year, at the time,—when a teacher appeared in class with the trousers
absent-mindedly unbuttoned and when I noticed it my eyes became glued on
his trouser fly as though in a trance, and thus I awoke, for the first
time, to the sad realization of my sexual bend. From that time on I
noticed that I was extraordinarily attracted to this teacher although he
did not like me in school. It was then that my first struggles, the
first wishes in my awakened boyish soul, began to shape themselves.
There were two boys in particular who, among others, charmed me with
their attractiveness. I masturbated a great deal during that period,
without indulging in any particular phantasies,—occasionally in the
company of other boys. But I had the feeling of being sexually attracted
to boys and in my dreams appeared the wish to be their friend. But the
stimuli were not of a character which I found impossible to curb. Next I
felt myself irresistibly attracted to an elderly man. Neither in the
waking state nor in my dreams did I think at all of women during that
time. Around my 18th year I experienced the first stormy upheaval which
nearly unbalanced me. I came into close touch with a distant relative,
an attractive, interesting and splendid intellectual man who, moreover,
was happily married. I then passed through the anguish of unrequited
love, kept dreaming of what was beyond my reach, and endeavored to still
my unnatural passion through excessive onanism. The keen struggle to
preserve my secret, the intense mental torture, caused me one day to
break down. The strict but kind-hearted talk of my relative in whom, of
necessity, I forced myself to confide, saved me that time from suicide.
The next day the house physician was called, a cordial and kindly young
man, who took a strong professional interest in me. Day after day he
spoke to me and tried to influence my mind and he succeeded in shifting
my sexual feelings entirely into the background and in about five months
he thought I was ready to try regular intercourse. But the attempt
proved a new defeat for me. _The secret aversion, the fear of
infection_, made me prove myself impotent at the critical moment. But I
did not tell the physician _and shortly thereafter he dismissed me as
cured_. There followed again years of struggle. Fearing mental breakdown
I was driven to the idea of seeking final release through suicide. But I
lacked courage for the deed.... Was it cowardice, was it the yearning of
my sickly body that prevented me from ending then a life unblessed by a
single experience of that highest yearning of a healthy body,—the
consummation of love? During that time my relative also died and my
anguish was unbearable. For I was absorbed in that great passion of mine
so deeply that I had forgotten all about the rest of the world. I was
hardly reconciled to that misfortune when further anguish came into my
life; several men crossed my path with whom I would have no doubt
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