Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/231

Rh every one of Fashion’s fools, I have a taste for the prevailing mode; so greatly am I transformed. To become accustomed to the thought of feeling only like a woman, and only to remember the previous manner of thought to a certain extent in contrast with it; and, at the same time, to express one’s self as a man,—it requires a long time and an infinite amount of persistence.

“Nevertheless, in spite of everything, it will happen that I betray myself by some expression of feminine feeling, either in sexualibus, when I say that I feel so and so, expressing what a man without the female feeling cannot know; or when I accidentally betray that female attire is my talent. Before women, of course, this does not amount to anything; for a woman is greatly flattered when a man understands something of her matters; but this must not be displayed to my own wife. How frightened I once was when my wife said to a friend that I had great taste in ladies’ dress! How a haughty, stylish lady was astonished when, as she was about to make a great error in the education of her little daughter, I described to her in writing and verbally all the feminine feelings! To be sure, I lied to her, saying that my knowledge had been gleaned from letters. But her confidence in me is as great as ever; and the child, who was on the road to insanity, is rational and happy. She had confessed all the feminine inclinations as sins; now she knows what, as a girl, she must bear and control by will and religion; and she feels that she is human. Both ladies would laugh heartily, if they knew that I had only drawn on my own sad experience. I must also add that I now have a finer sense of temperature and, besides, a sense of the elasticity of the skin and tension of the intestines, etc., in patients, that was unknown to me before; that in operations and autopsies, poisonous fluids more readily penetrate my (uninjured) skin. Every autopsy causes me pain; examination of a prostitute, or a woman having a discharge, a cancerous odor, or the like, is actually repugnant to me. In all respects I am now under the influence of antipathy and sympathy, from the sense of color to my judgment of a person. Women usually see in each other the periodical sexual disposition; and, therefore, a lady wears a veil, if she is not always accustomed to wear one, and usually she perfumes herself, even though it be only with handkerchief or gloves; for her olfactory sense in relation to her own sex is intense. Odors have an incredible effect on the female organism; thus, for example, the odors of violets and roses quiet me, while others disgust me; and with ihlang-ihlang I cannot contain myself for sexual excitement. Contact with a woman seems homogeneous to me; coitus with my wife seems possible to me because she is somewhat masculine, and has a firm skin; and yet it is more an amor lesbicus.

“Besides, I always feel passive. Often at night, when I cannot sleep for excitement, it is finally accomplished, si femora mea distensa habeo, sicut mulier cum viro concumbens, or if I lie on my side; but an