Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/346

328 The patient is constitutionally predisposed; for he was early very peculiar, irritable, irascible, and impressed those around him as being abnormal.

His vita sexualis appeared very early and in great intensity, and was satisfied, without any seductions, in onanism. From his sixteenth year the prematurely developed boy visited brothels of the Capital, using his permissions to go out on Sundays and holidays for that purpose. He took pleasure in coitus, but during the week he satisfied himself with onanism. After his twentieth year, when he became independent, the patient indulged with prostitutes excessively, and fell ill with neurasthenia sexualis, becoming relatively impotent and unsatisfied in coitus, owing to weakness of erection and premature ejaculation. His sexual libido became more powerful than ever, and was satisfied in onanism. Early in 1888 the patient made the acquaintance of a young man. “By his pleasing face, his attractive manner, and his beautiful form, he conquered me entirely. I wished to speak to him, and was happy at mere sight of him. I was completely in love with him. With this, my love for women was extinguished. Any man could excite me to such an extent that, for some moments, I would feel my memory fail, and I would stammer.

“Soon after this I made the acquaintance of a gentleman who was likewise very attractive, and who had a decided influence on my future life. He was male-loving. I confessed to him that I no longer felt anything but aversion for the female sex, and that I was attracted to men.

“When I once asked my companion how he brought it about that soldiers would surrender themselves to him, he answered that the principal thing was skill; almost any of them could be brought to it. Late in 1888, thinking of these words, I was attracted by an officer’s servant, and was intensely excited by him, but ejaculation never occurred. Since I saw that the soldier would surrender himself without trouble, I approached him. Alium quondam militem in cubiculum allectum rogavi ut veste exuta mecum in lectum concumberet. Rogatus fecit quæ volui et alter alterius penem trivit.

“Though after this success I misused many persons, I was never really in love, so to speak, with but one. He was a very handsome young fellow of seventeen. His voice was so attractive to me, and his manner was so delicately proper, that I cannot forget him. In my dreams I thought only of handsome young men, and often for whole nights I could not sleep, owing to sensual feeling.”

Early in 1889 the patient’s conduct awakened a suspicion of male-love. A threatening communication frightened him, and plunged him in deep depression, so that he contemplated suicide. At the advice of the family physician, he came to the Capital. Since the patient was unable to overcome his habitual desires by his own will, hypnotic treatment was undertaken. It induced but mild lethargy, aa, in opposition to the seduction of former lovers, it had but little effect.