Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/217

Rh an urning of twenty-six (that is, a man who craved mutual onanism). My impression is that the inhabitants of the large cities of Europe are more sex-mad than those of American cities of similar size. In one of the great capitals (which I do not name out of charity) inversion and perversion were frightful—incomparably more open, at least, than in New York. It was my impression that there is more evanescent homosexuality—due to lack of opportunities with the opposite sex— than in America. Apparently the denser the population, the more widely extended is homosexuality.

In 1899 I was attracted by the German and the Dutch soldiers, but incomparably less than by the American soldier. They did not appear to be as powerfully built or as handsome, nor as wild and reckless. Their uniforms impressed me as far less fascinating. I was not at all attracted by the French soldiers, because I did not like their uniform, particularly the red baggy trousers, and because facial hirsute appendages are decidedly abhorrent to me. Likewise the British, Swiss, and Italian uniforms impressed me as detracting from the masculinity of the wearer instead of powerfully contributing to it, as the American uniform. The German, Dutch, and particularly the American soldiers were the only ones that came up to my idea of demigods.

On a sojourn in the Old World in 1911, I found myself admiring the Moroccan, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian soldiers to about the same degree as I have always admired the American. Indeed the Russians impressed me as the most bewitching in the world, because they are