Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/198

 "My first irresistible love-affair of a homosexual kind was the outgrowth of a friendship with a chum in the University. J— was wonderfully clever at different "female roles" in our college farces and operettas. I had not appreciated his "bisexual" sort of beauty, till he was made a "flower-girl" in a burlesque, richly staged, that we gave in the B— Theater. J—'s photographs were sold all over the town, everybody talked of him. Then I realized how like a lovely, if rather robust, girl he was; and the feeling of sexual desire began to mount. I began to make more of our intimacy, and soon I found that the emotion I speak of continued when we were in ordinary conditions of life together. J— was a dionistic type, but I may as well confess I succeeded in bringing him to my wish. The effects of that sexual passion and its continuance for a year between us have been a part of my whole after-life as a homosexual! I think J— outgrew it. But I did not. J— was my idol for a long time. There was no other bond between us; intellectually we had not much in common. I know of a dozen other undergraduates, and of one professor, who were all more or less in love with J—, some of them to any degree of "success" with him, One such intimacy gave me miserable hours … In the same dramatic society were half a dozen homosexual intimacies. The fact that the men concerned were some of them splendidly athletic did not count; unless (as I sometimes think) it assisted the sentiment".

The youthful "aesthetic temperament" is generally one that must be peculiarly watched and guided. The possession of much musical susceptibility should be a danger-signal. Not painting nor sculpture nor literature can act on a young similisexual Ego as does its musicality. Also should be observed the tendency to admire only male performers in the circus, when the admiration seems specially physical;