my companions a non-sensual wifely love in addition to the mere sexual attraction, which wifely love was transformed into a parental love after I had reached my middle thirties and my associates were ten or more years younger than myself. Throughout my life as a fairie, I always longed to have a young man live with me as my husband. If this had been practicable, monandry would possibly have been sufficient, as it proved to be in my early forties. But until long after the close of my open career, I was reluctant to reveal my identity, and was also deterred by the fear of blackmail.

[Sidenote: _Polyandry Versus Monandry._]

At my middle forties, however, I am of the opinion that in the case of inverts, promiscuity is preferable to monandry for the welfare of the human race, the invert’s associates individually, and the naturally polyandrous invert himself. Promiscuity does not affect the increase of the race, whereas monandry might by interfering with the young man’s ultimately marrying a woman. Practically all the invert’s intimates do this ultimately, and raise a family. It appears to be the natural function of the invert to minister to the ultra-virile until they reach marriageable age according to present-day standards. These relations merely supplant solitary onanism on the part of the virile, or else extra-marital relations with a young member of the gentle sex.

In my extensive experience, I have come across nothing to support the _a priori_ view of some medical men that the adolescent tends to become a pervert, losing his normal instinct in whole or in part. My intimates of early childhood grew up to be fathers. None of my beaux of my apprenticeship just described—the only period of my adult career when I went repeatedly with the same ones—ever gave evidence of any growing coldness toward the gentle sex. Dozens of experiences that they individually had were without any such effect. Why should fellatio have such a tendency any more than occasional solitary onanism, to which practically all ultra-virile adolescents are subject? That this tendency is at most only a very remote possibility is indicated by the fact that the young man who was my “adopted son” for nine years was as much of a Don Juan at the end as at the beginning.

[Sidenote: _Fellatio Efficiendi._]

Secondly, invert promiscuity is to the interest of the young man because it would be cruel and unnatural to ask any one to remain permanently in the relation, and the promiscuity in question would obviate practically all risk of his ever becoming a pervert, if there be such risk.

Associates have told me that in coitus I was the most violently excited of any one they ever saw, and manifested the intensest feeling (_i.e._, mental). A few have said that they preferred fellatio with me to the normal with a physical girl, while many have said whether the latter or a fairie was indifferent. Up to my early thirties, they always regarded me as a girl and used the feminine pronoun.

My original and fundamental method was active fellatio, the identical act of an infant ad matrem, quoad fuit emissio in comite, who would lie absolutely inactive. Time from a second to over an hour. Average time, about five minutes. In a very few, there was no result. If it had not been for the extreme weakening effect I would have been glad to lie inactive for an hour preceding and for another hour following, merely cum membro virili in ore. Generally cruria involvebant corpus meum, and I desired that premeret me cum iis aliquando. I would occasionally emit infantile vocables; for example, half-sobbing, or the natural language expressive of satisfaction and contentment. At other times I would express my admiration in a rather babyish manner: “Big, big, fierce fighter! Big, big desperado!” He would stroke my hair or face or pat me on the back, and say, “Poor baby!” “My cry-baby!” “Pet!” etc.

[Sidenote: _Fellatio Patiendi._]

All other methods were taught me, for example, passive fellatio, which occurred at least as often as active because my companion preferred it, while I preferred the active. In the passive, I was completely so, and would often lie flat on my back. He would conduct himself the same as in normal coitus, often cum manibus conjunctis post caput meum, quoad habuit emissionem. During this action on the part of the majority, I suffered the greatest physical discomfort and saepe strangulatus sum. Dorsum oris has been often rendered sore, and the uvula was elongated, necessitating truncation because the elongation caused a chronic cough. I know of another invert who had to undergo the same operation. But I counted it happiness to suffer thus and endure pain when inflicted by a strong, brave, and rough young blood.

I say to readers who judge me to be horribly depraved for submitting to such usage: Nature created me puellam sine vagina, and then drew me toward the sturdy sex as few of the gentle sex are drawn. In such a case, what is more natural than to use the next best foramen? Furthermore, instinct pointed out the makeshift. It came just as natural for me utor ore as for physical women to use what Nature has provided them. In general, all through my life, whenever I have encountered virum who appeared to me as exceptionally beautiful, a strong desire has immediately arisen membrum virile in ore recipere. There are inverts guilty of such practices who in all other respects are exemplars of the highest morality. They even sometimes occupy the highest social station. They are blameless, and simply to be pitied.

[Sidenote: _Nature of the Satisfaction._]

Sometimes there was an alternation between the two methods, or both were adopted simultaneously. In the active, I did not have a fixed purpose inducendi ejaculationem in comite, neque desideravi semen. It was the mere act sugere that was my objective, and that gave me a sense of restful satisfaction. Nevertheless I practically semper devorabam. For days afterward it was a pleasure to reflect that what had once been the substance amatissimi was now my substance, and that the particles of matter that were once carried along in his veins, now floated in mine. In many cases I yearned to become the mother of his child, and often playfully spoke with an associate as if I had. Sometimes on meeting a young mother with her infant in her arms, I have wished to be in her place.

While lying cum membro virili in ore, I often feigned sleep, experiencing a sort of blissful dreaming, realizing that I was for a short season physically united to my mental and physical complement and opposite from whom fate and necessity separated me most of the time.

[Sidenote: _Fellatio Not Rare._]