Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2: Sexual InversionEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2: Sexual Inversion
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
HISTORY XXI.--"Almost the earliest recollection I have is of a
dream, which, from my vivid recollection of its details, must
have repeated itself, I think, more than once, unless my waking
thoughts unconsciously added definition. From this dream dated my
consciousness of the attraction to me of my own sex, which has
ever since dominated my life. The dream, suggested in part, I
think, by a picture in an illustrated newspaper of a mob
murdering a church dignitary, took this form: I dreamed that I
saw my own father murdered by a gang of ruffians, but I do not
remember that I felt any grief, though I was actually an
exceedingly affectionate child. The body was then stripped of its
clothing and eviscerated. I had at the time no notion of
anatomical details; but the particulars remain distinct to my
mind's eye, of entrails uniformly brown, the color of dung, and
there was no accompaniment of blood. When the abdomen had been
emptied, the incident in which I became an active participant
occurred. I was seized (and the fact that I was overpowered
contributed to the agony of delight it afforded me) and was laid
between the thighs of my murdered parent; and from there I had
presently crawled my way into the evacuated, abdomen. The act, so
far as I can decide of a dream at an age when emission was out of
the question, caused in me extreme organic excitement. At all
events, I used afterward definitely to recur to it in the waking
moments before sleep for the purpose of gaining a state of
erection. The dream had no outcome; it seemed to reach its goal
in the excitement it caused. I was at that time between 3 and 4
years old. (I have been told that erections occurred when I was
only 2 years old. It was between 3 and 4 that I used to induce,
at all events, the _sensation_ of an erection. But I was nearer 5
when, sitting on my bed and waiting to be dressed, I got an
involuntary erection and called my nurse's attention to it,
asking what it meant. The _appearance_ must, therefore, have been
usual to me at that date, but certainly the sensation was not.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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