Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/231

 examples he is bi-sexual. Perhaps he is too poor to give himself heterosexual relief through a brothel; or else is afraid of disease. In another proportion, the soldier is not at all homosexual. He sells his body to a stranger, or regular patron, simply as an easy though rather irksome avocation. A mercenary motive is probably the most common. In those countries where the standing armies are large, compulsory service long, and the soldier in the ranks has but meagre pay, he takes to prostitution to increase his narrow exchequer. He finds that he does not get enough to satisfy his proverbially good appetite; unless he in an orderly or has won over a sympathetic cook-maid. He cannot keep in his pocket the few extra coppers for such trivial luxuries as his cigarettes, his glass of beer, his little stake at a game of cards, his evening in a cheap seat in a theater; not to speak of possessing cash for female society of an easy no-virtue sort. Sometimes he cannot without economy even keep his uniform and appointments in smart order, or pay for his postage-stamps to write to his people or his sweetheart, unless his family allows him a modest fund. That aid is not usual from humble households. He cannot make a penny for himself, so long as his military "time" lasts. Even as an officer's servant, he has but derisory wages. Soldier-life, the duties of barracks and drill are tedious or hateful to him. He wants diversion when the day is over; but many a time he cannot allow himself anything more amusing than a walk, or a free seat in a public park, till he returns to his caserne. On holidays, he often does not know what to do with himself, to kill the idle time.

But the stratophilic civilian is always near, to prevent a wholly unprofitable use of some of the recruit's hours of freedom. We will suppose the lad tall, well-built, robust and from eighteen to twenty years old. He is probably not sexually "innocent". If he be so, and hears what